Evasive
.
“Don’t tell me you never talked shop,” the officer argued.
Just before Christmas last year, Charlie and I were savoring pulled-pork sandwiches and Pinot Grigio at Virgil’s Barbecue on West Forty-fourth Street. “Why don’t you join me at the Kelemen Group?” he asked. “You’ve got a great book. And I need people to grow the business.”
“Charlie, I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say yes,” he encouraged. His perfectly white smile, the product of repeated bleaching, could have closed any other deal at that moment. “Grove, in this world there are pleasers. And there are takers. You and I are pleasers. We’d make one helluva team.”
I put down my glass of wine and gazed at the backs of my hands. They looked frail. In a low voice I made a subtle reference only my best friend would understand. “I’m not ready yet.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” Charlie snapped. His smile vaporized.
The outburst, so sudden and hostile, made my eyes go wide. But I recovered.
“Might be a good time to back off, pal.” That was Charlestonese for Get out of my face.
Charlie charged into dangerous territory, indifferent to my warning. “This isn’t about New Haven.”
“I’m telling you, Charlie—”
“It’s something else,” he spit, speaking over me, dogging me with his uninvited insights. A look of comprehension flared in his eyes. “You’re afraid. That’s it?” he asked rhetorically. “You don’t have game. You’re starting to believe all that conservative crap you feed your clients.”
Charlie’s words hit their mark. He knew. For all my external bravado, “Wall Street this” and “Wall Street that,” he knew. I had stopped taking chances since the wreck outside New Haven. Played everything safe. He knew. His insight made me feel weak and compromised, anything but a titan of finance. Salvaging my dignity, I said, “Let me think about it.”
“Yeah, whatever. Get the check,” he bristled. I had never paid for a meal with Charlie before. Pulling out my credit card, I could feel the sting of his disappointment. Our lunch ended abruptly, the friction atypical.
He had all but forgotten a week later. Sam and Charlie invited me for Christmas dinner, and the topic of joining forces never surfaced. To the best of my knowledge, he never told anyone about my secret fears. He never betrayed me. He just picked up the checks, including mine, and let the good times roll.
“Of course we talked shop,” I told Fitzsimmons. “But I never referred any clients.”
“Strikes me as strange,” the big man observed, skepticism seeping through his voice.
“That’s because you’re a cop,” I retorted. “I can’t recommend money managers without my firm’s okay. Compliance would have a cow.”
“How would they find out?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the risk.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“SKC doesn’t have a fee-sharing agreement with the Kelemen Group. I couldn’t get paid.”
“There’s something we all understand,” Fitzsimmons remarked dryly.
“Why are you asking me about referrals?”
“We need to understand his financial ties,” the officer explained.
“Me too,” I agreed wistfully, without thinking.
“What’s that mean?”
My second line buzzed. “Unless there’s something else, Detective.” I stopped right there, didn’t say another word, sounded assoholic even to myself. The message was clear.
Get off my phone.
“We’ll be in touch,” Fitzsimmons promised, and clicked off. I regretted not telling him Charlie’s laptop was sitting on my desk. But our conversation, the recollection of lunch at Virgil’s, gave me another idea.
I typed “pleasers” into the Windows dialogue box. Didn’t work. When I tried the singular and typed “pleaser,” however, Windows opened and chugged through the litany of start-up procedures. It was all I could do to keep from whooping at Gabby, the PCS receptionist, who was on my second line.
“Grove,” she said, “Mr. Crunch is here to see you.”
“Crunch? Tell him I’ll be right out.”
“No can do,” she replied.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
“That depends on how well you know him,” she said. “He’s on his way back now.”
I wonder if he’s missing any money.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Through the years Wall Street has grown more tolerant of homosexuality. Acceptance never broke from the gate, however, during the early days of rah-rah machismo. For every step forward, there were two steps back. Plenty of finance goons perpetuated prejudices as they plied their trade. “Queers, fags, butt bandits”—gay bashing was once a loathsome mainstay of our culture.
