A Shared Confidence (12 page)

I walked around to the front of the desk and sat down heavily on one corner of it. I fished a cigarette out of my shirt pocket and lit it, letting out the smoke as I stared at the two men, sizing them them up.

“You fellows remember me?” I asked.

“Of course, Mr. Shaw,” Wiedermann answered, Myers nodding in agreement.

“Good. That makes things easier.”

I reached for a manilla folder on the desk and opened it, flipping idly through a few of the pages.

“Really need to get that crown fixed, Wiedermann,” I said casually. “You don't want it coming out in a bite of your wife's meatloaf at the dinner table. What would your two boys think?”

The two men looked at each other for a second. Wiedermann continued to do the talking.

“Mr. Shaw, may I ask what we're doing here?” His tone was polite enough, still thinking I might be an important client.

“Well, there are a few reasons,” I told him. “Matter of fact, I can think of about a hundred and forty thousand of them.” I gave them dead eyes the way cops do. The two men paled and looked quickly at one another for the second time.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Shaw,” Wiedermann said. “I don't believe either of us has the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

I shook my head sadly. “Christ, I'd hate to be your lawyer. If you can't lie any better than that in court, you may as well buy yourself a sledge hammer now and start practicing on the rocks in your garden.”

I reached behind me and picked up another folder, taking out photostats of the three fraudulent loan documents from Nathan's office. I stood and walked over to the table, dropped them in front of the men, then went back to the edge of the desk.

“Those look familiar?”

“They appear to be copies of loan papers from our bank,” Myers admitted. “Yes, I recognize Mr. Caine's signature on all three of them.”

I nodded, taking a puff from my cigarette. “Ferrier does nice work, I have to give him that.” Their faces paled again at the name of the forger they'd used, the one Townsend had seen Myers going to visit last Saturday.

“Mr. Shaw,” Wiedermann finally found his voice, “may we ask what all this is about?”

“Certainly, Mr. Wiedermann. It's about you and Mr. Myers embezzling a hundred and forty thousand dollars from your own bank, and having Mr. Ferrier fix up the paperwork so you could frame Mr. Caine for it.” My voice was calm and even as I laid it out for them.

“That's preposterous, Mr. Shaw!” Wiedermann objected.

“Mmhmm.”

“Are you with the police?” Myers asked. Wiedermann looked like he wanted to kick Myers under the table, but I could see their feet.

“Who I'm with,” I answered, “that is, the exact name of the federal agency I work for, is unimportant. What is important is this: I can walk across the street, send one telegram, and the two of you won't see the outside of a prison cell for the next twenty years.”

Giving myself federal clout made an impact. To control rampant crime in this country, the feds had pushed Congress lately to give them some pretty broad powers. They could carry firearms now, and cross state lines with authority to pursue criminals for breaking any of a number of laws. Myers and Wiedermann couldn't just slip out of Maryland overnight and be done with this mess, not if a federal agent was pursuing them.

“I think perhaps Mr. Myers and I should have an attorney present if this discussion is to go any further,” Wiedermann said, picking imaginary lint off his sleeve.

“He can visit you in the clink,” I told them. “Won't make any difference. We have our case all built up against you. At this point, even the best lawyer could only stall us a little and cost you money.” I stood up and tossed the folder back onto the desk, rubbing a hand along the back of my neck and sighing. “But if that's how you boys want it, fine. It's your right and I can't stop you. You're the small fry in this anyway; we're after the bigger fish. Just thought I'd offer you a chance to play ball, maybe knock a little time off your sentences.”

I lit a new cigarette off the last one, squinting at them through the smoke, and added: “Maybe all of it.”

A long silence, broken by Wiedermann asking me to please continue.

“Okay, I'll lay it out for you. Here's what we want: as of this moment, neither of you mentions anything about this business, not one tiny detail of it, to anyone. Not even Mr. Caine. I mean if I find out you said something in your sleep and your wife overheard it, Wiedermann, you're going to prison. I'll have questions, a lot of them, and you'll answer every last one of them and answer them completely and to the best of your knowledge. We may even ask you to do a few things to help us catch the big crooks. Don't worry, it wont be anything dangerous, but you'll be agreeing to follow any orders I give you to the letter. If you do all this and don't louse it up, and we get who we're after, I will make a personal recommendation to the attorney general that all charges against you be dropped in exchange for your cooperation.”

