To Catch a Bad Guy (21 page)

The facts of the matter
were that both Lisa and Janet were in a fix, and even though Lisa had gotten
them both into the mess, she was not going to be much help getting them out of
it. Janet would have to figure a way out all on her own. She had to make sure
that innocent people did not get hurt in the Bostoff investigation, for, while
Janet had no doubts about corruptness of Jon Bostoff and Tom Wyman, she was
just as equally sure that Lisa and Jon’s brother, Paul Bostoff, were innocent
bystanders, dragged along in a scheme they had little understanding of. What
Janet was not sure of was Dean Snider’s view on the matter. Regulators were
human too. They could be just as vain and career-hungry as any Wall Street
raider. Only the regulators had the excuse of upholding the ‘law.’ She had seen
innocent people swept under the rug in the heat of an investigation by
regulators who were eager to make a name for themselves, and a man as
calculating and cunning as Dean Snider had turned out to be struck her as just
such a type.

Janet picked up the
phone and dialed Dean’s number. She knew exactly what she was going to say. She
would be brief and to the point, leaving him no ground to stand on.

“Janet?” Dean’s voice
sounded almost relieved. “How are you?”

“Hello, Dean,” Janet
replied coolly. The bugger was not going to get any small talk out of her. “I
thought about your offer, and I’m going to accept, but on one condition,” Janet
paused for emphasis. “No matter what the investigation reveals, Lisa Foley and
Paul Bostoff are not going to be implicated in any of this. They walk away free
and clear.”

There was a brief
silence on the other end of the line. “Janet, I can’t promise you that. I’m
pretty sure that I could strike a deal for Lisa, but Paul… He is the COO of the
company; he will have to be questioned.”

“This is my offer. Take
it or leave it. And mind you, I don’t even have to cooperate with you. It’s not
as though you’ve got any proof to speak of.”

“No,” Dean’s voice
turned rigid. “But if you refuse to cooperate, the conditions of the deal that
I offered you are off. I don’t believe that I need to remind you that the New
York Bar Association is most strict when it comes to licensed lawyers being
implicated in fraudulent schemes.”

Blackmailing bastard.
Janet clenched the telephone receiver in her hand, but then what did she expect
– a knight in shining armor?

“So do we have a deal?”

“For Lisa, yes, but I
can’t promise anything for Paul.”

“Fine. Let’s compare
notes on Monday.” Janet pressed the off button on the phone, barely resisting
the urge to smash the receiver against the wall.

Janet had been waiting
for Dean to knock on her door since the morning. It was four o’clock now, but
there was still no sign of him. She had not seen him in any of the usual places
where their paths had crossed so effortlessly just a week ago. He was not in
the cafeteria or the kitchen, and even when Janet ventured to the trading
floor, she did not see Dean at his desk. Could it be that the deal he had
offered her was off? Perhaps he had already found all the evidence he needed
and was sharing his findings with his boss at the Treasury this very moment. Who
knew? The Treasury might then choose to involve the SEC, and the SEC could pull
in the FBI. It all depended on how much information Dean had dug up and how
career hungry the people involved were.

Unexpectedly, Janet
found herself defending Bostoff Securities. She did not condone Bostoff’s
machinations, but she thought that Dean’s technique was equally detestable. In
fact, she thought it was much worse. Crooks were expected to act like crooks,
but those serving the law were supposed to act with dignity and honor. It did
not matter that the Treasury had obtained a court order for undercover
surveillance of Bostoff Securities and assigned Dean to the case. What mattered
was that he chose to lie to her and manipulate her emotions to get close to
her. And what made it worse was that he had succeeded. Even now that Janet knew
what a treacherous worm the man was, she could not help feeling palpitations at
the thought of seeing Dean again. At first glance, hers was a legitimate enough
emotion since Janet’s own future and that of her friend’s now rested in Dean’s
hands, but as annoyed as she was at herself, Janet had to admit that hers were
not tremors of dread, but of excitement. Despite everything she had learned
about the man, she could not squash her attraction to Dean Snider.

At four o’clock the
suspense became unbearable, and Janet headed for Dean’s desk. She needed to
know where she stood. Her pulse quickened as she spotted him behind his desk,
typing away busily on his keyboard. He was all concentration and diligence. One
would never suspect that Dean Snider was, in fact, a mole.

“Good afternoon.” Janet
flashed him a brusque smile.

“Ah, hello there,” Dean
answered with a distracted air of someone engrossed in his work.

“I am having problems
with my computer; I was wondering if you could help me with that.”

“I’ll be right there,”
Dean replied, still typing. “Just give me about twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Perplexed, Janet walked
back to her office. For someone who had been so eager to get her help, Dean
showed a startling lack of enthusiasm.

