The Inner Sanctum

by Stephen W. Frey

  “And?”

  “He said he was looking for Sara. I asked her later if this guy had come by, but she didn’t know what I was talking about. But the guy had a visitor’s badge, so I figured they must have called Sara before letting him come up. They always do that before allowing visitors into the building. Security has been really tight ever since the Oklahoma City bombing.”

  “Did you talk to the security people at the front desk about this?”

  Jesse nodded. “There was no record on the register of anyone signing in to visit Sara around that time.”

  “Someone seems to have excellent access to government buildings,” Todd observed. “Was there a name on the guy’s badge? The man who was coming out of your office.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I know this sounds crazy, but do you think Sara could be involved?”

  Jesse watched the seagull inch its way toward them. Sara had been asking so many questions lately, and she seemed flustered when pressed about the man who was supposedly visiting her. But the idea was ridiculous. “No.”

  “Was the guy doing anything in your office that would make you suspicious?”

  “I don’t know. We literally ran into each other in the doorway. I was going in, he was coming out.”

  “Do you think it was the person who chased you at the river house? Did you get a look at the guy that night?”

  “Only for a second, in the headlights. He had a baseball cap pulled down over his face, so I didn’t see much of his features, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a beard. The guy in my office did.”

  Todd leaned farther back against the railing. “A beard’s an easy disguise.”

  “Well, that certainly makes me feel better.”

  “I’m sorry,” Todd said gently. “Look, if that was him in your office, he certainly had the opportunity to take action against you, and he didn’t. And anyway, how could he have found you if he didn’t see the license tag and you didn’t take the car in to be fixed?”

  She pushed her long blond hair behind her ears as she thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  They stood in silence for a moment watching the commercial and pleasure craft crisscross the harbor.

  “I like your hair that way.”

  “What?” Jesse looked into his eyes.

  “I always remember you wearing your hair up. It looks great down like that. Are you wearing it like that all the time now?”

  “Uh huh.” She didn’t want to tell him this was the first day she had let it down in a long time.

  “By the way, happy birthday a day late. I have your present, but I forgot to bring it.”

  “Sure, sure.” She nudged him playfully. “That’s what you always used to say. And somehow the present never found its way to me.”

  “I’m serious. I have one for you.”

  “Oh, God!” She was suddenly alarmed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I completely forgot. I’ve got a meeting at two o’clock.” She checked her watch. “And it’s already five after.”

  “So I’m making you forget time now.” Todd gave her the crooked smile. “I think after all these years I’m finally making progress.”

  “Come on.” She started walking quickly away.

  A few minutes later they were almost back to the branch building. As they neared the main entrance, Jesse slowed down.

  “Hello there,” David called out. He pushed off from the long black limousine on which he had been leaning and moved toward them. As he came closer, he saw Jesse’s surprise. “Oh, right.” He snapped his fingers as if he’d forgotten something. “I told you I’d pick you up, but I guess I didn’t tell you what kind of car to expect.” David eyed Todd for a moment, then looked back at Jesse. “You look great today, Jesse. I like your hair that way.”

  Before she could protest, David had taken her hand and kissed her cheek. “Thanks,” she murmured, glancing back at Todd.

  David moved past Jesse. “David Mitchell.” David extended his hand to Todd.

  “Todd Colton.”

  As they shook, they exchanged curt nods.

  “So.” David turned back to Jesse as he let go of Todd’s hand. “Ready for an afternoon at Sagamore?”

  “Yes. But give me just a minute.”

  “Sure.” David understood immediately and walked back to the limousine.

  Todd whistled softly. “So, Jess, is this what you do in the afternoons now? Ride around in limousines? I guess bankers aren’t so boring after all. No wonder we ran back here for your meeting.”

  “Stop it. David works for a money management firm in Towson called Sagamore. I met the woman who runs the firm at business school the other night and she asked me to come out and visit. It would be a great place to work after I graduate. That’s all this is.” She paused. “As if I have to explain anything to you.”

  “That may be all it is for you.” Todd motioned toward David. “But that’s not all it is for him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If there’s one thing I can recognize, Jess, it’s a bird dog on scent. That one’s got yours so far up his nostrils it’s driving him crazy.”

  “Quiet, will you?” She smiled at David, silently assuring him that she needed just a few more seconds, then turned back to Todd. “We met the other night for the first time. There’s nothing going on.” She grabbed his hand. “Hey, will you help me with what we talked about?”

  Todd looked at her face for a moment without saying anything, as if trying to judge for himself whether or not there was anything going on with David. “Yes, but we’ll have to talk about my fee at some point.”

  “Fee?”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling. “Some of us have to work for a living. Some of us can’t afford limousines.”

  “Enough.” Jesse held up her hands. “I’ll call you later,” she said over her shoulder, shaking her head as she slid onto the limousine’s leather seat. So he was going to charge her a fee.

  Todd watched the sleek black car move away from the curb. About the only kind of compensation he was going to require of Jesse Hayes was her time. And he was going to try to get as much of that from now on as he could.

