by Steve Richer
The woman who broke the surface wasn’t Gina though.
Oliver was mesmerized and felt like an awkward teenager again. She placed her hands on the coping and took her time hoisting herself out of the pool. She was looking straight at him and he was staring back, watching the water dripping off her flawless body, the red bikini hiding almost nothing.
“You’re one of the guests?” she said while wringing the water out of her long blond hair.
“Uh yes, that’s right. Oliver Graves.”
“Can you toss me that towel, Oliver Graves?”
As if in a trance, he grabbed the colorful towel from the chair and handed it to her. She smiled as she took it, her eyes narrowing in what he judged was a seductive manner.
“I’m Renna.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
He offered her his hand but she didn’t take it, instead choosing to laugh like it was cute but oh so not going to happen. Jesus, she was stunning. She was in her mid-twenties, at most. Maybe even younger. She started to wipe down her body, starting with her arms, shoulders, and as she dried her breasts she kept her gaze riveted to him.
Oliver wasn’t stupid, he hadn’t been born yesterday. He knew she was using everything in her power, which was a lot, to make him uncomfortable. But just because he was prepared for it didn’t mean that it wasn’t working. He felt some sort of subconscious desire to impress her although he had no clue how.
“Yo, financial guy!”
Brought out of this spell, Oliver turned and found Raymond—Sabatini’s son—looking at him. This made Renna laugh, as if she was delighted by his discomfiture. She walked away and disappeared into the house while Raymond came forward.
“You were trying to make a pass at her?” he spat.
“No!” Oliver quickly answered. “I… I got called over here for breakfast and I got lost.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s over there?” Oliver pointed to the dining area up the steps, doing his best to appear nonchalant.
“They’re all in the east garden.”
“Great, thanks.”
Oliver motioned to leave, but Raymond grabbed him by the elbow, stopping him cold.
“You watch it, all right? Renna is my dad’s wife. Nobody touches her, understood?”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Keep it that way, financial guy. I won’t tell you that I agree with his choice to replace my mother. Christ, she’s twenty-two and she just started eating solid food, you know? But I’m doing you a favor over here. Don’t ever look her way without consent from high above.”
Oliver nodded. “Sure.”
“Six months ago, this guy up in Bed-Stuy tried to make a pass at her and my dad caught him. They say he might start walking again without a full body cast in a couple months, if he’s lucky. You get my drift?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. Now get outta here, east garden.”
Chapter 7
Breakfast was cleared away and Oliver still wanted to eat. For one thing, he was famished from his run, and for another the food gave him something to focus his mind on. As it was, he couldn’t stop thinking about his encounter with Raymond.
While working on Wall Street, he had been threatened many times. Usually, it had been things like “Pull my twenty-three million dollars from the index, you cocksucker, or I’ll make sure you never trade in this town again!” Back then, it had been just posturing from trust fund weasels and God only knew they were a dime a dozen in Manhattan.
He had learned to deal with them practically his first week at an investment bank. It was part of the job. It was like a pretty bartender having to suffer all the drunks hitting on her night after night. With banking, it was dealing with rich pricks with an inferiority complex.
With Raymond though, it had been true menace. Don’t do A or B will happen. Don’t look at Renna or you will end up in a Newark gutter. Moreover, he could swear she had flirted with him on purpose. It was like she took pleasure in making people uncomfortable, in making them squirm. On the other hand, it wasn’t the first time he had witnessed this behavior from trophy wives.
And to top all this, Oliver was sweaty and he was certain that he smelled disgusting. Gina was bound to notice even though she hadn’t said anything yet. He might as well forget about her altogether. He had blown his chances.
“Time to get back to business,” Paul said, standing at the end of the table.
He hadn’t eaten with them, but had made an appearance just before the food was served by three maids. Now he was back with his assistant in tow. Clifford placed legal-sized documents in front of the four guests.
“These are standard nondisclosure agreements. I need you to sign them before we proceed.”
Bill snorted. “I’m sorry but there is no standard nondisclosure agreement, okay? I’m a lawyer. I deal with this every day.”
“Fine, they’re not standard nondisclosure agreements. I still need you four to sign. If you don’t, you’re all going back home, forfeiting the additional fifty thousand dollars. You can have a few minutes to go over the documents if you wish.”
“Great, that’s very generous.”
Oliver started to read. He had signed a few of these in his time, but for the life of him he couldn’t tell what was, or wasn’t, standard about it. He almost fell asleep before he reached the second page. Thankfully, Bill was deeply engrossed and was a fast reader. It took him just a little over five minutes to go through the entire contract.
“And?” Gina asked him.
“I’m not sure about the language of section four, I’d be ready to contest it in front of a judge—I’m saying this for the record,” Bill said, pointing a stern finger at Paul. “But I can live with it.” He looked at the three other guests, one after the other. “It basically says we can’t talk about anything happening from this moment on. If we do, we expose ourselves to lawsuits.”
“We sign?” Oliver inquired.
