Criminal Mischief

3

The dumbwaiter bell went off. Tink sat bolt upright and wide-eyed. “Is the house on fire?”

“No, that’s breakfast.”

“Breakfast makes a noise?”

“Every morning about this time,” Stone said. “It’s best to just get used to it. Changing it would mess up everything.” He pushed the cart over to the bed and put a tray on her belly.

“What am I having?”

“English scrambled eggs, breakfast sausages, half a Wolferman’s English muffin, orange juice, and coffee. If you want something else, you have to place your order at bedtime.”

“I was busy at the time,” she said.

He reached across her, took a remote control from the bedside chest and pressed a button. She rose to meet her tray. “Fantastic,” she said. “What are English scrambled eggs?”

“Cooked very slowly with lots of butter until they’re creamy, but not runny. Americans overcook eggs, and they lose most of their flavor.”

She took her fork and tried them. “Mmmmm,” she said. “What a surprise.” She tried a sausage. “You know what I’m having next time?”

“Wait, I’ll get a pencil.”

“Don’t bother, I’m having exactly this.”

Stone switched on the TV, to Morning Joe.

“What is this?” she asked.

He explained to her about MSNBC.

“Don’t you get Fox News?”

“I can, but I don’t like being lied to.”

“I thought it was MSNBC that did all the lying.”

“That’s because you were being lied to.”

“Okay, it’s your TV. I’ll go along.”

They gobbled down their breakfast.

“Who are all these people on TV?” she asked.

“People who don’t appear on Fox News.”

“Wait a minute, I get it. You’re a Democrat?”

“Wrong. I’m a yellow-dog Democrat.”

“What’s that?”

“A Democrat who’d vote for a yellow dog before he’d vote for a Republican.”

“Oh, well, I hardly ever vote, anyway,” she said.

“Thank God for that.”

“Something I don’t get.”

“Ask.”

“You’re rich, but you’re a Democrat?”

“Well, there’s me and George Soros and Warren Buffett and a few others.”

“How’d you get all the money?”

“I got it the old-fashioned way. I inherited it.”

“Your parents were rich?”

“No. I had a wife who had been married to a very rich man before me, and when she died, I inherited a chunk of her estate.”

“What did she die of?”

“A shotgun.”

Her face fell.

“Not mine. It belonged to a former lover of hers.”

“So, you got rich honestly?”

“I’m afraid so. Do you find that surprising?”

“Sort of. I always thought rich people were sort of crooked.”

“A lot of rich people are, I guess.”

“What proportion?”

“About fifty-fifty, in my experience.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

“The dishonest ones try to get you to be dishonest. They always have a hot stock tip or a horse race or a law that’s fixed, or so they tell you. Sometimes they’re running a Ponzi scheme.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s named after a man named Ponzi. What he did was to talk people into investing with him, then sending them a fat check every month, but he wasn’t investing their money. He was using the money of new investors to pay the old ones, and he kept a lot of it for himself.”

“How can you tell if you’re investing in a Ponzi scheme?”

“If you’re getting a fat check every month, you’re a victim. No investment company can return ten or fifteen percent.”

“Suppose I invested in a company like that. Should I pull out?”

“As fast as you can.”

“What if they won’t return my money?”

“Oh, they will, but it will be the money of other investors. If they fail the payout, then you’ll tell all your friends and they’ll tell their friends, and pretty soon the Ponzi guy is either in jail or on a plane to Rio. He wants to keep the ball rolling.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Tink, have you invested in something that sounds like that?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You just told me. It sounds just like that.”

“Do you get a monthly statement from these people?”

“Yes.” She got out of bed, found her handbag, rummaged in it and brought Stone an envelope.

Stone looked at the return address: One Vanderbilt Avenue.

“Uh-oh,” he said, and took a sheet of paper from the envelope.

“What ‘uh-oh’?”

“Just a minute.” Stone ran a finger down a column of figures. “You’ve got over three hundred thousand dollars invested with these people?”

“Not people, just the guy.”

Stone looked at the letterhead. Zanian Growth Fund, One Vanderbilt Avenue.

“His name is Viktor Zanian. He’s from an old New York Dutch family.”

“Did you ever look him up in the phone book?”

“What phone book? There’s no phone book anymore.”

“Did you look on the Internet?”

“Yeah, he’s got a sort of hidden website.”

“I’ll bet he does.”

“Do you think he might be crooked?”

“Oh, yes, I think he might just be very crooked.”

“Why?”

“For all the reasons I just told you, and one more.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you know what One Vanderbilt Avenue is?”

“An office building?”

“One Vanderbilt Avenue is the street address of Grand Central Station. This is a mail drop.”

“A what?”

“It’s a mailbox — a private service. You can rent one and use that address. Just don’t ever try to visit his office.”

“Oh, my God,” she muttered.