Forbearance has picked up steam recently. Most firms sponsor sensitivity seminars and outreach recruiting. SKC and all the investment banks send people to speak at leading business schools whenever, wherever there are gay symposiums. Efforts appear to be working. At some shops it’s almost “in” to be “out.”
For all the success, I doubt my industry will ever become the national showcase for open-mindedness. Our unspoken convention is slightly more progressive than “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It’s okay to ask. It’s okay to tell. It’s career death to show. Wall Street has zero tolerance for effeminate behavior.
It would be a colossal mistake, therefore, to describe Crunch’s PCS debut as anything less than spectacular. That Tuesday morning, amid the power-money setting of leather trim and tiger-maple paneling, every broker
on the boardroom floor gaped. Every pair of eyes trained on the hairdresser as he walked toward my team.
It’s hard to say why Crunch attracted so much attention. He wore loose chinos and a white oxford, sleeves rolled to the forearms. He worked out. That was clear. The shirt and pants seemed ordinary, though, no trace of the inner queen that surfaced sometimes at parties and only when Charlie was in the room.
Maybe my colleagues were inspecting his black Ferragamo shoes and matching belt. The signature Double Gancini hooks were striking against the weathered cotton, but the departmental fuss surprised me.
Those buckles look like horseshoes.
Or maybe the Versace sunglasses, perched high atop Crunch’s shoulder-length hair, made PCS do a double take. I knew one thing. People were gawking.
Crunch knew, too. Cocksure, confident, he invited attention and ignored opinion. He was onstage, savoring the stares, determined to make them last. He clutched a red folder in his left hand.
Crunch was born Marion Michael Morrison in honor of John Wayne’s real name. At the time, his parents were paying tribute to the Duke and the flicks they loved. They never expected their son would one day become a real-life John Wayne as a member of the Army’s elite Delta Force.
After leaving the Army, Marion Michael Morrison let his black hair grow long and legally changed his name. When he met people for the first time, he often repeated the same introductory lines: “Call me Crunch. One name works. It’s like Cher or Madonna.”
Crunch now fashioned thin wispy strands, survivors of the baldness wars for scalp supremacy, into flowing manes. He changed mousy brown colors into locks of sunshine. He fretted over every snip and brush stroke. Through his chain of three salons, he created the world’s most elegant coiffures. Every aspiring hairdresser in New York City yearned to work for the master.
Crunch’s military bearing had softened. He was happy and affable, out with everyone. We saw hints of the Delta Force every now and then, like his 101st tattoo and the occasional show of army boots, but Crunch concentrated on his life as a stylist. He pretended to abandon all worries.
The truth lay elsewhere. Crunch regularly suffered a broken heart, about as often as his salons bikini waxed their patrons. Every affair spawned new runs of misery and melodrama. That was where Charlie entered.
Crunch told Charlie everything. The stylist recounted his steamy trysts. And Charlie patiently listened to stories that all ended the same: “My partner left me.”
Barreling past my outstretched hand, holding the red folder, Crunch hugged me hello. He made smoochy sounds with Annie as they touched both cheeks, European-style. She noted the top three buttons of his shirt were undone. “Nice pecs, Crunch.”
“They’re real,” he replied.
Chloe, deep in conversation underneath her monstrous headset, waved a subdued welcome. Crunch would have no part of it. He stretched the left audio bowl from the side of her face and whispered something in her ear. She was glowing crimson by the time he returned the cup.
My colleagues watched from every corner of PCS. Crunch could have been a client. Nobody said a thing; nobody, that is, except for Scully. He blew a discreet kiss in our direction.
“Have a seat, Crunch.” I gestured to a small guest chair on the side of my desk. “How’d you get past security?”
“Somebody was leaving, and I slipped through the glass doors.”
“What did our receptionist say?”
“Told her I’d be just a minute.”
“Probably not a good idea.”
