She switched from shameless flirt to killer litigator without breaking stride.
“We know that O’Malley has the loan limit problems, but it seems like there should be something else to bring all the feds’ firepower down on us.”
“I think you’re right. Maybe there’s some overall picture we’ve missed. Where are Diane’s summaries?”
Diane Farrell had written summaries of the O’Malley transactions on poster-sized post-its, one for each of the seven years they were investigating. Sandra stuck them to the walls in chronological order.
The summaries set out the date each transaction closed, the name of the project, a description of the assets involved, and the Sullivan amp; Christenson lawyer who handled the deal. She highlighted in yellow each deal involving Quintex.
“Who are the shareholders, officers, and directors of Quintex?” Mason asked.
“Vic Jr. is the president, Harlan was secretary, and Scott is treasurer. Father and son are the only shareholders and directors.”
He noted her correct usage of the past tense to describe Harlan.
“Were they the original officers?”
“I’ll have to check.” Sandra leafed through the Quintex corporate minute book. “The corporation was formed in 1984. Daddy was the sole shareholder, director, and president. Sullivan was the secretary, and there were no other officers. Fast-forward to 2008 and the current slate is swept into office.”
“Look at the transactions since then. Sullivan was the lawyer on almost all of them until early 2008. Then Scott took over and all the transactions are fixtures deals. What are they about?”
“Quintex bought fixtures and leased them back to someone else.”
“What kind of fixtures?”
“According to the lease documents, display racks, countertops, stuff like that. Phil Rosa did an analysis of the key deal points.”
She handed him Rosa’s memo. He studied it and the summaries on the wall.
“That explains what but not why or who. Quintex bought from one corporation and leased back to another. All those companies have alphabet soup names like NKC Corporation and EPT Enterprises.”
“I’d say that someone on one end or the other, if not both ends, wanted to make it hard to trace the connection between them.”
“We’re focusing too much on the deals and not enough on who was making them. I want to know who the real players are, and I’ll bet the O’Malleys know.”
“The two might not have anything to do with each other. Vic Jr. may be doing his own deals just to prove to his father that he can make it on his own. Vic Sr. may not be involved in or know much about what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, but Scott and Harlan were involved and they would be a direct pipeline to O’Malley.”
“Not necessarily. Scott wants out of Sullivan’s orbit. Harlan’s slipping further behind Sullivan every year in the amount of business he’s generating for the firm. They both need a boost. Maybe they’re working with Vic Jr. and don’t want Sullivan or O’Malley Sr. to know what they’re doing.”
“If you’re right, there’s no connection between Senior’s loan problems and Junior’s fixtures deals.”
“No intentional connection-but remember chaos?”
“God and bumper cars.”
“Exactly. We know St. John is investigating Quintex, but we don’t know if it’s Sullivan’s side or Scott’s side or both.”
“Meaning anything is possible. Great theory.”
“You don’t get it, Lou. We’re assuming that things are happening for reasons we understand. But we may be completely off base.”
“And we don’t know what Sullivan knew and we don’t know what Harlan knew, since they are both conveniently and permanently unavailable.”
“All I’m saying is we have to be willing to look at things a little differently,” she said. “We have to look for the unintended connections, not the grand conspiracies.”
“Fine, but I’m sticking with what we know and what we don’t know. And we don’t know enough about the fixtures deals, and I’m going to change that.”
Mason called Angela. “Find Diane, Phil, and Maggie. I want them back down here as soon as possible. Tell them to plan on a long night. Then call Victor O’Malley and tell him I’ll be in his office in twenty minutes.”
He hung up before Angela had a chance to remind him that she wasn’t his secretary, and gave Sandra her instructions.
“Tell the troops to peel the onion and find out who owns those corporate layers and what kind of businesses are using those fixtures. I want you to talk with Vic Jr. about these deals. We’ll compare notes in the morning before the partners’ meeting.”
“Don’t you think we should synchronize our watches, Commander?”
“I’ll settle for as close to seven as you can make it. Listen, Sandra, two people are dead already. We may step on the wrong toes with all of this, so please be careful.”
“Lou, I’m touched.”
“Let’s just say that beautiful legs are a terrible thing to waste.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When Mason started working on Victor O’Malley’s case, he asked Sullivan why O’Malley paid rent instead of moving into one of his own office towers. Sullivan explained that O’Malley had the space tied up at rock-bottom rates through a series of long-term options, which was better than losing out on market-rate rents on his own property. Mason recalled the conversation as he walked to the Union Energy Building and took the ancient elevator to O’Malley’s twentieth-floor office, knowing that his client was a man who didn’t miss a trick.
O’Malley shook Mason’s hand with both of his, patting Mason’s back and smiling like a proud father. He ran his empire from a scraped and scarred desk too small for his frame. The walls were lined with photographs of his projects, leaving no room for pictures of his family or any other sentiment.
His office faced south and west, overlooking the site for the new performing arts center that would open next year. A fierce battle had been waged in the corridors of city hall by competing developers, each of whom had invested in pockets of property on the southern fringe of the downtown in the hopes that the city would choose their site for the project. Millions of dollars had been at stake, with each contestant promising to build a world-class facility. O’Malley outprepared and outfought the competition. Gleaming and buoyant, he drew Mason to the windows to show off his victory.
“Goddammit, Lou, just look at that! It’s magnificent! Five years ago that land south of the highway was worthless. Half the buildings were abandoned and the few businesses that were left were thrilled to sell so they could pay their back taxes. You know what their problem was? No vision. No ability to look down the road and see what might happen-and not enough balls to take the risk they might be wrong.”
He put his arm around Mason as they turned from the windows and eased themselves into cane-backed chairs facing each other across a small round conference table opposite his desk.
“I’m still in shock about Harlan,” O’Malley said in low tones, slowly shaking his head. “He was a good man, not the brightest lawyer that ever practiced, but good and loyal.”
Mason was surprised at the speed with which the news had spread.
“How did you find out?”
“The press. It’s how I find out everything about myself these days. All I have to do is wait for St. John to leak his latest story and the phone rings off the hook. That’s why I was calling you this morning-I figured you’d want to reschedule our meeting.”
“Scott said he told you about Pamela’s arrest.”
“I don’t know which is more of a shock, Pamela and Sullivan or poor Harlan. Murder-that’s too far beyond me to even seem real. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks. We know that St. John has been focusing on the loans by the bank to companies you controlled. If you’re convicted, that can mean anything from civil penalties to jail time. But there are two other problem areas
