"Maybe you should think about having a family of your own," he said, gazing back at her with interest. "I bet it would be pretty easy to get a husband if you wanted to."
"Do you really think so?" She seemed to doubt it.
Charlie nodded, amused that this wily woman of self-proclaimed excellent pedigree was trying to get him to believe she was insecure. She worked on it a little more.
After lunch, she offered him a ride in her car. She gave him the keys, and he actually got a huge kick out of driving a car he could never own himself. He followed the road out to Long Beach, where they got out of the car to look at the water. So far she hadn't told him a single useful thing, but neither had he. They were playing it very cagey.
On Long Beach itself, there was a five-mile boardwalk. Mona said she loved hiking, but couldn't exactly walk in the shoes she had on. So, they stood in the breeze for a while and contemplated the beach and the ocean. Beautiful. People were out there in their bathing suits, sitting on the sand, walking, playing volleyball. For a moment Charlie thought that it would be nice to be part of a couple, to have a classy, competent woman in his life who wasn't a transient he couldn't wait to get rid of at the end of an evening or early the next morning. Someone he could cook and eat with, talk to, relax with.
As he was thinking this, Mona took his hand and held it tight. "You're amazing," she told him with eyes as big and deep as the ocean in front of them.
CHAPTER 33
AT FIVE O'CLOCK CHARLIE DROVE HOME to change his clothes for a drink at Mona Whi tman's house. He felt he'd hit pay dirt with the invitation to come to her home. Usually their residences were the last places taxpayers wanted agents to go. Whatever Mona wanted him to see there, however, Charlie knew he would learn a lot. In the last few days he was working overtime for the service, being more popular and having more dates than he'd had in months. He was doing fieldwork, and the field was coming to him. The only question was how much sowing he would have to do, and what kind of harvest he would get for his efforts.
The Sales case wasn't numbered for criminal investigation yet. As far as the district director and the regional commissioner were concerned, he was still doing background for a routine audit. But he could smell fear emanating from every corner of the case. There was so much quaking going on, he'd begun to think conspiracy. He had his eye on a bigger target now, Ira Mandel, accountant, adviser, and third-party record keeper to many high-profile taxpayers. If he was a rotten apple at Sales, he was a rotten apple elsewhere, too.
Mitchell Sales might be in the hospital, but the case of Sales Importers was spiraling on its own. Inside the company there was an informer, teasing, teasing, and not yet out of the closet. Whoever it was could get immunity if he or she came forward voluntarily with information leading to a conviction. Often, however, informants did not come forward and identify themselves, not for anything, even high fink fees.
Most people didn't know that the government paid up to 10 percent on recovered revenues in evasion cases. If the numbers were up there in the hundreds of thousands-or the millions-the fees could add up. But of the 1,200 plus informants who came forward every year, only a small minority attempted to get their money. Charlie had six cases right now with fink fees no one wanted to claim. It turned out that a lot of people ratted to get even but feared disclosure because getting even could go both ways.
The IRS picked different professions to target with audits every year. A few years ago when it was dentists, a nurse had tipped the service off to an oral surgeon she worked for who had several offices. He'd been cooking his books for fifteen years. She got her ten-thousand-dollar fink fee, but was blackballed and never got another job in a doctor's office again.
Charlie pondered Mona Whitman. He had his eye on her. Mona was a third party, and all third parties counted. According to Mona's own testimony, she was not a third-party professional record keeper, like Ira Mandel, or Mitch's various lawyers, banks, customers, and creditors. But as a partner in his business, as a friend, and maybe girlfriend, Mona was a non-record-keeping third party. She had intimate knowledge of his and the company's dealings and as such could quite possibly be a coconspirator in his activities. A conviction as a coconspirator in an evasion case would garner her a prison sentence up to five years and a $250,000 fine in addition to any unrecorded, unpaid additional income she had. Prosecution was a discretionary action that the Treasury requested and the Justice Department carried out.
All the way home to Lynbrook, in addition to feeling regret at being back in his own noisy, undistinguished car, Charlie pondered the question of how to protect Cassie Sales. From Long Beach it was not a long way. He drove down Lake Avenue, checking the rearview mirror every few minutes to make sure the Jaguar was not behind him. He didn't trust Mona Whitman and her own investigative techniques. His house came into view and he sighed with relief. No Jag behind him. No Jag was out front, either.
Lynbrook had a number of great old houses like his with its wraparound porch ringed with late-blooming peach azalea (showing now) and blue hydrangea that would flower later in the summer. The property border picket fence was covered with climbing roses, one or two flowers of which were already in bloom. He and his father tended the property with loving care, and though it was nothing compared with Cassie's, Charlie thought the property wasn't too bad at all. His real estate friend, Carol, who was heavier than she should be and whom he didn't find as attractive as she found him, was always telling him he could sell it in a heartbeat. On an early summer day like today, he thought it was probably true. But after owning the place for twenty-five years, even with the first $250,000 tax free, the capital gains tax would still take a big chunk. He didn't see how he could ever sell.
Upstairs, Charlie showered quickly, then hesitated in the closet for a long time, considering his wardrobe. Nothing he had was up to the tight pants and sweater Mona Whitman had been wearing. Finally he decided on a houndstooth jacket, a yellow shirt, and khaki trousers. Then he drove northeast to the other side of Long Island, where his possible informant, the girlfriend who probably had not a drop of blue blood in her veins and who was suing the wife he liked, said she lived.
ROSLYN WAS A WHOLE OTHER STORY from Long Beach and Lynbrook. Roslyn had a nice town park with a duck pond, real ducks, and many gracious old white houses with porches and peaked roofs and green shutters that were larger and finer versions of Charlie's. In this neighborhood, they'd be triple the price, too. Charlie drove down the hill into Roslyn Harbor, an even cuter little town without a grocery store that looked like it belonged on Cape Cod, or out in the Hamptons. Then he swung back up the hill taking a little tour of the neighborhood.
Halfway up the hill, before he reached Roslyn Heights, he saw the red Jag parked on the street. In light of the flashy car, Mona's place was nothing special, just a tiny brick attached town house, one of dozens in a complex called Beech Tree Hill that lined both sides of the street. From the outside, there appeared to be no special features. The long squat row of brick structures had small windows, nonexistent landscaping, no balconies or sun porches, and rows of ugly garages behind them. Compared with Cassie Sales's pretty house and superb gardens, it was a tenement. Charlie parked the Buick behind the Jag and got out.