The Insider (22 page)

But Oliver couldn’t resist one final jab. He was a fighter by nature, and a man who could not easily control his urges. “Bill, you’ve known all along what was happening on the arbitrage desk,” he said tersely. “When I came to McCarthy and Lloyd five years ago from Morgan, that was the arrangement. You told me you wanted me to set the ring up. You instructed me to do it. You said that you had to raise money quickly, that your partners were pressuring you.”

Color surged into McCarthy’s fair cheeks. “God help me, I’ll destroy you, Oliver. If you think things look bad now, just wait.”

“Bill, we had an understanding!” Oliver yelled, ignoring McCarthy’s warning. “You said you would protect me.”

“Which is exactly what I’m doing,” McCarthy hissed under his breath, glancing toward the living room fearfully. O’Shea was nowhere in sight, but the place was probably bugged. If Andrew Gibson heard about this, there could be hell to pay. There was always the chance that Gibson might recommend to the president that he wash his hands of the entire affair and find another large donor. “I’m going to give you a very nice severance package, Oliver. You’ll be taken care of.”

“I w-want to stay at McCarthy and Lloyd, Bill. I-I’m begging you,” Oliver stammered.

“It can’t happen.”

“Bill…”

“You’ll go to jail,” McCarthy said through clenched teeth. “You’ll rot in there, do you understand me? I’ll see to it myself. And nothing will happen to me.”

Oliver knew everything that McCarthy had said was true, and it made him furious. But there was nothing he could do about it. He just had to lie down and take it like some calf being hog-tied at a rodeo. He stared at McCarthy, his mind out of control. Perhaps there was another option. The conversation he and Tony Vogel had engaged in at the Plaza Hotel suite door flashed back to him. “What kind of financial settlement did you have in mind?” he asked quietly, doing his best to control his emotions. “Tell me the amount.”

“Five million dollars.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Oliver pounded the table, furious again. “I got a five-million-dollar bonus for last year alone. Now you want to buy me out for good for that amount. I want more than five million.”

“I don’t care what you want!” McCarthy roared. “It isn’t about what
you
want. Five million is what you’re going to get, and there won’t be any negotiating. Remember, you have our other arrangement.”

“Which I may not be able to collect on for quite some time,” Oliver pointed out.

“I certainly hope not,” McCarthy muttered, making the sign of the cross over his chest.

“My partners aren’t going to be happy about this,” Oliver warned, noticing McCarthy’s gesture. Once more he thought about Tony Vogel.

“Fuck them. They’re in it up to their nose hairs. They’ll have to wait for their shares just like you,” McCarthy said defiantly. “And if they screw with me, they’ll go to jail. You tell them that in no uncertain terms, Oliver. But be sure to tell them I’ll come visit them every Sunday behind bars. Because I’m such a hell of a nice guy.” A smug smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And I don’t want to hear you crying poverty. Don’t try to tell me that five million dollars isn’t enough to support the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to. You’ve got plenty of money.” He paused. “Or should I say, Barbara and her father have plenty of money. They’ll take good care of you.”

Oliver seethed. He wanted to grab a bat and smash McCarthy’s broad face in, smash it to a bloody pulp. For the first time in his life he wanted to kill. He put his hands beneath the table and made tight fists, squeezing his fingers until he thought they would break. Finally he unclenched them and sat back, barely able to hold himself together. “Fine,” he said calmly, despite the storm raging within.

“Good.” McCarthy stood up. That hadn’t been so bad. “Next week will be your last, Oliver. McCarthy and Lloyd will announce that you and Bullock are out, a few hours after they drag Jay out of the building in chains.”

“Whatever.”

McCarthy hesitated a moment, staring down at Oliver. The man had made him millions, hundreds of millions, but he felt no compassion. Oliver had simply been a pawn, and it was time to sacrifice the pawn to protect the king. He turned and walked into the living room. O’Shea sat on a couch reading the
Daily News
. “I’m ready to go,” McCarthy announced.

