Clean as a Whistle

By Adam Scholer

Ben Grant has not been himself lately. In fact, he's been 10 different people over the past ten years and each one has taken down a major drug and money laundering operation. Now he has been pitted against THE money launderer, Orlando Mercedes, aka The Fat Man, who has laundered nearly a billion dollars without being caught. Ben is the only one to successfully complete the CIA's Program and he has become their greatest weapon. The Fat Man has his own program and has become their greatest nemesis. Ben has been reprogrammed and is after the Fat Man- unfortunately someone else knows about the Program, Ben and the Fat Man, and he will not stop until they are all dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Scholer
• Release date: Jul 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370674510

Adam Scholer

I was born and raised in Miami. When I was 7 years old, I wrote my first book and had it published. For the past 28 years I have taught English and writing in high school and college. In 2009, I published Brother Duke, a horror suspense novel . Since then I've written an action novel, Clean as a Whistle, a young adult adventure novel, The Last Cabin and a general fiction novel called Live@5. I write to entertain and I know that if you pick up any one of my novels you will not put it down.

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Clean as a Whistle

Adam Scholer

Copyright © 2017 Adam Scholer

All rights reserved.

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Dedication

This book is for Miami

The only place on the planet where this stuff could actually happen

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Dave Isenberg for drawing/designing the cover- once again he managed to create a masterpiece for my story.

My gratitude to my primary readers and editor whose feedback was invaluable and whose compliments meant a lot.

To my students and readers at large- Thank you for doing and teaching others to do the most important thing in life- to read.

To all of you who read my first novel, Brother Duke, thank you. If you liked that, you’re going to love this one. Enjoy.

Contents

1: Loose Ends

2: The Fat Man

3: The Program

4: The Hit Man

5: Simon Grisby and the Other Program

6: Fat Man Sweating

7: Franklin Dench

8: Confluence

9: Cat and Mouse

10: It’s Like Hector Said

11: MIA - R.I.P.

12: You Said No Cowboy

13: Live, Die, and Let Live

1

Loose Ends

Clifton Ingram sat in his office from two-thirty to four-thirty staring at the money on his desk; three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 100s, 50s and 20s, neatly stacked in bundles of ten thousand dollars each. His first thought was to take his clothes off and roll around in it because he was so charged, but he dropped the thought for fear of getting caught. Not with the money but without his clothes. Bank managers weren’t supposed to be naked in their offices in the middle of the day; maybe at night with their secretaries but not before dark and with an office full of people.

The money was all his.

Finally his wife would stop bugging him about his crappy, fifty-thousand dollar a year job. When they met, he said he was in banking and she assumed that meant he made big money. She was nearly half his age and she turned into a nightmare of a wife five days after the honeymoon and about five seconds after she found out that he simply worked at a bank and made normal money. He was a short, bitter, cynical man that spent his days screaming at kids that worked in the bank. But now that he had the money, no more. Was there risk? Sure. But there was also reward. Great reward.

After everyone was gone and only with the hum of the computers to keep him company, Ingram would deposit the money into a dummy account in the name of Richard Ramirez, his alias, bringing the balance to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the total amount he had received so far for his role in the scheme. The same account had fifty thousand a month deposited into it, as long as the other accounts under the name of K&L Enterprises remained active and out of the scrutiny of the ever-present and pesky FBI. K&L was a front for the second largest criminal organization in the world and part of a money laundering enterprise that Ingram had no real sense of. His bank alone held three hundred million in K&L assets but no one would put one account with another. All were seemingly legit and strong.

How the bad guys had found Ingram was a mystery, but the fact that he was ripe for a bribe was not. Ingram had watched too many executives ahead of him make millions essentially doing what he did everyday—handle money. Only in this case it was a lot of money and it was dirty and in need of a good cleaning. Ingram was just the man. He graduated third in his class at Brown and had sat in on some of the leading talks on computer and bank fraud. He was respected and weak at the same time. Someone had figured this out and decided to utilize both of those qualities to have Ingram launder millions of dollars in drug proceeds.

But Ingram was stupid.

He thought he could beat both sides and earn beyond his percentage. Then again, most of the middlemen in these schemes were greedy and made mistakes in the same manner. They always got caught and sometimes killed. The longer they scammed, the worse it was when they were found out. Ingram had begun skimming early and was caught almost from the start. He figured since he was an authority on the subject of laundering money, he knew all of the angles and how not to get caught. He was wrong. The way he saw it, his chance had come and he wasn’t going to let it pass without grabbing his share and then some. He figured after a few years of washing money for the bad guys, he would buy the boat he always wanted and sail away from the Nag. It seemed like a simple enough plan, and since he had never actually met anyone except his connection, he was low profile.

