Ribeye mouthed, “Sorry.” He didn’t mean it any more than Frankie.
Micelli waived them away, and they went back out onto the deck, grumbling.
After the galley door closed behind them, Micelli leaned over the table toward me. “My apology, unlike theirs, was from the heart. And believe me, they really will be sorry. Made that abundantly clear to them while you were asleep. They were my father’s employees, but his way isn’t my way of doing business.”
So, I was not going to be killed? At least, not just yet? I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was up to, but now I was emboldened. “Besides assault, kidnapping, and theft,” I asked quietly, not wanting to be heard by Frankie and Ribeye who might be lingering outside, listening, “what is your way of doing business?”
Micelli laughed. Not a vicious laugh. Not an evil laugh. But an open and pleasurable one. “Let’s see, you think I engage in theft? In violence? Surely you misconstrue my gentle nature.”
He leaned back in his seat and gave a toothy grin. “If it were not for me, Frankie would have enjoyed tossing a finger or an ear – one at a time – overboard while you watched the sharks dine on such delicacies. If I was what you think I am, why would I even bother to sit here with you and have this conversation? What more do I need from you? Just your quiet assistance.”
“Do I have any choice?”
“Certainly.” He went to one of the cabinets, brought out a large can of cashews and put them on the table. From another cabinet he brought out a black plastic bag like the one I had used to store the cash in my ductwork crawl space. It contained a package of some sort.
“Action that’s louder than words,” said Micelli. “There’s $513,113 inside. You take it, along with the corporate books. You say nothing about this, and you can do with it as you please.”
Chapter 46
“You’re giving me back half a million and the corporate books? Leave with my life? And what do I have to do for this?”
Micelli scooped up a handful of cashews. “You know what has occurred in the modern age? We’ve lost a sense of magic. We’ve lost our imagination. Look out that port. We’re a speck floating two thousand feet above the ocean floor, surrounded by blue water. There was a time when the world believed that awesome creatures roamed the seas. Great, wondrous monsters. Huge things that swam up from under the waves to destroy vessels with the flip of a tail a hundred feet long. Things that could take wing, darken the sky and, dripping foam, swoop down and bite a great sailing ship in two. And we believed in them. No, belief is too weak. We knew they existed. We had never seen them, never heard their roar, but we knew they were there. They simply were. Like giants and gorgons, like griffins and gargoyles, like mermaids and manticores and cyclops and dragons. The world was inhabited with wonder and magic.”
He washed the nuts down with a gulp of wine. “We’ve gotten so advanced. We no longer believe in magic. We test our way through the world. Can you feel it? Can you touch it? Can you detect it? Can you verify its existence objectively? Can you create an experiment that can be repeated and repeated and repeated once more to prove those things you can’t see or touch or feel? And if you can’t replicate the experiment, then it must not exist.”
Micelli pointed to the Camellia Industries’ binder. “I discovered magic. I discovered that imagination still exists. And I found it in the most unusual place – in my one and only year of law school.”
He put a finger on the binder. “Look at this wondrous creature. A corporation. You can’t see it. You can’t touch it. You can’t hear it. It can’t speak. It’s nothing, an invisible presence whose shadow is caught on paper. And yet, the U.S. Supreme Court says that it is a ‘person.’ Just think, all who believe in its existence are touched with its magic, and those who put their money where their beliefs are can be imbued with its genius. It creates a shield, invisible but impenetrable. Investors are covered with a necromancer’s cloak, a corporate veil that cannot be pierced. A shell corporation they call it. But it’s no fragile shell, easily cracked. It can be as strong and as unyielding as a mountain.”
All of this was lost on me. Sure, corporations exist only on paper, and the Supreme Court has said that corporations have a ton of rights, like funneling unlimited money into political campaigns, but what did any of this have to do with Camellia Industries?
