“As of when?”
“We parted company this afternoon. What’s she done?”
“Nothing so far, but she’s close.”
“So you said. Meaning what?”
“She’s been seeing Alan Beckwith, the guy you met in here Monday night.”
“I know when I met the guy, but what’s that to you?” I could hear hostility creep into my tone at the implications of what he’d said. Someone was apparently watching me the same night I was watching Reba carry on with Beck.
“Don’t be crabby.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.” I took a deep breath, willing myself into a more sanguine place. I said, “I don’t understand where you fit in. And don’t make me guess. I really hate that shit.”
Cheney smiled. “I’m talking to some guys who have an interest in him. Her, too, by association. You have to understand this is all highly confidential.”
“I’m crossing my heart,” I said, and made an X on my chest.
“You know anything about Beck?”
“I’m an innocent. Well, wait. That’s not entirely true. I know his father owned the Clements, so I’m assuming the man was a major player in his day.”
“The best. Alan Beckwith Senior made a shitload of money in a number of franchises, mostly real estate. Junior’s been successful, but he’s worked all his life in the shadow of his dad. Beck never measured up. From what I’ve heard, it’s not like his dad made judgments about him, but Beck was conscious of the gap in their accomplishments. His old man went to Harvard and graduated fifth in his class. Beck’s academic career was undistinguished. His college was good, but strictly second tier. He ended up with an MBA, but gradewise, he wasn’t even in the top twenty-fifth percentile. That’s just how it went. His achievements were modest compared to his dad’s and I guess the older he got the worse he felt. He’s the kind of guy who swore he’d be a multimillionaire by the time he was forty. At thirty, he was stalled out and getting desperate to make good. You know the saying ‘Money’s just a way of keeping score’? Well, Beck took that to heart. Five, six years back, he decided his prime goal was to outearn his dad. Since he couldn’t manage it playing straight, he took a left-hand turn. He realized he could make a lot more money if he offered his services to people who needed to have theirs washed.”
“Money laundering?”
“Right. Turns out Beck has an aptitude for financial shenanigans. Since he deals in high-end real estate, the basic infrastructure was already in place. There are half a dozen ways to fiddle funds when you buy and sell property, but the mechanism’s slow and there’s too much paperwork. With money laundering, you want to minimize the paper trail and put as many fire walls as possible between you and the source. His early efforts were clumsy, but he’s getting better at this stuff. Now he’s set up an offshore company—a Panamanian dummy corp called Clements Unlimited. Places like Panama, you can hide a lot of dough because the bank secrecy laws have been tight there since day one. 1941, they took their cue from the Swiss and went to coded accounts. Unfortunately for the bad guys, the numbered account isn’t what it once was. Swiss banks don’t offer the same level of protection, because they’ve taken so much flak for providing cover for thugs. They’ve finally recognized the necessity for getting along in the international banking community and that’s motivated their signing treaties with a host of other countries. In effect, they’ve agreed to cooperate where there’s proof of criminal activity. Panama isn’t as eager to please. They’ve got lawyers who create companies in bulk and sell them off to customers who want to sidestep the IRS.”
“You’re talking about shell corporations, right?”
He nodded. “You can create a sham company according to your specifications or you can buy one ready-made. Once you have a shell in place, you funnel money from the U.S. by way of the shell to any financial haven you choose. Or you can set up an offshore trust. Or you do what Beck did, which was to buy himself a bank-in-a-box and start accepting deposits.”
“From whom?”
“He makes a point not to inquire too closely, but his primary client is a big-time Los Angeles drug dealer, ostensibly doing business in scrap gold. Beck also dry-cleans money for a major pornography mill and a syndicate that runs a network of hookers and whorehouses down in San Diego County. Guys in the sin trades accumulate millions in cash and what can they do with it? Live lavishly and your neighbors will start to wonder about the source of your wealth. So will the IRS, the DEA, and half a dozen other government agencies. There’s never a shortage of folks who need to run dirty money through the sluice and have it come up clean. The neat thing from Beck’s perspective is that, until recently, what he’s doing wasn’t illegal in and of itself.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Last year Congress passed the Money Laundering Control Act. Before that, the same basic transactions might have been the focus of an investigation or subject to prosecution under some other statute, but the laundering itself wasn’t a crime. Sorry to be so long-winded. Bear with me on this.”
“Don’t worry about it. Most of this is news to me.”
“Me, too. From what I’m told, the groundwork was laid in 1970 when the Bank Secrecy Act was passed. The BSA established reporting regulations for financial institutions—banks, brokerage houses, currency dealers, anybody issuing traveler’s checks, money orders, shit like that. They’re required to report certain transactions to the Secretary of the Treasury within fifteen days on a form called the Currency Transaction Report—the CTR—for any transaction over ten thousand dollars. Are you following?”
“More or less. How do you know all this stuff?”
“Most of it I picked up from my IRS pal in the past couple of months. He says in addition to the CTR, there’s something called a Currency and Monetary Instrument Report, the CMIR. This is for the people who physically receive or transport cash—carry it, mail it, ship it—again, that’s in any amount over ten thousand dollars. There’s another form for casinos, but we don’t have to worry about that here. Far as we know, Beck doesn’t have ties to any of the big gambling operations, though that’s another nice way to scrub a load of cash and get it squeaky clean.
