Keep Quiet (21 page)

“Gotcha. Also there’s leftover pizza in the coffee room.”

“Thanks.” Jake walked down the hall just as Martin popped out of his office and came striding down the long hallway toward him. A bright young refugee from Lehman Brothers, Martin still looked very Wall Street, with his moussed brown hair, frameless Swiss glasses, and charcoal pinstriped suit.

“Jake,” Martin called out, in his characteristic bark. “We need to talk about Disney. I’d like to buy a block for Bob Cadison and I need to—”

“Martin, do whatever you think is right.” Jake patted him on the shoulder and kept walking down the long hall, which ended in his office. “I can’t talk now.”

“But you know how he is. He second-guesses every pick, even Disney.”

“Then call and explain it to him.”

“I know, I know,” Martin called after him, wearily. “Like you always say, ‘It’s his money, not mine.’”

“Right.” Jake cringed, inwardly. He kept going toward his office when he saw Ramon lumbering down the hallway on the right, an unmistakable figure because the man was built like a refrigerator. Ramon had played right tackle at Harvard and still managed to graduate at the top of his class, the antithesis of the dumb jock.

“Boss man!” Ramon called out, with a broad smile. His silk tie flew as he walked and his white shirt and dark suit pants strained at the seams because he was so supersized. “You didn’t answer my email.”

“Sorry, but I can’t talk now.” Jake couldn’t remember the last time he checked his email. He reached Amy’s desk at the same time that Ramon did.

“I know, but I need your okay on the Shamir trust. Remember, for the kids? I sent you an email about it.”

“Ramon, sorry, I didn’t get a chance to look at it. You decide. I’m wall-to-wall this afternoon.”

“Appreciate the confidence.” Ramon clapped him on the back, then went back down the hall, and Amy looked up worriedly.

“Jake, how’s Ryan? Is he feeling better?”

“Yes.” Jake had mumbled something before he left about Ryan’s not feeling well. “He thought he might want to come home from school, but he decided to stick it out.”

“Good, Pam was worried.”

Jake hid his surprise. “Pam?”

“Yes, she called here. She said she called your cell, but you didn’t answer and she needed to talk to you.”

“Oh damn.” Jake remembered the phone calls that had come in when he was with Ryan. He had forgotten about them, completely preoccupied on the way back to the office. He reached into his breast pocket, slid out his phone, and saw the screen banner that showed two missed calls from Pam.

Amy blinked under her dark curls. “She said call her back as soon as you get a chance.”

Jake was in real trouble, because he’d have to explain what was going on with Ryan. “I’ll call her right back. Will you hold my calls for the afternoon? I really need to focus.”

“But you and Ramon have an appointment at 3:30 with the Marchman Group, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Jake had forgotten that, too. The Marchman Group was one of his corporate clients, and he needed to see them, but this was no time to meet with anybody. “Do me a favor and cancel it. Apologize profusely. I have a ton of work and I didn’t get enough done this weekend.”

“Gotcha.” Amy picked up the phone, and Jake hurried into his office and closed the door behind him. He hustled to his desk, woke up his computer, and logged onto his bank program, then he called Pam, multitasking.

“Honey?” Pam said when the call connected. “What’s going on? You went to school? Is Ryan okay?”

“Yes. Sorry I missed your call.” Jake watched their accounts pop onto the computer screen.

“So what’s going on?”

“He was queasy again after lunch and he thought he might want to come home.” Jake knew that Pam’s real question was why Ryan had called him, not her. It was unprecedented in their family history, so Jake knew he had to address it up front. “He didn’t want to bother you, so he called me.”

“He could have called me. It’s no bother, he knows that.”

Jake had to think of something to help the story. “He heard us talking in your office last night, about your nomination and all the work you have to do, the questionnaires and everything. He tried to cut you a break.”

Pam moaned. “I want him to feel like he can still call me, though. He’s my priority, no matter what. I mean, how much longer do I even have with him? I’ll call him after school and tell him—”

“Don’t honey. This is the way we want it to be, right?” Jake fell back on his default, best-defense is a good offense. “Ryan is learning that he can lean on me sometimes, too. Like we said in therapy, you want him to know he can turn to me. Don’t call him and make him feel like it’s strange. You’re relegating me to the junior varsity.”