O’Shea tossed the newspaper aside and stood up. “How did Oliver react?” He had learned that morning from his Washington contact that Oliver wasn’t going to be allowed to remain at McCarthy & Lloyd after Jay was arrested. O’Shea had initiated the Washington call to request that they accelerate plans to detain Jay. The young man was getting too close.

McCarthy grinned. “I’m still alive.”

Because unfortunately good things happen to bad people,
O’Shea thought. “Your car is waiting outside.”

McCarthy turned to go.

“Bill,” O’Shea called.

“Yes?”

“Make certain you’re back in New York City by the end of next week. Thursday at the latest. You’ll have to talk to the press at that point.”

“Yeah, fine.” McCarthy headed out the door toward the waiting car.

O’Shea watched him through the window, then walked into the kitchen. Oliver was leaning forward, his chin resting on the tabletop. “Head up, Oliver. Everything will be all right.”

Oliver rose up slowly and rubbed his eyes. “No, it won’t,” he replied softly. “I’ve been fired.”

O’Shea moved to the chair next to Oliver’s and sat down. “I know.”

“Of course you do,” he said forlornly. “I’m the only one in the dark. Just a puppet on a string.”

“It could be worse.”

“Please tell me how.”

“You could be going to jail.”

Oliver felt his breath becoming short. He was fighting the urge to let go. Abby’s face kept flashing through his mind. It was crazy, but all he could keep thinking was that they should have been together. He put his face in his hands. He needed that white powder so badly.

O’Shea saw Oliver’s eyes glaze over, and looked away. Even though he had come to detest McCarthy because of his callous disregard for anyone’s feelings but his own, he had also come to like Oliver. Not that Oliver was a saint; far from it. Oliver was an egomaniac like McCarthy and had committed despicable acts over the past few years, just as McCarthy had. But somewhere deep beneath Oliver’s flashy exterior and cavalier attitude was a vulnerable man who had been caught up in a bad set of circumstances. A man who desperately wanted to be good, but didn’t have the strength to fight off the evil influences and temptations constantly swirling around him.

And there was regret in Oliver. Regret for setting up Jay West, and regret for what had happened to Abby. O’Shea had learned to spot that emotion during his years with the U.S. attorney’s office, and he could see it now in Oliver’s expression. McCarthy, on the other hand, harbored no regret at all.

O’Shea stared out the kitchen window. The detectives investigating Abby Cooper’s death wanted to talk to Oliver, but because of what was going on at McCarthy & Lloyd, that conversation had been delayed. The coroner had found semen inside Abby’s corpse and the detectives were certain it was Oliver’s, as was O’Shea. He had known about the affair long ago, well before the detectives had dug up a maid at the Plaza Hotel who had seen Oliver and Abby enter the suite together several times, including one night the past week—the last night anyone had seen Abby Cooper alive. Abby had probably pressed Oliver to leave his wife that evening—they had located and read several of her discarded love letters to Oliver. He had refused Abby’s demand, and in a fit of rage she had threatened to call his wife and reveal everything. Then she had suddenly disappeared until the police had found her strangled body in the Bronx Dumpster.

Oliver had motive and opportunity, and he was already the prime suspect. The detectives were certain they had their man even though the labs hadn’t performed any scientific tests to prove the semen was Oliver’s because they couldn’t interrogate him and obtain a sample. They were champing at the bit to get at him.

“What will happen to my partners?” Oliver asked, desperation in his eyes. “The four men who have provided me tips on takeovers for the past five years.”

“I’ll call each of them down to Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, one at a time of course, and give them the come-home-to-Jesus speech.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I’ll sit them down in my office, making certain the handcuffs are obvious on my desk, and lay out everything I know about the dark side of their lives. I’ll spend a full thirty minutes describing in detail the insider-trading case I have against them. Then I’ll pick up the handcuffs, play with them for a few seconds, and continue. I’ll detail things I know about their personal lives. I’ll tell them about women I know they’ve cheated on their wives with, taxes they haven’t paid, and so on. All the usual stuff. When I’m sure I see the fear of God
and
the devil in their eyes, I’ll tell them that today is the luckiest day of their lives. For reasons they don’t need to understand, the government won’t prosecute as long as they keep their mouths shut.” O’Shea smiled. “It’s at that point that people generally fall down on my office floor and praise Jesus, no matter their religious denomination.” He studied Oliver’s puzzled expression. “What’s wrong?”

