by Don Winslow
And that’s what matters, Cirello thinks.
Mullen says, “Now we just have to hope Darnell sends you to the meeting again.”
“No reason he shouldn’t,” Cirello says.
Chandler Claiborne is freaking out.
“I’m not doing it again,” he says.
“You don’t have to,” Hidalgo says. “The room will be wired.”
“Jason’s my friend,” Claiborne says. “We’ve made millions together. I won’t walk him into a trap.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m calling off this meeting,” Claiborne says. “I’ll go somewhere else for the money.”
“How are you going to explain that to Lerner?”
“I’ll tell him the Mexicans pulled out.”
“You do that,” Hidalgo says, “and I’ll call up Jason Lerner and play him the tape. I’ll tell him you’re a cooperating witness. What do you think happens to you then?”
Chandler stares at him. “You people are evil. You are truly evil.”
“Why don’t you and I get in my car,” Hidalgo says. “We’ll go to the morgue, I’ll show you a heroin overdose.”
“I don’t stick the needles in their arms.”
“You think Lerner is a stand-up guy?” Hidalgo asks. “That he’d eat it for you? Tell you what, we’ll bring Lerner in, and we’ll see who flips first. And let me tell you how that works—the first guy who flips walks, everyone else gets the bus to the federal lockup. Listen, I’m done debating. What’s it going to be? Do you give us complete cooperation, or do we play Immunity Family Feud?”
Claiborne chooses door number one.
“This meeting,” Darnell says, “you might see someone you recognize. I’m counting on your discretion.”
“Who am I going to tell?” Cirello asks.
“That true.”
Cirello decides to nudge it forward. “What’s going on? What are these meetings? I mean, no offense, but these aren’t exactly your kind of people.”
“They ain’t.” He pauses for a second, then chuckles. “Even though my son go to school with they sons.”
“So . . .”
“A black man only make it so far in this country on his own,” Darnell says. “Then he need white men.”
“For what?”
“I ain’t goin’ back to prison,” Darnell says. “No matter what happen, I ain’t goin’ back there.”
Cirello doesn’t push it any further.
Because he has his answer. Darius Darnell figures if he gets busted again, his partners at Terra and Berkeley will get him out.
Or he’ll take them with him.
And what Cirello thinks is, Good for you, Darnell.
Good for fucking you.
Because you know what the difference between a syndicate and a cartel is?
Danish.
Cirello “sweeps” the room by carefully placing several microphones—in a vase, behind a painting, beneath the sofa—and then starts humming to himself.
Keller, in his office, hears it perfectly.
Now it’s a matter of hoping that nothing goes wrong at the last second, that all the participants in the meeting show up.
The Mexicans did manage to entertain themselves last night. According to Mullen’s people, they dined at Le Bernardin and then migrated to an exclusive brothel on the Upper East Side, not returning to the Peninsula until after 2 a.m.
Good, Keller thinks, anything that makes them less alert.
Cirello steps out into the hallway and waits.
Claiborne is the first to arrive again. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir.” And fuck you.
A few minutes later it’s Jason Lerner. Darnell was right—Cirello does recognize the man, because he’s on Page Six of the Daily News every other day, usually with his gorgeous wife on his arm, at some charity event or another. And for the few minutes that Cirello watched the convention, Lerner was standing at the podium.
Cirello keeps his smile deep down inside himself, but it’s there. When Darnell gets him a white boy, he gets him a good one. He nods to Lerner and says, “One of your colleagues is already here.”
Lerner nods back. “Thank you.”
Oh, don’t thank me, Cirello thinks.
Asshole.
The Mexicans are there five minutes later.
So now, Cirello thinks, the party can start.
Keller listens to Claiborne chair the proceedings.
“I trust everyone had a good evening.”
Clown, Keller thinks.
“We’ve prepared a detailed offer sheet,” Claiborne says, “and if you find its terms acceptable, we have the contracts ready to sign. So, please, look it over, take your time, and if there are any questions, we’d be happy to answer them.”
The sound is good, Keller thinks. The usual clink of coffee cups and ice in water glasses, but the voices are clear. And Cirello will be able to testify as to the identities of the people in the room.
Shuffling of papers.
A few muted comments about detail points.
Claiborne asks if he can refill coffee cups.
Then someone—by the sound of the voice Keller thinks it’s the older Echeverría—says, “Jason, it’s good to see you again.”
“Good to see you.”
“How long has it been?”
These people are so arrogant, Keller thinks. They’re walking right into it.
“Cabo,” Lerner says. “Two New Years ago, I think.”
“That sounds about right.”
The tension is palpable, Keller thinks. Echeverría is still annoyed that Lerner didn’t come to the first meeting. This is him letting Lerner know that it was an insult.
Claiborne picks up the ball. “So you’ve had a chance to look at the deal points. If you need more time—”
“The deal points are acceptable,” Echeverría says. “We just want to look Jason in the eye and ask him if our money is safe with him.”
