somebody who knows you but didn’t want you to know who he is?”
“Could be. Although, I had another idea, too. Dahlia mentioned yesterday that two different people had called from Thunderbolt for a team list. Maybe one of them was actually this Man of the People guy and he was only pretending to be from Thunderbolt. She would have given out all of our names.”
“Names, yes, but how did he get your personal e-mail address? And why did he contact you, instead of me? Or Mark, for that matter?”
Peter and I had discussed this at length. “He may have tried different variations of all of our names at all of the likely e-mail services—AOL, Hotmail, Verizon. My home account is nothing clever—just my first name and my last name plus my broadband provider. He could have sent out dozens of other e-mails, most of them to addresses that don’t exist or belong to other people. And if they belonged to other people, they wouldn’t have responded—they wouldn’t have had any idea what the e-mail was about. And maybe he did try to e-mail you, and Mark, too, but he didn’t hit on the right addresses?”
“I definitely didn’t get anything on my Yahoo account. I checked it last night.”
“I just hope I did the right thing. It felt wrong not to follow up in any way. If the deal is dirty, then it seems like I have a professional obligation to do something about it. But I didn’t want to get anyone at the firm involved before I knew more, because I didn’t want to give Gallagher even more reasons to hate me.”
Jake nodded his head. “I think you did do the right thing. It was a bit of a catch-22, but you made the right decision. Even with Gallagher out of the picture, it’s probably better to find out what’s going on before making any accusations.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Will you let me know if you hear back from this guy?” he asked. “We should definitely get to the bottom of this, especially since Perry’s still so gung-ho on getting the deal done.”
“Sure,” I said.
It was good to know we were in this together.
chapter ten
W e left 21 a little after three. I’d only had a glass and a half of wine when all was said and done, but I could definitely feel it as we walked back to the office. The bourbon seemed to have no effect whatsoever on Jake.
His cell phone rang on the walk back, and while nothing he said into it was particularly revealing, there was something about the way he spoke that made me think he was talking to a woman. An uncomfortable feeling washed over me. It took a moment to identify what, precisely, it was, and when I did, I wished I hadn’t.
Jealousy.
This was inappropriate in every possible way, and I did my best to shunt it to the back of my mind, where it festered quietly for the rest of the day.
Four hours later I was sitting with another glass of white wine before me, but this time in the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel on East 55th Street. The rich colors of the Maxfield Parrish mural that gave the room its name glowed from the wall above the bar, tarnished somewhat from decades of cigar and cigarette smoke. Now the place was smoke-free, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, and while the nicotine-deprived might complain, business was still going strong. Every table in the small lounge was full, and a throng of people occupied the remaining floor space, drinks in hand as they vied for the next empty table.
Fortunately, my friends had arrived before me and secured a cozy corner spot for us. It wasn’t unusual for any of them to be in New York on occasion, but I couldn’t remember the last time they’d all been here at once. Luisa had trained as a corporate lawyer and was even affiliated with a local law firm, but mostly she did work on behalf of her family in South America. Their international holdings were extensive and complex, and their affairs brought her here regularly. Emma, an artist, was a Manhattan native, but she’d been living in Boston with her
“Could be. Although, I had another idea, too. Dahlia mentioned yesterday that two different people had called from Thunderbolt for a team list. Maybe one of them was actually this Man of the People guy and he was only pretending to be from Thunderbolt. She would have given out all of our names.”
“Names, yes, but how did he get your personal e-mail address? And why did he contact you, instead of me? Or Mark, for that matter?”
Peter and I had discussed this at length. “He may have tried different variations of all of our names at all of the likely e-mail services—AOL, Hotmail, Verizon. My home account is nothing clever—just my first name and my last name plus my broadband provider. He could have sent out dozens of other e-mails, most of them to addresses that don’t exist or belong to other people. And if they belonged to other people, they wouldn’t have responded—they wouldn’t have had any idea what the e-mail was about. And maybe he did try to e-mail you, and Mark, too, but he didn’t hit on the right addresses?”
“I definitely didn’t get anything on my Yahoo account. I checked it last night.”
“I just hope I did the right thing. It felt wrong not to follow up in any way. If the deal is dirty, then it seems like I have a professional obligation to do something about it. But I didn’t want to get anyone at the firm involved before I knew more, because I didn’t want to give Gallagher even more reasons to hate me.”
Jake nodded his head. “I think you did do the right thing. It was a bit of a catch-22, but you made the right decision. Even with Gallagher out of the picture, it’s probably better to find out what’s going on before making any accusations.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Will you let me know if you hear back from this guy?” he asked. “We should definitely get to the bottom of this, especially since Perry’s still so gung-ho on getting the deal done.”
“Sure,” I said.
It was good to know we were in this together.
chapter ten
W e left 21 a little after three. I’d only had a glass and a half of wine when all was said and done, but I could definitely feel it as we walked back to the office. The bourbon seemed to have no effect whatsoever on Jake.
His cell phone rang on the walk back, and while nothing he said into it was particularly revealing, there was something about the way he spoke that made me think he was talking to a woman. An uncomfortable feeling washed over me. It took a moment to identify what, precisely, it was, and when I did, I wished I hadn’t.
Jealousy.
This was inappropriate in every possible way, and I did my best to shunt it to the back of my mind, where it festered quietly for the rest of the day.
Four hours later I was sitting with another glass of white wine before me, but this time in the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel on East 55th Street. The rich colors of the Maxfield Parrish mural that gave the room its name glowed from the wall above the bar, tarnished somewhat from decades of cigar and cigarette smoke. Now the place was smoke-free, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, and while the nicotine-deprived might complain, business was still going strong. Every table in the small lounge was full, and a throng of people occupied the remaining floor space, drinks in hand as they vied for the next empty table.
Fortunately, my friends had arrived before me and secured a cozy corner spot for us. It wasn’t unusual for any of them to be in New York on occasion, but I couldn’t remember the last time they’d all been here at once. Luisa had trained as a corporate lawyer and was even affiliated with a local law firm, but mostly she did work on behalf of her family in South America. Their international holdings were extensive and complex, and their affairs brought her here regularly. Emma, an artist, was a Manhattan native, but she’d been living in Boston with her
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