Greasing the Piñata (19 page)
“God helps those who help themselves.”
As he talked, Priest curled his tongue around his front teeth like a man searching for a piece of food. “So in the thirteenth century, the Catholic Church started one of the first money laundering operations.”
Antonio Salinas studied his guest with a skeptical eye but said nothing. Experience had taught him that sometimes it is best to let a madman rant.
“The idea was beautifully simple.” Priest started pacing. “Sinners were supposed to repent in confession, then await God’s judgment and forgiveness. But the Church decided people should not only repent, they should pay some sort of retribution here on Earth. So the Church began selling
indulgences
. Merchants, nobles and peasants alike could pay for their sins in cold, hard cash.”
“You’re joking.” Salinas bit the end off a cigar, then lit it. “All of Mexico is Catholic, and I never heard of this.”
“It doesn’t get brought up in many sermons, but it’s true.” Priest breathed in the secondhand smoke with relish. “If you sinned you could alleviate your guilt by
doing good works
, but why not erase your sin entirely by paying the Church to do good in your name?”
Salinas waved his cigar in a circle. “What is your point, my friend?”
“This became very popular with the merchant class, who could afford to pay for indulgences. They would bring gold, and the Church would issue a printed slip of paper, the currency of absolution. People didn’t have to change their lifestyle to avoid purgatory, and the Church became wealthy beyond measure. Souls were cleansed, the money was clean, and everyone was happy.”
Salinas blew smoke rings. The ceiling fan pushed them across the room, where they enveloped Priest’s head like a succession of halos.
“This went on for hundreds of years.” Priest sighed as if he had been there. “Then that killjoy Martin Luther came along and complained, which caused a great schism among the faithful. By this time the printing press had been invented, so the Church was printing indulgences faster than the Mexican government prints
pesos
—no offense.”
“None taken.”
“It was a beautiful system, because it was based on a simple truth: people do not want to change. They do not want to repent. You know what they want, Antonio?”
Salinas said nothing.
“They want forgiveness. Absolution. And they are willing to pay for it, again and again. That is the genius of Luis Cordon’s plan.”
Salinas narrowed his eyes. “Cordon is no fool, but he is not a genius. The
gringo
Senator had the idea, I am sure of it.”
“Perhaps. But the environmental movement is the new religion, make no mistake.”
“You are being melodramatic,
amigo
.”
“Am I? Question global warming and you’ll be called a heretic. Drive the wrong car and it might get set ablaze by the faithful. Vote against the greener candidate and you’ll be ostracized by your neighbors. The God you and I grew up with is dead to this generation, Antonio—he has been replaced by
Gaia
, the earth goddess. We are surrounded by pagans.”
“Pagans with money.”
“Yes.” Priest nodded. “Willing to pay companies that promise them absolution. Live your life the way you want, and we will plant a tree in your memory. Everything old is new again.”
“Too bad Martin Luther is dead.” Salinas puffed on his cigar. “But so is the Senator. And the lawyer.”
“Yes, the money machine of your rival is being dismantled, but it has many arms and legs. Some right here in Mexico.”
“You mean the operation in Monterrey.”
“It’s very profitable.”
“The lawyer is dead. There will be an investigation.”
“There will be other lawyers—they tend to multiply. And investigations take time.”
“Regulators will come, shut everything down.”
“Perhaps.” Priest pursed his lips. “But can you afford to wait that long?”
“You have a plan?”
“I have something better.” Priest smiled, his teeth glinting with malice. “I have God on my side.”
“Hell of a day.”
Beau sat down heavily next to Cape, the park bench creaking from the strain. His long legs almost touched the water of the duck pond. A small melee of ducks was under way as Cape lobbed pieces of white bread into the water.
Cape took off his baseball cap, removed the sunglasses. “Guess my disguise didn’t work.”
“Your forehead’s purple—practically glows under that hat. How’d you get here, anyway?”
“Took a bus.”
“No shit?” Beau turned sideways. “And how was that?”
“Not as bad as I though it would be.”
“You know the buses in this town kill people every month. MUNI drivers nailed almost 20 pedestrians already this year.”
“Maybe that’s part of the city’s strategy to get more people riding them.”
“Convince them it’s safer
inside
the bus?”
Cape shrugged. “Made better time than I thought.”
“Linda must be rubbing off on you. Feel better about yourself?”
