Taunting (The Flint Files Book 1) Page 8

  The defendant looked sweetly at the judge, twirled her hair, and tried to be as appealing as possible in an orange jumpsuit. “Well, your honor, he turned eighteen today, so fuck him.”

  For his eighteenth birthday, Gregory Hudspeth’s mother gave him the best present ever. She went to jail for four years. Sure, she had been arrested before. Prostitution, drug possession, shoplifting, that kind of thing. But never more than a few days of jail at a time. This time she tried to diversify her revenue streams by selling coke to an undercover vice cop. The new State’s Attorney for Baltimore needed another hide to tack to his office wall. Gwendolyn Hudspeth’s hide filled a small open space next to the picture window.

  Nobody knew where the young man’s father was. In fact, nobody knew who the father was. Gregory had gotten used to it. Now that he was on his own, it was time to celebrate. Gregory - Greg to his friends, G-Man to his really good friends, and G-Spot to his girlfriend – went back to the sparsely-furnished apartment and headed straight to the kitchen. His dear old mom kept many bottles of cheap vodka at home. Greg had developed a taste for it.

  She couldn’t track how many bottles there were from day to day, let alone how full they had been. Most of the time she was high, or drunk, or preoccupied with fucking the latest “date.” Being hung over most days, Greg barely made it through his last year of high school. But he had graduated the day before his mother went away, and today he turned eighteen. And Mommy Dearest was out of his life.

  Greg had gone to court only to make sure his mother didn’t escape. After selecting a mostly-full bottle from the stash, he took a big slug. Then he took another. And then he called Christine, his high school girlfriend. They had been “doing it” for almost three years now. She was more than ready to help him celebrate. They retired to Greg’s bedroom and toasted his mother’s sentence with a quick fuck.

  “What’s next on the agenda?” Greg had asked her.

  “I want to add a third person to our sex.” Greg had never seen this side of Christine, and he liked it. That sounded wonderful, so Greg tried to give her a few names of girls he wanted to fuck.

  Christine said he could keep the suggestions to himself. “This is a commercial enterprise and I’m the boss. Got it?”

  Greg got it.

  Christine took out an ad at an online escort site. “G-Man and the G-Spot. Your Pleasure is Our Business.” It started slowly, but eventually a clientele was built. Most of their customers were single women. A few were couples. A small number were single men. It didn’t matter, because Christine and Greg were both heterosexual. They were just sociopaths.

  Eighteen months after opening the business they moved to a larger apartment in the suburbs. There was more money to be made there. Two days later Christine was in jail and Greg was on the run.

  The couple looked so trustworthy, too. Christine had lifted the guy’s wallet while his pants were on the floor and Greg was keeping both visitors occupied with hand and tongue. The male visitor had shoved Greg’s hand from his penis and cold-cocked poor Christine. His partner called the police. They weren’t worried about publicity, and frankly they could afford to lose whatever Christine stole. It was the principle of the thing.

  Greg got to Charlotte, North Carolina and settled in. The Maryland apartment had been in Christine’s name and there was nothing to tie Greg to prostitution. Getting a real job was out of the question, so Greg began snatching purses and mugging guys for fun and profit. He made most of his money in McAlpine Park. He’d look for guys with wedding rings and offer them anonymous oral sex. When their pants were down he knocked them on their asses and took their wallets. One customer stopped Greg in mid-knockdown and told him he’d pay. Well, Greg needed money, and he wasn’t particular. But, prostitution wasn’t nearly as lucrative as taking everything the marks had.

  None of the guys ever filed a police report. It was free money.

  Nothing lasts forever, and Greg moved on through Atlanta to Mobile and eventually to New Orleans. Now in his late twenties he had a problem. Married guys looking for anonymous gay sex preferred younger men. In his business, Greg was an old man at twenty-nine.

  Then he met a guy who knew a guy who had an acquaintance who needed a favor. Greg took the package, no questions asked, and booked a bus to Mexico. Nobody smuggles things into Mexico, so he was safe. But, safe work doesn’t pay well. Greg didn’t know what was in the packages and didn’t care. But he did care about moving up in his new-found profession. That’s when he met the lawyer.

