ColdScheme (5 page)

“He could have brought an offer to bankroll.”

“From whom?”

“Someone with a lot of dirty disposable income—cash.”

“Money laundering?” Ken whistled.

“That could be the bottom line but I don’t think it’s that
simple.”

“If not, then we’re knee-deep in quicksand and sinking.”

“Yep.”

“Why can’t it be that simple? Money laundering is an old
problem. Brick was recruited to scout out businesses as potential clients for
some syndicate, domestic or foreign. That would explain his disappearance. He
was a set-up man.”

“He was executed. It’s not that simple.”

He asked, “What do you think he did for two months at
Guilford and why the dealership?”

“He probably did just as you said, set up a cash flow.
Guilford was ripe for that sort of thing. Ruggiano would not be overly bothered
by conscience. He had a high-end product. You can launder a lot of money
through a business that deals in those kind of price tags.”

“Then it’s simple,” he insisted.

It was—and it wasn’t. We could raise a red flag with the
State Department. We could pass on a tip to someone in the Bureau of Economic
and Business Affairs, about suspected money laundering operation but that would
nail shut Brick’s case better than a rivet gun. I felt that Guilford could use
a closer scrutiny. If only to confirm that it was as we said. A mediocre
business, on the brink of bankruptcy, that went to see stellar success in four
years—by adopting unorthodox and risky methods. It had phased out the staple of
any car dealership and soared into the sky with sales of cars that an average
citizen might see on the street once or twice in a lifetime.

“Recruitment by sporadic disappearance, coercion, threats
and ultimately abduction, is vastly different from the type practiced by
syndicates that aim to launder money,” I said. “Normally, such clans go after
people who are already on the fringe of penal institution. Not solid citizens,
economists with a well-paying job at the IMF and no criminal record.”

“Meg, do you believe what his fiancé had said?”

“Not every word of it but if you filter out her prejudices
against racial minorities, especially those who run 7-Elevens, the rest is
believable. Brick was recruited by force and threats. Ultimately, someone
tagged him and shackled him—the pacemaker. Whatever that gadget was, it was
planted in his chest to assure obedience.”

“Control?” he sounded skeptical.

“More than that, partner. Slavery. I believed Patricia when
she said that Brick knew. He had to know what he carried in his chest and
couldn’t do anything about it. He disappeared because he wanted to stay alive.”

“The syndicate must have pulled him in.”

I sighed. “I don’t think it’s a syndicate, Ken.”

“Why not?”

“Because syndicates don’t stick a bomb filled with
futuristic toxin into your chest. They will woo you, court you, promise and
deliver, the kind of lifestyle that will see you bake on a beach five times a
year. If you fall short of their lofty expectations, they would execute you but
they’ll do it with a gun, a car or toss you out of the boat in the middle of
the ocean. They don’t implant you with a state-of-the-art device that would let
you function normally for four years. Hell, I can’t think of anyone who would
waste that kind of R&D to execute an economist.”

“Military?”

“No.”

“Why not? Military and explosives go hand in hand.”

“Yes—hand in hand—not buried in the chest, Ken.”

“Who would be so pioneering as to implant a bomb for control
into someone’s chest?”

“A doctor.”

He reflected on something then said, “I’ll talk to Brenda,
see what the gossip is around Johns Hopkins.”

“Don’t go into it too deeply,” I warned.

“What’s the worry?”

“Brick was executed. That makes me nervous.”

“He outlived his usefulness.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What if it was an accident?” he suggested.

It was possible but I felt it wasn’t it. “Patterson thought
that Patricia’s rants were just that, empty ramblings, fragmented
recollections, products of her afflicted mind. I don’t think so.”

“Did you notice the patient who stood beside her?”

“Yes, Ken. She reminded me of Brenda. Forget what Patterson
said. People end up in Mongrove for many reasons. Life is tough in general.
Patricia said that Brick wanted to run away. Islands. What if Brick finally
reached the point where he could no longer live in slavery to whoever it was
who stuck the bomb into his chest? What if he was at that gas station, running
away?”

“He had spent four years, doing whatever it was they needed
him to do. All that time, he knew he was a walking ghost. He wouldn’t dare to
go far. What do you think was the radius of that device?”

“Even if we had known everything as we exited from that
7-Eleven and rushed to search the neighborhood, I don’t think we would have
found whoever it was who had set the device off.”

“Brick could have gone outside of the radius of control,”
Ken suggested.

“It’s possible. He was running. That’s why he was executed.”

