To Catch a Bad Guy (11 page)

“Thank you, Jon.” Paul
blushed. “That’s very generous of you…”

“It’s settled then.
Shall we say next Thursday?”

“Yes, well, I’d like to
run it by Lisa first.”

It took Jon all his will
not to smack Paul on the head. What a sniveling blob his brother was! “Just
take charge, Paul. I’m sure Lisa will appreciate the surprise.”

“Oh, well, all right
then. Thank you, Jon.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll
see you soon, brother.”

Before heading back to
his office, Jon decided to swing by the legal department – he remembered the
directions well from his previous altercations with the firm’s previous general
counsel, Rossingram. Jon was sure glad to have gotten rid of the old goat, but
now he was experiencing a déjà vu with a young female version of Rossingram.

On his way to Lisa
Foley’s office – the office that old Rossingram used to occupy - Jon passed by
Janet Maple’s office. He saw the girl hunched over the client folders, which
were strewn all over her desk.

“Hello, Lisa.” Jon
knocked lightly on the door of Lisa’s office.

Lisa perked up behind
her desk. “Hello, Jon. What a pleasant surprise. What brings you to this neck
of the woods?”

“Oh, I just wanted to
say hello to my future sister-in-law.” Jon swooped over to Lisa’s desk and
planted a kiss on her cheek. While performing this familial gesture, Jon shot a
quick glance at Lisa’s computer screen, which had Saks Fifth Avenue’s website
on it. Jon smiled. At least he did not have to worry about Lisa Foley’s zeal –
only when it came to her spurring Paul to become a business mogul.

“Thank you, Jon. That
is so sweet of you!” Lisa flashed an embarrassed glance at her computer screen.

“And I wanted to tell
you that we’ll be having a company party for you and Paul next Thursday at
BLT.”

“That sounds great,
Jon. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Great. That’s all I
had to say. And by the way, how’s Janet Maple working out?”

“Wonderful, just
wonderful. I asked her to look at the client forms for the upcoming SEC audit.
I only wanted her to check the general wording, but she’s actually gone further
to check the forms we have on file to make sure all the documentation is
complete.”

“Ah, personal
initiative – I like it. And by the way, did she sign all the new employment
paperwork?”

“I’m sure she did. I’ll
double check with HR.”

“Great. Thank you,
Lisa.”

As Jon turned his back
to Lisa to exit her office, the smile left his face. If there was one thing he
detested, it was employees who poked their noses into matters they had no
business in.

Seated behind the desk
of his home office, which really was not an office at all but a nook with a
desk crammed into it in his tiny studio apartment in Soho, Dennis Walker peered
at his computer monitor. Finally, he had struck gold. The data Dennis was
examining was a breakdown of commission revenue from Bostoff Securities’
clients. It had taken Dennis a while to get access to the data. The accounting
system was protected by intricate encryption software, but after several
coaching sessions with IT specialists at the Treasury, Dennis was able to get
through. The first few rows of the commissions did not indicate anything out of
the ordinary, but as Dennis scrolled down the report, several numbers caught
his attention. Emperial, Creaton, Rigel, Gemini, and Sphinx were being charged
almost triple the going rate. All of these hedge funds were known for their so
called aggressive investment policies, which really meant using collusion and market
manipulation to reap high returns. There had to be a reason why Bostoff was
charging these clients excessive commission, and Dennis was determined to get
to the bottom of it.

There was a reason why
Dennis was good at catching the bad guys: he had once been one of them. It had
been an inadvertent mistake that had cost him his securities licenses. Such was
the deal that Dennis had struck with the authorities for helping them bring
down Vitaon, a corrupt hedge fund Dennis had foolishly accepted an employment
offer from for a position of a trader. That had been five years ago, but there
had not been a day that Dennis did not regret the wrong turn he had made in his
career.

The son of a hotel
manager and a grade school teacher from Park City, Utah, Dennis had grown up
dividing his time between skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the
summer. Somewhere in there school fitted in. Despite his mother’s occupation,
studies had not been important to Dennis in his early years, but that had
changed later. Once he turned fourteen, Dennis started making an extra buck by
working at the ski resort in the winter and caddying in the summer. Overhearing
conversations between tourists from cities like New York and Chicago made Park
City seem small, and Dennis started thinking about what life was like in other
places. His studies became important then, as Dennis realized that if he wanted
to do anything other than work in the service industry, college was his way
out. Since his parents could not afford to pay tuition, scholarship was the
only option.

