by Kyanna Skye
It was very cloak-and-dagger. He could have gotten away clean if it hadn’t been for his conscience. And listening to him tell his story, she never would have imagined that he would have been the sort to bend under the weight of his conscience. And though he had been forthcoming about his guilt, he wasn’t as nearly as direct in his subtle – but far more brilliant – skills in the use of computer software.
There wasn’t a single track for her to follow.
Within the records, all she was really able to find was a large gap in that particular time frame’s daily banking statements. She had seen how businesses that dealt with multi-million dollar finances worked and every minute of every day was accounted for when someone somewhere was using the firm’s money. But in the case of Mr. Rizzuto’s scheme, there was a mere two-minute portion of the day in question where nobody touched a cent of the firm’s money.
Impossible, she thought. And her co-workers at the firm had agreed. Because it was that gap in the day’s finances that drew their attention and someone, later on, realized that millions had gone missing. And that was the proverbial stone that had stirred up the hornet’s nest.
As she looked at the records, she couldn’t help but be a little impressed at Mr. Rizzuto’s skill. There the money was, one minute before, looking as normal as a blue sky on a clear day, and then suddenly, ten million was missing one minute and thirty-seven seconds later.
She viewed the technical specs of it as well, utilizing records that she could access and thanks to an old boyfriend Jamie had had in college, she knew how to read them. The firm’s computers noted that the servers began running a little hot, usually brought on by a heavy workload that the computers themselves had to strain to keep up with. In this case, she knew that the workload would have required every single person in the company to log onto their servers at once and download what would be an equivalent the Library of Congress all at the same time. That, of course, didn’t happen as the records indicated that the servers were functioning with less than nine hundred people being logged on. But even so, there was a predictable slowdown in the server’s function when such a thing happened, and then poof! After that one minute-thirty-seven-seconds worth of a high load, the money went missing in the time it would have taken someone to press “Enter”. And then it was just gone.
“Amazing,” she said, leaning back on her bed and crossing her arms, looking at the records. It was hard to believe that Dominic Rizzuto wrote his own computer program to steal this kind of money because he was bored. He’d also said that he wanted to do so because he wanted to annoy his bosses at the time. Jamie hadn’t been able to determine who his boss had been at the time, but given Mr. Rizzuto’s rank in the firm at the time of his employment – which was extremely low – it could well have been anyone.
“I wonder what he could do if he put his mind to it,” she thought.
Looking intently at the records she felt a strange twinge in her belly. This was what she was here for, certainly, but there was something that told her that these records were the way to figure out what Dominic Rizzuto had done with that money.
Hell, it’s not like I’m getting anywhere talking to him face to face. In just these last two hours looking at the digital footprint of the day the money had gone missing she had learned more about him than all of the time she’d spent questioning. And yet, these records had offered her the largest clue thus far.
She knew little of electronic finance transfers, apart from what she could accomplish on her phone. But million dollar transfers were another thing entirely. There were special protections put in place by banks and by recipients of such things. There were passcodes, voice authorizations, signatures, there had to be a plan in place with the bank beforehand in some cases, and sometimes they had to be done in person… whatever. And somehow, Mr. Rizzuto had managed to bypass them all.
While she knew that she was not gifted in matters of electronic finance she did know that even in the world of electronics that everything left a digital fingerprint. Visit a website, there was a marker in your browser history to show that you’d been there. Check your online bank accounts, there’s a record of the login. A driver pays ten bucks for gas with a company gas card; it gets logged both in a gas station’s computer as well as the company finance reports. That was just the way it was nowadays, there was no escaping it.
It had to be so with what Mr. Rizzuto had done. There had to be something… an IP address… a routing number… something that could help her dig into what it was that she needed to find this missing money.
This is the age of the internet, she reminded herself. The money was literally shot into space… it’s like trying to look through the internet for a single pixel in every picture that’s online.
Yes, it was going to be a longshot and she hadn’t yet unraveled enough of Mr. Rizzuto’s identity to determine where he had sent the money.
Yes, he’d said that even he didn’t know where that money had gone, but part of her was unwilling to believe it. It just wasn’t in the human condition to steal that kind of money and not pay attention to where it landed. Mr. Rizzuto didn’t strike her as the dishonest sort, but then again she had presented herself as an openly honest type and still she had resorted to a light kind of lying. That was proof enough that under the right circumstances, people could do things that were uncharacteristic for them. And that was a facsimile to which she now clung the same way a drowning man clung to a life preserver.
She stared at the screen of her laptop, feeling as if she were already so close to that money. Like looking at a fish in an aquarium she felt like she could just reach through the glass and touch it if she wanted. Close, but so far removed, that it was infuriating.
He knows where it is, she told herself with a sigh. She just needed to figure out more about him.
