Stung
Page 23
“Good luck, Mr. M. Let’s hope tonight’s the night.”
April 26, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Matt Wilson.
9 p.m. DGE Det. Grant requests taping of B. Moloney’s play throughout this evening. Hold tape for them for review. Advised Joe of request.
9:30 p.m. Moloney on baccarat #1. Archie watching play. Tape started.
10:00 G. Smith wants to know if we are taping both Baccarat 1 and Craps 11 when Maloney is present. Told him we are and advised Joe. Also Smith would like a copy of the tape for L. Woolf.
April 26. Caesars Atlantic City. Peter J. Miller.
9:00 p.m. DGE present in monitor room.
9:35 p.m. Pat O’Neil called. Advised Brian Maloney is on Baccarat 1. Started tape #121. Notify Matt Wilson.
9:49 p.m. Gary Smith called. Requested if surveillance is taping Brian Maloney. Advised Matt Wilson.
9:51 p.m. Matt Wilson advised to advise Gary Smith that we are taping Maloney. Matt Wilson was advised by Joe Mancari. Gary Smith advised Larry Woolf wants copy of tape.
Molony felt clear-headed and confident. When the next branch return of irregular liabilities came through, any one of the bogus loans — Elm Street Holdings, DCL Customs Brokers, Kernwood, or 499726 Ontario Ltd. — could spell doom. The juggling, the anguish, the surreal and tortuous vicissitudes of eighteen months had come down to a simple truth. Tonight was the night. He’d win because he had to win.
Right away it started happening. He won the first hand, lost the next, won two, lost two. Then it broke for him. Often, gambling, he had the feeling he was participating in what the cards did, influencing them, and he felt the sudden certainty the bank would win 9-8. He bet the bank, and bank won 9-8. He switched to player, and player won. Back to bank twice in a row: bank won twice in a row. He had started with 240 purple chips, and as the pile grew he bet increasing amounts. He put 150 chips — $75,000 — in two racks and moved them from player to bank as the impulse stirred him. A crowd had formed around the pit, and Molony became aware of the undercurrent of noise, the oohs and aahs when he won or lost. He had the sensation of being part of the crowd, jockeying to watch a taciturn, unfathomable man playing baccarat, changing his bet from player to bank, from bank to player, back among the spectators, straining to get a good look, a stranger to himself.
By the time he glanced at his watch he was up close to half a million dollars. Why the break in the game? He signalled the floorman — let’s pick it up — then realized the dealer didn’t have the purples to pay off. Molony had cleaned out the table. The floorman told the dealer, “Give him a marker.”
Molony looked up over his glasses, sly innocence. “Sure you’re good for it?”
The dealer — a silver-haired fellow who had worked three years to earn what Molony was betting on a single hand, years of sore backs and bogus smiles and headache-inducing concentration, of taking flak from floormen and invisible scrutiny from overhead and animosity from the players — the dealer thought this was hilarious. He laughed aloud. The floormen laughed, the cocktail waitress, everyone who worked at Caesars laughed, and it wasn’t the phony laughter that follows money around. Molony liked that. He liked it so much he stood up from the table to make the feeling linger. Everyone was watching. He himself seemed to be watching. Why was the man on his feet? He needed to make sense of his actions, so he stretched and asked for an orange juice.
When he finally lost three in a row, he’d won half a million in an hour, turned $120,000 into $620,000. His deposit gave him almost $2-million. He was finally on the way. He knew it. Tonight was his night at baccarat. Time to see if it was his night at the crap table as well.
The Bulldog was on his fourth coffee when Charley Maxwell came over the radio. “Your man is at Caesars in Atlantic City. He’s betting tens of thousands of dollars a hand. He’s known there. He’s lost millions in the last year.”
The Bulldog was still thinking drugs. It took a moment to compute. “We’ve got a bank thief, Charley. Boy, have we got a bank thief.”
“I’m going to head home now.”
“Thanks for your help. Appreciate it.”
