The Last Hedge (17 page)

“In other words, you’re completely insane.”

“Y-y-eah. Some people might call me that.”

“Did you really know Luke? ”

“We went to college, back in his r-r-radical days. We even pulled an old stunt once: we put blood on the hand of Alma Matter. Of course, I got thrown out for it. Luke went on to Wall Street.”

“Well, at least you got the cats. So why the hell did you call me?”

“G-g-good question. Luke was killed, did you know that?”

“You keep saying that, but I didn’t get the memo. Ray told me he was killed in an accident.”

“Do you believe what Ray tells you?”

“I just work there. I don’t go to confession with him. And if I needed a cat show I would have checked out the musical.”

“Ha ha.”

“Yeah, Ha Ha. What do you have to tell me?”

“I have a lot to tell you, Dylan. But you have something to tell me also. I know why you’re here. I hit a nerve. You’ve seen something that makes you uncomfortable. Is that correct or is it not?” Dylan put on his best poker face.

“Maybe.”

“Luke gave me these. He f-f-faxed them to me several days before he died.” Luke reached over onto his desk and handed Dylan several loose-leaf pages.

Dylan began to look the papers over. The documents were a series of wire transfer in and out of what looked to be Corbin Brothers’ accounts. Most were the standard transfers in and out of client holdings accounts in New York and London. Several were from Asia. One transfer was underlined in bright Yellow strike through: 20,000,000 dollars, Bank of Pakistan. The second set of papers seemed to be from a lined ruled notebook. There were a list of dates running down the page and most of them had been crossed off. One date had been lined and circled: Karachi 8/6. Dylan handed the papers back to Adam.

“This tells me absolutely nothing. What else do you have?”

“T-t-he night before he was killed, Luke told me he had found something. He had p-p-ut it on a laptop to look at home.”

“What was on it?”

“I think he had it with him when they killed him. It’s all I can guess. Will you help me find it?”

“This is insane. I don’t know you from beans.”

“I know that. But I believe you’ve seen something. And that’s why---that’s w-w-why you’re talking to the FBI.”

“How do you know who I’m talking too?”

“These,” Adam said, as he picked up an 8 by 10 glossy photo that had been lying face down on the desk. The photo was of Dylan speaking to Conroy.

“How did you get this?”

“I took it myself.”

“You’ve been following me around?”

“I had no choice.”

Dylan pounced on Adam and grabbed him by the shirt. He began to tighten his grasp and deny Adam a supply of air.

“Who the fuck are you to follow me around! I’ll kick your fucking teeth in! What the hell is going on?” Adam was turning red Dylan increased the choke-hold. It felt good. Dylan increased the grip on his collar as Adam squirmed.

“Let me go! I’ll tell you why the FBI is after you! It has nothing to do with Corbin!”

“How do you know?”

“I can prove it!” Adam said. Dylan released his collar. Adam’s breathing began to recover as he got up slowly from the floor. . “Here,” Adam said. “It’s about you.”

Dylan grabbed the folder and started flipping through it. The papers were regarding an S.E.C. investigation at his previous firm. Dylan saw his name mentioned several times.

“What is this?” Dylan asked.

“It’s from an S.E.C. database.”

“How did you get it?”

“I —g-googled you a thousand times. No explanation was given for your departure. Smelled fishy. I researched Matland and the case that transpired. I had a source at the S.E.C. run your name and found this.”

The file detailed the actions of his prior firm against him in the insider trading case. Dylan scanned it over quickly. The document was over one hundred pages.

“What does this mean?”

“Your old firm screwed you over. They knew you were innocent, but they used you as pawn to nab the other guys. That’s why they put you there to begin with. When y-y-you blew up and quit, they decided you were expendable.”

Dylan jogged back through the chain of events that had transpired. It all made sense. He had been placed with Matland for no particular reason except to spy on him. They had used him to catch a rat, then discarded him along with the trap. His explosion at Matland had not helped the situation. He had ostensibly created his own demise.

“Does the FBI know this?”

