Clawback

by Mike Cooper

  You hear all about how cutthroat American business has become. As if Wall Street is worse than Blofeld’s shark tank; like guys get shivved in the coatroom at L’Atelier. Now, at a few places that’s true, I admit. The way the mafiya has moved into penny-stock fraud, for example, I wouldn’t go near a boiler-room brokerage without a machine gun. But come on—mostly we’re talking about guys who haven’t been closer to combat than ducking a swing from a drunken panhandler they insulted outside Grand Central.

  When you find out someone’s been fiddling the books, you’ve got options. You can issue a restatement and a public apology—ha-ha, just kidding; nobody does that! You can take it to the U.S. attorney and prosecute in the full glare of God and everyone. You can buy the guy off. Or you can fire him and cover up, although that’s harder nowadays, what with all the reregulation.

  But when you need the problem solved fast and permanent, you call me.

  I thought my night was over, but when I dialed Tom Marlett—the client—to let him know Hayden had come through, it rang with no answer. Not even voicemail, and that was odd. Okay, three a.m. and all, but I’d told Marlett I expected a resolution, and he’d demanded to hear as soon as it was settled.

  For ten million bucks, I’d stay up all night, too. Something didn’t feel right.

  His home wasn’t far away, especially via the deserted roads of suburban Fairfield County. I had the windows down and night air washed through the car, bringing that early autumn smell of fading leaves and dying flowers. A good smell. I flashed past estates and horse farms and conservation land, dark and lonely, wondering if Hayden was still cuffed to his backseat. Even odds, I figured, that some opportunist would have stolen his phone and wallet by now, rather than releasing him.

  I had to slow down, going through Old Ridgefork’s town center, and just as well. A hundred yards after bumping over the railroad tracks, where the blacktop curved around the old cemetery, blue lights appeared down the road. A moment later an ALS ambulance shot past, lit up but no siren, going at least twice my speed.

  Uh-oh.

  Sure enough, all the excitement was at Marlett’s outsized “farmhouse,” as he liked to call it. I drove past slowly but without stopping, staring over the low stone wall edging his property line. The ambulance had joined three police cruisers and a fire engine, all at the top of the mansion’s long gravel drive. A uniformed officer in reflective striping stood at the estate’s entrance, arms crossed, doubtless posted to keep out bloggers and gawkers and oddballs who’d be drawn like moths to the flame of celebrity misfortune.

  Well, what else could I do? Before the lights had disappeared from my rearview, I was speed-dialing my pal Johnny, who runs a three-billion-dollar incremental fund downtown.

  “Wake up,” I said.

  “Fuck.” His voice was groggy. “The after-hours just kick you out?”

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes, tops.”

  “What?”

  “Emergency vehicles and an ambulance at Tom Marlett’s house. Police are standing guard on the perimeter. The 911 probably went out less than ten minutes ago.”

  A pause, but only for a few seconds.

  “Tom Marlett’s dead?”

  “Or badly hurt. Or someone else in the house.”

  “I thought he was between wives.”

  “Yeah, you’re right—number three went a few months ago.” It’s a small playground, our overpaid corner of the financial world, and gossip about rich people you sort of know is a lot more interesting than gossip about celebrities you don’t. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Three police cars tell me all I need to know. It’s the morgue or the ICU or jail for Marlett. Either way his firm is about to go through the guardrails.”

  “Yeah.” Johnny fell silent for a few moments as he sorted through options. “Shit. I can’t do anything with it.”

  “What?” I slowed at a crossroads and turned right, aiming to get back on the Merritt. “Why not? This is the tip of the year, for Christ’s sake. Beat the vultures to it.”

  See, Marlett basically ran a one-man band. Typical for a small investment shop, the kind of firm with a billion or two under management, mostly for other rich guys and some banks and so forth. He was a dabbler: a little private equity, a little trading, a little debt arbitrage. That deal with Hayden was the sort of one-off that would scare any sane investor away from a Marlett prospectus, but he found his investors on the golf course and the yacht club. You know, places where due diligence didn’t run much further than seeing if Marlett picked up the bar tab.

