The Mongol Reply

by Benjamin M. Schutz

  “Fine, Sid. And you?”

  “Good. Good. You ready?”

  “Let’s do it. Where do you want to work?”

  “How about the conference room? Let me spread my stuff out.”

  “Fine. Want a cup of coffee?”

  “No. Had my one for the day.”

  Don and Sid walked past the receptionist’s area into the conference room and closed the door.

  “What do you have, Sid?”

  “It’s what I don’t have that’s interesting. I recreated Tom Tully’s income and expense pattern and compared it to his tax returns. Nothing. A perfect fit. Money in. Money out. The guy spent every penny he made, but no more.

  “Then you send me all that stuff from the Ames woman. I start looking for credit cards entries or checks to cover airfare, hotels, the fur, the loan, the jewelry, the dinners, everything, gambling in Atlantic City.

  “It ain’t there. He hasn’t got it. I went back five years. I looked at all unaccounted-for cash. You know, cash taken out of deposits, cash advances on credit lines, checks to cash. Still doesn’t make it. There’s only one answer. He has another income. A hidden one, with hidden accounts, credit cards and investments. If so, he lied on his interrogatories, and he filed fraudulent tax returns. That puts him in a heap of shit.

  “How about this, Sid? A hidden income, all cash. No investments, no bank account, nothing. Say twenty thousand in a coffee can in the garage. I knew a guy once carried fifty thousand dollars sewn in his jacket.”

  “Works for me. What do you know, Don?”

  “Let me play Karnak with you. You went to corporate records in Baltimore, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Frutti di Mare Seafood Company is a …”

  “Subsidiary of The Blessed Virgin Olive Oil Company.”

  “Which is …”

  “Part of the Consolidated Food Importers Conglomerate.”

  “A …”

  “Division of the FCF Holding Company.”

  “Okay, let’s see. Which one is based in Baltimore?”

  “Blessed Virgin Olive Oil.”

  “The others are in New York.”

  “Right.”

  “The CEO of Blessed Virgin is, wait a minute, it’s coming to me.” Blake slapped a hand to his forehead. “Vincente or Vincenzo Colabucci, yes?” Blake smiled.

  “Not bad, Karnak. Close. He’s the treasurer. The CEO is …”

  “Of course, Carmine Rivera.”

  “Bingo, Karnak. How’d you know?”

  “I got an ID on the owners of the car. They’re the source of Mr. Tully’s secret income. It’s all cash, it’s small bills in a brown paper bag in a dark alley. It’s drugs or gambling or whores or all three. Not only is it hidden, it’s dirty money. I’m going to call Lou Carlson with this. See what we do next.”

  Blake dialed Carlson at the Law School. “Lou, Don Blake. Got some good news for you. You ready for it?”

  “Let me clear my desk so I can take notes.”

  Carlson lifted piles, intact, and set them on a chair or on other piles. He pulled a pad into the clearing and said, “What have you got?”

  Blake brought Carlson up to date on the investigation.

  “I think he went to ‘The Bat’ because he needed more money. You’d just stuck him with spousal support. He’s not just going to lose his kids; he’s out of a job. The league won’t tolerate coaches hanging out with known gamblers. He could even be looking at a criminal investigation. This guy is breaking out in trouble like an Israeli marketplace.”

  “Beautiful, Don. Put it all together. The books, Ames’ affidavit, the tape, everything you’ve got and get it over to me as soon as you can.”

  “What are you going to do to him, Lou?”

  “I don’t know. It’s what I don’t do that gives me leverage to get this settled. It won’t do his kids any good to have all the assets vaporize into my wallet or Al Garfield’s. This whole family could go down the shitter in a hurry. If he loses his job, there goes the money. I don’t know what Serena can earn, but it isn’t going to be near what her husband makes. Not for a while at least. Goodbye house and everything else.”

  Carlson thought about his options for a minute, and then asked, “How do you think Colabucci got his hooks into him?”

