Once a Crooked Man (2 page)

“Sure. No problem. Thanks, Richie.”

“You're welcome. Oh, I just had a thought. Are you free right now?”

“Yes. Why?”

“We got a last-minute audition for a voiceover at Roz Lewis. Two national TV spots for Mueller's Mayonnaise. Could you make it over there within the hour?”

“Sure.”

“Great. You see Wendy on the sixth floor.”

“Great. Thanks, Richie.”

Every voiceover audition was a crapshoot. Unless one of his interpretations made half a dozen people sit up and listen he wouldn't get the call back. On a spot like this he would be competing with the best in the business and star names often got the lucrative contracts.

Once in the casting office, he signed his name on the list and picked up the copy. The Mayo creative team had been brief. The text was simple:

Mueller's Mayo! It's in the bag!

Familiar faces came into the room. He nodded hello and shook a few hands before seeking a quiet corner to sit down to wait. Five minutes after his appointed time, Wendy came out, glanced at the sign-in sheet and called his name. He walked into the little studio, placed the copy on the black music stand and put on the headphones.

“Just your name and slate, Harry,” she said. “This will be take forty-two.”

She pressed buttons and gave him a wave.

“Harry Murphy, forty-two,” he said in his friendly voice. After a short pause he read the text intimately, enthusiastically, and as a news announcer.

“Thank you,” said Wendy flatly. “That was great.”

“You're welcome,” he replied.

He replaced the copy where he found it and left the agency feeling not particularly optimistic about his chances.

 

3

When he was sixteen years old, Carter Allinson regularly traveled down from the family home in Westchester to the Bronx to to buy his supply of weed. Several other boys at Deerfield Academy were users and he had become their provider at the beginning of his second year. This enterprise made him popular and gave him a much needed supply of ready cash. As social mores changed, his supplier was able to sell him whatever was currently in vogue to pop, smoke or snort. When he graduated and moved on to Vanderbilt he established another select group of customers and had the merchandise triple-wrapped in plastic and sent to him in a FedEx box. During the short time he was studying at Bristol in England, a trusted Nashville friend took care of the distribution.

Studying at college allowed Carter little time for casual recreation and he personally stopped smoking. But on his return to the States he continued to supply his close friends as he considered it harmless.

Carter was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and he knew it. To succeed in life and business he needed guile and luck. He soon taught himself the first and never missed an opportunity to take full advantage of the second.

The day the Walkers announced that Carter and their daughter Fiona were to be married, the young man felt it prudent to contact his customers to tell them the store was closed. Everyone understood his position and most wished him well. Then he called his own supplier and gave him the same message. This time the reaction was not so understanding.

“How the fuck am I going to explain the loss of so much fucking business!” came the scream on the other end of the line. “Don't you realize my boss may decide to fucking kill me? Or do me a serious goddam fucking injury?!”

Anxious to avoid involving others, Carter made the egregious mistake of offering to explain the situation to the man's boss personally. An hour later he found himself in the Fiery Dragon, a nondescript Chinese restaurant in Queens, seated across a table from a neatly dressed cigar-smoking Sicilian who told him politely that there was no way he could walk away unscathed.

“You are in too deep, my friend. And if you make a big fuss, you will be driven upstate to a remote forest, cut up into little pieces, fed to a pack of starving Dobermans and crapped out among the pine trees.”

Carter sat silently, agonizing over the sudden and terrifying prospect of losing everything he had managed to achieve.

“However,” continued the little man, “a deal may be possible. Our organization has never had anyone to officially take care of our business affairs. You are in the perfect position to rectify this omission. If you agree to become our financial advisor and tell us what to do with our money you can carry on with your cozy life with nobody any the wiser. Otherwise, I am sure the press would jump at the chance to publish a juicy
segreto vergognoso
about the drug-addicted tycoon with the beautiful fiancée and who works at a prestigious Wall Street firm. The choice is yours. We will of course come to some financial arrangement mutually agreeable to us both.”

Carter weighed his options. Right away the challenge of investing large sums of cash began running through his mind. If he played his cards right he could do what this man was asking and keep his head above water.

The Italian leaned towards him. “Believe me, Mister Carter Allinson, there are many who make a very respectful living off of the weaknesses and needs of others. My brothers and me are not like those you may have seen on the big movie screen.”

And then he lowered his voice and spoke the words that would be embedded in Carter's mind until the day he died.

“Most people in this great country have an illusion about the criminal mind that is based on what they watch on their television sets and read in their newspapers and gossipy magazines. But contrary to popular belief, crime pays, and pays well. The trick, my friend, is not to get caught. This is a lot simpler than people think.”

The man leaned back and smiled. “The law enforcement agencies of this country are not omnipotent. They only succeed in uncovering a very small percentage of what goes on in the so-called underworld. And they achieve prosecution even less often. Trust me, if you just treat us like any of your other clients, no one will ever be aware of what you're doing. Keep it in that smart brain of yours that the law with all its money and manpower only catches the stupid, the impetuous and the greedy.”

The deal was settled with a handshake and Carter left. Two weeks later in his little office he began to receive bundles of bills in small denominations from his newfound clients. To be able to bank the cash he immediately created a bogus company with a chain of nonexistent self-service laundries across the country. At all times he was careful to keep the deposits below federal reporting limits. As the flow increased he simply created additional fictitious cash-heavy companies.

The Sicilian's name turned out to be Salvatore Bruschetti and he had two brothers: Enzo and Max. At a subsequent meeting with all three in the same Chinese restaurant, Carter made arrangements to take over control of the Bruschetti assets, reinvesting most of them in legitimate low-risk companies. He insisted the brothers be named as owners, pointing out to a reluctant Enzo that they would be more anonymous doing this than in the old way of obscuring their identities and going about with pockets full of cash. Over time Carter made them use Social Security numbers, file corporate returns and pay all the required taxes. As the balance sheets were within acceptable limits, there was nothing in them to flag an IRS audit.

