Greasing the Piñata

by Tim Maleeny

  “Shit.”

  “Police aren’t saying whether it was murder or a suicide.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “The article says there was very little evidence at the scene. Beau didn’t tell you?”

  Cape shook his head. “I think I passed out before he had the chance.”

  “This isn’t as bad as it looks—Sloth found a pattern.”

  “That coded sheet?”

  “There are two.” Linda pulled the page in question from her bag and laid it on top of the other papers. “This is the one you got from Beau.” She produced an almost identical list of letters and numbers and laid it next to the first. “This is the one from Rebecca.”

  Cape scanned from left to right and saw that the letter and columns were consistent but the numbers changed.

  “What changes?”

  “The timeframe,” said Linda. “We think these are two months apart. Sloth used the stock certificates as a guide to the letters, then tracked the financials for those companies to see if they corresponded with any of the numbers.”

  “And?”

  “Every stock certificate has a corresponding acronym on this list, if Sloth is right.”

  Cape had never known him to be wrong. “So these companies are publicly traded?”

  Linda shook her head. “Not all of them, but that never stopped Sloth. Having two months made the difference, because he could find numbers in the company financials that moved in the same sequence.”

  “OK.” Cape pressed his hands to his forehead. “But if these are legitimate companies—”

  “Some of them. Others we haven’t identified—they might be shell companies.”

  “OK, but if these others are legitimate investments, why would the Senator stuff them into an envelope and write his daughter’s name on it? Are they part of his will or something?”

  “We don’t know.” Linda waited until Cape raised his eyes from the papers. “But that’s not the point. Sloth took it a step further and reviewed the Senator’s voting record. Remember how it moved in patterns around pivotal issues, like—”

  “—tax breaks for companies.”

  “Exactly.” Linda’s hair bobbed with excitement. “All these companies got some kind of break, allowance, or financial boost from a bill or public initiative that the Senator voted on.”

  “All of them?”

  “It gets better.”

  “He invested in them?”

  Linda smiled approvingly. “You’re pretty smart for someone who gets hit on the head for a living. Dobbins was a major investor in all of them—direct conflict of interest. But it gets even better than that.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “His wasn’t the only prominent investor in these companies.”

  “Frank Alessi put money in, too?”

  “Not just Frank. There were foreign investors—one name in particular you might recognize.”

  Cape sat up straighter. “Salinas?”

  Linda shook her head. “His rival—Luis Cordon.”

  Cape tried to wrap his head around what he’d just heard.

  “It’s true,” said Linda. “The late Senator’s business partner was Luis Cordon.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Luis Cordon put down the phone and nodded to Enrique, who was standing a respectful distance away. The office was the size of a racquetball court, more glass tanks lining the walls, some filling the shelves in between rows of books. Reptiles dominated this room where Cordon spent most of his time conducting business. Enrique found that ironic but kept the thought to himself.

  “Everything is in motion.” Cordon pressed his hands together and touched them to his full lips. He really was a remarkably attractive man, thought Enrique. He could have been an actor, or a model.

  “They will come here?”

  “That is the plan, but some things are out of our control.”

  Enrique couldn’t think of any person, place, or thing out of Luis Cordon’s control, but he nodded in agreement. “The men are ready.”

  Cordon looked toward the ceiling, his perfect hair reflecting the overhead lights. “You understand we might have to kill them.”

  “Isn’t that the idea?”

  Cordon saw the confusion in Enrique’s face and smiled, then sighed as if a great sadness had overcome him. “I don’t mean our guests—I mean our men.”

  Enrique breathed through his nose, not trusting himself to say anything.

  “I want this thing buried,” said Cordon.

  And what about me—am I to be buried, as well? But Enrique kept the thought to himself. He took another breath and then met the gaze of the unnaturally attractive man sitting across the desk, a man who could have been an actor or a model, but instead chose this. Enrique wondered, not for the first time, about the choices he might have to face in the end.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ll see to it myself.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  “I wish they had pancakes.”

  Cape scanned the overhead menu of the hospital cafeteria and frowned.

  Linda wrinkled her nose. “Looks like they have French toast.”

  “A poor substitute.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  Linda moved past him to the cereal, where she grabbed a package of trail mix and put it on her tray. Cape pointed at the French toast through the glass and waited patiently while a portly woman wearing a hair net used tongs to separate three slices from the rest of the pile. He grabbed a bottle of iced tea, paid for both of them, and followed Linda to a table where she had papers organized into neat piles.

  “Thanks for coming downstairs.” Cape cut into his late breakfast.

  “You’re not supposed to leave your room.”

  “Actually I’m not supposed to leave the hospital. I was hungry.”

  “They can bring food to your room, you know.”

  “I needed some air.”

  “Is that why you got dressed?”

  “The hospital gown was drafty.” Cape looked down at his clothes, torn and scarred from his drive off the pier but almost presentable, thanks to the hospital laundry.

  “Don’t bullshit me.” Linda’s hair rose up in warning. “You’re going to sneak out.”

