by Bill Vidal
* * *
Romualdes shut off the hot tap and let the cold water shower down hard on him. In the ensuing discomfort, which he viewed as a mixture of offering and penance, he made a sign of the cross and prayed to the Virgin Mary. Please don’t let this go wrong, he silently pleaded. Please let whatever is the problem have nothing to do with me. Please remember this is for charity, for our children, for your poor. With the blessing of the bishop. Please.
Then he turned off the water, dried himself and got dressed. Outside, his car was waiting to take him home. When he got the message to call De la Cruz, he closed his door and prepared for the worst, but upon hearing what Aristides had to say, he broke down in tears and turning his eyes up to heaven promised that on Sunday, when he took his family to Mass at the cathedral, he would make a large donation to the church and take Holy Communion.
Late on Wednesday afternoon Tom returned home following his encounter with Sweeney. For all his bravado, Tom conceded the lawyer’s words had shaken him. ‘Who do you think wants the money laundered?’ Dick had shouted, but the tone was wheedling and Tom could see the fear in Dick’s eyes.
Mafia? Russians? Colombians?
What did it matter? Deadly in any event. Maybe he should just give back thirty-seven million. And if Taurus turned between now and Christmas he could let them have the rest.
He saw the note from Caroline: ‘Taken children to judo. Back around eight. Jeff Langland called. He’s at the Reform Club. Love, C.’
Tom cursed. He picked up the phone and dialled the Club’s number. He had not thought of Jeff in forty-eight hours. Now at least he could tell him the good news – and discuss Jeff’s proposals for the eventual payment of his half, if Taurus would still show losses by next month’s settlement day.
‘Hey, Jeff. What brings you to London?’ he asked jovially.
‘We need to talk, Tom.’ His friend’s voice sounded more distressed than ever.
‘Come round to the house, old buddy,’ Tom continued in an assured manner. ‘I’ve got it all sorted out.’
Jeff remained silent. He realized Tom did not yet know. Couldn’t possibly. ‘I’d rather not,’ he said. ‘Can you get here now?’
‘Sure,’ replied Tom, sensing something different in Langland’s voice. ‘What’s up, Jeff?’
‘Just come over, Tom. Please.’
‘Sure. No problem.’ Tom tried to dismiss a sudden, calamitous premonition. ‘Be there in half an hour.’
He left a note for Caroline and took a taxi to Pall Mall. He looked for Jeff in the Reform Club’s imposing main hall. Groups of businessmen and women stood in scattered groups and spoke in subdued tones. At one end, drinks were dispensed from a long table, and Tom started to make his way there when he saw Jeff waving at him from the top of the main staircase. Clayton turned and walked towards him.
Jeff pointed to a vacant armchair on one side of a small table in the balcony and sat himself opposite. He did not even shake hands. He looked pale and Tom noticed his friend’s hands were shaking. Two untouched crystal goblets sat on the table.
‘From the look of you I’d better have this first,’ Tom said, picking up one of the bourbons.
‘I went to see Grinholm today.’
‘You did what?’ Tom retorted incredulously, then collected himself as he noticed some of the faces downstairs surreptitiously looking up. ‘Jeff, what the hell have you done?’
‘Please hear me out, Tom,’ Langland beseeched him.
‘I guess I’d better.’
Tom’s disbelief increased with each sentence his friend spoke. He had been unable to continue, Jeff explained. He could hardly sleep any more and his wife had gone home to New York in a fury when he had told her what they had done.
‘You told her everything?’
‘Had to, Tom.’
Clayton thought of his own wife. She was unhappy too, but would she walk out on him? Caroline was different. But at the back of his mind alarm bells sounded.
‘What exactly did you say to Grinholm?’
He had told him almost everything. ‘About using Taurus as a vehicle, about losing the first million and paying up. About our current position. About the money we borrowed and my solemn guarantee to pay it all back.’
‘You ass,’ said Tom slowly, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You fucking stupid ass.’
Langland remained silent. He was prepared for any reaction.
‘What did Hal say?’
‘Not a lot. Less than I’d expected, really. I know he looked up Taurus but I could not see his screen. He just looked at it for a while and said nothing.’
