“So?”
“So, Rugged’s trading looks odd on the last few days of November and December.”
“What do you mean, odd?” Romanov asked, feigning boredom and looking at his watch.
“Alex, you’re absolutely right,” I started, the sarcasm building in my voice. “ ‘Odd’ is too delicate. ‘Manipulated’ is the better word.”
Romanov glared. No boredom now. His black eyes punched holes into me. He clenched his fists and relaxed, clenched and relaxed.
“Large blocks traded at the end of those months,” I continued. “They moved the stock price up twenty-one percent in November and thirty-one percent in December.”
“I hope you understand what you are saying.” He rubbed his right fist.
“Oh, I understand all right. You own nine-point-five million shares of Rugged Computers. See the number.” I pointed to the portfolio printout in order to confirm the veracity of my words.
Alex looked and listened without expression.
“Your shares, Alex, equal twenty-two percent of the company’s outstanding stock. And you didn’t file a 13(d). You got a problem.”
Romanov never blinked. He spoke softly and evenly, his voice in control: “Come on, Sam. Let’s leave Sherlock Holmes to his lunch.” He motioned to get up. I was losing. He was not biting.
“Sit down,” I barked. “I’m not finished.” Across the aisle four people stopped eating midfork. They gawked at us. I leaned back, lowered my voice, and stated, “Charlie knew.”
Sam squeezed Romanov’s shoulder, gently, tenderly, and beckoned him to sit. Her eyes narrowed, cold, hostile, and callous. Flecks of blue peeked through the tight slits. That look, the scorn, the steel, told me everything. I saw guile and cunning. Sam had never been wily at Wellesley. She was prone to forgetting dates. Nor had she been devious during marriage. There was no need. Charlie showered her with attention and presents, anything to stave off the private demons that accompanied his secrets. If anything, Sam had always been open and innocent.
That’s why Evelyn liked her.
In that look I saw a survivor and a schemer. Sam had forged an alliance with Alex Romanov. She made her bed. Her eyes, the cobalt razors, told me everything. Her pregnancy was anything but an “immaculate conception.” Charlie was sterile. She was carrying the Mad Russian’s baby.
“What do you mean Charlie knew?” she asked, tugging at her bra strap.
“Charlie had his own problems. Didn’t he, Sam?”
Romanov replied for her: “What are you saying, Grover?” He stopped rubbing his fists. He put his elbows on the table, folded his hands loosely in the shape of prayer, and rubbed the tip of his nose with both index fingers. He glared venomously over the cathedral of digits.
Turning back to the Mad Russian, I said, “Charlie didn’t start out bad. I doubt he ever intended to cheat anyone. At the beginning, that is. But his mistakes consumed him. That’s the problem with Ponzi schemes. There’s never enough money. However you disguise them, fund of funds or high-interest notes, they always collapse. Right, Alex?”
Romanov said nothing. He watched impassively. No emotion. Sizing me up. Checking for weaknesses. Circling, a boxer ready to jab. He finally asked, “What does this have to do with me?”
“Charlie wanted out,” I replied. “He needed a windfall. All the scrambling to find new investors took its toll.”
Susan Thorpe threatened him.
“Is there a point here?”
“You were the exit, Alex. You have the big returns.” Impersonating his voice, I said, “We are maniacally obsessed with value.”
“You don’t like MRI’s sales pitch?” he sneered, his words vocal acid.
“Triple-digit returns hide plenty of sins. Charlie could invest with you until he accumulated enough money. He’d probably show gains, ten percent, maybe even twenty. Who knows how much? I know one thing. The gains he reported would be less than yours. That way he could build up cash to pay investors.”
“Nice theory, Grover. But your facts are all wrong. Charlie never put a dime into MRI.”
“Maybe not, Alex. But Charlie found you out.”
“There’s nothing to find out.”
“Give me a break. Charlie was no member of Mensa. Me either, for that matter. But he sniffed out your twenty-two percent position in Rugged Computers.”
While the SEC was out to lunch
, I added mentally.
“Too much television, Grover.”
