Chapter 21
21
A t three P.M. Warren checked the Vesper Ellis account at Founding Fathers Vested on his computer, then looked up at her. “Take a look at this.”
She came over to the kitchen table and looked at the screen.
“This is your current balance at Founding Fathers,” Warren said. “It’s the same as the latest monthly report you brought me, except that two lines have been added for the two imaginary accounts, and they are, for the first time, included in the balance. The total is a quarter million dollars higher. They gave you back what must be the amount Ronald Talbert siphoned off.”
She hugged him. “Thank you. That’s all because of what you did.”
He said, “I think you should call them now and withdraw all your money. You don’t need to tell the person on the phone anything other than that you’re withdrawing it. Have it sent electronically to your checking account.”
“Okay.”
She went to the guest bedroom where she had left her phone charging, then came back. “Can you read the number from the monthly report for me?”
He did and she dialed the number and ordered the person who answered the call to complete the transactions necessary to liquidate the investments and send the proceeds to her bank. The process took around ten minutes, and when she was finished, Warren said, “Very good. Now I get to do my job.”
“What’s your job?”
“To put away all the suits we prepared against any company except Founding Fathers, and pursue getting that one to court. I’ll compose a short letter to Founding Fathers now to bring them up to date, and ask Martha to have it messengered to them.”
The letter didn’t take long.
Dear Ms. Susquino:
We have received your letter in response to the claim Warren & Associates submitted on behalf of Vesper Ellis. We feel that, as a courtesy, you should be given notice that she is proceeding with her lawsuit against Founding Fathers Vested Investment Corporation.
Since Mrs. Ellis has brought our firm all the monthly reports ever sent by Founding Fathers to her or her late husband, it has been possible to verify that the two additional accounts you mentioned did not exist as recently as one month ago when she came to our firm about the discrepancies in her account. In the monthly reports, we retain permanent proof of those discrepancies, which vanished at the same time as the two new accounts appeared. Your own company’s IT department can, I’m sure, confirm to you that the creation of the two new accounts and the erasure of the discrepancies can easily be detected, traced, and dated by law enforcement technicians.
Charles Warren, Attorney at Law
He sent the letter to Martha.
Ronald Talbert had been in his office for hours dealing with clients when his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen to see who it was and had the urge to open the window beside him and hurl the phone out, letting it fall eight stories to the street. It was, like most urges of that sort, something he knew he would never do for a hundred different reasons, the first of them that windows in the Founding Fathers Vested office building couldn’t be opened.
He touched the green circle and said, “What do you want?”
Pat Ollonsun said, “First, I want to apologize for pissing you off last night. I’m very sorry. I was in a desperate state and acted badly.”
Talbert said, “Pat, frankly, no apology from you will ever fix what you did last night, and I don’t want to waste another minute talking to you about it. I hope this is the last conversation I have with you about anything, but I know I’m not that lucky. What do you really want?”
“I came in after Chris was asleep last night, and I was at the office before she got up this morning. I’m on my way home, and I need to know what you told Fran about your face, so I can say the same thing.”
“Home? Why are you going home so early? The New York markets haven’t even closed yet.”
“I got fired this morning, Ron. My career at Great Oceana is over, and I’m damned sure never going to get work in finance again. Please, just tell me, so I can at least make an attempt to salvage my marriage and family.”
“Jesus,” Talbert said. “I—” he paused. He had been about to say he was sorry, but it was automatic and not sincere, so he choked it off. “I told her we had stopped for a coffee at an outdoor stand on Fairfax and four young guys started making fun of us. You said something that gave them an excuse to attack us, and because it was two-to-one they got in quite a few punches before we chased them off.”
“Okay, thanks, Ron.” He paused. “Why didn’t we call the police?”
“They were young and fast, so by the time we thought of it they were in their car and gone. Since it was a fight, there wasn’t any actual crime we weren’t also guilty of.”
“Is that true?”
“None of it is true. Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I mean, if that really happened, they wouldn’t be charged?”
“That’s what I think, and that’s all that matters to the story. When I told Fran she hugged and kissed me, but it could have been to check if I’d been drinking or smelled like another woman’s perfume. So far, she’s only talked as though she believes me.”
“Okay,” Ollonsun said. “It’s worth a try. Thanks.”
“You’ve got to use it. Just don’t embellish it or change it. We both know the sisters are going to compare stories. Chris might even have heard it already.” He saw a light flashing on his desk phone. “Look, I’ve got to go. Please don’t screw this up.”
“Bye.”
He put away his cell phone and picked up the desk phone. “Ronald Talbert.”
“Ron, it’s Connie. Come see me in my office.”
“I’ll be right there.” He stood up, but then he had to grab the desk to steady himself. He refused to think he was feeling faint. He had just stood up too fast and felt off balance for a moment. He had a mirror hanging from the inner side of his door so he didn’t go out to greet a client with his collar inside out or his tie loose, and he looked at himself. He looked bad because of his battered and bruised face, made worse by his sour expression. He manufactured a smile, but that made it hurt, and the smile was too big. He modified it slightly, went out, and headed for Connie Pollock’s office.
