A Shared Confidence

by William Topek

  I tucked the card into my vest pocket, promising I’d be in touch if I had anything for him.

  “Your former superior, Mr. Straker, tells us you’re a capable man. That you could be quite useful to us if you wanted to.”

  “Straker would tell you I was an eight-legged man from Mars if he thought there was another feather in his cap over it,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Mattling agreed, “I kind of got that.”

  “I expect to see Mr. Stanton a few times this week,” I admitted to Mattling. “If he sees your people tailing me…”

  “He won’t. You haven’t. But don’t worry, we’ll give you some elbow room for the next few days.”

  The elevator car arrived and I stepped inside.

  “You know what hotel I’m staying at if you need me,” I said.

  “We know both of them,” Mattling said flatly, and the doors closed on his expressionless face.

  Chapter Fourteen: Apricot or Blackberry?

  I was back at my first hotel, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and feeling as morose as I had in a good many months. Not that I really thought there was any great chance my scheme against Stanton would have worked, but it would have been nice to give it a try. All the money on hotels and cars and clothes, to say nothing of the five hundred dollars I’d paid Ferrier – what a waste! But three different government agencies and Pinkerton’s detectives were breathing down Stanton’s neck, watching his every move. They could move in at any time, or just slip up and scare him off. And the F.B.I. knew that Devlin Caine was in town and had taken a suite at the Lord Baltimore. They could trace the Cadillac and find out it had been rented by a private investigator named Townsend. Would Townsend stand up for me in a pinch? It wasn’t like the man owed me, or like I’d even asked him to. Things were not, as the say, looking up. I planned to drown all this in a local saloon once I got up the energy.

  For now, I got up from the bed, grabbed a cigarette, and started pacing aimlessly about the room. So what was the plan now? Tell Nathan to report the missing money to his bosses, show them what he showed me at the beginning, then keep his lips sealed about any development since then and deny any accusations thrown his way. Yes, his brother was in town visiting. Yes, he’d been to the bank. Nathan had introduced him under an assumed name because his brother is a detective and was apparently working on something. No, he had no idea what and he hadn’t asked. No, he hadn’t shown his brother any bank records or discussed any bank business with him. It sounded pretty thin, but if Nathan stuck to the script it might just see him through.

  I paused by the ash tray on the desk to flick my cigarette, my mind trying to catch at something. There seemed to be a missing piece in all the stuff Mattling had thrown at me. Why were so many people interested in Stanton? Sure, he’d conned a hell of a lot of money out of a good many people over the years. Maybe one rich old guy got some steam up about it and decided to pursue the matter. That could explain Pinkerton’s. The Securities and Exchange Commission had only been around for a year, a federal response to try and keep things like the Crash of ’Twenty-Nine from happening again. Their main job was to keep an eye out for irregularities in the stock market, big-time wheelers and dealers trying to influence the market for their own gain. Would one con mob draw their attention? People who only dealt in non-existent stocks from non-existent companies and didn’t even buy or sell in the real markets? Internal Revenue, sure. Any time there was income being generated they wanted their cut, didn’t matter how that income was earned. Christ, that’s how they finally got Capone, for income tax evasion.

  I had the hardest time trying to puzzle out how the F.B.I came to be involved in this. Their side of the street was law enforcement, plain and simple. Yes, confidence games are illegal, but a still-fledgling agency that was hungry for some big scores? There were a thousand con men in the country, and none of them known to the nation at large. What made print was taking down the public enemies. The bank robbers and gangsters and smugglers and bootleggers. Last year alone the feds had had the final say with Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson. Hoover and Purvis had declared war on gangsterism. They weren’t going to make the front page sticking one old con and his shills in the clink. Were things slowing down with the hard rackets so it was time to move in on the soft? Maybe Mattling just wasn’t big league enough, or in with the right people enough, to get a juicier assignment. Still, my instincts told me there was some more specific reason for all this activity.

