An iPad in a black case was propped in front of him. Gah, I should have asked the Holsts for one of those too. He seemed to be watching a stream of sports scores as he nibbled a wrap bulging with carrots and other chopped fiber specialties.
He wasn’t the society writer from the magazine. He was on more of a city beat.
Once upon a time, he’d worked for the Picayune. Yeah, that’s the name of the local newspaper if I haven’t mentioned it or you haven’t picked up on that.
His job now seemed to include a little society and a little business with a dash of music. Once he’d been charged with keeping tabs on business and various and sundry things that came out of city hall, affecting everyday life and lifestyle, nothing particularly interesting unless strip club regulations came up.
Jael had fairly quickly directed me to some of his older articles on Nola.com, and I read about Moates as well as Alexeeva, who had earned occasional mentions in stories about the city council and its subcommittees such as the transportation committee. So here I was to interrupt the meal and pastime of Jeffrey R. Kirkland. Blue checked shirt, dress casual. Skinny guy, vegan dining will do that. Looked pretty much like the photo that ran at the bottom of his online articles along with his email address and Twitter handle. The feed used the same photo. He tended to tweet news headlines, general interest oddities from the wire services with his stories mixed in, and a sports mention now and then, not selfies or anything convenient like where he ate. That had been a little harder to nail down.
Happily, I was here now, and the stool next to him stood empty, so I slid into place in my own incognito hipster regalia. I peeled paper back over the gluten-free bread. From what I’d heard about it, I probably needed to eat quickly before it grew a beard just like Jeffrey’s.
“Pelicans fan?” I asked after my first bite, trying for a casual glance toward the screen.
“I’m kind of a general NBA fan,” he said. “But I have some affection for them, just not quite the fervor I feel for the Saints.”
Who dat?
He mentioned some players who hadn’t been around before I went into the can, but then I remembered when the team had still been Hornets. I just nodded as if I respected their stats and said something about needing to get out to more games.
“You look familiar,” I said.
He turned fully toward me for the first time, pausing from a bite, taking me in to see if he recognized me. I saw recognition flicker, then caution and skepticism.
“I work for the Big Crescent,” he said. “My picture’s on my stories. I read the news as well as the sports. Your picture’s been in the paper a few times.”
And me, all incognito and everything. Hopefully this was because he was more attuned to the news than others.
“A few,” I said.
“You need something, Mr. Reardon?”
“A job with health insurance like everybody.”
Yeah, I was paraphrasing Chandler. Like I said, I went to a good high school. I also read a lot while I was inside. It passed some hours, helped with tutoring others.
Back of my mind, I was prepping for a job when I got out, though deep down, I kind of knew how the interviews would go.
“You looking for your own column? I’m not sure we have an opening,” he said. “You want to give me an exclusive on your life after the incarceration, we might have something to talk about. You haven’t talked to anybody.”
“There any interest in what I have to say?”
“We could figure that out.”
“Let’s say that’s not on the table yet, but I’ll think about it. At the moment, as much anonymity as I can manage is preferable.”
“Everyone’s not a trained observer like I am, so you may be all right. Think about it, and I’ll think about whatever it is you’re about to ask.” He turned back to his scores.
I led with Alexeeva and his expression changed again. Something flickered in his eyes, and his eyebrows danced upward. He’d heard things on the city beat.
“Interesting character,” he said. “What are you involved with? Or should I say, do you know what you’re involved with?”
“I’m getting an impression.”
“Aren’t there cops you could talk to about this?”
“Cops are pretty tight-lipped with me just now.”
Kirkland was nodding to what I’d said about tight-lipped. “The bio he’s currently putting forward is that, he’s a self-made man who’s worked his way up and is shaking the correct hands. Rumor level, that which can’t be proved without fear of lawsuit, that which I wouldn’t put in print, it gets a little more ominous.”
“I’ll stipulate to some of that, but what have you heard?”
He flashed a grim smile and shook his head. “I think I’m going to get back to my sports news, Mr. Reardon. My email address is on the website if you change your mind about providing an interview.”
“We could edge that further up the ‘I’ll Think About It’ category if I had a taste of your skills.”
He pushed his iPad away again.
“What are you needing to know, Mr. Reardon?”
“Any idea why Alexeeva would be courting a guy like Ryan Moates?” I asked.
“Business in this town’s complex,” he said, not turning back just yet. “Maybe Alexeeva sees Moates as somebody who can help him in areas other than those where he’s already accessed and made friends. He has a few friends. Or so I’ve heard.”
“None to put into print?”
“Not at the moment, but I’ll say Mr. Alexeeva clearly wants more. Servicing the carriage trade’s not all it once was with Uber and Lyft.”
“He’s got a club. But I suppose that’s not really a way to earn a fortune.”
He confirmed with a little tic of his expression and a slight tilt of his head.
“Maybe Alexeeva sees a financial wheeler-dealer like Moates as someone who can help him connect to more of the right people.”
