Royal Digs

by Scott, D. D.

  Smug criminals are the worst. When they’re brazen enough to brag about their escapades that’s when my stomach really churns, and I know we’re in even more trouble. Trouble because we can’t take out the snakes immediately. We have to play the game with them and help them bite and poison themselves.

  “What I always find fascinating in these discussions is that you all seem to think it’s just my client who uses these shelters. This is how Wall Street works, Boys,” Bradford said before taking a sip from his bottle of Honest Tea.

  I had to laugh at the irony. Perhaps he thought if he drank the stuff, he’d be more apt to live it.

  “Oh, but you underestimate,” I said, leaning up in my seat, ready to toss these tigers a big ‘ole hunk of meat to chew on. “We know that the United States has been trying to replace Switzerland as the criminal financial center of the world for years. Wall Street needs that kind of money to continue the financialization and leveraging of our economy.”

  “What we find even more disturbing, however, is that you, as a Presidential Contender, are its Poster Boy. Dealing in both foreign and American criminal money doesn’t seem very patriotic, does it, Governor?” My sister asked, her voice as icy as mine.

  “What does this have to do with Box 438?” Bradford cut in, this time, he also leaned forward from his reclined and formerly ultra-cool position.

  “That, we don’t know yet. But we can promise you, we’ll figure it out,” I said.

  Not so sure of yourself now, are you, Big Boy, I silently harrumphed. Let’s see if I can make you sweat and squirm some more.

  The Governor’s wife excused herself, saying she needed to help their grandchildren make peanut butter sandwiches.

  “It’s dirty money, Governor. And it’s really starting to smell,” Bunny said, leaning in beside me to ratchet up the pressure.

  “I think this conversation is over,” The Governor said, looking to his attorney for confirmation.

  “Not for long, Governor. Your ride here is about to get a lot more bumpy.”

  Bunny was on a role.

  “We appreciate your concern, don’t we Bradford?” The Governor said, standing up to encourage us to do the same.

  “Oh, it’s not a concern. It’s a promise,” I said and stood, motioning for Roman and Bunny to follow my lead. “We’ll show ourselves to the door.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A multi-billion dollar war chest was what we were dealing with. A chest kept for Wall Street in safe havens around the world. Tax avoidance safe havens.

  Men like Crumley, in the top one percent of the top one percent, have net worths in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. But what kind of tax rates do they pay? Most, around thirteen percent at best.

  Middle class Americans, on the other hand, often pay closer to thirty percent.

  On top of that, most Middle Class money is clean, coming from a hard day’s work. Not the dirty, smelly stuff the top one percent are mostly made of.

  I’ll be honest, after hearing about the meeting on the bus, I had no idea what Box 438 was, but I was learning, thanks to a few Bunny Winston tutorials.

  “Did you know that most US Presidents have been total business failures?” She asked me, reading yet another article about this year’s presidential campaign on her new iPad.

  Now that she’d upgraded to an iPad, the woman was constantly reading. Roman and R may be the brawn of our operation, but Bunny was the brains.

  Me? Well, at this point, I was just the tag along, hoping to soon earn my keep.

  “I guess I’ve never really thought about it,” I said.

  Truth be told, till I became a part of this family, I didn’t really care either. I used to be one of those rather apathetic people who basically figured all of this was way above my head, and even if it wasn’t, it was way beyond my ability to do anything about it.

  I definitely knew votes didn’t really matter in presidential politics. With that damn Electoral College system, who cares what the people want or who they vote for? Just ask Al Gore.

  “Well, we definitely need to think about it now, Princess,” Roman said, joining us at our table in the front row of Clitopatra’s cabaret. “You’ll see. We can affect the outcome of this election.”

  I sighed and sucked up my hesitancy to take part in all of this. Heck, we couldn’t even go to see Clitopatra and her famous Queens without politics going with us.

  But this time, I guess that’s okay with me. I’m one of those people who could care less about party politics. I vote for the candidate I like. And I can tell you this...the more I’m getting to know about Crumley, the less I like him.

  • • •

  As Cher’s raspy voice blasted through the cabaret’s speakers, I sucked in my tummy, gave my rubber tits a quick push up and slipped through the sparkling beaded curtains for my rendition of “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

  Singing this song always took me back to a dark time. A decade ago, when I’d give anything to have had the courage and means to have taken out Star Fish when I’d had the chance. I was there when she – aka my Uncle Giotto Bernini – had conveniently made my parents disappear. But I’d been too afraid to stop him.

  Well, I’d worked through that fear.

  Uncle Bernini no longer had one up on me. Or my family. I knew who he was underneath that drag persona, and soon, Bunny and R would too. But not until I could ensure their safety, even if it meant I would meet my parents’ fate.

  I’ll give it to him. It took some big balls, pun intended, for him to come back as a Queen. The guy must think he’s on his way to nine lives fame. He may not have perished at the hands of the Italian police or at the end of the gun barrel my older brother had fired at him, but if I could help it, his reign would end after life number three.

