It was a business.

A major real estate development in the city was stalled, he explained, because certain landowners would not sign, and certain investors needed guarantees.

And for years, Raymond and his associates had solved such problems the same way: they identified a person who stood in the way of a lucrative deal, arranged an intimate dinner, drugged them, manufactured compromising material, and used it to force signatures — the transfer of land rights, the approval of sales to shell companies at a fraction of their worth.

It was extortion, industrialized, run out of a beautiful house in the hills over ribeye steak.