Steve Martini - The Arraignment

“It’s possible. I can’t remember.”

This is not looking good.

“What if the prosecutor subpoenas them?”

“I’ll give them what I can find. What the hell else am I supposed to do? If I can’t find ’em, I can’t find ’em. Right?”

“You said one of the witnesses was a former secretary to your company. How many office employees do you have?”

“One. Sometimes I don’t have any. People quit, come and go. Stuff gets lost. I told my gal in the office to get whatever was in the files, like you asked. That’s what she got.” He points to the few letters on my desk.

“And what if your secretary is called to testify. What will she say?”

He gives me a steely-eyed look. “That she gave me everything she could find,” he says.

“And that this is it?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’m not trying to be difficult,” he says. “It’s just that I can’t give ’em what I don’t have.”

“Of course.”

“That’s all I can tell you.”

“Tell me, did you sign a contract on this business in Mexico?”

“We never got that far.”

“Did they pay you anything, compensation?”

“Like I said, they paid for my trip down there. Traveling expenses and the like.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know, maybe four thousand, forty-five hundred dollars. And there were some consulting fees.”

“Consulting for what?”

“The location, difficulty of getting heavy equipment in and out of the job site.”

“How much did they pay you for this?”

“I can’t remember exactly.”

“An estimate?”

“I don’t know.”

“More than a thousand dollars?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“More than five thousand?”

“Uh-huh.”

My eyes are off my notepad now, looking at Metz. “How much?”

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of two million,” he says.

“Dollars?”

He nods.

I sit there staring at him, the gaze of an animal in front of a speeding locomotive at night.

“For consulting fees?”

“Well, no, no, it was… actually, it was a security deposit.”

“Security for what?”

“My equipment. Hell, you don’t think I’m gonna take heavy equipment across the border without some security up front. This is expensive stuff. A front-end loader, a big one, the kind that articulates, can set you back a quarter of a million dollars. What if it disappears? I mean, this is not Nevada we’re talking about. If they greased somebody’s palm for permits and the sky falls in, a fuckin’ swamp without a permit to drain it ain’t worth shit,” he says. “The first thing the Mexican government does is grab my equipment.”

“So what was the understanding as to this money, this security deposit?”

“I’d hold their money until the job was done. Then I’d get my equipment back and get paid. They’d get their deposit back.”

“But you never signed a contract and you never sent any equipment across the border?”

“No.”

“And they gave you two million dollars on a handshake?”

“That’s right.”

“So what happened when the deal went bust?”

“They got their money back.”

“All of it?”

He makes a face. Scrunches up his mouth a little. “Everything except the ten percent,” he says.

I look at him.

“For my time.”

“What time?”

“You know, puttin’ the thing together. Talking. Goin’ down there?”

“But you said they paid for your trip?”

“Yeah. But my time’s worth something, ain’t it? Like I say, consulting fees.”

“But you had no contract or written arrangement for these fees before you went down there?”

“No.”

“A week of your time in Mexico, not considering traveling expenses, which they paid, is worth two hundred thousand dollars?”

“I could have been doin’ other work,” he says.

“You lost a big job because of this week in Mexico, did you?”

“I might have. I mean I could have. I don’t know.”

By now I am scribbling furiously, trying to get Metz’s story down on paper before the ludicrous logic of it disappears like a vapor.

“And what did you do with the two million deposit money? Did you put it in a bank in this country?”

“Not right away,” he says.

I stop writing and look up again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I brought my money up here after the deal fell through…”

“Your money?”

“The two hundred K. Over a period of time,” he says.

“Stop. Did you maintain a foreign bank account?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Belize,” he says.

“Why Belize?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you report this account on your taxes for that year?”

“I don’t remember. Have to talk to my accountant.”

“Is this the accountant who’s already been called to testify before the grand jury?”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

“And the ten percent you kept. What did you do with that?”

“I transferred it here.”

“To a U.S. bank?”

“That’s right.”

“But not all at once?”

“No. Like I said, over a period of time, as I needed it.”

“Let me guess. Ten thousand at a time?”

He nods.

This is the legal limit for cash coming into the country. I don’t have to ask how he got it all here. Metz is not going to wait twenty years to move two hunderd K into the country at ten grand a year. No doubt he’s used mules, friends, or employees on junkets down to Belize to carry it back whenever he needed cash.

“I’m hesitant to ask, but was this money paid to you or your company?”

“It’s confusing sometimes to keep track of what income is payable to my corporation and what is payable to me. For services.”

“I’ll bet. Especially when it’s consulting fees, is that it?”

“Yeah.” His eyes light up, thankful for the suggestion.

“Mr. Metz, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do business. But I will give you some advice since you’re paying for my time, at least for this visit.”

He looks at me, the first glimmer of surprise.

“If you were my client, which you are not, and you were called to testify before the grand jury, I would advise you to take the Fifth.”

I t’s late April, and Nick stands out on the sidewalk with his hands thrust into the deep pockets of a belted trench coat he has worn on cool mornings ever since I’ve known him. He is out near the curb, fifty feet from the sign

over the door, big gold letters, each one larger than a tombstone, spelling out: EDWARD J. SCHWARTZ UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE.

Rush is the only lawyer I know who has never carried a briefcase. It is against his religion and might dispel the impression that he can do anything on the fly and off the cuff.

As I approach, he expels clouds of warm breath into the chilly morning mist. He sees me a block away and smiles, gives me a nod like “what’s up,” rocking forward and back, heel to toe to keep warm. It is cold for San Diego, the season of early morning fog. By afternoon people will be on the street in shirtsleeves.

Eight-thirty. We are meeting for a quick briefing over coffee so that I can hand off Metz. Nick is to meet with the client at nine. If I am lucky, I will be out of here before it happens. I have no desire to be drawn into this thing further. Nick will then have half an hour before he has to appear with Metz in front of a judge. Nick’s instincts were right on one point. Metz was never called before the grand jury. Six days after our conversation, he was indicted on multiple counts of money laundering and international currency violations. He is scheduled to appear for arraignment in federal district court this morning. My guess is that the feds are just warming up.