by Charles Ayer
“I guess that’s a husband and wife thing. Who knows?” But I really couldn’t argue with her. It didn’t sound right to me, either.
“Don’t ask me. You’re the one who was married.”
“For all the good it did me.”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
“Okay,” I said, wanting badly to get off that topic, “but what about the $150,000?”
“You had Allie kind of cornered, Matt. Maybe she just wanted to avoid the humiliation of admitting to you that she and Kenny needed that kind of money, for whatever reason, and that she’d been turned down flat by David.”
“You could be right, I guess. I never knew Allie all that well, so I guess I can’t say one way or another.”
“Right. And you’re basically strangers now. I’m amazed that she told you as much as she did. She was bound to draw a line somewhere.”
“Okay, but let’s just for a minute assume that David did give her the $150 thousand. Where could he have gotten it from?”
“All I can tell you, Matt, is that Tommy Fornaio would have known if he’d gotten the money from anyone in his own territory. And I think your buddy Doreen has told you the truth. I mean, why would she lie to you?”
“I don’t think she has. So where does that leave us?”
“In my mind, that leaves us with only two possibilities, assuming she actually did get the money: David somehow stole it from his wife and she doesn’t know it yet. Or David got a loan from someone outside of Tommy’s line of sight.”
“I get the impression that Doreen’s pretty sharp with money,” I said, “so I’d discount the first possibility. I’ll check with her, though, just in case.”
“I’m sure you will,” said Lacey.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She stared at me for a long minute. “Nothing.”
“So I guess that leaves us with the conclusion that David went somewhere else to get the money,” I said, trying to get back on track. “Someplace that would be out of Tommy Fornaio’s range.”
“But where?” said Lacey. “He wasn’t exactly a successful banker, so I doubt he had any banking connections he could rely on. And believe me, Tommy knows what goes on in New York City and the Tri-State area. I know he checked with his friends there.”
“And David didn’t have any close friends around here except Kenny. From what everybody’s told me, he was kind of a hermit, except the charitable benefits he attended with Doreen. And I don’t think he’s been back to New York City since the day he graduated from NYU, so I don’t know who he could have gone to there, especially that Tommy wouldn’t have known about.”
“You can’t think of anyone else?” said Lacey.
“Lacey, I’ve been gone a long time.”
“Then I guess you’re going to have to ask Doreen.”
“Oh, so now you want me to see Doreen?”
“Look, your personal life is none of my business, so let’s not get into a spat about it. I’m sorry I ever brought it up.”
“We’re starting to sound like a couple of quarrelsome siblings, you know,” I said, smiling.
“I guess it’s a phase we missed when we were growing up,” said Lacey, smiling back.
“We’ll get over it,” I said.
“Yeah, we will,” said Lacey, perhaps ruefully.
“And you’re not sorry you brought it up,” I said, smiling again.
“Probably not,” said Lacey. She stuck her tongue out at me.
“In the meantime,” I said, trying hard not to laugh, “I owe my client an update, so I’d better get going.”
“Yes, you should. You’ve been distracting me from my work long enough.”
“Aw, c’mon, Lace. Admit it. You love this stuff.”
“Ah, bullshit,” she said. “Get out of here.”
I gave her a hug on the way out. She hugged me back.
The rain had stopped, and I walked back to my car in the sunshine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“THAT’S JUST NOT POSSIBLE, MATT,” said Doreen, pouring iced tea for both of us as we stood at her kitchen counter. The countertop was solid granite and, like the rest of the kitchen, reeked of the quality that only comes with an unlimited budget.
I should have called ahead, but I hadn’t, and I’d apparently gotten to the house only a couple of minutes behind Doreen. She answered the door in a tennis outfit, and her face still looked flushed from the exercise. The skirt was really short, and the top was really tight.
“What do you mean?” I said, trying to remain focused.
“My money is kept in a brokerage account with J.P. Morgan. I am the only person who knows the password, and it also has a holographic image of both my hands, which must be confirmed before any transaction is executed. The only money David ever sees is the money I occasionally transfer into our checking account.”
“So there’s no way David could have hacked into it?”
“Nobody could, never mind David.” She paused for a few seconds. “Just so you know, Matt, your sister designed the security software. Just about every major financial institution in the world uses it now.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, feeling my jaw literally drop open.
“No, I’m not. You don’t know much about your own sister, do you?”
“It seems I know less about everybody I thought I knew every time I wake up these days. But you’re right, there’s a lot about my sister I don’t know.”
“I didn’t mean that as a criticism, Matt. There’s a lot no one knows, and it’s probably best that way. But what I do know is that your sister was, at one point in her life, the most notorious computer hacker in the world.”
“What?”
“You heard me right,” said Doreen. “The only way anyone ever knew they’d been hacked by her was that she announced herself every time she completed a successful hack. And before you get too upset, the other thing you need to know is that she never stole a penny or a single bit of personal information. Ever.”
