Royal Digs (3 page)

“Take this cup of coffee for instance. The
beans ground for this very cup more than likely come from fields of
Salvadoran oligarchs who use their coffee fortunes to fund the
right-wing death squads who’ve killed tens of thousands of people
for decades,” she said, then pushed away her cup as if the thought
of drinking it disgusted her.

Suddenly, coffee didn’t have quite the allure
it usually has for me either.

“So what about Casino Kings and Presidential
Races? Where do they fit into the mix?”

“For starters, it’s Casino Magnate Ben
Adelyang, one of the wealthiest men in the world, due to his
ownership of The Sandelsohn Casino Corporation, who’s one of
Governor Crumley’s largest donors. The Coffee Cartel families are
next on the major donor list.”

“And the Chinese government?”

“Also in Adelyang’s pocket, and you can bet
your ass he’ll be a huge influencer of the United States’ policy
and attitude towards China. That’s where half of his profits come
from on account of his four casinos there,” Bunny said,
decapitating the leafy head of her celery stalk.

“But where does that leave our family?”

“I don’t know for sure. But what I do know is
that The Berninis have worked with all the families involved for
years regarding the goods they distribute through our Naple’s ports
and the derivative trades they shuffle between their international
bank accounts. R’s father, Giotto, also had a big problem with
Ricardo Kardeneira, one of the heirs to the largest coffee dynasty.
And that problem doesn’t seem to ever go away.”

“Do you think the missing key could have
something to do with all of this?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

She finished off her Bloody Mary then slid
this morning’s local papers across the table.

I didn’t have to read them. I already knew
what they said.

Today, Governor Crumley was making a campaign
stop in Key West, which was to be followed by a few private
meetings with influential local donors.

“I take it we’re somehow going to be a part
of these events?” I asked, although I didn’t really have to.

By now, I knew how the Bellesconis operated.
They always went straight to the source of their troubles.

“Let’s just say I hope you have something
patriotic looking in your wardrobe,” Bunny said, taking an American
flag out of the vase of flowers in the center of our table and
waving it high in the air.

D
uval Street was
lined three to four people deep on both sides with rowdy,
donkey-loving supporters. Here in Key West, a city known for
welcoming alternative lifestyles and the people living them, one
rarely found elephants, as in card-carrying members of the GOP.
What on earth a GOP candidate thought he or she could gain by
making this city a campaign stop was beyond me.

But then again, Governor Crumley wasn’t the
smartest guy who’s ever tried to become our next president. He may
have made his mark in the business world, but it was at the expense
of the American workers who make up this country.

Very few people gathered wealth like that of
Rett Crumley, wealth he wasn’t willing to divulge in tax trails
because the evils of the world played major roles in his
portfolios.

As I’d come to expect, now that I was part of
the Bellesconi Family, we had a reserved place on the grandstand
stage to hear the Governor’s speech. And that alone proved Crumley
had to have crossed paths with the underworld my husband came from.
No one gets that close to a candidate unless they’re related, which
we weren’t, or the candidate owes them something. Now that was a
highly plausible explanation for our prominent placement.

I took in a deep breath, trying to steady my
jumpy nerves. When that didn’t work, I resorted to scanning the
crowd and reading all the funny signs, making the local’s disdain
for Governor Crumley beyond obvious.

My personal favorite I’d seen so far was the
bumper sticker people were holding up that read: “GM is alive and
well. Osama bin Laden isn’t.”

No matter how much I understood why Roman and
his family were trying to make good on their past, I’d never get
used to the shadowy figures we’d have to continue to fight till our
freedom, and the freedom of the world’s everyday people, had been
won.

Playing politics was bound to come along in
this journey at some point, I knew, because, let’s face it, there
are very few clean politicians. Money and power go hand-in-hand in
a vicious circle of influence and dread.

Done reading the rabble rousers’ signs, and
shaken by an anxiety that kept getting deeper with each new source
of evil we hunted down, I fiddled with the large pearls around my
neck.