Oliver shook his head. “I don’t understand why the government would make that deal. It’s a ring that involves some very prominent brokerage houses. It would be a coup for your office. Has McCarthy really given so much money that he’s untouchable?”

“Yes. And he’s pledged to give a lot more.”

“So it comes down to cash.”

“It always does. You know that.” O’Shea checked his watch. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to the city.”

“Kevin.”

O’Shea looked up. He had heard the hopelessness in Oliver’s voice.

“Have you learned any more about the investigation into Abby Cooper’s murder?” Oliver’s voice cracked.

O’Shea hesitated. There was nothing he could say. “No.”

Oliver nodded and stood up. “Okay, I’ll get going.”

O’Shea escorted Oliver to the front door, whispered a word of encouragement in his ear, then watched him disappear into the gathering gloom.

CHAPTER 20

“This is the TurboTec Corporation. May I help you?”

“Jack Trainer, please.” Jay checked the gas station parking lot for anything suspicious as he spoke into the pay phone to the TurboTec receptionist. He had his cell phone, but he didn’t want to turn it on. He knew that if he did, the phone company could track him down.

“One moment.”

“Thanks.” Since the wild ride through the Gloucester forest the previous day, Jay had become infinitely more careful, almost to the point of paranoia. He had stayed at the Boston Hyatt the night before under an assumed name. And he was making this contact with a calling card he had purchased with cash.

“Hello.”

Jay recognized Trainer’s voice. “Jack, it’s Jay West.”

“Where the hell are you?” Trainer wanted to know.

“Los Angeles,” Jay lied, in case the line at TurboTec was tapped. “Hey, did you get any calls for me yesterday or today?” He had heard irritation in Trainer’s tone and was almost certain of the answer.

“You bet I did. Two yesterday and ten more today,” Trainer replied angrily. “People are jumping down my throat demanding to know where you are. They said you were supposed to be meeting with me yesterday or today. What the hell is going on, Jay?”

Before Jay had left New York he had considered warning Trainer about the possibility of receiving calls, but it had seemed better to leave him in the dark. “Jack, I had planned to come up and see you next week, but I mistakenly wrote down on my calendar that I was going to New Hampshire this week. I got LA and New Hampshire switched on the schedule, and the secretaries saw that and were understandably confused,” he explained. “I’m very sorry. It’s my fault.”

“The people calling here are crazy,” Trainer said, aggravated. “I mean, screaming at me. Like finding you is a life-or-death situation.”

“I’m caught up in a couple of deals with short fuses. There’s lots of money involved. Wall Street, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Trainer said, unimpressed. “So are you really coming up to see me next week? We talked about that possibility a while back, when you were first looking at investing in TurboTec.”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to seeing you. It’s been a long time.”

Jay made the appointment with Trainer but doubted he’d be going to New Hampshire the next week. His real reason for the call had been to see if people were checking up on him. There had been only two calls to Trainer the previous day, but there had been
ten
that day. Since shaking the blue sedan in Gloucester, interest in his whereabouts had increased dramatically. Perhaps he wasn’t being so paranoid after all.

He turned and began walking through the streets of South Boston, known by the locals simply as “Southie.” It was a working-class part of the city inhabited by a cross-section of ethnic populations living within well-defined neighborhoods, like squares on a quilt. Only the squares weren’t all the same size here in South Boston. At this location, Jay was deep inside Little Ireland, one of the largest squares.

That morning Jay had tracked down EZ Travel. It was located in a strip mall in Braintree, south of the city limits, and he’d spent several hours watching it. The office was staffed by four people at metal desks who helped a trickle of customers but mostly talked to each other or played computer games. Nothing unusual had happened, and he didn’t have time to waste on a dead end.

