“Not so different.”
“The hell it isn’t. I handle about two hundred cases at any given time, most of ’em down-and-dirty. Fletcher Shackley is one of the DA’s stars. He gets the good stuff, the cream. With lots of eager people to assist.”
“I see.” Ben sipped his coffee. “You remember about three years ago, you wanted something on a gentleman named John Bugelli? Johnny Bugs? He owned a club called the Paper Moon, on Seventh Avenue.”
She groaned.
“As I recall, you wanted to know about Mr. Bugelli’s friendship with people in the Lucchese family and whether he sold them an interest in the club. After which it went bust and then burned down.”
She groaned again. “Jesus, don’t you ever forget anything?”
“No.”
“Okay, so you got me proof of the connection.”
“And that’s how you made the case, right?”
“The senior prosecutor made the case. I only worked on it.”
“But that was the key, wasn’t it? I got what you were after, from Mr. Bugelli’s former wife. You said if there was anything I ever needed, just ask.”
Fern exhaled a stream of air. Then she sat down at her desk and stared at him resignedly. “What do you want?”
“Not much, really. Just the bank records on Cunningham Mining.”
“What am I, a magician?”
“No, I would say you’re more of an irresistible young woman.”
“How would you like a kick in the nuts, Tolliver?”
“Hey, I saw you smile. Go ahead, let it all out.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t need everything,” Ben said. “All I want to know about is payouts from the account.”
“That’s all? Should be a breeze, huh? I’ll tell the bank to please send the books over to me—by messenger.”
“Come on, Fern. You’ve got ways.”
“Sure. The ways are through the issuance of a subpoena duces tecum—an order to produce records. Which has to be requested by the prosecutor in charge of the case and then signed by a judge. If I ever tried that, it wouldn’t be only Shackley I’d have to answer to. The DA himself would personally pull my skin off in strips. Be reasonable, will you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to be.”
“Uh-huh. What are these payouts you’re looking for?”
“I think there are large sums of money that have gone missing. Millions of dollars that Cunningham Securities made in illegal trading schemes and then turned over to the holding company, Cunningham Mining. I want to find out where that money went. I know some of it would have been invested in legitimate businesses, but I can’t believe the rest is just sitting in an account at Fidelity Trust.”
“Hey, Ben. You know what you’re messing with? You could really get your ass in a crack. And mine, too.”
“But like I said, Fern, you have ways. What about your contacts at the IRS? They share information with the DA’s office on RICO cases. True?”
“Sure, of course.”
“Okay, and federal law requires a bank to report any sum going in or out of an account if the amount is over ten thousand dollars, correct?”
“Correct. They have to file CTRs, cash transaction requirements, form forty-seven-eighty-nine. The IRS is a bitch on making every bank in the country stick to that rule, mostly to stop the laundering of drug money.”
“So?”
“So the problem is, the payouts CTRs cover are cash only. And the cash transactions for a company like Cunningham Mining might be in the thousands, or even the tens of thousands, although I doubt it. But they certainly wouldn’t be in the millions.”
“Ah, good point. What about checks drawn on the account—wouldn’t the IRS monitor those, as well?”
“Nope. A check wouldn’t even make ’em blink, no matter how much it was for.”
“Then how about asking an officer in the bank to let you borrow Cunningham’s canceled checks? You must have dealt with somebody there when you were in Rackets. You had to be talking to most of the banks in New York at one time or another.”
She shook her head. “Same problem. I’d need a subpoena.”
Ben thought about it. “Suppose you didn’t request the checks to be sent to you physically.” He pointed to her computer. “Just asked to have the images scanned onto your screen. That’d be legal, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, as long as I didn’t print them. We did stuff like that all the time when we were tracking a boiler-room operation or a telemarketing fraud.”
“Then let’s go, okay?”
She hesitated, tapping red lacquered nails on the surface of her desk. Finally, she said, “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Terrific.”
“But then we’re even, right?”
“Better than that. I’ll be in your debt.”
“I don’t want you in my debt. I want you out of my hair.”
“It’s a deal.”
She spun through her Rolodex, then squinted at a card. “Fidelity Trust? Yeah, I do know somebody there. Henry Travis, the VP in charge of operations.” She picked up the phone and punched the buttons for the number.
“Ask for checks drawn in this calendar year,” Ben said.
When she got the bank officer on the line, she said, “Hank? This is Fern Rose, at the district attorney’s office. How’ve you been? … Fine, thanks.… Yeah, it’s been a while. Listen, Hank. I need some information on checks drawn on the account of Cunningham Mining.… Yes, that’s right. Canceled checks drawn since the first of the year. You’ve got ’em on film, right?”
She listened, then said, “I’d like to have them transmitted over here to my office so I can look through them on my computer.”
She picked up a pencil. “Sure, that’s fine. Give me the access numbers and the password.”
After scribbling the information on a scratch pad, she said, “Thanks very much. I’ll call right away. Nice talking to you, Hank. Appreciate your help.”