“You’re marking the close, Alex. Charlie knew it. He wanted a piece of the action. That’s when things got out of hand.”
“Too much
CSI
,” Romanov said.
“
I prefer
Law & Order
.”
Every top producer understands body language. The skill makes us good at our jobs. And we universally agree that eyes reveal what prospects think. Eyes are the first to betray discomfort or even deceit. Sam had the look before, the cobalt razors. Now Romanov blinked. With that involuntary flutter, he confirmed my instincts were right.
“The police can figure out who actually tossed Charlie in the tank,” I continued. “But three things are for sure. You planned it. You killed him just as sure as the sharks ate him. And you’re finished.”
They stared speechlessly.
“Was it worth it, Alex?” I asked, cocky on the outside, not so on the inside.
Sam spoke instead: “Let’s get lunch, Alex.”
No wonder they want fish
, I thought, remembering the aquarium sharks.
“Yeah, Dad,” I taunted, “let’s get lunch. But if I were you, I’d bag Le Bernardin and find some shashlik. You want to start baby out right.” Shashlik was a type of shish kebab popular in countries that had once comprised the Soviet Union. I nodded at Sam’s belly, playing my ace.
“I think you’re confused, Grove,” said Sam, still fiddling with her bra strap.
“Rita might say otherwise.”
“Who?”
“The great thing about Charleston,” I replied without answering Romanov’s question, “is that we stick together. It’s cliquish as hell down there. But leave town and we’re all brothers and sisters.”
“Who’s Rita?” Romanov snapped.
“Rita Pinckney was in Charlie’s Outlook. Tell him about your nurse, Sam. You weren’t the problem. You lied about the fertility drugs.”
Wham bam, take that, Sam.
Romanov observed without emotion. Fear welled in Sam’s eyes. She never could handle confrontations.
“Rita and I are buddies,” I continued. “I got the life story: Bishop England, College of Charleston, and she lived in a carriage house on Hasell while attending the Medical University of South Carolina. No toothpaste in the tube, Sam. Charlie was sterile.”
“She told you that?” Sam asked.
“Sperm out of luck.”
“Be quiet,” Romanov counseled Sam, his words succinct, clipped, and careful.
“Hey, it’s my job to open people up. It’s what advisers do.”
Sam said nothing and averted her eyes. Her left hand rested on Romanov’s shoulder, a subconscious effort to absorb his strength. Weak body language, according to the strategy handbook of all top producers, was a clear signal to probe further.
“Was Alex worth it, Sam?” I wanted to shake her. “Were you getting even? For the way Charlie liked boys? For the way he pissed through your parents’ money? I never heard you say no to all the jewels.”
“I told you, Grove. They’re gone.” The shaky timbre of her voice sounded like she might crack.
Romanov, gazing out the window, interjected calmly, “No more, Sam. It’s under control.”
This time I turned to the Mad Russian. “What? Are you tossing me in a fish tank, too? You’re finished.”
“Perhaps,” he acknowledged, and cocked his head, looking at me through hateful black eyes. “Perhaps not.”
In the din of the diner, blinded by the moment’s fury, I had not seen anyone approach. Two strapping men now loomed over our table. I recognized both instantly, Key Lime and Hummer Guy. Bile and breakfast, the backwash of terror, scrambled the words in my throat.
“You remember my friends, Yuri and Viktor,” Romanov asserted more than asked.
The one who had ridden the key-lime Vespa scowled. He said nothing. He still had a welt from the frozen water bottle.
“Grover, push over for Yuri,” Romanov commanded, “and let’s finish our talk.”
Yuri screwed his face into a sanity-challenged smile and stuck it close to mine, cocking his head at an odd angle. Invasive. Aggressive. I thought our noses might bump. His warm breath, a moist mixture of secondhand garlic and something raising hell with his digestion, bullied back the kitchen odors. I flinched from either stench or proximity to his face, probably both. Yuri grinned smugly, aware that halitosis had just kicked my ass. He pulled away
and squashed awkwardly into the booth, shaking the tabletop with his barrel chest as he slid across the bench.
