St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

assistance of government officials in several countries, including your own. I am in quiet contact with international corporations of a size to make your bank’s entire worth look meager. No doubt people will die before this business is concluded. I assume you would like to avoid being one of the bodies. Correct?”
    Sweat showed on Foley’s forehead. “Shit, yes. I’m in over my head, but I’ve got to keep swimming.”
    “Good, you are beginning to think like a man,” Bertone said.
    “As soon as the mainframe comes online at the bank Monday, I’ll make sure the money gets transferred. Just tell me where to send it.”
    Bertone thought for a long moment, smoking, thinking.
    “Assumptions,” he said quietly. “Assumptions. They are the source of most serious mistakes in life.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Foley asked.
    “You have assumed Kayla Shaw told you the truth. We have recently seen that she is not to be trusted. Why should we do so now?”
    There was a long silence.
    “I take that as agreement,” Bertone said.
    Foley was glad Bertone’s attention had switched to Kayla. “Thinking about it now, she might have been lying,” Foley said.
    “About what?”
    Foley hesitated, thinking fast. “About the reason I couldn’t get access. She said it was because correspondent accounts aren’t configured for remote access transactions. But how does she know that? She isn’t even authorized for remote access.”
    “You think she was trying to mislead you?”
    “Yeah. It’s possible.”
    “To what end?”
    “How the hell would I know? Isn’t that the whole point of lying—to mislead?”
    “Then guess,” Bertone said.
    “Maybe she was trying to buy time.”
    “To what purpose?”
    “If she’s involved with the international PI outfit, or whatever it is, maybe they’re planning something down the line.”
    “Such as?” Bertone questioned, watching the other man closely.
    “Uh…” Foley rubbed his sweaty palms over his jeans. “The feds often try to freeze accounts when they suspect money laundering. Maybe that’s it.”
    Bertone was motionless but for a long exhalation of smoke. “Interesting. Tell me more.”
    “It happened one time, about a year ago. DEA and the IRS traced a Mexican drug lord’s money to an account in our private bank. The first thing I knew of it was when an IRS enforcementagent walked into my office with an order from a federal judge in Tucson, freezing the account.”
    “Go on.”
    “I called the bank’s corporate counsel, and he told me I had no choice but to shut down all access to the account. We ended up sitting on about two million bucks for almost three months while the client’s attorney fought the order in federal court.”
    “Did the client win?”
    “No, but it turned out pretty well for the bank. We had use of the money and never did have to pay the client interest. In the end, the feds took the money and we got a little smack on the wrist for being sloppy.”
    “I find my sympathies are with the client. Were it to happen to me, the banker would suffer a great deal more than a smack on the wrist.” Bertone’s back teeth chewed the end of the cigar.
    “Uh, yeah, of course,” Foley said hurriedly. “But that case taught me to be careful about whose name is on account documents as the banker. I gave your accounts to Kayla because I didn’t want another laundering case tracked back to me.”
    “So you knew about this possibility, and you didn’t mention it to me,” Bertone said around the mangled end of the cigar. “You should have told me before I entered into this arrangement with you. I had no idea American Southwest was so careless with the client’s money.”
    “Give me a break,” Foley said. “You’re a big boy. You ought to know how the business works.”
    “I conduct ‘business’ all over the world. My bankers always find a way to protect my interests as well as their own. That protection is the job of the banker, first and foremost. I do not hire bankers to be puppets of the local or federal police.”
    “We protect our clients until we’re served with a federalrestraining order. Then”—Foley shrugged—“we follow the letter of the law.”
    Bertone smoked in silence. He had investigated America’s money-laundering laws just enough to know how to get around them. The nuances of the laws hadn’t mattered then.
    They mattered now.
    “Are restraining orders like moving money?” Bertone asked. “Can