To Catch a Bad Guy (4 page)

When Janet exited the
elevator of Bostoff Securities the next morning, she chose the correct set of
doors, expertly making her way through a network of corridors and thereby
avoiding the trading floor entirely.

Once inside her office,
she looked at her watch – it was eight thirty, and Lisa had mentioned that she
did not get into the office before nine thirty. Janet opened her bag and took
out a pack of instant oatmeal she had brought from home to avoid the temptation
of pastries in nearby bake shops.

She found the kitchen
easily enough and set out to prepare the oatmeal. It was hardly an exciting
breakfast to look forward to, but it was the right one – one could not continue
eating pastries every day and expect to stay a size six – yes, a size six, not
four, but given Janet’s height, she thought she was all right. Janet placed the
contents of the oatmeal package into a paper cup and debated between water and
skim milk. In the end, her determination relented and she caved in to the skim
milk option, but she decided to skip the sugar. Janet put her concoction into
the microwave and focused her attention on the microwave’s timer. If one were
not looking, the oatmeal would overcook and spill over, leaving an embarrassing
mess.

“Hello there.”

Janet turned around at
the unexpected sound of a male voice.

“Hi.” Janet remembered
the IT guy she had found in her office the day before. It was impossible to
forget him. She had never seen anyone who was so incongruously good-looking and
clumsy at the same time.

“It’s Janet, right?”
The IT guy focused his blue-gray eyes on her. “I’m Dean.”

“Yes, I remember,”
Janet lied, making a mental note to commit Dean’s name to memory. “Do you work
on this floor?”

“Yep.” Dean nodded. “My
desk is on the trading floor – this way if any of the traders need help, I can
be summoned to their rescue.”

“Sounds terribly
important.”

“It is.” Dean puffed
out his chest. “Not really.” He shook his head. “The other day I had to explain
to a guy that his monitor was black because he forgot to turn his computer on.”

“Oh…” Janet laughed a
bit louder than she intended. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that your oatmeal?”

“Yes. I’m sort of on a
diet,” Janet blurted out.

“I think it’s about to
run over.” Dean reached for the microwave and popped it open just as the
oatmeal was about to topple over the rim of the cup. “Here you are.” Dean set
the oatmeal on the kitchen counter. “And if I may add, you don’t need to be on
a diet, Janet.”

“Thanks.” Janet blushed.
Was Dean flirting with her? If he was, she could not say that she minded it,
except for the fact that she seemed to have forgotten what it was like to flirt
with a cute guy. I’m sort of on a diet. Nicely done. And Dean was not even that
good-looking; he was just mildly cute. What was going to happen to her if she
were up against a real stunner? Would she unravel completely and blabber
uncontrollably?

“Well, Janet, have a
good one. I’ve got to get back to my charges. Who knows, while I was away, all
kinds of disasters could have struck: knocked-out power cords or coffee spilled
on keyboards.”

“Sounds serious. Good
luck.” Janet grinned. “And thanks for rescuing my oatmeal.”

“You’re welcome,
Janet.” The corners of Dean’s mouth lifted in a smile as his eyes met Janet’s
for a moment. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” Janet mouthed.
Thanks for rescuing my oatmeal. She just brimmed with charm and mystique this
morning. Enough with this nonsense, Janet snapped at herself. Her third day on
the job, and instead of focusing on her work, she was flirting – correction,
miserably failing at flirting – with idle IT guys, and, how could she forget,
lascivious attorneys. Her awkward encounter with Tom Wyman still made her
cringe. Well, it takes practice to get better at things, Janet reasoned, so
perhaps she should practice on Dean Snider for now.

Back in her office,
Janet looked over the chart of Bostoff Securities’ corporate structure that Tom
Wyman had given her. There were about ten different entities. The structure
seemed odd to say the least, but Tom had cited a specific business purpose for
each entity. His reasoning had made perfect sense when Tom had been explaining
the set-up to Janet, but the moment he departed from her office, leaving a
trail of masculine cologne, questions began to stir in her mind.