‘You want to know why?’ Tom spoke through clenched teeth. Before Jeff could reply he continued: ‘Did you get fired?’
‘No.’ Jeff the eternal wishful-thinker did not seem surprised. ‘I’m to go back to work, he said. Carry on as normal. Naturally there will be an internal inquiry. I’ll probably be fined, certainly moved Stateside. But Hal wants it kept within the bank. No scandals, he said. If it gets out I’ll be fired on the spot.’
‘Did he mention his plans for me?’
‘Same deal, I think.’ Encouraged by the absence of a violent reaction, Jeff pressed on. ‘It’s for the best, Tom. Think about it. We made a mistake. With luck it might end up costing very little –’
‘I paid it back!’ interrupted Tom, who was becoming exasperated by Langland’s senseless drivelling. ‘I put five million of my own money into Taurus and shunted two and a half million surplus from the margin to the errors account.’
Langland’s shoulders sagged and his jaw dropped in despair:
‘How …? Where did you –?’
‘Go get us another drink, will you?’ Tom said dismissively.
While Langland walked unsteadily down the stairs, Tom pondered his alternatives. Jeff might be too dim to realize it but they would now both be given the sack. The fact that there was no money missing would at best save them from prosecution. In that respect, at least, Jeff might be right. Whatever Tom might have said in Zurich to keep Jeff quiet, the truth was that no bank wanted scandals. Their controls would be questioned and the bank itself might be fined. But Hal Grinholm was a first-class shit. He would do whatever suited Grinholm at all times and in no way would he jeopardize his own position on someone else’s behalf.
‘I tell you what, Jeff,’ Tom said when his friend returned with the drinks. ‘I don’t particularly want to go on with this conversation –’
‘I didn’t know, Tom,’ Langland interrupted, almost in tears. ‘Why didn’t you tell me –?’
‘Why didn’t you call me before you rushed to Grinholm?’ interjected Clayton, though to himself he admitted he should have spoken to Langland the minute he received the Zurich payment. ‘Well, too late for that now. You crawl back to Zurich, Jeff. I’ll sort out my end.’
With that Clayton stood up, quickly downed what remained of the second bourbon, turned on his heel and made for the grand staircase.
As he stood outside his house waiting for the cab driver to give him his change, Tom was approached by a young man whose face he recognized but could not place.
‘Mr Clayton,’ the man said, producing a garish identity card.
Then Tom remembered. Brown, that was his name. Security.
‘Mick Brown, sir,’ the young man confirmed, handing Tom an envelope. ‘I’m from …’
‘I know,’ Clayton replied, tearing open the envelope.
It was a letter from Grinholm. Usual format: ‘… suspended on full salary, pending …’ Etc.
Tom was not surprised. It ended with a request that he hand Brown his keys and ID card. They did not ask for the Mercedes. That would come later, when they terminated him. Or asked him to resign, as was the fashion.
Tom kept Brown waiting in the square while he went into the house and fetched the keys. Caroline was in the basement kitchen, feeding the children. She must have heard him open the front door. But she did not shout her usual, ‘Hello, Daddy!’
> Supper was a low-key affair. Once the children had gone to bed, he told Caroline the gist of his meeting with Jeff Langland. She did not show any signs of anger towards their friend – Tom almost felt as though she sympathized with him.
‘Why did you do it, Tom?’ she asked, showing little emotion.
‘I guess it might have been – still could have been – easy money.’
‘We don’t need “easy money”, Tom.’ Her tone did not change. ‘We have enough. And you well know I’ve enough coming to look after all of us.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I expect after all these years the bank bores me. I needed the excitement.’
‘Then change your job, Tom,’ she said without hesitation, yet still surprisingly devoid of passion. It was as if she had pondered the matter all day, lived through and overcome her emotional turmoil, and was now calmly stating her conclusions.
‘I might have to.’ For a moment Tom felt quite despondent. ‘Suspension is usually a prelude.’