Molony was simply a spinoff from an ongoing wiretap investigation. The Bulldog needed a marked car and uniformed officers. A routine police stop would allow the Morality and Surveillance guys to stay out of sight. If word got around that Molony had been taken down by the anti-gambling squad, every bookie in the city would be on alert. Question now was, who might be willing to make a couple of calls, wake people up, get them in early? The Bulldog had spent eleven years in uniform with Staff Sergeant Ron Brenham, and the last he’d heard Brenham was at 13 Division. The Bulldog called 13. Brenham happened to be working the midnight shift.
“A voice from the past.”
“Got something big here, Ron. I need a car with two uniformed men.”
“I’ll send them out. Where are you?”
Sergeant Wayne Artkin and Constable Tom McDonald were put on special detail. The Bulldog gave them a radio and told them he’d probably ask them to stop a Buick Electra, licence NBJ 309, to confirm the driver’s identification and search the vehicle. He said he couldn’t be sure when the driver would return, but sometime toward morning.
“I’m off at six,” said Artkin.
“I go to seven,” said McDonald.
“Let me get you a coffee. You want a coffee? Maybe you’ll make a little overtime.”
Molony did not feel well. His stomach had seized and he was running a fever. Was he getting the flu? Tossing chips on the layout, he lost his balance and had to grip the table to steady himself. He threw the dice, a fierce, reflex motion, banking them sharply off the rubber. The chorus of moans made him look up: a crowd had formed six deep behind the velvet rope that cordoned off his table. The stickman raked in his chips. He reached for more but there were no more.
“Another fifty thousand,” he said, and the floorman handed him a marker and a pen. He lost it all and left the dice pit.
“Give me a hundred,” he said, in the baccarat pit. The floorman handed him a marker and a pen.
“Hundred more,” he said, three minutes later, and the floorman handed him a marker and a pen.
“Another hundred,” he said, one minute later. “Can’t we speed it up?”
“Do you want to sign in advance, so you don’t have to wait?”
“If it will speed things up,” said Molony, taking the marker and the pen.
“Give me a hundred,” said Molony, twenty-two minutes later, and the floorman handed him a marker and a pen.
“Hundred,” he said, three minutes later, and the floorman handed him a marker and a pen.
“Another hundred,” he said, twenty minutes later, and the floorman handed him a marker and a pen.
“Give me a hundred,” he said, nine minutes later, and the floor-man handed him a marker and a pen.
Two hours later Molony deposited half a million in chips at the cage, keeping $150,000 in chips. He asked the girl for his balance. “Nine hundred and seventy thousand,” she said. He hurried back to the baccarat pit and lost the $150,000 in two hands.
“Give me a hundred,” he said. The floorman handed him a marker and a pen. Molony said, “No disrespect to the dealer, but can we not speed up the game?”
April 27. Caesars Atlantic City. Shelly A. Jones.
3:41 a.m. Larry Woolf called and requested pictures of Baccarat 1. Large amount of purple checks. Started special tape #183 (Mon B).
Finally it was turning around. Molony wasn’t winning, but he’d stopped the hemorrhage. For half an hour he’d played even, winning two, losing two, winning one, losing two, winning another. Then he won four in a row, betting the bank, and felt the exquisite certainty that he was embarked on the streak he’d been waiting for all night, all his life, a rampaging bull he’d ride into the ground. He gestured to the floorman — faster, let’s move it — and then, hearing the bell that signalled closing, he almost collapsed under the fearsome weight of his own anticipation.
The exact wrong moment. Always the exact wrong moment. He never really lost, just kept running out of time.
“Could I see another hand, what would have happened?”
“Go ahead.”
Molony stood up, raised his palms to show there was no bet, and reached for the shoe. Player, bank, player, bank. Natural bank, nine against eight. He would have bet player. He would have lost. He racked his chips and, accompanied by a security guard, headed for the cage. The crowd opened for him. People cleared their throats and turned away, trying to make themselves invisible. An elderly lady whispered, “Did you see how much he lost?”
“Shhh,” said her husband. “He can hear you.” Certain things about the casino, about losing, women didn’t seem to understand. The man smiled apologetically. Molony smiled in return.
April 27. Caesars Atlantic City. Shelly A. Jones.
4:08 a.m. Special tape #183 (Mon B) stops.
