She released the safety catch on the gun.
"John."
He didn't hear her. Grace moved closer, walking at first, then running.
"John!"
He turned around. At the sight of the gun, his face drained of color. The coffee mug fell from his hand, shattering into a thousand pieces on the paved stone of the terrace. Instinctively he moved to one side, covering his head with his hands. As he did so, Grace saw for the first time that he was not alone.
Behind him, sprawled out in a lawn chair, was another man. The second man was turned three-quarters away from Grace, facing the garden rather than back toward the house. At first she could see only the top of his head and his slippered feet stretched out in front of him, but still a shiver of familiarity shot through her. Something about his posture, his body language...I know you.
She stood transfixed as the man slowly turned. Even before she saw his face, she knew. The languid, unconcerned way he moved, as if the commotion behind him, and John Merrivale's cowering terror, didn't bother him in the least. Grace had met only one man with that confidence. That total, unshakable sangfroid.
"Hello, Gracie." Lenny Brookstein smiled. "I've been waiting for you."
Chapter Thirty-Seven
GRACE WATCHED HER LIFE FLASH BEFORE her eyes. Was this a dream? Or a nightmare? Part of her wanted to touch Lenny, to stick her hands in his sides like a doubting Thomas and prove that he was real. But something made her hesitate.
"I saw you! I saw your body." She was shaking. "I went to the morgue, for God's sake."
"Why don't you put down the gun?" Lenny's voice sounded soothing. Hypnotic. "We can talk."
Grace was about to do as he asked when John Merrivale took a step toward her. Instinctively she swung the gun in his direction and stepped back, her finger hovering over the trigger. "Don't move!" she shouted.
John stepped back.
"Sit down on that chair. Put your hands where I can see them."
John did as he was asked, sinking down into the lawn chair beside Lenny's.
Grace looked at Lenny. "You, too."
Lenny raised an eyebrow, in admiration as much as surprise. He, too, put his hands on his lap. Keeping the pistol trained on the pair of them, Grace reached into her backpack and pulled out the Dictaphone. She pressed the record button and set it down on the ground between them.
"Talk," she commanded.
Lenny couldn't take his eyes off Grace's face. So beautiful. But she's changed. I suppose she had to. She's stronger. That sweet, trusting little girl could not have survived.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. I want to know everything, Lenny. I want to know the truth."
Lenny Brookstein started talking.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
WHAT YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER, GRACE, is how long ago this all started. You were a tiny child when I founded Quorum. Four, maybe five years old. I'd had a couple of funds before that, made a little money, but I always knew Quorum would be different. I set out to rule the world and I did."
Lenny looked at John Merrivale and smiled. John smiled back, a look of blind adoration on his face. Grace remembered that look from the old days. He loves him. John's always loved Lenny. How could I have forgotten that?
Lenny went on, warming to his theme. "In the early days of the fund, it was a struggle. It was the beginning of the nineties, the economy was in the tank, people were losing their jobs, their homes. No one wanted to invest. Remember now, I'd staked every cent I owned on Quorum. Every cent. If she went down I'd be back at the bottom. Poor again, in my forties. Penniless." Lenny's face darkened. "You can't imagine the fear, Gracie. How terrifying that was, coming from where I came from. The idea that I might have to go back, back to the dirt, the violence, the hunger. No. It wasn't going to happen to me." His said this angrily, almost as if it were Grace who had tried to bring him down. "And thanks to John here, it didn't."
John Merrivale flushed with pleasure, like a teenage girl being complimented by the high school quarterback. Grace listened in silence.
"I had a great model. Foolproof, actually. But at that time, a guy like me with no formal education was seen as way too much of a risk. I couldn't sell a dollar for ninety cents, but this guy" - he nodded at John - "this guy had the heads of those Swiss pension funds eating out of his hands like a flock of lambs. It was thanks to those early institutional investors that we rode out the storm. But it was the small investors that really made us what we became. The mom-and-pop stores, the little charities that gave us their money. You know Madoff and Sandford and all those guys, they were a bunch of snobs. If you didn't belong to the right golf club, or come from the right family, those bastards would turn your money away. Turn it away! That made me sick. Like, who the hell were they to tell ordinary people they can't get a taste of the good life? That the American Dream was closed to them? Quorum wasn't like that. We loved the little guy, and we made him rich, and he made us rich, for a long, long time. People always gloss over that part."
Lenny's anger was back and growing. Grace had heard about as much self-righteous ness as she could stomach. "Those people, those 'little guys.'" She spat the words back at him, still feeling like she was talking to a ghost but unable to hold herself back any longer. "They lost everything because of Quorum. Everything. Families were made destitute because of what you did. Charities closed their doors. People, young men with families, have killed themselves because of - "
"Cowards." Lenny shook his head in disgust. "Imagine killing yourself because you lost money? That's not tragic. It's pathetic. I'm sorry, Grace, but it is. You make an investment, you take a risk. No one forced them to give me their goddamn money."