“He’s not my guy, Bertie. I’m suing him. Explain to your FBI guy that Mason has his own lawyer.”
“I know that. So do they. They asked me to run the idea by you, hoping you’d think of something clever.”
“Me? I thought you were the clever one.”
He chuckled. “I’m just the local yokel still trying to figure out how and why a suicide could become a homicide.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Dr. Mason.”
“Mull it over, gorgeous. Maybe something will come to you.”
“I’ll try.”
As I stood up, it did come to me. I smiled down at Bertie. “Actually…”
Bertie grinned. “I knew it. Tell me.”
Chapter Fifty
The Barracuda stared at me. With his black hair slicked back, prominent widow’s peak, intense eyes with nearly black irises, and angular face, Barry Kudar’s features only reinforced his nickname.
He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“You don’t get what?” I said.
“Why do you care? It’s my client’s money.”
I raised my eyebrows. “For now.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We go to trial in three months.” I smiled. “I’m hoping that the jury will decide that your client’s money belongs to my client.”
“Give it a rest, Rachel. There’s no fucking way that’s going to happen.”
We were meeting in the Barracuda’s office. I’d called him yesterday after my meeting with Bertie Tomaso and told him we needed to meet. He agreed to see me today after lunch. At his office, of course. I didn’t mind. He was hardly the first macho man I’d had to deal with over the years.
I said, “I didn’t come here to argue the merits, Barry. Let’s just say that I have as much interest in your client’s liquidity as your client does.”
“How so?”
“If I get the verdict I hope to get from that jury, I’d much prefer to garnish your client’s investment accounts instead of trying to foreclose on his house and his vacation home in Aspen.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’d prefer to call it due diligence. I had a forensic accountant look at your client’s assets.” I gestured toward the copy of Dr. Mason’s quarterly statement from Structured Resolutions that I’d brought to the meeting and set on his desk. “My guy raised some serious questions about that one. Given that your client has more than six million dollars tied up there, I decided I ought to mention it to you.”
“What kind of questions?”
“There’s no publicly available information on Structured Resolutions,” I said. “I don’t know who your client’s contact is at that company, but he ought to ask some questions.”
“Such as?”
“Look at footnote five.”
Kudar picked up the statement and studied it. He raised his eyes to mine. “So?”
“That’s the only disclosure about the underlying structured settlements, right?”
He looked down at the statement again, and then back at me. “So what?”
“There are nine cases mentioned, right?”
He nodded. “Nine. Right.”
“Talk to the lawyers in those cases.”
“Why?”
“Ask them about the settlements they supposedly sold to Structured Resolutions.”
“Why?”
“Just talk to them.”
He looked down at the statement again. “They aren’t even listed. Just the case names.”
“And the venues of the cases.”
He frowned as he studied the footnote. “Just the states, not the venues.”
“That’s enough information to track them down from the court records.”
“Why the hell do I need to talk to them?”
“See if you can get them to tell you about the case that’s listed. See what they say about their settlement. See if it raises any questions about your client’s investment.”
He gestured at the statement. “Read the whole footnote. These are just random examples.”
“That’s what it says. Nine random examples. Check them out, Barry. See if those examples give you comfort. And then try to talk to the auditors listed on the statement. See if you can even find them.”
He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “What if you’re just jerking me around?”
I shrugged. “Then I guess I’m a jerk. But I don’t represent your client, Barry. You do. You might want to review the Code of Professional Responsibility. Check out your obligations to your client. Then do whatever you want you. Just know that when I get back to my office I’m going to dictate a detailed memorandum describing our meeting, including everything I told you. For both of our sakes, I hope my accountant’s concerns are unfounded.”
I stood and looked down at him.
“But,” I said, “if there is substance to those concerns, and you ignore them, then you better hope that Dr. Mason’s lawyer in the malpractice claim against you doesn’t serve me with a subpoena for that memo.”
I gave him a wink.
“See you in court, Barry.”
Chapter Fifty-one
“Four days in Bermuda?” I said. “Who knew the Sherman Act was so sexy?”
“Sexy?” Benny shook his head. “Odds of me getting laid at an antitrust seminar are about as good as the odds of me getting elected Pope.”
“Well, if you have to await the vote of the Cardinals, I can think of worse places than the Fairmont Hamilton Princess Hotel.”
Benny and I were having a good-bye lunch. He was leaving in the morning for the annual ABA antitrust seminar, where he was presenting a paper on something having to do with the Robinson-Patman Act, a federal statute as difficult to understand, at least for me, as string theory.
We were at McGurk’s Irish Pub in the Soulard area. Fish and chips for me; lots of stuff for Benny, including Mrs. McAteer’s potato soup, corned beef and cabbage, toasted ravioli, and now his second pint of Guinness Stout.
