by P. G. Abeles
Harrison whistled. Reverend John paused to shake the hand of an elderly woman he recognized coming out of her apartment. After a few minutes, she left, pushing a hand-held cart. Reverend John continued.
“You know why they turned off the heat?”
“No, why?” Johnson asked.
“It came out during discovery for the court case,” said Reverend
John, by way of explanation.
“Their accountants had run the numbers, and advised them it wasn’t cost-effective to heat uninsulated units in the middle of a Chicago winter. So ForestLawn just turned off the heat and left people to freeze. They figured, even if the city made them turn it back on eventually, they had saved a few bucks.” Harrison and Johnson were silent. By any measure, it was a damning indictment.
Harrison consulted the apartment directory, hanging by one forlorn metal hinge. DuShane’s apartment was to the right, about halfway down the row.
Johnson was thoughtful. “Look,” he said, finally “Most politicians are pretty corrupt, but Okono’s really bringing people a lot of hope, don’t you think?”
Reverend John regarded them both. “You know what I say about Okono?”
Harrison was silent.
“No, what?” Johnson replied.
Reverend John continued. “All these people who believe he’s going to do all those great things for America?”
“Yeah?” said Johnson.
“He’s spent his entire professional life representing one district—this district—the South Side.” Carter gestured at the ruined development.
“And what has he done to change the conditions here? What has he done for these people? That’s what I say about Okono.”
Johnson was defensive. “Hey, man—look—maybe he didn’t know, okay? The dude’s in Washington most the time…I mean, how does he know about all the shit with the garbage and all?”
John Williams appraised him calmly: “He couldn’t know because he lives in Washington—is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah, right,” answered Johnson.
“Where does his family live?”
“Jesus, man, I don’t know,” Johnson answered dismissively.
“With him, right? In D.C.?”
Reverend John pointed down the ravaged block of projects with his index finger. “His family lives in a big, fancy house about eight blocks from here. His kids get driven to their private school ‘cause, as you can imagine, nobody that has a choice is going to send their kids to the neighborhood public school with all the hoodlums and drug dealers…and you wouldn’t make little kids walk past this place, right?”
Finally, they reached Kevin DuShane’s apartment. Reverend John offered to stay outside and keep a watch—for, what, exactly—Harrison was afraid to inquire. The apartment had obviously been uninhabited for months. There was a hole in the sheetrock of the living room wall, and in a couple of places Harrison was disgusted to see wires exposed. The complex was literally falling apart. Harrison had seen jail cells that looked more inviting
Johnson looked around. “Well, at least it explains one thing.”
Harrison looked at him inquisitively. “What’s that?” he asked his partner.
Johnson continued, “If you live in a shit-hole like this, a Caribbean holiday sounds pretty good, no matter who makes the offer.”
Harrison nodded, disappointed. He’d known it was a remote chance, but he’d been hoping to find something. From the remaining dust on the cheap plywood cabinet in the living room, Harrison could see that someone had recently helped himself to DuShane’s large television. All that remained were some mismatched thrift store furniture and a few snack boxes in the kitchen, already ravaged by vermin. That was it: no books, no computers, no pictures. Nothing.
If DuShane had ever had a personal life, there was no longer any evidence of it. Harrison had sent the techs over this morning to see if they could lift some prints. He’d been hopeful, but now that he had seen the apartment in person, Harrison was starting to doubt they’d find anything. He and Johnson had already been through all the state and federal databases, no official records came up to match Kevin DuShane, and, apparently, nobody around Chicago ever knew him as anything else. With no birth certificate, medical records, tax returns, or license, the inescapable conclusion was that DuShane had been an assumed name. Dendra Jones had most likely been right that DuShane came to Chicago as a runaway. The most likely explanation seemed to be that he had simply assumed a new name with his new life. Harrison was forced to admit that after months of digging, they still had absolutely no idea who the guy was. Or where he had gone.
The results came a few hours later. The techs had found no prints in the apartment. Not one.
Chapter Forty-Eight
New York, New York
THE PREMISE OF THE U.S. INVESTMENT BANKING SYSTEM is that if a portfolio is sufficiently diverse, almost any level of risk can be amortized. The odds of all companies or all economies experiencing downturns at the same time are considered statistically impossible. The fatal flaw in this argument is that it presupposes your risk stays where you left it. Or, put another way, that the Vietnamese rice company whose stock you buy only invests in Vietnam, the Swedish bicycle company is safely invested solely in Scandinavia, and your Argentine vintner restricts itself to investments in South America. However, when the Vietnamese company holds mortgages on the homes of firefighters in Queens (NY) and stock in a Brazilian coffee company in their portfolio, then there is no such thing as diversification—or rather there’s so much diversification—it cancels itself out. Everyone shares the same inter-related, interdependent risk.
Historically, people involved in large enterprises have put a lot of faith in the idea that some things are determined by someone, somewhere, to be too big to fail. The idea is always that the dislocation that would theoretically attend their passing is potentially so disruptive, it will rend the fabric of society. Of course, seldom is this actually the case. But when investment banks that had happily (no, gleefully!) solved the problem of high risk mortgage debt by packaging them all together, and selling them to someone else—found to their dismay that they themselves carried an enormous, staggering number of those investments on their own books, they were singularly unprepared for what happened next. They had simply never considered the possibility that some failures might be too big to save.
