The Billion Dollar Sure Thing

by Paul E. Erdman

“Is the food always so good here?”

  “The best of any prison in Switzerland,” answered Sammy. “I know, I’ve tried a few of them and heard about lots of others. One thing is sure, if the cops are looking for you, make sure you get arrested here and not in Geneva or St. Moritz. Those places are horrible. Some people, you know, have absolutely no sense of responsibility. They let their jails run down in a way you simply would not believe.”

  Sammy reached under his bed, and his hand reappeared holding a bottle of beer. His supplies had obviously arrived during Bernoulli’s short absence.

  “You see what I mean. In the Bâle prison you get service, prompt service. It’s also the only jail in the country where they let you drink.”

  He offered Bernoulli a pull on the bottle and was not turned down.

  “Aah,” gasped Bernoulli, “that really hit the spot. Sammy, you know, somehow I have the feeling that things are looking up.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. You sure looked worried earlier this morning.”

  “I guess because it’s my first time. You know how it is when you have absolutely no idea how the system works.”

  “Sure, I went through the same thing about, lemme think, yeah, about seven years ago. And that was in Geneva. Ugh. Look, just make sure you order lots to eat and drink from the outside. It takes your mind off of other things. You must have money the way you look. What did you do?”

  “Bad cheque. And you?”

  “Safes. That’s my speciality. They know me all over. Sammy Bechot. The best in the business.”

  Both men had suddenly warmed to each other. Bernoulli found Sammy to be a highly sympathetic and amusing person. And obviously Sammy felt more than a bit sorry for this man who could not quite cope with a life to which Sammy had long ago become accustomed. Prison cells produce peculiar social chemistry.

  In the afternoon Bernoulli followed Sammy’s advice and pounded on the door with his metal cup, and when the warden appeared handed him a list of food and especially wine—good wine—that he wanted bought as soon as possible. He deliberately overordered. When the supplies came, the bulk of them was locked in a wooden cupboard right outside the cell door in the corridor. The daily ration of alcohol per day was limited to one litre of wine per head. Through some mixup, however, Bernoulli ended up with two litres in the cell. Then Sammy came up with a further brilliant idea. Nothing in the jail rules precluded one inmate from making gifts to another. He banged on the door with his cup, producing a volume of noise reflecting skill born of practice. This time the door was not opened. The night shift was just coming on and security precautions increased. The metal covering on the peephole in the door was swung aside.

  “What’s going on?”

  “All I want is some wine for the evening.”

  “Sammy, don’t push things too far. All you’ve got is beer and you damn well know it.”

  “But my friend George wants to offer me one of his bottles. And he thought you might be able to use one, too.”

  The door swung open.

  “Not so loud, Sammy. For Christ’s sake, you want to get us all into trouble?” He turned to Bernoulli.

  “Is Sammy here telling the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, fine. As an exception, mind you, I’ll accept your offer.” He unlocked the cabinet in the corridor and two more bottles appeared. He started to apply the corkscrew, hanging from his heavy keychain.

  “Stop it!” commanded Sammy. “Just leave the corkscrew here.”

  “You know that’s against the rules. I open the bottles. You drink.”

  “Ah, come on. My friend here is not used to drinking stale wine. Look, for God’s sake. It’s a 1957 Pommard. You want to ruin a thing like that?”

  The warden looked at the label: in fact, he studied it with sudden respect.

  “O.K., just wait a minute. I’ll get another one.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Sammy. “After all, you’ve had a long day.”

  To Bernoulli’s surprise, both of them disappeared, leaving the door completely open. Five minutes later Sammy reappeared and produced not only a corkscrew but two cigars, two bottles of beer, and a candle.

  “Met a buddy” was his only explanation.

  At nine-thirty, exactly, the lights in the cell went out. Just as punctually, Sammy’s candle went on. Bernoulli and Bechot settled down to a hard night of drinking, mingled with jokes and resulting laughter that at one time invoked a heavy banging on the cell wall. Apparently the guy next door wanted to sleep. It must have been well past midnight when Sammy started talking shop. It was an unexpected opportunity, with such an obviously literate and appreciative audience. And sure enough, when he described his new technique, it elicited a response of respect, true respect. By this time the wine was gone. They turned to the beer, which had been cooling in the wash basin, under continuously running water for hours. The occasion also called for cigars.

  “Ain’t this the life?” asked Sammy.

  “Sure, as long as it doesn’t drag on too long,” countered Bernoulli.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not worried one little bit on that score. I’ll be out of here in less than a week—maximum.”

  “Really?”

  Sammy meant it—really. They would not dare keep him; his second-last job had been done for the cops themselves! One of the kommissars who had dealt with Sammy in regard to an earlier charge, which eventually had brought him twenty-four months behind bars, had set it up, and paid Sammy 10,000 francs for one of the simplest jobs he had ever done in his life. His latest little escapade would be swept under the rug for lack of evidence, and that would be that.

  This was all Bernoulli needed. To press for more information from Sammy at this point would simply be too risky. With or without alcohol, Bechot was a crafty character.