“I don’t know. But T-t-hey might. They are the FBI. Of course, they could be using you to get close to Corbin. Just like your old firm did.” Dylan looked at the stack of papers, then at Adam on the floor. He threw the papers at Adam. He turned and exited the room without speaking. Adam followed him as he left the room.

“Are you going to help me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Here,” Adam said, thrusting a piece of paper towards Dylan. “Skype me, find you changed your mind.”

Dylan snatched the piece of paper and turned in one fast move. He exited the room without turning back, and slammed the door loudly as he exited the apartment.

They were huddled in Highland’s office. Vanessa sat across the desk from Dan, while Conroy stood in the corner.

“You needed to talk,” Highland said. “So how are we looking?”

“Our native is getting restless,” Conroy said. “He wants to fly the coop. I spoke to him an hour ago. He wants to get out. He doesn’t want to tarnish his career.”

“He works on Wall Street. He’s already tarnished.”

“We know that. But still, he thinks he should just cut his losses and get the hell out of there. He claims the guys are weird: They’ve been hit by heavy losses and the boss is giving him the willies.”

“Heavy losses?” Highland ears perked up. “What happened?”

“One of the traders went haywire and lost a bundle. Something with their systems.”

“But not Cash?”

“No,” Conroy said. “He’s actually making money. Corbin even gave him a bonus. I told him he was crazy for wanting to quit.”

Highland leaned back to interpret the information. He then leaned forward with his arms stretched across his desk.

“Did you stop him?”

“I told him to calm down; to come in and talk to us.”

“Where is he now?”

“On his way home, I guess. I told him to call me or Vanessa tomorrow.”

“Good,” Highland said. “Smart thinking, Timmy.” Highland leaned back in his chair and glanced at both of them. “So now what?” Highland asked.

“Don’t know.” Conroy said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Dan,” Vanessa said, “the naked short selling piece is not working out.”

“Nothing?”

“There’s been a few short sales without locates, but nothing that the S.E.C. would even raise an eye over.”

“Is he looking closely?”

Conroy shrugged his shoulders. “Seems to be. He’s found a few things that we’ve found useful, but not widespread naked short selling.”

“Tell him to look harder.”

“What if they find out?” Vanessa asked. “We can’t just force him to be a spy for us.”

“Why not?” Highland countered. “He’s done it so far.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he has to continue. We push him too far. He’s out of there.”

“That is true,” Highland said. “So brainstorm a little bit. Can we somehow pressure him? Maybe we can just twist his arm a bit.”

“We could try it,” Conroy said.

“He’s worried about his job,” Vanessa offered. “It’s not exactly a picnic out on the street.”

“Are you paying him?”

“Not yet,” Conroy said.

“Throw that out there,” Highland said. “Entice him.”

“I don’t think a few thousand dollars is going to really impress Dylan Cash.”

“We’ve gone higher at times.”

“But,” Vanessa asked, “What if the Corbins are legit and he’s snooping around in their business? They could fire him and he’s out on the street.”

“Life is full of ‘Buts’, Vanessa. But what if they’re not? That’s the thing he has to worry about. Tell him if he’s in there, we’ve got his back with full immunity. If he doesn’t cooperate, and the Corbins go down,” Highland said, “well, that could be a very different story.”

“We don’t have anything on him. We can’t just coerce him without a reason.”

Highland smiled as he got up and went to the whiteboard in his office. He erased the board and picked up a blue marker. He wrote one word and underlined it for emphasis.

Madoff

“I’m going to give you two a little inside information that no one in this office is really privy too. Thanks to Mr. Madoff, Thompson is practically having a wet dream with all this Ponzi scheme stuff going on. The scope has changed now. With all this hedge-fund fraud activity, we need to get closer. I’ve gotten more information on Corbin from my source. We just need to get a look at his balance sheet to see what his positions are and if they are real. We want to match those up against actual client reports. If they match up okay, no problem and Cash is free. If not, we got a problem. Can he get us the balances sheets?”

“But,” Vanessa said, “we were looking at naked short selling, not fraud.”

“I know,” Highland said. “All the more reason why you need to keep Cash in there. I want the balances from all the Corbin accounts and the positions. Can he get them for us?”

“What?” Vanessa asked. “That’s not why you sent us in there.”

