by Steven Gore
“How difficult would it be for you to access the wire transfer database the government started gathering up after 9/11?”
“It’s just a couple of keystrokes,” Casey said. “You want me to put in the Arabic names and see what comes back?”
“That’s all it would take.”
“I don’t need actual probable cause, but I’ll need some articulable suspicion. Got any ideas?”
“Call it money laundering. That covers a host of sins.”
N ot exactly a home run,” Casey told Gage over the telephone the next day.
“A triple?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe. You got your list of names and the spreadsheet?”
“Hold on.” Gage retrieved both from the safe in the opposite corner of his office. “Okay.”
“Let’s go over a few and I’ll e-mail the rest.”
Gage heard keystrokes ticking in the background.
“The Pegasus wire transfer records go back about ten years,” Casey said. “But none of the Arabic names show up until about four years ago.”
“Start from the beginning.”
Gage heard Casey tap a couple more keys.
“Ten years ago, May 16th. Two million came into Pegasus at the Cayman Exchange Bank, then a couple of months later…”
“Why the suspenseful pause?” Gage asked.
“So you can ask where the money went.”
“Okay. Where’d the money go?”
“Five hundred thousand was wired to the client trust account at Brandon Meyer’s old law firm.”
“Helluva fee paid into a confidential account,” Gage said. “What about the rest?”
“Broken up into chunks of a hundred or two hundred thousand, some wired to the States and some to foreign banks.”
“Let me make a guess about the original two million.”
“Take a shot.”
“It was it an insurance premium?”
Casey laughed. “You got a camera hidden in my office? All the senders until four years ago were U.S. companies, and the details of payment line all read ‘Insurance Premium.’ ”
“It’s brilliant.”
“What’s brilliant?”
“The whole TIMCO payoff scheme was covered by fake insurance premiums and real legal fees. Their attorneys couldn’t go to the board of directors and say they needed to pay off a witness, so they fudged up an offshore insurance premium payment to Pegasus. They could call it whatever they wanted. Coverage for international operations or supplemental insurance for domestic accidents.”
“In a twisted sort of way, it makes sense. What’s insurance anyway, except a means to manage risk?”
“And then the money got broken up and forwarded on to Hawkins in India and Karopian for his Bethel Island house. The rest came back to Meyer’s firm as a legal fee.”
“If that’s true,” Casey said, “the scheme is over. No money has been wired from Pegasus to Meyer’s firm, or anywhere else, in the last four years.”
“You mean it’s all still in the Pegasus account at CEB?”
“I have no idea. The database only shows transfers between banks, not internal account balances.”
“What about the Arabic names and the dates on the list in Brandon’s wallet?”
“Let’s take the first one on his list. Matar on July 1st.”
“Hold on.” Gage highlighted the transfer in yellow. “Three million?”
“That’s it. The wire transfer’s details-of-payment line shows Matar-GRID, but it doesn’t say insurance.”
“Any idea what GRID is?”
“Not a clue.”
“Who’s the sender?”
“It just says ‘from a client.’ The client’s account is at the Bank of New York.”
“I’m sure Charlie knew who it was from,” Gage said. “It was his job to work with a private banker at CEB to keep track of the money.”
Casey paused on the other end of the line. After a long moment he spoke, “It sort of makes you wonder whether Judge Meyer-”
“Was using Pegasus to receive offshore payoffs from companies appearing in his court?”
“Exactly,” Casey said. “And somehow I don’t think this is the first time you wondered that.”
Chapter 60
Gage stood back from a chart in the Oakland loft on the following morning. Alex Z leaned against the worktable.
“How was Casey able to access the financial database?” Alex Z asked. “I thought it was just for investigating terrorism.”
“I didn’t ask, but I imagine running searches on the Arabic names was his ticket in. Anything even vaguely Islamic is still accepted as probable cause, especially when it’s connected to offshore money coming into the U.S.”
Alex Z stepped up to his whiteboard chart showing Anston’s clients, Judge Meyer’s cases, and the deposits into Pegasus that appeared on Charlie Palmer’s spreadsheet.
Gage and Alex Z turned at the grunting of Shakir rolling his wheelchair toward them.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get out of bed on your own,” Gage said. “You could hurt yourself.”
Shakir smiled, then wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
“I didn’t want to miss any of the action, especially since my name was referred to as probable cause.”
“There isn’t much action at the moment,” Gage said, “except our mental wheels spinning. But there will be.” He turned back toward the chart. “How about you guys add the wire transfers and company names Casey found to this? See what patterns show up.” He nodded toward Shakir. “Sort of like a constellation.”
“No problem, boss.” Alex Z grinned at Shakir, then looked back at Gage. “I did a little extra research. Did you know Meyer’s nickname at Yale was Mach One?”
“Like in Machiavelli Number One,” Gage said, “or the speed of sound?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Why is it important?”
Shakir laughed, then winced and reached toward his bandaged stitches.
Alex Z stepped over to his laptop. A couple of keystrokes and a click of his mouse later, a Web site burst onto the screen showing a statue of the Hindu god Krishna under a banner reading “Pacific Coast Institute of Tantric Sex.”
