Reckless

by Andrew Gross

  He drove onto the Major Deegan Expressway, past Yankee Stadium, trying to push the questions about Dani Thibault and Marc Glassman out of his head.

  He punched in Annie’s cell. She was at work, and he’d promised to let her know how the meeting went. But as soon as it began to ring, something made him think twice and, not sure why, he clicked the line off.

  The truth was that nowhere in Hauck’s soul was there a single, isolated place where Foley’s response on how to handle Thibault sat peacefully in him, nowhere in the back-and-forth of his con-science that the option of just doing nothing, letting it sit—what’s right for our accounts, that’s your priority now—made sense.

  Instead, as he swung the Beemer onto the parkway heading to Connecticut, twenty minutes from home, there was Merrill. The doubts he saw deep in her eyes. She didn’t want to put it aside. I want to know who the man I’m supposed to be falling in love with really is.

  You’re not representing the town of Greenwich anymore…

  Instead, there was Thibault. A cipher. A con man. Or much, much worse. Deals that didn’t happen. Relationships that didn’t exist. What kind of man did all that? What was it he had to hide?

  You know who’s bidding on Wertheimer’s retail business, Ty? Foley had patted him on the shoulder.

  He was feeling played.

  Instead, there were headlines about the once-mighty Wall Street firm in ruins. Jobs lost. The Dow in freefall. Fortunes decimated. Marc Glassman and April and their beautiful daughter dead.

  Now if that’s all done maybe we can shift the subject to you, Ty…

  What is it, he thought as he lost himself in the rhythm of the drive, that’s really being protected here? Just because he had made this shift in his life, just because his company ID now said Talon, not the Greenwich police, he couldn’t just put it behind him. The unrest in his blood was the same, the same he’d always felt.

  How do you put away something that is as true to you as the beating of your own heart?

  How do you put the truth behind you?

  “Well, the first thing you should know”—April smiled, taking a sip of coffee—“is you’re not going crazy. Insanity is inherited, you know.” She bit her lower lip. “You get it from your kids.”

  He laughed, taking a sip of his latte too. “I always thought it was the other way around.”

  “Popular misconception,” she said. “Forgiven. Everyone makes that mistake at first.”

  “Thanks for initiating me.”

  After his third time there, their eyes bumping into each other a few times, they had happened to leave the building together and talked for a second on the sidewalk. There was a Starbucks on the corner and she asked him if he liked mocha lattes.

  “I’m more of a black, no sugar man. But I’m aching to have my horizons expanded.”

  “Then my treat.”

  They had walked over to a couch. She ordered for him. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened,” she said, stirring her coffee. There was something immediately open and trusting about her, and since the accident, since Hauck’s marriage had dissolved and he had walked away from the force, he hadn’t shared much with anyone. So it was nice just to sit down with someone. And she was pretty. And kind. “Losing a child.”

  “Look,” he said, “things have a way of getting a bit gloomy upstairs, so we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want. But thanks.”

  “It’s not your fault, you know.” She shrugged. Her eyes were a soft moss green. “I know you don’t believe that now, but it isn’t.”

  All he said was “I know.”

  April’s smile widened. “No one would believe that you do, you know. Know that.”

  He was in a state he had never felt before. Nothing had ever come easily to him. He had to work at everything—school, sports. Those rushing records in high school, they took every ounce of sweat and determination he had. Getting himself into Colby. His brother had talked his way into law school; for Hauck, it just seemed right to go a different direction. Onto the force. And he rose. Made detective before he was thirty. His fancy degree got him recruited to One Police Plaza. Department of Information. Under the eye of the assistant chief. His marriage thrived. Two adorable girls. Back then, the arc of his life seemed unlimited. Forever rising. For just a moment, a fleeting instant, he had let all that focus and dedication relax. Taken his eye off it.

  You could never take your eye off it. Then…

  “I may not be crazy,” he said, smiling back, “but I’ve sure done some crazy things. Recently…”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, all seems kinda stupid now. After the thing with Norah, I sat outside a D’Agostino in Elmhurst for three hours in the middle of the night until I took a brick and flung it through the storefront window.”

  “Oh? They give you a roast chicken past the sell date?”

  “No.” He shook his head with a bit of a smile. “That’s where I was headed when I let the car back down the driveway…When…”

  Even the way she looked at him made him feel better. Like there was an end to this. Like one day, someone would find him interesting again. “Seems stupid now. My precinct head had to intercede. Anyway, that’s how I got here.”

  “I drove my daughter to ballet on a combination of OxyContin and antidepressants. I ended up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.”

  “What was in Pennsylvania?” he asked.

  April smiled. “Don’t know. The Amish. I just mean to say, you’ve got no monopoly on letting the walls fall down. Your daughter was killed. You felt responsible. Sometimes we all just have to do crazy things. Who threw that brick? You?”

  “I don’t know.” Hauck shrugged. “Maybe someone inside me.”

  “What does Dr. Paul say? Doctor-patient confidentiality aside, of course.”

  “He said it would be good to find out who that person is.”

