Insiders (27 page)

Through all the drama – whether damned or not – Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

There weren't enough hours in the day. Jen felt pumped, the way she used to feel during high-stakes negotiations at Hudson, Van Schaank. But now it wasn't indirect. She would receive benefits from what she was doing that would daily influence her quality of life and that of others. When the music came on for wake-up, the lassitude and depression she had faced each morning since her arrival had gone. She hopped out of bed, full of new plans and new tasks.

It seemed as if the IPO package she and Lenny had worked so long and hard on might be acceptable, but it presented Jen with another financial issue. She needed, of course, for the IPO to go smoothly and for people to buy up the stock. She also needed some money with which to buy as much stock as she could and to help in making the offering look as good as possible.

That day at the library she got on the phone and called Peter Grant, one of the dumbest brokers she knew, and the one with the biggest mouth. Donald had used Peter when he wanted word circulated out on the Street. ‘Peter?' she asked when he picked up the phone. ‘It's Jennifer. Jennifer Spencer.'

‘Hey! Great to hear from you!' He lowered his voice a decibel or two. ‘Sorry about that trouble you were in. Glad it's over.'

‘Yeah,' she said. She shook her head. He probably assumed she was out of prison. It was hard to remember that you were not the center of everybody else's life and interest. ‘I took the fall for Donald but I'm getting repaid big time now.'

‘I figured it was something like that,' Peter said, voice booming. ‘Good for you!'

‘Yeah,' she agreed. ‘It's not like a grand larceny conviction stops you from getting invited out.'

He laughed, a real
har-har-har.
‘Actually, it's more of a social asset,' he told her. ‘You know what they say: The unindicted are uninvited.'

What a jerk! ‘Well,' she said, ‘my social life
has
been looking up since I got out.' Why not let him continue with his assumption. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Listen, Peter, I'd like an account. I'm going to do a lot of … well, just between you and me, a lot of things Donald's told me to, but I know I can count on you for absolute discretion.'

‘Absolutely.'

Absolutely the opposite, she thought. That's why I'm calling you, you schmuck. Then his stupidity and greed gave her another idea. ‘Could we put it in his name?' she
asked. ‘I'll get it in writing or put him on the phone if you like.' She held her breath.

‘Hey, I'd be honored,' Peter said. He paused and she thought that perhaps she'd gone too far and the jig was up. Then he continued. ‘You know, he opened one before. Remember? It's been inactive for a long time. I've been very disappointed about that.'

It had been inactive because Donald had only used Peter Grant's account when he wanted every dumb bastard to jump on something. You couldn't keep an account like that going for long because the SEC monitored big gains and would be on his back. But it was a great bit of luck that he had never closed the account. Jennifer thought as quickly as she could and smiled.

Peter was the kind of guy who would watch every trade Donald made and would jump on any wagon, no matter how rickety. ‘Great,' she said. ‘Let's just use that one. Send all the info to my new email address and you'll be hearing from me. We'll make a small initial deposit, and then probably work on profits from then on.'

Peter laughed again, his stupid
har-har-har.
‘Hey, Donald's credit is always good with me.'

Yeah, she thought, you and every other greedy bastard on the Street. ‘Trades may come from other email addresses, phones, or faxes,' she told him. ‘You know how it is.'

‘Yeah,' he said. But he didn't know anything.

‘But let's for security's sake use a code word to insure authenticity.' She thought for a moment. Then she said, ‘Could you hold? I just want to ask Donald,' she said.

‘Sure,' Peter said. ‘Tell Don hello for me.'

A, Donald didn't know Peter Grant from a Chinese wok and B, anyone who knew him knew he
hated
to be called
Don. Jennifer put Peter on hold and tried to think of a code word that only Donald and his closest associates might use. SOB? YELLOW RAT BASTARD? She thought of Lenny and smiled. Then it came to her. Oh, it was so great! Yes! She got back on the line. ‘Peter, I've got it. It's Grendel,' she told him and spelled it for the ignoramus. She doubted that he knew Grendel was the monster in
Beowulf.
Or that it was the name of Donald's female bull mastiff. ‘Oh, and he says hi,' she lied.

