Chapter 15: Out of Band

September 17, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“I suppose this is better than personal drama,” Jennifer laughed.

“Dad,” Jesse said. “I don’t get it. Why arrest Samantha? Her dad was the bad guy!”

“Intimidation,” I said. “You know, like a bully.”

Jesse smirked, “There was one at school.”

“Was?” Josie asked.

“Birgit explained to him what would happen if he bothered anyone ever again.”

“Pumpkin?” I prompted.

“I just told him that I would turn him into a girl!” she giggled.

“By saying WHAT, young lady?” Kara demanded.

“That I’d chop off his dick and balls and stuff them into his mouth!”

I nearly spit out the mouthful of food I had, and everyone else erupted into laughter or covered their mouths to avoid the same problem I was having. I carefully chewed and swallowed, then took a drink of water.

“Pumpkin, we probably don’t want to say things like that to kids at school.”

“Why? He was picking on the little kids and nobody was stopping him! Rachel and Tiffany were with me and told him they would hold him down while I did it!”

“I can hear the phone call now,” Jessica said quietly, shaking her head.

“Where did this happen?” I asked.

“On the sidewalk on the way to school yesterday. I think he walked a different way today.”

“I BET he did!” Elyse laughed.

“Birgit, we’ll talk about this later,” Kara said calmly.

“Yes, Mom,” she replied, complete with her patented eye roll.

We finished dinner, then Kara, Birgit, Ashley, Stephie, and I headed to karate. Kara didn’t say anything to Birgit, but I figured that would happen when we arrived home. Karate was uneventful, and as I had expected, Kara took Birgit aside while I showered, after which I went down to join Stephanie, Ed, Maria Cristina, and the rest of the household in the great room.

“Did you hear from Samantha?” I asked Stephanie.

“Yes, just before we came over. She’d like to meet you here tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine,” I replied. “Do you need to call her?”

“Only if the meeting isn’t going to happen. She suggested here because it’s easier for her because of class.”

“No problem,” I said. “How are you?”

“Stressed! Do you have ANY clue what an SEC investigation is like?”

“No, and I have no plans to find out directly! I imagine they use a proctoscope?”

“With no lubrication! And no sedation!”

“How are YOU holding up, Ed?” Elyse asked.

“Oh, you know, I just sit back and laugh,” he grinned. “She makes more than five times what I do, but her stress levels are about a hundred times higher!”

“Ignore him,” Stephanie laughed. “He likes to help me work out the stress!”

“Obviously, from that little girl in your arms!” Jennifer smirked.

“You do remember what that part of your body felt like for a month or two after Jesse was born, right?”

“Yeah,” Jennifer smirked, “I do, but I wasn’t letting the big lug over there stick his dick in there again, so...”

Everyone was still laughing a few seconds later when Kara came into the room.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“Just the lesbian asserting she wasn’t interested in dick!” Stephanie smirked.

“I’d be careful, Squirt! She knows more about your past than anyone in this room except me, and maybe Ed!”

“Whatever,” Stephanie laughed.

“How is my Pumpkin?” I asked.

“Feisty!” Kara replied with a soft laugh. “If what she and Stephie told me is true, I do need to talk to the school about Jack. His idea of fun is pushing the kids down and stealing their backpacks, AND he hits girls.”

“It sounds like he has some problems at home,” Maria Cristina said quietly.

“Birgit says she thinks his dad hits him. That’s the main reason I need to call the school. I’ll do that in the morning during my office hours.”

“Anyone who hits a kid...” Ed said, leaving the completion of the sentence to everyone’s imagination.

“Exactly,” Jessica said. “Those are some of the toughest situations in the ER - when we know the parent is abusive, but they seem all lovey-dovey and the kids are scared to death to tell us. That’s not Bethany’s forte, but we have a couple of very good child psychologists we can call on to help.”

“Is everything on track for January?” Elyse asked.

“Yes! A brand-spanking new, expanded ER! They’re interviewing for positions now. We’ll be adding at least four Attending spots, and we’ll get additional Residents and medical students. And of course more nurses and support personnel. That’s where the fight is, but Doctor Barton is making his case. We simply can’t function as doctors without nurses and support staff, no matter what the idiot MBAs think.”

