Black Fridays (32 page)

“Did you know he was going to kill Hochstadt? He implied it was an executive decision.”

“Why are you asking me?” He meant, “What do you know?”

“I knew Hochstadt was in a panic when I left him. But why would he run to Avery? Avery scared him. Shit, Iron Man Jack scared everybody. So, he must have been going to meet someone else. Someone he trusted. That would be you, Neil.”

He pursed his lips. “Jack is not a manager. Geoffrey could have been managed. He’d had episodes before, driven by guilt or fear of discovery. He did not need to be killed. I sent Jack to deliver a message. That was my mistake. He can be impulsive.”

“It sounds like he doesn’t like your style, Neil. Why bring him in on the scam anyway? Besides muscle, what does he bring to the table?”

“Jack was not invited. He insinuated himself. After his secretary ran an audit on all of the firm’s trades with Arrowhead, she went to Jack with her suspicions. Jack saw an opportunity. He came to me with a set of demands. They seemed reasonable. I would have agreed to much more.”

“And the secretary?” Avery would have had to get her out of the way.

His eyes flicked up to the ceiling. “I understand she had personal issues.”

“Is that what Jack said?”

He locked eyes with me. “The subject never came up.”

Avery had killed her, I was sure of it. But had Neil known? Or had he willed himself not to know? I decided to let the woman rest in peace.

“Jack’s dead,” I said.

For a moment, his mannered reserve almost abandoned him. But he recovered.

“I had not heard that.”

“The police are sitting on it. They’ll get here.”

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“He went for a swim.”

“An accident, then,” he said, as though he could not have been less interested. He leaned forward and for the first time appeared to become fully engaged in our conversation. “What do you need, Jason? Is there a problem that money can solve? I am willing to make some sacrifices.”

“I just gave Stockman a list of all the traders at this firm who did regular business with Arrowhead. I told him how the whole thing works. From the casinos to the offshore accounts.”

He didn’t blink.

“The FBI has the same information,” I continued. “But it may take them a little time to get to it. They’re a little backed up this week.”

“I thought we were negotiating,” he said.

“We are.” I held up the duct-taped flash drive—the one that contained the names, the bank accounts—the one I had kept hidden from Avery. The one I had held back from the FBI. “This is Hochstadt’s copy of all the offshore accounts—all the money transfers. Including yours. The original is probably on his office computer, but I would bet it’s either encrypted or well hidden.”

He smiled. “Bravo. I thought Geoffrey had done a very good job of hiding my involvement.”

“He did. He was very good at moving money around. It’s a shame he got involved with you.”

The smile faded. “You said we are still negotiating. It is time to make your offer.”

“You and I are so similar in some ways. We look for mathematical patterns everywhere. Repetitive movements in numbers perhaps, or mathematical relationships between one market and another. It is what we are trained for, but we were adepts first. You probably learned to multiply by thirteens the first time you saw a pack of cards. When you were in grade school, you memorized the value of pi out to one hundred digits.”

“A hundred and twenty.”

“Patterns. My son has shown me that people have patterns as well. He is autistic, so his patterns of behavior are more visible, though sometimes confusing. They can be much more convoluted—at least on the surface—than ours. When he’s fighting off a panic attack—which can arise from virtually anywhere—he relies on little patterns to hold himself together. He does a circuit of our living room—three times. Each lap has the exact same number of steps. If he needs to do it again, he does another three full circuits.”

“They call it stimming, I believe.”

I nodded. “When he is frightened or angry and fighting for control, he does this drumming thing with his fingers. I thought it was completely random, chaotic, until a friend pointed it out to me. It’s an intricate meter in thirteen/eight time. Three sets of triplets followed by a set of four. His fingers fly, over and over, at a thrash metal pace. Blindingly fast.”

Neil gave a too-polite smile of feigned interest.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I seem to be taking the very long way round.”

“No, please,” he said. “Continue. I hang upon every word.”

“For the past two weeks, I’ve stared at trading reports. Lists and lists of anonymous buys and sells in a whole array of products. And I’ve learned something I always suspected. Every trader has a mark, a signature, a pattern. Once I knew to look for it, it was easy to find yours.”

“But I never traded with Arrowhead.”

“Almost true. But Hochstadt was a pack rat. He kept everything. Including the trades you ran when you were first testing the system. When you first created Arrowhead. You were trading for Rothkamp. For six months or so, you did a handful of trades a week. Once you knew it worked and that other traders would line up in droves to be part of it, you stepped into the background. You took your cut of the profits and let others take the risk.”

“Patterns? Something you intuit? Like tea leaves? You can’t prove my involvement.” He seemed most concerned that he had been somehow predictable.

