I decided to see this Max Kreuger, as much intrigued by the possibility of having actually said something insightful as I was anxious to make some extra money.
“Ja, may I help you?” asked the frail gray-haired man with the wire-rimmed spectacles. I showed him the wallet and explained that Randy Hiller had suggested I see him. He nodded noncommittally and gave me a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.
“I’m afraid I no longer use ‘lost’ credit cards, Mr. Gould. At least, not personally. You see, it was for using such a card that I was sent to prison. So now, I play it safe; I use only the cash when I ‘find’ a wallet. A very dangerous business, credit cards.” He set his coffee cup on the table, removed his glasses and rubbed the top of his nose. “Let’s see. You have had the cards for almost four hours and they belong to a Mr. Lawrence Jericho from Albany. That is good, he’s from out-of-town. If we sell these cards in the next few hours, they might be worth as much as $500 cash. Of course, the longer you wait, the less they will be worth.”
I was dumbfounded. That was more money than I’d gotten for stealing the whole damn car. A lot more. Having never had a credit card, I figured the most you could get out of them was a hotel room, some gas and a few meals. When I expressed this to Maxie he laughed quietly.
“Credit cards, Mr. Gould,” he explained, “are almost as good as cash, and in some cases, better. Anything can be bought with the proper credit card, from televisions to automobiles. Suppose, for example, that you decide to use this credit card yourself. You simply select a car rental agency, rent their best automobile—all on this particular credit card—and then sell the car to your Mr. Hiller. Certainly they will have your description, but that is of little value in New York. Other than that, all they have is a legitimate credit card number and a forged signature. There is no limit to what can be done with the right credit card and a good imagination.
“Of course, as I have said, it can be quite dangerous. But with the proper precautions, you are relatively safe. The basic rules to remember is not to give in to the temptation to keep using the same card after the safe period has expired. Two days is the absolute maximum, one day is best. I myself was picked up on my second day with the same card, but that was only because the man who owned that particular card was a salesman to the store I was using it in.”
Having already made up my mind to keep the cards, I spent the rest of the afternoon questioning Maxie about the best ways to use the cards, which he was happy to answer, seeing a potential customer in my enthusiasm. He knew that once I was through with the cards I had, I’d want new ones, and for that I’d have to come to him.
Which is exactly what happened.
I spent the next two years living off stolen credit cards that I purchased every two days from Maxie. Then I’d charge out as much as possible, sell the goods to Randy Hiller—whose own business had expanded—and use the money to buy new cards. Of course, there was a respectable profit for me in these transactions, which left me with enough cash to pay my rent and other necessities. However, my new-found wealth also led to a new-found interest in poker and horse racing—which in turn led to my subsequent relationship with Augie Harrison, a high-rolling bookie.
Having been the victim of a sinister losing streak that started three months before, I soon found myself in the uncomfortable and unhealthy position of owing Augie Harrison $1,400, about which payment J.J. and Gus had off-handedly inquired earlier that evening.
Unfortunately, this losing streak also included my weekly poker games, the result in this case being a rather liberal distribution of my markers as if they were circulars promoting the grand opening of a new shopping center—and with about as much value. So, all things considered, I felt it was in the best interest of all concerned if I left town as soon as possible.
It was with that optimistic thought in mind that I found myself knocking on Maxie’s apartment door, which was promptly opened by Roland, Maxie’s twenty-one year old son.
“Hi,” he said, in friendly recognition. “Hey, what happened to you? Your face is a mess. You get in a fight?”
“No, my socks are too tight.”
He looked doubtful for a moment, then laughed. “Dad’s not here right now, but he should be back at any time.”
“Good. Mind if I wait?”
“Of course not. Come on in. I’ll get you something to drink.”
“A beer will be fine,” I said, sitting down in front of the television Roland had been watching. “How’s the job hunting?” I called after him. Roland had just recently graduated with honors from City College as an English major and had spent the entire summer sending out politely-ignored resumés and going on we’ll-call-you-later interviews.
“The same old story,” he said, handing me a bottle of imported beer. “You can’t get a job unless you have experience and you can’t get experience unless you have a job. So I’ve decided to go into business with Dad.”
“What about graduate school?” I asked, somewhat surprised.
“Well, I’ve been accepted at a couple, but it seems to me I’d be in the same boat afterwards that I’m in now, only I’d be older.”
We discussed both options with deliberate objectivity for awhile until I finally agreed that perhaps picking pockets was more practical than graduate school.
“Wie geht’s, Harry?” Maxie called cheerily as he came in.
“Pretty good, Maxie.”
He removed his trench coat carefully and emptied the special pocket in its lining. When he was through, there were seven wallets of various shapes, sizes and colors laying on the coffee table like the combined gifts of the last seven years of Father’s Days.
“Good business tonight,” he said, hanging his coat in the closet.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Over at Shea Stadium.” He jerked his gray head in the general direction of Shea Stadium.
“I didn’t know there was a game tonight.”
