James Grippando - Need You Now

“What kind of stuff about us?”

“He was watching us in Singapore.”

So was Evan Hunt , I thought-but I kept that to myself.

“He knows the littlest details, like how we broke up on the beach,” she said. “He witnessed the whole incident with the seagull pooping on your head.”

“Wonderful. I suppose that will end up on YouTube.”

It was a stab at levity, but she remained deadly serious. “He said it was all a stunt. He saw you splatter yourself with a handful of sunscreen.”

“What?”

“He said you were just trying to make me feel worse about dumping you.”

Apparently, my joke about YouTube wasn’t far from the mark. “Lilly, I Facebooked about the seagull after we broke up. I got about a hundred comments. I’m sure that’s how he found out about it. He wasn’t on the beach watching us. This sunscreen story is ridiculous. It just proves that he’s a liar who wants to turn you against me. Who is this idiot?”

She ignored my question, her eyes narrowing. “He said your transfer from New York to Singapore wasn’t just a career move. He said it was part of a plan.”

“Really? He actually said that?”

“Getting to know me, getting me to trust you, was part of your plan.”

I was starting to squirm. Lilly had been right-this guy’s breadth of knowledge was scary-and I wasn’t sure how deep a hole I was in. Honesty had been paying dividends so far tonight, though I wasn’t sure how much was too much. I gave it a shot.

“Let’s clear some of this up,” I said.

“Aren’t you going to deny it?” she asked.

“It wasn’t just a career move, but let me explain.”

“Are you saying there was a plan?”

I struggled with this one, measuring my words. “My trip to Singapore was part of an official investigation.”

Her mouth fell open, and finally she spoke. “You went there to spy on me?”

“Spying is a strong word.”

“So it’s true?”

“I can’t say it’s true, because I don’t know what he told you, but-”

“Oh, my God. You are such a liar.”

“I’m not lying. I’m being completely honest.”

“Now you are. But you played me for months.”

“That’s not true.”

“All your talk about love at first sight-that was just a line to make me trust you. All part of an official investigation .”

“Lilly, just calm down.”

“An official investigation for whom ? Some warring faction of the Santucci family run by your father from a prison cell?”

I couldn’t mention the FBI. “Lilly, please. That’s not it at all.”

“Go to hell, Patrick.”

“You’ve got it all wrong.”

She clutched the envelope Barber had given her, her glare shooting back at me like lasers. “We’ll see what the data says.”

She turned and joined the late rush-hour flow, disappearing into the night.

“I t’s all encrypted,” said Evan.

My package from Barber contained eight DVDs. After watching Lilly storm off to examine my data, I returned to Evan’s apartment and enlisted some added firepower to examine hers. My instincts had been dead on: I officially needed Evan more than he needed me.

“Can you break the code?” I asked.

Evan looked up from his computer screen. I followed his gaze as it swept the flowchart of arrows, photographs, and handwritten narrative on his walls.

“What do you think?” he asked.

It wasn’t arrogance; it was just a fact: Evan’s first language was numbers. He spoke through numbers, read through numbers, looked for stories in numbers. Evan didn’t simply make sure his checkbook and credit card statements balanced to the penny -which was weird enough. He was the kind of guy who, just for grins, would extract the raw data from his monthly statements and create an intelligent computing algorithm to analyze the dynamics of the prices he’d paid for his daily cup of coffee, accounting for his cost of transportation to each coffee bar, “cost” expressed as a function of both actual out-of-pocket expense and travel time.

“I think I’ve come to the right place,” I said.

Evan went to work. I walked around the room and examined the flowchart more carefully. I noted the question marks attached to his reference to a numbered account at BOS/Singapore. Clearly, he was unaware of what Lilly had just confirmed for me-that it was Manu Robledo who had opened the account. But even as I filled in blanks, I realized that the more I studied the analysis, the more questions I had. One of his “red flags”-the thirty-eight obvious signs that Cushman was running a Ponzi scheme-was simply dollar signs. I hated to interrupt him, but it was too cryptic for me to decipher.

“What do these dollar signs mean?” I asked.

Evan looked up. No doubt he was in the middle of a mathematical calculation that stretched out at least thirty decimal places, but he switched gears with remarkable ease.

“Red flag number twelve,” he said.

“I can see that,” I said, “but what does it mean?”

“Cushman Investment maintained accounts at two different banks. At the end of every reporting period, Cushman had his CFO convert all of the firm’s holdings to cash equivalents-Treasury bills-to avoid SEC disclosure requirements. That should have been a tip-off to the SEC.”

“That was in your report?”

“Yup. That and three dozen other red flags.”

“And you gave all that to the SEC?”

“Well, not me, personally. Your dad did.” Evan went back to work, then stopped and looked up again. “That’s why I think he’s in jail.”

I turned, confused. “How’s that?”

“I don’t have the proof-yet-but I believe your father was framed for the murder of Gerry Collins because he put the report in the hands of the SEC and had the power to tell the world that the SEC knew that Cushman was a fraud. They locked him up and shut him up.”

I thought about it, but I was still confused. “That doesn’t really make sense. He could still talk from prison.”

“Yes,” said Evan. “If he wanted to. Clearly, he doesn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“That’s the missing part of the puzzle.”

I could have strained my brain trying to figure that one out, but there was another problem. “I just don’t see it,” I said. “It wasn’t simply a frame-up. My dad confessed.”

“No one said it was a voluntary confession.”

I shook my head. “Forcing a man to confess to murder is going way too far to protect the SEC’s reputation. Do you really think my dad is sitting in jail just so the industry won’t think the SEC is incompetent?”

“That’s the point,” said Evan. “It wasn’t incompetence.”

I glanced back at the flowchart-the thirty-eight red flags that proved beyond any doubt that Cushman was running a Ponzi scheme. “If that’s not incompetence, I don’t know what is.”

“Nobody is that incompetent,” said Evan.

“So what are you saying?”

His expression turned deadly serious. “They knew,” he said. “They positively knew Cushman was a fraud. They didn’t miss it. They overlooked it.”

“You mean they knowingly looked the other way?”

“Yes.”

“Why would they do that?”

“To advance some other agenda.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re saying that the SEC could have shut Cushman down, but they let it play out because-”

“Because it advanced another government agenda. Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t know what that agenda is yet, but I think your father does. That’s what got him in such a jam. Your dad kept my name out of it when he presented my report to the government, which I believe is the only reason I’m still alive. That makes twice your father saved my life. So I’m making it my business to find out what that other government agenda is. And when I do, everyone had better run for cover.”