by Marie Astor
Seated behind the desk of his home office, which really was not an office at all but a nook with a desk crammed into it in his tiny studio apartment in Soho, Dennis Walker peered at his computer monitor. Finally, he had struck gold. The data Dennis was examining was a breakdown of commission revenue from Bostoff Securities’ clients. It had taken Dennis a while to get access to the data. The accounting system was protected by intricate encryption software, but after several coaching sessions with IT specialists at the Treasury, Dennis was able to get through. The first few rows of the commissions did not indicate anything out of the ordinary, but as Dennis scrolled down the report, several numbers caught his attention. Emperial, Creaton, Rigel, Gemini, and Sphinx were being charged almost triple the going rate. All of these hedge funds were known for their so called aggressive investment policies, which really meant using collusion and market manipulation to reap high returns. There had to be a reason why Bostoff was charging these clients excessive commission, and Dennis was determined to get to the bottom of it.
There was a reason why Dennis was good at catching the bad guys: he had once been one of them. It had been an inadvertent mistake that had cost him his securities licenses. Such was the deal that Dennis had struck with the authorities for helping them bring down Vitaon, a corrupt hedge fund Dennis had foolishly accepted an employment offer from for a position of a trader. That had been five years ago, but there had not been a day that Dennis did not regret the wrong turn he had made in his career.
The son of a hotel manager and a grade school teacher from Park City, Utah, Dennis had grown up dividing his time between skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the summer. Somewhere in there school fitted in. Despite his mother’s occupation, studies had not been important to Dennis in his early years, but that had changed later. Once he turned fourteen, Dennis started making an extra buck by working at the ski resort in the winter and caddying in the summer. Overhearing conversations between tourists from cities like New York and Chicago made Park City seem small, and Dennis started thinking about what life was like in other places. His studies became important then, as Dennis realized that if he wanted to do anything other than work in the service industry, college was his way out. Since his parents could not afford to pay tuition, scholarship was the only option.
When Dennis turned sixteen, his father got him a part-time job as a bellboy at the five-star hotel in Deer Valley in which Dennis’s father had worked as a reception desk manager for close to fifteen years. Dennis’s elder brother had just started his first year at the same hotel as a full-time employee, and Dennis’s father saw no reason why Dennis should not follow his brother’s suit. Hauling luggage and opening doors for the hotel’s guests strengthened Dennis’s resolve that much more. He was always courteous and diligent in his tasks, but deep inside he despised his job. By now his plan to leave Park City had acquired a definitive shape. He was going to go into finance. From the scraps of conversations that Dennis overheard at the hotel, he learned that a large part of the guests occupied positions in finance; there were also private business owners and corporate executives, but the finance people always booked the most expensive rooms, had the latest ski equipment, and the prettiest women with them.
In his senior year of high school, Dennis spent most of his time behind books. He subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Gradually, the articles he read started to make sense. He continued to work at the hotel a few hours a week for his pocket expenses, as his father did not believe in giving his kids an allowance. That winter Dennis happened to deliver luggage to the penthouse suite rented by Terrance Stanton. The name of the guest stood out in Dennis’s mind immediately: he had spotted it in a Forbes article only a few weeks ago. Having served as a senior executive at numerous high-profile financial firms, Terrance Stanton had just been recruited as the CEO of Rossman Grozling, a major investment bank. Terrance Stanton was also a generous supporter of many charitable causes, including the famous four-year scholarship he awarded to several lucky students every year. Dennis had applied for the scholarship, but had yet to hear the results. As he wheeled the luggage cart in Mr. Stanton’s suite, Dennis could feel his heart beating wildly. Most likely nothing would come out of it, but he was going to at least try. Before knocking on the door, Dennis straightened his uniform and puffed out his chest. As he had read in various ‘how to succeed’ books, personal appearance was the first thing people noticed about a person. Then Dennis rang the bell.
A woman so incredibly beautiful that Dennis had lost his ability to speak opened the door. She was in her early twenties, about five ten, with lanky legs, deep blue eyes, and long, blond hair. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a tunic of see-through material, under which Dennis glimpsed a lacey black bra.
“Come on in,” the blonde said.
With a tremendous effort of will, Dennis recovered. “Thank you, ma’am. Where would you like the bags?”
“The foyer is fine.”
Dennis lowered his eyes as he wheeled in the luggage. One more glance at the siren and his pants were bound to become dangerously tight.
“Terry, give the boy a tip, will ya?” The stunning beauty cast Dennis a bewildering smile before she disappeared in another room of the suite.