Janet’s last
investigation at the DA’s office had been on a money laundering scheme, which
was operating through a use of off-shore entities. Well, that had been the crux
of Janet’s theory, and she thought she had gathered powerful evidence to
support it. She had not actually unraveled the scheme, because Alex had taken
the details of her investigation to the Head of the Department and was
appointed to be the lead on the case. Shortly afterwards, the case was closed
without any findings, Alex was promoted, and Janet was let go, or to be more
specific, downsized with a month’s salary as recompense. She had spent months
replaying the details of the case in her mind. She had thought she had gathered
solid evidence, but apparently her manager thought otherwise. Apparently, Janet
had been wrong, and perhaps she was getting overly alarmed now. After all, Lisa
was a Harvard Law graduate: she would not be working in a disreputable firm,
would she?

When Janet approached
Lisa’s office, she saw that the door was half-closed. She hesitated for a
moment between knocking and coming back later. Her indecision was ended by the
sound of Lisa’s voice coming through the door.

“Janie, is that you?
Come on in!”

“Hi, Lisa.” Janet ran
her hand over her hair and smoothed her skirt as she made her way through the
door. Somehow, one always felt a few bars below par next to Lisa.

Lisa, on the other
hand, looked as splendid as ever. Today she was sporting an ensemble of a tweed
sheath dress and a matching box tweed jacket – very Jackie Kennedy-like.

“Sit, sit!” Lisa
motioned at the chair across from her desk. “Oh, and close the door,” Lisa
added, just as Janet was about to lower herself onto the seat.

“So how was your day
yesterday?” Lisa inquired once Janet had finally sat down. “No, wait, let me
rephrase myself – how was your meeting with Tom?” Lisa’s eyes lit up with
curiosity.

“Informative.” Janet
pretended to ignore the subtext of Lisa’s question. “Actually, I had a few
questions…” Janet reached for her notes. “Tom had explained the corporate
structure to me, but there are still some things that are unclear…”

“Janie!” Lisa pursed
her lips. “Do you really think that’s why I organized the meeting between you
and Tom?”

Janet stared at Lisa.
“Yes.”

“Seriously, you never
cease to amaze me. You haven’t changed since high school when you could never
tell if a guy was interested in you.” Lisa shook her head. “Tom’s firm does all
the legal work for us. He is more than capable of handling everything himself.
I wanted you to meet with him because I could see that he liked you. Janie, Tom
is a real catch: snatch him, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

“But don’t you need me
to get involved workwise?”

“Janie, how do I
explain this… Things are taken care of. There’s no real need for us to do much.
The firm keeps a general counsel for appearances’ sake, but Tom does the actual
work.”

“Then why did you hire
me? Why are you here?”

“Because you needed a
job, and I’m your friend – your best friend. And what do friends do? They help
each other in times of need. Your mom called my mom, you know.” Lisa smiled
benevolently.

Janet clasped her
forehead in mortification. The Maples and the Foleys had been neighbors for
years. As young wives who had recently moved out to the suburbs, Mrs. Foley and
Mrs. Maple had become close friends and had continued to remain such. It had
been expected that their daughters would continue the tradition, and they had,
for a while. At least Janet had done her part, but there was no denying that
Lisa was no longer her best friend – had not been for a while. Yet, apparently,
Janet’s mother had a difficult time reconciling herself to this fact.

“Are you still
wondering why I’m working here?” Lisa mimicked Janet.

“Yes. Why? You
graduated from Harvard Law; Berman Erling snatched you up right after
graduation. It’s a top law firm. You could have had a stellar career there. Why
did you leave and come here?”

“Why did I leave?” Lisa
smirked. “Have you ever worked in a private law firm? The hours are hell, and
you get treated as though you’re gunk stuck to the soles of partners’ shoes. I
had to stay until ten o’clock at night, every night, and work on weekends.
Thank you, but no, thank you.” Lisa flung up her hands for emphasis. “But then
I met Paul….” Lisa smiled like a cat that had just swallowed a canary. “And he
got me a job here. When I found out that I could leave at five o’clock, I
couldn’t believe my luck. And once Paul finally proposes, I’m out of here.”
Lisa stretched out her arms. “If you’d like, I’ll put in a good word for you
for them to give you my job.”