“It was safe on Bladen Square, wasn’t it, León?” Lerner asks. “It was safe on the Halterplatz project. It’s safe with Park Tower.”
Lerner’s not quite ready to eat shit, Keller thinks. Maybe it’s his new status. But, Jesus, the guy just gave us an entire history of his business relationship with Echeverría.
Echeverría isn’t ready to make nice, either. “But unlike those other projects, Park Tower has been losing money. You want to sell us a piece of a losing entity, and I’m wondering if that’s how old friends treat each other.”
“León, if you think I’m using you just to reduce my liability—”
“If I thought that, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“So . . .”
“Gentlemen,” Claiborne says, singing for his supper, “this is a unique situation—”
“How so?” Echeverría asks.
“As we discussed yesterday,” Claiborne says, “you need to place your money, and your options are, shall we say, not unlimited.”
“Our money isn’t clean enough for you?” Echeverría asks.
You’re close, Claiborne, Keller thinks. Come on, keep pushing.
But Lerner steps in. “Your money is as good as anyone else’s, of course. If we didn’t think that, we wouldn’t be sitting here. León, you’re right, we’re old friends, and if I’ve done anything to damage that friendship, I apologize. I’m sorry. Between old friends, I need you. If you don’t step in, I go into foreclosure and I’ll lose this property.”
Keller sits through the long silence. Then he hears Echeverría say, “We’re ready to sign.”
“That’s great,” Claiborne says.
Keller hears papers shuffle. Then he hears Lerner say, “Actually, León, we could do it this way, or we could just dispense with contracts.”
“Jason, I—” Claiborne says.
He’s clearly surprised.
But Lerner says, “I’m sure you understand that we’re under increased scrutiny these days. It’s like living in a
fishbowl with a spotlight on it. No offense in the world, gentlemen, but HBMX’s name on a syndicate might attract attention that we don’t want at this particular moment. If there were a way we could . . .”
“You’re suggesting we do $285 million on a handshake?” Echeverría asks.
“As you said, we’re old friends.”
Claiborne says, “Jason, this is highly—”
“Thanks, Chandler. I have this.”
Yes, shut the hell up, Chandler, Keller thinks.
“How would you account for the monies?” Echeverría asks.
“As you observed,” Lerner says, “we have empty space in the tower. Maybe you have shell companies who could lease some of that space, and the money would appear as income. Other funds could go into construction overcharges . . . I mean, there are a hundred ways.”
Echeverría chuckles. “Jason, I am trying to clean money here, not make it dirtier.”
Bingo, Keller thinks.
“I understand that,” Lerner says, “but if we could come to a . . . less formal . . . arrangement, we’d be willing to give you an extra two points, which would move you up to third place in the syndicate. I promise you, León, Park Tower is going to be a winner. Your backers are going to make a lot of money. Clean money.”
Jesus Christ, Keller thinks. Lerner just confessed to a bagful of felonies. He hasn’t incriminated himself on laundering drug money, but to massive fraud and violations of dozens of federal statutes.
But he has balls, Keller has to admit.
Two hundred and eighty-five mil with no paper.
And therefore no collateral.
But that’s common for drug cartels. They rarely get collateral because they don’t need it. The borrowers’ lives, their families’ lives, are the collateral. Lerner has to know this, but maybe he feels so powerful now, so connected, he thinks he’s above it.
He’s intocable.
But will Echeverría go for it? Cartels commonly front a million, two, maybe even five in drugs, but $285 million?
“I need to make a call,” Echeverría says.
“We’ll give you privacy,” says Lerner.
“No, I’ll just step out into the hallway.”
No, Keller thinks. No, God damn it, no.
But Echeverría steps out, and all Keller hears for the next ten minutes are the feet of people getting up and down, liquids being poured, low-volume small talk about the fucking weather, sports, the best fucking route to get out to JFK . . .
Finally Echeverría comes back in. “Three points, Jason.”
That’s all? Keller wonders. He negotiates a one-point bump, and that’s it?
No.
“And,” Echeverría says, “as you noted, you’re under increased scrutiny these days because of your close connections. I would hope, if we did this favor for you, as an old friend you would make some of these connections available to us if we need an ear to listen to our point of view.”
As much as Keller despises them, as much as he wants to put this whole crew away, he’s almost rooting for Lerner to turn the man down flat.
“I can’t promise,” Lerner says, “that our connections would or would not take any specific actions—”
“Of course not,” Echeverría says.
Okay, Keller thinks.
“But you will always find an ear,” Lerner says.
My God, Keller thinks.
My God.
If John Dennison wins the election—
The cartel has bought the White House.
We’ve crossed the border now.
Book Four
Inauguration
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ . . .
—Shakespeare
Richard III, act I, scene 3
1
Foreign Lands
Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, “The descent to Hades is the same from every place.”
