Chasing Phil

by David Howard

  “What is your price?” Kitzer would ask. “If you’ve got the money, we will give you confirmation. How much do you have? How important is it to you?”

  —

  Kitzer’s careful planning aside, there was something maddening about how gullible Hawaii’s former lieutenant governor was. Iuteri’s appraisal was laughable, and D’Amato’s promised takeout letter was scarcely more believable. Kitzer knew from his years in the insurance business that an authentic takeout commitment involved extensive underwriting that required three to six months of work. The agents believed that anyone who possessed the common sense of a houseplant could have detected a problem. But Kealoha didn’t just want to believe what the promoters were telling him—he needed to.

  Later that day, D’Amato brought Kealoha the letter promising a long-term loan. Kealoha planned to go to his home in Hilo the next day to pick up a cashier’s check for $80,000. Iuteri groused that he’d done his part and wanted his $25,000, even though he hadn’t written the appraisal yet. The others told him to be patient, rolling their eyes at Dim Lightbulb Boy—Brennan had thought up that nickname—and explained that running a successful scam was about knowing when to push and when to sit and wait.

  The promoters awoke on March 29 anticipating a payday. They gathered at the pool just after noon and ordered beers in advance of a meeting with Kealoha at one p.m. But at 12:45, the overcast sky opened and rain pummeled the pool area, scattering the group.

  When the downpour relented, Kitzer and the Junior G-Men decided to go find Iuteri and D’Amato. The threesome strung out as they walked the hotel’s hushed, carpeted hallways toward their room, Brennan a few paces ahead of the others. Brennan knocked when he reached room 1022, and Iuteri instantly snapped it open. Bimbo Boy stared at them for a beat, then stepped into the hall.

  “Get lost,” he said in a hoarse whisper. His face was flushed. “The feds are here.”

  They looked past him, into the room. Phil saw two men talking to D’Amato.

  “And don’t go to your rooms,” Iuteri hissed. “In case the FBI is looking for you, too.”

  12

  The Parking Lot Fugitive

  MARCH 29, 1977

  The rain had not been part of the plan. All morning, Wedick and Brennan had tried to think through every potential glitch in their plot to derail the Kealoha deal. A tropical storm on the cusp of the day’s big meeting hadn’t entered their thoughts.

  The question of how to disrupt the scam without dynamiting Operation Fountain Pen had preoccupied Brennan and Wedick for days before they finally hit on an idea: What if local FBI agents turned up at the Ala Moana—but pretended to know nothing about the flimflam in progress? They just needed to rattle Kealoha enough to coax him into calling off the deal. Their thunderclap of inspiration had been the Fontainebleau Hotel. Newspapers back east had covered D’Amato’s potential acquisition, so the Honolulu agents could credibly claim they were looking into the suspicious-sounding European trust. To backfill the story, Brennan and Wedick called the mainland and requested that their colleagues in Miami, Cleveland, and Southern California seek out anyone they knew connected to the fraternity and ask about the Eurotrust. The undercover agents figured that D’Amato would hear that the FBI was poking around and would assume that someone had told the bureau he was in Hawaii.

  Wedick had slipped away that morning to meet with Gerry Lonergan, a Honolulu-based FBI agent, in a shopping area of the Ala Moana Hotel. Lonergan was dumbfounded that Wedick and Brennan had managed to persuade the FBI to fly them to Hawaii in Kitzer’s company. The bureau famously forbade agents from traveling to Hawaii and Las Vegas because of the likelihood that they would turn their trip into a vacation. “This is incredible,” Lonergan said after listening to Wedick’s description. “They’re gonna make a movie out of this.”

  They formulated a plan for several agents to appear at the meeting with Kealoha—but Wedick stressed that they should not say a word about the ongoing scheme to defraud the former lieutenant governor.

  The plan seemed watertight, but Wedick and Brennan spent the morning feeling queasy with angst. Wedick felt like a GI hunkered down across enemy lines, about to call in air strikes on his own position. He had no idea how the promoters would react, or if they would buy the Fontainebleau story.

  And then the skies blew open and everyone scattered after making loose plans to regroup when the weather cleared. Exasperated, Brennan and Wedick huddled to figure out their next play, and Wedick slipped away to find Lonergan. When they ran into each other near an elevator bank, Wedick handed over D’Amato’s room number.

