Transparency

by Charles Royce

  “You’re meeting with Agent Pillsbury tomorrow, right?” Shawn presses the mute button.

  “I am.”

  “I met with her this morning, handed over the flash drives of the 4JFK file. Pillsbury wanted to have a look at them before your meeting.”

  “Thank you.”

  “When’s your meeting?”

  “Seven a.m.”

  “At the FBI?”

  “No.”

  C h a p t e r 3 9

  BETWEEN DUANE AND Thomas Streets on the outskirts of Tribeca, Josh crosses Broadway to the store façade of NyYo Frozen Yogurt. He grabs the pink metallic handle and opens the door. A fluorescent wonderland smacks him in the face.

  Spinning on each wall are dozens of pinwheels, lit from the inside, shooting psychedelic spirals onto the already overly lit interior. Willy Wonka music plays over a beaten-up speaker in the corner next to the stairs, while two young employees dressed in pink polos sit unamused at the front counter.

  “What is this place?” Josh asks.

  “New York Yogurt, how may I help you.”

  Without the lilt, the question was more of a statement—monotone, flat. Neither of the employees’ lips really moved, so Josh has no idea whom to address.

  “So this is a New York business?” Josh realizes his black suit jacket and crisp white shirt must look adrift amidst the cacophony of color. “Have the owners even visited New York?”

  “We used to be everywhere, now there’s just the one,” the female employee says, nose in a book.

  “The FBI is across the street,” the other one says. “They love us. For some reason they never stopped coming, even after the death of frozen yogurt. At least that’s what they say.”

  “The Feds force us to be open in the mornings.” She flips a page. “Morning froyo. It’s a thing.”

  Josh looks at their nametags. Her name is Simone. The other one is Chuck. Combined, their ages have a slight chance of equaling his own.

  “Speaking of FBI, I’m supposed to meet—”

  Chuck points upstairs, says nothing.

  “Thanks, Chuck.” Josh turns toward the stairs.

  “You’re welcome, Josh.”

  “Wait. How did you know my—”

  “We got a full description of you. Would you like to know where you went to college?”

  A FULL SEATING area encompasses the entire second floor of NyYo Yogurt, with maybe eight pink tables in front of him and a bar to his left overlooking Broadway, all empty except for one.

  “You must be Josh,” says the woman in the back, coral polka-dot blouse and tan slacks. After she wipes her face with a napkin, she stands and shimmies forward, the girth of her body parting the table and chairs around her. The resulting scraping along the floors is accompanied by screeching noises, which seems to delight her, as she claps her hands in the air all the way toward him. “Oh my goodness, it’s so nice to finally meet you.”

  Josh accepts her hug. “You too. I’m a hugger as well. Oh, wow, this is a good one.”

  She squeezes once more before release. “Mmh. You are even more handsome in person.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Patsy Pillsbury,” she reaches her hand out. “But most people just call me Agent Pillsbury. Something about the alliteration bothers them.”

  “Josh Harrison.” He shakes her hand. It’s sticky. “May I call you Patsy?”

  “No.” She turns around, walks back to her seat. “Come. Sit. Talk. Did you get you some yogurt?”

  “I don’t eat breakfast usually.” Josh wipes his hands on his suit pants. “Interesting place to meet, Agent Pillsbury.”

  “It’s close, it’s delicious, it’s private.” She settles in, puts her elbows on the table, her hands underneath her chins. “Did you watch Mr. James West last night on the telly?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did. Disaster.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ. You saw him trying to weasel his way out of some tough questions, as did I, but the general public and the media saw it quite differently.”

  Josh cocks his head. “How so?”

  “Élan’s stock is primed to open higher this morning. Most everyone on the socials is all about him sticking up for himself. They loved it. Some even felt sorry for him.” She pauses, lifts her head up in the air as if she’s just been possessed, flicks her two fingers up and down like she’s searching a rolodex. “CNN, FOX, Drudge, oh, here’s a Huffington Post video. Headline reads ‘West Sears Critics,’ subline reads ‘He’s not wrong. Allow us to debunk all the accusations and speculation in sixty seconds.’”

  “Sonofabitch. You’re kidding me.”

  “No, no. No cursing. Please. I know it’s common here in New York, but I loathe it. And wipe that goofy look off your face. This is good for us. We need West to keep doing what he’s doing. I thought y’all knew that.”

  “Yes, but he needs to be put away.”

  Agent Pillsbury laughs, ends with a soft snort. “Oh, please, we’ve had him in our sights for years. Cybercrime times—”

  Josh watches her go into a trance again. This time she swipes in the air like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

  “—one, two, three, four, and with the evidence from your flash drives, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—”

  Josh grabs her hand and pushes it down out of the air. “I get it.”

  “Umm.” She jerks her hand away. “It’s how I keep track. You try having a photographic memory, see how you access the files.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We could put him away right now if we wanted to.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s bigger fish to fry.” She grabs a spoon, scrapes it along her empty cup. “That’s where you come in.”

  “Bigger fish than West? He runs the entire thing.”

