Murder on the Potomac

by Margaret Truman

  “Guilty? I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

  Buffolino experienced a sudden rush of discomfort. He was about to hear an intimate revelation from Tierney about his adopted son. Buffolino was as curious as the next person about families and their behind-the-closed-door troubles, but he could do without this one. Providing security for the family was one thing. Being taken into its secrets was another. He decided on the spot that Tierney was jinxed. His assistant is murdered, his adopted son gets nailed for laundering dirty money, his marriage is in trouble, his daughter hates him. He’d seen it before, guys like Tierney riding the fast track until the derailment. Once they went off the track, they kept falling, one car after the other until the whole train was upside down. He almost said, Look, Mr. Tierney, none of this is really my business. I’d just as soon not…

  But of course he didn’t. He was doing a job and was being well paid for it. Hear him out.

  “I assume you’re a discreet man,” Tierney said. “A private investigator with a license at stake.”

  “That’s right,” Buffolino said, knowing he wasn’t always discreet. The letters he’d arranged to bribe out of Joe Chester in MPD Evidence—had Smith talked to Tierney about them, showed them to him? Had he indicated his source, named Anthony Buffolino, private investigator, disgraced former cop?

  Buffolino’s the name, discretion’s my game, he thought, keeping his smile to himself. “I can keep my mouth shut,” he said.

  Tierney seemed to look right through him. All the muscles of his face had sagged, like silicone injections gone astray. His usually carefully coifed silver hair was tousled. Buffolino waited. Finally, Tierney said, “I believe in Sun Ben’s innocence, but that represents the natural feelings of a father. Even an adoptive father. Frankly, I don’t know very much about his business dealings with Sam Tankloff except those that directly involve my company. I also don’t know the extent of his losses at the gambling table. I’m a businessman, Tony. I try not to let emotions cloud my judgment. I want to know—need to know—how big those gambling losses are. Can you find that out for me?”

  Buffolino shrugged. “Depends on where he did most of his gambling. Atlantic City? Vegas? The Bahamas?”

  “Mostly Atlantic City. I don’t think he’s gone to Las Vegas more than once or twice in the past few years.”

  “Okay, Atlantic City it is. Now, which casino was his favorite, or did he play ’em up and down the Boardwalk?”

  Tierney told him.

  Buffolino grinned. “Sometimes you get lucky. I know a guy there who’s pretty high up. We go back a long ways. This is a guy that—well, that don’t matter. You want to know how much of a high roller—how much money Sun Ben has lost?”

  “Yes. I need that information quickly. And, as I said, whatever you find stays between us.”

  Buffolino stretched and scratched his belly through the robe’s folds. “I’ll get on it right away. Like today.”

  Tierney stood. He spoke like a sick man trying to sound strong. “Yes, go today.”

  “Okay,” Buffolino said. “A shower, some breakfast, and I’m outta here.”

  Tierney went to the door and put his hand on the knob, turned, and said, “You’ll need expense money. See me before you leave.”

  “Gotcha,” Buffolino said, wondering whether Smith had raised the issue of the thousand dollars Buffolino had spent obtaining copies of the love letters.

  And so here he was on Friday morning, a thousand dollars’ cash in his pocket given him by Tierney for expenses, a new shooter at a ten-dollar craps table. He was glad to be there. There was something comforting, at least for him, about a casino. In rare moments of introspective candor, he would question whether enjoying the windowless environment, the stale air, the losers on either side of him, the beady-eyed boxman and stickman and pit boss and the rest, represented his failed side. If so, so what? Could he ever entice Mac Smith to join him on a gambling spree? Fat chance. You had to be a type to enjoy casinos, especially the green felt craps tables where you instantly developed a kinship with other players looking to beat the pants off the casino. You had to be his type. Tony Buffolino, with an O.

  He’d called his source at the casino, Frankie Brazzo, before leaving Washington. Could they get together? Important. Brazzo had been an undercover vice-squad cop in Washington when Tony was on the MPD, and it was rumored—known by some, including Buffolino—that Brazzo maintained close ties with area mafioso. But no one had ever made a case against him, and he retired on schedule. That he ended up working in Atlantic City surprised no one. The mob took care of its own, the way cops do. Tony and Brazzo had done each other favors during their tour together, favors that would never be forgotten.

