Fifteen Digits

by Nick Santora

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

A GRITTY THRILLER SET IN THE WORLD OF POWERFUL NEW YORK LAW FIRMS, FROM NICK SANTORA, WRITER OF THE HIT CRIME DRAMAS THE SOPRANOS, LAW & ORDER, PRISON BREAK and BREAKOUT KINGS AND THE NATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SLIP & FALL.

Is it really insider trading if you've been an outsider your entire life?

Five men. Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they're not lawyers. They're "Printers": blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.

Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan to take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard--each one only knows one section of the access code.

Which means that for all five conspirators, there's no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there's one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.

Release date: April 24, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 336

Sample

The problem with all you lawyers,” Mauro lectured Spade, “is you think the support staff’s nothing but replaceable parts—just warm bodies in blue blazers running your files up and down the floors whenever you snap your fingers. You guys treat us like we’re invisible.”


Rich Mauro sat back in the booth and took a pull on his beer. Spade studied him for a moment, then smiled a disconcerting grin—a Cheshire Cat That Ate the Canary kind of thing.

“And that’s why you’re where you are and I’m where I am,” Spade pointed out smugly. “Where you see problems, I see opportunities.”

Jason Spade leaned across the table, over the half-finished Harp’s and the untouched onion rings. In the crowded bar, between the blare of the Smithereens on the jukebox and the howl of drunk Irish electricians toasting some dead union brother, there was no need to whisper, but Jason Spade’s was the kind of idea that demanded secretive tones. Even if whispers weren’t required by the environment, they were called for by the very nature of what he was about to propose.

“The benefit of being invisible,” Jason whispered, looking straight into Mauro’s eyes, “is that people don’t see you when you’re robbing them blind…now, how ’bout you and I get rich, Rich?”


And with that simple question, a chain of events began that changed, destroyed, and ended lives. People would be maimed, tortured, and killed. Millions of dollars would be stolen, then stolen away from the thieves themselves.

It was a question that would eventually make Rich Mauro, Jason Spade, Vicellous “Vice” Green, Dylan Rodriguez, and Eddie Pisorchek suffer beyond measure. Some of them would die because of it.

After it all went down, to the ill informed, it appeared that it happened because of money. But to those who were involved in it, to the guys who were so deep in the mess that it covered their mouths and pushed up into their nostrils, they understood that it all happened for love—love that was pure and real or love that had never been there to begin with, but love nonetheless.

And all of it—every cry of agony, every drop of blood—it all began with that conversation between Rich Mauro and Jason Spade, a conversation that lasted less than fifteen minutes, on a summer night, over a couple of beers in a graffiti-stricken booth in the back of McMahon’s Pub.

1

Rich Mauro dragged the razor deliberately—starting just below his ear, continuing down along the side of his face, moving across his jawline. He rinsed foam and stubble away under the faucet and then traced the plastic disposable across his chin, careful to scrape off every whisker. It was a big day; he had to look good. Satisfied all facial hair was gone and forever part of the Queens County sewer system, he splashed cold water on his cheeks, mouth, and neck and studied himself in the mirror.


Rich knew he wasn’t a traditionally handsome man, not like the guys you saw in the movies anyway. But he had his father’s chin and it was a damn good one. Hell, the Marlboro man would kill for his jaw. It was solid. Granite. It not only gave his face character but had held up in at least a half-dozen scrapes, and it wagged a mile a minute so he could talk his way out of a half-dozen more.

Other than a cream-colored 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix and a leather tool belt, the jawline was the only thing his father had left him when he and Rich’s mother were killed.


When shaving, Rich would sometimes stare at himself, unaware of the minutes passing. If he looked deeply enough and blocked out his peripheral vision, the image in the mirror would morph, and soon Rich would find his father looking back at him. His old man would stare silently, almost with wonder at how his little boy had grown up so big—the father’s eyes always loving, but also burdened with the slight weight of melancholia.