I walked over to the table, leaning my fists on the surface and staring down at the two men.

“Here's how it works, gentlemen: I need your answer now, before you leave this room. You want to take your chances with a lawyer, go do that. I'll tell the local judge I need to have you both locked up immediately, of course, and for the duration of our investigation, so you can't tip off any co-conspirators. Also, there's a risk of you two jumping bail since you've recently acquired all this money. I know, I know,” I put a hand up, “you don't have it any more. But believe me, I'll make sure the judge doesn't know that.”

I walked away from them, saying over my shoulder: “Think it over. Take your time, I've got half a minute to kill before my next meeting.”

It should be a fairly easy sell if I did it right. They were already shaken over losing the money, and I'd done a good job of rattling them even harder with what I knew about it and the threat of a long jail stretch. Yet, I'd offered them a way out of all their worries, and all in exchange for their absolute silence and a little cooperation.

Not surprisingly, they accepted my offer.

“Glad to hear it. Where you going?” They'd started to rise.

“You said you had another meeting,” Myers reminded me.

“It's with the two of you. Sit down.” I grabbed a chair at the table and sat across from them with a notepad and pencil. I looked up with a grim smile.

“Tell me everything.”

Forty-five minutes later, they were heading out of my temporary office. I halted them at the door.

“We have a deal, gentlemen, and I take that kind of thing very seriously. I'm alone in here now because my boys work mostly undercover and I don't want you seeing them. But they'll be watching you. If I find out you broke our agreement, you won't just go to jail, you'll get knifed in there. I know people on the inside, people who are also looking to do me a favor and shave a little time off their own sentences.”

I held up one hand, a burning cigarette between the fingers, and tilted my head.

“Just so we're clear, okay? Keep it on the level with me, you've got nothing to fear.”

I needed to put enough of a scare into them to keep them obedient, which for now mostly meant keeping quiet. Yet I'd hopefully tossed them a juicy enough carrot as well. You need both to get results in a circumstance like this.

Two mute faces nodded in agreement and they were out the door.

It took
most of the weekend to win Nathan over on the rest of my plan. Understandably, now that we had what amounted to a full confession from Myers and Wiedermann, Nathan was all for going to his superiors with it, if not straight to the police.

“Too risky doing it like that,” I said, looking out over the yard from my chair on the back porch. I wondered what other people talked about on their back porches. Relatives and crabgrass, probably.

“How is it risky?”

“A good lawyer could make a pretty strong stink over how we got their confession. Threats, intimidation, to say nothing of my impersonating a federal agent. He could punch plenty of holes in it. They weren't sure what was going on and had been scared into making up whatever they thought I wanted to hear.”

“But we have the name of the forger they used,” Nathan protested. “Ferrier. Can't the cops get more out of him?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Professional criminals don't sweat all that easily. If the cops have nothing more than the word of two men Ferrier swears he's never laid eyes on, he'll just sit there denying everything until the cops have no choice but to let him go.”

“But that detective you hired, Townsend, he witnessed one of them going into Ferrier's shop. He has pictures of it.”

I shrugged. “Guy walked into a shop. In front, it's a perfectly respectable printer's shop. Maybe Ferrier remembers a guy walking in one Saturday, maybe he doesn't. What of it? I'm telling you, Nathan, even if Myers and Wiedermann do end up taking the fall for this, they'll do everything they can do drag you down with them. And they just might succeed.”

We debated it for hours, but by Sunday night, Nathan was starting to bend.

“If we do this your way,” he asked, “won't it make it more difficult to tell the truth down the road? We won't get ourselves into more trouble?”

“Not if we do it right. Not if we're careful.”

“And if it doesn't work?”

“Then you go to your boss with these strange discrepancies you've noticed. The professional bank examiners get called in. Yes, you had a customer named Mr. Shaw recently, but you know nothing about sending Myers and Wiedermann to see him, let alone anything about him purporting to be a federal agent of some kind. It'll sound like just the kind of confusing nonsense desperate men come up with. They'll hang themselves even trying to use it against you.”

Nathan shook his head slowly.

“So if we go to the police now with the truth, a good lawyer will make it seem like nothing and we could end up in trouble. But if we deny any knowledge of this same truth later on…”

“It'll be Myers and Wiedermann who are made to look like the liars.”

“That makes no sense,” Nathan protested. “If we can deny something later, why can't we deny it now?” Damn the man's logic, I thought.

