You’d think imminent arrest for a forty-million-dollar fraud might slow a guy down, but nope, there he was, wandering out of Bazookas at midnight. By himself, conveniently. I’d been one step behind for twenty hours, chasing Hayden Pen-nerton across the hedge fund demimonde: Greenwich estate to Park Avenue offices to midtown soju bar to East Village nightclub, and numerous meetings between. Finally, long after dark, back to Connecticut—stopping off at a strip club on the way home, like it was any other workday.
Hayden was so obvious a flight risk I couldn’t believe the Stamford PD wasn’t standing in line.
A dozen college boys got out of their cars, dome lights glowing and radios blaring as they slammed the doors. Light traffic passed on Richmond Hill Avenue. The parking lot was well lit, the air warm for early October.
The sort of night you felt comfortable, at ease. Safe.
“Hey,” I said, friendly like, when Hayden walked past. “How are the girls inside?”
“Easy on the eyes.” He was thirty-six, gym fit, not too drunk and a Master of the Universe. What did he have to fear from me? “Nice, too.”
“I hate wasting my money, you know what I mean?”
I was no older than him, respectably dressed in gabardine and button-down. My knockoff Breguet was good enough to pass. Hayden saw what he expected to see: another rich asshole, a man of his world.
“The way I figure it,” he said, “cash money is never wasted on a naked woman.”
“Truth.”
The Yalies disappeared inside, pulling out their fake IDs. For a moment we had the parking lot to ourselves.
“May I?” I stepped up to Hayden, locked his right arm nice and smooth and put the Sig into his side.
He froze.
“I’m pointing this away from me,” I whispered, about six inches from his face. “If I pull the trigger, half your internal organs splatter the pavement.”
“What—?”
“To your car, please. Silver-gray Audi S5, right?”
“You’re fucking jacking me?”
“No,” I said. “Beep the remote on your keychain.”
That was tradecraft—give someone a small illusion of control, and he’ll be more willing to go along. It also occupied his free hand, inside his pants pocket. If he expected to drive, which always seems to happen in the movies, so much the better.
We edged over to the Audi. Too much tension in Hayden’s muscles. He said nothing, but his breathing shortened, and the movement I could feel in his arm was too obvious.
“The door,” I said.
He leaned forward, opening a little space between us, then twisted, shoved and broke the armlock.
All much faster than I expected.
“Shit.” I stepped back, even as he swung a pretty nice left. By luck or design the punch struck the median nerve, right below my shoulder. A shock wave of pain down my arm, and I dropped the pistol. Oops.
I guess he was a gym rat.
Hayden jabbed again, then crossed. I blocked but the blows hurt. This was taking far too long.
“Gonna fuck you up now!” Grinning, teeth bared.
“Right,” I said, waiting for his footwork to align. The instant it did, I kicked him sharply in the knee. He stumbled, face going white. I slipped inside, punched his sternum—hard—and followed with an elbow in the neck. He whooshed and fell backward, onto the Audi’s hood.
I picked up the pistol, flexing my other hand. It hurt.
At least no one had seen us.
A minute later Hayden was more or less conscious again, groaning in the back seat. I’d flexicuffed his ankles together and his wrists to the steel bucket seat supports, one on each side of the car. This left him leaning forward, arms locked out and down, his torso bent over his knees. The position made it hard for him to breathe in fully, and therefore hard to yell.
Not that I was worried about noise. Audi soundproofing is top-notch. I sat in the passenger seat, keeping the handgun in sight.
“Just to be clear,” I said. “I don’t want your wallet or your house keys or this car—though the leather is very comfortable.” It had that new-car smell, even over Hayden’s sweat.
He grunted and glared.
“This conversation could have gone much easier, you know?”
No response.
“Oh well.” I tapped him on the nose with the gun barrel. “I represent one of your investors. He wants to remain anonymous, so I’ll just call him Mr. Green.”
Another labored grunt.
“‘Green’ for the best kind of negotiable instrument, get it?” I allowed a demented chuckle. “No?”
It helps if they think you’re crazy.
Hayden finally spoke. “What do you want?”
“Mr. Green is unhappy.”
“What does he want?” Considering his position, Hayden was more defiant than most sensible people would be. I shook my head.
“Mr. Green has become distressed by rumors of a liquidity crisis in your operations.”
“Hey, that’s all bullshit.”
“Oh? That leak from the Manhattan DA’s office was solid enough for the New York Times. How many counts in the indictment—twelve, was it?”
“She’s up for reelection. What do you expect?”
I thought about hammering his skull with the Sig. “In any event, Mr. Green has decided to accelerate his redemption request.”
“Think of it as clawback.” A term of art, referring to the mandatory return of compensation paid on a deal that later goes bad. Sometimes the claw part is literal. “Mr. Green is now at the very front of your creditor queue.”
I swear, you could see the gears grinding. But when Hayden finally spoke, he was way out in the tall grass.
“Which fund?”
“Which fund?” It was true Hayden’s little shop ran three or four different investment vehicles, but I had to laugh. “Let me explain something. Making the proper journal entry is very low down on your to-do list, right this moment.”
The Greenwich grapevine believed Hayden’s hedge funds were rotten clear through. He’d bet the wrong way on Spanish sovereign debt, doubled down by selling CDS positions at the peak of the crisis, and then covered everything by falsifying statements and paying interest out of capital for six months. Even the SEC had gotten involved, Johnny-come-lately as usual.
