Page 48 of Two Kinds of Stranger

I reached into my gym bag and took out the thick file of court receipts from my office, dumped them on the table.

Tricky Dicky said nothing, he could plainly see from the first page of the bundle that it was a receipt from the court office. He reached for it, and I slammed my hand on top.

‘I know the Department of Financial Services will shut you down, and the DA will prosecute, and they’ll seek a fine in the millions plus jail time, but that’s the least of your problems. . .’

I took out the pillowcase, laid it flat on the desk, then the duct tape and the .45 ACP cartridge.

‘I asked one of your former clients what they would expect in compensation. He gave me this crap. Said the bullet had your name on it. I was talking about him coming in on a class actionsuit against you, but he said it would take a lot of money to spare your life. He says he’s going to put this pillowcase over your head, duct tape it in place then load this round into his gun and fire it through your skull.’

Sweat broke on his forehead. The perspiration caught the ceiling lights, made his head shine like a glitterball.

‘What client?’

‘You think I’m going to break confidentiality so you can take out a hit on this guy? No, thanks.’

He stared at the file of papers, then the pillowcase, duct tape and his eyes settled on the cartridge and stayed there for a while. His hand shook as he tried to bring the coffee mug to his mouth.

‘There’s a way out of this for you,Dick, and I’ll even throw you a bone if you co-operate,’ I said.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want my client, Elly Parker, out of Rosie’s today, if possible. I know a bond of this size takes some time to arrange with the insurance company so tomorrow morning is acceptable. You’ll write the bond, pay the cash surety and when her case is over you’ll close up shop and move to Canada.’

‘I can’t do that. I have a business. I have responsibilities. I have—’

‘You’ve got a house of cards and there’s a hurricane on the way. Here’s how we settle this. You get the bond. You put up the million in cash. And you sell your Bentley.’

‘Wait,what?’

‘Hear me out. The reason you got caught isn’t because you’re stupid. It’s because you got greedy and you’re shit at hiding money. I need your files. Everyone you overcharged in the last year, to the dollar amount. You’re going to sell your Bentley and divide the proceeds up among the worst affected. Here’s your bone, Dick–when the Parker case is over, and that million dollars is returned to you, guess what?’

‘What?’

Right then I knew I was on a winner. Dicky had a million in cash, somewhere, that I hadn’t been able to find during my research. He probably had more, but a mil was all Elly needed.

‘Because you’re a bondsman and you deal in cash with the courthouse all the time, and you already have a bill of good health from the Department of Financial Services, no financial checks are going to be done on that million dollars you deposit. . .’

His eyebrows lifted. I guessed he had finally seen the bone that was coming his way.

He said, ‘So when the million comes back to me in cash, after the case, it’s clean.’

‘No finer money-laundering service than the New York Criminal Court Funds Office,’ I said. ‘You do this for me, the class action goes away with the proceeds from the Bentley sale. I hold off on the DFS report and I throw some extra cash to the guy who wants to kill you. When your million comes back, you disappear. I hear Canada is a nice place to live. . .’

‘What if I don’t want to go to Canada? I’ve got a good thing going here.’

There was no class action lawsuit. No threats to kill him. It was likely the vast majority of Dicky’s clientele didn’t even know they’d been scammed, and the rest couldn’t do anything about it other than complain. There was no justice for these people other than to close Dicky’s operation, try to throw them some money by way of a refund and make sure he never scammed another poor defendant.

‘It’s up to you. But you can’t spend that clean mil in cash when you’re in a wooden box.’

He took a moment to stroke his big chin.

‘Maybe Canada doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Dicky.

15

Elly

There are no clocks in jail. No one has a watch, other than the correction officers.