  Greg did his homework and figured out that the guy was Steve Clemons, a big shot in some small law firm in New Orleans. A trust fund was set up in Greg’s name and the story was he had inherited a bunch of money from a relative in Luxembourg. Nobody questioned the story because, frankly, nobody cared. Greg Lomax (by then Hudspeth was many name changes ago) was an idle rich guy who liked to travel. Especially to the South Pacific.

  About once a month Greg would get on a plane and fly to Fiji, or Kiribati, or Nauru, and sometimes to Tonga. Tuvalu was a drag in his opinion, so he didn’t go there often. His destination was never Vanuatu, although he always made a short visit there during each trip. A guy would meet him at the airport and take whatever Greg was carrying. Greg would spend one night in Vanuatu, then get back on a plane to his primary destination for the trip. A few times he flew out within hours of his arrival.

  After a year of this kind of travel Clemons’s son showed up at a meeting. His father had a stroke, and the son was in charge now. He had another package. Greg took yet another trip. Life went on. Until someone happened during one of their meetings in a café in Houma, a smallish city about an hour southwest of New Orleans.

  The sixty year old woman was in Houma visiting a relative. She was well-dressed and well-spoken. She recognized Clemons from the ACLU Board in New Orleans. After she walked away from their table Clemons became agitated. Bernice Fishbein was going to ruin everything.

  “Not to worry, boss. She won’t say a word.” Greg left the café right after Bernice and followed her in his car until they were on a narrow road in the middle of nowhere. Greg sped past her and slammed on his brakes. Bernice managed to stop before hitting his car, and he dismounted. When he walked up to the driver’s door Bernice recognized him and lowered the window.

  Her body was found next to her car later that afternoon. She had been robbed, stripped and sodomized before her throat was cut. Six years later the case was still open. Greg and the lawyer moved their meetings further away from the city, and there were no more problems.

  Clemons never asked Greg what happened to Bernice, but he knew. He supposed he should be afraid of the hustler, but instead he was intrigued. Clemons wondered what it would be like to kill a human being. Maybe he’d ask Greg some time. Maybe he wouldn’t – Steve Clemons wasn’t that intrigued.

  Greg Hudspeth-Other Names-Lomax continued taking trips to the South Pacific and then suddenly one day he didn’t. Clemons failed to show. Greg did some internet research and read about Clemons’s flight out of the country.

  Well, at least the money would keep coming.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The prosecutor’s office got a warrant for the records of all other Fitch and Clemons trusts at that bank. There were seven; six were very straightforward. The seventh, less so. It was being held in trust for Gregory Hartwell, except that the name had been changed from Hartwell to Lomax after two years. And, the initial deposit had come from a bank in Nassau.

  Bahamas were cooperating with money laundering investigations, but could do little for those looking at the Hartwell/Lomax trust. The bank had been established on a Monday, accepted a deposit of bearer bonds on a Tuesday, sent all of the money to the Hartwell/Lomax trust and then disappeared. Bahamas central bankers were embarrassed.

  There was a scarcity of information about Gregory Lomax at the bank, and zero at Fitch and Clemons. There was, however, an automatic recurring payout to an account in a small-town bank in rural Louisiana. The address
for the account-holder was about thirty feet below the surface of Lake Pontchartrain. The cellphone number was live, but it was a disposable phone. There was a photocopy of a driver’s license, though, and that led to ATM photos matching the picture.

  And Gregory’s debit card had been used to pay for a bunch of trips to various South Pacific nations. Including a side trip to Vanuatu on almost every journey.

  Gregory was not difficult to find. He used the same ATM machine every day at the same time. Having gone to some effort to hide his location, he had gotten lazy. And, his cellphone was on.

