Bull Street (16 page)

Whoa.
Richard shook off the image and took out his laptop, then the piles of mole email printouts, the ones he’d printed from the Sent Items folder on the netwiz.net server, and the email printouts from GCG Paris that Kathy had FedExed him.
He’d gotten so busy on Project Mary Claire, he hadn’t had much time to review them. He figured he’d work for an hour or two.

First he sorted all the mole’s emails on his computer in Outlook. That was easy. He sorted by date, sender and recipient. He offloaded them onto a flash memory stick for safekeeping. The hard copies were more work. He took a half hour to sort them chronologically. Then he decided to set up an Excel spreadsheet so he could enter and sort them, too. He manually entered them into Excel, organizing them in columns by date, sender, recipient, subject and summary message. After he got done he went back and added a few new columns: stock, ticker and volume purchased. When he finished those he decided to add in all the emails he had in Outlook on his computer. That gave him one giant database of all the mole’s emails they’d found.
Wow, 752 of them.

He looked up at the time. It was 2:00 a.m. “Damn,” he said aloud.

He went to bed, too tired to analyze the data. But a number of things had become clear while he was entering it: the emails documented trading back over four years, and started with just Milner’s deals in the first two years. And then they got more active, maybe another ten or twelve deals in the last two years. He remembered Dad, with his background writing fidelity bonds to insure banks against employee dishonesty, talking about how embezzlers worked. They started out small, went unnoticed, then got bold. That’s when they got caught. Richard figured 752 emails qualified as bold. And he and Kathy had put themselves in the middle of what the mole was up to.

N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
.
M
ILNER DECIDED
to meet with Jack and Mickey in his mezzanine office rather than downstairs in the cushy furniture in his reception area. He wanted to make it more of a formal meeting, let them know it was on his territory. He felt giddy and sad at the same time, kind of like breaking up with a girlfriend you had fond memories with but had lost the hots for: itching to move on to someone more exciting.

“Thanks for coming up, guys,” Milner said when they arrived.

Jack said, “Our most important client calls, we answer.”

Mickey said, “Happy to come, Harold.”

Jack said, “With bells on our shoes.”

Back and forth already.
Man, these guys would go on forever like this.

“I’ll get right to it,” Milner said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the Tentron deal, and I’ve decided not to go ahead.”

Jack didn’t flinch, just kept on smiling reasonably as if his dry cleaner had just told him his charcoal-gray suit wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow. Mickey was blinking and nodding his head. Mickey said, “The financing is structured and we can get it done, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I know the markets are dicey, but GCG will still finance all $6 billion of debt,” Jack said, flashing Milner a big grin.

“It’s not that.” Milner looked Jack in the eye. “I just don’t want to do it.” He saw Jack glance over at Mickey.

Mickey said, “That’s not what you led us to believe the other day.”

Milner didn’t respond.

After a moment, Jack said, “We’ve already shot a lot of juice into this one. Don’t let us down, Harold.”

Here we go. He starts with a little guilt, then let’s see where they take this.
Milner shrugged. “Sometimes the client changes his mind.”

Jack glanced over at Mickey again, who sat blinking for a moment. Then Mickey said, “We’re counting on you for this one.”

Milner shrugged again.

Jack said, “We already got capital in play here.”

“I didn’t tell you to do that.”

Mickey looked over at Jack. Jack said, “C’mon, Harold, you know that’s how it works.”

Milner shook his head. “I’m out. Done.”

“It’s not that easy,” Mickey said.

Jack said, “Yeah, we’re stuck with each other.”

“No, I’m done. You guys can keep up your little business, trading offshore on your clients’ deals, but cut me out.”

Jack said, “You back out now, we’ll take a hit. You trying to screw us?” He was leaning forward in his chair, wearing that tough-guy look Milner had seen him use to bully people.

Milner looked him square in the eye and leaned over his desk. “You guys buy the stock based on a few exploratory meetings, it’s not my problem.”

Jack said, “It’ll be a problem, trust me. We can make it awfully awkward for you if we have to.”

Milner sat up straight in his chair and scowled at him, felt a surge of anger tensing the muscles in his arms. “What’re you gonna do? Turn me in if I don’t do the deal?”

Jack glared back at Milner like he was ready to come across his desk at him.

Mickey talked over both of them. “Okay, okay, let’s calm down.” Milner didn’t say anything, just stared at Jack, who sat back in his chair. Mickey said, “You think about it. We’ll think about it.” He paused, sitting there blinking, glancing over at Jack, then back to Milner. “I suggest we make Tentron our last deal together, then part as friends.” He looked at Jack, who nodded. “Sleep on it. Then we’ll talk again.”

After they left, Milner paced back and forth behind his desk, then went downstairs and sat in his lower reception area. He felt the post-adrenaline rush sensations of strength surging in his limbs and a flutter of butterflies in his stomach. He couldn’t believe how these guys just leaned on him.
Who the hell do they think they are?

But he remembered who Jack was. When he first started doing business with him, he’d put his Devon private investigation guys on it. They’d unearthed a ton of useful information.

The razor-cut hair, manicured fingernails and form-fitting custom suits were a clever way to cover up a street tough from the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. The five public schools young Jack was bounced out of were a mystery until you understood Jack’s juvenile police record. Jack ran up a list of misdemeanors: vandalism, underage drinking and killing a Canada goose in Canarsie Beach Park. He was arrested twice for breaking and entering, but never indicted. Then his background showed a long gap, followed by a BS in business from SUNY on Long Island. He never completed night classes for an MBA from Fordham,
despite the fact the degree showed up on Jack’s bio. After dropping out of a two-year training program at Chemical Bank, he was somehow plucked by Jimmy Walker’s grandson as a vice president for Walker & Company’s corporate finance department. He went on the road selling commercial paper programs to major industrials up and down the East Coast. He made managing director by 29, and was put in charge of Corporate Finance, based on his uncanny sales skills. Milner didn’t quite know how Jack had done it.