‘Great!' Peter said. ‘Tell him we ought to get together sometime for a round of golf.'

‘I'll tell him,' she said. The guy must have been named Peter because his mother knew he was going to grow up to be a dickhead. Donald hated golf, and an invitation like that from a guy like Peter would be enough for him to sic lawyers on the dumb bastard. Lucky for Peter Grant this interaction with Donald Michaels was all imaginary or he might wind up in trouble. Well, with any luck, he'd wind up in trouble anyway.

‘Great!' Peter told her.

‘He says he'll call you. Well, gotta go. Thanks for your help.' She paused, just for a moment. ‘Oh, and Peter?'

‘Yes?'

‘I may ask that some of the … profits,' she giggled, sounding as close to a foolish, guilty girl as she could. ‘Well, some of the profits – not much, but some – we might want distributed in cash.'

‘Hey,' he said, ‘under ten thousand dollars and we'll give you a cashier's check. If you want I'll run down to the bank and cash it for you. In pennies, nickels and dimes if you want.'

‘What a guy,' she said. And at least that line was true.
‘Gotta go,' she told him again. She took the concealed laptop from under the table top, opened it up, and went online. She picked several dozen penny stocks, did a Google search and selected the handful that looked like there was some way to sex them up. She put in a buy order and then she began the ancient process known in the trade as ‘pump-and-dump'. She visited chat rooms and Web sites, and sent out emails to brokers and mutual fund managers, all touting the stock. Needless to say, she used different screen names, different writing styles, and gave Movita several dozen similar messages to post from her workstation. When Miss Ringling was out to lunch they signed on and sent another few dozen messages from there. Then she called Bryce.

‘Hey, gorgeous,' he said when he picked up the phone. ‘Can I send my car for you?'

‘If only,' she said. ‘No, right now I'm in a little money-raising compulsion. No time for a ride.'

‘Hey,' Bryce said. ‘Those rides are the best of all.' And Jennifer was sure he believed that to be true. ‘What can I do for you?' he asked.

‘I'm buying ten thousand shares of a company called Rivdek.'

‘What is it?' he asked.

‘What do you care?' she answered. ‘It's a vehicle right now. Since I can't use your car. Anyway, I need you to buy some too.'

‘Sure,' he told her. ‘How many ya' want?'

‘Well, right now it's priced at a dollar nine,' she said. ‘I'd like you to buy up to thirty thousand shares, but not if the price goes higher than a dollar twenty.'

She heard the smile in his voice. ‘I see,' he said. ‘And
you will let me know when I'm supposed to unload these suckers.'

‘I certainly will,' she promised him.

‘And you will also let me know whether you think I'm a manly man,' he added.

He was a ridiculous flirt. He could dish it out but she wondered if he could take it. ‘I thought I already told you that,' she said.

‘Did you?' he asked.

‘Uh huh,' she said, ‘but only in body language. Perhaps you don't read body language.'

‘I not only read it, I speak it fluently.'

Set and match, she thought. ‘Well, I look forward to a more complete conversation at some other time,' she said. ‘Gotta go.' Bryce was fun to flirt with, but between the two brothers she thought Tyler had a little more depth. Not that that mattered. She had missed flirting, being looked at like she was attractive. God, it must be hard for women who spent the best decades of their life in prison. She had forgotten how nice it was to communicate with attractive men. She didn't wonder that some of the women inmates would do almost anything to get a male CO's attention.

She dialed a number on the cell phone. ‘Lenny Benson, please.'

‘Accounting.' His voice sounded stern.

‘It's me, Jennifer. I need your help transferring money so I can buy some Rivdek stock,' she told him.

‘Hi, there.' She could hear his voice soften. ‘Before I do that, have you gotten the power of attorney back from Tom?'

