There were many more of them.
And it was days like today that made him think seriously about early retirement. The day had started with a call from a new assistant to the bank’s chief financial officer, letting him know about an imminent visit from the FDIC. Great. How could you top that? Maybe at his next checkup the doctor would find a polyp.
Oh, the FDIC, the goddam FDIC. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was the bane of Grimmer’s existence.
The FDIC supervised all state-chartered banks, which meant banks that weren’t members of the Federal Reserve, weren’t national, didn’t have the initials “N.A.” in their legal title. They rated these banks for soundness, on a scale from one to five, one being the best. This was called a Uniform Bank Rating, the CAMEL rating. “CAMEL” was an acronym derived from a jumble of factors: capital, asset quality, management, earnings, and liquidity.
Depending on the bank’s CAMEL rating, which was always kept secret from the bank, the FDIC inspected the bank either annually or every eighteen months. The eighteen-month cycle was for banks rated one or two. Banks rated three or less, or which had assets of over $250 million, were inspected annually.
Walter Grimmer didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that Greenwich Trust rated a middling three. Which meant that every year, a team of eight to twelve FDIC examiners barged in and took over the place for as much as six weeks. They reviewed the bank’s loan portfolio, the adequacy of its capital in relation to the risk of its portfolio, the stability of its earnings, its liquidity. Then they brought the whole happy adventure to a rousing finale with a wrap-up meeting with the bank’s president and executive committee.
Loads of fun. And Walter Grimmer, lucky Walter Grimmer, had the honor and privilege of serving as the bank’s liaison to the FDIC.
The guy who’d called this morning, the assistant to the chief financial officer, had phoned to let Grimmer know that for some damn reason the FDIC had to come back for an additional examination, as if once a year weren’t enough. Computer runs had been ordered. Something like a dozen boxes of documentation for the FDIC were going to be shipped in late this afternoon, and Grimmer was supposed to sign for them.
Did it have something to do with the collapse of the Manhattan Bank?
Was that why the FDIC was making a surprise visit?
“Where the heck am I going to put a dozen boxes?” Grimmer had wailed. “I don’t have room here for a dozen boxes!”
“I know,” the assistant said sympathetically. “The delivery service will bring them right down to the basement of the building and leave them there until FDIC shows up tomorrow. Just overnight. Then it’s their problem.”
“The basement? We can’t leave them there!”
“Mr. Grimmer, we’ve already cleared it with the building manager. Just make sure you’re there to sign for them, okay?”
The deliveryman from Metro-Quik Courier Service groaned as he pulled his delivery truck up to the modern-looking building on Moore Street, in the Wall Street area. The damned street was paved with cobblestones, which really did a number on the truck’s suspension. It was a narrow, one-way street that ran from Pearl Street to Water Street. He’d had no problem picking up the boxes at the storage facility in Tribeca, but he’d gotten lost several times trying to find the downtown facility of the Greenwich Trust Bank.
At least the boxes were filled with paper, not floor tiles or something. He loaded the twelve sealed boxes, each sealed with bright-yellow tape marked FDIC EVIDENCE, onto a dolly and moved them into the basement of the building.
“Sign right here, please,” he told Walter Grimmer as he handed him a clipboard.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Vigiani burst into Sarah’s office without knocking. “We got a match.”
“A match?”
“I mean, the NSA did. That phone intercept. We got the names to attach to the voices now.”
“Let’s hear.”
“A guy named Martin Lomax, who’s apparently a close associate of Malcolm Dyson’s, and someone named Johann Kinzel, who’s Dyson’s money man.”
“Great work. I think we just locked this up. We’ve got a prosecutable case now. Bravo.”
Pappas knocked on the door and said, “Sarah, we need to talk.”
She knew Pappas’s face well, knew it was serious. “What is it?”
“There’s been another murder,” he said. “There was a body found in an alley in your neighborhood. The report just came in.”
“Whose?”
“Sarah,” Pappas said, putting his arm around her, “it’s Peter.”
Hunched over the toilet, vomiting.
Bitter tears burning her nostrils. She wanted to call Jared, wanted to go get him now, didn’t know what to do. There was a right time, a right way, to tell an eight-year-old something so wrenching.
Then she remembered she had given him her cellular phone this morning to keep in his backpack, in case she needed to reach him. In case of emergency.
But no. She couldn’t call him. It had to be done in person.
It would be harder because of Jared’s anger toward his father. The wounds were already open; the pain would be unbearable.
She needed to go for a walk.
Roth called headquarters, asked for Sarah. Pappas answered. “She’s not here,” he said. “I don’t know where she is. I just gave her the bad news about her ex-husband. She left about fifteen minutes ago.”
“I’ll try her at home,” Roth said. “If you see her, tell her we got our guy.”
“What do you-”
“I mean, we got a picture-a photo of Baumann.”
“What are you talking about?”
But Roth hung up, and then dialed Sarah’s apartment. He got the machine, calculated she might be on the way home, maybe to get her kid, so he left a message.
In a coffee shop across the street from headquarters, Sarah sat, red-eyed, dazed.
Peter was dead.
How could it possibly be a coincidence? What if Baumann had meant to get her, and had got to Peter instead-Peter, who was in town and might well have tried to go to her apartment…
Jared. Was Jared next?
She had to get back to work immediately, today of all days, but somebody had to get Jared out of YMCA day camp. Pappas couldn’t do it. She needed him at headquarters.
At a pay phone on the street, she called Brea, the babysitter, then hung up before the phone began to ring. Brea was at her parents’ house in Albany, upstate. The fall-back sitter, Catherine, was in classes all day.
Then she dialed Brian’s number.
In the small, unfurnished apartment, Baumann listened to the message Lieutenant George Roth was leaving on Sarah’s answering machine.
Leo Krasner hadn’t been bluffing. A phone call would be made, he said. He had a photograph, he said.
Frozen, Baumann sat with his mind racing. Tomorrow was the 26th, the anniversary of the day on which U.S. federal marshals had killed Malcolm Dyson’s wife and daughter, the day Dyson wanted it all to happen.
But now they had a photograph.
They had his face.
Sarah would recognize the face. He hadn’t counted on that.
Well, the bomb was already in place. Waiting until tomorrow meant the entire mission might be sabotaged.
He could not take that chance. He would have to move things up. Dyson would certainly understand.