“But why wait four years, Meg?”

“Maybe it took him that long to figure out what was going
on.”

“What do you mean?”

“He would have tried to get rid of the device. When he
realized he couldn’t, he complied, doing what they needed him to do. It saw him
live—and enjoy two months of working with Mr. Ruggiano and probably quite a few
others. But if it’s an organization, it has to have goals. This is a forceful
operation, slavery. Brick must have finally figured out where it was leading.
That’s what made him bolt.”

“Meg, if we’re dealing with an organization, then Brick
couldn’t have been their only recruit.”

I turned to stare at him. “You don’t think—”

“There would have to be more operatives, recruited the same
way.”

“God Ken, I hope you’re wrong,” I murmured.

“Organization means structure and hierarchy—both need people
to populate it.”

“If that’s the case, then the device Brick had in his chest
was not a prototype.”

“You’re not suggesting mass production of these?”

“Some products are mass produced without ever making it to
the open market.”

“I’d like to see you suggest that to Joe,” he murmured.
“Hell, just how aggressively do these people need to launder their money?”

“That’s a good question. Any petty criminal could have
served as a messenger and a cash flow set-up man for a place like Guilford. Why
send in an economist with a bomb in his chest?”

“Brick was at Guilford eighteen months ago,” Ken said and
waited.

“Training,” I said. I knew what was running through his
mind.

“For what?” he whispered.

“Bigger and better things. Those that probably made him run,
once he had figured out what it was about.”

We drove in silence for a long time then Ken asked, “Do they
really make an eighty thousand dollar profit on the sale of one those fancy
cars?”

“Yep. Up to twenty percent markup.”

“You didn’t check this out on the side, did you?”

“Nope.”

“Then how did you know?”

“I used to own one.”

He laughed all the way to our office on Fayette, while I
chuckled because that’s all I could get out of my tightening throat.

Chapter Three

In addition to Twain, Brick had carried eight different IDs.
Other than take out ads in all the major newspapers, asking for public
assistance, there was no way to track down the places where he might have
worked.

His Maryland driver’s license had a Baltimore Highlands
address. I checked in five different street guides and couldn’t find Grange
Street. Neither could I find the Norwin Peaks co-op. Ken ran it through our
database. There was no such address.

The Vehicle Services confirmed that Brick’s Maryland
driver’s license and car ownership, with the Grange Street address, were in
their database. The other five licenses were for New York State, Virginia and
DC.

I started with Washington. I used to live there.

“It’s half right,” the clerk said. “The names are valid. The
two applicants were issued driver’s licenses at the addresses you gave me but
not with those numbers. These are in our ‘pool and recycle’ database. Both have
been cancelled due to permanent license suspension. I will report this to our
Fraud Unit.”

I phoned the Virginia Vehicle Services and got an identical
story. Mr. Peter Bolt and Mr. Collin Hawley, residents of Ashland and Richmond,
Virginia, owned driver’s licenses that corresponded to the addresses I gave but
the registry numbers were wrong. They were retired when their owners went to
prison for a roadkill orgy of pedestrians. I hung up before the clerk mentioned
a Fraud Unit.

I dialed New York.

The trip through the electronic screens was exhausting. One
message away from being sanded down to screaming frenzy, I got a break. I was
invited to try the internet. I could pass this delightful duty to Ken.

“David Luxman lives in Brooklyn and holds a valid driver’s
license but not with the numbers I entered,” he reported when his query came
back.

“Get out of the Vehicle Services site before they start
asking questions,” I warned him.

He wasn’t fast enough. He had to enter his phone number or
the query would have been rejected.

Half an hour later, he was still on the phone, trying to
convince New York that he was a Maryland police officer.

“The number I gave them apparently belonged to a serial
killer. He’s locked up in the Great Meadow penitentiary,” he explained gloomily
when he hung up.

He went to get coffee, while I checked a credit card.

The Gold Visa had been issued to Martin Svenson, a DC
license holder. I asked the Cross National Bank and Trust how the credit card
was delivered to the recipient. Brick’s Cross Visa had Martin Svenson but no
address. I was curious whether the real Svenson had ever applied for a credit
card and whether the bank didn’t find it strange that someone would want to
duplicate this expensive service.

I spent five minutes battling electronic screens and
prompters and five more holding, while the bank checked my credentials.

“You issued a Gold Visa, with a twenty thousand dollar
credit line, insurance coverage, a medical and a frequent flier plan to a
customer who didn’t have a bank account at your bank?” I raised my voice.

