The Millionaires (46 page)

“Martin Duckworth,” Charlie reads from the screen.

“This is dad’s account?” Gillian asks.

“… 72741342388,” I read out loud as my finger brailles the numbers on the screen. “This is definitely his—the same as the
one we—” I cut myself off as soon as Gillian glances my way. “The same as the original one we looked at,” I tell her.

Smooth,
Charlie says with a look.

I turn back to Gillian, but her eyes are now glued to the screen… and to the box that’s labeled
Account Balance:
$4,769,277.44.

“Four million?” Gillian asks, confused. “I thought you said the account was empty?”

“It was… it’s supposed to be,” I insist defensively. She thinks I’m lying. “I’m telling you, when I called from the bus, they
said the balance was zer—”

There’s an audible click and all three of us turn to the monitor.

“What was…?”

“
There,
” I say, once again stabbing a finger at the screen. I point to the
Account Balance:
$4,832,949.55.

“Please tell me that just went up,” Charlie says.

“Does anyone remember what it said before it—”

Click.

Account Balance: $4,925,204.29.

None of us says a word.

Click.

Account Balance: $5,012,746.41.

“If my mouth opens any wider, my chin’s gonna hit the carpet,” Charlie blurts. “I don’t believe it.”

“Lemme see,” I say as I shove Charlie out of his seat. For once, he doesn’t fight. Right now, he’s better off riding shotgun.

Moving the cursor up toward the
Deposits
section, I study the three newest entries to the account:

$63,672.11—wire transfer from Account 225751116.

$92,254.74—wire transfer from Account 11000571210.

$87,542.12—internal transfer from Account 9008410321.

My eyes narrow and I press my lips together.

“It’s the same way he studies mom’s bills,” Charlie says to Gillian.

Reaching forward, I palm the top corner of the monitor. I’m not letting this one go. “Oh, don’t tell me he—” I cut myself
off and recheck the numbers.

“What?” Gillian asks.

I don’t answer. I shake my head, lost in the screen. Searching for more, I click on the box marked
Deposits.
A smaller window opens, and I’m staring at Duckworth’s full account history. Every deposit on record from start to—

“How the hell did he… I-It’s not possible…” I stumble, scrolling down the digital pages of the account. The more I scroll,
the longer it goes. Deposit after deposit. Sixty thousand, eighty thousand, ninety-seven thousand. They don’t seem to stop.
I’ve got that gnawing pit in my stomach. It doesn’t make sense…

“Just say it!” Charlie begs.

Startled, I turn around.

“What? You forgot we were here?” Gillian asks, surprisingly curt.

Letting go of the monitor, I move back from the screen so they can squeeze in. “See this right here?” I ask, pointing to the
box for
Deposits.

Charlie rolls his eyes. “Even I know how a deposit works, Ollie.”

“It’s not the deposit,” I say. “It’s where it came from.”

“I don’t understand…”

Behind us, the elevator dings and Charlie angles his neck back toward its opening doors. Two elderly women holding each other’s
hands come out. Nothing to worry about. At least, not yet.

“Check out each of the deposits,” I say as Charlie turns back to the screen. “Sixty-three thousand… ninety-two thousand… eighty-seven
thousand.” I motion to the other deposits before them. “See the trend?”

He squints toward the monitor. “You mean, besides being buckets of cash?”

“Look at the amounts, Charlie. Duckworth’s account has over two million dollars moving in every day—but there’s not a single
deposit that’s over a hundred thousand dollars.”

“So?”

“So, one hundred thousand is also the threshold amount where the bank’s automatic auditing system kicks into place—which means…”

“… anything under a hundred grand doesn’t get audited,” Gillian says.

“That’s the game,” I reply. “It’s called smurfing—you pick the amount that’s just small enough to squeeze under the monitoring
threshold. People do it all the time—especially when clients don’t want us questioning their cash transactions.”

“I don’t get what the big deal is. So, he’s a smurf.”

“He’s not a smurf. He’s smurfing.
Smurfing,
” I say. “And the big deal is that it’s the number one way to keep it below the radar.”

“Keep
what
below the radar?”

“That’s what we’re about to find out,” I say, turning back to the screen.

S
tuck in a strangle of traffic on Broward Boulevard, Joey reached over to the passenger seat, fished through her purse, and
pulled out the photo of Duckworth and Gillian. At first glance, it was dad and daughter, happy as could be. But now that she
had it in the light—now that she knew…

Damn, that’s a rookie mistake,
she told herself as she slammed the steering wheel. Holding the photo up close, she didn’t know how she missed it before.
It wasn’t just the bad proportions—even the shadows were skewed. Duckworth had the shade on the left side of his face; Gillian
had it on the right. Total rush job, she decided. Rushed, but still decent enough to pass.

Pulling into a strip mall parking lot, she flipped open her laptop and went back to the digital photos of the Greene Bank
offices she took the first day. Oliver’s, Charlie’s, Shep’s, Lapidus’s, Quincy’s, and even Mary’s. One by one, she took another
pass, flipping through the…

“Rat bastards,” she muttered as soon as she saw it. She leaned down toward the screen, just to make sure she was right. The
hair was a different color and straightened, but there was no mistaking it. There it was. A single headshot. Right in front
of her the entire time.

Joey pumped the gas, and a whirlwind of dust blew behind her. Her hand went right for the phone. Speed-dial.

“This is Noreen.”

“I need you to run a name for me,” Joey announced.

“You got something new?”

“Actually, something old,” Joey said as the car flew toward the offices for Neowerks. “But if the dominoes tip right, I think
I finally have the real story on Gillian Duckworth.”

