by Jacob Mesmer
As Tommy began walking back to his office, he spotted what looked like a greenhouse. He made a mental note to find out about that later. All he knew about greenhouses was they were very hot on the inside, and he was beginning to perspire in his suit.
“Hey, there you are, we’re just about finishing up,” the computer installation tech said when Tommy walked back inside. He’d gotten a fairly large server with a dedicated T3 line, with enough processing power to handle five workstations, in addition to wired setups for five desktop PCs. He had no idea what he’d be using it for, but Cristina had been specific to spare no expense. Tommy signed the invoice and thanked the technicians. Once in his office he spent about an hour configuring it to his liking, syncing it with his own cloud settings from his laptop at home. As he was doing that, his cell phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number.
“Tom Ricker,” he answered.
“Tommy, it’s Santiago, we met at GenSpan, what’s up?”
“Oh, not much, just settling into my new office. I ended up taking that job at Shea,” he said.
“Oh yeah? Good for you, man, that’s actually why I was calling,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you asked if I knew anything about the guy, so I asked around. One of the directors, or consultants, here, he heard I was asking around and he called me. Guy’s super rich, anyway he said he wants to talk to you. He told me to tell you to call him if you want,” Santiago said.
“He say why?”
“No, just for you to call him when convenient. It didn’t sound like a big deal, though. So how’s your lady?” Santiago asked.
“She’s doing OK. She had to go back to see her folks, so she’s out of town for a while,” Tommy said, wondering what the protocol for something like that was.
“Cool, bro, here, let me give you that guy’s number,” Santiago said.
Tommy wrote it down and also gave Santiago his work number and email. He decided to call Santiago’s man out of curiosity.
“Hello, this is Tom Ricker calling for Mr. Prieto, it’s regarding Dominic Shea,” Tommy said to the middle-aged-sounding secretary. Tommy was told to please wait, which was surprising. He didn’t expect to actually get through to a major funding source for a venture capital outfit.
“Mr. Ricker, thank you for calling,” Prieto said after coming on the line. “How well do you know Santiago?”
“Well, to be honest, I only talked to him for a few minutes while we were in GenSpan, where my girlfriend works,” Tommy admitted.
“I see, and now you work for Shea Industries. Is that correct?” he asked.
“Yes, what exactly is your interest, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well, I have been interested in doing business with Mr. Shea for quite some time. His family has quite a bit of influence, and to get funding from them would be quite an accomplishment for an investor like myself. I was just curious as to what capacity you were fulfilling for Mr. Shea,” he asked.
“Well, to be honest, today’s my first day, and from what I’ve gathered, I’ve been tasked with acquiring some property, in addition to some property he’s recently acquired,” Tommy explained.
“I apologize for putting you on the spot, have you signed any nondisclosures?”
“Uh, no, actually, I haven’t. He didn’t even mention that.”
“I see. May I offer you a proposition? Please say no if you’re uncomfortable,” Prieto said.
“Shoot, I can only say no,” Tommy said, wondering what it could be.
“In order for me to better approach Mr. Shea, I would be interested in knowing his specific purposes for increasing his holdings there in Colorado Springs. So, if you could find out, so long as you don’t feel uncomfortable doing so, any information you provide to me that would help me facilitate any business deal, I would give you a very healthy commission,” Prieto asked.
“You wouldn’t be asking me to divulge any personal or private information of Mr. Shea’s, would you?” Tommy asked. Was this guy asking him to be a spy?
“No, no, of course not. Just if you’re comfortable, if you could find out anything that may help me convince Mr. Shea to invest in assets other than real estate. Perhaps his motivations or long-term interests. Like I said, anything you could help me find could be very lucrative, Mr. Ricker.”
“How lucrative?”
“Well, any deal we would make with Shea Industries could be worth billions. Any help you give us would be worth one or two percent,” Prieto said offhandedly.
Tommy nearly choked. One percent of a billion-dollar deal was ten million dollars.
“Yeah, well, I don’t see why not. Of course, I’m not promising anything,” Tommy said, trying to keep his voice as even as possible.
Sixteen
“So where are we with Berg, anything new?” the lead detective asked a roomful of subordinates. Two officers had been assigned the case, and they glanced at each other before one of them responded.
“This is a dead end, kind of a working girl met a client via a website, and she winds up dead,” she explained. Her partner had his notes ready in case she needed them.
“No help from the website?” the lead asked. She shrugged, shook her head.
“The server is in China, the company that runs it is in Russia, they don’t do any background checks, so long as their clients pay their bills,” she said.
“What about subpoenaing the client’s pay history?”
“We tried, but it’s passed through so many levels of encryption, nearly as much as porn sites, to protect the identities of the users.”
“But he paid in dollars; doesn’t that mean it went through a U.S. bank? No help there?” he asked, but suspected what the answer would be.
“Well, all due respect to the victim, but if you want us to go that route, you’re talking a lot of layers of administration to wade through. I really don’t see us getting resource approval for this, unless you’re saying this is a, uh, high-level case,” she said. Sons and daughters of senators might get follow-up, but not a borderline working girl.
