Stung

by Gary Stephen Ross

  Ebert also called Las Vegas. As soon as Caesars Palace got the transmittal form indicating funds had been deposited in Toronto, Ebert wanted it forwarded by telecopier to Atlantic City. As for the money itself, Caesars Palace was to send a cheque to Caesars in Atlantic City via Federal Express the next morning, Tuesday.

  Ron Andrews was at the typewriter, working on the affidavit for an upcoming wiretap, when the return call came. His chair had wheels, and he almost launched himself through the wall in his hurry to hit the “record” button on the Uher 4000. He slipped on headphones. Molony was going away that night and wondered if Colizzi wanted to go with him.

  “Where you want to go?”

  “South.”

  “For how long?”

  “Till tomorrow morning.”

  “Are you going to bring something back for me?”

  “Well, either that or you don’t have to come down. I just need your signature again.”

  “Again! How much you got? Maybe I’ll go by myself and pick it up.”

  “It’s not that much.”

  “How much you got in my name?”

  “About another, ah, thirty, forty.”

  “In my name, then you don’t pay me.”

  “Well, it’s not, it’s, most of, it’s from before.”

  “Oh, from before. What, you say tonight? Come back?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Four in the morning.”

  “Oh no, I don’t want to go to, you know what I mean, it’s my beauty sleep, all night, four in the morning. Man, are you tough! This is what you need to do, you need me, right?”

  “Well, I don’t need you there. If I can just take you out to the airport. Like last time.”

  “Not again! You do this to me, eh? All night!”

  “Not that late, you can sign it at six.”

  “I can sign it?”

  “You don’t have to go down there, but I have to phone them. Tell them to bring somebody up.”

  “I don’t want to do this no more. I don’t know what you’re doing to me, OK?”

  “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s nothing.”

  “How long is this going to keep going?”

  “This should be it, unless I win.”

  “Oh, if you win, that’s OK!”

  Colizzi agreed to meet him at a spot called Christopher’s Ribs near the airport. Molony said he’d recognize the car.

  “I got another car. A dark BMW.”

  “Jesus Christ! A new car every time.”

  “The other one was no good.”

  Molony asked to be reminded of Colizzi’s pager number in case of a mixup. They agreed to meet at quarter to six.

  In the tiny room with the drawing of a window on the wall, Ron Andrews called The Bulldog at home.

  “I’ve got something, Craig.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Remember that thing last week, Atlantic City, the women? It’s starting to come together.”

  The Bulldog drove down to Intelligence. Andrews played the call for him. A meet. An airport. Bring something back. I don’t want to do this no more. Maybe I’ll go myself and pick it up. Sooner or later on any authorization drugs usually turn up, and The Bulldog had a feeling they’d stumbled onto a drug deal. Andrews agreed.

  “What we’ve got to do now,” said The Bulldog, “is gather all the calls where he’s talking, or they’re talking about him. Put them together on one tape. I want to get some people in.”

  All the calls with red stars.

  Andrews made a master copy and The Bulldog played it for his boss. Staff Sergeant Brian Wilson was noncommittal: maybe there was something there, maybe not. The Bulldog called in an old friend on the RCMP drug squad. He didn’t feel strongly one way or the other. The Bulldog called in somebody from Intelligence, somebody from Fraud, somebody from the Commercial Crime section of the RCMP, and before long there were ten guys in the tiny room with the picture of a window on the wall. The Bulldog wanted to cover the meet at the airport, but he needed surveillance, and Intelligence controlled Mobile Support Services. Surveillance was expensive — add up cars, gas, radios, inside help, and salaries and you’re looking at $4,000 or $5,000 for an eight-hour shift — so you better be damn sure you weren’t going fishing. The Bulldog was sure, but he was having a hard time persuading the others. One of the Intelligence guys said flatly, “There’s nothing here.”

  The Bulldog, a man of almost infinite patience, found his patience tested. When his boss asked how long he intended to work on the authorization, he said he didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t care.

  “I’m not authorizing any overtime.”

  Something big was going down at Pearson International — maybe a serious drug deal — and everybody was talking budgets and overtime. The Bulldog knew Andrews’ instincts had been honed over thousands of hours of interception. He wanted support, but if he didn’t get it he’d damn well cover the meet on his own. He made a heated little speech.