‘And give that money back to Dick,’ she added, ignoring his last remark. Caroline then stood up and said she was tired. She cleared the empty coffee cups from the table, put them in the dishwasher, and slowly walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Tom waited until Caroline had gone to bed then walked up quietly to his top-floor study. His still unopened morning mail was on his desk. The letter from the estate agent confirming his client’s acceptance of the Clayton offer was there. The vendors, who were perfectly happy to be rid of Corston Park, had also agreed that Mrs Clayton could keep a key in order to show the builders the property and obtain quotations. It seemed quite irrelevant now.
Tom sat at his desk and routinely switched on the computer monitor. To his surprise, his system access password was still valid. Perhaps they had overlooked it. More likely they would cut him off the next day. He looked at the day’s Forex close. The pound was off again. Taurus’ projected loss was now down to £1.5 million. That was $2.2 million, leaving over 2.5 million surplus. Plus his savings and two homes. Conservatively, $5 million. Even with no job, it made a good starting point. And he wanted his life back. He made up his mind: tomorrow he would give Dick his money back. All of it. Well, except the 5 million. That, he figured, was $567,384.22 plus interest, just over 3 per cent. His grandfather’s money. He would sign a contract, ninety days. In that time he would deal the money cautiously, just as if it was the bank’s. He would squeeze another million out of the capital before paying it back.
He would see Stuart Hudson first thing in the morning and get him to draft an agreement for Dick to sign. To it he would attach a copy of Pat Clayton’s 1944 bank statement. Dick the lawyer would understand that it would hold in any court of law. He was well aware, nevertheless, that Dick’s warnings referred to another sort of justice. They would not kill him before the ninety days were up, Tom was certain – nobody would wish to kiss goodbye to thirty-seven million bucks. The danger, if any, would come afterwards. But already he was forming an idea of how to deal with that.
After seeing the solicitor, he would go to Chief Inspector Archer and ask for his help. He would explain that his grandfather had left some money in 1944 but the fact had lain hidden. That when he discovered this, Tom had laid claim to his grandfather’s bank account, legally and correctly, but that unfortunately in the intervening period an unknown party had added a substantial amount to that account for reasons Tom was unable to fathom. While none of these events had taken place within British jurisdiction, the unknown person had sent an emissary to London and that this emissary, an American lawyer called Richard Sweeney, had demanded that he hand over all the money, including that which rightfully belonged to him, or be prepared to lose his life. This threat to his life was made in London. He, Tom Clayton, intended to meet Mr Sweeney at his hotel on that day at three in the afternoon. He would show Inspector Archer the agreement he intended to have Mr Sweeney sign and ask if either he or one of his officers would care to come to the hotel at four in the afternoon to interview Mr Sweeney.
That way, Tom felt, Dick would know – and so would Salazar – that if anything untoward were to happen to him, the police would know exactly where to look. He assumed they would not think killing Tom worth rattling the skeletons evidently in abundance in such people’s closets. Salazar should deem himself lucky. Tom could not think of a single other banker or dealer who, placed in his position, would even dream of handing all that money back.
Tomorrow would be a big day. He would also confront Grinholm. If his boss refused to take the call he would corner him outside the bank. Grinholm was a shit but he was also super-selfish. Tom would deny Langland’s allegations. He would threaten Grinholm with a scandal. No court in England or America would ever prove who owned Taurus. Langland would not testify. Once he knew they would sack him anyway, he would clam up and join Tom in suing for compensation. All they had were the two and a half million – an error. One Tom had corrected the minute he had discovered it and before Jeff made any allegations.
Sure, his days at the bank were over, Tom accepted that, but he would demand this year’s bonus and a year’s pay. Say a couple of million. Above all, Tom now had every reason to get Sweeney’s agreement to his keeping five million.
After Friday he would never see Dick Sweeney again. He would ask him to hand over to Byron’s lawyers all papers relating to him, Tessa or any other Clayton matter, present or past. And that, he concluded, would signify the end of the chapter and the goddamn bank account in Zurich.
He was wrong.
10
HIGH ABOVE THE Atlantic Ocean, Red Harper had difficulty sleeping. Economy-class airline seats were not designed for bodies over six feet tall. He would normally ask to sit by an emergency exit but he had been late checking in and was forced to accept whatever seat was left in the 747 packed with returning English tourists.
