The dome over the courtroom at Gotham Federal Court was very high. If someone put in an overhead storage platform, it could probably hold a lot of stuff.
Li Jie sat beside the aisle in the third row from the back of the public gallery, looking up at the ceiling. The angle was good: he could see the entire trial area without attracting much attention. There was a load-bearing pillar behind his seat that could serve as cover if necessary.
The trial had been going on for two hours. The tax fraud proceedings were as dull as an accounting lecture, and quite a few people in the gallery had started yawning. Li Jie was getting drowsy too. He couldn't understand what they were saying up front, and didn't even know where places like the Cayman Islands were. All he could do was press the cold stone ball in his hand against his forehead to wake himself up.
The mob godfather looked every inch a respectable businessman today-though, of course, he usually did. A Thermos sat on the defense table in front of him, beside his notes and documents.
Harvey Dent stood behind the prosecution table, delivering his closing argument.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, numbers don't lie." Harvey's clear, firm voice echoed through the courtroom. "Over the past five years, the companies owned by Mr. Maroni reported losses of eight million dollars. Yet during that same period, more than thirty million dollars actually flowed into those companies' bank accounts."
He walked over to the projection screen and pointed at the complicated diagram tracing the money.
"Where did that money go? Through layers of nested shell companies, it ultimately ended up in accounts in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. This wasn't business mismanagement. It was carefully planned fraud."
Maroni's