“Enough of me,” Dominic said, surprising her as they sat at a plastic table in the middle of the prison yard in the shade of an umbrella. The day was hot and the shade was welcome, and with no one in the yard but each other she felt as though she had joined him in the privacy of a fancy residence somewhere. It was odd that she felt like she was beginning think of this place as Mr. Rizzuto’s home. “Tell me something about yourself.”
She nearly choked on the chilled lemonade that they had been drinking, the question catching her off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Well, we’ve been talking about me all this time and I feel as though I’ve been remiss in my manners. And sitting here, I just realized that I don’t know a single thing about you.” He sipped his lemonade, “I find that I would very much like to know more about you.”
She adjusted herself uncomfortably in her chair. “Mr. Rizzuto, really, I don’t think that’s relevant to our work here…”
“You’re curious about the nature of my crime and how I grew up both very personal things, I’d say. And yet you won’t share a single detail with me about your life?” He shook his head a clicked his tongue, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Let me give you an incentive then, Jamie. I’ll answer some of your questions if you’ll but answer some of the mines. You’re familiar with the whole stick-and-carrot routine, I assume? Which would you prefer?”
It wasn’t a threat he was making, she knew that. But he was offering her a choice, though it was a very subtle one at that. It was like a twisted version of the whole ‘horse before the cart’ proverb. She could get him to move, but only if he gave her a carrot for a change instead of vice versa.
It was a decision that she knew she had made without having to think overlong about it. He could make her work even more difficult by being stubborn and not giving her anything and she would feel the lash of it at every turn. He wasn’t asking much, just a few details about her. What could it hurt? It wasn’t as though he could know who she worked for and why she was here. Could it?
Maybe, she thought with a small worry. He’s smart and all of these questions about why they put him away…? No, she had been so careful not to give away why she was really here. S
he was sure of that. But still, it didn’t make her feel any better knowing that the only way to get information out of him was to give information about herself.
I’ll never see him again once he’s released… what could it hurt?
Under such an ultimatum, what else could she do but cooperate?
She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the ice-cold glass with the refreshing drink in her hand. “Uh, well, I can if you like… though I don’t know where to begin.”
Mr. Rizzuto leaned back in his chair, a triumphant smile on his face. “I find the beginning is always a good place. Where were you born?”
“New York,” she answered honestly.
“Oh? Still have family there?”
“My mom and dad,” she said, drawing lines on the building condensation on her glass with her free finger. “Dad’s the reason I got into doing this kind of work,” she said with a reminiscent smile.
Mr. Rizzuto gave an approving nod. “Ah, you admire your father do you?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“He’s also into legal work?”
“Yes. It’s been that way ever since I was born.” She felt the warmth of old memories as they came washing over her. The recollection of it all made her feel like a child again. “There were just so many things that he did that always fascinated me. The way he could talk with lots of big words – even though I didn’t understand when I was a kid – it was very impressive. The way he looked in his suits, his briefcase, the way he carried himself with such… I don’t know…”
“Swagger?” Mr. Rizzuto offered.
She smiled and laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that. My dad was always so haughty and so confident.” Her smile deepened. “I remember always wanting to be like that, exactly like that, when I was a kid.”
“You seem like you’re well on your way there. Where’d you go to law school?”
“NYU,” she said.
Mr. Rizzuto nodded approvingly, though she detected some apprehension in the gesture. “They’re not very famous for their legal schooling, though, if I recall.”
“No, not really,” she admitted, “they’re as good as any other. But that was where my dad went to school. I wanted to follow in his footsteps to the best of my ability.”
“And your mother?”
Jamie sipped her lemonade. “I love my mother, no mistake. But it was my father that always held my attention. My mother had plenty to teach me and I do resemble her more than a little, but my dad’s way always seemed like the way that I wanted to go. I wanted it all; the suits, the smiles, the briefcase and yes, I guess even the swagger, as you call it.”
Mr. Rizzuto saluted her with his drink. “Well, I daresay that you’re well on your way to the swagger.”
She chuckled, though inwardly she thought that if she failed in this assignment there would be no amount of swagger that could save her. “What about your family?” The question left her mouth so quickly that greased lightning wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it. She had asked without intending to and she regretted asking as soon as the words had left her lips.
Mr. Rizzuto lowered his eyes from hers as though contemplating the grass at her feet. “Well, there’s not much to tell, really.”
Her regret froze like a river in a flash freeze and rather than paddle on with her regret, she sensed an opportunity. And one that she might distress herself over not taking now that it had presented itself. “But there is something to tell?”
She waited and listened while he was quiet for a moment, then sipping at his lemonade he kept his gaze low while he spoke. “I was kind of like you with your father; I adored mine… but his work, not so much.” His tone was almost somber like he was remembering the day of a loved one’s funeral.
Her gut clenched.
“My father was a lot like yours, a career man. But his career often kept him from home a lot of the time. When I was a boy I remembered not seeing him too much. It was just me and my mother; she wasn’t exactly what one would call ‘top notch’. She loved her wine… she loved her brandy… she loved anything that was potent enough to fog the senses and dull her wits.” His tone changed, becoming angry and he clenched his fist tightly.
