Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“We’ve got tax returns, production orders, equipment rentals, pays and owes from the making of several films-more than a dozen. All of it straight-to-video stuff. Like Veronica said, it’s just this side of porno. I looked at some of the tapes he had in his office and it was all pretty awful stuff. Not much in the way of narrative unless you count the buildup of tension waiting for the female lead to get naked.

“The only problem is that the ledgers don’t match what’s on the film and most of the big checks paid by TNA Productions went to mail drops and companies that I’m finding out don’t exist anywhere but on paper.”

“How do you mean?” Billets asked.

“I’m saying his business records show a million to a million five going into each of these so-called movies, and you look at the tapes and, I’m telling you, there can’t be more than a hundred, maybe two hundred thousand involved. My brother works in the business as an editor, and I know enough to know that the kind of money Aliso’s books show being spent on these movies is not being spent on these movies. I think that what he was doing was using these flicks to launder money, lots of money.”

“Run it down, Kiz,” Billets said. “Just how would he do it?”

“Okay, start with his source. We’ll call him Mr. X for now. Mr. X has a million bucks he shouldn’t have. Whether it’s from drugs or whatever, he needs to clean it up, legitimize it so he can put it in the bank and spend it without drawing attention. He gives it to Tony Aliso-invests it in Tony’s production company. Aliso then makes a cheap movie with it, spending less than a tenth of it.

“But when it comes to keeping the books, he makes it look like he’s used all of the money for production costs. He’s got checks going out almost weekly to various production companies, prop companies, movie equipment companies. All the checks are in the eight-to nine-thousand range, just under the government reporting limit.”

Bosch listened carefully as she spoke. He had his eyes closed and concentrated. He admired Rider’s ability to cull all of this out of the records.

“Okay, then at the end of production, Tony probably dubs a few thousand copies of the flick, sells them or tries to sell them to independent video stores and distributors-because the chains wouldn’t touch this crap-and that’s that, end of show. But what he has done is turned around and given back to Mr. X, his original investor, about eighty cents on the dollar in the form of payments to these dummy companies. It’s a shell game. Whoever is behind these companies is being paid with his own money for services not rendered. But now the money’s legit. It’s clean and he can walk into any bank in America and deposit it, pay taxes on it, then spend it. Meantime, Tony Aliso takes a nice production fee for his end of it and goes on to the next flick. It looks like he was handling two or three of these productions a year and clearing half a million in fees himself.”

They were all silent for a few moments before Rider spoke again.

“There’s only one problem,” Rider said.

“He’s got the IRS on him,” Bosch said.

“Riiiiiight,” she responded, and he could visualize the smile on her face. “It’s a nice scam but it was about to go down the toilet. The IRS was going to take a look at Tony’s books later this month, and there is a good chance that if I could come up with this in just one day, the feds would pick up on it in an hour.”

“That would make Tony a danger to Mr. X,” Edgar said.

“Especially if he was going to cooperate with the audit,” Rider added.

Someone on the other end of the line whistled, but Bosch couldn’t tell who it was. He guessed it was Edgar.

“So what’s next, find Mr. X?” Bosch asked.

“For starters,” Rider replied. “I’m working up a request I’ll fax to the state department of corporations tomorrow morning. It’s got all the dummy companies on it. Maybe, whoever he is, he was foolish enough to put a real name or address on the incorporation forms. I’m also working on another search warrant. I have the canceled checks from Tony’s company. I want the records of the accounts the checks were deposited to, maybe find out where the money went after Tony cleaned it up.”

“What about the IRS?” Bosch asked. “Have you talked to them?”

“They’re closed for the holiday. But according to the notice Aliso got in the mail, there is a criminal prefix on the audit number. That makes me think this wasn’t a random audit. They were tipped somehow. There’s an agent assigned to it and I’ll be on the phone to him first thing in the morning.”

“You know,” Edgar said, “this whole thing about OCID taking a pass is beginning to stink. Whether Tony was hooked up with the Eye-talians or not, this shit is as organized as organized crime can get. And I’d bet my last button that they’d heard somewhere along the line, whether it was from the IRS or not, about our guy here.”

“I think you’re right,” Billets said.

“I forgot to mention something,” Bosch threw in. “Today I was talking with Art Donovan. He said the guy I talked to at OCID last night, a supe named Carbone, well he just happens to show up over at SID today and starts asking Art about the case. Art says the guy’s acting like he’s not interested, but he’s very interested, you know what I mean?”

Nobody said anything for a long moment.

“So what do we do?” Edgar asked.

Bosch closed his eyes again and waited. Whatever Billets said would determine the course of the case as well as affect his regard for her. Bosch knew what her predecessor would have done. He would have made sure the case was dumped on OCID.

“We don’t do anything,” Billets finally said. “It’s our case, we work it. But be careful. If OCID is sniffing around after taking a pass, then there is something going on here we don’t know about yet.”

Another silence passed and Bosch opened his eyes. He was liking Billets better all the time.

“Okay,” Billets said. “I think we should be focusing on Tony’s company as a priority. I want to shift most of our attention there. Harry, can you wrap up Vegas quickly and get back here?”

“Unless I find something, I should be out of here before lunch tomorrow. But remember this, last night Mrs. Aliso told us that Tony always told her he came to Vegas to see investors. Maybe our Mr. X is right here.”

“Could be,” Billets said. “Okay then, again, people, it’s been good work. Let’s stay on it.”

They said their good-byes and Bosch put the phone back on the side table. He felt invigorated by the advances of the investigation. He just sat there a moment and reveled in the feeling of the adrenaline jazzing through his body. It had been a long time coming. He squeezed his hands into fists and banged them together.

Bosch stepped out of the elevator and began moving through the casino. It was quieter than most casinos he had been in-there wasn’t any yelling or whooping from the craps table, no begging of the dice to come up seven. The people who gambled here were different, Bosch thought. They came with money and they’d leave with money no matter how much they lost. The smell of desperation wasn’t here. This was the casino for the well-heeled and thick-walleted.

He passed by a crowded roulette wheel and remembered Donovan’s bet. He squeezed between two smoking Asian women, put down a five and asked for a chip but was told it was a twenty-five-dollar-minimum table. One of the Asians pointed with her cigarette across the casino to another roulette table.

“They’ll take your five over there,” she said with distaste.

Bosch thanked her and headed over to the cheap table. He put a five chip down on the seven and watched the wheel turn, the little metal ball bouncing over the numbers. It did nothing for him. He knew that true-blue gamblers said it wasn’t the winning and losing, it was the anticipation. Whether it was the next card, the fall of the dice or the number the little ball stopped on, it was those few seconds of waiting and hoping and wishing that charged them, that addicted them. But it did nothing for Bosch.