Relatively Dead

by Cook, Alan

  I spotted Nelly, with a drink in her hand, talking to another young woman. I went to the bartender and asked if he had any sparkling water. I definitely wasn’t going to get tipsy with the climb back down the ladder staring me in the face. Maybe I’d have to stay up here forever.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The efficient way he filled a glass with ice and water told me he was a professional bartender. I thanked him and put a dollar bill I had in my jeans in his tip jar. I walked over to Nelly who turned toward me.

  “You made it.”

  “Yes. But not without trauma.”

  “Aiko, I’d like you to meet Marcia Mathewson. Marcia, this is Aiko. I can’t remember your last name.”

  “Murakawa.”

  “Murakawa. Sorry.”

  Marcia and I shook hands and said hello. I observed Marcia closely. This was Jason’s girlfriend. Jason II had mentioned Marcia’s name to me. Although she’d been at the memorial service, I didn’t remember seeing her there. She hadn’t been one of the speakers. Did Marcia remember me? Had Nelly said anything about me?

  I decided not to act mysterious. “I was at Jason’s memorial service.”

  Marcia looked surprised.

  “I’m a friend of Jason’s grandfather.”

  Marcia’s look was suddenly frosty. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see the building where Jason lived. I ran into Nelly and she said she knew of a good investment opportunity. She was very persuasive.” Nelly had named Marcia as a member of the syndicate.

  Marcia looked at Nelly as if she didn’t trust her. Marcia looked as if she didn’t trust many people. She was dressed more formally than Nelly. Her skirt was longer and she wore a jacket over a tailored shirt, against the evening chill, which Nelly was ignoring. She wore high heels, and I was sure she hadn’t climbed the ladder. Her brown hair was beyond shoulder length, but every hair was in place. No loose ends. I wondered whether she’d controlled Jason like she controlled her hair.

  I took an immediate dislike to Marcia. “Jason’s grandfather told me something that compels me to ask one question. Then I won’t say anything more about Jason. At the party last Friday, did you see a man with a rash or any kind of ugly spots or blisters on his hands?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I said no.” She frowned at me as if I were a dummy.

  “Thanks.”

  Marcia wasn’t going to say anything more. That was fine because I didn’t want to talk to her. I wandered away. Nelly followed me.

  “They’re not all like her. Marcia’s mad at me because I’m not supposed to make it sound easy to invest in the syndicate. They’re trying to give the impression it’s a very exclusive group. I don’t think she wants Jason’s grandfather to know about it, either.”

  Exclusive. Like some Hollywood nightclubs. You had to be approved by the doorman to get in, which made getting inside all the more desirable. Maybe that’s why they made us climb the ladder.

  “If Marcia does the sales pitches, it’s going to remain exclusive because nobody’s going to invest.”

  Nelly laughed. “She’s actually very smart. I trust her as far as investments are concerned.”

  “What about Jason? Was he smart?”

  “Oh, sure, but he liked to surf more than he liked to work.”

  “He had an MBA.”

  “So does Marcia.”

  “How did they get along, together?”

  “Oh, fine.” Nelly hesitated. “Although at last week’s party I saw them having a rather serious discussion at one point. Maybe more of an argument. Marcia was doing most of the talking. I couldn’t hear what they said.”

  “How long after that did Jason fall off the ladder?”

  “Maybe…half an hour. I don’t know, exactly, because I didn’t see it happen. There was this dance contest going on. Nobody saw him fall. My God, you don’t think…no, it couldn’t be.”

  “So you didn’t see Jason go down the ladder? Or whether Marcia or anybody was with him?”

  “No, no, no. I didn’t see anything.”

  A couple of guys appeared at our sides and asked us to dance. The band was playing something fast, and I knew the kind of jerky dancing people were doing would inflame my poison oak, so I declined. Nelly accepted with a smile and went off with one of the guys. She wasn’t thinking about her fiancé.

  The other guy hung around so I told him my name was Aiko and apologized for not wanting to dance. I checked his hands. They were smooth.

  “Doug. What’s a nice girl like you doing at a place like this?”

  “Maybe I’m not as nice as you think. What about you?”

  He was perhaps forty, passable looking, and dressed better than I was, meaning he wasn’t wearing jeans.

  “I heard this was the place to be. Food, drinks, music, pretty girls.” He nodded toward me.

  “This your first time here?”

  “Yes. You?”

  “Yes. Did you come up the ladder?”

  He nodded. “Scared the hell out of me.”

  At least I wasn’t the only one. Men weren’t supposed to confess their fears. I liked him already. “Are you going to invest with the syndicate?”

  “I hear they don’t let everybody in. I’m supposed to talk with a lady named Marcia in a little while.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Chas. “Have you got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  I excused myself from Doug and walked beside Chas toward the tables. He asked if I wanted another drink. I didn’t want him to know I was drinking water, so I said I was fine. He asked if I were hungry. I said yes.

  We filled paper plates with wraps, chicken legs, and even sushi, as well as some veggies. Good spread. There were benches scattered around the edges of the roof. We went to one away from the loud music and sat down, balancing our food on our laps.

