The Specialists

  “They serve a very valuable function. For one thing, they provide an ideal cover for the extraordinary cash flow involved in criminal enterprises. They also permit loan sharks to cloak themselves in an aura of legitimacy. Suppose, for example, that a businessman wants to borrow a truly substantial sum of money. A hundred thousand dollars, let us say. His credit situation is such that he cannot obtain the loan from a legitimate source. He goes to Platt, who loans him the money at standard terms, except that the borrower signs a note, not for the hundred thousand he receives, but for twice that amount. Thus Platt has a bona fide note for two hundred thousand dollars, along with a staff of thugs to make sure that the debt is eventually collected. And his books show no profit beyond the legal interest on the principal of the note; the extra hundred thousand dollars is invisible profit.

  “That’s just one example. There could be any number of others. A man in Platt’s position inevitably handles large sums of hot money that have to be rechanneled into circulation. A bank serves admirably in this respect. No doubt he functions as a broker for other criminals as well. You remember the Ackermann kidnapping, of course. The details slip my mind, but as I recall there was a quarter of a million dollars worth of marked bills involved, and none of that money has yet turned up in circulation. A crook with a bank at his disposal could purchase that ransom money from the kidnappers for thirty or forty cents on the dollar and simply hold it as cash reserves until the heat died down.”

  Giordano asked if there was any connection between Platt and the Ackermann kidnapping. The colonel said there was not. “Just what use Platt has made of his banks is immaterial,” he said.

  Dehn said, “Banks?”

  “Yes. He acquired a second just a little over a year ago. The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall, also in Bergen County. You’ll want to write that down. No, we don’t know just what use Platt has made of these banks, except that he seems to have been an innovator in one respect. He’s found an original way to increase his banks’ profit.”

  “How?”

  “By robbing them.”

  Giordano had to admit it was brilliant. He listened carefully as the colonel went through the whole thing, and his own mind began racing on ahead, playing with the possibilities of the whole thing. He had thought he knew of most of the standard gambits. Fire insurance, for example. There were an incredible number of ways to burn down one’s property for the insurance, and he knew of so many cases that he often wondered if a fire had ever started by accident. From what he knew, you could make out fairly nicely that way. If you had a business that was losing money, you just made sure you were carrying the right type and amount of insurance, and then you crossed two wires and went home. That way you wound up with a little more than the business was conceivably worth, and you avoided the headache of finding somebody who was fool enough to buy it

  It was a great way out of a bad situation, he thought, but not much more than that; there was no way to have both the business and the money. This bank dodge, though—that was something else entirely.

  You started out by setting it up right, finding some excuse to have the maximum amount of cash in the vault. Then you sent your own men in, and they had less trouble knocking the place over than you’d have opening a can of peas. They made it look good, maybe even tossed a few bullets around for added realism. You, in turn, made sure somebody went through the motions of turning in the alarm—but not so quick as to create any hassles. The federal investigators came in and they investigated, and all they found out was that the bank had been robbed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation made most of the loss good, and whatever they didn’t cover would show on the bank’s books as a loss and would just save you that much more in taxes. So you wound up with the cash you had robbed, plus the cash from the FDIC, plus the loss on the books. And if any of the money from the bank happened to be hot, you just put it back in the vault and let it sit on ice until it cooled off again.

  When the colonel finished, Giordano lifted his hand. “It’s very neat, sir,” he said. “But one thing. It’s sort of one-time-only, isn’t it? Platt can do this once and score for whatever it was, three hundred fifty thou, but he can’t do it again, can he?”

  “No.”

  “Because the feds would have a tip to it. Even now they might have a good idea of what happened, but unless they find the robbers and tie them to Platt, they can’t do a thing about it. But if he tried it again, they could put him in a box.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Simmons said, “Of course he has two banks. He might try the same trick with the other bank.”

  “Maybe in ten years,” Giordano said. “Not before then.”

  “Because they would make a connection, Louis?”

