Point of Contact

Lian turned a withering gaze back at Jack. “Unfortunately, some forms of theft are legal. Those are the ones I am powerless to stop.”

32

It was quitting time, to judge from the number of Dalfan employees gathering their belongings and heading for the exits.

Jack stopped by Lian’s office and tapped on her door. She glanced up from her computer keyboard, a pair of bold neon-orange reading glasses perched on her nose.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if we had any plans for tonight? I mean, the three of us.”

“I thought it best if the two of you had some time to yourselves this evening. If you want to tour the city, I can recommend a few spots.”

Ouch.

Jack shook his head. “No, I think we’re heading back to the barn to try and catch up on some sleep. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night.” Lian returned to her keyboard.

Jack swung by Paul’s office and gathered him up, and the two of them headed back to the guesthouse.

“Any plans for dinner?” Paul asked in the car.

“I saw a couple of steaks in the fridge. I thought I’d fry those up for us. Maybe with some onions and potatoes.”

“I’ll throw together a salad to go with it.”

“Sounds like a plan. How do you like yours cooked?”

“Just wave it over the top of the pan before you drop it on my plate.”

“Rare it is.”

* * *

A half-hour later, Paul cut into his steak. He watched the bloodred juices sluice into the pile of fried potatoes and onions heaped up on his plate — just the way he liked it. He took his first bite, sweet and peppery.

“You ever slaughter a cow, Jack?”

“No, but I’ve eaten plenty of them. How’s your steak?”

“Perfect. If you ever decide to quit Hendley Associates and open up your own steakhouse, I’ll be your first customer.”

“Thanks. I’m not great in the kitchen, but I’m hell on wheels on a Weber grill.”

“I prefer a kamado grill, myself.”

“Is that what a Big Green Egg is?”

“Yeah. It really locks in the flavor, like a smoker. Keeps everything moist.”

Jack decided to let his hair down tonight and decompress with a glass of Bushmills — not that he was under a lot of stress at Dalfan. In fact, it had been one hell of an exciting day. He was still reeling from the virtual reality demonstration. If America had a couch potato problem now, he couldn’t imagine what would happen when teenagers locked on to VR gaming systems.

“How was the demonstration today?” Paul asked.

“Funny, I was just thinking about that. Pretty freaking awesome. I need to get you up on the third floor to check it out for yourself.”

“I’m not much of a gamer.”

“Me neither. Trust me, you need to see it to believe it. How was your day? Any interesting discoveries?”

“Actually, not much. I was finally able to download some of the Dalfan data sets I needed so I could begin running my screening software. Not a whole lot turned up, except…” Paul had also indulged in a glass of the same Irish whiskey Jack was drinking.

“Except what?”

“Well, I hate to cast aspersions, but I found a file that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ran a ratio analysis for some AR and AP reports on a product line that Dalfan sells to a firm in Shanghai — you know, maximum/minimum pricing over set time periods. The closer the ratio is to one, the happier I am.”

“Why is that?”

“If the ratio between the highest price and the lowest price paid for an item equals around one, that means that the overall price paid for an item is relatively stable. But if suddenly the maximum price paid for an item skyrockets — or if the minimum price suddenly bottoms out — that’s usually a pretty good sign of fraud. What bothers me is that in the last six months the price ratio nearly quadrupled. And the number of units sold doesn’t quite add up.”

Jack took another sip of Bushmills. “What kind of product are we talking about?”

“Cell phones.” Paul took another bite of steak.

“Wait. Dalfan is selling cell phones to China?”

“Disposable cell phones, too, according to the invoices.” Paul was still chewing when he spoke.

“That’s like me selling sand to the Saudis.”

“Like I said. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

“Where does Dalfan make them?”

“Here, in Singapore. They store and ship them out of a separate warehouse on the west side of the island.”

Jack ran through the list of facilities that Feng had shown him earlier. He didn’t recall a separate warehouse facility owned by Dalfan. “Maybe I should check it out tomorrow.”

“Only if you want to. Like I said, it’s odd, but it’s not really a big deal in terms of the overall financial picture. Probably just a data-entry error.”

“We’re getting paid good money to do our due diligence, so I might as well take a look. It’s that or crack open the books again.” Jack stabbed his salad with a fork.