Stung

by Gary Stephen Ross

  “Clubs are played, Brian.”

  “Excuse me.”

  In the bathroom he removed his glasses and studied himself in the mirror. His skin was pasty, his breathing came in ragged gasps. His mouth filled suddenly with saliva. He knelt at the toilet but nothing came. At the basin he splashed water on his face and felt better. At least the game had been a thriller. Losing by an inch was more intense than winning by a mile. God, what a ride. Close your eyes on a roller coaster and you can’t tell whether you’re hitting bottom or going over the top. All you know is what you feel, and you feel things that people who stick to subways and buses will never feel…

  Molony flushed the toilet for the others to hear. Funny how he’d known Worthy would miss the second free throw. If he could have bet, right then, he would have bet his life. He dried his face and put his glasses back on. The others were waiting for him. He took his seat, avoiding Brenda’s eye, and picked up his cards.

  “What did you lead?”

  “Clubs,” said Phil.

  “Anything wrong?” said Brenda.

  “What’s the matter?” said Louise. “Your team won.”

  A couple of days later, on Thursday morning, Molony arrived at work to find his office done up with streamers, his drawers taped shut, and the wildlife prints on his wall upside down. His phone rang. He picked up the receiver and heard only a dial tone. Two girls, watching across the mezzanine, couldn’t help giggling. “April Fools!”

  Where was the old Brian? The one who would have had an instant comeback. As a credit officer he’d been unfailingly genial, thriving on work, cheering up the others with a joke. Remember the time he phoned Ralph’s credit officer, knowing that Ralph was out of the branch? He pretended to be Ralph’s biggest customer and said he was pulling his accounts because he could never get in touch with anyone who knew anything about them. Remember the stunned look on poor Terry’s face, and Brian’s mischievous grin, and the way they laughed about it afterwards? Whatever happened to that Brian? Remember the way he’d acted on Monte Carlo night, when blackjack tables were set up downstairs and he showed all the girls how to play? “When you want another card say, ‘Hit me! Hit me again!’ ” Like a big kid. Remember the party in his office every Christmas, when he’d buy eggnog and invite everyone in to drink the booze his customers had given him? He’d changed since Osborne got him the promotion, no doubt about it. Maybe Buckle was less keen on him, but Buckle had brought his own man across the street and it only stood to reason. That didn’t mean Osborne hadn’t made a wise move. Now, though, two years later, some of the girls who’d seen Brian’s gradual transformation wondered if it had been such a wise move after all. He was twenty-six going on forty. He seemed to bear the weight of the world. Had Osborne overestimated his capabilities? Had Brian bitten off more than he could chew?

  From his gaily adorned office, Molony phoned Michael Rosen at the Caesars office in Toronto. He said he intended to deposit $400,000 in the California Clearing Corporation account. Most was for his own use that weekend in Atlantic City, but $40,000 was for Mario Colizzi at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Rosen told him to notify Mrs. Locke at the Manulife branch of the Bank of Montreal when he made the deposit.

  Molony took out one of the numbered company’s forged promissory notes. He filled in a sum — $490,000 — and took the note down to the discount clerk. The proceeds were credited to the account of 499726 Ontario Ltd. In the foreign-exchange department he told the girl to prepare a draft for $400,000 U.S. He told her to debit the cost to the 499726 loan account, and to make the draft payable to California Clearing Corporation. Wonderful name — how many upstanding dentists, carpet kings, and Rotarians had found it convenient to make cheques payable to California Clearing Corporation rather than Caesars Palace? Charles K. Peterson had a nice ring to it as well.

  When the girl put the draft on his desk, Molony considered taking it himself to the Manulife Centre. No. The subway was too slow and a cab would cost at least five dollars. Nor could he afford to leave his office. This enterprise was as tense and complex as a space launch; his phone was mission control; to leave it unattended would be to invite disaster. Didn’t the Bank of Montreal have another branch in the concourse of the Thomson Building across the street? He looked up the number, phoned over, asked for the accountant, and got Tim Rochford.

  “I’m an assistant manager at the Commerce,” said Molony. “We have a substantial draft here, $400,000 U.S., which a customer wants deposited in one of your branches. Can you telephone-transfer it? What’s the procedure?”

