The Moneychangers (60 page)

Many viewers were moved to tears.

During the weekend
, Alex Vandervoort saw the TV item
but reserved his comments.

A reason was that he alone knew what his thoughts had been at the vital, decisive moment when he was asked the question: Is our money… absolutely saf
e? Another was that Alex knew
the pitfalls and prob
lems which still lay ahead for F
MA. Margot also said little about the incident on Friday night; nor did she mention it Sunday when she stayed at Alex's apartment. She had an important question she wanted to ask but wisely decided that now was not the time.

Among First Mercantile American executives who watched the telecast was Roscoe Heyward, though he didn't see it all.

Heyward turned on the TV after arriving home on Sunday night from a church vestry meeting but snapped it off in jealous anger part way through.

Heyward had serious enough problems of his own without wishing to be reminded of a Vandervoort success. And quite apart from the bank run, several matters were likely to surface during the coming week which made Heyward highly nervous.

One other postscript developed from that Friday evening in Tylersville
. It concerned Juanita Nunez.
Juanita had seen Margot Bracken arrive during the afternoon.

She had recently debated whether or not to seek out Margot and ask advice. Now she decided to. But for reasons of her own, Juanita preferred not to be observed by Nolan Wainwright. The opportunity Juanita had been waiting for occurred shortly after the bank run ended, while Wainwright was busy checking branch security arrangements for the weekend, and the day-long pressure on the staff had eased.

Juanita left the counter where she had been assisting a regular branch teller and crossed to the railed management area.

Margot was seated there alone, waiting until Mr. Vandervoort could leave. "Miss Bracken," Juanita said, speaking softly, "you once told me that if I had a problem
I could come and talk to you."

"Of course, Juanita. Do you have one now?" Her small face creased in worry. "Yes, 1 think so."

"What kind of problem?" "If you don't mind, could we talk somewhere else?" Juanita was watching Wainwright, ne
ar the vault on the
opposite side of the bank.

He seemed about to end a conversation. 'When come to my office," Margot said. ''When would you like to make it?" They agreed on Monday evening.

17

The reel of tape, retrieved f
rom the DoubleS
even Health Club, had been lying there on the shelf above the test bench for six days.

Wizard Wong had look
ed at the tape several times, reluctant to wipe out what was on it, yet uneasy about passing on the information.

Nowadays, recording any telephone conversation was risky.

Even riskier was to play the recording back for someone else.

Yet Marino, Wizard was certain, would very much like to hear a portion of that tape, and would pay well for the privilege.

Whatever else Tony Bear Marino might be, he was generous about payment for good service, which was the one reason Wizard did work for him periodically.

Marino was a professional crook, he was aware. Wong himself was not. Wizard (his real first name was Wayne, though no one who knew him ever used it) was a young, clever, second
-
generation Chinese-American.

He was also an electronics
audio expert, specializing in the detection of electronic surveillance.

His genius in the subject had earned
him his name. For a long list o
f clients,

Wong provided guarantees that their business premises and homes were not bugged,
their phones untapped, their privacy from surreptitious electronics inviolate.

With surprising frequency he did discover planted listening devices and when it happened his clients were impressed and grateful.

Despite official assurances to the contrary including some recent presidential ones bugging and wiretapping in the U.S. continued to be widespread and flourishing.

Heads of industrial companies retained Wong's services.

So did bankers, newspaper publishers, presidential candidates, some big-name lawyers, a foreign embassy or two, a handful of U.S. senators, three state governors, and a Supreme Court justice.

Then there were the other executives the Don of a Mafia family, his consiglieri, and various wheels at a slightly lower level, of whom Tony Marino was one.

To his criminal clients Wizard Wong made one thing plain: He wanted no part of their illicit activities; he was making an excellent living within the law. However, he saw no reason for them to be denied his services, since bugging was almost always illegal, and even criminals were entitled to protect themselves by lawful means.

This ground rule was accepted and worked well. Just the same, his organized crime clients intimated to Wizard from time to time that any usable information he acquired as a result of his work would
be appreciated and rewarded. An
d occasionally he had passed on tidbits of knowledge in return for money, yielding to that oldest and simplest of all temptations greed.

He was being tempted by it now. A week and a half ago, Wizard Wong had made a routine anti-bug survey of Marino's haunts and telephones.

These included the Double-Seven Health Club where Marino had a financial interest. In course of the survey which showed everything to be clean Wizard amused himself by briefly bugging one of the club lines, a practice which he sometimes followed, rationalizing that he owed it to himself and his clients to maintain his own technical expertise. For the purpose he chose a pay phone on the health club's main floor. Through forty-eight hours
Wizard left a tape recorder spliced across the pay-phone circuit, the recorder hid
den in the basement of the Doub
le-Seven.

It was a type which switched itself on and off each time the phone was used.

Though the action was illegal, Wizard reasoned that it didn't matter since no one but himself would hear the tape played back.

However, when he did play it, one conversation, especially, intrigued him.

Now, on Saturday afternoon, and alone in-his sound lab, he took the tape from the shelf above the test bench, put it on a machine and listened to that portion once again.