  “Tully’s no Boy Scout. He likes to gamble. He chases anything in a skirt. Maybe he lost more money than he could cover. A guy like Vinnie would love to have a hook into a pro ball club. My source says he runs the typical one-stop vice shop: sex, drugs and gambling. Tully could be providing these services to players. In exchange he’s now getting a salary. Maybe he’s leaking information on injuries, or other performance-related things, like who’s drinking more, whose wife left him, to affect the betting line.”

  “How would Colabucci go about doing that?”

  “If Tully exploits the time lag, and leaks information to Vinnie before the team files its report with the league, Vinnie could be putting down significant money before a game gets called or taken off the board. He could be creating middle, so he can get bets in on both sides of the final line.

  “That’s if Vinnie’s gambling with the information. Suppose he’s passing it on to the Vegas line. That’s the mother of all lines. It’s like an earthquake. You get a tremor on the Vegas line, you’ve got aftershocks all over the country. It affects gamblers everywhere. Vinnie could be using it that way. In exchange for a piece of the take on the games affected.

  “Maybe he’s running a renegade line with this information. People laying off bets against the prevailing line with him. He shouldn’t do that too often or he’ll get an all-expenses ride out to BWI in the trunk of his Cadillac, where he’ll stay until he smells. There’s lots of ways he could be using information from Tully. A coach is perfectly placed to leak that stuff. The more I think about it, the more I like it. This could be worth millions to Vinnie. I’m sure Tully paid his debt off long ago, but once you’re in, you can’t back out. Maybe he’ll roll over on Vinnie. He’ll lose his job, but he’ll be out from under,” Blake mused.

  “Don’t even think that, Don. If he rolls over on Vinnie, he’ll have to go into a witness protection program. So will Serena and the kids. They’ll spend the rest of their days looking over their shoulders. That’s a hell of a price for custody. I want to get it for her without risking that. If I can. As soon as Tully and Garfield know that we know about the connection, it’s out of our hands. I don’t trust those bastards to look out for anyone but themselves. This information is a doomsday weapon. Once it’s unleashed there won’t be any winners, just survivors …”

  “What are you going to do then?”

  “The perfect outcome is for Reece to find in favor of Serena. Then I can sit down with Albert and show him some of the cards we’ve got. The ones we control completely, and use them to dictate a settlement. It’s up to us to press the perjury issue on the interrogatories. Tully won’t fight it because he knows that’s the doorway to his cash income and his ties to Colabucci.”

  “But that still leaves Tully in with the mob. Someone else might discover the connection and your client has the same problems.”

  “Maybe after the custody is settled and they’re disconnected we leak some low impact stuff to the club. Enough to get him fired and out of football but nothing more. That makes him useless to the mob without exposing the connection. They can both go their own ways. There’s no reason for either side to bring it up. Serena and the kids can get on with their lives. It’ll cost her money but she’ll have to get a job anyway.”

  “Suppose Reece goes the other way, then what?”

  “Then I’ll really wish I was retired. I’ll have to tell her. It’s her decision, not mine.”

  “And if she decides to blow the whistle, what then?”

  “Let’s not go there. Not until we have to.”

  “Any way to get a read on which way Reece is leaning?”

  “Not without putting Albert Garfield on the phone. Reece
won’t talk to either of us alone.”

  “You want to send any of this over to Reece?”

  “No, not yet. The fewer people know about this the better. Anybody other than Bowman know what you found?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. Put the originals of your notes and the tape in your vault.”

  Carlson hung up and thought about how to negotiate with Agent Orange. The key was misdirection. Garfield would only give away what you didn’t appear to want.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Vinnie calmed down after some serious head from one of the dancers. With a criminal investigation underway, it was clear he and Tully shouldn’t meet. Not even Carmine should see him. That putz. Running right up here for money, straight from the courthouse. He was lucky nobody followed him. Vinnie’s contacts in the police told him that the investigation still hadn’t come up with anything. Forensics was negative. Mrs. Tully’s statement hadn’t provided any suspects. The private opinion of at least one officer was that one of the Squires was doing Coach Tully a favor. Tom Tully claimed he knew nothing and had a wonderful alibi for the assault. He was at a meeting with the other coaches to review game films, a meeting that included a shrieking tirade directed at him by the head coach after a particularly poorly-covered punt.

