Bad Business (2 page)

I
took Rita Fiore to dinner at the Federalist. Rita was the chief criminal litigator at Cone, Oakes. But I had known her since she was an ADA in Norfolk County, and, in a healthy platonic fashion, we liked each other.

“How's your love life,” I said after we'd each gotten a martini.

“Busy,” she said. “But, same old question—why are there so many more horses' asses than there are horses?”

“Still looking for Mr. Right?”

“Always. I thought I had him last year. Chief of police on the North Shore.”

“But?”

“But he had an ex-wife.”

“And?”

“And he wouldn't let go.”

“Oh well,” I said.

“Yeah. That may become the Fiore family motto.”

“And the previous Mr. Right?” I said. “Number, what was it, five?”

“Divorce is final.” She grinned at me. “I cleaned his clock too.”

“I'd have expected no less,” I said. “What do you know about Trent Rowley?”

“He's the CFO at Kinergy. Whom we represent.”

“Tell me about him?”

“Discussing a client is considered unethical.”

I nodded. The waiter brought menus. We read them and ordered.

“May I bring you another cocktail?” he said.

Rita smiled up at him.

“Oh, please,” she said.

“You, sir?”

“He'll have one too,” Rita said.

“Very good.”

The waiter picked up the menus and smiled at Rita and left.

“Our waiter is hot for you,” I said.

“Wow,” Rita said. “A straight waiter.”

“Maybe he's Mr. Right,” I said.

“Can't be. For one thing a waiter can't swathe me in luxury. And secondly, if they're hot for me that proves they're Mr. Wrong.”

“Maybe you should stop getting married and just sleep with people.”

“I'm doing that too,” Rita said. “Except you.”

“My loss,” I said. “What about Trent Rowley?”

“What about client confidentiality?”

“What about several martinis and dinner?” I said.

The waiter came with our second martinis. Rita sipped hers happily.

“You think you can bribe me,” she said, “with a few martinis and some Chilean sea bass?”

“I do,” I said.

Our salads arrived. Rita picked up a scrap of Boston lettuce in her fingers and nibbled on it. Susan was the only other person I knew who could eat with her fingers and look elegant.

“Why do you want to know about him?” Rita said. “Why not just catch him in the act? Tell the little woman, collect your fee, and stand by to testify at the divorce proceedings.”

“Excuse to have dinner with you, Toots.”

“Like you need an excuse.”

“I like to have an idea of what I'm dealing with. It was time for us to have dinner again. It seemed a nice synergy.”

“You are a bear for knowing things,” Rita said.

“Knowledge is power,” I said.

Rita drank some more of her martini. Her big greenish eyes softened a little. They always did when she drank. She had thick red hair and great legs, and was smarter than Bill Gates.

“We have a whole department servicing Kinergy,” Rita said. “I talked to the lead guy, Tom Clark. He says that there isn't anything to know about Rowley outside of business hours. Rowley starts early, works late, and, as far as Tom knows, has no other life.”

“Doesn't sound like Mr. Right to me,” I said.

“Apparently Mrs. Rowley doesn't think so either.”

I shrugged.

“Maybe she wants out,” I said. “But she wants to take half of everything with her.”

“Can't blame a girl for trying,” Rita said. “In my last divorce, I didn't, of course, settle for half.”

“Marlene may be less experienced,” I said.

“Marlene?”

“Someone named Rita is making fun of a name like Marlene?”

“I don't get the chance that often,” Rita said.

The salad plates disappeared. The entrees came. The waiter took a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the ice bucket and poured a little for Rita to sample. She said it was drinkable and he poured some out for each of us.

“So he's a big success,” I said.

“Oh, you bet. Kinergy is a huge profit machine.”

“Just from brokering energy?”

“Sure,” Rita said. “You are running short of electrical power in your grid, they can acquire some from another source, reroute it to you, and charge you a fortune. Like the power shortfall in California, couple years ago.”

“Is it that simple?”

“At bottom a lot of businesses are simple. You know. American Airlines picks you up in Boston and flies you to LA. That's the service. The complicated part comes in how to do it profitably.”

“Can they manipulate the market?”

“Probably.”

“Do they?”