When Dennis turned
sixteen, his father got him a part-time job as a bellboy at the five-star hotel
in Deer Valley in which Dennis’s father had worked as a reception desk manager
for close to fifteen years. Dennis’s elder brother had just started his first
year at the same hotel as a full-time employee, and Dennis’s father saw no
reason why Dennis should not follow his brother’s suit. Hauling luggage and
opening doors for the hotel’s guests strengthened Dennis’s resolve that much
more. He was always courteous and diligent in his tasks, but deep inside he
despised his job. By now his plan to leave Park City had acquired a definitive
shape. He was going to go into finance. From the scraps of conversations that
Dennis overheard at the hotel, he learned that a large part of the guests
occupied positions in finance; there were also private business owners and
corporate executives, but the finance people always booked the most expensive
rooms, had the latest ski equipment, and the prettiest women with them.

In his senior year of
high school, Dennis spent most of his time behind books. He subscribed to the
Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Gradually, the articles he read started to make
sense. He continued to work at the hotel a few hours a week for his pocket
expenses, as his father did not believe in giving his kids an allowance. That
winter Dennis happened to deliver luggage to the penthouse suite rented by
Terrance Stanton. The name of the guest stood out in Dennis’s mind immediately:
he had spotted it in a Forbes article only a few weeks ago. Having served as a
senior executive at numerous high-profile financial firms, Terrance Stanton had
just been recruited as the CEO of Rossman Grozling, a major investment bank.
Terrance Stanton was also a generous supporter of many charitable causes,
including the famous four-year scholarship he awarded to several lucky students
every year. Dennis had applied for the scholarship, but had yet to hear the results.
As he wheeled the luggage cart in Mr. Stanton’s suite, Dennis could feel his
heart beating wildly. Most likely nothing would come out of it, but he was
going to at least try. Before knocking on the door, Dennis straightened his
uniform and puffed out his chest. As he had read in various ‘how to succeed’
books, personal appearance was the first thing people noticed about a person.
Then Dennis rang the bell.

A woman so incredibly
beautiful that Dennis had lost his ability to speak opened the door. She was in
her early twenties, about five ten, with lanky legs, deep blue eyes, and long,
blond hair. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a tunic of see-through
material, under which Dennis glimpsed a lacey black bra.

“Come on in,” the
blonde said.

With a tremendous
effort of will, Dennis recovered. “Thank you, ma’am. Where would you like the
bags?”

“The foyer is fine.”

Dennis lowered his eyes
as he wheeled in the luggage. One more glance at the siren and his pants were
bound to become dangerously tight.

“Terry, give the boy a
tip, will ya?” The stunning beauty cast Dennis a bewildering smile before she
disappeared in another room of the suite.

Just as Dennis finished
offloading the last bag, a gentleman appeared in the hallway. Dennis recognized
Terrance Stanton instantly from the photo he had seen on the scholarship
application brochure. At fifty, Terrance Stanton had the lean, trim body of a
man who exercised regularly. His strong features – a straight nose and firmly
set lips - were accented by his pepper-gray hair, which was brushed back.

“Here you go, kid.”
Terrance gave Dennis a twenty dollar bill.

The generous tip set
Terrance apart from the majority of the guests who, despite their wealth, were
often stingy.

“Thank you, sir.”
Dennis bowed slightly. “And if I may, congratulations on your new job.” Dennis
held his breath. He had gone out on a limb, and the result could turn out to be
disastrous. But Dennis was not kept in suspense for long. When he saw the smile
on Terrance Stanton’s face, he knew he had made the right move.

Terrance nodded
approvingly. “I see you follow the world of finance. What’s your name?”

“Dennis, Dennis Walker,
sir.”

“And what do you plan
on doing with your life, Dennis Walker?”

If the question had
come from anyone else, Dennis would have been annoyed, but now he was extremely
flattered.

“I plan to go on to
college and major in Finance, sir – I’ve applied to five schools.”

“Oh, yeah? What
schools?”

“Princeton, Duke,
Harvard, Yale, and University of Utah.”

“Good choices.”
Terrance grinned. “But those are expensive schools and hard to get into. What’s
your GPA?”

“Three point nine,
sir.” Literature had been the reason for Dennis’s not having a four point zero
GPA. He simply did not have the patience for words. Numbers were his game.

“Impressive. Any
extracurricular activities?”

“I’m on the town’s ski
racing team, my school’s debate team, and I’m also chair of the finance
society, which I’ve started, sir.”

Terrance whistled. “Do
you know that I run a scholarship fund?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve applied,
sir, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“We’ll be sending out
responses soon.” Terrance scratched his chin.

Just then a golden lab
retriever bounced into the foyer, followed by the blonde Dennis had admired
earlier.

“He doesn’t listen to
me, Terry!” The blonde complained. “We’ve got to get somebody to walk him while
we’re here.”

“You just have to be
firm with him, Cindy. Stand your ground.” Terrance whistled to the dog. “Here,
boy. Come here.”

But rather than heeding
his master’s orders, the dog wagged his tail at Dennis and started to nuzzle
his hands.