Micelli continued on. “Magic existed. For a while. But the magic is wearing thin. Pierce the corporate veil! Pretend it doesn’t exist. Use RICO and claim all businessmen are racketeers. It’s like a wizard’s incantation – say Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act under federal law, and the invisible shield disintegrates.”
“Or dies,” I suggested. “Like G.G. and like Spider. Corporations aren’t magic, and lawyers aren’t magicians.”
“But of course they are. You’re a magician. You transformed G.G.’s thoughts into five entities that sprung out of the ether. Don’t you realize that, even as we lose our belief in magic and wonder, our belief in demons grows? Demons that leach into the soil and air and water, waiting to fill us with evil to which we give modern names, like radiation, toxins, or carcinogens. Our belief in invisible evil is so strong we’ve created a whole industry to deal with our fears. We want fire and water to be summoned to destroy the evil. Fire to burn it. Water to soothe it. Waste treatment plants and incinerators. But, who in their right mind would want to run these corporations when the magic that allows you to destroy such evil itself is so weak? Let someone claim that the fire was not strong enough, or that the water was not pure enough, and you have unlimited personal liability. Unlimited! Nothing is safe. Not your home. Not your car. Not your life savings. The corporate veil is cast aside and we are naked. But feed a corporation rather than run it – that’s where there’s still magic. There’s enough belief in magic left to think that corporations have some existence, no matter how fragile, and these sylvan creatures must be fed. Their feed is invisible too; credits that transfer over wires, that exist as electronic pollen to be harvested as needed.”
It was no good trying to respond. Micelli was going to lecture me. I had to listen as he shot off one metaphorical volley after another.
He kept using the word “magic.” The “magic” of corporations to protect lenders from liability when they loan to those who poison the ground, water, and atmosphere as long as they are only creditors and not operators. Yep. Got that. Standard legal rules. So what?
The “magical” first eight years of his life, spent with his mother, sisters, and beloved “Papa” before “Papa” was “ensnared by the evil ones.” That would have been his doting father, Carmine “The Snake,” who pushed drugs, exterminated rivals, and ruthlessly killed anyone who got in his way. Carmine, who was convicted and given a double-life sentence for his crimes.
The “magic of the diaphanous veil” that protected “Papa” and the family, even against the “evil ones.” He was referring to The Snake’s ability to run his operations from prison and to avoid both the death penalty and deportation even as more charges were brought against him.
The “magical incantations” Micelli uttered to create the “spherical globe” around those most dear to him. That was his way of saying that he had decided to stay on the legit side of the family’s businesses. As if what Frankie and Ribeye had done to me was legit.
He paused for a long time. I didn’t say anything. I was exhausted and light- headed. And every movement of the boat made me aware of my festering arm.
Micelli looked at the huge gold wedding band on his thick finger and twisted it, turning it around and around. He then pushed the bag of money off the table and onto my lap. “Take it. If I kept, it would lead me to where the magic ceases.”
I let the bag of cash slip off my lap and onto the floor. Why give me anything? Was this simply another way to frame me, to give him a reason to call Frankie and Ribeye back in to kill me?
Micelli went over to a locked cabinet and opened it, revealing the rest of the
loot. “That’s what is rightfully LaCIE’s. It’s the repayment of the loan my company made to G.G. – repayment in full. I keep what I’m owed, not a penny more. Do you want to see the accounting? I keep very precise records. You get the rest, the $513,113. Well, actually, the number came to $513,112.17 – I keep very precise records, but I’ve rounded this up to the nearest dollar. So take it.”
I didn’t reach for the bag that lay on the floor of the galley.
“Come on,” Micelli said, trying to encourage me, “take it. It’s so appropriate, and it keeps me and my business completely above-board. And as long as all I collect is principal, interest, and expenses – all documented charges that meet the letter of the law – I’m still wrapped in the magic; LaCIE protects me. Nothing that’s done with or to the Camellia Industries property can touch me. No chemical spill can be traced to me. No toxic dumping is caused by me. No environmental cleanup bill can be laid at my feet. So, you take the rest of the money. I don’t want it. You’re the original escrow agent.”
