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Paul’s workspace at Aquinnah Capital wasn’t an office but a cubicle in the bullpen. A nice cubicle, as those things go. Low walls topped with glass. The concept was called “seated privacy.” It was better than the no-walls, open-plan office, but not as good as a real office. Only the senior guys had real offices. Paul was one of fifteen employees who interacted in one large space.

His friend Michael Rodriguez, a fellow analyst, was standing at the edge of Paul’s cubicle. Mike had jet-black hair, heavy black brows, and a blindingly bright smile and was growing an ill-advised mustache.

It was eight forty-five in the morning, a few weeks after he’d met Tatyana. Trading didn’t start till nine thirty.

“Hey, you see what’s going on with Cavalier? It’s, like, unbelievable!”

“Saw that, yeah,” Paul said with a straight face. “Bonkers.”

But nothing about the Cavalier situation was unbelievable to him. Cavalier was a real estate firm whose stock Bernie Kovan, their boss, had wanted him to load up on, so of course he had. Pretty soon, Aquinnah owned almost 5 percent of the company, and Bernie was talking about getting a board seat. He wanted Paul to keep buying shares.

But Paul had begun feeling that something was rotten at Cavalier. He’d noticed a line item on their budget for legal expenses that was ridiculously high. Tens of millions of dollars. Paul had made calls to the company, but no one would talk. But instead of giving up, he’d dug in. Talked to a lot of former Cavalier employees. And in the process, he’d discovered that the CEO was known to have an “active” social life. Turned out he’d had a number of children by different women, some of them employees. He had forced those employees to sign nondisclosure agreements and paid them off handsomely to silence them. And the company had hushed it up. These women amounted to a giant ticking time bomb: potentially massive lawsuits for sexual harassment. And when the lawsuits started, Aquinnah Capital’s investors would have grounds to sue Aquinnah for failing to do adequate due diligence, especially if Aquinnah were named in the press.

Paul did this research privately—for Bernie, without telling his colleagues—and a couple of weeks ago, he had advised Bernie to sell all of Aquinnah’s shares in Cavalier. Bernie pushed back hard, but he relented when Paul explained the potential liability. He reluctantly agreed to selling the shares, and Paul did so.

Shortly after Aquinnah offloaded its Cavalier holdings, a huge investment management company, WhiteRock Real Estate Investment Trust, announced that it was acquiring Cavalier. Cavalier’s share price shot up from ten bucks to almost twenty-five.

Bernie was furious at Paul. “Look how much money you made me leave on the table!” he shouted. “Free money! Left there on the sidewalk! And thanks to you, we just walked right by!”

But Paul knew now that he’d done the right thing by pushing for Aquinnah to get out of Cavalier stock: at seven o’clock that morning, the news of the CEO’s personal life had broken on Bloomberg.

In pre-market trading, Cavalier stock dropped from twenty-five to eight. Rumors swirled that WhiteRock was going to call off its acquisition of the company because of “irregularities” and “undisclosed liabilities” found in the financials: Cavalier’s legal department, it seemed, had been spending millions defending lawsuits and making payoffs.

The exchange soon announced that trading in Cavalier had just been halted. The company had put out a press release saying there had been allegations in the press that morning and that it would put out a full statement later today.

“Man, good thing we got out of it, huh? Who called that one?” Mike said.

“Bernie, who else?” Paul said. He saw no reason to grab credit.

“Phew. Hey, what’s going on with that chick?”

“We’re seeing each other.”

“Good for you, dude. But when can you possibly go out? She’s a waitress, right? Probably works most nights?”

“She’s—no, she’s a photographer, actually.”

“ Brightman! Brightman! ” A shout came from the other side of the bullpen. It was Bernie Kovan. He was ebullient.

Bernie had the body of a lumbering bear with a monk’s bald spot. His neatly trimmed beard was gray, matching what little hair he had. He rushed over to Paul, who was just standing up. “I was so pissed off at you!” Bernie threw his arms around Paul, hugged him. “Thank you. Thank you. You saved our asses.”

There was a smattering of applause around the room. Mike Rodriguez was looking at Paul with a big, bright smile, shaking his head in admiration.