Bad Luck Black Money Read online

  Boss made a metal note to never let another tell slip out in front of Emerald, ever again. The boy could have pink elephants flying out of his ass, and Boss wouldn't allow himself to even raise an eyebrow.

  Boss thought, "Come on! Play your cards closer to your vest. Never let your enemy know what you're thinking."

  Now, if he could just figure out if Emerald was a threat or an asset....

  "You're familiar with this painting, right?" asked Emerald, pointing at a painting hanging on the wall.

  "Of course, I bought it before you were born. Its value has more than doubled since then."

  "True, if put up for auction, it should sell for around fourteen million dollars," said Emerald, as he looked at his father, who was looking at the painting on the wall.

  "I want you to look at this," Emerald said as he picked up the framed canvas, which was lying on the floor. When he turned it over, Boss saw that it was a copy of the one hanging on the wall. He took it from his son and examined it closely.

  The framed painting looked like a perfect replica of the one on the wall. Boss looked at the brush stokes and compared them to the original. They matched up perfectly. He turned it over and looked at the stretcher, which matched the timeframe of the late 1700's. And the paint, itself, seemed to have the proper aging. Everything was perfect, down to the signature.

  The painting in question was one of the first, major art purchases he'd made with his new wife, Esmerelda. Esmerelda was an expert in fine art, but he had studied up on the subject to make sure that nobody was ripping him off. Boss knew as much about this particular painting as anyone in the world, and he couldn't be sure which one was real and which was fake.

  "All right, Emerald," said Boss. "Which one is real?"

  "You can't tell?" asked Emerald with pride in his voice.

  "I wouldn't have asked if I knew."

  "... The one on the wall is the original. The one in your hands is the copy."

  "OK," Boss said, measuring his next words carefully. "Then I've got to ask... why?"

  "Yes!" exclaimed Emerald. "That's what I want to talk with you about. Where should I start? The beginning, I suppose.... Do you remember an art tutor you hired for me named Loui Marsou?"

  "Yeah, it seemed a little strange at the time that you had suddenly developed an interest in art. Your mother was happy.... That was probably a warning sign."

  "Well, Loui Marceau was an assumed name taken by master counterfeiter, Gaston Pariff. He had quit the counterfeiting business and was using the skills he’d acquired in the course of forging paintings to teach about painting."

  "I'm not liking where this is going," Boss said as he lay the painting against the wall, underneath the original. He folded his arms and tried to find any difference between the two.

  "So, I knew that he was really Gaston Pariff before we hired him. It took some doing but I tracked him down and arranged for him to come here as my tutor. Eventually, I got him to let down his guard and be honest with me. He admitted who he was and what he'd done in the past.

  I needed not only his skill in counterfeiting paintings but also, his connections in the underworld, who bought and sold stolen art works."

  Boss glanced at Emerald to see if he was blowing smoke up his butt. After ascertaining that the boy was indeed telling the truth, he turned his attention back to the twin paintings.

  "The deal was that he'd forge a copy of 'Athens’s Bouquet' for me. I would then hang it in place of the original. He would then take the real painting to France and pawn it for six million dollars. It was almost too easy since it's well documented that you are its owner. And Gaston could prove that he had access to the original painting by schooling me.

  For his forging the painting and brokering the deal, I agreed to pay him a million dollars. Him being European, he wanted a million Euros, which in today's dollars is like a million and a quarter.... I agreed.

  Isn't it odd, how most people's brains cut off at a million? The average worker makes more than a million dollars in his or her lifetime of work, but ask them how much money they want, and it's always a million dollars."

  "Where did you get the million dollars to pay him?"

  "I'm getting to that, father. Let me tell the story, OK? It's my birthday."

  "Fine.... But why this particular painting? There are seven more paintings in this room worth more than this one."

  "I'm not greedy, dad. I only took one that was worth as much as I needed and not a penny more.

