Curious Minds (3 page)

Riley blew out a sigh and got out of the car.

They took the elevator to the lobby, she carded them past the reception desk, and they rode the next elevator to the top floor, the exclusive domain of the senior executives. The average junior analysts had never even seen the seventeenth floor, condemned as they were to spend their days in the rat's nest that was the fourth floor. Riley had visited this floor as an intern. That she had made it up here again, first thing on her second week of real employment, had seemed to her like a significant vote of confidence. That was at nine o'clock this morning, and now a little over two hours later she was thinking this might not have been a good career move.

Emerson left the elevator without the slightest hesitation, seemingly oblivious to the blindingly white high-arching walls or the huge, expensive abstract art that was hung there. The whole place reminded Riley of the inside of the Death Star after Grand Moff Tarkin had taken over. The interior of the Death Star, like the seventeenth floor of Blane-Grunwald, was designed to awe and subdue.

Clearly it would take more than the Death Star to subdue Emerson, Riley thought. Whether this was due to his privileged upbringing or his own basic weirdness, she couldn't guess, but his attitude gave him an air of invincibility.

Emerson marched straight for Werner's office, and Riley made an end-run around him in an attempt to head him off. She stumbled past Emerson, crashed into the door, and careened into the office.

Werner Grunwald looked up from his desk at Riley's unexpected entrance. “Ah, Riley,” he said, with a smile, “did you take care of our reclusive client?”

Emerson breezed past her into the room. “Your client is right here,” he said. “And he's concerned.”

I
f Werner was disturbed by Emerson's appearance, his smiling face didn't show it. He looked to Riley for an explanation.

“He wanted to see you,” Riley said.

“Yes, I did,” Emerson said. “And, by the way, Miss Moon has a very poor parking space. You should do something about that.”

Riley groaned inwardly but kept her professional demeanor. Werner made an effort to look appropriately horrified by the news.

“Of course,” Werner said. “I'll personally look into it.”

Werner's office occupied the entire west side of the building with a view of the Capitol filling the broad window behind his massive desk. It was furnished in Danish Modern, the only personal touches being photographs of Werner and various political and media celebrities hunting and fishing and generally killing things.

Werner had a full head of gray hair, cropped short on the temples, a little shaggy on the top. Riley knew it took a skilled barber to make a haircut appear that effortless. The result was that he looked like George Clooney crossed with Cary Grant, which, Riley had to admit, was a good cross. Today he was wearing a perfectly tailored dark blue suit, custom white shirt with his initials embroidered on the cuff, and a blue and silver silk rep tie that reeked of good taste and money.

“It's so good to see you, Emerson,” Werner said, rising from his executive office chair, offering him a hearty handshake. “Have I told you how deeply your father's death has affected all of us?”

“Yes. At his funeral. Several times. But nice of you to reiterate it.”

Emerson took a seat at the round table by the window. The view of the Capitol was breathtaking, but Emerson took no notice of it.

“Mr. Knight has some questions,” Riley said.

Werner took the seat opposite Emerson. “Of course he does. And I don't blame him. I'm familiar with the Knight account and would be happy to jump in.”

Werner moved into full salesman mode and proceeded to fill the air with such double-talk and gobbledygook that even Riley had trouble following it, and she had a degree from Harvard Business School.

“I'm not interested in hedge funds, venture capital, or fixed income portfolios,” Emerson said, interrupting Werner's dissertation on the world economic system. “I want to see my gold.”

Werner leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

“I'd like to see my gold,” Emerson said. “I'm thinking of moving it.”

“Of course,” Werner said. “I'll make arrangements and we'll get back to you.”

“Now,” Emerson said. “I want to see it now.”

“Even
I
need to make arrangements to get into the vault,” Werner said. “It's very secure. In the meantime, is there anything else I can do for you? Would you like tickets to a ball game? We have a hospitality suite for the Redskins.”

“I'm also interested in Günter. And where he's gone,” Emerson said. “I haven't been able to speak with him for some time.”

“Günter isn't a typical Grunwald,” Werner said. “He's a bit of a free spirit.”

“That may be the case,” Emerson said, “but I've done a small amount of investigating and the results are intriguing. From what I can determine, Günter has been missing for at least a month. Irene Grunwald filed papers to gain power of attorney for the joint property owned with her husband. She informed the court that said husband, Günter Grunwald, was missing. Oddly, Mrs. Grunwald never filed a missing persons report with the police.”

“Irene might have a small drinking issue,” Werner said.

“I turned up more missing persons,” Emerson said. “Yvette Jaworski, a key Blane-Grunwald employee, went missing two months ago. Hasn't been seen since. Two people in a firm that employs thirty-one thousand seven hundred worldwide? Not statistically significant. But interesting. Also, there have been two suicides of high-profile Blane-Grunwald executives in the past month. One in Tokyo, one in London. Both leapt from their office windows. Both men worked in the division that handled commodities, like gold. As did Yvette Jaworski.

“It's a stressful job,” Werner said. “How did you come upon this unfortunate news? Do you have a contact within the firm?”

“I have a contact within the Internet,” Emerson said. “And the ability to focus my mind with laserlike precision on any subject.”

Riley thought the laserlike focusing was in the ballpark of the mind-clouding disappearing act. A little out there, but what the heck did she know? There were people who could lower their blood pressure and sleep on nails, right? Maybe she should ask Emerson if he could sleep on nails.

“There's something else,” Werner said. “I'm telling you this in utter confidence. There have been some improprieties in our bookkeeping.”

“You mean embezzlement,” Emerson said.

