The Disciple of Las Vegas Read Online Free PDF Page B

Like I said, that was the threshold.”
    â€œMr. Chang told me you met Cousins.”
    â€œTwice, both times in Vancouver. I offered to go to Kelowna but he put me off.”
    â€œHe came to your office?”
    â€œI met him in Philip’s office, and they acted like the best of friends. Looking back, that was also kind of strange, because Philip isn’t the most sociable character.”
    â€œDescribe Cousins.”
    â€œBig, bluff guy in jeans and an L.L. Bean chamois shirt. I know about the shirt because I asked. He looked as if he had spent his life in construction or lumber. He had that outdoors look.”
    â€œTall?”
    â€œOver six feet.”
    â€œAny physical characteristics that would make him stand out in a crowd?”
    Marx shuffled the files in front of him, then opened one and leafed through it. “Here, these are photos from the security cameras at the office. They’ll give you some idea.”
    The photographs were grainy and the angles disjointed, but they were good enough for her to see that Cousins was rangy, rugged, and dressed like a cowboy. His face was blurred but she got a general sense that he was a handsome man with a thick black moustache and a full head of hair, combed straight back. “You never ran a credit check on him?”
    â€œPhilip gave him the green light.”
    â€œHow did you discover you had a problem?”
    Marx sighed and rolled his eyes skywards. “Deloitte was doing their audit and they came across the land transactions. They started off questioning whether or not we had violated the threshold limits. Philip argued with them, saying that we had been technically within our rights to do what we did. I know the lead auditor wasn’t convinced, but he wasn’t about to take on Philip head-on. So they did what auditors do: they burrowed deeper to make sure their asses would be covered in case this became an issue. Sending someone to the registry office in Kelowna was a bit extreme, even for them, but I think they had legitimate concerns about the way the deal was structured.”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œDeloitte called me first, then I called Philip. He freaked out and told me to hold off advising Manila until we were completely sure of the facts. I couldn’t do that. I knew that Deloitte would report directly to Manila, and I didn’t want it to look as if I was withholding information. So I called my counterpart here.”
    â€œMr. Chang?”
    â€œNo way — he’s the right hand of God. I called the CFO.”
    â€œSo what happened?”
    â€œI was told to go to Kelowna and meet the people from Deloitte there. We went to the registry office together and confirmed that the land we thought we had bought was owned by people we had never heard of. We went to Cousins’ office, which turned out to be a vacant apartment. Then we went to the bank that had supposedly handled the transactions. They wouldn’t tell us anything other than that KVD had an account there.”
    â€œWho set up the bank account?”
    â€œCousins.”
    â€œWho had signing authority?”
    â€œCousins.”
    â€œYou didn’t think to have at least two signatures on it?”
    â€œAva, we had the titles already. We were transferring money for property we had already purchased.”
    â€œOkay, so now Manila is involved.”
    â€œThe CFO flies over to Vancouver, hires a private detective agency to chase down Cousins and the money, and spends two days going through the files with me.”
    â€œWhere is Philip?”
    â€œAt home — devastated, depressed, and not much good for anything.”
    â€œYou saw him?”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œWas he really that distraught?”
    â€œI thought so, and truthfully I didn’t fault him. You know that bad cop/good cop cliché? Well, Chang and Ordonez are more like very bad cop and worse cop. Chang has almost reduced me to tears