Then, and always too soon, his father’s image would slowly fade away, leaving nothing behind but the reflection of a much younger version of the man, shrouded in a thin film of steam rising up from the sink.

Towel wrapped around his waist, Rich padded on his wet feet across the hallway’s hardwood floor and entered his small bedroom to find his Uncle Jimmy laying a tie flat across the bed. Next to the tie was a pair of tan slacks and a white button-down shirt. All the clothes still had the tags on them.

“Whoa, Jack LaLanne,” Jim Mauro joked, jabbing his nephew a few times in the chest, “I remember when I could take you down.”

“Ah, you can still take me, Unc,” Rich lied. The truth was, Rich was built like a brick shit house, five foot ten and two hundred pounds of muscle. He wasn’t one of those guys who looked like they worked out, all biceps and six-packs. In fact, he hadn’t been inside a gym in years. When you worked construction, you didn’t need a gym—every day was a work out. He just had that trademark stocky, fireplug frame that was embedded in the genetic code of so many Italian men.

“What’s this?” Rich asked, pointing to the clothes.

“That’s nothing. Just, you know, first day of work and all.”

Rich picked up the shirt and inspected the tag.

“Mur-Lee’s?” Rich scolded. “We can’t afford clothes from Mur-Lee’s.”

“We don’t need to afford them. I bought them.”


“Fine,” Rich countered, “then you can’t afford clothes from Mur-Lee’s. We’re returning ’em.”


Jim grabbed the shirt and the pants and ripped the tags off each. With a defiant smile, he tore the tags up and sprinkled the little pieces over his nephew’s head like confetti.

“The shirt is going on your back, the pants are going on your ass, and as for the tie, you have a choice…either the tie or my hands are going around your neck. You decide.”


Rich brushed the paper from his hair.

“Fine, but no lottery tickets for two months.”

“Deal.” Jim smirked. “But that doesn’t even cover the cost of the tie. Sharp, huh?”

Rich looked at the tie lying on his bed. It was too skinny and had a paisley pattern that had been out of fashion since forever. It was hideous.

“Sharp as a tack. I love it,” he said, giving his sixty-four-year-old uncle a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Jim’s face flushed with pride, partly for his nephew and partly for having been able to walk into that snooty Mur-Lee’s, pick out an outfit, and pay for it in cash. Jim would never admit it, but buying those clothes was one of the biggest thrills of his life. About thirty years earlier, when he worked for Garibaldi Construction, he had helped build the five-store commercial strip where Mur-Lee’s was located. He’d hung the drywall, done the ceilings—he even came up with the idea for the built-in mahogany display cases that became the store’s showpiece and were still there.

A year of his life he worked on that job—his skill in every piece of floorboard, his heart in every driven nail. Thanks to an unexpected sneeze and a sharp Sheetrock knife, Jim literally gave his blood to that job. The store was perfect. Crown molding, solid oak changing rooms. He had never been so proud of a project. But as soon as it was completed, Mr. Murrel and Mr. Lee opened up shop, the union hall sent Jim to work on a housing project in Uniondale, and he could never afford to step back into what he had built.

But for a day like this, he didn’t care about cost. He’d raised Rich, his brother Richie’s son, since the boy was ten. And he loved him like he was his own. Jim had never married, since he realized early on that his two biggest loves—scotch and the ponies—would never take a backseat to any woman. He had a deep respect for people who fell in love, committed themselves wholly to each other, and built lives together. His own parents did it, and it was beautiful—so he swore he’d never sully the institution of marriage with his own bastardized version of it.

As a result, Jimmy had accepted the fact that he’d never have kids, and that was fine because having a child had never been a burning desire of his. The occasional romp with a young bar girl had always been enough for him—but the by-product of such activities was something he knew he could do without, so he always took precautions, despite what Father Dolan had taught him about “wasting God’s seed” during Jim’s education at Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

But after the accident, Jim had a child to care for whether he wanted one or not. His nephew had no place else to go. The same week he buried his brother and sister-in-law, Jim moved all of Rich’s belongings into his home. And despite the circumstances, it was never awkward or uncomfortable. Rich and Jim had been close before the deaths of Rich’s parents, and they just became closer afterward—closer than Jim would have ever imagined almost twenty years earlier when he first took Rich in.

