James Grippando - Need You Now

You have to call Patrick.

His lies were hurtful, no doubt about it. But that bizarre phone conversation had, in the end, come down to the question of whether Patrick should live or die: “That’s entirely up to us , ” the caller had told her. Whatever lies Patrick had told her didn’t change that fact. She had to tell him.

The traffic light changed at Church Street as she reached for her cell, and she was stepping off the curb when the limo cut her off in the crosswalk. Lilly jumped back onto the sidewalk as the rear door opened. It startled her, but she recognized the man in the backseat. Even though she no longer worked at BOS, photographs of the new head of private wealth management at BOS/America had been all over the news lately.

“Get in,” said Joe Barber. He was alone on the bench seat, directly behind the driver.

Lilly was more confused than afraid-but fear was definitely part of the equation. For a moment she couldn’t move, her mind and body trapped between the eerie, urban silence of old St. Paul’s Churchyard behind her and the incessant buzz of construction at the World Trade Center site across the street.

“Get in the car,” said Barber.

Lilly froze, her eyes locking with Barber’s. To say that she didn’t know who to trust anymore was a gross understatement; she trusted no one. She certainly didn’t know Barber, except for what she’d read about him. But the newest addition to BOS/America’s top management-a former Treasury official who wasn’t even working for BOS when Cushman had come crashing down-seemed low risk. And worth a listen.

But how did he know how to find me?

“Lilly, get in the car, or the next sound you hear will be FBI handcuffs closing around your wrists.”

The broken glass was churning, clawing away at the inside of her stomach. Lilly’s war was being fought on too many fronts. Her legs didn’t have another run in them. She climbed inside and closed the door.

Barber signaled to the driver, and the limo pulled away.

C onnie made me feel like the class bully as I dragged Evan Hunt to the nearest park bench and sat his ass down. She started screaming at me about taking the law into my own hands, but i told her to save it for her scout troop.

“Taking a picture is not a crime!” said Evan.

“Then why did you run?” I said, shoving him.

He looked stunned. “You’re assaulting me.”

I shoved him again. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Patrick, stop,” said Connie. “I won’t be part of this.”

“Then go back to work.”

She gnawed her lip, straining to find the perfect comeback, but in the end she settled for the standard sibling contrarianism. “Fine, you want me to leave? Then I’ll stay.”

She took a seat on the boulder behind me. Evan stared back at me like a scared rabbit, though he did seem relieved to have a strong woman around to control me. I grabbed him by the lapels of his trench coat, pushed him back onto the bench, and gave him thirty seconds to explain himself.

Five minutes later, he was still jabbering. To me, it was stream-of-conscious nonsense, but Connie seemed to be following it.

“Some people say I have a mind like a computer,” said Evan, “but to me, that’s an insult.”

“I feel the exact same way,” said Connie.

I shot her a look that said, Connie, please.

“You know anything about trading options, Mr. Lloyd?”

I was facing him, seated on the boulder beside Connie. “We trade thousands of options every day.”

“So, you know every once in a while you have to calculate a second derivative, called a gamma, which is the rate of change in the first derivative, delta.”

My knee was throbbing from my wipeout during the chase, but Evan was starting to make my head hurt even worse. Connie was totally with him, but it was like another language to me. “That’s what computers are for,” I said.

“No! That’s what you guys in the expensive suits don’t understand. There are still calculations in this business that are so math intensive that computers choke on them.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true,” said Connie, chiming in. “He’s absolutely right about that.”

I was beginning to wonder if Connie’s boyfriend Tom was on the bubble. I threw her another look-this time something along the lines of Who asked for your help?

Evan continued. “When you’re in a situation where prices can move at an infinite rate, it’s time to throw out the computer and look at the price of a stock or the market and calculate your own option price. I can do it faster than any computer.”

“That’s impressive,” said Connie.

“That’s his job,” I said, making a rather easy deduction. “You’re a quantitative analyst, I presume.”

“Please,” he said, “I prefer ‘quant.’ Synonymous with nerd. And proud of it.”

It suddenly occurred to me that getting chased down in Central Park and tackled on the run was a minor skirmish compared to the bruisings Evan had undoubtedly taken in middle school. At least I hadn’t given him a wedgie.

“Enough with the mathematics double talk,” I said. “You need to answer my questions. Was that you at Puffy’s Tavern two days ago?”

“Yes. You and Lilly Scanlon.”

“You know her name?”

“Of course.”

“Were you the same guy who took our photo in Singapore last July?”

“Yup, that was me, all right.”

His response bordered on glib, as if he was showing off, seemingly energized by the interest Connie had taken in his impressive mathematics background. I rose, leaving Connie alone on the boulder. Evan watched warily as I came closer, leaned toward him, and placed my foot on the front edge of the bench beside him. I was merely tying my shoe, but he had nearly wet his pants. I was back in control.

“Why have you been following me around and snapping pictures?”

“You and Lilly Scanlon are a key part of the analysis.”

“What analysis?”

“My Abe Cushman analysis. See, when you’re a quant, all you have to do is look at the numbers in Cushman’s returns, and you can see he was running a Ponzi scheme.”

“It’s not exactly a secret that he was running a Ponzi scheme.”

“Sure, now it’s no secret. But I knew it ten years ago.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, you and all the other Wall Street geniuses who came out of the woodwork the day after Cushman confessed. Suddenly, everyone and his brother knew it five years ago, ten years ago. In fact, CNBC has an interview scheduled next week with an ob-gyn who figured out that Cushman was actually planning his scheme while still in his mother’s womb.”

“You’re making fun of me,” he said.

A bigger jackass probably would have told him that if he had a problem with it, he should cinch up the twenty-year-old trench coat and hide the bright orange dress shirt and the Mickey Mouse neck tie. But something about the guy made me pull my punches. Or maybe I was trying to avoid more flack from Connie.

“Sorry,” I said, “but I don’t give much credence to your after-the-fact analysis.”

“My analysis was not after the fact. I did my calculations before Cushman was exposed as a fraud. It’s only the pictures that came later.”

“I don’t get the point of the pictures.”

“People don’t look at numbers the way I do. They need pictures to help them connect the dots. When I had nothing but numbers to show them, nobody listened.”

“When you say nobody listened, you mean… who?”

“I mean the dickheads at the SEC.”

“You shared your analysis with the Securities and Exchange Commission?”