Face Value (18 page)

Chapter Forty-three

Benny answered on the second ring. “Talk to me.”

“We gotta bite.”

“No shit. Who?”

“Len Olsen.”

“Olsen? What the fuck?”

“I know. Surprised me, too.”

“So tell me.”

“Nothing to tell yet. Just got off the phone with him. He's coming by my office at five-fifteen.”

“Five-fifteen? Shit. See if he can move it up to four. I teach that antitrust seminar at five.”

“No, Benny. It's better this way. Just me and him.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“What if he tries to pull something?”

“He's not, Benny. I'm not even sure he knows that much about Structured Resolutions. All he said was that he'd heard about our conversation with Rob Brenner and wanted to drop by to share some information.”

“That's it?”

“That's it. I asked him what kind of information. He told me he'd explain when he got here.”

“I'm not crazy about you meeting him alone in your office.”

“I won't be. Jacki is back from vacation. She's in today.”

“Good. Be sure she introduces herself.” Benny chuckled. “That'll make him behave.”

I smiled. “You're probably right.”

“No shit. She'd make Darth Vader behave.”

Jacki Brand was my law partner. When we first met, Jacki was a Granite City steelworker named Jack Brand who'd quit his day job to pursue his two dreams: to become a lawyer and to become a woman. I hired him/her as my legal assistant at the front end of those pursuits, back when he had just started attending law classes and taking hormone shots and wearing dresses and wigs. Jacki helped keep my law practice organized, and I helped teach her to be a woman. The week after she received her law school diploma, she underwent a surgical procedure to lop off the last dangling evidence of her original gender.

When she passed the bar exam, I changed my firm's name to Rachel Gold & Associates, Attorneys at Law. A year ago, I made her my law partner. I kept it a secret until the new signs and business cards were ready. She left for court that morning from the offices of Rachel Gold & Associates and returned that afternoon to Gold & Brand, Attorneys at Law. You haven't experienced joy and gratitude until you've been swept off your feet in a bear hug by your blubbering six-foot three-inch two-hundred-fifty-pound high-heeled partner.

“By the way,” I said, “here's a weird fact. Remember that memo Sari did for Donald Warner? The one on 501(c)(4) organizations?”

“Oh, yeah. Client was some moral majority outfit that didn't exist.”

“Exactly. Missouri's New Moral Majority. Well, they do exist.”

“I thought you did a Missouri business name search.”

“I did. No such entity in Missouri. But I was thinking of Warner this morning. Specifically, his Thursday nights trips across the river, which got me thinking about Illinois and that memo. Guess what? That outfit does exist. It's actually incorporated in Illinois.”

“No shit?”

“They were incorporated last year. Their registered agent is Bernadine Peters.”

“Who's she?”

“The Illinois Secretary of State's website has an address for her in Belleville, Illinois. I searched that address on Google. It's the offices of Condor Investment Advisors. I called the number and asked for Bernadine Peters.”

“And.”

“She's the personal assistant to Richie Condor.”

“I assume he's the Condor of Condor Investment Advisors.”

“He is.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I got the information from the receptionist.”

“So who's Richie Condor?”

“According to his firm's website, he's a certified financial advisor. Started off at Merrill Lynch. I Googled him. Seems to be a big deal in Belleville. Shows up in articles on charity balls and non-profits. Good looking guy, mid-thirties. The All-American boy except for one odd pairing.”

“What?”

“He's active in the Republican party
and
he's openly gay.”

“Interesting. But what's Missouri got to do with his politics?”

“Hard to say. Belleville's just across the river. Lot of people over there commute to jobs over here. He could have political interests here, too.”

“And all of this means?”

“Maybe nothing. But it's odd that an outfit with that name is incorporated in Illinois.”

“Meanwhile, call me after your meeting with Olsen,” Benny said.

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.

Chapter Forty-four

Benny would have been pleased with the timing. I was on the phone when Len Olsen arrived. Our secretary was gone for the day. Thus Jacki met him in our reception area and escorted him to my office. In her heels, she towered over him.