“I’ll feel better when I get my car fixed.”
“Ain’t gonna happen. I saw it, after they got a crane to lift it away from the pier. Even the little mermaid couldn’t drive that car.”
Cape laid a fat manila envelope on the bench between them.
“We cracked the code.”
Beau opened the clasp and flipped through the pages. “What’s the Reader’s Digest version?”
Cape laid it out for him. The money funneling through Delta Energy and back through the subsidiaries. The tax breaks, the financials of the alternative energy ventures, and finally the list of investors.
When Cape was finished Beau whistled and reached into the bag of bread. He tossed a few pieces over the heads of the bigger ducks toward the little ones that were getting boxed out.
“My associates in the Federal Building will be much obliged.”
“Think they’ll get Frank?”
“Not a chance.” Beau snapped his arm and sent a piece of bread flying. “Bastard’s too slippery. He’ll assume the role of naive investor.”
“But the law isn’t his only problem, is it?”
“You read my mind, brother.” Beau smiled wickedly. “If your hacker is right—”
“—he’s always right.”
“—and Luis Cordon is investing in bogus companies with Frank, that would certainly explain why Cordon’s product is showing up in more places—”
“—and why Salinas is losing market share?”
“Bingo.”
Cape put his sunglasses back on. “Isn’t that a little dangerous, if you’re Frank?”
Beau squeezed enough bread together to make a wad the size of a golf ball. “Frank is trying to play both sides. Salinas has old-school mob connections, so Frank can’t refuse to distribute his product. But Cordon is the future—he’s diversified into semi-legitimate businesses.”
“Like Frank.”
“Yeah.” Beau timed his next throw carefully. A big duck was nipping at the rest of the group, snatching all the bread for himself. Beau raised his arm and waited…waited…and then snapped his wrist. The ball of dough struck the bully right above the bill, knocking it backward into the water. It swam off, quacking in protest, looking over its shoulder to check for any more breaded missiles headed its way.
“Feel better?” Cape took the bag of bread and idly tossed some loose pieces to the remaining ducks, which were suddenly on their best behavior.
“Didn’t feel bad,” said Beau, “just frustrated. We got nothing on the lawyer, in terms of forensics.”
“You’ve got the connection to Delta Energy.”
“Yeah, but all that shit will go federal. I don’t have a case to work here.”
“They tried to kill me.”
“So what?” Beau shrugged. “No offense, but that’s
attempted
murder. You gotta be dead if you want me to take an interest.”
“I could drown next time.”
“Nah, then I’d just have to do the paperwork.”
“And the ties to the cartels…”
“Not my jurisdiction.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes and watched the ducks. A small island dominated the center of the pond, overgrown with trees twisted by the wind. This part of Golden Gate Park often got overlooked but Cape loved it. The city might have been a thousand miles away.
“You think Salinas killed the Senator and his kid?” Cape tilted his face toward the sun but couldn’t feel any warmth.
“Absolutely. Happened in his back yard. The papers said there were three victims, the third identified as having ties to Cordon. So Salinas had the means and the opportunity.”
“And the motive?”
“Sure, killing them hamstrings a nice little operation that Cordon set up.”
“No.” Cape took off his sunglasses. “I mean the motive for paying me off—Salinas had already killed the Senator, so why ask me to dig into it?” He threw the last of the bread in a long overhand arc. He’d been avoiding this question, even though he already knew the answer.
“You got used.” Beau said it simply, without any judgment in his tone, but Cape felt bile in his throat anyway. “Salinas might have killed the principals behind Cordon’s little environmental scam, but he wanted it torn down. He can’t do that, can he? What’s he gonna do, call the FBI and leave a tip?”
Cape lowered his voice. “
Hi, it’s me—Antonio Salinas, Mexican drug lord and concerned citizen…
”
“
…and I thought you guys might wanna know about some shady investments…
” Beau patted the manila envelope. “Salinas wanted somebody to do the legwork for him.”
Cape looked at the envelope and fought the urge to throw it into the pond. If he didn’t turn it over, a lot of hardworking people with good intentions would continue to get fleeced. But if he did, Salinas would get what he wanted.
“Fuck me.”
Beau put a hand on Cape’s shoulder. “Things don’t always work out the way you thought they would.”