  As his Drag Mother, it was my duty to show him the ropes. And I planned to do just that. Both show him the ropes, and hang him by one.

  Harnessing my inner Cher, I finished my number then blew kisses to my family, who I could tell, especially by Zoey’s fabulous and boisterous reaction, really loved my new act. That was all the encouragement I needed.

  I hustled back-stage. While Star Fish performed her first routine of the night, I had just enough time to set my plan into motion.

  Watch out Uncle B, your new momma is just as lethal as the one you took from me. You’re about to find out you never should have hurt Valerie Malloy or my father the way you did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Yes, this is Clit...Clifford Bernini,” I said, always getting a kick out of it when I confused my Queen nom de plume with my real name.

  “I’d like to arrange for a transfer of one hundred million dollars to Mission Green Freedom. Yes, that’s right. Queen of the Night,” I stated, knowing before they even asked that they’d need my private code. “And yes, I’ll fly down in the morning to complete the transaction.”

  So, the GOP thought they were the only ones who could play the super PAC game. Not this year. There’s a new political action committee boss in town.

  Karl Cunningrove is no longer the only one running the show, I thought, while trying to get myself out of the black leather Cher get-up.

  Cunningrove better enjoy his Weaver Terrace breakfasts. Because his guests are about to get a better offer from right here in Key West.

  The current White House may have lost the love of the big banks and Wall Street because of the passage of their Dodd-Frank Act, but they should be celebrating that feat. That’s where the true evil in this world resides.

  Good for President Ruvama for trying to stick it to ‘em. But, he needs some help when it comes to implementation. Otherwise, those damn big bank and private equity firm lawyers will have ‘em tied up for another two years in all of the how-to’s and regulation writing needed for the act to actually be enforced with some teeth.

  The center of power will always be where the money is. And now, thanks to my new super PAC, we’ll have a new center with new money, and for
once, be able to do good things with it.

  I turned the key, enjoying its reflection in my dressing mirror. Uncle Bernini was turning out to be quite a dumb ass in his final life. If it wasn’t senility, then maybe the drag persona had him rattled. The root cause didn’t matter to me. I was just tickled to be the beneficiary of his snafu.

  Leave the key to your downfall in a wig box? Now that’s a special kind of stupid. Hmmph. There’s no secret hiding places in a cabaret’s dressing rooms. He deserved to lose the key just because he was so careless in hiding it.

  I considered putting a fake key back into his wig box, so he’d been none the wiser regarding the missing one. For a while, at least. But then, I decided against it.

  Until we finally had the chance to snuff out his last ounce of life, it was time the rest of us had a little fun at his expense.

  “Are you ready to head out?”

  Roman appeared in the door of my dressing room just as I had discarded the last of my over-the-knee boots and was slipping into a pair of linen pants. I reached for a silk palm tree printed shirt.

  “The plane is on standby?” I asked, knowing without a doubt that my half-brother’s employer had everything arranged just as I’d asked him to do.

  “Yes. We’re good to go.”

  “Lighten up, my boy,” I said, giving his gorgeous dark locks a ruffle. “This is gonna be fun.”

  For the briefest of moments, I thought I saw him smile. But I was probably totally imagining it. No one in either of our families smiled much anymore. But hopefully, if my plan worked, that would soon change.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Mission Green Freedom? Who the hell is Mission Green Freedom, Ross?” President Ruvama asked me.

  As his Chief of Security in the Secret Service, I should probably answer to the best of my knowledge. Although, why he was asking me, I hadn’t figured out.

  Being a Bellesconi, I was used to answering tough questions, but answering them for the President of the United States was proving to be the toughest of the tough. The President was sharp, and unlike most people I dealt with in Washington, he couldn’t be bullshitted.

  While the President paced the carpet behind one of the two couches facing each other in the Oval Office, I gathered my thoughts so I could fill him in on Mission Green Freedom.

  “From what I’ve read,” I began, figuring that, at least, I was telling the truth, “Mission Green Freedom is a new super PAC.”

  I had read about Mission Green Freedom. As I always do, I read everything I can get my hands on from all sources. Knowledge is the best protection. But I knew even more from my personal connection.

  “You know more than you’ve read about, right?” President Ruvama asked, looking right into my eyes, making it clear he already knew the answer to his question.

  “Yes, that would be correct, Sir. Mission Green Freedom is funded by friends of my family,” I said, then cleared my throat.

  This was going be a tenuous line to walk, but I was more than prepared to do what I needed to do to keep The President safe and back in The Oval Office for a second term.

  President Ruvama stopped pacing for a moment and relaxed his shoulders. I’m sure he was thinking as I had at first. We were pretty good at reasoning things out in a similar manner.

  “Well, at least it’s friendly money this time. I suppose that’s a positive start, right?”

  “We could start there. Sure, Mr. President. And since I’m not privy to your campaign conversations, we shouldn’t have any trouble with the coordination rules at all between the super PAC and your campaign officials.”

  The President laughed, which I suppose was appropriate, given our conversation’s turn to coordination rules.

