Silent Money Page 19

  ‘And how long do you expect me to sit about waiting?’

  ‘Nine months. I’m talking about starting a new life. It takes time to get these things organised.’

  ‘Nine months? You could make a bairn in that time. How do I know this is no’ a con, just to make me piss off out your life? I wouldn’t wait that long for an audience wi’ the Pope.’

  ‘These things take time, Ivan. Don’t worry; I’ll move as fast as I can.’

  ‘Let’s do this. I give you six months, and you start now, telling my man how things work. As long as you promise no’ to scarper in the meantime. Cos I’d no’ be a happy bunny. And you don’t want to see me unhappy. I lose all of my roguish charm.’

  ‘Very generous of you, Ivan. Okay, it’s a deal. And let bygones be bygones. No hard feelings. When do you want to start?’

  Michael told Ron the good news afterwards.

  ‘It’s all agreed. Ivan backs off from today, and I hand the smurfs over to him once we’ve got the Mallards operation up and running. Reckon that will be early next year, when I move to Surrey to take over as the managing director. We’ve got to move fast. All the clients we want to hang on to are going to have their money moved through the Mallards Glasgow store, and we increase the money going through the Avalon businesses as much as we think we can get away with. All the nutcases, loose cannons and head-bangers that we’ve picked up as clients get handed off to Ivan. You tell all the customers we want to keep that we’re moving to a new operation and if they want to be part of it, secrecy is key.’

  ‘Ivan is going to be furious when he sees how much business is disappearing from under his nose. We can hardly hide that from him. Expect trouble, Michael.’

  ‘The story is going to be that people don’t want to deal with him. That means losing all these customers is his fault, not ours. It might teach him a lesson.’

  ‘You don’t teach Crazy Ivan a lesson, Michael. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Michael had just finished his conversation with Ron when he got a call from the manager at Tiffany’s. The girl he’d met the previous weekend had turned up at the disco and had been asking if he was going to be in the VIP booth that evening. She’d looked disappointed, the manager said, when he had told her no, but she hadn’t left. Michael glanced at his watch. It had been a long, stressful day, but Roberta could be the ideal solution to that and his driver could get him there in half an hour. He shook his head. The most important meeting of his life was a week away; the last thing he needed was another distraction. Then he remembered their night together. Some distractions were worth it. He arrived as she was leaving, alone and sullen-faced.

  ‘Roberta,’ Michael said. ‘How nice to see you. Where are you going?’

  ‘Michael, you bastard, where have you been? Why didn’t you call me?’

  Michael stepped out of the car, trying to keep a straight face. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ he said. ‘Didn’t you get my note saying I was away and that I would meet you at Tiffany’s tonight?’

  ‘I got your flowers, but there wasn’t any note.’ Her voice was petulant, embarrassed.

  He shook his head in exasperation. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with my florist. That’s disgraceful he forgot to attach the note. But here you are anyway. Are you leaving? The night has just begun.’

  Confusion was written all over her face. ‘Maybe next time you want to meet me you should try calling, rather than relying on someone to give me a note.’

  By now Michael was thoroughly enjoying the game he was playing.

  ‘You’re right, Roberta, I’ve behaved abominably. Things are a little … complicated at the moment and I’ve not been as attentive to you as I should have been. Let me make it up to you. You look cold standing there. And you shouldn’t be getting on the Underground dressed like that. Who knows what sort of undesirable attention you would attract, looking so beautiful on an empty train late at night. Come on, let me give you a lift at least.’

  Michael gave himself the luxury of spending Sunday with her; then it was time to plan for the meeting with Dick and Eddie. He’d invited them to Scotland to finalise the deal, and Dick suggested the Turnberry Hotel on the Ayrshire coast so he could have a round of golf before heading back to Spain. The meeting would be mostly a formality, but Michael wanted to leave nothing to chance. By the end of the weekend, the bones of the new operation would be in place.

  Ron tried to insist on attending the meeting.

  ‘You don’t know the street operation, Michael,’ he said. ‘I do. If we want to replicate what we do here in the rest of the country, then you need me along.’

