Chapter 26
Titus got tired of the prostitution ring.
The world was getting dangerous, tricky, and even boring. Whenever you had a good thing going, too many dumb people with overly violent tendencies had a habit of getting involved. The mob moved in and wanted a piece. Lazy men saw this as easy money—abuse a desperate girlfriend, make her do what you want, collect the cash. His mentor, Louis Castman, had long since disappeared, retiring, Titus figured, to some island in the South Pacific. The Internet, which made so many retail businesses and go-betweens obsolete, had made the pimp that much less valuable. The whore-to-john connection became much more streamlined with the web or with larger consolidators who swallowed the smaller pimps in the same way that Home Depot swallowed the mom-and-pop hardware store.
Prostitution had become too small-time for Titus. The risks had started to outweigh the benefits.
But like any business, when one aspect became obsolete, the top entrepreneurs found new avenues. Technology might have hurt the street business, but it also opened up new worlds online. For a while, Titus became one of those consolidators, but it became too rote, too distant, sitting behind a computer and making appointments and transactions. He moved on and ran online cons with some backers in Nigeria. No, he didn’t run the easy-to-spot spam e-mails about helping someone who owed or wanted to give away money. Titus had always been about seduction—about sex, about love, about the interplay between them. For a while, his best “romantic scam” was to pretend that he was a soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. He would set up fake identities for his soldiers on social media sites and then start to romance single women he would meet online. Eventually, he would “reluctantly” ask for help so he could purchase a laptop, or airfare so they could meet in person, or maybe he would need money for rehabilitation after a war-related injury. When he needed quick cash, Titus would pretend he was a soldier being deployed and needing to sell a vehicle on the cheap, sending perspective buyers bogus registration and information and having them wire the money to third-party accounts.
There were problems with these scams, however. First, the money was relatively small and took a great deal of effort. People were dumb, but alas, they were getting shrewder. Second, as with anything profitable, too many amateurs heard about it and rushed into the business. The Army Criminal Investigation began issuing warnings and going after the perpetrators in a more serious manner. For his partners in western Africa, that wasn’t a big problem. For Titus, it could very well be.
But more than that, it was again small-time with the lowest-case s imaginable. Titus, like any businessman, was looking for ways to expand and capitalize. These cons had been a step up from his earlier pimping days, but how big a step? He needed a new challenge—something bigger, faster, more profitable, and completely safe.
Titus had used up almost his entire life savings to get his new venture off the ground. But it was paying off big-time.
Clem Sison, the new chauffeur, came into the farmhouse. He was wearing Claude’s black suit. “How do I look?”
It was a little baggy in the shoulders, but it would do. “You understand your training.”
“Yes.”
“No deviations from the plan,” Titus said. “Do you understand?”
“Sure, of course. She comes straight here.”
“Then go get her now.”
? ? ?
Chaz’s shift was over, so Kat met him at his apartment in the ritzy Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue and 46th Street. Kat had come to an office party here two years ago when Stacy was dating the playboy who owned the building. The playboy, whose name was Wilson or Windsor or something else overtly preppy, was brilliant and rich and handsome and now, if rumors were true, had lost his mind à la Howard Hughes and become a complete recluse. Recently, the building had converted some office floors into residential space.
That was where Chaz Faircloth lived. Quick albeit obvious conclusion: Coming from great wealth was nice.
When Chaz opened the door, his white shirt was opened a button more than it should have been, revealing pecs so waxed they made a baby’s butt look like it had a five o’clock shadow. He smiled with the perfect teeth and said, “Come in.”
She glanced around the apartment. “Label me surprised.”
“What?”
Kat had expected a man cave or bachelor pad and instead found the place almost too classily decorated with old wood and antiques and tapestries and oriental rugs. Everything was rich and expensive yet understated.
“The décor,” Kat said.
“You like?”
“I do.”
“I know, right? My mom decorated the place with family heirlooms and whatnot. I was going to change it up, you know, make it more me, but then I found that chicks actually love this stuff. Makes me look more sensitive and stuff.”
So much for the surprise.
Chaz moved behind the bar and picked up a bottle of Macallan Scotch 25 Year. Kat’s eyes went wide.
“You’re a Scotch drinker,” he said.
She tried not to lick her lips. “I don’t think I should right now.”
“Kat?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re staring at that bottle like I stare at ample cleavage.”
She frowned. “Ample?”
Chaz smiled with the even teeth. “Have you ever had the twenty-five?”
“I had the twenty-one once.”
“And?”
“I almost asked it for a ring.”
Chaz grabbed two whiskey glasses. “This sells for about eight hundred dollars a bottle.” He poured both and handed one to her. Kat held the glass as if it were a baby bird.
“Cheers.”
She took a single sip. Her eyes closed. She wondered whether it was possible to drink this and keep your eyes open.
“How is it?” he asked.
“I may shoot you just so I can take the bottle home.”
Chaz laughed. “I guess we should get on with it.”
Kat almost shook her head and told him it could wait. She didn’t want to hear about the Swiss bank account. The realization of what her life had been—what her parents’ lives had been—was beginning to burrow through her mental blockades. Every house on every street is really just a family facade. We look at it and think we know what’s going on inside, but we never really have any idea. That was one thing, sure—to be fooled that way. She could get past that. But to be on the inside, to live behind the facade and still realize she had no idea of the unhappiness, the broken dreams, the lies and delusions being played out right in front of her, made Kat just want to sit on this perfect leather couch and sip this primo beverage and let it all slip into the wonderful numb.
“Kat?”
“I’m listening.”
“What’s going on with you and Captain Stagger?”
“You don’t want to get in the middle of that, Chaz.”
“Are you coming back soon?”
“I don’t know. It’s not important.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” Kat said. It was time to change subjects. “I thought you wanted to see me about the numbered Swiss bank account.”
“I did, yes.”
“Well?”
Chaz put the glass down. “I did what you asked. I reached out to your contact at the Department of Treasury. I just asked him if he could put the account on their watch list. The list is huge, by the way. I guess the IRS is going hard after the secret Swiss accounts, and the Swiss are fighting back. Unless there is a strong hint of terrorism, they’re pretty backlogged, so I don’t think they’ve picked up on this yet.”
“Picked up on?”
“You said the account was new, right?”
“Right. Supposedly Dana Phelps just opened it.”
“When exactly?”