Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

load onto a U-Haul trailer right before the Feds crashed the ‘pain clinic’ business he’d worked for in Miami. Florida was the go-to state for pill-poppers. Dealers and addicts alike swarmed from the Midwest to buy cheap prescription pills doled out by doctors on the take. There was huge money to be made and Mitch had needed huge money.
    His original plan when he’d been paroled was to set his stepfather up to be arrested for the same crime for which Mitch had lost three years of his life – possession with intent to distribute. He basically planned to gather as much money as he could, buy as much heroin as he could with it, plant it on his stepfather, and call in an anonymous tip. They’d raid his stepfather’s compound, seize his books – both sets – and bring his empire crashing down. Simple, yet elegant.
    He’d stuck it out in Miami as long as he’d dared, working for the uncle of his cellmate until the Feds began raiding the pain centers and hauling away the dirty doctors. Mitch had been skimming cash off the top – there was so much money floating around that nobody missed it. Over the course of two years, he’d skimmed a hell of a lot of money, which he vacuum sealed into tidy little bricks and stored in plastic tubs in his Miami garage. When the raids started, he rented a U-Haul, loaded it up, packed a protesting Cole into the truck’s cab, and high-tailed it for Aunt Betty’s house. For home.
    Only to find things had changed within his stepfather’s business. No longer were drugs his principal source of revenue. To Mitch’s delight, his stepfather had gotten himself involved in something even better – gun running. Highly lucrative and extremely dangerous. And perfect for what Mitch had in mind. Plus, he didn’t have to spend any of the money he’d hidden in the basement. Money that Mutt now knew about.
    Part of it anyway . Mutt hadn’t found all of it, not by a long shot.
    ‘It’s not like I can walk into a bank with tubs of cash,’ Mitch said grumpily. ‘I’ve been depositing it slowly, staying under the bank’s radar.’
    Mutt blinked at him. ‘You’ve been depositing it ten grand at a time?’
    ‘That’s the magic number, isn’t it? Over that and they have to report it to the IRS?’
    Mutt sputtered, nearly speechless. ‘Well, yeah, that’s the number if you care about being legal, but . . . My God. Ten grand at a time, in the same bank ? With no business charter, no P&L? Mitch, that’s . . .’ Stupid , his brother clearly wanted to say. ‘Incredibly inefficient,’ he said instead. ‘I can set you up so that the money doesn’t raise any flags and works for you instead of sitting in plastic tubs in your root cellar.’
    Out of the goodness of his little heart , Mitch thought. ‘For how much?’
    Mutt shrugged. ‘A third of whatever I process.’
    You rotten little sonofabitch . A third? A tenth would be highway robbery . But Mitch just smiled. ‘That sounds more than fair.’ He’d let Mutt set up the business paperwork and then he’d take over the deposits himself. And then when Mutt wasn’t looking, Mitch would log in to Mutt’s accounting software and wire the money back to himself. No harm, no foul.
    Knowing that his brother kept all of his passwords in a file on his iPhone was useful. Knowing Mutt’s phone pass code was more useful still. This password Mitch had gotten the old-fashioned, totally low-tech way – he’d gotten Mutt drunk and looked over his shoulder as his brother had entered it into his phone.
    So getting his money back would be no problem and the opportunity would come sooner than later. In just a few more days Mutt and his daddy would be in hot water with people far more dangerous than the cops and the Feds put together.
    While Mitch was in prison, his stepfather had entered into a business association with a Russian named Fyodor Antonov. Antonov ran one of the Eastern European crime families that were quickly taking root up and down the East Coast.
    Mutt’s old man had been expanding his drug business, but an independent could grow only so much on the East Coast before encroaching on one of the big guys. He’d skated too close to the edge and got smacked back by Antonov’s goons.
    His stepfather had been given a choice: work for the Russian or surrender his entire business. He’d gone for the first option and now claimed stockpiled rifles shipped from the Ukraine into the Port of Baltimore, transporting them south,