Holding the letter, Christine’s hands dropped into her lap.  She looked up and out into the distance reflectively. “My God, Mat.  Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I just couldn’t. It’s complicated,” he said. “There’s more.  When I worked at the bank I became familiar with the laws concerning money.  You can’t just put fifty grand, cash, in the bank.  It would be reported to the Government and they would have wanted to know where I got it.  You can’t even really break it up into smaller deposits.  The risk of getting caught is just too great.  And you can’t just buy something for that much cash either. It would raise suspicion.  I needed to find a way to avoid the kind of attention from the authorities that windfall cash brings. So I had to figure a way to put it into some useable form of currency that appeared legitimate.”

“And how on earth would you do that?”  Christine asked, with obvious misgivings. 

“Well, remember when I worked at the bank and I sometimes talked about Hyman Wexler?  He taught me a lot about banking and money in general.  He was a confidant of sorts, and he definitely mentored me in the ways of money,” Mat explained.  “When I got this $50,000, I was scared and under stress.  I had to ask someone about it so I went to him discreetly one day and explained that I had come into a large amount of money in the form of cash.  I asked him what he thought I should do.

Christine replied, “Why didn’t you mention it to me?  I’m your wife, remember?”

“I know, Chris.  I’m not saying I’ve made all the right decisions in my life, but I did what I did and it can’t be undone, but I’m telling you now.  Anyway, Wexler told me that if it was cash and I couldn’t reveal its source, then obviously it was from something criminal.  I explained to him that it was a payoff given to my deceased mother from fifteen years ago and that I had done nothing wrong.  I only wanted to put it into an account somehow,” Mat explained.

“Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them the story?” Christine asked.

“C’mon, Honey.  They would have confiscated the money.  It had been locked up in that safety deposit box for years and nobody came looking for it.  Why would I give up fifty thousand bucks just because it wasn’t legitimate and taxable?  If we didn’t deserve this money, the cops certainly had no right to it either,” Mat replied.

Christine said, “So what was Mr. Wexler’s advice?”

“He said that under Canadian baking laws, all transactions of $10,000 or more have to be reported to the Government.  It’s called Currency Transaction Reporting. Deposits, money transfers, wire transfers, everything.  He said if I divided the cash into twelve equal sums less than ten thousand each, they could be wired out of the country to an account in Zurich, Switzerland. Then we could invoice a shell company over seas for consulting work done here, and they could pay us with a cheque drawn from the Swiss Bank.  So Foley and I set up a numbered company in Switzerland and we each made six wire transfers to it from different locations here in the city.  Everything went down clean and simple.  We moved the money overseas, brought it back, and deposited it as fees for service.  It was easy, actually.”  Mat looked at her intently to see if she was getting this.

“So, where is this money now?” Christine went on.

“Foley and I invested it bit by bit into our business account along with regular customer payments. Now it’s just shareholder’s equity on the balance sheet. And I gave half of it to my brother, as mom had asked me to in this letter,” Mat replied. “But, I told you, it’s more involved than that.  Through my connections at the bank, I came to know some guys who conduct business on the fringes of the law, and sometimes, quite outside the law.  They generate money and needed to find someone who could transform it into legitimate capital.  Over time, I became somewhat of an expert at laundering money for a fee.  Foley and I discovered that we could make a lot more money that way, than by working hard for other people and paying taxes to a government that can never take enough.  As it stands now, you and I Christine, have a lot of capital in some overseas accounts.  We’re rich in relative terms, compared to most families in our neighborhood.”  Mat looked at her hoping to see some glimmer of approval in her face.

She stared at Mat blankly for several moments.  Neither of them spoke.  Christine seemed to be processing all the information and its implications in her mind.  Then she said, “So all this time you’ve allowed me to believe that you’ve been going to work at your business with Foley, you’ve really been going out to conduct an illegal money laundering scheme and associating with criminals and their ilk?”

“Well, no… I mean yes, sometimes.  But we had to run the business too. It’s not like we do the laundering thing full time.  It was just a diversion to make some extra cash, tax free.”

“What you’re doing is illegal and criminal.  If you get caught you’ll go to jail.  We’ll lose our house.  I’ll lose my husband.  Hannah will lose her father. We’ll be disgraced in the community.  And you’ve been keeping this secret from me for years?”

Mat countered, “Yes, it’s criminal,” his voice raising involuntarily.  “Because the people who make the rules to suit their purposes define it as criminal.  Money is money, Chris. We’re being robbed blind by everyone from the government to the oil companies,  the insurance companies, to the very bank that fired me and took away my livelihood when they decided my job and life were expendable. Do you know that the average Canadian has to work until the middle of June, roughly, until their annual income stops going towards taxes and starts going into their own pockets?  Do you think we’re getting good value for those taxes?

“I’ve found a way to make us truly wealthy.  Not just comfortably middle class, but affluent beyond all doubt.  Millionaires.  Do you think all the millionaires and billionaires in the world earned their money on the up and up? There’s the good guys and there’s the bad guys, and sometimes you have to look real close to figure out which one is which.  I’m just making money and securing a bright future for our family.  I’m not hurting anyone. Let’s not get caught up on the fine points of the law and morality.”

“Mat, you’re participating in criminal activities.  You’re associating with hoods and felons and gangs and who knows what else.  They all get their money through crime, theft, hookers, drugs, and robbery of one sort or another.  I’m not stupid ─ are you?”