The Trust (18 page)

There are bragging rights when you cover the CEO of your employer. He’s the king of the chessboard, the piece every player will protect no matter the cost. I was being sacrificed and had no idea why.

“It’s part of the deal.” Her words were crisp and cold. But she brushed her upper lip with a hooked forefinger, the nervous tic I had noticed before.

“That’s fucked up. Revenues are the same, whether Percy works with me or somebody else.”

Anders shrugged. “My hands are tied.”

“He agreed to this?”

“Don’t go running to him.” She leveled her stare like a 12-gauge.

“And if I do?”

“Insubordination. Our lawyers say it’s grounds for termination.”

“Is that why you met with MoFo this morning?”

“That’s none of your business.” Anders blinked and averted her eyes. The flicker lasted less than a second. But I knew. I was right. This was one of those times when I would have paid to be wrong.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Our deal with Morgan Stanley is a big win. You should be thrilled about the payday.”

“You’re taking my client. I’m not feeling the love.”

“This conversation is exactly why I don’t want you talking to their management.”

“Gershon’s team is meeting with Morgan Stanley on Monday.”

“Patty is none of your business.”

“And you’re holding back.”

I was bullshit. Ready to blow a gasket. Awareness was the only thing that saved me. Awareness of myself on the brink. Of management’s nonsense. Of MoFo’s involvement. I began to speak in controlled bursts, my words softer and softer, a steady, seething soliloquy that forced Anders to pay attention. “We all have a few clients who keep money with Morgan Stanley. If they didn’t, we probably wouldn’t want them as clients.”

“Let me say something.”

“Don’t interrupt.”

She backed off.

“Other brokers are meeting Morgan Stanley. I’m not. You’re pushing people for their paperwork. But you’re not pushing me, which is pretty fucking strange because our team generates more revenues than anybody else on the floor.”

Anders started to speak.

“Don’t interrupt.” I stared her into silence. “And now you’re telling me Percy’s account is a deal point. It doesn’t square with the facts, Katy, and I’m wondering what’s happening behind the scenes. Are you taking any other clients?”

“Everything is on the table.”

“Does this have something to do with the Palmetto Foundation?”

“Not at all. I love when subordinates ignore my instructions.” Anders sounded hard, the sarcasm sharp. But her eyes glowed like a cornered rodent’s.

“Why don’t you level with me and save the money you’re spending on MoFo?”

“I think we’re finished.”

Anders stood and folded her arms across her chest. The posture, about as subtle as Times Square, said: “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

“This thing with Percy,” I told her while leaving, “it’s not right. I don’t understand your game. But we both know it’s not right.”

“It is what it is.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

OSSINING, NEW YORK

Westchester is nothing if not affluent. Big houses. Big taxes. The county is a place where the usual suspects of wealth—doctors, lawyers, financiers—pay for a view. Though, arguably, the best vistas belong to state employees: the guards stationed atop lookout towers at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining.

The prison overlooks the Hudson, a wide stretch where riverbanks are steep and trees shoulder each other for slivers of sun. But for all the feral beauty of unruly thickets, the area is best known for jailhouse colloquialisms like “up the river,” “the last mile,” and “the big house.”

Fifteen minutes east of Sing Sing, around the fjordlike bends, reform is spiritual rather than correctional. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, blessed with a separate zip code, make their world headquarters in a fortresslike campus. Massive buildings are hewn from great beams and rough-cut stone. And were it not for the Asian motif, at least one pagoda roof, the structures would resemble their razor-wired neighbor on the Hudson.

It was Tuesday when Father Ricardo had visited the Palmetto Foundation. Afterward, I Googled the Catholic Fund, the Manila Society for Children at Risk, and Maryknoll every possible chance. That was between calls to the office, clients, and everyone else. Over the phone, Father Tom Ford agreed to meet me. A Maryknoll priest, he pushed papers for their administration.

Ossining is cycle heaven. Ordinarily, I would have thrown a bike on top of my Audi and banged out twenty-five miles after wrapping up business. That Friday afternoon, however, I was in no mood to ride. I was too preoccupied with Katy Anders, the impending merger with Morgan Stanley, and the CEO’s account that had been snatched from me.