  “The thought had occurred to me.”

  “Then take that off.” Linda glanced at his head. Cape had forgotten about the bandage. He undid it slowly, watching Linda for a reaction. Lines multiplied around her eyes as she grimaced. “Your forehead is purple.”

  “I’ll buy a hat in the gift shop.”

  “Get a pair of sunglasses while you’re at it.”

  Cape took a bite and managed to hide his disappointment—the French toast had probably been in the hospital longer than he had. He and Linda ate in silence for a while. The iced tea kicked in after a few minutes. His head still felt like an over-inflated football, but he was awake.

  Cape pushed his plate aside and started thumbing through the stacks of paper. “The Senator invested in companies and then influenced public policy in their favor…”

  “Right.”

  “…and his co-investors included local mobster Frank Alessi…”

  “Correct.”

  “…and Mexican drug lord Luis Cordon.”

  “Check.”

  “But not his rival Salinas?” Cape shuffled some papers around, scanning for the name of his erstwhile employer.

  “Not as far as we can tell.”

  Cape leaned back in his chair. “That would explain Salinas’ interest in the Senator. Anything that benefited Cordon would presumably hurt him.”

  “If you say so.” Linda’s right hand lay atop one of the stacks, her fingers tapping impatiently. Cape finally took notice.

  “Am I missing something?”

  “Don’t you want to know what the companies do?”

  “Sure, but I figured it was some kind of money launderi
ng operation. Guys like Frank and Cordon need legitimate companies to cover their tracks.”

  Linda nodded. “Absolutely, but aren’t a lot of those cash businesses? A lot of small operations, like pizza parlors, laundries, restaurants—even retail. A business where it’s easy to cook the books.”

  “Not always. Might even be a hotel—no one really knows how many guests you had, how much money came across the front desk.”

  “This is different.”

  “How?”

  “It’s insidious.” Linda’s face darkened. “They’re messing with my environment.”

  Cape thought about the names of the companies, with prefixes or suffixes like Terra, Gaia, Energy. He considered the Senator’s political rise. “All the companies sound vaguely green, or at least energy-related.”

  “This is a classic case of greenwashing, only on a global scale.”

  “Is that anything like brainwashing?”

  “You’ve never heard the term—it’s in the press all the time.”

  “I think you and I might read different magazines.”

  Linda’s hair did nothing to hide her disappointment. “OK, think about food labels. A bag of potato chips might have a sticker that says Zero Trans Fat.”

  “Sure.”

  “Or a can of mixed nuts might say Loaded With Antioxidants. Saltines come in a Low Sodium variety now.”

  “Got it.”

  “But that bag of potato chips has eight times the amount of sodium you’re supposed to eat on a daily basis. The nuts are loaded with fat, not just antioxidants. And the low sodium saltines will give you an ass so wide it’ll snap your thong.”

  “I don’t wear a thong.”

  “Thank goodness, but the point is that if you’re on a diet, you shouldn’t eat chips. But if you really, really want a bag of chips, don’t apologize or pretend you’re being healthy—just eat the damn chips and enjoy.”

  Cape nodded. “And this is related to our problem because…?”

  “Because the latest thing in product packaging is to highlight the green components. Made from 20% recyclable material. Low emissions vehicle. All the catch phrases designed to alleviate guilt.”

  “So while you might not be saving the planet by buying this product, you’re not killing it, either.”

  Linda frowned. “That’s the idea, but it’s greenwashing. Because 80% of that product is still crap that goes in a landfill, and if you really want to reduce emissions, walk or ride a bike.”

  “Not everybody can live like you do, Linda.”

  “I’m not saying they can. And I’m not saying making a coffee cup out of recycled paper isn’t a swell idea. But don’t act self-righteous because you drive a hybrid car to Starbuck’s. The battery that powers that car is messy to manufacture, and that empty cup is still trash.”

  Cape knew this was deeply personal for Linda, but he needed to knock her off the soapbox long enough to figure out what the hell she was talking about.

  “Can we fast forward to the part where I catch the bad guys?”

  “Sorry.” Linda took a deep breath. “I don’t think you can catch these guys, but maybe you could expose them.”

  “For what?”

  Linda made seven separate stacks of paper between them, then tapped the one in the middle. “Delta Energy is at the heart of it—it’s a major energy company.”

  “Oil company.”

  “Used to be, but they reinvented themselves around today’s politics. They’re building wind farms, hydroelectric plants, you name it.”

  “All legitimate enterprises.”

  “These companies get funding from Delta Energy.” Linda smacked the tops of the other piles with both hands. “And Delta gets tax breaks for supporting them.”

  “And these other companies—what do they do, exactly?”

  Linda pointed to the stack on the far left. “This one is an alternative energy venture that builds solar cells from recycled silicon chips after they’ve been thrown away by computer companies. They don’t have a working prototype, but that’s the idea.” She moved to the next pile. “This one sells carbon offsets—know what those are?”

