For Blood or Money
26. Truth Comes With the Telling
I’D JUST COME IN from walking Maizie when my phone rang. Jordan had news. The truckload of furniture was on the move again, this time in little pieces.
“A crew arrived and started unloading the container in the warehouse,” he said. “We’d already planted cameras and were watching the whole thing. The guys almost missed what was happening.”
Periodically a piece of furniture was opened—either a panel from the back or simply a drawer—and several small parcels had been removed and taken to the panel van that had brought the crew. The furniture was piled helter-skelter beside the container. They had blown up pictures from the tape and discovered approximately what was in the smaller packages.
“It’s compact disks,” Jordan said. “We haven’t identified what’s on them yet. We’re not moving in on the panel van until we see where it goes. It has to be bootleg music CDs, movies or possibly software. In any case, when that van arrives at its destination, we are moving in for a huge bust. You forget these days that drugs aren’t the only thing that is a big money-maker.”
“That’s great news, Jordan. Anything else I can do to help?”
“All right, wise guy. That was meant as a thank you. The fact that they weren’t shipping humans in freight containers is just a bonus. It was your tip that got me down on that particular ship.” Jordan paused and I was about to brush off the thanks when he continued. “Now that you mention it, though, maybe you could do a little investigating on where and how they are intending to get rid of this stuff. I know it’s just ‘guess work’ on your part.” Jordan was letting me off the hook regarding any possible evidence I might have that wasn’t obtained according to proper search and seizure warrants. “But if you and your lovely assistant put your mind to it, I’m sure you can come up with some ideas.”
“Uh, one thing you should know, Jordan,” I said a little hesitantly. “Off-hand I’d say that BKL doesn’t actually have that many assets that you could seize. There’s been a major sell-off.”
“Why aren’t we hearing about it through normal channels, then?” he asked.
“Well, it’s a privately held company, and it’s a holiday weekend. US markets were only open for three hours this morning. I’d guess that some of the partners don’t even know about it yet,” I said.
“That’s why you were holed up with Simon Barnett for three days?” Jordan asked. “I should have known. Look, old friend, there had better be no tracks that lead back to you.”
“That sounds accusatory, Jordan. I can’t think of any reason tracks would lead to me.”
“Later,” Jordan ended the conversation. “Our truck is on the move.”
I’d done Simon one last favor when I dissolved the business. I’d done it in Bradley’s name. There was no evidence of anything that would lead back to Simon. I did think, however, that it merited a little investigation to see if I could tell how they were planning to move the pirated CDs. That kind of a job took some forethought.
I was still sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open when Riley knocked on the door at 2:00.
“Hey! I thought you might want to grab a bite before the movie,” she said when I answered the door. I invited her in. Food seemed like a good idea.
“What are you working on?” she asked when she saw my open laptop. I recapped the conversation I’d had with Jordan.
“So what do you think?” I asked. “What’s the most effective way to quickly convert several thousand bootleg CDs to cash?” When Riley starts thinking you can almost see the wheels turning in her mind. She shook her head.
“Nothing comes to mind that would be profitable on such a big scale,” she said. “Not in this country. You’d think that they would have kept and distributed the stuff in Asia, not import it from Asia.” I agreed and we headed out for a bite at Ralph’s before we crossed the street for the movie at the Cinerama. It was easy to escape for a while from real life outside the theater into the fantastical world of a secret agent. But really, what did he have that I didn’t have? In the past three-and-a-half weeks I’d been undercover in a private club that catered to the whims of rich and important businessmen. I’d been knocked unconscious by a jealous boyfriend. I’d been thrown into the Chicago River by a thug. I’d even had a one-day affair with a beautiful woman. I had followed a woman on a train, was taken on a private jet ride with my ex-wife’s husband, and I’d moved two billion dollars in assets. I’d survived another heart attack, and Thanksgiving Dinner. Now I was out on a movie date with my extraordinarily beautiful partner. And of all, only one of my contacts had actually died. I was definitely secret agent caliber.
The fact that I spent most of my time analyzing computer data didn’t seem to matter.
