The Millionaires - Brad Meltzer [136]
Moving the cursor up toward the Deposits section, I study the three newest entries to the account:
$63,672.11—wire transfer from Account 225751116.
$92,254.74—wire transfer from Account 11000571210.
$87,542.12—internal transfer from Account 9008410321.
My eyes narrow and I press my lips together.
“It’s the same way he studies mom’s bills,” Charlie says to Gillian.
Reaching forward, I palm the top corner of the monitor. I’m not letting this one go. “Oh, don’t tell me he—” I cut myself off and recheck the numbers.
“What?” Gillian asks.
I don’t answer. I shake my head, lost in the screen. Searching for more, I click on the box marked Deposits. A smaller window opens, and I’m staring at Duckworth’s full account history. Every deposit on record from start to—
“How the hell did he… I-It’s not possible…” I stumble, scrolling down the digital pages of the account. The more I scroll, the longer it goes. Deposit after deposit. Sixty thousand, eighty thousand, ninety-seven thousand. They don’t seem to stop. I’ve got that gnawing pit in my stomach. It doesn’t make sense…
“Just say it!” Charlie begs.
Startled, I turn around.
“What? You forgot we were here?” Gillian asks, surprisingly curt.
Letting go of the monitor, I move back from the screen so they can squeeze in. “See this right here?” I ask, pointing to the box for Deposits.
Charlie rolls his eyes. “Even I know how a deposit works, Ollie.”
“It’s not the deposit,” I say. “It’s where it came from.”
“I don’t understand…”
Behind us, the elevator dings and Charlie angles his neck back toward its opening doors. Two elderly women holding each other’s hands come out. Nothing to worry about. At least, not yet.
“Check out each of the deposits,” I say as Charlie turns back to the screen. “Sixty-three thousand… ninety-two thousand… eighty-seven thousand.” I motion to the other deposits before them. “See the trend?”
He squints toward the monitor. “You mean, besides being buckets of cash?”
“Look at the amounts, Charlie. Duckworth’s account has over two million dollars moving in every day—but there’s not a single deposit that’s over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“So?”
“So, one hundred thousand is also the threshold amount where the bank’s automatic auditing system kicks into place—which means…”
“… anything under a hundred grand doesn’t get audited,” Gillian says.
“That’s the game,” I reply. “It’s called smurfing—you pick the amount that’s just small enough to squeeze under the monitoring threshold. People do it all the time—especially when clients don’t want us questioning their cash transactions.”
“I don’t get what the big deal is. So, he’s a smurf.”
“He’s not a smurf. He’s smurfing. Smurfing,” I say. “And the big deal is that it’s the number one way to keep it below the radar.”
“Keep what below the radar?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out,” I say, turning back to the screen.
65
Stuck in a strangle of traffic on Broward Boulevard, Joey reached over to the passenger seat, fished through her purse, and pulled out the photo of Duckworth and Gillian. At first glance, it was dad and daughter, happy as could be. But now that she had it in the light—now that she knew…
Damn, that’s a rookie mistake, she told herself as she slammed the steering wheel. Holding the photo up close, she didn’t know how she missed it before. It wasn’t just the bad proportions—even the shadows were skewed. Duckworth had the shade on the left side of his face; Gillian had it on the right. Total rush job, she decided. Rushed, but still decent enough to pass.
Pulling into a strip mall parking lot, she flipped open her laptop and went back to the digital photos of the Greene Bank offices she took the first day. Oliver’s, Charlie’s, Shep’s, Lapidus’s, Quincy’s, and even Mary’s. One by one, she took another pass, flipping through the…
“Rat bastards,” she muttered as soon as she saw it. She leaned down toward the screen, just to make sure she was right. The hair was