—Diogenes
Washington, DC
November 2016
Keller wakes up the morning after the election thinking that he doesn’t know his own country anymore.
We’re not, he thinks, who I thought we were.
Not who I thought we were at all.
He goes through the early morning motions mechanically. Stands in the shower as if the hot spray will wash the depression off him (it doesn’t), shaves, dresses, and then goes downstairs and heats water for coffee.
What depresses him is loss of an ideal, an identity, an image of what this country is.
Or was.
That his country would vote for a racist, a fascist, a gangster, a preening, crowing narcissist, a fraud. A man who boasts about assaulting women, mocks a disabled man, cozies up with dictators.
A demonstrated liar.
It’s worse than that, of course.
Keller watched last night as John Dennison mounted the stage, and right behind him was Jason Lerner, a man in bed with, and in debt to, the cartel. Lerner had already been named as a “special adviser” to the new president, and as such he’ll have national security clearance, access to all top-secret briefings.
Which means that the White House, the DEA and the national intelligence apparatus have all been penetrated by the cartel.
And you have two months, Keller thinks, to stop it.
He takes a cup of coffee upstairs, where Marisol has the blankets pulled over her head.
“You have to get up sooner or later,” he says, setting the cup on the side table.
“Not necessarily.”
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life with the covers pulled over you?” Keller asks.
“Possibly.” Her face pokes out from under the blanket. “Arturo, how could this happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you resign?”
“I would have either way,” Keller says. “It’s SOP.”
“But she wouldn’t have accepted it.”
Keller shrugs. “You don’t know. The new president has a right to his own person in the job.”
“Stop being so stoic,” Marisol says.
“It’s not stoicism,” Keller says. “It’s existential despair. I’m going into the office.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s a working day.”
The loan goes through.
Claiborne dutifully turns over all the paperwork.
It’s immense.
Some of it comes in the form of rental contracts, as shell companies get money from HBMX and take space in Park Tower. And they’re literally shell companies, Keller thinks; the offices are empty, there’s nothing inside them.
Some of the money goes on an around-the-world tour, transferred from HBMX to Costa Rica to the Caymans, then over to Russia, from where it’s distributed to different banks there and in the Netherlands and Germany. The money then goes to shell companies in the United States, to law firms and hedge funds, before finally making its way to Terra.
Then there are purchase orders for improvements on the building—windows, drywall, plumbing, carpet, cleaning supplies—items that are purchased but, as Claiborne explains, never actually materialize.
Through one form or another, HBMX transfers $285 million to Terra.
Terra meets its bubble payment.
Berkeley gets ten mil in commissions.
Claiborne’s bonus is a million.
Keller reviews his potential case.
He already has Lerner, Terra and Berkeley on possibly two federal money-laundering statutes. Lerner has incriminated himself on tape about avoiding reporting requirements, it involves a monetary transaction over $10,000 (no shit), and there’s a financial institution involved.
But 18 USC 1957 is the lesser of the two charges, with a maximum sentence of ten years. The big bell is 18 USC 1956, which doubles the sentence and calls for a fine equal to twice the money laundered. But 1956 requires that the defendant know that mone
y is dirty. Lerner, Claiborne and the rest had to know that the $285 million came from drugs.
We don’t have that yet, Keller thinks.
We’re close, but a good defense attorney—and these guys will have the best—would rip right through what we have.
Or rather, what we don’t.
We don’t have Lerner acknowledging that he knows Echeverría is representing drug money.
They have to send Claiborne in again.
Hidalgo sits in a van parked off Bay View Drive in Jamestown, Rhode Island, and listens on a headset.
Claiborne has gone into Lerner’s summer “cottage” across Narragansett Bay from Newport. Lerner also has a place in the Hamptons but thinks that it’s gotten “too cliché.”
Hidalgo hears glasses clink.
“This shit is older than our fathers,” Lerner says. “I’ve been saving it for an occasion.”
“I’m honored.”
“No, listen,” Lerner says, “you pulled us out of a deep hole, and I’m grateful.”
“It’s my job.”
“Above and beyond,” Lerner says. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Claiborne says. “And thanks for sending the chopper.”
“The Ninety-Five is a pain in the ass on a Friday,” Lerner says. “I wouldn’t put you through that.”
Silence.
“So why are we here?” Lerner asks. “It sounded urgent.”
“I’m worried.”
“You look worried. What about?”
Come on, Chandler, Hidalgo thinks. Get it done. It’s freezing out here.
“You know the provenance of the HBMX money, right?” Claiborne asks.
“I’ve done deals with Echeverría before.”
Cagey bastard, Hidalgo thinks. Stay with it, Chandler.
“So you know it’s drug money,” Claiborne says.
My man.
“I don’t know that for a fact,” Lerner says. “Neither do you.”
“Come on, Jason.”
“Come on yourself, Chandler,” Lerner says. “You put the syndicate together. If some of its provenance is problematic, that’s your responsibility, not mine.”