“Probably. Tom sees very little evil in a client,” Rita said, “and speaks less.”

“Does he gossip?”

“Not to me,” Rita said. “Not about clients. He swears there is nothing to gossip about with Rowley.”

“You believe him?”

“Tom's a company guy. And he wants to be managing partner. The firm says jump and he says ‘how high?' ”

“Which means if Rowley says jump . . .”

“ ‘How high,' ” Rita said. “Can we talk about sex again?”

“We'd be fools not to,” I said.

A
t 6
A
.
M
., drinking a large coffee to help my heart get started, I drove out the Mass Pike and south on 128 to Waltham. The Kinergy Building was just off Route 128. It was innovatively ugly: five different kinds of brick facings, intermingled with black glass and textured concrete, sporting a multilevel profile. It looked like Darth Vader's country home.

Near the front entrance were parking spots labeled CEO, COO, CFO. I parked in the visitors slot and waited to see if I could get a live look at Trent Rowley when he came to work. I was there in place, on the alert, at 6:10. I was just in time. At 6:15 a silver BMW sports car pulled into the CFO parking space and Rowley got out.

He looked just like his picture: strong jaw, dark wavy hair worn longish. He had on small round glasses with thin gold frames. He was crisp and clean and pressed and tailored in a tan summer suit, a blue shirt with a pin
collar, and a pale blue tie. He almost certainly smelled of expensive cologne. He walked very briskly into the still empty building, proud of being the earliest bird.

What kind of affair can a guy have when he shows up for work at 6:15 in the morning?

I hung around until everyone else came to work, without seeing anyone who looked like they might be having an affair with Rowley. Though it was, admittedly, hard to be sure. Then I wrote down the plate number on the BMW. That done, I still had some energy left over, so I drove back to Boston and went to the gym.

At four in the afternoon, sound of muscle and pure of mind, with a tall can of Budweiser to replenish my electrolytes, I drove back to Kinergy and waited for Rowley to come out. By the time he did it was nearly eight o'clock. I was thinking deeply about a sub sandwich and another beer. I followed him north on Route 128, to Route 2, and on Route 2 to Cambridge. We went along the river to the Hyatt Hotel, where Rowley turned off and drove into the parking garage, behind the hotel.

I left my car and twenty bucks with the doorman, and was in the lobby hanging around near the elevators when Rowley came in. He was carrying a small overnight bag, and paying me no attention as he headed to the elevator. The Hyatt has one of those twenty-story Portman lobbies, where you reach your floor by a glass-enclosed elevator, and each room door opens out onto an interior balcony overlooking the lobby. He went to the seventh floor and got out and walked to his left, halfway down the balcony, and knocked on a door. The door opened and in he went. I looked at my watch. It
was ten minutes of nine, and Rowley's evening was just starting. It made me feel old.

I took the elevator to the seventh floor, and walked down to the twelfth door to the left, which was where Rowley had knocked. It was room number 717. I wrote it down and went back downstairs and took a seat in the lobby near the elevators, across from a little guy with a big nose. He was wearing a tan windbreaker and reading the paper. He was seriously engaged with his newspaper. Now and then as he read he'd smile or frown or shake his head. I, on the other hand, was seriously engaged in looking at the people who came and went into and out of the elevator. In my first hour I saw three women who passed muster, one of whom was a rare sighting. She earned nine on a scale where Susan was ten. I could hear the piano in the cocktail lounge. By 11:15 the foot traffic had thinned at the elevator. I had turned to thinking about my all-fathers-and-sons baseball team. The little guy with the big nose had finally given up on the newspaper and appeared to be whistling silently.
Songs unheard are sweeter far.
I had gotten as far as Dick Sisler at first when the door to room 717 opened and Trent Rowley came out with a woman. The woman was carrying a large purse with a shoulder strap. They walked to the elevator and came down. She looked good getting off the elevator. Short blond hair brushed back. Good body, maybe a little heavy in the legs, but nothing to disqualify her. Her eyes were made up and her lipstick looked fresh. Despite that, I thought there was some sort of postcoital blur in her expression. It might not stand up in court, but it was an expression I'd seen elsewhere. I wasn't wrong. They walked past us
toward the corridor that led to the parking garage. I got up as soon as they passed and hot-footed it down to get my car from the doorman. The little guy with the nose was right behind me. We looked at each other while the doorman got our car keys.