“MBAs are ‘bean counting’ and ‘right-sizing’ us into a complete disaster,” I said. “Wiping out ‘middle management’ may have saved money, but it hurt consumers AND employees. You literally can’t get anyone on the phone who has any authority at this point because there are line staff and executives, and the one manager who oversees the line staff has no real authority. Assuming you can get anyone on the phone because of the reductions in customer service staff. And while that might save money in the short term, it’s disastrous in the long term.”

“You run a very lean organization that doesn’t have middle managers or admin staff,” Josie said.

“We have them where necessary, and our business isn’t really one which needs secretaries. Everyone does their own typing, copying, and so on, and reads their own mail. But, if a customer calls in for help, he or she WILL get someone on the phone immediately. No ‘phone menu hell’ or voicemail. If every customer service rep is busy, we overflow calls to the consultants or the Associate Software Engineers. And as a last resort, Terry, Julia, Cindi, or I will take the call. We staff based on call volume and add people BEFORE it becomes an issue.”

“Melissa is copying that model,” Jennifer said. “And customer satisfaction has gone up. Dante used to skimp on that, from what I can tell.”

“Dante skimped on anything which didn’t immediately put money directly in Dante’s pocket,” I replied.

“What about Spurgeon?” Josie asked.

“We are ‘high touch’,” Stephanie replied. “The last thing you want is voicemail or to be on hold when you need your broker. That’s why the traders and brokers have assistants and secretaries, and work in teams of two to four, where everyone covers for everyone. Guys like Matheson who are ‘lone wolves’ are rare, and in his case, he had three assistants and a junior guy working for him to make sure his clients had their calls answered and their trades executed. The guy who is trying to track them down was actually brought up through the ranks by Matheson.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I honestly don’t know, but the picture I’m getting is that it’s more complicated than Samantha let on. Probably the only ones who really know are Matheson and Samantha’s dad. I don’t know if the guy has a valid SEC license, or if he ever had one, just that Matheson took a liking to him fifteen years ago. And taught him everything about international currency trading. And more.”

“Interesting. Well, hopefully he finds something.”

“You seem to have had quite a few run-ins with the government,” Maria Cristina said.

“That’s putting it nicely,” Jennifer laughed. “Starting with them thinking he was spying for the Soviet Union!”

“What?!” she gasped. “He would never!”

I chuckled, “My girlfriend at the time, and this was long before I was married, was Tanya Grigoryeva, though then it was Tanya Voronina. Her dad was Trade Attaché to the US from the USSR and the FBI thought I might be involved in espionage.”

“The only thing Steve was interested in stealing was her virtue!” Stephanie laughed.

“Squirt!” I said firmly. “Do NOT speak about her in that way.”

“Jesus,” Stephanie breathed.

“He’s super-protective of her,” Kara said. “He always has been. There’s a Russian word he uses all the time to describe behavior of which she doesn’t approve.”

“«некультурный»,” I said. “It means ‘uncultured’ or ‘uncouth’. And if you recall who I had to deal with back then, you’ll know why I NEVER did anything even remotely «некультурный» around Tanya, or said anything that might be considered «некультурный» about her.”

“Major, later Colonel, Yekatarina Sergeyevna Anisimova,” Kara laughed. “Formerly of the KGB!”

“But Lucy...” Stephanie protested.

“Lucy was BORN «некультурный»!” Kara laughed. “You know the story, right?”

“Of her lying naked in Tanya’s bed when she was fifteen and trying to entice my brother?”

“Bingo! But Steve considered the ramifications of THAT, and decided he preferred not to have Tanya cut off his balls and not have Katya double-tap him!”

Of course, I HAD ‘tapped’ Lyudmila years later, when I was no longer involved with Tanya, but the details of that didn’t need to be discussed.

“Yes, and I prefer to KEEP them attached, rather than have, Dmitry, say, drive a tank over them!”

“Dmitry? He’s a pussycat!” Jessica laughed. “He’s so gentle with the kids!”