  Chas took a couple of bites before he spoke. “Nelly says you’re looking for a good investment.”

  “Isn’t everybody?”

  Chas chuckled. “Yes, but everybody doesn’t have money to invest.”

  “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  “Well, we like to think we have one of the best investments around. However, because of SEC regulations, we’re looking for high net-worth individuals who can afford to take risks. As I’m sure you know, every investment has risks, although we feel ours is safer than most. No one has lost money. I can let you talk to some of our satisfied customers.”

  At least I knew from talking to investment advisors that SEC meant Securities and Exchange Commission, the government investment watchdogs. I was sure, based on what Nelly had said, his reference to the SEC was bullshit. They were hiding from the SEC. They didn’t want most people to know what they were doing. The rest of his pitch was a combination of positive and negative selling.

  He implied that I might not have enough money to invest in the syndicate. I decided to test him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t qualify.”

  “Can you afford to put in a hundred thousand?”

  Nelly had put in ten thousand, according to her. They were upping the ante.

  I didn’t blink, but I wanted to see whether they would bargain. “How about fifty thousand?”

  “I might be able to arrange that.”

  They would take what they could get. “Tell me about it.”

  Chas continued what I was certain was a canned pitch, throwing out words like ROI, capital preservation, and hedging—words that would snow the average person like me. But nothing specific enough to indicate exactly what they were doing. He also put in the statistics about investors doubling their money in six months. I wished I could record what he said and replay it for Adam, my investment advisor in California.

  I pretended to watch him with rapt attention. Finally, he stopped and asked me what I thought.

  “Where do I sign up?�
�

  “How soon can you get us the money?”

  He was serious. “Maybe next week. Do you have a brochure or something I can take with me?”

  Chas smiled. “We don’t want our competitors to get wind of our approach to investing, or they’ll try to imitate us and we’ll lose our advantage. We ask our investors to keep all information confidential.”

  “How about a form to open an account?”

  “We like to work on a handshake. We trust you; you trust us. Of course, we’ll give you a receipt for your money. Where do you live, Aiko?”

  “Azusa.” I threw out the first name that came to me. Grandma liked to watch DVD’s of old Jack Benny shows where the announcer would say a train was leaving for “Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga,” stretching out the first syllable of Cucamonga. It always got a laugh.

  Chas asked me to spell my name for him. He asked for an address. I made one up. Then he told me he’d be right back, excused himself, and left me to finish my food. Nelly came hustling over and sat down beside me. Obviously, she’d been watching us.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “That’s what Chas asked me.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  What should I say to her? I didn’t want to scare her, at least not yet. There was a chance the syndicate was on the up and up, although the more I thought about it the less I believed this was so. I wanted to keep Nelly on my side, because I was wondering if Marcia killed Jason, and she knew—had known—both of them.

  “It sounds very interesting if they can really do what they say they can.”

  “Then you’re going to do it?”

  “I’m not sure. I have to talk to my lawyer about it.” I didn’t like lawyers, but the word had a more impressive ring than “accountant.”

  I tried to steer the conversation to the relationship between Marcia and Jason, but no pearls of wisdom dropped from Nelly’s lips that were of any help in that area. Then I saw Chas approaching—and Marcia was with him. Judging from the look on her face, she wasn’t about to welcome me into the community of syndicate investors. She was carrying the latest hand-held electronic device—one that did everything but eat your breakfast for you.

  Marcia didn’t waste words. “You told Chas you lived in Azusa.”

  I nodded.

  “There’s no record of an Aiko Murakawa living in Azusa.”

  “I have an unlisted number.”

  “I mean the credit bureau has no record of you. If you’re going to invest with us, we need to make sure you have the money.”

  “I moved there recently.”

  “The street address you gave us doesn’t exist.”

  Crunch time. Foiled by modern technology. “I may have gotten the street wrong. As I say, I just moved there.”

  “We’re going to ask you to leave.”

  I had a strong desire to get back at Marcia. What if I took out my British driver’s license in the name of Aiko Murakawa? The license was valid. It was in my wallet in the pocket of my jeans. I would explain I’d just moved here from England. No, it wasn’t worth the hassle. I wasn’t likely to find anything else out tonight.

  I smiled at Marcia to show I was maintaining my cool. I intended to keep my dignity. “I won’t go down the ladder.”

  Nelly looked upset. “Marcia, you can’t just kick her out. Maybe she has the money.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I’m Wonder Woman. Chas, escort Aiko or whatever her name is to the stairway.”

  “That’s fine. I was just leaving, anyway.” I stood and looked at Nelly. “Thanks for your help.” I took off her sweater and handed it to her.

  I walked with Chas to the small room I had seen. He opened the door and, lo and behold, inside was a staircase leading down from the roof.

  CHAPTER 15

  I’d been a bad house guest and a bad girlfriend. I’d promised Rigo I would spend Saturday with him. I intended to keep that promise. I’d gone straight back to the house after the escapade in Venice, but he’d grown tired of waiting for me and was off somewhere else. I spent the rest of the evening with Tina and Ernie, watching a boring movie on their big-screen TV.

