Avenue. Morgan pleaded his case, said he’d be back on
his feet in no time, but Morgan wasn’t trying to convince
the advisor as much as himself.
He’d have to give it up. All of it.
It was a sweet pad, with nearly seventeen hundred
square feet, brand-new appliances, a hundred-fiftysquare-foot terrace, a fifty-two-inch plasma and a view
that most Manhattanites would chop off their left thumb
for. It was the kind of place Morgan dreamed of when he
first enrolled in business school five years ago, taking on
the kind of debt that would choke a third world country.
Sure, there were bigger apartments in NYC, but you had
to start somewhere. And even with the real estate market
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Jason Pinter
taking a nosedive recently you couldn’t find a good twobedroom for under a million three. To get the three-and
four-bedroom pads you had to plunk down close to two
mil, and even though his debts were almost all paid off
he thankfully had decided to stick with the twofer until
his next promotion.
But then it all crashed down faster than a load of bricks.
The rumors began to swirl about a month ago that the
bank Morgan worked at as a trader was having tough
times, that its liquidity was nowhere near what the CEOs
were claiming. Then he read a newspaper article saying
there was a chance it would be bought out by one of the
company’s competitors. Then, a week ago, Morgan got a
call from his boss at eleven-thirty on a Saturday night,
telling him to be at the office at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
Morgan was there, dressed in a suit and carrying his
briefcase, unsure of what to expect. When he got to the
conference room he was informed, along with several
dozen of his colleagues, that the firm’s equity had been
bought for five cents a share, that the employee stock
purchase plan was essentially worthless. Oh yeah, and
that they were all out of a job. They would not be permitted back to their desks, and any personal items would be
mailed to their forwarding addresses.
Morgan blinked. It was all he could do. They would
receive one month’s severance for each year they’d been
with the company. For Morgan, that was three months.
Three months that would cover his mortgage and BMW
payments until he could find a new job. Surely that
wouldn’t be hard. He had his MBA, his CFA, and had
graduated from Wharton in the top five percent of his class.
Whether that severance would pay for the nearly
thirty-three thousand dollars in credit card debt he’d
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57
racked up…he didn’t even want to think about it. Uncle
Sam giveth, and Morgan would be damned if he’d let
Uncle Sam taketh away.
Then the next day another bank closed. And suddenly
the terrifying realization hit Morgan that he would be
competing for jobs in a market where opportunities had
just been halved, and his competition increased by two
hundred percent. In less than a month there were nearly
twenty thousand young men and women just like him,
many of whom were just as qualified if not more, looking
for the same opportunities he was.
Suddenly those monthly payments, over eleven thousand a month, loomed like a pile of bricks about to rain
down on his head.
He went out that night to a dive bar in his neighborhood, fully intent on getting stinking drunk and hooking
up with whatever girl noticed the two grand in jewelry he
wore. Brianna be damned, she was going to break up with
him anyway. He had no illusions about why she was with
him. She didn’t care about cuddling or having doors
opened for her. She wanted the gold. Literally.
Just like Morgan, Brianna would be getting a severance package, maybe a small diamond necklace, no more
than a grand. Morgan was a big fan of The Sopranos, and
he always thought Tony was brilliant for giving his jilted
paramours a small token when he divested himself of
them. The kind of women who dated Tony Soprano were
the kind of women who dated Morgan Isaacs; they loved
the money, the power (granted with Morgan it was on a
slightly smaller scale). Once Brianna learned the truth,
she’d be gone and in the pocket—and pants—of some
upper manager who managed to hold on to his sevenfigure job.
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Jason Pinter
So it was a morning like this, a Monday, a day where
he should have already been on to his third Red Bull and
second cigarette break, that Morgan Isaacs couldn’t bring
himself to unwrap himself from the fifteen hundred
thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.
He’d let his dirty blond hair grow too long, and
whereas he used to weigh a trim hundred and eighty
pounds, Morgan was now threatening to blow past the
two bills mark. In fact, there was a pretty good chance
he’d already done so, but was too frightened to step on
the scale and know for sure.
Maybe he’d fix a breakfast. Toast with peanut butter
and strawberry preserves sounded good. There were some
good judge shows on in the afternoons. For some reason
watching brainless poor people fight with some condescending judge over twenty-three dollars made Morgan
feel better about his own situation.
Then he heard the chirp of his cell phone, still set to
The O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money.” He didn’t recognize the caller ID, and assumed it was a telemarketer. He
was about to spin the dial to Ignore when he considered
the faint possibility it could be one of the firms that still
had his résumé and had sworn to get back to him.
