Sullivan's sting

25

"What exactly is the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund?" Lester T. Crockett asked. "Do you know?"

"Negative, sir," Harker said.

They were standing in Tony's office, looking down at the chart spread across his desk. It was an organization diagram with a box at the top labeled David Rathbone. Straight lines led to four smaller boxes: Mortimer Sparco, Sidney Coe, James Bartlett, Frank Little. The boxes also contained the names of the assigned investigators: Rita Sullivan, Simon Clark, Manuel Suarez, Henry Ullman, Roger Fortescue.

Within each box was written the subject's ostensible occupation and his relationship with any of the other suspects.

"Here's what we've got so far," Harker reported. "Rathbone tells Sullivan that lie and the guys from the Palace are organizing a new business, the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund. They've rented a small office on Federal Highway. Sullivan goes to work there tomorrow as a secretary, the Fund paying her salary.

"Suarez says Coe is pushing shares of the Fund in his boiler room, and Clark says Sparco is doing the same thing in his brokerage. Clark also confirms that Bartlett is in on it. The only one whose connection remains iffy is Frank Little, but I'm betting he's a partner, too.

"And that's about all I've got so far, sir. It's possible, of course, that the Fund is an out-and-out swindle, it really doesn't exist, and they're selling shares in soap bubbles."

"But you don't believe that?" Crockett asked.

"No, sir. If the whole thing is just one big goldbrick, why go to the bother of renting an office and hiring a secretary?"

"Just as a front?"

"Maybe," Harker said, "but I think there's more to it than that. They're having letterheads and business cards printed up, like this is a company that's going to be in business for a while."

"Registered?"

"Not with the SEC, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or the State of Florida. They may have offshore registration, but I've been unable to find any evidence of it. I'm hoping Sullivan will be able to tell us more about the nature of the Fund after she's been working in their office awhile."

Crockett thrust his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, stared down at the chart. "Of course," he said, "we could pick up the entire mob right now, on charges of security fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy. And maybe throw the RICO book at them for good measure."

Harker stared at him. "You don't really want to do that, do you, sir?"

"No," Crockett said, "because the moment we put the cuffs on Rathbone, he'll clam up about the source of that self-destructing check. Have you learned anything more about it?"

"According to Sullivan, Rathbone said that seam's on hold."

"Do you believe that?"

"No-but no more of those queer checks have been reported."

"Ullman is still working on the bank officer?"

"Yes, sir. He's become very buddy-buddy with Mike Mulligan. So I'm expecting a break there."

"Soon, I hope," Crockett said. "The Washington brass keep pushing me. All I can do is keep pushing you. And all you can do is keep pushing Ullman."

"I intend to," Tony said.

"Good. Anything else?"

"Yes, sir. Have you come to any decision about bugging Rathbone's town house?"

"No," Crockett said, "not yet. I'll let you know." And he tramped out of Harker's office.

Tony sat down behind his desk, bent over the chart. He felt aswirl in swindles, and not all of them by the crooks: The good guys, in the course of their investigations, were pulling their share of cons, too. Harker was troubled by it, couldn't convince himself of the need to "fight fire with fire." His distress went deeper than that.

He presumed that if you were forced to live in a slum, eventually the ugliness of your surroundings would seep into your nature. Maybe without even being aware of it, you'd begin to think ugly thoughts, say ugly things, act in ugly ways.

Similarly, he now found himself in an environment where everyone lied, schemed, cheated. He had done it himself in the Navigator Bar in Boca. He wondered if, over time, this atmosphere of connivance might corrupt him to such an extent that deceit became normal and he would palter as naturally as he breathed.

He stared down at his chart, at the name of Rita Sullivan. She was a good cop, his most valuable operative, and he appreciated the job she was doing. But he wondered if he had become so tainted by this world of deception that he was now capable of conning himself.