Frustrated by his lack of progress, Jay had returned to his now bumperless rental car—he’d pulled the twisted piece of metal off after getting a few miles away from the crash—and headed for South Boston. He had one more lead to check out. It probably wouldn’t amount to much, but he had to give it a shot.

The post office was located only two blocks from the gas station where Jay had placed the call to Trainer, and he found the building quickly. It was an old brick structure flying a tattered United States flag on a rusted pole. The flagpole rose from a small, dusty courtyard crisscrossed by crumbling sidewalks. Behind a tall chain-link fence topped by barbed wire he could see a dozen or so white postal delivery trucks parked in a lot to the left. He checked his watch. It was twenty to five. There was still time for someone getting off work to check mail.

Jay walked through the front door and moved over scuffed gray tiles to a tall, wide bank of boxes, quickly locating the box number that matched the address on the wire transfer Paul Lopez had brought to the trading floor Monday evening. Jay leaned down and glanced through the glass of the old-style box. There was mail inside. He moved off to a counter and pretended to be writing an address on a large label.

A few minutes before five Jay glanced at the front door. A postal employee was loitering around it, talking loudly to a woman wearing a floral print dress, alternately holding then dropping a key that dangled from a chain attached to a belt loop of his gray standard-issue pants. It was probably the key to the front door, Jay realized. A door that was about to be locked for the evening. He shook his head. Christ, he’d just wasted an entire day in Boston. Of course, he was probably unemployed by now after decking Bullock on the trading floor, so wasting a day in Boston didn’t matter. And maybe he didn’t want to go back to McCarthy & Lloyd now that he knew beyond any doubt that someone was tracking his moves and that Sally Lane wasn’t who she said she was.

The front door burst open. For a split second Jay locked onto a short blond man with piercing blue eyes and a light complexion wearing a diamond stud in his left ear, then quickly looked back down at the label on which he had been drawing aimlessly to pass the time. In his peripheral vision he followed the man to the mailboxes, then glanced around when he was certain the man had come to a stop. The man had halted directly in front of the bank of boxes that included the one corresponding to the number on the advice address. From where he stood Jay couldn’t tell exactly which box the man was opening, but it didn’t matter. None of the other boxes around the critical one contained mail. He’d checked each of them before moving to the counter.

Jay walked through the lobby to the front door and moved through it casually, trying not to draw attention to himself. When he was out of sight of those inside, he sprinted down the crumbling sidewalk and around the corner of the building. There he stopped, peered back at the entrance, and caught his breath. He had found nothing at EZ Travel, but perhaps he would now learn the answer to one very simple question: Why the hell would the advice of a money transfer from McCarthy & Lloyd to EZ Travel be sent to a post office box in South Boston, a working-class neighborhood located on the other side of the city from the travel agency?

The short blond man with the diamond earring emerged from the post office clutching several envelopes and strode directly toward the corner of the building behind which Jay was hiding. Jay turned and sprinted further down the sidewalk, then darted out into the street between a Chevy van and a green Ford. He knelt down beside the van’s front left tire. Moments later he recognized the man’s red-and-black Nikes moving past the van. He waited ten seconds, then rose slowly. Already forty yards away, the man was moving at a brisk pace despite a limp Jay hadn’t noticed in the post office.

“You got a problem or something, mac?”

Jay jumped back, startled by an older man sitting behind the van’s steering wheel smoking a cigarette. He hadn’t bothered to see if anyone was in the van. “No, sorry.” He turned, trotted to the far side of the street, and followed the blond man, staying fifty yards back, hoping he wouldn’t suddenly jump into a car and tear off.

But there was no need to worry. Five blocks later the blond man ducked into a pub located on one corner of a quiet intersection. Jay hesitated halfway down the block, eyeing the dark green door beneath a sign that read Maggie’s Place. The man might easily recognize him from the post office, but Jay knew he had to follow him inside.

It was dark inside the pub, and for the first few seconds Jay could see little after being in the bright sunshine. As he moved to the bar and sat on a wooden stool, he became aware of the reek of stale beer, the feel of sawdust beneath his shoes, and the sound of Irish music in the background.