“That's the layman's term. But I assure you, all the misappropriated funds have been identified and replaced.”

“And did this misappropriation coincide with Günter's disappearance?”

“Yes.”

“And did it involve Günter's clients?”

“Some of them.”

“Me, for instance?”

“Yes, but as I said, as soon as the discrepancy was identified, the money was replaced.”

“How long did that take?”

“Six hours,” Werner said, his face a mask of remorse.

“That's rather fast.”

“We keep a close eye on our clients' portfolios.”

“How much was appropriated by the misappropriation?” Emerson asked.

“The culprit took only a small amount from a limited number of clients,” Werner said.

“The amount?”

“One hundred thousand dollars from each client.”

Riley had to remind herself that she was living in a world where a hundred thousand dollars was a small amount.

“And you're thinking that your brother absconded with these funds and disappeared?”

Werner nodded grimly. “It appears that's what happened.”

“How many clients were involved?” Emerson asked.

“Six.”

“How much is Günter worth? Conservatively speaking.”

“I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” Werner said.

“When his wife sued for power of attorney. How much was at stake?”

Riley thought she saw a flash of anger in Werner's eyes. And then it was extinguished.

“Approximately ninety million dollars,” he said.

“Ninety?”

“Approximately. Most of that comes from the family holdings.”

Emerson focused on Werner's face with what Riley could only call laserlike precision.

“You're telling me that Günter left ninety million dollars behind and ran off with a paltry six hundred thousand?”

“I know it seems strange. But Günter's wealth is tied to this firm, to his family, to his wife. If he wanted to make a clean break, to get off on his own, he might have felt he needed to…”

“Misappropriate?”

“There's no telling what he was thinking. Günter had been going through what I suppose you'd call a ‘midlife crisis.' He'd been acting strangely, disappearing for days at a time, missing work, going off on his own for long weekends.”

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,” Emerson said, “we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

Werner looked a little uncertain at that. “Yes. I think he just went off the deep end.”

“With six hundred thousand dollars? Why wouldn't he take more?”

“Maybe it was all he could get his hands on, on short notice.”

“But why the short notice? If he ran off, he could do that at any time, on his own schedule. Was something pressuring him?”

Werner laid his hands, palms up, on the table. “We just don't know.”

Riley tried to restrain herself, but the question just couldn't be held in. “Have you gone to the police?”

Werner looked at her. “You're familiar with my family?”

“Of course,” Riley said. “Siblings who occupy the highest seats of power in America. You and your brothers are called the Three Musketeers of Twenty-First-Century America.”

Werner nodded. “Problem is, there are four of us.”

Riley knew the story. The Grunwald brothers had grown up in Washington, the sons of the legendary Bertram Grunwald, the Harvard professor who went on to become chairman of the Federal Reserve and who raised his sons to excel at all costs. Professor Grunwald died seven years ago, having succeeded in pushing his boys beyond his or their wildest dreams.

Werner graduated at the top of his class at Princeton and went on to conquer Wall Street. Scaling up the corporate ladder of the stodgy old banking concern of Blane Brothers, he had transformed it into one of the most powerful investment firms in the world. Before he'd reached fifty, he had added his name to it and made it his own personal fiefdom.

More impressively, there was Hans, who had gone to West Point. He had distinguished himself in the field and became commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Two years after he achieved the rank of four-star general, he'd been picked to run the National Security Agency. This was one of the few appointments made by the current administration that had sailed through Congress without a murmur of protest.

As if running the NSA and one of the world's major banks wasn't enough for the Grunwald family, there was Manfred Grunwald, the judge. Manny graduated with honors from Yale Law School. He served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist before starting his own law firm. Now Manny was about to be sworn in as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

The Grunwalds had conquered America.

Except for the youngest brother, Günter.

Günter hadn't gone to Yale or Princeton or West Point. Günter had gone to Northwestern. He went on to be a successful trader on Wall Street and had been hired by his brother to work at Blane-Grunwald, where he had made millions as head of the Investment Management Division.

Millions, not billions. Head of a division, not head of an empire. A success, not a legend. When Riley googled Günter Grunwald, all she got was information on his brothers.

“You might say that Günter is the black sheep of the family,” Werner said with a sigh. “The underachiever.”

“And now, apparently, the felon,” Emerson said.

“ ‘Felon' is such a harsh word,” Werner said. “And this is a very delicate matter. My brother Manny is about to be sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.”

“And this would be a bad time for a scandal to break?” Emerson asked.

“The worst time.”

“So Günter gets to disappear with impunity.”

“Not impunity,” Werner said. “We would like to bring him back here, but without the involvement of law enforcement or the press.”

“In other words, without anyone knowing about it,” Emerson said.

Werner rose, indicating that the meeting was concluded. “Yes, I suppose that covers it.”

Emerson nodded decisively. “All right, I'll do it.”

Werner looked surprised. “Do what?”

“I'll help you find Günter.”

Werner looked around the room. He was apparently so confused he even looked to Riley for clarification.

“I don't think Mr. Grunwald was asking for your help,” Riley said to Emerson.

“Of course he was. Why else would he tell me all this? In fact, I'm quite good at finding lost things. Not my keys or the television remote, but other things of more interest. My high school aptitude test scored me very high as a finder of lost objects. And I once found a man bobbing about in the Indian Ocean.”

Emerson stood, stuck his hand out, and Werner, looking a little dazed, mechanically shook it.

“If you feel I need to be compensated for my time you can make my payment out to your favorite charity,” Emerson said to Werner. “I assume Günter's office is next to yours?”