“I have no idea. The database only shows transfers between banks, not internal account balances.”
“What about the Arabic names and the dates on the list in Brandon’s wallet?”
“Let’s take the first one on his list. Matar on July 1st.”
“Hold on.” Gage highlighted the transfer in yellow. “Three million?”
“That’s it. The wire transfer’s details-of-payment line shows Matar-GRID, but it doesn’t say insurance.”
“Any idea what GRID is?”
“Not a clue.”
“Who’s the sender?”
“It just says ‘from a client.’ The client’s account is at the Bank of New York.”
“I’m sure Charlie knew who it was from,” Gage said. “It was his job to work with a private banker at CEB to keep track of the money.”
Casey paused on the other end of the line. After a long moment he spoke, “It sort of makes you wonder whether Judge Meyer-”
“Was using Pegasus to receive offshore payoffs from companies appearing in his court?”
“Exactly,” Casey said. “And somehow I don’t think this is the first time you wondered that.”
Chapter 60
Gage stood back from a chart in the Oakland loft on the following morning. Alex Z leaned against the worktable.
“How was Casey able to access the financial database?” Alex Z asked. “I thought it was just for investigating terrorism.”
“I didn’t ask, but I imagine running searches on the Arabic names was his ticket in. Anything even vaguely Islamic is still accepted as probable cause, especially when it’s connected to offshore money coming into the U.S.”
Alex Z stepped up to his whiteboard chart showing Anston’s clients, Judge Meyer’s cases, and the deposits into Pegasus that appeared on Charlie Palmer’s spreadsheet.
Gage and Alex Z turned at the grunting of Shakir rolling his wheelchair toward them.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get out of bed on your own,” Gage said. “You could hurt yourself.”
Shakir smiled, then wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
“I didn’t want to miss any of the action, especially since my name was referred to as probable cause.”
“There isn’t much action at the moment,” Gage said, “except our mental wheels spinning. But there will be.” He turned back toward the chart. “How about you guys add the wire transfers and company names Casey found to this? See what patterns show up.” He nodded toward Shakir. “Sort of like a constellation.”
“No problem, boss.” Alex Z grinned at Shakir, then looked back at Gage. “I did a little extra research. Did you know Meyer’s nickname at Yale was Mach One?”
“Like in Machiavelli Number One,” Gage said, “or the speed of sound?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Why is it important?”
Shakir laughed, then winced and reached toward his bandaged stitches.
Alex Z stepped over to his laptop. A couple of keystrokes and a click of his mouse later, a Web site burst onto the screen showing a statue of the Hindu god Krishna under a banner reading “Pacific Coast Institute of Tantric Sex.”
He next typed “MachOne” as the user ID and “YaleForever” in the password field. He then entered the site and navigated to the account data.
He pointed at the last four digits of a credit card number: “It’s Meyer’s Cayman Island card.”
“How did you find this?”
“I didn’t. Somehow Charlie Palmer did.”
“Any evidence he was blackmailing Meyer?”
Alex Z shook his head. “It may have been too late. The last activity on the account was a year ago.”
“What did he buy?”
Shakir stirred in his chair and muffled a giggle.
“An hour of mentoring by what they call a trained guide,” Alex Z said.
“I take it that means a prostitute for the new age elite?”
“The owner of the institute has a half-dozen arrests in San Francisco. It looks like she took her business inside about five years ago to keep herself out of handcuffs.”
“Or into fur-lined ones.” Gage glanced at the monitor. “He spend money on anything else?”
Alex Z grinned.
“Yeah, boss. A man’s strap-on penis extender.”
Chapter 61
A hole in the wall. A very long wall of thirty windowless doors spread along the third floor walkway of an L- shaped strip-mall office building in Las Vegas. The tan stucco structure looked to Gage like a 1950s motel with the swimming pool filled in and paved over into a parking lot.
Gage scanned the brown plastic nameplates. A generation of dust had settled into the corners and edges of the white etched letters: Las Vegas Commercial Insurance, West Valley Real Estate, PCC Accounting, and AAA Corporate Services of Nevada, Inc.
As he opened the office door, Gage wondered who Phillip Charters would be today.
Charters peered up over his wire-rimmed reading glasses at Gage. He was a plus-sized Danny DeVito with a full head of blondish-white hair, and with no surprise on his face or in his voice, asked:
“How’s this sound?” Charters pointed at a State of Nevada Articles of Incorporation form lying on his desk. “Charter Aggressive Growth Fund.”
“I think you’ll need to get your stockbroker’s license back,” Gage said.
“No problem. I just won my appeal.” Charters grinned. “Faulty jury instructions. I’m good to go again.” He flicked a finger at Gage. “You had lunch?”
“You mean lunch or…”
“Food, just food. I promise.”
C harters tilted his head and raised his eyebrows toward the Desert Agate Gentlemen’s Club as they angled across the parking lot toward the Hometown Restaurant.
“You trying to get me to go in,” Gage asked, “or is that just pride of ownership?”
“Pride of ownership.” Charters spread his hands in front of him, eyebrows still raised. “Get it?”
“Get what?”
“Agate.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“I wanted to call it Get Your Rocks Off but the city wouldn’t let me.”
“Is this what you do all day?” Gage shook his head. “Of course you do. You never turn it off.”
“If I had to take a guess, that’s why you’re here.”
Charters sucked in his stomach as he slid into the booth in the cafe, then laid his furry forearms on the table. His yellow and red flowered short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt stretched tight across his chest.
Gage made a show of doing a double take as Charters signaled to a waitress across the dining room.
“That’s not…”
“My old secretary. What could she do? She had to roll on me. She couldn’t do jail time, not with three young kids to take care of. I told her to do what she needed to do.”
Gage smiled at Charters. “And all this time I thought it was great investigation on my part.”
