After Dr. Yamamoto dismissed the students for the day, he asked Pia to stay behind for a moment. “Dr. Rothman would like to speak with you later, after we’re done in the level-three lab. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Pia had said. What else was she going to say?

Chapter 18.

18.

ONE CENTRAL PARK WEST
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 3, 2011, 8:30 P.M.

Jerry Trotter and Max Higgins left Edmund Mathews and Russell Lefevre with a souvenir of their lunch together at Terrasini. It was a healthy check, and as Edmund paid up, he hoped that Jerry and Max were going to do something to justify it. He was reasonably confident, as he knew them to be guys who did not sit on a problem. They were known to do whatever it took.

And Jerry and Max did not disappoint. Within an hour of leaving the restaurant, Trotter and Higgins had two of their best investigative guys working on the two separate cases, one on the Columbia regenerative organ situation, the other on the hoped-for dirty little secrets of Gloria Croft in hopes of having something to control her with. Jerry knew that everyone, especially Wall Street people, had their secrets. The PIs were also given Edmund’s and Russell’s full names so they could Google them for background information.

Jerry couldn’t use his very best guy, who was in fact a woman named Jillian Jones, because she was already involved in looking at a company that Higgins thought might be tanking its results to pave the way for a takeover. But as PIs, Tim Brubaker and Harry Hooper were separated from Jones only by a sliver. They’d do a thorough job, and they were very quick.

This was the first time Jerry ever had three PIs on his payroll at once. Strictly speaking, Jones, Brubaker, and Hooper weren’t on the Trotter Holdings payroll at all; each was employed off the books in a strictly cash-only arrangement. There was no paperwork—no pay stubs or invoices or receipts, the latter because Trotter trusted the three not to pad expenses. The PIs undertook enough on-the-books domestic surveillance cases to report to the IRS to show sufficient income to justify their lifestyles. They were usually able to piggyback a cash job for someone like Jerry Trotter on one that was recorded by the business accountant.