I help up the flash drive again. “You forget. Hochstadt threw nothing away. But just for grins, I called an old friend at Rothkamp in London this morning. I had him check to see who was trading Dutch mortgage-backed securities back then. It was a small market.”

He took off the glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And what now?” He sounded irritated. Not angry or even annoyed. This was all nothing more troubling than a headache. Two aspirin and a liter of bottled water would set the world right again.

“Your wife is Venezuelan?”

He looked amazed at the abrupt change of subject, until he thought it through. He chuckled. “And you think this might be an appropriate time for me and my family to emigrate?” He was no longer irritated, he was intrigued.

“They have a non-extradition policy. A man can live quite well there on the kind of money you’ve salted away.”

“I would have to act quickly, I assume.”

“One week. Next Monday I will go through the pockets of the jacket I was wearing the other night and I will find this missing flash drive. I will, of course, immediately turn it over to the authorities.” Unless I found a better use for it.

“What will this cost me?”

I took a Post-it pad and quickly made some notes. “By close of business today, you will transfer five million dollars into each of these two offshore accounts.”

“Ten million? It seems excessive.”

“It’s less than ten percent of what you’ve taken out of this. A finder’s fee.”

“You misunderstand. I only meant that it was excessive in terms of what I gain. A week. Why not a month?”

I shook my head. “The Feds aren’t going to wait. Soon they will take another look at Geoffrey’s computer files. They’ll find you, just as I did. And Neil? Take it from one who knows, you won’t do well in prison.”

He leaned back and pulled at the corner of his mouth with his eyeglasses, à la William Buckley. “There’s no point in negotiating your fee, is there? No. Ah well, there is something almost sensuous about shrugging off the difference between ninety and a hundred million dollars.”

He put the glasses back on and read the note. “Nassau? Not a problem. The funds will be there in a matter of hours. What are the names on the accounts?”

“They’re numbered. No names necessary.”

“For my own edification, then.”

“The first is the Jason Stafford, Junior, Irrevocable Trust. For my son. I’ll be the executor.”

“Why not ask for more? You have me by the short hairs. Why not a third? Half?”

The little fund I had set up for the Kid might last another year or two at the rate we were burning through it. School, doctors, and Heather came to more than one hundred and fifty thousand a year. Five million invested in a mix of high-grade bonds would generate that much with a small cushion. Enough to keep the wolves at bay.

“It’s all he needs,” I said.

“And the second account?”

I grinned. “That’s for me.”

He stood up and brushed imaginary dust off of his perfectly creased trousers. I had just blackmailed him and turned his life upside down and not a bead of sweat was showing.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand,” he said.

I stood as well. “If the money is not there, Neil—”

He cut me off. “Jason, no matter what my other qualities, I am a man of my word. The money will be there. Excuse me, but I must run. This will all take some explaining when I get home.”

After he left, I turned off the mini-recorder in my pocket. A little insurance policy.

I WALKED OUT
the front doors of Weld Securities for the last time and hailed a cab to La Guardia. My mind was racing ahead of me. I tried to keep Roger’s advice in mind—one step at a time.

I had nothing to check and my only carry-on was a briefcase with a fresh shirt and underwear, toothbrush, and razor. And the Matchbox car I had found the previous afternoon. No matter how things turned out, I didn’t plan on staying in Louisiana any longer than necessary.

There was just enough time before the flight for one long-overdue phone call.

“Wanda?” I didn’t have the guts to call her Skeli—yet. “It’s Jason.”

“Believe it or not, I recognized your voice.” She managed to sound both amused and disinterested.

“I’ve been meaning to call. There were some things I had to take care of. There still are, but . . .” I trailed off. All the speeches I had practiced in my head over the previous twenty-four hours were fighting for primacy, leaving me with nothing to say.

She didn’t hang up. I took that as encouragement.

I cleared my throat.

“Sorry.” I did not want to be misunderstood. “I mean, I’m sorry for coughing in your ear.” Which pretty much guaranteed that I would be misunderstood. “I’m sorry about the other night. Too.” I felt like the guy who avoided hitting the squirrel by driving off the bridge. “Especially.”

Damn. Every man in the bar the other night—including the one I had slugged—would have said something by this time. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” Or, “Enough said. Let’s move on.” I would have bought a round and it would be over. Almost forgotten. The subject of a painful joke six months down the road and nothing more.

She gave me silence.

“I’m on my way down to Louisiana. I’d like to see you when I get back.” There it was—a simple, straightforward declaration. She couldn’t avoid responding to it.

“You’re going down to see Jason?”

“To bring him back. I hope.”

The Saint Paddy’s Day parade could have passed by in the time it took her to answer.

“Well,” she finally said. “Good luck.”

I almost thought she said, “Good-bye.”

“Listen, I’m sorry. I would love to undo that whole day if I could. Please, Skeli. Let me call you.”