  Brazzo said sure, but he couldn’t see him until one o’clock that afternoon, which was okay with Tony. He hadn’t played craps in a long time because Alicia thought gambling was stupid, at best. It was. But.

  The table got hot, which attracted more players. There was a lot of whooping and hollering as the dice passed from one hand to another. Tony’s turn as a shooter did nothing to cool off the action. He threw sevens on his come-out rolls and didn’t seven-out until he’d made money for most people at the table, including himself. The streak ended when an unshaven young man in greasy clothing and smelling of whiskey joined the table and bet “wrong,” betting against the players and with the casino. He started to win, which meant all the “right” bettors started losing. Buffolino saw what was happening, left the table, and cashed in his chips. He was eight hundred up over his original thousand. Not bad for a pleasant hour. With eighteen hundred in his pocket he scouted other tables. He played a few losing hands of blackjack and whiled away the rest of the time mindlessly yanking the handle of a dollar slot machine, losing two hundred of his winnings. At a few minutes before one he strolled down the Boardwalk to a hot-dog and pizza stand. Brazzo was waiting. They embraced in the awkward way men do. Tony ordered a dog and beer.

  “Well, my man, what can I do for you?” Brazzo asked.

  “I need the figures on a high roller. A guy named Sun Ben Cheong. Likes your baccarat tables.”

  Brazzo, whose face was all chisels and planes, said, “A good customer. I read something about him today. Got nailed in D.C. with dirty money.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “How come you’re interested in him?”

  “I got a client.”

  “You working for the feds?”

  “Nah,” Buffolino said, finishing his hot dog and washing it down with the beer. “Remember me? Strictly a private matter.”

  “He loses big, Tony. Real big.”

  “He ever win?”

  “Sure. If he never won, he wouldn’t come back. But like most, he’s into us pretty good.”

  “To what tune? Fifty? A hundred thou?”

  Brazzo shrugged. “Maybe a million. I can find out. Between us, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Give me an hour,” Brazzo said.

  “Okay. I had a good run with the dice before. I’ll play again. Where will I meet you?”

  “Back here. And stay away from that table. It won’t get hot again until Tuesday—if then.”

  Tony returned to the fast-food stand an hour later. In his pocket was three hundred dollars. “Took your advice and played another table, Frankie. Shoulda took my wife’s. Play none of them. So, what’s the score?”

  “He’s down about two mil.”

  “You give him that kind of marker?” Buffolino asked, impressed with the amount.

  “Yeah. The guy loses big, but he pays—pays off.”

  “Pays is one thing. Pays off is another. Educate me.”

  “His big ones always got paid by some rich daddy in Hong Kong.”

  Buffolino’s eyebrow went up. “That so? Who?”

  “Don’t have a name. Of a person, that is. Usually corporate checks from a company there. MOR Services.”

  Buffolino screwed up his face. “MOR Services. Rings a bell, on
ly I couldn’t tell you why. You sound like you’re talking past tense. ‘Got paid.’ Who pays now?”

  “That’s where paying off comes in, Tony. This stays here. Between us. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Chinaman’s got a rabbi.”

  “Here? The casino?”

  “New York.”

  “That so?”

  “The Chinaman’s a financial genius, I’m told.”

  “I’m told that, too, Frankie.”

  “Good at moving money. Big money.”

  “He runs a laundry?”

  Brazzo nodded.

  “For big money.”

  Nod number two.

  “Drugs?”

  Shrug.

  “Doesn’t matter. He barters off his table debts?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I see. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “I owe you. You need anything in D.C., give a call.”

  “I will. Hey, I heard you got married again. What’s that make, two, four?”

  “Three. This one’s for life.”

  As Buffolino drove through Atlantic City’s slums in search of the highway back to Washington, their sad blight magnified in contrast to the neon and gold-leaf glitter of surrounding casinos, he was dominated by three thoughts.