He took the last spoon of his soup, washed it down with a gulp of Guinness, leaned back in his chair, semi-smothered a belch, and said, “Guess who called me this morning?”
“The Vatican?”
“That little weasel Brenner.”
“Really? And?”
Benny placed his hand over his heart in mock commiseration. “He regretted having to tell me that Structured Resolution was currently closed to new investors. He hoped they might open up again after the first of the year, but he wasn’t in a position to predict.”
“Did he tell you why they were closed?”
“He said he didn’t know. I pressed him. He said he wasn’t privy to those kinds of decisions. He claimed his only connection to the company, other than as an investor, was to help potential investors make their initial contact. After that, it was out of his hands. He told me Structured Resolution has occasionally closed to new investors. He apologized and said he wished our donor the best.”
“Interesting.”
“You think they figured out our spiel was bullshit?”
“Possibly,” I said. “If so, though, I would have thought they might try to call our bluff. Find out if we really had a donor.”
Benny shrugged. “Maybe they really are closed.”
“Or maybe something else is afoot.”
“Such as?”
“My meeting with the Barracuda seemed to have an effect.”
“No shit? Did he get back to you?”
I laughed. “Kudar? No way he’d get back to me. But he definitely talked to his client. Two days after I met with him, Kudar called Brian Teever and demanded that Structured Resolutions cash out his client.”
“He called Teever? How do you know that?”
“Big Brother. The f
eds have Teever’s phone tapped. They recorded the call, according to Bertie.”
“That’s sure comforting to know. Wonder if they have your phone tapped?”
“Probably.”
“So what did Teever tell Mason?”
“He said he’d pass along the request. Kudar called him the next day demanding an answer. Teever didn’t have one. Kudar called the following day. Teever told him he’d heard that the company was in the process of closing Dr. Mason’s account and that they would wire-transfer the funds into his bank account within seven days.”
“When was that?” Benny asked.
“Yesterday.”
“That must have given the FBI a chubbie.”
“Sounds like it. They claim they will be able to trace a wire transfer back to its source.”
“Maybe they’ll give you a J. Edgar Hoover Gold Star.”
“It gets better.”
“Oh?”
“If their goal was to apply pressure, that part is starting to snowball. According to the feds, Teever has now received similar requests from two other investors.”
“So the good doctor is talking to his country club buds, eh?”
“Sounds like it. And before long they’ll be talking to theirs. If Structured Resolutions really is a Ponzi scheme, we’re entering the final phase.”
Benny was grinning. “Awesome.”
“It could get interesting.”
“So who is Teever talking to?”
“Good question. Whoever it is, he isn’t talking on that phone. The only other calls they’ve recorded have nothing to do with Structured Resolutions. If he’s using a phone, it’s one that’s untraceable.”
“How do you do that?”
“Bertie told me that you can buy prepaid disposable cell phones at Target, Walmart, wherever. It’s apparently what drug dealers do. You make a few calls, dump the phone, and get a new one.”
“That’s what he’s doing?”
“Maybe.”
Benny took another gulp of his Guinness and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “So if we’re really entering the final phase, what’s that mean?”
“They expect the bad guys to cut and run.”
“By plane?”
“Probably, although a car is always a possibility. If you get across the border, you might be able to hide out for a while.”
“But not forever.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they lay low for a few weeks and then fly from that country.” I shook my head. “I didn’t take that class in law school.”
Benny took another forkful of corned beef and washed it down with a gulp of Guinness. “For your sake, I’m just glad the feds are involved. Keep you out of harm’s way.”
“Speaking of the feds, guess who else is sniffing around?”
“Who?”
“The IRS.”
“What?”
“Apparently, they’ve got their own investigation of that Moral Majority outfit.”
“The one connected to the guy in Belleville?”
“Yep. Bertie doesn’t know the whole story. It started out as a routine audit. The IRS thinks there may be a link to Donald Warner, which might not have been a big deal on its own but with all this other stuff going on, they’ve ramped it up.”
Benny chuckled. “When old Donald finds out, he’s going to piss his pants. Those IRS agents are scary. Just ask Al Capone.”
“I know.”
“Big money involved?”
“Bertie doesn’t know that part. He just knows that the IRS is in the mix.”
Chapter Fifty-two
Rebecca Hamel nodded. “So it’s Mr. Warner.”
“Apparently,” I said.
“Interesting.”
“He wasn’t at the top of my list.”
“Nor mine.”
Rebecca and I were seated on a park bench in Soldiers Memorial Park and facing the Military Museum, a limestone structure with an outer wall of massive four-sided stone columns. In front of us was the entranceway, above which was engraved TO OUR SOLDIER DEAD. Flanking the broad stairway leading up to the entrance were two large stone Art Deco statues of winged horses, each with a martial-looking man or woman at its side.