“Going to the police with the whole story,” I explained, “now or later, would sink us. And yes, you could report the embezzlement now and steer clear of the rest of it. But if my plan works, everything is taken care of at once. If it doesn't work, we have a little more time to get your story airtight, figure out the best way to catch Myers and Wiedermann off guard. It's our best bet all the way around.” Did I really believe that, or was I a little too eager to prove something to my brother?

He told me he'd sleep on it, then called me at my hotel Monday morning to give me the go-ahead. I'd already considered my first move. My plan involved being introduced to Clay Stanton as a potential mark. Problem was, I didn't have time to cruise up and down the Atlantic, hoping to be roped by a man from the right con mob. I'd considered using Myers or Wiedermann for this, but I wasn't sure how reliable they'd be. Apart from which, I saw no reason to keep adding to the stories they could tell someone later.

Fortunately, I had someone else I could use, if he'd go for it. I made a long-distance telephone call to Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tuesday morning I was picking up Ethan Ryland at the train station.

E
than Ryland smiled and shook
my hand easily. He'd put some weight on since I'd seen him last and his suit was pressed and his shoes shined. The circles under his eyes were far less pronounced, showing a man who'd been hard at work rather than a man at the end of his rope.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ryland,” I said, adding that he was looking pretty fit these days.

“I've been eating and sleeping better since the last time we met. And I rarely have time to drink these days,” he admitted with a grin.

“How's the empire-building coming along?”

“Slowly, Mr. Caine. Very slowly. I've sold everything I can sell. I'll be back down to one store next week. The light at the end of the tunnel is so far away I can't usually see it, but I do catch glimpses now and then.”

“Keep moving forward, Mr. Ryland. You'll catch up to it one of these days.”

I treated him to a square meal, then set him up in a room at my hotel where I filled in the details of the plan I'd sketched out for him over the phone. He was sharp and attentive, not the disoriented, distracted man I'd met last month. He took in everything with sober nods and pointed questions that let me know he was listening. I made him go back over it with me when I was finished. All of it.

“I'm going to walk up to Clay Stanton when he's alone,” Ryland began. “At the restaurant, outside the brokerage office, wherever I can catch him. I'm going to smile at him, put him at his ease. Tell him I only need a few minutes of his time and I'll be gone. I'm going to very calmly admit that I know what he did to me, and that I was sore as hell for awhile but that's all water under the bridge now. It was my own stupid fault and even if I did hold a grudge, I know there's really nothing I can do about it. All I ask at this point is one favor.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “Keep going.”

“And my favor is,” Ryland continued, “I want him to do the same thing to a business rival of mine. Guy by the name of Kelly Shaw. A Midwesterner like myself. Lousy with money, arrogant and stuck on himself as they come, and a vulture to boot. Not only did he undercut me at every chance when I was starting out, he offered bottom dollar for some of my stores when he knew I had to sell. In short, an eighteen-carat son of a bitch.”

He was getting the bait right. Stanton would have to at least check me out.

“And?”

“And I'll tell him what I want most: let me be there at the kill. Let me watch that smug bastard's face fall when he loses everything.”

“What else?”

“Stanton won't let me, of course. He'll be resolute on this point and nothing will shake him, but I'll try hard, even get a little huffy about it before finally giving up.”

“I think you've got it all down, Mr. Ryland. As for getting me into Clay Stanton's circle, that is.” I clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a friendly smile. “Are we going to take him, you and I?”

He smiled back and shook his head. “No, Mr. Caine, we are not. This is not going to work. The game will be up before it even really starts. He may not even take the bait in the first place, and if he does, the odds are a thousand to one against it going anywhere. All I'm getting out of this is a few days' vacation in Baltimore, with you picking up my travel and lodging costs.”

“And why am I doing this, Mr. Ryland?”

“Not for me, that's all I know.”

“And this is all okay by you?”

Ryland stood up and walked slowly to the other side of the room, picking up a glass of seltzer from the desk and taking a sip.

“Mr. Caine, the best thing you ever did for me, maybe one of the best thing's anyone's ever done for me, is to remind me that this whole mess was my responsibility. I got stupid and greedy. I remember what you told me back in Kansas City, that you can certainly cheat an honest man but you can almost never con one. I wasn't being an honest man last time I was in this city, and I've paid an awful price for it.