“Okay, first of all let me preamble that I do not by any means represent any of you in any legal capacity. Anything I say can’t technically be considered legal advice specifically tailored to you.”
“Dude…”
Bill was cut short by Oliver’s interaction. He sheepishly nodded. “Yeah, okay. We can sign.”
Orland pulled out his own pen, as did Bill. Oliver and Gina had to ask one from Clifford. They all signed on the dotted line and initialed every page.
“Wonderful,” Paul said while his assistant picked up the documents.
A second later, Sabatini showed up. He was dressed in white shorts, a pink polo shirt, and tennis shoes. Oliver could glimpse a tennis court out back and to the right. The old man was holding his wife’s hand and Raymond stood behind them like a guard dog.
Renna searched out Oliver’s eyes and he worked double-time to avoid her. He had a feeling she wanted to embarrass him somehow. Instead, he looked directly at her husband, all business.
“Sweetheart, get back into the house. I have some business to take care of.”
“Okay, my darling.”
She pressed herself against him, making it obvious she was almost six inches taller than he was, and kissed him on the lips for long, drawn out seconds. All the while, Raymond was looking at Oliver, as if he was at this moment doing something very wrong.
Clifford pulled a few chairs closer and one of the maids came over to top off everyone’s coffee. Around the table were the four guests, Paul, Sabatini, and Raymond. Clifford placed a laptop on the table as well as a stack of notepads and pencils.
“I will collect everyone’s phone, please.”
“Excuse me?” Gina said.
“Security measure, Ms. Maldonado.”
“I’m afraid this is a deal breaker,” Paul added.
“Fine.”
Clifford gathered everybody’s phone on a tray and walked away.
“Thank you for your cooperation. This computer is air-gapped,” Paul said as he turn
ed it on and produced a thumb drive hanging from his neck. “This means it’s not connected to the Internet, never has been. The information on this drive is the most precious thing that we own. It’s around my neck at all times. You will be able to take notes as you work, but they will be collected at the end of the day. None of the information you see on the computer can be copied or transmitted to anyone. Is everyone in agreement?”
“Yes,” they all said in turn.
“Good.”
He inserted the flash drive in the laptop, but the attention shifted to Sabatini.
“It’s great and all that you signed the nondisclosure forms, very considerate and professional, but that’s Paul’s safety net. It’s legal mumbo-jumbo, boardroom stuff. Doesn’t count for much where I come from.”
Raymond leaned forward. “What my dad is saying is that we have nine guys on this island who you think are security guards. They’re more than that. They’re loyal. They’re family. They know how to disappear bodies, understood?”
Oliver straightened up in his chair.
Chapter 8
They all knew who they were up against, but to actually hear it made Oliver’s blood curdle. It was the same with the three other guests although Orland remained as passive as ever.
Sabatini put a hand on his son’s shoulder, letting him know that there was quite enough of that.
“What my son is trying to say is that even though I’m doing my best to turn the family into a legitimate entity, some instincts are hard to get rid of. Paul is telling me that the four of you are what I need to get this done and I trust his judgment. He’s been my special counselor for thirty years. His dad was my father’s counselor. I really trust him and that means I trust you.”
“Thank you,” Oliver replied when he felt that somebody should say something.
“This weekend, your job is to draw up a plan for me to go legit. If I like it, I’ll be hiring you to implement this plan. That means a retainer, a hundred grand each on top of the other fifty you’re getting tomorrow.”
A part of Oliver was ecstatic. This was what he needed more than anything. With a nice financial cushion, he’d be able to get joint custody of Jeremy. However, another part of him realized that this retainer was more than that. It was hush money.
“Thanks,” he said again.
Paul cleared his throat. “Does everyone agree with these terms?”
They all did. Paul nodded at his boss and Sabatini launched into his narrative.
“I’m not in the Mafia. All that Rampoldi crime family crap was invented by the papers. Rampoldi’s was the barbershop my grandfather took over in the 30s. He did his business from there. He was small-time, running numbers, booze. It’s my father who grew the business when he came back from the war. Girls, product–”
“You mean drugs?” Bill interrupted.
“I’m hoping I won’t have to explain every little euphemism, all right?”
“Oh sure, sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“Heroin put us on the map in the early 70s. We made a killing with blow in the 80s. We had our own territory so we never had too much trouble with the five New York families. I established contacts myself in Colombia to import the product. The problem is, and that’s why you people are here, is that we made money too fast.”
Oliver chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood. “Is there such a thing as making money too fast?”
“It was a cash business. We had to count money by weighing it otherwise it took too goddamn long. Sure, we knew that we had to launder it, obviously, but we couldn’t keep up. I have some real estate developments, a construction company. We have a string of titty bars in New Jersey and Delaware, but it wasn’t enough. The vast majority of our cash was deposited in banana banks through the Caribbean and Central America.”
As off-putting as it was to talk about criminal activities, Oliver perked up when the subject of finances was broached. He was in his element now and there was no sense pretending to be morally offended anymore. He grabbed one of the legal pads and a pencil.
