Gage stood back from a chart in the Oakland loft on the following morning. Alex Z leaned against the worktable.
“How was Casey able to access the financial database?” Alex Z asked. “I thought it was just for investigating terrorism.”
“I didn’t ask, but I imagine running searches on the Arabic names was his ticket in. Anything even vaguely Islamic is still accepted as probable cause, especially when it’s connected to offshore money coming into the U.S.”
Alex Z stepped up to his whiteboard chart showing Anston’s clients, Judge Meyer’s cases, and the deposits into Pegasus that appeared on Charlie Palmer’s spreadsheet.
Gage and Alex Z turned at the grunting of Shakir rolling his wheelchair toward them.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get out of bed on your own,” Gage said. “You could hurt yourself.”
Shakir smiled, then wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
“I didn’t want to miss any of the action, especially since my name was referred to as probable cause.”
“There isn’t much action at the moment,” Gage said, “except our mental wheels spinning. But there will be.” He turned back toward the chart. “How about you guys add the wire transfers and company names Casey found to this? See what patterns show up.” He nodded toward Shakir. “Sort of like a constellation.”
“No problem, boss.” Alex Z grinned at Shakir, then looked back at Gage. “I did a little extra research. Did you know Meyer’s nickname at Yale was Mach One?”
“Like in Machiavelli Number One,” Gage said, “or the speed of sound?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Why is it important?”
Shakir laughed, then winced and reached toward his bandaged stitches.
Alex Z stepped over to his laptop. A couple of keystrokes and a click of his mouse later, a Web site burst onto the screen showing a statue of the Hindu god Krishna under a banner reading “Pacific Coast Institute of Tantric Sex.”
He next typed “MachOne” as the user ID and “YaleForever” in the password field. He then entered the site and navigated to the account data.
He pointed at the last four digits of a credit card number: “It’s Meyer’s Cayman Island card.”
“How did you find this?”
“I didn’t. Somehow Charlie Palmer did.”
“Any evidence he was blackmailing Meyer?”
Alex Z shook his head. “It may have been too late. The last activity on the account was a year ago.”
“What did he buy?”
Shakir stirred in his chair and muffled a giggle.
“An hour of mentoring by what they call a trained guide,” Alex Z said.
“I take it that means a prostitute for the new age elite?”
“The owner of the institute has a half-dozen arrests in San Francisco. It looks like she took her business inside about five years ago to keep herself out of handcuffs.”
“Or into fur-lined ones.” Gage glanced at the monitor. “He spend money on anything else?”
Alex Z grinned.
“Yeah, boss. A man’s strap-on penis extender.”