‘He should have all the papers by now and everything should be transferred.'

‘Well, just in case they're not in place, I'll bring the papers up for you to sign,' Lenny said, and she thought she heard a bit of excitement in his voice. ‘And since it's of a business nature I shouldn't have to wait for visitor's day.'

‘But I've already signed them.'

‘Well, it's just an excuse to come see you,' Lenny said quickly as if she wasn't supposed to hear it.

What was going on? First Bryce, now Lenny. Was there a certain thrill to hitting on a woman who's incarcerated? She had to get him back to business. ‘Look, I want you to do whatever you need to do to get the stock purchased and I want you to hype the hell out of Rivdek.'

‘Okay, and if I have to I'll float you a loan,' he assured her.

‘Thanks, Lenny. Well, I gotta go.' She pushed the red button on the cell phone and went back to the laptop.

She bought a little over ten thousand shares of Rivdek and watched the quotations. Her purchase at a dollar ten was fine but when you added all of her touting and then Bryce's purchase the stock rose to a dollar eighteen. Then a dollar twenty-seven. She'd already made twenty-five percent additional but it wasn't enough, so she sent out more messages of congratulations to many of the Web sites and chat rooms until, by closing, the stock was up to two ten. She put a call in to Bryce. ‘Sell,' she said. And she did, too.

She doubled
her
money that day, and then did it again the following day. She'd always had nothing but contempt for day traders but she could see the compulsive pleasure one could take in the game. If everyone in the prison were given an account with Peter Grant, she thought, there would be no more acting out. They'd all be busy buying and selling stocks. Of course, like all outsiders, they'd eventually
get burned. But even that would give them something to think about.

That night, over a dinner of tortellini and ‘gravy', Jennifer didn't have the energy to talk much, but she felt as if she'd had a really good day.

The hardest thing to face getting out is the decisions. For months, for years, you haven't been able to decide anything for yourself. Then all of a sudden, you're supposed to be able to decide everything, make every kind of decision. It's just too much.

Emma Green, parolee from the state prison for women in Lansing, Kansas. Kathryn Watterson,
Women in Prison

Cher wriggled her toes with pleasure in the thick pile of the silk Kirman. She loved watching her flat-screen TV in her new Tribeca loft.

On the day she was released from Jennings, Cher regretted that she had to be somewhat selective in what she actually took with her. It broke her heart to leave so much of her hard-earned bounty behind, but she had no intention of leaving those items that belonged to Jennifer Spencer. She took them all, and when her processing was finished, Cher McInnery walked out of the Jennings Correctional Facility a free and well-dressed woman. She had served close to four years for grand larceny, and she couldn't wait to get started again. Except this time there would be no petty coins, no boosting from stores, no grifting. After all, Jennifer Spencer's Armani suit was a perfect fit, and there
was no reason to think that everything else in her closet wasn't going to fit Cher as well. She was grateful to Jennifer for opening her eyes to a larger world, one where stealing and manipulation was a respectable way of life.

It had always seemed dead wrong to Cher that everyone else had more than she had, and stealing was the only way she knew to settle the score. She only had one rule when it came to thievery: Never steal from no one that's poorer than you. And besides, it was a lot easier to steal from people who had more than they needed.

They got sloppy and did stupid things. They took their house keys to prison. It didn't take a rocket scientist to find the doors that those keys unlocked. When she first got to Jennifer's address, Cher was somewhat surprised to see that Jennifer's place was in an old meatpacking plant or something, but once she got inside she knew that she had struck gold. The views out the window from the huge living room looked south all the way down the Hudson River. Cher could even glimpse the Statue of Liberty in the distance – a good omen for her for the beginning of her new freedom.

