Jay Giles (9 page)
I hustled out of there, sloshed through the parking lot, jumped in the car, and headed for town. From the passenger seat, Eddie cocked his head and looked at me. Probably wondering why I was so agitated. I stroked his head. “It’s back to the office, fella. Quick meeting, then we’ll go home.”
An agonizing hour later, I pulled the Saab into the parking area, turned off the ignition. Eddie and I made a run for the front door.
Inside, Rosemary sat rigid behind her desk, the stranger stretched out nonchalantly on the lobby sofa. He got up when I came in, grinned at me.
“Didn’t I say call for an appointment?”
His eyes narrowed. “You should have been here yesterday when I told you I was coming,” he said, an edge to his voice.
“Well, I’m here now. What do you want?”
He tugged at the bottom of his vest, smoothed his tie. “Think we could talk in private?”
I would have preferred to stay in the lobby. But Rosemary looked so terrified I decided it might be better to get him away from her. “C’mon back to my office.”
I took my seat behind the desk. He sat in one of the visitor’s chairs across from me.
“Okay, it’s only you and me here.”
He smiled, showing his pointy teeth again. Looked around the office. “Not bad.” He noticed Eddie, who watched him from his spot by the side of the desk. “What a great dog. Yours?”
I nodded.
“You and your dog gotta really be close for you to bring him to work with you.”
I nodded again. “Tell me about Joe.” I wanted to find out what this guy knew and get rid of him
He wasn’t in any hurry. He slouched down in his chair, smiled, adjusted the crease in his trouser leg, shot his cuffs. Gold cuff links, a monogram, W.W., on his right cuff. He tapped his fingers in front of him, touched them to his chin a couple of times. “Joe, he was a good old guy. I liked Joe. I think we all liked Joe. We being the guys that worked with him. We passed the hat when he retired, got him a nice present. A fancy watch. I wouldn’t a wanted it, but he seemed to like it. I’m telling you this so you know we liked Joe.” He paused as if waiting for me to say something.
“I liked Joe, too,” I said to keep things moving. “But you’re going to tell me something I’m not going to like about him, aren’t you?”
His eyes got harder. “You think you’re smarter than me? You think you know what I’m going tell you?”
I sat back in my chair. “No, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. You gave me the good news, now give me the bad news.”
He studied me for a minute, reached some sort of decision, and visibly relaxed, even gave me a little smile. “Like I was saying, everyone liked Joe. Liked him a lot. So imagine how everyone felt when they learned Joe stole from them—”
“Who’s ‘them’?”
“Doesn’t matter. Better you don’t know, actually. What matters is it was stolen money he invested with you.” His eyes got hard. He delivered the threat in a flat, unemotional voice. “We want that money back.” His mouth clamped shut, and he sat there glaring at me, eyes hard, face set, waiting.
I sat back in my chair, took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you are expecting. But even if Joe did steal money, those stocks are part of his estate. I can’t do anything about that.” I stood, indicating our meeting was over. “I can’t help you,” I said with what I hoped was finality. “You need to leave.”
He remained seated. His face changed, the facade replaced by hatred. “What do you take me for? You stand me up? You blow me off? You think I came here not knowing anything? You think I care about his estate? You’re going to move those stocks from his account to our account.”
“I can’t take those stocks out of his estate. You were at probate court. You heard that judge. I’m not even the executor anymore.”
“You’re doing it. Don’t give me any crap that you can’t.” He dug a piece of paper out of his coat pocket and threw it on the desk in front of me. “Transfer them to that account.”
I shook my head. “I told—”
“Shut up. Give me the papers on his account so I’ve got the cusip numbers. We’ll transfer ‘em.”
He surprised me by demanding the cusip numbers. They were the Depositors Trust Corporation book numbers for stocks not issued but held in an individual’s account. I shook my head. “No.”
He stood up, so mad his body was almost twitching. “You’re going to move that money. Until you do, I’m going to make your life miserable.”
I didn’t say anything, stood very still. He was like a live grenade that could go off at any second.
“I’ll be back,” he snarled and stormed out.
I heard him walk out, the front door slam, hard, followed by the patter of feet coming toward my office. Rosemary appeared at the doorway, her eyes wide. “Oh my God, Matt. What was that about?”