  “I think so.” Cape tried to remember an article he’d read recently. “You go away for the weekend, but you feel guilty about filling the atmosphere with your car exhaust, or the jet fuel from the plane trip, so you buy a carbon offset, which pays for someone to plant a tree somewhere.” Cape looked to Linda for confirmation. “Close?”

  “Close enough. It’s a very shady business.”

  “I thought you’d love the idea.”

  “I do love the idea, but I don’t trust it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too…lazy.” Linda’s hair looked ready to pounce. “What happened to the three R’s?”

  “Reading, writing—”

  “You are such a clod sometimes.” Linda scowled. “Reduce. Re-use. Recycle. The three R’s of taking care of your personal environment. You want to help the environment, you have to make changes.”

  “And offsets—”

  “—send the wrong signal.” Linda looked like she might levitate. “Take your tree example. You drive enough to empty your tank, then pay some company a hundred bucks to plant a tree, because supposedly the tree consumes enough carbon dioxide to offset the effects of your drive.”

  “There’s a catch?”

  “Tons of them. The whole industry is unregulated. No standards or system of measurement. And it takes a long time—years—for a tree to consume enough greenhouse gas to make a difference. If the tree ever burns, or dies and then decomposes, it releases much of the carbon back into the atmosphere. So it’s very hard to quantify any impact.”

  “But it’s nicer to have trees than not.”

  “Sure, but it matters where you plant the tree. Near the equator, the tree sucks up carbon dioxide and throws off oxygen, which is good. But plant a tree farther north, say in Canada, and it might not have the same effect. The trees up there might absorb sunlight and make that part of the planet warmer than it once was.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “That’s the hundred million dollar question.”

  Cape thought of the maps Rebecca showed him with dots marking Canadian territories. “I guess you’ve looked into these companies.”

  “You bet.” Linda reached into her bag and produced a copy of the map. She brought her index finger down accusingly on northern Canada. “See these two dots? Both represent tree farms run by Delta Energy’s carbon offset company.”

  “Too far north?”

  “It gets better.” Linda unrolled another document, this one an aerial photograph. It was a satellite photo that looked utterly desolate, a virtual moonscape in the middle of nowhere. “This is the location of one of their tree farms.”

  “I don’t see any trees.”

  “Glad you’re paying attention.” She unrolled another satellite photo. This one was almost entirely covered in black smudges, trees running off the edges of the paper. “Here’s the other location.”

  “Looks better.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? Except it’s a national preserve where logging is prohibited, and there hasn’t been a new tree planted since this company was founded—I checked with the park service.”

  Cape sat back in his chair. “Both locations are bogus.”

  “Precisely. It’s a scam, people paying for a placebo effect. They tell you that you’re a bad person if you drive that car, unless you give them cash to alleviate your guilt. Nobody ever checks to see if a tree was planted, or if planting it ever made a difference—people just want permission to avoid changing their lifestyle.”

  “How many people?”

  Linda smiled without warmth. “This company has sold over a million offsets, and the cheapest one is a hundred bucks. For longer trips they charge up to five hundred. That’s a hundred million dollars minimum.”

  “And the company is non-profit.”

  “And its investors g
et tax breaks. Legally and politically, they are protected like you wouldn’t believe. And if you say anything against them, well—”

  “—then you’re not very politically correct.”

  “A tough position to take in this town.” Linda rolled up the photographs and pushed the map in front of Cape. “I hate these people.”

  Cape didn’t argue. Linda had walked the walk since he’d known her, and now that everyone finally seemed afraid for the environment, crooks were lining up to exploit that fear.

  “We can give this to the press.”

  Linda nodded. “But the investors will plead ignorance. And the news will make it harder for legitimate companies doing good work with the environment to raise money. People will feel burned—all these companies have received massive amounts of funding.”

  “Enough to launder a drug lord’s cash.”

  “And generate plenty on their own. This might be more profitable than marijuana.”

  “God damn.”

  Linda shook her head. “I don’t think God has anything to do with it.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “God helps those who help themselves.”

  As he talked, Priest curled his tongue around his front teeth like a man searching for a piece of food. “So in the thirteenth century, the Catholic Church started one of the first money laundering operations.”

  Antonio Salinas studied his guest with a skeptical eye but said nothing. Experience had taught him that sometimes it is best to let a madman rant.

  “The idea was beautifully simple.” Priest started pacing. “Sinners were supposed to repent in confession, then await God’s judgment and forgiveness. But the Church decided people should not only repent, they should pay some sort of retribution here on Earth. So the Church began selling indulgences. Merchants, nobles and peasants alike could pay for their sins in cold, hard cash.”

  “You’re joking.” Salinas bit the end off a cigar, then lit it. “All of Mexico is Catholic, and I never heard of this.”

  “It doesn’t get brought up in many sermons, but it’s true.” Priest breathed in the secondhand smoke with relish. “If you sinned you could alleviate your guilt by doing good works, but why not erase your sin entirely by paying the Church to do good in your name?”