Standup Guy (8 page)

Secret Service special agent Alvin Griggs rapped on his boss’s door and was invited in and offered a chair and coffee. He accepted the chair, declined the coffee.

“What’s up, Al?” his boss, Agent in Charge Dick Fine, asked.

“You remember the handful of 1966 hundreds that turned up in New York recently?”

“I do.”

“Well, we’ve had something of an outbreak of them in South Florida, the area between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.”

“What sorts of places did they turn up in?”

“Everything—convenience stores, bars, gun shops, check-cashing services, laundries, used-car lots, Hialeah racetrack, you name it.”

“Any in expensive restaurants or hotels?”

“No, now that you mention it.”

“Any in cheaper motels and hotels?”

“No.”

“So we’re not dealing with tourists, the bills are being spread by locals, and low-end locals, at that, given the places they spend money.”

“Good point.”

“What does that say to you?”

“Maybe that the source of the bills could be a loan shark lending the hundreds or a bookie paying off bets?”

“I think you’re right,” Fine said. “Start there.”

“Loan sharks and bookies aren’t the sort of people we ordinarily deal with,” Griggs said. “I don’t know any, do you?”

“I suggest you visit some police stations in the area and get some names from the detectives who know these guys.”

“Okay, good idea.” Griggs made to go.

“And, Al?”

“Yessir?”

“You understand that we can’t arrest anybody for possessing or passing these bills? Nothing illegal about that.”

“I understand, sir. We just want to know the origin of the notes.”

“Why, Al?”

“Because we think they might have come from the proceeds of a twenty-five-year-old robbery.”

“We’re not in the robbery business, Al, that’s the cops and the FBI.”

“Then you tell me why we’re interested at all, sir.”

“Because we’re curious and, at the moment, a little underworked. And we get points with Justice for alerting the FBI to these things.”

“Well, if the regional AIC gets wind of this, I’ll refer him to you,” Griggs said.

“You do that, Al.”

• • •

The engines of the Beech Baron stopped, and John Fratelli stepped out of the airplane onto the wing, then down to the ground. The pilot followed him and retrieved his large duffel from the rear of the airplane.

“I’ll be two or three hours,” Fratelli told the young man. “You might want to get some lunch somewhere.” He wheeled his duffel into the terminal and out the front door and got into one of the waiting taxis. He gave the driver the name of the bank, then sat back and enjoyed the ride.

• • •

His business at the bank took less than an hour, and he left with a thick envelope filled with crisp, new hundred-dollar bills, an account number, a bank statement, a debit card with only a number on it, and an empty duffel. He took a stroll down the main street of Georgetown and found an elegant men’s shop, where he bought some Bermuda shorts, some short-sleeved shirts, and other resort wear. He packed them into his duffel, just in case some customs agent got curious about why he was traveling with an empty bag.

Late in the afternoon, he returned to his Nassau hotel, then booked a charter flight back to Palm Beach the following morning. He did a little shopping in the town, getting a good deal on a gold Rolex and paying with his debit card, just to try it out. No
problem. Back in his room he threw away the leather box the Rolex came in, along with the warranty and instruction book, after he had read it. He would travel with the watch in his pocket, not on his wrist, and not bother to declare it with U.S. Customs.

• • •

The following day he arrived at Palm Beach International and walked into customs.

“Did you buy anything while you were out of the country?” the agent asked him.

“Yes, ma’am, I bought some Cuban cigars, which I smoked, and a few clothes.” He paid duty on the clothes, then took a cab back to the Breakers. A note had been slid under the door.

John,
it read,
Elizabeth and I would be delighted if you could join us for dinner tomorrow evening. Her niece, Hillary Foote, will also join us.
It was signed
Winston
. Fratelli phoned Carnagy and accepted.

• • •

The following morning he went into the sales office at the Breakers and made an offer for his suite. After a little haggling the deal was done, and he called the Cayman bank and ordered the funds wired to the hotel’s account.

Now, for the first time in more than twenty years, Fratelli had a home that didn’t have bars on the windows. And with a view that didn’t include a wall or barbed wire.

Onofrio “Bats” Buono, whose sobriquet arose from his wanton use of that instrument when collecting debts, took the call in the little office behind the chop shop he ran in Red Hook, Brooklyn. “Hey, Vinnie,” he said. “What’s the temperature down there?”

“Eighty degrees, Bats. The tempachur is always eighty degrees down here. I hope you’re freezing your ass off up there.”

“It’s pretty good here, Vinnie.”