  Rochford had been promoted a few weeks earlier and was still feeling his way in his new job, which made him responsible for all lending, personal and consumer, in the branch. “I’ll have to check on that,” he said. “Can you give me your number?”

  “I’ll hold,” said Molony.

  Rochford returned after a minute. “If you can tell us the branch, we’ll telephone-transfer it up.”

  “Manulife branch,” said Molony. “To the attention of a Mrs. Locke.”

  “You’ll deliver the draft here?”

  “Yes. It will be credited today, I presume. They certainly wouldn’t want to lose a day’s interest.”

  “If you’ll get it here, we’ll transfer it right away.”

  “What’s the charge on that?” said Molony.

  “Hold on a second. That would be sixty dollars.”

  “Sixty dollars! I’m better off sending it up by cab.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Seems like a lot for a telephone transfer. Guess it doesn’t matter — it’s the customer’s money.”

  Molony phoned Mrs. Locke at the Manulife branch and said he was with the Commerce at Bay and Richmond. “One of our customers asked us to transfer funds to an account at your branch — the California Clearing Corporation account. You’ll be getting a telephone transfer from your Thomson branch.”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s a large sum,” said Molony, faltering. He hadn’t given his name, he could hang up. “Uh, four hundred thousand U.S.”

  “Oh,” said the woman, “six or seven million flows through that account every month.”

  So much for customer confidentiality. Molony sealed the draft and a covering note in an envelope, addressed it to Rochford, then realized he’d failed to include the name of the remitter. What if the Bank of Montreal called to ask, “Who’s the CIBC customer depositing this money in the California Clearing account?” The foreign-exchange girl was nowhere in sight. Molony slipped down to her desk. He had to use her typewriter so the typeface would match. In the upper left corner of the negotiable copy of the draft, he typed: “b/o M. Colizzi.” He was about to head across the street when Harry Buckle walked into his office.

  “Is this yours, Brian?”

  Molony’s heart leapt. For a year and a half he had kept track of all the bad loans in his head, but it had become impossible. There were too many, and he’d done too much juggling. That morning on scrap paper he had listed them and added them up, to see where he stood. Buckle, catching up on his work, had asked for a file. In putting the file on Buckle’s desk, Molony had inadvertently included the list of fraudulent accounts. How could he have been so stupid? The $400,000 was on its way to the casino, his salvation already in place. This was going to be the weekend, he knew it, if only he could catch up to the money. After all the grief, the heart-stopping moments and miraculous escapes, was this how it would end? With the manager waving his own list of $7-million in bad loans?

  “Is this yours?” Buckle repeated.

  The handwriting was unmistakable. As Molony tried to answer he swallowed involuntarily, choking on the word “Yes.”

  “You left it on my desk,” said Buckle, and walked out.

  April 3,1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Frank Hines.

  2 p.m. Craps #12. Brian Maloney is only player on game. Has $20,000. Lost that. Received another $30,000. Was betting Don’t, $5000 double odds. Plays 4, 5, 9, 10 for $5,000. Don’t.
Places 6, 8 for $5,000. Left after going broke.

  3 p.m. Baccarat #1. Heavy purple play. Maloney was down to $10,000. Ran it up to $120,000. Maloney ran a $40,000 marker up to $100,000. Switching back and forth between craps and baccarat.

  3:20 p.m. Baccarat #1. Purple play. Maloney lost all. Got a $20,000 marker, lost it and left.

  4:08 p.m. $50,000 marker. Maloney. Lost. Moved to baccarat #2. Got $40,000 marker. Lost. Moved to craps #11. $15,000 marker. Heavy action, switching from Don’t Pass to Pass line. Action fast and furious. Was up to $80,000. Walked with $20,000. To baccarat #3. Lost it all and walked.

  The following week Molony put through a loan of $990,000 in the name of DCL Customs Brokers Ltd. There was no such company. He handled the account of Danzas Canada Limited, however, which had a $1-million authorized line of credit secured by a Swiss bank guarantee. If questioned — “What’s this DCL loan? Why is there no authorized credit?” — he’d say it was actually Danzas. He instructed the foreign-exchange girl to issue a draft to California Clearing Corporation in the amount of $800,000 U.S. The cost of the draft — $986,150 Canadian — was debited to the DCL Customs Brokers account. As he’d done the previous week, he waited until the girl was elsewhere, then slipped down to her desk. On the negotiable copy he again typed: “b/o M. Colizzi.”

