Murder Plus: True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

It is an honor to present this expose by the one and only Harlan Ellison. I was a teen when I first read Ellison’s Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation, his remarkable collection of stories from the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the subjects were far from my dreary suburban diet of “Brady Bunch” reruns, but his voice spoke to me, awakened something in me. For the first time I was aware of the presence of the author in the creation of a literary text. I’ve often returned to his books over the years — Gentleman Junkie; I Have No Mouth & Must Scream; No Doors, No Windows; Angry Candy. Now a better, wisely mature reader, I’ve come to appreciate even more his remarkable gifts: his ability to mix and match genres, to turn on a dime from comedy to tragedy, the land mines he sets up, unforeseen till it’s too late. And I am not alone in my belief that Ellison has singularly revolutionized the detective story, brought both its content and form into the modern age. It is asking a lot of Ellison to be able to instill a minor historical-criminal footnote like “Mystery Man Lucks and His Missing Bucks” with this kind of power. Maybe too much. But even here, very early in Ellison’s career, when he was writing as Ellis Hart, one hears his sly wit and unique voice, as he brings to life the death of con man Al Lucks.

Mystery Man Lucks and His Missing Bucks

There are a good many ways to make a million dollars: you can save Eagle stamps for fifty years, or you can rob a bank, or you can marry a millionairess, or you can figure a foolproof method for beating the Irish Sweepstakes. There are all kinds of ways.

Then there was the method employed by Allen M. Lucks. Simply stated, it ran about like this:

A stunning, long-legged redhead, accompanied by a shorter, but no less gorgeous brunette, walked up to an apartment door in Paris’ swank George V hotel. Idly patting her expensive coiffure into place, the redhead rang the buzzer.

Had anyone familiar with Paris night-life been strolling down the corridor at that moment, he might have wondered why two of the more well-known Folies Bergère showgirls were unaccompanied that early in the evening, and what they were doing ringing the bell of that apartment.

The passerby would have been totally floored had he seen the squat, florid, slightly balding man, with an excess in the tummy category, who opened the door. The man looked pleasantly surprised. “Yes?” he inquired.

“Monsieur Lucks sent us,” the redhead answered, smiling prettily. “He told us to tell you we are at your disposal, for as long as you are in Paris, Monsieur.”

The fat little man’s eyes lit up. He remembered Lucks from dinner the night before. The fellow had said he was a go-between for some people who wanted to sell war surplus. The fat man had smiled at Lucks — that was his business, buying war surplus. And Paris, this June of 1952, was abounding in quick-change artists wanting to unload war supplies.

Now this. He looked at the girls more appreciatively as Lucks’ words ran through his head.

“Tomorrow at 7 P.M.,” Lucks had said, “there will be a knock at your door and two girls will walk in. Ask no questions, pay no money, enjoy yourself and tell them when to report back.”

As the fat little man ushered the girls inside, bolted the door, and prepared for a night of vive la France, he made a mental note to get in touch with Lucks the very next day to thank him. Have to throw some business the way of a fellow who’d do anything as nice as this.

And that, dear reader, is how mystery man Allen M. Lucks went about making several hundred millions of dollars for himself and clients... millions which no one can find! November 27, 1955, was an important day for 53-year-old bachelor Al Lucks. He died that day. And all his relatives are currently weeping sad, dark tears. No one can say how sorry they are to see good old Al go, but they are moaning because Lucks’ vast uncountable fortune is nowhere in sight.

For Allen Lucks died as mysteriously as he lived — an international figure on first-name terms with some of the most influential crooks and influence-peddlers in the world. He died so mysteriously, in fact, that from November 27 to March 2 of this year, not the slightest hint was voiced that he had even died!

Now the big scramble is on. The Lucks fortunes are nowhere in sight. Where are they? That’s what the deceased’s surviving relations would like to know. They suspect the money is scattered across three continents, in numerous banks under phony names, and in safe deposit boxes too numerous to mention. Al Lucks trusted no one. He had a fear of stocks and bonds, and a glowing admiration for the personal sanctuary a safe deposit box offers.

