After the Darkness

Davey Buccola had had a crush on Karen Willis since they were kids. He felt bad when they locked her up and her family turned their backs on her. The shit-for-brains who Karen killed had had it coming. But Davey wasn't here just for Karen's sake. He was here for his own. He needed money, pure and simple. And Grace Brookstein had money.

At last the gates of the prison opened and the visitors were taken through security. Davey Buccola had visited numerous correctional facilities, so he knew the drill. Coat off, shoes off, jewelry off, scanner, metal detector, dogs. Kind of like catching a plane, only without the luggage and the duty-free stores. Better for people watching, though. You could tell the moms right away, the tired slump of the shoulders, the resignation in the faces, aged from years of sacrifice and pain. There were a couple of husbands, deadbeats most of 'em, overweight, long-haired, telltale signs of drug use. But overall there were very few men in the visiting line. It was all women, women and children, braving the cold to make the depressing journey to Bedford Hills in hopes of keeping their families together.

Davey thought, Women are a lot less selfish than men.

Then he thought, They're also a lot more conniving. Men lie when they have to. Women do it for kicks. He would listen to Grace Brookstein. But he would take nothing she said at face value.

Davey walked into the visitors' room and sat down at a wooden table. A scrawny little kid came and sat down opposite him.

"I think you have the wrong seat. I'm here to meet Mrs. Brookstein."

The kid smiled. "I'm Grace Brookstein. How do you do, Mr. Buccola?"

Davey shook her hand and tried not to look shocked. "I'm good, thanks."

Jesus H. What happened to her? She's only been in here a month. The Grace Brookstein he'd expected to meet was the fur-clad vixen from the courtroom, glamorous, groomed, dripping in diamonds and disdain. The girl in front of him now looked about fourteen, with close-cropped hair and a pale urchin's face. She had a broken nose, deep shadows under the eyes, and she looked like she hadn't eaten in weeks. The orange jumpsuit she was wearing swamped her tiny frame. When Davey shook her hand, he noticed the skin was almost transparent.

"Karen said you need some help."

Grace dispensed with the pleasantries. "I want you to help me prove that John Merrivale framed me and my husband."

Karen hadn't mentioned anything about this. "She needs you to do a little digging," those had been her exact words. Nothing about Grace Brookstein being a total fucking fruit loop who'd convinced herself her old man was framed. Jesus. Every man and his dog knew that Lenny Brookstein was as crooked as a two-dollar bill.

"John Merrivale. Wasn't he the number two at Quorum? The guy the FBI has been working with?"

Reading his thoughts, Grace said, "I understand your skepticism. I don't expect you to believe me. All I'm asking is that you look into it. I'm doing as much research as I can from the library here, but I'm sure you appreciate my resources are limited."

"Look, Mrs. Brookstein."

"Grace."

"Look, Grace, I'd like to help you. But I gotta be honest. The FBI has been through Quorum's finances with a fine-tooth comb. If there were any evidence that Merrivale had framed your husband, any evidence at all, don't you think they'd have found it?"

"Not necessarily. Not if they trust him. John's been working with the FBI, Mr. Buccola. He's part of the investigative team. Don't you see? He's convinced them he's one of their own. Believe me, John Merrivale can be very plausible."

"Plausible's one thing. Stealing seventy billion dollars and stashing it where no one can find it, not the SEC, not the smartest brains at the bureau, no one...some might say that's impossible."

Grace smiled. "I believe that's what my attorney told the jury. And yet here I am."

Davey Buccola smiled back. Touche.

"I've never even opened a bank statement, Mr. Buccola. John Merrivale's a financial wizard. If I could do it, couldn't he?"

Davey Buccola thought, I underestimated her. She's not a fruit loop. Misguided, maybe. But she's nobody's fool. "All right, Mrs. Brookstein. I'll do some digging for you. But I'm warning you now, don't believe in foregone conclusions. They're against my religion."

"I understand."

