Black Market (11 page)

He thought she would have looked very exciting in it.

“François! What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you,” he whispered. “I heard you had a little trouble. You must tell me everything.”

Isabella Marqueza frowned. “They let me go. What were they going to hold me for, anyhow? They had nothing but a stupid bluff, François.” She smiled, but the expression couldn't conceal a look of worry.

He pressed one gloved hand lightly against her breasts. He could smell Bal a Versailles, her favorite perfume. His as well. Inwardly, inaudibly, he sighed.

“Are you being followed, Isabella?”

“I don't think so.”

“Are you sure?” Monserrat asked.

“As sure as I can be Why?” A troubled look clouded her dark eyes again. He could see her wince. From beyond the door of the dressing room he heard the Christmas Muzak, relentlessly bland and empty of all meaning.

“Good. Good,” he whispered soothingly.

Isabella's mouth fell open and she quickly stepped back against the wall. There was really no place to go in the tiny dressing room. “François, don't you believe me? I told them nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Then why did they let you go, my love? I need an explanation.”

“Don't you know me any better than that? Don't you? Please…”

I know you only too well, François Monserrat thought as he moved closer.

The tiny handgun made an inconsequential, guttural spit. Isabella Marqueza moaned softly, then collapsed on the shiny black-and-white tiles.

Monserrat was already out of the dressing room and walking quickly, inconspicuously, toward the nearest exit.

She'd talked. She'd told them too much. She had admitted knowing him, and that was enough.

She'd been broken during the interrogation, skillfully, in a way she might not even have truly recognized. Monserrat had heard the news not ten minutes after Carroll had finished with her.

He burst into the cold wind that was raking West Fifty-seventh Street. He turned a corner, to all intents and purposes an ordinary man losing himself in the crowds that hunted the spirit of Christmas with red-faced eagerness.

Shiny white cabin cruisers and myriad other expensive ships had begun to haunt the perimeter of lower Manhattan. More than one inflatable rubber boat was tied to the railing of the seawall at the Battery Park City esplanade. In fact, a considerable number of individuals were willing to use the most unorthodox means to return to their Wall Street offices, whether or not such a return was authorized.

Anton Birnbaum appeared live on the “Today” show. The face of the financier was highly familiar, though few could have matched it with an equally familiar name they'd come upon scores of times in newspapers and magazines.

“Neither the American nor the New York Stock Exchange will sell a single share this Monday. NASDAQ, the over-the-counter market automated quotation system, will be down as well. The commodities exchange in New York will not open, nor will the metals exchange. This is complete madness,” he told the early morning viewers.

It got worse.

The regular Monday auction of the United States Treasury bills wouldn't take place. Among the chipped and pocked tombstones of Trinity Church cemetery, no drug dealers would palm out their usual glassine envelopes of cocaine.

No messengers would trudge the streets with even more valuable envelopes filled with securities, valuable stock certificates, multimillion-dollar checks, and legal documents.

None of the all-male luncheon clubs, would serve up their bland, overcivilized fare at Monday noon.

All the usual activities of the Wall Street community would be stillborn. It would be as if the modern money world had not yet been invented. Either that, or it had been completely destroyed.

“I want you to have lunch with me, Mr. Carroll,” Caitlin Dillon had said over the telephone. “Is twelve-fifteen today possible? It's important.”

It was a call that took Carroll completely by surprise. He'd been going through his elaborate back files-sifting through the various terrorist organizations in his search for some clue to Green Band-when the call came. The idea of a civilized lunch with a beautiful woman was the last thing on his mind.

“I want you to meet somebody,” Caitlin had told him.

“Who?”

“A man called Freddie Hotchkiss. He's important on Wall Street.”

She had a rich telephone voice. Music in a tuneless world, Carroll thought, little symphonies coming out of the impersonal Bell system. He put his feet on the desk and tilted his head back against the wall. With his eyes shut, he tried to bring Caitlin Dillon's face firmly into his mind. Untouchable, he remembered.

“Freddie Hotchkiss is connected with a man called Michel Chevron,” Caitlin said.

“The name rings a bell,” Carroll said, trying to place it. “Several bells.”

“The information I have is that Chevron's a wheel in the stolen securities market and-this is what should
really
interest you, Mr. Carroll-there are rumors of a link with François Monserrat.”

“Monserrat?” Carroll opened his eyes. “So why can't we go direct to Chevron? Why go through this Hotchkiss?”

“Do I detect impatience?”

“When it comes to Monserrat, I'm impatient.”