  I took out the forged documents I’d purchased from Ferrier and tossed them onto the desk, planning to torch them in the ash tray. Five hundred dollars up in smoke, literally, but it didn’t seem a wise idea to keep them now. I was reaching for my lighter when I noticed a small card on top of the pile, a note penciled on it:

  Lord Baltimore Hotel bar

  11:00 p.m this evening

  I picked up the card and turned it over. It was the card Special Agent Mattling had handed to me outside the elevator. An invitation, one he didn’t want any of his colleagues to know about. Something he wanted to tell me or something he wanted to ask me? Both, I imagined. In any event, it was an invitation I couldn’t afford to turn down. Mattling had the authority to have me picked up and formally interrogated if he wanted to. This was something different.

  I thought about having supper with Nathan and his family, but decided I wasn’t up for dodging questions at another back porch conference. I had about six hours to kill. I hid the documents and my genuine identification in the room, kept the Kelly Shaw driver’s license in my wallet, and took a taxi over to the Lord Baltimore. A nap, a shower, a change of clothes, a leisurely dinner nearby and a movie, and the six hours were cut down to forty minutes. I went back to my suite and read the newspaper, then took the elevator down to the bar at a quarter to eleven. Friendly faces called out greetings and I was forced to make small talk while I worked my way around the bar, trying to find an empty booth or table. I found one all right, just next to the corner booth where Special Agent Joshua Mattling sat having a quiet drink with Mr. Ethan Ryland. Apparently, it was my day for jolts; last I knew, Ryland had headed back to Nebraska days ago.

  Mattling looked up while I was deciding what to do and he waved me over. Nothing else for it, so I walked over and joined them.

  “I didn’t realize you were quite so popular here,” Mattling commented.

  “I’ve made a few friends,” I shrugged, settling into the booth next to Ryland, who seemed a little tense.

  “I’m thinking we should talk in your room,” Mattling said. “Have one drink with us, then leave first. We’ll give it ten minutes and follow.”

  The waitress brought me a scotch and soda and Mattling and I talked a little baseball. Ryland didn’t say much of anything. When I finished my drink, the three of us shook hands and I went back up to my room, where the other two men showed up on schedule.

  “I’m not quite as well stocked as the bar downstairs,” I said, walking over to the small liquor cart in the corner, “but I can offer a little hospitality if you’re having.” They were. I made the drinks and we all took a seat near the window.

  “Did you manage to contact your attorney?” Mattling asked.

  “He doesn’t work on Sundays.”

  “Lucky guy. Oh well, I guess there’s not much need for it now.” Mattling gave a slight smile and Ryland looked at the ground. So that’s why Mattling hadn’t pushed me harder this afternoon, I realized: he thought he already knew who my client was.

  I gestured with my drink. “Mind if I ask how you two know each other?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Mattling answered. “How are things going with Stanton?”

  “Had dinner with him last night,” I said. “Mind telling me why the F.B.I., the I.R.S., and the S.E.C. are all after one lone confidence man? Or will we get to that, too?”

  “I never said we were after Mr. Stanton. I only asked if you knew him.” He set his drink down on the side table and leaned forward in his c
hair. “The fact is, Mr. Caine, I think you could be of some use to us on another matter.”

  “I can’t imagine how.”

  “Some weeks ago,” Mattling began, “Mr. Ryland contacted our people in Chicago.”

  “Did he now?” I narrowed my eyes at Ryland as Mattling gestured for him to pick up the thread.

  “I’ve been having some trouble with an…associate of mine,” Ryland said. “A man in Chicago with whom I’ve done some business over the last several years. Kind of a silent partner. He’s invested with me, provided some short-term loans when I needed them. He’s also given me a hand with supply and labor problems now and then.”

  “Sounds like a handy guy to have around.” I didn’t offer more.

  “Yes, well…most of my creditors have been willing to work with me in light of my recent troubles,” Ryland continued. “This man, however, has not. I’d taken out a sizable loan from him before starting off on my vacation earlier this year. Before my troubles here. I’ve tried to explain as best I can that I’ve lost everything on a risky investment. But–”

  “But he wants his money back,” I said, swirling the ice in my glass.

