“Maybe clothes is a code or something?”
“Dude, it’s no freaking code. Look. Websites about clothes and fashion designers and crap I can’t afford.”
He highlighted a field, and the screen went to an image of a man in skintight jeans with heavily gelled hair trying to look serious.
He had expected the laptop to be dirty. He’d seen it slung over Mendes’s shoulder in a leather satchel time and again. There had to be something on the laptop.
“Is this website for real? Could it be a cover or a front?”
“Dude, I looked up these jeans on my phone. They’re fucking six-hundred dollar jeans.”
“Bullshit.”
“Just because you and I can’t afford them doesn’t mean they aren’t real.”
That was all they found in the kitchen. Curtis stormed out and went into the main bedroom. The tech had opened the heavy drapes to let in natural light. The bed was crisply made. There was a long matching bureau with nothing on it.
“Did you clean this off already?” Curtis asked, pointing at the bureau.
“No. Your guy lives this way.”
Curtis looked in the bathroom. There were droplets of water all over the glass door to the shower. Otherwise, the surfaces and floors were immaculate black marble.
“I thought you said this guy was rich,” observed the tech from the other side of the bedroom. She had long blonde hair tied in a ponytail. Curtis thought her name was Susan.
“I did,” said Curtis. “He is.”
“Take a look at this.”
Curtis stepped into the huge walk-in closet. He saw mostly dark bare wood. A line of suit bags hung from the rack. Two wooden hangers dangled uselessly. All of his shirts were wrapped in plastic. There were six pairs of shoes in the rack by his knees. Curtis scratched his head.
“Is it possible he doesn’t live here?” he asked aloud.
“Aren’t you the lead guy on this case?” asked the tech.
When it was clear that Curtis wasn’t going to answer her, the tech marched over to the bathroom and began opening drawers. There were hair products and skin products and facial cleansers, all arranged in a very particular order and neatly stocked. There was a precision and an underlying order to all of it. Curtis spied a tiny bottle with Asian writing that he couldn’t resist picking up without gloves.
“I would get suspended for that,” said the tech.
“What is this?” Curtis asked.
“It’s Japanese.”
“What is it for?”
“Your eyelids.”
“What does it do to them?”
“It cleans them. It’s a cleanser for your eyelids. It’s very expensive, and very hard to find.”
“What does this mean?”
“It means he lives here.”
“What’s up with all this stuff?” Curtis asked, pointing at the bottles.
“Was our target in the Marine Corps?”
“No. Why?”
“I dated a Marine for a while. He ironed his socks. Then he folded them and stacked them in order in his sock drawer. If this guy isn’t a marine, then he is your garden variety obsessive compulsive.”
She opened the medicine cabinet. It was precisely, if sparsely, arranged as well. She took out a tiny blue bottle.
“See this? This is a mud mask emulsion therapy from Iceland. This costs more than two hundred dollars a bottle. It’s supposed to soften skin while opening pores when you sleep. I would expect to find this in the bathroom of the most spoiled star in Hollywood. A female star. Yes, he lives here.”
Curtis started to pace slowly around the room. The view showed the best of Austin, with a solid shot of the river and green flatland in the distance.
“Have you checked for hidden panels maybe?” he asked.
Susan the tech looked confidently at him and beckoned him over with her finger. She handed him a flashlight, but all he saw was a brand new screw.
“That screw has been used once, and that was when they bolted this wall. If this wall were coming off even once in a while, there would be signs of use. The edges of the screw would be worn. Or the wood might thread around it. Look at this one.”
The screw was as clean as the rest of the house.
“Something is wrong,” Sheldon said into the phone. There was panic in his voice. He was watching cars in the parking lot.
“I think they’re on to me,” Sheldon said nervously.
Sheldon had noticed a black Ford behind him on the way to work. Black Fords were the standard police car in America. Even a square like Sheldon Cashman could spot one. He saw it again before he turned into his lot. Now it was parked outside his office.
“Does anyone know about me? About what we do?” he asked.
It wasn’t the first time Sheldon had experienced paranoia. He had never been comfortable in this business. This time, however, felt different. He had called Eduardo.
“Am I about to be arrested?” he asked.
Eduardo had answered the phone, but so far, he hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t been short. He hadn’t been rude. Sheldon’s mind went to its normal state of panic. He began to suspect that calling Eduardo had been a tremendous mistake. He desperately strained his ears for any sign of reassurance on the other end.
“Who is this?” asked Special Agent Walter Curtis.
Sheldon looked at the phone in his hand in horror. Outside, two black SUVs drove up to the door. Every door on the black Ford opened at once. Men wearing black jackets that read DEA raced into the building.
Sheldon hid in the men’s room.
***
When Bobby Jordan walked in and announced that Mendes was willing to talk, Curtis jumped out of his seat and started to run down the hall before Jordan stopped him with a gentle hand to the chest.
“Slow down a minute,” he said. “Let’s do a little regroup before we rush in there.”
