“Hold
it a second.” Sink picked up his phone and dialed an extension. “Barry, come in
here, will ya?” He looked at Scarne. “Barry’s one of my interns. The in-house
bomb thrower. Likes to collect dirt on people, very little of which I can ever
run. He’s my Ballantrae expert.”
A
moment later the scruffy kid with the ponytail slouched in.
“Tell
this gentleman everything you know, or think you know, about Victor Ballantrae
and his operations.”
He
gave Scarne a suspicious glance.
“Who
the fuck is he? A cop?”
“Someone
whose cash may allow me to keep you the fuck on as an intern.”
Barry
shrugged. “This can get complicated, you may want to take notes.” He picked up
a legal pad from Sink’s desk and flipped it toward Scarne. Then he started
talking, as if from memory.
“Ballantrae
International is an international holding company trying to get its fingers in
everyone’s pie. Victor Ballantrae is Australian. His antecedents are murky, as
is his personal and business life Down Under. Had some minor scrapes with the
law that were ascribed to youthful indiscretion. Apparently straightened
himself out and moved to England to get a degree in finance. Returned home.
Bounced around and then went into banking, if you can call it that. Opened up
shell banks in Niue and Nauru, two rock-sized islands in the Pacific with a
combined population of 12,000. But they domiciled 500 banks, some of which
reportedly washed millions for Russian mobsters and officials stealing the
former U.S.S.R. blind.”
Scarne’s
initial opinion of the kid slowly gave way to awe. Behind the scruff and
ponytail was a real brain.
“The
banks, of course, were just pieces of paper. If you could fog a mirror and pay
the fees, you could open a bank. Ballantrae supposedly transferred a lot of
cash from the islands to a bank he started in Australia. All quasi-legal, by
the way. Before 9/11, Australia was pretty Wild West in banking circles. Lots
of money went into the kangaroo’s pouch dirty and came out squeaky clean. Aussies
are big in offshore Internet casinos, too, and I hear Ballantrae had a piece of
that as well.
He
paused to let Scarne finish what he was writing.
“Anyway,
Australia finally started cracking down on the money launderers and Ballantrae
set out for friendlier climes. And no place was friendlier than the Caribbean
after Ballantrae bought off Congress – both sides of the aisle, by the way –
and torpedoed legislation restricting offshore banking. Ballantrae
International Bank in Antigua is now one of the largest offshore banks in the
region. My bet is that a lot of those Russian rubles found their way there. As
with any offshore bank there are rumors of money laundering for South American
drug dealers. Then, of course, there is Pavlo Boyko. Heard of him?”
“No,”
Scarne said, still writing. “I hope there isn’t going to be a quiz.”
“Boyko
is the former Prime Minister of the Ukraine who fled to the U.S. in the late
1990’s after wiring $200 million from his treasury out of the country. He
sought asylum but was instead arrested and is now serving a long stretch in
Marion. But the money was never recovered and the suspicion is that it
eventually wound up for safekeeping with his brother in Seattle. Andriy Boyko
is a fish wholesaler but he also runs the Ukrainian mob on the West Coast.”
Barry
paused for effect and even did a credible drum roll on Sink’s desk with a
couple of pencils.
“But
here’s the interesting part. Andriy supposedly needed someone to launder all
that money. He’s smart enough to know that the Feds were one step behind. He
had to get it out of the country again. After all, you can hide only so much
cash under dead mackerel. And that’s where Ballantrae comes in, or so my
sources tell me. He’s the new banker for the Ukrainians.”
“Why
did they pick him?
“Word
is that he came highly recommended from the Seattle Mafia, which got to know
him through his Internet casino operations. He handled a lot of their money and
the Ukrainians went to them for advice.”
“Where
did you get this?”
The
kid looked at Sink, who nodded.
“The
stuff about Pavlo is public record. And his brother is all over the papers out
there. But a lot of it comes from disgruntled competitors and pissed-off
ex-employees who say something is fishy, pardon the pun, but don’t want their
names used.”
“And
none of this has appeared in the newsletter?’