“You don’t want it, so you just give it to me?”
Micelli bent over and put his mouth close to my ear. His voice had a terrifying coldness. “You won’t go to the police, because you can’t. What are you going to say? That you were kidnapped by some men who took several million dollars in cash that you just happened to have hidden in your house, money that you never declared to the IRS on a cash disclosure form. Form eight-three-double-zero, as I recall. And you’re going to claim that you were released by these men along with half a million dollars that you still haven’t declared? If you go to the police, do you think they’ll let you keep the money? No, you won’t do anything like that. You’ll take the money. And you’ll go home. And you’ll say nothing.”
He pulled the brim of the Saints cap down over his eyes and put on a pair of dark glasses as he moved toward the galley hatch. “And me? I’ll be just a former creditor of Camellia Industries, looking for another loan to make.”
Chapter 47
The boat ride back could be described in one word – sullen.
I was in an untenable spot. Taylor had not told me about the transaction with Carmine “The Snake’s” son, and I hadn’t spotted it when I looked at the corporate books. Micelli was right; I couldn’t go to the police about Micelli or Frankie or Ribeye without implicating myself in money laundering or worse – Sheriff Isiah Brown would have a field day. I had to figure out how to get far away, as fast as possible.
Frankie and Ribeye were sullen. When they found out that Micelli was giving me the remaining half million rather than sharing it with them, they said nothing, but their faces scowled with disapproval. They cast each other knowing glances, eyebrows raised.
The weather turned sullen. The humidity became palpable. The hot summer sky became gray and muggy. The gray turned to black, and the azure of the Gulf’s deep water evolved into an acrid brew.
Micelli, on the upper deck, was steering the boat through the increasing chop. The wind came in ever-escalating gusts, a warm, damp breath that did nothing to relieve the heat. The sea roiled and the precipitation propelled down at an angle, splatting angrily wherever it hit.
The waves grew, building in bulk. The formerly gentle swells became mountain ranges. The big engines under the deck growled and vibrated as the vessel lumbered up the steep side of one wave after another, moving through the molasses of the sea. As the prow of the boat topped a wave, it teetered like a seesaw. The molasses turned to ice, and the vessel slid in a stomach-churning toboggan ride into the trough. The prow would crash into the inky water below, shake itself clear, and then the climb upward would begin again. Wave after wave after wave.
By the time we got back to the dock our clothes were soaked, and Frankie and Ribeye’s mood was as foul as the weather.
Twilight was fading as they pulled the car out from its hiding place and made me lie down on the rear seat. My left arm was now a monster on my shoulder, a ghoul of liquid fire slowly and painfully gnawing at my nerve endings.
Ribeye opened up the back door again and angrily threw the damp plastic bag of cash that Micelli had given me onto the floor.
We drove for several hours. The twilight was long gone and it was black outside. I couldn’t see a thing except the precipitation streaming down the windows, crystalline in the glow of Frankie’s cigarette.
Eventually, the rain ceased. We were out of the storm. Ribeye, who was driving, turned the windshield wipers off. After a few more miles, he slowed and turned onto a gravel road. I could feel it under the wheels. Another ten minutes. Then the car came to an abrupt halt.
Ribeye shifted in his seat and turned around to look at me. Before he could see my face, I had closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Frankie and Ribeye got out. I could hear them a short distance away.
“Thought I was going to fucking explode.”
“Goddam, at your age you ought to know better than to think you could drink all that beer and drive hours in that rain without taking a leak.”
“What about you, you old fart? From the sound of you over there, are you planning to fill up the damn bayou?”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Well, at least I’m not full of piss anymore.” They both laughed.
I knew better than to sit up.
“Fucking Tony Micelli. That little douche bag will never be half . . . hell, never be an inch of what his old man was.”
