Behind the Gates

Fukoyami had a villa in the hills to the south of the Sonora desert. The villa sat inside a couple of thousand acres inside a low valley, but it wasn’t easy to find. Covering part of Southern California, part of South western Arizona and part of North western Mexico, the Sonora is the biggest desert in the United States, at around 120,000 square miles. It is an easy place to hide a big place. The roads were not good in that part of Mexico, and the maps were worse. In the end, they only found the place with the GPS, the satellite gadget, as Fukoyami had recommended.

Most of the estate was ringed with razor wire, a double ring with a good hundred years of cleared ground between them. Walking in that ring were dogs. The couple visible from the gates didn’t look overfed or spoiled with good treatment. Inside the inner ring armed men were scattered. Jackie Fukoyami had enemies, but they weren’t going to get to him by slipping through in the night.

Alan was driving. He showed the guy at the gate his US driving license and an American Express card. Both false, both in false names. The guy in the gate called somewhere for clearance. He opened the gate and passed Alan’s ID back as he slowly rolled through. The gates closed behind them and they set off up the rough road of hard packed dirt. When they had a hundred yards past the gates, a trail bike pulled onto the track, the rider with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. No chance that they would have a change of plans on the way up to the house.

Up at the villa, designed by someone who had watched too many R&B videos—all white fluted columns and wide terraces—Jackie Fukoyamu waited.

Alan stopped the car and opened the doors to let Rudy and Doug out of the back.

‘Gentlemen.’

They introduced themselves. But so as not to go soft in the head trying to remember a hatful of names, let’s stick to the right ones for the purposes of the story.

Alan stayed by the car while Rudy and Doug shook hands.

Fukuyami jerked a thumb at Alan.

‘Driver?’

‘Sure, but mainly he’s security. We like to keep people we can rely on. He’s very dangerous.’

‘He can come inside and get something to eat so long as he leaves his weapons in the car.’

‘In that case,’ Rudy said, ‘He can stay in the car and keep his weapons, if you don’t mind.’

Fukoyami shrugged. ‘We at least we can get out of the heat.’

Inside, they were shown to a cool, high-ceilinged room. They were offered drinks and both asked for water and sweet black coffee.

‘You are lucky to be here.’ Fukoyami said. ‘Don James said you are efficient operators. This makes me wonder why I haven’t heard of you before.’

‘Couple of reasons,’ Rudy said. ‘First, we don’t just work for anyone. We’re choosy, and we’re here on Don’s recommendation to you—he said you were a guy who kept his side of a bargain. That’s what we like. But maybe you didn’t hear, because a lot of the big name laundries, like Don, like Mackay in Europe, like Hernandez in Miami, they don’t like to dirty their hands with the work no more. They’re too big themselves, so they contract the work out.’

‘So you might say we’re the launderers’ launderer.’ Doug said. ‘The other reason you might not of heard of us is that we also run a nice ID business, and we’re our own best customers. We don’t like to hold on to the same ID too long. Keep moving, keep changing, makes a tough target.’

‘Fair enough, Don’s word was enough. We know why we’re here. What’s your rate?’

‘Amounts under ten million we don’t really like so much, so nine per cent. After that, it all depends on the size, and when we’ve done checks, how much attention you’re attracting. You know the way it is: the harder the DEA, the tax folks, the police, the FBI, Tobacco and Firearms, the more heat you’re drawing, the harder our work.’

‘But you’ve done your homework because you are professionals.’

‘Sure, OK, we won’t blow any smoke. You have been hotter, but recently you seem to have dropped under the radar. How much you want sorting?’

‘This is a first job. I have to decide how much to trust you.’

‘You could say,’ Rudy said. ‘But ask yourself this: why would you hand fifty bucks to a guy you don’t trust? There’s no amount of trust. Either you do or you don’t. If you don’t, we’ll go now. There’s a shortage of big operators in the field right now so we’re having no trouble getting rich. You trust us, we’ll talk terms.’

Fukoyama gave the card-on-the-table gesture with his open palms.

‘I do have a lot of money to manage.’

‘Sure you do. S’what you get with a cash business, eh? Cash.’ Doug said.

‘What would be the rate on twenty five?’

‘Where do we pick it up? Which side of the border?’

‘Your side.’

‘That makes life easier for us. What size notes?’

‘A total mix. But lots of hundreds, quite a pile of tens and twenties but more fifties than anything else.’

‘That’s a lot of notes,’ Rudy said. ‘We can do it for six and a half points. That gives us one mill, 625.’