“Thanks, Lisa. I really
appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” Janet told herself to keep calm.
After all, she did need the job, and it was not as though she was being
overworked. If Bostoff Securities was prepared to hand her a paycheck for doing
nothing, she’d take it, at least for now.

Lisa nodded
approvingly. “That’s better; you almost scared me. Now tell me about how it
went with Tom.”

Before Janet could
answer, there was a knock on the door.

“Lisa?” A young,
handsome man’s head poked through the door.

“Paul!” Lisa jumped off
her chair, rushing toward the visitor. She was about to fling her arms around
his neck, but checked herself upon remembering Janet’s presence in the room. “Paul,
I’d like you to meet Janet, our new Assistant General Counsel. Janet, this is
Paul Bostoff, our COO.”

By the possessive tone
of Lisa’s voice it was clear that Paul Bostoff was much more than ‘our COO’: he
was Lisa’s boyfriend and soon to be fiancé, and although Lisa had refrained
from a physical demonstration of her relationship with him, her body language
made the nature of their relationship crystal clear.

Same old Lisa, Janet
thought, remembering how quick Lisa was to abandon friendship over male attention.
In their senior year of high school, Lisa did not speak to Janet for a month
after Justin Trenner had asked Janet to the prom. The invitation had come as a
surprise to Janet, and as an insult to Lisa, who had expected Justin to ask
her. Not that Lisa particularly liked Justin, but she expected all the
good-looking boys in the class to ask her first. Justin was the fastest on the
swimming team: his torso was like a triangle turned upside down, with his wide
shoulders in striking contrast to his cinched waist. He had blue eyes and
strawberry blond hair. He was also good at drawing and did all the art for the
school newspaper, of which Janet was the editor. When they were pressed against
a deadline, they’d stay late to finish up. Janet still remembered the stirring
sensation she got in her chest when Justin Trenner was sitting at the table
across from her: his face a picture of concentration as the pencil moved
quickly in his hand over the paper. After one such night, Justin leaned across
the table, took Janet’s face into his hands and kissed her. It was her first
kiss, but she had been too embarrassed to tell him – after all, eighteen was
way too old to have never been kissed by a boy before. Lisa had boasted of her
first kiss at twelve. Well, now, Janet finally knew what it was like to kiss a
boy, and her head felt like it was about to inflate and float up into the
ceiling like a balloon. The evening went on, as Justin continued his work, and
Janet sat by, watching him secretly. She was too distracted to do any of her
own work on the newspaper. She would just have to come in early the next
morning and finish up.

“Well, we’re all done
here,” Justin had said, as he looked at Janet and smiled. “Will you go to the
prom with me, Janet?” That night everything seemed possible and Janet nodded a
breathless yes. But in the morning, doubts began to creep in, partly out of
loyalty to Lisa and partly out of fear that no good could come out of it:
Justin would be going to Duke in the fall on a full scholarship. Janet reverted
on her decision and refused Justin’s invitation. So Justin asked Lisa, who said
yes, only to stand him up a week before the prom. In the end, Lisa went with
Brick Riley – the captain of the football team. All the girls wanted him, but
Lisa was the one who got him. As always, Lisa had thought of Janet and got her
a date with Brick’s buddy, Ted Hunter. Ted was going to Rutgers on a football
scholarship. He could bench-press two hundred fifty pounds and drink a keg of
beer without taking a breath – or at least that was what he claimed. Janet had
not bothered to stick around to find out. She left the prom just as Ted and
Brick began to exchange meaningful glances and talk about having rented a
“suite” at the Marriot. As for Justin Trenner, he spent the prom with Valerie
Meehan – the class valedictorian. The two of them danced all night, and, as
Janet was dismayed to find out during last year’s class reunion, had gotten
married two years ago.