CONCORD
There was an actual working pay phone just across the street from the Cézanne. Jordan swiped his telecarte and, holding a small, creased napkin up to the light, dialed the number.
“Le Pré aux Clercs, bonsoir,” a harried voice answered.
“Michel, s’il vous plaît,” Jordan said.
“Un instant,” and there was a clatter as the receiver was set down and apparently fell to the floor. Jordan felt a strange sense of comfort as the sounds of the brasserie came down the line.
Then there was a loud clattering and fumbling as the phone was retrieved. “Allô?”
“Ça va, con?” Jordan said.
“Ça va, Yanqui.” Without missing a beat.
“I need that favor, Michel,” Jordan said. “It’s a big one. Do you have a pen?”
“Bien sûr.”
* * *
Once you looked, the pattern was obvious. Viceroy Interests was the main player in Genometry stock. And Viceroy had made a killing. They had anticipated every significant announcement or patent with a major play, and always the right one, shorting the stock right before results of an unsuccessful clinical trial were published, or leveraging their position right before a new patent announcement. Viceroy had made tens of millions over the past seven years. It stank. Herron hadn’t ever chased an insider trading case before but this looked like a slam dunk. Follow the money.
But who was Viceroy? The Boston address was a mail drop. Corporate filings indicated a Hong Kong–based office, but according to his contact in the AG’s office, that didn’t mean shit. It took a couple of days and a few old chits but Herron finally traced the actual ownership to a company called Hessians Global. Hessians was privately held, registered in Lichtenstein. It was a brick wall. Herron sat back in his chair and studied the screen. There was something. The connection danced just out of reach.
He grabbed his jacket and took the stairs. He drove an old white Cadillac. Jewish grandmothers, pimps and him. Drove like a motorboat with a flooded bilge. He put on the radio. WEEI. Sports radio, 850. It was a phone-in show, bunch of idiots armchair-managing the Sox.
Paul from Revere (that had to be a joke, right?) called in to say Papelbon was done and they needed to pick up a new closer before the season opened.
He jumped on the pike and headed west. As he left the city behind, the scenery settled into that dull gray low terrain that Herron found so depressing in the winter. Soon spring would come and the hills would explode in the lush green that was the belated reward for one hundred and thirty-three days a year of rain. The chatter of the radio stilled his mind and allowed it to wander aimlessly. He thought about Christine, then tried not to, which just brought her into sharper focus. He supposed he had loved her. Not that it ever would have worked out, anyway. She was never going to be a cop’s wife.
He sped past the Waban exit and saw signs for 128 and 95 North to the Concord Turnpike. Something stirred and shimmered in the darkness. Without his conscious mind taking any part, the Caddy slowed and drifted into the breakdown lane. He pulled the stem in the steering column to turn on the hazards and slid the transmission into Park with a little lurching clunk. He sat quietly as cars whipped by inches away. When trucks passed, the car shuddered. Bits of sand and gravel from passing tires struck Herron’s windshield with a spitting sound.
Concord. Hessians... Jesus. How fucking stupid could he be? He banged the button on the glove compartment until it sprang open. He fished out a pad and wrote down the letters. H E S S I A N S. Then backward. Then the consonants above the vowels. H S S N S, E I A.
There it was. He crossed out the letters one at a time. S H A N I S S E. Shanisse Prenn. The partner’s stepmother. Fuck. No way that’s a coincidence. Hazards still flashing, he pulled back onto the road with a spray of gravel and took the next exit.
* * *
It was completely dark. The air had that quality unique to hotels. It was neither cool nor warm; it had passed through so much ducting and equipment it had been stripped of all traces of terroir. It could have begun as a frigid icy blast from the North Sea, or just as easily as a balmy breeze off the Mediterranean.
Jordan couldn’t remember where he was at first. The clock radio by the bed said 4:38. A small pad of paper illuminated by the pale green numbers bore the crest of l’Hôtel Anne de Bretagne in Rennes. Right.
He’d been dreaming. There had been a boy. His eyes had been opened wide as if he were screaming but his mouth had been completely still. Jordan knew the boy was being chased by someone and was terribly afraid. But he couldn’t remember if he was the boy somehow or if he was the one chasing him. He was on the tipping point of wakefulness. Better to sleep if he could. He pulled his legs into his belly and counted backward from one hundred as his body almost imperceptibly rocked back and forth.