Wiping her eyes with her fingertips, she whispered, ‘I don’t have much money. But I’ll get you whatever you want. I’ll borrow it. I’ll—’
Joseph’s amused eyes took in Daniel again. ‘You’re gettin’ tense there, Cowboy; you’re getting antsy. I can see it. Like you’re thinking about playing hero. You want to take a pen and stab me in the eye? Well, first, I’d kill you before you got six inches toward me. But if you managed to grab a bat or have an RPG hidden on your person and you took me out, what do you think would happen to our Sarah? Be a little smarter, okay?’
Daniel said evenly, ‘The police’ll get you. And the FBI. Kidnapping’s a federal crime.’
Joseph sighed. ‘Oh, pul-ease …’ His eyes swayed back to Gabriela. His voice was more reasonable now. ‘Listen. She’s fine. She’s watching TV. She’s got some toys. She thinks she’s with some friends of yours she hasn’t met. You had to go out of town for a day or two.’
‘If you hurt her, I’ll—’
‘Movie dialogue alert … Let’s not waste time, okay?’
‘I want to talk to her. I want to see her.’
‘In a minute.’
‘Please.’
‘In a minute.’ Joseph looked around them. There were no observers. ‘Now, listen to me carefully. Are you listening?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Shhh. All I want is you to listen.’
‘All right.’ She looked down past her trembling hands.
‘Have you heard from Charles Prescott today?’
‘No, I swear. He left work early yesterday. I’d tell you if I’d heard from him. Please … What do you want?’
Joseph was nodding. Again he looked up and down the street through the front door. A few passersby but nobody was paying this group any attention. ‘There’s a list – with detailed information on some clients of Charles’s. Thirty-two of them, to be exact.’
‘Thirty-two?’ she asked, looking quickly at Daniel.
‘That’s right. He called it the October List. These were special clients he did, let’s say, some private work for.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘That’s not really my concern, now, is it? Anyway, I’m one of those clients. And we were involved in an important project – which has been derailed thanks to your boss vanishing unexpectedly. I don’t like derailings and now I need to be in touch with the others. Without him we’re a rudderless ship. Did you catch that word, by the way? “Need” the list? And you’re going to get it for me.’
‘But how can I get you something I’ve never heard of?’
‘You knew Charles better than most people. Even if you’re telling the truth – I’m not exactly sure about that, by the way – but even if you are, you better than anybody can figure out where it is.’
Daniel said, ‘But if it was that important, he wouldn’t’ve kept it himself. He’d give it to somebody for safekeeping. His lawyer, his—’
‘His lawyer doesn’t have it. I checked.’
Gabriela asked, ‘Mr Grosberg? You’ve talked to him?’
Joseph paused and his thick lips eased into what might have been a smile. ‘We had a meeting. A … discussion. I’m convinced he doesn’t have the list.’
‘Meeting? You don’t mean that at all. What the hell did you do to him?’
‘Relax. He’ll be okay in a month or two.’
‘He’s seventy years old! What did you do?’
‘Gabriela, we on the same page here? I don’t need you to be weird. I need you to be focused, for Sarah’s sake. Now, I heard about the list from a little bird – who’s no longer with us, by the way.’
‘What?’
Joseph wrinkled his nose, dismissing her shocked expression. ‘This Tweetie Pie, I was saying, this little bird told me that Charles was so paranoid he didn’t keep the list on computers. He said if the Mossad could be hacked, then he could be hacked. So he only had hard copies. And he kept one in New York. It’s here somewhere. You get to find it.’
‘How?’
Joseph held up a finger. ‘Maybe you know more than you think you do.’
‘I don’t! Maybe some other employees heard of it, but—’
‘Elena Rodriquez, his nod to Affirmative Action? The occasional temps? The bookkeeper? No, you were the only one worked that close to Mr Charles Prescott. He told me that. He said there was nobody like Gabriela. So you’ve got to be the little gal who can. I need you to find me the October List.’
He turned his eerie gaze at Gabriela probingly. ‘And there’s something else I want. The initial fee I paid Charles. I want it back. Four hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Fee?’ Gabriela asked. ‘There is no upfront fee at Prescott. We get an annual percentage of the portfolio …’ And then she nodded and added with disgust, ‘But I get it: These’re the special clients you’re talking about. These thirty-two.’
‘Exactly!’
‘But if you’re secret how would I know where any money for … you people is?’
‘Oooo, that stung.’ Joseph pretended to pout.
Daniel said, ‘Listen, Joe. Be realistic. If her boss took off he’d take the cash with him.’
‘“Joe”?’ The man looked around broadly.
‘Joseph.’