Just as Dennis finished offloading the last bag, a gentleman appeared in the hallway. Dennis recognized Terrance Stanton instantly from the photo he had seen on the scholarship application brochure. At fifty, Terrance Stanton had the lean, trim body of a man who exercised regularly. His strong features – a straight nose and firmly set lips - were accented by his pepper-gray hair, which was brushed back.
“Here you go, kid.” Terrance gave Dennis a twenty dollar bill.
The generous tip set Terrance apart from the majority of the guests who, despite their wealth, were often stingy.
“Thank you, sir.” Dennis bowed slightly. “And if I may, congratulations on your new job.” Dennis held his breath. He had gone out on a limb, and the result could turn out to be disastrous. But Dennis was not kept in suspense for long. When he saw the smile on Terrance Stanton’s face, he knew he had made the right move.
Terrance nodded approvingly. “I see you follow the world of finance. What’s your name?”
“Dennis, Dennis Walker, sir.”
“And what do you plan on doing with your life, Dennis Walker?”
If the question had come from anyone else, Dennis would have been annoyed, but now he was extremely flattered.
“I plan to go on to college and major in Finance, sir – I’ve applied to five schools.”
“Oh, yeah? What schools?”
“Princeton, Duke, Harvard, Yale, and University of Utah.”
“Good choices.” Terrance grinned. “But those are expensive schools and hard to get into. What’s your GPA?”
“Three point nine, sir.” Literature had been the reason for Dennis’s not having a four point zero GPA. He simply did not have the patience for words. Numbers were his game.
“Impressive. Any extracurricular activities?”
“I’m on the town’s ski racing team, my school’s debate team, and I’m also chair of the finance society, which I’ve started, sir.”
Terrance whistled. “Do you know that I run a scholarship fund?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve applied, sir, but I haven’t heard back yet.”
“We’ll be sending out responses soon.” Terrance scratched his chin.
Just then a golden lab retriever bounced into the foyer, followed by the blonde Dennis had admired earlier.
“He doesn’t listen to me, Terry!” The blonde complained. “We’ve got to get somebody to walk him while we’re here.”
“You just have to be firm with him, Cindy. Stand your ground.” Terrance whistled to the dog. “Here, boy. Come here.”
But rather than heeding his master’s orders, the dog wagged his tail at Dennis and started to nuzzle his hands.
“I’m sorry I don’t have any treats, boy.” Dennis petted the dog. Ever sin
ce he was a kid, dogs had always liked him.
“He likes you.” Terrance grinned. “Say, you wouldn’t be interested in making an extra buck walking Grover, would you? I’ll pay ten bucks an hour.”
“Thank you, sir. I could definitely use the money, sir.”
“Great, you start right now.” Terrance Stanton thrust a dog leash into Dennis’s hands. “And take your time: he needs an hour walking time every day.”
“Yes, sir.” Dennis put the leash on Grover and hurried out the door. From the way Terrance was eyeing Cindy, it was clear that the reason he wanted Dennis to take his time walking the dog was not Grover’s wellbeing – at least not primarily.
For the ten days that Terrance Stanton stayed at the resort, Dennis walked his dog, but the initial cordiality that Stanton had shown to Dennis had been a one-time occurrence. Upon all the encounters that had taken place between them after, Terrance maintained a demeanor of polite and superior indifference. By the end of Stanton’s stay, Dennis was regretting his agreement to walk the dog. Sure, the money would come in handy, but his dignity was worth more than a hundred bucks. Dennis had agreed to Terrance’s offer because he had hoped to ingratiate himself into getting a scholarship – a foolish plan, he now understood, but it was too late now. His winter break had been wasted on walking Stanton’s dog, and his friends, along with his brother, seemed to have an unending supply of jabs to dig at him for being a dog walker.
In the spring, Dennis received his acceptance letters. He had gotten into all the colleges he had applied to. Most awarded him scholarships, but those were not full scholarships, and University of Utah was the only option that would be fully paid for. Then, a few weeks later, just as he was about to send in his admission acceptance, Dennis received a letter from Stanton scholarship fund stating that he had gotten a full scholarship for four year tuition at any school that he chose to attend. The choice was easy: Dennis decided on Princeton, which was Stanton’s alma mater.
During freshman orientation at Princeton, Dennis was not surprised to see Stanton as one of the speakers. The man was one of the most honored alums of the school, but Dennis was surprised to see Stanton approach him during the reception afterwards.
“I’m glad to see that you chose the right school, Dennis.” Terrance greeted him.