Some of that money is in a Swiss bank — and Swiss banks being notoriously discrete about releasing information — it may mean years of dickering before a penny of that money sees the light of day.

Right now, a European liaison man of prominent Scranton, Pennsylvania, lawyer Jerome Myers, is frantically scurrying through the capitals of Europe, trying to locate a fortune so large, no one feels capable of estimating its size.

This isn’t a strange ending to the career of mystery playboy Al Lucks. It is fitting, somehow. That’s the way he lived — with little notoriety, with much money, and with a caravan of beautiful women any Sheik would shriek for!

What’s that? You say you never heard of multimillionaire Lucks? You ask what the big pitch is with him, and why all the interest? You wanna know who he was and where all this dough came from that no one can find? All right, tell you what I’m gonna do — I’m gonna tell you the whole story of Fast-Bucks Lucks from start to finish, with a punch-line that’ll knock you dead.

It should. It killed Al Lucks!

Lucks made his entrance the same way Abe Lincoln did; of poor but honest parents. However, it didn’t take our boy Al long to find out that what was good for Mr. Lincoln was not necessarily good for Mama Lucks’ little boy Allen.

In 1903, the Lucks family, merchants of Hazelton, Penna., a rugged hard-coal town, rejoiced at the birth of their son. Their joy was compounded in 1923 when Al graduated from Syracuse University. When he obtained his law degree from Georgetown Law School in 1926, with an enviable record as a superlative student, the family knew they had a real mensche (Big Man) in the family. Oh, Al was smart, all right.

He practiced for a while in Washington, with a noticeable lack of success. Finally, Al returned to Scranton and started looking around for business. It seemed almost providential that Al should strike upon the biggest money in law available at that time. During this period — the late twenties — there was a lot of liquor bootlegging in the coal regions, and, logically enough, a good many bootleggers needed a mouthpiece when the long arm of the law beckoned angrily toward court.

In short order Al Lucks became well known in the courtroom of Federal Judge Albert M. Johnson (who was driven from the bench in 1946 under threat of impeachment from the House of Representatives). Al Lucks suddenly came into affluence. In a very short time Lucks became known as the man to see if you needed a fast way out.

Then in 1943 the smell of all the loose money drew Lucks to greener pastures... Washington, where he began a palm-greasing stint unparalleled in the D. of C.’s unpleasant annals.

Lucks tossed girlie parties for deserving bigwigs at the drop of a G-string, and it paid off in big tips about big sales that resulted in big contracts with big profits for Lucks.

Lucks got in on the ground floor of war surplus after World War II, outshrewding some of the shrewdest fast-buck men in the country. That ground floor was so big, covered so much territory, that Lucks hied himself overseas to Paris where he operated out of the George V, while maintaining a full-time suite in Frankfurt, Germany, which is U.S. Army headquarters in Europe.

Employing the same natural cunning that made him a wheel in the bootlegging rackets, Lucks shortly became middleman in dozens of multi-million-dollar transactions, never risking his own money, yet reaping fantastic profits merely by knowing whom to call and when. He began living high, to the tune of $100,000 a year for fun and games. The money he made over that was clear net profit, securely secreted away.

Everything from women to influence he bought and used. The women particularly. Lucks had more than an eye for the dolls. He had a pair of eyes, plus 20–20 binoculars in case something might get past him.

The only pictures available of mystery man Lucks — who correctly judged the best way of staying out of the reach of investigating committees was to stay out of the public limelight — are those he took with his female companions, of whom there were many.

One of the many was Diane (Golden Girl) Harris, a young roundheels with a penchant for soft money and running down hotel corridors sans clothing. Lucks was quoted as saying:

“I’ve never seen a finer lady than Diane. If you can’t say nice things about a lady, don’t say anything. Diane is a full lady. I don’t believe anything else that is said about her.”

