Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3)
Page 14
But Raoul, if anything, was persistent.
At least once every shift he would get the busboys aside and make plans with them for that evening’s inventory of narcotics.
Again and again Bat refused to join in, and more and more he was afraid it would result in his dismissal.
So, out of pure need to avoid the upcoming calamity and likely dismissal from his job, he turned to the only friend he had. He called Thaddeus and asked if he could see him.
“Of course,” Thaddeus relied. “Come right on up.”
They settled across the Vermont table and Bat spoke first.
“Thanks for the help with the artificial eye, Thad, it’s changed my life.”
“Glad it works for you. Your health insurance plan covered it, actually.”
“Well, now I can stand to look people in the eye again. I’m grateful.”
“So what’s up? We’re still waiting on the DA’s discovery on your sale of narcotics case, so nothing new there.”
Bat scratched his head. “There’s a guy at work.”
“Oops. Have you talked to your manager about this? Before you came to me?”
“It didn’t feel right. I’m scared to.”
“So what gives?”
“It’s one of the guys on the staff. He’s putting the moves on me to sell drugs.”
“Just give me his name,” said Thaddeus. His look was grim and he was ready to take immediate action. “Name, please.”
“It’s Raoul. Normally I wouldn’t rat on a guy, but you’ve been too good to me to just stand by and let it go.”
“Any witnesses?”
Bat shrugged. “Unknown. But I know other guys are selling for him.”
“Names. Can you give me names?”
“Oh, man, I don’t wanna do that. I really like some of those kids.”
“We can’t have that. I could lose my gaming license. That’s how serious this is.”
“Oh, man.”
“Let me get some help on this.”
Thaddeus went to his desk and punched a phone line. “Maria? Get Chuck Berenson in here. I need him, no delays.”
They passed a few minutes in idle chatter while waiting for Charles M. Berenson, the Director of Security at the casino.
A knock on the door and Berenson lumbered inside without waiting. He was a large man, built like a brown bear, but richly dressed and at ease around anyone. In a crowd he would go unnoticed and that’s exactly the way he wanted it. “What’s up, Thad?”
“Grab a seat, Chuck. Meet Bat—Billy Tattinger. Bat buses tables in the Riviera.”
“Hey, guy,” said Berenson. “Good to meet you.”
“Chuck, Bat has come to me with a problem.”
“Yes?”
“Seems we’ve got an employee soliciting other employees to sell drugs in the casino. While they’re on duty, no less.”
“Okay. You want me to arrest him and take him to the LVPD?”
“I’m thinking so. Yes, what do you think?”
“Boss, you can lose your license over that. Give me the word and he’s gone.”
Thaddeus nodded. “Word.”
“Consider it done. Bat, anyone else selling for him?”
Bat shrugged. “If they are, I don’t know names. I keeps to myself ’round here.”
“Not a bad idea. Tell you what though, you become aware of any others who had been dealing for him, you come directly to me. Here’s my card.”
Bat raised a hand, refusing a card. “I get caught with that, I’m toast. Don’t worry, I know who you are. Truth be told, I’ve seen you around.”
Berenson nodded. “Totally understand. Well, whatever you tell me is absolutely confidential. So if you do come up with any names, you let me know. Fair enough?”
“Word,” said Bat. He rose to leave, but Thaddeus motioned for him to remain. Bat sat back down on the couch.
“Thanks, Chuck. I’m not quite finished up here with Bat, so if you’ll excuse us?”
“Later, gents. I’ll give you a heads-up on how the PD handles this Raoul guy.”
Thaddeus nodded.
Berenson hurried out, anxious to arrest the employee and hurry him off the premises before the roof caved in on them all.
“I owe you big time,” said Thaddeus. “Thanks, Bat.”
“No problem. You’d do the same for me. You had my back since I met you. My lucky day.”
“Bat, have you thought about working for us as a waiter? It would about double your pay and you’d get a huge increase in the tip jar.”
“Wow. It never crossed my mind, truth be told. Would I want the chance? If someone trained me, I’d jump at it. Maybe I could get my own place then.”
“Really? Where you staying now?”
“YMCA. Cheap but no food.”
“Let me call Mister Lidgard. Come dressed like the wait staff tomorrow. They’ll probably have you shadow someone for a week or so until you learn the ropes. Then you can jump right in. I’m going to have Maria cut you a check for two hundred fifty dollars. Get some clothes like the other waiters wear. Nothing expensive, but clean and new. You’ll fit right in.”
Bat was shaking his head. “Man, oh, man. You don’t gotta do that.”
“Yeah, I do. You saved my ass when I got tossed in jail.”
“I did, how?”
“You talked to me, man. You came over and talked to me when no one else would.”
“Oh, hell. You looked like you needed a friend.”
“Well, you made a friend, Bat. Okay, off you go. Maria will have a check for you. Cash it downstairs, any teller. Cool?”
“We cool.”
“So long, then.”
Bat wanted to hug his employer but was embarrassed.
