The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [122]
“Did they own up to being the leak?”
“No. And they denied knowing this woman Theresa Roxas, or having a private relationship with Alex.”
“You believe them?”
Walter tossed back the rest of his scotch.
“I believe Clifford White would pour brandy on your leg at a cocktail party, set fire to you, and then look you in the eye and try to persuade you that you’d been hit by lightning. The senator’s harder to read. You want a refill?”
“No, thanks.”
He got up to pour himself another. I glanced at my watch again, wondering when Ricken would call back, and how long it would take Walter to get around to whatever was really on his mind.
“Alex sent me a letter.”
I snapped my head sideways to look at him. He had his back to me.
“When?”
“Postmark was Wednesday. It arrived Friday, but I didn’t see it until Saturday lunch.”
Alex had died early Wednesday morning.
“What did it say?”
“A number of things.” Walter turned toward me, and I saw pain in his eyes. “One of them had to do with Torino.”
Torino was the fund Alex had started just out of college. I kept quiet, giving Walter time.
“Alex wrote that he’d done some insider trading. Inadvertently, at first. One of his investors gave him a tip. He bought shares and made money. It happened again. By the third time, he knew there had to be something illicit going on, but he was losing money elsewhere and needed the gain.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “That must have been a tough thing for him to carry around.”
Walter looked at me searchingly.
“He never told you?”
“No. The last time we got together, he mentioned that he’d made mistakes when he had Torino, but I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“So, you weren’t aware that he was being blackmailed.”
Blackmailed. Shit. That explained why he’d been so upset when we had drinks, and perhaps even why he’d felt that he had to kill himself. Another idea occurred to me, and I suddenly felt weak.
“Is that why he lied about knowing Theresa Roxas?”
Walter nodded.
“I have Torino’s investor list,” he said, drawing a sheaf of folded papers from his jacket pocket. “I’ve highlighted the names I don’t know in yellow. You spent a lot of time with Alex back then. I was wondering if you might know more.”
Walter was on the hunt as well, I realized, for whoever had driven his son to suicide. I stood up, the rage strong in my breast, and took the pages from his outstretched hand. I already knew what I was going to find. It was the third name on the second page. I pointed it out to him with a trembling finger.
“Ganesa Capital. The name of the guy who runs it is Karl Mohler.”
Walter looked stunned.
“How …” he began. His phone rang. We both looked at it.
“Pick it up,” I said quietly. “Mohler’s a nobody. The lawyer is the connection to the person behind all this.”
He lifted the receiver from the hook.
“Walter Coleman.… Right.… Right.… I will. Thank you.”
He hung up and looked at me, murder in his eyes.
“Struan, Ogilvy and Cohn. They’re a Washington firm.”
“We need a list of the principals.”
“We don’t,” he said. “I already know. It’s the firm where Clifford White used to work.”
43
One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan is an unadorned brick box that looks like an oversized Lego plunked down between the Brooklyn Bridge and Chinatown. A couple of plainclothed cops grabbed me out of the security line after I showed my identification, taping brown paper bags over my hands and escorting me to a basement exam room. It was late, and the long, scuffed corridors were almost deserted. A male tech wearing green hospital scrubs checked me for gunpowder residue, swabbing around my thumbs and vacuuming my shirt. I cooperated passively, unconcerned: Ari had given me special goop to clean my hands with, and the shirt I’d worn earlier was long gone. I was thinking about my conversation with Walter and trying to figure out my next