  “They’d have to, sir. This Platt, I would guess he’s hoping nobody else just happens to knock off one of his banks. Because if either one of them gets hit, a lot of people are going to take a long look at Mr. Platt.”

  He studied the colonel. There was the ghost of a smile on the colonel’s lips, and Giordano got it. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

  The colonel said, “Operation Bankroll.”

  Giordano was nodding to himself. He looked around the table, one face after another, and now they all got it.

  “Operation Bankroll,” the colonel repeated. “The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall. That’s Mr. Platt’s bank, gentlemen, and we are going to roll right over it.”

  EIGHT

  The pickup truck was blue, with STEDMAN’S TREE SURGERY / LAMBERTVILLE, PA. lettered in white on the sides. The back of the truck held a couple of saws, a bucket of creosote, a stepladder, and a mound of branches and odd cuttings. Simmons, dressed in overalls and a denim cap, sat behind the wheel. Murdock was at the side door of the house talking to the woman.

  “See, my helper, he noticed it from the road,” Murdock was saying. “Tell the truth, I wouldn’t of seen it myself, but then he’s got sharp eyes for a nigger.”

  “A Negro,” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Anyway, he seen it and slowed down, and I took a look, and that limb’s got to come off, ma’am. The borers is into it so bad there’s no saving it. The rest of the tree is sound, they’ll do like that sometimes, but that one limb is rotten with borers, and all they can do is spread. I ain’t saying she’s got to come off this minute or the tree’ll be gone tomorrow, nothing like that. But I will say that they’ll be on into the trunk by fall and be killing that tree by next spring.”

  The woman said, “Termites.”

  “No, borers is what they are. Termites you’ll get in houses, in dead wood, but borers——”

  “We had a man who insisted the house was crawly with termites. He offered to clear them out for three hundred dollars.” The woman smiled frigidly. “We found out it was a racket.”

  Murdock had his cap in his hands. He was twisting it, and Simmons fought back a laugh. Thick-soled boots and blue jeans and that flannel shirt and twisting his cap—the perfect redneck, Simmons thought.

  “Well, Miz Tuthill,” Murdock said. “Well, now. Termite inspectors, well you don’t have to tell me about them.”

  “He said he was just passing through,” Mrs. Tuthill said. “And for that reason he would do the job at a special rate. We didn’t even have any termites, as it happened.”

  “Well,” Murdock said. “Well, borers you sure do have, Miz Tuthill. You come and look at that tree and you’ll see them borers. Why, from where you’re standing you can see how the leaves is growing funny. You see that big red oak there? See where I’m pointing? Now can you see the second branch from the bottom on the right? See those leaves, how they’re a sort of a paler shade of green, kind of on the sick side?”

  The woman was nodding.

  “Now I’ll tell you true, Miz Tuthill, ma’am, not like any old termite inspector. We don’t entirely wait for work to come our way. You can’t, not in this business. Mr. Stedman, what he says——”

  “Oh, then you’re not Mr. Stedma
n?”

  “No, ma’am.” Murdock smiled. “Why, there’s better than twenty of us works for Mr. Stedman, he’s the biggest tree surgeon in all eastern Pennsylvania. What he says, he says you have to look for work that has to be done. He says by the time the average person notices something wrong with a tree, why, it’s too late to do more than cut the whole thing down. An oak like that, an oak must of took forty, fifty years to grow, it’s a powerful shame to lose it.”

  “Perhaps if my husband agrees, I could call your Mr. Stedman tomorrow and——”

  “Ma’am, if you was to call Mr. Stedman, we’d be glad to come, but that limb, the sawing of it isn’t but a ten-dollar piece of work, and for us to come all the way clear up from Lambertville——”

  “Oh, my. Only ten dollars?”