  They soon finished off their beer and cigars. Sammy blew out the candle and carefully hid the stump in a spare pair of socks. Obviously he knew his way around the cell, even in pitch darkness.

  Within minutes both men were asleep, and in fact both slept very well in the sure knowledge that they would not be in jail much longer.

  The next morning Bernoulli was again collected from his cell for interrogation. Within fifteen minutes his friend Heinz Bucher collected every dossier of information they had on Sammy Bechot. After Bernoulli’s retelling of Sammy’s tale of the previous evening, Bucher had turned white with anger; it had the ring of truth.

  As the two men systematically went through the documentation, containing hundreds of pages of past interrogation of Bechot, they both had one single objective—the listing of every cop that had ever dealt with Sammy.

  In order to maintain the façade, Bernoulli was returned to his cell for lunch. When he returned an hour later, Bucher was still on the job.

  “Heinz, when are you going to eat?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Look, don’t take it personally for God’s sake. It happens in the best police forces.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Maybe Sammy’s lying after all.”

  “I doubt it. Why don’t you shut up, so that we can get this dirty work over.”

  By four o’clock they had the full list of police contacts with Bechot from the past. Fourteen names. As Bucher reread the list for what must have been the twentieth time, he suddenly slammed his hand down on his desk.

  “George, dammit, I’ll bet I’ve got it. That dirty son of a bitch. We’ll hang that bastard up so high they’ll need a crane to get him back down.”

  “Who is it, Heinz?”

  “Probably a fellow named Rolf Lutz.”

  “What’s his rank?”

  “He has none. He left the force about four years ago. Used to be a kommissar in the fraud squad. We worked together quite a bit. Then he set up a collection agency in town. It went very well. So he branched out to Zurich and Geneva, then Lugano.”

  “That does not exactly fit, Heinz. I mean just b
ecause he’s apparently the only fellow on your list who has left the force does not mean you have to jump to such conclusions.”

  “That’s not the whole story. He didn’t stick to collections. Two years ago he changed the name of his company to Swiss Security Consultants. Now the bulk of the business is the investigation of thefts, frauds, scandals that companies don’t want leaked. His success has been fantastic. By now Lutz must have a group of at least fifty people, most of them ex-policemen, on his staff. He moved headquarters to Geneva last year—same time as he changed the name. They tell me he picked up a whole crew of communications guys down there. They’ll sweep a place for you on a regular contract basis for bugs, wiretaps, or just plain carelessness. But as far as I know, he’s never been caught stepping out of line. Strictly defensive stuff.”

  “You got a file on him?”

  “No. As I told you he’s been operating out of Geneva for the past couple of years. And we’ve had no reason to investigate his local operations.”

  “What makes you feel that he would get involved in something like this? I mean, there’s an enormous risk.”

  “Just a feeling. First, I don’t like coincidences one bit. Bechot would hardly differentiate between a cop and an ex-cop. He thinks strictly in terms of us and them. Second, Lutz did not leave this place in a blaze of glory. We all get our hands a bit dirty now and then. You know that. But Lutz seemed to make a habit of it.”

  “So he was fired?”

  “No, but nobody here was especially sad to see him go. He liked money just a little too much.”

  “Heinz, I’ll just have to trust your judgment,” said Bernoulli. “I don’t have time to wait for a laborious sifting out of the other people on the list.”

  “But I can hardly pick him up, or even approach him, on the grounds of your story, George.”

  “I know, and that would be the very last thing we would want. For the moment I really need just one thing. A more complete dossier on Swiss Security Consultants A.G. Geneva must have something. The most important factor is a better feeling for their clientele.”

  “O.K. I’ll ask the fellows in Geneva.”

  “But do it real easy, Heinz,” stressed Bernoulli. “I don’t want one speck of dust stirred up.”

  “I’ll work it out.”

  “Now one other thing. I want you to try to trace Bechot’s movements—all of them—on the evening and night of October 27. Check every hotel and every bar in the city. Carefully.”

  “Right.”

  By this time it was starting to get dark outside. Bernoulli was brought back to his cell just in time for the evening meal. It consisted of dark bread and thick cocoa.

  “How did it go?” asked Bechot.

  “Fine. It should be all cleared up by tomorrow.”

  “How come?”

  “My father has agreed to cover the check. All one big mixup, you know. I thought his regular transfer had arrived, but it seems that he forgot it, or something.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately this is not the first time. I had a little problem like this in Germany a while back. But there we could arrange things without me being locked up.”

  “Hah,” said Bechot. “Do you think it’s the first time for any of us here? Once they get to know you they never leave you alone. It’s too bad. Now I’ll probably get some damn Turk or Italian for a cellmate. But that’s all right. They won’t dare keep me for long either.”

  That evening they enjoyed another two bottles of wine together and listened to Sammy’s newly acquired radio.

  At nine the next morning a warden appeared to tell Bernoulli to collect all of his things. He shook hands with Sammy, bequeathed him the rest of his wine, and left.

  By nine-thirty Bernoulli was back in the Euler Hotel. After a rather lame explanation to the man at the reception desk, he retrieved his key and within minutes was in the shower. It was amazing how quickly one felt permeated with the smell of prison.