She left prison with over thirty-eight hundred dollars that she had managed, bit by bit, to accumulate by acquiring and selling things on the black market. She was shocked to see how quickly money went here. She couldn't get into a taxi or eat a slice of pizza without breaking a ten dollar bill. And Cher didn't like to live tight and have to watch her pennies. She preferred to make lots of Benjamin Franklins rather than watching every George Washington. But Cher had plans. She had learned something in prison and it wasn't any crap about reforming. She had learned that she'd been thinking on too small a scale – that what she had considered success was penny ante. Prison had opened her
vistas. Just like this view down to the New York Harbor did. And both were courtesy of Jennifer Spencer. She had to be grateful to the girl, and she was, in her own way.

Cher went to her purse – well, it had once been Jennifer Spencer's purse but it was her purse now – and took out the phone numbers she had hidden there beneath the tiny slit she had made in the lining. She was finished with the short con or even the big con. Blowing off the mark had become more and more difficult and they were more and more likely to bleat – go to the police. In the old days, marks were too embarrassed after getting conned to do anything about it. That was the whole point. Cher didn't plan to spend any more time Inside ever again.

She looked down at the phone number in her hand. JoJo ran a boiler room and a bucket shop here in New York. Cher had no interest in sitting all day, trying to make scores over the telephone, talking old ladies in Des Moines out of their savings, but the bucket shop might work. That was, if JoJo gave her a chance. His brother was a pickpocket with a whiz mob that sometimes worked New York, but JoJo looked down on him. She didn't want to try to talk herself into a job with him over the phone – she doubted if that would work, even with her refined tone of voice. But if she could find out where he was, go in for a meeting, or get him to take a walk, she was certain, dead certain, that she could move up.

But enough daydreaming. Cher had luxuriated in the pleasures of her new digs long enough. It was time to get to work. There was a whole lot she needed to get done before sunset. She clicked off the TV with the remote control and headed for the kitchen. It was a damned nice layout, but it didn't look as if the debutante had ever prepared a meal here in her life. Cher thought back to the crap Jennifer had
served up at Jennings. Hadn't her mama taught her how to cook? The only useful thing Cher found in that kitchen was the drawer stuffed full of menus from places that delivered. She remembered Theresa's favorite joke: ‘What does a debutante make for dinner? – Reservations!' Hell, this girl didn't even do that, she made phone calls. Well, if that's the way they did things in Tribeca, that's the way Cher would do it, too.

She decided she'd get a delivery from Balthazar. She was crazy for sticky buns, and she wanted to see what a sticky bun that cost five bucks tasted like. It was an extravagance that she couldn't really afford, but she'd worry about that later. As soon as she was working with JoJo she'd eat three five-dollar sticky buns a day if she wanted to. She dialed the number on the menu and was surprised when the voice on the other end answered with, ‘Good morning, Miss Spencer. How may I help you?'

A lot had changed in the five years Cher had been at Jennings. Every damn place in America had new telephone systems that let them know who was calling before they even asked and a computer record right there with everything they needed to know about you. But Cher didn't miss a beat. ‘I'd like to order breakfast,' she said casually.

‘Would that be your usual order?' was the next question.

Cher thought, why not? ‘Sure,' she said. ‘Send over the usual.' Her stomach knotted at the thought of how much she was spending, but she was curious to know just what ‘the usual' was for someone like Jennifer Spencer.

‘And we'll just put that on your American Express as usual, right?' asked the order taker.

When Cher heard that, the knot in her stomach instantly untied and she was suddenly hungrier than she
had ever been before in her life. ‘You bet,' she said. ‘Just put it on the American Express.'

‘Very good, Miss Spencer. Your breakfast will be there in ten minutes.'

It was better than very good, thought Cher, this was damn good. With breakfast on its way, Cher picked up the phone to make another very necessary call. She flipped through Jennifer's address file until she found ‘Branston, Tom,' and she dialed the number. She felt a deep sexual itch that just needed to be scratched. Tom Branston was a very handsome man – maybe a bit of a slimebag, but one in very nice packaging. Cher had always been attracted to those Wall Street types in their fancy suits. Now she had one of her own.