The Bruschettis collected street money for the Colombians and held it in stash houses in Manhattan. For this they were paid an agreed amount.

When he was at a reunion with classmates in Bristol, Carter met Julian Evans who had become manager of a bank in the Channel Islands. Carter took the hapless fellow out to dinner and offered him a small percentage of the money that he and his associates wanted to pass through the bank. Julian took two days to make up his mind but eventually agreed, stipulating that on no account was he ever to be told the source of the cash.

This meeting also serendipitously led to a way to get the money from the United States to the Channel Islands. Julian's sister was married to a diplomat who traveled without scrutiny across borders. At first the amounts were kept small, but as the pattern was established the sums grew larger. Once Julian had processed the cash, the funds were transferred electronically through banks in several countries until they found their way to offshore accounts, most of which were on Grand Cayman. All these were under the direct control of Carter Allinson at Walker, Martin, Pomeranz and Fisher.

As the years went by, the brothers themselves became like many of Carter's regular clients. The only difference was the records of these early dealings. Carter kept them tucked away in a private safe to which only he had the combination.

 

4

Harry took a beer from the icebox, flipped off the cap and made himself comfortable on the sofa with the Zergenski script.

“F
AR
,
F
AR
A
WAY
”

BY
A
LBERT
H
ALLENBECK

A P
LAY FOR
O
UR
T
IME

Below this were the name and address of the producer and a warning of dire consequences if anyone dared copy a word. Below this was a note from the author:

Apart from the imprisoned Texan, all the other twenty-seven parts will be played by two actors and two actresses.

Harry chuckled. Anything to save a buck.

Act I began with Tex the Prisoner being dragged on to the stage by an Arab guard and stuffed into a small wooden crate. He remains there through much of the play. The crate is slatted so that the audience can see him and hear what he says.

As he sweats in the hot tropical sun Tex remembers his life back home. The crate becomes the kitchen table where his mom gets him ready for the school bus. Then it's a bench at the ballpark and his father shows him how to throw a curveball. His sister sits on it as it becomes her bed and she teases him about his acne. By the eighth page Harry was getting really bored. But then at the age of fourteen Tex drops out of school, leaves home and takes to the road for a series of exciting and well-written adventures. But then life becomes reality and things get tough. To ease the pressure he borrows money that he can't possibly repay. To escape his avaricious creditors he joins the army and ends up as a grunt in an unspecified country in the Middle East.

Act II and Tex is with his buddies in the desert. Violent, bloody battles. Great camaraderie and a good time is had by all. But then his tour is over and Tex is repatriated. Back in the States he is made to conform to a stultifying suburban existence and he goes slowly crazy.

In the last moments of the play, Tex screams that he wants to go back and spend the rest of his life alone in the crate.

As the audition was to be held in Astoria, Harry headed for the subway at Columbus Circle taking with him a neatly wrapped package for his mother that he intended to drop off at the post office on the way. However at 58th Street the light was changing and he made the stupid mistake of running across the road. At precisely that moment, a cab accelerated away from the sidewalk to his left.

When he saw it coming, his brain told him there was no way he could get clear. So to prevent severe damage to his legs, he leapt upwards. His body was slammed over the hood where his head hit the windshield and his left hand tangled briefly with the wiper blade. Immediately the driver banged on the brakes and that sent him sliding back off the hood and down to the roadway. There was a momentary pause and then the cab drove off with a squeal of tire treads.

The whole incident took a matter of seconds. As he staggered back to his feet, he checked his body for damage and mercifully felt no broken bones. A gash in his left hand was bleeding badly and his left shoulder throbbed from the impact. Taking out his handkerchief, he bound the wound. A few passersby paused to look at him but none offered assistance.

At the moment of impact, his mother's package had flown out of his hands in an arc and landed on the sidewalk. The destruction was total. Brown soggy paper held clinking pieces of shattered glass and reeked of Chanel No. 5. Harry looked at his watch. Replacements would have to wait.

It was time to go to Queens.

 

5

From a double-locked drawer Max Bruschetti extracted three sets of stapled papers, put them in his briefcase and set it down by the front door. He walked across the hall into the bedroom and lay down on the king-size bed. Beside him was a naked young body, her glossy skin lit by the golden morning rays of the sun that shone through the window. The girl was sleek and curvaceous and blessed with a mass of curly dark brown hair. Max stroked the soft fuzz on her brown ass. She didn't react to his touch. This was hardly surprising after their exertions of the night before.

This encounter was somewhat of a milestone. One month earlier Max had collapsed in the shower. Nino, his driver, had found him and dialed 911. In the local Emergency Room the doctor had told him the attack was not life-threatening. However, he should take it easy for a while both physically and, more important, mentally. His attack most likely had been brought on by a high stress level. Max had tried to take the doctor's advice but was totally ill equipped for the passive lifestyle. Within days he became restless and frustrated. As he didn't want to die of boredom, he made up his mind to take a few risks. The girl beside him was the first.

A phone beeped on the bedside table. Reaching over the prostrate girl, he picked it up.

“Yeah?”

A male voice at the other end said, “I'll be there in five.”

“Thanks, Nino,” said Max, and he replaced the phone, grabbed the girl's shoulder and gave it a shake. “Get up, babe,” he said.

The young girl shivered herself awake, knelt up on the crumpled sheets, stretched her arms to the ceiling and thrust her taut body back into the world. Images of the night before flashed through Max's brain. She gave him a knowing smile.