“Sorry, I know, you’re right.” Pam sounded convinced, if miserable. “So what did you two decide? Is he at home or at school?”

“We decided together that he was feeling well enough to finish school and go to practice.”

“So did he miss class?”

“No, we met during lunch, we talked, and he went to Western Civ on time.”

“Well, aren’t you guys so smart?” Pam still sounded unhappy. “He has a test today, and it’s a bitch to make them up. He’ll never have the time, and the makeup tests are always harder. Well done.”

“Thanks,” Jake said, as if he could take pleasure in any decision he’d made recently.

“I tried to call him but he doesn’t answer his phone. I know it’s probably in his locker, but I wanted to leave him a message telling him that I was thinking of him. But he hasn’t called me back yet.”

“I’m sure he will when he can.” Jake flashed on Ryan breaking his phone on the dashboard. “In the meantime, we handled it together, just fine. Now. What did you call me about?”

“Bad news. My questionnaire has to be finished by Wednesday now, because we have to get an accountant to look it over before I turn it in. I already have a call in to Ellen.”

“Why can’t I do it?” Jake had to buy time and the last thing he needed was their accountant Ellen poking around. “I’m an accountant, we don’t need another one.”

“Michael thinks we need to have an independent accountant review everything. He thinks it would help if Ellen wrote us a letter, too.”

“A letter saying what?”

“That our finances are in order, like an official stamp of approval.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“Jake, it’s just window dressing.”

“We don’t need it. I’m as official as it comes, I do our taxes. All Ellen has to do is sign her name to the return.”

“Don’t get all bent out of shape, honey. We might be gilding the lily, but if it helps me get nominated, why not? The issue isn’t the accuracy of our record-keeping, but whether we’re up to shenanigans.”

Jake shuddered.

“You can’t give a stamp of approval to your own bookkeeping or tax returns. It has to come from someone independent. If it’s too much work, Ellen can do everything. Is that better for you?”

“No, I want to do it,” Jake answered quickly. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get the papers together and have them FedExed to Ellen for Wednesday morning. All she’ll have to do is write her phony-baloney letter, okay?”

“That would be great, thanks. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Talk later. I’ll be home late tonight. The powers-that-be want to powwow about the nomination. Can you deal with dinner for Ryan?”

“Sure, take care,” Jake said, hanging up. He found himself staring at their online bank account, which had logged him out. He had to pay the blackmail or Deaner would keep torturing Ryan.

Jake sweated under his jacket, thinking about that check in the safe.

Chapter Twenty-five

Jake clicked through the Gardenia Trust spreadsheet on his computer, trying to figure out how to get the money from company or client funds, but he couldn’t find a way. The check in the safe couldn’t be used because it was made out to Gardenia, and even as the company’s principal and sole owner, he couldn’t cash it or deposit it into his own account. It could only be deposited into Gardenia’s holding account, and from there, it couldn’t be wired to any personal account, much less offshore. Gardenia’s bank, Pennsylvania National Bank, would simply refuse to do it, because it would run afoul of FDIC regulations, which was only one of the layers of rules and regulations. Gardenia was also a state-chartered trust company, so they were also governed by FNRA and the SEC, because they were also an RIA, an alphabet soup of laws.

Jake rubbed his face, trying to understand his position. He couldn’t use his personal funds because the FBI would see, and he couldn’t use Gardenia money because he couldn’t get it. The problem was that the FBI would be able to see the balances in any existing accounts, but that gave him an idea, because it meant that they couldn’t see the balances in any accounts that didn’t exist right now.

Jake reached for his phone and scrolled down to Harold Ackerman, his banker at Pennsylvania National, in charge of all of Jake’s personal accounts, as well as Gardenia business accounts. He pressed in the number and Harold picked it up after the first ring. “Harold, I need a favor. Confidentially.”

“You got it. How can I help?”

“I need a personal line of credit for $250 grand to be opened today.”

“No problem, Jake. You have the balances to back that up. You want it in your name, or yours and Pam’s?”

