by James A Ross
Sharp started to wag his head. Then he stopped. “At first he did. But then he always wound up chasing his own tail about who we should help and who we shouldn’t. There’s a lot of competitive jealousy in the research business. A couple of times we wound up turning away business when we really needed the cash. That’s no way to keep the doors open. So in the end, I just made those decisions myself.”
Sharp’s candor was making his lawyer visibly uneasy. “Why don’t we take a break for a few minutes?” he suggested. “I need to hit the men’s room and have a chat with my client.”
Sharp remained at the table. “You go ahead, Walter. I’m fine. I’d like to get this over with. Go on, Sheriff.”
“Tell me where you were last Saturday evening between the hours of ten P. M. and midnight?” Joe’s voice was steady, almost bored.
“What!” Sharp’s lawyer bleated. “My client isn’t a suspect here. And you have no jurisdiction to be asking those types of questions.”
“Home in bed, Sheriff, watching the Yankees on television.”
“Alone?”
“Alas.”
“Sheriff Morgan, if you’re going to pursue this line of questioning, I’m going to have to end this interview. Mike, I really have to insist.”
“Where is U- Labs located?” Joe continued.
“Somewhere near Montreal,” said Sharp.
“Mike!”
“It’s okay, Walter.”
“And how did these petri dishes or whatever arrive? Were there customs declarations and so forth?”
“Actually, the stuff usually just came in the mail.”
“From Canada?”
“No, from this side. Sometimes right from Coldwater.”
Sharp’s lawyer was perspiring visibly.
“How’s that?” asked Joe.
“Canada is only about thirty or so miles from Coldwater, right? Dr. Hassad probably just had someone pop over on a lunch break and put it in the mail.”
“Isn’t that somewhat… irregular?” Joe asked.
“No. I’d say VIP posting is the norm in our business.”
Joe lifted an eyebrow.
“‘Vial-in-pocket’,” Sharp explained. “Look, Sheriff, scientists are just like everybody else. They don’t like paperwork and they don’t like hassles.”
“You’re telling me that there are vials and petri dishes being walked across the U. S. /Canada border and just dropped in the nearest mailbox?”
“All the time. Occasionally, Dr. Hassad sent someone over, if it was something he thought needed special handling.” As he said this, Sharp paused, closed his eyes and tilted his head up and to the left. When he opened them he said, “Let me see that photo, again, Sheriff.”
Joe removed the blown-up copy of Billy Pearce’s driving license from the folder on his lap and handed it to Sharp.
“This guy came, once. I remember him now. He was a real prick. Parked his truck in the handicapped parking spot. Came in with a boom box blasting. Told everybody to get the hell out of the mail room. And he smelled, too. I called Dr. Hassad after that and told him to send someone else next time or find a new distributor.”
While Joe scribbled a note, Tom asked, “You said that you thought your partner wanted to buy you out so he could get back to basic research?”
“That’s right. The burn rate on our cash was pretty steep and I think Dave was getting kind of tired of the nonstop fundraising gig. He was on the road three days a week at least. We had a bunch of arguments about scaling back research to meet cash flow. I think Dave just got tired of the whole profit and loss side of the business.
Maybe he found an investor, or maybe he hooked one of the big drug companies. But at the silly price he was offering, I wasn’t going to ask.”
* * *
Tanner Hartwell, the senior managing partner at Tom’s law firm, and two other lawyers were waiting in a conference room when Tom arrived. A row of fat document boxes covered the table in front of them. Hartwell was a slightly stooped six foot one, the same as Tom though a quarter century older. He extended a long fingered hand, bound at the wrist by a slim Cartier tank watch. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I believe you’ve already met Stuart. This is his associate, Charles Adams.” Tom shook hands with the balding compliance partner and the young associate who looked like he might have passed up a career in professional football. “Charlie, why don’t you show Tom those documents.”
