Dangerous Benefits (The Ruby Danger Series Book 2)

by Rickie Blair

  Natalia reached up and patted her on the shoulder.

  Ruby stepped back and smiled.

  “You know I love you.”

  “Humph.”

  “If you smile, I’ll drink that dreadful herb tea you’re always pushing.”

  Natalia still glared, but a slight quiver lifted the corner of her lips.

  “Two cups?”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Darling, they don’t call me Ruby Danger for nothing.”

  As Natalia bustled about her tiny kitchen making tea, Ruby stood at the window to watch the lights change on the busy North Harlem street below and a crowd stream across the intersection. So many people, all going somewhere. Did no one else feel lost?

  Natalia placed a tray on the coffee table with a teapot and two bone china cups and saucers. She filled both cups and glanced at Ruby before settling the teapot back onto the tray.

  “You’re a fine actor, Ruby. You’ve been distracted lately, that’s all.”

  Ruby waved a hand dismissively.

  “Antony’s appeal bid was rejected yesterday.”

  “Why do you care? You’re divorced now, aren’t you?”

  “I take it you didn’t see the Times this morning.” Ruby picked up the arts section from a carved wooden chair by the window and read aloud. ‘Actress Ruby Delaney, an initial target of the Securities Exchange Commission investigation into Carvon & Co., testified at Antony Carver’s trial about his involvement with Russian organized crime. Miss Delaney had no comment on his appeal.’ She folded the paper, dropped it next to the teapot, and perched on the sofa to reach for a cup and saucer.

  “But that’s good,” Natalia said. “It will sell tickets.”

  “I guess. But ‘involvement with Russian organized crime’ is not what I want to be remembered for.”

  Natalia chuckled as she plumped up the cushion of the tufted armchair and settled into it.

  “Ruby, you’re not even thirty yet. Take it from someone on the wrong side of forty—”

  “Forty?” Ruby raised her eyebrows.

  Glaring at her, Natalia sipped her tea.

  “You’ve got decades to build your legacy. And not only are you a fine actor, but the camera adores you. Yes, you’ve had a few setbacks, but your skills are only on hiatus. You’ll get them back.” She settled the cup onto its saucer and shook her head. “But you won’t get them back unless you’re dedicated. You must recommit to your craft.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m committed.”

  “That’s not what Henry says.”

  “When were you talking to my stage manager?”

  “On Wednesday, when I went to see you at the Elgin. He says you’re not focused, that you’re distracted. He thinks it’s your business arrangement with Hari Bhatt.” She hesitated. “I don’t know if you know this, but Arthur Evans—”

  “The actor who plays Giles in the play?”

  “That’s the one. When Libby got pregnant, Arthur’s wife was up for the role and everyone expected her to get it. It was a shock when the producers cast you instead.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Ruby frowned. “But what does that have to do with—”

  “Watch your back, that’s all I’m saying. Stay focused. It’s one thing to wait tables between jobs if you must, we’ve all done that. But tracking criminals? That’s ridiculous. You’ve come to me for advice. Well, my advice is to concentrate on your craft and leave the criminals to the police.”

  Ruby blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.

  “I come to you for advice on acting, Natalia, not on how to live my life.”

  They sipped their tea to avoid looking at each other. Natalia replaced her cup on its saucer.

  “Just tell me one thing,” she blurted. “Is it the money? Is that why you have a second job? Are you broke?”

  “What? No! They do pay me at the Elgin, you know. I also get a residual check whenever a Family Album rerun airs, which it does in two dozen countries, including Japan. And I have my apartment. Everything is fine.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

  “That’s sweet, but even if I did, I wouldn’t take it, Natalia. You can’t afford to give your money away.”

  “You’d be surprised at how well I’ve been doing. In fact, if your finances are that solid, you might be interested in an investment of mine.”

  “Tell me you’re not producing another play.”

  “No, definitely not.” Natalia rolled her eyes. “I learned my lesson. No, this investment is perfectly safe. And it makes ten percent a year, every single year, without fail.”

  “Ten percent always? With no risk? That’s not possible.”

  “It is, and I’ve got the checks to prove it. Even in 2008 when everything else was dreadful. I have all my money in it now.”

  “All of it?” Ruby shook her head. “The first rule of money management, Natalia, is to never put all your eggs in one basket.”

  “When the basket is doing as well as this one, that rule is,” she flicked her hand, “out the window.” She leaned closer. “It’s a closed fund, very exclusive, but I’ve passed on several clients to Ford and he’s gotten them in somehow. I think he’s sweet on me, to be honest.” She blushed.

  “Ford?”

  “My business manager, Ford Robinson. I have his card here somewhere.” She got up to rummage through a drawer in the kitchen, walked back to the sofa and held out a creased business card. “He’s a marvel, honestly.”

  Ruby took the card and studied the gold embossed printing.

  Ford Robinson & Associates

  Business Manager to the Stars

  On the right was a head-and-shoulders photo of Mr. Robinson, an imposing middle-aged man with a round face, bald head, and salt-and-pepper goatee. He wore a black turtleneck. A character actor, obviously.

  “Is Mr. Robinson a licensed investment adviser?”