  “This man has sat this project start to finish. He’s sure there’s something going on. I respect his judgement. If we let it go, we’ll be making a mistake. I intend to cover the meet and I want mobile support, goddamn it!” The Bulldog had never made a bet in his life. “I’ll bet you ten dollars we’re onto a drug deal.”

  The Intelligence guy said fine, you’re so goddamn gung-ho? Go ahead, cover it. “And by the way. You’re on for the ten bucks.”

  The Bulldog called Ron Stewart at Mobile Support Services. “I need a surveillance crew. I want to do some observation on Mario Colizzi. He’s meeting somebody near the airport later this afternoon. I’m not sure what we’ve got, but something.”

  Stewart, an old buddy, called a crew off another job to make them available. The Bulldog, in a rental Ford, went out to the airport to brief the others and cover the meet himself.

  Somebody had to coordinate the phones and the radios, so Ron Andrews stayed behind in the tiny room with the picture of a window on the wall.

  In mid-afternoon Molony called Caesars to confirm that the $1.42-million was on deposit. Neustadter said there’d been no notification. Molony was baffled and alarmed — no bank lets $1.42-million sit around. “I’ll get back to you,” he said, and went to find the messenger. The envelope, said the messenger, had been delivered right away. Molony called the Thomson branch. The lady said yes, the money had been sent by telephone transfer as soon as it arrived. She had done it herself. He called the Manulife branch. The lady said no, they had not received a deposit in the U.S.-dollar account of California Clearing Corporation.

  “Just a moment.” Molony put the call on hold. He fought nausea and tried to think. How does a million four get lost over the phone? What if they started backtracking? He’d put the loan through without even alerting his own credit officer. What if Steve Richardson took the call?

  What if he couldn’t gamble tonight?

  Good Lord, the artillery he’d dodged, a year and a half of full-out bombardment, only to get hit by a stray? A clerical error at the Bank of Montreal? The trick was not to panic. He opened the line and affected an impatient, authoritative tone. “Speak to your Thomson branch, will you? Let’s see if we can’t sort this out right away.”

  “If you’d like to give me your —”

  “I’ll get back to you. Half an hour.”

  Molony phoned Atlantic City. Neustadter sounded as cordial and businesslike as ever, but now there was an undertone. Irritation? Impatience? Suspicion?

  “What’s the problem, Brian?”

  “My understanding is that it was looked after some time ago.”

  “We’ve got the plane ready to go. I can’t authorize it without the confirmation.”

  As a child, Molony had loved the circus at Maple Leaf Gardens. He’d especially loved the clown who did the juggling act, a symphony of lofted balls and whirling hoops and spinning plates. It must have required absolute attention, yet the clown made it seem offhand. Molony longed to throw him a baseball — “Here, c
atch!” — to cause the moment’s lapse that would bring it all crashing down. Now he was the juggler, and the Bank of Montreal had tossed him the ball. On top of everything else it was one of the busiest banking days of the month. Between meetings he found a moment to call the police, who said they’d had no other reports of car burglaries near High Park. Did he want to file a complaint? No thanks, said Molony, and called the Manulife branch.

  “Commerce here. Straightened out that telephone transfer yet?”

  “Yes. It ended up in the Canadian- instead of the U.S.-dollar account. It’s been properly posted now. Sorry for the trouble.”

  “No trouble,” said Molony, slumping in his chair. His neck was knotted, his shirt soaked through. “Would have been fun trying to balance that.”

  At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Betty Butler, an accounting clerk, was returning from lunch when she bumped into Dan Cassella, the vice-president finance and treasurer of Desert Palace Inc. He told her there was a large chunk of money in the Toronto U.S.-dollar account and they should obtain the use of it as quickly as possible. Butler called the Manulife branch and said a large sum had been deposited in the FX 276 account.

  “What’s the fastest way of getting it down here — wire?”

  “It’s too late today, it’s almost four o’clock here. We could wire it in the morning, but it might take a couple of days. The cheques you write usually reach us a day or two after they’re written. That would probably be fastest, especially if you can get the cheque deposited in our bank out there this afternoon.”