  Molony phoned Michael Neustadter at Caesars in Atlantic City and said $800,000 was being deposited in the California Clearing Corporation account. It would be in Colizzi’s name, he said, but was for his own use at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where he planned to spend the Easter holiday with Brenda, Phil, and Louise. Neustadter had already arranged a complimentary suite and given Molony the name of a vice-president at Caesars Palace. Molony worried that Neustadter would question the size of the transaction, but he simply thanked Molony for the call. Molony said he’d phone later to confirm.

  His shirt was soaked through. In the men’s room he washed his face and hands, pulling himself together. Then he called Tim Rochford across the street to say the same customer wanted to make another telephone transfer to the Manulife branch. He put the $800,000 U.S. bank draft in an envelope, addressed it to Rochford, and took it across the street himself. He told a clerk, “I was asked to drop this off for Mr. Rochford,” and hurried out. No use worrying. It was out of his hands. Nothing to do but return to the correspondence, files, and message slips on his desk.

  Harry Buckle, meanwhile, was still making his way through the work that had accumulated on his holiday. One of the many things requiring his attention was Molony’s position description. Having blocked Molony’s transfer to Lawrence and Keele, which would have meant a promotion and a raise, Buckle was putting in for a grade increase so Molony would receive the same raise at Bay and Richmond. The position description was a standard form. Under the heading “Knowledge and Skills,” Buckle wrote of Molony: “Broad knowledge of bank’s credit requirements and services. Capacity to communicate and negotiate with senior executives of large corporations.” Under “Personal Characteristics,” Buckle described Molony as having “good judgement and proven ability to make decisions. Personable, alert, aggressive, and industrious.” Among the things Buckle included under “Description of Duties” were: “Supervise authorized credits to ensure compliance with credit terms and provisions” and “Participate in development and growth of all areas of branch business by way of expansion of existing business and development of new business.”

  The day before Molony left to spend Easter weekend with the $800,000 he had sent to Las Vegas, Harry Buckle signed the position description — recommending promotion from grade 9 to grade 10 — and sent it downtown.

  Caesars Palace, on the Las Vegas Strip, is an unabashed monument to excess and corruption. Built by Jay Sarno, himself an ardent gambler, financed partly by the Teamsters’ pension fund, run initially by executives with direct ties to Mafia families, Caesars has attracted the attention of every major law-enforcement agency in the United States. Dozens of its owners, officers, and employees have been investigated — and, in many cases, indicted — for stock fraud, bookmaking, skimming, and conspiracy. When the company applied for a licence to operate in New Jersey, the Casino Control Commission insisted that two principal owners, the Perlman brothers, dissociate themselves from the corporation. Many Las Vegas casinos are surrounded by a criminal aura; ever since it opened, in 1966, Caesars Palace has been considered one of the most unsavoury.

  The place looks like something devised by Walt Disney and Bob Guccione. A giant marquee announces the current showroom star — over the years the headliners have included Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby, Joan Rivers, and Frank Sinatra. Fountains gush alkaline water fifty feet in the air. Rows of cypress trees line the drive to the parking lots. Pedestrians enter the Temple of Diana, off Las Vegas Boulevard, and take the automated walkway to (but not from) the casino. The place is monumental and shaped vaguely like the Roman Forum. Its white stucco exterior is bathed at night in blue-green light, which glows behind the cement grill-work that covers the building.

  Inside, the gaudy sumptuousness is unrestrained. The colour scheme leans toward rich reds and purples. There’s marble everywhere — columns, balustrades, and twenty-foot knockoffs of such statuary as the Venus de Milo, The Rape of the Sabines, and Winged Victory of Samothrace. The brass and crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling of the casino are purportedly the biggest in the world. The cocktail girls wear mini-togas and artificial falls of hair. The restaurants have names such as Bacchanal, Cafe Roma, and the Ah So steakhouse; one of the cocktail lounges, Cleopatra’s Barge, rocks gently on the mechanical waves of its own lagoon.