  ‘We’re not getting into that sort of detail,’ Michael said. ‘Don’t worry. There’s going to be plenty of time for you to sit down with Eddie to get the specifics right. Once we’ve got the main points of the deal agreed, you’ll be fully involved.’ Michael needed to show Dick and Eddie he relied on no one. He’d go alone.

  At least that’s what he thought until Dick called mid-week.

  ‘It’s going to be a weekend of celebration,’ he told Michael over a crackly phone line from Marbella. ‘So, Eddie and I thought we should bring our girls along. You’ve already met Sharon, and Eddie has his bit of stuff to keep him out of mischief. That’s not a problem, is it?’

  Michael’s patience with Dick was running thin. Playing golf, no doubt half-cut most of the weekend, now bringing along this Sharon bimbo. He was beginning to wonder if Dick was taking the whole proposition seriously. In the end, he relented. If Eddie had agreed, he must have thought there would be enough time for the serious discussions. And maybe, Michael thought, he was overly obsessive about the meeting. It was right, what he’d told Ron – everything had been worked out. He was trusting these two guys with his livelihood, his freedom, maybe even his life. It might be good to get to know them better.

  ‘Then I’d better bring someone,’ Michael told Dick. ‘But she’s a civilian, knows nothing of my operation, doesn’t suspect a thing. As long as there’s no talk of business when she’s around. Do I have your word on that?’

  ‘Unwritten rule of our business anyway, Michael. Tell the women-folk nothing. Sharon, bless her, is a lovely girl and knows how to keep an old man happy, but I wouldn’t trust her with a secret if my life depended on it. And I don’t think Eddie’s one’s for pillow talk either. Looking forward to meeting your lovely lady.’

  Roberta was surprisingly difficult to convince to come along; it turned out she had a prior engagement which it took all of Michael’s charm to convince her to cancel. But the promise of five-star luxury eventually made her relent. As he put the phone down after their conversation, Michael reflected that maybe he was being too uptight about the meeting, seeing how relaxed everyone seemed to be about completing the deal.

  He decided he’d get the deal done and enjoy himself while doing it. It was shaping up to be a memorable weekend.

  chapter twenty

  Roberta and Michael looked an incongruous pair as they stepped out of the car and breathed in the sea air at Turnberry. Michael had dressed for a business meeting; he wanted Dick and Eddie to know they were dealing with a professional. He hadn’t told Roberta to do the same and she had turned up in flared jeans and a red-checked cheesecloth shirt, three-inch platform shoes and woollen stripy socks. She looked horrified when she saw how straight Michael looked, relieved when he reminded her he had said he had business to attend to. She had given him her undivided attention in the two-hour drive from Glasgow, and he was beginning to regret his decision not to be there on his own. He needed a clear head for this weekend and Roberta would be a distraction, albeit a pleasant one.

  Dick and Eddie had already arrived and checked in, so Michael dropped off their bags, left Roberta to settle in and headed down to the room he’d booked for the meeting. He set out the typed agenda next to the Mallards business plan document he’d prepared. He wasn’t su
re if this was how crime lords operated, but this was a business, and he wanted to run it that way.

  Dick and Eddie arrived, strutting into the room like a pair of Roman emperors, displaying the unhurried calm of two men who had nothing to prove. They could not have looked more different. Dick, a bull of a man slowly going to seed, a half-empty glass of Campari in his hand at eleven in the morning, wore a paisley-pattern cravat and brass-buttoned blazer. Alan Wicker on steroids. Eddie, a few years younger, was trim and dapper, his manicured nails and slicked-back hair giving him all the appearance of a respectable businessman, spoilt a little by the slight trace of a scar under his left eye. Their two girls, Sharon and Cindy, were sent off to the hotel’s beauty parlour and, after a few anodyne pleasantries, it was straight down to business.

  Michael produced the memorandum of sale to show that the Mallards purchase had been completed and then ran through how the business was to be operated. ‘We are going to ring-fence the retail operation,’ he explained, ‘so that everyone employed by the company feels they are part of a normal business. We run a set of parallel accounts which will be seen only by my accountant, where we move twenty times the revenue made in the stores through the accounts. For the day-to-day money laundering, the money will move through the business as if it was cash sales from people shopping at Mallards. When we have a client with a substantial cash sum he wants us to handle, that gets treated as a payment to our overseas Spanish wholesaler, paid first into a Spanish bank account and from there into our Swiss bank accounts so it can be sent anywhere in the world.’