  “Oh my dear, who worries about things like that? He’s simply a marvel, that’s all you have to know.”

  “May I keep this?”

  “Of course. And call him, it’s a wonderful investment.”

  “How often do you get payments from this investment? Monthly?”

  “No, quarterly. I mean, they’re supposed to be quarterly. Lately they’ve been reinvesting our payments because the market’s been soft and withdrawals drag down the overall returns and so forth…” Her voice trailed off and she placed a finger over her mouth. Then she smiled. “But it’s still making ten percent, right on the nose.”

  “Natalia, how long has it been since you’ve taken any money out of this investment?”

  “Six months,” she said with a shrug, “or nine, maybe.”

  Slipping Robinson’s business card into her handbag, Ruby pulled out her phone to update her appointments.

  “Next week, same time?”

  “Of course, but I’ll see you before that. I’m coming to the theater on Wednesday as usual.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Ruby made a face.

  Natalia rose and held out her arms for a goodbye hug.

  “You’ll be fabulous.”

  Ruby settled into the back seat of a taxi heading south and pulled Robinson’s card from her purse to study it again. Ten percent in 2008, when markets around the world plunged? An investment that lucrative must be risky. Too risky for someone of Natalia’s age and limited resources. She tapped the card on her chin. If she could save her mentor from a disastrous investment, even Natalia would have to admit that Ruby’s “business arrangement” wasn’t a waste of time.

  She would ask Hari. He would know what to do.

  Chapter Three

  Leta Vaughn unlocked her door and dropped her briefcase on the floor to switch on the coffee maker. Then she headed straight for the shower, shedding her clothes as she went. The day’s first sunlight beamed through the uncurtained windows and across the bare wooden floors of her fourth story Tribeca loft and the clock on the microwave
read six-fifteen. If she hustled, she could be dressed, in a cab, and on her way back to the office by six-thirty-five.

  Ten minutes later, dressed in a white terrycloth robe and with her short blonde hair toweled dry, she grabbed the filled mug from the coffee maker. She rummaged in her briefcase for the muffin from the cafeteria vending machine and tore off the cellophane. As she munched, she looked longingly at the majestic leather sofa in her otherwise-bare living room. After repeated admonitions from colleagues to ‘get some furniture,’ she had marched into a trendy design shop on Fifth and handed over her credit card. But this morning, as the buttery-soft cushions slyly called her name, promising just ten minutes—ten minutes, how could that hurt—of blissful oblivion, she regretted that impulse purchase.

  Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, Leta downed the last of the coffee. Her boss would be in the office by seven. It would make no difference to Raymond Fulton that she had been up all night crunching numbers for the report he ordered. Leta had once made the mistake of asking for more time off. ‘Work at Capital Street Management means work, all day, all night, through your mother’s funeral if necessary,’ he snapped. ‘That’s what makes us the biggest hedge fund on the Street.’

  That today was Sunday wasn’t even worthy of notice.

  She rinsed out the empty mug and left it in the sink, then went into the bedroom and ripped the plastic dry cleaning bags off a fresh skirt and jacket. After wriggling into the pencil skirt, she slipped on a pair of heels, ran her fingers through her hair and headed out the door with her briefcase. The Capital Street Management office on Water Street, off Wall, was only ten minutes away on the weekend.

  * * *

  Leta opened the glass door that led into Capital Street’s trading floor. On a weekday it was packed with over one hundred men and women hunched over desks, scanning monitors and chattering into their headsets, but today there were only half a dozen people in the room.

  “Nice skirt,” a young man said, pulling off his headset and ogling her rear as she walked past.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Naturally Gage would be in the office on Sunday, and earlier than her, too.

  “I’d let you borrow it, Gage, but you stretched out the last one.”

  He chuckled, replaced his headset, and swiveled to face the monitors.

  In the small office she shared with another intern, the second desk was empty. Cole Brewer wasn’t in yet, even though Fulton had ordered them both on deck this morning. With a glance at the clock, Leta switched on her computer and checked for new emails without bothering to sit down. Clipping the phone to her waist, she picked up a pen and notepad.

  As she crossed the corridor to the executive offices, her phone beeped with a text alert.

  Whr the hell r u?

  She pushed open one of two heavy mahogany doors that led into Fulton’s office.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Fulton was seated at his desk. He dropped his cellphone with a scowl and held up a finger to silence her. His executive assistant, Irene, a thin woman with a pinched face, was taking rapid notes on a pad.

  “Tell SilverRoad that if I don’t have their deposit by noon, no, make that ten, tomorrow morning, the deal’s off,” he said.

  Irene scribbled on the pad, tucked the pencil behind her ear, and bent to pick up documents from Fulton’s desk. She tapped the pages against the desk to align their edges.

  “Will that be all?”

  “For now.”

  Irene nodded crisply and turned to leave. As she passed Leta, she mouthed good luck and then closed the door behind her.

  Fulton gave Leta a withering stare. With his stark-white brush cut, trim white mustache, and twinkling blue eyes, Raymond Fulton looked like everyone’s favorite uncle, the one who would slap you on the back and tell a bawdy joke to liven up a dull family gathering.