Carroll could hear Caitlin exchange quick words with somebody, and then she said, “The point is that we can't get a direct connection with Michel Chevron unless-and this is a big unless-Hotchkiss is prepared to confirm some of our information. When he does, O'Brien will set up a meeting for you and Chevron just as soon as you can get to Paris -he's got the clout. But, Chevron is a French citizen-unless we get some hard data on him, we'll never get the cooperation of the French police.” Caitlin paused. It made sense, Carroll was thinking. “What I'm saying is that you may have to lean on Freddie Hotchkiss a little. Isn't that the expression the police use?”

“Something like that,” Carroll said, laughing as if there were some intimate conspiracy between them. “I guess I'll see you for lunch.”

Now Carroll loosened his favorite crimson-and-blue school tie before he took the first inviting sip of Sam Smith Pale Ale in the dining room of Christ Cella on East Forty-sixth Street. He found ties uncomfortable, which was one of the reasons he rarely wore them. Actually, he thought neckties pretty much without a purpose, unless you impulsively wanted to hang yourself or get inside some overpriced New York steakhouse.

The restaurant required a dress jacket and respectable tie. Otherwise it was comfortable enough, with something of the atmosphere of a men's club. Besides, it felt damned good to be sitting here with Caitlin Dillon.

Christ Cella's steaks were sixteen ounces at a minimum, choice prime, and aged properly. The lobsters started at two pounds. The waiters were immaculate and subservient, city cool to a fault. For the moment, Carroll was enjoying the hell out of himself. For this moment only, Green Band had receded from his mind. Wall Street might have been on another planet.

“One of the first things I learned in New York is that you have to make the steakhouse a ritual if you're going to survive on Wall Street.” Caitlin smiled across the fading white linen. She'd already told Carroll that she was originally from Lima, Ohio, and he could almost believe it, listening to her unusual perspective of New York City living.

“Even to survive in the SEC, you have to know the conventions. Especially if you're a young ‘gal,’ as a particular brokerage house CEO once called me. ‘I'd like you to meet the new young gal from SEC.’”

She said the last phrase with such casual, twinkling malice, it almost sounded nice.

Carroll started to laugh. Then they both laughed. Heads turned at other tables, staid faces looked around. Was somebody daring to have fun here? Who?

Carroll and Caitlin were waiting for the arrival of Duncan “Freddie” Hotchkiss, who was fashionably late despite the fact that Caitlin had specifically asked him to be on time.

A shrimp cocktail eventually found its way to Carroll's place. The shellfish was perfect and overpriced by at least three hundred percent.

Carroll asked Caitlin about Wall Street-what it was like from her vantage point at the SEC. In answer, Caitlin began regaling him with a few of her favorite horror stories about the Street. She happened to have a treasury of absolutely true, mind-bending stories that circulated in the inner sanctums but were usually not shared with outsiders… for reasons Carroll soon began to fully understand.

“Embezzlement has never been easier on Wall Street,” Caitlin said. Her brown eyes sparkled with dark humor. Carroll thought how easy it would be to fall over the imaginary edge, to drown in those eyes-a very pleasant end indeed.

“The computer makes ‘cooking the books’ an exciting challenge to anyone modestly gifted in the area. Of course, the potential thief has to know the program code and have access to the data bank. In short, he or she must be in a position of absolute trust.

“One young economist we prosecuted worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At twenty-seven he went off and bought a summer house in the Hamptons, then a new Mercedes convertible
and
a Porsche, then a sable coat for his dear mom. Along the way he managed to get in debt close to three-quarters of a million dollars.”

“He's still working for the government?” Carroll finished the second shrimp. “In your story, I mean?”

“He quits Treasury right about this time-for a much better-paying job. Only he takes with him the security access codes that allow him to find out enough to buy or sell on the credit and stock markets. A very, very profitable bit of knowledge. He's got the ultimate on insider trading information… You know how it fell through? His mother called the SEC. She was worried that he was spending all this money without any job she could see. His mother turned him in because he gave her a sable fur.

“There was an outfit called OPM Financial Services-that stood for other people's money, I swear to God. In the seventies, Michael Weiss and Anthony Caputo opened their company over a Manhattan candy store. Along their merry way, Michael and Anthony managed to defraud Manufacturers Hanover Leasing, Crocker National Bank, and Lehman Brothers for about a hundred and eighty million. Don't ever feel bad if you lose a little money on the market. You're in very good company.”

“I'm real lucky in that respect-I don't have any money to lose. Why is it allowed to happen? What about the SEC?”

Carroll was already beginning to feel slightly incensed, though he'd never personally lost a dime on Wall Street. Stocks and bonds and securities had always seemed Olympian things to him, arcane matters in which other classes of people dabbled.

“It's fairly simple, really. As I said in the beginning, these kinds of stories are rarely told outside Wall Street.”

“I'm honored.”