  “Ever been in a limousine before?” David asked from the seat facing hers.

  “No,” she said brusquely, still annoyed at Todd. The male ego was such a fragile thing. Of course, now that she thought about it, she had never seen Todd jealous before. Jesse smiled. Maybe a little jealousy wasn’t such a bad thing.

  * * *

  —

  “Hello.” Elizabeth Gilman rose from the floral-patterned chair and moved out from behind the dark wood desk as soon as she noticed Jesse and David standing at her office door.

  “Elizabeth, you remember Jesse Hayes.” David played chief of staff for a moment.

  “Of course.” Elizabeth took Jesse’s hand and guided her to the sitting area of the huge corner office. “Have you enjoyed the afternoon with us?”

  “Very much.” Jesse sat down on a comfortable couch as Elizabeth and David took chairs. “It was so nice of you to invite me here.” She glanced out the windows at the impressive view, then at the beautiful antiques and paintings adorning the room. The office was a sharp contrast to the stark government gray of her cubbyhole downtown.

  “Don’t mention it. I like to do this with people I feel hold great potential. Your professor tipped me off about you before class, and as soon as I heard you discuss the markets, I knew he was right. I’m very much a first-impression kind of person, with stocks and people.”

  David laughed politely. “I don’t know about that, Elizabeth. I’ve never met anyone who can remember so many facts about so many companies. You do a tremendous amount of research before you buy a stock, as your record shows.”

  “He’s ju
st saying that because I’m the managing partner.” Elizabeth winked at Jesse.

  It was Jesse’s turn to laugh. “I’d agree except that he’s right about your record. It’s incredible.”

  Elizabeth gazed at Jesse for a moment without speaking. “I see so much of me in you.”

  Jesse glanced down at the floor, uncomfortable with the directness of her remark.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so forward.” Elizabeth shook her head as she recognized Jesse’s sudden discomfort. “To be young again. What I wouldn’t give. Oh, well. So who did you see today?”

  “Frank Welles, Scott Miller, Ray Hume, and Art Mohler.” Jesse ticked off the names.

  “Good. I’m particularly glad you had the opportunity to see Art Mohler. He’s a senior person here. He really runs the place these days. I’m more of a figurehead, you know.”

  “That’s not true, Elizabeth,” David interjected. “You are still very active.”

  “Not on the portfolio side,” Elizabeth disagreed. “I concentrate more on bringing in new money.” She smiled. “I don’t want to manage the funds anymore. I might have a couple of bad years and that would spoil my record.”

  “Ms. Gilman.” A young associate leaned into the room. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but the call from New York you were waiting for is on line three.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “I’m sorry, Jesse, but I have to take this,” she said, rising from the chair. “David is treating you to dinner, isn’t he?”

  Jesse glanced quickly at David. He had mentioned nothing about dinner. “Um, sure.”

  “Wonderful.” Elizabeth took Jesse’s hand. “I hope to see you again soon. I want you to think seriously about Sagamore as a career.” Suddenly she brought a hand to her chest and coughed softly.

  “Thank you. Are you all right?”

  “Fine, but I really need to take this call.”

  Jesse and David moved quickly out of the office as Elizabeth answered the phone.

  “You didn’t say anything about dinner,” Jesse said as they started down the hallway toward his office.

  “I was afraid you’d say no. I knew you wouldn’t say no to Elizabeth.”

  After picking up telephone messages from his secretary and making two short calls, David grabbed his briefcase off the credenza and led Jesse back to the reception area.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they waited for the elevator.

  “Café Royal. It’s a little French place downstairs in the lobby.”

  She had heard of Café Royal. It was one of the most popular new places in the Baltimore area—and one of the most expensive. “Very nice.” The doors opened and they moved inside the car. “Can I ask you what might be a personal question?”

  “You can ask anything. I may choose not to answer.” He pushed the button for the lobby. “Especially in an elevator.”

  “There’s no one in here but us.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s one of the first rules of business. Never talk about anything important in an elevator.”

  “Why did you lock your office door when we left?” She wasn’t going to be put off by some silly insecurity.

  “Did I?” he asked indifferently.

  “Yes.”

  “Just force of habit I guess.”

  “Don’t you think it’s unusual to lock your office?”

  David chuckled to himself. Elizabeth Gilman was right. This one was smart—and observant. “No. Don’t you lock yours?”

  “No, I don’t even lock my file cabinet. I trust the people I work with.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  The elevator doors opened and they headed across the lobby toward Café Royal. The tables, covered with white linen and set with sterling silver and gleaming china, were spaced far apart, some in private nooks. The place was crowded but didn’t seem so because of the spacing. The lighting was dim and a man played softly on a piano in a far corner of the room.

  “This is kind of romantic,” Jesse said as they neared the maître d’ stand.

  “Yes, the place has a wonderful atmosphere, doesn’t it?” David smiled slyly.