“Nah.
Reggie is a pussy.”
Sink
snorted derisively.
“Mafia,
Ukrainians, why not throw in al-Qaeda while you’re at it. I only act crazy.
It’s good for circulation. When you get something you can prove, snot ass, let
me see it.”
The
intern laughed. “Sure, boss.” He started to walk out.
“Let’s
suppose,” Scarne said, “that some of what Barry suspects is true. Would it
change your mind about what Ballantrae might do to suppress it?”
“Yeah,
sure,” Sink said. “If the Shields kid had something solid tying Ballantrae to
the Ukrainian mob it would do more than queer an investment deal. It could be
all over for him. Even the Feds couldn’t ignore that.”
Barry
stopped at the door and turned around.
“Who’s
the Shields kid?”
“Reporter
who worked for the
South Florida Times
,” Sink said. “Used the name
Hidless, was looking into Ballantrae.”
“You
mean Josh? His real name was Shields?”
Both
Scarne and Sink stared at the kid.
“What?
What’d I say?”
Finally,
Scarne said, “You knew him?”
“Sure.
Had some drinks at Michael Collins, a pub on Lincoln Road. Hangout for
underpaid media types.” He looked at Sink. “Like me.”
“Did
he ever mention Ballantrae?”
“All
the time. We’d compare notes. Talk on the phone a couple of times a week. He even
came by here once or twice. Haven’t heard from him in a while. Want me to give
him a call?”
“Don’t
bother,” Scarne said.
***
Sink
walked Scarne out.
“You
realize that none of this proves anything,” he said. “Two kids exchanging
conspiracy theories.”
“Josh
wasn’t a kid. He had serious investigative creds. He might have run down those
rumors and sources Barry fed him. Maybe they’re not rumors.”
“You
think he had proof? So they killed him?”
“I
don’t know. Maybe all it took was him being right.”
Well,
if it’s true I hope you nail the bastard. I’d love that story.”
Huber
and Pourior had said virtually the same thing.
“I’m
thinking of starting a news service,” Scarne said. “In the meantime, tell those
kids not to be too curious about Ballantrae. Just to be safe.”
“Shit.
I didn’t think about that. You’re right. But what about you?”
“I’m
not even sure Ballantrae did anything. I may be thinking zebras when I’m
hearing horses. But if he did, making a run at me would be a red flag for too
many people. Including Randolph Shields. I’m pretty sure he’s probably spoken
to Ballantrae about me by now.”
“I’d
still be careful. Are you going to see Victor Ballantrae?”
“That’s
the plan.”
“He’s
a hard man to get a hold of. Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Well,
you’re in luck. He’s in town, giving a luncheon speech tomorrow at the
Biltmore. Some organization called the Caribbean Basin Free Trade Alliance.
Probably launders money for some of its members.”
CHAPTER
18 – DEATH BY MISNOMER
In
Scarne’s experience, medical examiners looked nothing like the quirky, handsome
or beautiful actors who portrayed them on television or in the movies. Most
looked just like everyone else in any other profession.
Eric
Fonthill was the exception. He was an M.E. from B-movie central casting in the
era before Hollywood made the profession so sexy. He’d given Scarne a general
description and told him where he’d be sitting at the outside bar at Monty’s, a
seafood restaurant at a marina just short of Coconut Grove proper. And that’s
where he was, hunched over a menu, sipping a beer and looking like Ichabod
Crane’s twin. He was even dressed all in black. Although there was a decent
lunchtime crowd, the stools on either side of him were empty, as if people
instinctively sensed something foreboding in a man leafing through entrees with
hands that had probably just been in somebody’s entrails.
Despite
his grim reaper demeanor Fonthill had a pleasant smile and a warm, firm
handshake that Scarne, not wanting to give away his thoughts, returned
vigorously. And he didn’t smell of formaldehyde. Still, Scare was happy to be
eating outside. They grabbed a table by the water, sitting on benches opposite
each other.
“Sorry,
I’m late,” Scarne said. “Took me almost an hour from Weston.”
