by Tom Fowler
“Did you fix anything for breakfast?” I said.
She grinned around her mug of coffee. “Just a bagel with butter and jelly. I don’t do well in your kitchen.”
I could have pointed out she fared little better in her own, but it felt uncharitable. Gloria had been raised with a cook in the house. She was probably lucky she knew how to boil water. “I ate at a diner,” I said, “with Gonzalez.”
“You’ve done a lot of diner eating lately.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been to this one so often recently, I feel I should know all the staff by name.” Gloria grinned. “Enough about my eating habits, though. How was court?”
Gloria took a deep breath and followed it up with a long swig of coffee. “Difficult,” she said, “but I got through it. I told about what he said, about what happened to me.” She paused. “Then I stuck around. Other girls testified, too. They . . . he . . . did more to them. I was disgusted. I wanted to leave. But I felt like . . . a part of something. We were taking this bastard down. All he could do was sit there and frown.”
“Great.” I leaned against the wall. “I’m glad you did it. You’re getting justice. All of you should be proud.”
She showed a wan smile. “All we did was go and tell the truth.”
“If telling the truth were so easy, people would do it more often.”
“That’s true,” said Gloria.
“You did important work,” I said. “That asshole’s probably going away for a long time.”
“Is this how it feels for you?” Gloria said after draining her mug.
“Hard to say. I try not to work within the system as much as I can. It’s too . . . bloated. Inefficient. But bringing down a criminal always feels good. It’s very satisfying.”
“Do you think you’ll close the book on these criminals soon?” Gloria stood, walked to me, and kissed me on the mouth.
“I hope so.”
She gave me a mischievous look and kissed me again. “I hope so, too. I’m feeling a little neglected recently.” Gloria pouted for my benefit. I couldn’t help but find it sexy. Of course, I found most things she did sexy.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Let me start making it up to you.”
She took my hand and led me upstairs.
Later, I sat in my office, staring at my monitor and waiting for a bolt of inspiration to strike me. Gonzalez said we would both be shaking the tree. At least he knew how. My leads evaporated when Rosenberg and his crew split town with Joey helping the big man bid adieu. I scratched my head; why would Joey do something so dumb? No point in dwelling on it. When all else fails, follow the money. I took a fresh look at the financials of everyone involved.
I started with Rosenberg’s payroll. Once I obtained the relevant information for all his employees, legit and otherwise, looking for their financials would be time-consuming but uncomplicated. I compiled all the employee information, found their accounts, and set about breaking into them. Some took longer than others, but within an hour and a half, I got all the results I needed. Sometime during the process, I heard the TV in the living room fire up. Gloria changed from the news to some movie filled with sappy dialogue. I steadfastly avoided being dragged to many chick flicks over the years, so I didn’t know it, and I didn’t pay enough attention to it to make it into a soundtrack.
While I compiled financial data, I looked for what I could on the Zhangs, as well as Johnny Chen. They only held overseas accounts, except for dummy books they created for their shell corporation. Rich said the Caton Avenue warehouse would be combed over, even though he didn’t sound optimistic about finding anything usable. I’d hacked into Hong Kong banks before, but it was while I lived there. The Chinese reacted quite unfavorably to our little ring when they discovered it. I felt tentative about doing it again and decided to wait until I really needed it.
I ran Eliot Eisenberg through my system while I tiptoed around Hong Kong and found both personal and business accounts. I wanted them both, and in about fifteen minutes, I secured my information. This would take a while to sort through. I wondered if I would need Marvin Bernard again as I printed everything. Thick wad of paper in hand, I leaned back in my chair and pored over everything.
Before long, I chided myself for not getting and examining Eisenberg’s complete financials sooner. His secondary personal account listed payments of five thousand dollars right around the same time Rosenberg received money for the abducted girls. The payments came from something called the JZD Corporation. I guessed it to be another shell company, and some quick looking around gave me strong hints it was. JZD claimed to be a consulting business for international relations. This firm listed no executives I could find and boasted of no testimonials.
I looked up who registered the site’s domain. The name jumped out at me.
Jasper Z. Dexter.
He was Rosenberg’s lackey. At least, it appeared this way. Why did he have the website for a shell corporation bearing his initials in his name, and why was he paying Eliot Eisenberg? Those weren’t the actions of a flunky. I called Rich. “We should talk to Eisenberg again,” I said when he picked up.
“I just finished washing the slime off from before,” Rich said. “Why should we go back?”
I told him about what I discovered. “Doesn’t sound like a crony to you, does it?”
“Not in the least,” he said. “Can you meet me in a half-hour?”
I said I would.
Chapter 19
Thirty-five minutes later, I found Rich sitting on the corner of a desk near the interrogation room. Both he and the older male detective he talked to made a show of looking at their watches as I approached. “Parking was bad,” I said as a cover story.
“The hell it was,” Rich said. He stood from the desk corner. “You ready to take another run at this asshole?”
“I might need some Lysol afterward.”
