A Killer's Kiss

by William Lashner

  What the hell was I doing?

  Then she spotted me and smiled, and I remembered. I remembered the fever I had felt the night before, the fusion of desire and remembrance. She wasn’t just another appealing woman on the street, she was my heartbreak and my history and my hope.

  She came up to me, put her hand on my forearm. “Hi,” she said with a lover’s intonation, which meant she had a long memory, because we still hadn’t as of yet consummated our reunion. The night before, she had pushed me away even as her earlobe was pinched between my teeth. It was late. Gwen was still awake. It was too soon after her husband’s death. It was like he was still in the room. “All the better,” I had said, with the tact of a brontosaurus in heat, but still she had pushed me away and still I had let her.

  “You ready?” I said now, as we stood outside the building.

  “I suppose.” She glanced up at my hair, squinted a bit, looked back into my eyes. “So you think this Miles Cave gambit will work?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “It would be good, Victor. For us, I mean.”

  “For us?”

  “It would give us a chance.”

  “A chance to stay out of jail, maybe.”

  “More,” she said. “If we can send the police off chasing after this Miles Cave, that might give us the time we need to undo all the regrets. He could be our last best chance.”

  “Just so long as he can take the fall.”

  “Yes,” she said, her chin rising at the flat tone of my voice. “Just so long.” She looked at me, reached a hand to my cheek, and then let her eyes drift up again. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s like an oil well vomited on your head.”

  “I bought some gel. When we meet this Mr. Nettles in your husband’s office, I want to look just right. Today, in order to find out what I can about our boy Miles Cave, I’m playing the part of your slick, amoral lawyer, out to grab for you everything he can, including the wallpaper and the desks.”

  “Don’t you think you overdid it a bit?”

  “Absolutely. A little gel looks like you’re trying. A lot of gel looks like you’re trying way too hard. And way too much gel makes you look like a demented grave robber, which, for today’s purposes, I think, is perfect.”

  Inner Circle Investments was housed in an old brownstone with a series of metal plaques bolted into the stone by the door. There were lawyers’ offices, there was a psychiatrist, and there was Inner Circle, taking up the whole of the third floor. An almost perfect combination, I figured. First you give your money to a broker, then you get your head examined, then you sue.

  “Mrs. Denniston, hello,” said Ernest T. Nettles as he bounded out in shirtsleeves and suspenders to greet us in the deserted outer office. “We are all so sorry for your loss. I’ve only recently come aboard and so didn’t know your husband very well, but I’ve heard much about him.”

  “Thank you,” said Julia softly, as if fighting back tears. Nice job on her part, I thought.

  “Mr. Carl, it’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” said Nettles. “I’m sorry the secretary isn’t here, she would have wanted to greet you both personally. She is at the courthouse, doing some filing or other. Come, come into my office, both of you. Let’s talk.”

  We followed him through the doorway and into a desolate hall lined with empty offices, until we reached his, a nice corner job with dark wood furniture and oil paintings of sheep. Nettles was a cheerful man, short and stocky, with round glasses and shaggy gray hair. He gestured us to sit on a couch, he sat perched on an easy chair beside us.

  “Do you know yet when the funeral will be, Mrs. Denniston?” said Nettles.

  “As soon as the police release the body,” said Julia.

  “Please let us know. We’ve had many calls from those who wish to pay their respects.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you ever been up to the offices before, Mrs. Denniston?”

  “No. Wren very much liked to keep his personal and business lives separate.”

  “A fine policy,” said Nettles. “An excellent policy.”

  “In fact,” she said, “he never mentioned you to me.”

  “As I said, I’ve only just come aboard. I’ve been hoping to have a chat with you in the last couple of days, but I’ve held back because of the tragic circumstances. But now here you are. And with your lawyer, no less.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed, glanced at me, and then let his gaze wander up to my gelled hair. “So what can I do for you both?”

  “As you are aware, Mr. Nettles,” I said, “the death of Mrs. Denniston’s husband has been a cruel shock. But that doesn’t mean the necessities of life halt.”

  “Of course they don’t,” said Nettles.

  “And as her attorney I’ve advised Mrs. Denniston that she has the responsibility to look after her late husband’s assets.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “And that is why we are here, Mr. Nettles. We need an accounting of Dr. Denniston’s financial stake in this company. And, if I may be blunt—”

  “You may.”

  “A sense of how his widow might turn it into ready cash.”

  “Of course. That’s what anyone would want.”

  “So when can we start?”

  “Mrs. Denniston, Mr. Carl, please be aware that our records are completely open and you are more than welcome to send your accountants in to scour our books.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “As you can see, we have much more space than we need at present. We can set aside a few offices for your team to make itself at home while it examines every scrap of paper. With our files and databases, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get a solid grip on the exact details. But maybe I can save you the expense.”

  “That would be most kind,” said Julia.

  “If you want a ballpark figure of the exact value of your husband’s share of Inner Circle, Mrs. Denniston, I could give that to you right now.”

  “Are we talking liquid assets?” I said.

