Dangerous Alliance

by Kyra Davis

  Oh, but he has no idea.

  Delighted, I hurry to get dressed. I don’t have to be at work for another hour and a half, and I half run, half skip to a newsstand. I have to see this in black and white.

  And when I do get to a newsstand, there it is! It’s on the front page of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

  I literally squeal as I grab both papers off the shelf, making the cashier do an alarmed double take. I don’t blame him. People shouldn’t get this excited about bank corruption. But oh my God!

  I take my papers to a Starbucks and, buying myself a twelve-ounce coffee, camp out at a small table and spread the Times out before me. It’s all here. Everything I knew and a lot that I didn’t. For instance, Russians who claimed to be used-car salesmen had been depositing up to five hundred thousand dollars a day into HGVB accounts via some crooked traveler’s check operation based in Asia. More than seventeen thousand alerts were ignored by HGVB. There was some evidence suggesting that they had enabled clients in North Korea, Syria, and Cuba to evade sanctions and get their hands on US dollars.

  It is beautiful.

  I quickly turn from the front page to where the article is continued, savoring every detail. HGVB has yet to make a comment, but they’ll have to say something soon, because according to the story, a Senate subcommittee is already being formed and they are expected to hold hearings within the month. No one wants to wait on this.

  I read that last part again. A Senate subcommittee.

  They’re going to bring executives of HGVB in front of a Senate subcommittee.

  I look through the article again, searching for Edmund’s name, Sean White’s name, Travis’s name.

  But no one is named, and if anyone has been taken away in handcuffs today it’s not in this paper.

  I grab the Wall Street Journal. It’s the same story, slightly different perspective. They talk more about what possible implications this is going to have on the financial sector overall. But they too say the revelations from the government’s report are staggering. A Senate subcommittee is being formed.

  I run my fingers over the words. Well, this is a big deal, isn’t it? Travis, Edmund, White, they’re all going to be brought in front of the Senate! Their guilt and humiliation will be televised! And I can hardly expect the names of those responsible to be printed in the paper on day one. After all, these articles were probably written right before the papers had to go to press. Iran, Cuba, North Korea? This is bad, which makes it good. The depth of their corruption is going to be exposed to the world.

  And it’s all thanks to Lander and me.

  Lander and me . . . It’s been so long since I’ve been able to link those words together, so long since I’ve thought of us connected like that. I probably have no right to. I lost faith in him, and he knows it. He did give me reason to. He could have handled things with me differently. Still, I hurt him . . .

  But no, I’m not going to dwell on that. I can’t. There’s too much to be happy about. I go to the local liquor store and buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate with after work. My grin is so wide that when the clerk rings me up he says, with a quiet chuckle, “Whatever you’re so giddy about, congratulations.”

  “Thank you!” I giggle.

  It’s not until I’m halfway to Callow’s that I realize I have no one to drink with.

  From work I call Lander. I have to apologize, I have to set things straight, and we have to celebrate! Surely an apology will be enough. We have to be strong enough to survive one fight. But once again I get his voice mail. I don’t leave a message this time. He’ll see the missed call. Either he’ll call me back or he won’t.

  As the hours wear on it becomes clear that he won’t.

  Mandy is quiet today too. She doesn’t ask me if I have any appointments like she usually does. She just basically stays out of my way.

  As closing time nears I try to break through the new layer of tension that has formed between us. “Are you doing anything after work?” I ask.

  Mandy adjusts the clasp of her necklace, never meeting my eyes. “No, I’ll just be going home.”

  “Come out with me!” I say in a way that I hope sounds more like an invitation than a plea.

  “I’m really rather tired, Adoncia.”

  “That’s because you’ve been sitting in here all day,” I insist. “I love this place, but on days when it’s slow like this? It isn’t always energizing. Come on, we’ve never hung out outside of work. I know this great little BYOB place around here that serves the most amazing salmon rillettes.”

  “Well,” Mandy says, wavering as she finally allows herself a small smile.