“I’m sorry I don’t have
any treats, boy.” Dennis petted the dog. Ever since he was a kid, dogs had
always liked him.

“He likes you.”
Terrance grinned. “Say, you wouldn’t be interested in making an extra buck
walking Grover, would you? I’ll pay ten bucks an hour.”

“Thank you, sir. I
could definitely use the money, sir.”

“Great, you start right
now.” Terrance Stanton thrust a dog leash into Dennis’s hands. “And take your
time: he needs an hour walking time every day.”

“Yes, sir.” Dennis put
the leash on Grover and hurried out the door. From the way Terrance was eyeing
Cindy, it was clear that the reason he wanted Dennis to take his time walking
the dog was not Grover’s wellbeing – at least not primarily.

For the ten days that
Terrance Stanton stayed at the resort, Dennis walked his dog, but the initial
cordiality that Stanton had shown to Dennis had been a one-time occurrence.
Upon all the encounters that had taken place between them after, Terrance
maintained a demeanor of polite and superior indifference. By the end of
Stanton’s stay, Dennis was regretting his agreement to walk the dog. Sure, the
money would come in handy, but his dignity was worth more than a hundred bucks.
Dennis had agreed to Terrance’s offer because he had hoped to ingratiate
himself into getting a scholarship – a foolish plan, he now understood, but it
was too late now. His winter break had been wasted on walking Stanton’s dog,
and his friends, along with his brother, seemed to have an unending supply of
jabs to dig at him for being a dog walker.

In the spring, Dennis
received his acceptance letters. He had gotten into all the colleges he had
applied to. Most awarded him scholarships, but those were not full
scholarships, and University of Utah was the only option that would be fully
paid for. Then, a few weeks later, just as he was about to send in his
admission acceptance, Dennis received a letter from Stanton scholarship fund
stating that he had gotten a full scholarship for four year tuition at any
school that he chose to attend. The choice was easy: Dennis decided on
Princeton, which was Stanton’s alma mater.

During freshman
orientation at Princeton, Dennis was not surprised to see Stanton as one of the
speakers. The man was one of the most honored alums of the school, but Dennis
was surprised to see Stanton approach him during the reception afterwards.

“I’m glad to see that
you chose the right school, Dennis.” Terrance greeted him.

“Thank you, sir. If it
had not been for your generosity, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Nonsense, Dennis.
You’ve worked hard, and if you continue the same way, you will reap the
rewards.”

Stanton’s prophecy
turned out to be true. Dennis did succeed, at least for a while. Stanton became
Dennis’s mentor of sorts. They did not have standing meetings or anything of
the kind, but Stanton did get Dennis a summer internship at Rossman Grozling’s
offices in New York while Dennis was in college, and he even arranged for a
room and board for him in the corporate housing. When Dennis graduated, he was
hired by Rossman Grozling as a first-year analyst and began working through the
ranks on a trading desk. The first year had been brutal, as Dennis worked
eighty hour weeks. His duties ranged from getting the senior traders their breakfasts
and coffee to doing the grunt work that was too dirty for the senior guys. He
also studied for his securities licenses exams, which he passed on the first
try.

The second year was
much better. Gradually, Dennis started getting more meaty tasks, which gave him
a chance to implement his understanding of the market. The market movements
were like music to him: as he sat before his Bloomberg screen, eyeing the
trading activity on all the world’s exchanges, Dennis saw a pattern that could
bring in millions of dollars in profits. All of his ideas were vetted by a
senior trader, but Dennis still got the credit for generating record revenues
as a junior associate.

Dennis repeated his
success year after year, and three years later he was promoted to Vice President.
Money was pouring in, and Dennis upgraded his lifestyle accordingly by moving
out of the apartment he shared with a roommate in Hell’s Kitchen into a swanky
loft in a luxury building in Battery Park, which was only a ten-minute walk
from his job. With the hours he worked, he could not waste any time on
commuting. And then there were women… Dennis was not vain, but he was fully
aware of his good looks. From his early teens, members of the female sex had
found him attractive. The guys on the trading desk took Dennis to exclusive New
York clubs frequented by models and starlets. At first, there was a nameless
succession of beauties, but when he turned twenty-seven, Dennis zeroed his
attention on Vanessa Cleary. Vanessa was a model and an aspiring actress: her
resumé included a variety of commercials, but she was determined to get on the
big screen someday. She had long legs, sandy-blond hair, and eyes as blue as
the sky. She was the kind of girl Dennis Walker of Park City, Utah never
imagined he would be with. It was not long before Dennis asked Vanessa to move
in with him. He upgraded his apartment to a two-bedroom, and the two settled
into a blissful life. Dennis was rarely home during the week, but weekends with
Vanessa more than made up for his grueling days.