The Harry Starke Series: Books 1-3: The Harry Starke Series Boxset Page 25

  Salvatore De Luca’s the owner of record, but I often wondered if he was just the front man; this little shop of horrors might just as easily have been found in South Philly as downtown Chattanooga. Having said that, the food is authentic Italian cuisine, always good, and the place is almost always busy, but not so much at two-thirty on a weekday afternoon.

  Sal was a mean-spirited bastard, greedy, sadistic, and larger than life. He stood six feet three inches tall, and was as thin as a rake. He wore his lank, jet-black hair long, shoulder length, slicked back. Sallow skin, stretched tightly over a narrow face, was accented by a beak a vulture would have been proud of set above a pair of thin lips that reminded me of two tightly stretched red worms. Pendulous lobes dangled and swung like two cadaverous earrings from ears that were too large for his head, but it was the eyes that defined him: two cold slits of obsidian that glittered in the artificial light. It was a face that could, and did, strike fear into the hearts of many a strong man.

  Perched on a stool, hunched over a plate of food, something with spaghetti, Sal was picking at it like some giant, predatory bird. Flanked by two lesser birds of prey, he seemed to care little for what was going on around him. Like two harpies, they sat one on either side. One was skinny like his boss; the other was the image of Tony Soprano. How appropriate.

  “Afternoon, Sal,” I said, cheerily. “Looks like you’re enjoying that.” Actually, it didn’t look like that at all, but what the hell.

  He looked at me sideways, still hunched over the plate, “Harry goddamn Starke! If that don’t goddamn trash my already ruined goddamn day? Get the hell out of here before I set the goddamn dogs on ya.”

  “Now, Sal. Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

  “Old friend, my ass. With friends like you, I woulda bin makin’ it with the worms years ago. Whadda ya want, and who’s the bimbo?”

  I put my hand on her arm. It was stiff, the muscles tensed, but she relaxed. I put my hand back in my jacket pocket.

  “The lady is a friend of mine. Kate, say hi to Sal De Luca, Chattanooga’s answer to John Gotti.”

  “Screw you, Starke. Say what you want, or get the hell out of my restaurant.”

  “Restaurant, you call it. Bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say, Kate?”

  “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Now tell me what you want or get out of here.”

  “What do you know about Thomas Sattler?”

  For a moment, I thought the world had stood still. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Even the two goons stopped chewing, which was nice. Pigs, both of them.

  “Who?”

  “Geez, Sal, you heard, Tom Sattler. I hear he’s into you for more than a handful.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “How did I know that? You’re not so subtle, Sal. You know who he is. You and your two gorillas just gave it away. Y’all need to watch that body language.”

  He said nothing

  “Look, Sal. I know what I know, and I know you were somehow involved with him. So come on. Give!”

  Sal stared at me, weighing his options. “Show him out, Tony.” Then he turned away again and hunched over his plate.

  Damn, the big guy’s name is Tony. Don’t that beat all?

  I looked at them both, Tony and his partner. They were sure of themselves, smiled, like a couple of hyenas. They didn’t know me. Sal did, and he smiled, too. They were pros, deadly, confident, maybe a little too confident. Soldiers like these two think they’re invincible. They tend to forget the lessons of the past however: ‘no matter how good you are, there’s always someone better.’

  Tony eased down off his stool, all 260 pounds of him; he was taller than I thought, maybe five eleven. As he began to turn toward me, his hand slid inside his jacket. I heard Kate’s sharp intake of breath.

  “It’s okay, Kate. I’ll handle it.”

  The forty-five came into view and as it did so, I brought my hand out of my own jacket pocket. With one easy flick of the wrist, the ASP Talon expandable baton opened to its full sixteen inches and I whipped it down hard across the back of his hand, WHAP.

  Were those bones I heard cracking?

  Tony howled like a beaten dog. The forty-five flew across the bar and landed with a crash and a splash among the glasses in the sink. Sal looked at me in blank astonishment.

