Dale Andrews - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134 & 135, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 817 & 818, September/October 2009

“The government indicts you on numerous counts of income-tax evasion. They prove that you could not possibly have maintained the lifestyle you’ve established on the legitimate income you claimed on your tax returns.”

“How the hell can they prove something like that?”

“Paper trail, Gus. The cars you’ve bought over the years. The Canali suits and shirts you’ve had made. The Salvatore Ferragamo python shoes you wear. That Girard-Perregaux wrist watch you’re wearing that cost five hundred thousand dollars. The yacht you’ve got docked in Florida. The homes you own in Vail, Barbados, Costa Rica. Vera’s jewelry. Doreen’s private school in Switzerland—”

“Okay, okay.” Doyle raised a hand to stop the lawyer’s soliloquy, “I get the picture.” He pushed his plate away in disgust. “A man can’t even buy gifts for his wife and see that his daughter gets a proper education without the goddamned government sticking its nose into it,” he muttered irritably. After a few moments, he sighed wearily and said, “Assuming you’re right, what exactly happens then?”

“A caravan of federal agents will show up at daybreak some morning, put you under arrest, declare this place a crime scene, evict Vera, Doreen, and all the servants—”

“How can they do that? This is my home , for God’s sake! What right do they have to declare it a crime scene!”

“Your vault, Gus,” the lawyer said quietly. “Whoever blows the whistle on you will tell them about your vault.”

Doyle’s eyes widened to the point of bulging. Beneath his mansion was a lower level which housed an extensive wine cellar, a mammoth gun collection, and a floor-to-ceiling bank-style vault that was one of his most prized possessions.

“My vault,” he said to Sol Silverstein in a flat, dangerous tone, “is private property. It’s where I keep my rare stamp collection, my movie memorabilia collection, my ancient-coin collection, my gem collection, my early American postcard collection, and my baseball-card collection.” Now his voice faltered a bit. “Those things are personal , Sol. They mean a great deal to me. The government has no right to meddle with my hobbies!”

“That vault,” Sol quietly reminded him, “is also where you hoard money, Gus. I’ve seen sheaves of currency stacked to the ceiling in a back corner. The government will seize that money and everything else of value in that vault. I advised you not to have it installed, remember? Just as I advised you to have Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor retain private individual attorneys of their own, instead of having me representing them and you.”

“I like to have everything under one roof, Sol,” Doyle fretted. “Easier to keep track of things.”

“Yes, well, in this case it just made it easier to subpoena everyone with one stop.”

Doyle rose and walked to one end of the patio, from which he could see across meticulously manicured, flower-lined grounds to an eight-car garage behind and detached from the main house. In front of an open port was parked one of his wife Vera’s cars, a silver Bentley Arnage sedan. It was being wiped down with a chamois cloth by Harry Sullivan, a quiet but deceptively tough young man who was employed as a driver and bodyguard for Doyle’s second wife, Vera Kenny Doyle. Sullivan, known more commonly as Sully, also drove and bodyguarded Doreen, Doyle’s twenty-one-year-old daughter by his first wife, Edna Callahan Doyle, whom Doyle had lost to lymphoma when Doreen was only ten. Three years later, with Doreen approaching adolescence, Doyle had seen the need of a stepmother for her; there were, after all, many things of a sensitive, female nature with which even the most devoted single father was ill prepared to deal.

For his second wife, Angus Doyle had chosen and courted twenty-eight-year-old Vera Kenny, who managed Doyle’s escort service, and who was the daughter of a late friend of the younger Angus Doyle, at that time just making his mark in the Irish mob known as The Clan. Doyle, forty when he took his second wife, was twelve years older than Vera Kenny, but the two made a good fit and young Doreen took to her stepmother at once, thus removing a good deal of worry from Doyle’s mind. In all, Gus Doyle would have been a man of continuing contentment had it not been for the goddamned Department of Justice.

“All right, Sol,” Doyle said, turning his attention away from the eight-car garage, “what do we do now?”

“We have to get you as clean as possible before Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor are questioned at the grand jury. That means divesting yourself of as much liquid assets as possible. The other assets — real property, cars, the boat — we can put under protective mortgages so that the government can’t say that you bought them outright, therefore they can’t be used as evidence against you in a tax-evasion case. You see, it’s cash — that’s what they need. Cash in bank accounts, safe-deposit boxes, certificates of deposit, cash in that vault of yours — how much do you have stacked up down there anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Doyle shrugged self-consciously. “Maybe seven or eight.”

“Seven or eight hundred thousand?”

“Million.”

“Seven or eight million? For God’s sake, Gus.”

“It’s money I put away for a rainy day.” Doyle pointed an accusing finger at the lawyer. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up dirt poor, Sol. If you did, you’d understand.”

Silverstein stared at his client in astonishment. From an inside coat pocket, he removed a handkerchief and blotted his forehead. He did not want to hear Angus Doyle’s poverty-in-the-Chicago-slums story again. “Gus,” he said firmly, “I want to know — exactly — how much money you have — anywhere , Gus — that can be traced to you. How much?”

Doyle sat back down and drummed his thick fingertips silently on the tablecloth. After a long moment of staring at his attorney with pursed lips, he said, “Twenty-five million.”

“How long will it take to pull it all together — close all the accounts, empty all the safe-deposit boxes, cash in all the certificates of deposit?”

Another shrug from Doyle. “Three, four days, I guess. But what the hell am I supposed to do with that much cash?”

“Convert it to bearer bonds, Gus. Convert all of it, along with your ‘rainy day’ cash in that vault of yours.”

“What the hell are bearer bonds?”

“They are unregistered, negotiable bonds payable to the holder regardless of who they were issued to. They’re as good as cash at any bank in the world.”

“So what do we do with these bearer bonds, then?”

“Get them out of the country. Move them to a Swiss bank in the Cayman Islands, where U.S. officials won’t have access to them.”

“How do we do that?”

“Someone you trust has to take them there. Who do you trust?”

“You.”

“Me! I’m your attorney , Gus. I can’t do anything like that. It wouldn’t be ethical. I could be disbarred.” Sol blotted his forehead again. “Who else do you trust?”

“Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor.”

“For God’s sake, Gus! They’re the ones I’m trying to protect you against! You can’t ask any of them to help you, because you don’t know which one to ask. They’re all suspect at the moment. What about Vera? Or Doreen?”

“Not Doreen.” Doyle shook his head vehemently. “I don’t want any of my business touching Doreen. I want her kept out of this completely. Do you understand that, Sol?”

“Yes, of course,” the attorney said quickly. He recognized Angus Doyle’s cold, hard, warning tone, his deadly tone. “I understand. Doreen will be kept out of it entirely, I assure you. That leaves Vera.”