Curtis was the foremost expert on Eduardo Mendes, and he realized that he had never so much as heard the sound of the man’s voice. They had no phones on him. They had no video. What they had was Curtis, and for Curtis, watching, following, and stalking were things done with computers, calculators, and spreadsheets. Eduardo Mendes had been tracked by an accountant.
“Did you find anything on the book keeper?” asked Jordan, inclining his hat just slightly toward the stack of paperwork that Curtis had been attacking. Curtis shook his head.
“How about the money store? Did that yield anything?” Curtis shook his head again.
“Nothing that we didn’t already know about.”
“This raid isn’t going so well, is it?” Jordan said. It wasn’t so much a question as a wry observation.
“That being the case, this might be a gift from God. So let’s not screw it up.”
The forensic techs hadn’t yet touched the machines that had been seized from either of the offices. There could be a treasure trove in there. There was a nagging sense of defeat creeping under his skin.
Curtis had his hand on the knob. He put his forehead against the door and listened. He heard nothing. The door felt cold.
Eduardo Mendes was sweating. Curtis came into the room stiffly. He nodded at Eduardo politely. Curtis sat down at the table opposite him and pretended to go through paperwork. He made his eyes roll over the words to mimic reading, but he had no idea what they said. He peeked at Eduardo Mendes.
He had pieces of hair clinging to his forehead. He was handcuffed by one wrist to a ring that protruded from the top of the table. The skin around the cuff was red and looked sore.
To his credit, Mendes hadn’t said a word. According to Bobby Jordan, some prisoners were ready to confess to the janitor if he would stop and listen. Eduardo Mendes, though, was not the average criminal, so he sat quietly and in obvious discomfort, waiting for whatever was going to happen. Bobby Jordan came in, nodded, and sat in the chair behind Curtis.
He had thought about this moment. In slivers of dreams he was afraid to remember, he had
even thought about sitting down in the box opposite Colon himself. Eduardo Mendes was a distant second, but he still quickened Curtis’ pulse. Mendes was his. The case was his. The discovery was his. He had put time and effort into every minute detail, right down to the very first words he would say to the man. He thought of Marc Virgil’s technique, where he called you by your first name like he’d known you for twenty years. Or Bobby Jordan’s own familiar style, where he shot the shit with the suspect for so long he forgot he was in custody. He had actually woken one night at three in the morning and found himself agonizing over what his first words should be. It all seemed ridiculous now.
“Good afternoon, Mister Mendes,” he said. He had gone with polite and formal, and it felt fine. He took a deep breath. “My name is Special Agent Walter Curtis. I am with the Drug Enforcement Administration task force.” He always said task force, and he made sure they heard Drug Enforcement Administration before it. He never said IRS. “I apologize for making you wait, but we have a great deal of information to process. I understand you would like to speak with me.”
“Yes, I would,” said Eduardo Mendes.
The most beautiful words he had ever heard. Curtis said a silent prayer to whoever was listening.
***
The taxes were his undoing. It was taxes, money, mandatory forms, procedural filings, and little bits of paperwork that never ever went away.
For accountants, taxes are like a trail of breadcrumbs. For accountants like Curtis, they were more like red meat. Curtis had been on Colon’s trail and had been closing in on a warrant for his arrest, pending the approval of the Mexican federal authorities, who had not yet been told of the far-reaching investigation when Colon’s head had been taken off his shoulders. The Colon case was suddenly as dead as he was, but he had left several trails in his wake. One of those led to a quiet check cashing business in Austin, Texas.
The check cashing storefront was nothing special. It was ugly, yellow, and in a neighborhood where no one lived by choice. Its official name was West Avenue Check Cashers, but the huge, gaudy sign over the door flashed “The Money Store,” and that was what you called it if you went there. If you had an interest in the business, or if you paid taxes from the profits from the business, then you would know that the parent company was Vanidad, International. There were five owners of Vanidad, International, and not only did they cash checks, but they processed money transfers, both big and small, into foreign countries like Mexico.
“You are part owner of this company, is that correct,” Curtis asked.
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Your company is doing well.”
“We have had some good years.”
This was true. Since Eduardo Mendes had taken over the company, its profits had increased steadily.
“Do you know who your other partners are?”
“I do.”
“How well do you know them?”
“When I purchased a stake in the business, thirty percent of the company was already spoken for at that time through the original investors.”
“How much of the company do you own now?”
“I now own fifty percent.”
“And you run the company?”
“No. I have a leadership role in the business, that is true, but I leave the day to day operations to Ronald Garcia, the manager.”
“Who controls the rest of Vanidad?”
“A series of investors,” said Eduardo.
“What are their names?”
“Their names are Jorge Lara, Sofia Quinones, Monica Cassavetes, and Sergio Nova.”
“Did they all agree to allow you a leadership role, or was it acrimonious?”
“No, it was amicable. They preferred to be silent, and the arrangement appears to have worked out well for everyone.”
This was true. Curtis had pored through everyone’s tax records, which were filed dutifully and in accordance with the law. Each of the owners had given Uncle Sam his due.
“Did Mrs. Quinonez ever have a disagreement with you regarding your role with the company?”
“No. Not that I remember. “
“How about Mister Lara?”