Finishing my call, I gestured Len toward the chair facing my desk. He looked, as usual, stylishly handsome—a gray pinstriped suit, a blue dress shirt with white collar, and a gold-patterned navy tie. He was carrying a leather day bag with a shoulder strap, which he slid off and set on the ground as he took a seat.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was a judge's clerk.”

“No problem, dear.” He gave me a warm smile. “Judicial clerks always take precedence.”

“So,” I said, “tell me what brings you hear today.”

“Rob filled me in on your conversation over at Wash U.”

“Okay.”

“According to Rob, you have client—a high net worth client—who is interested in making a large donation to the law school and large investment in Structured Resolutions. Is that accurate?”

“It is.”

“Rob told me you wouldn't identify him.”

“My client instructed me not to at this stage. Not until he has some more information about that company.”

“Rob said you told him he was a member of the Laclede Country Club?”

“That's correct.”

“And I suppose we can assume he has a degree from the law school.”

I smiled. “I suppose you could suppose that.”

Len chuckled. “Not that it really matters. I was just curious about your mystery man.”

“Speaking of mystery men, Len, I'm curious about why you're here. What is your connection to Structured Resolutions?”

“Fair question. I actually have two connections: my law firm does some legal work for that company and I am a happy longtime investor.”

“What kind of legal work?”

He smiled and shrugged. “That part I can't speak to. Corporate stuff, mostly. International, I think. That kind of transaction work is way beyond my abilities. As you know, I'm—”

“—just a simple country lawyer,” I said, completing one of his timeworn sayings.

He chuckled. “It is true, at least compared to the corporate lawyers. We haven't done any litigation for that outfit, so I don't have any deep relationships with any of their folks.”

“Who at the firm does the legal work?”

“I'm not sure. I can check with Don.”

“Please do that, Len. My client expects me to properly vet this transaction. I need to talk to someone with knowledge of the company.”

“Understood. I'll see what I can do, Rachel. But as for knowledge of the investment opportunities with the company, I'm about as good as anyone out there.”

“Why is that?”

“I've had money invested with them for nearly a decade and they've more than doubled it. If your client is looking for nice, steady returns without all the angst of the stock market, I don't know of a better option than Structured Resolutions.”

“That's good to hear.”

“I brought along copies of a few of my quarterly statements over those years. You're welcome to share them with your client.”

“That would be quite helpful, Len.”

He unclasped his leather day bag, pulled out a manila folder, and handed it to me across the desk. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

There were about thirty pages of documents—a seemingly random set of quarterly statements covering the past nine years. The owner of the account was Leonard Michael Olsen. Over the period covered by the statements, Olsen's original investment of $710,000 had grown to $1,475,129.21

“Those are confidential documents, Rachel. You can show them to your client, but otherwise I'd prefer they remain under wraps. Please stress that with your client, too”

“Okay.” I closed the folder and leaned back in my chair. “So how do we get to the next stage?”

“Here's my understanding,” Olsen said. “Apparently, things have changed during the years since I invested my money. According to Rob, the fund is technically closed. Occasionally, though, they accept a new investor. I have to warn you, though: the company has gotten pretty selective. They turn away most wannabe investors.”

“What are their criteria?”

He shrugged. “They don't tell me, so I can only guess. Obviously, they'll need to know the identity of your investor. Probably some information about him and his finances. But after that, I don't know.”

I said, “And obviously we'll need to know a lot more about them before my client commits.”

“I understand completely. Let me start the ball rolling, Rachel. I'll check with Don, find out who has the client contact, and see if we can get you in touch with someone who can answer your questions. Meanwhile, feel free to share those quarterly reports with your client.” He gave me a friendly wink. “I think he'll be impressed.”

Chapter Forty-five

When the video ended, Benny said, “What the fuck is with that wink?”

“It constituted an insincere and thus ineffective attempt,” Stanley said, “to initiate a connection with Ms. Gold that would displace or diminish her connection with the fictitious client.”