  “And I already have the champagne chilling in back! Please, you have to come! Don’t let me celebrate alone.”

  She finally makes eye contact and there’s the gleam of friendship in her eyes. “What are we celebrating?”

  “I’m celebrating—” I stop before I finish the sentence. I can’t tell her. To her I’m Adoncia. She doesn’t know about Bell. Only Lander knows how what’s happening to HGVB affects me. If I want to celebrate with Mandy, I’ll have to make up a different reason for my happiness.

  I’ll have to celebrate with lies.

  Mandy sees the change in my face, sees that I’m unwilling to share things with her. And immediately she closes up again, her eyes sliding back to the floor, her mouth pressing into a thin, disapproving line. “I’m really very tired, Adoncia,” she says again. “I’m going to go home.”

  Home. It’s funny, I have this new place, new furnishings, new neighborhood, but it’s still not home.

  The truth is, I’ve made my home inside of Lander.

  And now that he’s gone, I’m homeless.

  But no, I can’t be blue tonight . . . and I can’t be alone. When work’s over I go out and buy a few glass champagne flutes, a baguette, and some black caviar and take the subway back up to my old neighborhood.

  I find Mary in her favorite spot, coloring a new coloring book with the same broken crayons and pencils, many of them worn down to stubs. As soon as I see her I’m overwhelmed by a sense of comfort. She’s still here. She didn’t leave me . . . even though I left her.

  I walk right up and stand over her hunched figure. “Hi,” I say softly.

  She looks up, startled, as if she hadn’t noticed me approaching. “Hi,” she says uncertainly. “I’m Mary.”

  I swallow hard and look down at my painted toes, exposed and vulnerable in my new heeled sandals. “I . . . I remember your name. Do you remember mine?” I ask, trying to jog her memory. “Adoncia? I used to go by Bell?”

  She looks at me without the faintest hint of recognition. “Bell’s easier,” she says.

  “Yes,” I agree sadly. “Bell was easier.” I hold up my bottle of champagne. “I’m celebrating tonight.”

  “Oh? Well, you go and have a good time then.”

  “No, I mean, I was wondering if you would like to celebrate with me.”

  Mary looks up at me, a little bewildered at first, but then that fades into something else . . . something that looks like sympathy. “Well,” she says, turning back to her coloring book, “sit down, then.”

  I sit on the ground by her side, not at all worried about what it’ll do to my new skirt. I’m just grateful that someone will welcome my company. I open the champagne and the cork pops out, ricocheting off the alley wall, almost hitting me in the head.

  “That thing’s dangerous,” Mary says, shaking her head. “They say alcohol will kill you every time.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure they’re talking about flying champagne corks.” I laugh as I pour her a glass and then one for myself. I hold up my flute and gesture for her to do the same. “Years ago some people hurt my family.”

  “That’s no good,” Mary interjects. “Family’s important. Don’t let nobody mess with your family, girl.”

  “Well, there wasn’t much I could do about it at the time,” I explain. “But I didn’t let them get away w
ith it. Today is the first day of my justice. The people who hurt me are now beginning to face the consequences of their actions. I’ve worked very hard for this, Mary, and today I’m finally beginning to see the rewards for my efforts. It’s just gonna get better from here.”

  “Well, that’s good, then,” Mary says, clicking her glass against mine.

  It’s unclear if she understands what I’m saying, but she does seem to enjoy the champagne, and when I break out the baguette and caviar her whole face lights up. As we sit in the alley, eating and drinking like Manhattan elites, I can’t help but think how easy it is to make some people happy.

  And how easy it is to push some people away.

  Anticipation, fear, excitement, sorrow—so many emotions. So much to celebrate.

  And so much to grieve.

  One day leads into another and still Lander doesn’t call. I fluctuate between being horribly remorseful and unspeakably angry. What does he want from me? Can’t he understand how his actions might have led to my being suspicious?

