Shadow Account

by Stephen Frey

  “Now that you mention it,” he spoke up, “I think Gavin did hire a woman named Rebecca a few months ago.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Not really.” Rebecca had the face of an angel and a body designed by the devil himself. “She’s nice, but she’s the matronly type. If it’s the woman I’m thinking of, anyway.”

  “Uh huh.” Mandy sat back down on the couch. “You know, my husband doesn’t like you much.”

  As if that were a breaking news story. “Paul’s entitled to his opinion,” Conner said calmly.

  “He says you try to come off as this hard-luck kid from a tough background. But he says the truth is you graduated from the University of Southern California, and that you’re doing very well now. He says you use all of that poor-mouth stuff to make people underestimate you. Is that true?”

  “Look, I—”

  “He says Gavin pays you very well.”

  “I earn what I make.”

  “He also says you aren’t as smart as you think you are. That you’ll screw up in front of a client someday and Gavin will fire you.”

  Conner said nothing.

  “And Paul says he’ll do whatever he has to do to run you out of Phenix.” She sighed. “But you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you scare my husband. I think he hates the way Gavin has taken you under his wing. Hates hearing Gavin tell him how you’re going to be a man of influence on Wall Street soon. I think what Paul’s really worried about is that someday he’ll be reporting to you. That’s why he’s trying to figure out how to get you fired.” She hesitated. “Now, do you want to tell me about the woman at Phenix my husband has been seeing?”

  Conner tapped the arm of the chair. Maybe Mandy ought to hear how Gavin had to warn Rebecca about her tight tops and short skirts. About Paul going from inhaling a sandwich at his desk to taking long lunches outside the firm. Lunches that coincided precisely with Rebecca’s.

  “You know, I—”

  “Come on, pal!” Gavin’s voice boomed into the living room. “You’re up.” He stood in the hallway, beckoning to Conner.

  Conner rose from the chair and smiled politely. “It was nice seeing you again, Mandy. Maybe we’ll have a chance to finish this conversation at some point,” he said as Stone reached them.

  “I’d like that.”

  “I’m going to bed,” Paul announced, giving Conner a suspicious look. “Let’s go, Mandy.”

  “But I just poured myself another drink.”

  “Too bad,” Stone snapped, snatching her glass and putting it down on the coffee table. “Better get going,pal ,” he said quietly to Conner. “The old man’s pretty pissed off. There were a ton of typos in your presentation.” He smirked as he grabbed Mandy’s wrist. “I wonder how they got there.”

  5

  Conner stretched as he relaxed into a comfortable chair in one corner of Gavin’s den.

  “What happened, pal?” Gavin sat in his USC-engraved captain’s chair behind his rolltop desk.

  “What do you mean?”

  Gavin pointed. “Your arm. What happened to it?”

  The gunshot wound had begun to bleed again in the cab on the way down Seventh Avenue to Penn Station. As he was waiting for the train to Easthampton, Conner had found an all-night convenience store in the station and bought a roll of cloth tape to wrap around the wound. As he’d raised his arms to stretch, the white tape had poked out from beneath the short sleeve of his shirt.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Conner saw in Gavin’s expression that a one-word answer wasn’t going to cut it. “I caught my arm on a hook in my bedroom closet as I was packing to come out here. I was rushing, you know. I wanted to get out of there. It’s just a scratch.” He shook his head. “I’ve been meaning to get rid of that hook, too. I did the same thing a couple of months ago.”

  “Doesn’t look realsh ip-shape,” Gavin said, grinning.

  Sometimes Gavin consciously used words that challenged his lisp in front of people he trusted. It was his way of letting you know you were inside the fort, Conner knew.

  “Yeah well, I—”

  “You’re off your game tonight.”

  Conner rolled his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Having your place broken into stinks. Believe me, I know. I’ve been robbed a couple of times, but it isn’t the end of the world, pal. Cheer up.”

  “Gavin, I’m beat.” It was almost four thirty. In a few minutes, sunlight would begin creeping through the bay window beside him. “Can we get on with this?” He was tempted to ask if they could put off the discussion until he’d had a chance to catch some sleep. But he knew what the answer would be.

  On Gavin’s rolltop desk were two copies of a presentation Conner had prepared for their meeting with Pharmaco, a drug company headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. Last week, the company had been surprised by an unsolicited takeover offer from a European conglomerate. And the CEO and his board of directors needed advice. The CEO was a friend of Gavin’s from the Harper Manning days, and suddenly Phenix Capital had an opportunity to get that first transaction theWall Street Journal and theNew York Times would report on. The competition was a young gun at Harper, and Conner knew that Gavin desperately wanted to win the mandate. He craved the long-lost personal publicity, but what he sought most was the chance to wave a victory flag in the faces of his ex-partners.