  “He’s been insistent about it, Mr. Caine. Insistent to the point of making threats.”

  “Does this business associate of yours have a name?”

  Ryland looked over at Mattling, got a nod, and told me: “Casper Giarelli.”

  “Sounds Italian,” I said, scratching my jaw. “An Italian from Chicago who specializes in big loans and labor problems. I wonder what line he’s in.”

  “Yes, well, his threats were starting to worry me. I decided to contact the F.B.I. office in Chicago. It turns out they’re quite interested in Mr. Giarelli.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” I turned back to Mattling, not feeling the need to point out that this was where he came back into the conversation.

  “Mr. Ryland told us about how he came to you in Kansas City,” Mattling explained. “How he was taken victim in one of Stanton’s confidence schemes and how you’d invited him to Baltimore for a chance to get his money back.” That wasn’t strictly true, but I didn’t see the need to make a point of it. But now I knew why it had been so easy to get Ryland back out here: some money returned would be nice, but federal protection from a mobster was what had got him packing his suitcase.

  “And?”

  “You weren’t far off in your guess that some senator’s son had also been taken,” Mattling explained. “In fact, it was Senator Cumberland himself.”

  “I don’t know the senator,” I said.

  “He represents the Great State of Maryland, which is why we’re all here.” Mattling went on to explain that Cumberland had got himself taken by Stanton months ago, same as Ryland only for an even larger sum of money. Not content with having Stanton picked up for spitting on the sidewalk, Cumberland had started a campaign with various federal agencies to see that Stanton was sent away do to some serious time. Through letters to his various contacts within the federal government, Cumberland was able to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission that confidence swindles involving stock – even if they weren’t real stocks – still had an adverse impact on the markets as a whole. For one thing, if legitimate investors were losing large sums to confidence men, that was money lost to stimulating the real market. More importantly, such activity could make investors wary of placing money in legitimate stock. Cumberland had been nudging the F.B.I. as well, assuring them that such high-dollar swindles were just as damaging to the economy, and thus to the public at large, as any gangster activity. Of course, the Internal Revenue hadn’t needed a whole lot of convincing to get involved. There’s money being made here, boys, and you aren’t getting any!

  So for months, Cumberland had initiated investigations in three different federal bureaucracies, and when the time was right, he pushed for cooperation between the three to capture this “damaging and notorious felon.” It seemed to me like an awful lot of resources to commit toward taking a pair of sheep shears away from one shepherd. I said as much to Mattling.

  “Being a United States senator has its privileges,” Mattling said. “Senator Cumberland has quite a bit of influence in Washington.”

  “And like any other federal institution, you get your funding from Congress.”

  “That we do, Mr. Caine.”

  “I can understand your wanting to placate the senator. But you just told me you weren’t after Stanton.”

  “I said I didn’t say we were after him,” countered Mattling. I rolled my eyes at this and he elucidated. “We’re happy enough to bring him in, yes. A collar’s a collar. Normally we wouldn’t waste too much of our time on something like this, other than feeding what information we could to the Treasury and S.E.C. That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing, per the senator’s insistence, up until we came across Mr. Ryland here.

  “Casper Giarelli,” Mattling continued, “has been in our files for some time. Among his more legitimate business ventures, he’s known to traffic in smuggling, illegal arms, gambling, and racketeering.”

  “You mean he’s a mobster.” I was tempted to put a hand to my mouth in shock but decided not to push it.

  “If he’s not, he’s been doing a hell of an impression of one.”

  I wondered if Ryland had known about this, but didn’t want to put him on the spot in front of Mattling by asking. He had to have suspected at the very least.

  “Okay,” I said to Mattling, “so you’re after this Giarelli. You’re trying to what, get something on him?”

  “Something substantial,” Mattling nodded. “We know plenty, but as for what we can prove, he could beat ninety percent of it in court and the other ten would do little more than inconvenience him for a year or two.”

  “You want to nail him for a long stretch if you can.”