Earlier, no one had noticed the man who brought the money into his office. Disguised as the delivery boy from the deli across the street, the courier walked into Ingram’s office, set the box of sandwiches on the desk, took his tip and left, smiling at the homely secretary on the way out. There were no sandwiches in the box that he delivered, of course, just cash. And no one in the office would suspect differently. Ingram had ordered from the deli across the street hundreds of times and as far as anyone knew, this time was no different.

At five, Ingram’s contact, an unknown at the moment, was supposed to arrive and instruct him on when the next bundle of laundry would be arriving and how they wanted it spread out. The cash in front of him was the percentage payout up front and from the looks of it, whoever was behind all of this knew how to make things happen. He had an idea of what was to be done but needed to know the particulars of what was to be expected of him so there were no mistakes.

The business of laundering money had grown beyond what any law enforcement agency could comprehend or cope with in a meaningful way. Once in a while a drug lord might cross a politician or vice versa and one would give up the other. The biggest problem was the hidden money. Even if the government made an arrest, if the authorities didn’t grab the launderer quickly, he would disappear and use his washed millions to start a new life. Most could afford to live anywhere and they all knew the places that no one talked about who you were or where you came from. Beautiful places that were first class in every way, including anonymity. The guys that got caught or killed were usually middlemen that considered thousands a lot of money. These were the faces the government used to convince the good people of the world that the war against drugs, money laundering and general corruption was being won. The good side was running an ad campaign instead of a war and the evil side didn’t need or want to run any kind of public campaign; they were too busy getting rich off the war.

Ingram was exactly the type of player that ruined things for the evil side. He was the proverbial black pawn in this deadly venture.

The second big hurdle for the government, and perhaps a tougher one to cope with, was the vast corruption in the organization itself. It was a hurdle that was far too high to clear. It was understandable. The money got into the billions and, after all, these were just men on both sides of the issue. FBI or Colombian drug dealer, temptation and greed couldn’t tell one bit. In order for a good guy not to give in, he would have to not care about a stack of free money bigger than him. Nearly impossible.

At four-forty, Ingram’s secretary, Ms. Lyme, buzzed him and said there was someone to see him. Ms. Lyme was a middle-aged woman with plain features who had worked for Ingram for three years. In that time, she had developed a sense of when something big was happening with the boss. Today something was definitely up and it was big.

Ingram quickly swept the money into his filing cabinet, straightened his tie and prepared to meet the man who would direct him in cleaning the money for a group of people he didn’t want to know personally. He knew he was dealing with ruthless drug lords who cared nothing about life other than their own. He knew that he could be in danger, but weighed the risks to profit like a good banker and came to the conclusion that there was no way he wasn’t taking the deal.

No deal meant, no boat, staying with the Nag and still possibly being killed because of the little he already knew. If he played it right, he’d walk away with millions and no one, except the government and citizens of the beloved USA, would get hurt. He even thought about his last day on the job, the day he would sail away from all of the stress, concrete, noise, crime and general malaise that gripped most people in the city. He would tell his wife nothing, leaving her to wonder which bitch session had driven him over the edge. Then he’d leave fifty thousand dollars in Ms. Lyme’s desk. She wouldn’t take the money, but he’d feel better in his retirement years knowing he had done right by her. And then he would truly live without a care. He fantasized about the first thing he would do when he escaped. The sound of the door opening snapped him back to reality.

An older Latin man, dressed impeccably in an Italian suit, was shown in, refused the offer of a drink from Ms. Lyme, took a seat, and surveyed the room without speaking. Ingram, suddenly nervous, picked up a pencil and began to flick it in the air. He wasn’t sure if he should speak or wait for the man to start the conversation. Ingram thought it was strange that the man was dressed so well but that he was wearing sunglasses that looked like they were bought at a flea market.

So how does this work? asked Ingram, flicking the pencil faster.

The man didn’t answer. He sat stone-faced and studied Ingram from behind his cheap sunglasses purchased in the lobby gift shop as a last thought before getting on the elevator. Ingram flicked the pencil again but this time the pencil hit the edge of the table and fell to the floor. Ingram bent down, picked it up and sat up to see a gun with a silencer attached pointed at his face.

