“Said I was all out,” Hooper said. “Said I’d been meeting with a lot of bankers the last couple of weeks and underestimated demand. Almost convinced myself I was that busy. Anyway, we finally got around to talking about your woman friend. She and the thick guy who she was working for at the time definitely slept together. More than once. Not just some drunken hookup at a convention but an actual affair—hotel rooms in the afternoon, that kind of thing.”

“And he knows this how?”

“He was going out with this woman who was good friends with your girl. Real good friends, like girlfriends who told each other everything. So your friend tells this woman she’s seeing this guy who’s married. Then she says it’s her boss. She swore the friend to secrecy, made her swear she’d never tell anyone, all that. But the woman told my guy. Information’s valuable, as you know, and it all depends on the circumstances. This woman thought it would help in her relationship with my guy, bring them closer, having a shared secret. It didn’t work. They broke up after a while.”

“So why’d he tell you?”

“Like I said, information can be valuable. I was asking about your girl, he knew something. Maybe he wanted the supposed job I was checking out your friend for. I don’t really know. I guess I may have led him to believe I’m better connected on Wall Street than I am.”

“He’s going to be pissed when you disappear all of a sudden.”

“What’s he gonna do, tell his boss? Anyway, I plan to call him next week, start letting him down slow. It looks like I’m going to be downsized myself. Sure is a cruel world.”

“Okay,” Jerry said. “Give me a second to think.”

Jerry held the phone in both hands. This was good—Gloria Croft and Edmund Mathews had slept together ten, twelve years ago. And clearly it hadn’t ended well because Gloria was apparently enjoying trying to ruin Edmund. But for what Jerry had in mind, there had to be more. This was good, but it wasn’t enough.

“Okay, I like this, but I need more. Keep digging. Try and figure out why it ended between them, and why it ended so badly.”

“All right, got it.”