But one thing he did know: he was dealing with a thug wrapped in a Saville Row suit. So before he acted, he would think about it. And while he didn’t see any reason to take any shit from these guys, sometimes it was better to compromise if it bought you time. He opened a Perrier. By the time he finished it, he made up his mind to take another meeting on Tentron until he could decide what to do about Jack and Mickey.

When Chuck White switched off the light at his desk in the northeast corner of Milner’s penthouse offices, it was 10:15 p.m. It was Tuesday: Lisa’s night out with the girls. By the time he drove to Chappaqua, she’d just be getting back.

With his office now dark, the lights of northern Park Avenue and the East Side of Manhattan glittered in through the windows. Halfway to the door, he stopped and looked out. While he was glad he lived up north among grass, trees and winding roads with bluestone rock walls, New York never lost its fascination for him.

As the last to leave the office for the evening, Chuck turned his key in the elevator lock when he got to the basement garage.
His Lexus LS460 was the only car remaining—the garage only held ten, the upper basement having been converted to the garage by Milner when he leased the penthouse. As he got ready to start the big Lexus, he saw a man in a dark suit approach. It surprised him, because at this hour he would only have expected to see one of the security guards. He felt a tickle of anxiety. The man motioned for Chuck to roll down the window; Chuck felt better when he saw the man smiling at him. Chuck hit the button and when the window was halfway down, saw the man reach into his suit jacket and emerge with something odd looking. Terror exploded in his brain, then the panicked urge to reach out to start the car as he realized it was a gun with a silencer pointed directly at his head. The word
No!
formed in his mind, and then everything was darkness.

Milner sighed and looked out the window of Wilson, Sharts & Devane, his law firm’s conference room in the MetLife Building. He looked down at his office in the Helmsley Building across 45
^th
Street. He’d rather be over there. Hell, he’d rather be anyplace than here right now.

“Shot in the temple through the open car window,” Sandy Sharts said.

“The police say it was clearly a professional job. Assassination style,” Milner said.

Sandy continued, “I have to ask. Do you think this had anything to do with your business?”

Milner didn’t want to let his mind go there. But with Jack and Mickey leaning on him about the Tentron deal…He hadn’t told Sandy about that meeting yet. “It’s hard to believe,” Milner said.

“Can’t be a coincidence. If we found out the Feds are making noises, somebody else may have. And then your CFO, the numbers guy who keeps all your tallies, knows where all the bodies are buried, shows up dead.”

The most Milner could do was nod. He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it aloud. But even nodding caused a stinging spasm of guilt to wrench his chest.

Sandy said, “Or maybe your friends aren’t about to let you waltz out of their lives so easily.”

How could Sandy piece that together so fast? It forced Milner to think two steps ahead.
Or maybe they’re worried about taking a fall and they’re covering their tracks. Maybe I’m next.
He couldn’t just sit around waiting to find out.

Milner bent down to pass underneath the yellow crime scene tape the cops had stuck to the front of Chuck’s office. He decided he couldn’t wait until they were done and out of there completely. The forensic team was basically finished anyhow; after two full days at it since Chuck’s murder, they’d only been here for about an hour today. Not much chance they’d be back this afternoon. Still, Milner felt his pulse throbbing and an airy sensation in his chest.

He looked around the office.
Man.
It looked like they’d stripsearched the place. They left desk drawers open, showing all the files missing, cables and power cords strewn on the floor, scraps of paper around. Chuck’s desktop computer had been removed, showing a dusty rectangle on the glass desktop.

Milner sat in Chuck’s chair and spun it around to face the credenza. He pulled out the bottom credenza drawer all the way,
lifted it out onto the floor. He got down on his knees, reached in, and pressed on the side in the back of the credenza where the drawer had been. The false back opened, and Milner pulled out Chuck’s hidden files. He poked around with his hand for the laptop computer Chuck always kept in there. It was missing. He got back up, sat at Chuck’s desk and put the files down. He thought about it. Chuck’s laptop contained all his private spreadsheets and records.

He opened the top file. As Milner expected, it was a raw accounting of all Milner’s cut of profits from Walker’s trading ring. Chuck always received the data hand-passed from the Walker guys, cryptic stuff buried in deal pitches and memos. Chuck’s calculations and confirmations of the accounting were in spreadsheets compiled on Chuck’s laptop. Had they taken it from his car?

Now he remembered. The day before he was killed, Chuck had said he’d forgotten to bring the laptop into the office after the weekend.
So where is it?

Back in his office, Milner clenched his jaw with resolve, then, he realized, anger, as he thought about Chuck and laid out a half dozen of the papers from Chuck’s files on his own desk.

He worked into the evening, pulling out his old HP 12c calculator and adding by hand the rows and columns he’d written on a spreadsheet from the raw numbers in Chuck’s files. He confirmed they summed to within $15,000 of his cut from Walker’s trading ring. Close enough.
So all the records are here.
Could it be that’s what the guy who killed Chuck was looking for? He decided he needed to find Chuck’s laptop to see if that held any answers. Then he thought of Chuck’s wife, Lisa. He hadn’t visited her since Chuck’s murder, but if his phone call to her was any indication, it wasn’t gonna be fun.
Man, I’m not looking forward to this.