laughed and set down his chopsticks. “It was crazy. Goldstake Bank had a partner company, Goldstake Securities, that traded a lot of SatTek stock. A whole lot. The difference between the two was a fiction. No…it was a joke. The address was the same, the officers were the same. One day we’d get a call from a guy saying he was with Goldstake Bank and the next day from the same guy calling from Goldstake Securities.”
“But selling the building would require board of directors’ approval. How did Matson get them to go along?”
“Easy.” Milsberg smiled as if he was about to take a bow. “Warrants. He’d been feeding them warrants. They did anything Matson and Granger told them to do because they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing nothing but calling their brokers and saying, ‘Sell.’”
Gage called Courtney as he was driving away.
“How’s Jack doing?”
“Wonderful. Being home made all the difference. His color is good and his cough is almost gone.”
“Would you ask him if he knows anything about Goldstake Bank?”
“Sure. Hold on.”
Gage heard a thunk as Courtney set the phone down, then her receding steps. She picked up the phone a minute later.
“Jack thinks it would be better if you came by.”
Burch was napping in a recliner in the slate-floored sun-room of his house when Gage walked in. He opened his eyes at the sound of Gage introducing himself to the bodyguard sitting by the stone fireplace in the living room, then raised his hand in a low wave.
Gage walked over, pulled an armchair to face him, then sat down. “How’s it feel to be home?”
Burch spread his hands as if to encompass the house. “It’s either a prison…” He cleared his throat while pressing his hands against his chest. “Or a fortress. I’m not sure yet.”
On the drive over, Gage had considered asking a few questions, then leaving and thereby postponing Burch’s confrontation with the case Peterson and Braunegg were building around him. But Burch took the decision out of his hands.
“I heard Courtney arguing with someone outside of my door at the hospital,” Burch said. “I finally convinced her to tell me why.” He reached over and picked up a glass of water from a low table, then took a sip. “How’d you get them to withdraw the subpoena?”
Gage shrugged. “Let’s say I appealed to their good consciences.”
Burch offered a weak smile. “Assumes facts not in evidence.” He coughed lightly, then continued. “But it’s time I learned what the facts are.”
Burch’s earnest expression told Gage he was ready to do more than simply answer questions. He wanted to know where he stood.
Gage watched Burch’s mood rise and fall, his eyes widen and narrow, as he listened to Gage describe what he’d done and what he’d learned since the shooting. He told Burch everything except what happened to Mickey. That was something for him to feel responsible for, not Burch.
Burch didn’t interrupt. Thirty years of listening to clients try to explain complex issues had taught him discipline and patience, but he appeared so drawn and drained at the end that Gage feared he’d gone too far and exposed Burch to too much all at once.
But Burch wasn’t thinking about himself. “I had no idea…I didn’t want you to devote your whole life to…”
Gage reached over and patted his forearm. “It’s okay, champ. You’d do the same for me. We both know it.”
“Still…”
Gage stopped him with a wagging forefinger, then changed the subject. “I need to know about Goldstake.”
Burch thought for a moment, as if unwilling to leave something unsaid. Gage pointed at him and smiled. “Goldstake.”
“Okay.” He smiled back, then spoke. “It’s owned by the Moscow Bank of Commerce.” Burch licked his dry lips and swallowed. “Contacted me about five years ago. A referral from the Bank of America, wanting a bank license in the States. It was funded with foreign capital.” Burch glanced toward his bodyguard in the next room, then leaned toward Gage and lowered his voice. “But there was a problem. When I was dealing with the Moscow bank, it was owned by a client who made his money in the natural gas market.” Burch cleared his throat and took another sip of water. “But things changed. When the oligarchs…and that’s what the client was…went to war, the Russian government couldn’t protect the bank so he turned to the maffiya. And I resigned.”
“Who became your client’s roof?”
Burch leaned farther toward Gage. “There were two. One was the Podolskaya Group…and since the client had investments in Ukraine-”
Gage held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. It’s Gravilov.”
Burch sat up, then flinched in pain and pressed his palms against his chest. “Does Peterson know?” Burch’s voice rose. “Is he talking about two indictments? Like I’m some kind of mob lawyer?”
Gage shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure he even knows all the ways Goldstake Bank is connected to SatTek-”
“It’s what?” The color drained from Burch’s face. “That can’t be-”
Gage nodded. “Goldstake Bank now owns the SatTek facility.”
Burch slumped. “And that means Peterson can connect me at both ends, make me look like the one who put this whole thing together. Bigger even than Granger. Just like he’s been trying to do all along.”
“Not yet, but it’s just a matter of time.” Gage looked down and thought for a moment. “Maybe…” Then back up at Burch. “We need to loop back, before SatTek. You know anybody at Granger’s old firm in New York?”
CHAPTER 53
W estbrae Ventures Executive VP Herb Smothers was wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin as he answered the front door of his Westchester County colonial outside New York City the following night. He was still dressed in his suit slacks, starched blue shirt, and red tie. His sandy hair was short and graying at the temples. His face was open and friendly, as if expecting a neighbor-until Gage identified himself and said, “Jack Burch suggested I talk to you.”
Smothers’s Ivy League face slammed shut. He clenched his teeth and locked his eyes on Gage. “And I told Jack I had nothing to say.”
Gage heard the clunk of rubber cleats on the walkway behind him, then a male voice saying, “We sure fucked up those assholes.” Then another male voice laughing and hands slapping. He glanced over his shoulder as two men in their early twenties, wearing mud-splattered blue and yellow striped rugby shirts, emerged from the darkness and into the light cast by the porch fixture. They alerted like Rottweilers to the tension on their father’s face and came to a stop behind Gage.
The larger of the two pointed at Gage’s back. “This guy giving you a problem, Pop?” The two stepped forward, bracketing Gage, their shoulders touching his and their stale beer breath wafting toward him.
Smothers looked back and forth between his sons. Uncertainty clouded his face as he grasped the absurdity of having his drunk sons come to his rescue.
Smothers fixed his eyes on Gage, but spoke to his sons, “I’ll take care of it.”
Gage turned sideways to allow them to pass, then back toward Smothers as they thunked across the marble foyer and toward the kitchen.
“Smart move,” Gage said. “Now tell me about Granger.”
Smothers shook his head. “You wasted the trip.” Smothers’s voice was now firm, as if a businesslike tone could convince Gage to leave with his questions unanswered. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He then tried a limp my-hands-are-tied shrug. “Corporate counsel locked the whole thing down the moment Granger walked away from Westbrae. It was mutual. He doesn’t talk about us. We don’t talk about him.”