“It is now?” Highland said. Conroy looked at Vanessa, than back at Highland.

“Vanessa has a point, Dan. We can’t turn this into a grab bag. The guy could seriously get nailed if he starts stealing proprietary information.”

“Use a little trickery. You say his friend is good with computers, just ask for it casually. See what he says.”

“We can try it.”

“I don’t think we should do this,” Vanessa said. Both men’s eyes shone on her like spotlights.

“Any particular reason?” Highland asked.

“We’re lying to the guy; making up stories. It just seems like we’re looking for ghosts under the bed.”

“The bad guys aren’t always so forthcoming with information, Vanessa. Sometimes we have to use obtuse methods to find out what we need.”

“Understood,” Vanessa said. “But we gave him our trust. We asked about naked short sales. Now we’re going to hand him a laundry list of things to look for?”

“Unfortunately,” Dan said, “this time we are. Besides, Conroy told me you and Cash hit it off.” Vanessa shot a glance at Conroy.

“We just had dinner.”

“And that’s great. Be friendly with him. Take him out. Just see if you can get more information out of him. Got it?”

“Okay,” Conroy said. “Understood.”

“Good,” Dan offered. “You have my full authorization to do whatever it takes. Understood. Vanessa?” Highland asked quietly.

Vanessa shook her head belatedly and quietly murmured “yes.”

Dylan waited inside the Staten Island Ferry Terminal for Vanessa to arrive. The sun was still beaming in a sky whose summer imprint had been more rainy than hot. Dylan had removed his jacket because of the humidity, and the back of his shirt was wet with sweat. He was disheveled from the day’s activities and was impatient for her to arrive so that he could escape from the heat. He looked at his watch, and saw Vanessa approaching as soon as he looked up.

“Hello,” Dylan said. “Conroy promoted you? You’re solo now?”

“Nothing like that. He got a call on something and had to run out.”

“Want to take a ferry ride? Grab a beer on board.” Dylan asked.

“Sure,” Vanessa said casually. “We could be tourists. Just for a few minutes.”

Dylan laughed. “Sure. Why not.” They began to walk towards the mouth of the ferry entrance, and embarked amongst the myriad of travelers.

On board, most people were huddled inside, faceless and expressionless, happy only at the prospect of heading home. Dylan purchased two beers at the ferry concession. They then made their way up top towards the open deck at the front of the ferry, which soon departed, leaving the backdrop of Manhattan behind in the distance.

The wind and breeze of the ferry ride was a welcome relief from the torpor of the heat. Both of them took healthy swigs of beer, as they stared in the direction of the Statue of Liberty.

“Nice day for a ferry ride, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Not what I had in mind for the evening, but pretty cool.” He took another sip of beer.

“I can remember the first time I took the ferry. It was Christmas break. I had come down from Boston to visit a friend at Columbia. A bunch of us were in his dorm room, drunk at 3 a.m. They had this great idea to take the ferry at night. So in ten degree weather, we took the Number One train all the way downtown and stood near this very spot, drunk and laughing in the freezing cold.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was fun. Of course, we didn’t realize that at three in the morning in the winter, when the ferry doesn’t make a straight loop. We had to wait around for about an hour or two for the ferry to return.”

“What did you do?”

“We looked for a bar, but they were all closed.” Dylan paused and shrugged his shoulders. “College life. At the time, school seemed so tough. Looking back on it, it was all so carefree.”

“I know the feeling.”

Vanessa took another healthy drink from his beer. She turned towards Dylan with a concerned look.

“Conroy said something came up, that you were thinking of quitting.”

“Yes, something came up; that’s one way to put it. The guy I’m working for had a panic attack, and I just met a crazy man claiming that the guy who had my job before me was murdered.”

“Who was this person?”

“I have no idea. He got my email and my IM and started sending me crazy messages. After I met wet with Conroy, he called. After the meltdown at work, I decided to investigate. The guy was some crazy psychopath living in an apartment full of cats.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m not creative enough to make this up.”

“So what did he say?”

“He told me this strange story about this guy Luke being killed. He had some dates scribbled down, basically gibberish.”