The Bridge to Caracas

  Startled by the noise, Mike hurried to the door. He saw Karen leaning against his car with her face buried in her hands. He ran to her and took her in his arms. “What happened?” he asked.

  “This is insanity!” Karen shrieked, pressing her head against Mike’s chest. “I don’t care what the consequences are, I just want out.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do you suddenly want out?”

  Karen lifted her head and stared into Mike’s eyes. “I gave that animal a son and nine years of my life!” she hissed. “This is my reward!” She removed the lipstick cartridge from her pocket and shoved it into Mike’s gaze.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Upstairs in the bathroom. Go upstairs and smell the sheets and pillows in the master bedroom. He’s running a goddamned whore house out here!”

  Mike kissed her forehead and wiped her tears. “Don’t run, babe. Let it burn. Let’s bring the son of a bitch down.”

  She broke from Mike’s arms and walked away. After she’d gone several yards, she stopped and turned to face him. Her frown gradually transformed into an evil grin. “You’re right. Let’s go back in there and nail the son of a bitch!” she said. She hurried to him, reached for his hand, and led him back to the farmhouse.

  Lanotti had watched the whole event from the cover of the trees, no more than a hundred feet away. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, but passed on the photo opportunity.

  “Did you find anything?” Karen asked.

  Mike nodded. “Let me show you something.” He took her hand, led her to Servito’s office, and pointed to numerous stacks of invoices on the floor. “I’ve been going through the files one drawer at a time. I pulled out anything that looked interesting. So far, everything looks interesting, but not incriminating.”

  Karen descended to her knees and began to flip through a stack of invoices. She studied one for several seconds. “Why did this appear interesting to you?”

  “Good question. It shows that Niagara Oil & Gas sold gasoline to Triple K Gas Bars in Rome, New York. It also shows that Triple K paid New York State Road Tax and Federal Sales Tax to Niagara Oil & Gas. Niagara Oil & Gas is legally bound to remit the tax to the government, but I’m willing to bet Niagara paid it to Servito instead. I just wish there was some way we could prove it.”

  “Is Niagara Oil & Gas a refiner?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, why did it collect the tax?”

  “Niagara Oil & Gas is a licensed wholesaler. It bought the gasoline from a refiner on an ex tax basis, collected the tax from Triple K, and presumably remitted it to the government.”

  “Suppose Niagara Oil & Gas decided not to remit the tax. How does the government control that?”

  “The government licenses qualified wholesalers to collect tax on their account. Niagara Oil & Gas had to post a large bond to get that license, to ensure that the government gets its tax money. They also do frequent audits of wholesalers’ books, just to keep them honest.”

  Karen nodded, but retained a puzzled expression. “If Niagara Oil & Gas is frequently audited, how could it keep any tax money?”

  “Imports and exports,” Mike replied. “Take that invoice for instance. I bet Niagara Oil & Gas bought that gasoline from a refiner in Canada, trucked it across the border, and sold it to Triple K in the United States. The purchase of gasoline in Canada wouldn’t show up in the tax records in New York.”

  “Wouldn’t the Americans get some record at the border?”

  “Yes, but unless U.S. Customs physically verified the ultimate destination of the gasoline, and matched the delivery to the export manifest, the records would die in the files. Because the gasoline was bought for export, the Canadian Government assumed the gasoline left the country, and that the American taxes were paid and collected by American governments. Unless an anomaly showed up in American records of gasoline tax receipts, there would be no problem. If an anomaly did show up, the job of finding the cause would be horrendous. The feds would have to cross reference every single gasoline transaction, and physically verify them all.”

  “Do you think Jim’s evading taxes?”

  “If he’s taking a couple million a month to Grand Cayman, I’d bet my life on it.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Servito was well aware that the day might come when he would have to leave North America and never return. The primary thrust of his retirement savings plan was thus to launder his money and to spread it to as many safe havens as possible, thereby ensuring a comfortable exile. His monthly deposits in the Banco International Venezolano on Grand Cayman were courtesy of Bridge Financial Inc., a company incorporated in Curacao and named after the Peace Bridge, which was still the fulcrum of his incredible scam. From there, Bridge Financial transferred the funds to a numbered account in Switzerland. Occasionally, Bridge Financial wired funds to its account in a branch of the Banco International Venezolano in Curacao. Those funds were used to purchase U.S. government treasury notes, in bearer form, of course, to preserve the anonymity of the owner. A tax treaty between the U.S. government and the Netherlands Antilles allowed Bridge Financial to avoid the thirty percent withholding tax levied against non-resident recipients of treasury note interest income.

  When Servito landed his airplane at the farm, the flashing red light on the answering machine in his office beckoned. Most of the messages were business related. One, however, was not. “Boss, it’s George… George Lanotti. I followed your wife like you said I should do. She’s been real busy while you’ve been gone. You ain’t gonna like the pictures I took. Call me when you get back.”

  “Fuck!” he shouted, and then called Lanotti at his home in Toronto. “George, what the hell did you mean when you said my wife was real busy?” he asked.

