The Trust (15 page)

“This transaction is good for biz,” senior management would tell us, over and over, waterboarding us with talking points for our clients.

The only way for me to investigate the Catholic Fund was to stay right here in Charleston. Otherwise, there’d be too many distractions. I expected to make a few phone calls, Google a few names, and learn the charity was just fine. Don’t worry. Be happy.

But here’s the thing. My career was taking a nosedive back in NYC. And I didn’t see it coming.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

PRIVATE CLIENT SERVICES

Torres was sitting in a posh conference room at SKC, her spiral-bound notebook open on the table. The place smelled like old money—tiger maple walls, Italian-leather chairs, and brushed silk curtains framing the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Rockefeller Center.

For a moment, she considered her days in private practice. It had always troubled her that lawyers built financial stability on the backs of clients. This place was more of the same. The modern paintings and aging Chinese pottery looked like a long stretch of rapacious fees.

The agent glanced at her Timex. She had been waiting fifteen minutes, plenty of time to grow annoyed. She wondered whether her strategy of arriving without an appointment had been such a good idea after all.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Katy Anders opened the door, shook the agent’s hand with a fish grip, and led her five colleagues into the conference room. “You caught us on a busy day.”

“So I heard.”

“We didn’t expect the FBI to come knocking.”

“And I didn’t expect your head count,” Torres said, surveying the group. She spoke in a monotone, distant and aloof. She was scarier that way.

Anders wore a black Chanel suit. Not one of those classic tweedy numbers. This one cleaved to her body like plastic wrap, smooth, tight, and provocative. Her heels, designed by some guy with ten vowels in his last name, soared four inches—making the agent wonder when Wall Street’s piranhas had taken to stilts.

The other five introduced themselves. There were three men and two women, all lawyers from SKC’s internal staff. The one named Stevenson winced when Anders asked, “Will this take long?” She was a saleswoman. She had no business copping an attitude with the FBI.

“Depends on your answers.” Agent Torres sat bolt erect, the posture of a gymnast.

“Our CEO is addressing the sales force.” Katy Anders spoke with funereal gravitas, as though Wall Street’s future hung in the balance. She checked her watch once, twice, and made no effort to hide the unfriendly smoke signals.

“We may need to depose him.” Torres knew her words would alarm the lawyers in the room. SKC would do everything to prevent Percy Phillips from speaking to the FBI—especially today of all days.

“How can we help?” Stevenson tried to defuse the threat.

Torres ignored the lawyer, eyed Anders, and pushed back. It felt good to tweak a woman whose outfit cost half the agent’s monthly salary. “Your colleagues can leave if that’s helpful, Ms. Anders.”

“No, no,” Stevenson replied. “Tell us why you’re here.”

“To discuss Grove O’Rourke.”

“Has he done something wrong?” Anders shook her head in exasperation. She suddenly experienced an insatiable urge to take that pompous broker down a notch. What the hell had he done?

“Why don’t you question Grove directly?” interrupted Stevenson.

“He’s not to know about our meeting today.”

“We have an obligation to disclose your interest to Morgan Stanley,” blurted Stevenson.

“And interfere with a federal investigation?” Torres stared at the lawyer until he turned submissive. Then she held up her right palm, calling for attention. “Here’s how it works.”

The room went dead silent.

“I ask questions. And you answer best you can. We clear?”

Six bobble heads nodded yes. Nobody peeped.

“Good. Because our interview will go faster. And nobody wants Ms. Anders to get a stiff neck from checking her watch every five seconds.”

Fuck you,
thought Anders.

“Yes,” acknowledged Stevenson. He eyed the other lawyers to ensure they kept their mouths shut.

“Good.”

Over the next forty minutes Torres learned that O’Rourke had been with SKC for ten years. That he was a top producer in the Private Client Services division. That he had been forced into a leave of absence two years ago following a sordid murder. That O’Rourke had cleared himself of all wrongdoing. That the Boston and New York police departments had honored him for solving the murder and exposing the financial scam behind it.

Torres distrusted the police. They overlooked clues all the time. “The missing jewels,” she said to the branch manager, “were they ever found?”

