“Your big friend didn’t want any tea,” he said. “So we had to be a little more forceful. He should wake up soon enough.”
“You drugged the tea?” said Mary.
“I slipped a little something into your cup after Mr. Blake wandered off and got himself into trouble,” said Melissa. “It seemed a more civilized alternative to a crowbar to the head. Please pass my apologies to your big friend when you get a chance.”
“Tell him yourself,” said Leopold. “I’m sure he’d love the opportunity to have a chat with you all.”
The second figure stepped forward. A thick scent of pipe tobacco clung to his shabby clothes and he held an iron crowbar in one hand. “I bet he would.”
“Look, are you planning on doing anything with us? Or is your evil plan to bore us to death?”
The man with the crowbar slapped Leopold across the face with the back of his hand. It stung like hell, reinvigorating the pain in his skull.
“James, calm down,” said Melissa. “We’re not animals.”
The man called James grunted and stepped back, tapping his crowbar against his leg in irritation.
Mrs. Gordon continued. “I need to know what you found out about Needham. Tell me everything and I’ll make sure this passes as painlessly as possible. Try to fight me and I’ll let James and Bobby have their way with you.” She glanced over at the two men. “And, trust me, you won’t like that.”
“Go to hell,” said Mary. “They’ll figure out what happened to Creed eventually. All they need to do is check the personnel records and they’ll know the usual guard never showed. Do you think they won’t figure it all out?”
“The guard we paid off will get his uniform and credentials back, any DNA evidence removed, of course, and nobody will be any the wiser. It’s a pity you showed up when you did – James was due to make the drop before three.” She glanced at her watch. “If the guard decides to cause problems, we’ll deal with him then. Though I suppose that’s not really your main concern right now, is it?” She took a step toward the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
There was a muffled grunt from behind. Jerome was waking up.
“Oh good,” Melissa said. “The whole gang’s here. James, Bobby – make sure our guests behave themselves.” She opened the door and swept out of the basement.
“What, no bad-guy speech?” said Leopold. “I was really looking forward to that. I’ve got to say, you’re all letting the team down.”
James slapped him across the cheek again. It stung even worse than before.
“Cut it out,” said Mary. “Just get this over with. Try to ignore him.”
“Don’t blame me,” said Leopold. “I’m not the one being unreasonable.” He looked up at James. “Just one question; why kill Teddy? He was your inside man. And the real Biggs, I’m guessing he’s buried somewhere out in New Jersey? Or is that too much of a cliché?”
The fake Biggs, the man called Bobby, stepped forward. “Jimmy doesn’t like to get involved in the details,” he said. “He really just enjoys the action, know what I mean? Speaking of which, if you’re going to play the smartass card, I might just let him have a little fun.”
“It’s a serious question,” said Leopold. “We can give you the information you want. I have it all on a pen drive. If you tell me what happened with Teddy, I can tell you where to look.”
Bobby sighed. “Fine. Just don’t fuck with me, got it? I can make the remaining hours of your life very miserable, so don’t tempt me.”
“Yeah, I got it.” Leopold turned to Mary. “You on board?”
“Whatever. It’s not like you could make things any worse.”
He turned to Jerome. “You awake yet?”
Jerome blinked hard and looked back at him. “Keep your voice down. I’ve got a splitting headache.”
“You remember that time we were in Brazil?” Leopold said. “Happy memories, right?”
“Yeah. Happy memories.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Mary.
“Nothing,” said Leopold. “Just trying to take our minds off the situation. I guess this is the wrong crowd, so I’ll get to the point.” He looked over at Bobby. “Why kill Teddy? He was your meal ticket, after all.”
Bobby folded his arms. “Don’t mess around.”
“I’m not messing around. I need to know what scam you were running. There was a lot of data on Gordon’s computer. I need to narrow it down.”
Bobby chewed his bottom lip. “Yeah, Teddy was a smart guy. But he was careless. He was the one who came up with a new market model – one that was more accurate than anything Needham had used before. Helped them make a shitload of cash by figuring out which direction the market was going.”
“And you used this to bet against the poor performers.”
“Damn right we did. And we managed to cover it up by moving losses around the balance sheets. Nobody had a clue.”
“Let me guess,” said Mary, “Teddy decided to call it a day?”
James snorted.
“You could say that,” said Bobby. “He found something in the formula. Something nobody else could see.”
“A way to scam even more money from innocent people?” said Mary.
Bobby laughed. “Innocent? You gotta be kidding. The market model Teddy had developed could accurately predict where the market was heading, but it was all based on the assumption that conditions kept stable. You know, that everyone paid their loans on time, kept buying shit they didn’t need. They called it the ‘volatility index’ or some shit like that.”
“And?”
“If the market conditions shift by more than fifteen percent in one week, the model is completely screwed. For a firm like Needham, if they see a big change in the market, even over a few days, they could lose everything.”
Mary shook her head. “How the hell would that work?”
“Investment banks trade on other people’s assets,” said Leopold. “They borrow money against stock they don’t actually own, so if the deal goes south, the bank is on the hook for the difference between the market value of the stock and the amount they borrowed against it. If the volatility index gets too high, they start owing money. Hundreds of millions of dollars just vanish from their books and the bank has to stop trading. That means anyone who’s invested with them risks losing everything. And I mean everything.”
“Jesus. This is why I keep my spare cash in the mattress.”
“Best place for it now,” said Bobby. “He figured this out weeks ago. He wanted to come clean, wanted the bank to try and fix the situation before it got out of hand. Naturally, we didn’t see eye to eye on that.” Bobby grinned.
“You just saw a way to make more cash,” said Leopold. “And now it’s too late. Something this big is going to go public. You knew your days of scamming Needham were over, so you had no need for Teddy. So you decided to tie up any loose ends, which, I’m guessing, included Vincent Creed.”
“Creed was the patsy,” said Bobby. “He was too frickin’ dumb to figure out what we were doing, but he made a perfect fall guy.” He stepped forward. “Now, we answered your damn question. Tell us what we need to know.”
Leopold glanced over at Jerome. The bodyguard blinked.
“Sorry, fellas,” said Leopold. “I was hoping you’d keep talking a little longer. I actually don’t have anything for you.” He shrugged. “I figured you to be the talkative types. My bad.”
Bobby looked at James and nodded. James cracked a smile. He walked casually toward Leopold, his crowbar in one hand. As he came within arm’s length, he drew back the weapon and held it over his head.
“Last chance, smart guy,” said Bobby. “Speak up, or we’ll start with your shins.”
Leopold sighed and looked over at Jerome.
“He ain’t gonna save you,” said Bobby.
The bodyguard shifted position in his chair. He shook his head.
“Looks like you’re right about that,” said Leopold.