“The government relies on financial institutions to track the flow of cash through the system. Obviously, there’s nothing illegal about dealing in large sums as long as all the proper forms get filed. Try to bypass that and you’re subject to severe penalties—assuming you’re caught, of course. Beck made a point of cultivating a bunch of banker pals and for a period, he was bribing one of them to look the other way. The bank officer would prepare the CTR as required and place a copy in the files, only instead of shipping the original to the IRS, he’d run it through a shredder. Problem is, the banks tend to move these executives from branch to branch, and Beck lost his co-conspirator. That’s how he came to the attention of Internal Revenue. Some new VP at Santa Teresa Savings and Loan noticed a pattern of small deposits that he was pretty sure were all linked to Beck or Beck’s company. He’s been breaking the big deposits into a series of smaller transactions, hoping to skirt the ten-thousand-dollar requirement for a government report. This is the fundamental maneuver in any laundering operation. It’s called structuring, or ‘smurfing.’ Beck employed a regular road crew of smurfs, who’d go from bank to bank here in town—sometimes from city to city—buying cashier’s checks or money orders in the smaller dollar amounts—two grand, five, sometimes as much as nine, but never over ten. The dribbles and drabs were deposited piecemeal into a single account, and then Beck would use wire transfers to move the whole of it to a couple of offshore banks. After that, he’d funnel it back to his clients in a more respectable form.
“Anyway, while all this was going on, the DEA was following the money from the other end, tracking funds through the system from a cartel importing marijuana and cocaine into Los Angeles. At some point, the two paths intersected and a red flag went up. I’d met the IRS investigator at a co
nference in D.C. about four years back. Shortly after that, he got assigned to the L.A. office to coordinate the task force. Once Beck’s name surfaced, the focus shifted to him. The agent, Vince Turner, asked me to act as the local interface. His guys are keeping a low profile because the feds are trying to build a case without Beck’s getting wind of it.”
“Oh, good luck. In this town?”
“We’re well aware,” he said. “So far they’ve initiated mail and trash covers and they’ve been running surveillance, covering his movements in and out of the country. What they need now is an informant, which is where Reba Lafferty comes in.”
I gestured impatiently. “You’re kidding. She’s in love with the man. She’d never rat him out.”
“Don’t be so sure…”
“I am sure. She’s smitten. That’s how she’s managed to hold herself together for the past two years. They wrote to each other and talked on the phone a couple of times a week. That’s how she survived. I got it straight from her.”
“Just hear me out,” he said. “You know the background on this.”
“Of course. She ripped off his company for megabucks over a two-year period—”
“While she and Beck were having an affair,” he said.
“I know that. So what?”
“So under the circumstances, doesn’t it seem strange he’d take up with her again the minute she gets out?”
“Well, yeah. Matter of fact, I asked her about that myself. She claims he’s forgiven her. She says he knew she was self-destructive and couldn’t help herself. Or words to that effect.”
He was shaking his head. “Nope. Don’t think so. It doesn’t ring true.”
“I’m not defending the point. I’m just telling you what she said. I agree with you. It’s hard to believe Beck would turn the other cheek. So what’s the deal? I gather you know something I don’t.”
Cheney leaned forward, lowering his voice. I tilted my head closer and felt the whisper of his breath against my cheek as he spoke. “She took the fall for him. He had her set up accounts for a couple of phony companies. She’d invoice for bogus goods and services, then write checks out of accounts payable. He’d sign ’em and she’d send ’em off to a post office box. Later, she’d pick ’em up and deposit the money to a phony account. Sometimes, he’d wire the money offshore or she’d withdraw the cash herself and pass it on to him.”
“I don’t get it. Why’s he stealing from himself?”
“He has people to pay off and this is how he covers his butt. He can’t siphon off large sums of cash without an explanation. If he’s ever audited, the IRS will want to know where the money went. He figured he’d disguise the fact he’s draining off the bucks by making it look like a legitimate business expense.”
“Why not use money from one of his offshore accounts?”
“Who knows the rationale? By then he’d cooked up a couple new schemes anyway and he was anxious to shift gears. He talked Reba into going down for the three hundred and fifty thou and he came out smelling like a rose. Since she claimed she’d gambled all the money away, who could prove otherwise? Truth is, she’s always had a gambling problem and she was already making trips to Vegas and Reno, which suited him to a tee.”
“But how’d he talk her into it?”
“Same way guys talk women into anything. He promised her the moon.”
“I can’t believe she went to jail for him. What an idiot.”
Cheney shrugged. “My IRS buddy says there was talk of approaching her back then, offering to cut her a deal, but at the time, they were just setting up shop and couldn’t afford to take the risk. Now it’s crunch time. They need the inside track and she’s it.”
“Beck must have a company comptroller and accountants. Why not one of them?”
“They’re working on that angle as a backup plan.”
“Well, you better tell ’em to work hard. If Reba spent two years in prison for Beck, why turn on him now?”