“You're following her,” I said.

He grinned.

“And you're following him.”

I grinned.

“And now we'll switch,” I said.

He nodded.

“You'll follow her home, and I'll follow him home. And then we'll know who's who.”

“Might be easier,” I said, “to pool information.”

“Nope,” the little guy said, “got to be done right.”

The little guy took a business card out of his shirt pocket.

“But maybe we can talk later.” He handed me the card. “Save you from chasing down my registration.”

I took his card and gave him one of mine and we both got in our cars as Rowley pulled out of the parking garage. The little guy gave me a thumbs-up gesture and pulled out behind Rowley and drove off after him. I did the same with the woman.

T
he little guy's name was Elmer O'Neill, and his card said he conducted discreet inquiries. Me too. He arrived at my office the next morning right after I did.

“You got any coffee?” he said.

“I'm about to make some,” I said.

“Good.”

He sat in one of my client chairs with his legs crossed, while I measured the coffee into the filter basket and the water into the reservoir and turned on the coffeemaker.

“Your name's Spenser,” he said.

“Yep.”

“You know mine.”

“I do.”

The coffeemaker gurgled encouragingly. I put out two coffee mugs and two spoons, and some sugar, and a small carton of half-and-half. Elmer looked around my office.

“You must be doing okay,” he said.

“Because my office is so elegant?” I said.

“Naw. The place is a dump. But the location—must cost you some rent.”

“Dump seems harsh,” I said.

Elmer made a gesture with his hand as if he were shooing a fly.

“It's why I'm in Arlington,” he said. “Costs a lot less and I can still get in town quick when I need to.”

The coffee was done. I poured it out.

“You find out my client's name yet?” I said.

“He lives in Manchester,” Elmer said. “And after we talk I can check his plates at the registry.”

I nodded.

“His name is Trenton Rowley,” I said. “He's the CFO of a company in Waltham called Kinergy.”

Elmer nodded as if that meant something to him. He set his coffee cup on the edge of my desk, took out a small notebook, and wrote it down.

“Who's the woman?” I said.

“Ellen Eisen,” he said. “Husband works the same place.”

“Kinergy?”

“Un-huh.”

“And they live in the new Ritz condos off Tremont Street.”

“And you were going to check her plates at the registry if I didn't tell you.”

“Might anyway,” I said.

“Shit,” Elmer said. “You don't trust me?”

“He hire you?” I said.

“Yep. Rowley's wife hire you?”

“Un-huh.”

Elmer leaned back a little in his chair so that the front legs cleared the floor. He rocked the chair slightly with his toes.

“Well,” he said. “We know they're fucking.”

“We know they spent time together in a hotel room,” I said.

“Oh hell,” Elmer said. “A purist.”

“Didn't you say everything had to be done right?”

“That's because I didn't know if I could trust you.”

“How unkind,” I said. “My client will want something more solid than the shared hotel room. She plans to ‘get-everything-he-has-the-philandering-bastard.' ”

“My guy just wants to know is she cheating on him,” Elmer said.

“His name is Eisen?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Sometimes women keep their, ah, premarital name,” I said.

“Ain't that horseshit,” Elmer said. “Guy's name is Bernard Eisen. He's COO at, whatsitsname, Kinergy.”

“Small world,” I said.

“So,” he said. “I guess we should tell the clients.”

“I'd like to let themselves dig a deeper hole,” I said.

He drank a little more coffee.

“That's 'cause your client wants more than mine does.”

“True,” I said. “But if you tell yours then I probably won't be able to get what my client wants.”

“But my client will settle for what I know now.”

“An ethical dilemma,” I said.

Elmer frowned a little.

“Don't run into many of them anymore,” he said. “You got more coffee?”

I poured him another cup. He added a lot of sugar and half-and-half, stirred it slowly.

“There's another little thing,” he said.

“Well,” I said. “Two cups of coffee ought to buy me something.”

He grinned.

“Somebody seems to be tailing Mrs. Rowley, too.”