The Chessman (12 page)

A week after this discovery they pulled a floater out of the Potomac River. Dane Schaeffer was not a pretty sight.

Book Two

Middlegame

Chapter 13

Present Day

E
laine Kellervick’s husband was at the Chem-Eng conference in Denver until Friday evening, which translated fluently into her eating that last slice—allegedly Steve’s slice—of the two extra tiramisu cheesecake slices she’d brought home after her dinner with The Dames, as her gang of lady chums referred to themselves, at the Prudential Center the night before. She’d not mentioned the cheesecake to Steve on the phone this morning and, although both had made the same New Year’s resolution to shed those extra pounds around their centers and both had been kickboxing religiously at the gym all year, Elaine reckoned that Steve need be none the wiser. Besides, she had something potentially big to celebrate this evening, and to heck with what The Cheesecake Factory may or may not be doing to her middle-aged thighs.

Elaine had been tasked by her walrus-stached, content-free pantload of a boss, Albert Banning, to reverse-engineer a competitor’s trading strategy and revenue stream so that their Boston investment firm, Koye & Plagans Financials, could replicate
Mr. Schmooze’s
money-making results. She had met and mingled with Mr. Schmooze at a variety of events in the financial industry over the past decade and had been surprised and touched to have received a handwritten letter from Mr. Schmooze himself in response to a résumé she’d sent his firm after a particularly trying Albert Banning week a half-year back. Although they had no openings for her skill set at that time, his note had read, he “remembered” Elaine “fondly” and wished her “all the best.” The note went on to say that she “would skip to the top of the list should anything arise” and that she should “definitely keep in touch.”

Although it was something that didn’t make it into the corporate literature or promotional brochures, it wasn’t
uncommon
in the financial industry to data model the competition. When that boob Banning had given her this assignment, in a continuing effort to keep her name at the top of Mr. Schmooze’s list, she’d sent Mr. Schmooze a teasing e-mail about how she’d been charged with discovering the secrets of his success, with a smiley emoticon winking at the end of the final sentence.

Every time she met with Banning or talked to the clown on the telephone or received one of his spell-check-free e-mails or even passed the nincompoop in the hallway, Elaine became completely and utterly flabbergasted. Utterly flabbergasted that Albert Banning was the Chief Investment Officer at K&P. Utterly flabbergasted that this Ted Baxter had Peter-Principled his way up to a position where he could inflict maximum damage to the firm on a day-in-day-out basis. Although, in retrospect, there’d been some foreshadowing miscommunications throughout the interview process, Elaine had been utterly flabbergasted since her second day on the job, two years previously, when it became abundantly clear that his pompous vacuousness did not conceal any redeemable brilliance. Utterly flabbergasted that Banning was able to locate his corner office each and every morning and didn’t wind up stumble-bumbling about in a neighboring high rise looking for his chair.

Dear hubby Steve lived for her stories about Albert Banning, about how annual reviews were not unlike the old Bob Newhart comedic monologues; how if someone else were presenting in a meeting, you could wind your watch by how soon Banning would pick his nose and wipe any findings on the underside of the conference table; how he’d steal a second and even third bismark every time someone on staff—although never Banning himself—brought donuts in to share with the gang; how Banning’s eyes faithfully returned, like a magnet to metal, to even the slightest hint of exposed cleavage. But then again, Steve could afford to enjoy these stories because he didn’t have to report to the asshat on a weekly basis.

Banning certainly looked the role: dark wool suits and white dress shirts all properly tailored and dry-cleaned, and somewhere along the line he’d miraculously mastered cufflinks. He carried around a calfskin briefcase—which she strongly suspected contained his stash of Gummi bears and malted milk balls rather than any work—as his constant companion. After Elaine’s first month as an investment strategist at K&P, Steve had to dissuade her from hiring a P.I. to determine if Banning’s Yale MBA was truly on the up-and-up. Steve told her that “forging a résumé would indicate a certain creative spark” that they both knew Banning thoroughly lacked, and that “frankly, Elaine, a third of the graduates pooped out of these Ivys couldn’t find their ass with a funnel, and Albert Banning wouldn’t have the foggiest how to even
spell
funnel.”

But Elaine knew her days at K&P Financials were numbered a couple of months back when Banning had e-mailed her and a few of the firm’s other market analysts some generic economic questions requesting their answers, input, or comments. The queries had actually piqued Elaine’s interest, and she’d jotted down a few paragraphs of thought on the current state of stock volatility and the P/E ratio to which she received no acknowledgement or note of thanks or any type of reply at all from the buffoon. So imagine Elaine’s surprise when she noticed her insight quoted word-for-word in the
Fidelity Investor
newsletter in a short interview with you-know-who. So angry that she could have blasted straight into orbit, Elaine had marched into Banning’s office waving a copy of the newsletter, only to see that he’d already had an issue framed and hung on the wall behind his black executive desk, situated between his MBA and an eight-by-ten of him standing next to an obviously put-upon Alan Greenspan at some long-forgotten conference.

“I told the editor that those conclusions came from our brilliant team here at K&P,” a startled and placating Banning had mumbled. “I even sent them your names, but I guess they didn’t have room in such a short piece.”

Elaine stormed out of the swine’s office in order to refrain from shattering his newly framed article with a pitch of the weighted tape dispenser sitting atop the corner of his desk. The all-star ignoramus had been hang-dog around her for a week—all
Please let me get the door
and
How are we doing today?
faux sweetness. But as if to rub salt in her wound, her quote, attributed to the bumblefuck, had been picked up and reprinted in the Business section of the
Boston Globe
. As far as Elaine was concerned, there was no God.