“Are you sure Borscht Breath will fit?” I pronounced “borscht” to sound like “boar shit.”
“I wouldn’t upset Yuri,” Romanov warned. “You’ll pay later.”
My heart threatened to thump out of my chest. It was time to slow things down.
Our waitress, AWOL for the last five minutes, arrived with order pad in hand. Service was that way at the Red Flame. She surfaced just as the executive with the laptop squeezed past Viktor, the one-man traffic jam previously known as Hummer Guy. Next to him, the waitress and the executive both looked tiny. “Have you decided?” the woman asked.
“No,” Alex replied flatly.
“What do you mean?” I protested in a voice loud enough for other diners to hear. “I’m starved. I’ll have the mozzarella sticks, two cheeseburgers deluxe, a Popeye salad, and your plate of twenty-one fried shrimp. Medium rare on the burgers. Extra pickles. And hold the tomatoes. If you could hustle some potato skins and stuffed grape leaves in the next few minutes, I’d be thrilled. Got any grits?”
The executive looked back over his shoulder and turned in full, a double take for the ages. He flashed the thumbs-up sign. It looked like a nonverbal celebration of my appetite. I knew better.
The waitress did not write. Instead, she asked, “You sure?” She spoke in a monotone, no surprise in her voice but loads of exasperation. She was a veteran, battle tested through the years by demanding diners. She had seen and heard everything. “You sure?” she repeated, cocking her ear to be certain.
“You’re right,” I chirped. “Make that three cheeseburgers deluxe.”
“With wheels?”
“No. We’re eating here.”
Something hard and blunt jabbed my hip. Dull pain dashed from my right side over to the coccyx, up through the spine, and landed in my brain, where it instructed my mouth,
Shut up
. I winced but did not gasp. I looked down to see Yuri ramming a pistol into me under the cover of the table.
He grinned. His expression confirmed the message from my hip:
Shut up.
Romanov instructed the waitress, “Make his order to go. Nothing else.”
“Whatever.” She turned and left.
Looking at Yuri’s pistol, I wondered whether the confrontation had been smart. The gun, though small in his meaty hand, looked like a damn bazooka. He jabbed harder, and I winced again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Ira Popowski had instructed his secretary to hold all calls. He sat alone in his office, surrounded by degrees cluttering the walls: Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia. Stacks of paper occupied every square inch of flat surface. It looked like a cat-five hurricane had filed his legal briefs. He remained oblivious to the chaos, his eyes riveted to a computer. Its screen barely peeked over a pile of family foundation documents.
“You should have called me,” he muttered under his breath. The images, three people, then five, were grainy and distant. He recognized Sam Kelemen. He would have known her anywhere. He heard every word from the group. And the conversation angered him.
Several blocks away in the hallowed halls of SKC, Annie recognized the back of my head. She would have known me anywhere, my red hair and triangular noggin. She leaned forward, her blue-green eyes plastered to a flat-screen monitor.
“What possessed you?” she asked incredulously.
Zola watched over Annie’s shoulder. “I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed hoarsely, the words rumbling from her throat. “MRI’s investors are toast.”
Chloe removed her headset. She peered directly at her computer display, concentrating hard not to miss anything. “Oh” whooshed from her mouth. She had never really intended to speak. The word just happened. She cupped her mouth, both hands stifling further outbursts.
The phone rang on Chloe’s line. It rang on Annie’s line. It rang on Zola’s line. It rang and rang and rang. Somebody wanted to trade. No one answered. No one cared.
On the same floor but at the opposite end of the building, Kurtz eyed his twenty-one-inch displays, two of them, one on top of the other. The huge screens could show stock quotes, Excel graphs, CNBC, Outlook, photos, Google, Adobe documents, and Bloomberg all at once. No cramping. No fussing with window sizes. The massive screens could hold everything comfortably. Kurtz gaped at the Web images in the right corner of the bottom screen and listened intently to the words pouring from his computer speakers.
“Call them and cancel,” he heard. The words caught his attention. He would recognize my smart-ass repartee anywhere.
“What were you thinking?” He cut nothing but air, over and over with his double-blade guillotine.
