It hit all of us at the same time. Kate spoke first. “So it’s possible Marjory accidentally hit on another part of the big picture—buying a bank through a questionable group posing as legitimate investors so they could process large transactions and convert drug or gun money into what looked like legal transactions.
Kim added, “Well, it would give them the ability to break amounts down to under ten thousand by using some slick maneuvers. That way the bank would look just like a successful local bank. They might even use the accounts of legitimate customers and slide amounts in and out of those accounts to muddy the trail. Mask it as an unfortunate error if ever questioned by a customer and offer that customer profuse apologies by the bank.”
It seemed like a logical theory, but would it be possible for a bank to pull off something like that? When I questioned Kim, she admitted she wasn’t certain they could, but it was worth consideration.
The conversation turned to Reid/Cunningham. My friends insisted upon hearing every last detail. By the time I finished filling them in on everything, including the invasion of my office, it was time for Kim to leave for her appointment. Just talking about it made me seethe with anger.
Kim said, “We’ll do whatever we have to in order to help you get even with those jerks. Dousing you with Coke, pushing into your office. I hope you plan to sue them or at least get a restraining order.”
I said through clenched teeth, “Oh, they will get theirs, alright. They have no idea what a bitch I can be.”
After taking the time to change my clothes and put on makeup so I wouldn’t look like Kate’s ugly, aging stepsister, we ventured out for the afternoon. Truth is, I never leave the house unless I’m sure I look picture perfect. In fact, when I spend the night with Milt I don’t actually clean my face of makeup. I don’t want him to see me without my eyebrows. That’s right. I was one of those teenage girls who shaved my eyebrows, never knowing that if you do that at a certain young age they might not grow back. Ah, vanity.
It was one of those perfect LA days again, hovering around seventy-five at the beach with the slightest of breezes. We decided to take the few block stroll down to the Venice Boardwalk and grab lunch at the Sidewalk Cafe. Kate loves to people watch, and there is no better place to do that than the Boardwalk. We figured we could brainstorm about the next moves while enjoying the wacky atmosphere. Maybe one of the regulars—the famous Swami, a tall fellow swathed in white, topped with a tall white turban on his head—would roller skate by.
As soon as we set foot on the patio, Maxi and Mini rushed up to us quacking up a storm. If I could speak “duck” I probably would have heard, “Give us breadcrumbs.”
While Kate watched in amusement, I reached up for the container filled with breadcrumbs and tossed some to them. Both pounced on the treat, even as other ducks flooded into my yard. But they were too late. Maxi and Mini gobbled up every last one and walked back to the canal with a casual flick of their little tails. I’d always interpreted that to mean thank you.
We took our time and stopped to watch a juggler, a woman who appeared to be in her sixties doing some fancy skateboarding, and muscular young men lifting weights. Finally, we wrangled a table on the crowded patio of the Sidewalk Cafe so we could watch the tableau that played out every day.
It felt great to have a day off and spend it with one of my best friends. For the moment, the serious business that awaited us felt like it was in limbo and I was determined to enjoy every minute.
Then Kate said, “I think I hear your cell phone.” Her hearing is so acute she always hears things I don’t. Sure enough, when I took my phone out of my purse I saw my office number on the screen.
Something told me this wouldn’t be good.
17
EVERYONE AT THE OFFICE knew not to call me unless it was really important or an emergency. What could possibly have happened? Kate couldn’t help but see the distress slither across my face.
The frustration in Maggie’s voice was loud and clear. “Cami, sorry to bother you, but I have a situation.”
My heart pounded, expecting a new disaster. “What happened, Maggie? You really sound upset.”
“You bet I’m upset. The new posters you wanted to put all around the conference room for your Forever Young presentation just arrived. Cami, they are awful. All wrong. I just called the printer and Sean Macintosh himself said someone who claimed to be our new art director called and said there was a change in the artwork. He emailed new files and stayed on the phone until Sean opened the files. When he saw what each one said, Sean asked the person three times if they were sure this was what you wanted. He said this was a new approach, and definitely what the presentation should look like.”
“How bad are they and what do you think happened? It sounds like maybe our email was hacked and someone was put up to making the phone call, but who would have done that?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew who—Tyler Cunningham, out to save his account. He would stoop to anything.
“Quick, tell me what some of them say.”
“Oh, real crap stuff like ‘Time has run out for you. That’s something Forever Young can’t fix,’ or ‘Let’s face it, you’re an old bat.’” Thank goodness Sean was running ahead of schedule. Can you imagine what would have happened if we didn’t have time to fix this?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately this was something that could be solved without much drama.
“Yeah. I would have had half a presentation. Of course we would have caught it before the client saw anything, but it would have lessened the impact of seeing these cool ads on easels all around the room. Anyway, the good news is this won’t be that hard to salvage. Call Sean back, tell him someone tried to sabotage the presentation and ask him to please use the original artwork and rush it. Also tell him that if anything like this happens in the future to call you or me to verify that the request is actually coming from me. I’m sure this was the work of Cunningham. Ask Sean to call as soon as the job is ready so you can send a messenger to pick up the posters. You did right to call me.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Oh, and Maggie, maybe you better run the video to make sure they weren’t able to sneak anyone into our office to tamper with that, too. You have a backup file for it, right?”