He answered the phone with a peppy “This is Morgan,” hoping to sound like a man who’d been awake all
morning and not someone trying too hard to sound like
he didn’t still have sleep schmutz in his eyes.
“Morgan Isaacs?” the man on the other end replied.
“That’s right.”
“I was referred to you by a former colleague, Kenneth
Tsang. I hope you don’t mind my calling.”
“Kenneth, yeah, of course,” Morgan said. Ken was a
good guy, went a little too crazy at the strip clubs back
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59
when he was still working at Wachovia, and even after
he was laid off the guy threw bills around like they were
tissue paper. Ken was a good guy, but if you were stupid
and careless, eventually you’d piss off the wrong person.
At some point, Morgan was sure, Ken would do just that.
“My name is Chester. Kenneth was doing some work
for my firm and he passed your name along to us before
his unfortunate passing.”
“That’s mighty kind of him,” Morgan said, scooping
some gunk from his eye. “What firm did you say you
were with?”
“If you’re interested in employment that will pay you
quite handsomely with fair hours, meet me on Fifth
Avenue at noon. Northwest side of the street between
Fiftieth and Fifty-first. Right
in front of the statue of Atlas.”
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but
can I have a little more information? I want to be prepared, you know, just in case.”
“Noon in front of the statue,” Chester said. “Ken vouched
for you. He said you were reliable and that you enjoyed the
lifestyle your former employment afforded you. I promise
that if that’s the case, you won’t be sorry you came.”
“Wait, how will I know who you are?” Morgan said.
His voice reached only an empty phone. Morgan sat
there a moment, thinking about the call. Then he stood
up, tossed off his briefs and marched right to the shower.
He had just over an hour and a half. An hour and a half
to get his life back.
8
Sifting through ownership records and property deeds
was nearly as much fun as it sounded. We found papers
for the nearly two dozen companies who currently held
leases in the building formerly housing 718 Enterprises,
but for whatever reason there was no deed of ownership
of the company itself. We found public listings for a
brokerage firm, a jewelry store, three law offices, a psychiatrist, a pet psychiatrist, and a tantric yoga studio.
Only in New York.
“Look at this,” Jack said. We were sitting in a conference room, two laptop computers with several open
windows each, our eyes beginning to strain from staring
at various ownership deeds. I leaned over to the computer
Jack was working on and looked at the screen he had
pulled up. “According to tax filings, the law offices of
Kaiser, Hirschtritt and Certilman occupy floors seventeen
and eighteen. No other company in the building occupies
more than one floor, or even appears to pay for more than
one office space. If you were running a drug syndicate
from an office, wouldn’t you want a little more privacy
than a single office would give you?”
I stared at the screen, thought about the morning I
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61
went to the building and watched a stream of young, energetic drug dealers enter and leave with briefcases full
of narcotics. I had a hard time picturing them all fitting
inside a row of cubicles. Plus I doubted a truck pulled up
every now and then to refill their supplies. They needed
space to store the drugs. Space to allow for easy pickups
for dozens of couriers.
And enough lack of clutter to allow them to pack up
and get the hell out of Dodge on a moment’s notice.
“The building is managed by a company called Orchid
Realty,” I said. “According to their Web site, they have different managers for each property. It doesn’t spell out which
one is managed by who, but we can call and find out.”
“Screw that,” Jack said. “Why call when we can show
up uninvited?”
I smiled. I liked the way Jack thought.
Orchid Realty was on the eighth floor of a stainless steel
complex in midtown, not too far from many of the tony
properties they managed. Jack and I walked into the lobby
side by side. A pair of security guards manned a long
wooden desk. They did not seem intimidated by the purposeful look in our eyes. Installed in the front of the partition were two televisions, each running infomercials for the
building itself. The sets looked recently installed, and the
volume was far too loud. My guess was, with the economy
tanking, the building had lost a bunch of leasing companies
who couldn’t pay their bills, and were looking for fresh
blood (and fuller bank accounts) to replenish the coffers.
We stopped at the security desk, and Jack said, “We’re
here for Orchid Realty.”
“Name of contact,” the monotone voice came back.
“Mr. Orchid,” Jack replied.
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Jason Pinter
The guard looked up, a bored sneer on his face, like
he knew Jack was screwing with him but didn’t have the
time or inclination to care.
“Name of contact,” he repeated.