Anders was behaving like an alien. Her job was to make nice and deliver brokers, who could generate fees and commissions to our new owner. She should have been puckering those glossy red lips, all swollen from collagen and other adventures in self-love science. She should have been kissing me square on the patoot. Because that’s what overhead line items do on Wall Street.

Anders was hiding something, that flicker of her eyes. Driving up to Ossining, I brooded about my boss. What she knew. What I didn’t. I ground through the Palmetto Foundation, my promise to wire $40 million within a week, and the sparse traffic to the Catholic Fund’s websites.

Its Internet pages looked legit. In fact, they resembled Maryknoll’s three separate websites: one for priests, one for nuns, and one for laypeople. There are three separate Maryknoll operations. But they maintain strong operating bonds and share their focus on the overseas mission activity of the Catholic Church in the United States. The Catholic Fund websites employed the same color palettes and type fonts as their Maryknoll brethren. Even the photos had the same look and feel.

The Donate buttons really piqued my curiosity. They were located in the upper-right-hand corner of most Maryknoll pages. Underneath were the words: “86½ cents of every dollar donated goes directly to our work.”

The Catholic Fund’s websites, even the ones targeting smaller cities like Spokane, included the same gold button. Not similar. The same. The graphics and shading were ditto déjà vu. Only the numbers were different. The Catholic Fund claimed that ninety-three cents out of every dollar donation went to its work.

When I finally reached Ossining, I parked my car and all my preoccupations at Maryknoll’s headquarters. I headed inside and shook hands with Father Ford. His modest office was neither spartan nor over the top. He acted like a man in a hurry, short and twitchy. I soon learned he was prone to repeating himself, as though his inner thoughts were echoing out of his mouth. He proceeded right to business.

“How can I help?”

“I’m trying to get some information, Father.”

“What kind?”

“Things you might not say over the phone.”

“I might not say them in person.” The reverend’s demeanor was guarded. Priest or not, I could see he was like any other bureaucrat. Careful.

“I may have a problem, Father. A serious problem revolving around sixty-five million dollars. One that will attract the authorities, if my fears are justified. The thing is, I don’t know if there’s really an issue. And I need information about a member of your order to understand what’s going on.”

He leaned forward, engrossed. “Who’s the priest?”

“Father Frederick Ricardo.”

“Nope. Don’t know him. Never heard of him. Sorry I can’t help.”

The speed of his staccato repetitions surprised me. “How can you be so sure?”

“Five fifty. We have about five hundred fifty priests. I know most, but nope I don’t know Father Ricardo.”

“Do you mind checking your records, just in case?”

Father Ford turned to the computer. His fingers danced over the keyboard. He blinked several times in a frenetic-little-man way, anxious to wrap up and return to his other duties. He removed his rimless glasses, fogged the lenses with his breath, and wiped them clean. “Nope, nope. There’s no Father Ricardo.”

“Dark skin. Curly hair.”

“That could be any of our missionaries.”

“Father Ricardo said this would happen.”

“What would happen?” Father Ford opened and closed his hands repeatedly.

“Maryknoll would disavow his existence.”

“Don’t know him. We’re not in the lying business. Nope, nope, that wouldn’t do.”

“Father, I don’t mean to suggest you’re lying. Father Ricardo said his job is sensitive. That his mission could embarrass Maryknoll, not to mention the Catholic Church.”

“This isn’t Missionaries Impossible.”

“What if I get you a photo?”

“What if whatever.” Father Ford spoke like a machine gun, sharp little bursts. “You can get me all the pictures you want. We don’t have a Father Ricardo, and we don’t employ shady Catholic missionaries. Won’t do it. Never have. Never will.”

I rose to leave, absolutely dejected. “Thank you for your time.”

“Nope. No operatives,” Father Ford added gratuitously, a smile returning to his face. “But we could always use some extra money to feed the hungry and heal the sick.”

“You know,” I said, turning back to him, “the Catholic Fund says ninety-three percent of their donations go toward their mission.”

“Hah!” he exhaled. “That’s rich. Rich, if you ask me. No charity’s that efficient.”

Fresh air. I needed fresh air. The walk to the Maryknoll parking lot felt like “the last mile” so infamous just around the bend. The walls were closing in, and Father Frederick Ricardo was turning more suspicious all the time. The Patriot Act says, “Know your client.”