“No,” replied Anders. She wished that this agent, who dressed off the rack from T.J. Maxx, would go the hell away.

“What do you mean, ‘top producer’?” Torres changed topics with no rhyme or reason. The tactic put interviewees on their heels—made it more difficult to lie. Interrogation 101 at the FBI.

“They’re stockbrokers who make the most money for our division.”

“Is O’Rourke important to the deal with Morgan Stanley?”

“His team generates twenty million a year in revenues.” Anders tried hard not to look at her watch. “But it’s O’Rourke who built the team’s business. Morgan Stanley will ask about him.”

“Yes or no?”

“He’s one of one hundred and fifty brokers. But a scandal can tank any deal,” replied Anders. “That’s why we wish you’d tell us more about your interest.”

Torres ignored the request and shook her head, feigning disappointment at the response. “Why isn’t O’Rourke here today?”

“He’s visiting a client.”

The agent leaned forward and drilled into Anders’s brown eyes. “What do you know about Palmer Kincaid and the Palmetto Foundation?”

The question took her by surprise. “How’d you know where he is?”

“I’m asking the questions.” Torres hesitated, feeling the vibration of her cell phone. She checked the LCD and said, “Let’s take a five-minute break.”

*   *   *

“Percy’s gonna shit,” one of the lawyers ventured inside the conference room. Torres was outside in the hall, taking her phone call away from the SKC employees.

“Is that your professional opinion?” Anders was in a snit. The FBI irked her. So did the five lawyers vying for airtime. Even worse, she was miffed that her brokers were getting a 50 percent retention bonus while she might rate an attaboy at best. As a manager she had no personal clients. Nobody would care if she jumped ship during the deal with Morgan Stanley.

Translation: no payola.

Anders turned to Stevenson and asked, “We need to tell Morgan Stanley, right?”

“I think we need outside counsel.”

“Five people in this room have law degrees. And you need more lawyers?”

“We don’t want to piss off the FBI,” explained Stevenson. “Or Morgan Stanley. They’ll sue us if there’s a scandal and we don’t give them a heads-up.”

“Can’t we fire O’Rourke and eliminate the problem?”

Stevenson couldn’t believe her question. “Grove’s our number one salesperson.”

“He’s expendable.”

“Since when are twenty million in fees expendable?”

“You forget Zola,” scoffed Anders. “We keep her, and we keep his clients.”

“They’re loyal to Grove.”

“His clients will stay at SKC if nobody hires him. Don’t forget, Grove is tainted goods once we fire his ass.”

“Why are you horsing around with the guy’s career?” the lawyer demanded.

“Because he’s fucking mine. If our deal blows up from bad press, it’s me who gets fired.”

“How so?”

“You know Percy,” she said. “Grove reports to me.”

“We don’t even know if Grove’s done anything wrong.”

“Call it a preemptive strike.”

“Call it a lawsuit for wrongful termination.”

“You won’t support me?”

“Based on what I know,” replied Stevenson, “no.”

“I guess we’ll have to take this upstairs.” Anders buttoned her white blouse another notch and snugged her Chanel jacket into place. She was digging in for the fight.

“Suit yourself.”

*   *   *

Torres rapped on the door and walked into a conference room full of hangdog faces. She offered no explanation for her absence, not so much as an “I’m sorry.”

There was no reason to tell Morgan Stanley about Murph’s call. The D.C. police were getting nowhere on Father Mike’s death. The detective had called to ask if the FBI had learned anything new.

“I need a history of all wire transfers to and from the Palmetto Foundation,” announced Torres, picking up where she’d left off.

“We never opened an account in their name.” Anders smirked ever so slightly. It felt good to say no to this woman.

“How do you know?”

“O’Rourke and I discussed the charity on Friday.”

“Really?”

“They asked him to join the board.”

“And did he?”

“I hope not.” Anders shot a glance at Stevenson, who shrugged. “I advised against it.”

“Why’s that? Do you know something about the Palmetto Foundation?”

“I know Grove’s board activities would be a distraction. He manages four billion in assets. He doesn’t have time for anything else.”

Torres narrowed her eyes. “Would you get me a history of all the Kincaid family’s accounts?”