‘Oh, moi.’ He smiled. ‘Charles left town pretty fast. According to my sources, when Prescott heard there was a warrant he bailed and didn’t get all the money he could have. Maybe the police found some of it. But I’ll bet there’s a lot more. And I’m hoping for your sake – and Ms Sarah’s – that you can hit the jackpot. Now, Gabriela, let’s get some more ground rules set. First, like I said, no police. And a cone of silence with everybody else: Your ex-husband, your best friend, your hairdresser. Everybody.’
‘You’re despicable!’
Joseph said to Daniel, who looked like he was considering slugging the man, ‘Sorry you walked into the middle of this. But you get the picture. You don’t seem stupid. You keep your mouth shut too. You agree to that?’
‘Yeah.’
Joseph laughed. ‘If looks could kill.’ To Gabriela he said, ‘Now, it’s nearly noon. I’ll need the list by start of business Monday, so I’ll give you – I’ll generously give you – until six tomorrow to find it. Sunday. But about the money – that’s a different story. In case everything falls apart and the police come knock, knock, knocking on my door, I’m going to need that cash in my hot little hand, so I can jump ship. That I want by six p.m. tonight.’
‘Tonight? Impossible!’ she said, gasping. ‘Four hundred thousand dollars?’
‘For Sarah’s sake you better figure out how to make it extremely possible.’
Then, with an edge of resolve in her voice, Gabriela said, ‘I’m not doing anything until you let me talk to my daughter.’
‘You can’t talk to her.’ Joseph opened his phone and displayed a video. ‘But …’
Daniel and Gabriela looked down. The cute blond girl was sitting watching TV cartoons. Oblivious to the shadowy forms of two adults in the background.
‘How could you do this?’ she raged once more.
Joseph sighed, looking bored, and put the phone away. ‘Time for a pop quiz. Now, what’s the most important ground rule?’
‘No police.’ The words sounded as if uttered underwater.
‘Hooray, you get an A plus.’ He picked up the bag containing the doll and the sweatshirt. ‘Oh, and by the way, somebody’ll be watching you. Every minute. You do believe me? No need to answer. See ya.’ And he was gone.
CHAPTER
10
10:30 a.m., Saturday
45 minutes earlier
Light bore down on the foursome in Central Park. Stark light, painful.
Putting away his NYPD gold shield, Naresh Surani glanced at Daniel Reardon, ignored him and asked Gabriela, ‘Have you heard from Charles Prescott today?’ Even the brilliant sun couldn’t warm the detective’s gray complexion.
‘My boss? No. My God, is he all right?’ Her eyes eased toward Daniel. The other detective, Brad Kepler, had noted him too but was ignoring him as efficiently as his partner was.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ tanned Brad Kepler asked.
‘Yesterday, at work. In the morning. Then I went to a meeting and was out all day. Has there been an accident? Please. You have to tell me!’
They were regarding her with what seemed to be suspicion. Surani offered, ‘Mr Prescott has disappeared … with, it seems, a lot of his clients’ money.’
Gabriela barked a laugh. ‘No, that’s impossible. There’s a mix-up.’
‘I’m afraid not. Detective Surani and I are with the Financial Crimes Division of the police department. Mr Prescott’s been under investigation for the past two months.’
‘A different Charles Prescott. It has to be a different one.’
Surani had taken to doing most of the talking and he continued now, ‘The SEC and the FBI were investigating cash flow into and out of suspicious stock trading accounts here and abroad. Some of those accounts were set up by Mr Prescott and it appears they were for the benefit of various clients. There were New York connections so we got involved. It’s been going on for months.’
‘It can’t have!’
Surani continued, ‘We were going to raid the office and arrest him at home this morning, but he must’ve gotten word about the investigation and fled late yesterday. There’re teams going through the office and his houses now. He’s vanished, cleaned out a half-dozen accounts in the U.S. and transferred the money into untraceable accounts overseas.’
She looked down. They were standing at a water main access panel in the sidewalk. The ironwork was from somewhere other than New York. It wasn’t even American. She told them, ‘He did say he was going to work late yesterday. I told you – I was at a meeting out of the office most of the day. I saw him for about an hour in the morning. We hardly said a dozen words. I assumed he worked late and then went home.’
‘He didn’t go home. We had it under surveillance.’
‘He left? Oh, God.’
Kepler asked Daniel, ‘You a friend of Ms McKenzie’s?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you know Charles Prescott?’
‘No,’ Gabriela said. ‘He doesn’t.’
Daniel explained, ‘We just met last night. Gabriela and I.’
They lost interest in him, as if thinking it had been a pickup, a night of sex and breakfast this morning. Daniel didn’t seem to care about their impression of him.
