My ears are still ringing as Herman and I settle into two high-back wicker plantation chairs on the patio behind Norman Ives’s home. It is on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in La Jolla.
Herman and I didn’t waste time going back to the office following the inferno near the airport. Instead, we drove directly here. I called ahead and then phoned Harry and asked him to meet us. He is on his way. It is time to pick up the pieces and regroup.
Norman and Sharon Ives are Alex’s parents. It is in their house, a stately white Dutch gambrel-style home on an acre of manicured grounds high on a bluff over the ocean, that Alex has been staying since his release on bail. A large oval pool in the backyard, the reflection of its submerged lights dancing in the trees overhead, offers the illusion of an oasis. Beyond the yard, off in the distance, a few dotted points of light mark the dark horizon, boats at sea on a moonless night.
Sharon Ives offers us a drink, iced tea. We decline. Norman offers something stronger and Herman takes a scotch on the rocks. Herman’s hand seems to be shaking, a slight palsy, the effect, I suspect, of the blast. I fill them in. Harry arrives and I replay the revolving tape of the evening’s grisly events for him.
Any hope of evidence that might cause the D.A. to drop the charges against Alex Ives went up in flames with the girl named Ben. I can still see her eyes, the aspect of her face as I stare down at the intricate woven surface of the rattan coffee table around which we are all now huddled.
“I don’t understand. Why can’t you just tell them what she told you?” Sharon Ives doesn’t get it.
“Whatever she told us is hearsay,” I explain, “inadmissible in a court of law. Besides, it’s not likely that the prosecutor would take our word for it.”
“We needed her,” says Herman.
“A writing would have helped,” says Harry.
I talk to Alex about the little bits and pieces I got from the girl before she died, the silver-handled cane with the bird on it, the description of the man, gray hair, sixty to sixty-five, well dressed, wearing a suit. “Could be anybody,” he says, “but it rings no bells.” Not until I mention the name Becket, the man whose table he was supposed to be seated at the night of the party. “That was it. I remember now,” says Alex. “Becket. But I never needed it because no one asked.”
“So where do we go from here?” Norman, Alex’s dad, asks the question.
“That’s the problem,” I tell him. “After what happened tonight, our biggest dilemma is no longer a legal issue. We must now be concerned for your son’s safety.”
“What do you mean?” With this, I have Mother Ives’s undivided attention.
“It pains me to tell you this, but whoever killed the girl probably wants to kill your son,” I say.
“I think you’re being overly dramatic,” says Alex.
“Bullshit,” says Harry.
Sharon Ives looks at Harry as if he has just defecated on her best china.
“You can double that for me,” says Herman.
“Only reason you’re alive is some Good Samaritan pulled you from the flames the first time,” says Harry.
“Why would someone want to kill Alex?” she asks.
“You better ask your son,” I tell her.
She looks at him. “Alex, tell me! What have you gotten yourself involved in? I want to know, and I want to know now!”
“Mom!”
“Tell your mother!” Norman Ives piles on. “Son, we need to know what’s going on if we’re going to be able to help you.”
Alex looks at me with an expression like I’ve ratted him out. “All right!” He’s had enough. Everybody, including his parents, beating on him, and now two murders. “I’ll tell you what I know,” he says. “Not that it’s going to do any good. I can’t see any connection. You have to promise not to tell anyone else.”
“Get him a drink,” says Harry. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”
Over Jameson on the rocks, the kid unloads what he knows. “A few years ago, if you remember, there were news stories about the Treasury Department, the IRS, and some offshore banks. Internal Revenue was cracking down on overseas banking. They were chasing US citizens who had money deposited in confidential offshore numbered accounts. One estimate was there was two hundred and fifty billion dollars in back taxes and penalties owed on what was hidden offshore. Pick a report and they’ll give you a different number,” says Alex. “Nobody knows for sure how much. According to the US politicians who were leading the charge, these people with the numbered accounts were dodging US taxes, either by shifting funds offshore before paying taxes or depositing income earned overseas and not reporting it.”
“I remember,” says Harry. “As I recall, the Swiss bankers were screaming that the fakers in Washington had them stretched out on the rack. The powers in D.C. were turning the screws. Threatening lawsuits.”
“To the Swiss, banking was a cornerstone industry, and confidentiality was its foundation. It was the principal reason many people banked with them, especially the wealthy,” says Alex. “In many cases these were not interest-bearing accounts. The well-heeled were often willing to deposit money and pay fees for privacy. Uncle Sam had fallen on hard times.”
“Not hard to see why,” says Harry. “Forty years of profligate spending by American politicians pissing away other people’s money had them searching cupboards for loose change.”
“Somebody suggested the idea of shaking down the overseas banks to get them to cough up the names of American taxpayers,” says Alex. “After all, most of these were foreign corporations, and Washington was wallowing in class warfare. Hating the rich was in vogue,” he says.
“And it wasn’t just civil lawsuits. Some of the European officers of these banks were threatened with criminal prosecution here in the United States. Charges that they had knowingly conspired to assist US customers to commit fraud and tax evasion. And our government had a big hammer. International wire transfers,” he says. “If you want to send money by wire to another country, something that is done daily by businesses around the world, many transactions require that you convert it into US dollars because the dollar is the world reserve currency. That means that these transactions have to go through the Federal Reserve System in New York. The US Treasury Department let it be known that overseas banks refusing to cooperate with the IRS by failing to disclose the identity of US account holders might have their wire transfers blocked by the Fed in the future. In effect, this could put foreign banks out of business.”
“T. R. said to carry a big stick, but nobody ever said anything about a cudgel,” says Harry. “Still, I guess if they owe the taxes.”
“That was true, as far as it went,” says Alex. “But then some strange things began happening. Stories started to crop up around Capitol Hill that the Treasury and the IRS were beginning to soften on the issue. Evidence started to surface that they were cutting deals, outlining a plan that wasn’t nearly as forceful as the words and accusations they were spouting in front of the cameras.”
“Pushback from foreign governments?” asks Harry.
Alex shakes his head. “There was that, but there was something more. We were told that identification of some accounts was being treated as out-of-bounds, off-limits. There was something called the ‘PEP Office’ that had been set up at one of the foreign banks that had a branch office in Washington. PEP, we were told, stood for ‘Politically Exposed Persons.’ These are people with power in public office. It’s one of the things banks look for as a red flag in terms of possible money laundering. Typically it involves third-world dictators who might be looting their national treasuries. But not always. It could also involve politicians from developed countries who have suddenly acquired funds offshore and they want to hide it in a numbered account.”