The Garden of Betrayal

42

I heard the truck pull away behind me as I climbed Walter’s front stoop. Shimon had wanted me to wear a listening device, nominally for security in case of a mishap, but more probably so he could stay posted on what I learned in real time. I refused, in part because I wasn’t worried, and in part because I still thought he might ditch me. It seemed like a better idea to retain cards he didn’t have. The compromise was that Ari would keep watch from the pavement opposite.

Walter’s home comprised a pair of identical hundred-year-old brownstones, reconfigured as one internally while leaving the land-marked facades unchanged. I’d been inside just once before, nearly ten years ago. The decor was Ralph Lauren throughout, the effect that of an English men’s club without the ill-patched parquet floors or the smell of boiled cabbage. I pressed the bell. His street was quiet by New York standards, tree-lined and low-rise, but I still couldn’t hear the ring from outside. I pressed it again, a chill wind making my ears ache with cold. The temperature had dropped.

The housekeeper who answered recognized my name but seemed reluctant to let me in. I couldn’t blame her. The tracksuit bottom and collarless knit shirt Ari had bought me made me look like an aging rapper. She relented only when I offered to show her my driver’s license. Taking my coat, she led me to a ground-floor study. I followed, wondering why Walter had called and how he was going to receive me. I didn’t give a damn about his opinions at this point, but I needed him to help me.

The study was empty, and the housekeeper lit a pre-laid wood fire before leaving me to wait alone. The room was paneled in chestnut and furnished with an overstuffed leather sofa and matching end chairs. I warmed myself in front of the burgeoning fire, studying the painting over the mantel. It was of a hunting dog with a dead bird in its mouth. I was willing to bet it was worth a fair bit more than the fifty bucks I would have given for it at a yard sale. I turned when I heard a hand on the door.

“Mark,” Walter said, entering the room. He was dressed in a gray suit and a navy tie, and he looked tired. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” The courtesy was encouraging. I gestured to my own clothing. “Wardrobe malfunction. Sorry to bring the tone down.”

He pursed his lips, refraining from comment.

“Drink?”

I started to refuse and then realized how badly I needed something-my nerves were ragged.

“Scotch, if you have it.”

A panel in the wall folded down silently, revealing an illuminated bar beyond.

“Johnnie Blue? On the rocks?”

“Fine.”

He poured for both of us. I settled on the leather couch, and he took the end chair next to me.

“Cheers.”

We touched glasses and drank. The ritual felt forced, and I had the sense he was delaying. Delay was unlike him. Walter believed in frontal assaults.

“I want to begin by apologizing,” he said. “I was wrong to fly off the handle at you last week. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any distress, personally or professionally.”

“You were upset,” I said, concealing my surprise. I’d never heard Walter apologize before. “It’s perfectly understandable.”

“You’re kind to say so, but it wasn’t. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, now or later, just say the word.”

Curiosity about his change of heart took a backseat to heaven-sent opportunity.

“I appreciate it. Truth be told, one of the reasons I came here tonight was to ask for a favor.”

“What favor?” he asked, a touch of the usual wariness returning to his eyes.

“There’s a guy named Karl Mohler who worked at Dean Witter sometime in the mid-nineties. The SEC investigated him for churning but let him off the hook. I want to know who his lawyer was.”

Walter seemed fully alert.

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you. That’s another part of the favor. And the last is that I need the answer right now. Please.”

He stared at me for a long moment. Just when I felt confident he was going to balk, he picked up the phone on the end table to his right and dialed a number. Something strange was definitely going on, but as long as it kept working in my favor, I wasn’t inclined to ask questions.

“Susan,” he said into the phone. “Get hold of Pete Ricken for me.” He glanced at his watch, and I checked mine as well. It was six-thirty. “No idea. Try him at the office first. If he doesn’t answer, try his home and then his cell. I’ll hold.”

We sipped scotch in silence for sixty seconds. Pete Ricken was the chairman of the SEC.

“Pete,” Walter said curtly. “Thanks for taking my call. I’m hoping you can do something for me… Right. Your people investigated a man named Karl Mohler for churning a few years back. He worked at Dean Witter at the time. I’d like to know who represented him… No. Your guys gave him a pass… If the information were publicly available, I wouldn’t be calling you, would I?” There was a longer pause, and when Walter finally replied, each syllable sounded like a rock bounced off a metal pole. “Let me make sure we understand each other, Pete. You help me and I help you. If not, my entire community reverses its position on your merger with the Fed. You understand?”

