“We can’t be absolutely sure, so you should be ready to make a break for it if necessary.”
“That’s comforting,” Alvarez said sarcastically.
“What? Not givin’ you a warm fuzzy?”
“Can’t say that it is.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan to reduce the chances of that happening. Before you go into a bank, we’ll find an ATM. If the ATM allows us to withdraw money from the account, we can take that as a sign everything’s cool, and you can go inside the bank and withdraw more. If the ATM gives us grief, then we walk away and consider the account spoiled.”
“Makes sense.”
“Can’t guarantee the plan is perfect, but we’ve done our best.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“All right, give me a call tomorrow when you get the credit scores. I’ll bring over the salary sheets, and we can decide whose credit to tap.”
The following day would find Corbin and Alvarez staring in stunned silence at the results of their credit calculations. Neither expected numbers on the order of magnitude as those revealed by the credit check.
“We’re gonna need a bigger bag,” Alvarez said.
“Bag?” Corbin laughed. “We’re gonna need a bigger car.”
Alvarez shot a glance at Corbin. “There’s an old joke about lawyers. It involves a client who goes to a lawyer’s office to pay his bill. He owes the lawyer one hundred dollars. In his haste, he mistakenly hands the lawyer two one hundred dollar bills. The lawyer, realizing the mistake, is confronted with an ethical question: does he tell his partner?”
“You and your lawyer jokes. If I ever find out what you do for a living. . let’s just say, you’ll rue the day.”
“What do you mean ‘if you ever find out.’ I’m an associate supervisor. What more do you need to know?”
Corbin laughed. Then his tone became serious. “And I get the meaning of your joke. We’re not cheating Beckett.”
Now Alvarez laughed. “What kind of lawyer are you?”
“The honest kind.”
Chapter 8
“There’s one thing we haven’t thought about?” Beckett said as he walked into the office and closed the door.
“What’s that?” Corbin peered over the top of his book.
“How do we launder the money?”
Corbin stared blankly at Beckett. In all of his careful planning, Corbin never once stopped to consider what to do with the money after they stole it. He stalled for time. “Pardon?”
“How do we launder the money?” Beckett repeated. “I think we need to agree not to spend any of it for at least six months.”
“Six months,” Corbin repeated, letting Beckett lead the conversation.
“Yeah, at least. Were you thinking longer?”
“No, six months sounds about right. Don’t want to do it too soon, do we?”
“Exactly. When I was a public defender, I saw it over and over: the guys who got impatient got busted. Juries connect the dots really quickly.”
“That is what they’re asked to do. So tell me more. What else does your public defender experience tell you? What’s tipped the cops off and what hasn’t?”
Beckett folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “If the cops think there’s been a crime involving a lot of cash, they subpoena bank records and credit card records. In the bank records, they look for large deposits around the time of the crime or a series of smaller deposits adding up to something close to the amount of cash taken. In the credit card records, they look to see if the suspect changed their spending patterns by, say, suddenly charging only half of what they used to charge. Basically, they’re looking to see if the guy starts living off cash.”
“Can you get that evidence suppressed?”
“I don’t see how,” Beckett responded doubtfully.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off. You were talking about the investigation.”
“Right. The serious cops go further. They interview girlfriends, neighbors, and family members to see if you bought anything big with cash. Of course, car dealers, banks, and sellers of certain other high price items are required to report cash purchases. I’ve seen those reports show up in some cases, especially where a RICO is alleged.”
Corbin nodded.
Becket continued. “The real trick is getting the money into a bank so you can use it. I’ve seen guys claim drug money as gambling winnings. That worked for small amounts, but not enough for our purposes.”
Corbin chuckled. “You don’t know how right you are.”
“What?”
“We did some credit calculations based on our search of property records, and we’re coming in about five times the original estimate.” Corbin chose not to tell Beckett about the credit checks Alvarez ran.
“Are you serious?!”
“It’s a rough estimate, but it should be accurate. So think bigger! What have you seen on that scale that might help us?”
“The most common approach for laundering large amounts is to form a front company. You open some business that deals in cash and then fold the illegal money into the legal money. Cash businesses are hard to audit. That’s why the drug guys buy laundromats and pool halls. The only time they run into trouble is when they try to launder large sums at once, or if the Feds stake out the place and do a business volume audit. You know, lots of profit, but no customers.”
“A pool hall? I’m not thrilled with the idea of running a pool hall.”
“Wait a minute!” Beckett clapped his hands together. “A couple years back, our office represented this guy who managed to launder millions of dollars in a year. He did it by setting up an art gallery. Everyone in the office was talking about it. It was brilliant. . allegedly that is.”
“Of course.” Both friends laughed.
“The reason his scheme worked so well is art has subjective value. How do you prove some piece of crud modern art isn’t worth five grand? He just mixed in his fakes with some real pieces and no one could say what he really sold and what he didn’t. The prosecutor couldn’t lay a finger on him.”
“Intriguing,” Corbin said.
“We had copies of everything he did, articles of incorporation, licenses, appraisal sheets, sales receipts, you name it. When I go back to my old office in June, I’ll dig up the file and get you a copy. We can set something like that up during the six months we wait before we touch the money.”
“All right, get me the file.”
“Say, what was your plan?” Beckett asked.
“It was more complex. I prefer this one.”
“What are you reading, Alex?” Theresa sat in her usual spot on Corbin’s desk. Today she wore glasses, not her usual contacts.
“It’s a book Molly gave me.”
“She can read? Will wonders never cease!”
Corbin ignored Theresa’s slur. “It’s called Wrongful Death. It’s about a medical malpractice case that goes wrong. It’s rumored to be a real story disguised as fiction, but I don’t know. It seems kind of far-fetched.”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s ok,” Corbin set the book down. “What do you think about art?”
Theresa frowned. “I know what I like?”
“What about modern art?” Behind Theresa, Beckett almost fell out of his chair.
“I know it when I see it.”
Corbin smiled at the reference to a famous Supreme Court case defining pornography. “So does the Supreme Court.”
“I’m pretty sure they weren’t talking about modern art.”
“You might be right,” Corbin chuckled. “So you don’t know much about it then?” Corbin saw Beckett frantically signaling him to change topics.
Theresa shook her head. “No, why?”
“Just curious. I’ve seen some interesting stuff lately, and I wanted to learn more about it. I just thought you might know something.”
“That’s an interesting insight into the life of Alexander Corbin,” Theresa purred. “What else do you do when you’re not in the office?”
“I don’t know, a little of this, a little of that.” Corbin smiled slyly at Beckett before continuing. “I spent last night making a ton of fake documents.”