She hung up, then swung her chair around and turned on the computer. Tolliver watched as she called a number on the modem and keyed in a code. The red LED lighted up as the machine accessed the program at Fidelity Trust, and seconds later the host ID flashed onto the computer screen.
A panel blinked, requesting the password. Fern glanced at her pad and keyed in BABE RUTH.
Must be a Yankee fan, Ben thought.
The computer asked what she wanted to see and she keyed the numbers Travis had given her identifying the Cunningham Mining account. Moments after that, the first of the checks appeared, the face showing on the left, the reverse side with the endorsement on the right.
Tolliver took a sheaf of notes and a ballpoint from the inside pocket of his blazer and leaned forward, peering over her shoulder.
Fern turned to him. “Okay?”
“Yeah, great. Just scroll through them … slowly.”
She touched the key and the images crawled upward and off the screen, to be replaced by new ones coming up from below.
As Ben studied the checks, he saw that most of them had been drawn to cover operating expenses, as he’d expected. They represented payments for utilities, rent, insurance, travel and entertainment, office supplies, furniture, catering, and dozens of other materials and services, most of them for sizable but not truly large amounts. Each had been signed by somebody named Watterson, apparently a financial officer of the company.
Payroll, Tolliver knew, would be in a separate account, paid out and recorded automatically. So would tax collections and records and amounts accrued for payments to the IRS. The main purpose of this account was to handle the day-to-day running of the business.
Some of the checks had been made out to vendors Ben couldn’t immediately identify. But none of those were for more than a few hundred thousand dollars, so he didn’t worry about them.
There were also some big ones, written to Cunningham Ventures, the real estate company. The amounts ranged from four to nine million,
and there were six of them. No surprise; he’d been expecting to see something like that. As far as anyone knew, the transfers were for a legitimate purpose.
The real problem was the sheer volume of the checks. There were hundreds of them, and although each was scanned for only a few seconds, the process was tedious.
After thirty minutes or so, Fern grew fidgety. During that period her phone had rung a couple of times, but she hadn’t picked up; Tolliver assumed the TPA was fielding her calls. He knew he was fouling up her schedule, but it couldn’t be helped.
An hour passed and the checks kept rolling. By that time, Ben was getting itchy himself. He began to wonder whether he might be wrong. Maybe the holding company hadn’t done anything underhanded, after all. Or maybe they had, but through some other means. Maybe some of the vendors were phony, or the payees weren’t what they appeared to be.
And maybe this whole idea was a waste of everybody’s time, including his own.
On top of that, the images were starting to blur: $77,541.93 to Arcom Office Systems; $114,546.30 to something called Memotex; $89,459.87 to Blake Galleries; $136,046.00 to Bridgewater Seminars. On and on they crawled, in a seemingly interminable stream. He glanced at his watch and rubbed a fist over his eyes.
When he looked back at the screen, there it was.
The rectangle was identical to all the others, except for the payee—and the amount. The check was for $50,000,000.00.
“Stop.”
He leaned closer, gaping at the image. The check was made out to Banco Cafetero and had been signed by Clayton Cunningham IV. The endorsement was a stamp with scribbled initials. Ben counted the zeros just to be sure. There were so many, it seemed like a mistake.
Fern was also staring at the check, openmouthed. Her voice was soft. “Holy shit.”
He glanced at her. “What is it? What’s the Banco Cafetero?”
“A bank in Panama. It’s the biggest one down there. And it’s owned by Manuel Noriega.”
47
Fern Rose looked at Tolliver. “Did you have any idea?”
“No. I’m as surprised as you are.”
“You think drugs are involved?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t seem likely. But why would a company like Cunningham Mining be sending fifty million bucks to a bank in Panama? Regardless of who owns it?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you why a lot of people do business with the banks down there. The secrecy makes the ones in the Cayman Islands look like public libraries.”
“Which is why the drug cartels use them, right?”
“Exactly. Colombians, Mexicans, Peruvians, they all do. And not just the drug cartels. Money goes to banks in Panama from all over the world. The banks don’t care where it comes from or whether it’s clean or dirty. They’ll take any amount from anybody, no questions asked. And nothing is disclosed, ever.”
“Customers must love ’em.”
“Sure. Because there’s no way for tax officials or law officers or anybody else to get zilch on the money—least of all where it winds up. Doesn’t matter who’s requesting the information, either—nobody cracks those records.”
“I take it you’ve tried?”
“Yeah, from time to time. But forget it. They don’t even acknowledge an inquiry. Doesn’t help any that they hate Americans. You ever been there?”
“A long time ago. When I was in the Marine Corps.”
“You weren’t too popular then either, were you?”
“Not very.”
“I assure you, now it’s worse. Because of what our government did when we went after Noriega.”
“Is it really true he owns that bank—a convicted criminal who’s locked up in a federal prison in Florida?”
“Amazing, huh? But when you think about it, why not? No matter what he’s done, the bank is still his property. And how about the United States kidnapping him, the head of a foreign state? Then bringing him here and trying him for breaking the laws of this country? You want to discuss the legality of that?”
“I’d just as soon not.”
“What are you gonna do with this?”