“Yeah,
traffic is getting out of hand down here.”
Small
boats in their berths made bumping sounds against the dock and water lapped
over the walkway. They ordered a pitcher of beer, a basket of boiled shrimp to
munch and two grilled grouper sandwiches. Fonthill had also been primed by a
call from the N.Y.P.D. and even knew some M.E.’s in Manhattan so they talked
shop for a few minutes. The shrimp came and Scarne was relieved to have his own
dipping sauce. They were halfway through their grouper when Scarne got around
to Josh Shields.
“What
killed him?”
Fonthill
reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a thick envelope, which he
handed to Scarne.
“Copy
of the report. You didn’t get it from me. My boss would throw a clot. The death
looked pretty straightforward. Body hadn’t been in the ocean all that long, and
apparently the water was a bit chillier than normal. But it’s still Southern
Florida and there are all sorts of creatures out there on the chow line. Poor
guy was nibbled over some. Tox screen was pretty normal. No blunt trauma
injuries, bullet holes, knife wounds, striations, reticular hemorrhages or
anything else to indicate the proverbial foul play.”
“You
didn’t list it as a drowning,” Scarne said, sifting through the sheets.
“There
wasn’t much water in his lungs. He died quick, if miserably. Cause of death was
cardiac arrest, an arrhythmia, either natural or caused by a shock. My own
guess, and it’s only a guess, he got stung by jellyfish in the dark, got
disoriented, fell into the water, got stung some more and it overwhelmed him.”
“Newspapers
said it was a drowning.”
“You
know how that goes. It was an ‘apparent drowning’ in the first stories and
that’s how it stayed. Nobody followed up but the family, and I guess they’re
still unhappy, which is why you’re here. But it’s not like the Miami Beach cops
or the local rags would broadcast the possibility that a swarm of jellyfish
blobbed him to death. The Chamber of Commerce would go nuts.”
“Was
it possible?”
“Well,
he had a lot of Men-of-War stings on his face and neck. Even had some damage to
his eyes and the inside of his mouth. Found a jellyfish in his throat.” He
looked at Scarne, who had stopped eating his sandwich. “Could have been
postmortem. Bottom line, I think Josh Shields died of the world’s worst case of
bad luck. Couldn’t put that down. So arrhythmia it was.”
Scarne,
thinking of the jellyfish, had trouble swallowing his beer.
“This
is going to sound crazy to you, but is there any way a jellyfish could have
been forced into his mouth?”
Surprisingly,
Fonthill took the question seriously.
“Let
me think. I suppose if someone held your mouth open and someone else dropped
one in, it’s possible. But that’s an awful lot of trouble. More likely it just
kind of drifted in when he was floating around with his mouth open. You wouldn’t
believe some of the things that I find in people after they’ve been in the
ocean. One guy, I thought it was his tongue hanging out, all purple and
everything, except it had eyes. That was weird.”
Scarne
put the remains of his fish sandwich permanently aside.
“Of
course, he could have just kind of inhaled it reflexively, in kind of a spasm,
when the other Men-of-War fired off.”
“Fired
off?”
“Yeah.
The term ‘jellyfish’ is a misnomer. A Portuguese Man-of-War is a hydrozoa, made
up of four different animals. Each has its own job. The blue sail is one
animal, the tentacles another, and so on. Like a commune, except without sex,
at least not the kind we’d appreciate. The poison is in the nematocysts in the
tentacles, which can stretch out several feet from the main body, which might
only be six-inches long.” Fonthill picked up a large pickle from his plate and
placed it on the table. Then he arranged some coleslaw so it looked it was a
bunch of tentacles. Their waitress swooped by, took one look, and swooped away.
“This is not to scale, of course, and the colors are all wrong. Anyway, when
the nematocysts hit something or become irritated they explode and release the
toxin.”
For
this part of the demonstration, which had now attracted the attention of nearby
diners, Fonthill used a leftover boiled shrimp, which he dropped into the
coleslaw tentacles.
“Bam!
