Wages Of Sin (Luis Chavez Book 3)

by Mark Wheaton

  “That I don’t know,” Gennady said. “But I can make an educated guess. There is strict regulation in place regarding financial transfers. If it is from a corporation, your government is exceedingly thorough when it comes to making sure no one is trying to evade taxes. Understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “But let’s say it comes in from a nonprofit, from a nongovernmental agency, from a charity, or so on, where it’s not taxed. Then the government doesn’t even glance over to whet its appetite. The only time it goes into those books is if there’s a full-fledged investigation.”

  “Even to the tune of twenty-three billion?” Michael asked.

  “Apparently,” Gennady said, tapping the drive. “Once to the tune of a hundred million a day, every day, for forty business days in a row.”

  “Four billion came in through Sittenfeld’s account in a couple of months? And no red flags went up?”

  “Not one,” Gennady said. “I’m still marveling at it. It doesn’t even feel like real money at that point. Like Sittenfeld was playing some kind of game and these were the made-up dollar amounts that went with it. But the bank paid out interest on the days it sat in our accounts. Millions in interest over time. But did anyone question if this money was real? Absolutely not.”

  Michael leaned back in his chair. If there was any shred of truth to this, it would imply that Naomi had somehow stumbled upon one of the largest and longest-running money-laundering schemes in US history.

  “How do you keep something like that secret?” Michael murmured.

  “I have no clue,” Gennady said. “The most likely answer, on the bank side of it, is that it was willful. This changed over time. Early on, Sittenfeld was clearing a few million here and there. Still big money, but if he was careful you can understand how it could slip through the right cracks. That changed in the last decade. Do you have any idea how much money his bank lost during the recent financial crises and the meltdown of the housing market? They were in crisis mode. Then one of their officers steps forward and says, ‘Well, I have a solution.’ When they counter by saying it’s illegal, all he has to do is show how he’s gotten away with it for years. Someone offers you enough money to keep the lights on, sometimes you look the other way.”

  “And he must’ve made those in on the secret wealthy, too,” Michael added.

  “I’m sure,” Gennady agreed. “The media thinks Sittenfeld wanted his wife dead over a few million dollars in a divorce. I think it must’ve been so much more than that. I doubt ours could have been the only bank involved.”

  Michael was flabbergasted. The idea that there could be even more money than this laundered through his city seemed impossible, even if it was done over several decades. He went to press Gennady on what he meant by this, but it turned out that Gennady Archipenko had said the last words he would ever speak.

  The bullets came into the restaurant from the west, shattering the large bay windows overlooking Tenth and Santa Monica. They splintered the restaurant’s wicker blinds, exploded the faux pre-Columbian pottery resting on shelves around the small dining area, and tore through the display case holding the day’s assortment of pies and cakes.

  They also pierced the heart of a waitress, the upper torsos of two diners out on the sidewalk, and the Adam’s apple of the man who seemed to hold the key to Naomi’s murder. As the small dark hole in Gennady’s throat spit blood, the Russian’s gaze met Michael’s. A second bullet sliced through the man’s shoulder, changed direction as it ricocheted off the bone, burst apart, and sent several shards into Michael’s right forearm.

  Michael grunted and flinched. As he dove from his chair, he saw the burst of muzzle flash from out in the street less than twenty yards away. Bullets rebounded off every surface, punching through the Formica-topped tables and drilling into the walls. Michael thought he’d been hit again—this time in the leg—only to realize he’d been cut by the razor-sharp edge of a shattered vase.

  As he ducked behind the counter, he looked back and saw Gennady leaning against an overturned table. The young man’s eyes were wide and his breathing labored as blood continued to trickle from the wounds to his neck and shoulder. He was growing pale and probably wouldn’t last another two minutes. He made eye contact with Michael, his mouth open, as if asking, Is this really happening?

