A Shared Confidence

by William Topek

  I didn’t really feel like a heel until after dinner. Marie and Nathan cleared the table, ordering me to keep my seat for a special surprise. I went back to visiting with the children and a few minutes later, Nathan turned out the dining room light and Marie walked in behind him carrying a cake with candles burning on top of it, both of them serenading me and the kids immediately joining in.

  I honestly hadn’t thought about it all day, not for several days. Today was April 18th, my birthday. I was thirty-seven. I’d forgotten, but my family had remembered. I was grateful the lighting was low. I made a wish and blew out the candles, getting all of them on the first try while everyone clapped. Nathan put the light back on and Marie started cutting the cake. Angel food with white frosting and blue icing spelling out my name. She’d made it herself, so it was terrific.

  “What did you wish for?” asked Billy.

  “Can’t tell you or it won’t come true,” I winked at him, then looked at Nathan for a second. “But I can tell you I wished hard.”

  There were even presents. I unwrapped a pair of cufflinks from Nathan, sterling silver octagons with my initials engraved. Billy gave me a book on famous criminals. I opened it and flipped through a few pages, commenting “Knew him. Yep, knew him, too. Hey, that guy still owes me money!” Mary gave me a picture she drew and colored herself that I made a deal over. Marie gave me a small box that I assumed contained another set of cufflinks or a tie pin, but it was a cameo broach, an ivory silhouette of a woman’s portrait against an oval of pink coral. It had been my mother’s. I had to do something quick, so I held it against my lapel and raised my chin like I was posing for a photograph, and the kids started laughing again.

  “It was Bridget’s,” Marie explained.

  “I remember,” I nodded.

  “I thought maybe…”

  “You thought right,” I said quietly. A month ago, my birthday plans had centered around a bottle of scotch. And I’d almost begged off dinner tonight when Nathan called. Jesus, what a life.

  After coffee and cake the kids went reluctantly to bed and Nathan brought out the last present: a bottle of very good scotch, even better than the one I’d been saving. He insisted that Marie join us for a drink of the porch, and she said okay but a lot of water with hers, please. The three of us relaxed in the nighttime quiet and talked, Nathan and I telling stories of our boyhood and of our parents. I kept waiting for Marie to go inside, figuring Nathan would be itching to talk to me, but she stayed until I said I had to go. Nathan walked me to the door and I tried to get a few words of business in.

  “It’s your birthday, Dev,” he said seriously. “Unless it’s something really important, it can wait.” Why did it surprise me to learn that family meant more to Nathan than business?

  “A lot’s happening right now,” I told him. “But I think it can still work. I wouldn’t be trying if I didn’t.”

  “That’s good to hear. You sure you won’t stay the night?”

  “I’d like to, Nathan, but I need to be back at it tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “Drive carefully.”

  I walked out to the Cadillac, shining beautifully in the driveway under a bright, full moon. Nathan stood silhouetted the light of the front porch. I threw him a wave and thought: You’re a good man, Nathan Caine. I won’t let you or your family down.

  Friday at noon, Clay Stanton was summing it up for me in his usual, eloquent style over a plate of roast beef.

  “What I’ve had you doing so far, Mr. Shaw, is to make very carefully-timed, short-term investments for me. What I’m proposing for your situation is far simpler. A longer term purchase in a stable, reliable stock. If you’re concerned about your partners, the shares needn’t even be purchased in your name. Once you give me the exact amount you wish to…tie up, I’ll select a suitable company and the appropriate number of shares you’ll need to buy. At the moment, I’m favoring New World Pan-American. They’ve performed stably if not spectacularly, and depending on how long you wish to leave your money in, you could even earn a slight profit. Say between three and five percent.”

  As always, I paid respectful attention while Stanton talked, at the same time trying and failing to find the seams in his mask. He spoke with gravity and authority. Who wouldn’t believe him?

  “It sounds perfect,” I said. “Of course, it’ll take me a few days to get the money ready.”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you think, Penny?” I asked, turning to my right.