I tried to sound calm. I probably didn’t succeed. “Mr. D’Onifrio’s organization wants Joe’s money back.”
“Should we call the police?” Rosemary asked in a high, frightened voice.
I hesitated. “I don’t know. We should, but that’d make this public. If the N.A.S.D. heard I’d been investing drug money, they’d pull my license for sure.”
“We’ve got to do something.”
“We will.” I stood, walked out to the lobby. She followed me. Eddie padded along behind us. “Let’s start by locking the front door again.” When we’d first opened the office, we’d kept the front door locked, used a buzzer to admit people. I threw the lock. “Don’t admit anybody you don’t know. That’ll buy us a little time.”
“Time for what?”
“We need to know what we’re dealing with here. Find out about D’Onifrio. His organization.”
“Find out what?”
“I don’t know. The worst. Prepare for it.”
“You make it sound like researching a stock.”
“Same principle. I’ll call Tory, see what she can find out for us.” In my office, I picked up the phone, dialed her number. To my surprise, she answered.
“You again.” She must have had caller I.D.
“Afraid so. Listen, I need your help on something else.”
“As long as we can do it over the phone. I am not going out again.”
“We can. A stranger was just here at the office. He confirmed what you suspected, that the money Joe invested with me wasn’t his. Then he said they—he never said who they were—wanted their money back. I don’t know what he expected; I can’t give him that money back. It’s in the estate. It’s just not poss—”
“He didn’t want to hear that, did he?’
“That’s when he threatened me, said he’d make my life miserable.”
“When he threatened you, did he say anything specific? Did he give you a sense of what he might do?”
“He said he’d be back.”
“Then you don’t want me. You want the police.”
“I can’t do that.” I explained what this would do to me with the N.A.S.D.
“But you didn’t know it was drug money.”
“You know that. I know that. The N.A.S.D. doesn’t. They hear accusations of churning. They hear involvement with drug money. They think, hmmm, this guy doesn’t sound upstanding. Better for the profession to be rid of him. No police.”
“I can’t protect you. I’m not a bodyguard.”
“That’s not what I want. I need to know as much as I can about D’Onifrio’s organization—”
“Why?”
“So I can figure out how to resolve this. I don’t know what I’m dealing with here. I feel like I’m trying to hit a golf ball with my eyes closed.”
“Bad sports analogy. This isn’t a refinement to help get you out of the rough. You’re dealing with killers.” She paused. “You’re clueless, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have said it that way. I need information.”
“I’ll get you some background, general information. Enough so you know what you’re up against. That’s all.”
“That’s all I need. I don’t want you going after information that would put you in danger.”
“You’re probably in a hurry for this, too, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid so. This doesn’t make me toxic, does it?”
“It’s not helping you any. Your choice in playmates is really bad.” She sighed. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll get back to you.” She rang off.
“You’re sure this is the right thing to be doing?” Rosemary asked.
“Right now, I just want to avoid doing the wrong thing.”
Since I was at the office, I stayed late, got some work done. Driving home, the rain was still heavy, the skies dark and foreboding. Matched my mood.
We navigated the waters to the Watergate club, parked the car, headed up to the condo. The first thing I wanted to do was change into some dry clothes. I’d been damp all day.
I did that and put a chicken breast in the oven to cook. Poured Eddie his dog food. While we ate, I turned on the weather channel.
“We’ve had significant rainfall,” the good-looking female anchor said.
“That’s’ right,” her equally good-looking male counterpart added, “six to seven inches in some areas, which has caused a good bit of low-level flooding.” Tell me about it.
“Rains should lessen tonight, clearing skies tomorrow morning.” That was all I wanted to know. “We needed this rainfall,” the female anchor said before I clicked her off.
The sun was out when I woke in the morning. I hoped that indicated a better day. I fed Eddie, fixed myself a quick breakfast. Eddie danced around the kitchen with his leash. He’d had a hurried walk the night before. I made sure he had a leisurely walk to make up for it.
The commute to work was easier. There were still low spots filled with water, but thanks to the intense
Florida
sun, most of the roads were dry. Even roadside lakes had diminished. I parked the Saab in the lot, unlocked the front door, made sure Eddie was in, locked it behind me.
“Do we think that man will be coming by today?” Rosemary asked by way of a greeting.
