The Woman Who Stopped Traffic by Daniel Pembrey Page B

two-and-a-half – only, for the extra gain you’ve got to get rid of someone. Doesn’t make sense.”
    Silverman was silent.
    “So,” she said, changing the subject. “You weren’t tempted to become a detective yourself, like your dad?”
    “You don’t just become a detective, Natalie. You’ve got to become a cop first. Which is hard work, and dangerous work. Neither of my parents encouraged me down that path. But I’ll say one thing: my dad was an unbelievable detective. He said he got his clues from the victims themselves, like he was communicating with them beyond the grave or something.”
    They swept down the long Carmel Valley. Ben checked his wing mirror then overtook a slow moving RV with out-of-state license plates.
    “Why do we need to go see Vogel?” she asked.
    “I’ve set in motion events to kick out these Multiworld guys. No one could tell me anything about them. So we’ll buy back and cancel their shares for the price they paid. Mail a check to a P.O. box in Aruba if need be.”
    “And you can just do that? Force the repurchase of stock now worth hundreds of millions of dollars?”
    “Technically, it’s worth whatever it was valued at in the last funding round, which – granted, is a fraction of the IPO valuation. But, if we can show that this Multiworld crowd invested fraudulently, we should be OK. We can get a court order.
    “We’ve searched for Multiworld in every database at Carmichael’s disposal, and that’s a few. We even put calls in to the Aruba Chamber of Commerce. I’ve been through the paperwork at Clamor’s offices. They never submitted Foreign Investment Disclosure forms when they invested. The Clamor guys faxed those requests over several times, according to the physical transmission reports. Of course, the fax number’s now dead.” He shook his head. “Hell, we deserve a court order! Whoever’s heard of an investor who no one’s ever heard of !”
    “OK, OK! – but how does any of this involve Vogel?”
    “Oh. We’ll still need an extraordinary stockholder resolution to affect the buy back, and therefore Vogel’s vote. He owns almost forty percent of the company.”
    At the valley’s mouth lay an oasis of smoky-green pine trees. They turned onto coastal Highway One, bypassing Carmel-by-the-sea.
    “Ben, I know you suspect that another investor may have had something to do with Malovich’s death, but there could be other reasons why people wanted him dead.”
    “No kidding. What was that PhD he wrote? Hunting and fishing among the Russian mafia?” and he grinned morbidly.
    “Hey, there’s big money to be made from that stuff. You do it right, and people don’t even contest the rogue charges on their credit card statements. Why bother, for a buck? But if these guys can work that scam with a few million cardholders worldwide, well. Malovich’s thesis did a lot to curtail that stuff, directly or indirectly.”
    “That could have been his problem right there,” Silverman said. “Particularly among the Armenians. I remember dad telling me about those guys, man. Some of the stories.” He whistled. “One crew presented a Russian Kamov Ka-32 military transport helicopter as a gift: to the San Francisco Police Department. Can you believe that?”
    Finally they turned onto Pine Glade Way, home to movie stars, sports celebrities, technology billionaires, and not too many others.
    She nodded. “I don’t know which prospect is worse. An insider taking the life of another shareholder, or the Russian mafia.”
    Silverman said: “neither is good, but both –”
    “Multiworld?”
    “I just don’t have a good feeling about this one, Natalie.”

CHAPTER 10
     
    The glade was peculiarly dense around Vogel’s un-gated entranceway. Pine, maple and scrub oak fought for sky. The canopy of the driveway almost totally shut out light. Only after a hundred yards or so did it open out, into bright meadowland. The sun was beginning to burn through the marine layer