“You couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t. A no-brainer.”
“But you strike me as the kind of guy who always does his due diligence.”
Galvin looked at him, surprised to find Danny a step ahead, then gave a sly smile. “You really are a smart SOB, aren’t you? But look, here’s the reality: A guy offers you a hundred million dollars to play with, the chance to set up your own shop, how close are you really gonna look? You think Putnam or Fidelity asks all their investors how they made their money? Right?”
“Of course not.”
“Anyway, my first year, I beat the S &P by eight points. The guy was happy. His partners were happy.”
“Partners?”
“Turns out my bride’s dad wasn’t your run-of-the-mill entrepreneur.” He paused for a beat. He looked at Danny. He waited a few seconds longer.
Maybe he was being dramatic. Or maybe he knew that once he told Danny, nothing would ever be the same.
Galvin let out his breath. “Turned out I was working for a Mexican drug cartel,” he said.
PART FOUR
51
When it finally came out, Danny was surprised at how matter-of-fact it sounded. How undramatic.
And what a relief it was to have this confirmed.
“Whoa,” Danny said softly.
Did he sound convincingly shocked? He hoped so. After all, it wasn’t entirely contrived. He was astonished that Galvin had just revealed something so explosive, so dangerous. That he trusted Danny enough to tell him.
But the question still remained: Why was he talking about this?
“Lina’s dad was what you call a pez gordo in the Sinaloa cartel. A big fish. A jefe. I guess he was sort of like their chief financial officer.”
“You had no idea until then?”
“I had a pretty good idea something was squirrelly. But like I say, I didn’t look too hard. Maybe I didn’t want to know.” Galvin furrowed his brow and scowled as he talked, as if it pained him to speak.
“You’re telling me you’re a… you launder money for the cartel?”
“No,” Galvin said firmly, almost with distaste. “I don’t launder money.”
A distant sound of a motor revving, big and throaty. A long way off, but it seemed to be coming from where they’d parked. Galvin turned around. It didn’t sound at all like the Suburban. Maybe just a passing truck.
Galvin gave Danny a quick, puzzled look, but then he resumed walking down the middle of the path, and Danny fell in alongside.
“They don’t need me for that anyway. They’ve got major banks for that.”
“In Mexico?”
“Here. In England. All over the place. You can Google the HSBC bank in London and the Wachovia bank here. Famous cases.”
“Then what did they want from you?”
“Their own money manager. Their own private equity investor.”
“The cartel did?”
Galvin nodded. “Lina’s dad was a smart dude. He saw all the cash they were generating-billions of dollars a year, and most of it sat in warehouses or locked away in suitcases. And he wondered why they couldn’t do something with all that money. Invest in real estate or restaurant chains or the stock market. Grow it, right? That’s what they wanted me for.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He kept walking a while longer, as if he hadn’t heard.
“Tom,” Danny said.
Finally, Galvin stopped. He stood close to Danny. “I can’t have a private conversation at home. They’ve got it bugged. In Boston, too. They monitor my phone calls. They read my e-mails. Out here there’s no mobile phone reception, so no listening devices.”
“The cartel, you mean? They monitor you because they don’t trust you?”
“Oh, it’s nothing personal. They don’t trust anyone. They want to make sure I’m not cooperating with the FBI or the DEA, selling them out. I run two billion dollars of their money. They have to be careful.”
“I’d think you’re the one who really has to worry. You could go to jail.”
Galvin’s expression was inscrutable.
“Is your car… safe? To talk in, I mean?”
“Not in Boston. This one I just leased, so they wouldn’t have had time to wire it up. But the driver listens.”
“Your driver…?”
“Works for them, not for me. He’s not just a bodyguard, he’s a minder, too. Golden handcuffs, Danny. Golden handcuffs.”
“But… I still don’t get why you’re telling me all this.”
“Because I know you’ve seen some things, and I don’t want you poking around and asking questions. For my sake, and for your own sake. You saw me on the mountain. I don’t know what else you’ve seen, but I want to protect you.” He paused to watch a hawk, black with a yellow bill and a white-banded tail, gliding on the wind, tilting and swooping and searching for prey. “And something else. I’ll be honest, I’m scared out of my mind, and I don’t know who else to talk to.”
Surprised, Danny looked at him. Galvin’s face was strained and creased.
“Scared of what?” Danny said.
“You understand you can’t tell a soul? I can’t emphasize that strongly enough. For your own sake. And Abby’s.”
Danny nodded. The mention of Abby’s name clutched at his insides.
“The cartels have sources in US law enforcement like you wouldn’t believe. Especially the DEA-that place is riddled with moles. A couple of weeks back, the cartel got an internal DEA report about a new informant. Someone who was giving the DEA extremely in-depth information on the Sinaloa cartel. Names of contacts in the US, cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses. The name of a logistics company I helped create that we use as a shell, mostly to move cash around. Information that could only have come from me, they decided.”
Danny swallowed hard. It tasted bitter, metallic.
“So they did a sweep of my office. The house, my cars, even the plane. Everything.”
“And?”
“At first they thought the informant had to be Esteban, my driver.”
“Esteban? But why?”
“I’m not entirely sure. But they said it had to be someone who had access to my home office. Not my office downtown. I’ve got close to a hundred people working for me, but as far as any of them know, they’re working for a family office. I’m the only one who knows the truth. I’m the only one who’s in touch with cartel leadership. I’m the only one who has their personal e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers. So it had to be someone who had access to my home computer or my BlackBerry.”
“And that’s why you had to fire him?”
“Danny, the truth is, I didn’t fire him. I told you, he didn’t work for me. He worked for them. One day he was just… gone. I’m pretty sure they killed the guy.”
Danny closed his eyes. That image of Esteban, mutilated so horrifically, came to mind. “Wow,” he said at last.
“You know what kind of retirement package these boys offer? An all-expenses-paid one-way trip through the wood chipper. Understand? But that didn’t plug the leak. The information kept flowing.” He paused for a long time. “Now they think it’s me.”
“You mean your own father-in-law would have you whacked?”
He shook his head. “Who knows. He might have, if he was still alive. But he’s been gone a while. He had a stroke ten, twelve years ago.”
“So you have no protector anymore.”
Galvin nodded.
“But why the hell would you cooperate with the DEA?”
Galvin was silent for a long moment. He looked uncomfortable. As if there was something he couldn’t bring himself to say. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “That’s their theory. They think I made a deal. That I’m cooperating with the DEA to stay out of prison. That I sold out to save my own ass.”