The associate opened a series of red wells and velo-bounds stamped with the logo: Greater Cairo Infrastructure Project. He handed Tom one of the volumes, opened to the signature page and pointed to Thomas Morgan, Esq., attorney-in-fact.
“Do you remember this deal?” Hartwell asked.
“Vaguely,” said Tom. “That must have been fifteen years ago. I would have been a young associate, like Charlie here, working on pieces of fifty different deals. But if I recall correctly, it was an Egyptian public works project funded by the U. S. Agency for International Development. The partner in charge got me involved because Egyptian commercial law turns out to be based on the Napoleonic code.”
“Because you read French?”
“That’s right. Egyptian civil courts don’t publish judge-made case law the way American courts do. They look to the French code and cases the same way we sometimes look to British common law.”
“And how did you wind up signing for this Societia de Electrification Cairo?”
Tom examined Hartwell’s face for a sign, but the senior partner waited patiently with pen poised over notepad, giving away nothing. “The closing was supposed to be at some air-conditioned hotel in downtown Cairo. At the last minute, the Egyptian sponsor decided to do the signing as a photo-op at the job site, two hours out into the desert. A couple of the older guys weren’t up for that, so I offered to stand-in with a power-of-attorney. Professional courtesy.”
“So this company you signed for wasn’t a client of the firm?” Hartwell asked.
“No. All of the equipment manufacturers supplying the project had offshore construction subs. That one belonged to one of the others. Not our client.”
“I see,” said Hartwell, making a bold box and check mark on the yellow legal pad. “Stuart, Charlie, you can leave Tom and me here to chat. We may not need to go through the rest of these boxes, after all.”
The two men left the room quietly. Tom felt the cloth under his arms dampen with sudden sweat. “So what’s this all about, Tanner? I’m not getting a good feeling.”
“Politics,” said Hartwell succinctly. “There’s a mid-term election next year. The parties are starting to look around for mud balls to sling.”
“And there’s mud in those boxes?”
“There might be.” Hartwell pressed a hedge of large upper teeth into a thin lower lip. “I got a call from a source in the Manhattan DA’s office who owes the firm a favor. Our Democratic governor’s instructed his appointees in Albany to jump on this Eurocon thing to see if they can snare some down-state Republicans.”
“With a decade-old subcontract on a Middle East construction project?”
“You can dig clear through to China if you’ve got enough shovels.”
“What did they dig up here?”
Tanner paused, as if deciding what, if anything, to reveal. “You’re right about the ownership of that construction sub you signed for. Charlie looked into that already. At the time of the project, it was owned 51% by Siemens and 49% by Perini. But Eurocon still held a small amount of Perini stock from some lending they did back in the ‘70’s.”
“That wouldn’t make it Eurocon sub, or even an affiliate.”
“For most purposes. But according to Charlie’s research, under federal procurement regs, any ownership interest counts, no matter how small.”
“And let me guess. This indirect minority interest did something it shouldn’t?”
Hartwell nodded.
Shit. Tom stared out the window hoping salvation might be staring back from the reflecting glass
of the tower across the street. “Any chance of it being a six year statute of limitations?”
“Ten. So they have to get cracking, if they want to use it.”
“What does your source say?”
“That one of our people is on their list.”
“Me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Because fifteen years ago I did an older colleague a favor and saved him a two hour trip out to the desert?”
“Because this is an election year and you’re a photogenic, downstate sometimes Republican fund raiser who’d make a perfect poster boy for a timely government procurement scandal.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I were. Something like this happens every ten years or so, when one of the parties gets the taste of blood in its mouth and decides to take the gloves off.”
Tom pressed his fingers to temples. “Is this a problem for the firm, Tanner? Or just for Tom Morgan?”
Hartwell’s answer was all the more depressing for its thoughtful diplomacy. “I’ve got a call in to Morris Silverstein. He’s the top white collar criminal defender in New York. I’m not sure what the firm can do if this construction company wasn’t actually our client. But I think you should engage Moe to represent you personally.”
