The Underwriting (41 page)

“This one's dusk,” the woman repeated, “and that one is dawn.” She pointed across the room to the other Turner. “Isn't it funny how hard it is to tell the difference?” the woman mused.

Tara turned to look at the painting of dawn, just as a tour group cleared, leaving behind a single man standing before it.

Tara blinked her eyes to see if it was true. “Charlie?” she whispered.

He turned and laughed, surprised, when he saw her. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I'm not really sure. I just decided I wanted to come,” she said, forgetting what had propelled her uptown, but suddenly grateful that it had.

There was a pause, but neither of them moved.

“I haven't watched the news today,” she said, breaking the silence before he could leave. “Is it bad?”

“No.” He shook his head. “They let Robby Goodman go home, on bail, and are reopening the case.”

“What about Hook?”

“They're saying it'll be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether information from the app should be admissible in court,” he said. “It'll take years, I imagine.”

“How about the IPO?” she asked.

“NASDAQ shut it down twenty minutes after it opened. The system crashed because too many people were trying to sell.”

“Yikes,” she said.

There was another pause.

“So did they give you the day off?” he asked cautiously.

“I didn't get fired,” she said, knowing what he was asking. “I quit.”

His eyes smiled. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, it is good for me.”

There was another pause, but neither of them moved.

“This is my favorite painting,” he said, gesturing to the one of dawn. “I like mornings, too,” he added.

“And here I thought we didn't have anything in common.” She smiled.

“Oh, I bet we could find some. I mean, I'd give us at least . . . four.”

She laughed and bit her lip.

“Where are you headed next?” he asked.

“Oh, I've got to—” she said automatically, then stopped. “Do nothing.” She laughed. “So I have no idea where I'm headed.”

“Do you like Central Park?” he asked. “That would bring us up to two.”

“That doesn't count: everyone likes Central Park.”

“Yeah, but I bet you're a Sheep Meadow person,” he said, making a face.

“No,” she corrected. “My favorite spot is by the Alice in Wonderland statue.”

“Not as good as Balto.”

“You're such a boy.”

“Balto definitely transcends gender.”

He winked as he pushed open the door for her and her heart skipped a beat, realizing it was an invitation.

They stopped at an ice cream truck as they walked into the park and debated the merits of chocolate (his favorite) over vanilla (hers) and by the time they stopped to decide which statue to visit first, the sun was settling in and they'd already passed them both.

JUAN

T
HURSDAY
, M
AY
15; E
AST
P
ALO
A
LTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

A car pulled up and Jorge Menendez kissed Isabel's cheek before saying hello to Juan. He was shorter and rounder than Juan expected from his mug shot, with jovial cheeks and curly hair, dressed neatly in jeans and a flannel shirt.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, trusting Juan because Isabel did.

It was dusk on Thursday, back in the Shell station parking lot. Juan knew Hook's IPO had happened today but he hadn't looked online to see the results. It didn't matter: he had other things to focus on. Namely, this meeting Isabel had set up with Jorge Menendez.

“Do you remember where you were the night of March fifth?”

“That's pretty specific,” he said. “What are you getting at?”

“Why were you with Kelly Jacobson?” Juan said.

“That girl that died?” he asked. “I wasn't. Never seen her in my life.”

Juan felt his heart sink. How could Jorge lie to his face like this?

“Are you sure?” he pushed.

Jorge took a breath in, puffing his chest. “What have you got to say?”

“I'm an engineer at Hook—or I used to be—and we can see where users have been, and our database shows that you were in Kelly's room the night she died.”

“Your database doesn't know shit,” Jorge said.

Jorge's macho voice made Juan feel ridiculous saying he was an engineer at some app company, but he pressed on. “She never matched with you, so I also know that you hacked into our system and—”

“Bro, you seriously think I know how to hack into some computer app? You outta your mind?”

Juan felt his cheeks blush. “But there's no other—”

“What day did you say she died?” Jorge cut him off, pulling a notepad out of his back pocket.

“March fifth,” Juan said, “or technically the sixth, between two and four a.m.”

Jorge flipped through the notepad, where, evidently, he kept his deliveries. He laughed. “Nah, I was definitely not at Stanford that night. We went down to the Gold Club. I got six brothers and three strippers who can all vouch for me.”

“What were you doing at a strip club?” Isabel said scornfully.

“Celebrating”—he grinned, lifting his notebook so she could see—“I made two grand that day.”