  “What with us being here now, ma’am, she wouldn’t be any more than that. Oh, I see, you was recollecting that termite inspector and three hundred dollars. Now if you wanted to call the Better Business Bureau in Lambertville, or if——”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Mrs. Tuthill was laughing now. “Oh, my, ten dollars, and here I thought . . . oh, for heaven’s sake, cut the silly thing off. Ten dollars!”

  “It seems wrong,” Simmons said. “Cutting a perfectly good limb off a perfectly good tree.”

  “Shucks,” Murdock said, “I reckon it would have had borers sooner or later.”

  “Telling her to look how the leaves are growing.” The road swung around to the left, and Simmons tapped the brake pedal lightly. The truck rolled into the curve. “That lawn, now, that’s something else. You see how patchy it was? That comes from cutting it too low, that and using the wrong seed mix.”

  “Soon as we’re all set up, you can go back and do Mrs. Tuthill’s lawn for her.”

  “Somebody should. Those burnt-out patches, that comes from using a fertilizer with too much phosphate. Of course, now, to do the right kind of work on a lawn that size——”

  “You suppose it’d cost as much as cleaning out her termites?”

  Simmons laughed.

  “Does seem like a waste,” Murdock went on. “Climbing her damn tree and sawing the damn limb off and daubing on the creosote and all just for a reference. And you damn well know Platt ain’t going to call her anyway.”

  “Colonel Cross says he might.”

  “Platt? Gangster like him, that kind of a bad old boy, nice old lady like Mrs. Tuthill wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

  Simmons shrugged. “Might try to call Mr. Stedman in Lambertville. Might have some trouble, since there’s no Mr. Stedman in Lambertville——”

  “There really a Lambertville?”

  “Must be. Colonel says we need a reference. Colonel has a habit of being right. That’s Platt’s place on the right.”

  “And who says crime don’t pay?”

  Simmons braked the truck and slowed to a crawl. While Murdock checked out the trees on the front lawn, Simmons clicked off mental pictures of the estate itself. Eighty yards of frontage rimmed by a ten-foot iron fence. A gate in the center opening onto a circular driveway. The main house, huge, white, fronted by massive columns. A garage off to the left, with living quarters over it. The grounds, Simmons noted, were very well kept.

  He said, “He just might already have a tree surgeon, Ben.”

  “He’s got a tree that’s dying.”

  “Really?”

  Murdock pointed at an aged silver maple. “Storm damage. See where the lightning caught it? Wonder what the hell you’d do with something like that.”

  “You’re the doctor.”

  Murdock grinned. Simmons pulled to a stop at the gate. Guards stood on either side, thick-bodied men wearing revolvers on their hips. The one on Murdock’s side also carried a carbine.

  Murdock drawled, “Stedman’s Tree Surgery, here to see Mr. Platt.”

  The guard with the carbine shook his head.

  “Not home?”

  “No.”

  Murdock grinned easily. “Think my boy and I’ll just have a look at that tree if we might.” He started to open the door. The guard leaned on it and Murdock let it swing shut.

  The guard said, “Nobody comes on the grounds without Mr. Platt says it’s okay.”

  Murdock hesitated, then heaved a sigh. “Well,” he said. “I’ll just phone him up tonight.”

  “You do that,” the guard said.

  Back on the road Murdock said, “Seemed worth a try.”

  “I didn’t think they’d go for it.”

  “Not the way those two take to playing soldier. Two guards, two of them, and that fat one can’t make do with just a revolver, he needs a bee-bee gun, too. You catch the fancy belt and holster?”

  “That’s hand-tooled leather.”

  “Nothing but the finest. Reckon they can shoot worth spit?”

  “I have a feeling they practice a lot.”

  “I guess,” Murdock said. He took a cigarette and gave one to Simmons. They smoked for a while in silence. “I’ll call him tonight, we’ll do the job in the morning. Lawn looked good, didn’t it?”

  “Like a golf course.”

  “Means he probably thought about getting a tree doctor in and never got around to it. We’ll make it all good tomorrow. How’d you like that fat boy on the gate, anyhow?”

  “They were both fat.”