“Yeah, I get your point. Nothing on the body?” he asked.
“No. Guy was meticulous. No prints, no fibers, nothing,” she said.
“So you’re saying he’s a pro? He’s done this before?” the lead asked.
She looked at her partner and then nodded. “I’d definitely say this guy has done this before, but that’s only based on the specific lack of evidence. I want to say this guy is a repeater, but all we have is lack of evidence, which puts us in same boat,” she explained.
“So you’re saying that without anything specifically to connect this to any other open cases, there’s really no argument to pursue this,” he said. The two officers in charge of the case glanced at each other, and then nodded.
“Well, keep this on the back burner, anything else you can think of, but don’t spend too much time. Release the body to the family, tell them the investigation is pending, but let them know it may be a while. Next case,” he said and closed the Berg file and opened another one.
Tommy arrived in his office early. He had a couple ideas of how to start, and was excited. He’d called Mallory last night and she’d congratulated him, but made him promise to bring Viviana by, explaining that without Mallory and Selena, they wouldn’t be together. Tommy promised to give credit where credit was due. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was out of town, or why.
Tommy suspected that Shea may monitor all of his computer-based activities, so he’d have to keep some of his activities on his laptop and off of the cloud, where it would automatically sync with his work computer. Even if Prieto was reaching at straws, Tommy didn’t want to inadvertently get fired for corporate espionage. For all he knew, Prieto and Shea were archenemies. His cell buzzed, and he smiled as he answered it.
“Hey,” he said, enjoying the privacy of his own office.
“Hey back, how’s your new job?” she asked.
“So f
ar so good. I haven’t gotten fired yet. How are things with you?” Tommy asked.
“Good and not so good,” she said.
“Oh no, what happened?” he asked.
“Well, the coroner has released the body, so the funeral is the day after tomorrow. But they said they don’t have any leads, and they aren’t sure if they’ll be able to find out who did this,” she explained.
“But they met on a website, right? Can’t they track him that way?”
“Well, they didn’t really get specific, but the way she described it, it didn’t sound like they had high hopes.”
“Vivi, that’s horrible. So they just leave it like that? We don’t know who did this, deal with it?” Tommy said, not hiding his frustration.
“I don’t know, Tommy, the way she met him, some rich guy, maybe he planned this. I didn’t really expect them to figure this out, but my parents,” she said, pausing. Tommy suspected she was trying to keep her emotions in check, but didn’t know what to say. “My parents don’t even want to talk about this. Every time I mention going to see a grief counselor, they just say they want to wait until the police find out more.”
“Give them time; you can remind them in a couple months. I won’t let you forget,” Tommy said, hoping she wouldn’t mind he was assuming they’d still be together in two months.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Hey, what about hiring somebody?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if the cops can’t find out, maybe a private investigator or somebody can. There have to be records, I mean if this guy paid through a website, and he paid for her tuition, right?”
“We’ll talk about that when I come back,” she said.
“When are you coming back?”
“Um, funeral is day after tomorrow, so next day or two after that, maybe? Unless my parents make a sudden reversal, which I doubt.”
“OK. I miss you,” Tommy said, hanging up. He sat, thinking. Objectively it wasn’t likely that the police would find somebody. Especially the way the body was found. He Googled crime statistics, surprised at the low murder solve rate. Unless the victim was killed by a known associate or spouse, the police records were dismal. Tommy spent the next several minutes looking up various “sugar-daddy” sites, of which there were plenty. If some rich guy wanted to have plenty of young girls spread out across the country, it was clearly easy enough.
For part of his MBA, Tommy had studied various aspects of commercial fraud, and had been amazed at how many angles people came up with. He made the decision that before Viviana returned in a few days, he would have gotten a few quotes and an expectation of success from various private investigators. But he would need to do that from his PC at home; he didn’t feel comfortable taking care of personal business at work, especially on only his second day.
Seventeen
Tommy had gone home and changed out of his suit and into a pair of jeans. He took off his tie, but left on his white button-down, rolling up the sleeves. He then decided to take his time, go get something to eat somewhere, and do some work on his laptop before coming home. He’d only traded a couple of grunts with his father who’d already settled in the middle of the sofa, drink in one hand and remote in the other.
Tommy was just finishing a large Cobb salad, only remembering halfway through eating it that it was what Viviana had ordered on her visit to his restaurant. He had his laptop open and was scanning through various news blogs, not paying much attention. When he finished eating, he pushed the empty plate aside and got ready for some work. He glanced down in the corner; six thirty. Figured he didn’t want to get home before nine.