“You put me back on track, Mr. Caine. I don't know what kind of life I'll end up having, but it'll be an honest one. More importantly, it won't be a stupid one. Who knows, maybe I'll end up even better off before it's all over. I feel like I owe you these few days, Mr. Caine. You were damned decent to me when I was rock bottom. I don't know what you're after, but if I can help, I'm glad to do so.” He took another drink of seltzer and his smile grew broader. “And if my helping you ends up with Clay Stanton walking down the street wearing a barrel, well, sir, that's a thousand-to-one shot I'm happy to take.”

That afternoon
I went to an expensive tailor's shop downtown. I needed to look the part of a rich businessman to pull this off, and while I didn't have time to have anything custom made for me, I was able to get some fast alterations on four imported suits off the rack. Two English, one Italian, one French. For an extra charge I was able to walk out of the store wearing one of the suits, and would be able to pick up the other three tomorrow. Of course, the suits were worthless without new shirts, socks, and a half dozen silk neckties and handkerchiefs. And a couple of hats. Next stop was the shoe store across the street where I picked out a few new pairs Florsheims. I was feeling like a damn twist picking out accessories for her new outfit when I walked into a pawn shop two blocks down, standing at the counter and pointing to a pinky ring, a gold watch on a leather strap, and a gold money clip in the shape of a dollar sign. The tobacconist two doors down had a nice pigskin cigarette case and a new lighter. How does a phony high-roller afford to keep himself pretty these days? I wondered. I'd saved a little money going to a pawn shop instead of a jewelry store, but even so the damage so far had come to over six hundred dollars. I hoped I'd be able to get rid of this Shaw fellow quick before he bankrupted me.

Money wasn't a problem at the moment. I'd taken out a thousand dollars cash before leaving Kansas City because I don't like to be in a strange city – in a strange state for that matter – and be short of funds. I'd also called my accountant in Kansas City last week and instructed him to airmail me a postal money order for the amount of two thousand dollars. He squawked a bit, but said it was my money and that he'd do it. I'm not a wealthy man, but I had a good year last year. Three week's work alone netted me over three grand (along with a two-month drinking binge). I could lose it all if I wasn't careful. True, Nathan had offered to cover my expenses, but I'm sure he had no idea what they were going to come to. I was hoping he'd agree to split some of the cost when all was said and done if things turned out well, but I wasn't planning to hold him to it. If I played things smart, I could pawn back the props I'd picked up earlier and go home with some nice new clothes.

Next, I drove the Essex Terraplane back over to the rental lot and turned it back in. The Terraplane was a nice car and I'd enjoyed driving it, but for a five-dollar bribe, anyone could have it traced back to Devlin Caine, a name I needed to keep buried in this town. Besides, Kelly Shaw would need something a bit more showy. A taxi brought me to Townsend's office, where I reimbursed him for the automobile I'd had him rent for me under his name: a brand new Cadillac Fleetwood Imperial, the black coachwork polished to a high shine.

“Drive it carefully, Mr. Caine,” Townsend advised, handing over the keys in the lot behind his building. “I'd hate to have to bill you for it.”

When I pulled up to the front door of the Lord Baltimore Hotel, dressed and driving like a millionaire, I gave similar advice to the valet before sauntering inside the grand, two-story lobby and ordering up a suite at the front desk. I told the concierge that I'd come to Baltimore of a sudden, and that my luggage would be arriving later (saving me a few bucks there, as you don't check into a place like that with a single, battered suitcase). I was friendly enough if a little brash with the man, asking how long it would take to send up a barber and a manicurist. Not long at all, he assured me, his eyes narrowing as I pulled out the money clip stuffed with the last three c-notes I had on me. In fact, he was certain there was a barber and a girl ready this minute.

“Make it ten,” I told him. “I need to make a phone call.”

“There is a telephone in your room, sir,” he informed me solicitously.

“Only one?”

“Sir, if you require additional–”

“Just giving you the business, Jeeves,” I winked, taking my key and following the bellhop to the elevator. Since the bellhop wasn't able to carry any bags for me, he made an extra show of pointing out the features of my suite, including the over-sized bed, an escritoire (it's only a writing desk if you're paying under twenty dollars a night), the view of the city, and the private bath. I threw him a dollar and told him, yes, I would remember him if I needed anything. I called Nathan and gave him the number to my suite, reminding him to ask for Kelly Shaw if he called me here.