  There was no twinkle in his eyes today. He picked up Leta’s report and waved it in his hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the analysis of the Fairfield merger you asked for. I finished it this morning as requested.”

  Fulton rose and threw the report across the room. It landed with a thud on a credenza against the far wall and lay there, pages splayed.

  “I asked for a report on the potential opportunities for Capital Street in the Fairfield merger. Not rambling, incomplete bullshit.” He dropped back into his chair.

  “What exactly—?”

  “Is wrong with it? I just told you. Is your hearing as faulty as your analysis?”

  Leta walked over to pick up the report, opened it at a section titled Trading Opportunities, and placed it on his desk. She smoothed the crumpled page, trying to control the tremor in her hand. “I believe I covered that here.”

  Fulton tapped the document with a heavy sigh.

  “That’s not enough. I can’t take that into my meeting with Bayfort this afternoon. I need more.”

  Her stomach clenched. More? There was no more.

  “There are no trading opportunities to the merger because the Street assumes it’s a done deal and so the consequences have been priced in,” she said. “Any stocks that might have moved post-merger have already done so.”

  Fulton sighed again, leaned over his desk and looked at her. He enunciated carefully, as if he were talking to a child.

  “The Bayfort Trust want to pull their money. I need to show them something impressive, something they can’t get anywhere else. This,” he waved a hand dismissively over the report, “is not it.”

  “A few European stocks might be affected, but they’re long shots. I couldn’t advise—”

  “Perfect.” He picked up the report and handed it to her. “Add them. In detail. I want charts, history, everything. Make a big deal out of it. Say we’re the only ones looking at them.” He checked his watch. “And get it back to me in an hour.”

  * * *

  Leta placed the report on her desk with shaking hands. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. In, out. In, out.

  “Rough meeting?”

  She opened her eyes. Cole was mopping up a spilled coffee on his desk with a paper towel. His hair was rumpled and a corner of his shirt was untucked. Leta raised an eyebrow.

  “What about you? Rough morning?”

  “Rough morning after,” he said, tossing the sodden paper towel into the wastebasket. “Gage and the boys took me out last night to celebrate my six month anniversary with Capital Street.” He winced. “Those guys can knock it back.”

  Leta tilted her head and stared at him. Was he really that clueless?

  “Nice of them,” she said.

  “Yeah, they filled me in on some interesting stuff. They told me about the thirteenth—sorry, fourteenth—floor. They said nobody knows what goes on up there. Do you?”

  “Gage was pulling your leg. Everybody knows what happens upstairs. That’s where they work on the big funds. And Fulton hosts private clients up there in the executive dining room. There’s no mystery.”

  “No? Huh. I’m going to the caf for another coffee. Get you one?”

  “Please.”

  Leta watched as Cole trudged off to the modest office cafeteria on the twelfth floor, down the hall from the trading room. Her assurance that she knew what happened on the fourteenth floor was far from the truth. She’d done everything she could to gain permanent admittance to the private client section upstairs, without success.

  Turning back to her computer, Leta called up her report and started a new section, Significant European Opportunities. She had misgivings about this new approach, but if Fulton wanted it, she would write it. Anything to gain the key to the inner sanctum. Anything at all.

  Chapter Four

  Raymond Fulton scowled as his office door closed behind Leta. Why should a simple report require so much handholding? He should have done it himself.

  There had been a time when he had done everything himself. He closed his eyes, seeing again the cramped office off Second Avenu
e where he and Edwin Gavan had set up shop in the early seventies. Two driven young men building an investment business from the ground up. Back then, there had been no investment committee this and audit committee that. Just a long line of happy customers.

  He snapped his eyes open, shook his head and punched the intercom.

  “Irene? I need the latest reports from IT—and I need them before Bayfort gets here. Send that guy down here, the one with the, um—”

  “Shawn?”

  “Yeah, send Shawn.”

  Ten minutes later his office door opened and a young man in a plaid shirt and khakis walked in, carrying a tall stack of manila folders with his chin anchoring the top. He placed the folders on Fulton’s desk and straightened up, nudging his glasses up his nose.

  “These are the reports for April.”

  Fulton nodded and pointed to his computer screen.

  “Walk me through this again.”

  Shawn came over behind his chair and peered at the screen.

  “Which part?”

  Fulton sighed. Why was he always surrounded by idiots?

  “Any part. I have to be able to generate these reports whenever I need them.”

  “Oh. Well, type in a client’s name.”

  “Bayfort Trust,” Fulton said, without moving.

  Shawn reached over and typed Bayfort Trust.

  “Then click on this button,” Shawn waited while the screen refreshed, “and voilà, your report. The system retrieves the correct amount, allocates it to the appropriate investments and generates the statement. The total holdings are shown here,” Shawn pointed to the screen, “and this is the rate of return.”

  Fulton peered at it.

  “That’s too high.”

  “We set it according to the model you gave us.”

  “Well, reset it. Make it two percentage points lower.” If the Bayfort trustees intended to withdraw their investment, no point paying out more than they had to.

  Nodding, Shawn turned to go. On his way out he brushed past Irene, who walked in followed by two men.