  The investigation had turned up a couple of reports of a very large black man in the neighborhood before the assault. One resident saw him sitting in a sleek dark green car watching the house. They didn’t get a tag number, and the car disappeared around the time the neighbor had become suspicious. Another neighbor had reported the same man and car parked behind the house and watching it through the yard. No one had actually seen a man enter the house or leave it.

  Another neighbor reported seeing a black or maybe dark green car speed through a stop sign a couple of blocks from the house. The investigation was ongoing.

  Vinnie had read the psychologist’s entire file. There was nothing in there that linked them together. Her first lawyer was a real chump. He could see how Tully thought this would be a walkover. The new guy was no dummy. He’d be looking into his assets. Nothing there, since they only dealt in cash. But Tully was not reliable. He was impulsive. He could have done something stupid that Vinnie didn’t know anything about. It was time to call a halt to this. There was way too much money at stake here. Tully’s three tips last season had moved the line enough to bring in over two million dollars. Not a bad investment on his hundred-thousand-dollar salary. Of course, Tully didn’t know what he was worth. He’d have asked for more money. He’d paid off the hundred K he’d lost a long time ago. But, you can’t be a virgin twice. Tully was theirs and it was time for this shit to end.

  Vinnie dialed Tully’s home.

  “Hey, Tommy. It’s Vinnie.”

  “Yeah, what’s up?” Tully was wary. Vinnie had already stiffed him on the money. Albert Garfield was making noises that without more money he couldn’t go on in this case. Whatever he’d said to Junior had scared the shit out of him. When he came back into the office, there was blood all over the desk and Junior’s shirt and something moving in the wastebasket. Junior was unhurt but he wouldn’t say anything at all on the way to school and he hadn’t seen him all week.

  It probably wasn’t smart to take Junior with him. He should have dropped him at school first. But he told him to stay in the car. Kid wouldn’t follow orders. If he’d only followed orders, nothing would have happened.

  “This is what’s up, Tom. I been thinking about your situation. There’s a lot more at stake here than your kids. I was gonna change my mind, send you the money for this, but I got a call from somebody told me about this criminal investigation. Somebody beat up your wife. Tried to get her to settle. That was pretty fuckin’ stupid, Tom. No subtlety. Why didn’t you come to me for this? You were getting desperate? There were other ways we could have fixed this. Put a cunt into that shrink’s office. Get him to dip his wick in her. Then we got him, the evaluation and the kids. But no, a two-by-four you gotta use.

  “I can’t have this shit going on, Tom. We got an arrangement, you and me. There’s a lot of money at stake here, Tom. A lot. I ain’t gonna have you fuck this up. Not over your kids.”

  “Vinnie, You ain’t got kids, so you …”

  “Shut up, Tom. You don’t give a fuck about your kids. Up until you caught somebody laying pipe to your wife, I never heard one word out of you about your kids. This is about your bitch fucking you over and you having to take it. If you’d a come to me with that problem when this first started, we could have taken care of that. But no, you had to get fancy and punish her. I read the fuckin’ file, Tom.”

  “What? How’d you get that? What does it say?”

  “That ain’t the fuckin’ point. You ain’t fuckin’ listening to me. This is over. I’m telling you this is over. Not just I ain’t giving you any money, but you’re going to your attorney and tell him to settle this thing now. You take whatever they give you, you say ‘thank you’ and sign the fuckin’ papers. I don’t want anybody messing into our business. No shrinks, no lawyers, definitely no cops. I don’t know why I listened to you in the first place. I should’a put a halt to this as soon as you told me.”

  “You listened to me because you need me. I heard what you said. There’s lots of money at stake here. You’re making that money ’cause of what I give you. You don’t want to piss me off, Vinnie, because then I won’t make you rich any more. You’re right. This is about that whoring bitch cunt, my wife. She’s gonna pay. I am not gonna take this lying down. I ain’t gonna take nothing lying down.”

