by Don Winslow
Balls, Hidalgo thinks. Whatever you have to say about Lerner, the guy has stones. You gotta push him, Chandler.
“If I go down,” Claiborne says, “I’m not going down alone.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m telling you it’s drug money,” Claiborne says.
“Jesus Christ, are you wearing a wire?”
Fuck. Don’t freak, Chandler. Sack up.
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“Are you?!”
“No!”
“Because if you are—”
“You think I’d cross these people?” Claiborne asks. “You know who they are, you know what they do.”
Good job, my man. You’re getting good at this. Brought it right back around.
“Yes, I do. Do you?”
An implied threat. Inherent guilty knowledge.
“They’d kill me and my whole family,” Claiborne says.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’m scared, Jason. I’m thinking of maybe going to the police.”
Here we go.
“Don’t do that,” Lerner says. “That’s the last thing you want to do.”
“If this goes south—”
“We’re covered,” Lerner says. “Don’t you get that? If it’s drug money, if it’s Russian money, whatever, we can have any investigation shut down. We’re golden now. We’re untouchable.”
Maybe not, J, Hidalgo thinks. Maybe not after you put yourself on record saying that.
“I don’t know . . .”
“Chandler, I needed this fucking loan,” Lerner says. “My father-in-law needed this fucking loan. Do you know what I’m getting at here?”
Holy shit, Hidalgo thinks. Holy fucking shit.
Silence.
“Drink your scotch and sack up,” Lerner says. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so,” Lerner says. “I’ll have the chopper take you back.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Hugo Hidalgo puts his headset down.
Okay, he thinks.
Thanks.
“You did good,” Hidalgo says. He takes the microrecorder out from under Claiborne’s collar, plugs it into a USB port, and downloads the contents onto his laptop.
“What if he had patted me down?”
“He wouldn’t have found this.”
“What if he had?”
“Then I guess you would have had one of those prep school bitch-slapping matches until one of you swooned,” Hidalgo says. “The point is he didn’t find it and now we have his balls in a 1956.”
“I think he’s suspicious.”
“Of course he’s suspicious,” Hidalgo says. “Everyone’s suspicious.”
“What happens now?”
“We’ll let you know,” Hidalgo says. “You go on living your life until we get hold of you. Play squash, sip martinis, go sailing, whatever you people do when you’re not busy sticking it to the rest of us. We’ll reach out for you when we need you.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“Nice to know there are some certainties in life, isn’t it?”
Keller listens to the recording.
“Chandler, I needed this fucking loan. My father-in-law needed this fucking loan. Do you know what I’m getting at here?”
Yeah, I think I do, Keller thinks.
Dennison has an interest in Terra. One that he hasn’t revealed in any financial disclosure form.
But does he know about the Park Tower loan?
Keller honestly hopes that he doesn’t, but that’s a step away. The thing now is to prosecute Lerner.
The problem with getting an indictment against Jason Lerner, Keller knows, is finding an assistant US attorney—a federal prosecutor—who will take the case.
Like him, US attorneys are appointed by the White House and generally “turn over” with each new administration. Some keep their jobs, quite a few don’t. But the actual prosecutions of cases are run by assistant US attorneys—AUSAs—appointed by, and serving at the pleasure of, the United States attorney general.
The incoming AG won’t find it a pleasure to prosecute Jason Lerner.
Or Terra.
Lerner said it himself—“We’re golden now. We’re untouchable.”
The arrogant prick might just be right.
An AUSA will be afraid to touch the case—career suicide—and if I even go to a federal prosecutor with what I know, Keller thinks, he or she might run right to Lerner and spill it all.
The irony is brutal—the same attorney general who is going to press for maximum sentences for marijuana possession will block prosecution of people laundering the biggest dope money in the world.
Because they’re rich, white and connected.
Have a ten-dollar bill change hands in the projects, you go to jail. Change three hundred million on Wall Street, you go to dinner at the White House.
“We’re golden now. We’re untouchable.”
Maybe not, motherfucker.
Maybe not.
The approach has to be made carefully, delicately, because he’ll only get one shot at it.
And if I’m wrong on my hunch, Keller thinks, it’s over. He leaves the office early on Friday, takes the Acela up to New York and checks into the Park Lane.
The room has a beautiful view of Central Park.
The doorbell rings.
The attorney general of the State of New York reaches out his hand. He’s tall, thin, with black hair streaked with silver. “Drew Goodwin.”
“Art Keller. Come in.”
Goodwin comes in and checks out the view.
“You want a drink?” Keller asks.
“Bourbon if you have it,” Goodwin says. “But the suspense is killing me—the head of the NYPD Narcotics Division asks if I’ll take a secret meeting with the top guy in DEA. In his hotel room. People will be thinking I’m having an illicit affair.”
Keller pours him a Wild Turkey from the minibar. Goodwin takes the drink and sits down on the sofa.
“I need your word,” Keller says, “that what we say in this room stays in this room.”