“I’m so impatient,” he professed, undeterred by my comment. “You know what I’m saying?”
“What can I do for you, Crunch?”
“You sound awful.”
“Sam and I had a few drinks during dinner.”
“She asked me to stop by later during the week.”
“Good to keep her busy,” I replied. “She’ll get lonely in that house.” I knew from experience.
“I brought you a present,” Crunch said, bunching his shoulders and acting delighted as he handed me the red folder. It was hard to believe this man
had ever killed anyone. He had no visible scars, no visible malice, nothing other than the 101st tattoo hiding beneath his sleeve.
“Grove,” Annie interrupted. “Lila Priouleau is on line one.”
Ordinarily, I would have picked up the phone. A good friend, Lila was a great prospect. Curiosity about Crunch’s visit won out. “I need to call her back.”
“Don’t you dare hang up,” Crunch scolded. With lightning-fast moves from the old days in Iraq, he snatched the receiver from my desk. “Hello, girl,” he boomed at Lila. “I have just the right stocks for you.”
A label on the red folder read “MRI Capital,” Alex Romanov’s hedge fund. At a party once, Charlie told the Mad Russian, “The corporate name’s a little subdued.”
“It’s easier to name rug rats than companies,” Romanov reasoned. “There are a million little Johnnys. But only one Cerberus.” Romanov was referring to the private-equity fund named for a mythological three-headed dog that guarded the gates of hell.
You’re single. What would you know about naming kids?
Romanov was right on one level. Hedge funds had ballooned in number from four thousand to eight thousand through the years. Each one needed a name. The metaphor-hungry hedgies christened their shops after trees, mountains, and architectural elements. They scooped up seafaring expressions, not to mention all the Greek and Roman gods. They rifled through most heroes, leaving only the dregs of mythology. The name Satyr Capital was still available for good reason. The ancients often painted priapic satyrs roaming the woods with massive erections, okay for Viagra ads but probably not the right image for lords of finance.
“MRI like the medical device that scans for problems?” I had asked Alex, avoiding any reference to Mad Russian Investments.
“Exactly,” he replied. “We look where others don’t.”
As I thumbed through the red folder now, Crunch yakked with Lila. “You should buy some Coach,” he advised. “They make the cutest handbags.” He cupped his hand over the receiver and announced, “I’m working it.”
“You go, Crunch.” Leafing through the papers, I found a prospectus for MRI Capital. There was also a printout listing its portfolio of stocks.
Interesting.
Crunch hung up with Lila before I could review MRI’s positions. No time to discover the secrets behind Romanov’s king-sized returns. “You’re all set,” the hairdresser proclaimed happily. “You need to send Lila the paperwork to open an account.”
“Nice work.” Crunch had asked for the order, something I hadn’t done with Lila in eight years.
“She wants Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, and a little Saks,” he continued, “but no, repeat after me, absolutely no Wal-Mart. You know what I’m saying?”
“You’re the best,” I praised. “What’s with the folder?”
“Charlie left it at my salon.”
“Did he forget it?”
“No, sweetie,” the hairdresser sighed. “He didn’t want to lose it.”
Don’t call me sweetie.
“Was he worried?” I asked.
“He didn’t want to leave it in a restaurant,” Crunch explained. “Charlie was always forgetting things.”
“Couldn’t Sam put the folder in her purse?”
“She wasn’t there. We were scheming about burkas and fezzes, you know.”
“Got it,” I said. “Why give the folder to me?”
“You’ll know whether it’s important.” Crunch added hesitantly, “It’s probably junk.”
“Did Charlie ever say if he invested in Romanov’s fund?”
“Sweetie,” Crunch exhaled, “we never talked business. I have no head for figures. The kind on paper, that is.”
“You seemed to be doing just fine with Lila’s portfolio.”
“Yes, and you can buy me a thank-you cup of coffee downstairs,” he said, “and tuck me in a cab, too.”
“You got it, brother.” We were comrades in arms, one adviser to another, however impromptu.