  As Tom’s voice grew shriller, more out of control, Vinnie calmed down. The conversation was over but only he knew it.

  “I ain’t gonna take nothing. She’s gonna pay. Just like I said. She ain’t gonna walk away with anything. No money, no kids, no house, nothing. You ain’t telling me what to do, Vinnie. Nobody tells me what to do. She’s gonna pay. You’re gonna give me the money to do it with. You don’t and I got nothing to say to you. The golden goose ain’t laying no more eggs.”

  Vinnie was completely calm when he replied. “Let me make sure I understand you, Tom. I asked you to put this aside and not jeopardize our mutually beneficial business and you tell me that if I don’t give you the money, our business is over. Did I get that right?”

  “You got it, Vinnie. Dead right.”

  “Okay, Tom, if that’s your decision. I guess I’ll just have to take it. Our business is over. You do what you gotta do.”

  Hanging up, Vinnie said to no one in particular, “And I’ll do what I gotta do.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  “Lou Carlson for Albert Garfield.”

  “Hold please.”

  “Albert Garfield, here.”

  “Al, let’s talk about this Tully case.”

  “So, talk.”

  “We’ve got proof of adultery on his part. His girlfriend was an expensive hobby. We’ve been going over your client’s answers to interrogatories and his financial records. Your client lied under oath, Al. The money doesn’t add up. Now I want to talk settlement. Mrs. Tully has no assets. I haven’t collected penny one on this. I’d like to wrap it up and go back to teaching law without taking a bath on this. If we slug it out in court, I’ll win, Al, but I’ll lose my shirt on this. I don’t need the aggravation.”

  Garfield doodled, arrows and boxes, all looping back on themselves. Tully’s retainer was gone and he said he couldn’t come up with any more for the case. He wanted Garfield to take it out of the proceeds of the house. Even in this market, he’d be fifty thousand in the hole before they sold it. This was fortuitous timing. He wouldn’t have to drop Tully as a client, just get him a good deal. Tully was a dangerous client. Adoration in the front door, a malpractice action out the back, if he didn’t get what he wanted. He’d have to sell him on the idea of how hard he fought for him, how bad the situation turned out to be, emphasize his fault for lying.

  “Okay. What’s yo
ur offer?”

  “Let’s turn it over to Reece. He’s the court’s expert. We can’t take him out of the equation. Kenniston will want to know what Reece thinks. If we agree to his recommendations, we look like heroes to Kenniston. Sparing the children the bloodshed of a custody battle. Who’d expect it of us? I’ve got nothing to prove, Al. I’m retired. I like it that way.”

  “If you want to hear what Reece has to say, I’ll go along for the ride.”

  “Let’s get him on the phone now, while we’re both here. That’s the only way he’ll talk to us.”

  Carlson relaxed for a moment. He hadn’t lost his touch, not entirely. Custody cases with Al Garfield were a poker game with a pot full of children. He was dealt the cards, he upped the ante, made the raises, called the bluffs; but it was Serena Tully who would read ’em and weep.

  “Morgan Reece.”

  “Dr. Reece, this is Lou Carlson and Albert Garfield. We’re exploring a settlement in the Tully matter. Do you think you could spare us a few minutes of your time? We want to know if you’ve reached any conclusions about the custody of the children.”

  Reece was stunned by the question. He never spoke to the attorneys until he was done with his work. Why were they asking?

  “Uh, I’m not done, gentlemen. When I’m done, I’ll call you and the clients and give you my conclusions and recommendations in a formal report.”

  “We understand that’s your normal procedure.” This time it was Garfield. “But we’re trying to settle this matter in as timely a manner as possible. Some insight into your position would be enormously beneficial.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. You want an interim report?”

  “Yes, that’s a good way to put it,” they chorused.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I’m very reluctant to release information before I’ve collected all my data. My impressions at this point are just that, impressions. Nothing more.”

  “We could depose you, Dr. Reece.”

  Good old Albert Garfield. Two minutes trying to cooperate was all he could endure. What did Carlson have that brought him to the negotiating table?