Jamie set her glass down on the table that sat between them. It was clear that they had gotten into some murky waters here. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rizzuto. I didn’t mean to–”
He dismissed her apology with the wave of a hand and his tone softened, becoming more like the gentle sort that she had only ever heard before now. “No, it’s fine, Jamie. I asked about your life, the least I can do is share mine. It’s only fair after all.”
“But you don’t have to go on if you don’t want.”
He was silent for only a heartbeat before he finally raised his eyes to meet hers again. “No… I think it’s good for me to get this out.”
She waited, not sure of what else she could have said.
“When my mother and father got married, neither of them really had much in the way of anything. It was a marriage of convenience, I suppose you might say. My mother expected to elevate herself from being what she was and my father was looking for a quiet and simple life.” He drummed his fingers on the table top disappointedly. “Neither of them got it. My mother’s only solace was the drink and my father was consumed by his work, albeit reluctantly.”
“What did your father do?”
Mr. Rizzuto sighed. “He would often joke that he was into the bad news business; bankruptcy… repossessions… and like that. Sometimes he’d be gone for long stretches of time… weeks, sometimes even months. There was a time once when he was even gone for a year.” He smiled as a reminiscent look crossed his face. “I used to imagine him as a prominent banker, dressed in his best suit, and going from one big building to another and telling people that they were being audited or having their wages garnished… something like that.
“Because I was a child at the time, I didn’t really understand what was going on and I just thought that those were things that everyone in the adult world had to deal with. And when my father came home, he always had this warm smile on his face. And he would open up his arms and I would rush into them and hug him so tightly.” His smile became a little sad. “God, I’d give anything to feel that way again.”
Jamie felt her brow crease a little. “It must have been a strange business for your father to be gone like that. I’ve heard of people being gone for days and weeks, sure, but never months or a year. It must have been some pretty big financial business for it to come to that.”
“I’m given to understand that it was, yes. Well, his business was anything but pleasant. I can well imagine that he never wanted to be gone so long. As much as my mother enjoyed her drinks, my father and I enjoyed our time together. We always went to watch ballgames… we went to the park… he taught me about archery… hunting and tracking. My cousin had a vineyard in the country that we used to visit spring and that’s where I developed my passion for wine,” he said with an acknowledging wink. “And there was, of course, my favorite of our bonding experiences: trips to Drubber’s Magic Store.”
“A magic store?” she asked curiously.
He took a deep breath at the memory of it as if he were reliving that experience in the span it took to fill his lungs. “Card tricks, rope tricks, magic boxes, coin traps, vanishing rubber chickens, fake vomit, rubber dog turds, top hats, velvet capes, magic wands…” His face positively beamed with the recollection. “We never had a greater time than we did visiting Drubber’s Magic Store. Oh, the things that we would buy. I’d spend weeks rehearsing every little trick I knew, putting together my own little magic act and I’d perform it for my father when he came home from his business trips.”
She felt a curious sense of warmth spread through her at the mention of these words. She had had similar experiences with her father and mother, but to hear Mr. Rizzuto talk of it… there was something, enchanting about it.
Jamie felt an upswing of courage in he
r heart. “Your father sounds like an incredible man. Where are your parents now?”
Mr. Rizzuto folded his hands in his lap. “Well, my mother died just about the time I was getting into high school. She finally found a bottle that she couldn’t let go of,” he said noncommittally.
She felt a shard of sorrow enter into her heart for the man across from her. His mother didn’t sound like any grand prize, but it was always hard to lose a parent she thought. “And your father?”
His look became dour. “My father… well… let’s just say that he had a small falling out with his employer. He wound up in prison for it.”
That shocked her. From just a few things that she had heard, Rizzuto Senior sounded like a well-meaning and caring man that made time for his son. That he could end up in prison when he had a young son to look after seemed like some sort of a terrible joke. “He did?”
He nodded. “He died in prison as well.”
“My god.”
He looked across the table at her. “After I heard about that, I was kind of like you and I followed in my father’s footsteps. Or at least, in as much as I could. I had other relatives to help take care of me and with their help, I was able to get through school and I learned all that I could about the world of banking, which by then had mostly become dependent on how well one could run a computer. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I never forgot the injustice done to my father.”
She felt her daring rising but sensed that the time was quickly approaching for her not to ask any more personal questions. But there was one question that she knew she could not let go unanswered. “Why was your father sent to prison?”
His look at her remained gentle and neutral, but somehow she perceived that their conversation had reached its end. “It’s of no consequence now, Jamie. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t upset about it or that it helped to shape me into what I am now. But I put it behind me and that’s usually where I like to keep it.”
In a move that surprised her, he reached out and gently brushed one of her thick wavy locks from out of her face. The simple gesture was oddly tender and she felt delightfully evoked by it. “Sometimes, you just have to keep things where people don’t look for it.”
