Bull Street (A White Collar Crime Thriller)

by David Lender

  Jack winked at Richard, and then Steinberg and he headed for the door. “Thanks again, Karen.”

  Richard and Kathy stood around until Jack and Steinberg got on the elevators, waited another half hour downstairs in Shearson & Stone’s conference center, then left. Richard wondered what came next. Was he just supposed to sit around until Milner called? They decided to go back to the Waldorf.

  After three days at the Waldorf, Richard knew something was wrong. He turned to Kathy and said, “Still no call from Milner. But that’s Jack’s second voicemail joking, ‘Honeymoon’s over, kids. Get back to the office.’ Like nothing ever happened.”

  “When was the last time you tried Milner’s cell?”

  “This morning. Still no answer.”

  Kathy said, “I think something went wrong at Milner’s end.”

  “I can’t decide if I want that to be true or not.”

  She read his mind. “After everything you told me about him, he wouldn’t double-cross you or run.”

  “Unless someone had something on him.”

  “Like what?”

  “You saw the news that Mary Claire was missing.”

  “Yeah, I just figured they both ran after all.”

  Richard shook his head, thinking.

  After a moment Kathy said, “You try Croonquist?”

  “I don’t have anything new to tell him. I told him last time I’d have this thing locked. And he hasn’t called me.”

  Kathy looked at him for a long moment. She said, “Sounds like we could let it sit where it is. A stalemate with Sir Reginald and Delecroix.” She paused. “And Jack and Mickey.”

  Richard shook his head. “Not with two dead bodies. And Sir Reginald, Delecroix, Jack and Mickey still out there. You know I’m gonna figure out a way to get these guys.”

  Kathy narrowed her eyes. “Maybe it’s better to just leave it. You said yourself Milner and you had Sir Reginald and Delecroix boxed-in with the deal you cut in London, and you still have the data. Even if Milner ran, I can’t see anything that would jeopardize the leverage you have on those guys.”

  “The data’s not enough proof without them admitting it all on tape and you know it. And I don’t have the tape.”

  Kathy’s eyes were like hot coals. “Just leave it.”

  Richard and Kathy went back to work the next day. Two weeks later Jack transferred Richard into the new debt restructuring department he’d created at Walker to take advantage of all the bankruptcies from the global financial meltdown. A few days after that, Richard was making coffee for Kathy and he in the kitchen of his apartment before work. He pondered the phone call he’d just hung up from, how Kathy would react.

  Kathy walked in, gloomy, dark.

  Uh-oh. “Peace. I left my boxing gloves in the bedroom.”

  She didn’t even try to smile. “Like I said last night, did you see the East and West Germans provoking each other in Berlin? They had a stalemate. The worst they did was stare at each other over the barbed wire on top of the Berlin Wall. You didn’t see them poking each other in the eye.”

  “I told you I’m not provoking anybody.”

  “Not yet, but if you keep on this crusade to get what you need to go to Croonquist, you risk it. And Jack & Co. are bad guys. If they want a fight, you’re playing into their hands.” She brushed past him, poured her coffee.

  “I’m not playing into anyone’s hands. I’ve been keeping my poise, waiting for an opportunity. And tonight’s the night.”

  Kathy spun from the counter. “Milner finally called?”

  “No, Jack. He wants me to join him this evening at his apartment to meet with LeClaire, of all people.”

  Kathy shot him a wary look.

  Richard looked back, stood his ground. “Jack wants to hire LeClaire as a consultant to our new debt restructuring department, until LeClaire’s done testifying at all the trials and gets sentenced. And he wants me to help convince LeClaire to do it.”

  “What are you, eight years old? It’s some kind of setup. He’ll probably try to kill you.”

  “In his apartment?”

  “An accident on the way, or leaving.”

  His back stiffened and his neck went cold. “If he was gonna do that he’d have already tried. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to Jack’s tonight.” Richard pulled his Dictaphone out of his breast pocket. “Two weeks with no word from Milner. This is my shot to make it happen on my own. Maybe get Jack on tape gloating about beating the Feds.”