After two days of mathematical modeling of Mr. Schmooze, Elaine realized she’d bungled something up herself, that her data model was incorrect—tainted by Banning’s involvement, no doubt—so she made a phone call to Mr. Schmooze’s firm under the guise of a courtesy call, was fended off by a frosty and likely menopausal executive assistant. She tore through her desk drawer of clutter and found Mr. Schmooze’s business card. Off went an e-mail request for additional information. Then Elaine scrapped her fouled-up model and began again in the interest of being overly meticulous—or, as Steve would attest, anal retentive. By the end of the next business day, with that blunderhead Banning asking her about her analysis every time they passed in the hallway, she’d wound up with the exact same results.

She scanned the summary spreadsheet, peeked at some numbers in the body of her market analysis, and then peeked again at her assumptions. A ghost of a pattern danced in the back of her mind, but then again, Elaine could ferret out a numerical pattern in some dice tosses. The data model was off, it had to be. Elaine set all of her files neatly—
neatly, Steve, not anal retentively
—on the table in front of her and began sorting through the materials. Although markets would yo-yo up and down, Mr. Schmooze—he whose client list stepped off the pages of
People Magazine
, starred in major movies, and won Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys by the boatload—had a performance line that for all practical purposes only scaled upward. Her figures had to be incorrect, as this was a statistical impossibility; only seven percent of Mr. Schmooze’s months were down, with nearly uninterrupted investment gains averaging ten percent a year.

Elaine shook her head to vanquish any stray thoughts. She’d been working for the goofball way too long; his idiocy must be contagious. If she showed Banning her work, he’d laugh in her face and hold it over her every time she caught him making a doddering old fool of himself. She must be botching up Mr. Schmooze’s
split-strike conversion strategy
, as that investment methodology was exceptionally complex to begin with, but would be where the magic, if there was any, lay.

Her phone rang. She recognized the New York area code and picked up the receiver. Serendipity—it was Mr. Schmooze himself. He mentioned that he didn’t have much time, but wanted to get back to her before heading out to some “insufferable” dinner party with the Lieutenant Governor. They chatted about the sorry state of the industry and very, very gingerly Elaine brought up her data modeling.

“I suspected that’s what your call was about,” Mr. Schmooze said. “I wish it were seven, but we both know what that would mean…plus, I’m not Merlin the Magician. No, Elaine, the percent is closer to thirty, and even at that I’ve got clients heating up the tar and plucking the feathers.”

“That’s what I suspected,” Elaine had said. “Garbage in-garbage out.”

“If you can pop in to New York early next week and let me buy you lunch, we can discuss—very generically, of course—the firm’s internals. In fact, Elaine,” the Schmooze had said, “my true purpose for calling is that Paulette Glimski, my favorite data modeler, just gave birth to triplets—an in-vitro procedure that you hear so much about these days. Anyway, Paulette broke my heart earlier this week, although we saw it coming. She handed in her notice, said she’s giving up Excel spreadsheets for diapers and pacifiers, so we’re a little short-handed—in case you’re still looking for an opportunity.”

Thoughts of kicking Banning to the curb, leaving the breathing gaffe machine shorthanded, made her hot and she wished that Steve wasn’t in Colorado, in more ways than one. She couldn’t wait for their nightly call. In her mind, although playing hard to get of course, she’d already accepted the position. Mr. Schmooze had made it clear that there’d be no need to move, that the bulk of the work could be done remotely, telecommuting except for the odd meet-and-greet here or presentation there, and much of that could be done via web conferencing or net meetings. Yes, Elaine thought to herself, she’d be bringing a résumé on her day trip to New York next week.

Elaine snuck out early and on the drive home gave it serious thought. Telecommuting for Mr. Schmooze in New York City was exactly what the doctor ordered, a no-brainer; she’d get her sanity back. Elaine couldn’t wait to tell Steve. He’d be ecstatic for her, even if he would miss out on the comic relief that Albert Banning’s very existence provided. She’d already phrased a terse two-weeks’ notice in her mind, which she would likely tamper down—no need to burn bridges—although it’d be nearly orgasmic to scrape the numbnuts off her shoe. Elaine began tapping the monthly code into the wall security unit when she realized the unit wasn’t operating correctly.

“It might not be working anymore,” a voice behind her whispered.

Elaine almost jumped out of her skin, but turned, landing in a classic karate defensive stance. The tall man in a black suit, a yard away, stared down at her. Elaine knew she’d never make the door. Her black belt training kicked in and she threw up a head kick.

The tall man drew back and patted her foot aside with the fingers of his left hand. The momentum threw Elaine off balance, but she adjusted and returned to the fighting stance. It was hard to tell, but the tall man appeared to be smiling. Elaine threw a throat strike, a quick towel snap to disable him while she cut for the door. But something went wrong and Elaine found herself pushed back against the wall. She hadn’t felt the man’s blow, but she couldn’t seem to get her breath. Her face was pressed against the defective security unit.

The tall man looked into her eyes as the stiletto slid under her solar plexus and up into her heart. He rotated the knife handle, giving Elaine a final jolt right before she died. A final jolt to help the woman appreciate the irony of how worthless her years of strip mall karate had been. Using the stiletto as a handle, the tall man eased Elaine slowly to the floor of the entryway. He knelt down next to her and retracted the blade. He took out a glass pawn and pressed the tip of the chess piece into the knife wound. Then he stripped the surgical gloves off from the inside out, capturing the stiletto within the right-hand glove.

The tall man had gotten there early and fine-tooth combed the Kellervick residence, checking all the obvious and not-so-obvious places. It was clean. He searched the home PC for any files or e-mails created in the past week. Nothing of any consequence to anyone.

The tall man headed toward the back door but paused in front of the double-door refrigerator. He picked up a napkin and used it to open the appliance. He grabbed The Cheesecake Factory container.