  “She’s been spendin’ a lotta time with another guy.”

  “What other guy?” Servito shouted.

  “I don’t know him, boss. I never seen him before.”

  “Did you get pictures of him?”

  “A ton of ‘em. I even got pictures of him and your wife goin’ in and out of your farm. You wanna see ‘em?”

  “Jesus! When were they at the farm?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “How long did they stay?”

  “About five hours.”

  “That bitch! Get Allison and get your asses up here right now! Tell him to bring the limo, and don’t you forget those photographs!” Servito ordered. He slammed the receiver down violently, the desire to see his wife suddenly replaced with rage and hatred. He paced back and forth as he thought of what he would do to Karen, and of what he would do to the man he expected to see in Lanotti’s photographs.

  A few hours later, Servito heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. He swore as he watched his white limousine racing down the lane toward the farmhouse, bouncing up and down before huge clouds of dust. He rushed outside and jerked the passenger side door open. “It’s about time you got here,” he snarled.

  “We got here as quick as we could, boss,” Lanotti said, his sheepish smile displaying brown stained teeth.

  “Did you bring the photographs?”

  “Yup,” Lanotti replied. He removed a thick, white envelope from his jacket pocket.

  Servito snatched the envelope. He frowned as he examined the pictures, one by one. His face flushed. “I knew it!” he shouted. “I knew that son of a bitch had the hots for her!”

  “You know him, boss?” Lanotti asked.

  Servito bared his teeth as he continued to stare at the photographs. “My wife introduced me to him a long time ago.”

  “Who is he?” Allison asked.

  “His name’s Mike King. He’s a big player in the gasoline business. He owns XG.”

  “Wow! He really is big!” Allison said.

  “What are you gonna do to him, boss?” Lanotti asked.

  Servito flashed an evil smirk. “Fix his ass. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you how.”

  Allison and Lanotti followe
d Servito to his office. “You guys take a seat,” Servito ordered, clutching the photographs with his right hand and pacing back and forth. “My first inclination is to have both of them wasted.”

  “You want me to cut ‘em, boss?” Lanotti asked.

  “No, that would be too easy. I want them both to experience excruciating pain and I want it to last for a long time.” Servito turned to Allison. “Jerry, did you do those PCB tests with Patelski?”

  “Yup. Two percent’s no problem. Even three percent works. We got too much smoke with four.”

  “Good. Call Bushing, and get him in touch with Patelski. I want them both ready to cut our gasoline with PCB. Tell them not to move on it until I give the word to go.”

  “You want PCB in all of the gasoline?”

  “No, just the gasoline we’re going to deliver to King’s outlets.” He smirked. “George, I want you to keep watching my wife. Stick to her like her underwear and don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Servito waited until Allison and Lanotti left the farmhouse. Then he called Bob Bushing. “It’s Jimbo. I want to talk to you about Mike King. You’ve been bugging him for his gasoline business, right?”

  “At least once a week, but my price has always been a little too high.”

  “I just found out he’s been screwing my wife, and that didn’t make me very happy. I want you to call that prick on Monday morning and give him a price he can’t refuse. Offer him a price that guarantees we get the whole thirty million gallons and make sure we do the trucking. I don’t care if Lasker has to do it for nothing.”

  “No problem.”

  “One more thing. I want you to do business with King through a company I’ve just incorporated. It’s called Reserve Oil Limited. My beloved wife is the president and sole owner of all of the shares.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Karen was relaxing with a magazine in the living room when Servito entered. She placed her magazine on the glass coffee table and glared at him, waiting for him to explain why he had returned more than a day late.

  He moved to sit on the couch beside Karen. Without a word, he reached into the vest pocket of his jacket and removed the white envelope containing Lanotti’s photographs. He smirked as he lifted them from the envelope and lay them on the coffee table in front of her, one at a time.

  Karen stared at the photographs in horror. Who could have taken them? Even more terrifying—what would her husband do next?

  “You goddamned slut!” Servito shouted, his face purple with anger. He leaned toward her and grasped the hair at the back of her head with his left hand. He stood, and she had to follow the sharp pain on her scalp upward. He hit her mouth as hard as he could with his fist. The next blow hit her right cheekbone. Blood flowed from her mouth as he flung her backward onto the couch. She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands; drops of blood oozed through the gaps between her fingers.

  “I hope you enjoyed your little fling with King,” Servito said, and then flopped to the couch beside Karen. “It’s over. You’re done. I’m going to be watching you. You don’t even want to think about what I’ll do to you if I find out you’ve been with him again. It won’t be quick, baby. It’ll be slow and extremely painful. Do you understand me?”

  Karen held her hands against her face and nodded.

  Servito stood and pointed his index finger at his wife. “I’m only going to tell you this once, so you better listen. You are my wife and the mother of my son. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. The alternative is totally unthinkable. God help you if you forget it!” he snarled. He glared at her one final time before turning and marching from the apartment with a slam of the door.