“I suspect I could find a few privates, sergeants, and lieutenants who would disagree with you,” I grinned. “Oh, Jen, before I forget, I pre-ordered a Nintendo 64, the new gaming console, for Jesse.”

“You aren’t supposed to do that!” Josie protested.

“If you remember, our agreement excluded computers and other electronics,” I said smugly. “I’ll pick it up on the 29th. No special occasion, either.”

Josie glared at me, but I was within the agreement I’d made with Jennifer, so I wasn’t worried.

“I think we need to start getting the kids to bed,” Kara said. “The girls have had enough time to relax after karate. Stephanie, are you guys staying? If you want to put David down in the boys’ room, there’s a spot.”

“Ed, why don’t we do that,” she said. “I’d like to stay for a bit.”

He nodded and went upstairs with Kara, Jessica, and Elyse to start the bedtime routines. Jennifer went upstairs to retrieve Jesse and was back down a minute later with him in tow. She, Josie, and Jesse headed to the coach house.

“I’m going to feed Patricia,” Stephanie said. “OK to use your study?”

“Sure,” I replied.

She got up and went into the study. I had no issues with her feeding Patricia in the great room, but Ed wasn’t comfortable with it because of my history with Stephanie, and I understood his point. That left Maria Cristina and I alone in the great room, and she moved to sit next to me on the couch. She snuggled close and I put my arm around her.

“You’re really not in any trouble?” she asked.

“I’m not. I’ve had lots of dealings with the government as we said before, but I always come out clean because I AM clean!”

“How do you stay so calm?”

“Regular beatings by the women in my life,” I chuckled. “You didn’t know me when I was younger.”

“When I talked with Jennifer she told me you two had a very difficult relationship because she was confused about her sexuality.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” I replied. “Stormy is the word I use, and I mean a Category 5 hurricane or an F-5 tornado, not a gentle Summer rainstorm.”

“And you and Elyse met before you went to Sweden, but then didn’t become involved again until you moved to Chicago.”

“If you try to piece it together that way, you’re going to become thoroughly confused!” I chuckled. “I think the team of Jennifer, Bethany, Elyse, and Kara, with some input from my sister, could probably lay it out best, though you might want to include Sofia as well so you can get the Swedish story.”

“And you don’t have a problem with that?”

“No, of course not. If you’re going to be around for eight years, or more, you’re going to get pieces of my history here and there. Feel free to ask them anything.”

“Sofia was your girlfriend?”

“She actually moved here, at least partly, for me,” I replied. “But she’s not the type to share, so it didn’t work out.”

“And all these girls for whom things didn’t work out are still friends.”

“Close friends, really.”

“That’s weird in my experience. My friends who broke up with guys or had guys break up with them basically wanted nothing to do with them.”

“I’d say pretty much everything about my life is weird!”

“Ain’t THAT the truth!” Kara laughed as she, Jessica, Elyse, and Ed came back downstairs.

September 18, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“So what’s up?” I asked Samantha after I turned on the signal generator and the white noise generator.

“What else can you tell me about your interactions with Matheson?”

“Not much, really. In hindsight, the entire conversation at the diner was pure misdirection. Nothing Matheson said was real, and was meant to set the stage for what happened later. After that, he strung me along and played to my personality. It worked, too, because I patted myself on the back, at least initially, for decoding their secret message. But it was too damned easy.”

“Why have you pass money to the guard?”

“To see if I would do it, to suck me deeper into the conspiracy, and to see if anyone would move against the guard. And I’ll bet you anything you care to wager it was newsprint or something like that, and the guard simply dropped it in the trash. He could easily have some excuse. Did you have any luck tracking down the plane they used?”

“There are a lot of Learjets around, and for all we know, the plane was brought in from Canada or Mexico or even one of the Caribbean Islands, then had the fake registration number added. We’d NEVER figure that out. That’s one of the things Global Security is going to investigate for me, but they say it’s a longshot.”

“I agree. How’s your Matheson protégé doing?”

“Stephanie told you?”

“She said you don’t know too much.”

“No. I was six, I think, when he was first hired, and thirteen when everything went down. He was always nice to me, though, from the first time I met him.”

