“So Ralph Chesko was not guilty.”
McKinney scanned the top page. “He was cleared.
He used poor judgment. He went out on a limb, sawed a bit too much, tried to recoup those losses by climbing out farther, and sawed it off. His risks worked for several years. Luck: a lot of people have it for a while. Then they start to believe they’ve got the market figured out.”
“Sounds like playing the ponies to me,” said Briscoe.
“Not quite, but the psychology’s similar. Remember when day trading was such a rage?” McKinney took off his reading glasses. “With Chesko’s fund, several things came together at once, precipitated by that Chapter Eleven in one of the fiber optic networks.
Chesko tried to make up the lost ground by shorting and then had to cover.”
“Hablo inglese? ” said Briscoe.
McKinney smiled at Briscoe’s attempt at Spanish.
“He goofed big-time at least three times in double or nothing scenarios. Shorting can be dangerous.”
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“But not crooked?” asked Green.
“As I said, we left the file active in case something else turns up, but we have essentially cleared him.
The investors went on to file complaints with the National Association of Security Dealers, an industry watchdog, then with the Investor Protection and Securities Bureau.”
“That’s the state agency?” asked Green.
“Right. It’s under the New York Attorney General.
It enforces the, ah, Martin Act, the New York State Securities Act.”
“Could all these investigations have missed something?” asked Briscoe. “Money can be hidden; books can be doctored. Maybe you guys looked in the wrong place.”
“Jack Lionel is one of the best investigators of this kind of thing. He’s with the IPSB, and I wish he was with us. He went over Chesko’s books with a louse comb and found no more than we did: minor irregu-larities. Accounting errors that were maybe not entirely inadvertent, but nothing significant. Believe me, detective, there was serious screaming from serious people about the fund. That’s why the state attorney general assigned Jack to it.”
“Is it possible,” asked Green, “that the investigators might have looked in the wrong direction, so to speak?”
McKinney seemed annoyed with the question. “The SEC, the NASD, and the IPSB all investigate very large amounts of money. Between you and me, Jack can be a real s.o.b. at times. The attorney general wants him that way. Jack the Hammer, he’s called. If there had been violations, Jack would have found them. He lives to mount heads.”
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Briscoe glanced at Green and then eased into his question. “Look, we have a kind of weird situation.
Barbara Chesko wrote a novel before she died. There’s some mention of financial stuff in it. It might as well be Iranian for all we know, but we were thinking someone familiar with this sort of thing might recognize these people or the deals.”
“A novel? Ralph Chesko’s wife?”
“Ex-wife. We think it’s based on her life,” said Green, “only she’s changed the names and so forth.”
“She might have inadvertently, or even deliberately, revealed something about some crooked dealing,”
added Briscoe.
“And you think he might have done it?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
McKinney nodded thoughtfully. “Ah,” he said. He drummed his fingers for a second. “I’d put one of our guys on it, but I really think Jack Lionel knows the whole case better.”
Briscoe grinned wryly. “In my experience, you federal guys don’t like to pass up a prime T-bone.”
“I don’t smell any blood, frankly,” said McKinney,
“but I’ll call Jack for you. Maybe something can be done on the state level, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
75
INVESTOR PROTECTION AND SECURITIES
BUREAU
JACK LIONEL’S OFFICE
120 BROADWAY
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 3:12 P.M.
A heavyset, bald man with a ring under his eye for every number fiddler he’d bagged, Jack Lionel chewed an unlit cigar as he searched on his garbage barge of a desk.
“So, what was it you were looking for?” he asked.
“Anything,” said Green. “Anything at all.”
“Is there anybody in the book who is recognizable?”
asked Briscoe. “Is there anything illegal going on?”
Lionel sat back, opened his mouth like a hippopot-amus who expected them to throw peanuts, and said,
“Yes and no.”
“Well?”
“Yes, there are some recognizable people. No, it doesn’t inculpate anybody.”
“Who is recognizable?”
Lionel flipped a few pages of the manuscript. “This guy sounds like Martin Schoenbauer. He was chair-man of Lyons Macintosh and I know that he was involved with Ralph Chesko.”
Green twisted his head to look at the book. “Which one is he?”
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“Hasenpfeffer, Gustav Hasenpfeffer.”
“I must have missed him,” said Briscoe.
“He grabs a waitress’s derriere on page fifty-two.”
“Well there’s a crime!” muttered Briscoe.
“I said I recognized him. He’s a grabber all right, and he’s paid for it: off the record, out of court, and on the QT.”
“Is he the kind of guy who’d meet a woman in a hotel?”
“Is the Pope Polish?”
“Okay, he’s not gay. Would he meet a woman in a hotel and kill her?”
“Don’t ask me. As far as I know he just grabs ass, then pays the settlement. He never learns.”
Green looked up from his notepad. “Was there anything strange about his deals with Chesko?”
“No,” said Lionel, “they made a lot of scratch together. The book doesn’t say anything about it anyway.”
“Okay, anything else?” asked Briscoe.
“This guy Loren Lunch is probably Warren Buffett hardy har but just the name is used. And then there’s Bubblehead.”
“My favorite,” said Briscoe.