  “Look…” She touched his arm, leaning closer. “Those people upstairs…Some of them have been coming to this group for over ten years. The honest-to-God truth is, there are two types—the ones whose brain chemistry has been out of whack since they were kids. Whose every day is a fight to keep things in balance. Then there’s the people for whom the walls that kept everything together have just temporarily come down. Like your walls. Whether you like it or not.” She cupped her hands around her mug. “Those are the ones just passing through.” There was a twinkle in her eyes. “Sorry, mister, that’s you.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He felt almost embarrassed. He looked up and saw her staring at him, not suggestive in any way. But he was sure he saw a little sadness in her too.

  “So which type are you?”

  By the time Hauck hit the Merritt Parkway, the unrest had grown into something that he had felt many times before and wouldn’t easily go away.

  Just passing through. She was right. He had gone to the group for eight sessions. That inner person, he knew damn well who it was now.

  It was the person who was about to do this.

  He reached for his cell and punched in a number off the speed dial. After a couple rings, a familiar voice picked up. “Collucci,” the person answered.

  Vito Collucci was an ex–Stamford detective who had his own successful investigative agency now. Sometimes it had helped to have a source for these kinds of things outside of the force, and he had helped Hauck many times.

  “Ty,” Vito said, sounding pleased, “I’m surprised a big shot like you has time to remember the little fish like me. You got my e-mail?”

  “Yeah, Vito, that was nice of you. Thanks. You mentioned if you could help out in any way…”

  “Jeez, that was only a figure of speech, my friend. But the hell with it, if you’re serious, shoot.”

  “I need you to pull me a cell phone history.” Hauck reached over and opened his case. Holding the wheel, he pulled out the profile and read Vito the number. “The subject’s name is Thibault.” He spelled it for him. “First name Dieter. Or Dan
i. D-AN-I. I know this isn’t particularly glamorous, guy.”

  “Yeah, and I can’t even charge you for it,” the private detective replied. “But I’m a little confused. Don’t you have people in that high-profile firm who do this kind of thing routinely?”

  Hauck paused, exiting the parkway at Long Ridge Road. Just a small step, he cautioned himself. A toe in the water.

  But that’s how everything always got started.

  “If it’s okay, I was thinking we might keep this separate from my high-profile firm, Vito. Alright by you?”

  The Stamford investigator laughed. “That didn’t take long, Ty.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  His daughter Jessie came up for the weekend. Now that she was fourteen, she took the train up from Grand Central. Every once in a while they drove up to Butternut in Western Massachusetts and went skiing or saw her cousins up near Hartford. Sometimes they just hung at the house and watched a bunch of movies. She was reaching for her independence now full-throttle, and Hauck realized it was getting harder and harder to lure her up there. Something was always popping up—a basketball game at school, Amanda’s party, a Rooney concert. More and more, she spent her time with him with her legs hanging over the couch, on Facebook or on her cell gabbing.

  This time, he caved and agreed to take her to see Knocked Up, despite the R rating. Which he regretted from the opening credits.

  “Jeez, Dad,” Jessie said afterward as Hauck checked uncomfortably for the sign of some other kids her age, “it’s not like it’s stuff I’ve never seen.”

  When the hell had Nemo morphed into Seth Rogen?

  That Sunday, he got up early and stole some time on the computer. He took a jog around Hope Cove, and the April morning air was salty and starting to warm. Another month and it would be time to take out the boat. It was anyone’s guess if Jessie would be up for that anymore.

  Later, he made pancakes for her when she came out at nine thirty, wiping sleep out of her eyes. He watched her, as he sipped his coffee, in her sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, wondering if there was anything quite as hopeful or beautiful in the world. He missed Norah—he thought of her scrunched-up nose and singsong laughter every day. Eventually Jessie caught him staring blankly. “What, Dad?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  After breakfast, he put his face in the sun on the deck overlooking the sound and took out the Sunday New York Times.

  Jessie was already on the phone on the couch, watching Comedy Central. He started with the sports section. Tiger and Phil were gearing up for a showdown at the Masters. The Yanks lost to the Red Sox on opening day.

  As he threw the sports aside and searched for business, a headline on the front page of the metro section grabbed him.

  Suicide Victim in High-Rise Is Second Wall Street Trader

  The body found hanging yesterday morning in the office of a superintendent of a midtown apartment building was identified as that of James Donovan, a mortgage bond trader at Wall Street firm Beeston Holloway. Mr. Donovan was a resident of the building.

  The death is being considered a suicide, and Donovan is the second high-profile Wall Street trader in the past month to meet a sudden end. Mark Glassman, a securities trader at the recently collapsed Wertheimer Grant, was fatally shot along with his family in what was thought to be a break-in at his home in Greenwich, CT, on March 6. The resulting scandal of losses and trading mismanagement helped to take down the firm.