  Which meant that Marlett Capital’s returns depended entirely on Tom Marlett himself. Whatever happened a half hour ago, the short-term outlook for his investors was a flashing-red SELL! I thought Johnny could use the information to get in and short Marlett ahead of the crowd—a sure bet on the rigged roulette wheel of Marlett Capital’s forthcoming swan dive.

  “It’s not a public company,” said Johnny. “There’s no stock to sell short.”

  “Jesus, I know that.” What was I, an idiot? “So go after his debt. Or whatever deals he’s got cooking—it’s all going to tank as soon as Wall Street wakes up this morning.”

  “The problem is he’s already in the basement.” Johnny laughed. “The sub-subbasement, in fact. With rats and sewage and broken utility mains.”

  “I didn’t know it was that bad.” True, rumors had been zipping around, especially after Marlett had delayed his quarterly perfor-mance letter. I’d figured that was why he was so keen on recovering the ten mil from Hayden. But because I was on a contingency funded directly by Hayden’s cash, I hadn’t done any kind of liquidity check. “What do you know?”

  “I heard from a guy that Marlett’s going to announce a seventy-eight percent loss for the last quarter.”

  “What? Wow. That’s awesome!”

  “Yeah.”

  And if Johnny knew, so did enough other smart money. I could see the problem—no one was going to touch Marlett, no matter what Johnny offered. All that first-responder excitement I’d seen was just icing on a cake that had been scavenged down to crumbs already.

  I didn’t bother asking “What guy?” either.

  “Wait a minute,” Johnny said. “How do you know about this?”

  “I was driving by.”

  “Is that all?”

  He was a longtime friend, so I could overlook the implication.

  “Nothing to do with me,” I said. Which I thought was true—I couldn’t imagine any connection to Hayden, who was probably still in the Bazookas parking lot. And who had no idea it was Marlett who’d hired me, for that matter.

  “Uh-huh. Come by tomorrow, we’ll talk.”

  A sign for the Merritt Parkway appeared in my headlights, then the on-ramp itself. At the top of the incline, merging on to the mostly empty highway, I could see a faint glow of false dawn in the rearview mirror.

  “Sorry to wake you up,” I said.

  “Nah, still good to know. Maybe I’ll call around. See if I can find anyone who’s still exposed to Marlett—salt the wounds.” He would, too. Inside knowledge is always good for something, even if only to talk smack.

  On the way back to Manhattan I considered the ten million Hayden had grudgingly coughed up earlier. I’d already extracted my cut, of course, but Tom Marlett might not be needing all the rest. Maybe he wouldn’t even know about it…When I got home, and had access to a securely anonymized computer connection, I would see if the recovery was still sitting at that bank in the Caymans.

  Even if Johnny couldn’t profit from Marlett’s misfortune, maybe I could.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I slept until birds woke me up. Midmorning sunshine slanted through the window slats. Pigeons don’t chirp, but what the hell else lives in the city? Every year some nature-loving reporter runs a story on peregrine falcons roosting on City Hall or Trump Tower, but I don’t think they chirp either. Sparrows? Robins? Where’s John James Audubon when you need him?

  If the falcons moved uptown,
maybe they could eat the sparrows. I’d have to write a letter to the editor.

  First thing, like every morning, the news. Still lying on the futon I pulled my laptop open:

  “MILLIONAIRE BANKER KILLED IN DAWN ATTACK!”

  Good job, Rupert. At least two errors were obvious in the single headline: Marlett was a fund manager, not a banker, and the attack had occurred hours before dawn.

  But he really was dead. The news aggregators all said the same thing: Marlett had died on his doorstep, shot between two and five times by an unknown assailant.

  Nothing to do with me, thankfully.

  I hadn’t been able to get Marlett’s cash out of the Caymans bank, six hours earlier, because it was gone by the time I logged in. Sadly, that kind of cash will always find a new home as fast as it needs one. But the day wasn’t lost. Once I got out of bed I found a new-business call on my voicemail.

