“Not at all,” I said. “It’s a teachable moment. You should know by now not to question me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m stuck. If you have any ideas, just IM me, and I’ll check them out.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I hung up.
The man who wasn’t Philip Curtis had a strong Chicago accent. Wherever he lived now, he was raised in Chicago. He had a rich dad: The hand-me-down Patek Philippe confirmed that.
Then there was the black luggage tag on his Louis Vuitton briefcase. A fractional jet card. He leased a private jet for some limited number of hours per year. Which meant he wanted a private jet but couldn’t afford one.
I had a vague recollection of an item I’d seen on BizWire about troubles in a family-held business in Chicago. “Will you excuse me for just one more minute?” I said. “I have to put out a fire.” Then I typed out an instant message and sent it to Dorothy.
The answer came back less than a minute later: a Wall Street Journal article she’d pulled up on ProQuest. I skimmed it, and I knew I’d guessed right. I remembered hearing the whole sordid story not too long ago.
Then I leaned back in my chair. “So here’s the problem,” I said.
“Problem?”
“I’m not interested in your business.”
Stunned, he whirled around to look at me. “What did you just say?”
“If you really did your homework, you’d know that I do intelligence work for private clients. I’m not a private investigator, I don’t tap phones, and I don’t do divorces. And I’m sure as hell not a family therapist.”
“Family…?”
“This is clearly a family squabble, Sam.”
Small round pink spots had formed high on his cheeks. “I told you my name is—”
“Don’t even bother,” I said wearily. “This has nothing to do with plugging a leak. Your family troubles aren’t exactly a secret. You were supposed to take over Daddy’s company until he heard you were talking to the private equity guys about taking Richter private and cashing out.”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
His father, Jacob Richter, had gone from owning a parking lot in Chicago to creating the largest luxury hotel chain in the world. Over a hundred five-star hotels in forty countries, plus a couple of cruise lines, shopping malls, office buildings, and a hell of a lot of real estate. A company valued at ten billion dollars.
“So Dad gets pissed off,” I went on, “and squeezes you out and appoints Big Sis chief executive officer and heir apparent instead of you. Didn’t expect that, did you? You figured you were a shoo-in. But you’re not gonna put up with that, are you? Since you know all of Dad’s dirty laundry, you figure you’ll get him on tape making one of his shady real estate deals, offering kickbacks and bribes, and you’ll be able to blackmail your way back in. I guess that’s called winning ugly, right?”
Sam Richter’s face had gone dark red, almost purple. A couple of bulging veins on top of his scalp were throbbing so hard I thought he was going to have a coronary right in the middle of my office. “Who did you talk to?” he demanded.
“Nobody. Just did the whole due-diligence thing. I always like to know who I’m doing business with. And I really don’t like being lied to.”
As Richter lurched to his feet, he shoved the chair—one of the expensive Humanscale office chairs left by the dot-com—and it crashed to the floor, leaving a visible dent in the old wood. From the doorway, he said, “You know, for a guy whose father’s in prison for fraud, you sure act all high and mighty.”
“You’ve got a point,” I conceded. “Sorry to waste your time. Mind showing yourself out?” Behind him Dorothy was standing, arms folded.
“Victor Heller was … the scum of the earth!” he sputtered.
“Is,” I corrected him.
4.
“You don’t tap phones,” Dorothy said, arms folded, moving into my office.
I smiled, shrugged. “I always forget you can hear. Someday that’s gonna get me in trouble.” Our standard arrangement was for her to listen in on all client meetings via the IP video camera built into the huge desktop monitor on my desk.
“You don’t tap phones,” she said again. Her lips were pressed into a smirk. “Mm-hmm.”
“As a general rule,” I said.
“Please,” she said. “You hire guys to do it.”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell was that all about?” she snapped with a fierce glare.