“He bears a lot of resemblance to Ethan Merivale at Hutton, but the trick is, he isn’t.”
“How do you mean?”
“Physically, mannerisms and stuff, he’s Merivale, but his business dealings in here mean Bubblehead is Leonard Cooper, not the brightest bulb in the rack.
He and Chesko worked together at Merrill Lynch when they were just starting out. Nothing there, either.”
“Rumors? Off the record stuff? Anything at all?”
“Nada. Zilch. Zero.”
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“What about his trip to the Isle of Jersey? Isn’t that like the Caymans? You can hide your money there?”
“We investigated that. All legal activities are confid-ential there, with the key being ‘legal.’ Jersey’s pretty reliable. Chesko has an account, but it is relatively modest. I think it’s his jack in the hole.”
“‘Jack in the hole’?” asked Green.
“It’s not good enough to be an ace,” said Lionel. “I think he was just making sure he couldn’t go entirely under. It’s enough to get you a nice retirement home.
No. I’m sorry to tell you the book doesn’t say much about finance and what it does say is stupid.” Lionel laced his fingers. “Gentlemen, I’ll never forgive you for making me read this.”
Green flipped his notebook closed. “So much for that theory.”
“Chesko’s clean, then,” said Briscoe. “Thanks for your trouble.”
“Clean?” said Lionel. “I operate on the assumption nobody’s clean. I just haven’t caught him yet.”
“Everybody’s guilty, eh?”
“Money corrupts,” said Lionel. “A lotta money corrupts a lot.”
Lionel offered
the manuscript to them. “McKinney told me he didn’t see anything either, but I don’t think he read it all.”
“A weak stomach?”
Lionel snorted. “McKinney told me this thing was going to be published. By what book company, for God’s sake? If it’s a public company, I’d short it.”
Green was thinking and spoke hesitantly. “So this is terrible, right?”
“That?” asked Lionel. “It doesn’t even rise to being so bad it’s funny. It’s just boring. Let’s just say that 78
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if I had time to read anything other than balance sheets, it wouldn’t be this.”
“So why do people say it’s good?”
“Hell, Ed, it’s all a matter of taste,” said Briscoe.
“But it isn’t,” said Green.
“A matter of taste? Of course it is. You ever sit through a critically acclaimed movie? Ever tried to read a book called Gravity’s Rainbow? My daughter told me it was a work of genius. Sheesh.”
“Look,” said Green, “Mickey Spillane is one thing, Alice Walker is another. But this isn’t about taste.
This book is terrible. Who could think it wasn’t?”
“Well, the writers’ group for what that’s worth,”
said Briscoe.
“That’s a support group,” said Green. “They’d praise each other’s laundry lists. ‘No negativity.’ Remember?”
“What’s your point?” asked Lionel. “So it’s bad. A lot of books are bad.”
“There was that editor who liked it,” shrugged Briscoe. “They said she was about to sign a contract.”
Green shook hands with Jack Lionel, who was gaping at them, still waiting for the peanuts to fly.
“We’ve taken up too much of your time. Thank you for your help.”
Briscoe looked confused but followed Green to the elevator. When the door closed and they were alone, he eyed the excited Green and asked him, “So what gives?”
“Look, Lennie, I counted a dozen letters from an editor named Rosserman to Barbara Chesko. Every one of them tells her that her book could be the next big thing.” He measured the air with two fingers. “But there are an inch thick of turndowns. A few of them 79
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say things like the plot is weak. One says ‘We’ve seen too much of this before.’ Most of them just say it doesn’t fit their needs.”
“There’s no accounting for taste, Ed,” said Briscoe.
“They didn’t like it, Rosserman did.”
Green pinched the bridge of his nose. “What am I trying to say? Look, does it make sense that he sees talent when no one else does? I’d sure like to hear why. Wouldn’t you?”
Briscoe raised his hands. “Wait a minute. What’s that got to do with her dying?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Huh?”
“Why would he tell her her book is good when he knows it isn’t?”
“She could have killed herself because she was strung along,” said Briscoe. “Maybe he finally told her the truth about Shafted and dumped her at the same time.”
“Bingo, Old Spice man,” said Green.
“So, he’s Mr. Condom. And I was afraid we were going to have to make a case against Mr. Bubblehead!”
80
KIRSTNER AND STRAWN, PUBLISHERS
232 HUDSON STREET
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 9:15 A.M.
Briscoe and Green took an elevator to the eleventh floor and emerged to face a trio of closed beige doors with buzzers at the side. An annoyed and nasal voice asked simply “Yes?” and they identified themselves, asking to see Robert Rosserman. Several seconds passed and no one opened the door. Briscoe was about to lay on the buzzer again when a woman with thick glasses and a pencil on her ear came out. They squeezed past her and walked in.
On each side of the corridor a row of doors stretched to a ceiling-high bookcase at the end. They passed three doors before they saw an open one. In a windowless office a woman squinted at her CRT, then at one of the many manuscripts piled on her desk.
“Rosserman?” asked Briscoe. She silently pointed through the wall to farther down the corridor.
“Thank you,” said Green, but she didn’t look up.