  “I beg to differ again. There’s an organization that has infiltrated Élan and taken over. Back when Élan was young—new, successful, up-and-coming, profitable—West needed the guidance, sold a chunk of the company to foreign investors. Now these new investors seem to be running the show. West caters to their every whim.”

  “A company within a company.”

  “Eh, kind of. It’s more like a company board. They have meetings and stuff. They even gave themselves a name.”

  “Who are these outside investors?”

  “That’s the question.” She licks the melted milk off her spoon. “The paperwork points to some shell company hidden under many, many layers that are impossible to untangle.”

  “God.”

  “We don’t know much about these investors or this organization-slash-board they’ve encapsulated within Élan, just some testimony from a former employee who was shipped overseas last month. Kayla. Lovely woman, lives in Barbados now with her two children, Max and Sloan, ages twelve and eight. They bought a pirate ship, started taking people around the island. Music at sunset, snorkeling, the works.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Caribbean Something. Hold on, I’ll find it.” Her head pops up, her eyes shifting back and forth like a typewriter.

  “Not the pirate ship,” Josh says. “What’s the name of the organization that took over Élan?”

  “They call themselves CAAD, C-A-A-D, stands for Coalition Against Acquisitional Dominance. An oxymoron from what I can tell. Apparently, the foreign investors came in, planted their own people within Élan. These people then advised on what acquisitions the organization should take over based on empirical data and company fit. They painted themselves as experts in the field of mergers and acquisitions, outlining best practices so the company could increase their market share in key areas while never becoming too big to fail.”

  “I thought too big to fail was a positive thing.”

  “Federal oversight? Government breathing down your neck? Nobody wants that, especially an organization like CAAD, which has worked with West to break almost every law in the book. By using worst practices to buy up all these media companies
, they’ve actually helped West achieve just the opposite of their goal—Élan is now too big to fail. They’ve all been in a mad dash to stabilize so the government doesn’t step in.”

  “That’s why West agreed to Tracy’s interview so quickly.”

  “Exactly. He’s out of control. So is Élan. Because stock in Élan has been so volatile, we think CAAD may be pushing West out. They may have given up on both him and the company, shifted to something much more sinister. They have ulterior motives; always have, if you ask me.”

  “Like what?”

  “In addition to financial motivations, like dividends and deferred profit sharing, which has stalled as of late, we’ve been hearing chatter about a plan. A plan that involves your grand opening. We can’t figure out the details, and the few we do have are classified.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Josh says. “West sold a chunk of his company to outside investors, who buy up companies like Élan to not only reap the benefits of profit sharing but also to further their own agenda.”

  “Uh-huh. Companies that give them access to what they ultimately want. The profit sharing is a bonus.”

  “And to further their own agenda, these foreign investors then infiltrated their own people within Élan. You’re saying there are actual people masquerading as Élan staff, people who took over the board and are now making decisions in their best interest, regardless of what James West feels is right for the company?”

  “Right. Keep going.”

  “Now you think the company board, who call themselves CAAD, is now pushing West out to further a more sinister agenda.”

  “Yes.”

  “Man! Who are they? I mean, to go through all that, they sound like some sort of terrorists from some country that absolutely hates us.”

  “Classified.”

  “That’s fuc—sorry, that’s freaking scary as heck.” Josh wipes the sweat from his brow.

  “The truth is we only have a bird’s-eye view of their plan. We don’t know the names or locations of the key players, the foreign investors West is working with, or their motivations. That’s why we need your help.”

  “Why me? Why not go to West?”

  “We don’t want to spook them. He’s loyal to these investors. My guess is they have something on him. Either that, or he’s a twit. From what we know of West, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

  “True.”

  “When West brought in this foreign entity, he was instantly in over his head. He did what he always does. The West Way. He hired the best, let them do their thing. He culled some of his own executives from different parts of Élan to join CAAD; I’m not sure why. Deniable culpability is what I’m guessing.”

  “I don’t know anyone in CAAD.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “You think?”

  She throws him an are you kidding me glance—tilted head, tilted lip pucker. “Apparently, after West and all his recruits started working heavily with CAAD, the whole exercise turned into some sort of paranoia perestroika. The investors didn’t trust West, West didn’t trust the investors. West thought his employees were working directly with the investor-placed members of CAAD, CAAD thought its members were working with West. Why else do you think all his employees were being watched?”

  “I thought it was because of the Pub Wars.”

  “You still think this is about magazine publishing? Pfft.”

  “Then what’s it about? Ultimately?”

  “Money. Power. Politics. Persuasion.”

  “Jesus. So we need to figure out who’s in this CAAD? That’s all you need my help with, right?”

  Agent Pillsbury nods. “We’ve started a list. So far we have about eight people, possibly nine. We think it goes much deeper.”

  “But that’s just the Élan folks, right? I mean, we need to figure out who’s running it, who the masqueraders are, the ones wanting to push West out.”

  “Exactly.” She points her spoon at him.

  “That’s why you need me to infiltrate.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Where do they meet?”

  “CAAD? They meet in some weird part of the building, in a se—”

  “The secret floor. I knew it!” Josh drumbeats his hands on the table.

