Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

Finding the softest route to victimhood was a particular skill he’d honed since childhood. It served him well.

He calculated it now, considered the speed, the turns.

He sat on the wide ledge of an apricot-colored jet tub big enough for four friends, fired up a joint of Erotica-laced Zoner he’d taken as a party favor, and contemplated. And seeing the convergence of profit and victimhood, he took out his ’link.

“Hi, there,” he said with a flashing smile. “We need to chat.”

* * *

When Roarke came in, Eve had two names at the top of her list.

She swiveled in her chair. “I’ve got a couple to pull in for interview,” she began. “Both male, both in their forties, and they’ve each worked for both Econo and Quantum. One has eight years in the Navy, the other has a father still active-duty USMC. No specific links to explosive training, but. One’s an IT specialist, and that’s a good way to dig out data, the other’s in accounting, and accounting knows finance. So.”

When she poured more coffee, Roarke twirled a finger for her to fill a second cup.

“Where do they work now?”

“Former Navy and IT is still Quantum. He moved from Econo two years ago. The other started with Quantum, shifted to Econo—about five years in both companies. Now he’s at a nonprofit called Resource of Animals Rights—or ROAR.”

“Well.” He sat on the edge of her desk. “Criminal.”

“ROAR dude has some bumps, all related to protests. Major one at the Bronx Zoo, another for defacing a fur warehouse. That got him canned. Navy has a couple of minor scrapes—a Drunk and Disorderly and a pushy-shovy.”

She picked up her coffee. “What have you got?”

“Jordan Banks is quite the scamp.”

“Scamp.”

“His art gallery is a colossal failure from which he draws a tidy salary for doing nothing much at all. He pays the staff a pathetic wage, offsetting that, from what I can, see by allowing them to display their own art. If said art manages to sell, the gallery takes seventy percent. He also rents the space for private parties.

“A colossal failure,” Roarke repeated. “On paper. But I’d deem it a reasonable success as a vehicle for laundering money. You’ll want to pass on what I sent you from my little exploration to whoever handles that sort of thing at the NYPSD.”

“Whose money is he laundering?”

“I can’t tell you unless you give me the go on crossing certain lines. But I can guess much of it comes from those high-stake games. He enjoys them occasionally. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he does have connections there.”

“I knew it.”

“Some might come from art. However poorly he manages his own gallery, he does have connections and contacts in the art world. Cash sales aren’t unheard of, and cash is easily washed. Still more may come from other areas, but washing cash he is. And even with that, he’s a complete git.”

Eve shook her head. “It bothers you more that he’s a git than that he’s a criminal.”

“Well, of course. He’s a git, and money slides through his fingers. He has a couple of accounts reasonably well cloaked. A few million here, a few more there. He pays no rent for the gallery as his family owns the building, but he lists rent on his expenses, and merely juggles it from one pocket to the other.

“I want a biscuit,” he said, pushing up to go into the kitchen.

“I don’t have any biscuits in there. What about investments?”

“He’s with Buckley and Schultz,” Roarke said from the kitchen. “It appears Buckley himself handled his portfolio until about eight years ago, when he passed it down the chain. Banks doesn’t have enough personal wealth for Buckley to handle personally.”

He came back in with a plate holding two big cookies chunky with chips.

“Those aren’t biscuits. Those are cookies.”

“I don’t suppose you want one then.”

“Give me a damn biscuit.”