  “You wanna go next, sunshine?” I said as I took a step closer to Sal’s other goon. He didn’t answer, nor did he move, flinch, or even blink, and nor did Sal.

  “Pick it up, you stupid prick,” Sal said to Tony, “and get the hell outa here.” I thought for a minute Sal was going to slap him.

  Apparently, Tony did, too, because he flinched and raised his forearm. But Sal just shook his head, exasperated, and Tony... he did as he was told. He walked around the bar, retrieved the weapon from among the broken glass, and then he left through the kitchen door, nursing his hand.

  “Who did you say?” Sal’s voice had ice in it.

  I grinned at him, closed the baton, slipped it back into my pocket, and took a step back.

  “Sattler, Tom Sattler. He’s some kind of financial genius. What’s your connection to him? And don’t deny you have one, because I already know that you do.”

  He looked rattled for a moment, then his eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “Yeah, I know him. What d’you want to know for?”

  “I want to know because he’s dead.”

  “Dead? Whadda ya mean he’s dead?”

  “Dead, as in no longer living, Sal.”

  “You know what I mean, Starke. How come he’s dead?”

  “It looked like suicide. Why would he want to take his own life, Sal?’

  Okay, Kate. I’m just pulling his chain.

  “How the hell would I know? You’re the detective, so I’ve bin told. What’s it to me anyhow?”

  It wasn’t the question, it was how he asked it that made me wonder. He asked as if he didn’t care whether I answered or not. The man had something else on his mind. Money perhaps?

  “One more time. What’s your connection to him, Sal?”

  He was quiet for a long moment, then looked sideways at me, put down his fork, and sat upright on the stool.

  “He handled some of my finances, well, his outfit did. He invested some of my money. No big deal. I didn’t see much of him. Mostly I did business with one of his partners, Marty Cassell. Now, if you don’t mind, I have stuff to do.”

  He slid off the stool and stood in front of me; his crony did the same. Whew, I never experienced so much bad breath all at once. I almost choked. I took a step backward, an instinctive reaction that brought forth two toothy grins. I soon wiped those off their faces.

  “Where were you last Tuesday night, Sal, between 8:30 and 10:45?”

  “Why? Whadda ya wanna know for?”

  “Someone broke into Sattler’s home right about then, that’s why.”

  “I was here. Right here. We had a full house. Ask anyone. Why would I want to do that anyway?”

  “You say you had money invested with him. How much?”

  “Not with him, with his company, with Marty, and it’s none of your goddamn business how much. What I do with my money is nobody’s business but mine. Now get the hell outa here, Starke, and take the whore with ya. I got better things to do. Gino, walk ‘em to the door.” He smiled – it was a look that could have frozen water – and then he turned and walked out through the kitchen door, leaving me and Kate with Gino. For the first time, I got a good look at him, and I didn’t like what I saw. He was almost as tall as Sal, and not as skinny as I’d first thought.

  He stood in front of me, feet apart, thumbs hooked into his belt, his head tilted slightly to one side, his mouth twisted into a lopsided grin that exposed a row of crooked teeth that reminded me of a crocodile. The narrow, hawk-like face topped six feet of tightly strung sinew and muscle. The belt bore a knife with a blade that had to be at least eight inches long. It was sheathed, but his right hand was less than two inches fr
om the haft. This was one to watch, carefully.

  Gino took a step sideways to block my way to the kitchen door. He stared at me through slitted eyes. His body language, and the lopsided grin said it all: ‘I’m better than you, Starke.’

  Yeah, buddy. As if.

  I started to move, but I felt Kate’s hand on my arm. She was right. It was time to leave, and we did.

  “Don’t come back, Starke.” The voice was soft, the words a low growl.

  I winked at him, turned and, together, Kate and I left and walked out into the sunshine.

  “What do you think?” I said, when we got back into the car.

