Evening Storm by Anne Calhoun

crowd. “If I’m asked to be in the sequel to the
Wolf of Wall Street
, I’ll be set for research.”
    He laughed. “Are they making one?”
    â€œIt made over three hundred million dollars,” she said pragmatically. “I’m sure the studio’s considering it.”
    â€œGreed never gets old, never goes out of style,” he said.
    The crowd parted for a moment as Charles, the managing director of MacCarren, his father’s right-hand man and enforcer, made his way through the crowd, heading straight for Ryan. Charles extended his hand, most people too cowed to actually say hello or strike up a conversation. He held out his hand to Ryan, giving him a hearty handshake, but Ryan knew better than to think Charles had crossed the room for him. Charles didn’t cross a room for anyone, but Ryan was here with Daria Russell, still in the gown from the gala, and looking every inch the movie star. The way Charles transformed from an arrogant investment shark into a starstruck, posturing teenager was almost enough to make him laugh.
    He introduced Charles to Daria, and stayed on the sidelines while Charles told her which performances he loved, and how she smoked her Oscar competition. Typical male chest-beating. Ryan knew that she felt her best work was in the theater, that she’d given performances to half-empty off-Broadway theaters that blew any film work she’d done straight out of the water. But she played the movie star well. Now it was his turn to play a role. This was why he’d brought Daria. Supermodels in New York were a dime a dozen, but an Oscar-winning actress? That would get Charles’s attention.
    â€œCan I have a minute?” he asked when the conversation lagged. “Your office?”
    Charles couldn’t turn him down without looking like an ass in front of Daria. “Sure,” he said.
    He led Ryan down the hallway to the office Ryan had scoped out on a bathroom run earlier in the night, and evicted a couple with a single jerk of his head. The kid worked for one of Ryan’s traders, and his face went white with terror when he saw Charles.
Don’t worry
, Ryan thought.
You’ve got bigger problems than getting caught with a hooker’s hand down your pants in the managing director’s home office. If this goes according to plan, you’re not going to have a job.
    When the door closed behind the kid and his “date,” Ryan took a deep breath and reached in his pocket to thumb on the microrecorder. “I know what you guys are doing.”
    Charles’s expression didn’t change. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
    â€œThe Ponzi scheme. I know what you’re doing. I know how it works. I know the accounts, how the money flows, how you’re covering it all up.”
    Silence.
    â€œYou want me to lay out your business for you?” He went on to describe the accounts, giving amounts, transaction histories. It was such a sweet, tight insider scam. The father, Don, started the scheme in the eighties, building the business with his secrecy and his cache and his aura of invincibility, while Charles, the eldest son, the new man with new ideas, streamlined and improved the technology and accounting. “I found the hidden accounts no one but you used for transactions. The accounting files, the real ones, not the bullshit mock-ups for investors and the SEC. You were smart. You skipped the little investors and went right for the whales. Foundations. Rich people who are unlikely to need the money to buy a house, unless they decide to buy a Van Gogh or something. I brought Daria Russell to this party. I can bring you Hollywood money.”
    This time he let the silence stretch. His heart was racing, one beat indistinguishable from the other. He thanked God he’d never been a sweater. Charles was sweating, though. One single bead trickled down his temple.
    â€œLook, I’m not going to