There is no mercy for the hung over. I looked at my calendar and saw that I had a meeting at 9:00 am. It was the third meeting of Alexander's committee to decide the fate of the street light globes. I didn't want to go, but I had missed the first two, so I had to show up for this one. After the committee meeting I had some free time. I could meet with Angel and Patience on the Oxenstein case and then have lunch with Gita. Later on, I had office hours and an evening class. I mentally made a note that I wouldn't be able to have a beer until after 8:00 p.m., so my current condition was going to with me for at least the next twelve hours.
I arrived on time for the committee meeting, albeit a little short on enthusiasm. I was fairly sure that no progress had been made at the two meetings I had missed. Immediately we engaged in a discussion of our pressing issue.
Erlichman from the history department suggested that these globes were further evidence of aggressive imperialism on the part of the university and that a committee should be set up to study the encroachment of the university on the surrounding neighborhoods. Laxsis from chemistry agreed. Walters from building and grounds observed that all they were trying to do was beautify the sidewalks and create a greater sense of campus. There was no plan, he insisted, to consume the adjoining neighborhoods. Laxsis nodded his support. One of my colleagues from the marketing department suggested that we try to tie the 'globes' to the 'global' role of the university. She made quote signs with her fingers to help those of us who might have trouble connecting globes with global. This went on for a while until Alexander broke in.
"Do we have any specific recommendations to the administration?" he posed to the group.
"Clearly we have a diversity of opinions on this issue," observed Suthers from the English department, "and somebody has to make a decision."
"Yes," volunteered Milner from the general council's office, "somebody has to make a decision." I was happy to see that Milner was neither comatose nor mummified as I had previously thought, but actually keeping up with the discussion.
The opposition fell like dominoes as everyone agreed with the Suthers/Milner observation.
"Well, since we have a clear consensus on that statement," offered Erlichman, "I think that is the message we need to forward to the administration."
Heads nodded and affirmations were murmured. A motion was made and the vote was unanimous. Alexander beamed with satisfaction over a job well done. The bowling ball in my head rolled lazily from side to side and the scotch ale from the night before had turned into foot powder in my mouth.
I stopped by the small convenience store in the student union building and got donuts and coffee. My favorite was chocolate cake donuts. Patience and Angel both liked jelly filled. I thought that ten dollars was a lot for a bag of donuts and some coffee until I realized that at my consulting rate, I had spend more than ten dollars worth of my time picking out the donuts. I mentally discounted my rate for being hung over and the total cost of the donuts dropped making me feel like I had gotten a bargain.
When I finally got to my office, Angel and Patience were talking excitedly over the computer screen.
"You're going to like this," Angel said as she shifted in her chair with excitement. She looked at Patience and they smiled at each other to further savor the moment. "You were right about how he laundered his money."
"The records only go back about ten years," she explained. "But for most of that period Oxenstein was acquiring a variety of small businesses - mostly adult video stores. The revenues that he acquired from those businesses tracks perfectly with his investment portfolio. He was compulsive about keeping records and everything balances to the penny."
"What about all that cash that they found?" I asked.
"We've got that covered too." Again she shifted in her chair with pleasure and excitement. "Patience, why don't you explain that part."
Patience stepped in like a tag team wrestler, ready to tackle the next problem. "It looks like he took your advice, Dr. Wentworth. About two years ago he started purchasing a lot of video stores and video game arcades. In his first month of owning these new stores, he brought in an additional hundred grand in clean cash. Most of the money was plowed back into purchases. His laundry machine grew at a rate of about fifteen percent per month until he was pulling in over a half million in clean cash each month after the first year."
"Well, it looks like you have it all figured out," I said with great respect. They had turned this around in twenty-four hours and that was no small feat.
The shadow of a dark cloud passed over Angel's face. "We don't have it all figured out," she said. "There are still some pretty big loose ends."
"Such as?" I prodded.
"From ten years ago until two years ago, Oxenstein was either doing well on legitimate businesses or was maximizing them for laundering. Either way all the monies gained from those businesses went into legitimate investments and was clean money. Then two years ago, he began laundering big time. He must have had millions to clean. Where did that huge infusion of cash come from?"
"I don't know," I said. I still wasn't sure how much of what D.J. said was true. "Maybe D.J. had some money."