Brutal stuff, about 75% as powerful as cobra venom and made up of all sorts of
enzymes that are hard to spell. Smaller doses than a snake bite, of course, and
not injected as deeply. Paralyzes small fish and shrimp that are then drawn
into the part of the colony that digests.” He picked up the shrimp and popped
it in his mouth. “So Shields probably got hit with a bunch of tentacles from a
dozen Men-of-War and spazzed out. One sting has been compared to getting hit by
lightning, so a lot of simultaneous stings would be unbearable. He might have
been particularly sensitive because he apparently had a run-in with a
Man-of-War a couple of weeks earlier. The cops found a discharge slip from an
emergency room. You gonna finish the other half of your sandwich?”
Scarne
pushed it across to him.
“I
don’t think the toxin killed him,” Fonthill said, biting into the grouper. “No
sign of anaphylactic shock. But from the look of the welts, there would have
been incredible pain in his face, eyes, neck and chest. And that probably
caused the arrhythmia. Like I said, I think the poor guy was just unlucky.”
“I
take it the family wasn’t told about the extent of the jellyfish stings.”
Fonthill
looked thoughtful.
“I
doubt it. I mentioned the stings in my report, but it might have gotten lost in
all the other medical and marine verbiage. Don’t forget, we couldn’t be sure it
was the jellyfish. Maybe he was drowning, and just died before he could do a
good job of it.”
“Chamber
of Commerce has that much clout down here?”
“I’m
just glad he wasn’t eaten by a shark. I hate it when I have to put down that
the victim cut himself shaving.”
“I
didn’t mean…”
“Hey,
no sweat. I’m kidding. We write them up as we see them. But this was too
ambiguous to go off half cocked. There hadn’t been any other serious jellyfish
incidents. I would have been irresponsible saying jellyfish were the cause of
death when I wasn’t sure. You asked me what I thought. I told you. What I know
is that his heart stopped in a way that suggested an arrhythmia. Maybe they
wanted to spare the family.”
Scarne
thought of something else.
“Even
if he was seriously stung, would death be so instantaneous he couldn’t make it
to shore? Instinctively try to get help.”
Fonthill
took some time thinking about that.
“Maybe
he waded far out. It’s real shallow there. Course, it was supposed to be pretty
dark and the surf was up that night. Wasn’t there some talk of suicide? You
know, like Norman Maine in
A Star Is Born
?”
Fonthill
looked like the kind of person who watched old movies.
“I’m
not ruling anything out. The kid’s father thinks he was murdered.”
“Whoa!
That’s a stretch.” Fonthill looked thoughtful again. “But it’s one of those
things you can’t disprove. Lots of things could have stopped his heart and left
no trace. We’re pretty good, but finding a needle puncture or something like
that in a shriveled corpse that’s been chewed on by crustaceans is almost
impossible, unless you’re on TV. And like I said, the only thing on the tox
screen was jellyfish venom. Lots of it. I will admit that the gap between when
he died and when the body was found is troubling. He must have been in pretty
deep.”
“Could
someone have dragged him out and drowned him?”
“No
water in the lungs, remember?” Fonthill paused. “And no obvious trauma to the
body, which we’d pick up even given the condition of the body. He was a young
guy. Probably would have fought back. Of course, if he was already dead….”
Fonthill finished his beer and wiped foam off his upper lip. “Let’s see.
Someone kills our boy with something we can’t trace. Then swims his body out to
deeper water.” He was talking to himself. “A lot of trouble just to kill
someone. The nearest public beach access is blocks away. He’d be chancing
getting spotted going back through one of the apartment gates. Make more sense
if he had a boat. Even more if he someone to help him.”
Fonthill
popped a final shrimp in his mouth.
“But
my money is still on the jellyfish. Listen, thanks for the lunch. I don’t get
out all that much.”
Scarne
could believe that.
“I
appreciate your help. Want some more beer?”
“Nah.
I have to get back. Got to keep my hands steady. Don’t carry malpractice
insurance.” He cackled. It was apparently an old morgue joke.