Janet closed the door
of her office and sat down behind her desk. She looked at the reports she had
been poring over all day. The orders from Impala Group continued to flood in,
and the prices of the targeted stocks were plummeting. The most prominent price
decline was in Date Magic dot com: a recent IPO that had started trading at
thirty five dollars, but was now as low as twelve dollars.

Date Magic. Janet raked
her memory. The name sounded familiar. She searched the company name on the
Internet and was instantly reminded why. Andrew Foley’s face beamed at her from
the company’s website. He was the company CEO. Normally, Janet would have said
that the sleazeball got what he deserved, but in this case Andrew Foley was not
the only victim. There were the company employees and the shareholders to
consider. The memory of Janet’s recent disturbing encounter with Andrew Foley
aside, this was a strange development. Why would Jon Bostoff want to drive down
the price of the company stock owned by Lisa Foley’s cousin? After all, they
were practically family.

Janet checked her
watch. It was twenty after four. Dean was certainly taking his time. Just then
there was a knock on her door and she nearly jumped from the tension that was
wound up inside her.

“Come in,” Janet called
out in what she hoped was a calm voice.

“Hello, Janet.” Dean
walked inside her office. She expected him to close the door behind him, but he
left it open. “What seems to be the problem?”

For a moment, she
stared at him wide-eyed, wondering whether Dean had been stricken by a severe
case of amnesia. Then she understood: he was maintaining his cover.

“Like I said, my
computer is malfunctioning.”

“Let’s have a look.”
Dean walked over to her desk and stood close to her chair – way too close for
her taste.

“I wanted to talk to
you,” Janet whispered, bewildered by the idiocy of the situation. Why was she
whispering in her own office?

“Not here,” Dean
replied, his tone even. “I’ll meet you at your place at eight o’clock tonight.”

Janet’s eyebrows shot
up from this brashness. The nerve of the guy. Did he think that along with her
cooperation in the Bostoff investigation he was also going to receive the added
bonus of getting into her bed?

“We need a quiet place
to talk,” Dean whispered, as if reading her thoughts. “You could come over to
my place instead. Or have you got any other suggestions?”

“My place is fine.
Eight o’clock. You already know the directions,” Janet conceded. At least she
would be dealing with the snake on her own turf.

“See you then,” Dean
mouthed, and then added in a loud voice. “It’s all fixed now, Ms. Maple. Once
your machine reboots, it will be good to go.”

***

At eight o’clock sharp,
the doorbell of Janet’s apartment rang. Janet went to answer the door. Dean was
standing at the threshold, a bottle of Jameson in one hand and a laptop case in
the other. He was dressed casually in a pair of jeans, Henley shirt, and a
brown leather jacket. Unlike the ill-fitted suits he wore at work, the outfit
did justice to his tall, lanky physique, making Janet do a double take.

“I think I depleted
your supply the other night,” he announced jauntily, making his way inside the
apartment.

“I don’t really drink
whiskey. It’s for the times that my neighbor visits,” Janet retorted. The guy
sure did not miss a thing.

“I’ll do better next
time.”

Janet placed the bottle
of Jameson in the kitchen cupboard. There would be no social drinking tonight.

Dean took a seat on the
couch, directing his attention to Baxter, who was barking happily at his
arrival.

Traitor, Janet thought,
watching Baxter wag his tail at Dean. Never before had Baxter’s radar been so
off.

“I think we should get
right to it,” Janet announced.

Dean placed his laptop
on the coffee table, looking at her expectantly.

Janet bit her lip,
realizing that the first person to speak was bound to be in a weaker position,
but she had set up her own trap.

“Do you promise the
terms that I’ve asked for?”

Dean nodded. “Almost
all of them. I met with my boss today and he agreed to keep Lisa out of it.
From what I’ve seen of her in action, she has no idea about the operations of
Bostoff Securities anyway, but Paul Bostoff’s role in the company is too senior
to grant him protection. Unless, of course, his brother were to say that Paul
had nothing to do with the scheme. In that case, Paul would most likely be
excluded from the investigation, but I doubt that Jon Bostoff would be that
magnanimous.”

“So that’s it? That’s
your final offer?”

“It is. And I dare say
that it’s a damn good one. Look, Janet, I know that I’m no hero in your book,
but Jon Bostoff is a crook, and Emperial’s owner, David Muller, is an even
bigger crook. The only reason we went after Bostoff was to get to Muller. We
need to prove that the two have been operating a coordinated market
manipulation scheme, and then we will be able to get the whole gang.”