Stevenson shook his head no. “Do you have a court order?”

“You really want to play it that way?”

And the lawyer, yet again, understood the threat. “When do you need the info?”

“Now would be good.”

Stevenson nodded at a subordinate to get moving.

Whereupon Torres began listing her other needs. “I need O’Rourke’s employee files and a copy of everything on his computer. Can you get it without making a fuss?”

“We’ll pretend it’s a software update.”

“Good. Do you tape phone calls? If so, I need a record of every discussion with Palmer Kincaid.”

I need. I need. I need. Torres was relentless. The four lawyers still in the room scribbled furiously until she asked for a list of O’Rourke’s clients.

“That’s confidential.” Anders crossed her arms.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We have an obligation to protect our clients,” the branch manager argued.

“Our job is to protect the firm,” countered Stevenson, staring at Anders. He clearly disagreed with his colleague.

“Where’d you say Phillips is?” asked Torres, her threat clear to everyone in the room.

“We’ll get the list of clients.” Stevenson had no desire to see the FBI interrupt his CEO.

But Anders pressed the agent for more information anyway. “Why can’t you tell us more about O’Rourke’s trouble?”

“Palmer Kincaid may have been part of a conspiracy.”

“What kind?”

“Providing material support to a criminal enterprise.”

The color drained from Anders’s face.

Three hours later, Torres left with a treasure trove of papers and electronic files. She also knew exactly how to turn Grove O’Rourke into an asset, whether he liked it or not.

Anders glanced at Stevenson and asked, “You still want to protect O’Rourke?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

BROAD STREET

Every so often, thick billowing clouds rolled through the Charleston sky like tumbleweeds from the West. They hid the sun and protected the city from its fierce rays—if only for a moment. Bong decided the cottony clouds looked just slightly out of reach on the blue mantle overhead.

He pulled his black baseball cap down, as much to escape the clammy autumn air as to stay hidden. He hunched behind the steering wheel, the car windows rolled down, and pretended to read a book.

Through black wraparound sunglasses, Bong gazed at the front door of the Palmetto Foundation. The answer, it seemed, was beckoning him from inside. The plan was the plan, the recent turn of events nothing more than a temporary complication.

“Palmer was a dick,” he reminded himself, “a loose end like that damn priest.”

The bad news was $33.5 million. Bong owed it to Moreno, a ridiculous debt to a guy who was certifiably loony tunes. This morning he had gone berserk, yet again, screaming over the phone, “You’re a fucking maggot, Bong. You’re small, blind, and worthless.”

The good news was $33.5 million. Moreno could rant and rave, threaten all he wanted. Psychopath or not, he was a businessman. He was practical. He was hard-nosed and analytical. He would not touch Bong until he got his money back.

Who am I kidding?

Bong shuddered as he recalled their conversation that morning. After the last month, he had finally blown a gasket and made the big mistake of mouthing off. “I can’t think with you threatening me every time we speak.”

“Maybe you’d concentrate better without a thumb,” Moreno shot back. “Increases blood flow to the brain.”

Claire Kincaid was just the distraction Bong needed to forget his client. She walked toward him, west on Broad, and he slumped a little lower. Claire had once offered so much promise. Now she was just another sour-assed chick.

“The bitch needs a good beefing,” he cursed to himself.

Claire walked inside the building, which was probably just as well. Bong had a business to run. And she was the wrong Kincaid.

By and by, his thoughts turned to JoJo. She was just another whore with a dazzling ass, higher priced than most, but a streetwalker all the same. He’d be doing the world a favor by cleansing the streets of her kind.

Almost like a gift from the fates, JoJo walked past the right side of his car. Holly trailed after her on the leash, long body, wirehair, short dachshund steps. Bong watched the two go by, and in a stunning instant of inspiration, understood what was necessary.

He started to open the door. He’d have to be quick.
Careful, careful,
he thought, pulling his cap lower still.

The opportunity disappeared with the same speed it had surfaced. Down at the corner of Broad and East Bay, a tall man ambled in their direction. Bong had seen that guy somewhere before. Where? He was immense, too big to forget. He walked with grace for a fat man, long elegant strides that would make ballerinas take notice.