taking pot-shots at federal agents.”
“He‟d be on the street in thirty seconds. Costello‟d see to that. I want the full clock on that son of a
bitch when he goes. Life with no parole. There‟s no percentage bringing him in and then having him
walk. All that is, is frustrating. Besides, I don‟t think he was ordered to put me on ice, I think he got a
wild hair up his ass and decided to just do it. Nesbitt told me he took a lot of shit because he missed
me that time in Cincinnati.”
“Well, Zapata and Lange are all over him. He can‟t go to the john without Chino washing his hands
when he‟s finished. Hopefully, he tries for you again, they‟ll clean his pipes.”
“As long as he‟s in view, we‟re okay.”
I changed the subject to the cocktail party and gave Stick a brief rundown on my talks with both
Donleavy and Titan.
“Donleavy says the Committee passed on Tagliani because they‟re all naive,” I said, summing it up.
“It‟s possible,” he said. “What‟s the problem with Titan?”
I didn‟t want to discuss Doe Raines, so I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me,” I said.
“1 almost forgot,” Stick said, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I did a little more work on the
computer.” He unfolded a readout sheet and handed it to me. “Here‟s a rundown on the eight main
accounts and their subaccounts. There‟s eighty-six different accounts there, Jake. And that‟s like the
tip of the pyramid, man.”
“Thanks,”
“So what do we do with them?” he asked.
I looked over the printout. About a third of the accounts were corporate.
“Can you access corporate information on that gadget?”
“Sure.”
“I‟d like you to check all the corporate names on this list and see if any of them were incorporated in
Panama.”
“Panama? The country Panama?”
“The country Panama.”
“Do I get to know why?”
“Ever heard of the Mirror Rule?”
He shook his head.
“You haven‟t been doing your homework, Stick. Panama, the country, will not divulge any
information about Panamanian corporations; not to anyone for any reason. You can‟t even get a list of
officers or stockholders unless the company wants you to have
it. So a Panamanian corporation is automatically indemnified from any kind of examination or
investigation except by authorities of Panama itself.”
“That‟s real interesting,” the Stick said.
“It is if you incorporate in Panama. Because then you can have funds from an American bank
transferred to a bank in the Virgin Islands.”
“Where does the Virgin Islands fit into all this?”
“The Virgin Islands, although it‟s a U.S. territory, has its own revenue service. They don‟t like the
Lepers, so they don‟t cooperate with them.”
“The IRS can‟t get the info on Virgin Island bank accounts, that it?” Stick asked.
“Exactly. And the bank account in the Virgin Islands is a mirror account of the corporate account in
Panama. So it‟s possible to transfer money from a U.S. bank to a bank in the Virgin Islands and then
into a Panamanian corporation without the IRS knowing about it.”
“You think that‟s what Tagliani was doing?”
“It could explain how the payoff accounts work. If there‟s a Panamanian corporation on this list, it
could be a transfer account.”
“And the payoff would go straight through the computer and into the Panamanian bank account,
without ever showing up as a deposit,” Stick said, with a touch of wonder.
“And so could their skim,” I said.
“You think Seaborn knows about this Mirror Rule?” Stick asked.
“If he doesn‟t we ought to have him jailed for incompetence. It‟s international banking law.”
“Which means Seaborn‟s involved.”
“That‟s a little touchy right now. There‟s nothing illegal about transferring money to Panama. But
there is if it‟s IGG.”
Stick smiled. “The old ill-gotten gains. What would we do without them?”
“The question is, does Seaborn knew it‟s a scheme to wash dirty money? Maybe not. He could be that
naive.”
“Well, if he didn‟t know, he probably does now.”
“Right. And since we haven‟t heard from him, we can at least assume that he might be withholding
information”
“Where the hell did you find all this out”
“I may not file reports, pal, but I sure as hell read them. This dodge is used a lot by the Mafia. Using
the bank‟s computer to pyramid their accounts, now that‟s a new wrinkle.”
A phone rang somewhere in the back of the house. Stick bolted, trying to catch it before it woke
someone up. He was too late. Lark stirred on the wooden bench, opened one eye, saw me, waved a
limp hand in my direction, and managed a feeble smile.
“Go back to sleep,” I said. “Stick arid I will hold the fort a while longer.”
Wrong again, Kilmer.
Stick came out of the kitchen with a crazy look in his eyes.
62
G-A -L-A-V-A-N-T-I
It took us fifteen minutes through heavy fog to get to the scene of the crime, and a familiar
scene it was. Harry Raines had been shot down in the center of the Quadrangle, no more than
a hundred yards from Charlie Seaborn‟s bank.
It looked like every police car in Dunetown was there. Red and blue lights flashed eerily
through the thick fog, like silent fireworks. A small crowd had wandered up from the
riverfront clubs and restaurants to see what all the fuss was about.
It took a couple of minutes to locate Dutch in the mist. He was standing with a couple of
plainclothesmen, studying a chalk form drawn on the cobblestone walk. Yellow police-scene
ribbons had been suspended around the area. Dutch informed us that the ambulance had come
and gone already.
“He‟s still alive!” I said.
“Yeah, but not by enough to matter much. One shot, right here.” He tapped his forehead an
inch above the right eyelid. “Bullet‟s still in there.”
“My God,” a hoarse voice whispered, and it was a second or two before I realized it was
mine.
“We got a couple of ear witnesses,” Dutch said, leading us away from the chalk-marked form
on the walkway.
“Ear witnesses?” the Stick said.
Their names were Harriet and Alexander, although, for reasons that elude me, Alexander
preferred to be called Chip. They were in their mid-twenties and two weeks away from their
wedding day and she had lost his engagement present to her. The girl was as fancy as a plain
girl can make herself. The boyfriend, short and stubby, with a badly trimmed moustache,
seemed far more concerned over the missing necklace than the shooting.
“We stopped off here on the way to dinner because, see, this is where we met,” he babbled,
probably for the fifth or sixth time. “But it was so foggy, we went on down to the Porthole to
meet our friends for dinner.
“You couldn‟t see your hand in front of your face,” Harriet said, nodding vigorously.
I was getting edgy, listening to their routine.
“Like it is now,” Chip said. “This wasn‟t half an hour ago.”
“Yes,” I said. “I got that—go on!”
Harriet continued her extravagant nod. “Like it is now,” she repeated.
He glowered at her and continued his story.
“And that‟s when her necklace was gone,” Chip said. “It was a cluster of diamonds on a gold
chain. Eight diamonds. They added up to a full carat.”
“Can you please get on to the details!” I demanded.
“We‟re sorry about the necklace,” Dutch said tersely. “Can you finish your story.”