“Selling what?” Isabel's eyes got wide.

“Some rich kid from out of town bought my whole supply of Molly. Paid me double to deliver it to his fancy-pants hotel, then tipped me an extra hundred to use my phone.”

Isabel punched his arm. “What is wrong with you? He could have been a cop.”

“It was two grand.” Jorge shrugged. “What are you gonna do?”

“You said he was from out of town?” Juan asked.

“Yeah. New York, I think. Said he got my number from some frat boy at Stanford.”

“Do you know his name?” Juan asked carefully.

“Got it right here.” Jorge lifted the notepad so Juan could see. “Beau Buckley,” he read. “What a fucking name, eh?”

Juan's mouth went dry. “What?” he finally croaked.

“Beau Buckley,” Jorge repeated, looking down at the paper again. “I guess that's how you pronounce it.”

“Have you seen him since?” Juan finally got it out.

“Nope,” he said. “Hope I never do, either. That wasn't the finest batch, if I'm being honest.”

“I've gotta go,” Juan said.

Isabel stood up. “Is everything okay? When will I see you again?”

“I'll call you,” Juan said, rushing back to his car. His brain was spinning.

Juan's phone rang, interrupting the thought, and he looked down at the unknown caller. He sat in the driver's seat and locked the door before answering.

“Hello?”

“Is this Juan Ramirez?”

“Yes, this is Juan.”

“Juan, my name is Dennis Cameron. I'm an attorney in New York who has been engaged to make you an offer.”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“I've got all the paperwork ready to create a charitable foundation in which you'll be sole operator, in charge of all donations and financial decisions subject to the legal requirements of a private foundation structure. The foundation will be established in East Palo Alto and funded with a twenty-five-million-dollar check from an anonymous benefactor,” the man said. His voice was kind, but professional.

“I don't think I—” Juan started. “What anonymous benefactor?”

“I just wanted to check, though, that I've got the spelling right on the form—it's the Eduardo Ramirez Community Foundation, correct? That's E-D-U-A-R-D-O?”

“Yes,” Juan said softly, “my father. That was my father's name.” How did this man know that? Did someone really want to fund his foundation?

“Great,” the man said. “So all I need is your signature and then we'll be good to set up a bank account for you and transfer the money.”

Juan's brain raced through the list of people who knew about the community center—would someone really back him? Maybe someone had taken pity on what had happened—wanted to throw him a bone after making millions in today's IPO. It must have been Josh Hart, or Phil Dalton, or—

“In addition,” the man interrupted Juan's thought, “we'll need you to sign a confidentiality agreement and contract for your silence in matters related to information you might have encountered while working at Hook.”

Juan's bubble popped. “What?”

“I've been informed that you may have seen information that might lead you to certain conclusions about individuals and their activity on the app,” he said. “We need you to agree that you won't ever speak about anything you saw.”

“You're bribing me?”

“We're asking for your cooperation.”

“You're using the foundation as a bribe so I won't go public with what I know about—”

“The use of information that was gathered in violation of privacy laws for the purposes of a criminal investigation is a question for the Supreme Court,” the man said, “and one that will, I assure you, be in court for a long, long time. We're asking you to not interfere with that process by making public statements about information you obtained in what might be deemed an illegal manner.”

“I'm sorry,” Juan said, “but I'm done cooperating. I know what happened.”

“I would urge you to consider your options, Mr. Ramirez. I'll give you forty-eight hours to make up your mind.”

Juan heard the phone click off and let it drop with his hand into his lap. He looked through the car window at Isabel, back in her booth, making change for a man, as if she might possess the answer, but once again she felt a million miles away.

NICK

T
HURSDAY
, M
AY
15; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Nick Winthrop took the elevator up to his hotel room and locked all the locks on the door. He carefully removed the comforter on the king-size bed—even at nice hotels, he knew, they were covered in all sorts of human filth—and went to the bathroom to wash his hands. He straightened all the toiletries on the counter where the maid hadn't gotten them exactly right and did the same for the minibar.

He undressed and hung up the favorite fleece vest he'd worn today and lay down on the sheets, taking deep breaths, repeating his self-worth mantras until things felt okay again. He'd raised over two billion dollars yesterday. And as bad as today had been, he had survived. And given it really couldn't get any worse, he would continue to survive until he once again thrived. He liked how that sounded and repeated it again to himself, closing his eyes and letting it carry him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It was pitch-dark when he awoke to a sound he didn't recognize, and it took him a moment to remember where he was, giving him a brief hiatus before the flood of his current reality hit him.