Ribeye’s voice was closer to the car now, somewhere behind it, near the trunk. “Tony the Dickface is going to piss away everything.”
Frankie’s dangerous voice cut through the darkness. “Damn right about that. First Tony walks away from the most profitable shit, lets Paolo take it, and then Paolo tells us we’ve got to work for Tony the Dickface. Then, Dickface can’t do anything without shitting in his pants about maybe spending a few turns in the Louisiana state prison up in Angola or in one of the federal pens. No discipline. The old man made sure everyone knew where the line was. Cross it and you simply disappeared. Forever. Dickface here can’t stand to even draw the line. I’m too old to sit by and let him ruin something the old man built up, running it all from Angola. Built it all up even bigger than it was before he went in. And now this little shit, who plays at being some kind of legit loanshark, thinks he can just give back half a mil? The old man would have cut his pecker off, son or no son.”
I could hear their footsteps on the gravel as they paced around the back of the car. “Frankie, do you think that fucker is going to keep his mouth shut?”
“Shit no. What the fuck does Tony the Dickface know about anything?” Frankie was furious now. “Does he know how to run an organization? Does he know how to get something done? Does he know how to push the right buttons?”
A loud, hollow thump came from the trunk area. The car rocked where Frankie must have kicked it. “Fuck! The only goddam things he knows are how to steer that pussy palace on the water, figure interest rates, and give untraceable money away to some shithead with a law degree.”
Sounds of footsteps again moving away from the car. Their voices were now indecipherable but still full of vitriol.
I tried to raise myself up to see where they were.
My arm blazed in pain as I inched my way up slowly until I could just see over the back seat. Through the rear window, lined with streaks of water and road film, I could make out the dark figures of Frankie and Ribeye, backlit by the moonlight.
I tried to get a better look and peeked my head up a bit more, but just then Ribeye turned around, flashlight in hand, and spotted me.
I tried slinking back down but it was too late. Ribeye yanked the door open. “You fucking spying bastard!”
Chapter 48
Ribeye hauled me out of the car and punched me hard in the gut. I went down, trying to catch my breath.
He pulled me back up and hit my bad arm.
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of screaming, although I was in agony. I bit my upper
lip until it bled, but I couldn’t keep from groaning as I staggered.
Ribeye reached in the car to retrieve the plastic bag filled with cash, slung it over one shoulder, and kicked me forward. He pointed the way with his flashlight.
I limped ahead, walking through damp grass, ankle high, and onto the muddy construction yard.
Heavy equipment was all around. Bulldozers. Cherry-pickers. Back-hoes.
And lined up, directly in front of us, were three large dark-green trucks, each with a huge, cylindrical canister behind the cab.
Ribeye led me to the door of one of the trucks. I could see in his flashlight’s beam the logo on the door – an oval wreath of leaves surrounding the word “InDispoCo.” The cab was high off the ground. The wheels of the vehicle were as tall as my chest.
Ribeye slung the plastic bag containing the cash up onto the front seat and strong- armed me through the mud to the rear of the vehicle. Ribeye pointed to the great metal maw of the oversized garbage truck. A yawning, rusty mouth with a tongue of soggy trash.
“Get in!”
I looked around. I was sure that, if my arm hadn’t been injured and hurting like hell, I could outrun him. But I couldn’t. Not now. Not in the condition I was in. And where had Frankie gone?
“Get the fuck in there.” Ribeye pulled out a gun and aimed it at my face, its barrel a few inches from my nose.
I grabbed the metal bar with my good hand and painfully hauled myself up and onto the edge of the metal cave.
Ribeye waved his gun. “All the way back, you turd!”
I took a step into the cavernous belly of the container and sank up to my calves in slimy garbage.
Ribeye scrambled up behind me, perched on the top rung of the side ladder, and hit the edge of the container twice with his gun. The steel siding reverberated with a deep, metallic ring. The engine howled as it came to life and the truck sprang forward.
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