is Teller’s show. Teller hasbeen running Operation Public Trust since its inception approximately threemonths ago. The case is still in its infancy, but things have moved quickly.
“Agent McCoy,” Teller says.
“Call me Jane.”
“Thanks for coming,” Teller says. “I think you know thebasics, but let me be sure.”
“Great.”
“Flanagan-Maxx Pharmaceuticals has a product calledDivalpro,” he begins.
“Right,” McCoy says. “Controls high blood pressure. Thepatent was about to expire. So F-M wanted Divalpro on Public Aid’sprior-approval list. They needed legislation. That’s House Bill 1551.”
“Okay, good.” Teller smiles. “You know more than I thought.”
“I know that F-M hired Sam Dillon, and they had MAAHC hireMat Pagone to work on the Senate. And I know that Dillon had the votes in theHouse and the preliminary approval of Governor Trotter. Neither of whom wouldpublicly acknowledge this unless and until Mat Pagone delivered the votes inthe Senate.”
Teller pushes a piece of paper in front of McCoy. “This is amemorandum from the chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, Grant Tully.This was during last year’s legislative session. It’s a roll call of perceivedvotes on House Bill 1551.”
McCoy looks at the memo. “They didn’t have the votes,” shesays. “It was three votes short of passage in the Senate.”
Teller nods. “So the Speaker of the House, wanting to helpout and realizing that the bill won’t pass during the regular session, put HouseBill 1551 on what’s called ‘postponed consideration.’ It gives them untilthe end of the year to pass it.”
“It gives them veto session,” McCoy says, “in November. Butbetween May and November, somebody needs to convince three senators to changetheir votes.”
“Exactly. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.”Teller grimaces. “Senators Blake, Strauss, and Almundo flipped. In one day inNovember, House Bill 1551 was called for a vote in the House, passed bytwo votes, then was called in the Senate and passed by a single vote. GovernorTrotter signed it on Christmas Eve.”
When no one would be paying attention. McCoy chuckles. “Sothe question,” McCoy says, “is what happened between May and November of lastyear to make three senators change their minds.”
“That’s right. Senator Almundo is a member of the Latinocaucus and a pretty close friend of Mat Pagone. Blake is in the city, too, alsoan ally of Pagone’s. Senator Strauss is downstate, just south of theinterstate. All three have constituencies that are poor and have a high elderlypopulation. Which is why they were opposed to the legislation in the firstplace.”
McCoy takes this in. Most of this she already knew. Most ofwhat will follow, she assumes, will be new information.
“Mateo Pagone withdrew large amounts of money from hispersonal account on four separate occasions in June, July, August, andSeptember of last year,” says Teller, opening a file. “Nine thousand in June.Eighty-five hundred in July. Eight thousand in August. Forty-five hundred inSeptember.”
Mat Pagone was no dummy. Every withdrawal was short of theten-thousand-dollar withdrawal amount that triggers automatic reporting by thebank to the federal government.
“That’s thirty thousand dollars,” she says.
Teller opens another file. “Senator Blake spent severalweeks in Sanibel Island, Florida, from mid-December last year to mid-January. Anice place on the water, a boat for his use. He paid for it by check, a checkfor seven thousand dollars. Blake was down there almost three weeks and there’snot a single transaction that appears on his credit card. He didn’t write anyother checks, either. We know he went to the restaurants-one in particular-andwe know he paid cash and, apparently, tipped well.”
McCoy can see that. Mat Pagone sent Senator Blake on a niceFlorida vacation. Blake wrote a check for seven thousand for his lodging andthe boat-smart move-but got something like ten thousand in cash under the tablefrom Mateo Pagone. He blew all of it, probably, or most of it, in Florida sothat he wouldn’t have to explain the sudden appearance of ten thousand dollarsin his checking or savings account. He never deposited a dime of the bribemoney. He just lived it up on an extended getaway.
“Mat Pagone spent a few days down there himself overChristmas,” Teller continues. “He took his daughter, Jessica.”
McCoy nods, as if she didn’t know that.
“Blake and Mat Pagone had dinner together one evening, we’rerelatively sure. But that’s it. That’s the only record of them being togetherdown there, and it’s just an eyewitness. We imagine that Pagone popped for awhole lot more than a dinner, but we can’t prove it, because everything was incash.”
“Okay,” McCoy says. “And what about Senator Strauss?”
“Senator Strauss just bought a new SUV,” Teller continues.“He put twelve thousand down. Emptied a savings account to do it. This wasthree days after we have him eating lunch with Mat Pagone at the Maritime Clubdowntown, in October. We can find no other reason for why Strauss was intown-he lives about sixty miles from the city-other than having this lunch.That weekend, he’s buying a new car. We figure Mat Pagone helped him replenishthat savings account, only that account is probably a jar in his backyard.”
“You have the lunch receipt?” McCoy asks.
“Yeah.” Teller hands her a photocopy of the bill, charged toMat Pagone’s membership at the Maritime Club. Glazed chicken, roast beef, Cobbsalad. The salad was eight dollars, so unless they really overcharged, this wasan entree. The drinks were two bourbons and soda, one gin and tonic, and oneiced tea.
Lunch for three, not two.
“Okay,” McCoy says, sliding the photocopy back to Teller.“Go on.”
“Senator Almundo is renovating the basement in his home onthe West Side. On the books, the contractor is charging him ten grand. Looks tous”-Teller looks around the room at the federal agents-“like the job is morelike a twenty — thousand-dollar effort, give or take. We’re thinking tenthousand was passed in cash.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a home contractor took cash.McCoy sighs. She is ready for the punch line.
Teller opens his hands. “We know Mat Pagone, or someoneworking with him, put money in their hands. All three of them. But theprincipals aren’t talking. Strauss, Almundo, Blake-they’re all taking five. Blakecan point to a check that he wrote for the Sanibel home and boat, and we don’thave much to work on otherwise. Almundo will say the renovation was for tengrand, not twenty. And Strauss will just plain deny the whole thing. These guyswere well coached. They didn’t put a single penny in the bank.”
Teller needs an eyewitness to the payments, he is saying, orstronger circumstantial evidence. As long as these senators kept the money in ajar behind their house, or blew it on dinners or the ponies, there is littlethe federal government can do. They can’t even get these guys on tax evasion,because they can’t prove that they received this income, much less failed toreport it.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Dillon who handed over the money?”McCoy asks.
“No, we’re not. Mat Pagone could have withdrawn the cash,and Sam Dillon could have paid it out. Or they could have had someone else doit. Someone who wouldn’t draw any suspicion whatsoever.” Teller smiles withoutemotion. “We were about to find that out.”
They were going to find out, Teller means, because SamDillon was about to testify before the grand jury, until he was murdered onlydays before.
“Dillon came to us,” says Teller. “He called us and told ushe wanted to talk about Flanagan-Maxx. We had just convened the grand jury. Hesaid he wanted us to subpoena him, so we did.”
Sure, that makes sense. Dillon wanted to give the appearancethat he was being compelled to testify, when in fact he wanted to talk.
“So there we are,” Teller concludes. “The people at Flanagan-Maxxare playing see-no-evil, hear-no-evil. The senators won’t talk. We can’t evensay for sure who put the money into their hands. Probably it was Pagone, orsomeone he trusted.” Teller shrugs his shoulders. “But we don’t know, Jane.We’re at a dead end.”
“So you want Mat Pagone,” McCoy gathers. “That’s theproblem.”
“Our problem, Jane,” Teller replies, “is you.”
McCoy raises her hands.
“We need Mat Pagone,” he says. “We flip him and the wholehouse of cards comes down.”
