Tumblin' Dice (4 page)

“The government isn't going to bust its own casino.”

Burroughs leaned back against the counter, drinking his coffee and looking at Frank. “You don't think there's guys in the government pissed off at each other?”

“You think these cops can get their act together long enough to pull something off?”

“Go slow, that's all I'm saying. Now may not be the right time to attract attention.”

Frank nodded and said, yeah, okay, but really he was thinking, when the fuck is it ever the right time, you have to make it the right time. He was going to say that maybe it could even work for them, maybe if the cops got interested in the Philly boys they'd pull back a little, but then he realized they'd never do that, they'd just find a way to dump it all on him.

Shit, it was trickier than ripping off a bunch of stoned rock stars. But worth it, he was sure. Pretty sure.

Detective Constable Jason Loewen of the Metro Toronto Police was sitting in the room with the twenty or so other cops listening to the
RCMP
guy go on and on about money laundering and felt like he was back in high school. And, just like back in Grand River Collegiate in Kitchener, he looked at the women in the room and thought about which ones were doable. They all had their good points.

The Mountie had a PowerPoint presentation going and he was reading out every word on the screen, starting right at the beginning with how money laundering can be “broadly defined as the process by which one converts or transfers cash or other assets generated from illegal activity in order to conceal or disguise their illegal origins,” and Loewen was thinking, shit, why didn't he start by telling us what money is or what makes something illegal? This could take all day.

Metropolitan Toronto Police, Ontario Provincial Police, Peel Region Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Michigan State Police, New York State Troopers,
DEA
,
FBI
, and Homeland Security, he was pretty sure, sitting in the Algonquin Room of the Sheraton Hotel out by Toronto Airport. They'd gone around the table and introduced themselves at the beginning of the meeting but Loewen didn't remember them all.

He remembered Anjilvel, though. Not from this morning, from working with her busting grow ops. She was another city cop like Loewen and Connors, another female officer in the room he wouldn't mind doing.

The Mountie was explaining the three “essential objectives” of money laundering, how it “converts,” the bulk cash
POC
, which he stopped to explain meant “Proceeds of Crime,” to other, less suspicious forms, how it “conceals” the criminal origins and ownership of the funds and/or assets, and how it “creates” a legitimate explanation or source for the funds and/or assets, and Loewen was thinking how there were a few assets in this room he'd like to unconceal and convert into the legitimate naked state.

Like Anjilvel. He figured she'd be great in the sack, probably knew a lot of that
Kama Sutra
stuff, but how could he bring that up and still be “culturally sensitive,” like he was taught the last time he was in a meeting room like this with a couple dozen cops listening to another boring PowerPoint presentation. Shit, it was complicated. He liked the way she looked uncomfortable in her business casual suit, bra showing through her white blouse, blue slacks a little too tight, her brown fingers holding the white Starbucks cup. Loewen could easy see those fingers around his dick.

Now the Mountie was saying that to realize the “greatest benefit from money laundering, criminally derived cash should not simply be converted to other, less suspicious assets; the illicit financing of the assets must also be hidden,” and Loewen thought, no shit, Sherlock. The guy went on, though, saying, “The third objective, while less frequently satisfied in most money laundering operations, is no less important than the former two: the effectiveness of a laundering scheme will ultimately be judged by how convincingly it creates a legitimate front for illegally acquired cash and assets.”

One of the American cops said, “So what you're saying is, these assholes can't hide money for shit, and seeing as how they could never make this much any legal way, they should be easy to find.”

The Mountie said, “Easy to identify, yes. Much more difficult to convict.”

“Not my department.”

Loewen thought, no, hand it over to the lawyers, watch them screw it up.

The other city cop, Connors, he didn't know at all. She looked to be in her mid-thirties but in good shape, like she worked out, played sports, took care of herself. She had short hair, making Loewen think she might be a dyke, but that was stereotyping, for sure. Shit, he wished he'd had his notes from that other seminar.

A lot of the American cops were black guys. Most of them looked like they'd been football players or something. Most of them were taking notes. There were a couple of women cops from the States, too, one Loewen thought he recognized, a very good-looking black chick — looked like Halle Berry with long hair. He thought he caught her looking at him, too. One of the
DEA
agents was a woman, white, probably in her forties and carrying some extra weight, but Loewen could still see doing her.