He next typed “MachOne” as the user ID and “YaleForever” in the password field. He then entered the site and navigated to the account data.
He pointed at the last four digits of a credit card number: “It’s Meyer’s Cayman Island card.”
“How did you find this?”
“I didn’t. Somehow Charlie Palmer did.”
“Any evidence he was blackmailing Meyer?”
Alex Z shook his head. “It may have been too late. The last activity on the account was a year ago.”
“What did he buy?”
Shakir stirred in his chair and muffled a giggle.
“An hour of mentoring by what they call a trained guide,” Alex Z said.
“I take it that means a prostitute for the new age elite?”
“The owner of the institute has a half-dozen arrests in San Francisco. It looks like she took her business inside about five years ago to keep herself out of handcuffs.”
“Or into fur-lined ones.” Gage glanced at the monitor. “He spend money on anything else?”
Alex Z grinned.
“Yeah, boss. A man’s strap-on penis extender.”
Chapter 61
A hole in the wall. A very long wall of thirty windowless doors spread along the third floor walkway of an L-shaped strip-mall office building in Las Vegas. The tan stucco structure looked to Gage like a 1950s motel with the swimming pool filled in and paved over into a parking lot.
Gage scanned the brown plastic nameplates. A generation of dust had settled into the corners and edges of the white etched letters: Las Vegas Commercial Insurance, West Valley Real Estate, PCC Accounting, and AAA Corporate Services of Nevada, Inc.
As he opened the office door, Gage wondered who Phil
lip Charters would be today.
Charters peered up over his wire-rimmed reading glasses at Gage. He was a plus-sized Danny DeVito with a full head of blondish-white hair, and with no surprise on his face or in his voice, asked:
“How’s this sound?” Charters pointed at a State of Nevada Articles of Incorporation form lying on his desk. “Charter Aggressive Growth Fund.”
“I think you’ll need to get your stockbroker’s license back,” Gage said.
“No problem. I just won my appeal.” Charters grinned. “Faulty jury instructions. I’m good to go again.” He flicked a finger at Gage. “You had lunch?”
“You mean lunch or…”
“Food, just food. I promise.”
C harters tilted his head and raised his eyebrows toward the Desert Agate Gentlemen’s Club as they angled across the parking lot toward the Hometown Restaurant.
“You trying to get me to go in,” Gage asked, “or is that just pride of ownership?”
“Pride of ownership.” Charters spread his hands in front of him, eyebrows still raised. “Get it?”
“Get what?”
“Agate.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“I wanted to call it Get Your Rocks Off but the city wouldn’t let me.”
“Is this what you do all day?” Gage shook his head. “Of course you do. You never turn it off.”
“If I had to take a guess, that’s why you’re here.”
Charters sucked in his stomach as he slid into the booth in the cafe, then laid his furry forearms on the table. His yellow and red flowered short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt stretched tight across his chest.
Gage made a show of doing a double take as Charters signaled to a waitress across the dining room.
“That’s not…”
“My old secretary. What could she do? She had to roll on me. She couldn’t do jail time, not with three young kids to take care of. I told her to do what she needed to do.”
Gage smiled at Charters. “And all this time I thought it was great investigation on my part.”
“It was. None of those accountants and lawyers had a clue about what I was doing until you told them. Even worse, you figured out she was the weak link in my operation.” Charters sighed. “Unfortunately, she trusted you.”
Gage rose as the waitress approached. She appeared younger than she had five years earlier when she’d testified against Charters in his trial for offshore investment fraud.
“You look gorgeous, Linda,” Gage said.
Linda stood on her tiptoes to give Gage a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks.”
She reached into the front pocket of her black skirt and withdrew an order pad as Gage sat down.
“Crime was like a time machine turning me into an old lady at thirty-five. It’s a good thing you put Phil out of business. I couldn’t take the stress.” She looked down at Charters. “I don’t know how he handles it-”
“ Handled it. I’m retired.”
She smiled. “Actually I do know.” She poked Charters’s stomach. “He eats. If he wasn’t a criminal he’d weigh a hundred and twenty pounds, instead of three-twenty.”
Charters laughed. “I was born weighing more than that. A world record.”
She dipped her pen toward Gage. “I know what Phil wants. How about you?”
“Burger and fries.”
“One order, or two like him?”
“One, and coffee.”
Charters fiddled with his wedding ring as she walked away, then asked, “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“You’re what I call uniquely situated.”
“Situated? I’m crammed in here like sausage in a bun.”
“Situated. Not seated.”
“Oh. How am I situated?”
“Between Marc Anston and the Cayman Exchange Bank.”
Charters shook his head. “If they got a connection, it ain’t through me.”
“Then how did you get hooked up with Anston after you got indicted?”
“Is this gonna get me into a jam?”
“I’ll keep you out of it.”
“I don’t know if I should say anything. I’m not really comfortable playing the role of the good citizen.”
“Linda seems to be playing the part well.”
“Maybe I’ll make her my role model.” He pointed at a waitress leaning over a table to set down lunch orders. “But I’m not sure they make those short skirts in my size.”