The park, two blocks west of the Civil Courts Building in downtown St. Louis, was a good place for us to meet. Rebecca had a hearing in Division Four that morning at eleven. We agreed to meet at ten-fifteen. All the surveillance and wiretapping had raised my own paranoia level even though I assumed—or at least hoped—that I was not among the watched. Nevertheless, it seemed prudent to meet somewhere outdoors, and preferably just with Rebecca. The logistics and added risks of trying to include Stanley and Jerry seemed too high, especially since there would be plenty of time for Rebecca to update them on what was going on.
“When did you find out?” she asked.
“Last night. I got a call from Detective Tomaso.”
“So it goes down tomorrow night?”
“At the airport,” I said. “The flight is at nine. They’ll make the arrest before he boards.”
“Do they think he’ll confess?”
“No. But they feel confident he’ll be carrying evidence. Either in a laptop or in his briefcase. Or maybe in his luggage if he checks any, which they expect him to do. They’ll have an FBI agent ready to intercept his luggage before it gets loaded onto the plane.”
Rebecca frowned. “What do they expect to find?”
“Financial records, passwords, electronic data. Maybe not the whole scheme, but enough to give them access into it. I didn’t get details. All Tomaso told me was that the FBI says that an operation of that scale can’t be run from one guy’s memory and can’t be run without a central control.”
“You said a flight to Detroit?”
“That’s just the first leg. Warner apparently bought that ticket a month ago. Or rather, his secretary bought it for him. He has a client in the Detroit area. He’s been going there about once a month for the last few years. Typically, he flies in the night before, has his meetings the next morning, and flies back to St. Louis. What tipped them off apparently happened yesterday. Though he hasn’t cancelled the flight back from Detroit, he bought a new ticket that day from Detroit to JFK in New York, and from there to Casablanca.”
“Casablanca? Like that movie?”
“Same city.”
“Where is it?”
“In Morocco.”
Rebecca frowned. “What’s there for him?”
“Apparently, what’s important is what isn’t there for him. Morocco has no extradition treaty with the U.S.”
“So if he gets there…?”
“He’s beyond our government’s reach.”
She nodded. “Tomorrow night.”
“That’s the plan. You can tell Stanley and Jerry, but make sure they understand they have to keep it absolutely secret. Detective Tomaso told me on a strictly confidential basis. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but the three of you have been in this from the beginning. You deserve to know. Tell Stanley and Jerry to assume the government is monitoring their phones and their emails. That means no calls, no emails. For all of us. If you need to tell me something, do it via a text message. And keep it short and cryptic.”
“When will you know about the arrest?”
I shrugged. “Probably not until it’s announced. I’ll call you.”
She nodded and checked her watch.
“You better get going,” I said. “In my experience, Judge Carter starts on time.”
We both stood.
“Good luck in court,” I said.
We shook hands.
She smiled. “Thanks, Rachel.”
As she walked toward the courthouse, I looked around the park. It was warm for December. There was a homeless man asleep under
a nearby tree. Two teenagers were playing catch with a Frisbee. A pudgy man in a brown suit was walking quickly along the pathway in the direction of the courthouse. He had a briefcase in one hand and was holding a cell phone to his ear with the other. He gave me a curt nod as he passed. It sounded like he was talking to his secretary.
No one in the park looked suspicious.
As if you would you know, I reminded myself.
Chapter Fifty-three
“So tonight?” my mother said.
I checked my watch. “In about an hour.”
“Oh, Bea will be so proud when she hears.”
Bea was Stanley Plotkin’s mother.
“A doctor and a rabbi for sons,” my mother said, “and now she has a regular Columbus.”
“Columbus?”
“That smarty-pants detective on TV. The one played by Peter what’s-his-name. Fonda, I think.”
“Columbo, Mom. And the actor is Peter Falk.”
“That’s what I said.”
I sighed. “Right.”
We were in my kitchen having tea and oatmeal cookies, which my mother had baked with Sam that morning. My son loves cooking with his Bobba Sarah.
My mother had dropped by tonight after her meeting at the Holocaust Museum. I’d already put Sam to bed. I brewed tea while she told me about her day.
I’d been on edge all day thinking about the upcoming event at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. I’d given Bertie my cell phone number and made him promise to call me as soon as they made the arrest.
“So this Warner, he’s not the one you thought,” my mother said.
“I was a little surprised. Apparently, so was Stanley.”
“Oh?”
I explained the strict confidentiality rule I’d given Rebecca—no communications the government might trace.
“She sent me a text message last night. Three words: S is skeptical.”
“S?”
“Stanley. I sent her back one word: Noted. She sent another text this morning. Two words: Very skeptical. I sent back the same one-word response.”
Face Value Page 20