Jimmy once told a friend of his (after a snort or two of Black Label made such emotional displays by men socially acceptable), “I loved my brother Richie with all my heart and I’d trade places with him in an instant if I could, and God forgive me for sayin’ this, but his dying was the best thing that ever happened to me…’cause it gave me my boy.”

But as Jim watched his nephew get ready, he knew he was no longer a boy; he was a man—and though Jim Mauro had been flying blind a lot of the time while trying to raise the kid, he couldn’t have been happier with how that man had turned out.

“Lemme get my shoes and we’ll see how I look in this getup,” Rich said, opening the closet door. He knelt and opened a shoe box to reveal a pair of thirty-dollar black dress shoes that he had bought three years earlier for the funeral of a third cousin he barely knew. He hadn’t worn them since, but somehow, they shone like mirrors. Rich picked up the box and stood, raising his eyebrows suspiciously at Jimmy.

“I polished them last night when you were out with Elyse,” Jim confessed. “Can’t go to your first day with scuffed shoes.”

“Thanks, Unc.”

As Rich put the shoe box back in the closet, his eyes landed on a faded brass hook on the inside of the door. It was empty.

“Where is it?” Rich asked, all playfulness gone from his voice.

“You won’t need it anymore—”

“Where is it? I want it.”

“What for? You’re done climbin’ scaffolds—”

“It’s mine, Uncle Jim.”

“It’s my brother’s.”

“No, it’s my father’s, which makes it mine,” Rich said a little more forcefully than he had wanted to.


“Your old man wouldn’t want you usin’ it anymore. And neither do I,” Jim answered. He didn’t get loud—Jim Mauro never turned up the volume; it wasn’t in his nature. He was as big and thick as a cement mixer but also gentle as a lamb, especially with Rich. Rich couldn’t remember a time when his uncle had yelled at him.

“It’s not like I’m gonna throw it away or anything,” Jimmy promised. “I’d never do that. It’s just…it’s just not an option for you anymore. I mean, you’re wearing a tie to work today, Richie. That means something.”

Rich regarded his uncle for a moment. He could see the pride, the hope, in his uncle’s face. He didn’t want to upset him, but he felt he had to try to clarify things.

“Look, I know it means a lot to you, but I’m just a glorified copyboy—”

“It’s a step to bigger and better, Richie,” Jim interrupted. “A step to bigger and better.”

“Hopefully. We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Rich said, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument. “But in the meantime, I’m gonna want the tool belt back.”

Jim sighed. “Your dad was thick as a brick too, ya know.”

Jim exited the room. Rich stood patiently, listening to his uncle rummage around. He could tell from the sound that the tool belt had been hidden on the top shelf of the hall closet—most likely behind a bunch of videotapes of vintage 1950s TV shows that Jim never watched but refused to throw away.


Jim appeared in the doorway and tossed the tool belt onto the bed. “Satisfied? Now hurry up and get dressed. You don’t wanna be late.”

As his uncle moved back down the hall, Rich looked at the weather-beaten tool belt lying next to his brand-new dress shirt. It was cracked and faded and there was a faint chalky-white salt line in the leather where it had absorbed decades’ worth of sweat that had rolled down his father’s back. The belt had known his father better and longer than Rich had.

He reached past the belt and picked up the shirt from Mur-Lee’s. He slid his arms into the sleeves and fastened the buttons—they were those thick kind of buttons, the real high-quality jobs that don’t ever fall off. The 180-thread-count cotton surrounded and caressed his skin. He had to admit—it felt damn good.


3

The N/R Train dropped Rich off in the heart of New York City’s financial district, just a few blocks from his ultimate destination, 55 Water Street. He was pretty early, but he walked quickly, wanting to start his new job, and his new life, as soon as possible.