Linda walked up with a pot of coffee and filled their cups. She smiled at Gage and said, “Just like old times.”
“I hope not.”
She glanced at Charters. “Now that I think about it, me too.”
C harters stirred sugar into his cup, then raised it toward Gage.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For stopping the government and the civil lawyers from grabbing the place I bought for my mother. It would’ve crushed her to lose her garden. She even knows the scientific names for all the plants, her little babies.”
“They all thought you were hundred percent a crook,” Gage said. “I convinced them you were only ninety, and the clean money was invested in her house.”
“Why’d they give in?”
“The paper trail you left behind was too complicated for them to figure out.”
Charters grinned. “Man, I was good back then.”
“No, you were mostly bad back then.”
“Well, thanks, anyway.” Charters took a sip. “Let’s see, where were we?”
“Anston.”
“Ah, yes. Anston. Genus: Legalis, species: Rodentia major. When you started hounding my accountant in the Caymans I knew right away it was just a matter of time before you knocked on my door. I flew down there to see the attorney who set up my companies. You remember him, Leonard Quinton. He and I needed to get together and… uh…”
“Coordinate your stories?”
Charters laughed. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. At my trial the U.S. Attorney tried to make it sound more like obstructing justice.”
“He succeeded. It was count four and you got convicted of it.”
“Hey, I won the appeal. That means I’m innocent.” Charters took another sip of coffee. “Anyway, while I was in Grand Cayman I asked Quinton who I should use when I got indicted. He told me to hire Anston.”
“Anston’s not a criminal lawyer.”
“But he’s a partner in one of the judge’s old law firms. Even though Brandon Meyer didn’t get assigned the case, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Who knows what goes on back in the judge’s chambers? Maybe Anston gets Meyer to put in a good word for me at sentencing time.”
“Did you get your money’s worth?”
“In the long run.” Charters smiled. “Well, the money made a long run.”
“You mean you paid Anston offshore.”
“Still at the top of your game, aren’t ya? But that’s his problem, not mine. It’s not my fault if he didn’t declare the income and give Uncle Sam his share.”
“You remember where you sent the fee?”
“I didn’t have to send it anywhere. The money just got transferred from one of my accounts at Cayman Exchange Bank to another one controlled by Anston. Quinton took care of it.”
“You remember the name of the account the money went into?”
Charters narrowed his eyes and bit his lower lip, then shook his head. “Quinton would know.”
“You ever hear of a company called Pegasus?”
Charters slapped the table. “That’s it. Pegasus.” He grinned like he’d been caught by his wife staring at a waitress’s breasts. “I thought about doing one of those myself.”
“Doing what?”
“A fake insurance scam.”
“How do you know it’s fake?”
Charters clucked. “I thought you were at the top of your game. You should’ve already…” Then he smiled.
“Let’s just say I thought it was some kind of tax
gimmick,” Gage said, “but I hadn’t figured out the details. That’s why I’m here.”
That wasn’t the whole truth, but Gage didn’t want to risk scaring Charters off by telling him that money transferred into Pegasus might have been the reason for a burglary at Socorro’s and what had brought him to Las Vegas was fear for her and her children’s safety. The longer Charters believed Gage’s investigation only concerned tax evasion, the better.
“They did a riff on one of those old tax shelters,” Charters said. “First, the clients would wire fake insurance premiums to Pegasus, then it would wire the money back as loans to buy yachts or cars or vacation homes.” He hunched his shoulders, and reached out his hands. “Offshore captive insurance has been the best tax scam ever.” He pointed at Gage. “You ever deal with Stone amp; Whitman in New York?”
Gage shook his head.
“They set up the ones for TransCont Trucking and Universal Tractor and a bunch of other giants. But Anston’s genius was to make it available to the little guy.” Charters laughed. “You know, the one-billion-dollar company, not just the ten-billion-dollar company.”
“What was his gimmick?”
“Rent-a-captives, like Pegasus. Anybody could send premiums. Pegasus would bank the money, wait a couple of months, then ship it back into the States. It was sweet-swee-eet. Insurance premiums got tax deductions going out, and the money coming back in as loans was tax free.”
“Like those old fake offshore consulting schemes.”
“But way better. Because when you hire a consultant you’re supposed to get something in return. A marketing plan or an advertising campaign. And the IRS can come by and ask to see what you paid for. But with insurance? It’s a…” Charters cocked his head toward Gage. “What do they call those things in outer space that sucks everything in?”
“A black hole.”
“That’s it. Insurance is just a black hole people throw money into. Everybody knows it.”
“How did Anston get his cut?”
“And Meyer. The firm was Anston amp; Meyer back when it all started. Anston was the tax expert, but in the deep background. Meyer was out front. He’s the one who brought in the customers.” Charters lowered his voice. “In order to get into the deal, the client had to do two things. One was to buy a legal opinion letter from Anston saying the tax shelter was legit and the other was to pay the accounting firm. And they always used the Big Four to make it all look like it was on the up and up. The opinion letter alone cost a butt load. A hundred grand.”