“You should be… The Wall Street banks, the brokerage houses, investment bankers, even the computer companies-they know that the success of their marketplace depends on confidence and trust. If they prosecuted all the embezzlers, if they ever admitted how easy it was, how many stock certificates are actually stolen each year, they'd
all
be out of business. They'd have about the same reputation as used-car salesmen-which some of them
ought
to have… The point is, Wall Street is more afraid of bad publicity than of the actual thefts.”

Suddenly Caitlin was silent.

“Caitlin, will you forgive me? I'm so very sorry.”

Freddie Hotchkiss had finally arrived. It was one o'clock. He was forty-five minutes late for their business lunch.

Carroll looked up and saw a man with thinning blond hair and a ridiculous, innocent grin on his face. He had pale, water-blue eyes and a face as round and as expressionless as a pie tin. He would have looked eight years old if it hadn't been for the lines on his face.

What did they do down on Wall Street? Carroll wondered. Were there genetic laboratories dedicated to the preservation of the pure-blooded, uncontaminated WASP strain? All of them turning out plump little Freddie Hotchkisses?

Caitlin had told Carroll that Hotchkiss was becoming legendary on Wall Street. He was a very hot partner at his firm, a frequent emissary to both the West Coast and Europe -where he had extensive dealings with key European bankers as well as movie moguls.

“Truly sorry about the time.” Hotchkiss looked anything but sorry. “I completely lost track. Roughing it out in the pied-à-terre on Park since the trouble on Friday. Kim and the kids are staying down in Boca Raton, her mom and dad's place. Ah, what exquisite timing you have, sir.”

A Christ Cella waiter had spotted Hotchkiss arriving and had scurried to the table for the all-important drink order. Carroll stared at Hotchkiss. This was a type he wasn't comfortable with and didn't particularly like. Poor bastard had to rough it on Park Avenue. Carroll thought his heart would break.

“I'd like a Kir. Anyone for seconds?” Hotchkiss asked.

“I'll have another Sam Smith.” Carroll was
trying
to be good: no hard liquor, no neat shots of Irish. He was also trying not to say something impulsive, something that might lose him the advantage of surprise with Freddie Hotchkiss. It might be fun, he decided, to lean on this character.

“No, thank you, nothing for me,” Caitlin said.

“Freddie, this is Arch Carroll. Mr. Carroll is the head of the United States Antiterrorist Division. Out of the DIA.”

Freddie Hotchkiss beamed enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, I've read
volumes
about you specialized police folks. The sooner someone can bring a little order and reason to this whole unfortunate affair, the better, I say. I heard yesterday, or maybe I read it somewhere, that there is a Libyan hit team right here in New York. Actually
residing
in Manhattan.”

“I doubt it's the Libyans we're looking for,” Carroll remarked casually. His darker eyes held Hotchkiss's pale blue ones for an extra beat as he sipped his Sam Smith. He was going to attack.

He leaned forward, softly nudging a finger into Freddie's pale blue shirt, seeing a faint expression of surprise float across the man's puffy face. It amazed Carroll that such a face was capable of expression.

“I'd like to cut out the chitchat bullshit, okay? You're an hour late, and we're pressed for time. I have absolutely no personal interest in you, Freddie, you understand that? I don't think I like you, but that doesn't matter. I'm only interested in a man named Michel Chevron.”

“He's not one for small talk, Freddie.” Caitlin threw a quick glance at Carroll, and he thought it was the most intimate thing he'd experienced in years.

Freddie Hotchkiss, meanwhile, seemed to have stopped breathing. He looked down at Carroll's finger sticking in his chest. “I'm not sure… I don't think I understand. I mean, I've heard of Michel Chevron, of course.”

“Of course you have,” Carroll said.

“Tall, austere-looking French gentleman,” Caitlin intervened. “Plush Louis Quatorze offices on rue de Faubourg in Paris. Very affluent digs in the heart of Beverly Hills.”

She flipped open a leather-bound notebook.

“Let me see if I can jog your memory. Mm, oh, yes… on February nineteenth of last year, you visited Michel Chevron's Beverly Hills office. You stayed for approximately two hours. On March third, you visited the Los Angeles offices again. Also on July ninth, July eleventh, July twelfth. In October you visited Chevron's Paris office. You had dinner with Chevron that night at Lasserre. Remember? Can you place him yet?”

Freddie Hotchkiss had slowly begun clasping and unclasping his plump, hairless hands. The watery eyes were even more watery.

“We've known for over two years that Michel Chevron is the largest stolen securities and bond dealer in Europe and the Middle East. We also know he has a personal relationship with François Monserrat,” Caitlin continued. “We know a great deal about your own security-trading abilities as well. Right now we need to know exactly
who
else Chevron deals with, and we need a rough idea of the nature of these deals, a general feel for the Euro-Asian black market. That's why I thought we all should have lunch.” Caitlin Dillon smiled.

Right then, Freddie Hotchkiss found the strength to frown derisively. He began to snap back, to rally strongly.