Bad Connection - Softcover

Ledwidge, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743405943 ISBN 13: 9780743405942

Publisher: Pocket, 2002

Synopsis

How does it feel being twenty-six and about to become a multimillionaire? New York City telephone repairman Sean Macklin has just tapped into a fortune in stock-market day trading -- by picking up secrets from private conversations over the line. But when he taps into a powerful CEO's plans for a clean merger at any cost, Sean hears more than he should...and his seamless get-rich-quick scheme quickly spirals into a cutthroat game of blackmail, corruption, and violence. Now Sean and his NYPD officer brother, Ray, are the bait in a ruthless corporate conspiracy. And Sean Macklin's dream of a better life has just become a fatal nightmare....

About this title

Excerpt. İ Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Sean Macklin pulled his phone truck over to the corner of Forty-second and Lexington only after the third time Control had beeped him. The first summons, he knew, could've been just an all-points beep-out for some crappy job for the first sucker who called in. The second beep he could deny ever getting. But the third time his Motorola buzzed, and his boss's number appeared in the display box with the disheartening suffix 911, he was forced to pay it some heed.

He put the truck in park and got out, leaving it running. He stepped to the pay phone. He had a cell phone in his bag in the truck, but he knew not to use it. If his foreman learned he had a cell, he'd never have peace again. He dropped a quarter and dialed.

"Frank?" he said when it was picked up.

"He's in the can," a voice said. "You wanna call back or wait?"

Macklin took a breath.

"Hold, here I come," he said.

He looked up Forty-second. It was almost eight, and rich business types from Westchester and Connecticut were spilling out of Grand Central, their watches and shoes and brass briefcase clasps glinting in the sun.

Macklin looked at their new clothes and tans, their intent steps. Most seemed happy this late-summer morning, as if each were the star of his own show and turn-of-the-century Manhattan was the thrilling backdrop. Their bemused eyes went right through him as they walked past. Of course, he thought, he didn't warrant a glance. He just worked on the scenery. He was one of the key grips.

Macklin dug the plastic pay phone receiver into the crook of his neck and fished out a well-thumbed paperback from the side pocket of his coveralls.

He opened it at random.

Every person is given at least one opportunity to become successful, he read. The object is to be ready to capitalize when that opportunity presents itself.

"I'm ready," he said.

"Sean?" a voice said on the line.

"I don't want to work overtime, Frank," Macklin said. "I'm late as it is."

"Jesus, Sean. Relax yourself," said his boss. "Where the fuck you been anyway? I been beeping you for an hour."

"Over on Lex. You know how signals bounce around these glass canyons."

"'Bounce around,' my ass," Frank said.

"As tempting as that sounds, Frank," Macklin said, smiling, "I gotta get out of here. I'm already running late."

"Take you five minutes. Run by Eleven ninety-two Sixth and find out if cable twenty-two thirty-four terminates there. Griffin got some kind of fucked-up loop goin' on. I don't know what the hell he's done."

Macklin took out a pen and scribbled on the inside cover of the book.

"One-one-nine-two and two-two-three-four?"

"Uh-huh."

"You're the boss," Macklin said.

It took two minutes to drive to the building three blocks up and three over on Sixth and Forty-fifth. It was a fifty-story office tower of glass and steel set back from the avenue behind two half-block-long fountains. He parked in front, reached beneath his seat, and lifted out what looked like a telephone receiver. Clipping the dial set to his belt loop, he opened the truck door and got out.

More suits were on the sidewalk. They eyed Macklin and his dusty lead-splattered coveralls skeptically as he walked with them between the still fountains to the revolving door. Inside, the lobby was thirty feet high and encased in green marble. The rumble of shoes on polished stone, mixed with the dinging of the elevator doors, echoed out loudly in the high-ceilinged chamber like the sound of a massive cash register. He walked up to the security desk, took out his wallet, and showed his ID.

"Gotta get down to your phone room," he said.