She continued, ‘This just has to be a mistake. First of all Charles would never do anything illegal. It’s not conceivable.’ Her voice quivered. She cleared her throat. ‘If he left unexpectedly, I’m sure it was an emergency. One of his clients had a problem. Charles’s that way. He’s more than an investment adviser. He’s a friend—’
‘A problem, yeah. A federal indictment.’ Kepler added, ‘Really, Ms McKenzie, there’s no mistake.’ He was unemotional, but you could also hear a fragment of irritation in his voice.
She was blurting now: ‘I’m the office manager. How could he possibly do anything like that without my knowing? How could that be?’
Daniel stirred, his meaning probably: That might not be the wisest thing to say, suggesting she was complicit. She fell silent. Surani blinked through his none-too-effective shades and said, ‘We don’t have any evidence you were involved in the scheme.’
His tone, however, added the word ‘yet’ onto the end of that sentence.
‘Who’re the clients you were mentioning?’ Gabriela demanded.
‘We don’t have any names yet. A fair number were from the Far East, South America and the Middle East, according to the FBI. They’ve been tracing the cash and stock purchases.’
Gabriela laughed, albeit a bit hysterically. ‘It is a mistake! I’ve never heard of any clients there. And I know all of them.’
Surani countered, ‘Well, our information is that he did have clients there. Thirty-two, apparently. And he was shuttling money into these accounts. Who knows why? Money laundering most likely. But we aren’t sure.’
‘My God.’ A dismayed whisper. ‘Thirty-two clients?’
‘That was as of two days ago.’
Gabriela opened her mouth and then slowly pressed her lips together as if words failed her completely.
Surani: ‘Ms McKenzie, you have to understand, Mr Prescott caught us by surprise. We knew he had a one-way ticket to Zurich on Columbus Day weekend, so we thought he’d be in the country until then.’
‘One way?’ Gabriela said. ‘No. I make all his travel arrangements. He didn’t have any plans to leave. Sure not one way.’
‘Well, he did,’ Kepler barked.
His partner continued, ‘Prescott must’ve got word about the investigation and skipped early. But not to Switzerland. We don’t know where. So we need to get the names and addresses of those thirty-two clients.’
‘You didn’t find anything at the office?’
Surani explained, ‘We know he flew to St Maarten yesterday about six p.m. He disappeared after that. The authorities down there can’t find him. Now we’re hoping you’ll cooperate. We need to know where he went.’
‘Tell us what you know,’ Kepler said emphatically, dark eyes narrow.
‘I don’t know anything!’
‘You probably do, Gabriela,’ Kepler said with a sardonic tone. ‘For instance, did you know he had a house in Miami?’
‘His beach house. Of course.’
‘There! See? You did know something. And yet you didn’t volunteer it. Let’s keep going. How about other houses – overseas is what we’re particularly interested in. Or any friends or romantic partners he might be staying with.’
She was looking down at the sharp shadows on the sidewalk, the sunlight falling stridently on leaves.
‘Ms McKenzie?’
She looked up. ‘What?’
Kepler asked more bluntly, ‘Does Prescott have any homes outside of the country? Does he visit anyone in particular in any foreign countries?’
‘He … no, not that I’ve ever heard of. He goes to the Caribbean a lot. I mean, he has clients there.’
The look on the cops’ faces said, We know he does.
Some of them among the infamous Thirty-Two, of course.
‘Come on, Gabriela, keep going. You’re on a roll!’
Daniel said, ‘Why don’t you lighten up? You just delivered some pretty tough news. And I don’t think you handled it very well.’
The cops ignored him yet again. It was Surani, the easier-going one, who continued, ‘Think back, Ms McKenzie. Any references to trips he’d taken? People he was going to see?’
‘Ah, ah,’ Kepler said, ‘looks like you’re thinking of something. Share. Come on.’
Daniel glared at him. But the cop kept his eyes fixed on Gabriela’s face.
She said, ‘You mentioned St Maarten. When he was down there he sometimes flew to St Thomas. I don’t know who he met with – maybe one of those thirty-two special clients you mentioned. All I know is that this man was from Europe and he lived in St Thomas nine months out of the year. And he had a big yacht, a huge one. I think “Island” or “Islands” was in the name of the boat.’
The cops looked at each other, as if they were intrigued by these crumbs.
‘Okay, we’ll check that out,’ Surani said.
Kepler nodded. ‘Good job, Gabriela. I knew you had it in you.’
Daniel seemed to want to slap the smirk off the detective’s face.
She asked Surani, ‘Have you talked to Elena Rodriguez? Charles’s other assistant?’
‘Yes, an hour ago,’ Kepler answered. ‘She wasn’t any more helpful than you were.’
Surani handed her his card. ‘If you can think of anything else, give us a call.’
She took it but then her hand dipped. And her face revealed yet more dismay. She stared at the policemen. ‘But, my God. I just realized … I mean, my job? What am I going to do for money? My salary … And my retirement funds?’
