45
THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION REGIONAL OFFICE, NEW YORK CITY, WEDNESDAY MORNING
Special Agent Rodgers, sporting a broad grin, shuffled into Ange Wilkie’s office. His partner was sipping one of the toxic-looking green smoothies she put away every day.
“What’s up Rac? Someone give you a present?”
“They got a hit on Minnie Mouse’s accent. California. San Jose,” announced Rodgers.
Wilkie slammed down the smoothie. “Excellent! Silicon Valley. I like this one.”
“Me too. So what next?”
Wilkie tilted her head to one side, pondering. “Let’s assume there’s some kinda local connection to Silicon Valley, or California.… Let’s look for an unusual trade that has something to do with either.”
“That’s a tad wide.…”
“We narrow it down,” replied Wilkie. “We look for an announcement, a price-changing one. Then we check out the trades that went down just before.”
“Big ask. I’ll get on it.”
“You ’n’ me both. As luck would have it, I’ve got a contact down there. Bond salesperson. Real smart,” declared Wilkie.
“How’d you rub shoulders with one a’ those, Wilks?”
“Aikido contest. She’s a third dan black belt. We were up against each other in the national finals three years back. We’ve stayed in touch. She’s smart and she’s straight.”
“No shit. Who won?”
“Come on now, Special Agent Rodgers. D’you have to ask?”
“So she beat you. Cool. Glad someone can.”
“Get outta here before I force-feed you my smoothie.”
Rodgers backed out, arms raised in surrender. Chuckling, Ange scrolled through her contacts. God, she loved this job, loved her colleagues—some of them at least, Rodgers and Bergers chiefly—and she loved searching for the trail of guilt, sniffing round randomly at first like a loosed bloodhound, then homing in on the scent and following where it led. They followed lots of scents, lots of trails, waited for them to intersect. That was the moment of bliss. The intersection point. She had no husband, no kids, just a feral cat who showed up sporadically like the Casanova he was. And she was cool with all that. She had freedom, she had purpose, and both sustained her.
She found the contact she wanted, put in the call, hoped the contact would remember her after a silence of years.
“Lucy Chen,” purred the voice.
“Hi, Lucy, it’s Ange Wilkie here.”
“Hey, Wilks!” exclaimed Lucy with the instant recall of the best brokers. “You calling to fix up a rerun?”
“Anytime, just not soon. You got a minute?”
“Shoot.”
“I need some help. I’m looking for any big announcements coming out of Silicon Valley, or California in general, over the last few days. Something price changing. And/or, and I know this is a long shot, any unusual trades being put on.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
“A girl’s gotta ask. The more I know, the better I can help you.”
“Look, all I got is this: A blue-collar type, female, in California, is tipping off a white-collar type, male, in NYC. He came onto our radar back when we got Raj Rajaratnam. Supposition, no hard evidence. We’re looking for evidence. What we can be pretty certain of is that the guy’ll be hiding behind nominee companies for the trades. We have no idea what the tip is or what the trades it generates will be, just that she called in with it this past Monday. It’s possible there’ll be a California connection to the trades, but then again maybe not.”
“Bit of a needle in a haystack,” observed Lucy drily.
“Does anyone ever search for a needle anyplace else?”
Lucy laughed. “Touché. I’ll see what I can do. Let me have a trawl and a think.”
Lucy had contacts. Lucy had admirers. Lucy was owed, and there was a sizeable community out there who would be happy to have Lucy Chen in their debt. The power of charm.