“You know he’s married…”
I could feel my impatience mount. “Of course. And Reba knows it, too. He says it’s a marriage of convenience. I think it’s a crock and I told her so, but couldn’t get her to budge.”
“She’s delusional in that case. You see Beck and his wife together—her name’s Tracy, by the way—there’s no suggestion whatever he’s anything less than devoted. Could be an act on his part, but it doesn’t look that way.”
“That’s how guys are…”
“Hey, women are the same. Percentagewise, women probably screw around more than men.”
“Listen to us. That’s sick. How’d we get so cynical?”
Cheney smiled. “It comes with the turf.”
“You think Tracy knows about Reba?”
“Hard to say. Beck’s got a ton of money and he treats her like a queen. Maybe from her perspective, it’s smarter to look the other way. Or maybe she knows and doesn’t give a shit.”
“Yeah, well, Reba’s convinced he’s kept his wife in the dark, and furthermore, if Tracy finds out, she’ll not only divorce his ass, but take him for everything he’s got.”
“How’s she going to do that? He has money stashed in bank accounts all over the world. And some are banks he owns. She’d end up with the same nightmare we’re facing, which is how to trace his assets. Reba’s got that down cold. She knows where the bodies are buried if we can get to her.”
“What makes you think he didn’t change it all while she was gone?”
“Why would he do that? He may vary the game plan, but the accounts have been in place for years. Setting up an offshore bank is an expensive proposition. He’s not going to go back and start from scratch unless he’s forced to. That’s why the feds are so worried about tipping him off. They don’t want him to panic before they’re ready to roll.”
“What do they want from her?”
“Facts and figures, banks, account numbers—whatever she can get her hands on. Some of the information they have, but they need corroboration, plus whatever she knows that they haven’t come up with yet.”
“But what’s her motivation? You’ve got nothing to offer. She’s a free human being. Ask her for help and she’ll run straight to him.”
Cheney reached into the inner pocket of his sport coat and removed a manila envelope that he pushed across the table.
“What’s this?”
“Take a look.”
I undid the clasp. Inside I found a series of grainy black-and-white photographs of Beck, probably taken with a telephoto lens. In two, his companion’s face wasn’t clear, but she appeared to be the same woman. The pictures had been taken on five different occasions, judging from the date and time recorded in the bottom right-hand corner of each print. All had been snapped within the past month. The last photo was a shot of the two of them leaving a motel I recognized on upper State Street. I slid the photos back into the envelope. “Who’s the woman?”
“Her name is Onni. She’s Reba’s best friend. He’s been bedding her ever since Reba landed at CIW.”
“What a shitheel,” I said. “And I’m supposed to show her those in hopes of persuading her to turn on him?”
“Yes.”
I tossed the photos and they skittered across the table to him. “You have the resources of the entire United States government at your disposal. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”
“Look, I understand where you’re coming from, but this isn’t penny-ante stuff. What Beck’s doing is—”
“I know what he’s doing. Don’t give me this ‘Money laundering is evil’ bullshit. I got that already. I don’t see why I should be the one who talks Reba into rolling over on him.”
“We’re guys. We don’t know her the way you do. Just call her and chat. The woman trusts you.”
“She does not. She doesn’t even like me. I’m telling you, she got really pissed off when I tried telling her the truth. How can I turn around and call? She’d know I was up to something. She may be an idiot,
but she isn’t unaware.”
“Think about it—please—before you make up your mind.”
I stood up and pushed back my chair. “All right. I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I need to go home and take a bath.”
10
I did not sleep well. My encounter with Cheney Phillips had generated a gloom that seemed to permeate my dreams. I woke often and stared up through my skylight at the overcast night sky. His proposal had at least served to diminish his appeal. Reba was vulnerable by nature and only marginally stable, given to veering off course in response to her own internal tumult. So far she seemed fine (sort of ) but I didn’t want to trip her into a downward spiral when she’d just reached solid ground. She’d been free for two days. What would she do if she heard about this? She’d go off the deep end. On the other hand, she’d pinned her hopes on a bum and what was I to do? Sooner or later, she was going to learn the truth. Was it better to tell her now while she still had an opportunity to redeem herself?
At 5:59 A.M. I shut down my alarm and pulled on my sweats in preparation for a run. I went through my usual bathroom routine—brushing my teeth, splashing water on my face, lamenting the state of my hair, which was sticking up every which way. I looped my housekey in my shoelace, locked the apartment, and started walking at a fast pace toward the bike path that runs parallel to the beach.
Gradually I broke into a trot, my muscles protesting. My feet felt leaden, as though someone had affixed ten-pound weights to the bottoms of my shoes. The sun had already risen and for once there was no evidence of fog. The day promised to be a good one, clear and sunny. Across the rumble of the surf, I could hear the barking of a sea lion, probably some hoary old guy who’d staked out a place for himself on a marker buoy. In hopes of shaking off my depression, I picked up the pace, my sights focused on the bathhouse where I made my turnaround. By the time I started back, I wasn’t exactly light of heart, but I didn’t feel quite so dead.
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