She verbalized what I’d been worrying about on the drive in. “If he looks like he’s going to give us any trouble, call 911. Say he’s harassing us. We’ll let the police deal with him and vice versa.”
She beamed. “Be happy to.”
The morning passed without incident. By noon, the sun and a good business day had me feeling I might have overreacted.
Amanda, from Julian’s office, called at one-thirty, booked a prep session with Amy for four o’clock the following day. That was my only non-business call until quarter to five, when Tory called.
“I’ve got some information,” she said cryptically. “When can you meet me?”
I wanted to say right then, but I had a few things I needed to finish before I left. “How about at dinner?”
“Where and what time?”
“Seven? At
Moore
’s?” A restaurant on Longboat Key, not far from her.
“Why there?”
“It’s one of Eddie’s favorite places.”
“Oh. See you at seven.”
Eddie and I were there at seven. She wasn’t. She breezed in at seven-fifteen. Once again, head to toe in black, the ubiquitous black bag over her shoulder. She spotted me immediately. The place was empty, just a few summer people, a group who’d been fishing.
I stood when she came to the table. “Sorry,” she said. She took off her sunglasses, put them in her bag. I had a source call me back just as I was leaving.”
“No problem. I had a glass of wine while I was waiting. Want one?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ve got a lot to tell you.” She took a thick folder out of the black bag, put it on the table in front of her, hesitated. “How do we want to do this?”
“Let’s have a bite to eat first. Talk over coffee. How’s that?”
“Good.” She reached for a menu. I didn’t. I knew it by heart.
Our waiter came. Tory ordered the mahi-mahi, I had the crab cakes. We made small talk over dinner. Once the dishes were cleared away and coffee served, she got down to business.
“Let’s start with D’Onifrio.” She pulled a photocopy of a newspaper page out of the folder, turned it so I could see the photo. “This is the guy.”
The head-and-shoulders shot showed a strong face, dark straight hair brushed back, broad forehead, dark penetrating eyes, roman nose, lantern jaw.
“Guy looks like he could be a bruiser.”
“He’s big, six-two maybe, and muscular.”
“What’s that by his ears?”
“Hearing aids. His hearing is seriously impaired. I’ll get to that, but let me give you a little background first. He’s forty-three, grew up in
Miami
, the second son of two Menendez mules.” She looked at me. “You know what mules are?”
“Drug transporters.”
“Mom and Dad were good at it. They used the swallow-the-condom-full-of-cocaine method. Probably wouldn’t have gotten caught except Mom got sick on a flight from
Columbia
to
Miami
. Dad panicked, had her rushed to a hospital. He must have thought a condom broke. It turned out to be acute indigestion, but the hospital authorities became suspicious and called the police. Mom and Dad ended up in prison. All this happened while son Don was attending the
University
of
Miami
, working on a degree in finance.”
“Are his parents still in prison?”
“Mom still is. Dad died in 1994.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “D’Onifrio got his undergraduate degree, added a master’s in finance, and went to work for the cartel investing money. He was good at it, rose in the organization, and attracted the attention of the top bosses. During a trip to
Columbia
in 1992, he was in a limo with Enrico and Ernesto Menendez. Attacked by a rival cartel, Ernesto and two bodyguards were killed. During the shooting, D’Onifrio covered Enrico’s body, saved his life. Two bullets meant for Enrico struck D’Onifrio in the right shoulder. As a result of those injuries, he has limited use of his right arm. The gunfire also irreparably shattered his eardrums, leaving him deaf.” She paused, took a sip of her coffee.
“Where did you find this stuff?”
“Most of this came from a source at the D.E.A.” She took another quick sip of her coffee. Enrico considers D’Onifrio a son for saving his life. As a reward, D’Onifrio was given authority over all the cartel’s money laundering operations and investments. It’s an important position within the cartel, but D’Onifrio’s real source of power is his relationship with Enrico. He has direct access to the top guy.”
Our waitress came with more coffee; she refilled Tory’s cup. Mine was still full, cold. “Why don’t you bring me a fresh cup?” She nodded and left.
“D’Onifrio returned to the states to look for a base of operations. He was looking in
Miami
mostly, but when Shore Bank and Trust got into trouble in 1997 and came on the market, he jumped on it. When he bought the bank, it had 330 employees. Today, it has 840.”