“You and me both,” said Rich. He opened the door to the interrogation room. Eisenberg sat cuffed to the desk like before. Rich and I sat opposite him.
“Didn’t have enough fun the first time?” Eisenberg said.
“You given any thought to the offer?” Rich said.
“I told you what I know . . . or what I don’t know.”
“My people are preparing reports. A couple of those girls were from out of state. Means you and your friends kidnapped women and transported them across state lines. The feds are going to be all over this in an hour or two. Time’s running out.”
Eisenberg shrugged. “I answered your questions.”
“How about some new questions?” I said. “Like, why did you get payouts from a shell corporation called JZD right around the time Rosenberg got his from the Zhangs?”
Eisenberg’s calm and vacant expression quickly turned into a frown. Color made a slow drain from his face. “How do you know about those?” he said after a couple minutes.
Rich stared at me, too, but I knew he knew how I came into the information. “I got a sneak peek at your financials,” I said, “and found those payouts interesting.”
“They were legitimate expenditures for services rendered,” Eisenberg said.
“To an obvious shell corporation whose website belongs to your buddy Jasper,” I said. “All a little too coincidental.”
“What went on?” Rich said to fill the gap in the exchange when Eisenberg fell silent. “Why was Jasper paying you?”
Eisenberg looked around the small room. His eyes darted between Rich and me, then around the room again. “The deal still good?”
“If you talk quickly,” Rich said.
“Jasper was the brains behind trading the girls. He said he had connections, and having their child kidnapped, would pressure people into paying what they owed to Rosenberg.”
“If it was only a pressure tactic, why the payouts?” I said. “Why the trafficking ring?”
“The first couple girls were just pressure. Someone would snatch them, the parents would miraculously double down on t
heir payments, and the girls went home.”
“Unmolested?”
Eisenberg closed his eyes. The negative wag of his head was slight and brief, but I saw it, and I knew Rich saw it. “After a while, Jasper decided to use his connections. Family, I think. He said we could make some money for ourselves.”
“Why pay Rosenberg?” Rich said.
“His business was our backbone. You’d be amazed how many people get in with a loan shark, and you’d be more amazed how many of them can’t get out.”
“And a lot of them have kids,” I said.
“Right,” Eisenberg said and gestured with his free hand. “Sometimes, they wanted to put their daughter into some hoity-toity private school or pay for college. When conventional loans failed, they ended up borrowing from Rosenberg.”
“And when they fell behind in their payments, their daughters would disappear,” said Rich.
“A son or two, also, at the beginning,” Eisenberg said. “Jasper said he had some clients with . . . different tastes. But girls trade easier and for more money, so we just focused on them.”
“What about Rosenberg?” I said.
“He didn’t really want to be involved. Said he didn’t mind having someone’s knees broken, but shipping their daughter overseas to get fucked by some sheikh wasn’t his thing. The money changed his mind. He needed it.”
“You and Jasper were siphoning off the till,” I said.
“Jasper’s idea. He bled a little here and there, put it toward the Zhangs to keep those channels open. Sometimes, we’d need to pay off some flunky somewhere.”
“So Rosenberg was getting paid with his own money,” Rich said.
“More or less. He was getting old. Didn’t have any heirs, per se. I don’t think his heart was in it as much. Been that way for a couple years.”
“So he collected from you assholes here and there and didn’t think much about it,” said Rich.
“Yep. We had enough delinquent clients with girls the right ages to make it worth his while.”
“And the police never caught on?” I said. Rich frowned at me.
“Different jurisdictions,” Eisenberg said. “The girls were far enough apart in age, looked different, came from different backgrounds.” He looked at Rich. “Your people like patterns in crimes. We didn’t really have any. It made things tough to follow.”
“So you chose your targets to minimize police attention?” Rich said.
“Of course,” Eisenberg said. “We weren’t stupid. Not everyone with an . . . eligible daughter, if you will, got targeted. It would have been too many, made it too easy for the police.”
“You say you don’t know where Rosenberg is,” Rich said.
“I don’t.”
“Where’s Jasper?”
“Don’t know, either,” Eisenberg said. “He disappeared when the ring got busted.”
“You have any prearranged plans in the event something like this went down?” I said.
“Not really. The plan was we’d try to contact each other when we could. If he’s tried to contact me, I wouldn’t know about it in here.”
Rich and I looked at each other. I shrugged. Rich nodded. We must have looked like a pair of geniuses. “All right,” Rich said, “I’ll make sure the state’s attorney’s office hears about your cooperation.”
“What about the feds?” Eisenberg said.
“We’ll do what we can.”
We left the room. “What are you going to do now?” he said, sitting on the corner of the same desk. The other cop who sat there was gone.
“Try to find Jasper,” I said. “He looks like a more important player than Rosenberg at this point.”
“You still working with Gonzalez?”
“Yep, I’ll tell him what I learned when I leave.”
Rich pulled an earnest expression. “You need an extra hand, let me know.”
