Double Exit (Biff's Shorts)

by Biff Olson

  Double Exit

  Biff Olson

  Copyright © 2012 Biff Olson

  Cover design © 2012 by Hukilau

  First Digital Edition: February 2012

  Published by Hukilau, Los Angeles, California, USA.

  http://www.hukilau.us/

  Public Domain cover photo

  All rights reserved

  At 10:22 a.m. on Wednesday, the third day of August, Louis Corazano walked out of Holiday Car Rentals on Chicago’s Philo Street; the dark-blue Dodge waiting at the curb was his for the next four days. Corazano got in, listened for a few moments to the engine’s strong idle, then pulled from the curb and drove five blocks south. He turned left on Homer Street near the city’s southern boundary, then he turned left again and into the parking area of his recently acquired Power Locks & Safes factory. This morning was warming into a fine spring day. A perfect day, thought Corazano, to rob a bank.

  Corazano’s factory, a dingy gray eyesore of corrugated metal and concrete, lay in an abused area of mostly rotting ex-warehouses. The building’s roof hung with a bulky sag and its paneless windows hid behind roughly secured plywood. The fact that it still stood at all seemed almost stoic, defying both age and gravity. The only entrance, an oversized door fortified with three large locks, faced a cramped, wire-fence-enclosed parking lot that contained Corazano’s rented Dodge, a “company” van, and two other cars, both belonging to close participants in Louis Corazano’s current “business project.”

  There were only two pieces of operable equipment inside the building’s heavily insulated walls. One, a furnace used in the casting of safes and vaults, had been put to much use over the past several days. The other, an elderly stamp press, lay unused in a far corner. There were just three rooms in the factory: a small office, the main workroom, and a foul-smelling, barely functioning bathroom. Corazano had acquired this sunny environment by paying a businessman named Stinky Louie one thousand dollars for some “custom altered documents” and then applying for and receiving a small business loan designated for disabled Native American veterans ...a category for which Corazano had none of the requisite credentials.

  His first task upon entering the factory was to check the newly cast front of a bank’s night-deposit vault which lay on a low bench in the middle of the workroom. The lettering on the vault’s front attributed its ownership to Illinois Northern Bank. The mold it came from was sitting heavily on the floor near a windowless wall, its front hanging open like an exhausted tongue.

  On an okay from Corazano, two men loaded the vault front into a recently painted white van bearing on its side in large green letters the words “Toro Safe Equipment Company.” The two men, dressed as Toro workmen, climbed in the front of the van and drove slowly out of the factory entrance and down a nearby side street. They traveled sixteen blocks to a predesignated location about a half block from the front entrance to the Euclid Street branch of Illinois Northern Bank, there taking a parking spot facing the bank. Then, they waited.

  In front of the bank sat another van bearing the Toro name, this a “legitimate” member of the Toro fleet. A new night-deposit vault had just been installed in the bank’s front wall, taking about an hour and a half for the work crew to finish. After a quick cleanup, the three Toro workmen climbed aboard their van and headed back to the Toro factory. Less than a minute later, Corazano’s fake Toro van pulled in front of the newly installed vault and his men hopped out. They had brooms, a small electric polisher, and various other cleaning tools. Working in well-rehearsed unison, they brought out the counterfeit vault face and quickly hoisted it up and over the face of the newly installed vault. Being significantly larger, the counterfeit face fit easily over the vault’s front, leaving an inside “well” between the two as a deposit receptacle. The electronic polisher the men brought with them concealed a drill inserted through the polishing brush... and it made fast work of securing the new face in place against the building’s brick exterior. Finishing in just under ten minutes, the men climbed back into their van and then disappeared down a side street.

