Need You Now

28

“I t’s all encrypted,” said Evan.

My package from Barber contained eight DVDs. After watching Lilly storm off to examine my data, I returned to Evan’s apartment and enlisted some added firepower to examine hers. My instincts had been dead on: I officially needed Evan more than he needed me.

“Can you break the code?” I asked.

Evan looked up from his computer screen. I followed his gaze as it swept the flowchart of arrows, photographs, and handwritten narrative on his walls.

“What do you think?” he asked.

It wasn’t arrogance; it was just a fact: Evan’s first language was numbers. He spoke through numbers, read through numbers, looked for stories in numbers. Evan didn’t simply make sure his checkbook and credit card statements balanced to the penny -which was weird enough. He was the kind of guy who, just for grins, would extract the raw data from his monthly statements and create an intelligent computing algorithm to analyze the dynamics of the prices he’d paid for his daily cup of coffee, accounting for his cost of transportation to each coffee bar, “cost” expressed as a function of both actual out-of-pocket expense and travel time.

“I think I’ve come to the right place,” I said.

Evan went to work. I walked around the room and examined the flowchart more carefully. I noted the question marks attached to his reference to a numbered account at BOS/Singapore. Clearly, he was unaware of what Lilly had just confirmed for me-that it was Manu Robledo who had opened the account. But even as I filled in blanks, I realized that the more I studied the analysis, the more questions I had. One of his “red flags”-the thirty-eight obvious signs that Cushman was running a Ponzi scheme-was simply dollar signs. I hated to interrupt him, but it was too cryptic for me to decipher.

“What do these dollar signs mean?” I asked.

Evan looked up. No doubt he was in the middle of a mathematical calculation that stretched out at least thirty decimal places, but he switched gears with remarkable ease.

“Red flag number twelve,” he said.

“I can see that,” I said, “but what does it mean?”

“Cushman Investment maintained accounts at two different banks. At the end of every reporting period, Cushman had his CFO convert all of the firm’s holdings to cash equivalents-Treasury bills-to avoid SEC disclosure requirements. That should have been a tip-off to the SEC.”

“That was in your report?”

“Yup. That and three dozen other red flags.”

“And you gave all that to the SEC?”

“Well, not me, personally. Your dad did.” Evan went back to work, then stopped and looked up again. “That’s why I think he’s in jail.”

I turned, confused. “How’s that?”

“I don’t have the proof-yet-but I believe your father was framed for the murder of Gerry Collins because he put the report in the hands of the SEC and had the power to tell the world that the SEC knew that Cushman was a fraud. They locked him up and shut him up.”

I thought about it, but I was still confused. “That doesn’t really make sense. He could still talk from prison.”

“Yes,” said Evan. “If he wanted to. Clearly, he doesn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“That’s the missing part of the puzzle.”

I could have strained my brain trying to figure that one out, but there was another problem. “I just don’t see it,” I said. “It wasn’t simply a frame-up. My dad confessed.”

“No one said it was a voluntary confession.”

I shook my head. “Forcing a man to confess to murder is going way too far to protect the SEC’s reputation. Do you really think my dad is sitting in jail just so the industry won’t think the SEC is incompetent?”

“That’s the point,” said Evan. “It wasn’t incompetence.”

I glanced back at the flowchart-the thirty-eight red flags that proved beyond any doubt that Cushman was running a Ponzi scheme. “If that’s not incompetence, I don’t know what is.”

“Nobody is that incompetent,” said Evan.

“So what are you saying?”

His expression turned deadly serious. “They knew,” he said. “They positively knew Cushman was a fraud. They didn’t miss it. They overlooked it.”

“You mean they knowingly looked the other way?”

“Yes.”

“Why would they do that?”

“To advance some other agenda.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re saying that the SEC could have shut Cushman down, but they let it play out because-”

“Because it advanced another government agenda. Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t know what that agenda is yet, but I think your father does. That’s what got him in such a jam. Your dad kept my name out of it when he presented my report to the government, which I believe is the only reason I’m still alive. That makes twice your father saved my life. So I’m making it my business to find out what that other government agenda is. And when I do, everyone had better run for cover.”

I didn’t answer. This one was taking a while to sink in.

Evan looked away. “Okay, fine. Now you’re exactly like everyone else. You think Evan Hunt is some kind of crackpot who sees a conspiracy brewing in every government office.”

I was still thinking, still trying to wrap my mind around the full implications of what Evan was saying.

Evan got up from the computer, walked to the refrigerator, and got a soda. “I should have kept my mouth shut,” he said, grumbling.

“No,” I said, “I don’t think you’re a crackpot.”

“You don’t?”

“Not at all.”

“Then what do you think?”

I didn’t view the world entirely through the prism of old movies, but sometimes the fit was too perfect.

“Evan,” I said, “I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”