“The customer applied for a business card that would be used
for business purposes, office supplies and equipment, travel and related
expenses.”

“Did he have a business account at your bank?”

“The applicant posted a ten thousand dollar cash security.”

“And that was sufficient for the bank to issue a Gold Visa
with double the limit?”

“The client’s credit rating was excellent. The bank had no
reason to refuse credit to this customer.”

“But you just said he wasn’t your customer. He was an
applicant who posted a ten thousand dollar bond against the card.”

I knew the bank wouldn’t have done a detailed background
check on someone who had posted cash. “Know your customer” business practice
would have been waived. The bank would have quickly reviewed all the advantages
of cash deposit and credit card interest, and approved a credit card for a
ghost.

“We had no reason to believe that the credit card would be
used for fraudulent purposes.” The bank manager was annoyed.

“Did I say I was checking fraud, Mr. Giraud?”

He cleared his throat. I continued, “Was there ever a
dispute over charges made to that credit card?”

“No.”

“Were monthly payments maintained?”

“The card balance was paid off monthly, in full.” He sounded
unhappy. I smirked. Of course his banking establishment wouldn’t be pleased
with such customer diligence. There was no outrageous interest to collect.

“Where was the original card mailed?”

“To the business address, as per instructions.”

“Skip the instructions and give me the business address.” He
complied.

I knew Washington. A mailbox service sprang in my mind.

“When the card was renewed, was it mailed to the same
address?”

He gave me a new “business” address, another mailbox haven.

“Did Mr. Svenson ever visit your bank?”

“I have never met this customer.”

“He was never the bank’s customer, merely a card holder—at
an arm’s length. Did the bank ever check out the address and the phone numbers
Mr. Svenson provided with his application?”

“I believe everything was in proper order.”

I knew what it meant. He had no record of such information.
Since the card was three years old, the staff responsible for its issue was no
longer with the bank.

“Has the bank ever received an application for a credit card
from Mr. Martin Svenson at the following address and phone number.” I dictated
the real Svenson’s residential address and phone number. I heard the clicking
of keys as he entered the information into the computer.

“No.”

“It saved you a lot of headaches and embarrassment, had the
real Mr. Martin Svenson of 24 Kirk Drive in Washington ever applied for a
credit card,” I said and hung up.

I wasn’t going to bother checking the birth certificates.
Any teenager could buy one on the street. Brick’s alternate identities were not
going to give us clues.

I phoned the Aetna Assurance, Brick’s insurance company. The
application for coverage was made over the internet. I slashed and burned my
way through three reps and two supervisors.

Finally, I got the manager. He released the email that came
with the application. I handed it to Ken. The insurance documents were mailed
to a business address on Pratt Street. It was a private outfit, renting out
mailboxes.

“Why is it so easy these days to obtain documents with false
information?” Ken wondered.

“Probably because the FBI decided to supplement their
operating budget by offering courses to the public on forging documents and
obtaining replacements for valid originals with fraudulent information,” I
said.

“You’re kidding? When did they start doing that?” He
believed me.

I shook my head and wondered whether I shouldn’t advise
Brenda to tell her beau that she had a month to live and would like to say, “I
do,” before the “Death do us part.”

“Brick’s car insurance was paid up until the end of the year
but other than his name and the policy number, nothing else is valid,” I told
him. “The car is a last year’s model. It was bought for cash, in Catonsville.
It was a demo, with ten thousand miles on the odometer. The dealership was
happy to get rid of it. In one year, Brick put forty thousand miles on it. He
must have lived in motels and efficiency units, all cash transactions.”

We agreed to tackle the obvious leads first. The obscure
ones would not see us back from the quest until Brenda was in a retirement
community and my child in college.

We went to see Milton Ostrander, our in-house forgery
expert.

“All of these pieces of plastic are real,” Milton said. We
had already told him that every number stamped into them was fake or obtained
with fraudulent information.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“Contacts,” he replied.

“I would have said lack of due diligence process and
lackadaisical attitude in the Vehicle Services, insurance companies, the birth
registry office, the banking circles—right. Thanks, Milton.”

“I didn’t mean the level of service,” he laughed. “I meant
contacts—with outsourcing, contractors. It would take you years to check them
out. I called the Vehicle Services. Their blank plastic comes from a new outfit
practically every six months—whoever bids the lowest. There are outfits, paying
taxes for all I know, that specialize in providing blank templates for all
types of IDs to anyone who pays cash. Hell, they will soon compete with the
government agencies who issue these cards.”

