Without a Hitch (8 page)

“What if he
walks in after I get the account open?” Alvarez asked.

“Just walk him
outside and mark the form so we know which bank it was.  We’ll close the
account through the mail.  Hopefully, no one will figure out that account was
part of the project.”

“Do you still
want me to run the credit scores?  Collette’s out of the office this week, and
I know where she keeps her password.”

“Are you sure
this won’t stand out on their credit reports?” Corbin asked.

“It shows up
like a generic request for a total score, not a full credit check.  You get
three or four of these on your credit report every month.  There’s nothing
suspicious about it.  You know those credit card offers you get in the mail? 
They run one of these before sending you the offer.  Our office does it all the
time.”

“Can they trace
it to your office?”

“I’ll do it from
our Baltimore office.  I work up there once in a while.”

“What do we get
out of this?”

“We get a credit
score.  It’s not the most precise information, but it’s good enough.  It’ll tell
us if there are any red flags on the credit or if they’ve blocked access to
their credit.  Also, combined with the salary information we have, the score
should let us estimate, roughly at least, how much credit they have available. 
The higher the credit score, the higher the credit limit.”

“All right, do
it.”

“Your wish is my
command.  Have you thought about the route we’re going to take for day two?”

Knowing the amount
of cash they could withdraw from each account at any one time was limited,
Corbin and Alvarez planned to return the following week and open additional
bank accounts to increase the size of the take.  This trip would be undertaken
by car and would stretch far beyond Philadelphia.

“I’m thinking we
just blast up I-95.  We can hit Delaware, Newark, even the New York suburbs,
before we turn around.”

“It’s your gas. 
What about withdrawal day?”

“We start up
north and work our way south, just in case they match up the receipts to try to
figure out where we came from.  I don’t want it to look like we started in
Baltimore both times.”

“Fine by me. 
Any more thoughts on alibis for the later days?”

“Yeah.  Keep in
mind though, our alibis from the first day are enough to protect us
completely.  That’s why Beckett’s so important.  He helps us establish
unbreakable alibis which will protect us throughout the project.”

“I’m not a
lawyer, so I’ll have to trust you on that one.”

“It’s simple. 
If the prosecutor claims you or I did this crime, then he has to show how we
opened the accounts on June 14th.  Since we have unbreakable alibis, he can’t
do that.”

“What if he just
doesn’t mention the 14th?”

“Then
we
introduce the evidence of June 14th to show he’s trying to set us up.”

“How would we
know about the 14th?  Wouldn’t we incriminate ourselves by bringing it up?”

“No.  We would
ask for information like complete credit reports on the victims.  Then we would
‘discover’ the crime actually began on June 14th, a day we couldn’t possibly
have been involved.”

“What if this
clever prosecutor decides we got someone else to open the accounts on the
14th?”

“Then he has to
prove who it was and connect us to that person.  If he can’t do that, which he
can’t, the jury will see this as nothing more than a prosecutor trying to hang
his case on us when he should be after the mystery guy he can’t produce.”

“Ok, so we’re
not even going to set up alibis for the later days?”

“No, no, of
course we are.  I’m just saying, we don’t need to.  But since I’m a lawyer, I
like to be ultra cautious – belt and suspenders, my friend, belt
and
suspenders,” Corbin said, repeating an expression used by several of his law
school professors.

“So what do we
do?”

“I’ve got this
modem I can program to make phone calls.  Actually, I’ve got two of them.  I’ll
hook one up at my place and one at your place.  They can call each other
throughout the day.  I’m also thinking of loaning my credit card to a friend
who goes to a farmers market in Manassas each week and asking him to pick
something up for me.  That puts me in Manassas and Arlington throughout the day
and you in Arlington.  With both of us here, we couldn’t have been flying up 95
touring banks.”

“You know, I do
have one concern.”

“What?”

“When we go pick
up the money, how do we know some Sherlock Holmes banker hasn’t figured us out
and flagged the account?”

“We can’t be
absolutely sure, so you should be ready to make a break for it if necessary.”

“That’s
comforting,” Alvarez said sarcastically.

“What?  Not
givin’ you a warm fuzzy?”

“Can’t say that
it is.”

“Don’t worry,
I’ve got a plan to reduce the chances of that happening.  Before you go into a
bank, we’ll find an ATM.  If the ATM allows us to withdraw money from the
account, we can take that as a sign everything’s cool, and you can go inside
the bank and withdraw more.  If the ATM gives us grief, then we walk away and
consider the account spoiled.”

“Makes sense.”

“Can’t guarantee
the plan is perfect, but we’ve done our best.”

“I’m not
complaining.”

“All right, give
me a call tomorrow when you get the credit scores.  I’ll bring over the salary sheets,
and we can decide whose credit to tap.”