  “Oh, so you’re nine years old. You’re going in there with some dumb-ass Dictaphone? They jammed Milner’s wire last time. You think Jack’s that stupid?”

  “I think he’s that cock-sure he’s untouchable. Besides, Milner’s wire was digital, easy to jam with state-of-art equipment. This is a low-tech analog tape recorder. He couldn’t jam it if he tried.”

  “Stop it!” she yelled.

  “I’m going.”

  Kathy turned and stormed out of the apartment.

  Kathy was still fuming, muttering to herself when she got downstairs. She walked stiff-legged around the plaza outside Richard’s apartment building, the muscles in her legs tense. Her palms hurt where she dug her nails into them from balling her hands into fists. After a lap around the plaza she stopped. She felt a moan working its way up from her chest. Tears flushed into her eyes. Now she remembered another time on this plaza, after she’d retrieved Richard’s clothes and the mole’s data from his apartment, and then spotted the man from the U.S. Attorney’s Office tailing her. A wave of that same panic hit her. Then she was scared for herself as well as Richard. Now her nerves were on fire, petrified for him.

  Stubborn ass. But he was her man. She turned and strode back into the building.

  Richard sat at the kitchen table, sipping his coffee, waiting for his emotions and his pulse to come down a few notches. Dammit, she can be impossible. Sure, it’s risky, but what the hell else did she expect him to do? If he got what he needed tonight, he could take it to Croonquist, nail the bastards so Kathy and he could sleep easy for good.

  His pulse was still thumping in his ears when Kathy burst through the door and walked into the kitchen, head lowered, looking all business.

  Ding. Round two.

  “Alright,” she said, cruising up to him, her eyes fierce. She grabbed the Dictaphone from the table. “These tapes only have 30 minutes per side.” He watched her rewind the tape, turn it over to the other side, reinsert it and hit the “record” button. A second later the Dictaphone emitted a high-pitched wail. “And they scream like a banshee to let you know when it’s run out.” She slapped the Dictaphone back down, leaned forward with her palms on the table and stared at him. “That’d kind of put a damper on your evening, babe.” Her eyes softened then.

  Richard smiled. “I’ll be okay,” he said. He stood up and started to move toward her.

  She held up her hand, backed up. “Wait.” She reached into her briefcase, fished for something and pulled out a watch. “My sports watch has a stopwatch that counts down. Set it for 30 minutes and keep an eye on it. It’s better than nothing if you’re going in there without a wingman.”

  Richard felt warmth in his chest. He took the watch, put it on. “Yeah, but you’ve got my back.” He put his arms around her and kissed her. “Thanks, and don’t worry.”

  Kathy didn’t look convinced. “Be careful,” she said, “Jack’s nobody to mess with.” Her eyes were urgent, moist. She took his arm, pulled it in front of her and pressed his hand to her breast. “Now put your hands on me,” she breathed, “make love to me.”

  “You guys are friends, aren’t you?” Jack said to Richard. Hearing it pissed Richard off. They were in Jack’s apartment across from the Carlyle, waiting for LeClaire to show up. Richard was awkward with Jack, but figured that was nothing compared to how he’d feel once LeClaire showed up.

  LeClaire arrived about fifteen minutes late at 6:45 p.m. “Sorry to be late. François LeClaire,” he said, shaking Richard’s
hand. Richard’s puzzled look must have made LeClaire remember himself and he showed warmth in his eyes. Richard thought to try to let his face go blank, then realized it had.

  “Hello, Richard, how are you, my friend?”

  “Good,” Richard said. He felt that odd sensation of seeing the girlfriend he’d just broken up with on the street. Like he could reach out and touch her as intimately as he had a week earlier, but now he was wearing fireproof gloves.

  “Hi, Jack,” LeClaire called, waving, “sorry to be late.” He walked over and shook hands.

  Richard reached into his breast pocket and switched on the Dictaphone, then pressed the button to start the stopwatch countdown from 30 minutes.

  Jack poured himself an Evian and Richard a red wine. LeClaire elected grapefruit juice. He settled into the sofa.