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  I leaned forward, smoothed the hair at my temple with the base of my palm, wiped my palm on the other palm and then back again, and then wiped both palms on my pant legs. Is it just me, or is the revelation of the exact numbers when dealing with great gouts of cash quite exhilarating? The number scrawled on a paper, the number given in a hushed tone, the first number in a lucrative negotiation.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Nettles,” I said. “Make our day.”

  “The value of Dr. Denniston’s share of Inner Circle Investments is”—he cleared his throat—“I’m afraid, nothing.”

  My jaw dropped. I lifted a hand and pushed it back up. “Nothing?”

  “Zilch. Zero. Nada. Actually, less than nada. Dada, you might say. I expect when the final numbers are run, and the lawsuits shake out, Dr. Denniston will owe Inner Circle quite a large amount.”

  “How much?” said Julia matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t want to give an exact figure now, but it is substantial, Mrs. Denniston. A full accounting will be presented to you shortly. I’m sorry to say that there will probably be litigation.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How could that be?”

  “Well, you see,” said Nettles, “from what I understand, there was an embezzlement by a minor clerk at a small bank in Taipei.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Mrs. Denniston is broke because of some corrupt clerk in Taiwan?”

  “Yes, actually. When the theft was discovered, the bank collapsed. Which bankrupted a medium-size manufacturer in Jakarta. Which cut the supply line to a large manufacturer in Shanghai. Who failed then to satisfy its order to Wal-Mart. Which subsequently canceled its contract with the Shanghai manufacturer. When the news got out, the stock of the Shanghai manufacturer fell precipitously on the Hong Kong exchange. All of which provided barely a ripple in U.S. markets. Except for one hedge fun
d, which, while searching for undervalued foreign companies, had been quite long on the Shanghai manufacturer’s shares. A little too long, perhaps.”

  “I’m not sure I’m getting the connection.”

  “Are you aware of what Inner Circle Investments was, Mrs. Denniston?”

  “No, not really. Wren didn’t talk about business with me at all.”

  “Inner Circle was an investment vehicle in which funds were invested in a single entity, a specific hedge fund run out of Connecticut. One of the principals of the fund was Joseph Borden.”

  “Wren’s oldest friend.”

  “Exactly. The fund was primarily financed by institutional investors, but Mr. Borden granted Dr. Denniston the sole license to bring individual investors into the fund. Dr. Denniston invested pretty much all his own money and solicited funds from most of his friends and associates and their friends and associates. It was a cozy arrangement, actually. For the hedge fund, it meant a steady stream of cash; for Wren and his investors, the returns were outstanding. Everyone was happy until—”

  “An embezzlement in Taipei,” I said.

  “Yes, exactly. It’s funny how these things work, like the fluttering wings of a butterfly causing a tornado half a world away. The hedge fund didn’t survive the fall.”

  “I bet the investors in Inner Circle were not very happy,” I said.

  “The letters we have on file are heartbreaking.”

  “You mind if I get a look?”

  “No, of course not. If you have the time, Mr. Carl, I’ll make them available to you right after our meeting. And you should know, Mrs. Denniston, your husband fought valiantly to keep Inner Circle alive, paying out investors as best he could.”

  “How could he pay them?” I asked.

  “As I understand it, he mortgaged everything he had to keep Inner Circle going. And then, of course, people were still lining up to invest. The past performance of Inner Circle was excellent, and the demand remained high.”

  “Didn’t they know the hedge fund had collapsed?”

  “It appears, and this is being looked at now by the authorities”—Nettles leaned forward, lowered his voice—“the prospectus wasn’t updated.”

  “But wouldn’t that be illegal?” said Julia.

  “I’m afraid, yes,” said Nettles, with a touch too much glee. “Can you spell Ponzi?”

  I tried to take all this in as Nettles smiled calmly at us and I felt the gel melt on my head and drip down in thick, oily rivulets. I didn’t mind that Wren Denniston, the man who stole my fiancée so many years ago, was a crook. I rather liked that. No, what was flooring me was the “nothing” word.

  Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Dada. Mama. Crap.

  I had thought that Julia would be loaded with her husband’s cash—it was an assumption underlying everything that had kept me up at night—but now that was disclosed to be another of my false dreams. Everything was mortgaged, everything was lost. Step back and be on your way, no money here. I looked at Julia, and she seemed to transmogrify right before my eyes into someone else, someone older and dowdier.

  Sometimes I disgust even myself.

  But I wasn’t the only one thrown for a loop here. Julia’s face was strangely serene, yet when I looked into her eyes I could tell that something was throwing her, badly. How could I be surprised at that? An empty bank account is enough to throw a horse. She was distressed, and I was distressed, and I bet all the Inner Circle investors were distressed, too. But our friend Ernest T. Nettles, he wasn’t showing a bit of anguish himself.

  “What is your role in the company, exactly?” I said to Nettles. “Are you a partner? An accountant? What?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry,” said Nettles. “I thought you knew. I’ve just recently been brought on by the U.S. Trustee, who has been empowered by the bankruptcy judge to run what’s left of the company. I thought you knew that Inner Circle was in bankruptcy.”

  “No,” said Julia.

  “Your husband didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” said Julia.

  “He was tight-lipped, wasn’t he? Chapter Seven.”