  “That was some performance, with the baton. I didn’t know you had it with you. Nice move.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant, but anyway.... If you hadn’t been here, it could have been a whole lot worse. I might have shot the stupid bastard, but I couldn’t do that in front of you, now could I? We couldn’t let them know who and what you are, not yet anyway. So, how do you think it went?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s no doubt that Sal is into New Vision, and I wonder for how much. No matter; even if it’s only five bucks, if the dividends are late, his broker is in for some big trouble. De Luca does not take kindly to people who steal from him. Legs get broken, kneecaps get shattered, and thumbs become detached from hands.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They also have a nasty way of disappearing completely. They say that Sal has more than one friend propping up the Imax Theater downtown. I have a feeling I might be seeing more of Tony and Gino in the not too distant future, especially Gino. Where did he find those two, I wonder?”

  “Imports, probably,” Kate mused. “So, what’s you next step?”

  “That depends on you. What are your plans?”

  “One of us needs to see Cassell. Why don’t you do that? I’ll go see his partner, James Westwood, but it will have to wait until later. I have things I need to see to.”

  “I can do that. You need to go back to the office now?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  I was on my way to drop Kate at the PD, when my cell phone rang.

  “This is Harry.”

  “Harry, it’s Ronnie. Where are you?”

  “On my way to take Kate back to her car. Why?”

  “I think you’d better drop by here, both of you. I have something you’re gonna be interested in.”

  “Give me a minute, Ronnie.”

  I looked at my watch. It was almost four o’clock.

  “Kate, Ronnie has something for us. You up for it?”

  She was. “Okay, Ronnie, we’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Chapter 8

  We gathered around the table in the conference room: me, Kate, Ronnie, Tim, Mike, and Jacque. Ronnie handed everyone a stack of eight or nine sheets of paper stapled together.

  “Okay, if you’ll follow along,” Ronnie began, “I’ll explain what’s on the report you have in your hands. Harry, you asked me to look into the New Vision Strategic Investment Fund, and I did. What I came up with is... well... someone will be going to jail.

  “The fund, as of Tuesday afternoon at 5:30, had 382 investors and was valued at $422 million. As of 2:30 this afternoon, it was valued at just over $68 million.”

  There was a collective gasp from everyone around the table.

  “How in the hell could it drop that much in just two days?” I asked. “Did something happen I didn’t hear about? Did the markets collapse?”

  “They didn’t collapse, but there are going to be some very unhappy people when the crap hits the fan,” Ronnie said. “First a little background: New Vision is an investment fund. It was initiated five years ago in January of 2010. Its 382 investors each receive a monthly dividend check, at least that’s what’s supposed to happen.

  “New Vision is a legitimate deal, but it wasn’t producing enough income to meet its obligations, namely the monthly dividend payments, the payments to the four partners for administrating the fund, and the everyday expenses.

  “The investors were supposed to receive a guaranteed annual income of eight percent, paid monthly. The four partners take a two percent fee off the top for administering the fund; this involved investing the funds and bringing new investors on board. The two percent fee of roughly $8.5 million is split four ways, between the partners, about $2.1 million per year each. Nice job if you can get it. I have a feeling that all four were skimming a little more off the top besides. The daily operating costs were roughly another million. This was used to pay the everyday expenses, to pay the staff, rent, and so on. This brought the pre-distribution total to $9.5 million, or two and a quarter percent. Questions, anybody?”

  There were none.

  “Okay then. To make it work – to pay both the partners and the investors – the fund had to bring in a minimum of ten and a quarter percent profit/interest. Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening. The fund was bringing in a little more than six percent. The partners felt they were entitled to their two percent, and they were unwilling to give up a dime. The commitment to the investors was eight percent. So there was a shortfall of four and a quarter percent. Doesn’t sound like much, but that’s almost $18 million. In order for them to pay the full eight percent to the investors, and their own fees and expenses, they would have to dip into the fund’s principal; or they would have to use funds received from new investors. This would effectively turn New Vision into a Ponzi scheme.”

