While the two men had a drink from Sparco's office bottle of Chivas, Simon Clark sat in his rented Cutlass, pausing a moment before he drove to headquarters to request additional sting money.
He found it hard to believe the crudeness of south Florida swindlers. Sparco's claiming a profit on Clark's first two investments was an ancient technique used by con men of all stripes, from pool hustlers to bait-and-switch retailers: Let the mark win, or think he's winning. Then, when he plunges heavily, overcome by greed, cut his balls off.
Even more primitive was Sparco's use of a shill. That Jimmy Bartlett was no more a legitimate investor than Clark himself. The two slickers had staged the scene in the bar, confident it would convince the pigeon that he had to invest in a get-rich-quick deal and do it now.
Compared to the sharks on Wall Street and in Chicago's commodity pits, these south Florida chiselers were pilot fish. And yet, for all their dated tricks, they seemed to be thriving. Probably, Clark decided, because they were preying on an ever-growing population of financially unsophisticated retirees trying desperately to augment their Social Security and pension incomes during a time of horrendous inflation.
But if mutts like Sparco and Bartlett could flourish, Clark thought, what might an operator do who knew all the latest methods of duping money-hungry suckers?
There was a fortune to be made, and if you knew the law, as Clark did, the risk was negligible.
It was, he decided, a prospect he'd have to consider seriously. The climate of south Florida was super, and there were more than oranges to be plucked.
25
"What exactly is the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund?" Lester T. Crockett asked. "Do you know?"
"Negative, sir," Harker said.
They were standing in Tony's office, looking down at the chart spread across his desk. It was an organization diagram with a box at the top labeled David Rathbone. Straight lines led to four smaller boxes: Mortimer Sparco, Sidney Coe, James Bartlett, Frank Little. The boxes also contained the names of the assigned investigators: Rita Sullivan, Simon Clark, Manuel Suarez, Henry Ullman, Roger Fortescue.
Within each box was written the subject's ostensible occupation and his relationship with any of the other suspects.
"Here's what we've got so far," Harker reported. "Rathbone tells Sullivan that lie and the guys from the Palace are organizing a new business, the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund. They've rented a small office on Federal Highway. Sullivan goes to work there tomorrow as a secretary, the Fund paying her salary.
"Suarez says Coe is pushing shares of the Fund in his boiler room, and Clark says Sparco is doing the same thing in his brokerage. Clark also confirms that Bartlett is in on it. The only one whose connection remains iffy is Frank Little, but I'm betting he's a partner, too.
"And that's about all I've got so far, sir. It's possible, of course, that the Fund is an out-and-out swindle, it really doesn't exist, and they're selling shares in soap bubbles."
"But you don't believe that?" Crockett asked.
"No, sir. If the whole thing is just one big goldbrick, why go to the bother of renting an office and hiring a secretary?"
"Just as a front?"
"Maybe," Harker said, "but I think there's more to it than that. They're having letterheads and business cards printed up, like this is a company that's going to be in business for a while."
"Registered?"
"Not with the SEC, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or the State of Florida. They may have offshore registration, but I've been unable to find any evidence of it. I'm hoping Sullivan will be able to tell us more about the nature of the Fund after she's been working in their office awhile."
Crockett thrust his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, stared down at the chart. "Of course," he said, "we could pick up the entire mob right now, on charges of security fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy. And maybe throw the RICO book at them for good measure."
Harker stared at him. "You don't really want to do that, do you, sir?"
"No," Crockett said, "because the moment we put the cuffs on Rathbone, he'll clam up about the source of that self-destructing check. Have you learned anything more about it?"
"According to Sullivan, Rathbone said that seam's on hold."
"Do you believe that?"
"No-but no more of those queer checks have been reported."
"Ullman is still working on the bank officer?"
"Yes, sir. He's become very buddy-buddy with Mike Mulligan. So I'm expecting a break there."
"Soon, I hope," Crockett said. "The Washington brass keep pushing me. All I can do is keep pushing you. And all you can do is keep pushing Ullman."
