The Devil's Casino_ Friendship, Betrayal - Vicky Ward [40]
Chris in; I always thought she was just very nice. I think that 's
important to remember.
--Peregrine Moncreiffe
By 1995, Chris Pettit's temper seemed to be on a constant simmer. Even though his
troops were still loyal, it was becoming clear that he could no longer manage the firm day
-to-day in the intimate way he used to run things. The business was growing too fast. To
make matters worse, he'd been busy contacting oncologists around the country for his
brother, Rusty, who was dying of brain cancer. He was on a short fuse.
"We had to evolve more toward a model of decentralization," says John Cecil. "As we
pushed harder for the performance levels we wanted, it was more difficult for Chris or
any individual to exercise the kind of control he had in mind."
Pettit appeared to be unmoored by this change. He became unusually short with people
like Ron Gallatin, who had an impish quality about him--once, according to Cecil, Pettit
told Gallatin to "fuck off" when he popped his head in Pettit's office door. This was out of
character. "Usually Chris only yelled when someone deserved to be yelled at," says one
of Pettit's colleagues.
On another occasion he got so animated in a meeting over hiring choices with Fuld and
Cecil that Cecil recalls that Pettit's voice rose to a shout. He came around to the back of
his chair, and while he continued a long diatribe, his hands grasped either side of the back
the leather chair. He gradually, ever so slowly, lifted it off the ground. He kept talking,
apparently completely oblivious, until Fuld said to him quietly, "Chris, put the chair
down."
"Ordinarily Chris was unemotional, thoughtful, listened as much as he talked--but he
became someone who had a temper, didn't listen, was adamant and not objective," says
Tucker.
Most damaging to Pettit's sainthood status among the traders were the stories about his
office romance with a married, redheaded mother of three named Martha Dillman. Joe
Gregory later wrote in the ill-f ated "Modern History" of Lehman that when Pettit was
caught in this relationship, "he would turn negative on the firm. The guy went crackers
and it was the beginning of a very rough period."
Martha Dillman was hired in 1981 from JPMorgan by Tom Tucker, to run commercial
paper research in Lehman Commercial Paper Inc. (LCPI). By 1995 she headed up
research for all of fixed income and was the highest-paid woman in the company. She
was soft-spoken, which sometimes masked her sharp wit. She was nicknamed "The
Stiletto" for her ability to puncture holes in people's arguments. Her husband worked in
asset management for the Bank of New York. Unlike Mary Anne, who was thrifty,
Martha had a driver, designer clothes, and lavish homes. She was 11 years younger than
Mary Anne Pettit.
Dillman and Chris Pettit had gotten to know one another through a shared affection for
Johnnie Walker Black, which they knocked back after work. At first no one had believed
the rumors about them, which began to circulate in early 1993. Dillman was attractive,
but everyone knew that Pettit, like Fuld, was an ardent family man.
Though no one knew it, Pettit had moved out of his Huntington home in the fall of 1993,
and into an apartment Lehman kept for him and Tucker in New York City.
When he moved out he never mentioned Dillman; he told Mary Anne that he was
confused and needed space. But he still came home for weekends with his children. He
still spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family. The Pettit children had no idea he
was gone.
But Tucker had noticed his friend behaving oddly since the Christmas party held at the
Puck Building in New York in 1992. He, Pettit, and Dillman all got into a limo; they
were planning to drop Dillman off before heading out to Huntington. They were all
drunk. "We always got hammered at things like that," says Tucker, who sat in the front
seat.
Tucker was stunned when he saw Pettit lunge for Dillman in the backseat, kissing her.
Later, after Dillman got out, he said to Pettit, "Are you crazy?"