"There's more," Patience continued. "About a year ago the purchasing stopped and the laundry machine continued to produce a steady half million a month of clean cash. At the same time he started making payments to McNulty The first payment was an even hundred grand, the second was a hundred and twenty five, and so on. It looks like he was paying blackmail to McNulty, but if that was the case why didn't Oxenstein kill McNulty instead of the other way around."
"Here's what I think happened," I said trying to put all of the pieces together. "Oxenstein was doing just fine with all of his businesses. Some were probably perfectly legal and others were probably illegal. He used the legal businesses to launder money from the illegal businesses in an elaborate scheme that was small time, safe and hard to trace. Then D.J. showed up in his life. She had an enormous amount of cash that she had accumulated over many years of cash businesses and shady activities. They decided to put their past lives behind them and start new lives somewhere else. The problem was that they had to clean all of D.J.'s accumulated cash and they had to do it in a fairly short amount of time. So he came to me for advice on money laundering and implemented a few of the ideas I suggested. The only problem was that it could take twenty years to launder all of D.J.'s money and they didn't have twenty years to wait. Also, managing all those acquisitions and not drawing attention to himself was becoming a problem for Oxenstein. So he began to look for some new ways to launder large amounts of money. All of a sudden this con man named McNulty showed up with a convincing scheme and Oxenstein bought it. I don't know if the scheme was that clever or if Oxenstein's was vulnerable because of D.J., but either way he bought into it. McNulty, being the died in the wool con man that he was never had any intention of laundering the money. He simply took payments from Oxenstein until The Ox Man began to ask too many questions. Then McNulty sneaked into his apartment and blew his head off. With Oxenstein dead, McNulty had the money free and clear. It was a clever job except for two loose ends."
"And what were those," asked Patience.
"First, I think that Oxenstein told D.J. about McNulty but didn't tell McNulty about D.J.. McNulty figured that the police would be happy that Oxenstein had bought the big porno flick in the sky and wouldn't push the investigation too hard. He didn't figure that there would be a concerned widow who had actually heard his name mentioned. Second, he never imagined that Oxenstein would be so compulsive as to make an electronic record of these transactions. We had motive and means. If we can prove opportunity, I think we can nail McNulty."
"How can you show opportunity?" Angel asked.
"If we can find somebody who saw McNulty in Oxenstein's neighborhood on the night of the murder, that would be a great start. I'm going out there this afternoon with Gita to talk to the neighbors."
"Is there anything we can do?" asked Patience.
"Yes, two things. First see if there are any other files that could be used to account for the cash found in the apartment. Second use the information that you have gathered to explain as much money as you can. Separate the strong arguments from the wobbly ones. See how much money you can account for without question, and how much more you can account for if you make a few assumptions. I think we can get the bulk of D.J.'s money back to her. So now I am going to concentrate on finding Oxenstein's murderer."
"Didn't D.J. hire us to recover her money?" asked Patience.
"Yes." I replied, knowing where she was going with this.
"Shouldn't you leave the murder to the DCPD?" added Angel.
"Of course, I should," I agreed. But, of course, I wouldn't.
I thought about Oxenstein's incredible prowess at shady business dealings and how both D.J. and Gershom had pulled themselves up against great adversity with cunning and persistence. The elaborate trail that Oxenstein had set up to account for his money was impressive to say the least. The string of clubs that D.J. had acquired, although vulnerable to an inspection by auditors, was equally as impressive. Then I thought about that committee meeting this morning and its complete lack of consequence. I thought about how Gita had to kill a man who almost killed me for the crime of being naïve. I began to think about things like - right and wrong, legal and illegal - and what it all meant. I was wrestling again with the angel of lost innocence and the angel was winning.
Some say that the Iliad and the Odyssey are a metaphor for life. You spend your early life meeting the expectations of society and filling roles that have been defined for you. Then, once you fulfill your goals, you find out that the rules change and that there are no rules. You find that the structure of society is just a lot of people's best guesses about how things ought to be and sometimes your own guesses are better. Maybe Oxenstein deserved to die. Maybe D.J. deserved to loose her money. Maybe I should just let the DCPD handle the case. Maybe I should stick to my classes where the most damage I could ever do would be to give somebody a bad grade. Maybe I should stay in my ivory tower and do my work insulated from the nastiness of life. Maybe, but I didn't think so. The angel had pinned me fairly and I was going to embark on another Odyssey. My ultimate destination was always to find a place in the world that made sense for me, but that was too elusive and might take a long time. For now, I was going to begin by getting D.J.'s money back for her and making McNulty pay for his crime.
I reached for the telephone and dialed Gita's number.