John Grisham - The Whistler

“Why did you leave Carlita alone like that?”

Another long pull on the bottle. “I knew they wouldn’t hurt her. They might threaten her and frighten her, but I figured she would be safe. It was risky. And I had to convince her, Cooley, you, and maybe the FBI that I was just another casualty. People can be made to talk, even Carlita and Cooley. It was important that they knew nothing about my disappearance.”

“You ran away. Cooley ran away. And you left the girls behind to deal with the danger.”

“Okay, it looks that way, but it was far more complicated. I had to either run or catch a bullet. Cooley ran for different reasons. Once I was gone, he figured he had been compromised. He freaked out and hid under a rock.”

“And now you’re back looking for the pot of gold.”

“Damned right we are. Keep in mind, Lacy, that none of this would have happened without us. Cooley was the brains who put it all together over a long period of time. He’s the real genius behind it. He recruited JoHelen and handled her beautifully, until, of course, he got scared. As for me, I had the guts to sign the complaint, and came within an inch of paying dearly for it.”

“So did she.”

“And she’ll get her rewards, believe me. There will be enough for all three of us.”

“Has Cooley kissed and made up with JoHelen?”

“Let’s just say they’re negotiating. They have been sleeping together for twenty years, off and on, and they understand each other.”

Lacy exhaled and shook her head. She had not taken a sip of beer but his bottle was empty. She got another from the fridge and walked to a window.

Myers said, “Look at it like this, Lacy. Cooley, JoHelen, and I planned this entire assault on Dubose and McDover. Things went wrong. Your buddy got killed. You got hurt. We’re lucky there were no other casualties. Looking back with perfect hindsight, I would not have done it. But it’s done, and the bad guys are locked up, and the three of us are still standing. We’re in the process of making peace, and we’ll eventually have fun splitting the pie.”

“I’m sure you’ve been reading the newspapers.”

“Every word.”

“So you’ve seen the name of Allie Pacheco?”

“Oh yes. Seems to be a hotshot agent.”

“Well, we’re dating, and I think he needs to hear this story.”

“Bring him on. I’ve done nothing wrong and I want to talk.”

–

The FBI’s investigation into the Dubose syndicate lasted for another fourteen months and produced six more indictments. In all, thirty-nine people were arrested, and virtually all were deemed flight risks and held without bond. About half of them were lesser targets who worked for businesses owned by the syndicate but knew little about the money laundering and nothing about the skimming at Treasure Key. With their bank accounts tied up and their freedom curtailed, and with court-appointed lawyers, they began snagging plea bargains as fast as Paula Galloway could lay them on the table. Within six months of the arrest of Vonn Dubose, about a dozen of his co-defendants had agreed to plead guilty and point their fingers at their bosses. As the government chipped away at the fringes, the noose grew tighter around the necks of the real crooks. But they held firm. None of the eleven managers, except of course Clyde Westbay, and certainly none of the five Cousins, cracked.

A soft spot, though, was found outside the syndicate. Gavin Prince, a well-regarded Tappacola with a degree from FSU, decided he had no future in jail. He had been second-in-command at the casino and knew most of the dirty secrets. His lawyer convinced Paula Galloway that Prince was not a crook and could help their case immensely for the right deal. He agreed to plead to one count for probation.

According to Prince, each gambling table-blackjack, roulette, poker, and craps-has a cash box that cannot be accessed by the dealer. Ninety percent of the money arrives in the form of cash, which the dealer takes, counts for the benefit of the players and the cameras, stuffs into the cash box attached to the table, and converts to chips. Blackjack tables generate the most cash; roulette the least. The casino never closed, not even on Christmas Day, and its slowest hour was 5:00 a.m. At that time every day, armed guards collected the cash boxes, put them on a cart, and replaced them with empty boxes. They were taken to a fortified room-the official “count room”-where a team of four professional counters-the “count team”-went through each box. Each counter had a security guard standing behind him or her, and a camera directly above. Each box was counted four times. There were usually around sixty cash boxes. Prince’s mission each morning was to remove box number BJ-17 from the highest-grossing blackjack table. He did this by simply taking it off the cart before the cart was rolled into the count room. He never said a word. The guards looked the other way. It was business as usual. With BJ-17, Prince stepped into a small room, one without cameras, and placed the cash box in a locked drawer. To his knowledge there was only one other key and it belonged to the Chief, who visited the casino every day and removed the cash.

On average, the cash boxes from the blackjack tables collected $21,000 a day, though BJ-17 was known to do even more business. Prince estimated the box yielded at least $8 million a year, all of it gone and unaccounted for.

The surveillance tapes of that table were mysteriously erased every three days, just in case someone asked questions, though no one ever did. Who, exactly, might come poking around? They were on tribal land!

Prince was one of three supervisors who rerouted the cash to the Chief’s little drawer. All three were in jail, indicted, and facing lengthy sentences. When he folded, the other two quickly fell in line. All three claimed they had no choice but to facilitate the skimming. They knew the Chief was not keeping all of the money, that it was being used to bribe other people, and so on. But they worked in a don’t-ask-don’t-tell environment where they made their own laws and truly believed they would never get caught. None of the three claimed to know anything about Vonn Dubose.

The casino was closed for three weeks. With two thousand people out of work and dividends in jeopardy, the Tappacola hired some expensive lawyers who finally convinced a judge that they could clean up their act. They agreed to engage a professional management team from Harrah’s.

With Chief Cappel in jail and facing the likelihood of being there for decades, and with the tribe thoroughly humiliated, a recall effort began. Ninety percent of the Tappacola signed a petition calling for his resignation and for a new election. He stepped down, as did his son Billy and their sidekick Adam Horn. Two months later Lyman Gritt was elected Chief in a landslide. After his election, he made a promise to Wilton Mace to get his brother out of prison.

Lawyers for the Cousins sought unsuccessfully to loosen up some of their money. They wanted to retain some big-league lawyers who could dig for loopholes. The judge, however, was not keen on the idea of allowing tainted cash to be spent on legal fees. He said no, and emphatically, and appointed experienced criminal lawyers to defend them.

Though far more serious than the RICO indictment, the capital murder case was easier to prepare. Absent Clyde Westbay, there would be only five defendants at trial, as opposed to twenty or so in the RICO case. Paula Galloway had long since decided to push hard for the murder trial, hope for convictions, and, with the Cousins locked away for either life or death, negotiate aggressively with the remaining RICO defendants. Once everyone was caught and in jail, she and her team believed the murder trial could be set in about eighteen months. The RICO trial could take as long as two years to put together.