  Donovan, 32, was a high rider, recently described by friends and coworkers as having appeared “bothered” and “preoccupied” of late, perhaps resulting from the precipitous turnaround in the mortgage bond market. Staff at the upscale building where he lived with his wife and son said he was often seen in the middle of the night walking his dog, and seemed to have some arrangement that allowed him access to the superintendent’s office, where his body was discovered early Friday morning as the building’s super, Luis Verga, arrived for work. Mr. Verga would not comment other than to say he knew Mr. Donovan and that “he was a good guy,” but one building staffer said Mr. Donovan often used the office to take late calls because “it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job and he didn’t want to bother his wife at late hours. He was on the board. At Christmas, he made it worthwhile.”

  Friends and coworkers described the successful trader as changed in the past few weeks, “kind of withdrawn and edgy.” “He felt under a lot of pressure,” one coworker said. Susan Fine, spokesperson for Beeston Holloway, said, “Jim was an excellent young man and an adept trader. His future was on the rise.”

  Speculation that Donovan’s suicide was related to a pattern of financial mismanagement that helped bring down the once-mighty Wertheimer Grant began to circulate as soon as the news of the trader’s suicide hit the streets. “Such speculation is completely unfounded and untrue,” Fine said when asked to comment. “Beeston has tight operational controls.” She added that the firm, despite its own dramatic stock slide over the past weeks and rumors of impending write-downs against its balance sheet, “is on sound financial footing.”

  Donovan, who is originally from Sayville, Long Island, and received an MBA from NYU, leaves behind his wife, Leslie, and a son, Zachary, four.

  Hauck put the article down. He stared, doubt swarming in him, at the placid sound.

  He didn’t really believe in coincidences, and like every cop, he lived by the rule “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

  A second Wall Street trader suspiciously dead was now a fire.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  At 6:40 that Monday morning, Naomi came in from her early run along the Potomac. She threw her shell top on the chair in her two-level apartment in Alexandria, her gray Bon Jovi T-shirt and tight black leggings soaked through with sweat. She took a water bottle out of the fridge and placed the cool plastic against her forehead, exhaling. That felt good.

  Six miles.

  She had done it in a little under thirty-two minutes. She was building up for next year’s Marine Corp marathon. Pushing for an under-three-twenty time.

  Next week she’d push herself up to eight.

  She peeled off her shirt, down to her sports bra, and got ready to head into the shower. She checked her government e-mail.

  This second dead Wall Street trader was on her radar. She was taught to look for patterns, and for this one she didn’t have to look very far. By seven, a staff assistant would forward her links to any news story that might be of interest, and over the Post, coffee, and the Financial Times Naomi would scroll through them to bring herself up to speed for the day. Yesterday, news came out on James Donovan, who had died under unusual circumstances. From Beeston Holloway. Hung himself. Couldn’t stand the pressure. These young guys had come out of college, made more their first year than Naomi had to her name. They’d only seen the market go one way—up!—their entire lives.

  At least that’s how it was being portrayed in the press. She’d already brought it to Rob Whyte, her boss at Treasury. It didn’t smell right. No matter how it was being portrayed. “You watch,” she told him, “something’s not right on this. I should go check it out.” She scrolled through her in-box, looking for whatever had been posted on the trader’s suicide.

  There was a new item flashing. Along with the red message light on her BlackBerry.

  It was a text from Rob. Naomi saw that he’d posted a link.

  The subject was “Second Trader Dead.” The only thing it said was “Need to talk on this TODAY!”

  Something else had happened.

  Putting her yogurt down, she clicked on the link, which turned out to be an update of the earlier story, on Bloomberg, dated only an hour ago.

  DEAD BEESTON TRADER IMPLICATED IN SECOND INVESTOR SCANDAL. BILLIONS UNACCOUNTED FOR. COMPANY CALLS DAMAGE “MATERIAL AND PERVASIVE.” AUDIT UNDER WAY.

  STOCK REELING IN OVERSEAS TRADING.

  She knew it! She turned on the TV. CNBC was on it. Their angle was an out-of-control Wall Street unable to cope with th
e downturn. First Wertheimer, now Beeston.

  No, she now felt sure—that wasn’t what was going on. Not at all.

  She was taught to look for patterns. Patterns that could be woven into puzzles. Threats.

  This one was right in front of her.

  Naomi grabbed her BlackBerry and texted her boss. “Already on it,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The second investment manager to die under suspicious circumstances quickly became front-page news.

  The media paraded it as a sign of Wall Street “on ’roids!” No controls. All oversight shattered. Donovan became a tragic case of the life-altering pressures of highly remunerated “dice rollers” unable to cope with their evaporating positions. The post-boom world.

  First it was the subprime debacle, Wertheimer going belly-up. Then it was Fannie and Freddie teetering, AIG coughing up blood. Now it was Beeston. Portfolio managers having to double down on their bets to make up their widening losses, taking their firms down with them. Over the edge. These people weren’t programmed for anything but success.

  James Donovan had only known life one way. Up.

  He just couldn’t handle it.

  Hauck opened the door to the Seventeenth Precinct station house. He’d left work early that afternoon and driven to the city. Monday was the night he usually had Annie over and cooked dinner, but tonight, this new development was on his mind.