“I hope you gave him something?”
“I did not,” Stone replied. “First of all, I don’t have any tips at my disposal, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have given them to him. In fact, I thought of reporting him to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“Stone, if you had done that and they had subsequently suspended him from trading on American markets . . .”
“I know, I’d be in a barrel of fish in the Black Sea.”
“Quite. But perhaps, if we are patient, we will have another opportunity to report him, one that cannot be traced to you. I would love to see the son of a bitch suspended from trading in the U.S.”
“So would I, and Peter Grant, too, for abetting him.”
“At least we now know where Grant’s funds come from.”
“Did I tell you what I did at Peter’s apartment?”
“Just the wines.”
“I also feigned a need for the toilet and sneaked into my host’s dressing room.”
“What did you find there? Dresses?”
“A lot of Charvet and Huntsman suits, but also his wallet and his checkbook.”
“Tell me about the checkbook.”
“It had no register, so I could not see what checks he had written, but his account is with the Berg Bank of Zurich, and several checks had been torn out.”
“Do you know the Berg Bank?”
“I dealt with them briefly on behalf of the estate of Eduardo Bianchi, which had a large sum on deposit there that I wanted back.”
“Were you able to retrieve it?”
“Yes, though they were unhappy about it.”
“That sounds like them. It’s often said of the bank that they would be happy to open a deposit account for Satan himself.”
Stone laughed. “I can believe that. Would you like Peter’s account number?”
“Yes, please, I might be able to do something with that.”
Stone read it from his jotter.
“Thank you. I expect that Peter must have a debit card on that account, which would explain why he never uses credit cards.”
“I wonder what his balance is?”
“Perhaps you could find out,” Lance suggested. “Call your friend Charley Fox, and see what he can learn about what Peter made on the IPO.”
“I’ll try that,” Stone said.
“In the meantime, I may have a source at Berg.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Stone replied.
“Anything else to report?”
“Nothing,” Stone said. They both hung up, and Stone called Charley Fox.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Stone. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“You’re not disturbing anything. What can I do you for?”
“I wonder if you can find out what participation in our recent IPO two men had.”
“Their names?”
“Yevgeny Chekhov, a Russian oligarch, and Peter Grant, an American living in France.”
“Never heard of the first guy, but I know Peter Grant.”
“How?” Stone asked.
“I met him at a dinner party a year, maybe eighteen months ago.”
“Funny, he says he hasn’t been back to the States for decades. Where did you meet him?”
“At the home of some friends in New York.”
“Was that the first time you met him?”
“And the last, so far. I’d had a couple of drinks, and I may have said more than I should’ve about the IPO, even though it was way ahead of the event.”
“That explains how Peter found out, and he probably reported back to Chekhov. Can you find out what they had invested and how much they sold?”
“Maybe. I’ll check the records of the sales later and get back to you.”
“Excellent. I’d appreciate it if you could discreetly ask around about Chekhov. I’m inclined to think he’s probably broken a law or two. But be careful. We don’t want word reaching him that you’ve been asking questions about him.”
“Then I’ll see what I can learn on the computer,” Charley said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Charley.” Stone hung up.
* * *
—
Later in the afternoon Dino and Viv came downstairs from a nap, and Stone made them a drink. They had just begun drinking it when Tessa Martindale came in, bearing shopping bags. “I want one of those,” she said, “whatever they are.”
Stone poured her a vodka gimlet, and she sat down.
“What have you done with your day?” Stone asked.
“Lunched with a friend and gossiped.”
“About whom?”
“Peter Grant.”
“What did you learn?”
“That Peter was seen writing a large check at Charvet,” she said. “Apparently, his account had fallen into arrears.”
“How large a check?”
“My friend got a glimpse of it while she was waiting. It was for twenty-something thousand euros.”
“Whew!” Dino said. “I hope I never get a tailor’s bill for that much.”
“Not much chance of that,” Viv said, elbowing him.
“What? You’d like me to spend more?”
“Yes, I would. You’ve lost some weight, and that’s a perfect excuse.”
“Stone, do I have time to order a suit at Charvet?”
“Yes, but not to get a first fitting. You’ll have to wait for your next trip to Paris for that.”
“Gives us an excuse to come back,” Viv said.
25
They dined on Marie’s cooking and stayed up late talking. Later, Tessa was insistent in bed, then woke Stone up again in the middle of the night. As a result, he overslept.
He was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone on the bedside table. “Hello,” he muttered.
“Is it early there?” Charley Fox asked.
Stone glanced at the bedside clock. “No, it’s nearly noon. Did you find anything?”