  At one thirty in the afternoon Gregory left the hole-in-the-wall bar where he had been talking to a middle-aged couple visiting from Boise, Idaho. It seemed that they were looking for some fun, maybe a third person to add to their bedroom activities, and, well, Gregory wasn’t bad looking. He’d just get his cash for the day and soon be getting off.

  He went without a struggle. Fingerprints were matched to a partial lifted from Bernice Fishbein’s car. Gregory was fucked, and not in a good way. He called Fitch and Clemons to get a lawyer, and Myra Hartag showed up.

  Detectives Melvin Brown and Danny Flint, plus Assistant District Attorney Portia Livingston met Hartag in the interview room. Livingston was cold and distant; Hartag had sullied the prosecutor’s office. Brown was just Brown. Flint sneered. Hartag’s grandstanding was cut short.

  “This is serial murder, Ms. Hartag. We have a pretty good circumstantial case against him for somewhere between nine and nineteen murders by the Martyrs serial killer. We’re building a case against him for another murder outside New Orleans several years ago. We have him dead to rights on international money laundering.” Livingston was actually having a good time.

  Gregory was shocked. Sure, he had offed the old lady near Houma, but otherwise he hadn’t killed anybody. Not that it was something to which he objected, it just hadn’t come up.

  At the arraignment Hartag argued for ROR – Release on his Own Recognizance. The judge glared at her. “Really? Serial murder and money laundering. Frequent international travel. Sure, why not? Well, I’ll tell you why not. Bail is denied.”

  Portia Livingston met with Myra Hartag and offered her a deal. They would take the death penalty off the table if Gregory would give them Steve Clemons and cooperate with the feds on the money laundering. Hartag asked for aggravated battery and no jail time. Livingston walked out.

  The next day Livingston, Hartag and Gregory met in Livingston’s office. Danny, Melvin and Assistant U.S. Attorney Trayvon Berkley watched on a remote video monitor.

  “Look, it’s just a matter of time before we can make the murder charges stick. We’ve found Clemons’s accomplice and unless you make a deal he’s going to get the needle. You are aware that Louisiana has few qualms about carrying out executions, right? We’re having difficulty extraditing Clemons from Venezuela, so your client is going to take the fall for as many as two dozen murders or more.” Livingston knew she had the upper hand. Hartag just wasn’t quite as smart.

  “You don’t have anything on the murders and the money laundering is all theory and speculation. There’s no evidence a jury is going to believe.” Livingston nodded.

  “The Feds are chomping at the bit to get their hands on him for the money laundering. Here’s the deal. He gives us Steve Clemons and all the details, he helps the Feds get an indictment on the Vanuatu banker, and we take the needle off the table. That deal is good for thirty seconds.” Livingston looked pointedly at her watch.

  Hartag went into her drama mode and Gregory cut her short. “Do the Feds prosecute me for money-laundering if I help them get the banker?” Hartag told him to shut up. He ignored her.

  The detectives and AUSA Trayvon Berkley joined them. “Give us Clemons and the banker and we’ll drop the charges. If you don’t cooperate, or if we can’t get them both even with your help, you’re looking at most of the rest of your life in federal prison. You can file your appeal of Louisiana’s death penalty from there.” This wasn’t Berkley’s first money laundering case, and it wouldn’t be his last. Louisiana viewed clothes laundering as optional, money laundering as a family pastime.

  “I’ll take it.” That was Gregory. Hartag wanted to consult with her client before allowing him to take the deal. The detectives and both prosecutors left. They heard some disagreement from the interview room before they were invited to return.

  “We’ll take six months jail time plus probation.” That was Hartag.

  Livingston had heard enough. “OK. We’re petitioning the court to move him to Angola until trial.” Gregory had had enough, and his ire was directed at Hartag.

  “I’ll take the deal on one condition. I never see the inside of Angola, OK?” Gregory had calculated, probably correctly, that Hartag stood between him and any chance at surviving until trial.

  “No Angola, OK. But you forfeit the entire trust account which is the proceeds of illegal activity.” Livingston was letting them know that taking the needle off the table wasn’t her only bargaining chip. She might let him keep some of his bank account and said so.