“Bats, I heard something on the grapevine about the lost proceeds of your uncle Eddie’s job out at JFK, and I thought you might want to hear it.”

Bats’s blood pressure spiked for just a moment, and his breathing got short. “Yeah, sure, Vinnie.”

“Let’s be straight about this, Bats—if I do something that would help you recover that jack, I would expect to be generously compensated for my assistance.”

“That goes without saying,” Bats replied.

“No, it
needed
saying, and I said it.”

“Whatcha got, Vinnie?”

“I got a series 1966 C-note, the one with the red seal, that’s what I got.”

“Well, I’m real happy for you, Vinnie. Let me know when you find the other eight million, and we’ll talk.”

“You don’t seem to entirely get what I’m saying to you, Bats.”

“You got a C-note, right?”

“There’s more where this one came from.”

“Which is where?”

“I’m working on that. My theory is that we took it in payment for vigorish or a lost bet.”

“From who did you take it?”

“I’m working on that, too.”

“Did you hear that Johnny Fratelli is out there somewhere?”

“No shit? Did he bust out?”

“Nah, he served his sentence. Him and Uncle Eddie were tight, you know, for all that time in the joint.”

“You said he’s out there ‘somewhere.’ Can you tighten that up for me?”

“Well, if you were just out of the joint, and you had got your hands on big money, and people were shooting at you in New York, where would you go?”

“Vegas?”

“People in Vegas got a different set of bookies, Vinnie. How about Miami?”

“That makes sense.”

“Then get something going down there, will you? Fratelli knows a lot of people from the old days.”

“I’ll look into it,” Vinnie said.

“Call me.” Bats hung up.

Vinnie dialed a cell phone number.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you, Manny?”

“At Hialeah, where I’m supposed to be.”

“I got a call.”

“I get calls all the time, Vinnie, so do you.”

“This one was from New York, concerning one Johnny Fratelli. Know him?”

“I knew him in the joint fifteen years ago. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“That’s not what my caller said. He’s likely down here somewhere, and I want to talk to him.”

“What about?”

“Business.”

“Oh.”

“Put the word out with your people—I want Fratelli in my office, and there’s ten grand for anybody who can bring him here, unbruised.”

“Sure, Vinnie, I’ll spread the word.” Manny hung up. This was interesting, he thought. Nobody alive could remember the last time Vinnie paid anybody ten grand for doing anything, including murder. He called his own office.

“Consolidated Digital,” a voice said.

“It’s me. You know that weekly fifty grand we’re paying out?”

“Yeah.”

“When’s the next delivery?”

“Next Tuesday, but we’re not delivering, we’re wiring from offshore to offshore.”

“Where was the last delivery made?”

“At a Burger King up on I-95, around Delray, last Tuesday.”

“What’s this about wiring?”

“The guy handed the delivery boy an envelope with wiring instructions. It had to be from one of our offshore accounts.”

“Where’s the receiving account?”

“Hard to say. The nearest would be the Caymans.”

“So we’ve lost touch with the guy?”

“Looks that way. We don’t have any more appointments to keep, just wires to send.”

“Don’t send the next one,” Manny said. “Not until you get the go-ahead from me, personally.”

“Whatever you say, Manny.”

Both men hung up.

• • •

Not twenty miles from Hialeah, an FBI agent took off his headphones and made a phone call to his boss in the Miami field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Bob Alberts.”

“Sir, I picked up something interesting on the Vinnie Caputo wire. I thought you might like to hear it.”

“How long is it?”

“Five minutes, tops—two calls, both outgoing, one to a Brooklyn number, the other to a South Florida cell phone.”

“Okay, play it.”

The agent backed up the digital recorder and pressed the
PLAY
button. The recording played. “Get all that?”

“Yeah, I got it all. Send the recording to my in-box.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bob Alberts hung up the phone and spent a couple of minutes tapping his nails on his desk while he thought. Then he got a stack of his old notebooks from a desk drawer and started flipping through them. It took ten minutes to find the number, then he dialed.

“Harry Moss,” an elderly voice said.

“Hello, Harry, it’s Bob Alberts. How are you doing?”

“Well, Bobbie. Long time.”

“How’s the world treating you?”

“I’m eating a corned beef sandwich out by the pool, that’s how it’s treating me.”

“Life is sweet, huh?”

“You bet your ass, Bob. Why the hell are you wasting your time calling me when you should be out solving crimes?”

“Something came up about an old case of yours.”

“How cold?”

“Twenty-five years, give or take. The JFK robbery?”

“What the hell came up about that?”

“How much was stolen?”