‘Good morning, Tommy,' she cooed when she heard him answer. ‘I'm all settled in.'

The first thing Cher had done after she got to New York City was to look up Jennifer's old beau. From what she had heard from the debutante, this guy was a bit of a dim bulb who thought primarily with his crotch. Cher had known plenty of guys like him. You had only to stroke the ego – and nothing else – to get what you wanted. Branston was no exception, and Cher played him like a cheap piano. When he heard that Cher was just released from Jennings, he was more than anxious to meet with her. Of course, Cher intimated that the deb had told her more than old Tom wanted anyone to know, and fearing blackmail, he willingly agreed to meet for a drink. That's when Cher surprised him with an easy way out. She had faked a letter from Jennifer asking for Tom's help in securing a ‘sublet' on the apartment for Cher. ‘She wants me to look after her belongings,' Cher assured the initially dubious attorney. When she
showed him that she had Jennifer's keys, he believed her. Tom cleared Cher's way with the co-op board, and she moved in.

‘I just wanted to say thank you,' Cher told Tom over the phone. ‘Maybe I can do that personally sometime, huh?' she teased. She imagined that Mr Branston, like every other healthy young stud in the world, woke up ready for action. She would've been happy to help out with a little phone sex, but breakfast had arrived and Tom would have to finish up on his own. She bid him ‘bye bye' and hung up. Always leave ‘em asking for more, Cher thought. She smiled as she thought about how she might eventually pluck that chicken naked.

It seemed Jennifer Spencer shared Cher's taste for sticky buns. The ‘usual' suited Cher just fine – as did everything she found in the closet. It was like dying and going to fashion boutique heaven to pick out an outfit from the debutante's closet. Cher tried on every damn suit in the wardrobe, but finally settled on the Prada. The others would have to wait. There'd be plenty of time to play dress-up just as soon as she got set up in the bucket shop. Cher was ready for business – looking good, feeling good, and ready to bite into the Big Apple – right down to the core.

It was good to walk the streets of New York City again. It always inspired Cher to feel the pace and the pressures of the pavement. But damn, the shops were distracting. With Jennifer's Gucci purse slung over her shoulder, Cher could just hear those credit cards calling out to her:
Use me – charge it – buy it – have it.
What the hell, Cher thought, and she succumbed to temptation and strolled into Agnes B. for a new outfit of her own. One thing that hadn't changed while Cher was gone was just how snotty the sales
clerks could be at these fancy clothing stores. But now Cher was wearing Prada and that seemed to make all the difference in the world. She just started tossing stuff on the counter like she knew what she was doing. And little Isabelle the store clerk couldn't ring it up fast enough.

‘You do deliver, don't you?' Cher asked, haughty as hell.

‘Oh, yes,' Isabelle assured her.

Cher flipped out Jennifer's American Express and tried to act casual as she waited for the reassuring ‘bleep' of approval from the credit card terminal. It sounded, and Cher started breathing again. She gave the address for the delivery and was about to be on her way, when she heard a voice behind her exclaim, ‘Miss Spencer? Miss Spencer?' Cher froze, then turned very slowly. An older woman had appeared from the back office and was staring at her intently.

‘Yes?' Cher asked.

‘Is that you, Miss Spencer?' the woman asked. ‘Have you done something different with your hair?'

‘Dyed it,' Cher said quickly.

The woman squinted slightly and tilted her head as she considered Cher's answer. ‘I like it,' she said finally. ‘It changes your whole look.'

‘Thank you,' Cher said with a smile.

‘Anyway, I'll let you go now,' the woman said. ‘I just wanted to say hello and to welcome you back. I'm glad you didn't forget us. We look forward to seeing you again soon, I hope?'

‘Oh, yes,' Cher said as she turned and left the shop. Her heart was racing. She'd have to be more careful in the future. Tribeca was a small pond where Jennifer Spencer had been a very big-spending fish. From now on, Cher would do her shopping uptown.