“At what? Nine hundred fifty dollars an hour?”
“This isn’t something you can handle yourself, Tom.”
The old advice that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, didn’t make Tom feel wiser for following it. It made him feel poor.
“I’m due back from vacation next week. Will that be a problem? I’ll need money coming in, if I’m going to be pumping it back out through a fire hose to Moe Silverstein.”
“Let’s play that by ear,” said Hartwell. “You’re on vacation. Let me talk to Moe first and we’ll take it from there.”
CHAPTER 14
Traffic heading out of Manhattan toward the George Washington Bridge was backed-up almost to midtown, making a typical New York sound soup of angry horns, blaring radios and multi-lingual curses. Street vendors worked the aisles between the stalled vehicles, hawking shopping carts full of fake Rolex watches, faux designer purses and cheap electronics of no known pedigree. Joe turned on the patrol car’s bubble light to cut through the traffic. The New Yorkers ignored him.
Tom decided not to say anything right away about the Eurocon mess. He needed to sit with it first and sort through its implications. None seemed good. It was the nightmare he’d never allowed himself to entertain. The one where the gold cup is snatched away within sight of the finish line.
He had always tried to be rational about money. Rejecting the prejudice of his upbringing and the excesses of his peers, he’d come to view it neither as an evil nor an end to itself, but as a tool. Good, bad, happiness or unhappiness, came from how you used money, not from the fact of having it. Though he had reservations about many of the sacrifices necessary to acquire it: the ridiculous hours, busted romances, and years devoted to things of no apparent value other than how well they paid. But he kept going.
Now what? If Tanner was right, fifteen years of single-minded pursuit of financial independence was headed straight for the toilet. The bromide of being able to start over was an illusion. Spend another decade pushing the rock back up the hill? Suppose the gods rolled it back again? That’s the flaw in your tool theory, smart boy. The sacrifices are worth it, only if you get to the finish line. If you don’t, you could have been doing something else. With Susan. Is it really the journey, not the arrival, that matters?
He felt a jab in the ribs and opened his eyes.
“You’re talking in your sleep,” said Joe.
Tom unfolded his body from a dashboard/seat back fetal position, sat up and rubbed his face. “Need a pit stop.”
“We’re ten miles from home. You slept the whole way.”
“Still need to stop.”
The multi-colored canopy of fall foliage had come and gone while he was sleeping. It was dark now and the strobes of oncoming headlights forced him to look away.
“Who’s Camille?” Joe asked.
“What?”
“You were talking to her in your sleep.”
He closed his eyes again. “French co-counsel on an anti-trust case.”
“‘Je t‘aime? ’ Is that how you address fellow lawyers these days?”
“In my dreams.”
Joe pointed to a roadside billboard. “We can stop at Trudy’s? Might as well eat, too, while we’re there.”
“Let’s go. I haven’t been to Trudy’s in…I don’t know when. Can’t believe it’s still there.”
Joe yawned. “I need fuel or something. Feel like crap.”
Tom stretched. “Manhattan is an acquired taste.”
Joe rolled down a window and let in a blast of cool air. “You can keep it.” He stuck his forehead into the breeze. “So what were you trying to get out of Sharp with all those arithmetic questions, if you don’t mind my asking? That was no criminal lawyer he had, or he would have thrown us out.”
“He’s a corporate lawyer,” Tom said. “Probably represented Sharp when he sold out his NeuroGene interest to his partner, Willow.”
“So what were you after?”
“Trying to find out if he’s a liar. If he cheated his partner in the buyout. And if he did, did Billy Pearce play a role and did he get whacked on account of it?”
“Ambitious, aren’t you?” Joe’s voice sounded relieved and disbelieving at the same time. “So how did any of that gobbledygook get you there? Because I sure as hell had no idea what you and he were fan-dancing about. And I’m sure his lawyer didn’t either or he would have stopped you.”