"I intend to," Tony said.
"Good. Anything else?"
"Yes, sir. Have you come to any decision about bugging Rathbone's town house?"
"No," Crockett said, "not yet. I'll let you know." And he tramped out of Harker's office.
Tony sat down behind his desk, bent over the chart. He felt aswirl in swindles, and not all of them by the crooks: The good guys, in the course of their investigations, were pulling their share of cons, too. Harker was troubled by it, couldn't convince himself of the need to "fight fire with fire." His distress went deeper than that.
He presumed that if you were forced to live in a slum, eventually the ugliness of your surroundings would seep into your nature. Maybe without even being aware of it, you'd begin to think ugly thoughts, say ugly things, act in ugly ways.
Similarly, he now found himself in an environment where everyone lied, schemed, cheated. He had done it himself in the Navigator Bar in Boca. He wondered if, over time, this atmosphere of connivance might corrupt him to such an extent that deceit became normal and he would palter as naturally as he breathed.
He stared down at his chart, at the name of Rita Sullivan. She was a good cop, his most valuable operative, and he appreciated the job she was doing. But he wondered if he had become so tainted by this world of deception that he was now capable of conning himself.
26
Henry Ullman took it easy with Mike Mulligan, playing him slowly and not asking too many personal questions. The bank officer seemed to enjoy meeting Ullman for drinks every evening after work. Once he invited the investigator to his home for dinner. His condo looked as if it had been decorated by a department store, and was so spotlessly clean that it was difficult to believe anyone lived there.
Ullman told him the same cover story he had given James Bartlett: His name was Samuel Henry, and he was a mortgage loan officer at First Farmers' Savings amp; Loan in Madison, Wisconsin. He had come to south Florida to see if he and his wife could relocate. Mulligan accepted this fiction without question, especially since the two men spent.a lot of time talking shop, and Ullman was obviously knowledgeable about banking procedures.
They were in the back booth of the Navigator on Friday evening when Mulligan said, "Sam, how about dinner at my place tomorrow night?"
"You've already fed me once," Ullman protested. "Now it's my turn."
"No, no," Mulligan said, smiling. "Maybe some other time, but tomorrow is going to be a special occasion. I'll send out for Italian food, and after dinner a couple of guests are going to drop by."
"Oh? Friends of yours?"
"Sort of," Mulligan said. "I think you'll like them."
On Saturday night, Ullman arrived at Mulligan's apartment bearing two cold bottles of Chianti, having learned that practically everyone in south Florida preferred their red wine well chilled. The food had already been delivered and was being kept warm in the oven. Mulligan had ordered antipasto, veal piccata, spaghetti all'olio, and arugula salad.
They each had two martinis before sitting down to eat. They finished a bottle and a half of Ullman's Chianti during dinner. Then Mulligan served big snifters of brandy. By that time the little man was feeling no pain, blinking rapidly behind his horn-rimmed glasses and occasionally giggling. He tried to tell a joke about an Englishman, a Frenchman, and an A
merican, but forgot the punch line. Ullman wondered if his host would still be on his feet when his guests arrived.
They showed up around ten-thirty: two tall, thin women who appeared to be in their late thirties. They were introduced to Ullman as Pearl and Opal Long-necker, sisters, who worked at a Crescent Bank branch in Deerfield Beach.
Both women were rather gaunt, with lank hair and horsey features. They were drably dressed except for their shoes: patent leather pumps; kelly green for Opal, fire-engine red for Pearl. They sat primly on the couch and politely refused the offer of a drink. They spoke little, but answered questions in a heavy southern accent.
Ullman made them for a couple of rednecks and hoped, for the sake of Crescent Bank's public relations, their jobs-maybe data entry work-were in a back room where their speech patterns and appearance were unimportant. He couldn't understand what staid, respectable Mike Mulligan had in common with these unattractive and uncommunicative women.