Even though there was only two thousand feet of river separating Queens and Manhattan, for Rich Mauro, a kid from Astoria, the city might as well have been another world.

As soon as he exited the subway onto Broadway, he felt the difference. A different pace, a different energy—swarms of people walking in a hundred different directions, pressed closely together in ungodly narrow sidewalks lining ungodly narrow streets, white faces next to black next to yellow next to brown, all with the same thought: green. Simply put, the energy of the city was the result of one thing and one thing only—New York was where people came to make money.


Hell, that was why Rich got up that morning, showered, shaved, got dressed, and got on the train. That was why he’d left a decent, but far from spectacular, job in construction. That was why he had started night school, even though the tuition costs were making the slightest luxury, like a night at the movies with Elyse, an event that had to be budgeted sometimes weeks in advance.

Rich Mauro was in New York to start making some damn money. He knew it would be a long road, but he’d never been scared of hard work. His father had worked his ass off. His Uncle Jim had worked his ass off. Now Rich was ready to work his ass off. He’d be working at a desk inside a building instead of on a scaffold outside one, but it would be hard work just the same. Max Seymour had prepared him for that.


As Rich turned onto Water Street, he had nothing but business on his mind. Business. Money. Work. Achieve. He was taking the first step to becoming a lawyer and he was ready to knock down any barriers that got in his way.


He wasn’t aware of it, but the intensity of his thoughts that morning caused his brow to furrow and his eyes to narrow.

Nothing was going to stop him, no matter how hard it was, no matter how difficult. He was laser-focused on the task at hand.

And then he spotted her.

And his brow relaxed. And his eyes opened wider. And he smiled.

4

In a city of eleven million people, Elyse Crane stood out. She was waiting by the front steps leading up to 55 Water Street, with scores of people moving past, by, and around her—yet amid all that chaos, she, as always, looked painfully beautiful.


Rich believed love at first sight was bullshit and anyone who said he knew as soon as he looked at someone that he was in love was either lying, delusional, or stupid. With Elyse, Rich always said, it was love at first talk.


He’d met her at Pete’s Tavern when he was twenty-five and she was twenty-four. He’d been working on a job downtown and sometimes he’d go grab a drink with his uncle and some of the guys after work. Chauncey’s, the place where they normally went, had been temporarily shut down by the board of health for an infestation violation. It seemed a tenant in the apartment above Chauncey’s had let his pet boa constrictor out of its cage, and, via a ventilation duct, the reptile had found its way onto a plate of cheese fries on the bar downstairs. Pete’s Tavern just happened to be the next closest watering hole to the job site, and that’s where Elyse was working.

Rich wasn’t particularly religious, but a few weeks after meeting Elyse he stopped inside Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s, threw a buck in the poor box, lit a candle, and thanked God.


I know you sent Saint Patrick to drive the snakes out of Ireland, so if you had anything to do with diverting that serpent into Chauncey’s to get Elyse and me together, much appreciated.


When Rich bellied up at Pete’s Tavern, he knew instantly that the girl slinging beer on the other side of the oak was the most stunning thing he’d ever laid eyes on. He even told his Uncle Jim so, and he didn’t use the word thing in a derogatory way. He meant it in the purest sense.


To Rich, Elyse was more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen—more beautiful than the sunrise peeking its weary head over the Atlantic when he was driving east on Ocean Parkway at five a.m. to get to a job down at Long Beach, Long Island; more beautiful than any rainbow arching over the East River after a downpour broke the oppressive humidity of an August day in New York; more beautiful than any thing Rich could imagine, any thing God himself had ever dreamed up. And Rich didn’t even waste time comparing her with other women—that bout was over before the ref rang the bell.

She was a true beauty. A stunner. An angel with a pint of Guinness in one hand and a bar rag in the other.

