LITMIR.BIZ

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numbered company shows income of four-point-four million bucks from an international travel agency, six million from a dining lounge, and five million from an IT centre.”

      “Jesus, the gall,” I said. “The international travel agency consists of a guy and his computer. The dining lounge is good for a cup of coffee and a week-old doughnut. And the IT centre features a kid and a computer with an over-sized screen. Where’d you get these numbers?”

      “Don’t you want to know how much income the church shows all by itself?”

      “How much?”

      “Twenty-nine million,” Gloria said. “And where I got the numbers was from their income tax returns.”

      “But if it’s a numbered company, ipso facto its tax records aren’t public.”

      “Right, for ordinary people,” Gloria said. “But I’ve mentioned my friend Nikki to you from time to time?”

      “She comes to town from the Maritimes and stays with you for a couple of weeks every summer, your oldest friend since school days.”

      “Since good old Allenby Public School up on Avenue Road,” Gloria said. “Nikki, I once told you this, she moved down to Prince Edward Island because of a guy from there she was seeing. The guy didn’t last, but her job in the Revenue Canada offices did. Nikki’s department — now, get this — it’s called the Taxpayer Relief Intake Centre. That’s the one where taxpayers go begging permission to pay late because of serious physical or mental illness and, please, can they be excused from paying a penalty on top of the tax.”

      “A department like that really exists?”

      “Nikki works night and day to keep up with the sob stories.”

      “But she still has time to poke around for her old pal Gloria?”

      “Her job gives her access to the entire country’s tax records,” Gloria said. “That’s where I got the Reverend Al’s annual salary, clothing allowance included, and all the financial figures for the so-called church.”

      “Not that I’m not grateful,” I said, “but isn’t Nikki risking her livelihood?”

      “Nikki kind of relished it when I asked the favour,” Gloria said. “She said people at Revenue Canada are forever in one another’s pockets. Nobody blinks an eye when somebody from another department asks for numbers that might be none of their business.”

      “Huh.”

      “Huh? Is that all you can say?” Gloria said. “Think of the implications in these clearly made-up income numbers the people at Heaven’s Philosophers are bandying about.”

      “What it means, “I said, “they must have a money-laundering scheme going on.”

      “That’s what Nikki thinks.”

      “Don’t tell me she’s going to get Revenue Canada involved?”

      “Nikki’s merely a dispassionate observer giving her oldest friend a helping hand,” Gloria said. “Honestly, Crang, relax and show some gratitude for the gifts I’m laying on you.”

      Gloria was right. I was the guy who didn’t think twice about invading the Reverend Al’s inner sanctum. So why should I come over all moralistic about somebody else, Nikki in this case, playing fast and loose with confidential government documents? It was all in the interests of aiding my client Flame, who happened to be the good guy in whatever was going on. He could possibly turn out not totally good in the long run, but he was likely better than everybody else.

      “Sorry, Gloria,” I said. “I got to keep my eye on the ball.”

      “What does your eye see?” Gloria said. “Besides a ball?”

      “The guys at the church rake in millions in illegitimate enterprises of a kind unknown for the time being,” I said. “Then they scrub the money clean by declaring it as income in barely existent businesses headquartered in the church building.”

      “Nikki reads the situation the same general way.”

      “These guys are probably raking in ten times the figures they show on the tax returns. The numbers are just for the tax people’s benefit. My opinion, they’re hiding tens of millions more in laundered money.”

      “Nikki thinks the bad guys will likely bail out in a couple of years,” Gloria said. “The fraud involved is too out front to keep pulling it off indefinitely.”

      I gave Gloria a long look that I meant to be thoughtful and meaningful.

      “What’s with the dippy expression, Crang?” she said.

      “The question is this,” I said. “Are the eight million dollars the Reverend Al’s trying to squeeze out of the Flame people part of the Heaven’s Philosophers operation? Are they bucks that’ll undergo the usual money laundering process?”

      “Sounds to me like a good guess.”

      “That would mean Heaven’s Philosophers are involved in the blackmail, and I need to pin down the names of the guys behind the church.”

      “You keep saying names,” Gloria said. “And I keep saying I haven’t had the time to uncover any.”

      “No fear,” I said.

      I got out my iPhone and clicked a few times until I pulled up the names of the eleven guys I took off the computer in the Reverend Al’s office.

      “See what you can find out about these guys,” I said. “Hold on a second and I’ll send them to your iPad.”

      “And what are you going to be doing while I run down the list of rascals?” Gloria said.

      “Chatting with a guy who’s got a contact inside Heaven’s Philosophers,” I said, completing the business with my iPhone.

      I seemed to be on a roll.

      Chapter Twelve

      Maury picked me up outside the Kennedy subway station Saturday morning. In a few blocks, we were driving north and east through Scarborough. Or maybe it was North York. Clusters of high rises, built in the last twenty years in an uninspired style, alternated with streets of houses that had been around since the early 1950s. The houses were mostly bungalows on large lots. In a few places, the bungalows gave way to the tear-down treatment, replaced by giant, mock-Tudor residences that muscled up to the lot lines on either side. They looked like houses that natural-born bullies would go for.

      Maury parked outside one of the old bungalows. It was surrounded by mature but healthy trees that must have been planted at the same time the houses went up. The effect was kind of charming.

      “Jackie’s lived here fifty years,” Maury said.

      “Here being where exactly? North York?”

      “Markham,” Maury said. “Everybody else on the block moved in from China the last few years. Jackie’s the last holdout from the old days.”

      Maury rang the bell, and a short, cheerful-looking woman in her seventies answered the door with a warm smile. She gave Maury a kiss on the cheek and shook my hand firmly. Maury introduced her as Irene Gabriel.

      “Jackie loves company these days,” Irene said.

      Jackie was sitting in the living room, watching television with the sound on mute. The screen showed five guys and a dealer playing cards. Poker, I thought. Jackie, also in his seventies, had his left foot tilted over on its side at an unnatural angle, and his mouth took a slight leftward slant. Otherwise he seemed free of visible stroke indications.

      “You want to hear about my kid and these Heaven’s Philosophers?” Jackie said to me. His speech, as Maury had warned, sounded clumsy, but the words were entirely decipherable.

      “And about where the Reverend Alton Douglas might fit into the picture,”

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