“Call the front desk,” Jack said. “Tell whoever answers
that we’re here to talk to whoever’s in charge of the 718
Enterprises account.” He took out his identification, underlining the words New York Gazette with his thumb.
The guard looked at him, the apathy turning into confusion.
“This is my official ID,” Jack continued. “Which
means I have the official authorization to have a news
crew down here in less time than it takes for you to put
on that cute tie in the morning. It also means you and your
friend here will have their friendly faces on our ‘Community Outrage’ Web site, as impeding an official news
investigation.” He pointed at the phone. “One phone call.
All it takes.”
The guard’s eyes went wide, and he picked up the
phone and dialed three numbers. Jack was full of crap,
but news was about information, and that was information they didn’t need to know.
The guard covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his
hand, his eyes growing more animated as he spoke.
Clearly the person on the other line wasn’t too keen on
us coming upstairs, but it looked like the guard wanted
as much to do with our Community Outrage Web site as
I did with bedbugs.
Finally the man hung up, pressed a button and printed
out two badges from his computer kiosk. Handing them
over, he said, “You promised, right? No cameras or news
crew? I don’t want my son to see me on the Internet.”
“We’ll see how things go upstairs,” Jack said. “Come on.”
The Darkness
I followed him to a bank of metal turnstiles, manned
by another security guard, this one looking much less
awake on the job than the guys at the front desk. We
showed him our badges, and he pressed a button that
swung the turnstiles. We passed through, made our way
to the elevator bank and headed up to the fourth floor.
Jack hummed a tune I couldn’t recognize as we ascended,
and I felt slightly anxious, wondering just how far this
would take us. I was also somewhat concerned about
pulling my weight on this story. As much as I wanted to
find out just what the hell was going on with this shadow
corporation, earning the respect of Jack O’Donnell was
a close second.
The doors opened, and we followed a sterile beige
hallway to a pair of double glass doors with the words
Orchid Realty stenciled on them. I opened the door for
Jack, the glass swinging out effortlessly and without a
sound. A heavyset woman with curly reddish hair sat
behind an oak desk, a pair of old-fashioned headphones
resting on her ears that looked less Bluetooth than long
in the tooth. The nameplate read Iris Mahoney.
Iris was filing her nails, pausing every few moments
to blow nail dust from her hands and onto the floor.
As we approached, her eyes rose and a wide smile
crossed her lips. “You must be those boys from the newspaper,” she said. “Welcome to Orchid.”
“Hi,” I said bef
ore Jack could open his mouth. “Miss
Mahoney, if it’s not too much trouble we’d like to speak
to one of your property managers.”
“Certainly, sir. Which of our managers would you like
to speak with?”
“Whoever handles the building which until recently
leased space to a company called 718 Enterprises.”
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Jason Pinter
The receptionist pursed her lips, sucked in air and
squinted. “Hmm…that doesn’t ring a bell. Let me check
our database.”
She put down the nail file and began typing. Two
fingered. One finger at a time. Slow enough that I could
hear Jack breathing heavier as his frustration grew. Every
few moments the lady would mutter a pleasant “no”
under her breath and continue typing. After several minutes she looked up at us and said, “I’m sorry, sir, we
don’t have any records for a 718 Enterprises. Are you sure
you have the right realty corporation?”
“You do manage the building leases at sixteen-twenty
Avenue of the Americas, right?”
“Now that sounds familiar. If my memory serves me,
they have a wonderful tantric yoga studio.” She blushed
slightly. I pretended not to have heard anything.
“That’s the building,” Jack said. “Listen, hon,” he continued, approaching the desk, a warm smile on his face.
It was shocking to compare this to his countenance
downstairs. Different folks responded to different temperaments. Jack didn’t get his reputation by assuming
everyone reacted the same way to everything. “We’re not
here to cause trouble. We’re investigating a story for our
newspapers, it’s our job, really, and we just have a few
questions about the building. If you could just let us know
who manages that property, we’ll be out of your hair in
no time. What do you say?”
The apple-cheeked receptionist smiled, and if I didn’t
know any better, it looked like she might have suddenly
developed a small crush on the elder newsman. “Hold on
one second. If you’ll have a seat, I’ll have somebody out
here to assist you right away.”
“You’ve made my day, darlin’.” Her smile widened.
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65
We took seats in two leather chairs. I shuffled through
a pile of uninteresting magazines before putting them
back. Jack just sat there. He didn’t need any distractions.
After thumbing through the pile of outdated magazines