“We’re in Vegas now?”
“You’re no friend of the incoming administration.”
“Hardly a secret,” Goodwin says. “I’m your basic liberal, Democrat New York Jew.”
“You’ve pushed for sentencing reform on drug sentences.”
“So have you.”
“And you sued Dennison for fraud.”
“His so-called university was a fraud,” Goodwin says. “I didn’t come here to get a Wiki on me. What are you getting at?”
“I need someone who isn’t afraid of the new administration,” Keller says. “Someone who doesn’t owe them, someone who doesn’t need them to keep his job. You check those boxes. But you have New York City ties. You get campaign donations from New York business interests.”
“I’m not going to audition for you, Keller,” Goodwin says. “Mullen tells me you’re the real deal, but show me your cards or I have better things to do.”
“I need a prosecutor.”
“You have thousands of prosecutors,” Goodwin says. “It’s called the DOJ.”
“None of them would take this case.”
“And you think I will,” Goodwin says.
“All the predicate actions occurred in New York.”
Goodwin shrugs. “Pitch me.”
Keller plays him the tapes.
Goodwin listens to—
“It was safe on Bladen Square, wasn’t it, León? It was safe on the Halterplatz project. It’s safe with Park Tower. . . .”
“Your money is as good as anyone else’s, of course. If we didn’t think that, we wouldn’t be sitting here. León, you’re right, we’re old friends, and if I’ve done anything to damage that friendship, I apologize. I’m sorry. Between old friends, I need you. If you don’t step in, I go into foreclosure and I’ll lose this property. . . .”
“. . . if we could come
to a . . . less formal . . . arrangement, we’d be willing to give you an extra two points, which would move you up to third place in the syndicate. I promise you, León, Park Tower is going to be a winner. Your backers are going to make a lot of money. Clean money. . . .”
“And as you noted, you’re under increased scrutiny these days because of your close connections. I would hope, if we did this favor for you, as an old friend you would make some of these connections available to us if we need an ear to listen to our point of view.”
“I can’t promise that our connections would or would not take any specific actions . . . but you will always find an ear.”
“Who am I listening to here?” Goodwin asks.
“Jason Lerner.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He’s talking to León Echeverría,” Keller says, “a major player in Mexican financial and political circles. Echeverría has put together a syndicate from several drug cartels and runs it through a bank called HBMX.”
“You don’t have Lerner’s awareness.”
Keller plays more tapes.
“If I go down, I’m not going down alone.”
“Meaning what?”
Goodwin stops the tape. “Who’s talking here?”
“Chandler Claiborne.”
“I know the guy.”
Keller starts the tape again.
“Meaning I’m telling you it’s drug money.”
“Jesus Christ, are you wearing a wire?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“Are you?!”
“No!”
“Because if you are—”
“You think I’d cross these people? You know who they are, you know what they do.”
“Yes, I do. Do you?”
“They’d kill me and my whole family.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’m scared, Jason. I’m thinking of maybe going to the police.”
“Don’t do that. That’s the last thing you want to do.”
“If this goes south—”
“We’re covered. Don’t you get that? If it’s drug money, if it’s Russian money, whatever, we can have any investigation shut down. We’re golden now. We’re untouchable.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Chandler, I needed this fucking loan. My father-in-law needed this fucking loan. Do you know what I’m getting at here?”
Keller shuts off the tape.
“I think I need another drink,” Goodwin says.
Keller pours him one.
Goodwin says, “You know what you have here, right? What this could lead to? No wonder you can’t get a federal prosecutor to take the case.”
“You can take it on a 47:20,” Keller says. New York State has its own money-laundering statute, a Class B felony with up to twenty-five years in prison and a million-dollar fine, doubled with an enhancement for drug involvement.
“Nice end run, Keller,” Goodwin says.
“You’re an elected New York State official,” Keller says. “The administration can’t touch you.”
“The optics are fucking terrible,” Goodwin says. “Dennison’s been on your ass since you took the job. It’s going to look like revenge. Same with me, I’m already on record saying our new president is a crook. Who else knows about this?”
“Mullen,” Keller says. “One of my guys, me. That’s it.”
“You want me to move on some of the most powerful people in New York,” Goodwin says. “I’m in clubs with people from Terra, Berkeley. They’ve contributed to my campaigns, their kids go to school with mine.”
“You have kids dying all over this state,” Keller says. “Your club buddies are laundering heroin money and they know it.”
“Don’t get sanctimonious with me.” He stares out the window, then asks, “Have you given me everything you have?”
“When your forensic accountants look into Park Tower,” Keller says, “they’ll find shell companies, cost overruns, paper-only purchases . . .”
“I have no doubt,” Goodwin says. “What’s in this for you, Keller? You’re on your way out. You do this, they’re going to hang you.”
“They’ll try.”
“So why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does,” Goodwin says. “If I go into this fight, I’d like to know the guy beside me. Do you have a hard-on for Lerner, or our new president, or do you just want to make a bang on your way out the door?”
