Blue Belle

The lawyer tried another ice-breaker. 'My firm has a problem, Mr. Burke, and I was told you might be the ideal individual to assist us.'

I shrugged my shoulders slightly, telling him to get on with it. He wasn't in a hurry -that's the problem with paying guys by the hour.

'Is there any particular reason why we had to meet out here?' he wanted to know, gesturing toward the Hudson River with an impatient sweep of his hand. He had a nice watch. Pretty cuff links.

'Who gave you my number?' I asked, stepping on his question.

The lawyer swallowed his annoyance, reminding himself he wasn't speaking with an equal. Time to put me in my place. 'Do I have to say anything more than 'Mr. C.'?' he asked, smiling.

'Yes,' I said.

He looked honestly puzzled. Since he was a lawyer, only part of that could be accurate. 'I thought that would be enough. I was given to understand that a recommendation from Mr. C. would be all that you would require.'

'Give the understanding back, pal. And tell me who gave you my number.'

'I told you.'

'You saying Mr. C. spoke to you?' I asked him, watching his face.

'The number came from him,' he said, answering questions the way a lawyer does.

'Have a nice day,' I said, reaching behind me for the door handle.

'Wait a minute!' he snapped, putting his hand on my sleeve.

'You don't want to do that,' I told him.

He jerked his hand away, sliding into his speech. 'I can explain whatever is necessary, Mr. Burke. Please don't be impatient.' He shifted position on the soft gray leather seat, pushed a button, and watched proudly as the padded wall between us and the driver opened to reveal a well-stocked bar. 'Can I get you a drinj?'

'No,' I told him, taking a single cigarette from my jacket. I put it in my mouth, reached the same hand back inside for a match. I kept the other hand in my pocket, where it had been since I climbed in the limo. The gesture was wasted on him.

'Would you mind opening the window if you're going to smoke? . . . I’m allergic.'

I pushed the switch and the window whispered down, letting in the traffic noise from the West Side Highway. We were parked in the pocket between Vestry Street and where the highway forks near 14th. Cars went by, but not people. The limo had picked me up on Wall Street; I told the lawyer where I wanted to go, and he told the driver.

I lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, watching the lawyer.

'Those things will kill you,' he said. A concerned citizen.

'No, they won't,' I promised.

He shrugged, using the gesture to say that some people are beyond educating. He was right, but not about me. He tried one more time. 'Mr. C. is a client of our firm. In the course of discussing . . . uh . . . other matters, he indicated that you might be better suited to our immediate purposes than a more . . . traditional private investigator.' He glanced at my face, waiting for a reaction. When he realized he'd have a long time to wait, he shifted gears and rolled ahead. 'Mr. C. gave us certain . . . uh . . . assurances concerning your sense of discretion, Mr. Burke.' His tone of voice made it into a question.

I drew on my cigarette. The breeze from the open window at my back pushed the smoke toward his allergic face.

The lawyer slid a leather portfolio onto his lap, deftly opened it into a mini-desk, tapped a yellow legal pad with the tip of a gold ballpoint to get my attention. 'Why don't I write a figure down, Mr. Burke. You take a quick look, tell me if you're interested.' Without waiting for an answer, he slowly wrote '10,000' in large numbers. Reverently, like he was engraving a stone tablet. He raised his eyebrows in another question.

'For what?' I asked him.

'Our firm has a . . . uh . . . confidentiality problem, Mr. Burke. We occupy a rather unique position, interfacing, as we say, between the business, financial, and legal arenas. Necessarily, information crosses our desk, so to speak. Information that has a short but exceedingly valuable life. Are you following me?'

I nodded, but the lawyer wasn't going to take my word for it. 'You're certain?'

'Yeah,' I replied, bored with this. Yuppies didn't invent insider trading - information is always worth something to somebody. I was scamming along the tightrope between prison and the emergency ward while this guy was still kissing ass to get into law school.

The lawyer stroked his chin. Another gesture. Telling me he was making a decision. The decision never had been his to make, and we both knew it.

'Somebody in our firm has been . . . profiting from information. Information that has come to us in our fiduciary capacity. Are you following me?'

I just nodded, waiting.

'We know who this person is. And we've retained the very best professionals to look into the matter for us. Specialists in industrial espionage. People who are capable of checking things we wouldn't want to use a subpoena for. Still with me?'

'Sure.'

'We know who it is, like I said. But we have been unable to establish a case against him. We don't know how he moves the information. And we don't know to whom he passes it.'

'You checked his bank accounts, opened his mail, tapped his phones . . . all that, right?'

Now it was the lawyer's turn to nod, moving his head a reluctant two inches.

'Telegrams, visitors to the office, carrier pigeons . . . ?'

He nodded again, unsmiling.

'How much time would he have between getting the information and making use of it?'

'Ah, you do understand, Mr. Burke. That's exactly the problem. We deal with extremely sensitive issues. Nothing on paper. In a normal insider-trading situation, a profiteer would have a minimum of several days to make his move. But in our situation, he would have to act within a few hours - no longer than close of business on the same day the information comes in.'

'And you've had him under surveillance every day for a while?'

He nodded.

'Drawing a blank?'

He nodded again.

'You call in the federales?'

'That wouldn't be our chosen scenario for this situation. The firm itself has its own interests, as well as the obligation to protect our clients. Perhaps you don't understand some of the complexities of our profession. . .'

I gave him the closest thing to a smile I ever give citizens. I'd never heard the laundry business called a profession before.

'Why doh't you just fire him?'

'We can't do that. He's a very well connected young man. Besides, our clients will demand some actual proof of his guilt before taking any action. They were very insistent on that, for some reason.'

Sure. The 'clients' wanted to make damn sure the problem was going to get solved for good. The only time humans like that are interested in the truth is when a mistake will cost them money.

'What do you want from me?'

'We want you to find out how this individual gets the information out. And we want proof. Something we can show our clients.'

'And the only time he could possibly pass this along is during business hours?'

'Yes. Without question. After that . . . it wouldn't be of value to him or anyone else.'

I lit another cigarette, thinking it through. It sounded like they had the wrong guy. Maybe the 'clients' were setting them up. Maybe this lawyer was the one doing the stealing. It wasn't my problem. Money was. Always is.

'The only time I could watch him would be when he leaves the building, right?'

'Yes. Inside the building, he's completely covered.'