  “Hmm?” She looked up from her plate, chewing and holding a hand in front of her mouth. “Sorry, boys, you lost me at New World Pandemonium.”

  Stanton and I both laughed good-naturedly. Penny had been introduced at our first meeting as my traveling companion. I’d admitted to Stanton later that, as I’d met her in Baltimore, we hadn’t actually traveled anywhere together yet. He made a gracious comment about life not being all dollars and cents, and about young men needing the comradeship of the gentler sex. By now, Penny had worked out her deal with Stanton. She’d feed enough false leads to her regular mob to keep them at bay, all the while staying close to me and reporting back to Stanton. In reality, she’d be reporting only what I told her to and giving me as much dope as she could on Stanton’s operation. At least I hoped that was the reality. Hard to be absolutely certain when you’re dealing with professional con artists.

  That afternoon, I was back at the bar at the Lord Baltimore, sharing a booth with Thaddeus Straker. He’d been leaving messages asking to see me. I’d been ignoring them until I decided I might be able to use him. You have to do your share of distasteful things in my business. Even so, we’d only been at sitting down together for five minutes and I already wanted to shower.

  “Thanks for meeting me, Dev,” he said eagerly. “It was not only white of you, it was smart, and I’ll tell you why.”

  “Oh, I wish you would.”

  “I know you met Agent Mattling here for a drink last Sunday night. What can I say? A good detective’s got to have his sources, right?” Only Straker would think himself a good detective for slipping the night barman a couple of bucks. “Now it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me what you two talked about. I have a pretty good idea anyway. He offered you a job, didn’t he? I mean, why else would he have wanted to meet with you in a friendly setting like this except to try and sell you on the Bureau. Am I right or am I right?”

  If Straker could make a deal with the Devil and live to be a thousand (assuming the Devil would want to foul Hell with him), he’d still be an idiot. The man almost made it a point of pride not to learn anything new, probably because doing so involves admitting you don’t know something. Here he was up to his old tricks, putting two and two together and coming up with nineteen and a half. And as usual, he wasn’t concentrating on the matter at hand, the pursuit of Stanton, but on his career.

  I stuck out my lower lip. “He may have mentioned it in passing.”

  Straker congratulated himself with a smug smile.

  “He may have made it seem like it was in passing, but I bet he didn’t fool a sharp cookie like you, did he?” Much as we hate to admit it, flattery very often works. Unless, of course, you’re as bad at it as Straker. “See, here’s the thing, Dev: it sounds like a great move. There you are, stuck out in the middle of Kansas, trying to scrape together enough work to make ends meet, and along comes this guy from an F.B.I. National Headquarters offering you a shiny new badge and a real salary again. Hell yes, it sounds a good deal. Why wouldn’t it?”

  Kansas City is actually in Missouri, the one I work in, but Straker probably didn’t realize there were two of them. Three if you count North Kansas City, also in Missouri. And Kansas City, Kansas is right on the border, not anywhere near the middle of the state. I decided to stop keeping track of all the things Straker got wrong before I ended up with a headache.

  “But here’s the thing,” Straker continued. “You’ve got to be careful how you go about it. You act too eager, they bring you on boar
d cheap as they can. They drop you in some field office in the middle of nowhere and you’re right back where you started. You have to make them realize what they’re getting, and you especially have to make them realize they’re going to have to pony up to get it.”

  I hadn’t said a word yet. That didn’t seem to bother Straker.

  “Now I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been building you up to Mattling pretty good. And I’m not saying that’s a snow job. You’ve got some skills and you’ve got some training, and you’re a fairly hard worker when you want to be. Sure, I know you and I had our beefs now and then, but you know what I say to all that?” He leaned back and spread his hands wide, palms forward. “Past is past. Forgive and forget, baby, that’s how it has to be. Know why? ’Cause you damn sure can’t move forward if you’re always looking back over your shoulder.”

  Only a man like Straker could step over other people on his way up and think that not looking back at their broken bodies was the height of progressive thinking. It was just too bad there were so many of his type around, and that they could reproduce.