“You’re going to laugh at my answer.”
“Try me.”
“I’m a patriot.”
Goodwin stares at him. “I’m not laughing. My grandfather came here from Poland. If I got in bed with these pricks, he’d curse me from his grave.”
“What would he say if you let these pricks skate?” Keller asks. “Because now you can never say you didn’t know.”
“I’ll need Claiborne,” Goodwin says. “To validate the tapes.”
Goodwin sets his glass down and stands up. A clear signal that he considers the meeting over and that everything that needed to be said has been said.
He nods politely to Keller and goes out the door.
“You don’t think I’m testifying,” Claiborne says.
“You don’t think you’re not?” Hidalgo asks. “We have to go to a grand jury to get an indictment, and we can’t get that without your testimony.”
“You have the tapes!”
“We need you to certify the validity of the tapes.”
“I’m not testifying,” Claiborne says.
“Then you go to jail.”
“You told me,” Claiborne says, “you promised. I was just on, what, ‘background,’ just to provide intelligence. You didn’t say anything about testifying.”
Hidalgo shrugs. “Look at your agreement. In exchange for immunity you agreed to do whatever we need you to do. If you bail on that, New York will proceed with the prosecution and we’ll file on money-laundering charges. So let’s say you do five in New York; after you get out, you’ll start serving your federal time. By the way, just so you know, federal time means you serve a minimum of eighty-five percent of your sentence. So say you get twenty, which is not unreasonable, you serve . . . well, you’re a numbers guy, do the math.”
“You don’t understand,” Claiborne says. “You don’t know these people.”
I don’t know these people? Hidalgo thinks. These people tortured my father to death.
“I’d rather go to prison,” Claiborne says. “I’ll take prison.”
He gets up.
“Sit down, Chandler,” Hidalgo says. Keller coached him exactly how to play this moment. “I said sit down.”
Chandler sits back down.
Hidalgo waits until he has Claiborne’s full attention. Keller schooled him, Get him in the habit of obeying you, even in the small things. “Let me explain this to you. You don’t have choices. We have choices. We choose for you. If you walk away, here’s what happens—we leak it back to Lerner that you’re a rat. Lerner runs to Echeverría, Echeverría turns to his friends in the cartel.”
Claiborne looks terrified. “You’d do that.”
“That would be on you,” Hidalgo says. Jesus, Keller was dead-on. What I’d say, what Claiborne would say.
He stares Claiborne down.
Now Claiborne has nothing to say.
“But if you stay,” Hidalgo says, “if you work with us, we’ll work with you. We’ll provide protection, a new identity, a new life.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t,” Hidalgo says. “But who else do you have to trust? Run down the list of candidates for me, Chandler—your close personal friends at Terra? Lerner? Echeverría? Or the person who is sitting with you right now, looking you in the eye, promising you that he will pull your family out of the jackpot that you put them in. Run the numbers—not a single person who has ever entered the Federal Witness Protection Program and stayed with the program has been killed. Guys w
ho took the prison option, though . . . happens all the time. And if you take that option, your family’s on their own.”
“You wouldn’t protect them?”
“I would,” Hidalgo says, “if it was up to me. But how am I going to go to my bosses and justify an unlimited expenditure on a guy who just fucked us? They’d laugh me out of the room. Your family is nothing to them.”
“You’re the worst people in the world.”
“Yeah, we’re terrible,” Hidalgo says. And you didn’t give a flying fuck about the families of people who’ve ODed on the smack you launder. You take money from the people who broke my father’s legs, stripped the skin from his body and kept him alive with drugs so he’d feel the pain.
Fuck you.
Fuck your house in the Hamptons.
Fuck your family.
“So what’s it going to be?” Hidalgo asks. “My train’s coming, I don’t want to miss it. I have a dinner date.”
He already knows what it’s going to be.
Just like Keller told him—give people a choice between a bad option and a worse option and they’ll take the bad option. They’ll twist, they’ll squeal, they’ll protest, they’ll yell, but it’s like those old stages of grief—eventually they’ll accept.
“You don’t give me any choice,” Claiborne says.
“I’ll be in touch,” Hidalgo says.
He gets up and walks to the door that leads to his train.
Keller’s not dead yet but they’re already cutting up his corpse.
In the hallways in Arlington, out in the field offices, people are scrambling to adjust to the new situation, jockeying for position to save their jobs or find better ones, shifting their philosophies to align more closely to the incoming administration.
Keller can’t blame them, survival is a natural reaction.
It starts with Blair. He comes into the office with a face like a rainy day.
“What?” Keller asks.
Blair looks at the floor.
“If you have something to say,” Keller says, “say it.”
“You’re leaving, Art,” Blair says. “I have to stay. I have one kid in college, another in her junior year in high school . . .”
“And you don’t want to be transferred to East Mongolia.”
“I need to put some distance between you and me,” Blair says, “between now and when the new guy takes over.”