What the fu…

Curtis Ingram’s last sentence and life were cut short by a single shot that blew out the back of his skull. He fell into his chair, slumped and died with only a slight gurgling sound. Blood, brain and hair were smeared like a collage on the window behind the chair. The killer fired another shot into the already dead Ingram and then placed the gun in his coat pocket.

The well-dressed man stood up and walked out, leaving the door open half an inch. Ms. Lyme asked how his meeting went and commented on how short it was and was still asking questions when the elevator doors closed. As he pulled out of the parking garage two minutes later, the man heard sirens in the distance, no doubt responding to a shooting on the sixth floor. He allowed himself a slight smile thinking of the questions the secretary asked. Yes, the meeting was short, at least for one of them.

He took the slow, scenic route back to his little Havana apartment passing the old gentlemen in the park smoking cigars and playing dominoes. He drove slowly taking in the sights and sounds that were distinctly Little Havana. Old Cuba mixed with strip malls, apartment buildings and overcrowding. A snapshot of any street in the area would have one think it was nineteen seventy. He pulled up to his apartment complex and parked his barely running Toyota in a spot. When he got out of the car, a neighbor, dumping his trash in the Dumpster, asked him how his visit had been. A TV blasted the daily news from an open window. The second story of the day was about a bank manager shot to death in his office on Brickell Avenue. The newscaster screamed the details, The police suspect foul play and are looking into why the man had $350,000 in counterfeit bills in his desk drawer. As always, the police are asking for the public’s help with leads.

In Miami, if the public did not help out, the police wouldn’t solve the crime for years, if ever. Crime is an ongoing thing and the police and local news are about equally on top of the stories. The cops use the airwaves as a weapon against the seemingly endless string of violent crime in a city that boasts peaceful settings and tranquil views.

At ten minutes to five, another man went to the sixth floor of the bank for a meeting with Curtis Ingram, but when he stepped off the elevator, he was greeted with mass confusion and panic. Everyone was running through the office and screaming at each person they passed. He looked towards the office that everyone was huddled around and could see through the open door his contact, Curtis Ingram. He was missing a good portion of his face. He was slumped back in his chair, most decisively, dead. Ingram was one of two men he was scheduled to meet at five. He was sure the other one had done this. He had been getting closer to the man until five minutes ago. Now it seemed he was as far away from being inside as ever and closer to being dead. He turned and boarded the next elevator before he was noticed.

He ran the scene in the office through his head. He had a special mental protocol that he had memorized and used often for setbacks. This was definitely a setback. Judging from the amount of blood on the window, he deduced the manner of death was violent and was planned to send a message. He was probably supposed to have witnessed the hit or been part of it. They knew something was up. The list of possibilities was long and grew worse as it went.

Undercover agent Lou Garcia was lucky that the Brickell Bridge had been up and he was late for his meeting or else he figured there would have been two dead people in that sixth floor office. While he had been sitting in the sweltering heat waiting for the bridge to finally fall, Ingram was being shot. It was the first time a bridge going up in Miami was a good thing. All other times it was just another reason for drivers to curse their luck, curse the bridge tender and curse each other.

One thing was certain; someone knew what Ingram had been up to and now that same someone might know he was undercover and therefore looking to take him out as well. Garcia hated it when someone knew more about a case than he did. He also hated it when that someone didn’t have a name or a face. Most of all he hated it when someone murdered his contact and blew his whole case apart. He went down to the parking garage and punched a special number into his cell phone. After two rings it was answered and the voice on the other end simply said, Report.

Garcia breathed deeply and then delivered the report.

March Hare is down, operation disrupted; there is an Alice in Dumpty’s Wonderland. Translated that meant that someone had killed Ingram, the money launderer, screwed up two years worth of surveillance and was listening around corners to other people’s business just like Humpty Dumpty accused Alice of doing in the story of Wonderland.

He sat for a while in the parking garage sweating, not as much from the heat, but more from the thought that he had missed being shot to death by five minutes. He wasn’t remotely prepared for this because he had done all of his homework and nothing suggested this meeting would turn into a public execution. He played out the events in his mind as if he had been killed. Everyone would have suspected he was dirty and that he and Ingram were in on something that was a secret to all. But he wasn’t killed and the bad guys were still out there. He cranked the car up and headed for the FBI building. He needed to get a few things straight before he went under to unravel this knot he found himself suddenly in; even if it meant being seen entering the building and exposing himself further.