“What’ll you have?” the stout bartender asked in a thick Irish accent.

“Whatever lager you recommend.”

“Aye.” The bartender moved away, picked up a chilled glass, and began to fill it from a tap.

Jay stared down at the sawdust on the floor beneath his stool. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim light. A few stools away two men were carrying on a loud conversation about a soccer game and seemed headed toward an argument.

The bartender returned and placed the glass of lager in front of Jay. “I think you’ll like that one.”

“Thanks.”

“That’ll be three dollars.”

“Sure.” Jay pulled a five from his shirt pocket and handed it to the bearded man. “There you go. No need for change.”

“Aye.” The bartender nodded, placed the five in an old cash register, withdrew two ones, dropped them in a plastic pitcher, and rang a gold bell loudly.

Jay winced. He could do without the fanfare. Then he noticed the red-and-black Nikes on the floor beside his stool. Jay picked up the glass and took a sip.

“Hello, Patrick,” the bartender said loudly, hands spread wide on the sticky, scratched wooden bar.

“Hi, Frankie.” The short blond man had a gravelly voice, as if there were something stuck in his throat. “Give me one of what he’s having,” Frankie ordered, pointing at Jay’s glass. He spoke with an Irish accent as well.

“Okay.”

Jay heard the conversation a few stools away becoming more heated.

“Haven’t seen you in here before,” Patrick said, turning toward Jay.

This was the moment of truth, Jay realized. He glanced into Patrick’s eyes, watching carefully for any signs of recognition. “I’m visiting a friend. I’m from out of town.”

Patrick picked up his beer and took a long drink. “Where you in from?”

“Philadelphia.”

“The city of brotherly love.”

“That’s what they call it.” Jay had noticed a distinctive rise in the man’s voice at the end of his sentence, as if Patrick had been asking a question when in fact he had been making a statement. Patrick was from Northern Ireland. An uncle who had fought in World War II with several Irish immigrants had once explained to Jay that people from the north typically ended their sentences with that distinctive rising tone, question or not.

“You look familiar,” Patrick observed.

“I doubt it,” Jay said calmly.

“Who you visiting?” Patrick asked, staring steadily at Jay. His gravelly voice had gone ice cold.

Jay felt his pulse quicken. “An old college friend.”

“Who might that be?”

“Jimmy Lynch. We went to Boston College together.”

“Don’t know him.” Patrick took another gulp of beer. “I know plenty of Lynches, some named Jimmy, but none of them went to Boston College.”

“You can’t know everybody.”

“I do,” Patrick said confidently.

Jay shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Tell me what you might be doing here, mister,” Patrick demanded.

“I told you, I’m waiting for a friend.”

For several seconds the two stared at each other. Then the front door opened, bathing the pub in bright light. The door closed quickly, and another man moved past Patrick, touched him on the shoulder, and gestured toward a stairway at the back of the bar. Patrick gave Jay a long look, then turned and headed toward the stairway. When he reached the bottom step, he hesitated and looked back at Jay once more, then finally climbed the stairs.

Jay sat on the stool for another ten minutes, sipping his beer, then walked to the small bathroom. When he reemerged he moved to a pay phone on the wall and faked a call. After hanging up the receiver, he moved back to the bar and gestured at Frankie, who sauntered over.

“Will you do me a favor?” Jay asked.

“Maybe.”

The two men a few stools away were now standing and shouting at each other. Jay glanced at them and rolled his eyes, making it clear to Frankie that he was leaving because of the commotion and not because of Patrick’s grilling, which Jay knew Frankie had overheard. “When my friend Jimmy Lynch gets here, he’ll ask for me. Will you tell him I’ve gone back to my motel?”

Frankie gazed at Jay. “I will,” he answered after a few moments.

“He can call me there. He has the number.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks.” Jay turned and headed toward the door. When he was outside, he leaned against the brick wall beside the green door and exhaled loudly. Patrick had obviously sensed that something was amiss with Jay. And Jay had sensed the same about Patrick.