Molony told the cashier to deposit the racks of chips and cash the rest. He went to his suite, splashed water on his face, stared in the mirror. Hadn’t he been through enough? How much did he have to endure to earn the streak that would turn a year and a half into one of those nightmares that jerk you upright, terrified, and then, by the time you awake, dissolve into a phantom so harmless you can’t believe you felt such grief? When he most needed to win he’d hit the cold run of his life. Looking in the mirror, seeing his hunched shoulders and ravaged face, he wanted to weep. He thought of weeping, but what would weeping accomplish? Would it get the money back? Would weeping pay down the loans? If he wept, would that wash Colizzi’s name off the documentation? Would weeping guarantee a win? Would it make him a better handicapper? No, of course not. What would be the logic behind weeping? He collected his bag and went downstairs. The casino was empty except for floormen doing counts at the chip wells and maintenance people vacuuming cigarette ash out of the carpeting. Molony headed for the lobby and found Larry Woolf waiting by the limo stand. Dinner was on the counter — ribs, no sauce, and a large Coke. The limo hadn’t arrived.
“You had it going there for a while,” said Woolf.
“That’s the way it goes.”
“It’s bound to turn around.”
“What’s it like out?”
“Nice enough night,” said Woolf. “The weather’s pretty good here this time of year. I like the Nevada climate myself. You don’t get the humidity. What’s Toronto like these days?”
Molony tried to think. Nothing came to mind.
“Shouldn’t the limo be here by now?”
“Would you like me to check on it?”
“Give it another minute. Here comes one, is that it?”
“Sure is. Have a good trip back.”
“Probably see you later in the week.”
“Look forward to it,” said Woolf, extending his hand. “Hey, wait a second.” He fetched the Styrofoam packet and plastic bottle from the counter. “You almost forgot your dinner.” The Bulldog was tidying his rental car when the Learjet touched down in Toronto. He stuffed empty cups, hamburger wrappers, and chicken bones in his garbage bag, chastising himself for having overeaten. It was nearly the first of the month, he’d start a diet on the first. He wiped his hands and got on the walkie-talkie.
“That’s the plane,” he told the others. “He’ll be out in a couple of minutes. We’ll maintain visual contact and see where he’s going. I’ll stay between the surveillance vehicles and the marked car. I’ll let you know when I want you to move on him.”
Molony unlocked the Electra, threw his bag in back, and headed home. A million dollars, God, what a beating. He squinted into the rising sun and tried to adjust the visor, forgetting it was broken. No way he could go back tonight, think he was crazy. Lose a million one night, come back the next? No, Wednesday at the earliest. Only how would he do it? He’d left $390,000 on deposit, and the $75,000 limit was good all week. But he needed more to work with and couldn’t ask Colizzi to sign off, not again. Major problem. Maybe the $390,000 was enough. Meanwhile there were more pressing problems to deal with, if only he could put his mind to them…
He swung onto Lakeshore, already humming with commuters and eighteen-wheelers. Beyond the breakwater, the lake seemed molten. A billboard flashed the date, temperature, and time. The twenty-seventh, good Lord. All the loans needed an interest payment. If interest weren’t paid by day’s end the loans could raise suspicion. Nine million? Ten? What’s a month’s interest? He began to calculate…
…missed the exit, had to turn into the park. Why Colizzi’s name in the first place? Stupid, but if he tried to change it now it would cause suspicion. No, good idea, the right decision. Otherwise they would have called about the first one. If his line had been busy and the call had been routed to Steve Richardson? Better some name than no name at all, but why Colizzi? At least he was helpful enough, or greedy enough, to put his signature on blank documentation. Still, of all the names to…
…rearview mirror, wanting somebody to pull over. Me. Damn. Everybody ignored the park limit, not a soul around and you’re supposed to crawl along. Uniformed constable with that air of relaxed alertness. My lucky day. Night. Morning. Whatever. Waiting, engine idling, Molony became aware of how long he’d gone without sleep. He’d feel better after a shower.
“How are you this morning, officer? What’s the problem?”
“You were travelling thirty in a twenty zone, sir. May I see some identification?”