He signed his name in a book, and the guard pointed to a door. It opened into a descending puke green stairwell that was thick with hot air. Macklin hadn't been in this particular building before, but he knew the drill. They stood on less ceremony in the back rooms and basements. He wiped his forehead and dropped his eyes, scanning for rats.

The phone room was better than he'd expected. The wall-to-wall steel frame that held the posts of all the building's phone lines was clear. Some high-speed data muxing consoles blinked along a wall. At least they didn't use it as a storeroom, he thought. There was nothing like trying to get a hundred customers back in service cramped between clothing racks or squeezed on top of boxes.

He took out his paperback and checked the 2234 cable number he'd written against the "CABLE 2234" written in marker along the top of the frame.

Well, what do you know, he thought. One of the records up in the control center actually matched something in the field.

He held his dial set in the crook of his neck and clipped its leads across the random twin posts of a line to call back his foreman.

"So how does it feel being twenty-six and about to become a multimillionaire?" said a voice.

"Well, it feels -- " a young voice said in reply. "It, um, it feels real good, Speed. Real good."

Macklin became very still. He could feel his heartbeat very distinctly. Relax and contract. Relax and contract.

"Now, you guys literally started this company out of your garage?" the first, smooth voice was saying.

"Well, um, it was a barn actually. We were renting this farmhouse outside of Syracuse after we graduated and there was this barn and we worked out of there."

It was okay to use a line when you were working on it, Macklin knew, but if someone was on it, you were supposed to disengage. He glanced at his book.

Every person is given at least one opportunity to become successful.

A bead of sweat dripped off the ridge of his temple and made a small dark circle in the dust of the cement floor.

The object is to be ready to capitalize when that opportunity presents itself.

He held his breath and pressed the receiver in closer to his ear.

"What are you guys trading at right now?"

"Right now, eight and a quarter," the younger man said. "Yeah, eight and a quarter."

"Do you know what American Internet is trading at?"

"Close to two hundred, isn't it?"

"One ninety-seven and a third."

"Jeez," the kid said.

"After the takeover, your stake will translate somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred and seventy million, Tim."

Macklin felt like he'd just been zapped with an electric charge. Tim whistled.

"I don't know what to say."

Macklin's knee began bobbing up and down.

The name of your company, he thought.

Please God, say the name of your company.

"How did you guys come up with 'Palomino' anyway? There were horses on the farm?"

Palomino, Macklin mouthed. His hand was shaking as he wrote it in the back of his book. Palomino. Palomino.

"Nah, it was a joke. The landlord's wife had this long face, bucked teeth, and a ponytail. We called her the Palomino."

"Boys will be boys," Speed said. "Well, congratulations, Tim. You deserve it. So that's Tuesday at nine at the Waldorf. Suite eleven-oh-six. I'll see you then, okay? Oh, and remember, don't purchase any Palomino stock between now and Tuesday, okay? Last thing we want is to make the SEC nervous, all right? Again, congratulations, Mr. Truman."

"Gee thanks, Mr. Ang...I mean, Speed. Thanks a lot. See you then."

"Bye-bye," Speed said.

They both hung up.

Macklin listened to dial tone for a while. Then he pulled the leads of his dial set off the posts of the line with a double snip. He looked down at the battleship gray floor.

Too good to be true, he thought. No way. It'll be some type of practical joke or something.

Palomino, he thought.

He'd have to find out.

He quickly wrapped up the dial set, clipped it back to the belt of his coveralls, and jogged out the phone room door. He jogged up the stairs and took out his notebook as he approached the security desk. The white-haired guard looked up.

"What's up, guy?" Macklin said. He looked at his notebook. "Does a Speed somebody or other got an office in this building?"

"Speed Angstrom?" the guard said.

"Maybe. Is he an investment banker?"

The guard hit some keys on the terminal in front of him.

"Uh," the guard said, reading, "he's the head of Mergers and Akwa -- akwa -- "

"Acquisitions?"

"That's it."

"Which company?"

The guard gestured with his chin at the marble wall. Macklin turned to the golden bull hanging there. Huge muscles stood out in the bull's neck as if it had just busted through the majestic stone from the street. Even he knew it was the logo of one of the most prestigious investment firms in the country.