  —

  Back at the pool, Kitzer and the Junior G-Men discussed the potential reasons for the FBI visit. Kitzer seemed unperturbed—but he looked closely at Wedick.

  “You know what’s weird?” he said. “One of those agents looked exactly like you.”

  Wedick had noticed it, too. It was eerie. The three of them had taken one long look inside the room before Iuteri shooed them off. One of the agents could have been Wedick’s twin—the same mustache, dark hair, lean. Wedick felt a twinge of exasperation. He and Brennan had gone through endless contortions to avoid suspicion, but a Wedick doppelgänger? How do you game-plan for that?

  There was a lilt in Kitzer’s voice—a question, maybe a challenge. Wedick shook his head and pulled on a tobacco pipe, popular in the day, that he sometimes puffed on. A wave of agitation spiked through him—a sensation that had grown familiar over the past six weeks. But he reminded himself that this was just a strange coincidence. A weird, irritating one, but still. He was J.J. Wedick, president of Executive Enterprises of South Bend, Indiana.

  “Yeah, Phil, well, you know,” he said, smirking, “I haven’t decided to join the FBI just yet.”

  They all chuckled and sat back. After a half hour, Kitzer said, “I’m going to call and find out what’s going on.”

  “It’s all clear,” D’Amato told him. “Come on up.”

  He and Iuteri looked wan when they answered the door.

  “I think it’s my deal in Miami, the Fontainebleau, that’s bringing the heat,” D’Amato said.

  Hearing this, Wedick and Brennan felt a wave of relief that they tried not to show. The five of them walked back down and resumed their places by the pool while D’Amato elaborated. The Honolulu-based agents had wanted to know about the Eurotrust and the Fontainebleau. D’Amato said he’d referred the feds to the trust’s lawyer in Boston and had blown some smoke—claimed he didn’t know the backers. He said he’d done lots of work for the Eurotrust before and believed it was legitimate, and he’d asked the FBI to tell him if they knew otherwise.

  Kitzer sat quietly for a few moments, blowing streams of smoke from a filtered Pall Mall. Then he said that regardless of what the bureau knew, the promoters should now assume that a couple of things would happen. Those agents would eventually find out what D’Amato was doing in Hawaii; then they would go see the Kealohas—and when that happened, Phil said, “Jimmy and Mama will tell them everything that we ever told them.”

  He proposed that they reach the Kealohas first and tell them that the FBI was trying to kill their deal—to prey on their anxieties about losing the commitment. That way, he might be able to control them. Kitzer also pointed out that those same FBI agents would probably get search warrants for their rooms, which jolted the promoters into action. D’Amato turned to Iuteri and said, “Let’s go up and get the papers.”

  They scrambled from the lounge chairs. Kitzer stood and left as well, and all three returned minutes later with piles of papers. Iuteri, in a fit of paranoia, had unbuttoned his flowered shirt, tucked some documents into his pants, and rebuttoned his shirt over it. Kitzer handed the Junior G-Men some Seven Oak letters of credit and stationery, telling them to rip everything up. On the other side of the table, D’Amato and Iuteri shredded Eurotrust stationery. The promoters destroyed their phone messages, too, and then everyone dumped the torn documents into the trash bin by the pool. Kitzer g
ave his address book to Brennan to hold on to. He figured that since his protégés hadn’t yet assumed roles in the Kealoha plot, the FBI wouldn’t hassle them.

  But he was still working over the situation. Kitzer turned to D’Amato. “I don’t know,” he said. “It seems funny to me that just a half hour ago you were over in this bank in Hawaii. You leave that bank and everything is supposed to be so grand and great there, and the next thing we turn around and have the FBI here. I think maybe that bank brought down the FBI based on your trust coming out of [Europe].”

  Kitzer said the FBI had been circulating flyers encouraging bankers to report any contact with foreign banks doing business in the States. “They put one out on me on Mercantile,” he said.

  Then he proposed a darker theory: Someone in the group was an informant. As that thought sank in, the Kealohas arrived. The agents felt grateful for this respite as they all stood and moved to a shaded area behind the bar.