I was in a great mood when we left the movie theater. I’d only missed one short segment when I had to get up for the bathroom. And I was feeling sharp. My mind was working well and I still felt—if not as grand as yesterday—reasonably well. I could lick this thing. I would survive.
And during the movie, I’d figured out part of the clue to moving the money that Bradley must be using.
We were talking about the crowds that were out on the day after Thanksgiving and how much money would be pushed into the local economy today when Riley surprised me and asked, “What do you want for Christmas, Dag?”
“All I want for Christmas is a brand new heart, a brand new heart, a brand new heart,” I sang in my best “Two Front Teeth” style. Then I realized that I hadn’t actually told Riley that I was waiting for a transplant.
“What do you mean, Dag? You’re getting better now, right?”
“My heart is not going to get better, Riley. I’m on the transplant list.”
“Dag! Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to be worried unnecessarily,” I said. “There’s really nothing you can do to help it more than you already do.” She lapsed into silence and I decided we needed a little more time this evening.
When she got me home, Riley was shocked that I invited her up to stick around and watch TV for a while. The holiday fare on the tube was bleak, so we sat and talked. I started to explain my theory of money movement.
“The big problem with a movie like that is that you can’t dispose of a hundred million dollars easily. You have to get it into circulation and convert it into something that can be used easily. So, let’s say the bad guys in the movie gave the investor $100 million. Each million if it were in $100 bills would take up four-tenths of a cubic foot, so we would have a total of forty-two cubic feet of money. That is a 4x4 palette stacked roughly three feet high. It would weigh about one-and-a-quarter tons. That’s what the fellow loaded into the back of his panel van in three suitcases.”
“Did you work that all out in your head just now?” Riley asked.
“No. I was playing with the numbers while I was transferring Simon’s money. I was trying to figure out what half a billion dollars looked like. Believe me, you need a forklift. The point is that moving that much cash is no easy problem. So how can you move it more efficiently?”
“Well,” Riley said, “if that was the case, moving CDs would only be more complex. If every CD was worth $100 then a million dollars would take up six-tenths of a square foot. They are heavier than a hundred dollar bill, too, and what CD is worth $100?” I was almost into my next sentence when I realized the calculations that Riley had just made in her head on the spur of the moment. Damn she was good.
“True,” I said. “The only difference is that all kinds of retail stores will pay for the CDs with checks that can be deposited. So, they convert cash to CDs and CDs to checks. Instant legitimate income.”
“It would make a lot more sense if they put data on CDs that was worth a million dollars. Then they could carry a million on a CD, pop it into a computer, and have instant credit.”
“Like putting all the records of cash cards sold in a certain store on a CD, then packing it in a suitcase and taking it to Switzerland with you. Riley, that’s brilliant! I love you.”
“Do you Dag?” she asked.
I realized I’d said this rather often this month. It was all in good humor. She was brilliant and a great help in everything I did. What was not to love?
“Sorry, Dag,” she broke in before I could answer. Somewhere in our banter I’d struck a nerve that I knew nothing about. “Nobody does,” she continued. “Nobody ever will. I’m a freak of nature and that’s just the way it’s going to be.”
“Riley,” I said moving over beside her on the sofa. Our conversation had been so spirited and intense for the past hour and a half I hadn’t noticed any effect it was having on Riley. “Why do you think that?” I asked putting my hands on her shoulders and turning her to face me. “You are funny, charming, brilliant, and beautiful. Any guy in his right mind would be in love with you. Including me. Why do you put yourself down? Why don’t you tell Santa what you’d like for Christmas?”
I looked at her as a tear began to run from her eye. Then she slowly reached up and dragged the wig off her head—her perfectly smooth, bald head. She pulled one of my unbelieving hands up to her head.
“Nobody wants a freak,” she said. She started to get up, but I pulled her down in my arms and held her, softly stroking the silky smooth skin on her perfectly shaped head.
“Tell me about it,” I said softly. “Are you in chemotherapy?”
“I wish it were that easy an explanation,” she said. “Though, believe me, I wouldn’t trade places. I don’t have a fatal disease. It’s called Alopecia. It’s a hair loss syndrome that is not as rare as you might think and is most common among women. For some it is temporary and the hair grows back. Mine hit at adolescence and all the hair on my body fell out. None has ever grown back.” She held up her arm and pulled back her sleeve. Her arm was perfectly smooth and hairless.