  Ronnie paused and looked around the room, but no one spoke. We all gazed at him, fascinated.

  “My confidential source at New Vision told me that for more than three months the partners had been arguing about what to do to solve the problem. The situation, as far as my source could tell, was unacceptable to the four partners... well, only two of them made any real fuss about it: Tom Sattler and Jessica Steiner. In any event, they all agreed that something had to be done to increase the fund revenue. The answer, they decided, was to liquidate $350 million in fund assets and reinvest it in more productive offerings.

  “This was done. The assets were sold, liquidated, and the money was parked in an interest-bearing bank account with access restricted to the four partners.”

  Again he paused, and again no one had anything to say.

  “Now for the good stuff,” he continued. “On Tuesday afternoon, at precisely 5:29 in the afternoon, Sattler, or someone else using his access codes and password, wired all $350 million to a numbered account in Dubai–”

  “$350 million?” I was dumbfounded. “You mean it was stolen?”

  “Yup. Within minutes, the money had been split into fifty equal parcels and moved out of Dubai into fifty off-shore holding accounts spread all around the world. From there, the money moved onward, and simply disappeared. It’s untraceable, gone. Whoever set this deal up is now very wealthy.”

  “Okay,” I said, “so what you’re telling us is that Sattler ripped off the fund for 350 mil?”

  “That is correct. He either did the deed himself, or someone went to a great deal of trouble to make it look like he did.”

  “But his computers are wiped clean,” I said. “How do we prove he did or he didn’t?”

  “If they were professionally scrubbed, we can’t.”

  “Kate. Your people have them. Any word from them yet?”

  “No. Let me give them a call.”

  We waited, and listened while she talked.

  “They’ve looked at them. They have been cleaned, but to what extent, they can’t say. They want to send them off to the FBI for analysis.”

  “That’s not good, dammit,” I said. “It will be months before we get anything. The thief will be long gone. All hell will be let loose when word of the theft gets out. The fund will collapse and there’ll be no containing the media, much less the SEC. How come they are not involved already?”

  “Oh, I’d say they are," Kate said. "Right now they’re just getting all their ducks in a row, and then... well.”


  How about if Tim takes a look at the computers?” I looked at Kate as I said it.

  She looked at Tim, thoughtfully. Tim smiled at her, his geeky face was all enthusiasm. “Let’s see. Maybe Chief Johnston can do something. I can use your office, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Back in a minute,” she said, as she got up from the table and left the room.

  “Tim,” I said. “Is there any way we can trace the money, find out what happened to it?”

  “Not without the data. If the hard drives are wiped....”

  “What about backups?” I said.

  “Maybe, but we don’t have them, right?”

  “No,” I said. “The place had been searched, and I’d be willing to bet that whoever did the search was looking for them.”

  Ten minutes later, Kate came back into the conference room. Her face was red and she didn’t look happy.

  “Tim, you can have access to the computers, but only in the PD lab. It was the best I could do, and Johnston wasn’t happy even about that. Will that work for you?”

  “I suppose,” he said. “I can cart my gear over there. I won’t really know what I need until I open ‘em up, but yes. I can do that.” He looked at me. “Maybe I can find some answers.”

  “It needs to be done quickly, Tim. Can you go over there now?”

  “Sure. I’ll go pack a few things.”

  “Kate, can you give them the word that he’s coming?”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll go with him. Tim, you can follow me over there.”

  They both left, leaving me with Jacque and Ronnie.

  “Jacque. You go on home. I’ll see you here bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  I leaned back in my chair, hands clasped behind my neck, and stared up at the ceiling. “Okay. How the hell do we figure this mess out?” It was a rhetorical question and required no answer, but Ronnie answered it anyway.

  “You’re the detective,” he said with a grin. “That’s your job, yours and Kate’s.”