  “Yeah. I sure had a longing to take the two of them.”

  “So did I,” Simmons said.

  NINE

  The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall was located at the northwest comer of the intersection of Broad Street and Revere Avenue. Broad Street was the main commercial thoroughfare of the town, and the one-story brick building fronted on Broad with a small parking lot alongside on Revere. Dehn put his car in the lot and walked around to the front entrance. It was fifteen minutes past three. The bank normally closed at three, but on Fridays it stayed open until 5:30.

  Dehn opened the door, went inside. He was wearing a gray sharkskin suit and carrying a slim leather attach case. His glance darted around the bank, registering impressions, estimating distances. He wouldn’t have to supply details. Giordano, who had visited the bank during the noon rush, would probably be able to come up with a virtual floor plan of the layout. But Dehn wanted to get his own feel of the place, and it wouldn’t hurt for him to be able to backstop Giordano.

  A row of tellers’ cages on the right. A stand-up desk in the center where depositors could fill out slips. On the left, three desks for bank officers, just one of them presently occupied. A staircase at the rear center, presumably leading to the vault room in the basement. A uniformed guard at the head of the stairs, another at the side door, plus the one he had passed in front. The guards themselves looked wholly interchangeable, stiff white-haired men with slight paunches and underslung jaws. Dehn guessed they were retired cops.

  Dehn went over to the desk where a bank officer sat. When the man looked up from a column of figures, he said he wanted to open a checking account. The officer pointed him to a chair, opened a desk drawer, asked if he was interested in a regular or a special checking account. He started to explain the difference, and Dehn cut in and said the regular account would be fine. The officer brightened at this.

  Dehn gave his name as Arthur Moorehead of Seattle, explained he had taken a position in New Cornwall and would be bringing his family east as soon as he found suitable accommodations for them. “But first you set the financial house in order,” the banker said. “Good, good.”

  A year earlier Dehn had opened an account as Arthur Moorehead at the Shippers’ Bank of Seattle. He had closed out the account within a week, but somehow or other he had never destroyed the checkbook. He wrote out a check now for $2,500 and used it to open his account.

  The bank official said something tentative about waiting a week for imprinted checks.

  “Oh, of course,” Dehn said. “You’ll want to wait until my check clears in Seattle. No problem. I won’t need to draw on this account for the time being
.”

  It would take the check at least ten days to bounce back to New Cornwall. And by that time the bank would have more important things to worry about than Arthur Moorehead.

  After the last of the forms had been filled out, Dehn asked about a safe deposit box. They only had a small selection, he was told, and there was a waiting list for the larger boxes, but a small one might be available. Was that satisfactory?

  Dehn said it was. The officer went away, came back, smiled, and led him down the stairs at the rear. There was a massive gate at the foot of the stairs, with an eye beam between the stairs and the gate. A guard came into view when they broke the beam. He and the bank officer nodded to each other, and the depressed a button to release an electronic lock. Inside was the bank’s own vault and, to the left, a few dozen feet of wall space given over to individual safe deposit boxes.

  In a curtained booth Dehn opened the box and took from his attach case a thick manila envelope sealed with heavy plastic tape. He put this in the box and watched as the guard locked it away. The envelope contained a stack of newspaper cuttings.

  He left the bank and drove to the motel where he had registered earlier as Moorehead. On a sheet of motel stationery he began sketching the bank’s floor plan. A rough sketch was all he wanted now. When he saw Giordano’s photos, the two of them could work together on it and produce something more detailed.

  He left the motel room. A beautiful day, he thought. Perfect for golf. He got into his car and headed north out of town, then cut west on Route 4. When he saw the driving range, he pulled off the road. He took his driver and his spoon from the trunk and bought a bucket of balls.

  He hit eight balls before he lost interest entirely. He topped the first one, caught the next two nicely, then sliced the rest. He left the remaining forty-two balls in the bucket on the rubber mat and put his clubs back in the bag and locked the trunk.