The Rooster Bar

42

At 9:40 Wednesday morning, Mark received an e-mail from Cohen-Cutler informing him that well over $4 million was being wired from its disbursement office to the Citibank account of Lucero & Frazier, Attorneys-at-Law. The sum represented damages of $3,800 for each of the firm’s 1,311 clients, less the 8 percent cut Cohen-Cutler took off the top to manage the class, so $4,583,256.00 to be exact.

Mark sprinted to Citibank and waited in the offices of his favorite account manager. For one agonizing hour, fifty-six minutes to be exact, he paced around the office, unable to sit still and thoroughly unable to act as though it was just another routine settlement. The account manager was nervous about the situation, but she had spent so much time with Mark she liked him and was excited for the young lawyer. As the minutes dragged by, Mark asked her to prepare six certified checks, three to the loan servicers for the outstanding balances of Todd Lucero, Zola Maal, and Mark Frazier. The total was $652,000. The fourth check was payable to Mr. Joseph Tanner, Gordy’s father, and it was for $276,000. A fifth check in the amount of $100,000 was payable to Mark’s mother, and a sixth, in the same amount, was to Todd’s parents. The checks were prepared but not issued.

The wire landed at 11:01, and Mark immediately signed an authorization to wire $3.4 million of the money to the account of York & Orange Traders at the Second Royal Bank of the Lesser Antilles in Barbados. He left a few bucks in the law firm’s account, took the six certified checks, thanked the account manager profusely, and stepped into the bright Brooklyn sunshine far wealthier than he had ever dreamed. Walking briskly, he called Todd and Zola with the thrilling news.

Mark entered a FedEx office on Atlantic Avenue and asked for six overnight envelopes and four domestic air bills. On a sheet of yellow legal paper he penned a note to Gordy’s father. It read,

The transaction was far from clean and final. There were tax issues, gift and perhaps income, but those problems now belonged to Mr. Tanner. Mark would not give them another thought. He folded the note, placed the check inside, and put them in an envelope. He addressed air bills to Mr. Tanner in Martinsburg, and to the three loan counselors: Morgana Nash at NowAssist in New Jersey, Rex Wagner at Scholar Support Partners in Philadelphia, and Tildy Carver at LoanAid in Chevy Chase. The paperwork took half an hour, during which Mark managed to calm his nerves and stop looking over his shoulder. He reminded himself that he’d been living on the run for several months now, and the worst thing he could do was to appear nervous. Still, the arrival of the money made him jittery.

He handed the six express envelopes to the clerk, paid for their shipment in cash, and left the office. Outside, he texted Todd and Zola with the news that their student debts had been paid in full. In his hotel suite, he called Jenny Valdez at Cohen-Cutler and inquired about the disbursement for the attorneys’ fees. Lucero & Frazier was due another $1,048,800, or $800 for each client. Ms. Valdez said that money should “go out tomorrow.”

He sent an e-mail to his loan counselor:

From Barbados, Todd wrote,

From Dakar, Zola wrote,

Todd spent the afternoon hanging around the office of Mr. Rudolph Richard at the Second Royal Bank of the Lesser Antilles. When the wire finally arrived at 4:15, he thanked Mr. Richard and left to call his partners.

Ten minutes later, a team of FBI agents entered the offices of Cohen-Cutler in Miami and met Ian Mayweather and his team of lawyers in the firm’s largest conference room. Special Agent Wynne handed over a search warrant, which Mayweather scrutinized. He then gave it to the firm’s chief criminal lawyer, who read every word. Satisfied that they had no choice, Mayweather nodded at another partner who produced a list of the fifty-two law firms that had referred 220,000 clients to the class. Wynne scanned the list, saw what he was looking for, and asked, “This law firm in New York, Lucero & Frazier, what do you know about it?”

Mayweather looked at his copy of the list and said, “They sent us thirteen hundred cases.”

“Have you dealt with them before?”

“No, but then that’s true for almost all of these firms. There are six class actions against Swift, and these firms shop around. I guess this one chose us.”

“And you don’t check to make sure the law firms are legitimate?”

“We’re not required to, no. We assume the firms are legit, along with their clients. You know something about this firm?”

Wynne deflected the question and said, “We’d like to see the names of the thirteen hundred clients from Lucero & Frazier.”

“They’re posted online in the case file,” Mayweather replied.

“Yes, along with a million others, and they are not grouped by referring attorneys. Makes it rather difficult to investigate each individual. We need to see the Lucero & Frazier clients.”

“Sure, but your court order doesn’t go that far.”

On one side of the room the FBI agents glared at the lawyers, who held their ground and stared right back. This was their turf, not the government’s, and as very rich lawyers they resented the intrusion. The Feds were meddling in their jackpot. But the Feds didn’t care; their job was to investigate and all turf belonged to them. And so both gangs watched each other, waiting to see who would blink.

An agent handed Wynne a file. He removed some paperwork and said, “Here’s another search warrant. The judge says we can examine any suspicious activity involving Mark Frazier and Todd Lucero, a couple of guys who are not really lawyers to begin with.”

“You’re kidding,” Mayweather said, blinking.

“Do we appear to be kidding?” Wynne asked. “We have cause to believe that these two bogus lawyers have filed a bunch of bogus claims with your class action. We need to verify it.”

Mayweather read the court order, then tossed it on the table. He shrugged in defeat and said, “Very well.”

Mark was trying to eat a sandwich in a Brooklyn deli, though he had no appetite. His emotions were in near-violent conflict. On the one hand, he wanted to gloat over the money. But on the other, he knew it was time to run. He reveled in the knowledge that they had pulled off a beautiful reverse scam against the Great Satan, as Gordy called Rackley, and stolen money from a crook. But he was also terrified at the thought of getting caught.