A coin was inserted, a number dialed. The sound of dialing was on the tape. A ringing tone. One ring only. A woman's voice (soft, with slight accent):

Hello. A male voice (whispering): You know who this is. But don't use names. The woman's voice: Yes. The first voice (still whispering):

Tell our mutual friend I've discovered something important here. Really important. It's most of what he wanted to know. I can't say more, but I'll come to you tomorrow night. A woman's voice: All right. A click.

The caller, in the Double-Seven Health Club, had hung up. Wizard Wong wasn't sure why he thought Tony Bear Marino would be interested.

He simply had a hunch, and his hunches had paid off before. Making up his mind, he consulted a private notebook, went to a telephone and called a number. Tony Bear, it transpired, could not see him until late Monday afternoon.

Wizard made an arrangement for then and having committed himself set out to extract more information from the tape. He rewound it, then carefully played it several times again.

"Judas Priestl" Tony Bear Marino's husky, thick features contorted in a savage scowl. His incongruous falsetto
voice rose even higher than usual.

"You had that goddam tape, and you sat on your goddam ass a week before you came herel" Wizard Wong said defensively,

"I'm a technician, Mr. Marino.

Mostly, the things I hear are none of my bustness.

But after a while I got to thinking this one was different." He was relieved in one sense.

At least there had been no angry reaction because he had bugged a Double-Seven line.

"Next time," Marino snarled, "think faster!"

Today was Monday. They were at the trucking terminal where Marino maintained an office and, on the desk between them, was a portable tape player which Wong had just switched off.

Before Com
ing here he had re-recorded the significant part of the original tape, transferring it to a cassette, then erased the rest.

Tony Bear Marino, in shirtsleeves in the stuffy, heated office, appeared physically formidable as usual. His shoulders were a prizefighter's; his wrists and biceps thick.

He overflowed the chair he sat in, though not with fat; most of him was solid muscle.

Wizard Wong tried not to be intimidated, either by Marino's bulk or his reputation for ruthlessness. But, whether from the hot room or other reasons, Wong began to sweat.

He protested, "I didn't waste all that time, Mr. Marino. I found out some other things I thought you'd want to know n "Such as?" "I can tell you the number that was called. You see, by using a stop watch to time the length of each dial turn as recorded on the tape, then comparing it…"

"Cut the crap. Just give me the number." "There it is." A slip of paper passed across the desk. "You've traced it? Whose number is it?"

"I have to tell you, tracing a number like that isn't easy. Especially since this particular one is unlisted. Fortunately, I have some contacts in the phone compan
y  …
Tony Bear exploded. He slammed a palm on the desktop, the impact like a gunshot.

"Don't play games with me, you little bastar
d! If you got information, give!
"

"The point I'm making," Wizard persisted, sweating even more, "is that it costs. I had to pay off my phone company contact."

"You paid a goddam lot less than you'll squeeze out of me.

Get on with it!
" Wizard relaxed a little, aware that he had made his point and Tony Bear would meet the price to be asked, each of them knowing there might be another time.

"The phone belongs to a Mrs. J. Nunez.

She lives at Forum East. Here's the building and apartment number." Wong passed over another slip. Marino took it, glanced at the address, and put it down.

"There's something else might be of interest to you. The records show the phone was installed a month ago as a hurry-up job.

Now normally, there's a long waiting list for phones at Forum East, but this one wasn't on the list at all, then all of a sudden it was put on at the top."

Marino's growing scowl was part impatience, part anger at what he heard.

Wizard Wong went on hastily, "What happened was, some pressure was applied. My contact told me there's a memo in the phone company ales showing it came from a guy named Nolan Wainwright who's head of security for a bank First Mercantile American.

He said the phone was needed urgently for bank business. Billing for it is going to the bank, too." For the first time since the audio technician's arrival, Tony Bear was startled.

Momentarily the surprise revealed itself on his face, then vanished, to be replaced by a blank expression. Under it, his mind was working, relating what he had just learned to certain facts he already knew.

The name Wainwright was the connection. Marino was aware of the attemp
t six months ago to plant a sto
olie, a creep named Vic who, after they busted his balls, said "Wainwright."

Marino knew of the bank click by reputation. In that earlier series of events Tony Bear had been very much involved.

Was there another one now?

If so, Tony Bear had a strong idea what action he was after, though there was a lot of other business through the Double-Seven he had no wish to see disclosed. Tony Bear did not waste time in speculation. The caller's voice, a whisper only, you couldn't tell.

But the other voice the woman's had been traced, so whatever else was needed they could get from her.

It did not enter his mind that the woman might not co-operate; if she was foolish, there were plenty of ways.

Marino paid Wong off quickly and sat thinking.

For a while, he followed his usual cautious pattern, not rushing a decision and leaving his thoughts to simmer for several hours. But he had lost time, a week.

Later that night he summoned two musclemen. Tony Bear gave them a Forum East address and an order. "Pick up the Nunez broad."

18

"If everything you just told me turns out to be true,"

Alex assured Margot, "I'll personally administer the biggest kick in the ass that Nolan Wainwright ever had." Margot snapped back,

"Of course it's all true. Why would Mrs. Nunez invent it? In any case, how could she?"

"No," he admitted, "I don't suppose she could."

"I'll tell you something else, Alex. I want more than your man Wainwright's head on a platter or his ass. A whole lot more."

They were in Alex's apartment where Margot had come a half hour ago, following her Monday-night talk with Juanita Nunez.