When he was gone, Thaddeus looked down through the one-way glass onto the casino floor.
His look was one of grim determination.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “Gerry’s right. I’m going to have to wise up. This place is going to eat me alive if I don’t get real smart, real fast.”
Maria paged him on the phone and he was interrupted from the plans he was making in his mind, plans to restructure the casino operations so that he was personally more in touch with the daily happenings. Plus he wanted to implement new ideas for employees to voice their grievances to him directly. He wanted to hear from them all—especially those too frightened to report problems to their direct managers.
He picked up on the fourth page.
“Yes, Maria?”
“PX Persons, line seven.”
He punched the flashing button. “PX? Thaddeus here.”
“Well, this is a call I dreaded having to make.”
Thaddeus frowned. “Why, what’s up?”
“I’ve been suspended by the State Bar Association. I need to return your money and withdraw from Kiki’s case. I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”
“My God, is there anything I can do to help?”
“What it is, Thaddeus, is my number two associate lawyer has embezzled a hundred fifty thousand in client funds from my trust account. The Bar is holding me responsible. They’ve jerked my license for six months, until I complete a list of several CLE courses.”
“What kind of CLE?”
“CLE courses to teach me better law office management skills and better management of my trust account.”
“Do you have the funds to reimburse the client?”
“The State Bar has already taken care of that. The Lawyer’s Fund, you know.”
“Well—I mean, would it help if some of us wrote letters of support for you, anything like that?”
“No, the Supreme Court has already entered the order. It’s official, I’m suspended as of the first of the month.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. I know Kiki really likes you. So do I. Well, look, if it’s going to put you in a bind, just take your time about returning the fee. You might need that to get by on for a while.”
“God, Thad—”
“So who will you get to replace me?”
“Unknown. I’m still pretty new around town. Any recommendations?”
“Do it yourself, I’d recommend. Based on your past track record, Kiki would be damn lucky if you took over her representation. She could do a lot worse around this town, believe me.”
“Hadn’t thought of that. Well, I’ll talk to her. And look, if you need anything, please pick up the phone. I’m just seven digits away.”
“Thank you. I guess I will take you up on the twelve months thing. That’s extremely generous.”
“Maybe, but the truth is, I don’t want to lose you. If I do take over and if I mess up the case I would definitely want you to handle the appeal. Hopefully that won’t be the case. I’ll have to talk to her.”
“Goodbye, Thad. Thanks again.”
He hung up and returned to his window overlooking the casino floor. The place was jammed, shoulder to shoulder, and Kiki would be coming on in two hours. He would talk to her then.
He shook his head.
Should he chance it?
Could he defend his kid sister on a murder charge and do it with a clear head?
Unknown.
28
Special Agents Kroc and Magence gathered in the small conference room and closed the door.
It was time to review.
She had brought along a Dr Pepper; he had herbal tea. Each was armed with a yellow legal pad.
Kroc dropped a thick printout containing surveillance updates.
They began pawing through them.
They knew he was twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine, that he was about to get engaged to Katy Landers (he had called a jeweler named Cassie at Jared’s and told her he was coming in to pick up the ring they’d been holding for him), that he spent a great deal of time early each morning on the ESPN website, especially the NBA and NCAA hoops pages, and that he ordered a late night pot of coffee every night, with salmon cream cheese and one sesame bagel. He rode his recumbent bike most mornings, jogged along the Strip beginning punctually at seven a.m., and then returned to bed for a few more hours of sleep, as he usually didn’t turn in until after three a.m.
The undercover team watched video of him as he studied gamblers and traded notes with the 6–2 shift manager whose name badge said “Matty.”
They had bugged his office and hotel condo and had recorded and analyzed over 400 hours of video the past month.
“H. Mouton Carraway wants this guy big time,” Kroc muttered, when they had finished up with the pile of reports.
“So do I,” said Agent Magence. “And you need him, too. We haven’t had a PR arrest in six months. We’ve got to earn some newspaper ink or Washington will be snooping around, checking up on us. We can’t have that. I need this job too bad. We need results.”
“Let’s review our witnesses.”
“Well, right out of the gate we got Mickey Herkemier. He’s provided us with count room security logs that prove the video is being shut down every night between two and three in the morning.”
“Usually at two a.m. when the shift changes over.”
“Exactly. So whoever is shutting it down is someone who knows the heavy gambling is done during the 6–2 shift. They’re waiting for the shift to end, waiting for the teller’s receipts to flow upstairs to the count room, running everybody out, and then screwing with the surveillance video.”
“Or something like that. So far we don’t know if it’s one guy or twenty.”
“We don’t even know if it’s a guy. Might be female, for all we know.”
“So why don’t we do this. Why don’t we install our own video system in the count room and catch the guy red-handed. See what kind of fish that hauls in.”
“Now that’s brilliant. Mouton will love us for it.”
“Wait up. How do we shut down the video surveillance so we can install video surveillance of our own?”
“Good question.”