“Tell me about it.” Cape watched as the bully duck worked its way back into the throng. The bag was empty. There was nothing Cape could do short of jumping into the pond.
“I’ll give you a ride back if you want.” Beau grabbed the envelope and stood to leave.
“I’ll walk. Dobbins lived next to the park—hopefully Rebecca’s still there.”
“You talk to her yet?”
“Not since I took a dive off the pier and her name hit the press. Can’t get through, so I’m going in person.”
“What are you gonna tell her?”
“That it’s over,” said Cape. “The case is closed.”
The Senator’s house overlooked the western edge of the park, a twenty minute walk from the duck pond. Cape got there in thirty. He was anxious to finish this conversation but wasn’t in such a hurry to get it started.
A good long-jumper could clear the front lawn, but by San Francisco standards it was sizable. The grass was freshly cut and the plants groomed. Cape figured a lawn service came every other week. The house itself was mostly wood, white with dark accents around the windows, and a slate roof reminiscent of a gingerbread house. Cape might have called it quaint if he was in the right mood.
He rang the bell and listened to the chimes echoing around the foyer. He knocked and got no response. He considered leaving but knew procrastination would only feed on itself and he’d end up finding some excuse to put things off until tomorrow. Then it occurred to him to check her brother Danny’s apartment in the Mission. Even though Rebecca had said she’d be staying here, Cape knew how hard it must be on her. Maybe Danny’s place had fewer bad memories.
Cape checked his notebooks to make sure he had the address. He did and turned toward the street before he remembered he didn’t have a car. He knew a bus must stop somewhere near the park but didn’t have a clue where, and cabs in San Francisco were about as common as Bigfoot sightings.
He decided to take a walk around the house, if only to put off his quest for transportation. The side yard was as manicured as the front, small bushes looking prim and expensive, no bugs in sight. The backyard had some wooden lawn furniture, a sundial and a bird fountain that was dry. Maybe the birds hadn’t paid their taxes.
As Cape came around the other side of the house he saw something he hadn’t expected. An open window, as tempting to a professional snoop as online pornography is to a teenager with a laptop. He stepped up to the sill and peered inside.
The living room was unoccupied, papers scattered across a coffee table, a desk in the corner. The lights were off but enough came through the window to illuminate the back hall. The house had a stillness about it that said no one was home.
Cape looked toward the front yard and thought about his long walk to the Mission, then decided breaking and entering sounded like more fun. The window was open far enough for him brace his hand on the bottom of the frame. He gently pushed and it rose easily on its tracks.
He walked back to the backyard and grabbed one of the lawn chairs, carried it back to the window. It saved him from having to hoist himself up by his arms. Swinging his right leg over the sill, he managed to slide and then tumble into the living room ass-first without knocking anything over.
Cape stood completely still and listened, but the house was dead silent. No creaks, no water heating kicking in, nothing. He looked at the coffee table.
Photographs were scattered over its surface. Rebecca as a young girl. Her mother and father holding hands. Her brother Danny. Her father at some event, a tight shot of him smiling in a tuxedo, his wife next to him, her hair pinned up. Rebecca again, standing with a group of girls wearing uniforms. Cape couldn’t tell what type of team it was—softball, volleyball, lacrosse—but all the girls looked like they could kick his ass.
He stepped over to the desk, where the originals of the stock certificates lay, adjacent to the maps Rebecca had shown him in the restaurant. Cape stopped and listened again.
Silence.
He took a seat in the desk chair and started to reach for the top drawer when a yellow envelope caught his eye. It lay to the right of the maps and had been torn open. Through a clear window in the envelope Cape could see Rebecca’s name and this address. It was a telegram.
Cape always felt a slight pang of guilt when he read other people’s mail, but years as a reporter and then as a PI had reduced the feeling to a millisecond of doubt followed by a thrill of anticipation. Usually the contents were mundane. In all the years he’d been poking his nose where it didn’t belong, he’d never had a case where opening an envelope revealed something totally unexpected.
Until now.
Cape read the telegram twice. By the time he finished, his mouth had gone dry.
Someone had asked Rebecca to meet him in Mexico. Someone claiming to have information about her brother and father. Someone who said he needed her help. Someone who couldn’t be reached but would meet her when she came. Someone who said she should hurry.
It was someone Cape knew as well as he knew himself.
He stared at his own name at the bottom of the telegram and felt his blood run cold.