  Gennady blinked as bullets continued to dance around him. Michael looked out to the street as the muzzle flash drew even closer, then back to the Russian, his lackluster eyes and gray face indicating that he was going into shock. Michael closed his own eyes and pictured Naomi. It was a calming thought and one he wanted to hold in his mind if it was to be his last.

  He bolted out from behind the counter and ran straight into the cacophony of gunfire.

  VI

  Then it was over.

  Michael anticipated the searing pain of hot lead, praying that if it was truly his time, a bullet would go through his head and spare him lingering agony. Then suddenly the storm started to pass. There was still gunfire, the street was still illuminated by a strobe of muzzle flash, but the hailstorm of bullets striking the restaurant had subsided.

  He reached Gennady and pulled him from his seated position to the floor.

  “Gotta stop this bleeding,” he told the Russian, surprising himself with how calm and even he sounded.

  He grabbed a napkin and cupped it around Gennady’s throat, applying pressure but trying not to press down so hard he’d strangle him. But as blood soaked the napkin, Gennady’s hand took hold of his own and pressed harder. Michael got the message and gripped the young man’s neck as if he were trying to squeeze the life out of it. It took so much of his focus that he didn’t even notice when the gunfire stopped completely and the three uniformly massive men in black pants, gray T-shirts, and thick, torso-covering body armor entered the restaurant.

  “Multiple vics!” one yelled out to another, presumably outside. He looked to Michael, then knelt by the waitress. The first bullet had pierced her heart, killing her instantly. Unlike with Gennady, there was barely any blood, but her expression was frozen in a last pain stricken grimace. “At least one fatality!” he added.

  He moved closer and squatted next to Michael, putting his own hand on Gennady’s throat. “You kept him alive,” he said evenly. “And I know you want to stay with him, but you need to look after your own wounds.”

  Michael was about to protest when he looked down and saw blood still leaking from both the wound on his forearm and the cut to his leg which was deeper than he’d initially registered. He nodded and moved aside as the armor-wearing man went to work to staunch Gennady’s bleeding throat.

  “Ambulances are on their way,” one of the other men called into the restaurant.

  “You SWAT?” Michael asked, barely hearing his own words, his eardrums still ringing from the attack.

  “Not even,” the man said. “Armored car security. Hoping we don’t get in too much trouble. We put the shooter down hard out there but did some property damage along the way.”

  “I’m the chief deputy district attorney for Los Angeles,” Michael said. “You’ll be all right.”

  The security guards opened up after that, retelling their story as paramedics arrived to take charge of the wounded. It turned out they’d been dropping off coins and picking up bills from a large liquor mart a block down. When they’d heard the gunfire, they’d assumed they were the target of some kind of armed robbery. After spying a man in the middle of the street blazing away at a restaurant full of people, they’d decided to get involved.

  “The shooter was an amateur,” the guard said as he inspected Michael’s wounds. “He was wearing some kind of tactical armor, but it was cheap, ill-fitting stuff. He had serious hardware but couldn’t aim worth anything. He was like a kid with a water gun, dropping empty magazines and replacing them like he had an endless supply. When we shot back, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have cover, didn’t have a fallback position. We’re combat vets. Even a Jihadi woul
d’ve hit the deck. He stood there blindly firing back, wondering why we weren’t intimidated by him.”

  “Any idea who he was?”

  “No clue,” the guard said as paramedics came to relieve him. “White male, barely into his twenties, wild-eyed crazy. Bet they discover that he was high as a kite, too. Looked like he’d been on the street awhile.”

  Michael began to feel light-headed, his loss of blood finally getting to him. What had Luis said? Oscar wasn’t involved? Well, I wonder what he has to say about this.

  “Your friend got lucky,” the guard said, indicating where Gennady had sat. “Took a million-to-one shot. Went straight through his throat. Should’ve taken his head off at that range, but the bullet went through clean. From the looks of it, he’ll probably never talk again, but I’ve seen guys survive much worse. He was still awake when we got here, which means the world.”