“What do you really know about Moates?” I asked. “Way it used to be, you guys usually know more than you say in print. I’ve provided deep background a time or two in my career. What’s not on the official record you can let me know about?”
“You know some rumors if you’re sniffing around. I’m not going to say it out loud because I can’t prove it.” He smiled. “I will say that while I was still at the Picayune, I talked to people who used him as a financial advisor, before he launched this deal he’s got going now. A lot of times he couldn’t really talk them through where their money was as far as funds and annuities and the like. They were able to get out with their savings and an autographed copy of his self-published book on finance, but they kind of felt lucky.”
“This doesn’t really come as a surprise.”
“What are you looking for? He’s a guy that started with nothing, and he looked at the great houses on St. Charles and upper crust and wanted that. Was willing to cut a few corners.”
I’d known guys like him. I’d arrested guys like that whose shoes had to be Testoni, coats had to be Burberry, and umbrellas had to be Ghurka. It’s hard to maintain that lifestyle. Often lifestyle wins over ethics and legality.
Somewhere in that mix there’d be leverage.
“Let me throw you one bone,” Kirkland said. “Not the kind of dirt I deal in, in print, but for you, maybe it’s of use.”
“The bone got a name?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You were a cop long enough. You can take it and run with it. Holton King.”
Chapter 26
Being a cop means knowing who to ask.
Rose turned up the details on Holton King. I thought it must be another businessman, but that proved incorrect. She had an MBA and a little town home on a street called Common. The importance of the gender difference, in this instance anyway, became apparent when we learned she and Moates were having an affair. So that was the kind of dirt Kirkland had been talking about.
They were both married. She and her husband also h
ad a house in the country and attended the trendy Baptist church in a community nearby.
Arch and I visited the Common address around 4 p.m. the following Tuesday. She’d left the office early. We’d noticed that was a habit on Tuesday.
After a few rehearsals, we had put on our suits and neckties. Arch’s military demeanor was apparent, and with the cop air I couldn’t have shrugged off if I’d wanted to, we seemed pretty crisp. That was a good thing. It would encourage assumptions.
Slipping on sun shades, we approached Ms. King’s door, and Arch gave it the fist. She answered after a flutter at the peep hole and probably assumed we looked official. Wrapped in a silky blue floral robe, looking surprised and flushed, her red hair tangled, she creaked the door open a few inches and peeped out.
“Can I help you?”
“Holton King? Holton Marie King?” Arch asked. “We need to have a word with you.”
“I’m sorry. What is this about?”
“Ryan Moates.”
She either figured we were private investigators working for his wife or her husband or that we were officers from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Either way, she let us in, working with the belt on her robe and not asking to see the fake credentials Jael had whipped up.
If assumptions failed, we were prepared to impersonate federal officers. What’s one more ding on the rap sheet?
A few seconds after we crossed the threshold, a guy about 28 with curly dark hair came into the room wearing tight workout pants and nothing else. His naked arms and torso rippled with muscles. Apparently, Moates wasn’t the only guy on her dance card.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you to step over there,” Arch said, slipping right into the mold.
“Who the fuck are you guys?”
He took a step forward.
“Sir, please don’t resist.”
“Let them talk, Owen.”
Owen?
Arch kept his shades aimed Owen’s way and his muscles and posture tense until the body builder relaxed and then lifted his hands in surrender.
“You want him here for this?” I asked.
“Owen.”
He threw up his hands again and moved back into the bedroom.
“May we sit?”
We moved into a small living room with cream colored furnishings and settled into arm chairs. With the AC churning, the air was almost cool enough to make the suits bearable.
I watched the folds of the robe part over firm knees as she settled on a sofa behind a small coffee table.
“What do you want to tell us about the Eternal Fund?” I asked.
“Want to tell you?”
“You have an opportunity here,” I said. “Limited window. Goes away when warrants are served.”
The flush had been on the wane. It left her face completely now. In fact, any trace of blood departed.
“What do you think you know?”
“People aren’t dying fast enough for your friend, Ryan Moates.”
From what we could tell, thanks to Rose and Jael, people weren’t dying at all in most of his Eternal Funds investment opportunity, and they needed to. It was a life settlements investment opportunity sold in little private meetings for Ruffin and Whitehead’s very wealthy clients and maybe advisors who weren’t sharp or at least were more interested in Testoni shoes than ethics.
It involved purchasing paid-up life insurance policies from the elderly. They received more than they could cash a policy in for but less than the full pay out. The investor became the beneficiary and received a bigger payday when the party died. The term’s viatical transaction. It’s a workable and legal—if ghoulish—idea in theory.
In practice, Ryan had run into trouble and started funneling cash from new investors into dividends for longer-term investors who’d come to expect those. Classic Ponzi, as rose had first mentioned. With the hint from Alexeeva’s interest, what Rose and Jael had learned was what a lot of investors had no idea about. Just like those who’d been told their money was in good hands with Madoff. Those who quietly suspected couldn’t get anyone to listen. Anyone but me, via my proxies.