  Jesse tried to translate the smile. Was he simply playing the good corporate employee by entertaining someone the boss was interested in hiring? After all, Elizabeth had been the one to mention dinner. Or did he have another motive? For the first time she realized Todd might have been right about David.

  “This way, please.” The tuxedo-clad maître d’ motioned for them to follow and led them to a small table off to one side of the room. “Madame.”

  The maître d’ held the chair, and Jesse sat down. “Thank you.”

  The maître d’ took David’s briefcase to check it and was gone.

  David sat down, picked up the wine list, and began to peruse it immediately.

  “Limousines, offices with more priceless antiques than the Baltimore Museum of Art, and now dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in Baltimore. What’s a woman to think?”

  “What can I say?” David didn’t look up from the wine list. “Sagamore does things right.” He said the words matter-of-factly, not as if he was trying to make an impression.

  “David, how long have you been at Sagamore?”

  He found the wine he was looking for. “Is red all right with you?” he asked, ignoring her question for the moment. “This Opus One is delicious.”

  She was impressed by him. There was no denying it. He was refined and articulate, obviously earned a great deal of money, and carried himself with an air of indifference she found alluring. He would go several minutes ignoring a question, but would always circle back to it at some point in the conversation without being prompted. She had noticed that habit several times today as he had accompanied her on the interviews with the other people at Sagamore. And then there was that glint in his eye she had noticed at the cocktail party. It was there, ever present. The bad-boy look, she and Sara called it. A look that was sometimes difficult to resist. “Yes, Opus One, that’s a nice wine.” Jesse moaned quietly to herself. God, now she was trying to act like a wine connoisseur to impress him. She so rarely drank wine she wouldn’t know a zinfandel from a Beaujolais. But was she trying to impress the individual or the portfolio manager? Before he picked her up this afternoon she could have answered quickly and definitively. Now she wasn’t certain.

  “So you’ve had Opus One before?” David asked.

  She hesitated, trying to decide how to handle this. It was either wade in deep now and possibly be embarrassed later, or admit she was no wine expert up front and give him a window into her less than privileged upbringing. Maybe this was her first etiquette test. “No, I haven’t, but I like the sound of the name.” She wasn’t going to try to be someone she wasn’t just to get a job.

  David smiled. So she could work her way out of a tight conversational situation gracefully. He motioned to their waiter, who approached the table immediately. “A bottle of Opus One, please.”

  “Very good, sir.” The waiter moved away.

  David watched the man until he had disappeared through the kitchen doors. “I’ve been with Sagamore four years.”

  There it was, his ability to circle back to a question asked minutes before. “And you’ve had a good experience?” she asked.

  A pained expression crossed his face. “That’s a student question if I ever heard one.”

  “Well, I am a student.” She was suddenly on the defensive.

  “Ask me something specific, something difficult, something that will give you real information to help you make an informed decision if they offer you a job. You’ll appreciate this opportunity later.”

  He had become abruptly businesslike, and the change in demeanor caught her off guard. “Fine. How much can someone make at Sagamore?” She would put him on the defensive. She was sure he wouldn’t answer th
at question.

  “Last year they paid me a bit over three hundred thousand dollars all in.” He had no problem being open about his compensation. He was proud of how hard he worked and what they paid him. “My salary is one-fifty and Elizabeth gave me another one-fifty as bonus in January.” He unfolded the linen napkin and laid it across his lap. “And I didn’t even have a very good year compared to some of the others.” He said the last few words as if he could not comprehend why they would still pay him so well. “Some people would say I was rich.”

  “I certainly would.”

  “That’s all I ever wanted to be,” David said softly. “Rich.”

  Three hundred thousand dollars. That certainly rivaled Wall Street. People always heard about the million-dollar Manhattan whiz kids, but Jesse knew the reality was that most people David’s age working for investment banks in New York earned six figures, not seven.

  “And there’s the opportunity to make much more,” he continued. “I know some of the portfolio managers regularly pull down seven figures.”

  “Have they all been at the firm longer than you?”

  He nodded. “All more than five years.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about pay scales at money management firms, but those numbers seem kind of high.”

  “They are. It’s nosebleed territory, especially when you consider the fact that Sagamore is in Baltimore, where things are a lot cheaper than in New York. That’s why no one ever resigns from Sagamore. The money is addicting. People are fired when their performance isn’t acceptable, but no one quits.”

  “Are people fired often?”

  He played with his knife for a moment, thinking. “Elizabeth would probably kill me if she knew I was saying this, but I will anyway. I told you to take advantage of the opportunity, and you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter.” He put the knife down. “Typically you don’t find out about this until you’re inside the firm. I didn’t.” He laughed cynically. “The key is your first five years. No one ever actually says that, but everyone knows it. The pressure to perform is immense during that time, and if you don’t, they fire you on your fifth anniversary. If you make it past that day, you’re in the club. No one’s ever been fired after making it past the fifth anniversary at Sagamore. Not that I know of, anyway.”