  “I thought he was dead,” Michael said, feeling increasingly disoriented.

  “That’s the thing about a war,” the guard said, patting his shoulder. “It forces the docs to have to get pretty skillful when it comes to wounds like that. He’ll never be the same, but at least he’s not in a box.”

  Michael nodded. Not like Naomi, you mean.

  When the paramedics reached Michael, he was already trying to leave. The trouble was he’d lost so much blood he was in no position to argue. They told him it was possible there were more shards in his wound and he needed to be X-rayed.

  Michael panicked at the idea, not out of fear for his own mortality but because in the confusion after the shooting he’d found Gennady’s key drive and tucked it into his pocket. If he went to the hospital and possibly had to go under for surgery, there was a good chance someone would come across it. If that happened, it might wind up in the wrong hands.

  So he looked for a hiding spot within arm’s reach. The dining room was completely exposed, but he spied a break between the baseboard and electrical box under the restaurant’s decimated display case. With no alternatives, he shoved it inside and prayed no one would find it. Then he joined the paramedics for a ride to the hospital.

  As they drove, Michael asked if there was any update on the status of the other victims.

  “The ones outside are in critical, but they’ll probably make it. The man who was shot in the throat is in surgery. That one’s iffy. The waitress—well, she’s been identified as Carrie Meallaigh. She had three small children.”

  Michael gritted his teeth, furious all over again.

  When they reached the hospital, Michael was hurried in to be X-rayed, only to discover that what splinters were left in his body could be easily extracted with only local anesthetic. He called Helen first, who turned out to have already heard the news about the shooting on television, including reports that the chief deputy DA had been inside, and had been trying to reach him. He told her that he was perfectly all right, that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that it was likely random and drug related.

  Of course, he didn’t believe this at all, but it seemed to mollify Helen.

  Once he was stitched up, he emerged from the observation room, popped a handful of painkillers while pocketing a prescription for several more, and went looking for an update on Gennady. He found DA Rebenold instead.

  “He yet lives,” she said dryly.

  “Indeed. Does this hospital have a secure wing?”

  “Thought you got a scratch,” she shot back.

  “For one of the other victims. He needs police protection.”

  Deborah cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “The shooter targeted him and me the same way they went after Naomi,” Michael said. “There should be officers here at the hospital.”

  “Naomi? ‘They’? ‘The shooter’? All indications point to this being a random shooting,” Deborah said evenly. “We don’t have an ID on the gunman, but he’s covered with needle tracks. He was out of his mind.”

  “Bet you don’t have an ID on the gun, either,” Michael replied.

  “In point of fact, we don’t, but that’s becoming a common enough problem. It was another one of those ghost guns somebody made from 3-D printed parts. It had practically fallen apart from one usage.”

  “Yeah, but it’s clean and untraceable. Ask yourself—how’d a junkie get it? Much less the high-powered ammunition he filled it with. I’m telling you, Deb, these are all connected.”

  Deborah straightened, visibly annoyed. She took a photograph from her pocket and showed it to Michael. It was Gennady Archipenko.

  “Mind if I ask what you were doing meeting with this man?” Deborah asked.

  “That’s the other victim I was saying needed our protection. He was shot first.”

  “Could you answer the question?”

  Michael wasn’t happy with the way this was playing out. “Naomi had contacted him regarding the Sittenfeld case. His house was broken into a few hours after she was killed. It was trashed and made to look like the work of vandals, but he said they only stole laptops and hard drives, while leaving jewelry, cash, and electronics behind.”

  Deborah reacted with surprise.

  “Now, are you going to say these three things aren’t linked?” he asked.

  “All I have to go on is the evidence, and the evidence says that Naomi was driving drunk,” Deborah said quietly. “She could’ve injured or killed someone else. And you had been with her just prior. So I’m cutting you some slack, given the guilt you must feel—”

  “Oh come on, Deborah!”