  “It wouldn’t be like taking down Capone, but with Giarelli out of the picture, we could put a serious crimp in a lot of illegal activity.”

  “In Chicago or in Lincoln, Nebraska?”

  “The mafia are everywhere these days, Mr. Caine. I’m surprised to have to tell a man from Kansas City that.”

  “Won’t they just replace him?”

  “They’ll try, sure. But it’d take the new guy awhile to earn the same trust among Giarelli’s circle, especially when they’re all looking over their shoulders trying to figure out how Giarelli got fingered.”

  “So what’s your plan?” I asked.

  “Can’t give you all of it, but Giarelli is coming to Baltimore sometime in the next couple of weeks. Handling other business, but he’ll want to meet with Mr. Ryland while he’s here, see if he can learn something about this bad investment that cleaned Mr. Ryland out a few months ago.”

  “And this other business is what you’re hoping to catch him at?”

  “Like I said, I can’t give you all of it. But like I also said, you could be of use to us. The Bureau is not above hiring private talent now and then.”

  I really didn’t care for the sound of this. I took a sip of my drink.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just what you’ve been doing,” Mattling told me. “Keep stroking Stanton, make him think he’s got a live one.” I furrowed my brow and tilted my head. Mattling gave me a bit more.

  “Mr. Ryland will try his best to keep Giarelli from meeting with Stanton personally, but he can’t guarantee it. Giarelli’s a forceful man. If Stanton finds out a mobster might be interested in his operation, he’ll fold and fade in a hurry. But if he’s certain a big score is coming in the next few days, he just might be willing to tough it out a little longer.”

  “And keeping Stanton in the picture helps you how?”

  “Like I said, a collar’s a collar. If nothing else, it’ll keep the Treasury, the S.E.C., and Senator Cumberland off our backs while we concentrate on Giarelli. That’s all I can tell you for now, Mr. Caine.”

  “So all you’re asking is that I keep doing what I’ve been doing? And yo
u and the other feds will give me some elbow room while I’m going about it?”

  “I’ll see to it,” Mattling promised.

  “And if I have to bend or even break a few minor laws while I’m working my game with Stanton?”

  “As a temporary operative in our employ,” Mattling said smoothly, “The Bureau appreciates that you may have to take a few risks to achieve our aims, even to the point of doing something unlawful if necessary.”

  I shrugged and took a drink.

  “I guess I’m in.”

  About two-thirty in the morning I was sitting in my suite, smoking a cigarette over the remains of a room service order of Eggs Benedict and trying to fashion a diagram. More like a diorama. The salt was Stanton, the pepper was Ryland. Nathan was the napkin ring, while Myers and Wiedermann were small, unopened jars of apricot and blackberry jam. A small cream pitcher served as Mattling, and the other faceless feds were represented by unsmoked cigarettes. I fetched a tissue from the lavatory, blew my nose into it, wadded it up, and dropped it onto the plate. That was Straker.

  Several hours ago, I’d been ready to chuck my whole scheme and pretty much leave Nathan to fend for himself (with instructions, of course, and only because I knew my remaining here wouldn’t have done him any favors). Now I was back on track, and with the official sanction of the highest law enforcement agency in these United States. Hell, I practically had carte blanche to flaunt the law if it got in my way. Anyone who’d been all of five minutes in the detective business would have been dancing for joy. Someone with twelve years of professional experience, both with a large firm and as head of his own, would be needing a fourth drink about now.

  Sure, Special Agent Mattling had offered me a deal that would allow me to see my play through and help out the big-time Washington boys in the process. He’d come to me for help, and not only requested my services but assured me I’d be left alone by the other feds, strongly hinting that any legal difficulties I might encounter could be handily taken care of. And not one damn word of that was in writing anywhere. I’d known Mattling for all of ten hours or so. All I really knew about the man was that he didn’t trust his own compatriots and had wanted to meet with me in secret, the only other witness being a man who was in trouble so deep of his own that he’d play ball with anyone if the wind blew right. And who knew how much Mattling wasn’t telling me?