I chose a table that faced directly across at the bank. We ordered and made polite small talk until the waiter ceased hovering. The background noise of the street and the café gave us a small cone of privacy.
I took a long drink of water and began. “Some of this I have been told and some of it is surmise and some of it is straight fiction. But the tale is true. You with me?”
Guelli gave a very European shrug that could have meant anything. It didn’t matter; he was listening.
“Serge Biondi sat right here once a month or so, usually in mid-afternoon when the New York markets had just opened. He had to wait for confirmation that funds had been posted to the appropriate accounts. He met with another man—I have no idea who, or even if it was a man. It could have been a woman. It could have been someone different every time. I don’t know. Sometimes he would have a file with him, which he would leave on the table as he left. Other times he would collect one.”
Guelli just nodded. He had questions, but he let me get the story out my own way.
“When he left, he would walk across the street and through the main door of Doerflinger Freres et Cie. But as we have just learned, that was not his destination. It was a blind. He could not be followed inside, but he could leave by either of two other exits. It would have been very difficult to set up a tail.”
“Only once a month?”
“That’s a guess. But not a bad one, based on my guy’s take on the money trail. You and the FBI can match up the money transfers and see. More often wasn’t needed. They could afford to let smaller transactions accumulate, then execute a big trade only when they had a large amount of money to move.”
Lunch arrived. Schnitzel with roesti for me, a spinach salad for Guelli.
“You are lucky,” Guelli commented, looking longingly at my plate. “I still carry the weight of every plate of roesti I have ever eaten.”
“If I lived here, I would eat roesti every day and the hell with my cholesterol. Life is short, and one of the few things in life that you can’t find better in New York is real roesti.”
Roesti is an elegantly simple dish—grated potato, fried in butter. But it is to hash browns what risotto is to rice cakes. You can tell both had the same origins, but their paths diverged dramatically. I vowed to bring Skeli to Zurich sometime—if only for the roesti.
“You are not going to share with me who told you this story, are you?”
Castillo would have me gutted, grilled, and served up churrasco for speaking his name aloud. “That would not be in my best interest,” I said.
“Or what was in the file folders?”
“Oh, that I can give you.” Castillo had been open, almost dismissive, about the financial details. “Honduran government bonds. Mostly. Dollar-denominated. There’s probably some triple- and double-A corporate bonds mixed in as well. All in bearer form. No other sovereign debt—there’s too little of it still in circulation. Too easy to trace ownership when the coupons are tendered.”
“Herr Biondi was a highly respected lawyer. His client list included both some of our oldest and most powerful families. He was on the board of directors of one of Switzerland’s largest banks. Why would such a man be involved in something like this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He worked for Von Becker.”
Guelli bristled. “So that makes him dirty as well? You are too smart for that.”
“In the last two weeks I’ve talked to some very smart people who got sucked in by Von Becker. He was a con man. An evil, manipulative son of a bitch, who deserved to suffer a lot longer than he did. But there’s one thing every con knows—the mark cons himself. The pitch can be perfect, flawless, ripe, and easy, but if the mark doesn’t want to buy in, there’s no sale.”
“But you are speaking of drug money, are you not? Biondi would have to have known. Why would he take such a risk?”
“Maybe he didn’t know at first. I don’t know. You’re asking me to speculate.”
“Isn’t everything you have said speculation?”
“No. It may not be evidence, but I believe it all to be true. I’m still fitting it all together.”
“Still.”
“All right. Like I say, maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he knew and didn’t care.” A thought occurred to me. “Or maybe he thought he had his own scam running. Look, Von Becker could have spun a very convincing line. The guy was a master. Look at all the supposedly very smart people all over the world who fell for his spiel. You think Biondi was different because he was Swiss?”
Guelli had the grace to chuckle. “Yes?”
“By the time Biondi figured out the real game, he was locked in. He couldn’t back out. The kind of people we’re talking about do not take no for an answer.”
My roesti was already more than half gone. I drank more water to slow myself down.
“Von Becker laundered money for anyone who asked,” I continued. “I don’t know how the cash side worked. They could run it all through the Feast of San Gennaro for all I know. But once the cash was in the system—anywhere in the world—he would move it. He and his partners—the FBI knows who I’m talking about—would settle up once a month or so. They’d wire a large block of money—upwards of fifty mil at a clip—to one of Von Becker’s banks. As soon as the funds cleared, he would get word to Biondi and a meet would be set up. Biondi would deliver the securities, or pick them up, if that’s the direction the deal was going that time around.”
“These other messengers—carriers—they would be lawyers as well, correct?”
“Lawyers, bank employees—they’d have the access. But it could have been government regulators, or even policemen. You live in a society that rarely questions authority, as long as all the fees are paid up. Though they’d have to be fairly senior. You’d want respectable burghers who weren’t going to take your bearer bonds and do a runner.”
“Biondi wasn’t running.”
“No. I think in his case it was just bad timing. Von Becker surrendered to the good guys late in the afternoon when Europe was already shut down for the day. He had no choice. If he’d tried to wait until the next day, they’d have been out looking for him, and he would have lost any leverage he might have had.” I signaled to the waiter for more water. “But the money was already in the system, waiting to clear. The bad guys couldn’t get it back. By the next day, all accounts were frozen and Von Becker was in custody. The Feds paraded him out in front of his office, his perp walk—or in his case, maybe a victory lap. But Von Becker was never out of sight of federal agents from the time he came in. He never got to make the call to Biondi.”
“Von Becker couldn’t get a message out?”
I was sure that Castillo knew more about that than he had been willing to share, but I wasn’t prepared to make a guess at that point.
“That’s the thing with the guy. He never trusted anybody, so he had no backup. But as long as he was alive, nobody was in a panic. Eventually he would get word out and Biondi would make his meet. The bonds would change hands and everybody would go home happy.”
“But someone did panic. Biondi was murdered—beaten—before Von Becker died.”
“Two days before. And someone is in a panic again now. Two more people were killed this week. Others were threatened. I was threatened.”
“But why? Why not just wait?”
“I don’t know. The interested party who pointed me in this direction had no reason to rush things, but I don’t think he’s in control. The people he represents have their own agenda. And for all I know, there are other players involved.”
Guelli pushed the remains of his salad away.
“And why wouldn’t Biondi just pay them? Hand over the bonds and be done with it. The man was beaten to death.”
“According to you, he didn’t last long enough to tell anybody anything.”
“I still don’t see why he would have involved himself in this.”
I savored the last bite of roesti before answering. “Are you inviting me to speculate again?” I shrugged. “Money, love, sex, fear, and guilt. Pick one. I think that covers your choices. And why did Von Becker kill himself?”
Guelli nodded. “Just two days after his money man dies.”
“If he killed himself. He was being held at Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center on remand. At MCC they lump everybody in together. Bad guys and really bad guys. I spent one horrific night there waiting to be arraigned. It’s a zoo. I’d say just about anything could have happened there. So I don’t know what I believe about Von Becker dying. I’ve been told a lot of things.”
“Have your friends at the FBI heard all this?”
“No. I had to come here to see these connections. And remember, my interest here is limited. I’m not hunting down a murderer. I’m just trying to track down the money.”
“But you still don’t know where the bonds are.”
“Well, one last try on that score. What do you say?” I checked my watch. “I’ve still got time. Hours. Care to bring me by Biondi’s offices? Let’s see what shakes out when a senior Interpol officer stops by.”
Guelli’s eyes lit up. “Get the check.”