Moates was clearly siphoning some off for himself, part of it possibly going to keep Holton King in this town house where afternoon tussles with a boy toy were included. More had to be channeled into his lifestyle. I wondered if Owen had paid for his own sweat pants.
Clearly Alexeeva wondered that too and if there might be potential in the Eternal Fund with just a little finesse applied.
In the back of my mind, when I’d first asked, I’d wondered if Moates’s business might be something to get me in an isolated place with Alexeeva for just long enough, even if there were risks of a trail associated. Now I needed something I might harness not just for a private meeting but to locate Dagney. Even a few spread sheets might offer a basic carrot, but things were a little more complicated. And nerve-wracking in contemplation.
Intimidating Holton King was not a proud moment, but I told myself dealing with me would go a little easier on her than if Taras and Nestor paid her a visit. That would happen eventually. Moats had spilled blood in the water and that attracts sharks. The task the Holsts had given me was at once more preferable and harder than popping Alexeeva in a parking lot would have been.
When Holton hesitated after my statement, Arch threw out a reference to obstructing justice. Improv, but it got her attention again.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Financial records, something that shows us a clear trail.”
She buried her face in her hands. Thinking, breathing through her mouth.
“All right, you guys are upsetting the lady.”
Owen had returned.
“Do I need to call your lawyer, Hollie?”
So that’s what she went by.
Arch was already moving in his direction.
“Sir, you were asked to step out of the room.”
“You can’t just come in here….”
“Do you want to be charged with interfering with an investigation? Sir?” Arch really made good use of that menacing “sir.” A real cop couldn’t have done it better. If I’d had my Trilby on, I would have tipped it to him.
Owen stepped forward anyway, looking like a moving stone wall. Pectorals and biceps bulged as he clenched and unclenched fists at his side.
Arch planted his feet the way he’d talked to me about and kept his demeanor calm and firm. “Sir.” With even more menace. Damn.
I wasn’t worried about the brute force. The bodybuilder might be able to best Arch at the bench press, but strength didn’t mean he matched Arch’s hand-to-hand combat skills. We hadn’t come for that, however. A beat down would pretty much torpedo our little scenario. Unless we could convincingly let Owen go with a warning since we had no real lockup to haul him off to for assaulting an officer.
I braced, ready to bark a warning of my own in my best authoritarian cop style, but I didn’t have to.
“Owen, you’re not helping,” Hollie aka Holton said. “Why don’t you head out?”
Owen stared and breathed a while and kept his chest bowed, needing to posture and process events. Cogs turned somewhere behind dull eyes, and he gave up on sweaty tussles for the afternoon.
I breathed easier as his muscles relaxed. Arch maintained his stance and the palpable intimidation level as the body builder stepped back into the little center hallway. Off to look for a shirt.
“I could probably get you something in a couple of days,” Hollie said.
She’d been multi-tasking in her head during the floor show, thinking things over while she watched. She’d worried this day might come and concluded her position was tenuous at best. She looked at me with an expression grim and serious.
I’d hoped for something on the premises or something she could access and download, but willingness gave us a start.
“Why don’t you get things together and sit tight?” I said.
> I slipped a business card from my pocket. Jael’s work wouldn’t go to waste after all. A bit of effort had gone into the mocked up and realistic looking federal logo and an assumed name. John Overholt. It was real if she checked with the SEC switchboard, though it wouldn’t hold up if she asked to be transferred. The number went to a burner held by Jael who’d answer appropriately and take a message.
My hope was Holton aka Hollie would just wait to be contacted and pray that she wouldn’t be. A little stewing always helps with a snitch or criminal informant, and I wanted a little time on deep background.
Part 3
The Game
Chapter 27
“They’re not in Casselberry, Florida, anymore,” Rose said.
She’d come over to the new place after I returned from the chat with Hollie King.
She sat on my steps as I leaned on the white railing since there was only the futon inside. I wished I could offer her an iced tea but I hadn’t stocked the pantry nor bought a kettle.
My stomach sank a little.
“No forwarding?”
“Finn takes odd jobs when he’s between longer term gigs. He’s a little hard to trace even with tips from your cop friend.”
“Maybe I should go look for myself.”
“Leaving the state might not look good. You don’t want to trigger the prosecution to think about a do-over.”
“My current activities could do that too.”
“At the moment you’re working private security for a family. You’re employed.” She held up a hand. “I don’t want to know about any technicalities. Start looking like you’re a flight risk, you could find yourself back in the accommodations of the state, and Finn’s still living with your family. Find the missing daughter. Get the Holst’s payout. Fight in court. They’ll turn up.”
“Your focus is on your clients. Will info turn up before Juli’s hurt?”
“My advice is wrap this up fast.”
“I’m working on it. This is not a typical missing person case.”
“Do you think cozying up to Moates is going work?”
Despite the “no technicalities” request, Rose felt a little freer to talk about current activities.
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