Question of Trust. Laura Caldwell

that the wealth his family had amassed had been “invested” into a legitimate business—that’s what it looked like anyway, a legitimate business—and now, what the fuck was happening? Where the fuck was the return on that money? And if there was no return—the way he’d been promised—where the fuck was all the money that was supposed to be in that goddamned business?

      José slammed his hand on the table and squeezed his eyes shut. But it didn’t help. He could still envision Vincente as a little boy who had always wanted to be like his brother. Except that “Vince,” as he called himself now, was smarter. That’s why he had eventually gotten his MBA after his father sent the boys to the U.S. from Mexico. And that was supposed to be why they could trust Vincente to find legitimate investments when they needed them. But Vincente had fucked it up. That was becoming clear.

      He slammed his hand again, right as the door opened. “I told you never to just walk in,” he barked at the new restaurant general manager.

      The man didn’t respond. Instead, he left, closed the door, knocked and then reentered.

      “What?” José said in a demanding bark.

      “The eggs that were delivered are spoiled. We’ll need more to get through the week,” the manager said with urgency.

      He glared. This restaurant was not his identity. It was a front, like so many others the family had. He crooked his finger at the man, who came closer. Then he did it once more, slowly bending and extending and bending his finger in a methodical way. When the manager was close to the desk, he spoke in a low tone, threateningly. “If you can’t handle these issues, someone else will,” he said simply. “Do you get that?”

      The manager had the audacity to return the glare before he backed out of the room.

      As the door closed, he slammed his hand flat on the desk once more. It disgusted him that he continued to have such discussions with his underlings. But a “discussion” was not required with the people running that business, a business that was running off with his family’s money. No, something much, much more than discussion was necessary.

      5

      “Ms. Granger? Mr. Reynolds will see you now.”

      I slid carefully out of my seat and smoothed the front of my pencil skirt. I undid one more button of my shirt to allow ample cleavage to show and made sure the tiny camera in my necklace was still pointing forward. After one last check in the mirror, I strutted my stuff across the bank lobby.

      All right, Izzy, I thought to myself. Let’s do this.

      Mayburn did a lot of work for banks. Sometimes the cases he worked were huge and complex—big-scale bank fraud and money laundering and such—requiring me to do something dangerous like invade someone’s home computer to download information. (Naturally, Mayburn always undersold such jobs, letting me figure out for myself—usually right when I was about to get caught—how much bigger and potentially threatening the situation was than I’d thought.)

      Tatum Reynolds’s office was about as typical as they came. One Plexiglas wall looked onto the bank. The rest of the walls were gray, the carpet blue, the desk and bookshelves black metal. Mayburn had told me the bank hired him to prove Reynolds was hoarding enrollment incentives that were supposed to be given to all new clients. When a number of his clients complained they never saw the money they were promised, the bank suspected that Tatum was depositing the money into his own bank account. However, the transactions couldn’t be proven, and after watching him, Mayburn and the bank came to believe that he might be taking the money and then giving large sums to “special” clients. All the “special” clients were pretty women with almost no money to deposit into their new account. That’s where I came in. I was supposed to open an account with fifty bucks. If he failed to give me the hundred-dollar incentive, we had him. If he tried to offer me more, we had him. For once, Mayburn might have been right. This was going to be easy.

      “Ms. Granger, welcome to Chicagoland Bank and Trust,” Reynolds said. “I understand you want to open an account?”

      He was thin and pale and much younger than I anticipated. His voice had a squeak to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy was a teenager, not a late-twenties, thieving bank manager. He had a bowl cut, for goodness’ sake.

      “Yeah, I want a checking account. One of those online ones,” I answered, affecting a nasally voice. Was the fake voice a part of the undercover assignment? No. But I couldn’t help myself.

      “We can certainly help you with that.” He gave me a crooked smile.

      For the next twenty minutes, I listened to Reynolds give me options on checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and investments, but no mention of the cash incentive. I did my best to play my part and noted with pleasure that he glanced down my blouse, where the necklace hung, quite a few times. He even blushed a little when I laughed at one of his jokes. I handed him the ID that Mayburn had given me and started signing the paperwork.

      “You know,” he mumbled, “our bank offers an incentive program.”

      I lowered the pen slowly. “Really? What’s that mean?”

      “Well …” He cleared his throat. “There’s this really nice restaurant around the corner. It’s a French place called Tru.”

      Tru was one of the most touted and expensive restaurants in Chicago. Where was this going?

      “We could … ah … go there,” he stammered, his eyes firmly planted on his left cuff link.

      I blinked at him. Did he just ask me out on a date?

      “You see,” he continued, “our bank offers you two hundred dollars toward a dinner at Tru for opening an account with us. It’s impossible to get a reservation, but I know a guy who lets me in whenever I want.”

      I know a guy. Such a Chicago thing to say. The city had a strange but wonderful pride that involved being able to help others. Sometimes this was meant to make the helper feel better about himself. Sometimes it was more altruistic. But almost always the phrase I got a guy (or some variation thereof) came into play as the person offered a connection to make it all better—a plumber who would show up in an hour and stop your basement from flooding; the cop who would arrive in minutes, assess the situation and then leave if you didn’t want to go through the hassle of a police report; a doctor who normally had a three-month waiting list, but who would get you in as a special favor to the one who said I got a guy.

      “So if you wanted the incentive,” Tatum said, “I could get you in.”

      Wow. Tatum was using the incentive money not just to impress women, but also to pay for a date? At Tru? Thank God the necklace cam was getting all of this or no one would believe me. (And thankfully Mayburn and my dad would be paying the tab on this job if they wanted to keep it going, because two hundred dollars wouldn’t buy much at Tru.)

      Reynolds was staring at me with something akin to blind fear in his eyes, and for a second I felt sorry for him. But then I remembered I had a job to do.

      “I’d love to, Tatum.”

      At the sound of his name, his entire face exploded into an ear-to-ear smile. “Great! I’ll get the paperwork going.”

      After saying goodbye to Tatum Reynolds, I made my way to the café across the street. Mayburn and my father had set up shop there so they could watch the feed from my necklace camera on a laptop. I weaved through the tables and to the back booth.

      My father gave me a curt nod in greeting and Mayburn mumbled what was barely discernable as a salutation. It might have been my imagination, or the lighting in the coffee shop, but Mayburn looked a little red.

      “Did you get all that?” I asked, trying to get a read on the situation between the two of them.

      “Yeah, we got it,” Mayburn answered. “He offered you the money … to take you … out on a date….” Then he burst out laughing. His face