  “I’ve been helping you, Dev. I can help you more. Mattling, he likes you. He wants you on his team. I can help facilitate that, and I mean getting you all the way to a Washington post with a real title.” It had always been Caine back in Chicago. Caine, do this. Caine, do that. Caine, you screwed up again, goddamn you! This Dev business was new.

  “In exchange for what from me?” I asked, my tone neutral.

  “Sharp cookie, like I said,” he laughed. “The wise man knows you can’t get something for nothing. Okay, what do I want? Pretty simple, really. Keep me informed. Let me know what you’re reporting back to Mattling. We can exchange information, you and I. These government types, they can’t talk to each other without filling out forms in triplicate first. If we don’t get information flowing smoothly, I have a worry this Clay Stanton will slip the net. And then where will we be? I want to make sure this operation comes off without a hitch, and if we work together, I predict that’s just what will happen.”

  I knew exactly where Straker would be if this went south: going back to Chicago without a letter of commendation signed by J. Edgar Hoover himself. Or possibly without a medal for civilians if the Bureau had such a thing. Maybe Straker could suggest it to them.

  I pushed my glass around for a moment, thinking.

  “I don’t see any harm,” I began, and that’s when I saw a man walking up to our booth. His gait was purposeful and the cut of his suit conservative, giving his lean body almost the look of an undertaker.

  “Mr. Shaw?” he asked politely. “My name is John Galen. May I join you for a moment, sir?”

  “What’s this about?” I asked.

  “It’s a matter of some importance,” he said patiently. “May I please sit down?”

  I shot a puzzled look at Straker and got one in return. I shrugged.

  “Sure, I don’t see why not.”

  Galen pulled up a chair and placed it at the end of our table. He took a hundred dollar bill from his breast pocket and slid it across the table to me.

  “Do you recognize this, Mr. Shaw?”

  “I’ve see a few of them before, I guess.”

  “I meant, sir, do you recognize this one in particular?”

  “Is this a joke, son?”

  “No, sir. This is possibly fifteen years in a federal penitentiary. You gave this bill to a bank teller at First National yesterday at around two-fifteen p.m.”

  “I stopped at a bank and had them make change for me,” I admitted. “What’s wrong with that?”

  Galen looked around for a moment, then pointed out several features of the bill, how certain parts were missing from some of the designs, how some of the lettering wasn’t properly aligned, a few other things.

  “Are you telling me–”

  “This is counterfeit, Mr. Shaw.” His face was stone.

  “Are you from the bank?”

  He shook his head and said, “No, sir,” then took out his credentials. I looked at them and passed them over to Straker.

  “Secret Service?” said Straker.

  “Why not,” I grumbled. “Every other goddamn government agency is in town these days.”

  Galen took back his credentials and pocketed them, then told me we needed to talk about where I got this counterfeit bill. I glanced over at Straker.

  “Maybe we should finish our discussion another time,” I suggested.

  “I’ll check in with you later,” he agreed, then rose from the table, nodded to Galen, and headed out the door. Galen watched him leave, then turned back to me, his face earnest.

  “How’d I do, Mr. Caine?”

  I broke into a broad grin.

  “You did good, Jennings. You did real damn good.”

  Chapter Sixteen: The Liberty Silver Mining Company

  Casper Giarelli breezed into town early Friday evening. I got the tip-off from Ryland and, just my luck, Giarelli was a high roller who enjoyed the finer things, which meant he booked a suite at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. While I planned to dodge him in the hallways and elevators, I made sure to stake out the lobby with a newspaper so I could get a good look at him checking in.

  Giarelli was a powerfully-built man of medium height, his fleshy face sporting a long, thin mustache and a scar on his right cheek. He wore a cream-colored suit with a matching overcoat draped around his shoulders and a matching hat. The man looked almost comic-opera Italian strolling through the lobby to the front desk, two faceless goons in tow with his luggage. He wasn’t very expressive, eyes flicking back and forth under lowered lids as he signed the registry. The bellhop fawned him up to his suite and I left the Lord Baltimore, heading over to my first hotel. I had my own work to do, and time was getting shorter every day.