  ‘And you reckon you can do this without anyone else from Mallards catching on?’ Eddie was focussing on every word. Dick’s concentration was already starting to wander around the room.

  ‘Definitely,’ Michael replied. ‘The managing director is the son of the owner. He’s going to stay on for six months to show me the ropes. Then I take over, and we start putting our clients’ money through the business. Every store manager only ever sees the management accounts of their store’s actual sales and revenue. They get consolidated at head office by their finance manager and he hands them over to Jenkins, my accountant, to go into the group accounts. That’s when we add in the extra costs and revenue to hide our clients’ money. Nobody in Mallards ever sees the accounts after that. It’s part of a privately traded group of companies, owned by me. The group accounts are confidential. For our eyes only.’

  ‘You’re putting a lot of faith in this accountant of yours. Is he up to it? And can you trust him?’

  ‘You’ll meet him once everything is set up. Yes, you can trust him. He likes the idea of earning a lot of money for doing very little work. He’s got no ambition beyond that. And he was Kenny McGowan’s accountant for years. He knows not to ask too many questions.’ In this sort of company, Michael reckoned it was safe to mention McGowan’s name.

  Eddie looked thoughtful. ‘Okay then. Dick, have you any questions?’

  ‘Eh? Yeah, can I get another Campari? More ice this time.’

  Michael wasn’t buying the show of indifference, but he went out to the lobby, asked them to organise another drink. Eddie and Dick broke off their conversation when he returned.

  Michael was beginning to feel uncomfortable, an outsider. ‘I think it’s time you both showed me your parts of the plan,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s finish off with your side first,’ Eddie replied. ‘So, you’ve been going a year; it’s your first venture, you’ve got Kenny McGowan backing you and every hoodlum in Glasgow loves you and wants you to squirrel away their cash. And you think, if this is so easy, let’s do it in other places. And that’s where Dick and I come in. Have I got it right?’

  ‘Not quite. Kenny McGowan’s got nothing to do with the operation. He just made our introductions as a favour from when I was a bank manager, helping out some old lag mates of his get bank accounts. I have someone on my staff who’s connected enough to find our clients in Glasgow and I’ve got a … compliance officer, shall we say, to handle any problems that come our way. And that’s been enough to clean up in the west of Scotland. But I think there’s more opportunity out there. And for that, I need some help.’

  Michael had explained all this at their first meeting. He was getting distinctly exasperated that he had progressed his plan this far, only to find he wasn’t being taken seriously. But he saw Dick catch Eddie’s eye, give him a barely imperceptible nod. Eddie swung his briefcase up onto the table and opened it.

  ‘Good, Michael. Good. Wanted to check your story matched what we knew, that’s all. No funny stuff, no embellishments. Okay, let me show you what I can do for you.’

  Eddie produced a dossier on every proposed regional operator across ten English cities. A photo, a summary of their criminal record if they had one, a brief outline of how they operated. It was like looking through the personnel files of a large corporation. Michael was impressed by his thoroughness and professionalism. And, if he was honest, a little surprised.

  Eddie must have picked up on it. ‘You’re not dealing with an amateur, Michael. I run a business. I’ve seen lots of tough, smart guys meet an unsavoury end from the streets or the cops, and that doesn’t happen to me. I plan, I organise. If you deal with me, you’re dealing with a professional.’

  ‘Great minds,’ Michael replied.

  Eddie talked through his plan to base an operation around each of the Mallards stores, having someone in each city responsible for handling the business there, reporting back to him. Ten per cent of the fees went to the local guy, the rest they split three ways.

  That left only Dick to go through his proposal. He stifled a belch as he fished out a brochure from his briefcase. The trade catalogue of Galicia Muebles was spread out on the boardroom table, covering the new range that Mallards would be selling.