So Rich Mauro was presented with a predicament—what to do with this woman pouring lager in front of him. If he spoke to her and she sounded like Fran Drescher with a head cold (a real possibility in New York), the love affair would be over before it started. But what if she didn’t? What if she talked him up and was as smart as she was gorgeous? That would be even worse. What could he say that could possibly impress this goddess?

Hi, my name’s Rich. I still live with my uncle, a man who likes eating Jarlsberg cheese smeared with peanut butter and arguing with TV newscasters. I have no money, no parents, and thanks to my uncle’s love of the ponies, no inheritance coming my way. My dad and every man on my mother’s side of the family went bald, so my forties should be interesting, and though I’m Italian, if I eat tomato sauce, let’s just say you can’t light a match within twenty yards of me for safety reasons…and, oh yeah, since I haven’t had sex in almost six months, if we do ever become intimate, you can expect our first little romp to be quicker than a hummingbird’s heartbeat.


Rich took a long look at himself in the mirror across the bar—his flannel shirt with a light cover of drywall dust, his hair pressed and matted from his hard hat, grease under his nails from oiling the skill saw. She was probably a grad student (he later found out he was right), wealthy (her parents were), and bartending to kill time between semesters (right again). Guys like him didn’t get girls like her. So when Elyse approached him, he decided to keep it strictly business.

“Beam and Coke, please.”

Elyse smiled, grabbed a tumbler from underneath the bar, reached behind her, and snatched a bottle of Maker’s Mark. She began to pour.

“I’m sorry, I said Jim Beam—”

“I know,” Elyse interrupted as she looked up to Rich. “But a workingman deserves top shelf, and you look like you put in a full day.”

She had read Rich like he was the freakin’ New York Post—his attraction to her, his insecurity in his own appearance, his acceptance of the fact that she was out of his league.


Elyse could tell he wanted to talk to her—she picked up that vibe from guys all the time. But unlike all those other times, for some reason, she wanted to hear what this particular boy had to say. There was something about him that she instantly liked—a sincerity that was practically visible. She was certain, almost instinctively, that this guy sitting at the bar didn’t have it in him to ever hurt her, or hurt anybody for that matter. She could tell just by the way he interacted with his uncle that Rich Mauro was, simply put, a good man. But she could also tell he was, at that moment, a self-conscious man. So she said the absolute perfect thing—something that let Rich know that she not only understood his blue-collar world but respected it.


Love at first talk.

Rich was speechless. But Uncle Jim wasn’t.

“Don’t let her get away, Richie.” He snorted as he got up from the bar, patted his nephew softly on the back, and left the two of them alone. Rich turned red, since Jim had said this loud enough for Elyse to hear. But Elyse just laughed, and then so did Rich. They’d been laughing together for a long time now; her tractor-beam smile always pulling Rich away from whatever was bothering him (usually his lack of money) and pushing him toward a much happier place.

It was that amazing smile that greeted Rich in front of 55 Water Street.

“Hey, big shot,” she said, leaning in to give Rich a soft kiss on the lips. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her forehead against his, grinning wildly. “You excited?”


“Clearly not as excited as you are, psycho woman.” Rich smiled back. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to give you this…” She handed Rich a greeting card.

“And this…” She handed Rich a key.

“And this…” She laid another kiss on Rich, and this was nothing like the sweet little we’re-in-public peck she’d graced him with just moments earlier. This one lasted—her hand on the back of his head, her fingers moving ever so lightly through his hair. God, he loved when she did that—it was the fingers on the back of his head that got him every time.

“Thanks.” Rich smiled. “But maybe it’s not the best idea to have intercourse right in front of my new job.”

“That’s what the key’s for,” Elyse said with a gleam in her eye. She removed her fingers from his head and softly placed them on his chest, gently scratching. “Come by tonight, so we can celebrate in a way that isn’t accommodated by a public sidewalk.”

Damn, Rich thought, I’m about to start the most important job of my life and I’m half considering skipping work to have sex with this woman all day long.


