Dinner at the Crusted Top had been a Hansen family tradition since Charlie was a baby-
we also had a 14-year old daughter, Isabelle – and tonight was certainly a night for celebration.
Martin's security guy was keeping the „pants on fire' harasser away from me, the image of the
Linders' blood was fading in my mind, and my firm made a huge profit on Friday afternoon. It
had been a year since I was forced to dance with the devil that was the Viola drug cartel.
Something about a $25 million gain on a stock trade got my blood moving. Even if the gain was
grossly illegal, it was the best news my firm had gotten in a long time. When Julio first explained
in entirety his plan for Doctor Linder, I didn't understand why he was wasting his time on what
seemed to be small potatoes for someone like him. However, sitting at the table at the Crusted
Top tonight, I understood it all quite well. A few more doctor shake downs like that one, without
the actual murder of course, and I would be well on my way to making up for my poor investment
losses of the past two years. The fact that Julio controlled those profits in addition to all of PLH
was being intentionally ignored in my mind as I needed to celebrate with my family.
The truth was, though, I had slept like crap all week long, and, by Friday night, Claire
could have put a fork in me. Martin's security guy showed up in my office parking lot late
Monday afternoon as promised. Judy and I had no problems leaving that night. I didn't tell her
about the second phone call on Monday. By Friday, I was kind of surprised that this „pants on
fire' guy hadn't called back. Maybe he noticed Martin's security guy arrive, then followed me
home, or maybe he wasn't watching me at all. He couldn't have full appreciation of who he was
dealing with if that was the deal. In any case, Martin's man hung around my neighborhood, where
I only had two neighbors on my heavily wooded street, and followed me wherever I went in my
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63
car each day. Part of me hoped that „pants on fire' did try something. That way he could find a
bullet between the eyes.
When someone threatens your family, you try to think of every way out of the situation,
and I did just that. That day a year ago, when the mustached man name Martin first visited me, he
stood over me while I executed the nine different wire transfers. After each transfer, I tried my
hardest to see how the financial maze we were creating could end up leading the authorities to me
if things went wrong. But it was so stressful with Martin standing over me that it was crazy hard
to think straight. For sure, if someone poked hard enough, they would see that the first wire
transfer started inside my firm's office.
Over the next few months, I made sure to tape every conversation I had with Julio, which
totaled five before year end. On the third conversation, I whined to him that the laundered money
scheme would end up crashing down into my lap, and Julio assured me that he wouldn't let that
happen. Once I got that on tape, that was enough insurance. Thoughts about picking up my family
and bolting town were gone, replaced by confidence that Julio didn't have a reason to hurt us as
long as the laundering relationship continued functioning and if authorities raided my firm one
day, the tapes would point the blame directly at Julio.
PLH ended 2001 down 45%, having gone from „not great' status when I first met Julio to
„likely disaster' a few months later. The Enron scandal was the reason, with me failing to believe
the company would go bankrupt and doubling down my bet in late November of 2001. That
single trade could have taken down my firm if it weren't for Julio's aid. Why I decided to swing
for the fences, I didn't think I ever would know for sure. Julio definitely rattled me when he
forced his way into PLH. Maybe I got to thinking that his $75 million of laundered drug money
was some kind of insurance.
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By late December of 2001, my firm's performance had tumbled so badly that I knew my
firm couldn't convey that in my year-end letter to investors. That was when I started appreciating
Julio's investment into PLH a whole lot more. So, instead of telling my investors that my firm
lost 45% of their money in 2001, I could tell them that my firm had lost 10% during the year.
This was far better than the S&Ps 500's performance for the year. Nearly every investor would
have demanded their money back if I had posted the -45% figure. My firm would have collapsed.
I would have been a 49-year old with very dim job prospects since I had been working for myself
for twenty years. No one in their right mind would give me money to start a new fund. Claire
would have divorced me for sure if my firm imploded. She had been urging me to go to marriage
counseling for the past few months, and I had steadfastly refused. In my mind, there was nothing
that we couldn't make better for our marriage by just talking to ourselves and keeping an outside
party away from the conversation.
I looked around our table at the Crusted Top and smiled at my family. “I think we should
plan on going to Vail this winter,” I asserted.
Claire kicked me under the table. “Hold on, you've been telling us for a year now to
watch our expenses, and now you want to spend on a trip to Vail?”
“My firm had its best quarter ever and we made a fortune this week,” I said with a wide
smile.
“That's so cool, Dad,” Charlie burst into the conversation. “I can't wait.'
“Well look who's over at this table,” a voice stated behind me. “Hello, Hansen family,
are you all having a great night out?”
I whipped around to find Father Mike Nicholson dressed in a sweat suit. “Oh, hello,
Father, do you want to join us?”
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Father Mike was our priest at St. Anthony's parish in town. He was a gem of a person.
Claire and I tried to have him over for dinner at least three times a year.
“Oh, no thanks,” Father Mike said. “I just got done with my squash games and came in
for the Swiss burger that they make here.”
Squash is a funny sport, considered pretty much a North East sport, but even less
followed than Lacrosse. Father Mike belonged to the Morristown Racquet Club, which was built
in the early 70s and still looked that way. It was in the style of an airplane hangar, holding seven tennis courts upstairs and four squash courts downstairs.
I knew Father Mike tried to play three times a week in a recreational league that was
pretty laid back. Nick Johnson was also in that league, and he'd been trying for years to get me to
join. I went with him once to the courts, though it was a complete train wreck.
“Oh, how was your squash game?” Claire asked.
“Tonight was a slow Friday night….only four guys showed up, which was actually good
because I got in four games when, on some nights, I get only one or two.”
I had been meaning to talk with Father Mike in private about my problems with the Viola
family because he would keep it quiet. I just had to tell someone else to get it off my chest. For
the first two months after I met Martin in my office, I would sit up in bed in the middle of the
night in a sleep filled trance and start talking about Martin, Julio, the French steel companies, just about anything that I was finding stressful. Claire woke up a few times, asking me one morning
who Martin was. I had to do my best „I have no idea' impersonation. But having not gotten
around to talking with Father Mike, things had progressed so much with Julio's latest drug trial
insider trading plan that I didn't think anybody would understand my side of the story. At some
point over the last couple of months, I started to look at myself as just as criminal as the Viola
drug cartel. And that was pretty damn criminal.
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“Well, that's good, Father, good exercise,” I said. “And, yes, the burgers they serve here
are wonderful!'
“That, they are, Peter…Okay, then, Hansens, I'll let you get back to your dinner. I'll see
you all later this weekend at Mass.” Father Mike said. He turned and walked back to the bar to
wait for his burger.
“Why didn't you ask him about a date for dinner at our house?” Claire whined to me.
“Me? You do all of that planning, in case you forgot!” I shot back. I was kind of torked at
my wife for not being more enthusiastic about the Vail trip idea. Maybe she would have preferred
to take a trip to the inner parts of Mexico and visit the Viola drug cartel. That would get her to
understand the stress that I had been putting up with the past year. I needed somebody to hear my
side of the story, for Pete's sake.
Timothy Gilbert
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Friday, October 18th
2pm