“But you don’t know what happened between him and your dad?”

“Just that my dad said the guy screwed him. It was right after the insane SEC investigation that it caused, when Dad started including me in more inside information. I’d already been reading the Wall Street Journal at that point, and he had talked to me about business in general. That’s when the serious education began, but with the understanding I’d bring him my husband to actually run the firm. You just got married a few years too early!”

I chuckled, “Could you share?”

“Hell no! Not my husband. An affair is one thing; marriage is another!”

“And you have that same standard for Brian?” I smirked.

“The UCMJ frowns heavily on adultery. And so do I!”

“Uh-huh,” I grinned.

“Your wives were cool with it. I’m not.”

“Interesting,” I smirked.

“Oh, stop!” she laughed. “Back to Matheson. You’re sure he was behind the break-ins at NIKA?”

“The same two idiot cops were with him at the diner. It’s way too much of a coincidence, and if the FBI had liked him for Outfit connections, that would have generated a different set of questions. What gets me is the apparent lack of leads with regard to the guys on the plane and the pilots.”

“That’s what makes me suspicious the plane came from Canada or the Caribbean.”

“Any word about the guards or the stand-in?”

“The FBI isn’t talking, and my contact who your sister called doesn’t have any more information. I did give the guards’ names to Global Security, along with the name of the guy who impersonated my dad.”

“You have to admit that was pretty slick.”

“My dad is no idiot, which is why I’m concerned about Spurgeon. And really why I’m here.”

“I believe I told you what to do,” I grinned.

“You did. And I’m going to fix it. But fifteen months is not enough.”

“No way, Samantha!” I growled. “We agreed. I can’t give on that. It’s already a year past what I wanted.”

“Perhaps we can make a different deal.”

“I’m listening,” I said evenly.

“Keri is finishing her MBA. Let me hire her, and then have your sister train her for the next year.”

“I won’t stand in the way of you offering Keri the position, but Elyse isn’t going to be happy.”

“I’ll leave satisfying Elyse to YOU,” Samantha laughed. “That’s ANOTHER reason you and I could never marry!”

“Because you couldn’t satisfy Elyse?” I smirked.

“Do your wives, or do they not, also make love to each other?”

“You know the answer to THAT.”

“QED! Anyway, you’re OK with this?”

“I didn’t prevent Melissa from hiring Michelle. I won’t stand in the way. Are you sure she’s the one you want?”

“She has the right credentials, you and Elyse have trained her, and your sister likes her.”

“Then make your offer. I will tell you the same thing I told Melissa - don’t overpay. Offer Keri what she’s worth.”

“Which will be more than you’re paying her.”

“Obviously, but don’t try to buy her. Make an equitable offer, and take it from there. As she performs, THEN bring more money to the table. Remember, she’s an understudy for a year or so.”

“When can I talk to her?”

“Any time after the end of business today. Give me a chance to talk to Elyse first.”

“OK.”

“I also hear from Stephanie you’re still struggling with the ‘Crack and Hookers’ problem.”

Samantha sighed, “Which is perpetuated because ALL of the good traders and moneymen are, well, men. And trying to put a female on one of those teams would be like throwing chum to sharks.”

I chuckled, “So turn it on its head.”

“What?”

“Find three or four good female traders and do what I just told you not to do - buy them. Form them into their own team. Have them hire only good-looking studs as assistants and secretaries.”

Samantha laughed, “Nice. But the idea of an all-female team is a good one.”

“I’ve seen that in some of the white-shoe law firms. To diversify, they brought in a team of women or minorities and went from there. It’s a crappy solution, but it’s better than being a WASP firm in a city that is heavily Catholic, black, and Hispanic.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“By accident, in part. Obviously, we don’t discriminate except against the ‘participation trophy’ crowd and other fools, but we ended up with more females because they tended to have more varied courses on their résumés compared to guys. That made them much better fits for NIKA. As for minorities, we cast our net as widely as possible. We don’t give preference, but we don’t discriminate. And given our reputation, we get, organically, far more minority and female applicants than most places who do specific outreach.”