“And are your assets still in those banks?”
“Most of it, yes. All in the name of dummy corporations. A bunch of money that I can’t bring back home without having some feds knock down my front door with a battering ram.”
Orland, Gina, and Bill also reached for the stationary.
“Ballpark figure, what kind of money are we talking about?”
“Half a billion,” Sabatini replied without hesitation. “Listen, I have about as much legally, between my investments, the cash and artwork, my businesses. I can ferret some of the money out little by little, buying a condo here, a few diamonds there. But it’s time to call it quits on this lifestyle, all right? I wanna quit while I’m ahead. I already negotiated positions for my people with other organizations. Raymond here is going to settle down with my construction business. I want my legacy to be positive.”
The four guests absorbed this information. Oliver caught himself thinking that this was kind of a noble goal. The man wanted to leave his life of crime behind. What was wrong with that?
Paul turned the computer toward the financial wizards. “Here are all the, shall we say gray assets that my client owns. Account numbers show up as redacted when I don’t type in my password, which I won’t do, but it should otherwise give you a precise picture. Your job is to figure out how to bring the money back to the United States and how to present a steady, legitimate income stream that will stand up to scrutiny as well as last for generations.”
~ ~ ~ ~
The team was left alone so they could work and that’s exactly what they did.
They inventoried the assets as much as they could. Bill talked about corporate strategies to create a structure that would support a large influx of cash. Orland shared his knowledge of banking regulations and practices, which would be vital in draining the sums out.
“This is a nightmare,” Gina said while she pondered the accounting firepower that would be required to pull the whole thing off.
For his part, Oliver focused on what would happen afterward. He was a financial analyst, a former fund manager and broker. His job was to create a sustainable model for the accumulated wealth.
There was so much to do even though all that was expected from them this weekend was to say whether or not it was feasible and, if so, how.
They worked through lunch when two maids invited them inside for sandwiches. They were taken to a library of sorts in the corner of the house. There were dozens of shelves with hundreds of books, but it was the magnificent view of the Caribbean Sea that held everyone’s attention.
The wind was picking up outside, the waves becoming violent. While checking up on them, Clifford revealed that Hurricane Ashley had shifted even though it would probably miss the Bahamas completely. They were assured that they were safe here. Just to be sure though, the helicopter was flown from the yacht to the helipad, located halfway between the house and the marina. There was nothing else to do but get back to work.
In the middle of the afternoon, Bill started pacing, stretching his legs. He said, “Does anybody have a problem with this?”
“How do you mean?” Gina asked, looking up from a calculator.
“We’re being employed by a drug kingpin. I sure as hell never expected to put that on my resume. So does anyone feel weird about this? Because, bizarrely, I don’t.”
“It’s work,” Gina said with a shrug.
“And I don’t have a choice.”
The voice belonged to Orland. They all turned to him since it was rare for him to volunteer information.
“Why don’t you have a choice?”
“I gamble. I owe money. I lost my business and Sabatini bought my debt.”
Bill exhaled. “Well shit. That’s a better story than mine.”
“Which is?”
“Forget it,” Bill said, waving his hand dismissively.
Gina shook her head. “No, no, no! You said too much already. Go ahead, talk
.”
Everyone was looking at the fat man and he ultimately shrugged.
“Okay, fine. I was going places at my firm, but I slept with my boss’s daughter. Look at me, you can probably figure out that pretty eighteen-year-old cheerleaders don’t often throw themselves at me, hence why I was dumb enough to do it.”
“Ouch.”
“It was her plan to get back at daddy because he wouldn’t let her apply to an East Coast college. As you can guess, daddy got mad. Turns out my boss had enough influence to make sure no other powerful firm in Southern California hired me.”
Oliver reached for his sixth cup of coffee, but decided against it. Instead, he leaned back into his chair and tossed his pencil way.
“So each of us has fallen on hard times, yes?”
“What are you in for?” Bill asked.
Oliver ignored him. “It’s got to be why we were hired.”
“What are you getting at?” Gina asked. “You think we’re being set up to fail?”
“I’m wondering if we’re meant to be scapegoats.”
Bill groaned. “Jesus.”
“Think about it. One mistake and we don’t just go back to our dead-end careers. No, one mistake and we’re left holding the bag, going to jail.”
Chapter 9
Blake couldn’t smell the old dead fish anymore. None of his men complained about it. They had their game faces on and that’s exactly why he knew the mission would be a success.
“Beta, sitrep.”
The big man had a clipboard and he glanced at it even though there was no need. He knew it by heart because his boss expected him to.
“Weapons checked. Ammo loaded. Equipment secured.” He looked at the wiry figure of Epsilon who was standing at parade rest. “Explosives accounted for, all of it.”
“Good,” Blake said. “Transport?”
Rho nodded from the back of the room. “Fully fueled and ready to go. I have extra gas spread out between the boats, just in case.”
Blake turned to Beta who nodded that this was in fact the case. Another item he checked off on his list.