  First, Wendell Tierney was not going to be happy learning that his son, Sun, was a lunatic loser at the baccarat table. Those kinds of losses could push a guy to do almost anything, including breaking and entering, washing money, or taking what didn’t belong to him. Tony knew all about that.

  Second, Brazzo’s clipped comment that Cheong had a New York rabbi chewed at his insides. Brazzo didn’t have to elaborate. “New York” meant the mob, at least that faction of it that owned an interest in the casino. Laundering money for the mob? What was with Cheong? Heading up the Mandarin Mafia? Maybe he lied and claimed he was from Sicily. Tony laughed at that scenario.

  His third recurring thought was that he’d broken the cardinal rule of casino money management. Half of his winnings at the first table should have found a safe haven in his wallet, with the other half used to continue playing. Oh, well, it’s only money, he told himself. But he wouldn’t tell Alicia that. And his expenses as reported to Tierney, if he asked for a written T&E report, would be Tony’s first short story.

  31

  Early That Afternoon

  By the time Sam Tankloff arrived at Wendell Tierney’s house, Tierney had showered and shaved and “taken a little sun” in his tanning salon. But while he looked better, his disposition had worsened as a result of a phone call. “I’m on my way back from A.C.,” Buffolino had said over the sounds of highway traffic. “I was gonna wait until I got back to give you the news, but then I figured you need to know right away, so I pulled off at this rest stop.”

  “Go on,” Tierney had said.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Tierney. But Sun Ben ranks with the highest rollers at the casino. And he was no winner.”

  “How bad were his losses?”

  “Millions. At least two.”

  There was a long silence on Tierney’s end. “Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

  Now, in his study with Tankloff, Tierney’s voice was an angry growl. “You’re telling me you knew nothing about Sun Ben’s private accounts in the Caymans?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Wendell. He and I met with one of my attorneys when we were there. He specializes in setting up offshore bank accounts. I pressed him about the legality of my accounts, and he assured me everything was perfectly legal.”

  “You said they were investigating you. Who was?”

  “Some special unit of Treasury. I didn’t pay much attention. What was important to me was that the accounts met the law. My attorney said that any investigations were only routine. Look, Wendell, Sun Ben’s problems with the law had nothing to do with the accounts he set up for me and the company. He obviously had his own accounts there. I knew nothing about them.”

  Tierney’s jaw muscles worked as he leaned on his desk. “Where was he getting the money to put in those accounts?” he asked.

  Tankloff had draped his suit jacket over the back of a chair and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. He didn’t like where the conversation was heading and resented his friend’s tone. It was as though Tierney was blaming him for Sun Ben’s problems.

  Simultaneously, he knew the intense pressure Tierney was under and didn’t want to exacerbate his troubles. He said in a conciliatory tone, “Wendell, you know I’ll do anything to help Sun Ben. He’s your adopted son, but he’s been like a son to me, too. If he’s broken some law regarding his accounts in the Caymans, I’m sure it can be straightened out with the authorities. A deal can be cut, arrangements made for restitution.”

  “Which is admitting he’s guilty.”

  “If he is, things can be done to lessen penalties he might incur.” While Tierney maintained his rigid posture at the desk, Tankloff debated. He decided to say it. “Wendell, are you aware of just how heavy Sun Ben has been gambling over the past few years?”

  Tierney turned quickly. Did the whole world know the scope of Sun Ben’s addiction except him? Tony’s call from the road had shaken him. Millions? That could drive almost anyone to break the law. He said to Tankloff, “Sun Ben’s love of baccarat is no surprise to me, Sam, no mystery. He’s always been open about it.”

  Tankloff sensed that Tierney was not telling the truth but didn’t challenge him. Instead, he asked, “Have you discussed this with Sun Ben in any depth? About the charges filed against him?”

  Tierney pushed himself away from the desk and returned to his chair. He shook his head. “No. He’s crushed by what happened last night. The embarrassment of it all, being arrested at the airport, having handcuffs slapped on him in front of a thousand people. He’d just been named adjunct professor of economics at GW. His reputation in the financial community is pristine, to say nothing of what this does to my reputation.”

  Tankloff again started to express his support but was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Tierney looked up. “Who is it?”