  “You still have access to this floor, correct? Is that what the key is for, the one I keep hearing about from Shawn, the one with the lights?”

  “Yes, the key is actually the SSD, but there’s no way I can access that floor without getting caught. Once you swipe it, it logs you into a computer onsite. They’d know it was me.”

  “You have to get in there. West is already at the new building, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re still working at the old one.”

  “Yes.”

  “When are you talking with West?”

  “As far into the future as I can.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Talk to him as soon as you move into the new building.”

  Josh takes a deep breath. “I can commit to that. That’ll give me at least a week to settle back in.”

  “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do.”

  “Do I get to wear a wire?”

  “Ha! We’re not at that stage. Yet.” She puts her empty cup down. “Before we keep talking, I’m going downstairs for another yogurt—chocolate, I’m thinking. You sure you don’t want one?”

  “I’m sure.”

  C h a p t e r 4 0

  HAYLEE PUTS HER pint of chocolate-fudge ice cream back in the freezer. She licks her spoon, tosses it in the sink.

  Shawn notices. “Morning cravings?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t even that good,” Haylee says. “I can’t tell what I’m hungry for anymore.”

  Shawn puts his iPad in his briefcase, drinks the last sip of his coffee. “I’m off to work.”

  “Going to see Jenna again?”

  “Not today, just some normal catch-up stuff at the office.”

  “How is Jenna doing, by the way?” Haylee maneuvers her growing belly underneath the counter as she sits down on a barstool.

  “Not very good. Josh still hasn’t come to see her, even after we all FaceTimed the other day.” He washes out the coffee cup, talking a little louder to compensate for the faucet. “It’s pretty special the bond they have, I can’t understand why Josh won’t go see her. You think he thinks Jenna is guilty?”

  “I don’t know, honey. You think she’s guilty.”

  “No, I don’t,” Shawn says, puts his coffee cup on the drying rack. “Well, let’s just say I’m coming around.”

  “Speaking of bonding, I emailed with Micah today. He’s taking some detours before Corsica; I think he’s in Paris right now.”

  “You love Paris. How’s he doing?”

  “Great, he says. He asked me to check on his condo. So this afternoon I’m gonna head over to the Garfield Building, make sure everything’s okay, meet the broker, see if we can get it listed on MLS.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, my love.” He puckers his lips.

  Her lips meet his. “That’s some good shit, Mr. Connelly.”

  “Careful, that’s how we got in this predicament to begin with.” He points to her belly, then heads toward the front door.

  She looks at his flat butt in his wool slacks. “I do like to watch you go.”

  “This thing?” He shakes his ass, closes the door.

  C h a p t e r 4 1

  “WHAT BRINGS YOU up here?” the man asks. “I’ve seen you around the other office.”

  Josh senses the man is flirting.

  Josh would call West’s temporary assistant a pocket gay: about five foot two, dark hair, thin face, flawless skin. He talks with a slight lisp, walks in a confident saunter.

  Josh follows the young man through the new space, the penthouse of the North Tower. The offices along the window are all made of glass, no curtains or blinds. Illustrations of Greek mythology ar
e etched into each office door, a different glass god for each executive—Poseidon, Aphrodite, Medusa. The center area is filled with black metal and plexiglass desks, accented in tigerwood. Each employee can see the other no matter where they are. So can the cameras.

  Josh has been up here before during an interior walk through but isn’t accustomed to seeing actual people in the space. To him, the executive floor seems electric, jumpstarted by eager New Yorkers anxious to enjoy the new space after months of construction delays. Josh wonders if any of them know their world is about to come crashing down.

  “My team is moving in today, but I’m sure I’ve seen you before, too, maybe at the other building.” Josh walks behind him. “Hey, your name isn’t Reagan, is it?”

  “If you want to know my name, just ask.” The young man winks.

  Yep, he’s flirting.

  “But it’s not Reagan, right?” Josh asks. “West said he had an assistant named Reagan.”

  “Close, kind of. It’s Reed. Maybe Reagan was before me?”

  “Josh here. It’s nice to meet you.” He holds his palm out to shake Reed’s hand, but it’s already on James West’s doorknob.

  “Mr. West, I have Josh Harrison to see you.” Reed allows Josh in, then closes the door behind him.

  West is looking out the window to his left. The new Élan logo is on a wire, swinging violently as it makes its way to its roost on the Center Tower. Two men are on a window-washing ledge trying to guide it into position just below the roof deck.

  Josh takes a moment to look around.

  Quite the contrast from his office at the old building, he thinks.

  West’s souvenirs from his African travels are gone, replaced by abstract artwork in blacks, whites, and reds, with the occasional wood tones to break up the Nazi color scheme. No more ebony and ivory trinkets, no more huge elephants made of soapstone, no photographs of Kilimanjaro or the African tundra.

  Josh looks at the back of the door. A relief of a mother and child takes up the entire space. “Who’s this?”

  West turns. “That’s Plutus. Not the woman. The child. The great Plutus is said to have brought enormous wealth to ancient Greece. I picked him, but honestly, I don’t know much else. Zeus blinded him; I forget why. The interior folks explained it to me, but it didn’t stick.”