“Yes, yes, yes and maybe.”
“Quit showing off, Tommy. Put some meat on it.”
“Okay, first, the guy’s a liar. Every time you asked him for a significant memory, like the first time you showed him Billy’s picture, or when you asked him if Susan had any siblings, he lied.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll show you when we get to Trudy’s.”
“Tell me now.”
Tom turned his face away from the oncoming headlights. “You need to be looking at me. And right now I’d rather have you looking at the road.”
“All right, but tell me how you know he cheated his partner.”
“Cheat’s probably overstating it. Let’s just say he took advantage of Willow’s financial naiveté.”
“Cooking the books?”
“Nothing that crude. Like he made sure to point out, everything was on the financial statements and accounted for properly.”
“So how did he cheat him?”
“By making the business profitable.”
“Quit busting my chops, Tommy. I’m tired.”
“You don’t look so good either.” Joe’s face looked like dead fish belly in the strobe of passing headlights.
“Just tell me.”
“All right. Sharp knew what I was getting at when I asked him if the buyout was a multiple of earnings. Do you remember he asked if I thought he was going to be next? He meant the next corpse.”
“It’s not getting any clearer.”
“Listen. It’s simple. A business is basically worth a multiple of its future earnings. You noticed that Sharp never mentioned how much this petri dish sideline brought in. That wasn’t an oversight. My guess is that Willow and whoever backed him thought they were buying a marginally profitable research business with some potential upside, not a sinkhole propped-up by a sideline business in cross-border, no questions asked, sealed packages. You noticed something too, when you asked him about illegal substances. They may not have been sending recreational drugs across the border. But I’m certain that when we look at the NeuroGene financials, we’re going to find this U-Labs was paying more for its U. S. mail room than can be explained by a need for scientific secrecy.”
“You sure about that?”
“Pretty sure. It l
ooks to me like Sharp was doing what’s called a ‘pump and dump.’ When he figured out that his partner was looking for an angel investor, he pumped the company’s earning with this ‘no questions asked’ distributor scheme, and then dumped his stock at an inflated price when Willow exercised the shotgun.”
“You’re making my head ache, Tommy.”
“You’re tired, that’s all. I’ll write it down for you when we get back.”
“Good, Watson. Stick around. I always thought there were more shenanigans going down in Coldwater Park, than there were up in the woods with the Cashins and the Dooleys. You should come home and specialize.”
“What’s the pay?”
“What do you care, you’re rich already. The job can be anything you want to make it.”
Don’t think about Susan. “How about I just help you find Billy Pearce’s murderer.”
“Okay, but I’m not through with you on this. Now what’s the connection between this financial sleight-of-hand and Billy getting dumped in the lake?”
“I don’t know yet. But tell me that a legitimate scientific research outfit entrusts some loser like Billy Pearce with its ultra-secret whatevers. Forget about trusting him, how would a legitimate Canadian biotechnology company even come to know a small-town punk like Billy Pearce? It’s not like he hung with the scientific jet set.”
“Okay. But unless there’s a connection between Sharp cheating his partner and Billy getting dead, this is just a distraction.”
“Is there a way to check on Sharp’s story of where he was Saturday night?”
“Don’t need to,” Joe yawned. “We already know he wasn’t in bed watching the Yankees.”
“How?”
“Because he’s no more of a Yankee fan than you are. The Yankees don’t play on Saturday night. Weekend games are in the afternoon.”
* * *
Trudy’s Diner hadn’t changed since the Morgan family used to go there after Sunday church when Tom and Joe were boys. The diner was a 1950’s era converted aluminum Airstream, sixty feet long and eighteen feet wide, with a cigarette-scarred Formica counter down the center and a row of swivel stools covered in red plastic facing it. Four bench booths lined the windows on either side of the entrance, with a cash register, candy counter and cigarette machine just inside the door. Two shelves of pies and cereals clung to the back wall above the toaster and drink machines.