My client, reasonably enough, wanted to get his money out before Hayden went to jail and every last asset froze up in a decade’s worth of litigation. Because Hayden wasn’t taking calls, he’d hired me instead. I wasn’t even on fee-for-service—as the last available option, I was able to negotiate a generous contingency instead.
Now all I had to do was collect.
“You should have returned Mr. Green’s calls,” I said. “But that’s water under the bridge. Let’s talk numbers.”
“No.”
“No?” I nodded. “I’ll start, then. Ten point six million dollars.”
He squirmed. His face was hard to read, dark in the shadowed interior.
“You said it.” Hayden’s voice was hoarse. “Liquidity crisis. There’s no cash. Mr. Green’s out of luck.”
“Hmm.”
“I mean, I understand. Look, I’ll be paying everyone back, in order. What does he have, A shares?”
“Don’t bother. The ten point six isn’t going to help you figure out who he is either—I adjusted the amount.”
“Okay, okay.” Another pause as he thought things through. “Look, we can work this out.”
“Yes. Very easily. You give me the money and you never see me again.”
“Exactly!”
I hesitated. “Good…”
“How much do you want?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” If I ever took a bribe, I’d never get work again. “Don’t even go there.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean—”
I lifted the pistol slightly. “Let’s discuss your options.”
He winced but shut up.
“Here’s one approach I’ve found effective in the past,” I said. “I shoot you in both ankles. Then both elbows. Then I cut off one ear.”
His eyes grew large. “That’s—”
“Only one ear, right. You need the other to hear me continue the discussion.” I paused. “And to make the necessary phone calls, of course. Hands-free is nice, but they’re not making ears-free headsets yet.”
What can I say? If you don’t enjoy your work, you’re in the wrong job.
Hayden’s brave front was cracking.
“There’s nothing I can do!”
“I hope—I really hope—that’s not true.”
The club’s door opened and two men exited. They walked past, thirty feet away, while I sat quiet, ready to silence Hayden if I had to. But he didn’t even look at them.
A good sign.
“However,” I said, “you’ll be happy to hear that option one may not be necessary.”
“No?”
“No. Because a few hours ago I spoke with Walter Smith.”
He froze again.
“Walter told me all about your business arrangement.”
“What arrangement?” But it was barely a question.
“Walter understands how life works. See, we’re in the same world. We run into each other now and then. Me, he’s going to see again.” I shrugged. “You, on the other hand,…”
“He sold me out?” Hayden actually started to get angry. “I already paid the son of a bitch!”
“There’s that, too, of course. You should always hold a little back.”
Despite what I’d said earlier, I don’t really like the Dick Cheney interrogation style. That was all for show. You can always beat a lie out of someone, but the truth? That takes psychology. In Hayden’s case, psychology suggested that gruesome threats might be helpful, as they often are with small minds.
As for how I found Walter—well, that’s the sort of inside knowledge my client was really paying me for, even if he didn’t know it.
I’d gotten the assignment late last night, which left zero time for backgrounding. No problem, because Hayden was cutting public tracks everywhere. Two phone calls and twenty minutes on Google revealed a man living far too carefree for a fraudster with the wrath of a powerful, politically ambitious New York prosecutor poised above his neck. Dinners at Masa, a chartered helicopter to Mill Neck, a front-row runway seat at the Chloé show—Hayden acted like someone beyond suspicion.
Or like someone with other plans.
Suppose you’re a corner-cutting hedge fund manager who’s made a killing the easy way—by cheating—and the law’s about to come knocking. Chumps like Madoff give themselves up, confess and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Smart guys, on the other hand, pull a Kobi Alexander and flee with every penny, to spend their lives like kings in nonextraditing corners of the Third World.
The problem is getting out. Hayden would have no problem funneling the cash offshore—half his job had been glorified money laundering cum tax evasion anyway. But slipping past U.S. border authorities himself? That’s a different story. How many document counterfeiters do you know? Are any of them good enough to forge an RFID-equipped U.S. passport?
There aren’t many, and on the midtown-Greenwich axis, the number’s even smaller. Wherever Hayden got the tip, Walter was one of only two or three possibilities.
“So here’s how it’s going to work,” I said. “Walter gave me details and photocopies.” Not traceable to him, naturally, but that didn’t matter. “If you don’t cough up my client’s balance, those copies go to the DA’s office. Not only will you remain in the United States, I doubt the judge will even grant bail. You’ll never see sunshine without bars across it again.”
And that was that. Hayden blustered and complained and argued, but we both knew he’d come through.
The transactions were finally completed at two a.m. We managed everything from Hayden’s iPhone—good thing he had a charger in the dash—except a confirmation, which I dialed from mine. When I provided my client’s bank details for the transfers, Hayden noticed it was based in the Caymans, and I could see him start to say something.
“Hayden,” I said, “I hate irony.” And we buckled down and finished the job.
When I opened the passenger door, grateful for the cooler night air, Hayden spoke up.
“Hey, you’re going to cut me loose, aren’t you?”
I thought about it.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “The girls inside, did you tip them okay?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good. They’re earning a living, they deserve decent pay.”
He looked at me. “Sure.”
“This is about the time they finish up.” Connecticut bars close at two—thanks, blue hairs! “So they’ll be coming through here soon. Just holler.”
“But—”
“Since you treated them well, I’m sure they’ll help you out.”
He started to splutter, and I closed the door.