After the meeting in Washington he and Julio had gone across to their legal department and got the necessary depositions. In New York, Judge Kramer had agreed to see Harper in camera and signed the new authorizations to tap into Salazar’s telephones, at work and at home. But Harper suspected they would miss some crucial conversations. Salazar used a string of digital cellular telephones, which not only were more difficult to intercept but also were invariably listed in other people’s names. Legally, he was only borrowing them. Thus, the authorities were prevented from obtaining court permission to monitor telephones whose owners had not even a traffic violation pending. Besides, the DEA could hardly keep abreast of whose telephone Salazar was using at any given time.
The agents also had great difficulty convincing Kramer to allow the interception of Sweeney lines to continue. The judge opined that if the target was Salazar, any attempt to listen in on conversations with his lawyer would result in any prosecution of Salazar being thrown out by the courts. That would certainly be the case, emphasized the judge, if the matter was brought before his court.
Harper argued they were not targeting client–lawyer relationships and that, should any accidentally be recorded, they would be erased and never used in evidence. The DEA had proof that Sweeney Tulley McAndrews, and Mr Richard Sweeney in particular, were actual parties to a money-laundering operation. He stressed that, during that very day, conversations had been recorded in which Mr Sweeney instructed his own firm’s bankers in Switzerland to effect payments to accounts controlled by a known narcotics trafficker. It was the intention of the Drug Enforcement Administration to present a case to the Attorney General’s office that would lead to a separate indictment of Mr Richard Sweeney. On that basis, with a number of conditions attached, Kramer had agreed. Armed with the vital authorization, the DEA agents had gone directly to their regional office downtown, sent the telephone men to work on South Street, requested two teams to keep tabs on José and Antonio Salazar, and settled down to read the latest transcripts of Sweeney’s calls.
These confirmed the details of Sweeney’s trip to England and his intention to extract a payment fr
om someone called Tom Clayton. They also substantiated that Sweeney had received $47 million from a bank in George Town, Cayman Islands, and that he had in turn released these monies to banks in Spain and Uruguay. The attorney had relayed this information to a certain Dr Speer in San José de Costa Rica. This surprised them; the DEA had no record of any Dr Speer associated with narcotics, and Costa Rica was not somewhere normally identified with drug trafficking. That too would need investigating. There being nothing left for them to do in New York at that juncture, Harper and Cardenas asked the office to drive them back to La Guardia for their return trip to Miami.
On Wednesday they went through their various contingencies again. They were almost certain that by Friday they would have stung Morales out of $50 million, but what next? Morales had only been in the big league for eighteen months or so. Prior to that he was just one of many former Escobar lieutenants vying for the remnants of their former boss’s empire. In that line of business the pay differential between the top man and even his number two was vast. Prior to Escobar’s demise Morales was unlikely to have made more than fifty thousand in a good month. Now there was no way of telling exactly how much. Anything between one hundred and two hundred million a year was possible.
Years ago the Colombian government had unleashed the army on Medellín, a city then controlling over three-quarters of cocaine shipments out of South America. The cartels collapsed but the trade continued as a new group of drug barons filled the vacuum created by demand from a new drug capital: the city of Cali, just 250 miles south of Medellín.
The new cartel grew fast. Four or five syndicates gained hegemony and some two thousand smaller operations worked on the periphery. Between them they now commanded 80 per cent of the world market.
In time the US and Colombian authorities would hit Cali just as hard, but right now Harper had an opportunity to get Morales, and that would be a significant conquest. For every dollar’s worth of coke that got into America, five cents went into the Morales pocket. So the DEA was not about to pass up on this chance. If the producer could afford a fifty-million hit, they would simply have to ensure they got him for more. The Sweeney–Salazar link was crucial here. And Cardenas said once more that their chances would be improved if he went back to Medellín. Harper had to agree and so, as previously suggested, Cardenas telephoned the Romualdes’ home. A servant told the caller that the Mayor was not expected until later. That at least meant he was alive and had wisely held back from confiding in Morales. In fact, at that precise moment the Mayor had been very alive indeed, with his face buried deep between Alicia’s thighs.
