Good enough that powerful people used it for informal meetings, busy enough that those meetings could occur without attracting attention.
Callaway was already there when Imani arrived at 7:58, seated at a corner table with his back to the wall, a plain black coffee in front of him, and his phone face down beside it.
He’d come in what she was starting to recognize as his off-duty approximation. Dark jeans, a charcoal wool coat, no tie.
The kind of outfit that said I’m not trying to be recognized while still managing to look like it cost more than Imani’s rent.
She sat down. A server appeared immediately. They always appeared immediately for certain people, and she ordered coffee and declined the menu.
When they were alone, she put her phone on the table and pulled up the three photographs.
Callaway looked at them without touching the phone. She watched his face do the thing it did, the thing she’d noticed at her apartment, the thing she’d been cataloging quietly all week, where it absorbed information and went very still.
The expression of someone processing at a level below what was visible. Where did you find this?
He said. She told him about the service corridor. She told him about the panel behind the desk, the maintenance junction, the East Wing hallway visible through the gap in the door.
She told him about the strip of paper. I didn’t enter the East Wing, she said.
I was in the service corridor. The panel opened into the hallway. I didn’t cross through.
He looked up from the phone. I’m not questioning your judgment. I know. I’m documenting it for myself.
He almost smiled at that. The same almost smile from her apartment. Brief and real.
He looked at the photographs again. Account 7741C is the Briggs Development Reserve Fund, he said.
It holds the pre-IPO liquidity pool. There are approximately He stopped, made a decision about how much to say.
It’s significant. Is your signature on any transfer authorizations for that account? No. Flat. Certain.
Not recently. Not in the last 8 months. Then someone authorized a transfer using your name.
He said nothing, which was its own kind of answer. Imani wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
Who has access to your signature? Documents you’ve already signed. Contracts, letters, anything that could be used to extract a signature block and apply it to something new.
Callaway was quiet for a moment. Celestine has been involved in reviewing several property acquisition documents over the past 6 months.