  The van had done its job and was now expendable. An hour later, it was deposited at a local chop shop in exchange for $1,600... a clear profit for Corazano’s “helpers” who had stolen the van less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  * * *

  At 4:02 p.m. on Wednesday, the third day of August, a phone call was received at the office of Delong Stockton, the president and chairman of the board of Chicago Founders Mutual Insurance Corporation. The caller was Frances Mulnari, a claims adjuster for Chicago Founders who had contacted Stockton to apprise him of some very upsetting news. A few minutes earlier, Mulnari had received a phone call from the owner of a large Midwestern distributorship who’d just been notified that one of his trucks had been hijacked about three hours earlier. Mulnari was calling Stockton to inform him that Chicago Founders was the insurer of the now missing $1,655,000 shipment of business computer components.

  An emergency board meeting was called for 8:00 that same evening. Present were Stockton and the five other board members. As soon as the participants were seated, details of the hijacking were given. This was the second board meeting in the last three days, the first being assembled to discuss the rather disastrous financial position Chicago Founders was currently experiencing. This second meeting presented a stunned silence for those attending... there was no way the company could absorb a $1,655,000 loss at this time. Chicago Founders hovered near the edge of bankruptcy.

  Ultimately, the only decision reached at the meeting was to take no direct action at all, but instead to gamble that the hijackers would be caught quickly and the cargo recovered before Chicago Founders would have to admit they couldn’t pay the claim. Another meeting was scheduled for 10:00 the next morning. This time, several members of the company’s law firm would also be present.

  * * *

  At 12:35 a.m. on Thursday, the forth day of August, Louis Corazano, in a beard-and-glasses disguise, stopped his rented Dodge in front of the Euclid Street branch of Illinois Northern Bank. He got out and walked the few steps to the night-deposit vault. A sweeping glance up and down the street assured him that he was alone. He then withdrew a key from the right pocket of his sports jacket, looked up and down the street once more, and unlocked the vault door. Within seconds, Corazano returned to his car with $269,640.43, the entire cash deposits from ninety-eight of the neighboring businesses, deposits that had been collected by the Owners Security Guild, a small security force formed recently by the local Business Owners Association to thwart a growing number of robberies. It had worked well until this morning.

  * * *

  At 9:04 this same morning, Delong Stockton received another phone call at Chicago Founders Mutual Insurance Corporation. The caller’s voice was low and gruff, well disguised. “Stockton, listen to me,” the caller demanded. “I’ve got the hijacked cargo...”

  “Who is this...?” Stockton interrupted.

  The voice: “Never mind who I am, Stockton. It’s what I have to offer that’s of interest. I’ve got the computer equipment from the truck my boys hijacked. The load you insured. And I’ll sell it all back to you for $500,000. You’ll save your company a pile of money if you do the smart thing.”

  “I don’t follow you...”

  “You follow me fine, Stockton. It’s not that difficult. I have 882 boxes of computer parts and I’m willing to give you first crack at buying them all back. Frankly, I don’t care who I sell to. But if you don’t buy them, then your company’s going to be out the entire insured value. That’s a swallow I’m betting you don’t want to take.”

  Stockton, hesitantly: “Go on.”

  “You think it over. If you want any chanc
e of making this work, there are two rules. No cops and no marked bills. I’ll call back between one and two this afternoon. And try to make this a business decision, Stockton. Strictly business.” At that, the line clicked dead, then revived with a droning hum.

  Stockton sat scowling, a sour taste creeping up the back of his throat. This would be a most disagreeable way out... but from a “strictly business” standpoint, it was a viable consideration. And it received the same reaction at the board meeting less than two hours later. After forty minutes of discussion, and with the urging of the majority of the members present, including the youngest, vice president Carl Bokashian, it was decided that they would pay the ransom. After all, the financial situation at Chicago Founders was desperate. They simply didn’t have the resources to cover the $1,655,000 claim, but they could “borrow” $500,000 from the corporate employees’ pension fund and this would buy them some time. Meanwhile, despite the ransomer’s demands, the police would be contacted surreptitiously and kept apprised of the situation.