After about ten minutes of desultory conversation, Opal rose and announced, "I gotta use the little girls' room."
"I'll come with you," Pearl said, standing.
Ullman noted they went directly to the bathroom without asking directions.
"What do you think of them, Sam?" Mulligan asked.
Ullman took a sip of his brandy. "They seem very nice," he said. "But quiet."
The host had a fit of giggling. "You'll see," he said, spluttering, "you'll see. You're the guest, so you take the bedroom. I'll make do on the couch."
"What?" the investigator said, bewildered. "What are you talking about, Mike?"
"You'll see," the little man repeated, and sloshed more brandy into his glass.
The Longnecker sisters came out of the bathroom about fifteen minutes later. They were laughing, holding hands, practically skipping.
"Whee!" Opal cried.
"It's party time!" Pearl shouted, eyes glistening. "Time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Let's go, big man." And she held out her hand to Henry Ullman.
He turned to look at Mulligan. The bank officer had taken off his glasses and pulled Opal onto his lap. His hand was thrust beneath her skirt. He saw Ullman staring at him.
"Go ahead," he urged. "Pearl will do you good."
Henry followed her into the darkened bedroom, but then she turned on all the lights.
"I like to see what I'm doing," she said.
"Shall I close the door?"
"What the hell for? Wait'll you hear Mike huffing and puffing. It's a scream!"
She undressed so swiftly that he was still taking off his socks when she was naked, lying on the bed and kicking bony legs in the air.
"C'mon, hurry up," she demanded. "I been waiting all week for this, and I'm hot to trot. Oooh, look at the big man. What a sweet cuke!"
He had never had a woman like her before and wasn't certain he'd live to have another. She was demented, insatiable, and wrung him out. She was still at it twenty minutes later, long after he had collapsed, drained. Suddenly she stopped, jumped out of bed.
"Little girls' room," she said, panting. "Don't go away."
Ullman lay in a stupor, thinking this was above and beyond the call of duty, and wishing he might find the strength to rise, dress, and stumble out of that madhouse. But then naked Opal came bounding into the lighted bedroom.
"Turnabout's fair play!" she yelled, and he saw in her eyes what he expected to see.
It was another half-hour before he could get away from her, stagger to his feet, go reeling into the bathroom. He soaked a washcloth in hot water and swabbed off his face and body.
Then he started looking for it.
He checked all the boxes, jars, and bottles in the medicine cabinet, but it wasn't there. It wasn't behind the frosted glass doors of the bathtub. Then he did what he should have done in the first place: lift the porcelain lid of the toilet tank.
There it was: a watertight mason jar containing at least a dozen little glassine envelopes filled with a white powder. He took out the jar, unscrewed the lid, removed one of the envelopes. Then he tightened the lid, replaced the jar in the water-filled tank.
Ullman opened the door cautiously. There was talk and laughter coming from the living room. He heard the voices of the two women and, as promised, the huffing and puffing of Mike Mulligan. He slipped into the bedroom, put the glassine envelope deep in the breast pocket of his jacket.
Then he went back to the living room. Mulligan, his body fish-belly white, mouth smeared, eyes bleary, was sprawled on the couch, and both women were working on him. They all looked up when Ullman entered.
"Party time!" he bawled.
27
A new discount drugstore had opened on Federal Highway and had quickly become a mecca for every hustler in Broward County. All because the owner was using peel-off price labels on his merchandise and wasn't yet aware of how he was being taken.
David Rathbone stopped by to stroll through the crowded aisles. He selected Halston cologne for himself and Chanel dusting powder for Rita. He casually switched the price labels with those from a cheap aftershave and an even cheaper face powder, and brought his purchases to the desk where a harried clerk was trying to cope. She rang up the sale without question, and Rathbone carried his bargains out to the Bentley, reflecting on the credo of con men everywhere: "Do unto others before others do unto you."
