had happened between Dario and me. “I can’t believe you’re still willing to be friends with that guy,” he said, as he tapped the keys. “I’ve been telling you for years there’s something not quite right about him.”
“He has his good points. He got me this house, didn’t he?”
“Your friend Ari is the one who arranged the house. Dario only made a phone call.”
“But he didn’t have to make it. And he stuck up for Rich Sarkissian over that punching incident.”
“Saving his own neck,” Harry said, continuing to talk while he hunched over his laptop. “Protecting his store from a lawsuit. Hello!”
I looked over his shoulder. We were looking at Dario’s bank account, and the balance wasn’t that much bigger than Rich’s. “He must have more accounts,” I said. “How about the store?”
“All his accounts are linked.” Harry pulled up a summary page. There was an account for the store, and then a joint account with America Fonseca. “Who’s that, his mom?”
“Probably his wife,” I said.
Harry looked up, and his mouth was open like a fish’s. “Yeah, that’s the way I reacted the first time I heard he was married.”
“But I thought he was… you know.”
“Gay. Turns out he’s bi. Or, as Ari says, omnisexual. That Dario will fuck anything that doesn’t run away.”
“Jesus.” Harry shook his head.
“Him, too, probably,” I said. “Hard to run when you’re nailed to a cross.”
“That’s just sacrilegious,” Harry said.
“You’re a Buddhist.”
“Yeah, a Buddhist with good manners.”
“Back to Dario,” I said. “How can he be so short of cash?”
“Give me Ari’s full name,” Harry said. I spelled it for him.
“Hold on a minute,” he said. “I recognize that name. Remember that guy you asked me to look up, Harry Pincus?”
I nodded. Harry applied himself to the laptop again. “I think it’s the same guy. In 1999 Harry Pincus was arrested in Minneapolis on federal charges-for a bunch of financial crimes relating to the viatical business.” He looked up at me. “You know what that is?”
I shook my head. “It’s when a terminally ill person sells his insurance policy death benefits, at less than face value, to a third party. Now, that’s not illegal-but there are lots of scams. Our Mr. Pincus was accused of recruiting AIDS patients in Minneapolis, getting them to sign up for life insurance with companies that didn’t require a physical exam, then buying their benefits.”
“That’s creepy. And illegal?”
“Well, signing up for insurance under false pretenses is. But see what happened is that these patients weren’t dying, and Pincus couldn’t cash in. He couldn’t pay his investors-the people who put up the cash to buy those benefits-because the patients weren’t dying. That’s when he started fiddling with the money, and attracted the attention of the Feds. Eventually he filed for bankruptcy and the Feds realized they couldn’t make a case, so they dropped the charges.”
“Somehow Lucie found out about Ari’s past,” I said. “She did some work for him, and we know she was nosy. But was she blackmailing him? Or was she just holding the information for future use?”
“Perhaps his bank account will tell us.”
Ari, at least, had some money in his account, although there was a lot of money flowing in and out. “He’s trying to put together a deal for Bishop Clark’s land,” I said. “So he’s probably paying architects and lawyers. I know Dario is one of his investors.”
“If that’s the case, then we should be able to match the transactions,” Harry said. I went to the kitchen and got us another couple of beers while Harry went back and forth between the two accounts. While I drank and occasionally peered over his shoulder, he punched keys and made notes on a pad. Finally he was done.
“Okay, I was able to see a pattern here,” he said, showing me the pad. “Starting about six months ago, Ari started getting deposits into this account from what looks like three different sources. Each source puts in $25,000 at a time.”
“That’s a nice chunk of change.”
“Especially because each source has put in about $225,000 so far. I can match up Dario’s withdrawals with Ari’s deposits in each case. Now, every month for the last six months, Dario has transferred $25,000 to Ari. And each time, he makes five cash deposits of $5,000 each just before the transfer.”
“Why not just one deposit in the right amount?”
“Remember what I said earlier? Because the bank has to report transactions greater than or equal to $10,000. And by the way, making small deposits like this is also illegal. It’s called structuring.”
“Who ever expected you’d be the one telling me what’s illegal.”
“Since Dario doesn’t want to show where he got that cash, he makes deposits into his account that go under the radar.” He showed me a number of other big deposits Dario had made in cash, all of them under $10,000. “Now where do you think he gets all that cash from? Selling surfboards and cappuccinos?”
The wheels were turning in my head, and I didn’t like the direction they were going. “Back at the station, when we see somebody making large cash deposits, we figure that money usually comes from drugs.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine Dario standing out in the parking lot of The Next Wave peddling nickel bags.”
“Dario doesn’t do retail. He must be the middleman. The contact Lucie had at The Next Wave who supplied her with merchandise. He may even be the one who commissioned her to go to Mexpipe and bring drugs back. I’ll bet he’s got a whole lot of Lucie Zamoras out selling.”
“Selling what? Dope? Heroin?”
“Ice,” I said. “That’s what Rik said Lucie was selling. And I know they make crystal meth in Mexico, which is where the first three victims all went a little while before they died. There’s probably a lab somewhere here on the North Shore that converts the crystal into ice.”
“There’s no way the cash just comes from the store?” Harry asked.
I shook my head. “I’ve been in and out of that store a lot over the last couple of weeks, and most of the big transactions I’ve seen are on credit cards. Sure, people buy lattes for cash, but I’m guessing most of his sales are plastic.”
I sat back and thought. “Rik said Lucie’s source was at the store. I suppose it could be Dario. But I just don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it because Dario’s your friend,” Harry said.
“No, I don’t like it because I don’t like Dario. I’m scared that I’m trying to pin something on him just because he raped me ten years ago.”
Harry shook his head. “I think the numbers show it’s got to be him.”
“What are these numbers over here?” I asked, pointing to a different column of figures.
“About four months ago, Dario took out an equity line against the store. He’s already drawn down nearly a hundred thousand on that line.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And it’s all going into Ari’s account. Have they been running up extra expenses?”
“I know they’ve run into zoning problems, and deed restrictions on Bishop’s land. Maybe that’s why they’ve needed extra cash.”
“Dario’s about to run into a big problem,” Harry said. “See here, these are the store revenues. With business taking such a steep dive, there’s no way he’ll be able to afford the expense of running the store, paying for merchandise, paying his help, and paying the debt service on this equity loan. He must be sweating bullets right now.”
I got up and started walking around the living room. “I’m trying to get my head around this,” I said. “If Dario’s selling ice out of The Next Wave, why isn’t he rolling in cash?”
“Because he’s pumping it all into Ari’s real estate deal.”
“Why would he do that, though? Ice’s a profitable business. Why risk all his capital?”
“To make himself legit?” Harry asked. “Nobody arrests you for building condos these days.”