  When Karen saw herself in the bathroom mirror, she wept. Her face and the front of her nightgown were splattered with blood. The skin below her right eye had turned to a bluish red and the lid had swollen nearly shut. Both lips were cut and swollen. Her hands trembled as she cleaned the blood from her face with a damp washcloth. The throbbing pain in her eye was like nothing she’d ever—suddenly it occurred to her that her husband might be on his way to Mike’s apartment. She raced to the telephone beside her bed and dialed Mike’s number. “Mike, it’s Karen!” she shouted before Mike had a chance to speak. “Listen very carefully! Jim may be on his way to your apartment as I speak!”

  “Why?”

  “He knows. He had someone following us this week. He just showed me a lot of photographs of us, including pictures of us at the farm.”

  “Did he do anything to you?”

  “He hit me and said he would do all kinds of nasty things to me if we see each other again.”

  “Stay right there. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Mike, you can’t. He’ll kill us if he sees you here. He really means it.”

  “I don’t give a damn if he means it or not. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Mike hung up and ran to the door of his apartment. He could no longer live in fear of what Servito might do to Karen or himself—his only thought was to get her out of there. He pounded the elevator button, desperately trying to think of a way to escape Servito’s terrible psychological vise.

  Karen was waiting in the hallway outside Servito’s penthouse. “Aw, shit!” Mike groaned when he saw what Servito had done to her. Suppressing his anger and frustration, he took her in his arms and led her into the apartment, and then closed and locked the door. “I can’t understand how he could do this. What kind of animal is he?”

  “I’m really scared, Mike,” Karen said, her head pressed against his chest.

  “You’ve got to get out of here. It’s insane for you live with that bastard.”

  “Mike, I love you with all of my heart. There isn’t anything I want more than to live with you, but I can’t. Jim doesn’t think like normal people. He’ll kill us both, and he’ll do it without remorse. Even if he doesn’t, we’ll be looking over our shoulders as long as he’s alive. I don’t think I have any choice. I have to stay here until we can find some way to get him out of the picture.”

  Servito’s vise was now Karen’s vise, and Mike’s frustrations magnified two-fold. Even though the pain of accepting Karen’s logic was excruciating, he acknowledged that his demand had been impulsive. “I should kill him myself,” he said, venting some of his frustration. “Meanwhile, I’m taking you to a hospital.”

  Karen tried to smile. “You don’t like my new facial?”

  “I love you even more.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. It hurts, but I’ll survive. I just called Dan Lazari. He’s a dear friend and the best plastic surgeon at Toronto General. He’s on his way here now—he lives in the other penthouse.”

  “Then I’ll stay until he gets here.”

  “You can’t, Mike. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I can’t go. Leaving you now offends every fiber of my existence. I need—”

  Karen placed the tips of her fingers against Mike’s lips. “Go,” she demanded. “Just think of it as an investment in our future.”

  Mike hated to leave. It offended every fiber of his ego, but he knew his continued presence endangered Karen. He had never experienced the level of anger he felt at that moment. He had always been able to navigate any problem, but this one seemed beyond his grasp. Was there nothing he could do?

  He hugged her and kissed her gently on her swollen lips. “I keep forgetting how tough you are,” he said, grinning bravely. “I’ll go, but I won’t be far away… I love you too much.”

  “Me too, you… be careful.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “May I speak to Mike King, please?” Bushing asked, anxious to offer Mike a gasoline price so attractive he couldn’t refuse. The price had to be somewhere on the low end of the scale of credibility. If it was too low, Mike would certainly get suspicious.

  “One moment, please,” Mike’s secretary replied.

  Seconds later, Mike picked up. “Good morning, Bob. I assume you’re calling t
o offer me another great price du jour?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re our number one consideration. I can’t remember what’s in second place.”

  “In anticipation of that fundamental reality, I have a price I’m sure you’re going to like.”

  Mike chuckled. “How many times have I heard that one?”

  “No bullshit, Mike. I just got real lucky and I want to share my good fortune with you. I bought a company two weeks ago. Among the many things that made the company attractive were the gasoline futures it bought this summer. The recent firming of gasoline prices has made those futures extremely attractive. Now I want to bring your thirty million gallon requirement and those futures together in a happy marriage.”

  “It sounds exciting, but if the price isn’t right there will be no wedding.”

  Bushing tremulously made his offer.

  “That’s a good number!” Mike said, surprised and excited. “It’s over a cent a gallon below the market! How the hell can you make any money at that price?”

  “The gasoline futures. I told you they were attractive. I’ve been so frustrated listening to you tell me my price was too high, I decided to do something about it. Well, what do you think? Will there be a marriage?”

  “How much can you sell me?”

  “Like I just said, the whole thirty million.”

  “I hear wedding bells.”

  Servito’s next instruction was for Bushing to convince Mike to let Reserve do the hauling. Once again, his pricing was constrained only by the bounds of credibility. “Can we do the hauling?” he asked. “The more truck utilization we can guarantee our hauling company, the better trucking rate we’re going to get on all the other business we do.”

  “What rate?”

  “Fifty points a gallon.”

  “To any destination?”

  “Sure… within a hundred and fifty miles of the Golden National rack.”