  “Silas Cade? Are you there? Don’t you ever answer the phone? I’ve tried three times now. Call me back.”

  Well, in fact, no, I never do answer that phone. It’s a voicemail–only number at Verizon, which I signed up for years ago, back before customer-verification rules became stricter. They don’t know who I am, and I pay with a money order sent through the mail every six months, so they never will. I call in to collect my messages now and then—once every few days unless the wolf is at the door.

  Presumably, my new lead had gotten the number from a previous client or the grapevine or who knows? Like Walter, I have to rely on word of mouth, which means I need a permanent contact number. But I use it strictly for first impressions. After that I buy a prepaid cellphone, one for each job, and throw it in the East River afterward.

  You can’t be too careful.

  I still had the mobile I’d used with Marlett, but I couldn’t use it anymore—the job was over, he was dead, the phone had to go. I’d leave it in a dumpster somewhere later. Fortunately, I’d stocked up on throwaways from the 96th Street bodega recently, and found one in the kitchen drawer. I powered it up, verified the balance and called my possible new client. In as few words as necessary I set up an appointment that afternoon: “No, don’t tell me where you got my name. Yes, I’m glad for the reference, but…no, forget it. Let’s not talk about…yes, I’m happy to meet.”

  They always need to see me in person. Evaluate my trustworthiness, see if they can spot the handgun, who knows? Privacy can be hard to come by, since they’re usually C-level executives or millionaire business owners. But this guy—he called himself Ganderson—suggested the Willow Haven Country Club.

  “What?”

  “It’s in Bolingbroke, do you know it?”

  “Sure, but isn’t that kind of, I dunno…public?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you on the range. Ask the girl at the front desk.”

  I started to say something about not having golf clubs, but he’d already hung up. Well, I could stand around while he practiced his drives. Maybe onlookers would think I was the caddy.

  There were coffee beans somewhere in the cramped kitchen of my apartment, but a warm breeze was coming through the window, and it looked like a cloudless sky over the next building’s roofline. A takeout bagel from Amir’s seemed like a better plan, and I could walk down to Carl Schurz Park, find a bench and read the market blogs on my mobile.

  Self-employment does have its advantages.

  Going down the stairs I passed my neighbor Gabriel, shirtless, tattoos dark on his shaved head, hauling up a laundry basket. He nodded in a friendly way.

  “Hey, Silas. Nice day, huh?”

  “Global warming.”

  “Whatever.”

  In the tiny vestibule I checked the mailbox—nothing, which was good—and sighed. I’d had the place for less than a year, but it was getting time to move again. I don’t like people knowing who I am, even a little. Not where I live.

  And I’d gotten to like Yorkville. Students and people in their twenties, mostly, north of 80th and east of First. The closest subway was blocks away, which kept the rents down, and residents tended to come and go but without the seedy transience and heavy police presence of, say, Alphabet City. Most buildings were only three or four stories, so there were no doormen or concierges to keep a gossipy eye on the streets. I blended in—told people I was a freelance content management specialist or graphic designer or day trader, and they nodded and didn’t care.

  I’d even found an off-street space for my car for only five hundred a month, cash.

  As I pushed through the vestibule entrance, I decided I wasn’t done checking the mail. Rarely, but not never, someone I actually need to hear from writes me a letter. They don’t send it to a real address, of course—I use a double-blind, with forwarding out of Nevada provided by an edge-city guy who thinks I’m Russian mafiya but who’s paid well enough to be reliable. He sends it along to a box at the post office on 109th, up in East Harlem. I hadn’t been there to clean out the junk mail for a couple of weeks, and this seemed like a good opportunity. It was only three stops on the Lex. Amir’s could wait.

  The building’s heavy glass-mahogany-and-steel-bars front door swung shut behind me as I went down the worn terrazzo steps of the stoop. It really was a beautiful day. Sunshine, clean air, those damn birds, red and gold leaves in the gutters from trees down the street. Who wouldn’t want to live in the world’s greatest city?

  “No change,” snarled the helpful MTA employee from behind her scratched lexan, and went back to her cellphone conversation without drawing breath.