“There wasn’t,” he said with an impish grin. “The Pope was speaking there. What’s the matter, you don’t read the newspapers? You know how everybody, especially important people, like to be seen at an affair like that. It was too good to pass up.” He walked across the room and shook my hand as always. “Hey, what happened to your face? You get in a fight?”
I explained my situation to Maxie.
Maxie removed his glasses and massaged the top of his nose.
“Boy, you sure are in a lot of trouble,” Roland proclaimed happily, offering me the benefit of his insight.
“Ruhe,” Maxie said firmly and Roland was silent. “Just what is it that I can do for you, Harry?”
“Well, I’ll need some fresh credit cards and identification.”
Maxie nodded and spread the seven newly-acquired wallets before him. After he had examined each one and removed the cash, he handed me a worn brown wallet with the initials JH embossed in gold on the inside.
It contained one Pennsylvania driver’s license (no photographs in that state) for a Mr. Jacob Henderson of Wilkes-Barre; one Social Security card with the number 198-42-4916; one membership card to the International Florist Club; six business cards from Henderson’s Bouquet Boutique; an AAA Club card; a Fidelity National Bank check-guarantee card; an American Express card; and two airmail stamps.
My smile broadened with each new discovery. These cards would be good for at least three or four days since I was leaving the city with them.
“Beautiful, Maxie.” I said honestly. “How much do I owe you?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“Come on, Maxie. We both know they’re worth at least three times that much.”
“Three hundred dollars,” he said firmly, “from Kreuger and son.”
I gave him the money, shook hands with both of them and promised to send a postcard from wherever I finally ended up.
It was with a certain nostalgia that I hailed a cab, knowing that this was my last night in New York City, my home for the past three years. Sure th
ere were people here that would miss me—Maxie for one—but they all had other concerns. Besides, people in my circle of acquaintances had a habit of disappearing every so often, sometimes permanently. After all, New York wasn’t the first place I’d had to evacuate for reasons of health.
I got out at the TWA terminal at Kennedy, tipped the driver and bought a ticket on the next plane going more than five hundred miles in any direction.
Seven hours later I landed in Los Angeles, California.
Chapter Four
NAME: Harry Gould
ADDRESS: 3944 Ingraham St., #25, Los Angeles, CA 90005
PHONE: 383-9083
MARITAL STATUS: Single
AGE: 32
HEIGHT: 5′ 10″
WEIGHT: 150 lbs.
SCARS ORDISTINGUISHING MARKS: None
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: 14 months as personal bodyguard for Dr. Louis Bertocelli.
REASON FOR LEAVING: Danger eliminated.
SPECIAL SKILLS: Expert in hand-to-hand combat. Black belt in karate; brown belt in judo.
CLOSEST RELATIVE: None.
I handed the complete application form to the young woman at the desk, who flashed a courteous smile and set it aside with a quick glance.
“Please take a seat, Mr. Gould. Mr. Bartlett will be with you in a little while.”
I returned her smile and strolled back to my mustard-colored vinyl chair. The room was decorated in a plush dentist’s-waiting-room decor, complete with limp back issues of Time and Reader’s Digest that are now being hoarded by enterprising interior decorators specifically for this purpose. The only things missing were the piped-in Christmas music played by the Boston Pops and the impatient little kids defiantly picking their noses. Instead, there was an anxious silence and three very husky men filling out the same application form I had just completed. Fortunately, I had one big advantage over all of them—I lied.
Except for my name, address, phone number, marital status and physical characteristics, everything else on that form was pure invention, designed for the singular purpose of getting me the $500-a-month job of guarding a Mr. Eugene C. Bartlett’s body. As for that PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, I had needed a long enough time period to show I was reliable, but short enough to show I was effective. And my former employer had to be somebody with enough class and education to know the right person to hire in the first place, so I made him a doctor. But he also needed a name to suggest certain influential and formidable connections; hence the Bertocelli. However, the DANGER ELIMINATED had been pure inspiration. Just the right phrase to demonstrate a rugged efficiency.
The SPECIAL SKILLS had been the hardest part, but I finally reasoned that karate and judo showed them you were tough without making you too responsible if your boss gets shot. After all, if somebody wanted to get rid of somebody else these days, they wouldn’t beat him to death, they’d shoot him. As for that CLOSEST RELATIVE: None—I figured that that gave me a certain aura of an independent loner, while at the same time preventing them from investigating me through my parents.
All in all, I felt that I had been particularly clever in covering myself on all fronts, a feeling re-enforced by the instant dismissal, with apologies, of two of the other applicants who had turned in their sheets. Only I and one of the huskies had been told to wait.
The young woman at the desk gathered the applications, flashed another courteous smile in our direction and disappeared through the large wooden doors behind her desk. Her short skirt and long shapely legs reminded me that I hadn’t been with a woman properly since my last night in New York, three months ago. But at this point, anything that moved reminded me of that. Maybe I should ask her out, I considered while staring at her empty chair, my imagination already discovering whether she was a natural blonde.
By the time she returned through the doors, my imagination and I were completely satisfied that everything about her was authentic. But when I glanced at the husky, I could tell by his grin that he was still undecided.