  They agreed to do it that way. Desert Palace Inc. would write itself a cheque, drawn on the Manulife account, for deposit in the First Interstate account in Las Vegas. Seemed the best solution, even though it meant the $1.42-million for Molony’s use that night in Atlantic City would in fact spend the night in Toronto.

  When Molony arrived at Christopher’s Ribs, near the airport, Colizzi was parked in the far corner of the lot, facing the exit, engine running. They spoke through rolled-down windows, Molony in his battered Electra, Colizzi in his new BMW. One plainclothes officer who had them under surveillance had to remind himself which was the bookie and which the banker.

  “I don’t like this,” said Colizzi.

  “It won’t take long. Follow me.”

  But Molony had forgotten a bag and didn’t like clearing customs without one. It looked fishy. He turned into a travel agency and told Colizzi he’d just be a moment. Inside, a black-haired girl was sitting at her terminal. Molony asked her what a plastic travel bag cost.

  “I don’t know. We usually give them away. I guess you could have one for five dollars.”

  “You just said you usually give them away.”

  “Yes, but to customers.”

  While an unhappy bookie waited outside, and a Learjet waited at the airport, and a surveillance team waited at the far end of the plaza, and The Bulldog wondered what the hell was slowing the parade, Molony haggled over the price of the bag. Five dollars was exorbitant. Two was fair, he said, and two more than they usually got. Finally the girl just shrugged her shoulders.

  Molony threw the bag in his car and led the way to the airport. He drove beyond the Avitat terminal and parked on the far side of a hangar. Colizzi pulled up beside him.

  “Why you parking so far away?”

  “This is where I park when I leave it overnight,” said Molony, who didn’t want casino personnel to see his car.

  “I don’t like this,” said Colizzi.

  In the Avitat terminal Claire Lodovico was waiting. She and Colizzi exchanged pleasantries. “I have the papers for you,” she said, and he scribbled two signatures. The customer-deposit receipt was undated, and gave no indication of the nature or amount of the transaction. The second document read in full: “I hereby release all funds under the name Mario Colizzi to be paid to Brian Maloney.” The space for a witness signature was left blank.

  The plane was being refuelled, so Molony and Colizzi went back outside and waited in the BMW. Colizzi was pleased with his new car, and he showed Molony the features. Before long Claire came out and signalled that the plane was ready. Colizzi sped off, and Claire and Molony boarded the jet.

  Canada’s such a lovely place, said Claire, Toronto’s such a nice city. Oh, look, Niagara Falls! Molony read the paper and wished she’d shut up. He had things to consider. His limit, for example — he had to get it raised. He’d talk to Larry Woolf about that. Five per cent of $1.42-million was $71,000. Maybe they’d go for $75,000 a hand.

  Claire stopped chatting long enough to eat the food laid on for Molony. He put aside his paper and gazed out at the falling night and through the buzz of anticipation he began to put in perspective the $9-million he’d already embezzled. It had simply been dues, a harrowing apprenticeship, the price he’d paid to get where he was now — in the eerie quiet of a Learjet, slipping through twilight toward Atlantic City and $1.42-million and the casino he was going to put it to once and for all…Shortly after the jet took off, the pilot filed a new flight plan. The Bulldog was informed that the plane’s destination was no longer Buffalo but Atlantic City.

  He sped over to Terminal One, parked illegally, and hurried in to the Air Canada counter. He wasn’t sure he had enough money for a ticket, and if the investigation didn’t work out he’d have trouble with the expense claim, but he’d cross that when he came to it. Turned out there were no direct flights to Atlantic City. You had to change in Philadelphia, and the next flight wasn’t till seven in the morning.

  The Bulldog still had the car — Molony would return to it sooner or later — so he drove back to the Avitat terminal and made a phone call. Charley Maxwell was an old buddy whose work in Intelligence had made him as well connected in Atlantic City as anyone on the force. In the late 1970s, when the casinos got going, Toronto money started moving down in a big way. Maxwell had taken a special interest in Paul Volpe, a Toronto mobster, and Angelo Pucci, his money man. In the course of monitoring their activities in Atlantic City, he had got to know a New Jersey State Police intelligence officer named Bill Kisby. They traded favours. Maxwell told The Bulldog he’d see what he could do.

