Beneath The Surface (22 page)

“First of all, do you know their real names?” Mitchell asked.

“Crème’s name is Cecelia Cunningham, and Vallie, her real name is Valerie. I haven’t found anybody that could tell me her last name.”

“You’re not making this easy for me, Carmen.”

“I know. But will you help me anyway?”

“Yes, Carmen, I’ll help you,” Mitchell said and got up. “I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”

“Thank you, detective,” Carmen said as Mitchell walked away.

“It’s Diane.” Mitchell said.

“What?”

“My name; it’s Diane.”

“Diane it is,” Carmen said, and left the precinct and walked over to where Black was waiting. “That didn’t take too long, did it?”

“Not at all,” Black said. And they caught a cab to Carmen’s apartment.

While he was waiting for Carmen to come out, Black had a chance to think about what he was doing with Carmen; a chance to think about where things were going. He thought about Michelle, and the promise he had made to himself not to involve women in her life; unless they were going to be around for a while. He thought CeCe was that woman; and with her and Michelle getting along so well, it all just seemed so natural.
If it wasn’t for CeCe I’d be dead now,
Black thought
.
He did have feelings for CeCe; but Carmen Taylor, and the feelings he had for her, had complicated all that.

When they got there, Black got out with Carmen and told the driver to wait, and he walked Carmen to her door.

“
You coming
up?”

“No. I got some things I need to do,” Black said to her.

“Okay.” Carmen looked at him. “Something bothering you?”

“Just wondering what I’m doin’ here; where this is going.”

“Is that why you haven’t kissed me?”

“I got a woman; you got a man,” Black said, thinking that there was a time when neither of those factors would have made a bit of difference to him. It didn’t matter when he did, whatever he did, with Jackie and Vonda that morning after he left Carmen. And it hadn’t stopped him from fucking Maria just about every day. Those rules only applied to Carmen. Black understood the reason for this duality. There was a time when he loved Carmen and he hurt her. Fuck the fact that, it was for her own good. The fact was that he’d hurt Carmen once and he had no intention of doing it again.

“Which reminds me: I haven’t heard from Marcus in two days,” Carmen said. Until that moment, she really hadn’t given Marcus much thought. She was with the man she wanted to be with.
 

“What’s up with that?” Black asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve been playing phone tag and I missed calling him yesterday, and he didn’t call me.”

“Maybe you should check on him.”

“I will; but back to you, Mr. Black.”

“I should go.”

Carmen kissed him on the cheek. “Good night.”

“I’ll call you,” Black said as he walked away.

“If you don’t, I know where to find you,” Carmen said and went inside her building. Black got back in the cab and rode away, knowing what he was going to do next.

Money laundering is the criminal practice of processing dirty money through a series of transactions. In this way, the funds are laundered so that they appear to be the proceeds of legal activities. Introducing dirty money into the financial system without attracting the attention of financial institutions or law enforcement includes structuring deposits to evade detection, and reporting and commingling deposits of legal and illegal businesses. And moving funds around the financial system, often in a complex series of transactions to confuse and complicate the paper trail, fully insulates the funds from its illegal sources, giving it the appearance of “clean” money.

The Bank performs a risk assessment annually to assist in identifying the Bank’s risk profile. The risk assessment evaluates varying levels and types of risk.
High-risk products and services include electronic banking, private banking, trade financing, and non-deposit account services. High-risk customers like foreign corporations, private banking clients, senior foreign political figures, and professional service providers like accountants, doctors, real estate brokers, and of course, attorneys.

Meka Brazil sat at her desk making the type of calls that she hadn’t made in years. The way she operated involved a network of attorneys, in multiple locations. Each attorney setup some type of cash business, and then established a trust, based on these seemingly legitimate businesses. The selected attorneys would setup annuity contracts: Variable Universal Life or Whole Life insurance policies, or any policy or contract that builds cash value.

“Over twelve months, you have these attorneys processing amounts under the transaction limit,” Meka instructed.

“Ten thousand dollars,” Leon said.

“If it were me, I’d keep it under five thousand, and I wouldn’t process transactions everyday. Two or three times a week, at most; and I’d have them vary the amounts.”

“But all under five thousand dollars.”

“That way, you avoid suspicion from the banks.”

“And this money gets stockpiled into these annuity contracts over twelve months.”

