Chapter Three
The sound of the doorbell interrupted the reading of Clarity. She walked to the front door interphone and saw two gentlemen ringing the doorbell of the metal gate at the entrance, one taller than the other. Baggio, deftly positioned in his chair on the terrace, away from the line of sight of those who were inquiring at the gate of Swankeye, turned on his walkie talkie, which was linked to the interphone at the gate.
"Yes?"
"My name is Walmond Taylor, here with my colleague Dwayne Marville. We are from the Cayman Monetary Authority, we'd like to see Mr. Mannen."
"One moment, please."
Baggio left the walkie talkie on the table and walked towards Clarity. The butler told her to open the metal gate, then to lead the two men to the front door of the house, and then to open that front door from the inside. Her official job was 'branch employee' of Lofty, assisting with bank procedures and regulations. Clarity sensed that she was being turned into an employee of Lofty despite her intention to remain as neutral as possible, with the affairs of Mannen. She walked to the metal gate and welcomed the two officers, leading them to the front entrance door.
"Hold on, I'll be right there with you."
She walked around the house, making her way into the home, opening the glass doors of the porch. Then, she opened the front entrance from the inside.
"Hi again, welcome to Swankeye, it's a nice place," said Clarity. The grave voice of Mannen resonated behind her. She heard the loud steps of the chubby guy behind her.
"Come in, gentlemen, my assistant Clarity has welcomed you. She's involved with all the paperwork for Lofty, general procedures. She'll be with us while we talk."
That came as a surprise for Clarity. She had no clue of Lofty Bank or how it worked. She nodded, unsure of what that meant. Marville, the colleague of Taylor gave Mannen his business card, which said General Licensing Procedures for Banks. All four moved to the living room which had the library. Mannen landed first on the large sofa, leading Clarity to the individual sofa where Mannen usually sat. Baggio brought a low plastic kitchen chair for Taylor, while Marville sat in the only remaining spot on the sofa where Mannen was seated, between him and Clarity.
"Sit down, please, make yourself comfortable Mr. Taylor."
Taylor sat down in the very small chair, further than expected, his knees aligned with his chest, and his line of sight slightly below that of the bar cart tray. He extended his arm upwards, to give his own business card to Mannen. After a few seconds of offering arm's length to Mannen, Taylor reached the large hand of the Cayman businessman, and the business card of the official finally changed hands, reaching the large palm of Buddha Talk. The monetary officer looked up at Mannen and began the conversation.
"Mr. Mannen, we're here to clarify some of the issues arising with Lofty Bank. The renewal of its license is under review, and right now, there are some things missing or not properly addressed. Our position is delicate."
The kitchen chair creaked, yielding slightly, under the weight of the tall officer. The body of Taylor tilted, and his angle on the conversation and the people in the room, changed to a more diagonal, inclined view of things.
"Such as?"
Clarity noticed that Buddha Talk spoke briefly, only when he felt he had to. She looked at Marville, who was younger than Taylor. He'd graduated recently in business from a party school, and had decided to move to the Cayman Islands, where life was good. The young graduate was looking around the living room of Swankeye, noticing the library, sensing that life was good also in Florida. While Taylor realigned his center of gravity by holding one leg of his chair with one hand, Marville turned to Mannen to continue the explanation.
"Lofty Bank is under capitalized, there's losses, in fact, there's often losses, sort of every year. You need to add some capital to get the official license B, Mr. Mannen. Nice place you have here, by the way."
"We've filled out all the information needed to get the license," said Mannen.
Mannen walked to his desk and took out a pile of papers. He showed the two officials several documents, things like two character references for the bank, an additional financial reference from a bank or trust, listed as First Caribbean Key Bank, a police clearance certificate, evidence of two directors, a list of directors, bylaws, and auditors. To Mannen, it looked like all the official procedures were being followed. He gave the pile of paper to Marville.
"Lofty is doing things pretty well," said Mannen. "We'll bring in some cash later this year, from our golfing ventures, it should bring the losses back to zero."
"To the point of no taxes," said Marville.
"There are no corporate taxes in the Cayman Islands," said Mannen. Marville caught his mistake, and noted that the knowledge of Mannen had not come out of a party school.
"I meant to the point of breakeven."
The kitchen chair of Taylor yielded further, tilting him further to the point of general dilution of his sitting position, making him land with his butt on the floor, his knees closer to his chest. The chair had dissolved, like the financial system in general.
"That's different, yes," said Mannen, "we manage things properly, so that all of the money we make is properly managed." Only Clarity noticed the sort of circular reasoning.
"So where does the money go?" Asked Clarity. Mannen looked at her with his large face.
"Considering you are in charge of general expenses, you probably know that."
"I mean, besides going to payroll of its associates," said Clarity.
"To our businesses, we operate businesses."
While Taylor stood up from the kitchen chair debris, Marville pursued his inquiry. Lofty was involved in the golf resort business, the insurance business, and the investment business, all of it combined into the general structure of a bank, which was also a trust, and also had some of the features of an insurance company.
"We've got some issues with the officers of Lofty," said Marville, "for instance, and would like to know which are its bank subsidiaries, the objectives of the branch in George Town, the actual willingness of the Bank not to trade in the cayman islands."