"First Investment," the guard said.

Macklin felt light suddenly, helium filled, as if he'd start to float.

"Why? Something wrong with his phone?" the guard said.

Macklin looked with effort at his blank page.

"Ah, I don't even know. The information my boss gave me is all fucked up. I work nights for christsake. I'm supposed to be outta here already."

The guard rubbed at his own tired eyes.

"Tell me about it, brother," he said. "I'm working a double right now myself."

Macklin nodded sympathetically with fierce effort. He needed to be on the Internet right now.

"Ah, I think I'll just let the day crew pick it up," Macklin said, taking a measuredly casual step toward the revolving doors.

"That's what I'd do," the guard replied.

Macklin didn't start running until he got past the fountains. He left the truck where it was and ran down Sixth toward the library, where there was public Internet access. He'd gone two blocks when he remembered the library didn't open until eleven. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the CYBER LATTE sign across the street. Horns wailed as he ran into the rush-hour traffic.

It was dark inside, and there was some weird New Age music playing. A line of impatient-looking executives with metallically textured shirts and ties waited by the counter. There were tables in the back with monitors on top of them. He stepped to an empty table, cleared the screen, and typed in the address of his stock-trading Web site. He'd just typed "Palomino.com" into the research section when he felt a presence at his elbow.

It was a short, odd-looking humanoid, possibly female in origin, with severely cut black hair and thick, square eyeglasses. He watched her nose wrinkle. He knew what she smelled. He'd been ladling molten lead on a damaged telephone cable in a dank Fifth Avenue manhole all night long.

He leaned toward her. She took a step back.

"Hi," he said.

"Only customers are allowed access to our terminals," she said.

"I'll take a coffee," he said.

The side of her mouth twitched down.

"Fine," she said. "We have Moroccan Tradewinds, Kili-manjaro Supreme..."

He looked back as the screen changed. Palomino was a two-year-old book-and-CD Web company that was considered culturally savvy, he read. It was hip, upscale, another Amazon.com.

"Sir?"

He thought the last thing she'd said sounded like "la monde" or something. He would've asked her if it was French for "chock full of nuts," but he didn't have time.

"What?" he said

"Which coffee?"

"First one sounds great," he said, without looking at her.

"For sizes, we have short, small, medium -- "

"Supersize it," he said.

He brought up his trading account. There was five grand there from his retirement savings. All the stories he'd heard and read about people getting rich by doing their own investing had appealed to him. He'd taken some money out of his mutual fund and been screwing around with it. He'd been trading for a month, and his account was up a couple of hundred bucks. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than what the pros managed. But what he had learned was that when one company took over another, the stockholders in the company getting taken over made a bundle of money.

He typed up a five-thousand-dollar purchase order of Palomino stock at the opening price. Then he crossed his fingers and clicked submit.

The waitress brought his coffee and the check as he was clearing the screen. Even though it was $4.79, he didn't say a thing. He put a five on the table, picked up the coffee, and left.

Outside the sun was full up. Light flooded down the side streets and lay in white stripes across the avenue. He could feel the temperature rising already, the night cool long gone. He crossed the crowded street and walked to his truck. He opened its door and sat. Errant executives and pretty sneaker-clad secretaries scurried quickly in the buildings' shadows like actors heading for their places before the curtain's rise. He looked out at the building he'd just been under. Most of it was still a stark, shadowed glass form, but when he craned his neck, he could see the dazzling sparkle of the sunlight that licked its upper floors.

He winced at the first sip of the expensive coffee. It tasted like hot perfume. He got out and chucked it into the trash can on the corner. He ordered another coffee from the doughnut cart there. The Arab behind the shiny aluminum counter smiled widely as he handed it over to him.

"You look happy, my friend," he said. "Just hit Lotto?"

Macklin gazed out at the brand-new day and grinned.

"Something like that," he said.

Copyright İ 2001 by Michael Ledwidge

Edition details

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743405943
• ISBN 13: 9780743405942
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 288