"He's a Morolto operative."
"Surprise, surprise. Want more?"
"Keep talking."
"After the seed money of ten million was invested into this venture, another ninety million in cash was deposited over the next three years. Very profitable enterprise. The company began buying all sorts of things in the U.S.-cotton farms in Texas, apartment complexes in Dayton, jewelry stores in Beverly Hills, hotels in St. Petersburg and Tampa. Most of the transactions were by wire transfer from four or five different banks in the Caymans. It's a basic money-laundering operation."
"And you've got all this documented?"
"Stupid question, Wayne. If I didn't have the documents, how would I know about it? I only work on clean files, remember?"
"How much longer will it take you?"
"Couple of weeks. Me and my employee are still snooping around Front Street. And it doesn't look good. It'll be very difficult to get files out of there."
"Where'd the ten thousand documents come from?"
Mitch ignored the question. He jumped to his feet and started for the door. "Abby and I want to live in Albuquerque. It's a big town, sort of out of the way. Start working on it."
"Don't jump the gun. There's a lot of work to do."
"I said two weeks, Tarrance. I'll be ready to deliver in two weeks, and that means I'll have to disappear."
"Not so fast. I need to see a few of these documents."
"You have a short memory, Tarrance. My lovely wife promised a big stack of Dunn Lane documents just as soon as Ray goes over the wall."
Tarrance looked across the dark field. "I'll see what I can do."
Mitch walked to him and pointed a finger in his face. "Listen to me, Tarrance, and listen closely. I don't think we're getting through. Today is April 17. Two weeks from today is May 1, and on May 1 I will deliver to you, as promised, over ten thousand very incriminating and highly admissible documents that will seriously cripple one of the largest organized crime families in the world. And, eventually, it will cost me my life. But I promised to do it. And you've promised to get my brother out of prison. You have a week, until April 24. If not, I'll disappear. And so will your case, and career."
"What's he gonna do when he gets out?"
"You and your stupid questions. He'll run like hell, that's what he'll do. He's got a brother with a million dollars who's an expert in money laundering and electronic banking. He'll be out of the country within twelve hours, and he'll go find the million buck's."
"The Bahamas."
"Bahamas. You're an idiot, Tarrance. That money spent less than ten minutes in the Bahamas. You can't trust those corrupt fools down there."
"Mr. Voyles doesn't like deadlines. He gets real upset."
"Tell Mr. Voyles to kiss my ass. Tell him to get the next half million, because I'm almost ready. Tell him to get my brother out or the deal's off. Tell him whatever you want, Tarrance, but Ray goes over the wall in a week or I'm gone."
Mitch slammed the door and started down the bleachers. Tarrance followed. "When do we talk again?" he yelled.
Mitch jumped the fence and was on the track. "My employee will call you. Just do as she says."
31
NATHAN Locke's annual three-day post-April 15 vacation in Vail had been canceled. By DeVasher, on orders from Lazarov. Locke and Oliver Lambert sat in the office on the fifth floor and listened. DeVasher was reporting the bits and pieces and trying unsuccessfully to put the puzzle together.
"His wife leaves. Says she's gotta go home to her mother, who's got lung cancer. And that she's tired of a bunch of his crap. We've detected a little trouble here and there over the months. She bitched a little about his hours and all, but nothing this serious. So she goes home to Mommy. Says she don't know when she's coming back. Mommy's sick, right? Removed a lung, right? But we can't find a hospital that's heard of Maxine Sutherland. We've checked every hospital in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. Seems odd, doesn't it, fellas?"
"Come on, DeVasher," Lambert said. "My wife had surgery four years ago, and we flew to the Mayo Clinic. I know of no law requiring one to have surgery within a hundred miles of home. That's absurd. And these are society people. Maybe she checked in under another name to keep it quiet. Happens all the time."
Locke nodded and agreed. "How much has he talked to her?"
"She calls about once a day. They've had some good talks, about this and that. The dog. Her mom. The office. She told him last night she ain't coming back for at least two months."
"Has she ever indicated which hospital?" asked Locke.
"Never. She's been real careful. Doesn't talk much about the surgery. Mommy is supposedly home now. If she ever left."
"What're you getting at, DeVasher?" asked Lambert.
"Shut up and I'll finish. Just suppose it's all a ruse to get her outta town. To get her away from us. From what's coming down. Follow?"
"You're assuming he's working with them?" asked Locke.
"I get paid for making those assumptions, Nat. I'm assuming he knows the phones are bugged, and that's why they're so careful on the phone. I'm assuming he got her outta town to protect her."
"Pretty shaky," said Lambert. "Pretty shaky."
DeVasher paced behind his desk. He glared at Ollie and let it pass. "About ten days ago, somebody makes a bunch of unusual copies on the fourth floor. Strange because it was three in the morning. According to our records, when the copies were made only two lawyers were here. McDeere and Scott Kimble. Neither of whom had any business on the fourth floor. Twenty-four access numbers were used. Three belong to Lamar Quin's files. Three belong to Sonny Capps. The other eighteen belong to McDeere's files. None belong to Kimble. Victor Milligan left his office around two-thirty, and McDeere was working in Avery's office. He had taken him to the airport. Avery says he locked his office, but he could have forgotten. Either he forgot or McDeere's got a key. I pressed Avery on this, and he feels almost certain he locked it. But it was midnight and he was dead tired and in a hurry. Could've forgotten, right? But he did not authorize McDeere to go back to his office and work. No big deal, really, because they had spent the entire day in there working on the Capps return. The copier was number eleven, which happens to be the closest one to Avery's office. I think it's safe to assume McDeere made the copies."
"How many?"
"Two thousand and twelve."
"Which files?"
"The eighteen were all tax clients. Now, I'm sure he'd explain it all by saying he had finished the returns and was merely copying everything. Sounds pretty legitimate, right? Except the secretaries always make the copies, and what the hell was he doing on the fourth floor at three A.M. running two thousand copies? And this was the morning of April 7. How many of your boys finish their April 15 work and run all the copies a week early?"
He stopped pacing and watched them. They were thinking. He had them. "And here's the kicker. Five days later his secretary entered the same eighteen access numbers on her copier on the second floor. She ran about three hundred copies, which, I ain't no lawyer, but I figure to be more in line. Don't you think?"
They both nodded, but said nothing. They were lawyers, trained to argue five sides of every issue. But they said nothing. DeVasher smiled wickedly and returned to his pacing. "Now, we caught him making two thousand copies that cannot be explained. So the big question is: What was he copying? If he was using wrong access numbers to run the machine, what the hell was he copying? I don't know. All of the offices were locked, except, of course, Avery's. So I asked Avery. He's got a row of metal cabinets where he keeps the real files. He keeps 'em locked, but he and McDeere and the secretaries have been rummaging through those files all day. Could've forgot to lock 'em when he ran to meet the plane. Big deal. Why would McDeere copy legitimate files? He wouldn't. Like everybody else on the fourth floor, Avery's got those four wooden cabinets with the secret stuff. No one touches them, right? Firm rules. Not even other partners. Locked up tighter than my files. So McDeere can't get in without a key. Avery showed me his keys. Told me he hadn't touched those cabinets in two days, before the seventh. Avery has gone through those files, and everything seems in order. He can't tell if they've been tampered with. But can you look at one of your files and tell if it's been copied? No, you can't. Neither can I. So I pulled the files this morning, and I'm sending them to Chicago. They're gonna check 'em for fingerprints. Take about a week."