Carlo put the account folder aside as if the sight of it now offended him. ‘American dollars, of course,’ he said. ‘You have more than doubled your money.’
Vic did not look in the least pleased. He just said: ‘How? How have I doubled it? Tell me, Mr Lech.’
Carlo touched the account folder without looking at it. ‘It is all here, Sir. I thought you understood figures.’
Vic made a spitting sound. ‘Sure I understand figures, when I know how they’ve been cooked. You, or rather your boy Paul here, now tells me that my money hasn’t been in that bank after all. So where has it been?’
‘Acting on your behalf, we held it in a deposit account.’
‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Acting on my behalf, you said. Right? So what did you invest it in? German blue chips? Schering? Siemens? Daimler-Benz? Hoechst? What was the portfolio?’
Carlo had a small ebony-edged silver ruler which he used as a paperweight. With it, he suddenly rapped on the desk. ‘That is enough, sir,’ he said sternly. ‘I am a lawyer, not an investment banker. You found it convenient to utilize my services in order to hold your money in trust. I have held it in trust. It is more than intact. You can receive it back at any time you wish, less my proper fees but plus compound interest at bank rates as they have fluctuated over the relevant period. You have more than doubled your money. What is your complaint?’
Vic sat back, as if relaxing, then cocked an eye again at me. ‘What kind of an account do you charmers say you put it in?’
‘A deposit account.’
He made his spitting noise again. ‘Now, I know you’re lying. If you had opened anything at all in my behalf, it would have been a discretionary investment account. No, let’s cut the crap now, eh, Pauly? I’ve done my homework, I figure that, over the last eight years you’ve had them to play with, you and Mr Lech have made a cool million out of my seventy-three thousand. That would be par for the course. Now, you tell me you’ve doubled my money plus a few bucks, less your fees of course, and ask me what my complaint is. Are you serious?’
What did he think we were? Nice guys about to vote him a pension as sucker of the year? He had indeed done some homework, but not as much as he thought. In fact, thanks to the Lugano bank’s post-war policy of investment in German industry, we had made over two million dollars out of his particular nest-egg. Now, it remained only to get rid of the man.
‘How would you like your money, Mr Vic?’ I asked. ‘A draft on the Chase-Manhattan in Geneva? A telex transfer to your own bank in the United States? Cash?’
He examined us both carefully for a moment or two without answering. Carlo began tapping on the desk-top with his ruler.
Then, Vic broke his own silence with a short laugh. ‘The shyster and his shill!’ he said.
Carlo stopped tapping and I saw that he had gone quite pale. His colloquial English was not good, but it was good enough to understand the word ‘shyster’. Rather than let him say something he might regret, I got in first.
‘Don’t push your luck, Vic,’ I said. ‘We could always ship it back as truck tyres. It’s cash, I take it. Dollars in century bills?’
‘Fifties or centuries, but I want them right now.’
Carlo reached for the intercom and told the matriarch to get the bank on the phone. That was unnecessary because we kept a cash float of half a million dollars in a safe deposit box. He was playing for time; to think, presumably, though what there was to think about just then I did not immediately understand. When the bank was put through, he said first that I would shortly be requiring access to the safe deposit vault. Then he told the procurator at the other end to wait and, looking at Vic, asked him in Italian if, in view of the large sum of money he would be carrying, he would like a bank escort to his hotel.
I gathered, correctly, that this was a test question to see if Vic understood Italian. When it was evident that he did not, Carlo repeated the question in English.
No, Vic did not need an escort, thank you very much; he could take care of himself.
Carlo said goodbye to the procurator and then went on speaking in Italian to me.
‘Paul, I want the receipt from him for the money to be witnessed by someone at the bank. Make a ceremony of it. And I particularly want those old notarized receipts of mine back. Then, I want to know as soon as possible which hotel he’s in. Offer to share a taxi with him and drop him off. Then phone me the name of the hotel immediately. Unless it’s within a couple of minutes of here don’t wait until you get back.’
It was not the moment to ask him what he was up to, so I went ahead and did exactly as I had been told.
Vic made difficulties about signing for the money, but the actual sight of it and the solemnity of the bank officials quietened him down eventually. The old receipts he handed over without a murmur. Only about half the money was in hundreds and he had trouble stuffing it all into his nice new brief-case. He rejected my suggestion that we share a taxi — now that he had the money he seemed scared of me — but he let me flag one down for him and tell the driver where to go.
I called Carlo from the nearest cafe and reported.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You have all the receipts? Splendid. Now please bring them back here, Paul.’
When he had the originals spread out on the desk he looked at them as if they were old and much-loved friends.
‘How could such an otherwise cautious man be so stupid?’ he asked. ‘If they had been mine, I would have set light to every single one myself before I handed you its ashes.’
‘He was too worried about the receipt that he had to sign.’
‘That is why I asked for it. Oh yes, it will be useful, but it will be the first ones which will count. Look at the dates! How interesting, and how devastatingly conclusive.’
‘Conclusive of what?’
He did not answer straightaway. ‘What is that name he called you, Paul?’
‘Shill?’
‘Yes. What does it mean?’
‘Mostly it’s the slang word for a professional gambler’s accomplice who is there to make winning look easy, but con-men and other crooks also use shills. A shill is a person, man or woman, who persuades the victims to come and try their luck, to let themselves be swindled.’
He sighed. ‘One would think we had lost this foolish man’s money, instead of doubling it. Well, he must pay for his insolence. As soon as you phoned me I arranged to have him tailed from his hotel.’ He responded to my raised eyebrows, ‘I wish to know what he does with the money.’
‘If he has any sense he’ll put it in a bank.’
‘Yes, but which bank and where? It is too late today, but perhaps he will travel overnight. Where to? Lausanne? Basle?’
A wild thought occurred to me. ‘You’re not thinking of taking it back off him, Carlo?’
‘It would serve him right, but we are not thieves. No, I simply wish to know which branch of which bank he chooses.’
Then what?’
‘The American Internal Revenue Service pays a ten per cent reward to informers who give them proof that a US citizen has failed to declare income.’
‘You’d inform on Vic?’
‘I? Great heavens, no! I have an associate in New York who will do that. I will just send him the evidence. Think of the wringing hands when the IRS descends on our friend Mr Vic with their demands for back audits. What was the source of these large sums obtained while you were serving in the army and for which we hold receipts? Why did you no report them? You refuse to answer because to do so might incriminate you? Then answer this. We have evidence here of a capital gain by you of over eighty thousand dollars. Why was that not reported? Where is it? We’ll tell you. It’s in such-and-such a bank. And before you add perjury to the rest of the crimes you’re going to be charged with, let us remind you of this. Swiss bank secrecy doesn’t protect persons who can be shown to have committed criminal offences like stealing US army property. What a fine time they will have!’