He was so focused on getting there that he never noticed the gray sedan that was tailing him; the same sedan that had been parked across the street when he went into the main FBI building in Miami for the first and last time.

2

The Fat Man

Orlando Mercedes could bench press 400 lbs. if he wanted to. He lay back on the specially made bench and looked at the ceiling as he thought. The only sound in the home gym was his heartbeat which was racing after doing ten reps. He sat up, his sweaty back sticking to the vinyl and peeling off with a squeaking sound. Orlando Mercedes could also eat half of the menu at a restaurant in one sitting if he wanted to but the weights and eating didn’t offset one another the way he had hoped. Weighing in at nearly 400 lbs. himself, he needed more bench presses and fewer menus. At five foot ten, he was almost as wide as he was high. Known to his associates as O-no because if you crossed him that is what most people found themselves thinking, he was by far the biggest dealer in Colombia, both in girth and volume. It was reported that he had made over half a billion dollars and laundered all of it without getting caught -yet.

The second part was what set Orly apart from the so-called competition. In Colombia and most countries including the US and Canada, making millions selling drugs is as easy as breathing. But hiding the money and being able to spend it without the authorities ruining the party was nearly impossible. But Orly had done just that and he hadn’t been caught -yet. The Miami situation was a close call. Congress was busy all summer making laws that would make Orly’s business suffer, so he had to set the deal up soon or the whole scheme was in danger of coming apart. The trick was to spread the money around, keep the legitimate businesses legitimate, hide the cash and make sure that no one who wasn’t bribable got near the accounts. The bank manager in Miami was a risk and had to be taken off the board which was the term Orly used when a ‘money’ guy went down. The hit had been clean but not complete. The contact had not shown up and would have to be dealt with later. Orly’s extensive intelligence network consisted of every person making minimum wage in Colombia and all of the right people in the information capitol of the world, Washington, plus a few well-placed bad people in Miami. All of it was wired in 24/7 to Orly’s information bunker that was part of a larger underground compound that was connected to the main house by a well-lit tunnel. He never spoke directly to any of his close associates, running the entire money laundering empire alone from his underground mansion, something he had done for the past fifteen years. On occasion, he would have a hired lady friend visit him at the house but they were clueless as to who the rich, fat recluse really was; besides, none of them were ever Colombian.

He looked at a bank of computers and thought. One way or the other, he would find the man, but so far both networks had come up with nothing on the mystery contact man who had not shown up for the meeting. How had the guy known he was going to be taken out? He must be deep undercover and that was dangerous for both the agent and for Orly. A little more dangerous for the agent since Orly knew of him but not the other way around. Or did he? Regardless, the information would surface and that would end the debate. The next time the guy stuck his head out he would have a bullet put through it and that would be the end of his undercover work. Just how important the guy was to the agency would be measured in how many other fools they put on the case to find the killer. In truth, the killer was right in front of them—the job. Every agent that goes under and tries to break up a drug dealing operation is committing slow suicide. Sooner or later the job will get him killed. That fact is also true of the job of drug dealer. The only difference between the two sides is the funeral. No one makes a big deal out of a dealer’s passing, but they go all out patriotic for the agents. There is nothing sadder than a country that is losing a bloody war, losing soldiers daily, a country outmanned, outgunned and out-resourced that still refuses to acknowledge defeat. At least in Viet Nam, the Defense Department had enough sense to give up—even if admitting defeat was years and lives overdue and it would take many more years to reconcile with the country. In this war, the dealers of the world had long claimed victory and were just doing cleanup work by sniffing out the last of the good guys and burying them or bribing them, whichever was easier.

Orlando picked up his towel, wiped his flabby face and headed towards the steam room hoping to sweat off a few more menu items. At thirty-two he was told to watch every calorie or watch the clock because it wouldn’t be long until he was dead. On the way he stopped to open the door to what he called his Office, a massive thirty by sixty room full of the latest computers, technology, listening devices, recorders, security cameras, stock market tickers, money counters and, of course, weapons. Orly had enough firepower to challenge half of the countries in the world to a war and probably win. Oddly, in his entire life, Orly had never killed anyone. Including the banker in Miami, he had ordered twenty six people killed, but never at his own hand. The computers were his but he inherited the firepower. As he pondered this notion, Orlando looked into the accounts at the Miami bank that the dead man was in charge of until his unfortunate meeting. So far it appeared as if no one had made the connection which meant that the fourteen million dollars that was safely making its way into three separate accounts was safe for the moment and K&L Enterprises was still considered a legitimate corporation that was in good standing with the government. Orly tapped a few numbers with a lot of zeros into the computer then hit send transferring a million dollars into the account of a man known only by a number to most—#33214.

