“ ‘Background check.’” Miriam snorted. “What if they’ve got caller-ID?”
“You think they’re going to follow it up?” Paulette asked, looking worried.
“Paulie, you’ve got eleven million in cash being laundered through this car dealership and you think they’re not going to sit up and listen if someone starts asking questions about where those beaters are coming from and how come they’re fetching more than a new Lexus south of the border?”
“Oh. Oh shit.”
“Yes. ‘Oh shit’ indeed. How’d you get into the used car trail anyway?”
Paulette shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. “You asked me to follow up the shareholders for Proteome Dynamics and Biphase Technologies. Pacific Auto Services looked kind of odd to me—why would a car dealership have a pension fund sticking eight digits into cutting-edge proteome research? And there’s another ten like them, too. Small mom-and-pop businesses doing a lot of export down south with seven—or eight-digit stakeholdings. I traced another—flip to the next?”
“Okay. Dallas Used Semiconductors. Buying used IBM mainframe kit? That’s not our—and selling it to—oh shit.”
“Yeah.” Paulie frowned. “I looked up the book value. Whoever’s buying those five-year-old computers down in Argentina is paying ninety percent of the price for new kit in cash greenbacks—they’re the next thing to legal currency down there. But up here, a five-year-old mainframe goes for about two cents on the dollar.”
“And you’re sure all this is going into Proteome and Biphase?” Miriam shook the thick sheaf of paper into shape. “I can’t believe this!”
“Believe it.” Paulette drained her coffee cup and shoved a stray lock of hair back into position.
Miriam whistled tunelessly. “What’s the bottom line?”
“ ‘The bottom line?’” Paulette looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t counted it, but—”
“Make a guess.”
“I’d say someone is laundering between fifty and a hundred million dollars a year here. Turning dirty cash into clean shares in Proteome Dynamics and Biphase Technologies. Enough to show up in their SEC filings. So your hunch was right.”