Which is a nice bit of philosophy from the guy who was about to be sued in 1954 on charges of paternity. Ex-chorine Harriette Levi wound up with a juicy out-of-court settlement in that case — after Allen admitted the siring — and disappeared from sight with her ten-year-old son.

The women came and went like the autumn breezes, an endless stream of easy-virtue gals, marching in and out of Fast-Bucks Lucks’ fabulous George V suite.

At the height of his fantastic career, Lucks met and dealt with such notorious fortune-hunters as Washington’s top influence-peddler John Maragon, English ex-con George Dawson who made over $100,000,000 in a deal where he sold the U.S. Army 14,000 of their own trucks, and even the late Senator Kenneth McKellar, big boy in the infamous Crump machine of Tennessee.

All these men, and more — from junk dealers to cabinet members — were intimates of Lucks and his lovely entourage. All of them were ready to dance when he pulled their strings. For all of them made fortunes as Lucks’ career progressed.

By 1950 Al Lucks was operating almost full-time out of Paris, and showing a great deal of reluctance to go back to the U.S. Probably because there were half a dozen men back there, waiting to either sue or stab.

At this time, the rumors had it that Lucks had made a fantastic killing in Argentina. The rumors told of a vast supply of automobile parts, assembled in Canada, and sold to the Argentine government, with profits being split by Lucks, dictator Juan Peron, and Peron’s economics minister.

The beauty of the whole transaction was that the parts were never delivered!

Then came 1951, a bad year for Lucks. Newspaper stories began appearing about him. First there was the New York Supreme Court suit by Alvin Reiss of the Lehigh Trading Co. Reiss claimed to have bought $1,109,760 worth of surplus trucks and shipped them to Lucks in Europe for a promised 15 % commission — which he never got paid. The case dragged on and on, never resolving itself, because Lucks was too shy to return to the Land of the Free.

When he did enter the country, his trips were infrequent and secretive. He would stop at New York’s Essex House or the Mayflower in Washington, transact his business hurriedly, drop in on his relatives in Scranton, and be back in Europe before anyone realized he’d even been around.

But from there on out, Lucks’ star began to wane. First the Reiss suit, then charges from other American agencies, then the Jelke trial investigations where the Lucks name figured prominently. Then the suit by Harriette Levi.

As if he didn’t have enough burdens to shoulder, Lucks was being blackmailed by several parties and for several different reasons. Things were starting to turn. His fortunes were decreasing. He was still living at his $100,000 a year clip, still treating the girlies to the best, and still maintaining his exclusive apartments.

But it was the beginning of the end for Allen Lucks.

On November 25, 1955, late, late in the wee hours, the switchboard of the George V buzzed alarmingly. The operator picked up her phones and heard a girl’s frantic voice from the Lucks suite moaning that “Monsieur Lucks, ’ee eez dead!”

It wasn’t quite true, but when they raced upstairs, they found Al Lucks on the way out as the result of a stroke. He was raced to the French Clinic in Paris, and two days later he died. The medical report stated he had died from a cerebral hemorrhage — induced by overexertion.

The two girls who were found in his apartment with him were turned back onto the streets, where they quickly disappeared, with the awed stares of police following them.

Then began the crazy game of “bucks, bucks, who’s got the Lucks bucks?” The scramble was on, and in the ensuing hustle, the whole sordid story of Lucks’s influence-selling, his procuring, his shady dealings on both sides of the Iron Curtain, came out.

Where his money now reposes, how much he had cached away — all these are mysteries... just a few more mysteries surrounding a man who clothed himself for years in secrecy.

Even so, all of Al Lucks’s deals pale into insignificance at his latest, current transaction. No matter how much money he has hidden away in the bank vaults of Europe, what Al is doing now is his biggest business deal.

He’s handling the Lucks concession in Eternity, trying to buy his way into Heaven! You can lay your bets with Pete, the angel on the gate. The odds are Terrific!