  “But I only need two rides.” I held up a twenty. She just looked annoyed and pointed at the ticket machines again.

  I don’t like the MetroCards, naturally. Trip history is stored centrally, and the MTA is happy to share data with police. Sure, they’re anonymous—unless you’re stupid enough to top them off with a credit card—but they can still match you to every trip on a single magstripe. So I try to buy only a ride or two at a time, which is hard when of the three machines, one is credit only, one is broken and one is flashing USE EXACT CHANGE. I sighed and gave up the twenty.

  The post office was busy, like most weekday mornings. A long line, two clerks working the counter, the floor already littered with scraps of paper and torn labels. I found my box and had just turned the key when my mobile rang.

  I stopped dead, pulled it out and stared at the screen, which was only giving me “Number Blocked.”

  See, the way I live, other people don’t call me. I call them. I’m constantly switching phones, as I mentioned, and it all gets too confusing. Clients get a number until their job ends, and friends might get another, but never for long.

  But worse, this was the phone I’d used with Marlett. He was the only person in the world I’d given the number—and I didn’t think he’d need to be calling now.

  I should have gotten rid of the damn thing immediately.

  “Hello?” I took my mail, the usual stack of mass-distribution flyers and a couple of envelopes, and stepped outside.

  “Hi,” said a woman’s voice. “Silas Cade?”

  Okay, my first reaction might not have been the best.

  I didn’t know the caller. She said her name was Claire Something—no bells. She didn’t mention another name, like, say, a mutual acquaintance, to validate the contact. And she wasn’t asking whether I wanted a job.

  So I immediately clicked off, and while walking directly back to the subway, I pulled the battery. Waiting at a red light on Third Avenue, I set the phone at the edge of the curb and smashed it with one boot, then swept up the pieces and dropped them, one by one, into garbage bins as I passed. The last one went into the MTA’s massive, metal-bound, bombproof trash can on the downtown platform.

  Dumb.

  I should have held on to the phone to try backtracking the call. For a moment I looked back at the trash barrel—but no, that was too far beneath even my dignity, not to mention the possibility of drawing attention. Even in East Harlem, transit cops occasionally got out
of their cruisers long enough to walk a platform.

  My only activity lately had been running Hayden down for Marlett. It didn’t have to mean a connection, but that old guy, Occam? He had a point.

  I suddenly needed to know more about Marlett. A lot more.

  A train squealed in, people got off, people got on. Not too crowded this time of day. I stood at one end of the car, swaying as it started up, eyeing the other passengers. At 103rd I stepped out, then slipped back in again, right before the doors closed. Old habits, easy to revive. It’s no way to live, not all the time, but paranoia holds its own deep comforts.

  Back aboveground at 86th I circled some blocks, zipped through an office building’s atrium, then stopped abruptly at a sidewalk vendor’s pretzel cart.

  “What’d you like, chief?”

  “No butter, extra salt.” I stood a few paces away and ate it standing, squinting up and down the sun-washed street.

  You know, being careful.

  On the other hand, the NYPD had recently begun to deploy miniature camera-carrying dirigibles, operated by remote control, far enough above the city streets to be invisible to pedestrians and low enough to be out of traveled airspace. UAV surveillance technology, developed for the sandy battlelands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and more recently Mexico and Texas, is now in service above the metropolis. Or so the bloggers say. You can’t really be off the grid anymore, anywhere.

  When the pretzel was gone, I continued another block to the Shale Building and walked down into the parking garage. Not so grand as it sounds—the building was a poorly maintained hulk from the 1940s, housing skeevy small-business offices and the sort of residential tenant who was required to pay weekly, in cash, direct to the super. The garage’s striped exit arm was up, the attendant’s booth locked and empty. I could see a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the tiny desk next to the credit card reader, though. Goldfinger was around somewhere, in the bathroom maybe.

  I waited five minutes before I decided that loitering might become suspicious. Goldfinger must have gone off on one of his pointlessly mysterious errands. I found a scrap of paper, scrawled a note and pushed it through the cash window, to land next to his coffee.