Maggie said we always did and told me everything was under control and to enjoy my time off.
After hearing my part of the conversation, Kate wanted to know all the details as soon as I hung up. When I finished filling her in, I added, “Oh, he is so going down. I’m going to pulverize him. Can you imagine him stooping that low?”
She gave me a little Mona Lisa smile. “Well, it sure proves you are getting under his skin. Thank goodness it didn’t work. Of course, they won’t know that until you land their big client.”
If only the feud had ended there.
Kim returned around five-thirty and looked ready for a nice glass of wine.
Once she settled in the living room with a glass in her hand, Kate blurted out, “Those rats at Reid/Cunningham are getting into Cami’s office somehow and messing with her presentations. I hope they don’t tamper with any of my information.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said, then took a sip of my own wine. “They’re after me and I’m sure they’ve done their homework and know you and I are solid. No, I think they’ll target attacks to accounts that either were theirs and are now mine or ones like Forever Young—clients they still have, but not for long unless they can make us look foolish. It’s aggravating. That’s for sure. But I don’t think there is any real danger involved. Cunningham is such a creep. However, I can’t believe he would resort to physical stuff. Instead, he probably has someone on his payroll like a cleaning person or security guard who has after-hours access to the office. I’ll report this to building management and call our security company tomorrow.”
Kate and Kim looked doubtful. “Do you think that’s enough,” Kim asked. “What about Jonathan Reid? Is he someo
ne you should be afraid of?”
I thought for a moment before saying, “Well, I don’t think so, but frankly I’m not sure. There’s something behind his handsome facade I can’t put my finger on. Something that seems a little diabolical. But, maybe I just feel that way because of the way he humiliated me in the Century Cafe. I can’t remember ever feeling that way about him when I worked there. In fact, at one point I fantasized about dating him.”
“Tell me you didn’t,” Kim said.
Feeling a little foolish, I had to answer truthfully. “Well, you haven’t seen the guy. He’s still hot now and was even better looking twelve years ago or so. Yeah. I did picture him as a boyfriend for a while, but nothing came of it. He didn’t return the interest. Enough of this. Tell us what happened today. Were you able to snoop without being suspected.”
Just as Kim was about to answer, there was a cacophony of quacking on the patio. It sounded like a hundred ducks had invaded. I flung open the door and shouted to Kate and Kim for help.
A dog I didn’t recognize had Maxi in his mouth and at least twenty ducks were running at him, all quacking loudly. Minnie was quacking the loudest. I rushed at the dog, never considering that he could bite me, while I shouted, “Go home!” Fortunately he hadn’t actually bitten into Maxi. Kate grabbed the hose on the patio and turned the spigot to full, aiming the stream directly at the dog. He dropped Maxi and ran off howling.
“How did you know to do that?” I asked, still shaking as I thought of what could have happened to Maxi.
“When I was a kid we had dogs that fought with each other. Dad always told us to turn the hose on them to break them apart and it worked every time. Instinct I guess.”
We were about to go back into the house when Minnie waddled over to Kate and rubbed against her leg. It was clearly her way of saying thank you. Then she limped over to a shivering Maxi and the two of them went back to the canal followed by all the other ducks.
Back in the house, it took us a few minutes to settle down from that scare. I hadn’t realized how much Maxi and Minnie meant to me. They were actually like pets, I guess, pets who had become part of my family.
If only my problems with Cunningham could be solved that quickly. I made myself aim my thoughts in another direction, anxious to hear what Kim had to say about her day.
18
KIM BEGAN, “IT’S AMAZING how much you can find out when it appears you are interested in something totally different. I talked to ten of the twenty who are under suspicion and don’t think any of them are the leakers, but when I asked about their specific tasks, it was easy to have them think I needed that information to make sure we proposed the most efficient working environment. I threw in some phony information about how my own space back in DC was reworked and not only was I more efficient, but due to my new chair, I didn’t have back pain anymore.”
“You had back pain?” Kate questioned.
“Not at all. I have a great ergonomic chair, but it opened up a line of communication. I saw immediately that these guys had old-fashioned task chairs and I could almost feel them mentally begging me for something comfortable. After that, the conversation lost some of that need-to-know secrecy and they opened up a little more about what they do.”
She added that because it was a top secret facility, she wore the appropriate visitor’s badge for her clearance. That also made it easier for them to talk to her.
“The bottom line is most of them sit for hours monitoring conversations and emails with legal wiretap permission. One told me it gets sort of boring at times. They process all kinds of irrelevant information while waiting to pick up something of substance. Each one has assigned lines of communication to monitor. Another guy told me there was a person he watched who was supposed to be a go-between for mid-size drug deals, but all he ever picked up was this slimeball either making arrangements for sex parties or chatting online with various hookers. From the expression that flashed across his face, I knew he realized perhaps he said something he shouldn’t. I was right because he quickly added that he hoped I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about what he’d shared.”