  The door opened, and Sun Ben stepped into the room. He wore jeans, sneakers, a gray sweatshirt, and a Washington Redskins windbreaker. Tierney stopped Tankloff’s greeting cold. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “To talk about what happened.”

  “It can wait.” Tierney’s voice had its hardest edge. “Sam and I are in a meeting.”

  “No problem,” Tankloff said. “I’d like to discuss this with you, Sun Ben. Maybe I can be of help.”

  “Do you realize what you’ve done to this family?” Tierney asked.

  “Of course,” Cheong replied. “And I’m sorry about it.”

  “Sorry?” Tierney said. “Somehow that sounds pathetic.”

  Tankloff forced a smile and extended his arms to embrace the room. “Why don’t we all sit down, have some coffee, and hash this out. I’m sure that if the three of us put our minds to it, we’ll come up with a way to resolve this so that no one gets hurt.”

  Cheong ignored Tankloff and took steps toward his father. He stood on the balls of his feet. His body was coiled. “You have a nerve, talking about doing things to this family,” he said.

  Tierney was physically stung by Cheong’s sudden abrasive tone. He sputtered, “How dare you speak to me that way.”

  “No. How dare you speak to me that way,” Cheong said, further closing the gap between them. “I came here to apologize for putting you in this position. I came here to see my father. But my father is blind to what goes on around him.”

  Tierney looked to Tankloff; his expression was profound embarrassment. “Chip wouldn’t speak to me this way.”

  “Chip never speaks the truth to his father. He’s afraid because he knows everything that’s gone on in this house.”

  “Including your million-dollar losses in Atlantic City? Your womanizing? Your affair with Pauline?”


  For a moment, Tankloff wondered whether Sun Ben was about to attack his father. Tierney had further closed the gap between them; they now stood only a few feet apart, bodies tensed, eyes locked. Tankloff was ready to step in when Cheong muttered an obscenity and stalked from the room.

  “That ingrate,” Tierney said.

  “I don’t think he meant what he said, Wendell. He’s under a lot of pressure.”

  “He’s under pressure? Don’t talk to me about pressure.”

  Cheong was surprised at the level of anger he’d reached. It represented a loss of control that frightened him. He trembled as he raced down the stairs, through the kitchen, and to the courtyard, almost knocking over the security man standing outside the door. He went to his apartment above the garages and exchanged his windbreaker for a blue waterproof jacket with a hood. He rummaged through a dresser drawer until he found the keys to the boat, left the apartment, and went down the long set of wooden stairs two at a time to the dock. It was raining harder now. Visibility had lowered. He put the hood over his head as he stepped into the boat and freed the mooring lines. He looked back at the house. Tankloff, who’d gone to the window of Tierney’s study and seen Cheong head for the dock, had come downstairs and through the front door. “Sun Ben,” he called. His words were scattered by an increasing wind and reached the dock in fragments. He started down the stairs, heard the Cigarette’s powerful engine roar to life, and watched Cheong push away from the dock. As the boat drifted into open water, Cheong advanced the throttles, made a tight arc, and headed downriver, a widening and deepening wake churning behind as he disappeared.

  32

  As Annabel waited for the Chinatown tour to form at the Building Museum, she wandered into some of its current exhibits. One, “Washington: Symbol and City,” was a permanent exhibition whose photographs, architectural drawings, and scale models examined the evolution of the city and its attempt to balance a national capital’s splendor with the needs of a thriving city.

  She followed a school group into a room in which a series of intricate models instructed, step-by-step, how the Brooklyn Bridge had been built. The children were wide-eyed and giggly. She naturally thought of Great Falls and Mac’s recurring nightmare about what he’d witnessed there. Hold their hands tight, Annabel thought, as she entered another exhibit space, this devoted to “Great Places,” eight geographically diverse examples of superior planning and architecture. Each had been the recipient of the Urban Land Institute’s Award for Excellence—an office building in San Diego, Washington’s recently refurbished Union Station, the excellent urban renewal of Norfolk’s Ghent Square, and others that testified to man’s ability, if motivated, to meld form and function to create great places for people.