“Fifteen million. We got about half of it back, but the brains behind it, a guy named Eddie Buono, died in prison recently, and we never saw a dime of it. What have you heard?”

“We picked up something on a wiretap about a series 1966
hundred-dollar bill, and the guy we’re tapping connected it to that robbery. He called somebody in Brooklyn about it. Was there a guy named Fratelli involved?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. I mean, I remember something about a guy named Fratelli, but he was never connected to the robbery.”

“I don’t know about that, but on our wiretap it was said that a John Fratelli was in Sing Sing with Buono for a long time, and that he recently got out. The Italian gentlemen in New York are looking for him. What do you remember about Fratelli?”

“Let’s see: six-four, two-fifty, a real ox. Had a fearsome rep as an enforcer. People were so scared of him they nearly always did what he said or answered what he asked. He hardly ever had to use force.”

“How old would he be?”

“Jeez, fifty, fifty-five, maybe.”

“Can you think of anything about him that would help us find him?”

“Come on, Bob, what’s going on?”

“I think he might have the money, or some of it, that you never recovered.”

“Where do you think he might be?”

“Maybe South Florida. Where might he hang out?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Where those guys always hang out: the track, some bar somewhere.”

“That’s it, huh? Nothing else?”

“I been retired ten years, Bob. You must have somebody fresher than me to ask.”

“Okay, Harry, go back to your corned beef sandwich.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Bye, Harry.”

“Bye, Bob.”

• • •

Harry Moss hung up the phone in a sweat. He had seen Johnny Fratelli in a Burger King less than a week ago, wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, and dark glasses, but he had recognized him. He hadn’t put a name to the guy until now.

Jack Coulter, née John Fratelli, checked his image in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He had lost twenty pounds since leaving prison, ten of them since buying his Brooks Brothers suits. He was going to need a tailor. His hair was growing out nicely, now merely short, not skin on the sides, and he had started a mustache, which was not a problem for a man who had to shave twice a day to avoid a five o’clock shadow. A few days before, he had noticed a difficulty with reading the newspaper, so he had visited an optometrist and had been prescribed glasses. They gave him a whole new look, he thought, and the advantage of clear vision.

Fratelli met his dinner hosts at the entrance to the Breakers, where he was introduced to Hillary Foote, who was much more attractive than he had envisioned. She was tall, slim, and shapely in the right places, mid-forties. The Carnagys’ antique Rolls-Royce
from the fifties collected them and drove them to the Brazilian Court Hotel and its restaurant, Boulud.

Hillary turned out to be smart and funny. She had been divorced a year before and also lived at the Breakers.

“I assume you’re retired, Jack,” she said. “What did you do when you had to work for a living?”

“I was an entrepreneur,” Fratelli replied, “until about ten years ago, when I sold a number of small businesses and became an investor. Now I just loaf. I’m thinking of taking up golf, in fact, as I understand that’s what loafers do.”

“In that case, I’m the biggest loafer you know. I play to an eight handicap.”

Fratelli had no idea what an eight handicap was, but he made a mental note to find out.

“How was your trip to the Bahamas?” Winston Carnagy asked him.

“Very nice indeed,” Fratelli replied, adding a small wink for emphasis.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Carnagy said, smiling.

“Hillary,” Fratelli said, “would you teach me to play golf?”

She laughed. “If I tried to do that, we’d hate each other in no time. What you need is a golf pro. Ask the concierge at the Breakers to set up some lessons for you at their course. Then, after you feel comfortable with the way you’re hitting the ball, we’ll play together.”

“Playing with you is a worthy goal.”

They chatted on through their excellent dinner; Winston and Elizabeth hardly got a word in, except to give Fratelli the name of Winston’s local tailor.

• • •

That night, having delivered Hillary to her door, Fratelli got into bed and reflected on his circumstances. He had traveled to a state he had never before visited, dressed in the sort of clothes he had never worn; he had bought an apartment in the kind of hotel he had seen only from the outside; he had an offshore bank account and a substantial weekly income from his investment with the loan shark. Thinking about that brought him up short.

Manny Millman was the only person from his past who knew he was in Florida, though he knew not where and under what circumstances. Manny and his deliveryman, whom he had met at the Burger King, were the only people who had laid eyes on him and who thus might become a problem for him. But neither knew he was in Palm Beach, so they should not be difficult to avoid. He would have to stay away from the tracks, though, and other places where he might run into them.

He had good friends in the Carnagys, and Winston had become his model for speech and behavior in this new world. And Hillary Foote showed much promise as a pleasing companion.