She paused and gave us a wink.
“Of course, I put his concerns to rest and thanked him for an amusing story. The thing is, not one person I talked to mentioned anything relative to hearing about an offbeat operation they figured could be tied into money laundering. And, believe me, I worked the devil out of all of them. I truly believe if they knew anything, I could have gotten it out of them.”
Kim seemed a little disappointed that none of the interviews yielded information about planned drug raids. She said any of the ten could have found information like that if they tried hard enough. However, it was her impression that like so many workers, none of them cared about anything beyond getting through the eight hours they put in on their assigned jobs. She couldn’t imagine anyone she spoke to that day taking the next step of digging into privileged information, like the three of them had at FACR, even though it would certainly be worth plenty to any money laundering operation that was about to be raided. In other words, she felt it was a bit of a wasted day.
“I reported back to Director Kincaid,” she said, “and told him that in my opinion, those ten should be taken off the list. He said he appreciated my evaluation. Tomorrow he wants me to concentrate on a recent hire. Apparently, this woman came through the system with good job reviews from another department, and a recommendation from high up the food chain. She was transferred to his operation a few months ago. He hadn’t paid that much attention to her in particular, but with it now being narrowed down to ten, he reconsidered.”
The talk turned what to do for dinner. Kim took a few minutes to change out of her business suit, and reappeared wearing faded jeans, flat sandals and a cool tee shirt she picked up from a shop on Washington near the beach. Palm trees spanned her boobs next to fancy lettering that said “Venice Beach.” I didn’t bother to tell her that the tee shirt made her look a little like a tourist.
Pizza sounded good, and I suggested that we try Big Daddy and Sons Pizza. I told my friends I had sort of a soft spot for this eatery that was founded by a guy I’d known since the nineties named Larry Parker. Larry had a flair for opening restaurants that became hangouts. I first met him when he owned Larry Parker’s 24 Hour Beverly Hills Diner on south Beverly Drive. I was just starting my career in advertising, and I’d pop over there after work for a quick bite. The menu was amazing and the cafe was frequented by lots of people in the entertainment industry. There was always someone to talk to while eating dinner. Larry was a “hands-on” owner and it seemed to me that he never went home. We would often chat into the late hours. I was really sad when I heard he died back in 2013. He was only sixty-two years old.
With our plan set, I said, “If we walk there, it’s pretty much of a hike. Quite a bit north of Venice Blvd. Are you up to it or should we drive?”
It was a no-brainer. None of us felt up to a long walk, and since Kate and Kim had their cars parked behind my garage blocking mine, we took Kate’s rental.
This section of Ocean Front Walk isn’t quite the same as the Boardwalk near my house, but still lives up to its reputation of being a place where anything goes. Every variety of tourists and locals crowd the street.
“Did you ever hear about a place called the Gas House Cafe back in the late fifties?”
They looked at me with blank stares. I guess that went too far back for them.
“Well, it was a big deal back then. The Gas House was in this very location and was a popular hangout for beatniks and poets. The owner, Eric Nord, was called ‘Big Daddy.’ He was a Beat Generation-era nightclub owner, poet, actor, and hipster. They called him the king of the Beat Generation.”
Kim perked up. “So if he was like a king, is that why they called him Big Daddy?”
“I think it was more because he was a huge man. Big Daddy stood six feet seven inches tall and was beyond stout. In other words, he was a really big dude.”
I nodded. “Larry named his place Big Daddy’s after him. Nothing like a little history to add flavor to a location. Let’s go in.”
The tantalizing aroma of pizza and other delights teased our senses. Kim pointed to one of the tables and said, “This looks like a repurposed surf board.”
“Yep,” I answered. “That’s exactly what the tables are made of. Cool, huh?”
We sat down at one of the surf board tables, and Kim said, “Well, we certainly don’t have anything like this in DC. I feel like I’m really wearing the right tee shirt, even if it does make me look like a tourist.”
She said that, not me.
19
WHILE KIM PLACED THE call to Nathan to make sure he received Marjory’s flash drives, Kate booted her laptop to check her emails. I fantasized about ways to get even with Reid or Cunningham—whichever of them had pulled off the latest stunt with the posters. By the time Kim reported the results of her call, Kate had shut down her laptop and I was lost in thoughts of sweet revenge.
“First of all, Nathan did receive the flash drives and his team viewed them. Poor Marjory. I hate that her curiosity got her killed, but something positive did come out of it. Those flash drives provided them with valuable information. They have been trying to get something on this Kenneth Monnigan character or whatever his real name is for a few years. He is so elusive, they have never been able to get a photo of him and apparently he’s extremely adept at building false identities and putting up smoke screens around his real identity.”
Kim paused. “Nathan said this takes them one step closer to what is turning out to be one of the most cleverly conceived money laundering schemes they have ever come across. He couldn’t tell me more, but it definitely ties in with the raid alerts and what Marjory found.” She grew dead serious. “All of this is totally confidential, so be very careful not to say a word about it to anyone.”
Payback Page 7
