Lee Vance: The Garden of Betrayal

“Mohler,” Walter repeated, his tone more genial. “M-O-H-L-E-R.” He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded. “Exactly… Of course… I’d be happy to help her out with that… You’re welcome.” His voice hardened again. “And Pete, I’d like that information tonight, within the hour. You have my number.”

He hung up and snorted.

“His wife wants to be a trustee of the Kennedy Center. Wait until he finds out that the minimum trustee contribution is half a million a year.”

I laughed.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He fiddled with his glass, swirling his ice cubes, and the sense I’d had before came back stronger. There was something on his mind, but he couldn’t figure out how to get to it. His uncharacteristic indecision gave me the opportunity to put a few questions of my own.

“I heard you were in Washington this past weekend. You learn anything interesting?”

He took a pull at his drink and nodded.

“The Saudi data came out of the CIA and was distributed to the Senate Select Committee a few months ago. CIA analysis jived with yours, but they graded it unverifiable and downplayed it.”

“So, why’d Senator Simpson run with it?”

“I asked him. Him and Clifford White together, in the senator’s office. Their response was that it didn’t matter whether we had five years or twenty years or fifty years. Energy security was a problem that needed to be dealt with, as a matter of national urgency.”

“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.”

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 step. Shimon and I had discussed it on the ride downtown: White didn’t seem to have the financial wherewithal to finance an operation like Mohler’s, so either he was just another link in the chain or he had access to a hidden pool of capital. We had to persuade him to talk, but the evidence linking him to Mohler was circumstantial, which made it hard to threaten him with exposure. Shimon had demurred at my suggestion that we simply grab White and frighten the truth out of him-White had powerful political connections, and the Israelis couldn’t risk the repercussions if he subsequently complained.

The tech completed his task, not having made eye contact. One of the two cops who’d picked me up in the lobby made a quick call from the wall phone, and then he and his partner walked me back to the elevator and took me up to the fourteenth floor. Lieutenant Wayland was waiting in the elevator lobby, looking sharp in a freshly pressed white shirt and dress blues. Wayland dismissed the plainclothed cops and led me toward Deputy Chief Ellison’s office.

“Let me explain what’s going on here,” he said, his voice resonant with satisfaction. “I took pictures of that mess you had taped to the wall of your hotel room. We’ve got you and Detective Kinnard for making false statements to the police and criminal conspiracy to conceal evidence of crimes. I’m betting we’ll get Belko as well. Kinnard’s out, he and Belko will both forfeit their pensions, and you can forget about ever working in the securities industry again, because conspiracy is a felony. And that’s just for starters.”

I kept quiet, reserving my energy for Ellison. Silence must not have been the response Wayland wanted. He rounded on me suddenly, face inches from mine. The hall was empty save for the two of us, darkened offices on either side.

“You and your pals are in a world of hurt,” he hissed. “Your only option at this point is to come clean and pray for leniency. Am I making myself clear?”

He was clear but wrong. The last four hours had given me options he didn’t know about.

“Your boss will be the one to make that decision,” I said, shouldering past him and continuing in the direction we’d been headed.