“In order to satisfy the aforementioned objectives, the money laundering process generally entails four stages: placement, layering, integration, and repatriation.”

Loewen thought, shit, did he just say “entails”? The Mountie sounding like he was enjoying this.

“Deposit institutions and real estate constitute the most significant sectors for laundering purposes when measured by frequency of use as well as the volume of criminal proceeds that enter the legitimate economy.”

Yeah, he was enjoying it. Loewen watched him point to the screen and drone on and he thought maybe he really liked knowing about money laundering, maybe this Mountie thought hitting these guys where they hide their money would do the most damage, really knock them on their ass, not thinking about how easy it was for them to just make more, the world pumping out an endless supply of drug addicts and guys willing to pay a hundred bucks for a blowjob.

Or maybe, probably more likely, he just liked knowing something nobody else in the room did so he could show them all how smart he was explaining it to them.

A blond cop way at the other end of the boardroom table put up her hand. Loewen thought she'd said she was from Wisconsin in the introductions, now he was thinking maybe she'd been a genuine Midwestern cheerleader, wondered if she still had her pom-poms. He'd like to explain a few things to her.

Or hell, have her explain a few things to him. Either way.

The Mountie looked at her and she put her hand down and said, “By deposit institutions, do you mean banks?” and the Mountie said, yes, banks, trust companies, credit unions, money exchange locations, cheque cashing institutions, and she said, “Oh, like payday loan places,” and the Mountie said yes.

Another one of the American cops put his hand up and said, “If legitimate deposit institutions are used, there must be some kind of accomplice,” and Loewen thought, shit, these guys are such keeners.

Then he thought the Mountie was looking confused and this might get fun, but then he realized the guy was pissed off and trying not to show it, saying, “Let's not get ahead of ourselves — we'll be discussing accomplices in legitimate business activities later.” Yeah, wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves, find out how to actually arrest somebody.

For Loewen this task force was just more bullshit in a long line of bullshit assignments since he'd joined the Toronto police. At first things were going good, he got out of the academy, the Charles O. Bick out in Scarborough, and drove patrol right downtown, lots of action. Then he got into plainclothes on the fraud squad and that was fun, opened his eyes to all kinds of international stuff, Russian mobsters and honest-to-God Nigerian scam artists, all kinds of credit card stuff, Asian gangs, dozens of them, and then he covered for Maureen McKeon, homicide detective off on maternity leave, and he thought he had it made, the big time. Like his partner, temporary partner, Homicide Detective Andre Price said, the pay's lousy, the hours are shitty, but you can park anywhere you want.

It was funny, but it felt great, showing up at a crime scene, the whole place taped off, uniform cops taking statements, keeping people back — always a crowd, the whole place tense, the crime scene guys taking evidence — and you show up, the detectives, and take charge.

But then McKeon came back to work and Loewen got sent to narcotics and then these know-it-all fucking Mounties came along and arrested the guy running it, Burroughs, and pretty much the whole narco squad. Well, they were dirty, Loewen was the first to admit, even if none of the charges stuck and they all just took early retirement, but come on, eight guys in a department that should've been eighteen or twenty-eight, or shit, eighty, there still wouldn't've been enough the way Toronto was growing, going international.

He did meet a Mountie he liked back then, Constable Jen Sagar, had some wild times with her, but after all the Toronto cops got busted she put in for a transfer and ended up in J Division, New Brunswick. They'd tried to keep seeing each other, Loewen thought for sure she'd be looking for a way back to the action as soon as she could, maybe even a gig at the airport or the Hamilton narco squad, but the longer she stayed out in the boonies the more she liked it.

So now here he was on another bullshit task force, farther from the action and getting worse.

This Mountie, more the typical know-it-all Mountie, probably never once got laid in the squad car like Loewen and Sagar did it, was going on about shell companies, saying how they were set up, when he stopped and looked at his watch and Loewen thought, finally, this lecture's over, but the Mountie said, “Maybe we should stop for lunch and pick this up afterwards. It's important and we don't want growling stomachs to get in the way.” Probably his idea of a joke, something he was taught at another seminar, that he was supposed to end on one.