  So away, we're in here hours and hours studying this painting, every brushstroke, and every color splotch of every paint drop.... I'm SO sick of that painting.

  The day comes when Gaston makes the perfect copy. It took him over eighty tries, but finally it's time to make the switch. I cut the alarms and video feed just like today. I am just about to take down the painting and put up the fake when I stop myself.... Why am I taking down the original when there is no way to tell the difference between the two?

  I take the copy back to Gaston and say, "Here you are." He takes his time studying the canvas and says, "Wow, I'm holding the master's work in my own hands. I'm humbled."

  He didn't even realize that I handed him back the copy! He thinks it's the original, and he's the one who painted it!

  Gaston flies back to France on one of our company jets, taking the copy with him. The plane's scheduled to fly there anyway, so no harm, no foul. He meets up with his connection who'll only give him four million dollars cash instead of the six he agreed to. The lowlife will hold onto the painting for a week and then give it back to Gaston for a ransom of six million dollars, or else the scum-bucket will sell it to the highest bidder.

  Gaston calls me to ask whether to take the money or not. I don't appreciate him calling me. Connecting me to this scheme in anyway, but he is my tutor so I've got plausible deniability. I say, "Take it," and then hang up.

  Other than that one phone call, nothing can connect me to anything else that I'm about to say. I've taken extreme measures to ensure that I can sleep at night without worrying about the F.B.I. kicking down the door. I used dead-drops to purchase used laptops and smart phones. I hacked into, used, and abused wireless connections all over six nearby counties.

  Command codes hidden within videogame servers relayed my wishes across the world. If anybody can connect me to any of this, then not only do they deserve to catch me, they deserve a Nobel Prize.

  Anyway, Gaston checks into a luxury hotel in Paris under another assumed name. He transfers the pawn money into suitcases, locks them up, and calls a reputable courier service. They come pick up the cases, take them to a bank where the branch manager is waiting with the keys.

  Earlier, I had hired a private detective, sight unseen, to conduct an exhaustive search through hundreds of bank employees, looking for someone with the right profile. The branch manager, in question, had piles of debt that's owed to the wrong type people, and he's got no hope of ever paying it back. Making him the perfect man for job.

  The manager pockets a quarter million as his cut. Then he deposits three and three quarters million into the account of an old man, who's on his deathbed. I'd already checked that the old geezer had no living relatives, and electronically, I had taken control of his bank account. The instant the money hits that account, I wire it to a Cayman Islands account owned by one of the shell companies, which I set up earlier.

  That money gets sent around the world like steel balls in a Japanese pachinko machine, getting washed and vanishing off the financial radar. After it's all said and done, I'm left with a little over three million, untraceable dollars sitting in a brokerage account in Switzerland, owned by one of my shell corporations.

  Now, here's the core of my scheme. I bet the whole three million on the foreign currency exchange against a small, Central European country that's been playing fast and loose with their printing presses. They've printed, at least, fifty times the amount of currency that they've reported to the International Monetary Fund.... It was
n't even all that hard to figure out.

  I send their finance minister an email, threatening to go public with their corruption. The bastard then sends me an email from his own computer inside the government finance office. He tries to buy my silence with a paltry two hundred thousand dollars.

  OK, first off, I'm insulted. A couple of hundred thousand dollars bribe on hundreds of billions in corruption is like slapping me in the face. Not only is this guy a moron, he's a cheap, freaking' moron. At this point, I'd rat him out on principle, even if it wouldn't make me a dime.

  So, I forward the evidence I've gathered and the finance minister's email to a reporter at a popular, online news company. He's got twenty-four hours to verify and publish it or I do a worldwide release.... It's on his website within three hours.

  My three million dollar bet pays off to the tune of forty million. It should have been around sixty-six million if that scum bucket, art dealer would've paid the agreed upon six million instead of only four million for the painting. But like they say, "if you lie down with dogs, you're going to get fleas."

