forty-four

After talking to Frank, I called Zack, hoping he could shed some light on why Dan was digging around in Fletcher Levin’s past. Zack said he could meet at his office that afternoon. An hour later, Nigel, Skippy, and I were ushered into a conference room on the forty-first floor of the World Trade Center. The receptionist, a sleek young woman named Chloe, told us that Zack would be with us momentarily and asked if we’d like any coffee. We told her we did. “But none for Skippy, here,” said Nigel. “It keeps him up at night.”

Chloe nodded as if this made perfect sense. “I’ll be just a moment,” she said with a brisk nod. She turned and glided from the room on a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes that probably retailed for more than my first car. Nigel and I took a seat at a long glass table. In front of us, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out at the city below. A minute later, Zack came into the room. “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Martini,” he said as he took a seat at the table. “How can I help you?”

“It seems that Dan was trying to find out something about Fletcher Levin. He borrowed money from a loan shark a few years back, which does seem odd. Do you know what Dan was looking for?”

Zack pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned his arms on the table. He frowned as he considered the question. “I wonder if it could have had anything to do with that play he was involved in,” he said after a few minutes.

“What play?” I asked.

Chloe returned just then with a tray of coffee. She set the tray down and handed Nigel and me our cups. “Thank you, Chloe,” Zack said.

“Of course, Mr. Weems,” she answered. “Incidentally, the IT guys are here to install the new software you requested. They need your passcode to proceed.”

“Oh, sure,” said Zack. “It’s 62442.”

Chloe smiled. “62442,” she repeated. “Got it. Thanks.”

Chloe left, and I grinned at Zack. “Please tell me you created that code,” I said.

Zack looked at me in surprise. “I did,” he said with a shy smile. “You’re the first person who got it.”

Nigel looked at both of us blankly. “What am I missing?” he asked.

“It’s the entrance code for the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter,” I said. “If you use a telephone pad, the numbers spell out MAGIC.”

Nigel just stared at me. “Of course they do,” he said. “How silly of me not to have known that.”

I laughed and turned back to Zack. “Don’t mind Nigel,” I said. “He’s a Muggle.”

Zack tried to hide his smile as Nigel rolled his eyes. “You were telling us about Fletcher’s play?” Nigel prompted.

Zack nodded and pushed his glasses back up again before answering. “A few years ago, Fletcher was asked to invest in a production of Hitchcock’s North-By-Northwest,” he said. “There was a lot of buzz about the play and the rumor was that the big chase scene through the cornfield was going to make the helicopter scene in Miss Siagon look primitive. But a production like that needs a lot of money and Fletcher said he knew of some other investors who might be interested in the play. An agreement was eventually reached in which Fletcher would round up the other investors in exchange for a kind of finder’s fee.”

“Is that standard practice?” Nigel asked.

Zack shrugged. “It’s not unheard of. In any case, Fletcher found two overseas investors who agreed to fund the play. However, while Fletcher got his fee, the investors never produced the money. One of them died under rather mysterious circumstances and the other had his assets frozen in some government tax dispute and purportedly fled his country and disappeared. People began to wonder if Fletcher hadn’t made up the investors, as he was the only one who ever had any direct contract with them. Dan said he’d found some documents that seemed to indicate that that’s exactly what Fletcher had done. That was going to be one of his stories for the book.”

I stared at Zack in surprise. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Dan wanted Fletcher to invest with him in producing a new play. Why would he risk pissing him off?”

Zack shifted in his seat and gave a noncommittal shrug. I slotted this info in with what I already suspected. “Did Dan tell Fletcher that he was going to include that story if Fletcher didn’t invest in his play?” I asked. “Could he have been using it as leverage?”

Zack gave a resigned nod. “I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but I think he might have.”