  Gregory took the deal and fired Hartag. Wasn’t the first time she’d been fired, of course. Another case, another disappointment.

  Just as they were preparing the paperwork the G-Man’s phone rang. It was Clemons, and, responding to AUSA Berkley’s hand signals, the soon-to-be prisoner put it on speaker. Clemons needed Gregory to make a pickup instead of a delivery. The guy in Vanuatu would have everything ready. Gregory just had to pick up a tree fern statue, follow the itinerary given, and deliver it to Clemons in Venezuela. There would be a ten million dollar bonus in it for him.

  The Federal prosecutor told him to agree. A quick call to the lawyer’s Treasury Department counterpart put the rest of the plan in motion. The U.S. Ambassador would fly in from Papua New Guinea with a small retinue for a visit. Gregory would appear to be part of the retinue. He would be equipped with a diplomatic passport, meaning the authorities in Vanuatu would have no authority over him. If he tried to jump ship, he was screwed.

  The banker handed over the tree fern statue whose hollow interior was filled with a viscous fluid that would harden when a catalyst was added. Six pounds of flawless-D five-carat diamonds were crammed inside, and the fluid was hardened. Gregory accepted the statue and shook hands. A Gulfstream-5 had been chartered from Vanuatu to Venezuela. The one-time smuggler returned to the airport and boarded the charter by himself. There were five other passengers on board already, plus crew.

  The Ambassador visited the Prime Minister for consultations about items of mutual interest. A Foreign Service Officer visited the Minister of Public Finance and Economic Management for technical discussions. That was the more interesting meeting.

  The FSO gave the Minister two press releases. In the first the Department of Public Finance and Economic Management announced the arrest of the bank manager on charges of money laundering and assured the world that it had been a rogue undertaking. The U.S. State Department has reviewed the case as a courtesy and agreed that it was a single rogue individual.

  In the second press release the U.S. State Department warned Americans that Vanuatu was a haven for international money laundering and their safety, and the security of their money, could not be assured. The Minister, as requested, waited two days before issuing his press release.

  Clemons wasn’t a bad judge of character and had already figured out that Gregory was a sociopath. The younger man freely discussed his earlier exploits involving physical interaction with men as part of robbing them. So, when Gregory got off the plane in the company of an older man, introduced by Gregory as his sugar daddy, Clemons just shrugged.

  The sugar daddy was rich and had offered his plane for the trip. Well, that would save Clemons a few bucks on airfare for his smuggler. Gregory and his sugar daddy held hands but otherwise were not particularly affectionate. Not Clemons’s cup of tea, and not any of his business.

  They made the exchange at the general av
iation terminal where the charter was parked.

  Four other men had walked off the plane, hidden from Clemons’s view. When Clemons went to shake Gregory’s hand, Danny Flint – the sugar daddy – clapped a cuff on his wrist. The four FBI agents took him into custody and hustled him on the plane. Next stop New Orleans.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was Ash Wednesday and the first evening service of Lent. Father Stewart had asked his friend Reverend Percy from the A.M.E. Church to assist in the service, to include imposition of ashes. Quite a few members of Reverend Percy’s congregation attended as well.

  For the past three years the two clergymen had worked to spread the Gospel and do good works across denominational lines, with mostly positive results. The only blot on an otherwise fine record was the dustup with the joint Men’s Prayer Group. They had all attended a broadcast of the annual Alabama-Auburn football game, choosing a friendly local bar for the occasion. The owner asked them never to come back.

  It seems one member of the Episcopal parish was an ardent supporter of Alabama, while another was an ardent supporter of Auburn. The football rivalry had never been mentioned in conversation, and each learned of the other’s heresy during the broadcast. Either Alabama took a swing at Auburn or the reverse; nobody was quite clear on the details. At first it was just a fistfight between two middle-aged men, but about ten percent of each congregation supported Auburn, an equal number supported Alabama. The other eighty percent just wanted to drink beer and watch the game.