“Mr. Gould?” she called. “Mr. Bartlett will see you now.”
We exchanged smiles again as I was led through the wooden doors into Mr. Bartlett’s office. “Mr. Gould, Mr. Bartlett,” she said and returned to the outer office and the preying eyes of the husky. For a brief moment I felt concerned for her safety, but as I looked around the room that soon gave way to concern for my own safety.
Directly in front of me stood a large ornate desk cluttered with dozens of colorful paperweights in amusing forms of pistols, knives, grenades, and a plastic cube enclosing a yellow butterfly suspended in mid-flutter. On either side of the desk sat two figures who, except for their somewhat human appearance, also may very well have been paperweights—or at least bookends. Both stared at me with the same distasteful expression, as if sharing the same unpleasant thoughts.
Sitting casually on the edge of the desk facing me with a friendly smile was a slim middle-aged man whose boyish looks were marred only by the hint in his eyes of a slight cruel streak, giving him the appearance of a slightly sadistic Ozzie Nelson.
“Welcome Mr. Gould. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable,” he said, shaking my reluctant hand as I sat. “These are my associates, Mr. Farrow and Mr. Putnam,” he added, not bothering to distinguish which name belonged to which associate. “We were quite impressed with your application, as you can well imagine.”
I swallowed nervously. Did that mean he suspected me?
“It was nothing,” I admitted modestly.
“Now, now, Mr. Gould. We’ll have none of that,” he scolded as if I were Dave or Ricky Nelson.
I swallowed again. “We won’t?”
“Certainly not. A man of your caliber is hard enough to come by these days, so there’s no need for modesty here. Right boys?”
The boys grunted something that might have been “Right.”
“Besides, if you’re the right man for the job, Mr. Gould, there might even be a substantial bonus in it for you. You’ll find that we like to take care of our own around here, just like one big happy family. Don’t we boys?”
The boys grunted something that might have been “Yes.”
“As I said, we were quite impressed with your application. That’s why you were asked to wait. All we want to do now is ask you a few routine questions. Okay?”
I grunted something that might have been “Okay.”
“Now, about this Dr. Bertocelli: Just what kind of a doctor is he and why did he need a bodyguard?”
“He was a psychiatrist,” I said tentatively.
“What do you mean ‘was’?”
“Well, he still is: I mean he was also one when I worked for him.”
“And why would a psychiatrist need a bodyguard?”
“For protection.” Suddenly I was talking like a schoolboy trying to answer a question in an exam for which he didn’t study.
Mr. Bartlett sighed, while Farrow’s and Putnam’s lips curled in what I took to be a display of impatience. “And why did Dr. Bertocelli feel that he needed this protection?”
I quickly scanned my memory through all the mystery novels and crime shows I’d ever read or seen for a suitable plot. “Well, Dr. Bertocelli was not just a psychiatrist,” I said meaningfully, allowing them to interpret the sinister implications in my voice. “In fact, he was officially retired. However, he did have substantial real estate investments in large areas of New York City and Long Island, as well as various other, shall we say, interests. Anyway, with the rent strikes and political pressures, not to mention certain organizational disputes, Dr. Bertocelli decided that just to be on the safe side he should have a bodyguard. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you without breaking confidence.”
“And as to this ‘Danger eliminated’ . . .” he said, waiting for me to finish his sentence.
“As to that,” I explained, “after repeated unsuccessful attempts on the doctor’s life, I managed to track down the source of the threat and . . . eliminated the danger.” I smiled to show I enjoyed my
work.
“Quite resourceful of you, Mr. Gould. Quite resourceful. But it says in your application that you have no next of kin, no relatives. Is that true?”
J nodded sadly.
“Well, now,” he sympathized, “that’s a shame. Isn’t it boys?”
The boys grunted sympathetically.
“And how long have you been in Los Angeles, Mr. Gould?”
“Three months.”
“And in this time have you made any . . . close friends?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, someone to be contacted in case anything should happen to you.”
I shook my head.
He made a small notation on my application and continued. “I must admit that I was especially impressed with your qualifications concerning your special skills in karate and judo, but I suppose it’s important for people with slight builds like you and me to be able to defend themselves in a fight. But how are you with a gun?” he asked and suddenly tossed me one of the paperweight pistols from his desk, which slipped through my hands and bounced off my leg on the large bruise where Gus had kicked me three months ago—the last visible reminder of that occasion.
“Fair,” I said, picking the gun up from under the desk. I straightened up again and began to twirl the gun clumsily around my index finger.
Farrow and Putnam curled their lips again, this time in a display of contempt.
“I’m sure you realize how important it is that you be proficient with a gun, Mr. Gould. After all, there’s no need to tell you that in your business, a man could get killed.”
“Pardon?” I said, grabbing the spinning gun from my finger.
“I said, a man could get killed.”
That’s what I thought he said.
“Well, there’s no need to be concerned about that, Mr. Bartlett. Guns are my business.” I smiled to show that guns were my business.
The Goulden Fleece Page 2