“Just mine, and I need it wired to an offshore account by eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, at the absolute latest.” Jake knew it would be an unusual request, but he also knew that Harold wouldn’t ask any questions. Anybody who dealt regularly with high-net-worth individuals knew that they had expensive secrets like gambling debts, mistresses in fancy apartments, and the occasional cocaine habit. Jake hated the thought that Harold would believe one of those things were true about him, but his reputation didn’t mean more to him than Ryan’s life.

“I can do that. A wire transfer takes fifteen minutes, if I set it up now. The money’s not the problem, the paperwork is. You know how it goes.”

“Tell me about it.” Jake understood. It would’ve sounded topsy-turvy to anybody who didn’t know how banking worked, but he knew better. Harold could put his hand on $250,000 faster than he could get the stack of forms through the bank bureaucracy.

“I’ll set it up, and get it out first thing tomorrow morning. Wire room’s open at nine. It’ll be done by nine fifteen.”

“Okay. Thanks much.” Jake pressed
END
, relieved. It was a good plan and he thought it would work, at least in the short run. Since the personal line of credit didn’t exist until now, it wouldn’t show on his and Pam’s current bank statement, which they would be disclosing to the FBI. Jake would have to replace it by their next quarterly tax return, but he could do that with some gains from stock dividends or other trading. It would take fancy footwork, but he wasn’t a financial planner for nothing.

Jake’s phone started ringing in his hand, and he looked at the screen. It showed a picture of Pam again, the photo taken on Myrtle Beach, in happier times. He picked up and pressed
ANSWER
. “Hi, honey. You forget something?”

“I’m worried.” Pam sounded tense. “I thought you told me that Ryan went to Western Civ today.”

“He did.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How do you know that?” Jake asked, dismayed.

“I checked the Parent Portal.”

Jake cursed the Parent Portal, which was an online program by which Concord Chase parents could log in and check on their kids’ daily assignments, tests and paper grades. Pam checked it as often as she checked their bank balances or her carbohydrate count.

“Jake, he was absent from class. He missed his test.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. The Portal doesn’t lie.”

“It could be a mistake.”

“No it couldn’t. The information comes from the teachers themselves. Mr. Nelson even made a note on the Portal that Ryan has to contact him to schedule a makeup exam.”

“Mr. Nelson might’ve made a mistake.” Jake knew it was lame the minute he said it. He couldn’t think of something better to say. It was exhausting, all this lying, putting out fires.

“Jake, come on. If Ryan’s not in class, you notice. He could be really sick.” Pam’s voice sounded thin with anxiety. “I called the school nurse, but she’s at another school on Mondays. I called the office, but they don’t answer after four o’clock.”

“Don’t get all worked up, honey.” Jake logged out of the Gardenia accounts and cleared his Internet history, just in case. “Did he go to the class after Western Civ?”

“He doesn’t have class after that. He has Study Hall, last period of the day on Monday.”

Jake didn’t know Ryan’s class schedule, but Pam had it memorized, every year. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Don’t minimize it, Jake. He could be really sick.”

“I’m not minimizing it,” Jake said, though that was exactly what he was doing. “He’s not a hundred percent, but I’m sure he’s fine. He was fine when I left him.”

“How do you know that? You didn’t feel his forehead, did you?”

“No, but he looked fine.” Jake got up from his desk and went to get his coat from the back of the door. He had to find Ryan, either at practice or at home, and see what happened.

“How he looks doesn’t mean anything. You’re taking this too lightly. You never think anything can go wrong, but it can.”

“I’m not taking it lightly.” Jake couldn’t believe the irony. No one knew better than he that things could go wrong. He opened his office door and hurried into the hallway.

“I called his phone again but he still doesn’t answer, and I know he usually checks it after school, before practice. That means he didn’t return my first phone call.”

“He told me he broke his phone, I should have mentioned that.” Jake looked around but Amy wasn’t at her desk. He didn’t leave her a note because he didn’t want her to blow his cover again.

“I assume he went to practice. But what’s he up to? It’s not like him to cut class. If he’s not sick, something went wrong with your plan.”

“I understand, and I’ll take it up with him as soon as I get home.” Jake hurried down the hall toward reception.