They passed an office in which a man was arguing on the phone, but the paper sign taped to his door identified him as “Albert Ilsing.” The last office on the left had the distinction of a dirty window and a brass plaque identifying Rosserman. A bushy headed man 81
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leaned back in his chair, his feet on his desk, flipping the pages of a thick manuscript. He didn’t look up until he turned a page, delicately laying it face down on his blotter.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You Rosserman?” Briscoe asked.
“And you are?”
“Detectives Briscoe and Green. We’d like to ask you about Barbara Chesko.”
Rosserman dropped his feet to the floor and set aside his manuscript. “Barbara?”
“Chesko.”
“You sent her this letter,” said Green. He held it out. “In fact, several letters.”
Rosserman glanced at it. “Oh, Chesko. Sure. How is she?”
“Not too well, I’m afraid.”
Rosserman hesitated. “Well, rejection is part of the game.”
“And what kind of rejection is that?”
Rosserman blinked. “Her novel. We turned it down.” He smiled. “Is that suddenly police business?”
“And when did this happen?” said Green.
“Last week. What’s all this about?”
“We heard you worked closely with her.”
“Closely. Well, I wouldn’t say closely. I encouraged her. I saw a raw talent that needed to be shaped and matured.”
“Some of her writing group was under the impression that she was about to sign a contract,” Briscoe said.
Rosserman sat back, lacing his fingers across his stomach. “Really? Well, good for her.”
“With you.”
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“Me? Lord, no. Not with me. It must have been someone else. There are lots of publishers. Maybe print on demand.”
“She never mentioned it to you?”
He thought for a moment. “Not that I recall. I’m sure I’d remember if I heard she’d gotten an offer.”
“It would be difficult to remember?”
Rosserman smiled. “Well, no. But things get a bit hazy when you’re responsible for twelve books a quarter. I can barely deal with my published authors.
Those we reject, well, those numbers would surprise you.”
On the shelf on Rosserman’s wall Green noticed a book with an African mask on the spine. He tugged it out and opened it as Rosserman spoke. “What can you tell us about her?”
Rosserman shrugged. “She sent in a manuscript about a year ago. I recognized a certain raw talent, but it didn’t measure up to professional standards. I recommended some editing, which was done, and then she resubmitted it. It was much closer, but needed restructuring I thought, then a really thorough line edit. It came back for this last time, but, unfortunately, there was no place in the publishing schedule, so I couldn’t even submit it to the board. I recommended she get a good agent to shop it around.”
“It seems like you went to a lot of trouble for her.”
“Not for her,” said Rosserman. “For her book. I believe it demonstrated a significant raw talent.”
“You know,” said Green, “that interests me. How do you recognize ‘raw talent’?”
“They either have it or they don’t,” said Rosserman.
“It’s like picking out horseflesh. An editor develops an eye for it.”
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“But,” Green continued, “What exactly do you see?
If you’ve got somebody whose talent is undeveloped, how can you see it?”
Rosserman’s eyes flashed. “You just know,” he said.
A
moment passed as Rosserman picked at imaginary lint on his canvas trousers. “You guys get a sense of when somebody’s guilty, right? I mean aren’t you officers supposed to have a sixth sense for when somebody’s lying?”
“That sixth sense is only in potboilers written by undeveloped talent,” said Green.
“It’s experience,” said Rosserman crisply. “You can recognize when a writer’s got it.”
“Raw talent,” Briscoe nodded. “So you said. And when did this happen, the turndown?”
“I called her Monday. No, this Tuesday.” He hesitated.
“And?”
Rosserman contemplated his laced fingers. “She was quite distraught. She threw quite a scene.”
“On the phone?”
“No. I decided against a letter and called her about eleven. She showed up here about two, but I was on the phone doing some negotiating on sub-rights.”
“Sub-rights?”
“The right to publish a book overseas, paperback rights, movies. These were translation rights, I think.
Italy. Mondadori? Well, she had to wait, so I couldn’t get to her until nearly four-thirty and I guess I’d be pretty steamed up by then myself.”
“That’s two and a half hours,” said Green, raising his eyes from the book he was still flipping through.
“If I were her, I’d take that as a large hint. Maybe you hoped to wait her out.”
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Rosserman leaned forward. “She read, I guess. I don’t know for sure. Jenna, our secretary, told me Barbara had stomped out just a few minutes before.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I feel awful about it,” he continued. “To tell the truth, I forgot she was out there. I thought she had left. Maybe I hoped she would. I had a lot of sym-pathy for her.”
Briscoe glanced back at the narrow hallway.
“She was around the corner past the bookshelf.
There are some chairs around there. A coffeemaker.
Would you gentlemen like a coffee? There are sodas, too.”
“No, thanks,” said Briscoe.
Green closed the book he had taken from the shelf.
“This one of yours?”
“I edited it, yes.”
He pointed to the blurbs on the back. “Toni Mor-rison, Norman Mailer, John Updike, The New York Times—it got a lot of praise.”
“Yes it did,” said Rosserman. “I’m very proud of it.” He picked at lint on his canvas trousers. “I only wish the bean counters felt the same way.”
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