He drove to the office of the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund, north of Atlantic Boulevard. He parked and carefully removed the incorrect price label from the box of Chanel dusting powder. Then he entered the office. Rita was listening to a transistor radio, sandaled feet on her desk. He leaned to kiss her cheek.
"Hi, boss," she said. "What's going on?"
"A present for you," he said, handing her the powder. "Just for the fun of it."
"Thanks a mil," she said, sniffing at the box. "Hey, this stuff is expensive."
"Only the best for you," he said, touching her cheek. "We travel first class."
"Oh? Are we going to travel?"
"Maybe," he said. "Someday. Any excitement around here?"
"Oh sure," she said. "A real hectic morning. The stationery store delivered the letterheads and business cards."
"Let me take a look."
She showed him the five boxes of business cards bearing the name, address, and phone number of the Fund, plus the names of the Palace gang in elegant script.
"No titles," Rita pointed out. "Are you president, or what?"
"We're all equal partners," he said. "No titles. I like these letterheads and envelopes. Very impressive. Listen, I have a little work to do here, and then I've got to go visit a client."
"Yeah? Man or woman?"
"A widow lady named Birdie Winslow. Every now and then she gets antsy about her investments, and I have to hold her hand."
"Make sure that's all you hold. Honey, I'm bored. This is a real nothing job."
"Hang around until I'm finished, then turn on the answering machine, lock up, and go get some sun. It's a super day."
He went into the inner office and closed the door. Rita took a single business card from each of the five boxes and slipped them into the top desk drawer. Then she fished an emery board from her shoulder bag and went to work on her nails.
David came out of the inner office in less than twenty minutes.
"That was quick," she said.
"I've had my fun, and now I'm done. Maybe I'll take those business cards along with me. If we see the gang for drinks tonight, I'll hand them out. They'll get a kick out of them."
"You guys are like kids with a new toy. Are we eating at home tonight?"
He thought a moment. "Why don't we have dinner at the Palace? Then we can have drinks later in the Lounge."
"The Palace? I've never eaten there. How's the food?"
He flipped a palm back and forth. "So-so. They have a double veal chop that's edible. But I don't eat there very often. It's the kind of restaurant that never throws out unused butter, half-eaten rol
ls, or unfinished steaks. They recycle everything."
"Isn't that illegal?"
He laughed. "Come on," he said, "you know better than that. So they make beef bourguignonne out of leftover steak. Who's to know?"
"I'm not sure I want to eat there," she said.
"Don't tell me you're a straight arrow," he said. "If you found a wallet on the street with a hundred bucks in it and the owner's phone number, would you return it to him?"
"Probably not. I'd keep the money and drop the wallet in a mailbox."
"So would I. So would anyone with an ounce of sense. If the owner is dumb enough to lose his wallet, he's got to pay for his stupidity. Would you steal a towel from a hotel?"
"I might."
"Not me. It's not a class act."
"What's boosting a hotel towel got to do with eating other people's garbage at the Palace?"
"I'm just proving to you that everyone cuts corners. I wouldn't swipe a hotel towel, but I'd clip a mooch for every cent he's got. I enjoy outwitting suckers, but I'd never bash one over the head in a dark alley. I have my standards."
"I guess you do at that."
"Just remember the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, rules. See you later, honey."
She watched him drive away, then went into the inner office. She had to admit they hadn't stinted on the furnishings: new steel desks and file cabinets, leather-covered chairs and Simbari prints on the freshly painted walls.
There was nothing in the unlocked desk except a few scratch pads and pencils. She wondered what "work" David had been doing in there. Then she saw three pieces of crumpled paper in the shiny brass wastebas-ket. She scooped them out, went back to her own desk, and examined them. They seemed to be three lists of words, five on each list:
1. Machines, melons, mousetraps, mittens, mangoes.
2. Chairs, computers, cherries, corkscrews, catalogs.
3. Hammers, hubcaps, honey dews, heels, hats.
Three of the items had little checkmarks next to them:
melons, chairs, and hammers.
She phoned Tony Harker.
Sullivan's sting Page 12