“You’re distracting me right before I start my first day?”

“Sorry.” Elyse winked devilishly. “Now open your card.”

Rich did. It was a photo of a kid sitting on a training potty with his arms triumphantly in the air. Inside the card was printed: YOU DID IT! At the bottom was written: I know you’re going to do great. I love you. Elyse.


“Wow, a semi-child-pornographic greeting card. Much appreciated,” Rich said, putting the card in his pocket.

Elyse laughed. “Now go kick some ass.”

They kissed once more and said good-bye. Rich watched her go—her long chestnut hair bounced lightly with each step, almost joyously, like it was happy to just be part of the wonderful group effort that made up this exquisite creature. The hair, the legs, the face, the eyes—they all had their roles on Team Elyse and they were all all-stars. Rich hated being away from her, but he sure as hell enjoyed watching her walk away. The walk-away was pretty damn sweet.

Unfortunately, Rich noticed that a tough-looking Puerto Rican guy passing by was enjoying watching her walk away as well. The guy turned his head just slightly to get a good look at Elyse as she crossed the street, and when he turned back, he found Rich staring at him. Their eyes locked—for a second or two at most, but in New York, that’s all you need. The look was more than long enough to let the guy know that Rich had seen him leering at his girl and that if his look had lasted any longer, it would have been a problem.

Normally Rich wouldn’t have been too worried—he never enjoyed fighting, but you can’t grow up in Queens and avoid it. He’d spent the majority of his youth on the asphalt basketball courts of the inappropriately named New York City Department of Parks and Recreation—and since those fence-enclosed blacktops looked substantially more like penitentiary yards than parks, it was only logical that some pretty serious brawls would break out. Though he was the furthest thing from a guy who looked for trouble, Rich had always been able to hold his own when necessary.

But when the Puerto Rican looked back at Rich, his eyes made Mauro quickly understand that if things did jump off, Rich would have his hands full. They weren’t the eyes of a street-tough kid who had thrown down with other street-tough kids throughout his youth. They were the kind of eyes you could earn only by doing some very bad things. Really bad things. The guy was about forty feet or so away. Rich tensed, waiting to see if their two-second eye-lock would lead to something else. He was sure it was about to. But then, to Rich’s complete surprise, the guy just slowly shook his head from side to side, almost imperceptibly, as if to say: Silly white boy, you have no idea what just almost happened to you. And then he walked past Rich to a roach coach and ordered a café con leche.


Wow, I just somehow avoided a very severe beat-down…today’s gonna be a good day, Rich thought to himself as he turned and climbed the steps of the building where, he hoped, he’d be working for years to come.


He stopped at the electric revolving doors for a moment. His body was reeling a bit—the adrenaline that had kicked in from his near run-in with the Puerto Rican was mixing pretty hard with the rush of new-job excitement. He took a step and let the revolving doors guide him forward before momentum caused the structure to swallow him up.

Once inside, he looked around the lobby—the three-story-tall atrium, the gleaming brass elevator doors, the giant plants that reached ten feet high. As he moved toward the elevator he crossed the interlocking O&T in the center of the marble floor that let anyone who entered know, in no uncertain terms, that he was treading upon the hallowed ground of Olmstead & Taft—the biggest, baddest, toughest, and most powerful law firm in all of New York City.


It was a legendary firm.

It was a New York institution.

It was also where Rich would soon make choices that would get some very good men killed.

5

The offices of Olmstead & Taft were known in legal circles to be the nicest in New York. The firm owned the entire building, and the partners took pride in their home. Each office had custom bookcases with hand-carved crown molding, a personal thermostat for a climate-controlled work experience, and burgundy carpeting in a razor-thin crosschecked pattern that was replaced every four years whether there was even a hint of wear or not. Almost every office had a view of New York Harbor overlooking either the Brooklyn Bridge or Governors Island, and the lucky few, mostly partners and those associates being groomed to become partners, got the privilege of practicing jurisprudence under the watchful eye of the. . .