Page 25 of The Children of Eve (Charlie Parker #22)
CHAPTER XXV
I had arranged to meet Moxie Castin for lunch at David’s in Monument Square. I could probably have worked full-time for Moxie had I wished because there was never a shortage of people doing dumb things on which the law frowned, or alternatively, cases of the law threatening to do things to people on which natural justice frowned. I called Moxie to let him know I was on my way and found a parking spot on Free Street, not far from the restaurant, which I took as a good omen.
Moxie was seated in the far corner of the restaurant, with a plate of Moroccan salmon in front of him and some vegetable potstickers waiting for me.
“That looks nearly healthy,” I said. “You didn’t get a final warning from your internist, did you?”
“What internist? And I ordered fries on the side. I’m not an animal.”
The fries arrived, accompanied by a smile from the server for Moxie that could have lit up a cellar at midnight. Moxie—bald, overweight, and wearing a tie that looked like it had been cut from a Nudie suit—had that effect on certain women. It came down either to charm on his part or desperation on theirs, coupled perhaps with being temporarily blinded by his ties.
Moxie smothered his fries in ketchup to prove how evolved beyond the animalistic he actually was. He then watched in silence as I removed the arugula from my potstickers.
“What did arugula ever do to you?” Moxie asked. “You eat like someone with a disorder.”
“We all have our quirks.”
“You more than most. That’s why I always ask for a corner table where you can feed yourself unobserved.”
We talked about nothing much for a while before proceeding to a few jobs Moxie wanted me to take on, all but one of which I turned down because they were dull, laborious, or both, and I didn’t need the money that badly. I told him about Zetta Nadeau, Wyatt Riggins, and BrightBlown. Moxie scowled when I mentioned the latter.
“Anything I should know?” I asked.
“It’s a slick concern.”
“Too slick?”
He ate his last fry. They’d survived barely long enough to start cooling.
“BrightBlown is gearing up for the long haul,” he said. “A lot of these cannabis places will fall by the wayside over the next few years—it’s already happening to the underresourced and overambitious—but BrightBlown won’t. The Portland outlet has a wellness center attached, and they’ve acquired the building next door to be a health food store, with further plans to expand the brand. It’s cannabis as part of a lifestyle choice for body and mind. Jerry Garcia must be turning in his grave.”
“That’s a significant outlay. Where’s the money coming from?”
“A client of mine was looking at the building, the one tapped for health food. He got gazumped and didn’t take it well, so he did some digging and came back with a name, even if he had to go through about a hundred layers of obfuscation to find it: Devin Vaughn.”
“Who’s Devin Vaughn?”
“Devin Vaughn is the son of the late Landon Vaughn, previously unknown to me but familiar to multiple branches of law enforcement. I have a copy of the client’s research because it’s a good idea to know who’s trying to tip the scales in your town. Landon was a mid-tier mobster of the old dispensation, which meant he was disciplined and didn’t get high on his own supply. No whores, no extortion, minimal violence. His territory was mainly the mid-Atlantic: DC, the Virginias, parts of Pennsylvania. When he died, his son did two things, one smart and the other not-so-smart. Smart was seeking to go legit as much as possible while using those legitimate businesses to launder proceeds from narcotics, which in turn supported the purchase of more businesses and more narcotics. For that, he needed cash-intensive entities, so we’re talking convenience stores, parking garages, cigarette distributors, laundromats, vending machines, and private ATMs, followed by the acquisition of small restaurants, cheap motels—”
“And cannabis stores, right?”
“And some people claim you aren’t bright,” said Moxie, “although only out of earshot. If the business end is handled correctly, legalized cannabis is a license to print money—and launder it, too.”
That much I already knew, just as I knew the main facilitator of the money laundering was the federal government. Because cannabis remained illegal at the federal level, and the federal government regulated banks and credit unions, financial institutions were reluctant to do business with the cannabis industry. Therefore, the industry had to be open to accepting cash, which meant that paying sizable bills became a problem, leaving cannabis sellers to rely on cashier’s checks. But the upside, if you were crooked, was that you had a whole lot of cash washing around and no record of it beyond what you chose to include in your books. So you could elect to screw the IRS by underdeclaring and pocketing the difference or, if you had dirty money from other sources that you needed to launder, you could overdeclare, accept a hit on the tax, and—presto—you had clean money. In fact, considering the premium charged by criminal launderers, it was cheaper to let Uncle Sam do the job for you.
“According to my client’s report,” Moxie continued, “Devin Vaughn has some shrewd advisors, financial and otherwise, including his father’s former right-hand man, Aldo Bern. Vaughn usually listens to what they say; if he was ever arrogant, he’s reputed to have grown out of it, and he shares his old man’s views on violence. It’s not his style, or not habitually, anyway. He has a finance degree, invests in art and antiquities, and keeps his name out of newspapers and criminal courts. He’s in the process of getting divorced, but not because he fooled around, or not that anyone can tell. Overall, Vaughn is a model of modern wrongdoing.”
“So what’s the not-so-smart aspect of his character?”
“He expanded too fast. To go straight, he needed more money, and to get more money, he had to be more crooked. He’s overextended. Finding out how overextended, and what Vaughn might be doing to address it, was beyond the remit of the client report. But BrightBlown will survive. Either Vaughn will find a way out of this mess or he’ll be forced to dispose of BrightBlown, which will be acquired by another vendor because its business model appears sound. But Vaughn will try to hold on to what he has; otherwise, it will be like a run on a bank. His more colorful debtors will come looking for their money, and they won’t be resorting to bankruptcy proceedings.”
The server returned to remove our plates and bestow another smile on Moxie. I was only surprised that she didn’t write her number in lip liner on his hand.
“Which brings us back to your client, Zetta Nadeau, and her missing boyfriend,” said Moxie, once we’d declined coffee, “because if Wyatt Riggins was working for BrightBlown, he was working for Devin Vaughn.”
“Then Riggins ups and runs,” I said. “Is it too much of a coincidence that a man who may be under threat happens to be paid by a mid-level criminal?”
“I’d have said so. And unless Riggins was skimming from his employer, which would be ingratitude on a woeful scale, not to mention potentially fatally stupid, it can’t be Vaughn who made him run. The mystery is for you to solve. I expect you to pick up the lunch check in return for all the spadework I’ve just saved you.”
“Can you email me a copy of the client’s report?”
“Sure, but I didn’t leave out anything of note. I’m a lawyer. I know how to summarize. I also know how to give advice, which at this moment would be for you to tell Zetta Nadeau to forget about her boyfriend and find someone else to waste her feelings on, because this money will be hard-earned. Riggins is tied to Vaughn, and Vaughn is a dog being stung by hornets, with a whole other swarm of them on the way. You wade in, and you’re liable to get stung as well.”
I thanked him and paid the check. Moxie’s counsel was valid, but picking up the odd sting was an occupational hazard. If you started getting scared of the pain, it was time to consider retirement. Otherwise, as day followed night, you were guaranteed to get stung more often.
It was sufficiently cool outside for Moxie to pull on his gloves and cover his baldness with a beanie.
“What have you got on your dance card for the rest of the afternoon?” Moxie asked.
“I’m going to visit BrightBlown and see what they might know about Wyatt Riggins.”
“Despite my advice? Why is Zetta Nadeau so important to you?”
“Because I’ve watched her grow as a person, despite all she’s been through,” I said. “If she isn’t important, who is?”
“You remember that stuff I said about Devin Vaughn and his sparing use of violence?”
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t take that as applying to you,” said Moxie. “After all, why should he be the exception?”