  Gavin picked up the presentations, tossed one to Conner, then put on a pair of reading glasses. “Right off the bat there’s a problem, pal,” he said, tapping the page emphatically. “The goddamn company’s name is misspelled. And there are lots more mistakes like this one throughout the presentation.” He held the deck out toward Conner and rifled through the pages with his thumb to make his point. “I’m just glad I caught this stuff now. We would have looked like idiots in that boardroom tomorrow if I hadn’t,” he snapped. “This isn’t like you. Usually you really pay attention to details.”

  Conner gazed at the page. The typo was right there. But that was impossible. He’d checked the whole thing three times before going home last night, and there hadn’t been a mistake anywhere. “It wasn’t like this when I left the office, Gavin.”

  The old man peered over his half-lens glasses. “Well, it is now.”

  “How did you get this?” Conner asked. “We were supposed to go over it yesterday afternoon, but after lunch you decided to come out here instead of staying in Manhattan. And I didn’t e-mail it to you here.”

  Gavin owned a sprawling apartment in an Upper East Side high-rise where he usually stayed during the week. But occasionally he headed out to the mansion to get away. “You ended up taking off around three o’clock yesterday. You came by my office and we talked about how I hadn’t finished yet, and how it didn’t make sense for you to review it until I was done. We were going to go over it this morning when you got in, remember?”

  “I changed my mind.” Gavin gestured toward the living room. “I realized we didn’t have much time. Paul printed out two copies and brought them out. He was coming here to Easthampton tonight to discuss another deal anyway. I talked to him at the office around eight. Apparently . . .” Gavin paused, silently communicating his displeasure at how early Conner had left, “you were already gone.”

  “How could he have done that?” Conner asked.

  “Done what?”

  “Printed out copies of this presentation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The only place I have this file saved is on my hard drive, and I turned my computer off before I left.”

  “I guess he turned it on,” Gavin replied, as though the answer ought to be obvious. “Where’s the mystery?”

  “He would have needed my password to get to my files.”

  “Really?” the old man asked innocently.

  “Yes. And Paul doesn’t have my password.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Does he, Gavin?”
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  “Well . . .”

  “Gavin?”

  The old man groaned. “Okay, I gave him your password. So what?”

  “I can’t believe you!”

  “Relax, pal.”

  “Those aremy files, Gavin.”

  “And Phenix ismy firm!” Gavin shot back. “I keep a list of everyone’s password. The network guy gives them to me. What’s your problem? There shouldn’t be anything on your hard drive you don’t want me to see, right?”

  “Paul changed this,” Conner said firmly, holding up the deck. “He inputted the typos before he printed it out.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To make me look bad.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I bet he pointed out all the errors when he was in here, didn’t he? Probably told you he’d taken the liberty to review the presentation on his way out from Manhattan.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes.

  Conner pointed at the old man. “You know what, I’ve got a hard copy draft of the presentation in my desk at Phenix. I printed it out before I left yesterday, and I guarantee youit isn’t full of typos. I can prove Paul did this.”

  “You might be able to prove the presentation was changed,” Gavin said calmly. “But you can’t prove Paul did it.”

  “The guy’s trying to get me fired,” Conner said angrily. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d pull this kind of crap.”

  “Conner,” Gavin said sternly, “you’re being ridiculous. And more than a little paranoid.”

  “No, I’m not. And why are you protecting him?”

  “I’m not. I just don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”

  “Do you know about Paul cheating on Mandy?” The revelation had nothing to do with the conversation, but it had the desired effect. Conner saw Gavin’s expression darken right away. “With that new secretary you hired,” he continued, pressing his advantage. “Rebecca.”

  “I know.”

  “Youknow ?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you don’t care?” Conner asked incredulously.

  “I hired Rebecca specifically for Paul. He needed someone.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  Gavin tossed his presentation onto the desk. “I take care of people who take care of me, pal. Paul and Mandy are going through a rough time. She’s a bitch.”

  “That doesn’t mean you play pimp and go hire a whore.”

  Gavin glanced out the bay window, his right hand contracting into a tight fist. “Conner, I give you a lot of leeway in how you speak to me,” he said, teeth clenched. “Don’t make me regret that.”

  Conner looked down. He’d gotten ahead of himself. “Sorry.”

  “Paul’s work and his attitude have improved dramatically since Rebecca joined,” Gavin continued, still seething. “He’s no longer talking about divorce.”

  Conner hesitated, giving Gavin a few minutes to cool down. “Maybe it’d be better for them if they did split up.”

  Gavin shook his head. “I can’t let that happen.”

  The old man seemed to be calming down. That was one thing about him. His explosions never lasted long. “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. First, I don’t want another business partner.”

  “Another partner?”

  “I gave Paul a piece of Phenix when he joined me,” Gavin explained. “If they get divorced, Mandy would probably get half his shares. I don’t want her showing up at my office looking for financial statements and telling me how to run my business.”

  So, Paul Stone owned a piece of Phenix. Conner hadn’t known that.

  “The second issue is image,” Gavin continued. “Mandy’s family is very connected on both coasts. I don’t want Paul’s name dragged through the mud. It wouldn’t be good for business. Her family would be bitter if there was a divorce, particularly her father. I’ve met him, and his daughters are his most prized possessions. If you hurt them, you might as well hurt him. I understand he’s a vindictive bastard.” Gavin folded his hands in his lap. “Paul’s been with me for ten years. He’s a good man.”