  LeClaire wore tennis sneakers, khakis and a polo shirt. He took off sunglasses as he sat down. He’d lost about ten pounds, gotten suntanned. Richard wondered if LeClaire lost the weight from stress, realized he was thinking LeClaire deserved to. Jack looked at LeClaire as if to say, “Well…”

  “I am sorry I was late,” LeClaire said again, “but I had a small crisis to take care of back at home. The pump broke down on the artesian well, and Elaine and the kids are there without water. I was trying to arrange for a plumber over the phone and it was not easy.” He smiled. “The joys of living in a little-developed area in Florida,” he said.

  “You bought a house down there, didn’t you?” asked Jack.

  “Yes, a small town called Melba Beach, north of Naples on the West Coast. We are in a beautiful spot right on the Gulf. We bought about ten of the last fifteen Gulf-front lots left.”

  “You own ten lots on the Gulf?” Richard asked. Damn. So much for getting skinned by the Feds.

  “Yes,” he said. “We wanted as much privacy as we could get. I took all the proceeds from the sale of my Walker stock and the New York townhouse and bought as much property as I could just before the government removed my cover.”

  Quite a setup. Am I missing something? It seemed like the Feds were making it too easy on LeClaire. Richard started trying to do the math in his head, but didn’t know where to start.

  LeClaire went on, “I had to invest as quickly as I could. In Florida they are not allowed to take your house. So even if my creditors get judgments against me that go beyond the $5 million I deposited with the SEC with my fine, Elaine and the kids will still have a roof over their heads.”

  Five million. How much was from his insider trading?

  “The 5 million is for settlement of my fine and on any civil judgments against me. The criminal charges, of course, are different.” His voice grew hushed as he said criminal. Until then he was the precise, objective investment banker LeClaire, talking about the transactions on his house, segregating assets from his creditors like he was outlining strategy for an M&A assignment. Now he seemed to deflate. Richard thought of Elaine for the first time, how she’d hugged him as Kathy and he were leaving after dinner at their townhouse the last time he saw them as a couple.

  Richard glanced at his stopwatch: only 13:45 left. Shit. And he’d gotten nothing so far.

  “I made one horrible mistake and that was it,” LeClaire blurted out, his eyes focused off into space. He was again the awkward stranger at the door. “And that was it,” he said. “And that was it.” He held his arms outstretched. “It was just a question of a few young people making a lot of money too quickly.” He breathed heavily, his voice strained. Richard realized that a knot had formed in his own throat some time earlier. LeClaire paused and looked at his glass for about a minute.

  “I am merely trying to set up some kind of an arrangement to shelter Elaine and the kids, and to take care of my legal bills. I have been asked to do some consulting for others through my law firm to act as an offset to an hourly charge for my attorney’s fees.” He looked up at Jack, “And I really cannot anticipate beyond that how I am going to do anything to take care of Elaine and the kids while I am away. I am also not sure how long I will be away. I do not know what I am going to say to my 5-year-old,” he said and looked at the floor.

  Richard said, “You can explain it to her when she’s a little bit older. And by that time the whole thing will probably have blown over.” He was angry at himself for being sympathetic. But it was hard to think about LeClaire’s kids, watch LeClaire’s anguish without reacting.

  “I am not talking about when I get back, I am talking about when they put me away. What do I say to Cynthia about why I am going away for maybe a year or two?” Panic now in his eyes.

  Richard looked away, not wanting to feel his throat burning.

  “When are you gonna be sentenced, François?” Jack said.

  “Not until the trials against the others in the ring are over. Until then, I am in a holding pattern.”

  “What about your contacts?” Jack asked. “Are they gonna be at all useful to you or to us?”

  “No. Part of my cooperation is that I would not contact any of my former clients.”

  Jack had been swirling his glass the last minute or so. Richard could see he was thinking about something.

  They all paused.

  Jack said, “We’d like to work out how to have our new restructuring department use you as a consultant, François. How would we arrange things?”

  “I would prefer that you pay my law firm directly, billed on an hourly basis for my services which they would directly offset against my legal fees.”

  “What do you think about that, Richard?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t like it. It might be perceived after the fact that the firm was trying to hide something,” Richard said. “It would be better if it paid you directly.”