  The Bulldog parked his rental Ford across from the private terminal, between the Electra and an all-night greasy spoon. He got a burger and a coffee, returned to his car, and did what he’d done a thousand times before. He sipped from a little hole in the plastic lid, tuned in CBC Radio, and waited.

  In the room at Caesars that made you feel a bit like God, an employee of the surveillance department recorded the swing-shift activity on a Game Observer’s Report:

  April 26, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Ronald P. Hardee.

  6:20. Det. Bill Kisby, DGE, requested John Connors call him at 641–7476.

  6:21. Called John Connors’ residence. Advised Mrs. Connors to have John call surveillance when he arrives home.

  7:01. John Connors called. Advised him to call Det. Kisby at 641–7476.

  7:43. Corporate attorney Robert Reilert requested John Connors call him at 340–5790.

  7:44. Called John Connors and advised him of Reilert’s request.

  7:52. Larry Bertsch, V.P., requested to speak to John Connors. Advised Bertsch that Connors was at home.

  Just before the Learjet touched down at Pomona, shortly after eight o’clock, two New Jersey State Police officers crossed the floor at Caesars, heading for the casino cage. Detective Richard Rementer and Investigator Grant Valente identified themselves and asked to see the patron reference cards for Brian Molony and Mario Colizzi. Jane Blackton, the cage supervisor, took the cards from the wall file. The two men studied them, then called her over.

  “Are these guys credit players?” said Rementer.

  “No, strictly cash.”

  “Mind explaining this? I can’t follow your posting system.”

  Blackton ran her finger across an entry. “This indicates a deposit of $360,000 on April 1. This is a deposit of $920,000 on April 19. This —”

  “
Nine hundred and twenty thousand dollars cash?” said Rementer.

  “That’s right.”

  Rementer looked at Valente. Valente whistled. When the black stretch limo turned into Caesars, people stopped to see who’d get out. Every gambler once sat beside Mickey Mantle at the blackjack table or saw O. J. Simpson hailing a cab. Molony himself shot craps beside a short, sloppy guy with cigars sticking out of every pocket and a blonde at his side. The man borrowed and repaid a thousand dollars before Molony realized it was Mario Puzo. That was part of the allure — who’s in the limo? Joan Rivers? Frank Sinatra? Donald Trump?

  This time it was just a pudgy guy clutching a plastic travel bag. Molony tipped the driver a dollar he had set aside for the purpose and headed for the desk to pick up his key. He gave the porter his bag and another dollar. The porter said, “You be wanting those plain ribs later, sir?” Molony made for the casino and, in the concourse, saw Larry Woolf heading his way.

  “Good to see you, Brian. How are you tonight?”

  “Everything all set at the cage?”

  “Why don’t you sign in and we’ll go upstairs to see Albert. He’s having dinner and wants to see you.”

  At 8:41 p.m. Molony signed a customer-deposit receipt for $1.42-million. The presigned Colizzi customer-deposit receipt was filled in and time-stamped more than an hour later. The casino processed the credit, in other words, before processing its source, to create the paper record that permitted the issuance of markers to Molony. A sticker was affixed to Molony’s card indicating cash as the source of the credit, even though the $1.42-million was earning a day’s interest — several hundred dollars — at the Bank of Montreal in Toronto.

  Molony went up to the Japanese restaurant and drank orange juice while Albert, his wife, and a credit executive ate dinner. Molony was eager to discuss limits. He said to Woolf, “Let’s think in terms of $75,000 at baccarat.”

  “Fine,” said Woolf.

  Molony cursed himself. He should have asked for more. They agreed on a $15,000 limit at craps with double odds and a $15,000 buy-in on each number, double odds. Molony took his leave, trying not to seem impolite. In the baccarat pit his table was staffed and waiting. A crap table was also staffed and roped off. When the eight decks of cards in a baccarat shoe have been exhausted, the cards must be shuffled in a prescribed manner. It takes a few minutes, and Molony didn’t like to wait. He sat down at the baccarat table, nodded, and asked for a $120,000 marker.