“Why wouldn’t he have them killed?” Olmstead asked.
“But, you know, if he wanted to stop short of that. Family or whatnot.”
Olmstead nodded uncertainly. “You don’t have any of these connections established very well.”
“But with a warrant we could find what they were doing.”
“You think?”
“Maybe not. But we might scare them into doing something stupid.”
“You like to try that,” Olmstead noted, tapping nervously on the table as he thought it over. Jazzy fingernail riffs, indicating uncertainty. “You always think you can scare them, flush them from cover.”
“Exactly. They’re almost always doing some bad stuff. They think they’re great business minds, running rings around the SEC, but a visit from a police inspector with a warrant can freak them out.”
“They consider their exposures and try to reduce them.”
“Exactly. The guilty flee where woman pursueth. And sometimes we then build a case built entirely on them doing something new and stupid.”
“Substituting for what you suspect but can’t prove.”
“Exactly!”
“But, you know, when they recognize the trick and hold fast, then you’ve just tipped your hand. That’s happened a lot. The trick is kind of an old trick by now. A hokey old cliché, if I may be so bold.”
Gen sighed. “Please, youth. I still want to try it. Because I like to make people mad. Because logic flies out the window when you’re mad.”
“Are you talking about them or about you? Okay, sorry. Might as well see if we can get a warrant. I can tell you want to.”
“You’re a mind reader.”
They got the warrant from the SEC’s cloud control panel. Olmstead called Lieutenant Claire to ask for a ride, and she soon arrived at Pier 76 off the Javits Center in a small speedboat, accompanied by a clutch of New York’s finest, fraud division, wearing civvies. They proceeded north to the Cloisters dock, tied off, and took the broad promenade stairs up to the cluster’s giant plaza.
Space itself was different up here: bigger, higher, more spacious. People eyed them as they passed—three officers in uniform, a gaggle of followers in civvies—raid! Vice squad! All the old instincts kicked in as this posh neighborhood was revealed by the spooked looks in people’s eyes to be only the latest in a long line of fashionable scam zones. It made Gen happy to stroll purposefully along, as if marshaling a tiny parade.
Then into the massive base of the fattest tower, flashing badges at their security.
“We’re here to speak to Henry Vinson, at Alban Albany,” Gen said to the building security people.
“Do you have an appointment?” they asked.
“We have a warrant.”
Gen chewed vigorously to pop her ears on the way up to the fiftieth floor, which was fairly low in the tower, where the floors were largest. She and Olmstead and Claire and the fraud forensics team emerged from the elevator and headed to the Alban Albany reception desk, where a little clot of people awaited.
“I want to speak to Henry Vinson,” Gen said, showing them the warrant.
One of the receptionists gestured at her phone and Gen said, “Yes, go ahead,” and she pinged Vinson and said that there was a policewoman to see him.
“Send her in,” came the reply.
“Come on in,” said Henry Vinson from the middle of a vast open floor, window-walled on all sides. Five six, Anglo, balding blond, looked younger than his age, which she knew was fifty-three. Tight small mouth, thin skinned, very well groomed and tailored. Like an actor playing a chief executive officer, but this, Gen found, was almost always true of CEOs. “How can I help you?” he said.
“I’m here to ask you about your cousin Jeff Rosen,” Gen said. “He and another man were taken and held against their will recently. City systems are showing us that you had several consultations with your company’s security contractor, Pinscher Pinkerton, at the time of their kidnapping. And Rosen and his partner worked for you twice in the last ten years. So we’re wondering if you can tell us when you last saw them.”
“I’m surprised to hear about this,” Vinson said, looking affronted. “I know nothing about it. We’re an investment firm in good standing with the SEC and the city. We would never engage in illegal practices.”
“No,” Inspector Gen agreed. “That’s what makes this pattern so disturbing. Possibly there may be rogue elements in Pinscher, doing things you don’t know about that they think you might approve of.”
“I doubt that.”
“When did you last see your cousin, Jeff Rosen?”
Vinson looked annoyed. “I’m not in touch with him.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. Several years ago.”
“When was the last time you were in contact with him?”
“The same. As I said, we haven’t been in touch. His mother and my father have both been dead for years. When we were young we never associated except at holidays. So I know who you mean, but beyond that, there’s no connection to speak of.”
“But he worked for your company.”
“Did he?”
“You weren’t aware he worked for your company? Is it that big?”
“It’s big enough,” he said. “The computer division does its own personnel work. They might have hired him without me knowing about it.”
“So you don’t know why he was let go.”
“No.”
“But you seem to know he worked in computers.”
“I knew that, yes.”
“Did you know he worked in high-frequency trading codes?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Does your firm do high-frequency trading?”
“Of course. Every investment firm does.”
Gen paused a beat, to let that remark reverberate a little. “Not true,” she pointed out. “Yours does, but not all do. It’s a specialty.”
“Well, a specialty,” Vinson said, again annoyed. “Everyone has to keep up with it one way or another.”
“So your firm does it.”
“Yes, as I said.”
“And your cousin was working on your systems, and may have seen evidence of illegal practices.”
“That’s not possible, because we trade within the rules set by the SEC. And as I said, I haven’t been in contact with him myself for over ten years.”
“Can you recall the last time you were in touch with him?”
“No. It wouldn’t have been consequential. Maybe when his mother died.”
“That wasn’t consequential?”
“Not in terms of work. Come on. I’ve nothing more to say about this. Are you finished here?”
“No,” Gen said. “My team is here to search your records, and anything your people send to the cloud from this point on is subject to interdiction.”
“No. I think not. I think you’re finished here.”
“What do you mean?”
A big team of men in security uniforms entered the room, and Vinson gestured at them. “I’ve answered your questions out of politeness, but I won’t allow our confidentiality to be breached. I don’t believe that your warrant is valid. These security officers are here to escort you from the building, so please cooperate with them and leave now.”
“You’re kidding,” Gen said.
“Definitely not. Leave the building now, please. These security officers will see you out.”