  It was probably for the best to keep the total under fifty million, anyway. Anything over that and the I.M.F. (International Monetary Fund) gets nosy. Not that they could catch me, but it's one less bureaucracy trying to stick its nose into my business.

  I wire seven and a half million back into the old guy's bank account. By the way, he's still holding onto life to this very day. Like a pit bull on a preschooler, he just won't let go.

  The bank manager gets another quarter million bucks that'll help save his legs for a few more days from the mobsters. He sends the suitcases by courier back to Gaston with six million in U.S. dollars, plus one million in Euros.

  Gaston buys the forged "Athens’s Bouquet" back from the pawn pirate-pig for six million. He then packages up the painting and ships it back to me through old-fashioned mail. Then Gaston disappears to re-emerge as 'Renu' on the Spanish Coast. He's probably spending his million Euros on wine, women, and song as we speak."

  Standing with his arms folded and not taking his eyes off the paintings, Boss asked, "You have thirty-two point five million dollars in an offshore bank account?"

  "No, father. I'm not going to leave that much cash floating around in the banking system, waiting for some pencil pusher to get nosey. And I don't trust American dollars to hold their value in the long run, either.

  So, I contracted Thai gold merchants to mint twenty-nine million dollars worth of one ounce, twenty-four karat gold, Santa Claus coins. They were brutal with their commission rate... but you have to pay to play.

  I wanted to get the coins out of Thailand and into America. As luck would have it, Sarge Cornwall was taking his annual, two week vacation in Bangkok."

  Chapter 11

  "Wait a second," Boss said, turning to face Emerald. "Are you telling me that my chief of security, aided and abetted you in this caper?"

  Sarge Cornwall was one of the first men, Boss hired to protect him when his wealth started to attract a scary kind of attention. Originally from England, Sarge was a short man with a big, barrel chest and a moustache so thick that it could have been kept as a household pet. He was instrumental in assembling Boss's current security team, which acted more like an elite military force than ordinary bodyguards.

  "It's not like that, dad. Sarge had no idea how I'd gotten the gold coins. As far as he knew, it had something to do with your and mom's anniversary.

  Shortly after he arrived in Thailand, I had a semi trailer load of plastic, golden, Christmas coins delivered to his suite. I arranged for Sarge to have an entire penthouse floor to himself. The hotel staff wasn't too happy about any of it until I authorized a hundred dollar tip for every hotel employee, if they fully cooperated with Sarge. After that, they couldn't have been more helpful.

  At my direction, the gold merchants brought plain, brown boxes filled with real gold coins, which they'd minted for me, to Sarge's hotel suite. Thus fulfilling their contractual obligation. Once delivered, Sarge wasn't to leave the hotel under any circumstances.

  Also, I had Christmas colored, cardboard tags printed up that read, "Santa's Gold Coins". The printing company was nice enough to include clear plastic bags, empty cardboard boxes, masking tape, labels, markers, staplers, staples, and other supplies at double the price of anywhere else. The price of convenience, I suppose.

  The first thing was for Sarge to fill some clear plastic bags with golden, play coins. He then put Christmas decorations on the bags, and sealed it all shut. Then he gave out a bunch to the maids, who made sure every member of the hotel staff got at least one or two bags of toy coins.

  Not many rocket scientists in that group. But if anyone got wise, tried to break in and rob the place, they'd have to deal with Sarge. Since he's a human weapon, like every other member of your security team, they'd be in for the fight of their lives. Plus, I'm certain he had access to all kinds of firepower the local authorities knew nothing about.

  The plan was to package one real coin in with nineteen plastic coins. A large number of decoy packages would contain all cheap, gold colored coins. Some entire cardboard boxes would be filled with only toy coin packages. And those boxes were to be

  strategically placed in the most likely searched positions when loaded into the shipping container at the Laem Chabang port.

  In payment for his services and for his lost vacation time, Sarge was to receive one hundred packages of play coins that contained a real, one ounce, gold coin in each of them. Provided, of course, that the shipment reached here intact. If something went haywire and I had to cut all ties with the gold then Sarge would only receive ten grand cash.

