The Successor: A Novel

March

Christian Gillette reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his favorite pen--a fifty-cent Paper Mate you could pick up at any drugstore in Manhattan. White plastic with a light blue cap and black lettering down the side. He'd been using these for twenty years, ever since Stanford Business School. He liked the way the ink flowed evenly and smoothly all the time, and when he found something reliable, he stuck with it. From pens to people.

One of the army of attorneys on the other side of the long conference-room table snickered. "We had special ones made for the occasion," the young man explained quickly when his white-haired senior partner gave him a mortified look from the far end of the table. "As mementos." He pointed at a cardboard box in front of him. "Nice Cross pens." He was younger than everyone else in the room by nearly a decade, a bottom-rung associate less than a year out of Columbia Law School who'd been working on this transaction for nine months, basically since he joined the firm. That was how long it had taken to get all the government approvals from both the U.S. and Canadian governments so they could close the transaction. "They've got the deal parties inscribed on them in gold letters," he added, babbling at this point. "ExxonMobil acquires Laurel Energy. The date, too. They're way cool."

Christian watched the associate turn beet red. Way cool had sounded way wrong in this staid fifty-seventh-floor conference room overlooking a darkened Wall Street. The senior partner looked as if he were about to explode, too.

"I'm sorry . . . I just meant that . . ." The associate swallowed the rest of his sentence, realizing that the hole he'd dug would only get deeper the longer he went on, no matter what he said. The experience of being involved in such a huge deal at this tender a career age had gone from euphoric to nightmarish in a heartbeat, and he was seeing his short stint at the firm going up in flames over ink dispensers. "I just wanted you to have a nice pen for the occasion, Mr. Gillette. For all of you to have a nice pen," he mumbled, gesturing around the table, unable to stop himself from talking. "Sorry if I--"

"Enough," the senior partner broke in. "Good God, where do we get these young people--"

"I appreciate you doing that," Christian spoke up. The kid had probably done more work than all the other lawyers on the other side of the table put together, but they still wanted to charge Exxon $20 million. Incredible, he thought to himself. Even more incredible, Exxon would pay it. "Can I have one now?"

"Sure." The kid reached into the cardboard box and pulled out a smaller one from inside, then rose from his seat and brought it to Christian. "Here you go, sir."

Christian winced. He hated it when people called him sir, made him feel like somebody's grandfather. And he wasn't that old, just forty-three. But the kid was only being respectful, he knew. "Nice," he said, taking the pen out and admiring it. "Thanks."

"We'll have tombstones made up, too, of course," the senior partner added in an official voice, making it sound as if the pens were cheap trinkets compared to the tombstones.

Christian gazed silently at the older man for a few moments, then looked up at the kid, who was still standing beside his chair. "I understand you're the one who finally got the DOJ and the Department of Energy off their asses. Probably would have been another nine months if you hadn't. Nice job." Christian smiled. "You and I ought to have lunch sometime."

"Sure," the kid agreed, realizing that in a flash he'd just regained all of his credibility--and more. Christian Gillette was a legend on Wall Street--the chairman of Everest Capital, one of the most powerful private-equity buyout firms in the world. Their bond had been nothing but a quick burst, but it had been real and now he was protected. "That would be great."