I looked at him. “Awfully generous. You’re already bucking for some kind of commendation.”
“If I don’t get my ass chewed out for going off the books.”
“I think Sharpe will understand.”
“I don’t work for him, but I think he will. Anyway, I meant it. Call me if you need an extra hand. I know Gonzalez. He’ll be OK with it.”
“All right,” I said, “I will.”
Not long after I got home, a knock sounded. I was in my office looking into some things. Gloria, sitting in the living room watching some other chick flick, was closer and walked toward the door. I grabbed the .45 and dashed into the hallway. “Don’t answer it, please,” I said. “Let me.”
Gloria stopped and looked at me. I had the .45 behind my back. “Do you know who it is?”
“No, and that’s why I want to answer it. While I’m working a case like this, I think it’s best. Until I get a real office.”
“All right,” Gloria said. She stepped aside but didn’t go back into the living room. Whoever was outside knocked again. I walked to the door and let the hand holding the .45 fall to my side. Gloria hadn’t seen it yet, but she would soon enough. I unlocked the three locks, grabbed the knob, and opened. Instead of putting my head out, I let the muzzle of the .45 stick out. Now Gloria saw it; I heard her gasp.
“I’m not armed,” Joey said, “unless you count the food.”
“The man who ate Judas,” I said. “I might want to shoot you anyway.”
“Can I come in?” he said. “I feel bad about the Rosenberg thing.”
“You fucking well should,” I said, scowling at him.
“I get it. I do. Now will you put the gun away and let me in?”
I poked my head around the door. Joey stood on my doorstep with a plastic bag crammed full of fragrant Italian food. “Where’d you go?”
“Your favorite,” he said.
“Chiaparelli’s?”
“You have another favorite?”
I smiled. “Just wondering if you remembered correctly.” I opened wider. “Come on in.”
Joey stepped over the threshold. I held the .45 at my side now and locked up behind him. He saw Gloria and smiled. “Hello, Gloria.”
Gloria walked to Joey and, to my surprise, gave him a hug. He seemed surprised, too, but wrapped his free arm around her. “Hi, Joey,” she said. “It’s good to see you.” She looked at the bag. “Anything for me?”
“I’m sure there is,” I said. “Joey usually eats for three. Maybe he can cut back to dinner for two tonight.”
“I’m sure we’ll find something for you,” Joey said.
“I’ll set the table,” I said.
After we ate our late lunch, the three of us enjoyed a bottle of Malbec. Gloria sensed Joey and I had some matters to discuss, so she excused herself. Somewhere, a chick flick went unwatched, and Gloria had to rectify this sin. Joey and I sat at the table, both admiring the view afforded by her small shorts as she walked down the hall into the living room. I took a sip of wine, and Joey raised his glass to me. “So you two making it official?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We really haven’t discussed it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” I watched my reflection twist as I swirled my wine around in the glass. “We’re . . . OK with the way things are, I guess.”
“Are you dating?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I paused. “Not in so many words.”
“But you’re not playing the field?”
I shook my head. “Haven’t even tried in a few months.”
“Is she playing the field?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So you’re dating,” Joey said.
“Who are you, Dr. Phil?” I said.
“Just wondering. You seem happy around each other. I saw the way you two would smile at each other during lunch.” Joey grinned. “I haven’t seen you act that way with a girl in an awful long time.”
I downed the remainder of my wine and set the glass back down. Tiny streams of dark red droplets descended to the b
ottom and coalesced into a small pool. “I feel good when I’m with her,” I said.
“Then tell her,” Joey said. “Don’t give her the chance to go looking.”
“Did you come here to offer relationship advice,” I said, “or for some meaningful purpose?”
“You don’t think I can give good relationship advice?”
“Not when your first and only love is a meatball sub.”
Joey chuckled and shrugged. “You got me there,” he said. The humor fell away from his face. “I realized I was on the wrong side of things when it came to Rosenberg.”
“About time,” I said.
“I probably should have realized it right away. Maybe the bigger paycheck blinded me. I don’t know. But I know what you’ve told me he’s involved in, and I don’t want to hide someone like him. I’ve helped sinners and saints disappear, but he’d be something else again.”
I nodded. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Joey took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, set it on the table, and pushed it to me. “This is the identity I created for him and his new home address.”
I picked up the paper without unfolding it. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Get him arrested,” Joey said. “Have him shot. I don’t care. I just wanted to clear my conscience on this one.”
“Sounds like you have.”
“Yes. Are we cool now?”
“I might have to make a few extra fat jokes for a while,” I said after a few seconds of thought.
“An acceptable penance,” said Joey.
After Joey left, I looked at the paper. David Rosenberg now went by the name of Jeremiah Edelstein, and he’d moved to a house in Portland, Maine. I didn’t feel like driving or flying to Maine in the cold months to look for him, especially if Eisenberg told the truth, and Rosenberg had been more of a figurehead than anything. I called the Driscolls.
“Chris, this is C.T. Ferguson,” I said when he answered.
