Russell Andrews - Hades

Bruno drank his second beer and then his third while he talked.

He confirmed most of what Lenny Rube had told Justin and Reggie, but he was able to elaborate and provide more detail.

Bruno had indeed started going to Ronald LaSalle because of his stellar reputation as a financial adviser and money manager. He explained that he wasn't exactly in a business that provided long-term health care and retirement funds, so he wanted a legit place to stash his money-of which there was a considerable amount-and help it grow. He wasn't getting any younger, and he knew he couldn't depend solely on muscle forever. So he gave a couple of hundred g's to LaSalle, who did a hell of a job. Bruno made money, probably the first legal money of his life, he said, except once when he was a kid and he washed cars. Even then, as he thought about it, he used to steal anything inside the cars that wasn't nailed down-including once taking a spare tire from someone's trunk while the person was still sitting in the car-so he guessed that didn't really count.

He got Lenny Rube involved, he said. At first, just with the mob boss's own money. Also totally legit. And just as profitable as Bruno's initial investment. LaSalle had started his own business and was definitely looking for investors, so Lenny went to him and said they were putting together a fund and wanted LaSalle to handle it. This was Lenny's idea. Several families from around the country needed a place to put their cash; Lenny had the rep and the clout, so the other families knew he'd look after them. It was a good deal all around. Everyone made money; it was a good way to pay taxes and make everything look nice and tidy; and Len took a sweet little cut off the top for brokering with the broker. But then LaSalle began to realize what he'd gotten into. At first, he really believed that Lenny's businesses were legit. Then he was asked to do things, Bruno said.

"What kind of things?" Reggie asked.

Bruno said, "Things a guy like LaSalle wasn't used to. Doctoring profits, moving money around. Mostly he was asked to guarantee our investments. We got a monthly statement one time and the pot had gone down. Lenny didn't like it. LaSalle said he couldn't do that. Lenny told him, 'Sure you can.' Lenny figured that if LaSalle was taking an automatic cut of our investment, he could guarantee us a certain profit. LaSalle said, 'That ain't the way this thing works,' and the Rube said, 'That's the way it works now.'"

When Reggie asked why LaSalle went along with it, Bruno said, "We had him by the short and curlies. All I had to do was point out that he'd been doing business with some members of a known criminal organization. It didn't matter whether he knew about it or not, it wasn't gonna be good for his reputation. But the thing is, the guy had some stones. He still didn't go along with it."

"What did he do?" Reggie wanted to know.

Bruno told them that LaSalle came to Bruno and Lenny with a proposition. He said he'd find someone else who could do the job. Someone who'd go along with what they wanted. Someone who might fit in with them better. They could move their money from LaSalle's investment company into this new person's company. All LaSalle wanted was to untangle their business relationship. He had a wife and they were thinking about starting a family and he was too honest for this kind of work. It was because he was honest that he said he'd get them an acceptable replacement.

"I thought the Rube would never go for it. But he liked this guy. And, between you and me, I think he gets off now on bein' this kind of benevolent godfather type-you know? He's startin' to think he might actually be a respectable businessman, you know, with all his Palm Beach shit and joinin' country clubs and all that. So he said okay. With one condition. He said that for the first year, LaSalle had to keep his hand in and make sure whoever this new guy was wouldn't fuck up. Lenny said he'd make sure that the new guy hired LaSalle-so LaSalle wouldn't be doin' business directly with us but he could still look after our interests. And still make some money for his new company. And LaSalle agreed. Not that he had a lot of choice-you know what I mean. He knew he was gettin' a good deal."

"And so the person he came up with was Evan Harmon," Justin said.

"Harmon jumped at it," Bruno told him. "Len met him down in Palm Beach and said the guy had greed written all over him. So we cut a deal."

"The same kind of deal Ron LaSalle wouldn't go along with."

Bruno nodded.

"And what went wrong?" Reggie asked. "What happened?"

"You get in business with a rattlesnake, you can't be surprised when he bites you. And then you really can't be surprised when the bite turns out to be poison."

"Which side are you referring to as the snake?" Justin asked.

"I'll give you your point, but I'm talkin' about Harmon. He was the rattler."

"Give us the specifics," Justin said.

"It started out as a sweet deal. He did a lotta business with the Chinks. Family ties, business ties, all that shit. He was investin' a lot of money for 'em. And he knew what they were gonna be investin' in. He said the Chinese car business was gonna take off. The numbers were amazin'. I mean, we're talking huge. Puts us to fucking shame. I saw the numbers. They more than tripled the number of cars over there in the last five years-from somethin' like six million to twenty million. And that's gonna keep goin' up like crazy. They're sellin' a thousand new cars a day in Beijing. A thousand a day! I didn't even know that was a city! And you know what's gonna happen over here? We're fucked and Europe's fucked and the Japs are fucked most of all. I'm talkin' good passenger cars for ten grand and an SUV for under twenty."

"Okay," Justin said. "You're hired. You can do the infomercial."

"I'm just sayin', this is a business that had our name all over it. Harmon said he could move a few things around, take our money and invest in platinum, which had to keep goin' up because all of a sudden China needed it-and needed a lot of it. They had to have it for all those fuckin' cars! It's makin' me crazy just to fuckin' think about it!"

"Try to keep your head in the game, Bruno."

Bruno did his best to calm down. "Yeah, yeah, all right. So Harmon said that if we put money in with his fund, he could arrange it so that we always made a profit. Other people could go up and down but we'd always stay up. He'd keep us strictly in platinum and slant cars."

"Why was he so willing to make that deal?" Reggie wanted to know. "His fund had plenty of money."

"It wasn't just our money," Bruno said.

"What was it?"

"It was our… expertise."

"Let's hear it," Justin said.

"Again… off the record. But it's not so complicated. Harmon's tied into China big-time. China doesn't want to just import cars and import car parts, they want to make their own fuckin' things, right? That's what they do. They take things over. They make 'em themselves 'cause that's where the money is. They're takin' over the whole world! So Harmon's helpin' them. He's shippin' parts to them on the sly. 'Cause Ford and Chrysler and nobody in the fuckin' U.S. governments wants to be helpin' them take over the whole car industry. So the exportin' is a little, let's say, dicey. I mean, they're gonna do it, you don't stop the Chinks once they get rollin', but the good ol' USA wants a share, right? They don't want 'em makin' all the parts we know how to make 'cause then what do they need us for?"

"So he lets you into his fund, he promises that you'll make a steady profit, and in exchange you provide a little smuggling expertise. For which you also get a share off the top?"

"Hey, we're a business just like everybody else."

"And where'd you smuggle the parts to?" Justin asked.

"Mexico. There was a plant there. Auto parts. The Chinese would fly their planes in there and Harmon could ship 'em whatever he wanted to ship 'em as long as he could get it to the plant."