  “Jimmy,” Kitzer began, “how well do you know this bank that Andy was just at this morning?”

  “I know that bank, I’ve done business with them. They’re nice people.”

  “Is there any reason, Jimmy, that bank would want to hurt you or kill your project or anything?”

  “No, I can’t imagine anything.”

  “Listen, I want to tell you what just happened here. A half hour ago, the FBI was here in Mr. Iuteri and Mr. D’Amato’s room. They came in, they want to know about this trust. Now, Jimmy, there must be something wrong with your project. There must be something wrong with you. Is the FBI investigating you?” Again, Kitzer was deploying his skill with gaslighting, deflecting blame.

  Kealoha blanched and shook his head. Kitzer suggested that instead maybe Ronnie Yee, the real estate lawyer, had tipped off the bureau.

  Kealoha didn’t necessarily believe that, either, but he was at a loss. He finally said, “Well, I’ll call the FBI.”

  The promoters exchanged looks. “Wait a minute,” D’Amato said. “Don’t.”

  Kitzer pointed out that the FBI would undoubtedly contact him if they wanted to speak to him. Then he proposed that they go over what Kealoha should say if the agents returned.

  Kealoha agreed to parrot Kitzer’s version of events. Wedick and Brennan were again struck by the spell Kitzer held over him, through some alchemy of need and desperation and salesmanship. The couple eventually departed, and the promoters moved back into the sun and ordered drinks. Kitzer sat with his back to the bar, facing the pool, the others spread out around him around a circular table.

  They were puzzling through their next steps when Kitzer stopped talking. He was watching a knot of middle-aged men in flowered shirts—everyone, including FBI agents, dressed that way in Hawaii—wending through knots of tourists, heading in their direction.

  “Okay, fellows,” Kitzer said. “Here they come. Don’t move.”

  Iuteri swung his chair around to look, then popped up. D’Amato did the same, and both of them hustled toward the hotel’s cavernous interior. Brennan, acting instinctively, also jumped up. The herd was moving.

  “Where are you going?” Kitzer said.

  “I’m going to the parking lot.”

  “Oh, you’re going to be the fugitive in the parking lot, huh?” Kitzer said, laughing. “You don’t think they can find you over there?”

  Kitzer and Wedick stayed put and watched while Brennan hovered uncertainly near his chair. The mystery men came within fifteen feet of the table and stopped. After looking around, they turned and walked back out. Wedick stifled an urge to laugh: Whoever those guys were, they had nothing to do with the FBI; they were probably just newly arrived tourists who had taken a wrong turn. D’Amato and Iuteri, watching from a distance, crept back.

  “I thought that was it,” Iuteri said. “I thought we were gone.”

  “Yeah,” D’Amato said. “I thought they were back.”

  “What did you run for?” Kitzer said, chortling. “Where did you think you were going to run to on this island? It’s only ten miles wide.”

  “That’s the natural reaction back in New York,” Iuteri said, and everyone laughed.

  “I’m getting off this island and going back to Los Angeles,” said D’Amato, now clearly rattled.

  Kitzer noted that, as far as the U.S. government was concerned, there was no difference between Hawaii and California. “Andy, you don’t think the FBI can arrest you in Los Angeles?” he said, chuckling.

  If they were going to be arrested, he said, it would look better in court if they weren’t trying to flee. In fact, if an arrest seemed imminent, they should just surrender, because then they would have an easier time posting bail and mounting a defense. Kitzer then began teasing Brennan about running away. The Golden Bear now had a second nickname: the Parking Lot Fugitive.

  —

  Kitzer called Kealoha the next day and asked to meet to go over the former lieutenant governor’s statements to the FBI. Then he pulled Wedick and Brennan aside and told them that since they weren’t participants in the deal—they were just there to learn—they were better off not taking part. As far as the FBI knew, they had nothing to do with it.

  That night, the promoters’ festive mood seemed to have lifted away on the whispery South Pacific winds. Iuteri was upset about the recent developments and said that if the FBI arrested them, Jimmy and Mama wouldn’t live to testify against him. Ronnie Yee, either. He believed Yee was the rat.

  Kitzer stopped him. Look, he said, Jimmy Kealoha is seventy—he and his wife would probably die of old age before they had a chance to testify. And there were plenty of other ways the promoters could wiggle free.