S
ee this deposit right here? The eighty-seven thousand?” I ask, pointing Charlie and Gillian to the most recent addition to
Duckworth’s account. Before they can answer, I explain, “That’s from Sylvia Rosenbaum’s account. But for as long as I can
remember, she’s had it set up as a trust with specific beneficiaries.”

“Which means?”

“Which means once every quarter, the computer automatically makes two internal transfers: a quarter-million-dollar transfer
to her son, and a quarter-million-dollar transfer to her daughter.”

“So why is this wealthy old woman transferring money to my dad?”

“That’s just it,” I say. “Besides her family and the once-a-year payment to her advisors, Sylvia Rosenbaum doesn’t transfer
money to
anyone.
Not your dad, not the IRS, no one. That’s the whole purpose of the trust account—it runs on its own and makes the same exact
payments every quarter. But when you look here…” I scroll up through Duckworth’s records and point to one of the first deposits—another
eighty-thousand-dollar transfer from Sylvia’s account. This one’s dated June. Six months ago. “See, this shouldn’t be here
either,” I explain. “It doesn’t make sense. How the hell could he—?”

“Can you please slow down a second? Whattya mean,
it shouldn’t be here?
” Charlie asks. “How could you possibly know?”

“Because
I’m
the one who handles her account,” I say, struggling to keep my voice down. “I’ve been checking this woman’s statements since
the first day I started at the bank. And when I checked it last month—I’m telling you—these transfers to Duckworth weren’t
there.”

“You sure you didn’t just miss them?” Gillian asks.

“That’s what I was wondering when I first saw it,” I admit. “But then I saw this one…” I highlight another internal transfer
that recently came into Duckworth’s account. $82,624.00 transferred from Account 23274990007.

“007,” Charlie blurts, reading the last three digits. He doesn’t miss a beat.

“That’s the one,” I shoot back. Seeing that Gillian’s lost, I explain, “007 belongs to Tanner Drew.”

“
The
Tanner Drew?”

“The man himself—newest member of the Forbes 400. Anyway, last week, he threatened our lives until we transferred forty million
dollars into one of his other accounts. All of that happened on Friday at exactly 3:59
P.M.
Now check out the time that Tanner Drew made this transfer to Duckworth…”

Gillian and Charlie lean toward the screen. Friday—December 13—3:59:47
P.M.

I see a single teardrop of sweat run down from my brother’s sideburns. “I don’t get it,” Charlie says. “We were the only people
accessing the account. How could he possibly be transferring his cash to Duckworth?”

“That’s what I’m saying… I don’t think he did,” I suggest. “In fact, I
know
he didn’t. Once we transferred the money, I checked Tanner Drew’s account half a dozen times, just to make sure it was on
its way. Know what the last transfer was? Forty mil.”

“Then where did this eighty-two thousand come from?” he asks.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. But whatever hat Duckworth pulled it out of, it’s clear that he had his hand in almost
everyone else’s business. I mean, half these accounts—here, and here, and here…” I point one by one to all the different account
numbers that’re listed under
Deposits.
“Every one of them is a client of the bank—007 is Tanner Drew. 609 is Thomas Wayne. 727 is Mark Wexler. And 209… I’m pretty
sure that’s the Lawrence Lamb Foundation.”

“Wait… so dad was getting cash from all of them?” Gillian interrupts.

“That’s what it looks like,” I say, once again studying the blue glare of the monitor. “And the money never stopped flowing.”

Gillian looks around, making sure no one’s nearby. Charlie steps away from her, just to be safe. He can’t help himself. “You
think dad was blackmailing them?” she asks.

“I don’t know—but when you look at what he did in the trust account—and then with Tanner Drew—it’s like the transfers shouldn’t
exist. Forget what it says here. On the bank’s system, not a single dollar left any of these accounts. I mean, it’s almost
like this ticking program is convincing the computer to see what’s not really—” My chest tightens and I freeze.

“What? What’s wrong?” Gillian asks.

“You okay?” Charlie adds, shoving her aside and putting a hand on the back of my neck.

“Oh, crap…” I stutter, pointing to the screen. “That’s what he invented.” My voice rattles down the runway, slowly taking
off. “It’s like a funhouse mirror—it shows you a reality that’s not really there.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I mean, how else do you get a credit to match the corresponding debit? That’s what the Secret Service wanted to invest in…and
that’s what Gallo wanted for himself. The next step in financial crime. Virtual counterfeiting. Why steal money when you can
just create it?”

“What do you mean,
create it?
”my brother asks.

“Electronically make it. Convince the computer it exists. Build it out of thin air.”

Charlie goes back to the screen. “Sombitch…”

“Wait a minute,” Gillian says. “You think my dad
created
all that cash?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. That would explain why the Service is on it, instead of the FBI. It’s like Shep said—they’re
the ones with jurisdiction over counterfeiting.”

“But to build money out of nothing…” Gillian begins.

“… would make a VC place like Five Points Capital wet itself. Think about how it played out: Six days ago, Martin Duckworth
had three million dollars in his account. Three days ago, the computer said it was three hundred and thirteen million. But
when you look at these records, it’s clear that that didn’t just happen overnight. These transactions go back six months.
Hundreds of deposits. It’s like keeping two sets of books. The regular system always said he had three million, but below
the surface, his little invention was quietly creating the full three hundred. Then, when the gold-plated nest egg got big
enough—wham!—they went to grab it. But we nabbed it first—and as it was sent on its way, the second set of books merged with
the first, and every one of his fake deposits now somehow correlated with a real transaction at the bank.”