  “But these delusions of yours are getting difficult to ignore.”

  “Archipenko looked into Charles Sittenfeld’s financial dealings and saw what Naomi saw,” Michael cried. “He’d been involved with all kinds of illegal activity spanning—”

  Deborah interrupted, raising a hand. “You need to stop.”

  “But this is huge!” Michael scoffed. “He was telling me about money laundering on a massive scale. The exact kind you hear about people getting killed over. Sittenfeld or whoever he’s in business with found out that Naomi was close and activated some kind of hit squad here in Los Angeles that’s been tying up loose ends. You’ve got to get to Sittenfeld and lay this at his feet. Only then will you find out who’s behind all this.”

  Deborah didn’t reply, instead moving to a window at the end of the hall, where she looked out over the dark city. Michael wondered if she could see all the way to the ocean. When he thought she’d been hypnotized by whatever lay outside, she tapped the glass.

  “What is it with the women who get close to you?” Deborah asked evenly. “Naomi is dead. Your wife, who I didn’t have to make up reasons to dislike, is shacked up with a gangster. Even that whistle-blower from last year—what was her name? The Marshak case. She was killed, too.”

  Annie Whittaker.

  “What did Oscar Wilde say about losing one’s parents?” Deborah added glibly. “One is tragic but two is careless? You’re getting careless, Michael.”

  “I fail to see the humor. We’re talking about people’s lives.”

  “Oh, me too,” she agreed. “On my way here I got a call from Senator Elizabeth Calvin, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She told me Charles Sittenfeld has been removed from our custody for his own protection and that the case against him was to be necessarily delayed while he assists the government with another matter. It was a very short call. I rang Men’s Central Jail, and sure enough he was gone. Nobody knows where, either.”

  “Deb, you can’t be serious,” Michael said, pulse quickening. “If they think he needs protection, I’m right. There’s an active threat here.”

  “She also informed me that Gennady Archipenko is a money launderer in his own right and did not have the authority to hand over sensitive records from within his own bank,” Deborah continued. “He is being suspended immediately and investigated on charges of corporate espionage.”

  Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If thi
s had been any other situation, he would have expected her to be frothing at the mouth in anger at having her authority challenged in this way. But instead she was taking it so placidly.

  “I’m sorry, Deb, but I’m going to have to pursue this case with or without your support,” he said. “If that means—”

  “You were suspended two hours ago, pending an investigation into your own conduct with regards to Archipenko, but also your paranoid behavior following Naomi’s death,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  It was the most hollow apology Michael had ever heard.

  “Can’t you see what’s going on here?” Michael asked quietly. “I mean, the Senate Committee on Intelligence? There’s something criminal going on between Sittenfeld’s bank and the government. To hide it, they’ve got you doing their dirty work. You’re as culpable as the junkie they handed a machine gun to who killed that waitress. But with tens of billions hanging in the balance, I guess what’s the life of one mother of three making eight dollars an hour plus tips?”

  “Is this the tack you plan to take with this, Michael?” Deborah asked.

  “Damn right it is.”

  “Then you’re fired,” she said. “Effective immediately. I’m sorry you can’t separate your emotional connection to this case from your professional obligations.”

  Michael tried to read Deborah’s facial expression, but she was a blank. An impassive executioner going through the motions.

  “You know I’m going to—”

  “The next step is jail, Michael,” Deborah said, cutting him off as she moved to the door. “I’d be careful when it comes to threats.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “By the way, you mentioned that Archipenko came to the restaurant to tell you about his investigation into Sittenfeld,” Deborah said, hand on a stairwell door. “Nothing was found at the scene. Did he give you anything? Files? Paperwork?”

  “He hadn’t wanted to bring anything to an initial sit-down,” Michael lied. “He wanted to ‘scope me out first.’ His words.”

  “Ah. We’ll look at his place. Speedy recovery, Michael.”