  Conner held up the presentation. “Paul altered this and tried to make you think the mistakes were mine.” His tone was respectful, but he wanted to make his point.

  “Just fix it, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, but—”

  “By the way, you’re getting a twenty-five-thousand-dollar raise next month. Your salary will be two hundred grand beginning in September. Okay, pal?”

  The discussion about Paul was clearly over. “Yes,” Conner replied quietly. “Thanks.”

  “I told you, I take care of my people. You’re one of those people. We’ll be talking soon about you getting a share of the business too.”

  “That’s very generous.”

  “Take some time to get to know Paul. Down deep, he’s a good guy. And I want you two getting along.”

  There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of them getting along. But it was time to appease the old man. “Okay.”

  Gavin removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Tell me more about what happened at your apartment.”

  Conner hesitated, unsure of how much he wanted to say. “Like I told you, I went out for a few minutes around eleven thirty. When I got back, I surprised a guy who’d broken in. He had a gun, and he chased me down the stairs. But I lost him on the street. Then I found a couple of cops and they went back up to the apartment with me. But there was no sign of the guy.”

  “He didn’t steal anything, right?”

  “Right.”

  Gavin shook his head. “You aren’t telling me everything.”

  Conner shrugged. “You’re too smart for me. What do you mean?”

  “A guy breaks into your apartment but doesn’t take anything? You must have stereo equipment or a television or something he would want.”

  Conner gazed at Gavin, thinking about Liz sprawled dead in the corner of the bedroom. Maybe it made sense to tell him more. To get his reaction. “There was one thing that happened earlier that might have something to do with the break-in.”

  “Go on.”

  “A few minutes before I left the apartment I got an e-mail, but it wasn’t meant for me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I didn’t recognize the sender’s address.”

  “So you were spammed.”

  “This wasn’t an advertisement. It was a memo with information I’m sure the sender wouldn’t want me to see.”

  Gavin leaned forward in his chair. “What did it say?”

  “It talked about a publicly held company that’s defrauding shareholders by manipulating its earnings,” Conner explained. “It was written by someone who sounded like he had direct access to the books. Maybe someone at the company’s accounting firm.”

  “What company was it?”

  “The sender referred to the company only as Project Delphi. I’m not familiar with any large corporation named Delphi.”

  “It’s probably a deal code.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Conner agreed. Accountants and investment bankers often referred to public companies they were working with by using code names in order to hide sensitive data in case it fell into the wrong hands. “So what do you think?”

  “I think whoever sent the e-mail panicked when they realized it went to the wrong place.”

  Conner nodded. “When I got back to the apartment with the cops, it had been deleted from my computer.”

  “Given that, I’d say there’s no doubt about what that guy was doing there.” The old man shook his head. “But it amazes me he could figure out where the e-mail went so fast. Didn’t you say it showed up on your computer a few minutes before you went out?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Ten minutes.” Then Conner remembered his surprise encounter with Amy Richards. “Twenty at most.”

  “How could the guy figure out your address in t
he first place, let alone that fast?”

  “Access to the service provider. In this case, AOL on both ends. I assume it’s just like tracing a telephone number. The fact that we both use the same provider would make it easier, but it still seems awfully fast to me, too.”

  “No doubt.”

  “There was one more thing in the e-mail that might be important.”

  “What?”

  “The person who sent it mentioned being in a Washington, D.C., office.”

  “Maybe Delphi is headquartered there,” Gavin suggested. “And so is the office of the accounting firm that handles the audit.”

  “Maybe,” Conner muttered. He was exhausted, but there was one more thing he needed to know. “The first time you called me tonight you mentioned a woman from Merrill Lynch. How do you know about her?”

  “Like I’ve told you before, pal, you’re an important person at Phenix. I need to know everything that’s going on with you.”

  “And?” Conner pushed, his voice rising.

  “And . . . I’ve had you followed a few times. What’s the big deal?”

  Gavin said it so casually. The same way he’d admitted giving Paul the password. Like Conner shouldn’t be shocked or upset. Like it was his privilege to do whatever he wanted. “My God. I can’t believe you would—”

  “Look, I have a couple of ex-FBI boys help me out once in a while. They dug up information on the woman after one of them spotted you two having dinner earlier this summer at a very out-of-the-way place over on First Avenue,” Gavin explained. “He followed you back to your apartment, then tailed her home in the morning. I believe her name is Liz Shaw.” Gavin smiled smugly. “Hence your ‘Lizzie’ computer password.”

  “She’s dead, Gavin.” The words tumbled out. Almost against Conner’s will. But he had to tell someone. He couldn’t keep it to himself any longer.

  “Dead?” the old man whispered.

  Conner nodded. “She was at my place tonight. The reason I left the apartment was to get her a pack of smokes.” He swallowed hard. “The guy who broke in killed her.”