Middle-class people who lose their jobs stop spending money. At first, catastrophe just skims along the top. They cut back on all the obvious ‘fun-to-haves’—a long weekend at the beach, the impulse buys at the big-box stores, the great (cheap) stuff from China. (After all, they’re okay, they have some money in investments). As unemployment stretches on, they mentally adjust their belts a little tighter, and out go all the extracurriculars: karate lessons for the kids, date-night, a new winter coat. Eventually, however, people with no money stop paying their bills—and finally (perhaps) through a combination of hard luck and bad decisions, they lose their house, especially if they had been tempted by easy loans to buy more house than they could really afford.
Much of the U.S. system is based on the idea that real estate is the safest investment, fed by mostly-true tales of all the fortunes that are created in real estate. But savvy real estate investors recognize two things that homeowners seldom do. First, never become emotionally attached to a property you invest in—i.e., don’t live in it. Living in a house you buy as an investment is like naming the chicken you might need to eat—hard on the kids. Second, never buy at the top of the market. Even people who theoretically understood that the central tenet of ANY investing is buy low, sell high—had lost their heads in bidding wars for houses that were already overpriced by any metric. They would pay for their mistake.
But, of course Main Street is very far from Wall Street—two worlds that really, mostly, occupy separate universes. After all, how common is a $50 million bonus in Boise, Idaho? Predictably, there had been tremors when the big banks started writing off billions in
mortgage debt. Tremors turned to shock waves when Tolero Star faltered and was sold at a Fed-officiated fire sale. But there was still a widespread belief that the system was fundamentally strong.
Pundits would later decry Wall Street’s lack of foresight. When Tolero Star had vanished beneath the surface with only a few bubbles, did the bankers not see the financial crisis looming, they thundered? Well, actually, no. To many astute observers on Wall Street, the collapse of Tolero Star raised more questions than it answered. Did Tolero Star have exposure to risky investments? Beyond a doubt. But the circumstances that triggered their collapse were based on (unfounded) rumors that Tolero Star had liquidity problems. At the time the rumors began, on that fateful Monday morning in March, Tolero Star had a healthy $18 billion in cash reserves—but somebody was already shorting their stock.
What happened to Tolero Star was neither more nor less complicated than an old-fashioned run on a bank. As the rumors swirled, more and more lenders demanded more collateral to lend less money. Increasingly, their bank customers wouldn’t lend Tolero Star money at all—and at that point the managers at Tolero Star knew it was over.
Whether or not the short selling was orchestrated by three hedge fund managers (reputed to have celebrated Tolero Star’s demise over a champagne breakfast where they pledged to make Helman Brothers their next target)—there was more speculation than answers. Whether some opportunistic bottom feeders got lucky—or illegally manipulated the markets to make their own luck—was unknown. What was clear was that some hedge fund managers had made a lot of money betting against Tolero Star.
Tolero Star’s managers claimed that three of Tolero Star’s biggest trading partners were intentionally targeted with requests that they become a third party to Tolero Star’s trades with their customers. Normally, they would have granted these ‘novation’ requests without question. But as the three banks were flooded with requests by customers who wanted to get out of trades with Tolero Star, the banks started to worry about their own exposure. And they did what sensible, well-run investment banks do—two of the three pulled credit—within 12 hours.
To what extent the crisis that led to the demise of Tolero Star was engineered was unknown, perhaps would never be known. But lots of people had their suspicions and the “champagne breakfast” hedge fund managers were on the top of most people’s list of suspects.
But if the rumors were true and the speculators and short-sellers were eyeing Helman Brothers in March as their next victim, to outsiders it looked like Wall Street was simply following the law of the savannah and culling the herd. After all, Helman Brothers —like Tolero Star— was never really part of the club.
In the first six months of 2008, Helman Brothers’ stock was down 73% on news that it had reported losses of $2.8 billion and been forced to sell almost $6 billion in assets. Of course, this was small potatoes compared to what some of the largest securities firms had written off, but confidence in Helman Brothers had been shaky for a while.
In August, they announced layoffs of 1,500 people, a little under 10% of the work force. On September 10th, they had announced a further loss of $3.9 billion dollars, and that they were looking to sell-off a majority stake in their investment management business. At about the same time, mugs, hats, and umbrellas emblazoned with the Helman Brothers corporate logo started appearing on eBay, as cynical employees looked to cash-in one more time. At that point, Helman Brothers was a rampike, still standing, but dead. On the 15th of the month, after begging for assistance from their unsympathetic Wall Street brethren, the SEC, and even the Fed—it was over. Helman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and became the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Started in 1844 by a Jewish cotton broker from Alabama who’d emigrated from Germany, Helman Brothers had taken some of the most iconic companies in America public—companies like Sears Roebuck, F.W. Woolworth, Mays Department Stores, Macys, Gimbels, and B.F. Goodrich. Of course, as one unsentimental wag put it, most of those companies weren’t around to shed any tears, either.
