Death Benefit

18.

ONE CENTRAL PARK WEST NEW YORK CITY MARCH 3, 2011, 8:30 P.M.

Jerry Trotter and Max Higgins left Edmund Mathews and Russell Lefevre with a souvenir of their lunch together at Terrasini. It was a healthy check, and as Edmund paid up, he hoped that Jerry and Max were going to do something to justify it. He was reasonably confident, as he knew them to be guys who did not sit on a problem. They were known to do whatever it took.

And Jerry and Max did not disappoint. Within an hour of leaving the restaurant, Trotter and Higgins had two of their best investigative guys working on the two separate cases, one on the Columbia regenerative organ situation, the other on the hoped-for dirty little secrets of Gloria Croft in hopes of having something to control her with. Jerry knew that everyone, especially Wall Street people, had their secrets. The PIs were also given Edmund’s and Russell’s full names so they could Google them for background information.

Jerry couldn’t use his very best guy, who was in fact a woman named Jillian Jones, because she was already involved in looking at a company that Higgins thought might be tanking its results to pave the way for a takeover. But as PIs, Tim Brubaker and Harry Hooper were separated from Jones only by a sliver. They’d do a thorough job, and they were very quick.

This was the first time Jerry ever had three PIs on his payroll at once. Strictly speaking, Jones, Brubaker, and Hooper weren’t on the Trotter Holdings payroll at all; each was employed off the books in a strictly cash-only arrangement. There was no paperwork-no pay stubs or invoices or receipts, the latter because Trotter trusted the three not to pad expenses. The PIs undertook enough on-the-books domestic surveillance cases to report to the IRS to show sufficient income to justify their lifestyles. They were usually able to piggyback a cash job for someone like Jerry Trotter on one that was recorded by the business accountant.

Jerry Trotter loved this semi-legal, clandestine work because it was so far removed from anything he’d done as a plastic surgeon or a money manager. He loved everything about it and even saying “Brubaker” and “Hooper” gave him a little thrill; to his mind, they were perfect PI names. For him it was like being in his own movie. Brubaker and Hooper were ex-cops and had seen everything; Jillian Jones had seen everything too but no one knew what work she had done prior to this and no one dared ask. In contrast to most PIs, she always acted anxious and quick to take offense. She also had a black belt in karate and was always armed.

As usual, Higgins took care of all the practical arrangements. He bought three use-and-lose cell phones and used one to place a prearranged marketing cold call to Hooper and Brubaker’s offices. The call purported to be from a firm interested in talking to the business manager about the company’s metered postage. This identified the source of the call. The first digit of the call-back number times one hundred was the rate being offered; the last four specified a time for a meet at the usual location. Brubaker and Hooper had a habit of checking their messages regularly and both picked up Higgins’s call within a half-hour. The promise of a $300-an-hour rate drew them to the four o’clock meeting place in a back booth at Flanagan’s bar on Second Avenue. It took Higgins five minutes to give them their marching orders, a cell phone for each to call in on, and a $1,200 down payment on their work.

Another aspect of the game that Trotter relished was asking his guys how they’d found whatever information they dug up. At first neither Brubaker nor Hooper wanted to talk about their MOs, but they’d come to indulge Trotter’s whims. He did sign the checks, after all.

When the phone rang at eight-thirty, Trotter was fixing his second Glenlivet in his apartment near the summit of the Trump International on the corner of Central Park West and Columbus Circle. Trotter lived so high up he didn’t bother with drapes in the living room-he didn’t want anything to interfere with his view of Central Park. Tonight, banks of low clouds and rain were all he could see. He was pleased to see it was Brubaker. The number on his LED was the cell phone Higgins had given him.

“It’s B,” Brubaker said. It was the code name Trotter insisted on his using.

“So soon?” Trotter could barely conceal the childish excitement in his voice.

“Yes, I got to speak directly with the laboratory’s secretary by posing as a journalist. Couldn’t shut her up. Thought she was doing her boss a favor talking him up. Thinks he’s shy and needs the pub. She even said as much.”

“So she was informative.”

“Very. Don’t understand half the stuff she was saying, but she was knowledgeable. I’m transcribing the tape myself word for word. I don’t want any transcription service looking at this stuff.”