Connie had started at Founding Fathers at the same level as Talbert just months before he had eleven years ago. She’d had a pleasant-looking face, about average for a woman in her twenties, but she was smart and funny, and they had enjoyed each other’s company. They had called each other Ronnie and Connie, and soon others picked it up. The work was hard and the hours were long. Sometimes after work a group of five or six of the newer employees had stopped in a nearby bar for a drink before splitting up to go back to their small, cheap apartments.
One night the others had dispersed quickly, and he and Connie had talked about staying for another drink, but she had suggested instead that they have it at her apartment. At the time they had both been single, and the idea had seemed to be a good one, and then so had spending the night. They had remained friends rather than a couple, but for a time they had gotten together occasionally to catch up with each other, always ending the night with sex. Within three years they had both gotten married, and the sexual part of the friendship ended. Over time the intelligence she’d shown had won her several promotions, and now she was the head of Talbert’s section, his immediate supervisor.
They were still friends, but the situation was further complicated by the fact that a few times—most of them while they were out of town for a conference or training session—they’d gotten together again in one of their rooms at the hotel. He had never considered himself to be cheating. Connie was a special case. Most people had friendships with people of the opposite sex whom they hugged. In a way, their times together were like that—just a longer, deeper hug with a special friend.
He reached her door and knocked, and she swung the door open, let him inside, and shut the door. He said, “Hi, Connie.” He noticed she seemed strange, but he maintained his smile and waited. She pointed at the chair in front of her desk. Instead of going to sit at her desk she pulled another chair up to face his. “What the hell happened to your face?”
“I fell.”
She stared into his eyes. “Ronnie, you know that I love you. You’ve always been one of my very best work friends. I sometimes think having you around was the main reason I made it through my first year or two here.”
“I feel the same way,” he said. “You seem troubled. What can I do to help?”
She winced. “God, that’s so like you, wanting to help me. For our whole time here, I’ve tried to look out for you, mostly by sharing any intel I got from on high that might help you avoid trouble or get a jump on something. Today I noticed you seem to be of special interest to the watchdogs.”
“Watchdogs?”
“I think the Fraud division must be looking into one of your accounts. I was in a meeting with my boss when the fraud supervisor, Marissa Susquino, called his assistant and asked to come and see him right away. He said, ‘Let me talk to her.’ He got on and said, ‘What’s this about?’ While he was listening to the answer, he said, “Hold on a minute.’ He turned to me and said, ‘We’ll have to finish later. I’ve got to take this.’ When I went past his assistant’s desk, I saw she’d written ‘Re: Ronald Talbert.’ ”
He could feel sweat on his forehead and under his arms. “Interesting.” It was all he could manage.
She said, “Tell me what this is about.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe one of my clients has been investing somebody else’s money.”
“Tell me what this is about,” she repeated.
He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m in trouble, Connie. I never meant this to happen. It just did. As soon as I knew some ways to do it, the temptation was overwhelming. I’ve told you how Fran and her sister are. They grew up without ever having to think about money. It was just there when they wanted it. Fran hasn’t ever even wasted money on crap. We have a normal house and two cars that are nice, but not crazy. It was just that their great grandfather, grandfather, and father each added to the family fortune, so they think of money as just something men take care of. I needed to live up to that.” He looked down and away from her.
“You stole money. Is that it?”
“From a client.”
“One client?”
He was silent.
She looked at him differently. All the confidence and charm and humor had been drained out of him. He was sitting a yard from her and she could see he was about to start crying. “Okay, more than one,” she said. “I’ll try to do what I can to help you, as I always have. But just let me ask you this. Did you ever think about what was likely to happen to me? I’ve been your boss for six years, the one who always gave you the very top evaluations, the one who was paid to know everything about your work.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll make sure nobody thinks you were in on it or even knew.”
“That isn’t going to save my job. You couldn’t have gotten away with it unless I was either not looking or stupid. I guess it was both. The truth is, we trusted each other, but one of us was wrong.” She looked at her watch. “We may not have much time, so we’ll stretch it. If you leave the building right now, I can use the injuries to your face to say you went to get them taken care of. You should go to your doctor or one of those urgent care places on the way home, so there’s a record.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll have to decide for yourself. Stealing from a client is both a state and a federal crime. You could either get the best lawyer you can find, or fly tonight to a country that won’t extradite you.” She leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. “If you do get on a plane, don’t write. Now get going before they decide to stop you.”
“Thank you, Connie.” He got up and, instead of turning right to return to his office, turned left and took the elevator down to the parking level where his car was. He started it and drove out onto the street.
Upstairs, Constance Pollock ignored the fact that the telephone on her desk had a button lit up. She stood and put the two chairs back where they had been, then took her purse and went into the private bathroom next to her office. She looked closely at herself in the mirror. At some point very soon, she was going to have to meet with some of her superiors, and probably other people she knew only by name. She brushed her hair and repaired her makeup. She decided she should use this opportunity to pee. The bosses would agree that this matter had the same urgency as a house fire, and required that everyone put in continuous effort to tamp it down before it grew to take them all with it. Once this one got started it could last for hours.
She looked in the mirror again on the way out and set her face in a serene, confident expression. She found her assistant, Claire, standing by her desk. Claire said, “Mr. Herrod said to come back to his office, and this time bring the folder for Ronald Talbert.”