Thomas Perry - Blood Money

Jane took a deep breath, then said carefully, “There are two of us. We have control of about ten billion dollars.”

“What do you mean you have control of it?”

“We’re the only ones who know where it is and can get our hands on it. It’s in lots of different places under a lot of different names: domestic and foreign stocks and bonds, bank accounts, real estate, precious metals, cash. It’s been built up over a period of about fifty years.”

Ziegler shrugged. “Anything that’s been invested for more than ten years is safe. If there was going to be trouble with it, the trouble would have come right away. There are a lot of ways to launder money, and you stumbled on the best: time. If you came to me for expert advice, here it is: you don’t need advice.”

“We want to give it all to charities.”

His left eyebrow went up. “Seriously.”

Jane held her eyes on Ziegler’s. After a few heartbeats, his expression changed. He looked more alarmed than puzzled. She supposed she must have undermined his sense of how people behaved. Part of her was pleased, but she had to keep him from taking the next step, which was to silently declare her insane and begin to speed up her departure. “That’s why we came to you,” she said. “We could try to leave it where it is forever. Probably some of the inactive accounts would be confiscated by the authorities. But it’s likely that others would be tracked down and claimed by people we don’t want to have it.”

He squinted, as though he were trying to block out what she was saying and hear something else. “Why don’t you want it?”

Jane said, “A lot of reasons—some practical, some not.”

“Give me a few practical reasons.”

Jane frowned. “Given enough time, these people may be able to trace some of the money. If they trace it to a charity, they’ll be out of luck. If they trace it to a person, that person will be out of luck. You said George told you something about me, so you know I have other reasons not to show a high profile. If I have billions of dollars, I’m not going to be invisible anymore.”

“What about your partner?”

“He has good reasons to stay invisible too. The money is poison.”

Henry Ziegler had his elbows on the arms of the chair, and he rested his chin on his fists as he stared at her thoughtfully. “So you want nothing out of this. You’re just sitting on ten billion dollars and figure it might as well go to good causes.”

“That’s about right.” She paused. “All of it except for your fee—I’m counting on you to identify enough money that’s very old and cold to make helping us worth your risk. You can pay yourself whatever is fair.”

He studied her more closely. “What do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to make this sound easy, or safe. The people we’re up against are about the worst enemies you could have. They’re already looking for anyone who might know the slightest thing about the money. If we make a mistake, the danger won’t ever go away.”

He said, “I respect that. I agree that we should be very careful not to con each other. You and your partner have somehow gotten your hands on the money that Bernie the Elephant was holding for the Mafia.”

Jane hesitated. There was no uncertainty in his expression. “It’s that obvious?”

He shrugged modestly. “I’m probably more up on these things than most people. At least I hope I am.” He leaned forward and spoke in an avuncular tone. “There’s always a certain amount of big money floating. Right now there are a few other chunks that big that could show up any day. But it’s not money you could have gotten your hands on. It’s from treasuries and central banks, and the people who have it also have armies and intelligence services to keep an eye on it.”

Jane asked, “Well, what do you think about this chunk?”

He held up his hands in a gesture meant to announce the obvious. “If you have money, charities will take it. We’ll have to be very careful about it, and do some preparation.” He stood up and paced the room. “It’s an interesting problem.” He stopped and asked, “I assume you want it all to move in a short period, so the Mafia doesn’t have time to figure out what it is, or where it came from—just hit them in the face with it?”

“I think so,” said Jane. “If we give them time to find the address of some building while we’re still in it, we’re dead.”

“It’s going to be interesting,” he said, and resumed his pacing, then stopped again. “And you don’t have any special charities in mind?”

Jane shook her head. “I’d like them to be legitimate. There’s no sense in moving money from one set of crooks to another. Beyond that, no.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “You wouldn’t have much choice beyond that.” He sat down beside her. “Let me tell you what ten billion dollars is. There are roughly forty thousand foundations in the country right now—some for charity, some for art, science, and so on. Ten billion dollars is what all of them put together give away in a year. No matter what we do, this is going to hit the papers—front page. The best we can hope for is that when it does, it’s at the end of the year as a statistic: ‘Charities Report a Good Year for Giving.’ ”

Jane’s brows knitted. “How do we do that?”

“We spread it thin enough, package each donation small enough so it doesn’t make a big splash by itself.” He waved a hand. “And we use a few tricks.”

“What sorts of tricks?”

He grinned. “For ten billion? Everything we can think of.” He turned his wrist to look at his watch. “I’m going to make some calls and clear my schedule for the next couple of weeks. I’ll have a few ideas for you by morning.”

Jane recognized her dismissal. She stood. “Please give some thought to the size of your fee. I’ll have to clear it with my partner.”

He turned to look at her slyly. “If I said it was ten percent—a billion dollars to move ten billion—would you be sure I was cheating you?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll do it for the goodwill.”

“What goodwill?”

“That means I have reasons too, some practical, some impractical. Be here at five o’clock in the morning.”

It was still dark at five a.m. when Jane stepped quietly along the path and knocked on Ziegler’s door. He swung the door open quickly and closed it after her. She noticed that he was wearing the pants from the suit he’d had on the night before and had his white shirt open at the collar and the sleeves rolled up.

Jane said, “You haven’t slept, have you?”

He picked up a piece of paper from the corner of the desk. “Here’s the plan. Phase one: we set up twenty private foundations. I’ve already faxed orders to twenty law firms in different parts of the country to start cutting the papers, but to leave the names blank until I call them in.”

“What does that do?”

“It sets up an impersonal vehicle. If a big donation check says Joe Smith, 101 Maple Street, charities want to know who that is. If the check is from a law firm representing the Smith Foundation, they think they know, so they don’t look. It’s not going to be listed anywhere until next year’s Foundation Directory comes out. By then it’s gone.” He went on. “Then we select a couple of hundred community foundations. You know what those are?”

“Not even vaguely.”

“They’re foundations that already exist for the benefit of some city, county, or state. People donate to them, and they make a budget and give the money to charities. For us, it takes the sting of newness off, mixes our money with other people’s, and puts another barrier of paper between the real contributor and the charity.”