  But whenever I get too angry or too sad I just turn on the news and then the day gets a whole lot better. By the end of the week, NPR is reporting that during one four-year period trillions of dollars in wire transfers had apparently gone through HGVB without anyone monitoring them. Billions of US dollars had been purchased from the bank and had been used in a peso exchange program that allowed drug cartels to convert their dirty money into US bucks. Drug dealers in Mexico had actually been building cash boxes that were custom made to fit the measurement of the HGVB teller windows. Edmund Gable had finally gone on record and issued a terse statement acknowledging that “HGVB has sometimes failed to meet the standards that regulators and customers expect.”

  The statement actually made me burst out laughing.

  I wish I could laugh with Lander.

  I squeeze my eyes closed and shake the idea out of my head. Focus on the news, Adoncia, I tell myself. Focus on the downfall of HGVB.

  And for a while that strategy works for me. The attacks on HGVB always make me laugh and smile . . .

  But then, after a while, it stops being so funny.

  Every day for three weeks I check every newspaper I can get my hands on. I watch CNN, FOX, MSNBC—all of them every chance I get. When away from the TV I listen to NPR through an app on my phone. I’m collecting bits of news the way some little girls collect stickers, always on the lookout for something new and cherishing all of them.

  I love that Edmund’s name is now out there and I’ve found a few articles mentioning Sean White. But those mentions are always in passing, like White’s role is nothing but a minor detail. More often the articles refer to incriminating emails exchanged among executives . . . but they don’t name the executives.

  Why not? Usually if someone is arrested for a major robbery or is busted in a big crime ring people are publicly named. Even before it’s clear if the people are guilty. How many times have I read that so-and-so was arrested for allegedly attacking her boyfriend while another so-and-so allegedly robbed a string of banks? But in these articles the individual names are almost never mentioned. “We are allowing organized criminals to launder their money,” wrote one executive.

  One executive. As if the executive wasn’t actually a person, with a name, personal wealth, or, most importantly, personal responsibility. As if this executive was simply another anonymous mechanism of the bank.

  You don’t jail anonymous mechanisms, do you?

  But of course they would. This isn’t like the subprime mortgage crisis. These men are funding terrorists, and we live in a time where if you happen to have partied with a guy whose second cousin twice removed is married to a possible Al Qaeda operative you’re going to have the FBI or a drone breathing down your neck. No, Travis and Edmund and Sean, they’re all going down.

  The following week, the New Yorker makes HGVB its cover story. And this time they name Edmund and Sean and a whole bunch of other people I don’t really care about but who are clearly guilty as sin. They note Edmund’s emails that prove he knew what was going on. That he had taken HGVB in a direction that pretty much ensured that the bank simply wouldn’t differentiate between legal and illegal transactions. Scratch that, it actually seemed to favor illegal transactions. After all, I have a bank account and no one from HGVB has ever offered to hide my money from the IRS.

  I keep waiting for them to mention Travis.

  I keep waiting for someone to be arrested.

  And then, two weeks after that, Edmund Gable is dragged before the Senate subcommittee. Of course I take the day off from work for that. No way am I going to miss a second of that testimony. So I pop some corn and dig in for an afternoon of C-SPAN.

  Edmund’s signature smile is nowhere to be seen as he and his band of lawyers approach the front of the hall. He sits staunchly in front of the committee, a prepared statement placed on the table in front of him.

  “It would seem,” he says in a strained voice, his eyes glued to the paper, “that despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated professionals, HGVB has fallen short of our own expectations, and for that everyone at HGVB is profoundly sorry.”

  Is he kidding?

  He’s sorry? Oops, seems that I’ve been knowingly laundering money for some of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels and a bunch of terrorists who may or may not be planning an attack on the United States. My bad! Profoundly sorry about that!

  Except he’s not saying he’s sorry. He’s saying everyone is sorry. Even in his apology he won’t single himself out for scrutiny.