The sound went off again and he realized it was coming from his iPhone on the nightstand. He rolled over and looked at the device. There was an alert from SnapChat, the temporary photo app he'd downloaded but never used after he found out it was mostly for seventeen-year-olds.

He looked at the message quizzically and pressed the
VIEW
button.

His body went still when he saw the image, and then the thirty-six-dollar soup he'd had for dinner gurgled in his stomach and spewed over the bed, the floor, the phone and its Snapchat:

The body of a naked girl that looked like his ex-girlfriend, Grace, was splayed on a twin dorm-room bed. She had a tie around her neck, and her eyes were heavily made up, staring, dead, at the camera. Words had been printed at the bottom of the photo that read:

I'm Hooked, how about you?

The image was from an unidentified user and hung for another fifteen seconds on the vomit-splattered screen before it disappeared.

The first version of
The Underwriting
appeared in the spring of 2014 as a twelve-part weekly serial on www.theunderwriting.com, accompanied by music, photography and various other experiments in digital presentation. Above all, I want to thank the readers of that original incarnation—you were the most patient critics and the most uplifting friends, and your e-mails, tweets and participation meant more than you will ever know.

I'd also like to thank those who made the original work what it was, in particular Brooke Botsford, John Crepezzi, Justin Shenkarow, Meredith Flynn, Si Domone, Hayden Wood, Dom Hammond, Alexandra Warder and Jarrett McGovern. It's hard to describe how powerful it was to work with you to bring the story to life through your own media. I remain humbled and inspired by your talents and your willingness to share them with me.

For taking the story and making it a bona fide novel I am indebted to my agent, Sloan Harris (and Heather Karpas). Your understanding and articulation of my work and your belief in this project are the greatest motivators.

If I had written down everything I hoped for in an editor, it wouldn't have skimmed the surface of what I've found in Tara Singh Carlson. Your notes in every way elevated the text, and your belief in and commitment to its publication have been the cause of much skin-tingling. I am so deeply thankful, and excited to think that this is the first of many journeys together.

Very broadly, I'd like to thank Wall Street and the Silicon Valley for supplying a steady stream of content that fed the development of this book. You were the grand affair of my twenties: I loved you fanatically and hated you with equal fervor. I'm still not sure who broke up with whom, or if we'll ever really be able to be friends, but I'll defend you to the death, and hope I've done you justice here.

I also want to thank Harriet Clark, Tom Kealey and the Stanford undergrads who let me—a
very sketchy
business school student—crash their Intro to Creative Writing seminars in 2010/11. You were all so rad, and I hope you never forget it.

For keeping the story straight, I am indebted to Henry Davis and Grace Sterritt for their IPO tutorials; Jon Levy and Bill Guttentag for their early notes; the baristas at The Smile and Euphorium Bakery for the endless coffee refills; and the various unsuspecting men on Tinder who enlightened me on the dynamics of app dating by flirting with my (super-hot) avatars.

As much as I'd like to deny it, there is a lot of me in this book, and a lot of the clumsy, raw emotion of leaping from one path to another. There are no words to describe my gratitude to the friends who held my hand and had my back during that jump, but I want to publicly thank them here: Eli Berlin, Carey Albertine, Cristina Alger Wang, Jessica Balboni, Panio Gianopolus, Dan Kessler, Adam Ross, Daniel and Cheryl Lilienstein, Jay Backstrand, Laura Davis, Nick Hungerford, Asif Qasim, Jim Mellon, Ross Lavery, the Sete crew, Matthew Murray, Molly Barton, Bruce Rosenblum, Richard Villiers, Stephen Hartley, Ashleigh Pattee, Noah and Elizabeth Lang, Jessie Borowick, Elisabeth Gray, Emily Cherry Bentley, Karlygash Burkitbayeva, Artem Fokin, Eric Kinariwala, Jessica Burdon, Tom Lee, Olaolu Agana, Moudy Youssef and Julio de Pietro. If any of you are ever having a bad day, please call me so I can remind you what a difference you've made, and how deeply grateful I am for your presence in my life.

Not at all least, I want to thank my godmother, Mary Ann Rice, my sister, Stephanie, and my mom and dad. Any words wouldn't do it justice: I am just so very glad you are you, and thankful for the ways you are always there for me. I love you so very much.