Orly knew him a little more intimately.

Orly’s father had been doing his dirty work for years and only he and Orly knew the set up. Who would suspect a sixty year old man who stood just five feet six to be the most dangerous and wanted person in the War on Drugs? So far—no one. Carlos Jimenez Mercedes was known to his neighbors as the sweet little old man from Cuba that lost everything including his family when Castro took power in ’59. He lived in a meager one-bedroom apartment in Little Havana in Miami, never venturing much farther than the cafeteria on the corner for café con leche and a pastelito. Now and again he would tell neighbors that he was taking a trip to see an old friend who lived in Miramar, a town thirty-five miles to the north. After a few days he would return to his quiet life among his neighbors, most of whom were refugees themselves or involved in things they wanted kept quiet. No one was afraid of the little Cuban gentleman that lived in 4C.

In fact, Carlos wasn’t Cuban at all. He was a Colombian who hid out in Cuba for a few years before becoming an assassin for some of the most ruthless drug dealers in the world. He had no family except for Orly whose mother was a prostitute that Carlos thought he cared about until she overdosed the week after Orly was born. Carlos’ family had all died. His father was killed in a shootout over ten dollars and his mother and sister killed by drug dealers who they refused to smuggle drugs for. Carlos was an orphan at six, killed his first man by eight and many more before he turned twenty one. He grew up on the streets or under them in some cases. He fell in with the worst of people when he was eleven and then became the worst of them by the time he was sixteen. At twenty, he joined the Colombian army and learned how to be even worse. By the time he was twenty three, he had killed more people than the number of birthday candles he had blown out.

Carlos told Orly that his mother had died of complications after the birth and should be remembered as a saint. There were no pictures of her, no records, no signs that she ever existed except for the boy who grew into the large man named Orlando Mercedes. Carlos himself was no prize. After the army he returned to the drug trade where he gained a reputation as a heartless killer. He had killed over a hundred people between the army and the drug trade; twenty six alone for his son and the business. He carried out necessary acts and he used a gun to do it. He was cold to all of those around him but as tender as he could be towards his boy.

After the computer verified the transfer, Orlando headed for the sauna. He’d relax a little more, shower, shave, eat a little, and then set to the task of finding the agent who escaped and having him fitted for a suit that would look nice in a casket at an All-American funeral.

* * *

He was shot in his own office at five o’clock! yelled Agent Preston Mackey.

I know, boss, I was almost part of that unbelievable scenario, Garcia replied, not trying to sound too nonchalant.

And then you come walking in here? What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack? Explain this to me!

Look, I have been on the inside for months. You have seen the reports. The Director told me to try for a little more so I asked to be in on a meeting. You’re the Sub-director so I figured you two had talked. I show up and one guy isn’t there and the guy that is has his head blown apart. What happened? How did they suddenly suspect something? Now I don’t know what to do. Is there a leak? Could be. Only two people to ask on that one and one of them has never seen my face. Well, this face, anyway. Ok, so I got a problem. And now we got a problem.

You have no idea who offed this guy? asked Mackey.

None. said Garcia. But I’ll tell you this; I bet I get less sleep than he does in the next few days.

Are you sure no one knows your detail except you and I? Mackey’s tone was that of a father. You did not mention Ingram to anyone?

Garcia stared.

I am sure that no one else knows because of me, he said suggesting that maybe Mackey had slipped up and put the whole thing out in the open.

Don’t even think it, Lou. I haven’t said a word. As far as the department knows you are a consultant working on insurance fraud in the trucking business, the same caseload you always have. If anyone snoops, you are a non-agent who has been plugging away at normal FBI cases for years now. No. Somebody figured this out the old-fashioned way. They guessed.

Lou grumbled, Well, they guessed right and now I have to watch my back even more because I don’t know who the enemy is and I don’t have the luxury like he does of shooting everyone I suspect of being dirty. I’m screwed if I don’t find this guy first.

"Funny, I was thinking you are screwed if you find this guy" said Mackey almost as a joke,