Mike Offit - Nothing Personal - A Novel of Wall Street

“Yup, that’s why we get the big money. Solving these big cases. Are you going to need us for anything?” Warren had his arm around Sam.

“Tomorrow we’ll need to take statements at police headquarters. You two get some sleep tonight. If you can.”

“Detective, tonight I’m going to sleep like a baby.” Sam smiled.

“I’ll see myself out. Take care now.” As Wittlin walked out of the bedroom, his voice trailed off down the hall, “I’d change those locks if I were you, especially if you’ve got any other ex-girlfriends I don’t know about.”

Sam gave Warren a hug, and they stood still for a moment.

“If you do—” she started.

“Yeah, I know.”

“—I’ll kill you.”

“Jesus, Dutch, that whole story is kind of hard to swallow.”

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s true. Jojo’s too fuckin’ dumb to make something like that up.”

“But Mats’s dad is the chairman of Jones Fyfe, for crissakes. Jason Leeson’s been on top there for ten years already. They may be a second-tier broker, but he must have put fifty or sixty million bucks in the bank by now. There’s no way his kid’s gonna do something so stupid. I mean, I’ve met some of the people over there. There are some dummies, for sure, but that whole thing’s too far gone even for them.”

“Listen, Jojo heard it from this babe he’s poking on Jones’s repo desk. That fuckin’ dope Mats was hiding bad trade tickets and blaming the mismatches on the back office! I heard he dropped about seventy-five mil before they shut him down. That slimeball Grant Bradley’s his boss. This broad tells Jojo that Bradley’s been on the take from all the guys in Jones’s finance side for years—pieces of their deals through Bahamian shell companies—that kind of stuff. Anyhow, even that sack of shit had to cut Mats loose. Of course all those dumb Irish guys over there couldn’t figure their way out of a paper bag with a machete and a chain saw, so no one ever noticed the books didn’t balance.”

“Man, what is wrong with that company? They can’t do anything right. God, the parent company must just be pissing blood about it!”

“I guess. But, hey, they hired the fuckin’ guy. Remember when he was down at Bache, and they booted him for that bank deal?”

“Dutchie, that was a little before my time… you’re showing your age.”

“Come on, you remember the fuckin’ story. He and Anson were big buddies back then too. He was trying to get us to hire that fucking goofball Bradley Savings and Loan. They were doing all those S-and-L deals with Scholdice. Said Bradley’ was one sharp fuckin’ cookie.”

“Oh, yeah? Anson and Bradley were pals?” Warren knew that Grant Bradley was well-known around the Street for being a second-rate talent who had a big job at a third-rate firm. Just like Jason, the chairman of Jones Fyfe Securities, they both were big players in the world of retail stock brokerage, but regarded as lightweight sleaze in the higher-powered milieu of institutional investment banking and trading. Something was falling into place. If everyone thought Bradley was on the take from the S&L and bank deals his firm did, and Anson and he were friends, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think that Anson had cooked up his own scheme to salt away a real fortune. That the chairman’s kid had tried to hide losses and then blown up was interesting, but not material to Warren’s situation. It wouldn’t be too hard to hide the missing money by creating losses on the trading desk and blaming the kid. A perfect crime with the boss’s son as the fall guy. He’d lost his job, but mismarking positions wasn’t technically a crime unless you worked for a commercial bank. And if he split $75 million or so with his dad, well worth it.

“Fuggin’ A. They were at Hahhhhvard together, don’t you know? Coupla peas in a fuckin’ pod.” Warren doubted Goering could get through an entire sentence without using some form of the word fuck .

“Jeez, Anson went to Harvard? Really? I never knew.” That got a good laugh from Goering. He had been the first to notice that Anson somehow made certain that everyone found out his alma mater within five minutes of making his acquaintance—a not-uncommon trait among Harvard alums. As Goering had put it, a conversation about sheep mating habits in the Australian outback could somehow include the interjection “It’s funny… when I was at Harvard, I had a professor who did his master’s thesis on bovine…” and so on.

“Well, at least you won’t have old Anson sticking his nose into your business anymore.” Warren sighed.

“Me or you, pal,” Goering said. “Man, it’s hard to believe that fuckin’ broad of yours actually knocked two guys off. God, if I’d only known, there were a few fuckin’ people she could’ve taken care of for me. I mean, what’d she have against them?”

“Well, technically, it was four people. She pushed a girl off a cliff in B-school and killed another shoving her down the stairs. And she may have pushed a girl in front of a car in high school. But she didn’t have anything against them. It was nothing personal.” Warren shrugged. What could be more personal than murder? “But, hey, I’ve gotta ask you something. And you’ve gotta tell me the truth.”

Goering’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Depends. What’s the question?”

“Did you nail Larisa while I was with her?”

Goering laughed, his even, white teeth showing. Tears almost began to roll out of the corners of his eyes, and he slapped his thighs. “Whoooeee! I’ve finally got your butt just where I want it, don’t I, poopsie pie?”

“God, if I’da known you were going to get such a big kick out of it, I never would have asked.” Warren waved his hand dismissively at Goering.

“Hey, no problem, son. I tried. Lord knows, I tried, but I could never get anywhere with her. She only liked the big hitters, not the fuckin’ peons like me.”

“Well, it’s nice to know even a vicious killer has some standards. Thanks for trying to seduce my girlfriend, though. I appreciate it.”

“Touchy, touchy. What about that old school pal you nailed after she got engaged?” Warren had forgotten he’d told Goering about Eliza. Despite his show of being crude and his reputation with the ladies, he had to admit that Goering was actually a loyal friend and had a moral compass when it came to business and his family. And knew how to make a buck.

“You’re right. There’s no honor among thieves.”

“Never was. That’s a fuckin’ myth.”

“Hey, Dutchie boy, I’ve got some news—so are you.”

The streets of Vaduz didn’t seem as narrow as he remembered them. Sam looked relaxed and happy in the passenger seat, and the big Mercedes sedan slid around the corners quietly. The wedding had been small, simple, and pleasant. Cornelia Harper had invited them to hold it at the beautiful party space in her apartment house on Fifth Avenue and held the reception in her apartment. The honeymoon was a trip to Europe. They had spent a couple of days in London, followed by a quick trip to Stuttgart to buy the car for shipping home—after all, he was a successful young bond salesman with a seven-figure income, and she had an import license for used cars for her rental lot.

In the months since Larisa’s arrest, it became clear that the money Warren and Sam had found in Anson’s accounts was not the subject of any sort of search or investigation. The two West Coast banks had taken the markdowns exactly as Warren had surmised, and in a seemingly innocent conversation Warren had with Scholdice, the broker had announced his retirement and relocation to a ranch in Australia: “Warren, this business has been good to me, but times are changin’. My accounts are all headed for a big bust, and the days of easy money are over. Me and my pals made hay while the sun shone.” Beker and Largeman had left Warner as well and set up a money management firm.