It was vintage Walter hardball, made potent by the fact that Ricken and his agency were so vulnerable. Everyone in the industry had known for years that the SEC was woefully incompetent, a fact Congress and the general public had become aware of only in the wake of the recent market collapse. Ricken and the career bureaucrats who worked for him were engaged in a frantic backroom struggle to avoid becoming an unloved ward of the vastly more capable Federal Reserve. The hedge-fund community had supported Ricken thus far, happier to be under-regulated. Their reversal might tip the scales. I was more than a little surprised that Walter would push so hard on my behalf. Whatever mojo I had was running strong.

“Mohler,” Walter repeated, his tone more genial. “M-O-H-L-E-R.” He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded. “Exactly… Of course… I’d be happy to help her out with that… You’re welcome.” His voice hardened again. “And Pete, I’d like that information tonight, within the hour. You have my number.”

He hung up and snorted.

“His wife wants to be a trustee of the Kennedy Center. Wait until he finds out that the minimum trustee contribution is half a million a year.”

I laughed.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He fiddled with his glass, swirling his ice cubes, and the sense I’d had before came back stronger. There was something on his mind, but he couldn’t figure out how to get to it. His uncharacteristic indecision gave me the opportunity to put a few questions of my own.

“I heard you were in Washington this past weekend. You learn anything interesting?”

He took a pull at his drink and nodded.

“The Saudi data came out of the CIA and was distributed to the Senate Select Committee a few months ago. CIA analysis jived with yours, but they graded it unverifiable and downplayed it.”

“So, why’d Senator Simpson run with it?”

“I asked him. Him and Clifford White together, in the senator’s office. Their response was that it didn’t matter whether we had five years or twenty years or fifty years. Energy security was a problem that needed to be dealt with, as a matter of national urgency.”

“Did they own up to being the leak?”

“No. And they denied knowing this woman Theresa Roxas, or having a private relationship with Alex.”

“You believe them?”

Walter tossed back the rest of his scotch.

“I believe Clifford White would pour brandy on your leg at a cocktail party, set fire to you, and then look you in the eye and try to persuade you that you’d been hit by lightning. The senator’s harder to read. You want a refill?”

“No, thanks.”

He got up to pour himself another. I glanced at my watch again, wondering when Ricken would call back, and how long it would take Walter to get around to whatever was really on his mind.

“Alex sent me a letter.”

I snapped my head sideways to look at him. He had his back to me.

“When?”

“Postmark was Wednesday. It arrived Friday, but I didn’t see it until Saturday lunch.”

Alex had died early Wednesday morning.

“What did it say?”

“A number of things.” Walter turned toward me, and I saw pain in his eyes. “One of them had to do with Torino.”

Torino was the fund Alex had started just out of college. I kept quiet, giving Walter time.

“Alex wrote that he’d done some insider trading. Inadvertently, at first. One of his investors gave him a tip. He bought shares and made money. It happened again. By the third time, he knew there had to be something illicit going on, but he was losing money elsewhere and needed the gain.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “That must have been a tough thing for him to carry around.”

Walter looked at me searchingly.

“He never told you?”

“No. The last time we got together, he mentioned that he’d made mistakes when he had Torino, but I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“So, you weren’t aware that he was being blackmailed.”

Blackmailed. Shit. That explained why he’d been so upset when we had drinks, and perhaps even why he’d felt that he had to kill himself. Another idea occurred to me, and I suddenly felt weak.

“Is that why he lied about knowing Theresa Roxas?”

Walter nodded.

“I have Torino’s investor list,” he said, drawing a sheaf of folded papers from his jacket pocket. “I’ve highlighted the names I don’t know in yellow. You spent a lot of time with Alex back then. I was wondering if you might know more.”

Walter was on the hunt as well, I realized, for whoever had driven his son to suicide. I stood up, the rage strong in my breast, and took the pages from his outstretched hand. I already knew what I was going to find. It was the third name on the second page. I pointed it out to him with a trembling finger.

“Ganesa Capital. The name of the guy who runs it is Karl Mohler.”

Walter looked stunned.

“How…” he began. His phone rang. We both looked at it.

“Pick it up,” I said quietly. “Mohler’s a nobody. The lawyer is the connection to the person behind all this.”

He lifted the receiver from the hook.

“Walter Coleman… Right… Right… I will. Thank you.”

He hung up and looked at me, murder in his eyes.

“Struan, Ogilvy and Cohn. They’re a Washington firm.”

“We need a list of the principals.”

“We don’t,” he said. “I already know. It’s the firm where Clifford White used to work.”