“Only when he felt threatened. He couldn?t stand being intimidated, by anything or anybody.”
“How about Seaborn? How upset was he?”
He chuckled. “Charlie?s easily upset, a worrywart. But he certainly wasn?t distraught enough to kill
somebody.”
“Perhaps there was a problem beyond just had judgment,” I suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever hear of the Rio Company?” I asked.
His expression didn?t change.
“The what?” he said.
“Rio Company,” I repeated.
He shook his head. “No, should I have?”
I explained to him about the Panamanian Mirror Rule and Virgin Island accounts and that whole
rigmarole. Donleavy was a lawyer, I was sure he knew what it was all about. I guess I wanted to make
sure he knew that I knew.
“The Rio Company is what we call a Hollywood box,” I said. “It?s like a street on a sound stage, all
front with nothing behind it. It?s usually used as a payoff.”
“A payoff? For what?”
“Favours, hush money, politicians, illegal lobbies, bad cops. „[„hey have a lot of palms to cross in
their business.”
“Doesn?t cash work anymore?” he said, laughing.
“This isn?t the old days,” I said. “We?re not talking about a few Ben Franklins here and there, we?re
talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. „The trick is how to hide it. „The Hollywood
box is one good way. They pay off their graft with dirty money and use the banks to clean it along the
way.”
“And this Rio Company was used for that purpose, eh?” he said.
I nodded.
“Are you implying that Charlie Seaborn was involved in all this?” he said, his face clouding with
concern.
“I?m not implying anything. But his hank is being used as the instrument. He helped set up a rather
elaborate subterfuge to help make it work. And a lot of the money that went through those accounts is
what is called ill-gotten gains. It can be confiscated under the RICO act. I?m not sure how deeply
involved Seaborn is. He may be guilty only of stupidity. But he could be on the sleeve.”
“The sleeve?”