Out in the hall Loewen was on his way up to Anjilvel, see if she remembered him, when the Homeland Security woman came up to him and said, “You're City of Toronto, right?”

Loewen said, yeah, right, and she said, “I thought I recognized you.”

“You looked familiar to me, too.” Loewen thinking, this could be better than Anjilvel, have a little fun with this hot American chick and when the three-day seminar is over she goes back south, no awkward breakup and then having to work together. They were walking towards the restaurant. Half the cops were heading outside for a smoke, and Loewen was hoping she wasn't going to do that.

She said, “Yeah, my name's Marcelle Jones. I was up in Toronto once before — you guys were looking into an Iranian guy we had on a watch list. Got thrown off a building.”

Loewen said, “Oh yeah, I remember that. Armstrong worked that with Bergeron,” and knew right away this chick wasn't interested in him, the way her eyes lit up when he mentioned Armstrong. Shit, he'd like to play a little poker with her, though, tells like that. He said, “You looking for Armstrong?” and she said, “That his name?”

“He's still working homicide, but I bet he'd be happy to hear from you. I'll give him a call,” and she said, hey thanks, if it's no trouble, and Loewen said, no trouble at all. They were at the restaurant then, and the Homeland Security woman went to sit with some other Americans. Loewen looked around for Anjilvel and saw her coming back down the hall from the parking lot, putting her smokes in her pocket, shit, talking to some black guy, looked like a jarhead. They passed Loewen and she nodded at him, but he could tell she was going to spend the whole three-day seminar with this American. Loewen thought maybe because they were both visible minorities, or maybe both smokers, or something — he didn't know.

The restaurant was almost full. There was another conference going on, Loewen had no idea what, but maybe now he'd find out, see how many of these business looking women were staying at the hotel. Some nice-looking ones, for sure.

He'd have to do something to make this task force interesting. Looking at the schedule, he saw in the afternoon they'd be bored again, this time hearing all about legitimate businesses involved in money laundering. Real estate purchases, money lending institutions, casinos.

Sitting down at a table Loewen saw all the cops in their own groups, the federal ones from the States all together, the Michigan cops together, state troopers at their own table. Only Anjilvel and G.I. Joe were sitting at a table for two.

Oh yeah, Loewen thinking, this is gonna to be a great group. We'll catch lots of bad guys.

• • •

Angie walked through the lobby, not expecting to see anybody from the High. Evelyn at the front desk said they'd checked in a half hour earlier, winking at her, and she figured they were all either crashed in their rooms or in the casino gambling away the five grand each they were going to make for forty minutes onstage, but there he was, Ritchie, standing in front of the waterfall looking at the mural.

She walked towards him, thinking of something to say, something to sound cool and casual — as if she'd seen him a couple days ago or, maybe better, that she hadn't thought about him in over twenty years instead of almost every day, and then he said, “This is the first one of these Indian casinos that got it right,” and she said, oh yeah?

He said yeah. “I've seen some really screwed it up: Indians hunting buffalo in Mississippi, Navajo where they should be Mohawk, wearing all the wrong stuff, feathers and loincloths, but see here, these're wampum belts. They tie it all together.” He was looking at the floor-to-ceiling mural and he pointed, saying, “Over here you've got the sun,” and then pointing at the other wall, “and over here, the moon. It's all about balance, daylight and darkness, female and male.”

“I didn't know.” She knew she looked good in her business suit, the short skirt tight around her ass and showing off her nice legs, her four-inch heels, and she wanted him to look at her, make her feel twenty-one again, but then she was thinking, no, make me feel like a hot forty-five, like I am.

“The first story here is the creation. Here's the grandfather of the Anishinabe. He was also the first protector of the people, and over here's the moon, grandmother.” He kept looking at the wall and said, “She protects women and small children.”

“She's got her work cut out for her.”

Ritchie kept looking at the mural, all the detail in it, standing there in his jeans and his leather jacket, his hair still long, still looking good, lean and strong.

“Outside,” he said, “all the way around the building, you've got the whole story, the Seven Clans, the bird, the deer, the fish, the bear — you've got them all. And not just ancient history, this thing's modern, too; there's the migration, when the Chippewa got kicked off Lake Simcoe, the narrows where they used to fish, and dumped over here where there was nothing to do till the casino came along.”