  “That would be acceptable to me. I was just thinking of you…and how it might look.” They all fell silent again.

  LeClaire slouched on the sofa now, sipping his grapefruit juice. He looked around, seemed to sense there wasn’t anything else to discuss. He sighed. “Okay, thanks,” he said. LeClaire stood to leave, picked up a plain manila envelope he’d brought.

  “Nice briefcase,” Richard said, trying to smile.

  “Well, I am trying to stay relatively incognito,” LeClaire said, holding his arms out and looking down at his khakis. “I figured that if I dress like a tennis pro instead of wearing a suit that no one will recognize me. It has not always worked. A bankerlooking type came up to me in a restaurant in Florida the other day and asked me if I was François LeClaire. I told him yes because I could not think of what else to say. He shook my hand and complimented me for some of the things I had done professionally prior to my going down. It is nice to talk to somebody,” he said looking at them from across the coffee table, like he was reluctant to step out from behind it and move toward the door. “I really do not get to talk to too many people anymore.” They all shook hands and he put on his sunglasses again as he walked through the door to leave.

  “Wow, what a mess,” Richard said after LeClaire closed the door. Jack just looked at him, then turned to the bar.

  “Don’t be a sap,” Jack said with his back turned.

  “What do you mean?” Richard stepped closer, butterflies now in his stomach. He checked his stopwatch: 7:35 left.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for him. He’s got great bullshit, and he’s playing it up to his eyeballs. Although it’s obvious he’s not pretending to be a complete wreck; that part is sure as hell real. But ‘one mistake’? Ridiculous. One mistake, my ass.” He paused and turned to face Richard again. “Don’t let yourself get sucked in. Sir Reginald and Delecroix paid him well for what he did. He’ll have a stash the Feds and creditors won’t know about waiting for him in France when he gets out.”

  “You and Mickey were in on the whole thing, weren’t you?”

  Jack didn’t respond, but the corners of his mouth showed a hint of that golden boy smirk. Then his face got hard.

  “In on it? We dreamed it up years ago, and pitched it to
Sir Reginald and Delecroix when they invested in Walker. With their capital we made it into Walker’s biggest profit center.”

  Strung me and everybody else along the whole time. Richard wanted to tell Jack what he thought of him, but didn’t want to interrupt him if he was gonna keep talking. He felt his blood pumping in his temples.

  “Remember me telling you about skiing? None of us knew the route or how it would turn out. We just saw far enough ahead to react to each gate one at a time. And don’t look so scandalized. We aren’t plotting, methodical crooks, just guys with college tuitions to pay, cars to buy, and wives who like nice stuff. We’re no different than anybody else. Everybody cuts corners; we’re just playing with more chips.”

  Now Richard felt an odd knot in his stomach. His face felt brittle, tense. He said, “That’s not how everybody operates.”

  “Don’t give me that self-righteous, wounded puppy look. You’re a big boy now. I heard from Sir Reginald you were a tough infighter teamed with Milner over there in London, cutting your deal to negotiate your way out of the trading scam. You’re one of us, whether you like it or not, and you’re good at it. There’s nothing to be ashamed about that you’ve got the balls to fight bareknuckles when you have to. And you know what, you’re right about LeClaire, we can’t use him. He’s shot.” He clinked an ice cube into his glass, as if to underscore his words.

  Richard turned to the windows and stood looking out over Madison Avenue, down at the Carlyle. He reflected on the past months, on Jack, Steinberg, Cole, LeClaire, Sir Reginald and Delecroix, spending his career among guys like them. Some masters of high finance; they couldn’t see beyond their next deal and didn’t give a damn what they had to do to get it done. No wonder the whole financial system had almost melted down. And high tolerance for ambiguity or not, they were a rotten bunch. He glanced at his stopwatch: 5:16. Push him. He turned to Jack and said, “What did you guys do to Milner?”

  Jack said, “Milner’s a cagey bastard, but don’t count on him. We blew his scam. The wire he was wearing lit up Sir Reginald’s sniffer equipment the instant you guys walked into their office. His tech boys jammed it.”