“I don’t know that, either—yet. But thanks, Fern. You’ve been terrific.”
She folded her hands in front of her. “You know something, Ben?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m glad I was able to do something for you. I really am. But I wish I didn’t know this. It’s not the kind of information I want to carry around. For all my bitching, I like my job. I wouldn’t want to mess it up.”
“You have my word. As far as I’m concerned, we never spoke.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
48
Dr. Chenoweth was clearly excited. His manner was much more upbeat than it had been the last time Peggy had seen him. Then he’d been in a rare dark mood, obviously troubled by Jan’s lack of progress. Today, however, he was once again his usual positive self.
“I feel certain that what we’re seeing,” he said, “is the beginning of real improvement.”
Peggy was sitting opposite the psychiatrist’s desk, eyeing him anxiously. She bit her lower lip, wanting so much to believe. “Are you sure, Doctor? Really sure?”
“As sure as I can be. She’s responding to just about everything I say to her. Eye movement, changes in pulse and surface temperature, every measure shows that. But the really great thing is that now she’s actually spoken to me. Maybe it was only a word or two, but it was speech, nevertheless.”
“Yes, but what did she say? That she was afraid, right? The same thing she said to me. At first, I was just as happy about it as you are, but now I don’t know. I mean, sure it’s wonderful that she seems to be coming around. And yet all she wants to express is this awful fear. Aren’t you worried about that? You were before she started to talk.”
Chenoweth wasn’t to be discouraged. “Peggy, what you have to realize is that Jan has to meet us at least partway if we’re going to be successful in treating her. For her to be responding like this is remarkable. Patients who withdraw into a state of catatonia like hers sometimes stay that way for years. And sometimes, I’m sorry to say, they never come out of it at all. Jan, on the other hand, is showing definite indications that she’s on the way to recovery.”
“Yes, but what about—”
“This fear of hers? What I’m trying to explain is that the first step to successful treatment is to gain responsiveness in the subject. We’ve got that now, and much sooner than I would have thought possible. Even though she’s troubled by these deep-seated negative feelings, she’s allowing us to communicate with her. Without that, we could never make progress. But she’s reaching out to us, and that’s extremely gratifying.”
“I see. Or at least I think I do.”
“Look, I know it may be hard for a layman to grasp. But this is one branch of medicine in which help from the patient is an essential part of the recovery process. Without her cooperation, we could never succeed. By responding, Jan is telling us she wants to get better. She’s telling us she’s willing to assist in our efforts to return her to emotional health.”
“What about the way she seems to react when you say anything to her about the Cunninghams? What do you make of that?”
“At this stage, I don’t have an answer. But I do know we’ll find out, eventually—that’s part of the treatment. Whatever emotional trauma has been repressed, it’s my job to get the problem out in the open. Not only so that we can see it but so that Jan can, as well. She has to recognize what’s troubling her before we can help her to deal with it. Once she understands the basis for this deep anxiety, she’ll be able to cope with it and overcome her fears. Now do you see?”
“I—yes. I do. Forgive me for acting this way. But I was almost afraid to hope for a while there. To tell you the truth, I was at the point where I thought a lot of what you were saying was just so much … nonsense, to put it politely.”
He smiled. “That’s also normal, Peggy. People
get impatient and frustrated when they want their loved ones to overcome a serious illness. And I don’t blame them. It’s the most natural thing in the world. I often feel frustrated myself.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. We’re human, too, you know.”
Peggy felt as if she’d been relieved of an enormous burden. She returned Chenoweth’s smile. “All right, Doctor. You’ve made me feel much better, and much more optimistic.”
“Good. That’s the way I want you to feel. We can’t celebrate just yet, but I have a feeling we will before long. And the Cunninghams must be delighted as well, knowing that she’s improving.”
“Have you spoken to them about her?”
“Not directly. The person I’m in touch with is the administrator of the foundation, Ardis Merritt. Miss Merritt handles everything, including payment of the bills. She was thrilled to have the good news about Jan and I’m sure she’s passed it on.”
“I see.”
“As you know, when your sister was first brought here, the outlook was very bleak. The family was made to understand there was virtually no hope she’d ever come out of the state she was in. So you can imagine how pleased they must be to hear about this turnaround. Almost as happy as you are, I’m sure.”
“What’s next, for Jan?”
“What’s next is more of the same. More careful, patient treatment, until we understand fully what caused her this terrible emotional damage.”
49
The NYPD’s 115th Precinct covers Jackson Heights, Queens. It takes in La Guardia Airport to the north and runs south to Grand Central Boulevard. The area is densely populated, and filled with small shops and bars and restaurants. There are people on the sidewalks and traffic in the streets at all hours, and the air resonates with Latin music pounding from boom boxes.
Among the residents are countless thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them engaged in prostitution, loan-sharking, and the sale of drugs. The district is the city’s largest center for the laundering of illicit cash. Cops call it Little Colombia.
Tolliver drove there in the evening, taking the Queensboro Bridge and then the BQE, turning off onto Northern Boulevard. He parked in the lot next to the precinct house and went into the building.
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