  Immediately, arrangements were made which seemed to satisfy both the police and Stockton’s board. The money would be paid in non-sequential bills which would appear unmarked, but in fact, each stack of notes was to be coated with a chemical that would turn bright red within twenty-five to thirty hours. At the direction of the police, no one at Chicago Founders but Stockton was to know about this diversion from the ransom caller’s instructions. That meant Vice President Carl Bokashian and the rest of the board were also to be uninformed.

  But Bokashian was on top of the situation in other ways. In fact, he’d already planned his afternoon ransom call to Stockton, including follow-up instructions. Now he’d just have to count on whomever really did hijack the cargo to be clever enough not to get caught for at least a couple days.

  Carl Bokashian was a gambler. More accurately, he was a bad gambler. Numbers, horses, cards, even high school football games... it didn’t matter as long as there was a chance to win. Unfortunately for Bokashian, each opportunity to win carried with it an opportunity to lose. And Bokashian was far better at the latter, creating a disastrous financial situation that led him to this current desperate act, the biggest wager of his life.

  Between his gambling losses and his other debts and obligations, there was nothing left. Less than nothing. His wife, who had long ago given up on Bokashian’s gambling, received $2,500 in monthly alimony and child support payments. The payment for this month was now almost a week late. But there was another little matter of financial delinquency which now took precedence. Bokashian had run up a gambling debt of more than $60,000 to a man very inappropriately named Handsome Elmo. Elmo’s real name was Elmer Scorelli and the association for whom he worked wished payment in full from Bokashian. And these were not men to disappoint.

  These were the more pressing concerns on Bokashian’s mind during the previous day’s board meeting. And later that same evening, while watching the news, an idea began germinating. And as it grew, taking form with the aid of his fourth bourbon and water, Bokashian’s spirits started to lift. Perhaps there was a quick half million dollars to be made with just a simple deception. It would be the biggest game he’d ever been in, with the biggest stakes he’d ever played for, and it would all be resting on nothing but bluff.

  So far, Bokashian had played it right. To earn his $500,000, he would only need to make one more “ransom” call and then take a leisurely drive. He’d made his first phone call from a pay phone a few miles from the company’s offices in case the police might attempt a trace. The second call was made there, too, at 1:15 Thursday afternoon.

  “Stockton,” Bokashian began, his voice disguised as it

  had been for the first phone call, “what’s your decision?”

  “We’ve drawn out $500,000 in hundred-dollar bills. What are your instructions?”

  Bokashian directed Stockton to make the ransom delivery personally. He was to drive a significantly “twisted” route comprising several turns and several stops. At the first stop, he was to go to a public telephone at the side entrance to one of the area’s many small parks. There, at the appointed time, he would receive a phone call that would provide directions for the rest of the route to be taken. At each stop along the way, Stockton would get out, bring the money with him in a satchel, and walk to a designated spot. He was to wait at that point for ten minutes. At one of these stops, he would transfer the money... but he wasn’t to know which stop. And there was to be no outside involvement, no one else along for the ride. No police, no private guards, no one but Stockton.

  “There’s one question,” Stockton said after receiving the directions. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll return the cargo? In fact, how do I know you even have it?”

  “You’ve got no choice but to believe me, Stockton, and you’ll have to live with that for the next few hours. Besides, if I don’t have the cargo, how do I know what it is, how do I know how many boxes there are? The hijacking hasn’t been reported by the media yet, how could I even know there was a hijacking?” The voice fell silent for a few seconds, then spoke again, “When we make the money pass, I’ll let you know where you can find your cargo. And I know who you are, Stockton, I know what you look like. So don’t try sending anyone else in your place. And one other thing, I’ve got a partner. He’ll be close by with a high-powered rifle just in case you get stupid and vary from the script. You don’t get it right, you’re dead. Understand?”

  There was a long pause while Stockton weighed the options and the consequences. The police had been notified immediately after the first phone call from Bokashian and they reluctantly had given their consent for a ransom payment. The board had also voted their approval. And one thing that gave Stockton at least some solace was that in twenty-five-or-so hours, the money would turn both bright red and unspendable. And so, the deal was made.