First thing he did was check on Dominic Shea. Found the same information he’d discovered before. Privately owned, it didn’t disclose whether or not the shareholders were all family members or not. Didn’t make any commercially available products. Gave money routinely to a wide variety of charities, but Tommy looked up a few of the big ones and didn’t see any members of the Shea family on any of the boards. It was common for very old and wealthy families to ostensibly create charitable foundations, but in reality they were simply finding another way to exert their private influence on public policy. One of his professors had been fond of saying that the only thing one could know about a tax-exempt non-profitable entity was that they didn’t pay taxes. He’d meticulously shown how several of these non-profits were only established that way so they could keep their operations secret from the public. For-profit companies had certain reporting requirements, but non-profit corporations did not. Tommy had been amazed to find out that some of the board members of these non-profit organizations pulled larger salaries than CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
But as Tommy searched through all the names of the five biggest charities that Shea Industries donated to, he couldn’t find any obvious connections. It appeared that they gave money without receiving any obvious benefits.
The next thing he looked up was Prieto and Cutting Edge Capital, his venture capital company. This had plenty of information. They’d been around for over a decade. They were also privately owned, so their holdings, both the companies they invested in and their financial size, were not disclosed. However, there was plenty of information on their principal founders, of which Prieto was one. The company had started in the mid 2000s, before the housing bubble had crashed. Prieto seemed to have seen it coming, and had made a substantial amount in a short amount of time. Before that he’d been a venture capitalist for several other organizations. Graduated with an MBA from Stanford in 1988, which made him just a few years over fifty.
Tommy found several articles about Prieto in various financial magazines. He was reportedly worth several billion. Definitely had a skill of turning money into more money. Tommy decided he was legitimate. There were few articles with a negative bias, other than those that had the same negative bias regarding any other ultra-rich individual who kept getting richer while everybody else was getting poorer.
Tommy decided to take a chance. He reached over and grabbed his phone, and made a call.
“Marco Winston,” his friend answered, surprising Tommy with his professional demeanor. He must not have checked the number.
“Yes, I hear you’re making loans? I’d like to borrow a couple grand to buy some hookers and blow, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pay it back,” Tommy said as seriously as he could.
“Of course, sir, let me look up some information here,” Marco said, playing right along. “Yes, it appears that we do have a special plan for hookers and blow, but the interest rates are fifty percent per week, and non-payment does come with a death penalty,” Marco said.
Tommy laughed out loud, despite the ill timing and nature the humor. “Hmm, I think I’ll pass,” he said.
“What’s up, man, you having second thoughts? We’re already getting some interested investors, I mean serious people,” Marco said.
“Actually, I got a real job, working for a mega-rich real estate family. I was actually calling you to see if you wanted to do some work for me, as I have a sizeable budget,” Tommy explained.
“What, you want me to wash dishes for you at the restaurant? What are you offering, five bucks an hour?” Marco joked.
“No, man, this is legit.”
“Serious?”
“Yeah, you got a couple minutes to talk?” Tommy asked.
“Yes sir, I do, what do you got?” Marco asked.
“Well, this guy I’m working for owns a bunch of land. And he wants me to help him buy some more land.”
“OK.”
“And another guy, a Nelson Prieto of Cutting Edge Capital, has put out some, how shall we say, under-the-table feelers. He says if I can swing a deal between my employer and Cutting Edge Capital, I get a percent,” Tommy explained.
“As in one percent?” Marco asked.
“Yep.”
“Jesus. What do you want me to do?”
“Well, for now, it’s probably best th
at I don’t hire you just yet, as that would maybe be a conflict of interest, but if I were to subcontract you, on my own, to look into both Dominic Shea and Nelson Prieto, not to contact them, mind you—”
“Of course not.”
“But to find out anything you possibly can between the two of them, particularly Mr. Shea, who is a bit mysterious,” Tommy explained. “Like old family from Europe mysterious,” he added.
“So let me get this straight,” Marco started, “you want me to dig up any information on Dominic Shea that you can use to pitch him a deal with Prieto,” he asked.
“That is correct. And if there is an eventual deal, I’ll split it with you,” Tommy finished.
“I’ll look into it,” Marco said.
“And if you’re interested,” Tommy started, “I may need an assistant to help me out on city contracts, commercial real estate, private real estate, hundred-year leases, et cetera.”
“So you want me to work for you both officially and unofficially?” Marco asked.
“Exactly. That be OK with you?”
“Sure thing, boss!” Marco answered.
Eighteen
Max sat in his office, one of many that he’d rented over the years. He was paid discreetly by one of the many shell corporations Mr. Shea operated. This particular company, with a total of one employee, would withstand the most in-depth scrutiny by any government or private agency. Max controlled a budget of one million dollars a year. His base salary was three hundred thousand dollars a year, but his bonuses more than doubled that. He had several cars and access to several international numbered bank accounts.
Mr. Shea had spent a lot of time researching Maxwell Emerson before finally reaching out. They’d negotiated for several months before Shea had given Max his first few tasks. Max, of course, had done as much research on Mr. Shea as Shea had done on him. The lack of information only meant that Shea was somebody who wanted to stay as private as possible. This meant that so long as Max was careful, and did precisely as Mr. Shea asked, he too would be kept protected.