“Why?”

There it was. She was asking me for something. Not exactly commitment, but intent. The ball was in my court. Where I wanted it.

“I’m different without my son. I didn’t know that. Now I do. I need him. Loving him makes me a better person. Or at least I’m a much worse person without him.” I had no idea whether I was getting through or not. “When I brought him up here a few weeks ago, I had no idea what I was doing. I figured I was going to be a hero and save him from a life locked in the attic. But a part of me wanted to hurt Angie, too. I wanted to hurt a lot of people.”

“You’d lost two years of your life. That would leave most people angry.”

Maybe I was getting through. At least she hadn’t slammed down the phone.

“But I’m learning something from him. Something about starting again. I know I’m better for him right now than his mother or his grandmother or anyone else in the world and it’s right that he should be here with me. Even if he barely acknowledges my existence. Because I also know he’s right for me as well.”

There was another long silence. I still hadn’t managed to say the most important things.

“And I think you’re right for me, too. I like myself a lot better when we’re together. I want a chance to be right for you.”

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade went by.

“All right. Call me when you’re back.”

Another link in the steel chain around my chest dropped away. Breathing was easier. My heart stopped trying to force its way out of my chest.

“Thank you, Skeli.”

“For what?”

“A second chance.”

“Yeah, well, try not to get in any more fistfights between now and then, okay?”

—

NOLA EXOTIC CAR RENTALS
met me at the baggage area. The young black man was wearing a three-button suit, starched white shirt, and black tie. He could have passed for an undertaker.

The BMW Z4 was sitting in the curb lane out front—it matched the new blue Matchbox in my pocket. Finding the new toy and lining up the rental had taken an hour’s worth of phone calls the day before.

The stern-faced young man checked me out on the car, demonstrating the controls, the shift, the music system, the environmental controls, the retractable hardtop.

“Show me how the car seat works,” I said.

He smiled. Then he opened the small trunk and returned with a block of molded plastic. It looked like the booster seat at a Denny’s.

“That’s it? My son is kind of on the small side.”

“You don’t want a baby seat,” he answered.

I didn’t argue. I hoped the Kid was tall enough to see out the window.

I slid into the driver’s seat. It felt like it had been sculpted for me. There was a half-liter of designer water, a tiny gold box holding a single Godiva truffle, and a box of tissues in a mirrored container. I felt like I was checking into a four-star hotel.

The car was a dream. It handled exactly the same at ninety-five as it did at forty-five. There was no sensation of speed, just an almost liquid feeling of flow.

A magnificent, dust-in-the-air sunset was getting started as I drove down Main Street. Dark purple jellyfish clouds were backlit with pink and pale-orange, each cloud hanging in an iridescent sky like Lando Calrissian’s Cloud City. I was in an alien world. All the rules were different.

I made the turn onto Hoptree and pulled into the driveway.

The house looked deserted. The curtains were all drawn and not a light on anywhere. Angie and the Kid could be hiding anywhere. Mamma could be up in Lafayette with Tino. TeePaul’s family were all down in Morgan City. I could spend a month driving around southwestern Louisiana looking for my son. But I had to start somewhere, and the first place Angie would run would be home.

I knocked and called for Angie, then Mamma. I rattled the knob. No one locks their door in Beauville, Louisiana, if they’re at home. Half the time they don’t lock up if they’re out. The door was locked.

I thought through my options. Back up to Lafayette? To Tino’s? I could be there in half an hour. Forty minutes, if I kept to the speed limit.

I knocked once more. Still no answer. I turned and started down the wide, wooden steps. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it—a curtain flickered.

This time I banged on the door. I hammered it with both fists. “Mamma? Open the damn door! Open it or I’ll kick it in.”

I counted to ten—slowly. Then I kicked the door. It always looks easy on the cop shows. The door didn’t budge. My foot hurt.

But it was enough. Mamma started howling.

“Don’t you kick my house, young man! I told you if you was to come around here again, I’d be calling Sheriff Thibodeaux on you. Now you git! I got my phone. I am calling.”

“Mamma!” Who did she think she was talking to? “Mamma! It’s Jason. Open the goddamn door!”

“I know your family, TeePaul. You can’t come around here scaring an old woman. You get yourself gone, boy, or I am getting the law on you.”

I did not want her calling the police—even to report a case of mistaken identity. The police would only slow things down and muddy the waters. I turned around and noisily clumped down the front steps. When I reached the bottom, I stopped and sat down. And waited. It took only a few minutes.

I heard the bolt turn, and a moment later the door cracked open.

“Jason?” The door opened wider. “Is that you? What in the Lord’s name are you doing sitting on my front steps?”

I stood up. “Where’s Angie, Mamma? Where’s my boy?”

I thought I spoke quietly, but the anger escaped anyway. She took a defensive step back.