“Thank you, sir. If it had not been for your generosity, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Nonsense, Dennis. You’ve worked hard, and if you continue the same way, you will reap the rewards.”
Stanton’s prophecy turned out to be true. Dennis did succeed, at least for a while. Stanton became Dennis’s mentor of sorts. They did not have standing meetings or anything of the kind, but Stanton did get Dennis a summer internship at Rossman Grozling’s offices in New York while Dennis was in college, and he even arranged for a room and board for him in the corporate housing. When Dennis graduated, he was hired by Rossman Grozling as a first-year analyst and began working through the ranks on a trading desk. The first year had been brutal, as Dennis worked eighty hour weeks. His duties ranged from getting the senior traders their breakfasts and coffee to doing the grunt work that was too dirty for the senior guys. He also studied for his securities licenses exams, which he passed on the first try.
The second year was much better. Gradually, Dennis started getting more meaty tasks, which gave him a chance to implement his understanding of the market. The market movements were like music to him: as he sat before his Bloomberg screen, eyeing the trading activity on all the world’s exchanges, Dennis saw a pattern that could bring in millions of dollars in profits. All of his ideas were vetted by a senior trader, but Dennis still got the credit for generating record revenues as a junior associate.
Dennis repeated his success year after year, and three years later he was promoted to Vice President. Money was pouring in, and Dennis upgraded his lifestyle accordingly by moving out of the apartment he shared with a roommate in Hell’s Kitchen into a swanky loft in a luxury building in Battery Park, which was only a ten-minute walk from his job. With the hours he worked, he could not waste any time on commuting. And then there were women… Dennis was not vain, but he was fully aware of his good looks. From his early teens, members of the female sex had found him attractive. The guys on the trading desk took Dennis to exclusive New York clubs frequented by models and starlets. At first, there was a nameless succession of beauties, but when he turned twenty-seven, Dennis zeroed his attention on Vanessa Cleary. Vanessa was a model and an aspiring actress: her resumé included a variety of commercials, but she was determined to get on the big screen someday. She had long legs, sandy-blond hair, and eyes as blue as the sky. She was the kind of girl Dennis Walker of Park City, Utah never imagined he would be with. It was not long before Dennis asked Vanessa to move in with him. He upgraded his apartment to a two-bedroom, and the two settled into a blissful life. Dennis was rarely home during the week, but weekends with Vanessa more than made up for his grueling days.
The tricky thing about money was that the more you made, the more you wanted to spend. Vanessa loved exquisite things, and Dennis loved giving them to her. He was making a good living, but he was hungry for more. When one of the senior partners of Vitaon hedge fund approached Dennis with an extremely lucrative offer of employment, he found himself saying yes. Working at Rossman Grozling had been great – Dennis had learned a lot, but he had also contributed a lot. His trading picks had generated stellar returns for the desk, covering for several traders’ wrong picks. No matter how much money he generated for the firm, there was still a cap on the bonus. Sure, the bonuses were generous, but Dennis felt he deserved more. At Vitaon, traders were compensated on a percentage of what they generated: the more money you made for the firm, the larger your bonus would be. Perhaps Dennis would have reconsidered employment with Vitaon if Terrance Stanton had still been around at Rossman Grozling, but Dennis’s mentor had been ousted in a corporate squabble a year before and had since retired.
During his first year at Vitaon, Dennis had reaped the largest bonus of his career. The day after he got his money, he proposed to Vanessa with a ten-carat diamond ring from Harry Winston. Vanessa squealed with delight. She was going to forget about acting – who needed all that traveling and constant dieting when one could focus on things that mattered, like being a wife and a mother? Dennis felt his pride swell. He had everything he had ever wanted, and he was just getting started.
Dennis still remembered the shock he felt when he discovered Vitaon’s fraud. The hedge fund might have been booming, but its management was indiscriminate as to the sources from which its investors’ money came, including terrorists and drug cartels. Dennis was shocked to learn that all the partners knew about the fraud. As a thank you for his remarkable performance, Dennis was promoted to partner and let in on the secret. Joy was not the emotion Dennis felt after his promotion. With his new title, he would be liable for the fraud that had been taking place at Vitaon long before he got there.
Dennis knew that he had to get out, but before he could circulate his resumé on the street, he was approached by the Feds. They were onto the whole scheme, and they were willing to offer Dennis a deal if he agreed to aid in the investigation. Dennis would have to give up all the compensation he had made at Vitaon and he would be barred from the industry, but he would not be prosecuted further. Should Dennis pass on the chance, the offer would not be extended to him again.
