"One hundred fifty-two thousand shares. Approximately thirty-three percent."
"Thirty-three percent! What about the other eighteen percent?"
"Patience, lad, patience. I know my job. I snapped up all the small holdings there were, very quietly. It cost me a pretty penny to farm out the purchases, too."
"Why'd you do that?" Walton asked.
"Because this has to be handled very gingerly. You know the ownership setup of Citizen?"
"No."
"Well, it goes like this: Amalgamated Telefax owns a twenty-six percent chunk, and Horace Murlin owns twenty-five percent. Since Murlin also owns Amalgamated, he votes fifty-one percent of the stock, even though it isn't registered that way. The other forty-nine percent doesn't matter, Murlin figures. So I'm busy gathering up as much of it as I can for you—under half a dozen different brokerage names. I doubt that I can get it all, but I figure on rounding up at least forty-nine percent. Then I'll approach Murlin with a Big Deal and sucker him into selling me six percent of his Citizen stock. He'll check around, find out that the remaining stock is splintered ninety-seven different ways, and he'll probably let go of a little of his, figuring he still has control."
"Suppose he doesn't?" Walton asked.
"Don't worry," Hervey said confidently. "He will. I've got a billion smackers to play with, don't I? I'll cook up a deal so juicy he can't resist it—and all he'll have to do to take a flyer will be to peel off a little of his Citizen stock. The second he does that, I transfer all the fragmented stock to you. With your controlling majority of fifty-one percent, you boot Murlin off the Board, and the telefax sheet is yours! Simple? Clear?"
"Perfectly," Walton said. "Okay. Keep in touch."