They sat in silence several minutes, she working on her Dr Pepper, he sipping green tea. She hummed a Beyoncé hit and he drummed his fingers on his saucer. Soon, his drumming was keeping time to her humming, which, when they both realized what they were doing—at the same instant—embarrassed them no end. He looked away; she flipped a page on her yellow pad and began writing furiously.
Finally he said, about her writing, “What do you have?”
“I’m thinking we throw the power on the whole casino, rush in with a battery-operated camera, stick it in place, and run like hell. Power back up, and nobody’s the wiser.”
“I’ll do you one better. How about we bribe the on-duty security officer, throw a switch, install our camera, and leave quietly. Nobody’s the wiser.”
“I like that,” she said. “We’ll get a list of security workers from Herkemier. Then we’ll figure out the 6–2 shift people, and make a move on one of them—someone who’s hurting for money.”
“No, no,” he said, “this is even better! We’ll barge in and badge the guy, tell him it’s official government business, and have him shut down the system while we install our camera. We don’t have money for bribes anyway.”
She sniffed. “Well, I wasn’t actually going to pay the bribe, in my plan.”
“Of course not. But I like the idea of bluffing them with a badge. That scares the hell out of John Q. Public, when the IRS Special Agents come badging.”
“You’re right. We always have the fear factor. But how do we keep them quiet?”
“Just like always. Threaten them with a tax audit. That always shuts everyone down.”
“I like that. All right, let’s get this Mickey guy on the phone and get that employee list. Oh, I’ve got it even better. We’ll make up a search warrant, forge some judge’s signature, and wave it under the guy’s nose like we’ve got court authority to snoop. And that they are required by law to keep it confidential, court’s order. That way, no one gets tipped off.”
“Exactly! But wait, what if the guy we’re crashing in on is the same guy who’s stealing out of the count room? Then what?”
“Then we don’t tell anyone. We’ve still got Thaddeus Murfee in our cross-hairs at that point.”
“Even if it’s someone else.”
“Exactly. We need the press.”
“Perfect. All right, you give Mickey a call.”
“I’m on it.”
“We’ll crash the guy tonight.”
“Exactly.”
Goose bumps erupted along Kroc’s arms. My god he loved this job. Absolutely loved every minute of it. Guns, badges, and scaring hell out of people—what’s not to love?
29
Langston Moretti didn’t like what he was seeing. As General Counsel of the Desert Riviera it was his job to work with Tubby Watsonn and Gerry Browne in defending Thaddeus Murfee on the income tax indictments.
Gerry Browne had conferenced them and given out his marching orders.
Langston would do the footwork; Tubby would do the legal aspects of the tax crimes alleged; Gerry would oversee it all and put it in trial format.
As General Counsel, Langston was accumulating the documents that Tubby had requested. What he didn’t like were the numbers: they were all adding up. Which meant there were no suspicious items in the accounting records.
Moretti knew that the IRS looked for what it called LUQs whenever it was examining taxpayers’ records. These were items that were Large, Unexplained, and Questionable. In all of the records he had reviewed, Moretti had found no such LUQs.
First came the video drives from the count room. Nothing there. Check.
Next came the source documents from which the tax returns had been filed. Both personal and corporate. Nothing there. Check and check.
Next came corporate and personal
balance sheets for all years. Nothing there. Check and check.
Next came income statements—P&Ls—for the years in question. Nothing there. Check again.
Source documents ran to 500,000 pages. These were the documents that supported the balance sheets and P&Ls: receipts, invoices, checks, itemizations. So far he had stashed on the loading dock no fewer than 130 bankers boxes of documents for Tubby. Floor to ceiling. So much that the shipping department was complaining about the obstruction.
And he had the same documents on disk. They had been scanned and cross-referenced and entered into the casino’s litigation software by date, creator, topic, recipient, fact proved/opposed, and a dozen other categories of reference.
With two mouse clicks Tubby could see what documents went with what witness, what documents went with what fact in dispute, what documents were prepared on what date and delivered on what date and received by who and prepared by who. It was a huge job but he had help—four paralegals, three data entry workers, and a database administrator.
The casino—and Thaddeus—was pulling out all stops in the defense of the case.
And so far the numbers all added up.
Balance sheets balanced, income statements reported net incomes that were within projections and created a forecasted rising curve from prior years, but nothing sudden or out of line. Nothing Large, Unexplained, Questionable.
Not one line was listed in any income statement, balance sheet, or P&L that wasn’t immediately provable by a single mouse click to view the source document. It was excellent work and Accounting could be proud.
So Moretti called Tubby and Gerry. It was time to talk.
“Tubby Watsonn,” said the voice on the other end. “Langston?”
“Gerry Browne. I’m listening.”
“Lang here, Tubby and Gerry. We’ve finished up our first review.”
“How’s it looking?”
“That’s why I’m calling. Everything balances. We don’t show one day or even one shift reporting period where income falls below projections compared to prior days, weeks, or months.”
Tubby went first. “That’s not very helpful—but it does prove there’s nothing untoward going on.”