There was a knock at the door and I admitted a middle-aged barber and a pretty young manicurist, both in starched whites and carrying cases. I took off my jacket, tossed it casually over the back of the sofa, sat down in a chair in the middle of the room, and let them get to work. The barber spread a cloth over my shoulders, making some polite small talk until I lured him in with a joke that was just this side of racy, winking at the girl as she blushed and busied herself over my cuticles. Kelly Shaw, I'd decided, was a bit of a blowhard, not born into money and therefore a touch rough around the edges. And more than a little full of himself. I laughed at the barber's jokes, laughed louder at mine, admired myself in his mirror, and tipped them both well. After they'd gone I slipped back into my jacket, catching the subtle scent of expensive hair oil as I moved about the room. I stood in front of the full-length mirror checking out the freshly coiffed man in the smart black double-breasted suit and blood-red silk tie, picking up flashes from the gold wristwatch and pinky ring. Diamond Dev Caine, I thought. I took out the money clip, peeled off a twenty, and threw it at the mirror.

“I like your style, kid. Go buy yourself some new parents.”

I laughed, mostly to get it out of my system. I had to get comfortable in this rig fast. I spoke again, my voice soft and somber this time.

“This is who you are now, Mr. Shaw,” I said to my reflection. “Don't let me catch you wearing this suit like you don't have twenty more just like it hanging up in the closet of your summer house.”

I spent the next couple of days trying out my version of rich loafing. Sleeping in late, having breakfast served in my room, asking at the front desk about the local track and the nightclubs, sending the bellhop out for cigarettes and tipping him like he'd ridden that very camel on the packet across the desert to get them. Late nights at the hotel bar, shooting the breeze with other business types and flirting with the girls who came in looking for them. I really didn't have to do that much outside the hotel; the point was to let the staff see me driving in and out in my shiny new Cadillac (hired, yes, but it still costs money to hire the best), see me buying rounds of drinks at the bar and rubbing elbows with their cream, that kind of thing. I was hoping there would be inquiries made about me sometime soon, and I wanted the story told the way I wrote it.

In the plus column, I was able to chum up to a member of a local men's athletic club in the bar one night. My body had been aching for some real exercise for days now, and spending a few hours working up a sweat, punishing my muscles with parallel bars and India clubs, was just what I needed. Taking a steam afterward, whirling white mist surrounding me as I sat wearing a towel cushier than my first girl, I listened to the rich old duffers talk business. I spoke enough to be polite and not embarrass the man who'd invited me as his guest, but mostly I listened and managed to get some of their lingo down without revealing that I wasn't really one of them.

I checked in with my office once that week, and stayed in touch with Ethan Ryland, though we were careful not to be seen together. That is, not until Friday morning, when, very much according to plan, I sauntered into the hotel restaurant for a late breakfast and saw him sharing a table with Clay Stanton. He caught my eye, waived me over, and I strolled up to his table.

“Ethan Ryland, you old son of a gun. Who the hell let you out of Nebraska?”

“Same people who let you into a nice place like this,” he grinned, offering his hand. “Mr. Stanton, may I introduce Kelly Shaw, an old acquaintance of mine.”

Stanton rose, gave me a firm handshake, told me that he was pleased to know any friend of Mr. Ryland's, and Ryland invited me to join them. I pulled up a chair and ordered coffee from the hovering waiter. This was my first look at Clay Stanton close up, and damned if he couldn't have fooled me. His blue eyes were kindly sincere without a hint of duplicity. His neatly trimmed mustache and carefully shaved face spoke of meticulous attention to detail. The cut of his suit – and there would be a topcoat and bowler of equal quality in the coat check room – spoke of that attention paying off well for him.

“What brings you to Baltimore, Kel?” asked Ryland. “Last I heard you were converting that orphanage into high-rent office space.”

I barked out a brash, one-note laugh. “Oh, I was supposed to be here on business. Some guy with a sure-fire plan for a chain of automarts. Turns out he was all mouth. But what the hell, you don't try, you don't win. I'll check out the sights for a few days before heading back home.”

“And where might home be, Mr. Shaw? If you'll pardon my asking.”

“The Windy City, Mr. Stanton.” Never claim to be from a place you don't know well. I'd lived in Chicago for seven years and knew it as well as I knew any city. “Ever been there?”

“Indeed I have. I've done some good business in Chicago.”