  When Phil and Louise saw the accommodations Brian had arranged for Easter weekend, they exchanged a glance. The suite included two large bedrooms and a spacious livingroom-diningroom. The beds were on raised platforms, the walls covered with velvet, the bathroom glasses wrapped in gold metal foil. The carpeting must have been three inches thick. The ceiling above the sunken tub in the bedroom was mirrored. How much was all this going to cost?

  The women spent the weekend sitting around the pool, window-shopping at Gucci and Ted Lapidus, feeding quarters into slot machines. The men went off to gamble. Brian told Phil, “The only way to learn Las Vegas is on your own. See you later.” Around seven everybody met for drinks, dinner, and a show. Brian signed all the food and bar cheques, billing everything to the suite. Once the women had gone to bed, the men went back out gambling.

  Over the weekend a number of things happened that Phil found perplexing. He wanted to bet the Blue Jays’ home opener, so Brian took him across the street to the Barbary Coast. One of the smaller places on the Strip, the Barbary is tricked out in mock Victoriana meant to evoke turn-of-the-century San Francisco — fake antique stained glass and cocktail waitresses in frilly garters. At the sports book Phil tried to bet the Jays. Too late: the first pitch had already been thrown. When Phil said the clerk had refused his bet, Brian had a word with the manager. Presto — they took the bet after all. Now that, said Phil, is what I call pull. Brian, obviously uncomfortable, shrugged: “Your bet isn’t going to break the bank.” Phil puzzled over the incident, though, especially when something curious happened that evening. While they were all at dinner, a stranger approached Brian and said, “Hear you had a big win today.” Brian, embarrassed, excused himself from the table. And Louise told Phil something Brenda had told her. That afternoon Brenda had gone across to the Flamingo, to try the slots there. She spotted Brian playing craps. When she went up behind him and touched his arm, surprising him, he told her he didn’t want to see her. Playing with anyone you know, he said, was bad luck. He hadn’t even said it nicely, he’d snapped at her, then apologized to her back at the suite.

  The next day Molony got a call from Albert Ngan, the high-stakes gambler from Hong Kong whom he’d met at Caesars in Atlantic City. Though on cordial terms, the two men were hardly bosom buddies. Albert knew no more about Molony than that he was from Toronto and played baccar
at for exorbitant stakes.

  “How are you, Brian?”

  “You’re the last person I expected to hear from.”

  “Why don’t you come here? They’ll fly you back in time to see the Bucks and the 76ers. They say we can meet Dr. J. at half time.”

  Evidently it irked people at Caesars in Atlantic City to think of Molony spending the weekend in Las Vegas, even if he was at the sister casino. They’d taken the wrong tack to lure him back. Though Molony had discussed the NBA playoffs with Albert and bet the series heavily, he had no interest in attending a game or meeting Julius Erving. He didn’t enjoy being a spectator, no matter how much was at stake, since it meant three hours without access to other scores and race results. He had no intention of leaving Las Vegas, not during the run he was enjoying. He had indeed had a big win at the Barbary, and he’d hit a rare streak at the crap table, one of those magic interludes when you practically tell the dice your number. In his first twenty-four hours he’d won $600,000.

  Molony told Albert no thanks. He changed his shirt, went to the Dunes, and won $100,000 in half an hour. He crossed to the Barbary to check the scores and won another $100,000 at mini-baccarat. Nothing spectacular, just steady good fortune. All he had to do was keep it going. On Tuesday he’d pay down at least some of the bad loans. Maybe all of them. Maybe he’d be able to put the whole wretched escapade behind him.

  Brian had a reputation for near-misses at the airport; on the last day Brenda reminded him, “We need to leave at least an hour before our flight.” The others gathered back at the suite, packed and ready, but there was no sign of him. Brenda fumed. Brian had checked them in and had to sign them out. Phil imagined he was on a roll and didn’t want to break it off. Finally, half an hour before the flight, Brian let himself into the suite. They hurried down to the desk. When Brian checked them all out, Phil asked how much their share was.