“Men are plenty interested when they see me, but not one has been able to see a future with a bald freak. And now you’re disgusted, too.”
She was crying freely now and I just continued to hold her in my arms and stroke her head. She seemed to love having me touch the now-exposed skin. Well, why not. We all love to have our head’s stroked.
“You have never disgusted me, Riley,” I said. “I’ve always loved you, and I always will.”
That seemed to make things worse. At least she was crying more.
“My Dad always said that,” she choked out. She hugged me more tightly and I finally began to see what she really got out of our relationship.
“Is that what you have nightmares about?” I asked. She probably didn’t realize that I knew about the nightmares. I’d found out one night on the long drive back to Seattle after my Las Vegas heart attack. She looked up at me, blinking the tears out of her eyes.
“I haven’t had a nightmare for months now. Probably because I didn’t sleep at all last week, but still… They stopped a while back.” I smiled. That was good.
“My mother was an alcoholic,” Riley continued. “An abusive alcoholic. From the time I started losing my hair she ridiculed me. She said I should join the circus because I was a clown. My father had to work to support us, but he protected me as much as he could. He defended me to my mother and was always the parent that went to school to deal with the situations I got myself into. He’s the one who took me out to buy my first real wig.”
“She gave me a fright wig to wear. Told me it was the right thing for a clown. The thing is I was so ashamed of my head that I wore it. When Dad got called to school he was furious. He took me out right then and got me a real hair wig. He and Mom had a terrible to-do that night.”
“That sounds awful,” I said.
She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and leaned into my shoulder. I’ve always been a little stiff around women. I’ve been told more than once that I had wooden hugs. I just let her fit where she wanted, and it was somehow comfortable.
“All through high school it was like that,” Riley continued. “Growing six inches in a year didn’t help either. Clothes and wigs put a huge strain on our family budget.”
“What happened to your Mom and Dad?” I asked. “I’ve never met them or heard you mention them.”
“There was an accident soon after my twenty-first birthday. I was so glad to leave home and go to college, and yet so afraid to live anywhere else. It was terrifying, but I didn’t have to wake up to my mother yelling ‘hey Baldy!’ every morning. My Dad called me one Friday while he was still at work to see how I was doing. I loved him so much for all he’d done for me when I was growing up, and I hated him so much for keeping us with an abusive witch of a woman.”
“Why didn’t they divorce?” I asked.
“Laws or no laws, it is almost impossible for a father to prove that he is a fitter parent than a mother. I heard them talk about divorce, and I heard my mother threaten that he would never see me again. I suppose he figured that it was better to stay together where he could protect me part of the time. But I hated it all the same.”
“And when he called?” I prompted.
“I told him I was fine and happy. I was on my own. I’d made friends. No one at school knew I was bald. As long as it stayed that way, I was safe. It kind of limited my potential romances, but it was worth it. We talked about nothing important and he said he just wanted to hear my voice again. That night he and mom went to one of the casinos up on I-5. Apparently they both got pretty blitzed. He headed north on I-5 when they left instead of south. About ten miles later, he drove off the bridge into the Stillaguamish River at 110 miles per hour. The autopsies said they were both in excess of 1% blood alcohol.”
“That’s terrible,” I said holding her more tightly. “You poor, poor baby.”
“The thing is, Dag, I never saw my father drink a drop in my life. He always thought that one parent should be sober. I think he did it on purpose, and I’ve been so afraid I’d end up the same way.” Now Riley was sobbing so hard that I could barely contain my own tears.
I just held her and rocked back and forth, petted her poor hairless head, and whispered “You never have to be afraid with me.” The sobs subsided after an eternity.
After another eternity, I realized she was sleeping in my arms. It was midnight.
I gently laid her down on the sofa and covered her with a blanket.
I settled myself into my chair and took a last look at the picture in front of me. That picture has traveled with me for nearly forty years, and I still can’t figure it out. I fell asleep with the image in my mind.
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