Read JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home for Free Online Page B

it’s ridiculous. And even if they weren’t thoroughly compromised, what are their opinions worth anyway? They’re like weathermen. Being right has never been a big part of the job description.” Jane took another drink. She put her right heel on the edge of her seat and rested her arm on her knee. She flexed her toes, and the tendons were taut along the top of her foot.
    “I thought the reforms changed things,” I said.
    Jane shook her head and gave me a sympathetic, silly-boy look. “That’s the party line, I suppose— that the reforms got rid of a layer of conflict by separating the analysts from the investment bankers and separating analyst pay from banking fees. But so what? It’s still the same guys at the top of these firms, deciding who gets paid and how much. If investment banking is important to them, and if they think a certain analyst has helped win business, they’re going to make sure he gets paid for it. Senior management knows it, the investment bankers know it, and so do the analysts— they just try to be a little less brazen these days.”
    She drank some seltzer and shook her head some more.
    “And sure, firms are very careful now about saying so if they do business with a company that their analysts are touting. But telling people about conflicts of interest doesn’t make the conflicts go away. A cynical person might even argue that all this disclosure just gives the firms more cover for the next time around.”
    Jane was relaxed, and her compact body was at ease in the chair, but she nonetheless projected a latent, supple energy— like a coiled spring or a watchful cat. It was in her every fluid motion, and it was even in her voice, in the chords of certainty and confidence of her pleasant contralto. She flexed her fingers, and I watched the muscles shift smoothly in her wrists and forearms.
    “And what’s your personal gripe?” I asked.
    She puckered her lips, as if she’d tasted something sour. “I guess I don’t like being bullied,” she said.
    I thought about that for a while. “It’s hard to imagine anyone trying.”
    Jane gave a humorless laugh. “You’d be surprised,” she said. She drained her seltzer, and I poured another glass. “It was a few years ago, when I was running that little biotech in Cambridge. They’d had some problems— with low production yields and a couple of nasty lawsuits— but we’d sorted those out and the worst was behind us, and we were shopping for a new credit facility. We were talking seriously to three big lenders when, one day, I got a call from an analyst— one of the few who covered the company.
    “I knew him, of course. He was from a big regional firm, and I’d talk to him a couple of times a quarter at least. He was one of those frat-boy-gone-fat types, but he’d always been friendly and reasonably straightforward. That day, it took him a while to get to the point.
    “He started asking about our hunt for new credit, which I had just talked about to a bunch of investors and analysts— including him— two weeks before. I thought he was looking for some inside dope, and I started to explain that I wasn’t going to tell him anything I hadn’t told the group, but he cut me off. That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, he said, and he started telling me how there were other motivated lenders out there besides the ones we had on our short list. By that point, I was feeling like we were in some very weird territory, but I still had no idea what the guy wanted. Finally, he got to it.
    “He asked if I was aware that his firm was in the lending business too. I said that I was, but that I thought we were getting into an inappropriate area. I tried to end the conversation, but he pretty much ignored me. He said he wasn’t sure I’d considered the big picture, and maybe it was because I was a short-timer— just an interim CEO— that I was ignoring a firm that had always been very supportive of my company. He said that if I kept on