‘I can do the math.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘That would take two months. Payments would start to be paid, ID and bank access details, after two weeks. More would come down the line as the project went on. You would have the lot by the end, but more would be at the end than the beginning.’

I’ll give you five points, takes you down to one mill 250. Unless you can deliver within a month, gets you the full six and a half points.’

Rudy shrugged. ‘Your money, but the stuff that takes longer, the corporate bonds, the stock in private companies, the prime real estate, that’s the stuff that takes longer. The early stuff—deposits in small family banks, it isn’t as good. The money needs the super boil wash white, the slow stuff is the way to go. You want the job doing as well as it can be, you’ll pay the six and a half points and you’ll give us the two months.’

‘Six points.’

‘Six and a half.’ Doug said.

‘I’m not going to split again. I’m not talking in quarter points. Six points.’

‘I know you said you can do the math, but those quarter points are worth $62,500. If you don’t want to offer, I will, so we both keep face. Six and a quarter,’ Doug said.

‘You’re offering me a quarter of a point?’

‘Hey man, don’t be insulted,’ Rudy said. ‘That’s a top end BMW. It’s a nice swimming pool. It’s so insulting, give it to a homeless guy. We moved on price didn’t we? We started on nine points, now we’re talking six and a quarter.’

He stood, and Doug followed close behind.

‘That’s the last price. You don’t like it, try Wal-Mart. Always get a good price at Wal-Mart.’

Fukoyami frowned.

‘Don said you weren’t the cheapest. You know ten years ago this job cost one and a half maybe two bucks a hundred?’

‘Ten years ago the government was sleep walking. You could walk up to CitiBank with a holdall full of banknotes, put it in a new account, move it where you wanted, the only question the bank asked was “While you’re waiting for us to check the count, how do you like your coffee?” Those days, two bucks a hundred was overpaid. Now, it’s a hard world to move money, and we can move it for you. Deal?’

He stood and joined them and offered a hand. They shook.

‘One detail,’ Rudy said. Our piece: you want it to come out of the twenty five?’

‘Naturally. I’m guessing you don’t take Visa card.’

‘But that means you actually get to take just over twenty three mill cleaned up. And if we’re going to keep on working together, it only leaves more to clean. You could even see it that I’m getting paid out of your clean money. But if you pay us on top, you get a clean twenty five, end of story. You could see it that you get a better rate.’

‘It does mean that. So I’d give you…’

‘Twenty six million, five hundred and sixty two thousand, five hundred. You want to arrange the handover in one instalment or phase it?’

‘Once. Makes it your problem. I’m paying you to sort a problem, so better that you take it and earn your money.’

‘We’re in business,’ Doug said.

‘Someone will contact you with the GPS position and any further details necessary. It will be in the Sonora still, but in the Arizona side. I had someone take a drink to your security, but you should get back to him before he bakes.’

‘Thanks,’ Doug said. ‘If I’d wanted the guy to bake, I’d’a sprinkled raisins on him first.’

As the car bounced through the hard dirt road weaving through the desert, the three men struggled to keep impassive faces. It was hard to know how far and for how long they may be watched, and what the watchers were looking for. Fukoyami was tough, ruthless and smart. No-one was taking silly chances by underestimating him. They knew that to him they were an unknown quantity, with nothing but a single personal recommendation. On the other hand, this was a business where recommendation went a long way. What else was there? You could hardly turn up with your Master’s degree in money laundering, drug importation and cocaine retailing.

‘Was that it?’ Alan said. ‘Over twenty five million bucks and he’s just going to hand it over?’

‘Money gets cleaned,’ Rudy said. ‘At some point, that means you have to trust someone. If the cleaner does a runner, you move him from your Christmas card list to your ‘kill these’ list. But we have good papers and we disappear inside the DEA. What’s he going to do? What’s he even going to know? Cost of doing business.’

‘The lawyer though. The guy in Atlanta,’ Alan said’

‘Don James.’

‘Yeah, him. His life has to be in danger, doesn’t it.’

‘Maybe, sure, yeah, I guess it does. But if we call the office down there, tell them we’ve heard whispers that there’s a price on his head, take him out of the general population, put him somewhere safe.’

‘Poor guy.’

‘Poor guy who’s stinking rich and chose to get involved in dirty money. Deserves what he gets.’

‘Do we deserve what we get?’ Doug asked.

No-one answered. The jubilant air in the car calmed down some.