Chapter 23 #3
"But that's what you meant. Otherwise, you wouldn't still be terrified sitting here inside the Society."
Kelly looked away. The resignation on his face was painful to look at.
He had the air of a man who had already made his peace with a bad ending and was simply waiting for it.
"You're a nice kid," he said quietly. "You should stop investigating.
It's not going to help anyone. The money that Lebowitz took from those people, and a few others, yeah, that's not going to come back. "
"Why? Do you know where it is?" She wanted to reach across the coffee table and shake the information out of him.
He rubbed his face with both hands, a long, slow gesture that seemed to cost him something. "Okay, I'll tell you this much. Lebowitz was coloring outside the lines."
He paused. "Like I said, he did that with a few clients.
He siphoned that money off. I don't know where it went.
So if you want to help those retirees, concentrate on that.
And just leave the rest of it alone, Tatum.
" He looked up at her then and his eyes were genuinely frightened in a way she felt in her own chest. "These people don't joke around. "
"Who are these people, Vince?" she demanded.
"That's a good question." A voice came from the doorway.
Archer entered the room. He took in the scene in one quiet sweep, his eyes moving from Kelly to Tatum and back again, and something in his expression shifted almost imperceptibly when he looked at her.
There and gone. "Who are these people? And if you're scared inside the Society, that concerns me greatly. "
Vince Kelly's eyes darted between Tatum and Archer and around the room in a single panicked sweep. "I didn't say that. I didn't. I mean, I'm not—"
Archer stood there in silence. He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't offer Kelly anything to hold on to. Kelly was obviously unraveling. Tatum had no urge to save him, so she waited too.
Finally, Vince said, "Oh, fuck it. I'm dead anyway."
The words dropped the temperature in the room.
"What do you know, Vince?" Archer asked, his voice quieter now. Not softer. Quieter.
"Like I told Tatum, I was given a list of names and amounts. My job was to go out and get the money from these people. For the most part, it was easy. Really easy. It was like they expected me to show up and ask them. There were a few holdouts, but it didn't take much."
Archer's eyes narrowed. "And then what happened?"
"When the money came in, I put it in the account I was told to put it in, and that was it. I got paid a percentage, and everything was fine until the Feds crashed in."
"But I thought it was a Ponzi scheme," Archer said. The same question Tatum had asked.
"Like I told Tatum, that was Lebowitz. He was banging some woman who had access to all these retirees and their retirement funds.
So he started getting them to invest and then paying a little back here and there.
He took that money. He had other clients, too.
Some big ones who wanted in on the investment.
Somebody had heard about it from somebody else, that type of thing.
We were supposed to say no to that and direct them toward other things.
That was the deal. But Tim didn't like leaving money on the table, so he took some of it. "
"And let me guess," Archer said, crossing his arms over his chest. "He didn't put that money in the accounts you were given. He put it in his own."
"Yeah, exactly," Kelly agreed. "I don't know where that money is, but he ran it as a Ponzi scheme, and that's what got us busted."
"Lebowitz got you busted," Archer said.
"Yeah." Kelly let out a sound that was almost a laugh but wasn't quite. "Great, right? He just couldn't help himself."
"So who's behind it?" Tatum asked again.
Kelly's head moved lethargically side-to-side. "I don't know."
Archer snorted and took a step closer. The quality of his stillness changed in a way that filled the room.
Kelly held up both hands. "Seriously, I don't know.
I don't know who's behind it. North, Lebowitz, and me…
we all worked together. It was North who knew everything.
He could've told us, but I didn't ask. I was desperate for money.
This worked for me. Very little work and lots of money.
I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told. "
He paused. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped, and for the first time, he sounded less like a man making excuses and more like a man telling the truth because he had nothing left to lose.
"Tim was always pushing for more. North warned him.
Said the people behind it wouldn't like it.
Said they had a lot of power and they were dangerous.
Now North and Lebowitz are dead, and I'm just the guy who did exactly as he was told. "
He looked up at both of them. His eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted and genuinely afraid, and underneath all of that was something that looked uncomfortably like regret.
"And I'm next."