May I ask where you work? Would you mind telling me where you’re going at this hour? Where you’ve been? How long you’ve been away? How did you make out? How much money do you have with you? Do you not have to work today? When will you sleep? Mind opening the trunk? Mind if we look in your car? Is this your bag? Mind if we open it? What are these envelopes? Anything in your pockets? How much is this? Do you have any more?
So often had Molony felt the sinking certainty, so deeply had the near-misses ingrained his sense of infallibility that even though the car contained, among other things, dozens of securities-transaction slips from Richardson’s; the business cards of Michael Neustadter and Robert T. Catarra of Business Jet Airlines; a note with Michael Rosen’s name and number and the figure $1,420,000; a dozen Caesars customer-deposit receipts from April 26, April 22, and April 20, in amounts ranging from $20,000 to $1.42-million; a memo in Molony’s hand re “two U.S.-dollar drafts to California Clearing Corporation”; customer copies of CIBC bank drafts in amounts ranging from $60 to $920,000; CIBC debits in amounts ranging from $60 to $1,123,044; the remains of a $5,000 Caesars bill wrapper; a Caesars passbook showing Molony’s room number as 4823-24-25; and $29,514 in Canadian and American currency — even as Artkin and McDonald waded, with growing incredulity, through this damning morass, and The Bulldog, out of sight, wondered what was taking so long, Molony, oblivious to the park’s first joggers and dogwalkers, still didn’t realize it was over.
Artkin went back to the cruiser and got on the walkie-talkie. The Bulldog said, “Arrest him for theft.” Even as Artkin opened his notebook and read the words taped to the inside cover — “You are arrested on a charge of theft. Do you wish to say anything in answer to the charge? You’re not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence against you” — Molony still didn’t realize it was over. He’d straighten it out at the station. They’d seen the denominations of the bearer bonds on the Richardson’s slips and assumed the bonds were stolen.
Artkin and McDonald had a little problem of their own. Allowing an arrested man to drive his own car is not recommended procedure, but impounding the Electra would have meant losing contact with it, losing continuity of evidence. Molony looked as if he’d been on a week-long tear — rumpled, dishevelled, sweat-stained — but he didn’t have the uneasy air of most people caught with their fingers in the till; he was courteous and cooperative. McDonald told him they’d d
o him a favour and let him drive his car up to 13 Division. Molony cleared debris from the passenger seat and McDonald climbed in. He was a young constable, mid-twenties, no older than Molony, and he seemed ill at ease.
“Would you mind explaining what this is all about?”
McDonald didn’t want to say anything that might jeopardize the investigation. “We’ll explain at the station.”
“Theft. Theft of what?”
“Well, sir, those securities.”
“Where we going?”
“Turn here, sir. Eglinton and Allen Expressway.”
“Do you know much about bonds?”
“Not really, sir.”
“To buy them you don’t put up the face value. They’re highly leveraged. There’s so little movement in the bond market that you can buy a $100,000 bearer bond for $5,000.”
“Is that so?” said McDonald.
“We’ll straighten this out,” said Molony, but now he had to resist the conclusion part of him was trying to draw. Something was seeping in anyway. They’d stopped him for speeding but no further mention had been made of speeding. And their eyes had popped out at the sight of the money. And the cruiser was no ordinary one, not with “S” for “Supervisor” in its stencilled number…
At 13 Division, a squat, cement-block building, Molony was booked and taken up to the Criminal Intelligence Bureau. Police find it useful to allow suspects to contemplate their misdeeds, and Molony was isolated in a drab interrogation room. Coming off a night of frenzy, not having slept well in a year and a half or at all in twenty-four hours, he found idleness unendurable. He was going to be late and spoil his work record — he knocked on the door and said he had to phone the bank. Somebody told him they’d look after that. Brenda would worry because he always called when he got back — he knocked on the door and said he had to call his girlfriend. Somebody said they’d check on that. He asked how long he was going to be held. Somebody said it might be a while. He’d been told to empty his pockets. At least it was something to do. Among the contents were more receipts and deposit slips from Caesars. He thought of eating them but imagined (wrongly) the room was under closed-circuit surveillance.