“Just how do I do that?” Proffit was beginning to lose his temper. Smoke coming out of his ears.
“We have something that I am told will help. But before we get to that, you need to understand that there are currently twenty-nine active seats on the Ninth Circuit, and several judges who are nearing retirement. We expect at least two, possibly three vacancies in the next two years. Just so you know, your wife would be in an excellent position for any one of those other appointments. I would give you my assurance in those regards.”
For a moment Proffit wondered whether Grimes and Madriani might have been meeting together, in the sack. He took a deep breath. Grimes was putting him in a box and nailing the lid on. If he refused or failed, Grimes was in a position to block his wife’s nomination for higher appointment for as long as she was in the Senate. If so, and his wife found out, she would make Proffit’s life miserable, or worse, divorce him and take half the value of his partnership in the firm. She could ruin him.
“Of course this is assuming he’s inclined to do so. Not everybody wants to be on the bench,” said Proffit. “You say you believe he’s interested, but he hasn’t filed. I don’t get it.”
“Good. If you’re curious, then I’ll assume you’re on board,” she said. “Now this is all confidential. You do understand that?”
“I haven’t said I’d do anything.”
“But I’m sure you will. Right?”
Proffit thought about his options. “I suppose.”
“You don’t sound enthusiastic,” she said.
“I’ll have to work on that later,” said Proffit.
“Of course. Take your time. But don’t take too long. So that there is no confusion later,” said Grimes. “I will be sending you a check in today’s mail, a retainer. Be kind enough to send me a fully executed retainer agreement, signed by you, to my office here in Washington.”
There was no response from the other end.
“Are you there?”
“You want to treat this as a legal matter?”
“Absolutely. I’m asking you for your assistance and advice as a lawyer.”
“On this?”
“You haven’t heard everything yet.”
“What else?” said Proffit.
“On the retainer agreement, if you have to describe any of this, just call it general legal advice. No need for any specifics.” She was being careful to cover her tracks.
Establishing an attorney-client relationship would seal Proffit’s lips, prevent him from talking to anyone else about their conversation without her prior, expressed written approval.
“There’s a case, a federal appeal. Well, actually, it’s more of a negotiation at this point, or will be shortly. In any event, the case is United States versus Rubin Betz.”
The instant the name was mentioned, Proffit sat bolt upright in his chair. He’d heard it before. In fact, he had scoured the Internet search engines at the office looking for anything he could find on Betz. Rubin Betz was the name Madriani had given him the night they met in the restaurant in Georgetown. The name of Serna’s old boyfriend. The synapse in his brain sent a jolt of adrenaline to his heart. Now Grimes was calling with the same name. Whatever it was, Serna was in the middle of it. Shit was about to rain down on the firm. Proffit could smell it.
“Mr. Betz is in the federal penitentiary at Florence, Colorado,” said Grimes.
“Supermax!” Proffit almost said, “I know,” but he didn’t. Instead he bit his tongue. Florence was dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where the feds sent the worst of the worst, tight controls, stories of complete isolation. From everything that Proffit had read, it was the one thing that didn’t make any sense.
Betz was a banker. At one time he worked for one of the large Swiss banks with branches in the United States. That was what got him in trouble, the charge that he had conspired with some US deposit holders to conceal overseas profits from the tax man. It was a white-collar crime, but he was doing time in the tightest maximum security prison in the United States.
“What did the man do? This guy Betz? You’ve got to do something bad to get sent to Florence.” He was hoping Grimes might tell him.
“You don’t need to be concerned about that. You can look it up later.” Grimes knew he would. She also knew that Betz wasn’t in Florence because of anything he’d done. The government put him there to prevent any harm from happening to the man, and not because they loved him. It was to avoid the public fallout that they believed would occur should he die in prison. Florence was the only place of incarceration within the federal system where they could adequately protect him and, at the same time, keep him from talking to anyone else. Betz had what a few of her colleagues on the Hill were now calling the Midas key. They were trying to deal with him, to put closure on the entire affair. The fear was that sooner or later some federal judge might cut him loose, or worse, reduce his term and send him to a minimum security institution, where if he got into an argument or crosswise with one of the gangs, another inmate might kill him. Even the fear that he might fall down a flight of stairs had some members of Congress walking the floors at night.
“Mr. Betz requires the assistance of a good criminal lawyer,” said Grimes. “He doesn’t yet know it, but he’s about to become involved in some rather complicated negotiations.”
“What kind of negotiations?”
“As they say in the military, that’s beyond your pay grade,” said Grimes. “All you have to do is carry the message. We want Mr. Madriani to offer his services. Betz has no lawyer at the moment. Tell Madriani he will be well paid for his services, if he cooperates.”
“What makes you think he’ll do it?” said Proffit.
“Trust me. He will.”
“How much is he being paid?” said Proffit. “He may want to know.”
“He won’t. We have it on good authority that he’s been dying to talk to Mr. Betz for some time. This is his chance.”
“And because of this you think he’ll file for the judgeship?”
“Even if he doesn’t, he’ll talk to Betz.” With that, Grimes hung up in his ear.
THIRTY-NINE
You asked about the source of this cash.” It is getting late, nearly midnight and Korff is still telling us about the dealings of his old employer, Gruber Bank.
“When you are talking about the PEPs, politically powerful people who are carrying cash to the bank, there are generally two sources that you look for. Either the person has looted his country’s treasury, which happens more often than you would like to think. But usually that is limited to the third world. Or the PEP is being bribed by some foreign entity, a corporation, perhaps a wealthy individual, or some other country.
“It is the reason why the PEPs are so much trouble. They show up with cash. You don’t know the source. Even if they claim it is legitimate, how do you know? There is no way to prove it.”
“But you said Gruber allowed these PEPs to make large deposits in cash?” says Harry.
“Yes. That’s why I complained. As the bank’s anti-money-laundering compliance officer I knew what would happen. The minute they deposited the funds they would start to launder it.”
“How do they do this?” I ask.
“There are a number of ways,” says Korff, “but the most common is to purchase a legitimate business that deals in large amounts of cash, high volumes. A casino, for example. They are notorious as currency laundries. Or what happened in one case involving one of your American PEPs, he bought a chain of coffeehouses.
“The way it works, they use clean money, funds for which taxes have already been paid, to buy the business. They start small. Then if the business makes, say, two hundred thousand dollars the first year, they report income of two million. They take dirty money from the secret bank account to make up the difference.”
“But they’d have to pay income tax on the full two million?” says Harry. “Doesn’t make any sense.”