rising costs keep eating away at it. There’ll never be enough in there
to make it worth fooling with-not at Jones’s level.”
“What’s his level?”
“Eight figures. Major-league financial manipulation. Fisk and Gould
would have counted their fingers after shaking hands with Chuck
Jones.
His public image is that of a financial wizard and he’s even saved a
few companies along the way. But it’s hisplundering that fuels it
all.
The man’s destroyed more businesses than the Bolsheviks.”
“So he’s a slash-and-burn man, too, as long as the price is high
enough.”
Huenengarth looked up at the ceiling.
“Why doesn’t anyone know about it?” I said.
He scooted forward a bit more. Very little of him was touching the
chair.
“They will soon,” he said quietly. “I’ve been on his trail for four
and a half years and the end’s finally in sight. No one’s going to
fuck it up-that’s why I need total discretion. I won’t get derailed.
Understand?”
The pink of his neck had deepened to tomato-aspic. He fingered his
collar, loosened his tie and opened it.
“He’s discreet,” he said. “Covers himself beautifully. But I’m going
to beat him at his own game.”
“Covers himself how?”
“Layers of shadow corporations and holding companies, phony syndicates,
foreign bank accounts. Literally hundred’s of trading accounts,
operating simultaneously. Plus battalions of lackeys like Plumb and
Roberts and Novak, most of whom only know a small part of each
picture.
It’s a screen so effective that even people like Mr. Cestare don’t see
through it. But when he falls, he’s going to fall hard, Doctor, I
promise you. He’s made mistakes and I’ve got him in my sights.”
“So what’s he plundering at Western Peds?”
“You really don’t need to know the details.”
He picked up his coffee cup and drank.
I thought back to my conversation with Lou.
Why would a syndicate buy it, then shut it down?
Could be any number of reasons . . . Ih~ wanted the øconpany’s
resources, rather than the company itself What kind! of resources?
Hardware, investments, the pension fund.
“The doctors’ pension fund,” I said. jones manages that, too, doesn’t
he?”
He put down the cup. “The hospital charter says it’s his
responsibility.”
“What’s he done with it? Turned it into his personal cashbox>” He said
nothing.
Milo said, “Shit.”
“Something like that,” said Huenengarth, frowning.
“The pension fund is eight figures?” I said.
A healthy eight.”
“Come on, how’s that possible?”
“Some luck, some skill, but mostly just the passage of time, Doctor.
Ever calculate what a thousand dollars left in a five percent savings
account for seventy years would be worth? Try it some TIME
The doctors’ pension fund is seventy years’ worth of blue chip stocks
and corporate bonds that have increased ten, twenty, fifty, hundreds of
times over, split and resplit dozens of times, and paid out dividends
that are reinvested in the fund. Since World War Two the stock
market’s been on a steady upward swing. The fund’s full of gems like
IBM purchased at two dollars a share, Xerox at one. And, unlike a
commercial investment fund, almost nothing goes out. The rules of the
fund say it can’t be used for hospital expenses, so the only outflow is
payments to doctors who retire. And that’s only a trickle, because the
rules also minimize payments to anyone who leaves before twenty-five
years.”
“The actuarial structure,” I said, remembering what Al Macauley had
said about not collecting any pension. Anyone who leaves before a
certain period gets paid nothing.”
He gave an enthusiastic nod. The student was finally getting things
right.
“It’s called the fractional rule, Doctor. Most pension funds are set
up that way-supposedly to reward loyalty. When the medical school
agreed to contribute to the fund seventy years ago, it stipulated that
a doctor who left before five years wouldn’t get a penny.
Same goes for one who leaves after any time period and continues to
work as a physician at a comparable salary. Doctors are very
employable, so those two groups account for over eighty-nine percent of
cases. Of the remaining eleven percent, very few doctors serve out the
full twenty-five and qualify for full pension. But the money paid into
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