  I owed Rigo face time. However, I also needed a favor from him. I broached it to him at Saturday morning breakfast. “We’re going to have a fun day, but first, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Adam on a financial matter, if he’s available. You can come with me.”

  Adam was his best friend from childhood, but Rigo was bent out of shape because I’d opened an account with Adam, who was a financial manager, without telling him. I figured letting Rigo in on this visit would mollify him. Rigo questioned talking to Adam on a Saturday, but I had enough money invested with him that I knew he’d meet me at midnight in a cemetery, as Howard Hughes was supposed to have done with people. As far as whether he’d be up early on a Saturday morning, he had three small children, including a baby.

  ***

  I pulled the Porsche into Adam’s driveway in Palos Verdes. He had a nice house, but not as nice as that of Rigo’s parents, and it didn’t have a view. Rigo hinted that Adam’s parents subsidized him, probably because on the surface Adam looked much more successful than Rigo. We’d phoned ahead, and Adam was expecting us.

  A woman with a baby in her arms opened the door to our ring, and Rigo introduced her to me as Sue, Adam’s wife. She looked harried enough to be the mother of three youngsters, but pretty enough to be the wife of Adam who was a big blond Scandinavian. A couple of other children peered around a corner to see who was there. I gathered all the children were girls.

  She led us to a small room Adam used as an office at home. He was on the phone, apparently with a client, but he waved us to a couple of chairs that looked as if they had just been brought in from a kitchen table. The room was cluttered with books and papers. Its chief feature was a computer Adam worked on as he talked.

  After several minutes he hung up the phone and turned his attention to us. He and Rigo did a complicated high five. When he turned to me with a big smile, I stuck my hand out to keep him from hugging me. There were two reasons I didn’t want him to hug me: Rigo and Sue. He settled for a handshake.

  “Carol,”—he called me Carol even though my accounts with him were in the name of Cynthia Sakai—“why didn’t you tell me you were coming to California?”

  “It was an unplanned visit. The question I have for you today doesn’t have anything to do with my accounts.”

  “I’m always glad to see you. But let’s set up an appointment so we can have an account review at my office.”

  “Maybe in a couple of days. It looks like I’m going to be here for a while. But right now, let me tell you what’s been happening.” I gave a quick recap of what had brought me to California, told him a little about Jason III’s murder, and then gave a summary of the previous evening, which was news to Rigo, also.

  When I talked about the syndicate, Adam started cutting in with questions, but I asked him to hold them until I finished. When I’d described what I knew about it as well as I could, I asked him what he thought.

  “You weren’t really going to invest in it, were you?”

  “No. I was just trying to find out as much about it as I could. It sounded too good to be true.”

  “Just wanted to make sure. Adam’s first rule of investing: If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. I know you’re too smart to fall for something like that. Have you heard of Bernie Madoff?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “He’s a twenty-first century legend. He swindled investors out of billions of dollars using a Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi who was active in 1920. Basically, early investors are paid off with the money from later investors. The perpetrators won’t tell you what they’re investing in because no actual investment takes place. Either that or they rig up phony statements.”

  Rigo’s eyes opened wide. “You’re dealing with a bunch of crooks.”

  I was beginning to see the light. “They paid
the first investors double their original investment after six months. If they continue to do that, they’ll have to double the amount they take in from investors every six months.”

  Adam nodded. “You’re the math whiz, Carol. Tell me what the consequences are.”

  “It’s like the old puzzle where you’re offered a choice of either a million dollars or a chessboard on which will be placed a penny on the first square, two cents on the second, doubling the amount on each of the sixty-four squares. Of course, before you’ve reached the last square you’ll have all the money in the world.”

  ***

  “Are you going to the police?”

  Rigo’s question was a good one. Good enough that I pulled the car over to the curb several blocks from Adam’s house.

  “The problem is, I have no evidence. They didn’t give me anything in writing. Nobody is going to testify against these people. The early investors are happy because they doubled their money, but they don’t want the IRS to know. The current investors are hoping to double their money, but if the police intervened they’d undoubtedly lose their investments. Questioning the investors would be like questioning the brick walls of Jason’s apartment building.”

  “There must be bank accounts—”

  “Sure, but untangling finances isn’t a police job unless people are complaining, and nobody is. However, I do have to make one phone call.”

  I called Nelly on my cell phone. I had no idea how late she’d stayed at the party, but this was important. She answered it after several rings, sounding groggy.

  “Nelly, it’s Aiko.”

  “Aiko?” She sounded surprised. “Is that your real name?”

  I hesitated, and then thought telling the whole truth might make me more credible to her. “My legal name is Cynthia Sakai. I’m Jason’s cousin. I thought I’d find out more if his friends didn’t think I was a relative.”

  “I knew it. What do you want?”

  “Do you know what a Ponzi scheme is?”

  She didn’t. I tried to explain it to her for five minutes. She didn’t believe me when I told her the leaders of the syndicate weren’t investing in anything. She clung to the idea they’d found some sort of magic dart to pick big winners. I told her to ask for her money back and walk away, but she had a million reasons why she couldn’t do that. Chief among them, I suspected, was she wanted to believe in the tooth fairy.