  But the Senate isn’t buying it. The first senator to question Edmund is a Democrat from Colorado who tears into Edmund for the complete lack of oversight regarding Mexico. “Five years ago the United States identified Rami Azar as a man with ties to certain terrorist organizations. He was placed on the list of individuals that banks operating in the United States are not supposed to do business with. The OFAC list, you’re familiar with that list?”

  “I am, Senator,” Edmund says tersely. I don’t remember his complexion being that rosy before. Maybe he’s getting too much sun.

  “At the time he had an account at HGVB. Azar then transferred his accounts to your Cayman Islands subsidiary. And then, you, sir, wrote an email to your compliance officer in which you said, and I’m quoting here, ‘The accounts held in the Caymans are not in the jurisdiction of, and are not housed on any systems in, the United States. Therefore, there is no need to report this match to the OFAC.’ In other words, you knew this man was a terrorist, but because his accounts were in a place that we couldn’t search you figured you’d just ignore your obligation to report.”

  “I informed my compliance officer of what the law was. That’s all I intended to do.”

  “The law is that you report!” the senator snaps.

  Then a Republican from Texas has his turn. He rips into Edmund about the Mexican drug cartel. “Billions of dollars!” he exclaims, his eyes flashing in indignation. “HGVB laundered billions for a drug cartel that has been responsible for kidnapping, torture, beheadings, and this is all in the backyard of the great state of Texas. This is a cartel that is a danger to our people, to my people!”

  “As the CEO of HGVB, I am not in the position to personally oversee the specific business activities of our Cayman Islands account holders. However, I admit that our compliance with US regulations was not always as vigilant as it should have been.”

  “Vigilant? Forgive me, but it would seem that your compliance was the opposite of vigilant. It was nonexistent!”

  I smile and toss some more popcorn into my mouth. It’s nice to see the Republicans and Democrats so united for once.

  And then I get an extra treat. After Edmund vacates his seat he’s replaced by my friend Sean White. White’s movements are stiff and ungainly as he walks to his designated spot, like he has been thrown back into puberty and all the confidence he had built up as a man is suddenly gone.

  And if the senators wer
e harsh with Edmund, they are merciless with White. Was he in charge of staffing the compliance office in Delaware? Yes. Did he instruct the supervisor of that department to bypass any and all training that would educate the employees about how to identify money laundering? Yes. Did he see this as a problem, considering that the employees were hired to find money launderers? White agreed it was. Did he meet with a Raul Gonzales on April 26, 2006? White stammers that he can’t be sure of the date. Did he recommend that Mr. Gonzales open an account in the Cayman Islands subsidiary? He admits that it’s possible that he had. Was he aware that Mr. Gonzales is a leader in a drug cartel? Mr. White? Mr. White, please answer the question.

  As I watch White sitting there at the table being grilled by senator after senator, I’m struck by how small he looks. More than small, he looks weak, helpless. It’s disconcerting. The man who intimidated me, bullied my mother, destroyed my life—he’s a . . . a nothing.

  At one point in the hearing he starts crying. Crying. I’ve never seen anything like this on C-SPAN before. The senators seem utterly disgusted.

  He’s going to prison. The idea overwhelms me, knocking every other thought and emotion out of my mind and out of my heart. White is going to prison, not just because he’s guilty, but because he’s an easy target. Worse than that, he’s not important.

  But Edmund is.

  And Travis is.

  Travis . . . who hasn’t even been called to testify.

  I turn off the TV and stare at the black screen. Sean White, the man I came this close to feeding rat poison to, is going to prison. And he’s an ex-cop.

  I know what happens to ex-cops in prison.

  I sit there awhile waiting for the glee to kick in. But it doesn’t happen. Instead I feel hollow and cold.

  White is a bad man. I have no sympathy for him at all, and God knows he deserves a long sentence. If he is brutalized by the other inmates I won’t feel sorry for him.

  But in the end, he’s just a foot soldier.

  And for some reason, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m as close to getting Travis and Edmund as I think I am.