“What about Creaton,
Rigel, Gemini, and Sphinx?” Janet rattled off the other hedge funds that were
prominent clients of Bostoff.

“Them too, but they are
small fish compared to Emperial. Emperial is running the shots. You worked for
the DA’s office. You used to catch the bad guys. I imagine it would not be that
difficult for you to get back into the game again.”

“I never pretended to
be someone I was not, and I never snuck behind people’s backs.”

Dean nodded. “I guess
I’ve earned that one. Look, I know you must hate my guts right now. I wish
things could be different, but they’re not. Help me with the case, and I
promise you that your employment record will remain unmarred. The same goes for
Lisa.”

“Are you going to bring
her in on the case?”

“Of course not. She’s
too close to Bostoff. Her loyalties are obvious. It goes without saying that
you must not tell Lisa or anyone at Bostoff about your involvement in the investigation.
If you do, the deal is off, and you’ll be added to the suspects list for
obstructing the investigation.”

“Gee, thanks for the
warning.” Janet dropped her face into her hands. How was she supposed to go on
sneaking behind Lisa’s back for weeks to come and live with herself?

“Janet, I know it’s
hard, but you’re getting a pretty good deal. Neither you nor your friend will
be implicated in the investigation.”

“Lisa got me a job at
Bostoff in the first place, and this is how you want me to repay her? By
sneaking around behind her back while her fiancé could face serious legal
action against him?”

“I never said this
would be easy, but let’s evaluate the facts. For one thing, if Lisa weren’t
such a dingbat, she wouldn’t be working at Bostoff in the first place. You were
there for only a few weeks and you instantly saw that things were off, so
really, it’s because of her that you’re stuck in this mess in the first place.
And as for Paul – he’s a nice enough guy from what I’ve seen of him, but he
doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to his father or brother, and sooner or
later one pays the price for being a pushover.”

“You’ve got an
explanation for everything, haven’t you?” Janet slouched in resignation. How
easy it was for Dean to justify betrayal, but then what did she expect from a
man who clearly had no moral principles?

“We could argue for
hours, but I didn’t come here to argue. I came here to ask you if you were on
board. Are you on board?”

“Yes,” Janet gave the
only reply she had the option to give.

“Good. Moving on to
step number two – developing a game plan.”

“I thought you’d never
get to that part,” Janet could not resist poking at Dean’s smugness. If Mr.
In-Control had all the answers, then why did he ask for her help? Because he
needed her, that’s why, so he’d better get used to not being the boss with her.
“These are the reports from last week.” Janet pointed to the papers she had
laid out on the table prior to Dean’s arrival. “There is a clear pattern of
orders from the Impala Group: the stocks they targeted plummeted in price. So
far, the most noticeable impact has been on Date Magic, a recent IPO that
started trading at thirty-five dollars, but closed at twelve dollars today.”

“Let’s see here.” Dean
punched a few keystrokes on his laptop. “Date Magic CEO, Andrew Foley…” He
stared at Janet. “He wouldn’t by any chance be related to Lisa Foley?”

“You never miss a
thing, do you? He’s her cousin.”

“Nature of my job. Why
would Jon Bostoff want to manipulate his brother’s fiancée’s cousin’s company
stock?” Dean shook his head. “That was a mouthful, but do you get my drift? I
think this means that Jon Bostoff is merely taking orders from Impala; he’s not
the brains behind the operation. He didn’t even bother to do the homework to
see what stocks were being targeted.”

Janet nodded. “I hadn’t
thought of that.” And indeed she had not. Well, at least things were starting
to look a little less dire. Bostoff taking fraudulent orders was still bad, but
it was not nearly as bad as originating the orders.

“Now all we need is to
find out who’s behind the Impala group, and we’ve got our case.”

“Something tells me
that Impala and Emperial are connected – if only from the fact that orders from
Emperial have dropped to almost nothing and orders from Impala keep pouring
in.”

“Yes, well, a mere
coincidence is not going to help us. We need evidence.”

“I’ve looked through
Bostoff’s legal files – nothing there. I bet Tom Wyman has all the answers we
need. If only we could get to his files,” Janet added wistfully. “But he guards
his laptop like a hawk.”

“We’ll think of
something.”

“We’ve got to. Wyman
handles all of Bostoff’s legal affairs. Lisa doesn’t know a damn thing, and
frankly, I don’t get to do much either. Wyman keeps it all under control. But
it was not always like that….”

“What do you mean?”

“Wyman’s predecessor,
Fred Rossingram, used to be the general counsel for Bostoff Securities before
Jon Bostoff started employing Wyman’s services. I found several of Rossingram’s
memos on the Legal drive. The last one was dated right about the time that Jon
Bostoff took over the business for his father.”