  ‘Take your pick from anything that takes your fancy,’ Dick told Michael. ‘Just be sure to choose the chests of drawers and the sideboards. That’s where the big H is stashed when it’s shipped across the border. Galicia Muebles’ handling agent in the UK knows which items have got concealed compartments in the drawers. He takes them out and replaces them so they can be sold on to unsuspecting customers. Works a treat.’

  ‘And it’s okay for my purchasing guy to visit them in Spain?’ Michael asked. ‘They’re a genuine furniture manufacturer?’

  ‘As far as your guy is concerned, yes they are. You just need to explain to him he doesn’t have a choice about using them as a supplier. Tell him they are owned by a sleeping partner who put up part of the cash to help you buy Mallards, or some such bullshit. They make their stuff look solid and respectable, but it’s veneered woodchip and plywood. We don’t want him getting stroppy with them about quality and buggering up Los Zetas’ shipment schedule. They wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘And there’s no way he could find out about Los Zetas from these furniture guys? You’re sure about that?’

  Dick gave him a withering stare. ‘Los Zetas only ever deal with me. They’re an old-school organised crime operation based in La Coruña, third generation crime lords, with a strict tradition of silencio. They imported drugs from South America in lumber shipments and used the furniture business to send the stuff around Europe. That’s all you need to know. Galicia Muebles is the front, run by one of the family, and your guy will find they look completely legit. They’ll raise invoices for fictitious furniture orders and send them directly to your accountant, as long as you use the real shipments for their drug operation. That’s the deal.’

  It was Michael’s turn to be on the receiving end of the questions.

  ‘So this Ron Smith, this partner of yours. The guy who handles your street operation.’ Eddie gave a theatrical glance around the room. ‘I don’t see him here. What’s the problem with him?’

  ‘No problem,’ Michael replied. ‘He’s a career criminal who I brought on board to have someone who would know who to talk to in Gl
asgow about our services. He’s an employee, not a partner.’

  ‘Would he agree with that? He gets a share of the operation and he’s pretty key to you. Sounds like a partner to me. Why’s he not at this meeting?’

  ‘He’s someone who does what I tell him. He knows we’re meeting, and that what we’re discussing doesn’t concern him. He runs the Glasgow operation, and he still will after we’ve decided everything today. I don’t get involved in that side of the operation and he doesn’t get involved with what I do.’

  ‘But it’s not going to stay separate now, is it? I’m going to be in charge of operations and it’ll be what I want to do in Glasgow that counts, not Mr Ron Smith. I need to look him over before he becomes part of the operation.’

  ‘We discussed this at our last meeting.’ Michael shifted in his seat, feeling he was being railroaded. ‘I said we’d keep things the same in Glasgow. Leave you to focus on getting the operation set up in the rest of the country, at least in the meantime.’

  ‘You don’t have two operations in this business. It causes friction, even a bit of rivalry. Before you know where you are you start poaching customers, trampling on each other’s patch.’ He shook his head. ‘I know what we agreed at our last meeting, but Ron’s days at the top table are over. He’ll be working for me from now on.’

  Michael thought for a moment. He didn’t feel comfortable handing over everything he’d built to Eddie, at least not straight away. Not before he knew he could trust him. He didn’t like one bit that Eddie was going back on what they’d agreed. But the man was right – it did make more sense to have the one operation and it would speed up the day when Ron got retribution for what happened with Charlotte.

  ‘Agreed. He works for you. I tell him when I get back to Glasgow.’

  Dick had hardly uttered a word after explaining about Los Zetas. It was becoming apparent that what mattered most to Dick was Dick having an easy time. He’d made his stack of cash and now his days consisted of Ambre Solaire and getting roasted in the Spanish sun, squiring an endless succession of mercenary floozies half his age. Michael guessed that Los Zetas provided protection against anyone with an outstanding grievance from Dick’s past, and his involvement in smuggling drugs into the UK was part of his efforts to keep them sweet. Now he was getting a split of the Mallards profits for doing no more than he was doing already. But Michael needed a Spanish partner to supply the false invoices, and Galicia Muebles and Los Zetas were perfect. Galling as it was, Dick had to get a cut of the action.