Todd was sitting on a beach, cold drink in hand, and watching another perfect Caribbean sunset. Safe, at least for the moment, he smiled at the future and tried to imagine what he would do with his share of the fortune. But the thrill was dampened by thoughts of his parents and their embarrassment when he never returned to D.C. Return? Would that ever be possible? Was it worth it? He tried to shake off these thoughts by telling himself that they had committed the perfect crime.

Zola was enjoying life with her family in Dakar. They were dining in an outdoor café not far from the ocean, on a lovely spring night, with their biggest troubles far behind them.

None of the three had the slightest hint that, at that moment, a dozen FBI agents were working the phones and discovering that their Swift clients did not exist.

Long after the sun set, Todd called Mark for the fourth time that day. The first two calls had been exhilarating as they celebrated the apparent success of their heist. With the third, though, reality was setting in and they began to worry.

Todd said bluntly, “I think you should leave. Now.”

“Why?”

“We have enough money, Mark. And we’ve made mistakes that we don’t even know about. Get out of the country. The attorneys’ fees will be wired tomorrow, icing on the cake, and the bank knows where to send the money. I’d feel better if you were on a plane.”

“Maybe so. And your new passport worked fine?”

“As I’ve said, there were no problems. It actually looks more authentic than my real one, which hasn’t been used that much. These things cost us a thousand bucks, if you’ll remember.”

“Oh yes. How could I forget?”

“Get on a plane, Mark, and get out of the country.”

“I’m thinking about it. I’ll keep you posted.”

Mark placed his laptop and some files into a larger briefcase, the one from his street lawyer days, and packed a small carry-on bag with some clothing and a toothbrush. The room was a wreck and he was sick of it. After spending nine nights there he saw no need to check out at the front desk. The room charges were covered for two more days. So he walked away, leaving behind dirty clothing that belonged to both him and Todd, stacks of paperwork, none of which was incriminating, some magazines, discarded toiletries, and the rented printer, from which he had removed the memory chip. He walked a few blocks, hailed a cab, and rode to JFK, where he paid $650 cash for a round-trip ticket to Bridgetown, Barbados. The guard at passport control was half-asleep and hardly looked at his documents. He killed an hour in a lounge, took off at 10:10, and landed in Miami on time at 1:05 a.m. He found a bench in an empty gate and tried to sleep, but it was a long night.

Three miles away, Special Agent Wynne and two colleagues once again entered the offices of Cohen-Cutler. Ian Mayweather and a partner were waiting. Now that the firm was cooperating, albeit by the coercion of court orders, some of the pressure was off and the air was almost cordial. A secretary brought in coffee and they sat around a small table.

Wynne began with “Well, it was a long night. We went through the list you gave us, made a bunch of phone calls, and compared names with our records from Swift Bank. It appears as though all thirteen hundred are bogus clients. We have a court order freezing all disbursements for forty-eight hours.”

Mayweather was not surprised. His team of grunts had worked through the night as well and reached the same conclusion. They also had the file on Frazier and Lucero and the charges they were facing in D.C. Mayweather said, “We’re cooperating. Whatever you say. But you’re not going to check all 220,000 of our clients, are you?”

“No. It appears as though the other firms are legit. Give us some time and we’ll back off when we’re satisfied the fraud is contained to this small group.”

“Very well. What’s up with Frazier and Lucero?”

“Don’t know where they are, but we’ll find them. The money you wired to them yesterday was immediately wired to a bank offshore, so they barely managed to get it out of the country. We suspect they’re on the run, but they’ve proven to be, let’s say, unsophisticated.”

“If the money’s offshore you can’t touch it, right?”

“Right, but we can certainly touch them. Once we have them in custody and locked up, they’ll be eager to cut a deal. We’ll get the money back.”

“Great. My problem is the settlement. There’s still a lot of money in play and I’ve got a bunch of lawyers screaming at me. Please hurry.”

“We’re on it.”

At nine, Mark finished another double espresso and headed for his gate. At a U.S. Postal Service drop box, he placed a small padded envelope into the slot, and kept walking. It was addressed to a reporter at the Washington Post, a tough investigative journalist he had been following for weeks. Inside the envelope was one of Gordy’s thumb drives.

As he waited in line at his gate, he called his mother and fed her a story about a long trip he and Todd were taking together. They would be gone for months and not available by phone, but he would check in whenever possible. The mess in D.C. was under control and nothing to worry about. Heads up for a FedEx package today. There’s some money in it, to be used at your discretion, but please don’t waste it on a lawyer for Louie. Love you, Mom.

He boarded without incident and took his seat by a window. He opened his laptop, logged in, and saw an e-mail from Jenny Valdez at Cohen-Cutler. The disbursements for attorneys’ fees were being delayed until further notice due to an “unspecified problem.” He read it again and closed his computer. Surely, with such a massive settlement, problems were bound to occur, so it had nothing to do with them. Right? He closed his eyes and was breathing deeply when a flight attendant announced over the speaker that there would be a slight delay due to a problem with “documentation.” The flight was packed with vacationers headed for the islands, some of whom appeared to have spent time in a bar before boarding. There were groans, but also laughter and shouting.

The clock ticked slowly as Mark’s blood pressure rose and his heart pounded. The flight attendants brought out the drink carts and the booze was on the house. Mark asked for a double rum punch and drained it in two gulps. He was about to ask for another when something jolted the aircraft, and it started moving back. As it taxied away from the terminal, he texted Todd and said he was about to take off. Minutes later, he watched from his window as Miami disappeared through the clouds.