“Oh, you don’t know, Jason. Things are not good for my little baby girl right now. That man is pure evil. You know my feelings on divorce—I never divorced my husband, no matter what that man did. It was the way I was raised.”

I wanted to shake it out of her.

“But I can tell you, I am so glad she is rid of him. He comes storming around looking for her and I just send him on his way. She will have nothing to do with you, I tell him. But does he listen?”

“Mamma, where’s the boy? Where’s Jason?”

She backed up again—guarding the door.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” I charged up the steps.

Mamma backed through into her parlor and made a less-than-earnest effort at keeping me out. “I will surely tell Angie you were by to see her when she gets back. She is visiting with her brother up to Lafayette.”

I brushed past her and started for the stairs. She was still talking.

“Angie always goes to her brother when she’s feeling blue. He finds some way to make her smile. It touches me that they are so good for each other. I wouldn’t go up there, Jason.”

I was already up there and headed for the front room. The latch was down. I wanted very badly to punch someone. At that point, almost anyone would do.

The door rattled when I knocked. There was no answer.

“Kid? It’s Jason. It’s time to go home, son.”

I unlocked the door and pushed it open. The Kid was sitting in the middle of the floor. Three Matchbox cars were lined up in front of him. He was humming softly.

“Kid?” I dropped down to my haunches. I still towered over him. “Kid?”

I dreaded the possible—or probable—explosion if I touched him.

The hum was a single note, waning and waxing, but never changing pitch, almost meditative, but with an edge. Like trying to chant “Om” when you’re really pissed off about something. A sound like a wasps’ nest in the wall.

“Kid. I got you a new car.” No reaction. I set the miniature BMW down on the rug.

The Kid growled. “Nnnnnrrrgggghhh.” Then he settled back into the hum again.

I waited. Some perverse part of my brain was begging me to check my watch, but I knew time didn’t matter. I refused to move first.

Finally. The Kid reached over, picked up the car, and set it down at the end of the line of other cars.

It looked right there.

I waited some more.

“Kid? It’s time to go. Mrs. Carter says I have to get you back to school. I got us a special car today. The same as your new car there. The BMW Z4. Blue.” I didn’t bother to mention that it cost—with taxes, fees, mileage, and gasoline—about a thousand dollars a day. But if it worked, it was worth it. Besides, we could afford it.

The humming stopped.

I held the back of my hand out to him. He bent forward and sniffed.

An eternity later, he held out his hand to me. I sniffed it. His arm dropped and he began to collect his cars one by one and put them in the pockets of his blue shorts. He stood up, his knees as stiff as my father’s on a February morning, but his hips so loose as to seem double-jointed. His fingers curled and he began tapping the thirteen-beat progression. He was stressed—severely stressed—but he was fighting for control. I let him take his time. He grunted loudly and turned to me.

Across his left cheek, hidden from me until then by the angle of his head and the dimness of the light, was the unmistakable bruised print of an open hand.

The man who’d just been released from prison would have lost it. He would have jumped up and gone looking for someone to hurt.

“Your Grand-mamma get you your cereal this morning?” I made my voice light.

He grunted in three syllables.

“You were Crunchatized?” I forced a smile. It didn’t matter, he never responded to a smile. He didn’t know what it meant.

“Good. Then we are out of here, bud. We’ll get you something to eat on the road.”

He gave a disgusted look.

“No,” I said. “We’ll stop at a diner.”

I let him walk out first. I still didn’t trust him above me on a flight of stairs.

Mamma had stopped talking. She was yelling. The sound was punctuated with repeated thumps on the front door. I ran down the stairs and cut in front of the Kid just as the door slammed back and bounced against the wall. There was a spray of wood splinters and brass fittings. Mamma had stopped yelling. She was screaming.

TeePaul pushed the broken door and walked in. He ignored Mamma and her unintelligible shrill squawks. He looked at me briefly and dismissively. He spoke to the Kid.

“Hey, Boo. You come with me now, boy. We’re going to see your Mamma. I hear she’s up at Lafayette with her sissy brother.”

The Kid began to moan, his eyes unfocused, and his neck and shoulders began to twist and turn as though his whole upper body ached in one huge cramp.

“You’re not taking my son anywhere,” I said. “And from what Mamma tells me, Angie doesn’t want you around.”

“Oh, she’ll see me. If I got that boy with me, she’ll see me.” He grinned at me, making it a challenge.

I wanted to hit him. Beat him into dust. I didn’t know that I could do it, but I wanted to try. The old Jason wanted to try.

Mamma was sobbing into a lacy handkerchief.

“This would be a good time to call the sheriff, Mamma,” I said.

She looked amazed, then ran for the phone.

TeePaul and I locked eyes, each waiting for the other to make the next move.