Sullivan's sting

8

David Rathbone waved the valet away and parked the Bentley himself. "What time have you got?" he asked.

Rita held her new gold Seiko under the dash light. "About a quarter to eleven."

"Don't give me about; what time exactly?"

"Ten forty-three."

He consulted his own Rolex. "Okay, I've got it. Now you sit out here and don't come into the Lounge until exactly eleven o'clock. You've got to be on the dot. Understand?"

"Sure. What's this all about?"

"Tell you later."

He picked up his gimlet at the bar and sauntered over to the big table. Trudy and Jimmy Bartlett were there, and Cynthia and Sid Coe. They all waved a greeting.

"Where's Rita?" Trudy asked. "You haven't ditched her already, have you?"

"Not yet," Rathbone said, smiling. "She had some things to do. Said she'd meet me here at exactly eleven." He glanced at his watch. "In seven minutes. She's very prompt."

Sid Coe rose to the bait.

"A prompt woman?" he said. "That's like a fast turtle. Ain't no such animal." "Rita is prompt," David insisted. "If she said she'll be here at eleven, she will be."

"Ho ho ho," Coe said. "She'll be late; you can count on it."

"A little wager?" Rathbone said. "I'll bet you twenty Rita will show up here at eleven, within a minute either way."

"You're on," Coe said. "Easiest twenty I ever made. I know women."

They sat comfortably, smiling pleasantly at each other, occasionally glancing at their watches. At precisely eleven o'clock Rita came sailing through the side door of the Lounge.

"Hi, everyone," she said.

Rathbone held out his hand to Coe. "Twenty," he said. "Clean bills, please."

"Tell me something, dimwit," Cynthia said to her husband, "have you ever won a bet with David?"

"And no one else has either," Trudy Bartlett said. "Our David has the luck of the devil."

"You make your own luck in this world," Rathbone said.

"Ernie's waving at you, David," Rita said.

He turned to look. Ernie gestured toward the end of the bar where Termite Tommy was standing.

"Please excuse me," Rathbone said, rising. "Keep the party going. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He took Tommy out to the parking lot. They sat in the back of the Bentley and lighted cigarettes.

"You're right," David said. "It's got possibilities- but it needs managing."

"That's why I came to you." -

"How much does that German printer want for the paper?"

"He wants a piece of the action. But I figure we can always cook the books. Besides, he's usually half in the bag."

"Uh-huh. That check you gave me dissolved in about four days. Is that the usual time?"

"Three days to a week. It's not exact."

"That's even better," Rathbone said. "I've been talking to Jimmy Bartlett. You know him?"

"No."

"He's in the game. He knows everything about banks. He should; he owned one up in Wisconsin until the examiners moved in. He did a year and nine, and he was lucky. Anyway, he knows how banks move checks. I asked a lot of questions-without mentioning the self-destruct paper, of course-and Jimmy gave me some good skinny on how to hang paper with minimum risk."

"How do we do that?" Termite Tommy asked.

Rathbone turned to look at him in the gloom. "I figure the best is to print up government checks."

"Holy Christ!" Tommy cried. "That's a federal rap."

"So is mail and wire fraud. No matter how you slice it-queer civilian checks or government checks-the bottom line is Leavenworth. But I think it can be fiddled. The risk-benefit ratio looks good to me. The big plus in using fake checks from Uncle Sam is that, according to what Jimmy told me, you can draw against them in one day. Sometimes immediately if the bank knows you."

"I don't get it."

"Look, if you write a forged check against someone who lives, say, in California, that crazy paper would be sawdust before the check clears. That means the California bank will never debit it to the mooch's account because all they've got is a handful of confetti. But if a local bank will credit a U.S. Treasury check within a day, then you can draw on it and waltz away whistling. By the time the blues catch up with the scam, that fake check is little bitty pieces of nothing, and they've got no evidence. No fraud. No counterfeiting. No forgery. Nothing."

"Yeah," Tommy said slowly, "I can see that."

"What I figure is this: We'll make a trial run. Have the Kraut make up a fake U.S. Treasury check, complete with computer code. Make it look like an IRS refund or something. Then we'll get the pusher to set up a checking account in a local bank. After the account is established, the fake government check is deposited. The next day the pusher takes out the money and disappears."

Tommy lighted another cigarette. "The way you explain it makes sense. Let's try it and see how it works. But don't expect me to do the pushing. I've done all the time I want to do."

"No," Rathbone said, "not you and not me. I think I've got the right player for the part. As soon as you have the check ready, let me know.''

"How much you want to make it for?"

"Some odd number. Like $27,696.37. Not over fifty grand. We'll start small and see how it goes."

Termite Tommy nodded and got out of the car. Then he leaned back in. "You'll have to give me the name of the pusher. It's got to be printed on the check."

"I'll let you know," Rathbone said, and took a business card from his Mark Cross wallet. "Here's my front; it's legit. David Rathbone Investment Management, Inc. Call me there when you're set."

"Will do," Tommy said, and walked away.

Rathbone went back into the Grand Palace Lounge. All the gang had assembled, and everyone was laughing up a storm. David took his chair at the head of the table and winked at Rita. She rose and came behind him, leaned down and nuzzled his cheek.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Business," he said.

"Monkey business?"

"Something like that. How would you like a job?"

"I've got a job: keeping you happy."

"And you succeed wonderfully. This is just a little errand with a super payoff."

"Lead me to it," she said.