The following
day would find Corbin and Alvarez staring in stunned silence at the results of
their credit calculations.  Neither expected numbers on the order of magnitude
as those revealed by the credit check.

“We’re gonna
need a bigger bag,” Alvarez said.

“Bag?” Corbin
laughed.  “We’re gonna need a bigger
car
.”

Alvarez shot a
glance at Corbin.  “There’s an old joke about lawyers.  It involves a client
who goes to a lawyer’s office to pay his bill.  He owes the lawyer one hundred
dollars.  In his haste, he mistakenly hands the lawyer two one hundred dollar
bills.  The lawyer, realizing the mistake, is confronted with an ethical question: 
does he tell his partner?”

“You and your
lawyer jokes.  If I ever find out what you do for a living. . . let’s just say,
you’ll rue the day.”

“What do you
mean ‘if you ever find out.’  I’m an associate supervisor.  What more do you
need to know?”

Corbin laughed. 
Then his tone became serious.  “And I get the meaning of your joke.  We’re not
cheating Beckett.”

Now Alvarez
laughed.  “What kind of lawyer are you?”

“The honest
kind.”

Chapter 8

“There’s one
thing we haven’t thought about?” Beckett said as he walked into the office and
closed the door.

“What’s that?” 
Corbin peered over the top of his book.

“How do we
launder the money?”

Corbin stared
blankly at Beckett.  In all of his careful planning, Corbin never once stopped
to consider what to do with the money after they stole it.  He stalled for
time.  “Pardon?”

“How do we
launder the money?” Beckett repeated.  “I think we need to agree not to spend
any of it for at least six months.”

“Six months,”
Corbin repeated, letting Beckett lead the conversation.

“Yeah, at
least.  Were you thinking longer?”

“No, six months
sounds about right.  Don’t want to do it too soon, do we?”

“Exactly.  When
I was a public defender, I saw it over and over:  the guys who got impatient
got busted.  Juries connect the dots really quickly.”

“That is what
they’re asked to do.  So tell me more.  What else does your public defender
experience tell you?  What’s tipped the cops off and what hasn’t?”

Beckett folded
his arms and leaned back in his chair.  “If the cops think there’s been a crime
involving a lot of cash, they subpoena bank records and credit card records. 
In the bank records, they look for large deposits around the time of the crime
or a series of smaller deposits adding up to something close to the amount of
cash taken.  In the credit card records, they look to see if the suspect
changed their spending patterns by, say, suddenly charging only half of what
they used to charge.  Basically, they’re looking to see if the guy starts
living off cash.”

“Can you get
that evidence suppressed?”

“I don’t see
how,” Beckett responded doubtfully.

“Sorry, didn’t
mean to cut you off.  You were talking about the investigation.”

“Right.  The
serious cops go further.  They interview girlfriends, neighbors, and family
members to see if you bought anything big with cash.  Of course, car dealers,
banks, and sellers of certain other high price items are required to report
cash purchases.  I’ve seen those reports show up in some cases, especially
where a RICO is alleged.”

Corbin nodded.

Becket
continued.  “The real trick is getting the money into a bank so you can use it. 
I’ve seen guys claim drug money as gambling winnings.  That worked for small
amounts, but not enough for our purposes.”

Corbin
chuckled.  “You don’t know how right you are.”

“What?”

“We did some
credit calculations based on our search of property records, and we’re coming
in about five times the original estimate.”
 
Corbin
chose not to tell Beckett about the credit checks Alvarez ran.

“Are you
serious?!”

“It’s a rough
estimate, but it should be accurate.  So think
bigger
!  What have you
seen on that scale that might help us?”

“The most common
approach for laundering large amounts is to form a front company.  You open some
business that deals in cash and then fold the illegal money into the legal
money.  Cash businesses are hard to audit.  That’s why the drug guys buy
laundromats and pool halls.  The only time they run into trouble is when they
try to launder large sums at once, or if the Feds stake out the place and do a
business volume audit.  You know, lots of profit, but no customers.”

“A pool hall? 
I’m not thrilled with the idea of running a pool hall.”

“Wait a
minute!”  Beckett clapped his hands together.  “A couple years back, our office
represented this guy who managed to launder millions of dollars in a year.  He
did it by setting up an art gallery.  Everyone in the office was talking about
it.  It was brilliant. . .
allegedly
that is.”

“Of course.” 
Both friends laughed.

“The reason his
scheme worked so well is art has subjective value.  How do you prove some piece
of crud modern art isn’t worth five grand?  He just mixed in his fakes with
some real pieces and no one could say what he really sold and what he didn’t. 
The prosecutor couldn’t lay a finger on him.”

