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to be putting together a paper trail so convincing no IRS auditor will ever question Crime Boss A’s great business savvy. Two, as the person directly laundering the money, Donnie needs to make sure he doesn’t, say, lose any socks in the dryer.”
    D.D.’s eyes rounded. “No way!”
    “Foxwoods. Bad round of blackjack. For about a month straight. You’d think Donnie B. would know when to walk away.”
    “He gambled away a crime lord’s dirty money?”
    “About a quarter of a million dollars, according to sources.”
    “Whose?”
    “Andréas Chernkoff.”
    D.D.’s eyes rounded further. She’d heard of Chernkoff, or the Chernobyl of the North, as he liked to be called. He’d arrived in Boston eight years back, intent on conquering new territory, while expanding his empire from caviar and vodka into high-end call girls and cocaine. He liked to say that local investigators were jealous of his car collection. Local investigators were mostly jealous they couldn’t pin a thing to a man who routinely thumbed his nose in their direction.
    “Doesn’t he have a reputation for cutting off ears?” D.D. asked now.
    “And big toes,” Joe said. “I don’t think Donnie is sleeping well at night.”
    D.D. thought about the producer’s obvious nerves, which now made sense.
    “Who knows about all this? I mean, there are a hundred and four people running around this movie set. Are we talking half real movie biz, half plants, what?”
    “Oh all movie biz. Director is legit, actors legit, crew legit. A real movie is being made based on a real script and financed by some real investors. Just not all law-abiding investors. Donnie, as the executive producer, is the money man. From what I can tell, he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Probably was approached by one of Chernkoff’s financial minions and offered a staggering sum to finance his latest project. Being a short-term thinker, Donnie said yes. Later, the fine print probably became clearer to him. Including the risk to not only his professional reputation but also his ability to remain among the living.”
    “Donnie’s pretty desperate?”
    “Day by day, I’ve watched him become wiser and wiser to the mess he’s made.”
    “And Samuel Chaibongsai,” D.D. pressed. “The cop consultant? Surely he started to figure out not everything about the set was up-and-up. Including”—she pinned Joe with her gaze—“I bet he made you.”
    “Day four,” Joe confessed. “Guess I really can’t quit my day job for the big screen.”
    “What did he say?”
    The federal agent shrugged. “Much like you. Pulled me aside. Said he could tell I had on-the-job experience. I came clean. Chaibongsai seemed legit. I wasn’t worried about him.”
    “Have much did you reveal?”
    “Federal agent, working a fraud investigation. Chaibongsai was old school, a retired beat cop. White-collar crime was enough to cool his curiosity. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, those crimes he would’ve found interesting. Fraud . . . I believe his exact words were ‘Better you than me, buddy.’”
    D.D. didn’t like it. She shook her head, chewing her lower lip. “He was found murdered tonight,” she informed the FBI agent. “No way that’s coincidence. Maybe after Samuel’s discussion with you, he did a little digging on his own. Old beat cops love to show up young feds.”
    Joe appeared shaken at the news of Chaibongsai’s death. “He never came to me with anything,” the undercover agent said, a shade defensively.
    “Maybe because he was killed before he had the chance.”
    “That’s a lot of maybes.”
    “Two mil is a lot of motive.”
    Joe hesitated. “How was he killed?”
    “Beat to death with a blunt instrument, possibly a baseball bat. In his own apartment. Landlord found the body. Apparently, the unit below his noticed a drip.”
    Joe thinned his lips, shook his head, thinned his lips again, then sighed heavily. “Sounds like something Chernkoff’s henchmen would