  “Like there really are coordination rules that any of us understand or are actually being enforced when it comes to these super PACS. The Supreme Court didn’t help us much there.”

  Not feeling it was my role to entertain The President with my thoughts and concerns when it came to coordination rules that simply didn’t exist and never would, I didn’t say anything. I was there to protect him. Period. Well, as far as he was concerned.

  Little did he know, and hopefully he’d never have to know, that my protection went way beyond my Secret Service duties. If it weren’t for me and my family and friends, he’d no longer be the President of the United States.

  “Well, it’s getting late. So, I guess that will be all for now. I’m sure you have a great deal yet to do for next week’s convention.”

  “That I do, Sir. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading to my office. Your usual team is right outside the door. But don’t hesitate if you need my direct assistance.”

  With our meeting over, I left the President’s company and went to my office, which sat directly beneath the President’s.

  As I made my way to the intelligence headquarters underneath The White House, warring thoughts juggled for supremacy in my head. The President was smart. Very, very smart. But how had he so easily latched onto the fact that Mission Green Freedom was about to be a Bernini-funded super PAC? I needed to get in touch with my brother and Uncle Cliff, but I couldn’t do it till I got home. I certainly couldn’t talk about it from The White House.

  I had a strong hunch that the SEC’s whistle-blower program wasn’t as sound as they claimed it was. Roman and Uncle Cliff had to be warned.

  In the meantime, The President was right, I also had a bunch of stuff to line up for next week’s Democratic National Convention, including taking a look at the reports I’d requested from the FBI that were finally finished.

  Hopefully, those reports would shed some light on just how much danger my brother and uncle were in.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There’s simply no such thing as a firewall between a super PAC and a politician. Just like there’s no impenetrable barrier between Governor Crumley’s wealth and the coffee, casino and foreign countries whose death squads, along with my help and expertise, have made him one of the richest men in the world.

  Where there’s that kind of money, there’s always coordination in how it’s spent. If The Governor’s tax returns were made public, proving all kinds of coordination had been taking place for years, the empires I’d built for both of us could suffer substantial losses. And neither of us liked to lose.

  Once upon a time, when I still operated out of Naples, I was the only one who knew the information and codes that controlled entry to the other side of those formidable walls. But because my deceased wife had been smarter than I gave her credit for, I hadn’t been able to secure my hold on that information until I’d once more gotten my hands on that damn key.

  What worried me was how much the rest of my family knew. And the Bellesconis too. There could be hell to pay if I didn’t handle this soon.

  Don’t get me wrong. None of this frightens me, and never has. Bankers and traders at my level aren’t repentant if deals go bad. Those of us who own Wall Street have no fear of being punished individually. The government doesn’t have the resources to track what we do. And even if they did, the risks we take on the trades we make pay off big-time. Any penalties pale when stacked next to our personal profits. But that doesn’t mean I won’t go to any length to remove threats against my livelihood.

  Taking a break from working on my new Marilyn Monroe routine for Clito’s Cabaret, I rubbed my aching feet, swearing that I’d never get used to these fucking heels.

  “Ah, there you are, Star Fish. I’ve been looking for you, Honey,” Clito’s raspy voice filled the dark, smoke-filled dressing room.

  “You found me,” I purred, trying to play the game.

  “Just in time, too. We must get to work on our show for the DNC Convention! My goodness, doll, if it doesn’t start this coming Tuesday,” Clito said, sashaying around the dressing room, taking stock of our costumes.

  “Charlotte will never be the same,” I said and meant it.

  I never thought I’d see the day when a drag queen would determine t
he Presidency of the United States. But after I was through, it certainly would. In ways, no one would imagine.

  I waited till Clito started fussing with one of her costumes, making sure she wasn’t into what I was doing. I then reached into the bottom of my wig box, checking as I do a dozen or more times per day for the key that would change the world forever.

  No! It can’t be.

  My hand immediately tensed, almost cramping into a claw-like form. I frantically, without trying to gain Clito’s unwanted attention, searched the confines of the box’s false bottom again.

  Nothing! There was nothing fucking there!

  “Well now, what’s the matter, Fishy? It looks like you’ve just seen a ghost! You really need more blush darling.”

  And with that, Clito pirouetted out of the room, leaving me to the madness of an impending nightmare.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I still can’t get over that Clito’s Cabaret will figure prominently into this year’s Democratic National Convention,” I said, tapping and then increasing the size of the Huffington Post article I’d pulled up on my iPad.

  The piece explained how the party of tolerance was flexing and expanding its acceptance of alternative lifestyles in a new way.

  “Wait till the Daily Show gets a hold of this,” Bunny added, also busy studying her iPad.

  “Oh, and how ‘bout Meet the Press? They won’t know what to do with it, will they?” I said, for the first time looking forward to one of my new family’s plans. “Talk about Carville and Matalin needing a cocktail party...”

  That got a good laugh from Bunny. Evidently, she’d also seen the famous pundits’ ads for Maker’s Mark whiskey.

  “Though the mainstream coverage will indeed be interesting, wait till you see what we’ve got planned for all of the social media outlets.”