“Of course, very prudent. So give me the headlines.”

“Okay, the two names you mentioned to me are the guys for sure….”

“Rothman and Yamamoto,” Trotter said, talking over Brubaker.

“Shit, what’s the point of the code words and all the cloak-and-dagger you insist on if you don’t follow it yourself? Yes, those are the guys. The first one is the big cheese.”

“Sorry,” Trotter said, inwardly cursing himself.

“Okay, so she tells me all this stuff that they’re doing, and I’m supposed to be a science reporter and able to follow it. So I asked her at the end for the Cliff Notes version that I can use for the readers.”

“What paper does she think this is going in?”

“No paper. I told her I was doing the research to see if there was a story and if there was, I’d sell it and call her again.”

“What if she calls you?”

“She doesn’t have my number. I told her this was very hush-hush on my end, and I asked her not to tell anyone we’d spoken because this is such a big story that other reporters are going to be on it soon, and I want to get a jump on it. I’m actually thinking of writing it up for real-I wasn’t lying to her, this is going to be way big.”

Jerry’s joy at playing Dick Tracy evaporated.

“What do you mean, ‘big’?”

“Well, according to her, these guys are close commercially to growing organs outside the body, organs that will be perfect matches for the person who needs them. The trials have worked with animal subjects, and they want to move on to using human stem cells.”

“When?”

“She did get a little cagey there. Not because she wouldn’t tell me-I think she didn’t know and didn’t want to let on that she didn’t know. But it’s months that they will be moving to human cells, maybe even weeks and certainly not years.”

“Weeks or months? The difference is important.”

“Well, I guess I need to make a few more calls. But it’s happening. And soon. He’s working on something else too. Something about growing salmonella strains that cause typhoid fever on the space shuttle. Can you imagine? To think where our tax dollars go. It makes me sick.”

“Tell me about it,” Jerry said. “Okay, thanks, B. Keep me posted.”

“Got it, boss.”

After hearing from Brubaker, Trotter was impatient to know what kind of progress, if any, Hooper was making. Although it was technically against protocol, Trotter called Hooper’s new cell.

“Yes,” Hooper said after one ring. He was between calls on the Gloria Croft assignment and thought it might be one of the contacts he had made calling him back.

“Hi, it’s the boss.”

“Hi, boss.”

“What’s happening? Any dirt?”

“I’m only three hours in. Not even.”

“What’s the setup?”

“I’m a headhunter looking for someone for a major bank CEO job. The board wants a woman for appearances’ sake. I’m asking around about people on my supposed list.”

“Our friend doesn’t need a job, she makes seven figures-plus a year,” said Trotter with disappointment. He purposely avoided using Croft’s name.

“I know that. They know that. But people like showing off how much they know. I think someone might tell me just how much she doesn’t need a job in a bank. Or need the scrutiny of running a public company, more like it.”

“So you want someone to brag about what they know.”

“Sure, everyone does it. Most everyone. And the finance world is like a small, competitive club which feeds on gossip.”

Okay, that was more like it. Jerry was struck again by how much Hooper and Brubaker sounded alike. They sounded like Brooklyn cops, which is what they both had once been.

“So you shake anything out of the tree yet?”

“Just spoke to a guy who knew her at Morgan, back in the day. I said someone mentioned him as a possible reference, and he laughed. Real asshole, thinks I’m a moron having gone to Brooklyn College nights. I don’t like these Ivy League types. But he has something, I’m sure. Trying to fuck with me a little. Hope he doesn’t push it ’cause he’s messing with the wrong guy. I can get his nice car towed tonight, and it ain’t goin’ to the pound.”

“Yes, I’m sure you can. That’s what keeps me honest in our relationship.”

Hooper laughed, then added, “One other thing. He mentioned that I might ask one of the bankers Higgins mentioned when we talked this afternoon. He said if I wanted dirt on our friend to ask him, because he thought he had been literally and figuratively fucking her back in their Morgan days.”

Trotter frowned. “Which one?”

“The thick guy with the short hair,” Hooper said.

“Now, that is interesting,” Trotter said. “Don’t call and ask him directly. Make it part of your investigation. It could be interesting.”

“Got it,” Hooper said.

As Trotter hung up the phone, he smiled. “Edmund, you rogue.”