“Then why did she do it?”
“For the fun of it, as far as anyone could tell. And just to prove she could. She’d just leave little letter bombs at the sites she successfully hacked.”
“What’s a letter bomb?”
“It’s just a term I made up, but it’s just what it sounds like. For example, she once hacked into Jamie Dimon’s personal account at J.P. Morgan.” She must have seen my blank expression. “You don’t know who that is, do you.”
“Am I supposed to?” I said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All you need to know is that when she got into the account, she just left a little note that said, ‘Have a nice day, Jamie!’ and that was it. Everything else was left completely intact.”
“Was she ever arrested?”
“The Feds wanted to,” said Doreen, “but they didn’t know her actual identity or where she was. And besides, the law back then was pretty vague, especially since she never stole anything. On top of that, what they really wanted, what everybody really wanted, was her expertise.”
“So what happened?”
“What happened was that Lacey finally outed herself.”
“Why?”
“Who knows?” said Doreen. “But my guess is that she got tired of the game, and she just wanted to get out of it. But I also think that she wanted people to know who she was.”
“But why? Wasn’t she just exposing herself to legal trouble?”
“Perhaps. But Lacey is a human being just like everyone else, and she has an ego.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“When the Feds finally found out who she was, they hired her to bolster their own security and, you know, our national security. They wanted her to design systems even she couldn’t hack into. She told them the truth, which was that might be impossible, but that she’d design systems no one else in the world could hack into. They decided that was good enough, and she made a two-year exclusive commitment to
them to avoid prosecution. When that was done, she went into private industry and made a fortune. She’s as rich as I am.”
“And is she still doing that?” I said, thinking of her monastic loft.
“No. The Feds hired her back. Even you must have read about all the hacks into government data systems by the Chinese and the Russians.”
“Yes, I have. So what happened? Did the Chinese and the Russians beat Lacey at her own game?”
“No, they didn’t. They just went around her.”
“How did they do that?”
“As far as anybody can tell,” said Doreen, “the Chinese played the race card and the Russians played the fear card.”
“What does that mean?”
“Matt, there are hundreds of thousands of second and third generation, ethnically Chinese Americans in this country. They are native-born Americans just as you and I are, and are treated the same way you and I would be when it comes to security clearances. But the Chinese government has put tremendous pressure on them to realign their loyalties. They drill into them that no matter where they are, no matter what they do, they are first and foremost Chinese. They are told to think of themselves not as Chinese Americans, but as American-born Chinese. Then the Chinese government uses them for their own purposes.”
“Aw, c’mon, Doreen,” I said. “I know plenty of Chinese Americans. They’re as American as I am. I just don’t think they’d cave to that kind of pressure.”
“You’re right. Overwhelmingly, they don’t. They think of themselves as Americans just as much as we do, and they are every bit as patriotic. But it only has to work once in a while, and once in a while, it does.”
“And what about the Russians?”
“The Russians have never been famous for subtlety, Matt. As far as anyone can tell, they use the Russian mob to intimidate people. You know, when someone tells you that they’re going to kidnap your kids and start chopping their limbs off, you’ll do pretty much anything they tell you to do.”
“So you’re saying that they couldn’t beat Lacey’s security systems, so they just walked in the front door by turning employees at federal agencies?”
“That’s most of it. But the other part is that they have just gotten awfully good at cyberattacks, and the techniques they’re using now simply didn’t exist when Lacey first designed her security systems.”
“And it’s tough to protect against something that doesn’t even exist yet.”
“Yes, it is. But if there’s a way to do it, your sister will find it.”
“Okay, I get it. But what I don’t get is, if she’s so rich, why does she live the way she does?”
“Because that’s how she wants to live, for her own reasons. Just as I live the way I want to live, for my own reasons.”
“I guess that’s the definition of rich, isn’t it,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” said Doreen. “Now, let’s get back to business, shall we?”
“Yes, let’s,” I said.
“Leave your tea here,” she said. “I don’t like stuff that can spill around my computer.” She put a hand on my upper arm and guided me out of the kitchen, down a hall, and up a stairway. We walked past what I assumed was her and David’s bedroom to the next door in the hallway, and entered what was undoubtedly intended to be an extra bedroom, but which Doreen had converted into a spacious office. She sat down at a small but ergonomically efficient desk on which sat an enormous Apple iMac and began to tap keys. There was a large, framed photograph on the wall of David and Doreen and their wedding party. I had been the best man, and Kenny had been an usher. We all looked like children. I turned my attention back to Doreen, which wasn’t difficult.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I’m going to prove to both of us that David didn’t steal any money from me,” she said. “Grab a chair and sit down next to me.”
