Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

Billy Elliot was waiting for me in Tom’s dark apartment, and he and I went downstairs and ran hard for thirty minutes around the parking lot. Nobody tried to run me down. Nobody jumped out and shot a poisoned dart at me.

So far, so good.

When we got upstairs, lights were on in Tom’s apartment. I could smell coffee brewing and hear the TV. I knelt to unclip Billy Elliot’s leash from his collar, and heard a newscaster’s voice say Leo Brossi’s name.

I yelled, “Tom? Okay if I come in?”

He rolled himself into the hall from the kitchen. “Of course. Want some coffee?”

“Did I just hear something about Leo Brossi?”

“Yeah, come watch.”

He zipped back into the kitchen and I trotted after him in time to see a live scene of several handcuffed men being herded into a police van. The announcer’s voice sounded young and excited, repeating several times that the men were charged with operating a massive racketeering, bribery, and money-laundering scheme headquartered at All-Call. He said the operation was far-reaching, involving more than the few men currently under arrest, and that it had been cracked through the combined efforts of federal and county law-enforcement officers. Leo Brossi’s attorney had already issued a statement saying Brossi was completely innocent, and if any unlawful operation had been going on at his call center it had been without his knowledge.

I scanned the television screen for a glimpse of Paco, but he wasn’t there. He had probably melted away the moment the arrests began.

I said, “Have they mentioned identity theft?”

“This is a lot bigger than identity theft. Sounds like they were laundering drug money. Moving it in and out of shell accounts.”

The TV station broke for a commercial, and Tom muted the sound.

I said, “I don’t understand how money laundering works. I mean, I know it starts out dirty and comes out clean, but I’m fuzzy about what happens in between.”

“Okay, say you’re a drug trafficker, and you’ve just sold some cocaine for a hundred thousand dollars. Drug sales are always in cash, and banks report cash deposits of more than ten thousand dollars, so you need to get the cash converted. There are several ways to do that. You can pay cash for things like antiques or gold or motorcycles or classic cars, and sell them to people who pay you with a cashier’s check or a money order. You can go to your neighborhood Wal-Mart and pay cash for a bunch of TVs and VCRs and CD players and then sell them on eBay. A more fun way is to go to a casino, buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of chips, gamble for an hour or two, and then cash in your chips. The casino will pay you with a cashier’s check as if you were a big winner. Your drug money has now been laundered, and you can deposit it in a bank.”

“But those guys at All-Call weren’t buying and selling things.”

“Say instead of a hundred thousand, your cocaine sold for a million, and say you get that much cash every week. You don’t have time to go through all the rigmarole of the small-time dealer. So you find a friendly banker or savings-and-loan officer who will take your cash deposits without reporting them to the government. Pay the friendly banker a nice bribe, a million here, a million there, and your money becomes nice and clean.”

I thought about the banker playing golf with Denton Ferrelli and Leo Brossi when Conrad was killed. Had he been getting bribes?

Tom said, “Now here’s where the people at All-Call come in. Once you have the cash in a bank account, you can make wire transfers to accounts in offshore banks. With just a few strokes on a computer keyboard you can move currency around the world with complete anonymity. Move it often enough, and the tracks become so crisscrossed that nobody can trace them.”

“Telemarketing firms have computers that can do that?”

“Are you kidding? For every ten people put in jail for money laundering, five of them are probably telemarketers.”

“Hunh.”

Tom’s brow furrowed like a worried hound’s. “Honest people think money laundering doesn’t have anything to do with them, but drug sales finance terrorism. It affects all of us.”

I said, “I wonder why they didn’t arrest Brossi.”

“Guess he wasn’t there when they made the bust. But somebody infiltrated the operation and taped conversations. They’ve got weeks and weeks of proof. I don’t think Brossi will be able to wiggle out of this one, not even with all his political connections.”

I felt a tingle of pride. I knew who had infiltrated that ring and got the tapes. I wondered if Michael had known all along that last night was bust night, and if he had lain awake all night worrying about what might happen to Paco when the bust was made.

I left Tom and Billy Elliot in the kitchen and let myself out. Downstairs in the parking lot, more people had come out to exercise their dogs. The horizon was beginning to go blue around the edges, and steam was crawling off all the wet vegetation. Across town, Paco was probably doing high fives with the other officers who’d been in on the operation. I hoped he was feeling as much pride as he deserved.

To make up for the abbreviated time I’d given them yesterday, I spent a few extra minutes with each of the other dogs on my schedule. They all got fed and brushed and exercised. They all got smooched and petted and told how brilliant and beautiful they were. They all beamed and stretched and agreed with me. That’s the great thing about animals. No false modesty with them. They don’t puff themselves up with snooty grandiosity, but they don’t turn down compliments either.

The morning sky was shading from coconut to apricot when I got to Mame’s house. It was going to be a beautiful day. Mame wasn’t watching for me at the glass by the front door, and when I went inside and called to her, she didn’t come.

I found her in Judge Powell’s study, her back legs splayed out in an awkward flattened way. A large oval on the rug beneath her was wet, and an acrid odor of urine filled the room. She raised her head and looked up at me with shamed eyes.

I knelt beside her and stroked her head. “What’s wrong, Mame?”

She licked my hand and sighed. Her eyes said that I knew perfectly well what was wrong and not to play games. It was time, and we both knew it.

I got my client book from my backpack and looked up her vet’s number. The difference between animal doctors and human doctors is that animal doctors assume you really need them when you call, so they talk to you.

I said, “I’m Dixie Hemingway. I’m taking care of Judge and Mrs. Powell’s dog while they’re in Europe, and—”

“I know. I’ve been expecting your call. Bring her to the office.”

I scooped Mame into my arms and carried her to the padded cage in the back of my Bronco, wedging rolled towels around her so she wouldn’t slide with the car’s movement. She put her head down and closed her eyes. At the vet’s office, there were only two other cars in the parking lot. Mame raised her head and smiled at me when I went to the back to pick her up, and I took a second to stroke her head and tell her what a beautiful girl she was.

The vet’s assistant saw me coming and ran to hold the glass door open for me. She motioned to the door leading to the examining rooms. “You can take her on back. Dr. Layton is waiting for you.”

The vet, a comfortably plump African-American woman with a mass of glossy black curls, got my immediate respect by ignoring me. When I put Mame on the examining table, the vet greeted her like an old friend.

“Hello, my lovely Mame. What a beautiful girl you are. But you’re in pain, aren’t you?” She was stroking Mame as she spoke, listening to her body through her fingers.