Never one for understating anything, I’d
decided on the most bodacious bunch of baubles I owned. I was used
to dressing for red carpets, television cameras and paparazzi
lenses, not stodgy political campaign stops. So, along with my
rather boring color-blocked admiral navy and white suit, I’d chosen
a multi-strand, pearl-filled and charm-linked necklace. I figured,
if necessary, I could always use the thing as a weapon to choke the
shit out of someone. And thanks to all the cool gadgets R was
forever creating, I was beginning to think along his lines. Fashion
was no longer a career and lifetime passion of mine. It had already
saved my life a few times.

Clitopatra and her new stage partner, Star
Fish, were green with envy over my baubles and had fussed over them
something fierce.

Speaking of envious, I can tell you for sure
who wasn’t envious, and that would be the poor secret service studs
who were trying to lead Governor Crumley through a crowd, who, for
the most part, would not vote for him.

The Governor, who had always rubbed me the
wrong way on the screen and on paper, slithered up to the podium,
his product-heavy comb-over more than likely able to hold its own
here in hurricane country.

Just imagining what dumb, offensive things
would come out of his mouth this time made me about giggle out
loud. Lately, it appeared everywhere he went, including the
Olympics, he pissed people off, including our biggest allies.

I suppose, when you think you can buy your
way into the Oval Office, and have more money than most of our
government agencies combined, people-pleasing isn’t your
priority.

Before taking the podium, his emotionless,
vulture-like, beady eyes surveyed our three small rows of VIPs. He
went from Roman to me with a practiced smile, a smile that grew
when he acknowledged Bunny and grew bigger still when he honed in
on Clito, who was sporting an over the top va-va voom Madonna Rock
The Vote look.

But when The Governor saw Star Fish, I’m not
sure what transpired between them. Whatever it was, it gave me the
chills.

“Did you see that?” Bunny asked Roman and I,
covering her mouth with her program to block reporters from being
able to lip-read her comments. “What was that about? The asshole
looked like he’d just seen a ghost.”

“Maybe he did,” I said, even more worried,
because it wasn’t just my hyperactive imagination that something
wasn’t adding up about Star Fish.

I looked at Roman, who wasn’t saying a word.
Well, to me and Bunny he wasn’t. He was busy talking to his wrist,
which meant R was close by and also having a nice conversation with
his wrist.

• • •

One utterly boring stump speech later, we
were seated inside The Governor’s campaign bus, waiting for him to
join us.

Talk about stiff and quiet. I knew Roman, my
boss. And I knew his style. He would want to wait out our prey and
make them anxiety-ridden enough to spill their beans. And hopefully
even more beans than they’d ever planned on letting slide out of
their jar.

But, this time, he may have met his match.
Crumley’s crew of advisors wasn’t saying a word. It was a total
standoff situation. We were a long way from checkmate.

And I couldn’t afford to wait that long.
That’s not how Berninis played. If I had one thing in common with
my father, it was that I always called the shots. And I was
prepared to do that now. My brother and sister’s lives, as as well
as my beloved Bellesconi Family’s well-being, were on the line.

This wasn’t going to be some policy wonk cuss
and discuss either. And this certainly wasn’t going to be one of
those interviews about what the candidate’s reading, what’s on his
iPad or if he watches the Kardashians. We were headed in a much
darker direction.

As The Governor finally joined us on the bus,
I couldn’t shake the slither factor in front of me. My instincts
were right on the mark. This guy definitely was the type to do
business with my father.

He sat with his wife, who looked like a
blond, bob-cut Barbie Doll, too expensive to ever hit store
shelves. She would have been a custom-order-only, call-for-pricing
edition.

“Look, why don’t we just get right to it. I
know we’re busy and so are you,” Governor Crumley said, without
even the slightest fidget on his leather sofa.

“Is this about Box 438?” His personal
attorney and blind trust administrator asked, also without a
fidget.