  9

  DR. Bollinger, secretary-general of the Bank for International Settlements, was impatiently pacing up and down his living room. It was furnished in Louis XV. Real Louis XV. A fantastic blue silk Chinese rug covered the floor of the living room. A Paul Klee, a Renoir, two Kadinskys graced its walls. It was lovely.

  Bollinger was a bachelor. He was also a homosexual. It never failed to astound the girls in the bank’s secretarial pool how Bollinger’s colleagues managed to overlook the man’s idiosyncrasy. But his colleagues knew quite well why. Bollinger was probably the most brilliantly inventive mind to appear on the international monetary scene in a decade. While all other international institutions appeared to be coming apart at the seams, the BIS experienced, if anything, growing prestige. This was due almost exclusively to Bollinger. He enjoyed the absolute trust and confidence, yes, respect, of all the important central bankers of the world. Although he had been educated at the University of Zurich, then Stanford, and finally the London School of Economics, he sported a French so abominable that by comparison even Edward Heath appeared to be a linguist. His background could hardly have been worse by Gallic standards—still the head of the Banque de France thought the world of the man. The ultimate test of all mortals.

  The doorbell rang. It was Bernoulli. The two men knew each other on a formal basis. Yes, Minister Gerber had explained everything.

  “Please have a seat, Dr. Bernoulli. May I offer you coffee, or perhaps tea?”

  “No thanks, Dr. Bollinger. If you agree, I think we should get right at it,” answered Bernoulli. “First, where’s the safe?”

  “Right over there, behind the Klee.”

  “It’s rather a large canvas for a Klee.”

  “He did it shortly before he died.”

  “May I?”

  “Certainly.”

  Bernoulli took the painting down. It was a wall safe like thousands of others. Nothing special. Probably about ten years old. Easy. He rehung the picture and then returned to his chair.

  “Aren’t you going to get some people over to take fingerprints and all that?”

  “No. It would be a waste of time at this point. But if you insist—?”

  “Of course not. But I just thought—”

  “When exactly did you notice that the document was missing?”

  “Just a few days ago. On Tuesday morning when I was going to take it to the office with me. That would have been October 28.”

  “When had you last seen or used the document?”

  “Last Monday.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean—‘why’?”

  “Well, you’d had it here in Basel since the middle of the month. What prompted you to look for it, or at it, last Monday?”

  “Bernoulli, we’re dealing here with highly complex matters and a highly complex document. Do you think I memorized it?”

  “Just asking,” replied Bernoulli with the greatest of calm. “So in other words, it must have disappeared on Monday of this week.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you on Monday?”

  “I spent the entire day at the office. I always lunch at the bank.”

  “And the evening?”

  “I freshened up after five and went out to a cocktail party. Then dinner. It was all in honour of the Belgian ambassador. He spent the day in Basel and the local government put on a do for him. I was invited along with at least fifty other people.”

  “You probably came home fairly late?”

  “Around midnight.”

  “Notice anything unusual? You know, doors ajar that should not have been. Dirt on the rug. That sort of thing?”

  “No. I went straight to bed. I don’t have a suspicious mind.”

  “No? I thought everybody in the banking business had. No matter. In any case, I think it’s fairly well established when it happened. Monday evening between five and midnight.”

  “Yes. The question now is who. And why.”

  “I think I already know something a
bout the ‘who’ part,” stated Bernoulli.

  “But then why all the—”

  “I said I think so. I’d rather not go into details at the moment, but we already appear to have some rather strong circumstantial evidence. A man named Sammy Bechot. Know him?”

  “Never heard the name.”

  “Looks a little like a beatnick. Twenty-seven years old. Average height. Fairly fat. Long hair, beard. Both dark. Mother tongue is French, but he speaks German quite well, with the usual accent. He’s a professional safecracker. Ring any bells?”

  “Hardly.”

  “We guessed as much. Fine, let’s try another approach now. And it’s extremely important that you concentrate,” stressed Bernoulli. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “No, go right ahead.”

  “Let’s go over your trip to London step by step. I am not particularly interested in what you did. I am extremely interested in whom you saw, whether deliberately, accidentally, or incidentally. Anybody and everybody who recognized you or could have recognized you.”

  Bollinger nodded.

  “First, who at the bank knew, or knows, about the purpose of your trip to London?”

  “No one.”

  “But surely your secretary or deputy must have known that you were meeting the American secretary of the treasury?”

  “No, they did not then, nor do they have any knowledge of it now.”

  “But how was the appointment arranged?”

  “Secretary Crosby telephoned me at home to make the arrangements. Right here is where I took the call.” Bollinger pointed at a white telephone, neatly centred on a lace doily, which covered part of the top of an exquisite little side table that must have set Bollinger back at least a couple of thousand francs.

  “Who lives with you?”

  “No one. I am a bachelor, and my housekeeper, whom I’ve had for almost twenty years, takes care of the house during the day. She stays and cooks dinner only if I have guests. She is completely reliable and cannot possibly be involved in this dreadful thing.”

  “I’ll accept that. So no one, absolutely no one here in Basel, knows about this document, nor about the purpose of your trip to London?”

  “No one.”