Reading the Wall Street Journal, Paul Johannsen had a different reaction—the reaction you have when someone you know becomes a little famous for a while. It was kind of exciting. He called his wife after reading the story on the internet. As it turned out, they knew the three hedge fund guys of ‘champagne breakfast fame’! In fact, all three had hosted the first moneyman ‘meet-and greet’ they’d attended for Okono. His wife remembered, with more than a little pleasure, that one of them—the little bald guy— had complimented her on her dress.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Manassas, Virginia
THEY HAD DECIDED TO MEET at the usual place in Old Town, a cute little Portuguese restaurant on Nokesville Road near the train station. It was a beautiful, warm autumn evening, the sun just beginning to set. Connor had gladly accepted the hostess’ offer of an outside table under a stylish teak and tan umbrella. It was a cute place, not inexpensive, but frequented by a quiet, professional crowd who enjoyed its faux Tuscan décor and light Italian and Portuguese cuisine. Connor was waiting for a friend. Joel Samuels had been the deputy assistant director of the FBI crime lab at Quantico for the last five years. He’d been Connor Murphy’s friend for twenty.
Samuels sat down. His shoulders sagged. He had scoliosis. Probably all those years bent over a microscope, Connor thought.
“Long day?” Connor asked. He gestured to the waitress for another beer.
“You could say that,” Samuels replied.
“I appreciate you taking the time to see me.”
Samuels looked at him skeptically. He didn’t believe in bullshit.
“I’d see you any time. You appreciate me taking the time to talk to you confidentially about an ongoing Bureau investigation,” he said.
“Okay.” Murphy smiled and shrugged. Samuels wasn’t exactly known for his interpersonal skills, but Connor wasn’t offended. Samuels looked off into the distance. Some teenagers were testing their skateboarding prowess in the little square opposite.
“Somebody murdered her.”
Connor choked on the foam of his beer. He wiped his face with the back of his hand. Samuels handed him an extra napkin without looking at him.
“Seriously?” he asked.
Samuels spoke quietly: “No other conclusion is possible. The car tested positive for traces of DMSO and sodium cyanide.”
“Wait a second,” Connor interrupted. “Remember, I’m not a scientist. Back up here—what is DMSO?”
Samuels regarded him critically. “You need to take notes.” He pulled out a lined yellow legal pad from his briefcase.
“Here.” He handed it to him.
“Government issue?” Connor asked. Connor knew how Samuels felt about “company” property.
Samuels replied, “I bought it at a CVS on the way.”
“Okay.” Connor started to take notes. “Shoot.”
Samuels’ beer arrived. He took a long sip. “DMSO is Dimethyl sulfoxide”—Samuels spelled it out. “It’s a by-product of the wood industry. Truly a wonder drug—like aspirin—used to treat inflammation for rheumatoid arthritis, intracranial pressure after severe head trauma—but it has fallen into ill repute in recent years after a death was tied to its use. It’s available commercially, at health food stores—a lot of horse people use it.”
“Okay.” None of this was really making sense, but Connor knew better than to rush Samuels. He knew by long experience that Samuels was telling him what he needed to know.
The waiter came to take their order. When they’d handed back the menus, Samuels continued. “It’s colorless, and at least until it’s ingested—odorless.”
Connor interrupted: “What about after it’s ingested?”
“It produces a strong garlic odor people frequently find offensive,” Samuels replied.
“Okay,” said Connor, taking notes.
Samuels continued, “Most relevant to this case, though, are not its independent uses, but the fact that
it’s a polar a-proctic solvent.”
“A… what?” Connor asked.
“From a chemist’s point of view…” Samuels explained, “it contains a dissociable hydrogen atom—essentially a hydrogen atom bound to an oxygen atom.”
“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. So?” Connor wasn’t seeing the tie-in.
“As a solvent, it can donate a hydrogen proton.” Samuels paused, sipping his beer, still watching the skateboarders.
“And that means…?” Connor prompted.
“I guess you would say it mixes well.” Samuels laughed at his own joke.
“Okay.” Connor looked bewildered. Samuels was clearly bemused by Connor’s still-confused expression.
He continued. “In layman’s terms—It dissolves things...and it penetrates the skin…”
“Whoa. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He had Connor’s full attention.
“So if you wanted to inject someone with something…?”
Samuels patiently corrected him. “Not inject. It’s topical. It penetrates into the bloodstream through the skin, carrying whatever it’s mixed with…in this case sodium cyanide.”
Connor was too astonished to speak.
Samuels continued.
“I spoke to the coroner in Atlanta. They all noticed a pungent smell of garlic from the deceased.”
“Maybe she ate Italian?” suggested Connor.
“Coffee and cookies were in her stomach,” Samuels corrected him.
“I read that the family didn’t want an autopsy,” said Connor.
“One reads a lot of things.” Samuels paused, as if unsure he wanted to say more. “The family had no choice. As you probably know…” he looked at Connor significantly, while Connor tried hard to look innocent, “she had received death threats that were the subject of an on-going Bureau investigation.”
Two large platters of food arrived. Samuels, consulting the impressive wine list, ordered a bottle. Connor waited for the waiter to leave.