That is not to say, however, that some of them did not over the years withdraw their deposits, having devised their own ways of accounting for them. Some of the ways worked. Few attempted, though, to use the legacy method of getting their money, and most who did chickened out, as Carlo had predicted they would, before the pay-off was finally made.
The typical American customer seeking to close his account with us was usually in Europe on a business or vacation trip. Mostly, they wrote, after leaving the United States and generally from London or Paris, to announce that they were on their way. Those who went unannounced direct to Lugano were referred to Milan, and Carlo was immediately given advance warning either by telephone or by one of our couriers. When such customers arrived they were usually, and quite naturally, a bit flustered. Doubt and greed, plus a little anger and a lot of fear, make a disturbing emotional mix; but most were easy to handle.
The one who so upset Carlo was exceptional in a number of respects. To being with, he was not flustered, only bloody-minded. Furthermore, during the time that had elapsed since I had signed him up in Germany, he had returned to the United States and, under the GI Bill of Rights, qualified as an accountant. In addition, he had married a woman, also an accountant, whom he had met while they were both attending a post-graduate course in business administration. She had worked then for a firm of Wall Street investment bankers. After their marriage they had gone into business together, starting an employment agency specialising in trained data-processing staff.
This customer was so different from our prototypical Mr Q that I shall call him Vic — as in Victor and victim.
When I first met him, Vic had been dealing with the already overcrowded market for stolen PX goods, but later, thanks to a lucky posting and a promotion, he had been able to switch to army truck tyres and make real money. By the time his tour of duty in Germany ended we were holding over seventy thousand dollars for him, and he, although he had met Carlo only once, held nine of the notarized receipts. The courier service we operated made such transactions fairly routine, once confidence had been established at an initial meeting, as well as safer. The meeting usually took place near Zug, where Carlo’s holding corporation was registered.
Vic gave no advance warning of his arrival in Milan, and none was received from Lugano because he had not bothered to go there. I had other projects to supervise by then, and was dividing my time between Milan and three other cities. It was by chance that I was there when Vic descended on us. A lucky chance, I think; not because the occasion was in the least enjoyable, but because it made me think more carefully than I had thought before about Carlo. Naturally, he called me in to greet his old client and my old friend.
At first, Vic showed no signs at all of bloody-mindedness. He was not exactly affable, but cool, polite and collected. He had a brand-new Gucci brief-case which he carefully placed on the floor between his legs. Then he told us what a wonderful little woman he had married and why he hadn’t troubled to go to the bank in Lugano.
A month earlier they had been talking about expanding their business, of opening a second office in Chicago. They had spoken of the additional capital that would be needed and of the problems of borrowing it they would have to face. In the watches of the night Vic had revealed for the first time that while in the army he had not always been a simple soldier.
Mrs Vic had heard his confession with surprise but only token distress. They were both human, weren’t they? Once her surprise had worn off curiosity had taken over. Her Wall Street experience had given her some knowledge of Swiss banking customs. What sort of an account did he say he had? An anonymous one? Didn’t he mean numbered? No, he meant one hundred per cent anonymous numbered. Well, honey, I have news for you. There are numbered accounts, but not one hundred per cent anonymous ones. Okay, your name’s not on the account externally, but it’s on it internally. The only anonymity lies in the fact that no more than five key bank personnel can match the name to the number. Exactly how did you open this account? What sort of application did you sign?
Now, Vic turned narrowed eyes in my direction. ‘How many other suckers did you sign up, Paul baby?’
‘You had an anonymous account.’
‘There’s no such thing.’
‘There’s no such thing now. The rules were changed when the double-taxation conventions were signed.’
‘Bullshit!’
I gave him the weary look. ‘If you yourself had not insisted that, for security reasons, contacts between us could only be made on your initiative, you would long ago have been formally notified of the situation. Why project your paranoia on us? If you had simply gone to the Lugano bank you would have been referred here automatically.’
‘Well, now that I’m here un-automatically, where’s the money?’
I looked at Carlo. He already had his hand on the intercom to the outer office. He flipped the switch and said in English: ‘Send in the current confidential fiscal account of Mr Vic’ To Vic he said: ‘I am assuming that you can produce the original receipts that I notarized. You have them with you?’
‘Sure.’ He reached for the brief-case and took out an old-fashioned pouch file of the kind that is tied with a linen tape. He undid the tape, took out the receipts and spread them out elaborately in the shape of a fan. ‘How many peanuts are they worth now?’ he asked unpleasantly.
What interested me at once was their condition. I had seen a number of those receipts produced for inspection in Carlo’s office, and always before they had looked unfit even for his elegant waste-basket. Either they had been dog-eared and greasy from years of furtive handling and re-examination, or so creased, folded and refolded to suit strange hiding-places that they were nearly falling apart. Vic’s were all clean and smooth. As well as being astute and impertinent, he was also, it seemed, overwhelmingly sure of himself.
Carlo’s senior secretary, the matriarch, came in with the statement of account and placed it reverently on the desk in front of him.
Normally, that is faced with a client who had minded his manners and was there merely to enquire about the state of his dream money, Carlo would have let the account lie there for a few minutes while he chatted away knowledgeably about some new sculptor whose work had caught his eye, or the follies of currency speculation, or anything else that had happened to come into his mind as he sat there. The truth was that the accounts, which were always updated twice a year, were his own particular pride and joy. He did them himself and they were masterpieces of obfuscation. One of his greatest pleasures was to see a client, on examining an account, purse his lips and then nod vaguely as if it were all perfectly understandable. He believed that the preliminary chit-chat — what he called his abracadabra — helped the process along by bemusing the client.
With Vic, however, abracadabra was obviously not going to work. Besides, the fellow annoyed him. Almost before the secretary had left the room, Carlo leaned forward and tossed the account folder in Vic’s direction.
Vic caught it neatly, opened it and spent about ten seconds glancing at each of the three pages inside. Then, he slapped it shut and skimmed it back so that it plopped on to the desk right under Carlo’s nose.
‘Mr Lech,’ he said, ‘I left you with seventy-three thousand dollars of mine. In eight years those dollars have become one hundred eighty-six thousand somethings. First question, what kind of somethings? Lire?’