“No. I do not remember anything like that.”
“Was there any effort to strong arm your partners into allowing you to lead this company?”
“None.”
“Are you sure? Not any of your partners?”
“No.”
Curtis dove into his paperwork. He wanted to turn and look at Bobby. He wanted the silent head nod. He didn’t think Bobby would nod yet. He looked at Eduardo Mendes, pretending to be polite and helpful, and all he wanted to do was to say to him, “I know you. And I know you are full of shit.” Instead, he showed him an old document.
Eduardo read it aloud when he was asked.
“Male. Eleven years old. Body partially consumed. Cause of death: exposure. What is this?”
“That is Sergio Nova. Your partner.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sergio Nova died thirty years ago while crossing from Mexico into the United States. He died as a young boy. Several years ago, he came back to life, bought a check cashing company, and started paying taxes.”
Eduardo didn’t answer, so Curtis slid more documents across the table.
“Sofia Quinonez. Age eight. Dead. Found in the desert. Monica Cassavetes. Age nine. Cause of death: bullet wound. Her convoy was shot up. Found in the desert. Died three weeks later in America. Sergio Lara. Age six. He was in the back of a truck that broke down on a hundred-degree day. Died of suffocation. In America.”
The sweat was back. His shirt was growing darker. Mendes wasn’t looking at the documents either. He was staring at the table, past the papers, toward his wrist.
“Is this your signature?” Curtis asked as he held up another document. Eduardo glanced up and nodded.
“This is a certificate of incorporation where you entered into this partnership with a bunch of people who died over twenty years ago.” Curtis reminded himself to speak softly, calmly, and, above all else, be friendly. Bobby Jordan had warned him on that. “No one wants to confess to a fella who hates them.” But the excitement was building inside of him.
“Let me show you some more things,” Curtis said. He pretended to look through the files, but he wasn’t really looking. He could have done it blindfolded. He removed a ream of paper. The sheets were connected top to bottom and had been spit out from old government printers.
“These are money transfers from your company to individuals in Mexico. As the owner, I am sure that you know that any payments over ten thousand dollars are mandated by law to be declared to the government. You’ll notice that there are a large number of transfers in the seven-to-nine-thousand dollar range.”
Curtis now removed a stack of paper that was identical to the first. This one had been highlighted.
“You’ll see that there is a series of accounts that are highlighted. The amounts transferred are never the same, but the people transmitting the money and the people receiving the money are the same. This repeats in a three-week pattern. That in and of itself is not so strange. What is strange is this: once you recognize the accounts, and begin to follow them, and you take all of the amounts transferred between them, you’ll see that every three weeks a total of one point five million dollars goes from your office into Mexico.”
Was he changing color? Was he turning gray?
Once upon a time, Marc Virgil had offered sage if drunken advice. “They turn gray sometimes. Be sure you’re not sitting right next to them when they turn gray.” Curtis had to ask how come. “’Cause that’s when they start throwing up.”
Curtis was secretly hoping Eduardo would throw up for him.
“Let’s be very clear about this part. If I look at these accounts, the dollars change, Mister Mendes, but if I add them up, every three weeks, it comes out to a million and a half dollars. Every cent of it comes through your business. That is not a coincidence, a
nd no jury is every going to believe it is a coincidence.”
“Don’t bring up the court system too early,” he’d been told by Virgil. He regretted it as soon as he said it. He decided immediately to change the subject.
“Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Aureliano Colon?” Curtis asked.
The beautiful man in the handcuff sat slumped in his chair and said nothing.
“I have,” said Curtis. “Colon was a very secretive man. He ran a very unique and very profitable business. Very quietly, and without being noticed, he began producing and shipping into America a very respectable amount of methamphetamine. He did it without fanfare or a gang, and most importantly, he did it without leaving dead bodies around to attract attention. I said he produced a respectable amount, because it wasn’t particularly large. He ran what I would call a boutique drug operation.”
Curtis had coined that term: boutique drug operation. He was proud of it. He’d seen the Dallas ASAC smile when he said it at a meeting. They were all using it now.
“It could have been much larger. Larger would have meant more money. A lot more. But larger would have attracted attention. Larger would have meant rivalry. Larger would have meant dead bodies. All of these things were bad for a boutique drug operation.
“I was looking for Colon when I found you, Eduardo.”
He looked up now. Curtis could feel Bobby’s disapproval boring into the back of his head, but he pushed along anyway. He couldn’t stop himself.
“I became the world’s foremost expert on Aureliano Colon. I knew him, and I know you knew him too. I can prove it.”
Two of them were sweating now.
“I look at Colon’s operation, at his entire approach, and even at the kind of person he was, atypical to the drug business. Then I look at you and I see the exact same thing. You’ve taken Colon’s approach and you’ve recreated it on the other side of the border. And you’re doing it very, very well.”
“Not quite well enough,” muttered Bobby Jordan for the first time from the back of the room.
“No,” agreed Curtis softly. “Not quite well enough. You are in a great deal of trouble, Mister Mendes, but you do have options.”
South of Evil Page 3