  On the drive over, I thought back to earlier that afternoon. After meeting with Straker at the Lord Baltimore, I’d had a second meeting with Stanton. One without Penny present.

  “Here’s what I’m wondering,” I explained in the dark, secluded bar. “Instead of making one large investment in a single company, would it be possible for you to arrange several small ones over a period of, say, a week?”

  “I wouldn’t see any trouble with that,” Stanton assured me. “Would it be intrusive of me to inquire as to why?”

  “The guys going in on the purchase of this building for me, they’re not dummies. If they find out I dropped one lump sum of cash on a single transaction – and they have ways of finding such things out, Mr. Stanton – well, I’m afraid it will look exactly like what it is: that I’m trying to water down my own risk, force them to take on a greater share of it while still keeping myself cut into the deal. Sitting back and playing it safe, ready to move in and buy them out if things start looking good. If I move the same amount in increments over several days, it’s a lot easier to play it off as standard business. Hey, guys, sorry, but I had some good opportunities come my way one after another, too good to turn down. Yes, I still want in, but I’m afraid I can only be down for a million, not the one-point-five I was talking earlier. You follow what I’m saying, Mr. Stanton?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. Shaw,” Stanton assured me.

  “This way,” I continued, “I have the cash ready for my other investment.” I picked up my Campari and soda held it for a moment. “The one that’s really going to make me.”

  An experienced con like Stanton could sense I was dying to tell someone; he didn’t bother trying to prod me. After getting his promise that what I was about to tell him would go no further, I filled him in on the details of my latest venture: The Liberty Silver Mining Company. There was this abandoned silver mine in Colorado, you see…

  “And you believe there is yet more silver to be mined from it?” Stanton asked.

  I smiled Kelly Shaw’s smug smile and laughed.

  “Mr. Stanton, there isn’t enough silver left in that dried-up pit to fill a tooth!” I kept smiling and Stanton graciously allowed me to expand on my brillian
ce. The mine went bust years ago, I explained. The original owners had milked it for what it was worth and stopped trying once the cost of excavation began exceeding what they were pulling out of it. Everyone in the silver-mining business knew that for a fact. They’d all just figure that some hotshot tycoon with more ambition than brains had been sold a worthless hole in the ground. Hell, I’d even put the word “silver” in my new company name to promote that misunderstanding.

  “There’s no silver and there never was any gold,” I admitted. “But there is zinc. The mine is lousy with it. I have a report from a geologist I hired personally, attesting to that fact.”

  “Is zinc valuable, Mr. Shaw?” Stanton asked.

  I shook my head. “Not unless you have access to tons of it. I do.” I’d bring on a handful of guys I knew, guys with brains and nerve. We’d let the rest of the business community split their sides over our antics, all the while slowly pooling our capital and buying up equipment and experienced labor. We’d take the ribbings at cocktail parties (“Found any silver yet, Shaw? I heard somebody might have dropped a nickel down one of your shafts the other day!”) and we’d stay mute about what we were really doing. And in time, we’d practically corner the zinc market.

  Of course, I had no idea if you could really get zinc out of an abandoned silver mine, but I doubted Stanton did, either. And if he did know better and I turned out to be wrong, that would only make Kelly Shaw look that much dimmer, which served my purpose just as well.

  “Anyway, that’s why I need to stash some cash from the guys I’m going in on the building with,” I explained. “I have to have it ready to go once we start moving on the mine.”

  “If you’ll permit my saying so,” Stanton said, “I think you show splendid foresight handling the whole affair in this manner.” I accepted the compliment with Kelly Shaw’s level of humility.

  “You’ve got to do more than keep your head in business, Mr. Stanton. You’ve got to use it.”

  “So very true.”

  “I know guys,” I began, “Well, hell, take our mutual friend Ethan Ryland for example.”