"If I take this case, I'll take it with an open mind. I'm digging for the truth. You might not like what I find."

"I'll take my chances."

"Another thing you should know: nothing's going to happen quickly. This is a complicated case. A lot of the information is classified. I have FBI sources, guys in the police and the SEC who'll talk to me, but it's slow work."

Grace looked at the four walls around her. "Time's about the one thing I have left, Mr. Buccola. I'm not going anywhere."

Davey Buccola shook her hand. "In that case, Mrs. Brookstein, I'm your man."

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, HONEY? COME back to bed."

Harry Bain looked at his wife's voluptuous naked body sprawled out across the sheets. Then he looked at his watch. Six A.M. Fucking Quorum.

"I can't. We've got a team meeting at seven."

"Can't you say you're sick?"

"Not really. I called the meeting."

The whole of America hated Lenny Brookstein. But at that moment no one hated him quite as much as Harry Bain.

I can outsmart a street fighter like Brookstein, Bain had reasoned, when he first took the case. It's not like we're looking for a pair of cuff links. Seventy-five billion dollars is missing. That's like trying to hide a country. "Excuse me, but has anyone seen Guatemala? Some dead Jewish guy from Queens mislaid it last June."

Of course he would find the money. How could he not?

Yet here he was, a year later, with nothing. Harry Bain, Gavin Williams and their team had commandeered Quorum's old offices as a base for their investigation. With John Merrivale's help, the task force had spent millions, chasing leads all over the world, from New York to Grand Cayman to Paris to Singapore. Between them, Harry Bain, Gavin Williams and John Merrivale had clocked more air miles than a migrating flock of Canadian geese, produced enough paper to wipe out an entire rain forest, conducted thousands of interviews and seized countless bank records. If Lenny Brookstein took a shit between January 2001 and June 2009, the FBI had a record of it. But still no goddamn money.

Their failure wasn't from lack of effort. Gavin Williams might be a card-carrying weirdo but you couldn't fault the guy for commitment. As far as Harry Bain could tell, Williams had no friends or family, no personal life at all. He lived and breathed Quorum, following the impenetrable, circuitous paper trail of trades Lenny Brookstein had left behind him with the dogged bloodlust of a fox hound. Then there was John Merrivale, the Quorum insider-turned-police-asset. John was an odd bird, too. So shy he was almost autistic, the guy still teared up whenever Lenny Brookstein's name was mentioned. In the beginning, Harry had wondered whether John might be implicated in the fraud himself. But the more he learned about Lenny Brookstein's business practices, the less he suspected John Merrivale, or Andrew Preston, or any of the other employees. Brookstein was so secretive he made the CIA look indiscreet. Surrounded by people, a social animal to the last, at the end of the day Lenny had trusted no one. No one except his wife.

Rumors on the team were that John Merrivale was unhappy at home. Harry Bain had met Caroline Merrivale once and could well believe it. That bitch probably wore stilettos and a whip to bed. Or a gestapo uniform. No wonder John was happy to put in long hours on the task force. So would I be if I was married to Madam Whiplash.

"OKAY, FOLKS. WHAT HAVE WE GOT?"

The elite group of FBI agents who formed the Quorum task force stared at their boss dejectedly. One joker piped up, "Gavin's thinking of heading out to Bedford Hills again, right, Gav? He's gonna use his legendary charm with the laydeez to get Mrs. B to sing like a bird."

The rest of the group sniggered. Gavin Williams's obsession with "breaking" Grace Brookstein had become a running joke. Either Grace didn't know where Lenny had stashed the cash, or she knew but she wasn't telling. Either way, Williams was beating a dead horse and everyone could see it but him.

Gavin didn't join in the laughter. "I have no plans to return to Bedford, Stephen. Your information is incorrect."

The joker murmured to his partner, "'Your information is incorrect.' Is he human? He sounds like R2 fucking D2."

"No kidding," his partner replied more loudly. "'Help me, Obi-Wan Brookstein. You're my only hope!'"

More laughter.