  That wasn’t Iuteri’s way. In 1965, he said, he’d been indicted in New York for the murders of three New Jersey men at an after-hours drinking club he co-owned. He spent eighteen months in jail awaiting trial but beat the charges when his employees told the police that the men had been robbing the place. He also claimed to run a shylock-loan business in New York City that netted millions. On one occasion, he said, he drove to the house of someone who owed money, tossed gasoline into the foyer, then held up a box of matches and demanded payment.

  Some tourists took seats nearby, interrupting Iuteri’s grim monologue. Brennan excused himself to call his commodities broker, a ploy he frequently used to phone Indianapolis to call in the kinds of leads Iuteri had just provided. Over time he’d expanded on this ruse, weaving in details from his work at Lind-Waldock about trainloads of pork bellies headed out of Chicago. His contact kept him on the winning end of trades. The promoters appreciated these anecdotes.

  —

  Kitzer, meanwhile, headed out to meet with the Kealohas. Sitting across from Jimmy, he adopted a serious demeanor. Now that the FBI was involved, he warned, no Hawaiian bank would fund the condo project. “It will not happen,” Kitzer said. He added, “If anything scares a banker, it’s the FBI.”

  Kealoha looked crestfallen. “Phil, what can I do?”

  Kitzer flipped to good cop. All was not lost if they found financing elsewhere—and, fortunately, he had a Swiss-banker acquaintance, Jean-Claude Cornaz. “I have reason to believe that with Andy’s takeout, he would fund your project,” Kitzer said.

  Kealoha quickly agreed, not knowing, of course, that Cornaz would only produce more fraudulent paper.

  “Now, Jimmy,” Phil said, “if you took this money from the Bank of Hawaii, they would charge you a fee.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Mr. Cornaz will want a fee, too, for funding.”

  “Oh, I can appreciate that.”

  “Okay. Just a minute.”

  Kitzer excused himself and called D’Amato, who loved the new angle, partly because he’d wanted to work with Cornaz, a longtime con man who had a stellar reputation within the Fraternity. This was a particularly elegant outcome for Phil; John Calandrella had already offered to pay his airfare to Europe to work on some other deals. Kitzer then confirmed everything with Cornaz, who requested that they all meet
in Frankfurt.

  The Kealohas left to book flights for themselves, D’Amato, and Iuteri.

  D’Amato was giddy. “You sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he said to Phil.

  The agents were significantly less enthralled. They’d worked to get clearance for Copenhagen, and once again Kitzer had zigged when they’d expected him to zag. They would leave in less than forty-eight hours—far too little time to work out diplomatic clearance with West Germany. And they had no plausible excuse not to go.

  —

  They sat by the pool at around ten the next morning, March 31. Hotel guests drifted to nearby chairs with towels and tubes of Coppertone. Kitzer explained why Cornaz was the perfect solution: When the deal went bad for the Kealohas, Kitzer would claim he’d had no idea the Swiss banker was a fraud. And Cornaz, of course, was outside the FBI’s jurisdiction.

  Brennan and Wedick nodded, suppressing their dismay. They were sure they’d be able to spook Kealoha into abandoning the deal. Still, they couldn’t help but admire Kitzer’s resourcefulness.

  The group scattered as the day wore on. Iuteri and D’Amato left Hawaii, having made plans for Frankfurt. Kitzer, set to depart the next day with the Junior G-Men, disappeared with Ruby. Brennan and Wedick, who’d barely stepped outside the hotel during their time in Hawaii, decided to take advantage of a rare afternoon to themselves. They barreled off in a rental car and pretended to be tourists, sweeping through Pearl Harbor and kicking some sand on a few beaches. But they felt distracted and uneasy amid the throngs of lei-wearing vacationers. When it came to tripping up Kitzer, they were stumped.

  —

  The agents split up at around six the next morning. Jack took off with Kitzer’s address book, which was filled with scraps of paper, notes, and messages. He planned to copy as many entries as possible—and needed to do it somewhere away from the Ala Moana because of Kitzer’s tendency to burst into their room unannounced. Wedick’s task was to dictate an update on the Kealoha situation and mail the cassette to Indianapolis before they left town.