A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

Princess Regent's Office, Cliff Offices, Kaliburg
4:05 PM A Friday

The Princess Regent walked into her office. The Chancellor was already seated, and rose as the Princess Regent entered and closed the door behind her.

"Alright, Lady Donahue, let's make this quick. I want to get back to Luxon this afternoon. I swear I don't think this city ever warms up... I almost need a coat out there, and its July..."

"I'll make it quick then, your Highness," said the Chancellor of the Empire. She let the Princess Regent take a seat first and then she followed suit. From her briefcase, she pulled out a file. It had the word Levinson on the tab. "Alright, Highness, take a look at this picture. Who do you see here?" The Princess Regent picked up the photo and looked closely at it.

"I see Maxwell and his wife. This was from, I'm thinking this was from when they went to Tel Bira on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This was the picture from the Republic."

"Yes, that's correct. That's Maxwell, that's his wife Jeanette..."

"She's fun," the Princess Regent said. "I hope that trip cured them of that diamond nonsense..."

"Well, who knows, but do you recognize this guy here?" She pointed at the rather tall individual in a fedora and a heavy coat standing behind Jeanette Maxwell.

"Who is that? He's the head of the security detail, I suppose?"

The Chancellor reached into her dossier and said "No, his name is Levinson, Julian Levinson. He goes by several names: Jules, AKA Julie, AKA The Jeweler, AKA Julie Diamonds, AKA Julie Fingers, AKA Julie Books, AKA Lefty Books... It goes on, you get the picture."

The Princess Regent smiled. "Yeah, because he's left handed, right?"

The Chancellor looked at the Regent. "No. What makes you think that?"

The Princess Regent said, "Because his alias is Lefty? But, why does a security guard need so many nicknames?"

"He's not the security guy. That's this stout fellow over here, and his name is," she flips the pages of her dossier, and reads, "James Liebowitz... and he goes by the name: Der Messer, AKA Jimmy The Shiv, AKA James the Blade, AKA Ice Pick, AKA Jimmy the Pick, AKA Icedick, AKA Slick Rick, AKA Long Dick..."

"Ok, Madame Chancellor...." said the Princess Regent. "I get it. He's talking about his penis. Do go on please. What about Levinson? Am I supposed to know who this guy is? Sounds like Maxwell got a bunch of Yeudis with a bunch of nicknames to go with him on the trip to the Homeland. So what?"

"Your Highness will remember that the Finance Ministry is looking into the accounts of the Bookmakers Association in Sulari. Apparently there's a lot of money in the reported deposits that never made it into the Bank."

"Yes, something like 15 Million, correct?"

"Well, more like 65 million," said the Chancellor.

"65 Million Imperial Rubles?!" said the Princess Regent. "They're missing 65 Million Rubles?!"

"Give or take, Highness. That's what Argon is saying..."

"Well, god damn," exclaimed the Princess. "And this fellow has something to do with it?"

"We believe he has ties to the Yeudi Mafia in Sulari..."

"Wait..." said the Princess. "You said the Yeudi Mafia? Is there a such thing as the Yeudi Mafia?"

"Well, yes, Your Highness..." she said. "There's a Yeudi Mafia.."

"Why is this the first time I am hearing about them?"

"Madame, you've only been on the job for 5 years, and so you can't be expected to know everything. Besides, they're usually small timers. Small fry... I think this is the first thing that they have even been implicated in."

"So are how are they connected to the Bookmakers Association? I thought that thing is regulated a million ways from Sunday?"

"We aren't sure, but we have pretty good reason to believe that this guy Levinson could be involved. He seems to be pretty high up in the organization. Justice has had him on the radar for a few years."

"What sorts of things is he involved with?" asked the Princess Regent.

"Well, he seems to be primarily involved with fixing bets and laundering money through the Bookmaking Association, usually through Casinos. He doesn't do any of the prostitution or racketeering stuff. He's not part of that."

"Wait another second, Madame Chancellor," said the Princess upon hearing this completely new information. "Racketeering? Prostitution? What kind of crime riddled country do we live in here?"

The Chancellor paused and looked at her for a second. "Your Majesty, I'm gonna say this the most respectful way I possibly can, but its gonna sound disrespectful, ok? But... Grow up. We have a country of more than 100 million people. We have almost no law enforcement and almost no laws, compared to many just generic NPC countries. Alright? Every society tolerates a certain amount of crime in their cities, because going after every criminal would bankrupt the country. Alright? Just... Don't act so surprised when you hear there's crime in this country. You spent your entire adult life surfing. You probably didn't run into a lot of Yeudi racketeers out on the Luxon Swell. And good for you. Can we get through this? So you can get to your train?"

The Princess Regent took the gentle chiding in stride, "Ok Madame, please continue."

The Chancellor leafed through her folder. "So: We think this guy Levinson is involved somehow with skimming casino takes, and diverting the money to his boss. The Casino keeps two sets of books, one that they show the auditers, and one that they maintain for themsevles. The ones they show the auditors usually match the bank accounts, but last year, there were these major shortfalls in deposits. The casinos paid taxes on lets say 100 million in revenue, but the bank deposits show only 96 million here, see? So somewhere between the counting rooms and the bank, 4 million went missing."

"Why is that a problem?" asked the Princess. "Isn't it their money? Can't they do what they like with it?"

"Yeah, well, that's sort of a gray area, because yeah they can, and yeah their taxes are squared away, they are paying every cent of tax that we say they owe for the amount of money they are reporting. But see, this kind of missing money suggests that the Casinos and tracks are being used to launder money. In other words, I have all this dirty money from criminal enterprises. I can't just put it in the bank. And I can't pay income tax on criminal activity. So I gotta find some way to clean it. I make a deal with a casino, they launder the money through their games of chance, I walk out of there with my money clean as a whistle, because they pay taxes on it as if they earned it, but instead of putting the money in the bank, because they didn't actually earn it, they hand it back to me, submit one set of books to the auditors for taxes, and their bank records are off."

"So the Casinos never had the money in the first place..." said the Princess.

"Correct. They charge a service fee, probably the profit taxes, and the mafia gets this money free and clear."

"And if the Bookmakers' Association has their monopoly on running gaming, contingent on their regulation of the Casinos, either they missed this and are incompetent, or they are in on it."

"Exactly, Your Highness," said the Chancellor. "We think this guy Levinson is at least a link, and we really don't have a lot on him."

"Well damn," said the Princess. "And so why is he here in this photo with Mr. Maxwell?"

"That's also a mystery," said the Chancellor. "I think Finance is about to lift up a really big rock and we're gonna see some stuff crawl out that we really aren't entirely ready to see."

"Look Ericka, We're gonna focus on this. Take the resources you need on this. Find out what the link is, and keep me up to date. I would prefer to not hear about it in the papers, if that's possible."

The Chancellor put the documents back into the folder, "I will, your Highness. We'll have our preliminary reports back by November to see how big a problem we are looking at here. Meanwhile, go catch your train. We'll be in touch if we find anything else."

"Alright. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks in Luxon."

"Aye Madame." said the Chancellor. The Princess Regent stood and the Chancellor stood as well, and the Princess strode out of her office.