me that time in Cincinnati.”
“Well, Zapata and Lange are all over him. He can?t go to the john without Chino washing his hands
when he?s finished. Hopefully, he tries for you again, they?ll clean his pipes.”
“As long as he?s in view, we?re okay.”
I changed the subject to the cocktail party and gave Stick a brief rundown on my talks with both
Donleavy and Titan.
“Donleavy says the Committee passed on Tagliani because they?re all naive,” I said, summing it up.
“It?s possible,” he said. “What?s the problem with Titan?”
I didn?t want to discuss Doe Raines, so I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me,” I said.
“1 almost forgot,” Stick said, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I did a little more work on the
computer.” He unfolded a readout sheet and handed it to me. “Here?s a rundown on the eight main
accounts and their subaccounts. There?s eighty-six different accounts there, Jake. And that?s like the
tip of the pyramid, man.”
“Thanks,”
“So what do we do with them?” he asked.
I looked over the printout. About a third of the accounts were corporate.
“Can you access corporate information on that gadget?”
“Sure.”
“I?d like you to check all the corporate names on this list and see if any of them were incorporated in
Panama.”
“Panama? The country Panama?”
“The country Panama.”
“Do I get to know why?”
“Ever heard of the Mirror Rule?”
He shook his head.
“You haven?t been doing your homework, Stick. Panama, the country, will not divulge any
information about Panamanian corporations; not to anyone for any reason. You can?t even get a list of
officers or stockholders unless the company wants you to have
it. So a Panamanian corporation is automatically indemnified from any kind of examination or
investigation except by authorities of Panama itself.”
“That?s real interesting,” the Stick said.
“It is if you incorporate in Panama. Because then you can have funds from an American bank
transferred to a bank in the Virgin Islands.”