The five of us—Benny, Stanley, Jerry, Jacki Brand, and me—had just finished watching the video of yesterday's meeting with Len Olsen.

When Len had called to see if he could drop by my office, I sat down with Jacki to talk strategy. Specifically, I wanted to ask her to sit in on my meeting with Len. My gut told me that he was going to try to sweet talk me about Structured Resolutions. Though I'd like to think I have a decent BS detector, Len was the wizard of sweet talk, as proven by his impressive string of jury verdicts.

While Jacki was no Stanley Plotkin, she had impressive credentials in the real world of BS detection. During her steelworker years, she—or rather, he—became a poker legend in Granite City, Illinois. His ability to read the tiniest gestures and eye movements of his opponents—the “tells,” in poker lingo—convinced several of his poker pals that he had ESP. They eventually convinced him—or, by then, her—to enter a Texas Hold 'Em tournament at the Casino Queen on the East St. Louis side of the Mississippi River. Jacki won the tournament. Indeed, her Texas Hold 'Em winnings helped pay her law school tuition.

“I've got better idea,” she'd told me. “He'll feel more comfortable if it's just you and him.

She'd reached into her desk drawer, pulled out what appeared to be an expensive black ballpoint pen, and held it up.

“See this?” she'd said.

“Yes.”

She clicked the pen, scribbled something onto the yellow legal pad, and then turned the pad toward me. “I just signed my name.”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Okay.”

She turned the legal pad back to her and set the pen down on the pad sideways.

“Nice pen, eh?”

“Seems to be.”

“Smile,” she said, “you're on Candid Camera.”

I had stared at the pen, which looked exactly like, well, a pen. I looked up at her. “There's a camera in there?”

She nodded. “It's filming you right now.”

Jacki explained. She'd learned about the pen—available at Amazon.com for $29.99—during one of her divorce cases. Her client's husband, suspicious of his wife, had used a similar hidden-camera pen. He'd placed it strategically on the desk in the master bedroom to tape his wife's antics with the pool man, who came (in both senses) once a week to take care of the pool and the wife. Jacki bought one of the pens the next day, just in case a future client might have reason to use it.

She'd showed me how to work it, and the resulting video was remarkably clear.

Four of us were seated in our conference room, and Stanley stood over near the wall. I used the remote to turn off the monitor and looked around the table.

“Thoughts?”

“He's full of shit,” Jacki said. “When you asked him who at the firm does the legal work and he said he'd have to check with Donald Warner, that's a bluff I'd call in a heartbeat.”

“I would affirm Ms. Brand's conclusion,” Stanley said. “However, it should be noted that Mr. Olsen's control of his micro-expressions is noteworthy and would suggest why juries do not appear to detect his insincerity. This is true even for his smiles. While the smile he formed during the wink that so captured Professor Goldberg's attention was indeed an insincere and thus voluntary smile, as is evidenced by the contraction of the zygomatic major muscle alone, the smile during the aforementioned reference to the conversation regarding certain legal matters being beyond his abilities gave the full appearance of a sincere and involuntary Duchenne smile in that it included the contraction of both the zygomatic major and the inferior part of orbicularis oculi.”

Stanley's pronouncement was met with a moment of silence.

And then Benny raised his hand, palm toward Stanley. “Gort,” he said, “Klaatu barada nikto.”

“What?” I said.

“Directed by Robert Wise,” Stanley announced.

Benny gave him a wink. “Dude.”

I rolled my eyes. “Back to business, okay?”

I looked over at the Jacki, and then back to Stanley. “Bottom line—one, is Structured Resolutions a sham? And, two, does Len know it?”

Jacki frowned. “Don't know if it's a sham, but Len knows much more than he's letting on.”

“Stanley?” I said.

“Ms. Brand is correct regarding Mr. Olsen's knowledge. Among other things, as Mr. Olsen's facial actions confirm, he is cognizant of the fact that his quarterly statements are fictitious.”