  To his credit, Sarge did a great job. The gold was safe from the moment he took possession of it, until he loaded the last box into the shipping container at Laem Chabang. Then it was up to the shipping company to transport it to America.

  I had already done three trial runs using the Myjang Shipping Company. I arranged for three shipments of prepackaged, Chinese, plastic, Christmas crap to be sent to the Long Beach port complex. Once it cleared customs, an independent trucker would haul it over to the 'out of business' Shiny Christmas World store on the other side of town about ten miles from here.

  The owner of the property gave me a de facto lease on the place, for under the table cash. I've been storing all the shipments of fake coins in the warehouse over there. No doubt, a lot of people have dug through those boxes trying to figure out what's going on. But that's fine. By now, they're bound to be bored with it.... I probably need to give all those toys to charity.

  Anyway, I figured with the miniscule amount of containers, which actually get scanned and opened by customs, I had an excellent chance of pulling this off. Even if they opened up my container, they'd still have to find a package with a real coin in it.... Good luck with that.

  About two weeks ago, the owner/operator of the trucking company calls one of my disposable cell phones and says that he's on his way to Shiny Christmas World with another shipment. That's the Golden Goose coming home to roost. I get on the phone with Sarge and say, "It’s going down, right now. You know where, be there in twenty."

  I rush out the door and take the chauffeured Towncar. My bodyguards jump in on either side of me in the backseat. At this stage, my driver and bodyguards are starting to freak out. They're not in on the deal, and they can sense something big is about to go down. My bodyguard, Homer, had taken out his phone and was about to call you when we drove up to Shiny Christmas World. But then he sees Sarge and relaxes.

  Sarge had utilized your security team to track the tractor-trailer from the moment it crossed the county line. There were no vehicles following it, and no aircraft shadowing it from the sky. There was no police chatter on their scanners. It seemed like the plan had gone off without a hitch.

  The semi arrived at Shiny Christmas World and backed up to the loading dock. The driver gets out of the truck for someone to sign the delivery confirmation, and then Sarge tactf
ully walks him away from the truck. The security team descends upon the truck to search it. Then the truck driver wants to call the cops until I slip him five hundred dollars. Money solves all kinds of problems.

  Once the trailer was swept for tracking devices, the trucker with Sarge riding shotgun, drove the truck here. With everyone working as a team, we unloaded the truck and took all the boxes up to my room in no time at all. Even the maids helped."

  Keeping his poker face intact, Boss asked, "Are you telling me that you've got twenty-nine million dollars worth of gold in your room?"

  "Well, the spot price of gold went up so technically I've got more than twenty-nine million in gold. And I paid Sarge his one hundred coins, so I have sixteen thousand two hundred eighty-four gold coins left. And I fully intend on giving a thousand coins to Diamond and a thousand to Ruby when she gets old enough. Wouldn't want her giving them to some teen, pop star to sing at her next slumber party."

  Boss started laughing, then laughed harder and louder.

  "What's so funny, dad?" asked Emerald with genuine concern etched on his young face.

  "Your mother was telling me the other day," said Boss in-between laughs. "That she... that she was tired of your room looking like it belonged to a hoarder, and she was going to hire some guys to haul all of those boxes full of cheap, Chinese junk out to the dump!"

  Looking like he'd been punched in the stomach, Emerald asked, "Are you serious?"

  "Of course, I'm serious. When have I ever joked about money?"

  "Can you help me out, dad?" begged Emerald.

  Inside, Boss was jumping for joy that his creepiest kid was asking for his help. "Maybe the boy isn't a stone cold psychopath after all," thought Boss. But then the thought crossed his mind that this might be a setup. The kid was smart enough to figure out some way to stash the coins without any help from anybody. But then again, Emerald was throwing out a life preserver into their stormy relationship, and the only thing he could do was grab on to it.