  “What’s that?” said Julia.

  “Liquidation,” said Nettles. “My job is to collect what we can and then liquidate all the holdings for the benefit of the creditors, who, unfortunately, are many. I don’t think anyone is going to get anything out of this. But there is something.”

  “Something?” I said.

  “One chance to give a little back to all those who lost so much. Do you know what a preference is in bankruptcy law, Mr. Carl?”

  “I’ve never done much bankruptcy.”

  “A preference is a payment made on the eve of bankruptcy to a specific creditor. It’s not fair for the officers of the failing company to favor one creditor over the others, and so the Bankruptcy Code provides that the trustee can get that money back to be distributed fairly to all. Which is precisely why I was so gratified to hear that you were coming this morning, Mrs. Denniston.”

  “Why is that?” she said.

  “While it is not totally clear—there is a discrepancy between the company’s books and the bank records—there does appear to have been one significant preference payment made which we are trying to get a handle on.”

  “How significant?” I said.

  “One point seven million dollars,” said Nettles. “The full amount invested by one of the investors.”

  “Yowza,” I said.

  “And we want to get it back,” said Nettles.

  “I bet you do.”

  “But there is one slight problem,” said Nettles. “We can’t seem to find this investor. The U.S. Trustee has asked the FBI for its assistance, and yet we still have not had any success. Now, since most of the investors were friends or associates of your late husband, I was hoping you could help us get in touch with him.”

  “Who is it?” said Julia. “What is his name?”

  He didn’t really have to answer, did he?

  17

  I was alone in one of the empty offices at Inner Circle Investments, sitting at an empty desk, surrounded by empty walls, with a single thick file in front of me. The phone was disconnected, the hallways were deserted, the hush of failure settled over everything like a dank, foul blanket. There is nothing sadder than a business in its death throes, except maybe a business that is already dead. And have no doubt, Inner Circle Investments was dead.

  Julia had left to absorb the fact that she was penniless, and Ernest T. Nettles, after escorting me here and giving me the file, had returned to his own office to continue his liquidation of the company and the search for the missing preference payment. He was a jaunty fellow, Ernest Nettles, yet I wouldn’t want to be on his wrong side. I could just imagine him in a skiff, with an eye patch and a wooden leg, scanning the horizon for his prey.

  “Thar Cave blows.”

  Yes, of course, the one point seven mil had been paid to the mysterious Miles Cave. Who else was so much in demand? I wondered who would find Miles Cave first, Ernest Nettles or Gregor Trocek. I’d have bet on Nettles, and for Miles’s sake I hoped I was right, because Gregor wouldn’t follow the niceties required by the Constitution. When Sandro sticks hot poker in your eye, Gregor would say in his harsh Eastern European accent, you have right to scream and scream and scream.

  It wasn’t so hard to figure out what had happened. Gregor was probably chin-deep in some nefarious enterprise, maybe involving those young Portuguese girls he went on about so rhapsodically. The problem with nefarious enterprises is that the cash they generate is dirty. So how, then, to keep your assets growing? Find an old friend in the investment business, have him bring in another old friend as a straw man, invest the money in the straw man’s name as a way to launder the cash. All quite simple, until the straw man withdraws the investment and then withdraws from the face of the earth.

  But it wouldn’t be only Ernest Nettles and Gregor Trocek on Miles’s tail, if I had anything to do with it. Soon I would have to find a wa
y to put Sims and Hanratty on the Miles chase, too, because who was a better suspect for Wren Denniston’s murder? If Wren were still alive, he could have pointed the authorities in the right direction, and, once caught, Miles would have had no choice but to give the money back, either to Nettles at the point of a lawsuit or to Trocek at the point of a gun. One point seven mil was a healthy motive for murder.

  But there were other suspects now, too, weren’t there? A whole mess of impoverished investors, looking for a pound of flesh in exchange for their now-worthless investments. Which was why I opened the file Nettles had given me and delved into the sad trail of destruction that seemed to follow inevitably in Wren Denniston’s wake.

  The letters in the file were originals, typed on bond or hand-scrawled, and heartbreaking all. They were shouts of pain from the friends Wren had induced to invest in his firm, the letters requesting, demanding, begging. Where is my money? Give me back my money. My daughter is sick. My wife is dying. I have children to put through college. You’re an old friend. My oldest friend. Don’t do this to me. I’m going to a lawyer. I’m going to the police. Please, Wren, I’m pleading with you, get me back my money. The emotions were still so wet and raw it was as if moist, red blood were staining each page.

  They were all fools, as far as I was concerned, so rich they couldn’t find anything better to do with their money than give it away to a pug like Wren Denniston for him to lose. Yet I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them all the same. Who better than I knew the bitter taste of spectacular failure? But I wasn’t in that office to exercise my empathy. One by one I read the letters, one by one I wrote down the names and addresses, one by one I created for myself a batch of suspects that would make any cop think twice before dumping a collar on a clever lawyer or give any jury pause before the altar of reasonable doubt.

  But wait, what was this? Another letter, stuck in the middle of the pack.

  Dr. Wren Denniston

  Principal Partner

  Inner Circle Investments

  Philadelphia, PA 19103