He needed more social gifts, though, and golf might be one of them. He would have to look into tennis, too. He had been athletic in high school, playing football and basketball. It would be interesting to see how the athletic gift would translate into more sociable sports.

• • •

Harry Moss got in line at the Burger King off I-95 and had a look around. The place was only a couple of miles from where he lived,
in Delray Beach, and this was his third day running having lunch here, hoping for sight of Johnny Fratelli.

He had used everything at his disposal—the Internet, a search of Florida phone books for the name, he had even tried Facebook—but no Johnny Fratelli had turned up. His only hope had been the Burger King. Who knew? Maybe Fratelli was addicted to the double bacon cheeseburger. He ate his own cheeseburger and searched the restaurant over and over. He saw one man of the right size, but he was Hispanic.

• • •

John Fratelli presented himself at the Breakers golf club and was introduced to a kid of about twenty-two, who was supposed to teach him golf. What could a kid of that age teach anybody?

Quite a lot, as it turned out. The boy had a beautiful, liquid swing, and by the end of their first hour together, he had Fratelli hitting his irons nicely. He asked for another lesson after lunch, then got himself a sandwich in the clubhouse.

He liked the atmosphere; the players, mostly men, chatted amiably with one another, and he picked up snippets of golf lore as he listened.

During his second lesson, they started on the woods, and Fratelli found the driver challenging. Still, he had a good teacher.

When they were done, the boy—Terry—complimented him on his swing. “You know,” Terry said, “most of the people I instruct have played the game for a while, and I have to straighten out their bad habits. You don’t have any bad habits, and you’re a natural athlete, with a natural swing. If we can do two hours a day together, I’ll have you playing pretty good duffer golf in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ve got the time, Terry, schedule me now.”

“Tomorrow morning we’ll play nine holes and start to work on club selection and strategy.”

“I place myself in your hands,” Fratelli said.

• • •

Alvin Griggs walked into the clubhouse at Hialeah and asked for Manny Millman. He was directed to a man dressed in a seersucker suit and a golf shirt, with a large pair of binoculars, sitting at a table with a good view of the track, eating a club sandwich. He walked over and, uninvited, sat down.

“Hi, Manny,” Griggs said.

“We know each other?” Manny replied, wariness in his voice.

“No, and if we have a successful conversation, we are unlikely to meet again.”

“You’re a cop.”

“Federal,” Griggs said, “My name is Al Griggs, but I won’t flash a badge. It wouldn’t be good for your reputation in this setting.”

“I appreciate the courtesy,” Manny said. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to have a chat with John Fratelli.”

Manny was stunned to hear that name again, but he did a good job of screwing up his face and seeming ignorant. “Fratelli? I knew a guy by that name in the joint, but that was a long time ago. Last time I heard anything about him, he was dead.”

Griggs smiled. “Nice try, Manny,” he said. “But you’re not a good enough actor.” Griggs had no idea if Manny knew anything, but he had decided to treat him as if he did and was holding out.

“I got no reason to hold out on you, Mr. Griggs,” Manny said.

Griggs reached into a pocket and pulled out a page he had printed from the Internet, in color. “This is a series 1966 hundred-dollar bill,” he said. “Note the red seal. Seen anything like that lately?”

Manny took a close look at the page, then shook his head. “It’s just a C-note,” he said. “I see them all the time.”

“Yes, but not with the red seal.” Griggs produced a business card and slid it across the table. “If you come across a note like this, and especially if you see Johnny Fratelli again, I’d like to hear about it. There could be a substantial reward in it for you.”

“Mr. Griggs, I think you’re chasing a dead guy, but if I see any money like that, I’ll give you a call.”

Griggs thanked him and left.

• • •

Manny sat and watched him go. This Fratelli thing was beginning to be annoying. He got out his cell phone and called his bookkeeper.

“Yes?”

“It’s Manny.”

“Hey, Manny.”

“You remember I gave you a million a short while ago?”

“A fella remembers a thing like that.”

“How did you distribute it?”

“I shipped all of it to the Singapore bank.”

“Did you retain any of the money I gave you?”

“A payout on a long shot came across my desk, twenty grand. I may have used some of it for that.”

“But the rest went to Singapore?”

“It did, and I can prove it if I have to. Go online and look at the bank statement. You’ll see the deposit.”

“I’ll do that. What was the name of the big winner?”

“Hang on a sec, I’ll see.” He came back after a pause. “Howard Silver. He’s a regular at Hialeah.”

“Thanks.” So there was twenty grand in hot hundreds floating around out there, and Howard Silver, whom he knew by sight, had it.