  At 2:30 that afternoon, Delong Stockton placed a canvas satchel on the front seat of his ivory-and-tan Mercedes sedan, climbed in the driver’s side, and eased out of his private parking space. He drove to the first designated stop, walked over to the lone pay phone, and waited. The phone rang in less than a minute. Carl Bokashian, parked just down the road and with his cell phone in hand, had waited precisely sixty seconds after seeing Stockton drive into the parking lot. The conversation was short and one-sided.

  Stockton carefully wrote down Bokashian’s directions, then left for stop number two. The routine proved uneventful for the next few stops. Then at the fifth stop, in the picnic area at the end of the Chicago Nature Center’s parking lot, it happened. And it happened so suddenly, Stockton was caught off guard. He felt a tap on his left shoulder and a voice, the same gruff voice he’d heard during the ransom calls, told him to stand facing straight ahead. After ten minutes, he was to turn around and go to a trash can a few yards away. Under it would be the directions for retrieving the hijacked cargo.

  Stockton started to utter a protest, but a harsh, hushed “Shut up and do as you’re told” brought a compliant silence. Although he faced straight ahead as instructed, Stockton could see a reflection in the shinny surface of the pay phone’s plexiglass backing. The reflection was of a man of medium height wearing sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat. He was sporting a full, rather bushy beard and he kept his right hand inside his jacket near the left breast pocket. Stockton could easily picture the gun that might be clutched in that hand, and he stayed in his assigned position for much of the specified ten minutes.

  Once he was sure the man had left, Stockton strode to the trash can and tipped it over. Nothing was underneath.

  Frantically, Stockton called the police on his cell phone. Almost immediately, he was talking with the detective assigned to this case... who had some additional disturbing news. About thirty minutes previous, the entire hijacked cargo had been discovered in a warehouse just outside the city, the result of a rather routine tip from a suspicious neighbor. Three men were taken into custody... and none knew anything about a ransom. In fact,
they had already started taking orders from potential buyers. That meant that someone else had set up the “ransom.” Someone almost certainly with inside information.

  * * *

  It was 1:15 p.m. on Friday, the fifth day of August, when Louis Corazano walked into Lee-Ci’s Tavern on the Near East Side, a neighborhood he rarely ever visited. He needed to think things over one more time, he decided, and a couple scotch and sodas would aid that nicely. And Lee-Ci’s wasn’t a place he’d likely run into anyone he knew... especially his business partners.

  Corazano and his partners were supposed to have met that morning at 11:30 for a joyful division of their newly acquired proceeds. At 8:30 a.m., Corazano had already decided not to attend the meeting and was busily packing his belongings into the trunk of his rental car. Corazano believed in owning the fewest possessions possible, freeing him for fast and easy flight if ever the necessity might arise. He rented his apartment, he rented his furniture, he’d have rented his clothes if he could. A few personal items, a few changes of clothing, and a whole lot of cash were all he wanted right now.

  Being most concerned at first that he might be followed... a thief trusts no one, especially other thieves... Corazano started driving toward the factory where that morning’s meeting was to be held. Eventually, however, he made a right turn, then another, then still another. A few blocks farther, he reversed this progression, and then reversed again and headed in the opposite direction of his waiting partners. Then he stopped for a late breakfast, followed by a relatively brief visit to a lady friend who worked evenings in the posh upstairs bedroom of a palatial North Side estate, sometimes with Corazano as a client. He told her a lie that he wouldn’t have minded being passed on to his now ex-partners, also occasional guests of the lady’s “home.” Corazano told her he was heading to Toronto and would be back in about six months.

  He had, however, already made up his mind to head south, and for a lot longer than six months. After all, he had nearly $270,000 in stolen bank deposits and another $45,000 or so in additional cash from several less ambitious business ventures. And Corazano was more than willing to abandon his factory ownership, to walk away from a Government loan based on a portfolio of forged documents.