Terrified, Dennis said yes. For several months he wore a wire to work and downloaded hundreds of emails and documents to aid the Feds in their case. In return, he got to keep his freedom, but lost his livelihood.
The biggest blow was when Vanessa left him. At least she was decent enough to give him back the ring. As much as it had hurt him, Dennis knew that he would need every penny he could scrape. His father had proclaimed him a disgrace to the family. He had never objected to all those checks Dennis had sent back home, but now that the cash register was no longer ringing, Dennis had become the black sheep of the fa
mily.
In a gesture of generosity that was enough to break Dennis’s heart, Terrance Stanton had come to his aid by hiring the best litigation lawyer to represent Dennis and make sure that the Feds would indeed keep the deal they had promised Dennis. Terrance had wanted to pay the bills, but Dennis would not have that. With the sale of his apartment, Vanessa’s ring, and other luxury items which had become irrelevant in his dire situation, Dennis was able to cover his legal costs.
When the whole ordeal was over, Dennis sat on the floor of his five hundred square feet studio in Soho. If he lived modestly, he had enough money in his bank account to sustain him for about a year, which was not much at all, as he had no idea what he was going to do now.
A knock on the door brought Dennis out of his reverie. When he saw Terrance Stanton on the threshold, he nearly burst into tears.
“I’m so ashamed,” Dennis had whispered. “I’m so ashamed of what I have done.”
“The only thing you are guilty of Dennis is being naïve. You have not done anything to be ashamed of – Vitaon’s owners did.”
“But I worked for them.”
“You were young and hungry, and they lured you in. Part of it was my fault – I should have prepared you better for this life.” Terrance looked away. “We all make mistakes, Dennis. I’ve made plenty myself. Have you ever wondered why I do all these things for charity? Why I run that scholarship fund?”
“Because you want to help people; because you are a good person, the kind of person I wanted to become, but failed.”
Terrance sighed. “Ah, Dennis, do not be so hard on yourself. What do you really know about me? Do you know that I have a son who died from a drug overdose?”
Dennis shook his head, stunned.
Terrance looked down, as though afraid to meet Dennis’s eyes. “I was not always the level-headed man I am now. The corporate game is a jungle, and if you’re not careful, it will suck you right in. I had no time for my family, arrogantly believing that if I provided for them financially, that would be enough. But the truth of the matter was that my career was the focal point of my life. I was in the middle of a merger when Jack overdosed for the first time. He was sixteen years old at the time.” Terrance shook his head. “I could not break away from the deal – I had to be at work. I thought I had fixed things when I got Jack into a first-grade rehab program. He seemed to get better, and then, one day, we got a call from the police. Jack had overdosed at a friend’s party. He was eighteen years old.”
“I’m so sorry, Terrance. I didn’t know.” Dennis was at a loss for words. His own torment seemed meaningless compared to that of his mentor’s.
“You don’t have to pity me, Dennis. I don’t deserve it. I told you my story so that you would understand that we all make mistakes. You’ve made a mistake – a costly one, no doubt. The question is, what you are going to do now? You can make amends and put the whole thing behind you. You are very young, Dennis. You can start your life over.”
The next day, Dennis received a call from the Feds offering him employment as a consultant for the white collar crime division. To this day, Dennis was not sure if Terrance Stanton had a hand in this offer, but when he received it, Dennis knew it was his chance at redemption.
He threw himself into the work relentlessly. His knowledge of the industry gave him an upper hand when it came to ferreting out frauds. Unlike the majority of the investigators, Dennis actually understood the complicated financial terms. For three years he toiled for the Feds. The pay was not much, but Dennis had preserved and amplified the savings he had from his days as a trader: he was no longer trading professionally, but that did not preclude him from managing his own investments, and his savings had grown nicely. When the Treasury started a new investigations unit, his supervisor at the FBI recommended Dennis for employment and he was hired as senior investigator.
He had reclaimed his place as a decent member of the society, but his downfall would always be a part of his past. His life was simple now, with two major principles: no lavish spending and no getting close to women. An occasional fling was a welcome distraction, but no woman would ever hurt him the way Vanessa had.
Dennis rubbed his forehead. It was almost one a.m. His eyes were burning from hours of staring at the computer screen, and his head was splitting from the memories of his haunted past. Dennis would see to it that Bostoff and his scheming clients got justice, if only to stop them from luring another hopeful, wide-eyed kid into working for them.
Chapter 12