Andrew Gross: Reckless

Hauck’s office was spacious and bright, with a comfortable sitting area-a couch, two chairs, and a walnut coffee table. Above them was some kind of contemporary oil painting Hauck couldn’t figure out but that had come with the office. The windows looked out over Greenwich harbor.

“Ty’s our newest partner,” Foley explained to Merrill. “He’s heading up our Greenwich operation for us. For years, he ran the local detective unit in town and worked on some pretty high-profile cases. He likes to play it all down, but we’re lucky to have him here.”

“Tom just has a fascination with cops,” Hauck said. They all sat down. Hauck’s secretary, Brooke, stuck her head in and asked if Merrill might like a soft drink or a coffee. Merrill said she would take a tea. She appeared slightly nervous at first, uncomfortable at being there, and to Hauck, she seemed the type who was never nervous or uncomfortable, used to being in the company of important people no matter what the setting.

“Simons,” Hauck said, thinking aloud. “Any relation to Peter Simons?” Peter Simons was a big financial guy in town. Credit Suisse, Lehman, or something. To Hauck, they all seemed to merge. What he did recall was that the Simonses had some monster Architectural Digest spread up on Dublin Hill, threw lavish parties, and were influential on the charity circuit and the cultural boards in Greenwich. They were like royalty in town.

“Used to be.” Merrill shrugged, almost guiltily. “We were divorced a year ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Hauck said. “I’ve actually been up at your house. You threw a party for the French president and his new wife a couple of years back. I oversaw some of the town security.”

“I remember you.” Merrill brightened. “You’re the lieutenant from town, right?”

“Was,” Hauck said, smiling. “Change of uniform. And I think I may have once taken one of your boys on a tour of the station. He was part of a group from Brunswick. Tall, inquisitive kid. Shaggy blond hair. If I recall, he wanted to see where we locked up the first-time drug offenders…”

“That’s Jason.” Merrill laughed. “That kind of inquisitiveness we could certainly do without. Probably hoping to say hello to a few of his school chums. I hope you cured him.”

“I did my best,” Hauck said. “But as I recall, you raised a pretty determined guy.”

Merrill’s tea came. She took it and thanked Brooke. She took a sip and seemed to feel more at ease.

“So, Ty,” Tom Foley started in, arms on his knees, “you’re probably wondering just why Merrill’s here. I’ll let her tell you, but suffice it to say it’s a very private matter, one that could easily find its way into the local papers, and I assured her we’d handle it with complete discretion.”

“Of course. Goes without saying,” Hauck assured her. “That’s why we’re here.”

Merrill nodded, gearing herself up. She opened her large crocodile-leather bag and took out a manila envelope. “For the past year, I’ve been seeing someone…,” she began to explain. She removed a black and white photo and laid it, tentatively, on the table.

Hauck picked it up.

It was of a man of about thirty-five or forty. Handsome. Dark, European features. A rugged chin. Short, wiry, dark hair. “His name is Dieter Thibault. He goes by Dani. He’s Dutch. His mother was Belgian, I think. At least that’s what he’s led me to believe. Things have moved along quite quickly. I suppose you could say we’ve fallen in love.”

Hauck waited while she took another sip of tea and faced her, putting down the photo. “Go ahead.”

“This is a little difficult for me…,” Merrill said, glancing at Foley.

He nodded her on.

“You’re doing a bit of due diligence, perhaps? In case things get on to the next level,” Hauck inferred.

Merrill gave him a slight nod. “I should stress that Dani is quite successful in his own right. He’s built hotels, done some Internet deals in Eastern Europe. Some members of the Belgian royal family are investors with him. Photos of him with them are very prominent in his office in New York. He’s never needed my money. In fact, it’s his lifestyle I’ve sort of fallen into. It’s just that…”

Hauck waited for a moment while Merrill moistened her lips. She seemed to hesitate.

“It’s just that what, Ms. Simons?”

“It’s just that some of these things…I’ve had my people looking into them. Informally, of course. Some of the transactions he’s made, his personal background…family, university degrees. Sources of income. I’m not exactly sure how to say this. But all of a sudden, I’m not sure they’re adding up.”

“Adding up?” The unease was etched deeply into Merrill Simons’s face. Hauck moved closer.

“It’s as if anything that goes more than a few years back is a complete blank.” Merrill looked up and faced him. “I’m not sure Dani is who he says he is, Mr. Hauck. And before this gets deeper, I want to know who the man I’m supposed to be falling in love with really is.”

Roger Cantwell stared at his Bloomberg screen in dismay.

High above Park Avenue, on the forty-eighth floor of the sleek glass tower that bore his company’s iconic name, the managing director of Wertheimer Grant read the banner headline flashing across CNBC: MURDERED TRADER WAS WERTHEIMER’S INVESTMENT STAR.

His stomach knotted. He took a breath the way his personal trainer had instructed him to do to ramp down the stress. But no simple cleansing breath could wash this mess away.

It was awful.

The days since Marc Glassman’s murder had thrown the once-shining firm into a maelstrom. A frigging roach motel of rumor and distortion, Cantwell thought with dread. He himself had gone through a mix of emotions and worries he had never experienced before. First, the shock. The disbelief, imagining the horror of it. Cantwell had known the trader well. Though it was his rule to leave the investment responsibilities to his senior staff, as head of the firm, and as someone who had never lost his love for the trenches, he’d been in dozens of strategy sessions with Glassman over the years, not to mention sales conferences, golf outings, charitable events. My God, Cantwell thought, we were all together just a few days ago at the firm’s winter opera event at the Met.

But soon the grief started to morph into worry. CNBC’s headline was correct. Marc was Wertheimer’s brightest shining star. In the midst of this year from hell-with the mortgage crisis eviscerating the firm’s balance sheet, their earnings dropping like a weight, their stock price tanking in the midst of the global sell-off, rumors flying-Glassman was one of the rare people actually making money for the firm. Some might even say the only thing propping it up.

Now that was gone.

Now there were just these headlines.

Cantwell turned around and gazed gloomily out his office window. He could see the skyline of lower Manhattan to the south, the East River. To the west, the skating pond in Central Park. He liked this view. He wanted to keep it for a while. He wanted to keep the company jet too.

Along with sponsoring Phil Mickelson and hobnobbing with world movers and shakers at places like Davos and the Aspen Institute, not to mention the appearances on Fox and CNBC, where attractive reporters sought out whatever he said.

He just didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep any of it.

The board was growing weary. The firm had a ton of toxic mortgage exposure. Christ, they’d been packaging that shit all the way up, right from the start. Now no one knew what anything out there was worth. “Mark to market,” it would kill them! Not to mention the stock price. Some big-name hedge fund asshole was out there shorting the shit out of it. The market cap had already plummeted from one hundred and ten billion down to fourteen. Not to mention their dwindling cash reserves. And their overnight borrowing on the repo market drying up, all these whispers…If the true picture ever got out, if there was ever a run on the accounts-Cantwell swallowed-they’d be toast.