Hell, Maryknoll didn’t even know him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EN ROUTE TO NEW YORK CITY

Somewhere on Wall Street, there’s a how-to guide for screwing employees.

Firms pay big bucks and extoll their workforces in public. “Our assets take the elevator down every night.” The expression is a tribute to personnel, spoken with reverence.

Percy Phillips, my ex-client and SKC’s CEO, refers to employees as “assets” all the time. I don’t get it. In my opinion, the word “assets” dehumanizes people. I don’t understand how comparing employees to property is some kind of compliment.

Whatever. Companies lay the legal foundation, day in, day out, to crush their “assets.” In theory, litigation is only a matter of time. Sometimes I think our entire industry is bipolar. And the two faces—what senior managers say versus what they do—make me want to gag.

You can see the “bad moon rising.” You can smell trouble all you want. But stockbrokers don’t know how bad things are until we wade knee-deep into a steaming pile of our firm’s advance preparations.

Try getting a lawyer. They all have conflicts.

*   *   *

It was 4:30
P.M.
when I called Ira Popowski from the road. He was an estate attorney, one of the best. I had referred him plenty of business through the years. And although his expertise was not what I needed, Ira was a mensch—as close a friend as billable hours allow.

“Maybe it’s nothing.”

“That bad?” he asked. There was no starting slow with him. He knew me too well.

First I told Ira how SKC had snatched the CEO’s account from me. Then I briefed him on the Palmetto Foundation, our $25 million wire, and the fact that Maryknoll had never heard of Father Frederick Ricardo, Highly Intimate Pleasures, or the Catholic Fund. “I think SKC caught wind of something. But I can’t figure what they know or how they found out. Or if my imagination is getting the best of me.”

“I bet the Feds knocked on their door.”

“The Palmetto Foundation isn’t even a client.”

“No, but Palmer Kincaid was,” Ira explained.

“Why wouldn’t my boss tell me?”

“Her job is to protect the firm, not you. If SKC thinks you’re toxic, they won’t tell you a thing. Especially given the deal with Morgan Stanley.”

Toxic?

“But the FBI should visit me, right?” I had a thousand questions. It took every ounce of self-control to hold back and listen to my friend’s counsel. “I’ll tell them whatever they want to know.”

“Not without a lawyer present.” Ira stopped talking. He was waiting for my affirmation.

“Got it.”

“And it might not be the FBI.”

“What do you mean?”

“It could be the Secret Service.”

“What’s this got to do with the president?”

“I knew you’d say that. The Secret Service protects the president. And they police our financial infrastructure, everything from counterfeit currency—”

“No way that’s the issue,” I interrupted.

“To money laundering,” he finished.

“That’s just fucking peachy.”

“But it sounds to me like you stepped on a pile of tax fraud. And the FBI is building its case.”

“How’d you get there?”

“The Palmetto Foundation received a sixty-five-million-dollar gift. It then wired twenty-five million to an organization related to the original donor. The money’s going around in circles, which sounds like a tax scam if you ask me. Maybe Palmer was providing material assistance.”

I paused a beat and said, “Right.”

“Come on, Grove. You know this stuff.”

“I was so focused on the Patriot Act, I didn’t think about the tax fraud. And what the hell is ‘material assistance’?”

“IRS for ‘You’re screwed.’”

Suddenly, I regretted my phone call to Ira. “Glad you chose law over medicine.”

“Why’s that?”

“Your bedside manner sucks.”

“Sorry. But the facts are the facts. If the FBI visited your boss, we know they went through the U.S. attorney’s office. And the U.S. attorney is the IRS’s lawyer.”

“This makes no sense, Ira. I’ve never even seen Palmer’s tax returns.”

“You’re a trustee of the offending organization. And when it comes to tax evasion, the Feds play one way.”

“Which is how?”

“They hit hard.”

Neither of us said anything. I had turned off the radio. And for a few merciful seconds, the steady hum of my tires rolling against the freeway offered a painless alternative to Ira’s cat-o’-nine-tails. But me being a glutton for punishment, I invited him to continue the flogging. “And I thought the Patriot Act was my problem.”