We left.

“It’s beginning to sound like a big organization,” Ken
murmured, as we headed for the elevator.

“Maybe just clever.”

“Why would Brick use his name at all?” he asked. It had been
bothering me too.

“You need a car ownership and insurance in the same name.
The Aetna would have balked at giving documents in different names.”

“If a cop stops you, those documents better agree.”

“A cop would also check out those documents and alarming
information would pop on his screen—missing, cold case,” I pointed out.

“In Maryland but not in New York or DC,” Ken made a stronger
point.

Brick was a cold case but he was not on the FBI’s ten most
wanted list. He was a missing person case we were trying to solve.

“So you think he traveled, using documents in his own name?”
I asked.

He shrugged. “He might have felt safe to do that, outside of
Maryland. He put forty thousand miles on that car in one year.”

“Traveled a lot…” I trailed off.

“You check out DC, I’ll do New York State,” Ken said.

“Check out what, for God’s sake?”

“Exotic car dealerships. He set up Guilford. That took two
months. He lived four more years post his disappearance. His masters had to
keep him busy. He traveled, doing other jobs for them. That’s the only way he
could have learned, figured out what it was about.”

* * * * *

Brick’s death—or execution—didn’t just toss us into a
blender. A perverse hand from beyond reached to stab a button and increase
speed.

I made it home by six. The house was clean. Mrs. Tavalho
avoided my eyes when she went to pick up her purse. It made me suspicious. I
was about to ask whether my daughter was expelled from school for skipping
classes, when I heard a soft murmur.

“Don’t get too upset. She’s just spirited—and frustrated,”
the housekeeper said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

When I walked into the kitchen, I found a visitor—busily
filling out forms spread all over the table. Jazz sat across from the young
man, elbows propped on the table, head in her hands—giving information.

He smiled when he saw me but didn’t bother to rise. He
introduced himself, sitting down. Two minutes later, he was backing down the
corridor, a mess of forms squished against his chest, staring at my gun.

“That’s a minor in there,” I motioned with the gun at the
kitchen. “I’m her mother and the only one who has the say in this matter. Now
get the hell out of here and don’t come back unless I invite you.”

He fell out the door. I returned to the kitchen, gun still
in hand.

“Are you going to shoot me too?” Jazz asked, slouching down
in the chair.

“Did you hear shots? No? Then he must have left alive. No
sleepovers for the rest of the summer. No parties, no movies and above all—no
idiots from People Finders!” I shouted the last words.

“I have the right to know,” she murmured, shaken.

“Not for another eight years. When that time comes and if we
survive each other, then you are welcome to resume your quest with People
Finders or any other fucking agency you damn well wish!” I lost it. She jumped
up and ran away to her room.

I put the gun on the table and sat down. I had spent ten
years running away—from everything and everyone.

Jazz would be crying in her room. But I couldn’t go in and
comfort her. Not because I feared that I would lose control again. I knew that
once her tears dried, she would try to get me to explain…hint…confess.

* * * * *

The first thing I did, when Nellie had come to pick me up in
Transgrove, was to ask her help me legally change my name. I was twenty-one. It
wasn’t a breakaway. It was a safety measure. It would let me live, like any
other average citizen.

I had spent eighteen years living a privileged, difficult
and bizarre life. It was destructive. I had brought hardships upon myself but
there was a cause, a root to every vile act, every punishment I had inflicted
upon myself.

When, at twenty-two, I went to see Blackwell Harris, our
Police Commissioner, I faced him as Meaghan Stanton—and only then did I tell
him my life story. He had listened without interrupting. He had to know.
Without a detailed background check, I wouldn’t have been allowed into the
police academy.

No one else knew. That’s the way I wanted it. I wouldn’t
compromise it, not even for my daughter’s sake.

I took a shower and went to work on the alternate DC car
services.

There were twenty-seven auto retailers in the greater
Washington area. Four carried, in addition to the domestic product, exotic
imports.

I had already phoned these places from work. No one had
employed Brick.

When the fourth irate dealership owner had asked the name of
my superior officer and my badge number, I had cut him off. “We’re
investigating Mr. Brick’s murder. Would you like to be subpoenaed to provide
whatever information we deem is relevant?”

It had shut him up. I’d dropped the phone into the cradle.
The Washington exotic connection was cold. Brick may have traveled but if he
had set up a money laundering operation in Washington, it couldn’t have been
another Guilford scheme.