“She’s from the state of Wisconsin.”
Chasity just stared at him, unmoved. She had meticulously painted eyebrows that he ordinarily found quite fascinating, privately, but drawn down like that, she did rather resemble a man-eating prehistoric beast.
“She’s looking for her mother, who ran away to New York, and is in some trouble.”
“Her mother? Her ma have Alzheimer’s or something? Shouldn’t you be calling the cops?”
“No, it’s nothing like that, but Allie—this woman—she does very much need to find her. The rest of her family is expecting her home, and no one knows precisely where she is.”
For the first time in a year, Winston observed Chasity’s eyes soften and actually become somewhat doelike, and her posture rounded in a way that was nearly humanoid.
“How does reviewing your clients help this woman’s ma?”
Winston took one step back, like he was luring an animal back into its cage. “Why don’t you come into my office and I’ll tell you?”
“You swear it’s for this lady’s ma, and not so you can get your wick dipped?”
Winston felt his entire body wince. Possibly his soul. “Jesus, Chasity.”
“All right. I’ll give you five minutes to start, so tell it to me straight.”
—
“No, look, it’s right there.” Chasity hard-poked the screen of his computer. “There—” Poke. “There—” Poke. “And there.”
“That’s a pattern?”
“Yes, fuck, I swear to God I don’t know how any of you keep your jobs. It’s a fucking pattern, it goes back years, look at the withdrawals and tell me what you see.”
Winston flipped between pages, scrutinizing the column Chasity had pointed to. He didn’t see anything that stood out.
“Justice’s daily income is generated from investment interest. We funnel all that to this checking account. That happens twice quarterly, you can see that, here.”
“Sure.”
“This dude never, ever makes withdrawals, shuffles anything around, except sometimes, and that’s always after he meets with you—or the account manager before you, Christian, who was a fucking moron and deserved to be transferred to insurance. Look, you switched up his portfolios here, here, and here, and those all match the last three times you took a meeting with him.”
“Right.”
“Like, this guy, he’s pretty conservative. Privacy’s more important than bling, I guess. Most of your other clients are always liquidating for some reason or another—to pay the new decorator, rent some Vineyard place, whatever. There’s never a pattern, just their own rich fuck’s whims.”
Winston just nodded this time, as he was in this category of rich fuck.
“But three months ago, that changed. And you said he never talked to you about real estate, investing in some private thing like a gallery or charity or whatever.”
“No, he didn’t. He always just wants everything to stay the same, and to make any lucrative adjustments I might feel prudent to keep his assets growing.”
“Except, there’s been weekly withdrawals. And he’s not calling you, he’s just calling the number we print on all our shit that goes to the floor with the junior managers. He needs money, weekly, for the last twelve weeks, but wants to do it so he doesn’t have to really talk to anyone about it. Make it like he’s a regular client. I mean, the floor handles hundreds of withdrawals like this a day.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“Nah, he doesn’t trust what it would look like if he starts coming in and out of here, or if you have a lot of meetings with him.”
“Why wouldn’t he just come in and make one big withdrawal three months ago?”
>
“Add it up, dude.”