"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 1 - Labyrinth of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

A lot could be determined just on the phone, which hadn't yet been disconnected.
Whitlock, Martin J., IV. Age: forty-seven. One of the blue bloods of
Philadelphia society. Ancestors came on Penn's boat. Inherited a couple of
million bucks. Harvard Business School, MBA, all the right clubs. Married
Roberta Armbruster, of the came-over-on-the-Mayflower Armbrusters, added another
million. Two kids: a son, Martin the Fifth, now in his freshman year at Harvard,
and a daughter, Virginia, now at an exclusive prep school for future wives of
aristocratic millionaires. The right blood, the right clubs, and several million
in his own right. Why the hell would a guy like that stiff Little Jimmy in a con
for two-plus million and split?
More to the point, why would a guy like that be a chief launderer for the
hard-drug division of organized crime?
Part of the answer came in a listing of his holdings. It's amazing what you can
do on a phone if you know what you're doing and have a decent acting voice. Give
me four hours and somebody's name and address, and I'll tell you what perfume
his wife wears, where he buys his clothes, who holds his mortgage, and his
favorite restaurants -- just for openers. It's incredible to me how porous the
credit-card listings, check records, and credit-bureau files are to anybody who
knows the right language and the right approach.
The motive for stiffing Little Jimmy was simple enough. When you think of the
very rich, you think of them rolling in dough and lighting cigars with
hundred-dollar bills. The truth is, most of the very rich don't have enough
spare change for a Big Mac at McDonald's. The magic word is liquidity. His money
was invested in stocks, bonds, certificates, real estate, you name it. His money
didn't even go to him; he had a money-management firm that collected his
interest and clipped his coupons and paid all his bills for him. The only real
liquid asset he had was a Super NOW checking account with about ten grand in it
for petty cash. The rich have the most valuable thing for living rich while
their money works: almost unlimited credit. They just charge everything and the
bills are sent to the business or the money managers or whatever. Must be nice.
He must not have figured on Little Jimmy wising up so fast. He did have
reservations on a flight to San Francisco for next Sunday, but he hadn't even
picked up the tickets yet. So now he's got over two million bucks in very liquid
cash and convertibles, but he wasn't able to make good on his planned getaway.
He couldn't use credit cards; that's the easiest way to be traced. This guy
wasn't used to paying real cash, let alone using money to hide out from the mob.
Still, he wasn't dumb. Even' the richest don't get nearly straight .A's at
Harvard, they just use their money and connections to get hired over the poor
slobs that do. But this guy was smart, real smart.
A check with the Philadelphia courthouse showed that he was real popular, too.
One of my old contacts who still worked there told me that there were a bunch of
federal examiners and marshals in town, and that Tri-State was already getting a
going-over. That explained even more. If he thought the connection with the mob
was about to be exposed and himself implicated, he'd have vanished right off. In
fact, that may have saved him, although it made my life more complicated. The
odds were that he might not know Little Jimmy was onto him yet; he might just
have smelled the feds and bolted early. That saved his life, but it meant that
the feds, at least, were looking for him right now. Worse, he was still an
amateur at disappearing acts, and he'd had to panic, bolt, and run. That meant
it would be messy and leave trails even an idiot or a fed could follow, and they