“Exactly. We’re doing this over a twelve-month period and involving ten attorneys nationwide. Now, say for example, each attorney sets up three trusts, and each processes transactions totaling ninety-five hundred per week, per trust, over the course of fifty weeks. That would be a total of $14,250,000 deposited in trusts. After surrender charges and penalties, that would be about ten million dollars that would be available for legitimate use.”

Leon looked confused.

“You bring me three hundred grand a week, and at the end of the year, you’ll have ten
mill
in clean paper.”

“Got you,” Leon said. “I’ll see you next week.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t see you; you don’t come to this office; we don’t meet for lunch; and you definitely don’t hand me large sums of money.”

“How do you get the money?”

“Another attorney, one that is not involved in the cash transactions, will set you up a series of front companies. Five—to be exact; in this case. You hire ten different bonded carrier services, and each day, Monday through Friday, two carriers will come to your front companies and pick up thirty thousand dollars in cash. Each of those carriers will bring the money to me.”

“And you set all this up in two days?” Leon said, definitely impressed with Meka.

“All except for one final piece; and I’ll take care of that today,” Meka promised.

Leon stood up and extended his hand. “
It’s
gonna be a pleasure doing business with you, Meka Brazil.”

“Likewise, Leon Copeland,” Meka said, and Leon left her office.

Meka picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Thompson, Foster and Elliot. How may I direct your call?”

“Bob Packard, Please.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Meka Brazil.”

“Hold please.”

The receptionist placed Meka on hold, and shortly thereafter, Bob Packard, attorney at law, came on the line. “Meka?”

“Yes, Bob. It’s really me,” Meka said.

“You know when Gladys said that Meka Brazil was hold for me; I thought it was somebody from the old days playing a joke. How have you been, Meka?”

“I’m good, Bob. What about you?”

“A little heavier and I’ve lost some hair, but I’m doing
good
.”

“What about Stacey and the kids?”

“They eat too much.”

“Bob, I need some work done.”

“I didn’t think you called to catch up on old times, Meka.” Bob got a pen. “Give me the particulars.” Meka told Bob that she wanted to setup five front companies. “Give me a few days and I’ll get back to you.”

“Sounds good, Bob; but I’ll get back to you in a few days,” Meka said and ended the call.

Bob hung up the phone and flipped through his rolodex, and then dialed a number. “Who is this?”

“Bob Packard. Is that you,
Cerrone?”

“Yeah, what you want, Bob?” Cerrone Merkerson said.

“Guess who just called me.”

“I don’t have time for your bullshit games, Bob.”

“Meka Brazil.”

“Where is she?” He’d been waiting for this call for years.

“I don’t know. She called from a blocked number and wouldn’t leave one.”

“She doesn’t trust you, Bob. What did she want?” Cerrone asked and laughed.

“She wants me to setup some companies in New York. She’ll call me back in a couple of days.”

“Do what she wants and call me when she calls you.”

“No problem,” Bob said. “Is that bounty on her still good?”

“You’ll get your money when you tell me where I can kill her.”

After another night of intensely physical lovemaking, Wanda woke up
late,
or at least late for her. For years she had prided herself on being in the office at nine
am
, sharp. Wanda thought it was important to set a positive example for her staff. Even if that meant that she would have to be there on little or no sleep, which was the case on many nights when Nick used to run Impressions.

It was almost 10 o’clock; so Wanda reached over and picked up the phone, and called her assistant to say that she had a meeting and would be in that afternoon. When she hung up, her cell phone rang. She started not to answer until she saw that it was Victor’s cell phone. “Hello,” she answered.

“Good morning, Wanda,” Black said. “I tried you at the office, but your assistant said you hadn’t gotten there yet.”

Wanda hesitated and glanced over at Marcus, who had begun to move around under the covers. “I have a meeting this morning.”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“Nothing major. I’ll tell you about it when I see you,” Wanda lied and she hated it. She had never lied to Black before.

“I’m on my way to the airport, so you might as well tell me now.”

“Where are you going?” Wanda asked to avoid having to come up with another lie.

“Goin’ to Nassau.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. A week—maybe two.”

“Anything you need me to do while you’re gone?”

“Check with Meka and see if she’s made any progress on what we talked about.”

“I’ll get a progress report and let you know what she said when you call me. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of. Oh yeah, if Bobby calls, let him know where I am.”

“I haven’t talked to Bobby since he left for South Carolina, but if he calls I’ll tell him.” Marcus began running his hand up and down her thigh. “Well have a safe trip,” Wanda said quickly. “Call me when you get there, and we’ll talk then.”