Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“I want the family reaction, and we may need to interview them.”

They passed through the barricades, joined the throng of tourists who swarmed the Wall Street district with their cameras and craned necks.

She smelled street coffee from the glide-carts and the first of the steaming soy dogs as the morning eased toward noon. Purposefully, she avoided the diehards who marched or circled with their signs and their earnest, angry faces protesting the evils of capitalism. Others thronged around the Wall Street bull, gleefully posing in front of its snorting charge. To her mind, a bull—metal or flesh—was a cow with a dick. She gave it a wide berth.

And entered the vaulted, gilded lobby on John Street.

Eve badged through security and headed up to the forty-third floor with Peabody.

No gilt, but plenty of plush in the lobby of Buckley and Schultz. And people looking very important as they watched screens full of stock reports or financial news.

One of the three receptionists looked soberly at Eve’s badge. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Schultz is in off-site meetings all day today. He’s not expected in his office here until tomorrow. Should I ask his administrative assistant to make an appointment for you?”

“I’ll talk to the admin.”

“I’ll see if he’s available.”

Three minutes later, the admin came out.

Early thirties, Eve judged, with a kind of Trueheart cut of clean polished by a bankerly patina. Excellent suit, shined shoes, doe eyes in a youthful face.

“Lieutenant, Detective.” He glanced toward the plush, important, and prosperous. “Please come with me. I’m Devin Garrison, Mr. Schultz’s admin.” He led the way by offices where people in suits sat or paced while they talked of money in a language as foreign to her as Greek. Or e-geek.

He turned into another office—a bit larger, good view, well-appointed. Upper-middle strata to Eve’s gauge.

Devin closed the door. “I—Mr. Schultz is out of the office all day. I just . . . I just heard a bulletin about Mr. Banks. Mr. Jordan Banks. I knew him. I can’t believe . . .”

“How well did you know him?”

“Oh. Well, only really via ’link. When he wanted to speak to Mr. Schultz. Or when I arranged a lunch or dinner meeting. I never actually met him in person. He didn’t come to the offices. Mr. Schultz went to him, if necessary.”

“When’s the last time it was necessary?”

“Would you give me a minute to check?”

“Check.”

He went behind the desk, pulled up, Eve noted, a calendar. Mr. Schultz was a busy man with few slots open most workdays.

“It looks like February eighteenth, for their regular monthly lunch meeting. They were scheduled for the next the middle of this month.”

“When did they last speak, that you’re aware of?”

“Yesterday. Mr. Banks contacted the office yesterday morning, first thing. Well, actually . . . Was Mr. Banks really murdered?”

“He was really murdered.”

“I think you should speak with Agatha. Ah, you see, Mr. Schultz was Mr. Banks’s financial adviser of record, but in actuality Agatha Lowell handled the account. The day-to-day.”

“Where is she?”

He led the way out again, and down to smaller offices. In one, a woman—a redhead Eve saw with interest—sat at a desk working her comp with one hand, a ’link with the other. Her wall screen showed the same confusion of symbols as Roarke’s tended to before breakfast.

She glanced over—blue eyes, annoyed and focused.

“I’ve got it. Yes, it’s done. All good. I’ll get back to you.”

She clicked off the ’link. “What is it, Devin?” Her voice, thick with Brooklyn, all but snarled impatience. “I’m more than swamped.”