I sat down to her left just as a thin, flat pad to the right of her computer lit up. She placed her right hand on it, palm down. There was a muted beep, and Doreen put her left hand on it. Almost instantaneously the computer screen lit up with a page filled with dates, account numbers and dollar figures. All of the account balances contained eight digits, some of them nine. There were charts with trendlines, all of which seemed to be moving up and to the right.
“What am I looking at?” I said.
“This is my portfolio,” said Doreen, turning her mesmerizing eyes on me. “Stocks, bonds, precious metals, real estate. You know, the usual. Now, let’s look at it this way.”
She clicked on an icon. All the numbers shifted, but they were all still eight and nine figures.
“This displays all my activity in all my accounts for the past six months. As you can see, there has been almost none. I’m what you call a buy and hold kind of gal, you know?” she said, giving me a warm smile that bordered on sultry. Her face was close enough for me to kiss her if I’d had the nerve.
My brain sizzled. My pants started to feel tight. My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. She kept her eyes on me for a few seconds, and the smile lingered just long enough to let me know that she knew what she was doing to me.
“And, as you can also see,” she said, abruptly turning back to the computer, “there have been no recent transactions for $150,000 or anything approaching that amount. I transferred a few thousand dollars into the joint checking account last month to cover normal living expenses. That’s about it.”
“Okay,” I said, sitting back in my chair and trying not to think about the numbers I’d just seen, “you’ve convinced me that David didn’t steal the money from you. So where do you think he might have gotten it?”
“I’m not at all sure he did.”
“You mean, you think Allie was lying to me?”
“I think that’s the most logical conclusion, Matt. I really can’t think of anywhere else that David could’ve gotten that kind of money. He’s just so naïve about financial matters.”
“I’m sorry, Doreen,” I said, “but you’re going to have to explain something to me.”
“What’s that?”
“I know David wasn’t as successful as I thought he was, but he still worked at a bank for almost twenty years. How could he be so ignorant about banking and money? I mean, something had to have rubbed off, right? And he had to have made at least some connections.”
“Oh, Matt,” said Doreen as she logged off the computer. When she turned to me the sultry smile was gone. “David works at a bank but he’s not a banker.”
“Then what is he?”
“He’s what he’s been all his life: David Chandler. When important clients come into the bank, especially ones who are from the local area, they parade David out for a meet and greet. He hands out autographed copies of that damned picture and regales them with tales of his heroics.”
“Even after all these years, huh?”
“Yeah, but it’s starting to get old. People are starting to forget. It isn’t like he’d won the Super Bowl, you know?”
“So do you think his job is at risk?”
“Oh, Matt, I don’t know. My only point was that he doesn’t know anything about the world of finance because he really was never part of it, that’s all. By the time any actual banking was transacted at those meetings he attended, David was long gone.”
I found myself staring up at the wedding picture again, perhaps hoping it would keep me from fantasizing about Doreen minus the tennis outfit.
“It was a long time ago, wasn’t it,” she said, her eyes also focused on the photograph.
“Yeah, it was. Do you keep up with any of those folks?”
“I used to see my bridesmaids for weddings and baptisms, but that part of our lives is pretty much over now. I still see some of them occasionally, but that’s about it.”
“What about David?”
“No. Just Kenny, and you before you pulled the plug.”
I kept staring at the picture. Something, something almost forgotten, was ticklin
g my memory.
“What about his roommate?” I said, pointing at the only non-Caucasian person in the picture. “I can’t remember his name now.”
“You mean Peter?” said Doreen.
“That’s right,” I said. “Peter Kwan. They were roommates all four years at NYU, weren’t they? I remember they were pretty tight.”
“Yeah, they were,” said Doreen. “I think he was the only close friend David made at college. David came home almost every weekend back then. He never got into the college social scene at all.”
“Well, he was probably coming home to see you.”
“No, he wasn’t. I got as involved in college social life and student government every bit as much as I did in high school.”
“So, what was he coming home for?”
“Just to be here, I guess. It never stopped being his comfort zone, still hasn’t.”
“Did he and Peter ever keep in touch with each other?”
“No, but it’s funny you mentioned him. We just saw him about three months ago at a charity function. We had a nice chat. He’s living out on Long Island with his wife, and I think he said two kids.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Apparently really well. He’s running an import/export business.”
“Weren’t there rumors that his family was mixed up in organized crime down in Chinatown?”
“I guess I never heard that,” said Doreen.
“Then it’s probably something I heard when I was still a cop,” I said.
“Matt, what are you thinking?” said Doreen, staring at me with widening eyes.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You’re not thinking…”
“I know it’s a stretch, Doreen. But right now it’s all I’ve got.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I’ve been away for a long time, but I’ve still got some connections at the NYPD. I think I’ll make a few phone calls. Maybe somebody will still talk to me.”
“I hate to say this, Matt, but this almost makes sense. I know Tommy Fornaio is well-connected, even in the five boroughs where he doesn’t do any business, but I really doubt he has any connections in Chinatown.”
