Title:The Cold Six Thousand
Author(s): James Ellroy
Publisher(s): Vintage Books
Pages: 688
Year: 2002
Format: EPUB
Language: English
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The Boys dressed down-golf shirts and Bermuda shorts.
Carlos sipped brandy. «Here$prime;s the opening pitch. Hughes is non compos mental, and he thinks he$prime;s got Ward in his pocket. We sell him the hotels and make him keep our inside people. They step up the skim. He don$prime;t suspect anything, $prime;cause we show him some low profit figures before he buys.»
Littell shook his head. «His negotiators will audit every tax return filed for every hotel, going back ten years. If you refuse to submit them, they$prime;ll try to subpoena them or bribe the right people for copies. And you can$prime;t submit doctored returns with low figures, because it will bring down your initial asking prices.»
Sam said, «So?»
Littell sipped club soda. «We need the highest possible set purchase prices, with the buyout money dispersed over eighteen months. Our long-term goal is to establish the appearance of legitimately invested money, diverted into legitimate businesses and laundered within them. My plan is-»
Carlos cut in. «The plan-get to it, and lay it out in words we can understand.»
Littell smiled. «We have the buyout and skim money. We purchase legitimate businesses with it. The businesses belong to recipients of pensionfund loans. They are the most specifically profitable and cosmetically noncriminal businesses that originated with loans from the $prime;real$prime; books. Thus, the origin of the money is obscured. Thus, the recipients are prone to extortion and will not protest the forced buyouts. The recipients will continue to run their businesses. Our people will oversee the operations and divert the profits. We funnel the money into foreign hotel-casinos. By $prime;foreign$prime; I mean Latin-American. By Latin-American I mean countries under military or strongly rightist rule. The casino profits will leave said countries untaxed. They will go into Swiss bank accounts and accrue interest. The ultimate cash withdrawals will be absolutely untraceable.»
Carlos smiled. Santo clapped. Johnny said, «It$prime;s like Cuba.»
Moe said, «It$prime;s ten Cubas.»
Sam said, «Why stop there?»
Littell grabbed an apple. «For now, it$prime;s all long-range and theoretical. We$prime;re waiting for Mr. Hughes to dump his TWA stock and secure his seed money.»
Santo said, «We$prime;re talking about years.»
Sam said, «We$prime;re talking about patience.»
Johnny said, «It$prime;s a virtue. I read that somewhere.»
Moe said, «We watch the climate south of the border. We find ourselves a dozen Batistas.»
Sam said, «Show me a spic you can$prime;t bribe.»
Santo said, «All they want is a white uniform with gold epaulets.»
Sam said, «They$prime;re like niggers that way.»
Johnny said, «They don$prime;t tolerate Commies. You got to give them that.»
Carlos grabbed some grapes. «I$prime;ve got the books stashed. You have to figure that Jimmy$prime;ll fall for that jury-tampering thing.»
Littell nodded. «That and his other indictments.»
Sam winked. «You stole the books, Ward. Now tell us you didn$prime;t copy them over.»
Johnny laughed. Moe laughed. Santo roared.
Littell smiled. «We should think about the inside people. Mr. Hughes will want to hire Mormons.»
Sam cracked his knuckles. «I don$prime;t like Mormons. They hate Italians.»
Carlos sipped X.O. «Do you blame them?»
Santo said, «Nevada$prime;s a Mormon state. It$prime;s like New York for the Italians.»
Moe said, «You mean the Jews.»
Johnny laughed. «It$prime;s a serious issue. Hughes will want to pick his own people.»
Sam coughed. «We can$prime;t back down on that. We$prime;ve got to keep our people inside.»
Littell pared his apple. «We should find our own Mormons. I$prime;ll be talking to a man soon. He runs the Kitchen Union.»
Moe said, «Wayne Tedrow Senior.»
Sam said, «He hates Italians.»
Moe said, «He$prime;s not wild about Jews.»
Santo peeled a cigar. «To me this is bullshit. I want made guys inside.»
Johnny said, «I agree.»
Moe grabbed the cigar. «Are you trying to kill me?»
Carlos peeled a Mars Bar. «Let$prime;s table this for now, all right? We$prime;re talking about years down the road.»