Lawrence Sanders - Sullivan's sting

He delivered the cash to Jimmy Bartlett, then dropped in at the Palace Lounge to pay his tab for New Year's Day.

He had one vodka gimlet at the Palace, then started home. On impulse, he pulled off Atlantic Boulevard on the east side of the Intracoastal and parked in the concrete area under the bridge. There were a few other cars there, a few night fishermen dipping their lines in the glimmering channel.

Rathbone lighted a cigarette and tried to unwind. He knew Rita was waiting for him, but at that moment he wanted to be alone, watch the boats moving up and down the Waterway, and think about where he had been, where he was, where he was going.

It had been in his early teens that he had suddenly realized, almost with the force of a religious experience, how stupid most people were. They were just dumb, dumb, dumb, and nothing in his life since that revelation had changed his conviction that the great majority of Americans had air between their ears.

Why, there were people who believed wearing a copper bracelet would prevent arthritis, people who believed they could beat a three-card-monte dealer, people who believed in astrology, flying saucers, and the power of crystals. There were even people who believed professional wrestling was on the up-and-up. How could you respect the intelligence of the populace when a con woman could travel the country collecting contributions by claiming to be the penniless widow of the Unknown Soldier?

Rathbone came to regard this mass stupidity as a great natural resource. Just like oil in the ground, gold nuggets in a stream, or a stand of virgin forest, it was there to be exploited. The ignorance and greed of most people were simply inexhaustible, and a man would be a fool not to harvest that bounty. It was no sin to profit from the mooches' need to believe what they wanted to believe, ignoring reason and common sense.

Now he was in south Florida, a paradise for con men and swindlers. Frank Little had once said that Ponce de Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth but had found the Golden Mooch. The phrase had caught on with the Palace gang; they referred to Florida as The Land of the Golden Mooch. And best of all, hundreds of marks arrived every day, to live in a sunlit, semi-tropical climate, play shuffleboard, and listen to the siren song of the sharks-the human variety.

There just seemed to be no limit to the credulity of Florida mooches. They eagerly gulped the most rancid bait, and the saying amongst Florida sharpers was, "If the deal is so lousy that even a doctor won't bite, take it to a dentist." Deluding Floridians, Rathbone decided, was shooting fish in a barrel, and he questioned if he was doing the smart thing to leave the state in six months.

But he recalled the advice of an old slicker he had met when he first arrived in south Florida. This guy had been on the con for fifty years and had accumulated a nice pile for his old age, mostly by wholesaling counterfeit brand-name perfumes he concocted in his bathtub. But he had retired and now, just to keep himself busy, he was running a magic shop in Miami, selling tricks and illusions.

"Remembet, kid," he had rumbled to David, "Easy Street goes two ways. You're young now, and you think it'll last forever. It never does. The swindles don't die- the old ones work as well as ever-but eventually you'll get tired of the game. Too much stress, too much pressure, never knowing when a mark might turn nasty and cut you up. Do what I did: Save up a stake, and then take the money and run. The game is really for young guys with balls and energy. But after a while you get to the point where you want to live a straight life, quit looking over your shoulder, and start smelling the roses."

There was probably some truth in that, Rathbone acknowledged, but he couldn't buy it all because it meant the way he was living now would eventually prove to be unsatisfying.

In six months he might cash in, but he knew that moving to Costa Rica wouldn't be the end of his plots. He'd be a bamboozler till the day he died simply because that's the way he was.

And the opportunities never seemed to end.

Like the fifty thousand in funny money he had just delivered to Jimmy Bartlett, to be salted into a deposit at a Palm Beach bank.

"The German gets twenty percent of the face value?" Bartlett had asked.

"That's right," Rathbone said. "I had to lean on him-he wanted thirty-but he finally agreed after I told him there'll be bigger jobs coming."

"Good," Bartlett said. "You're an A-Number-One yak."

Actually, Rathbone had conned the printer into accepting fifteen percent of the face value of the queer. David planned to skim that extra five percent for himself.

But Jimmy Bartlett, friend and partner, didn't have to know that.

Mike Mulligan would have confessed to being Jack the Ripper if they had asked him. They read him his rights, but he said he didn't want an attorney present during his questioning. Lester Crockett gently suggested it might be a wise thing to do, but Mulligan insisted: No lawyer.

So they had him sign a statement that he understood his rights but didn't wish any legal assistance. Just to make sure, they videotaped the reading of the rights and the banker's disclaimer.

Then he started talking.

Crockett did the questioning, with Anthony Harker and Henry Ullman as witnesses. The entire session was videotaped, and later Mulligan read the typed transcript and signed it. All this took place over the Christmas weekend.

Mulligan confessed that as an officer of the Crescent Bank of Boca Raton, he had accepted deposits of cash in excess of $10,000 from James Bartlett for the account of Mitchell Korne Enterprises, Inc., of Miami. In return, he had been supplied with cocaine by Mr. Bartlett. Mulligan had never used the drug himself-he was insistent on that-but had given it away to "friends."

He described how the deposited funds were eventually moved out of the Mitchell Korne account to a bank in Panama. He named the other officers of the Crescent Bank who were aware of these deals. But he bravely accepted complete responsibility for the money-laundering scheme and stated his intention to take his punishment "like a man."

"I think, Mr. Mulligan," Crockett said gravely, "that your punishment may prove to be milder than you anticipate. It all depends on your cooperation."

"You mean I won't have to go to jail?"

"Possibly not. What we want you to do is return to your job at the bank and carry on as before. Do not- I repeat, do not- inform your co-conspirators at the bank of your arrest. What we require is that you inform us promptly when James Bartlett calls to arrange for another deposit. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"You will agree to accept that deposit, and then tell us the date and time. Meanwhile, Mr. Ullman will move into your apartment temporarily. He will also accompany you to and from work. In other words, Mr. Mulligan, you will be under constant surveillance. Understood?"

The banker nodded.

"Good," Crockett said with a bleak smile. "We appreciate your assistance."

Ullman and Mulligan left the office, with the agent's arm about the banker's thin shoulders.

Crockett waited until the door was closed, then shook his head softly. "No fool like an old fool," he said. "But at least he seems determined to make amends."

"Yes, sir," Harker said, "but we may have a king-size problem. When we nail Bartlett making the deposit, we'll have to scoop up all the other perps at the same time. Otherwise they'll hear of Bartlett's arrest, and the roaches will disappear into the woodwork. I think we better start working on the logistics of the crackdown right away. We'll have to make sure every suspect is covered, plus have enough men to confiscate the records of Rathbone, Coe, and Sparco. We'll also want to arrange for a coordinated DEA raid on Frank Little's warehouse, and pick up Herman Weisrotte and Irving Donald Gevalt. Then there's the problem of Mitchell Korne in Miami."