“Intriguing,”
Corbin said.

“We had copies
of everything he did, articles of incorporation, licenses, appraisal sheets,
sales receipts, you name it.  When I go back to my old office in June, I’ll dig
up the file and get you a copy.  We can set something like that up during the
six months we wait before we touch the money.”

“All right, get
me the file.”

“Say, what was
your plan?” Beckett asked.

“It was more
complex.  I prefer this one.”

“What are you
reading, Alex?”  Theresa sat in her usual spot on Corbin’s desk.  Today she
wore glasses, not her usual contacts.

“It’s a book
Molly gave me.”

“She can read? 
Will wonders never cease!”

Corbin ignored
Theresa’s slur.  “It’s called
Wrongful Death
.  It’s about a medical
malpractice case that goes wrong.  It’s rumored to be a real story disguised as
fiction, but I don’t know.  It seems kind of far-fetched.”

“Is it any
good?”

“It’s ok,” 
Corbin set the book down.  “What do you think about art?”

Theresa
frowned.  “I know what I like?”

“What about
modern art?”  Behind Theresa, Beckett almost fell out of his chair.

“I know it when
I see it.”

Corbin smiled at
the reference to a famous Supreme Court case defining pornography.  “So does
the Supreme Court.”

“I’m pretty sure
they weren’t talking about modern art.”

“You might be
right,” Corbin chuckled.  “So you don’t know much about it then?”  Corbin saw
Beckett frantically signaling him to change topics.

Theresa shook
her head.  “No, why?”

“Just curious. 
I’ve seen some interesting stuff lately, and I wanted to learn more about it.  I
just thought you might know something.”

“That’s an
interesting insight into the life of Alexander Corbin,” Theresa purred.  “What
else do you do when you’re not in the office?”

“I don’t know, a
little of this, a little of that.”  Corbin smiled slyly at Beckett before
continuing.  “I spent last night making a ton of fake documents.”

Beckett’s eyes
shot open and his jaw dropped.

Theresa
laughed.  “Sure!  What’s this bar I keep hearing about?”

“Ah, my fame
precedes me.  I play guitar at a local bar on Fridays.  Sometimes I play during
the week too.”

“You should have
told me!” Theresa exclaimed.

Corbin smiled,
but said nothing.

“Well?!  Are you
going to invite us to come hear you play?”  Theresa’s head bobbed vigorously as
she spoke.  She routinely did this to suggest the appropriate response to her
questions, and woe betide the conversationalist who ignored her suggestions. 
Corbin and Beckett often debated whether or not Theresa knew that she imparted
these “gesticular admonitions,” but they didn’t want to risk asking.

“You’re welcome
anytime, Theresa.”

Theresa
considered Corbin’s invitation before responding in a suggestive tone.  “You
know, I just might take you up on that.”  Her face instantly turned red, and
she changed the topic.  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Kak assigned me to write
Wilson’s speech for the conference.”  Contempt permeated her words.

“Can’t Wilson
write his own speeches?” Beckett asked with equal contempt.

Theresa smirked
at Beckett.  “Are you kidding?  He Peter-Principled out three jobs ago.  I’d be
amazed if he could even tell you his own job description.”  Theresa turned back
to Corbin.  “Frankly, I’m a little surprised Kak didn’t ask you, Alex.  Weren’t
you a speechwriter for that guy, the Democrat from somewhere?”

“Only for a
year, while I was in college.”

Beckett, who was
not a Democrat, booed from across the room.

Theresa ignored
him.  “Kak should have you write the damn thing.  I don’t want to do it, that’s
for sure.”

“I’d be happy to
help you with it.”

“That’s probably
what Kak was trying to prevent,” Beckett chimed in.

“What do you
mean?” Theresa asked.

“Kak’s afraid
Corbin will make a fool of Wilson.”

“I’m hurt. 
Would I do something like that?” Corbin asked with mock innocence.

Theresa and
Beckett looked at each, but left the question unanswered.

Theresa
continued.  “Well, you’re welcome to help out if you want, or write the whole
thing if you want.  I really don’t care, and Kak never told me not to talk to
you about it.  It’s his own fault if he doesn’t check it before he reads it.”

“Ok, show me
what you’ve got.”

“I haven’t got
anything, yet.  Give me some tips and I’ll start something.  You can take it
from there.  That way at least I can say I wrote the original draft.”

“Speech writing
is an art,” Corbin reflected.  “You need to craft each sentence carefully, word
by word, to convey the meaning efficiently and beautifully.  You need to create
a tempo, build to crescendos.  The listener should be held in suspense, waiting
for the next word, but once the word arrives, the listener should feel as
though that word was inevitable.”

“How about
something more practical?” Theresa asked.

