Laundry Man

back and resumed his seat by the fire.

“Came here by yourself tonight, did you, Jack?”

“That’s what they say.”

“I had it all worked out for you to show up eventually, of course, but I got to be honest with you. I didn’t think you’d manage it quite this fast.”

“I have friends.”

“So do I, Jack, and if you don’t give me a straight answer about how you got here so quickly you’ll find out who they are.”

So much for the chit chat part of our program.

“I found some telephone bills and other stuff at Dollar’s that pointed me to Phuket. Then I got a guy I know to ask around and he located this place. I couldn’t tell you how he actually did that even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”

Putting Mango Manny’s name on the table didn’t seem fair or necessary, so I didn’t.

“You don’t need to know any more than that,” I added.

“You’ve got a pair there big enough to bowl with, don’t you, Jack? Not many people tell me what I need or don’t need to know.”

Then Barry’s eyes started to dance.

“Okay, smart guy, so after your secret pal located me, he smuggled you into Phuket on a private plane or some shit like that. Is that about it?”

I nodded.

“Don’t you think someone might have seen you take off from Bangkok?”

“I didn’t say we left from Bangkok.”

“Then where did you leave from?”

“It doesn’t matter, but no one saw me leave.”

“And you’re just as sure that no one saw you arrive on Phuket?”

“Just as sure.”

“So you weren’t followed here.”

“My friend made sure of that.”

“So I guess if I shoot you through the head and bury you somewhere out there, no one will ever figure out what happened to you, huh? Except maybe this secret pal of yours.”

That thought introduced an unwelcome twist to the conversation, but I pushed on anyway.

“You’re not going to do that.”

“I’m not? Really?”

“No.”

“And you’d bet your life on that, so to speak.”

“I guess I already have.”

Barry nodded slowly as if he was weighing the wisdom of my wager. I certainly was.

“How come you’re so confident here, Jack? I don’t see it myself.”

“Because you want something from me.” I looked Barry in the eye and kept on talking. “You showed up in Bangkok and gave me that cock-and-bull story about being on the run because the ABC had been scammed and you were afraid the Russians would think it was you. But let me tell you what I think is really happening here.”

Barry watched me, but he said nothing.

“My guess is that you’ve run your own little con on the bank, skimmed off a bunch of money for yourself, and then led me here because you need me to help you come up with a way to cover your ass.”

“Very interesting theory, Jack, very imaginative. I’ve always said you were a smart guy and I was right. You really are a smart guy.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“What’s more, you’ve almost got it all right. Still, I’m afraid you’re a bit off about one thing, and I have to say that it’s something pretty important.”

I said nothing.

“Here’s the thing, Jack. Once you showed up here, the job I wanted you to do for me was finished. I’ve got no more use for you anymore.”

Barry smiled. Not knowing what else to do, I smiled back. Then I just waited. I knew the rest was coming. Barry was just warming up.

“I bought the Asia Bank of Commerce for Jimmy Kicks just like I told you, a safe little money laundry in a nice out-of-the-way place. But it wasn’t long before I realized I was on to something really big here. Everybody needs a bank they can trust, Jack. Even crooks and criminals.”

Barry leaped out of his chair and began to pace the room while he talked, his arms wheeling wildly.

“There’s a river of dirty money out there, my friend! Drugs, guns, bribes, rackets, scams, outright theft. Shit, it’s a fucking ocean! I once saw a bunch of garbage bags in a Houston warehouse with fifty million dollars in them, just stuffed in there like trash. Have you ever seen fifty million dollars in hundred-dollar bills, Jack?”

I shook my head, but Barry hardly seemed to notice.

“Before I got this deal working, all anybody could do with all that money was buy some more dope or maybe a couple of shitty strip malls in Tampa. That’s not power, Jack. Cash is power! But not if it’s in bags in some fucking warehouse. If you can’t get your cash into the banking system, you might as well start using it to wipe your ass because that’s all it’s good for. It’s nothing but wastepaper.”

“A lot of people have tried large-scale money laundering, Barry. They always get caught.”

“All a bunch of fucking amateurs, Jack!” he sneered. “Just yokels with no vision!”

I nodded in encouragement and Barry took flight again.

“We put the word out discreetly that the ABC was a reliable bank owned by reliable people and that it didn’t ask a lot of questions about its depositors. After that, the damnedest stuff started turning up on our doorstep. You know why? Because we were part of the international banking system and when folks put their money with us it became part of the international banking system! After that I could send it any place in the world without anyone knowing anything at all about where it came from.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I’m not enjoying our little chat here, Barry, but what the hell has any of this got to do with me?”

“Just be patient, Jack, hear me out. It was like this. First, of course, it was mostly just dipshit local scumbags who put money with us, but after the word got around, we had the Russians, the Burmese, the Colombians, the Mexicans, the South Africans, everybody! We started getting into bigger and bigger money, but most of it was just going right through us. I started thinking about ways we could hang on to a bigger piece.”

Why didn’t that surprise me?

“Then some Burmese jerk-offs brought us a deal they had going with the Chinese and I saw my chance. You know the army really runs the drug trade in China, don’t you, Jack? Well, these Burmese yahoos had done a deal with the Chinese army because they were swimming in raw morphine base and wanted to diversify into finished products. They agreed to finance the construction of four heroin refineries just across the border into China. The Burmese would provide the morphine base and Chinese army would look after the refineries and transport the processed heroin to the coast for shipment to North America and Europe. The deal was for everybody to split the proceeds from the operation right down the middle.”

I shook my head impatiently. It seemed to irritate Barry that I wasn’t hanging on his every word, but he went on anyway.

“The problem was how to get the money to finance the refineries and pay off the generals in China without anyone knowing where it came from.”

Barry was still watching me, reveling in relating his great adventure to someone he thought would truly appreciate its nuances. He wanted me to be interested in what he was saying. I was, of course, but I tried not to show it.

“The Burmese had a shitload of cash split up among a bunch of shell companies with accounts in American banks, of all places, which the stupid cocksuckers thought was so damned clever of them. The problem was, naturally, that they couldn’t figure out how to move any of it from the US to China without being conspicuous, but I