So that’s the way they’re going to play this,
I thought. What a chicken shit to simply lawyer up. Although, Rett
obviously had one of the shrewdest ever in Bradford Valt. Bradford
was their lawyer, as well as the trustee of their blind trusts.

“I’m sure you’ll have to agree that it’s a
first when it comes to a United States Presidential Candidate
having Swiss Bank Accounts, as well as international tax havens in
the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Panama and the Cayman Islands
too,” Roman said, his voice cloaked in a timbre of deadly resolve
to ruin this candidacy and protect the people he most cared
about.

“Look, if this is about our tax returns
again, I can assure you, we’ve paid everything and provided every
detail we are legally required to,” Rett said, loosening his
tie.

“We’re not concerned about what’s legally
required. And I think you’ll agree that all of us on this bus are
smarter than that. What’s legally done isn’t the issue here, is
it?” Roman baited The Governor like the pros they both were.

“We all know there are a variety of gray
areas.”

Rett took the bait with a smug grin I’m sure
would set Roman on edge, because it had me about ready to finish
the job in a different way than we’d planned.

Smug criminals are the worst. When they’re
brazen enough to brag about their escapades that’s when my stomach
really churns, and I know we’re in even more trouble. Trouble
because we can’t take out the snakes immediately. We have to play
the game with them and help them bite and poison themselves.

“What I always find fascinating in these
discussions is that you all seem to think it’s just
my
client who uses these shelters. This is how Wall Street works,
Boys,” Bradford said before taking a sip from his bottle of Honest
Tea.

I had to laugh at the irony. Perhaps he
thought if he drank the stuff, he’d be more apt to live it.

“Oh, but you underestimate,” I said, leaning
up in my seat, ready to toss these tigers a big ‘ole hunk of meat
to chew on. “We know that the United States has been trying to
replace Switzerland as the criminal financial center of the world
for years. Wall Street needs that kind of money to continue the
financialization and leveraging of our economy.”

“What we find even more disturbing, however,
is that you, as a Presidential Contender, are its Poster Boy.
Dealing in both foreign and American criminal money doesn’t seem
very patriotic, does it, Governor?” My sister asked, her voice as
icy as mine.

“What does this have to do with Box 438?”
Bradford cut in, this time, he also leaned forward from his
reclined and formerly ultra-cool position.

“That, we don’t know yet. But we can promise
you, we’ll figure it out,” I said.

Not so sure of yourself now, are you, Big
Boy, I silently harrumphed. Let’s see if I can make you sweat and
squirm some more.

The Governor’s wife excused herself, saying
she needed to help their grandchildren make peanut butter
sandwiches.

“It’s dirty money, Governor. And it’s really
starting to smell,” Bunny said, leaning in beside me to ratchet up
the pressure.

“I think this conversation is over,” The
Governor said, looking to his attorney for confirmation.

“Not for long, Governor. Your ride here is
about to get a lot more bumpy.”

Bunny was on a role.

“We appreciate your concern, don’t we
Bradford?” The Governor said, standing up to encourage us to do the
same.

“Oh, it’s not a concern. It’s a promise,” I
said and stood, motioning for Roman and Bunny to follow my lead.
“We’ll show ourselves to the door.”

A
multi-billion
dollar war chest was what we were dealing with. A chest kept for
Wall Street in safe havens around the world. Tax avoidance safe
havens.

Men like Crumley, in the top one percent of
the top one percent, have net worths in the hundreds of millions of
dollars, if not billions. But what kind of tax rates do they pay?
Most, around thirteen percent at best.

Middle class Americans, on the other hand,
often pay closer to thirty percent.

On top of that, most Middle Class money is
clean, coming from a hard day’s work. Not the dirty, smelly stuff
the top one percent are mostly made of.

I’ll be honest, after hearing about the
meeting on the bus, I had no idea what Box 438 was, but I was
learning, thanks to a few Bunny Winston tutorials.

“Did you know that most US Presidents have
been total business failures?” She asked me, reading yet another
article about this year’s presidential campaign on her new
iPad.