“First rule,
keep it simple.  Always avoid long, complex sentences.  They’re difficult to
read and more difficult to follow.  Watch out for ambiguities.  Many words,
like ‘notwithstanding’ can have multiple meanings depending on how you use
them.”

“I use
notwithstanding all the time,” Beckett offered.

“Notwithstanding
your use, it’s ambiguous.  Case in point, did I just say that it’s ambiguous
whether you use it or not, or did I say it’s ambiguous except when you use it? 
Different people will interpret it differently.  The word ‘may’ can do the same
thing, so use ‘can’ or ‘must’ instead.  When you choose your words, make sure
you put them in the right order.  There’s a huge difference between ‘I badly
need to write’ and ‘I need to write badly.’”

“What about
substance?” Theresa asked.

“Wilson speaks
in buzzwords to hide his ignorance.  Use words like ‘the mission,’ ‘goal
oriented,’ ‘forward looking,’ and ‘paradigm’ as substitutes for real analysis. 
Just don’t use too many at once.  He’ll probably want to tell a couple of
jokes, nothing too offensive, but make sure the punch line leads into the point
he’s making.  I’d throw in some statistics to give the whole thing an air of
thoroughness.”

“I should just
give this to you to write.”

“I could be
talked into that.”

Theresa tensed
up.  Her romantic interest in Corbin sometimes resulted in her ascribing
particular meanings to otherwise innocent words and phrases.  It often took
Corbin a few moments to realize they were no longer talking about the same
thing.

“What have you
got in mind?” she asked, folding her arms tightly.  Her leg shook nervously.

“What have you
got?” Corbin asked, still unaware of the change in Theresa’s attitude.

“How about a
beer at that bar of yours?” she suggested.

Before Corbin
could respond, Molly appeared at the office door.  Although she could not have
missed Theresa’s presence, Molly initially acted as if she didn’t see Theresa. 
“Hey Corbin, I’m going for coffee, you want to—,” Molly stopped mid-sentence,
having “now noticed” Theresa.  “
T
!” she exclaimed with a false smile. 
“I didn’t see you.”

Theresa
shuddered.  “Am I doomed to find you everywhere I go today?” she asked
rhetorically, without turning to face Molly.

“You should be
so lucky,” Molly responded.

Theresa and
Molly kept running into each other all morning.  After an initial exchange of
pleasantries, each encounter became progressively more combative, with both
doing their best to get under the other’s skin.  Molly was winning, because
Theresa misunderstood the game.

“What can we do
for you, Molly?” Corbin asked.

“I just came to
see if you wanted to get coffee with me.  I know how much you enjoy our
chats.”  Molly replaced her usual sarcasm with a pleasant, if not downright
affectionate manner.  This made Corbin suspicious.

“No, it’s pretty
close to lunch time.”

“Oh, lunch
sounds like a good idea.  Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure,”
Corbin lied.

Molly walked
over next to Corbin.  Theresa, still sitting on Corbin’s desk, sat about a foot
to Molly’s right.  “That’s a fantastic tie,” Molly gushed, as she reached out
and stroked the yellow geometric shapes on Corbin’s blue and silver tie.  “Where
did you get it?”

Corbin saw Molly
sneak a peek at Theresa, which told him the reason for her overly-friendly behavior. 
Flirting didn’t come easily to Theresa.  And while she was aggressive in her
pursuit of Corbin, one thing she seemed unable to do was make physical
contact.  For Molly, however, touching was just part of flirting and flirting
came easily to her, especially when she didn’t mean it.  Rubbing her fingers
along Corbin’s tie was intended to taunt Theresa.

“Nordstroms,” he
said, retrieving the tie from her hand and leaning back out of her reach.

“It’s really
nice.  So, what were you saying about lunch?”

“He wasn’t,”
Theresa spat out.  She wrinkled her brow and folded her arms even tighter.

Molly let her
jaw drop and covered her mouth with her hand.  She wagged a finger back and
forth between Corbin and Theresa.  “Oh gosh, did you two. . .?  I’m sorry, I
didn’t know you two already had plans.”

“Drop it!”
Theresa warned.

“Drop what,
T
? 
It’s not like everybody doesn’t know.”

“How dare you!”

Corbin jumped up
before this could escalate and ushered them toward the door.  “Come on,
enough!”  Corbin put his hands on Molly’s shoulders and guided her through the
door first.  As he did, behind him, he heard Theresa mumbling something about
“big feet” and “limp hair.”  In front of him, Molly turned and walked into her
office, slamming the door.  She was grinning from ear to ear.  Corbin turned to
eject Theresa, but she moved past him and stormed off down the hallway.  Corbin
stepped back into the office and closed the door.