The face of Baggio appeared at one of the ends of the library, requesting Mannen at the door. Mannen excused himself and walked to the door entrance, bringing Clarity with him. Baggio was holding a stack of sheets in his hand. He gave Mannen a copy of Cocoanomics, which the butler had downloaded from a peer to peer sharing platform. Mannen began leafing through it carefully. The manual was a book read by inmates of eighty four prisons while they waited for something to happen. It spoke of carving small empires, wherever you were, even if it was just a cup of cocoa, and of paying yourself first.
"Not bad," said Mannen, "I may be able to work with this."
"Boss, look at the interphone camera, Ambrosio is at the door," said Baggio.
Through the interphone camera at the gate, Clarity could see that Ambrosio and Giacomino, two of the henchmen of Di Laure, a mobster in South Florida, were at the front metal gate of Swankeye, with five black sedans parked behind them. The various Cappi of general Organized Crime in South Florida, were showing up at Swankeye to announce a meeting to Mannen. These meetings were held periodically in a diner called Moe's Diner, to decide how the various shares of the markets involving affluent crime in South Florida were to be divided. Who got what, in essence, and where. Mannen gave Clarity two pairs of tickets, before walking back to the library area.
"Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. My assistants here will take care of things for you, so that you have a pleasant stay here in Florida. I have to do some business today. I'd like an appointment at the offices of the Monetary Authority in George Town in about two weeks."
"There's a few things we'd like to discuss," said Marville. "Such as how you paid for this place."
"Sure. In a couple of weeks." Buddha Talk tiptoed to the front door and closed it, leaving Baggio and Clarity with the two banking officials.
Clarity gave the two clerks a pair of ticke
ts to see Cars of Yesterday exhibit, in Sarasota, and a second pair to see the Edison winter home, at Fort Myers. She led the two men to the porch terrace while Baggio served some drinks, rum mixed with cola, with some ice in it.
"We're going to do some errands, simply close the gate when you leave the place," said Baggio. The two officials nodded and began to sip their rum and coke, enjoying the after-business conversation.
"You're not afraid they'll take something?" Asked Clarity.
"No, it's all on camera, there are fifty four cameras here, even the bar cart has a camera, so that no one touches the bottle of Coperini & Onelsen. These guys are the best security for us. Swankeye is private, but we want to ensure people feel comfortable here. This way, we are showing that we get along with the Monetary Authority of Cayman."
The butler led Clarity to the front of the house, to the garage area. Clarity saw that Buddha Talk was reaching the metal gate of Swankeye, placing his hand on the shoulder of Ambrosio, and moving towards one of the sedans. The butler of Mannen pressed a button on a remote and the garage door opened, showing the sleek, and at the same time, fashionably used, silhouette of Jaguar 73. It was the car of Mannen, that went with him, wherever Mannen went, a gift of Castro, before the Cuban dictator had moved on at age ninety, leaving a reasonable fortune of about nine hundred million dollars behind.
"What are we doing?" Asked Clarity.
Baggio pressed another button of the remote, and the car license plate rotated, to a plate showing the name Nelquay on it. The name stood for Nelson Quay, the living area of Buddha Talk in Cayman. It was the plate that Mannen used to indicate his own business territory with other Cappi. Clarity got in the passenger seat, and Baggio drove it out of the garage.
"We're going to follow Mr. Buddha Talk, so that nothing unusual happens."
They were driving to Moe's diner for the annual meeting of the Organized Crime Syndicate in South Florida. Baggio threw the unofficial invitation to Clarity in the back seat. Officially, it was simply a business lunch. There was an issue with business and with Mannen.
"Moe wants to discuss where business is headed, the general philosophy of things, things like that." The car rolled slowly out of the garage.
"You can get out of the car now, Mr. Mannen would like to have you on the entertainment system of the car. Just walk along the car to the entrance, the car camera at the top of the car roof will film you."
Clarity stepped out of the Jaguar and walked along the car, along the alley of the mansion. The front passenger window lowered and Clarity saw herself walk along the car on a small screen adjusted by Baggio. A miniature thong pink bikini sprung out of the glove compartment towards her. She grabbed the item with one hand.
"That's for later," said the driver, "clothing gear for guests. You need a bit of a tan. You can questions, if you have any." Clarity threw the bikini on the front seat and kept walking along the car.
"I like to swim naked."
"That won't be a problem," said Baggio.
"Who's Moe?" Asked Clarity.
"Moe Alamy, she owns this diner in Miami called the sprinkler, as in sprinkler of cash. We think Moe Alamy is giving instructions to Di Laure and to other Cappi, indirectly, about business. She's about eighty years of age. Mr. Buddha Talk is concerned that Moe is getting too much of many things around Florida. He called a general meeting at the diner."
They were reaching the front metal gate. The door of the Jaguar opened, and she hopped back in the passenger seat. Baggio followed the caravan of black sedans going to Miami, with Mannen in one of them. The driver gave her a name tag, which said 'Swankeye, general security'. For the first time, sitting inside the Jaguar of Joe Mannen, she felt like a genuine member of Lofty Bank.