He went across the hall to the bathroom, took himself a shower, went back to his room, and put on his best clothes. He polished his good shoes with the bath towel.
He left everything else in the room. The landlady could keep them or throw them out, her choice. He could care less. He was going back to where he belonged, with the good old boys who liked to move out and all the same as he did. Old Rugged Cross with his legs gone, and Eddie and Frank and the skinny dago and the nigger captain, and by God he was going to have himself some fun.
Seven
The colonel waited patiently while Helen Tremont wheeled the tea cart around the oval oak table, serving mugs of coffee and wedges of Danish pastry to each of the five men. When she left the room, he leaned forward, his arms on the table before him.
He said, “Albert Platt. Born September four, nineteen twenty-one, in Brooklyn. Raised in the Brownsville and East New York sections of that borough. Arrested nineteen thirty-six for auto theft, served six months in Chatworth Reformatory. Nineteen thirty-eight to forty-one, arrested five times on charges ranging from simple assault to rape. Charges dropped for lack of evidence. Inducted into the armed forces in nineteen forty-two, dishonorably discharged later that same year. Arrested nineteen forty-four, assault with a deadly weapon. Charges dropped. Arrested nineteen forty-six, homicide. Witnesses refused to testify. Arrested nineteen forty-eight, homicide. Witness mysteriously disappeared, charges dropped.”
The colonel sipped at his coffee. “No arrests since nineteen forty-eight,” he said. “Until that date Platt operated primarily in Brooklyn and Long Island. In nineteen forty-eight he moved across the river to New Jersey. He established a connection with a group of New Jersey racketeers, including Philip Longostini, known to intimates as Phil the Lobster. Longostini’s interests included several restaurants and nightclubs in Bergen County, two suburban garbage collection services, a vending machine corporation, two bowling alleys, and a chain of laundry and dry-cleaning establishments. He was also reputed to control bookmaking and loan shark operations in northern New Jersey, and wielded unofficial power in at least three labor unions.
“By nineteen fifty-two Platt had established himself as Longostini’s chief enforcer — I believe that’s the term?” He looked for confirmation to Manso, who nodded. “Platt’s activities in this capacity were not such as to lead to his arrest, but it would seem that at least a dozen acts of murder were carried out either by him or under his orders.” The colonel placed the tips of his fingers together and looked thoughtfully at them. “I have read that one should be pleased when criminals turn to legitimate enterprise, that this will in some mysterious way effect their reform. This is a witless notion. The only result is that the enterprise itself becomes illegitimate. For that matter, I have read that crime does not pay and that criminals come to a bad end. Philip Longostini’s bad end came in July of nineteen sixty-four at his four-acre estate in Englewood Cliffs. He died peacefully in his sleep at the age of seventy-three and left an estate estimated at... well, this is immaterial, isn’t it?”
The colonel’s eyes worked their way around the table, focusing in turn upon Murdock and Dehn and Simmons and Giordano and Manso. He said, “Edward?”
“Sir?”
“The photographs.”
Manso passed him a large Manila envelope. The colonel opened the clasp and withdrew half a dozen 8-by-11 photos. “Edward was able to take these in Las Vegas,” he said. “Albert Platt appears in each. In this photograph you will note the man immediately on Platt’s right. Edward?”
“Buddy Rice. He drives Platt’s car and bodyguards him.”
“I believe you said he carries a gun.”
Manso nodded. “A forty-five in a shoulder rig. He’s also supposed to be very good with a knife.”
Dehn said, “You got all this in Vegas?”
“I spent a day asking a few questions.”
“He get any kind of a make on you?”
“I don’t think so. We were at the same crap table once, but between the broad on his arm and the trouble the dice were giving him I don’t think he paid any attention to me.”
The colonel waited until the photos made their way around the table and returned to him. He gathered them up and put them back in the envelope. He drank more coffee, set the cup down empty. “So much for the background,” he said “You’ll want to take detailed notes from here on in.” He waited while the five uncapped pens and opened pocket notebooks. “Platt did not take over all of Longostini’s operations,” he began. “You’ll understand that the newspapers were vague on this, but my sister has become rather adept at research. She went beyond the usual coverage and pieced out details from the accounts of several senatorial investigations. Platt seems to be in direct control of approximately a third of organized criminal activity in Bergen County and the surrounding area. His income from legitimate sources alone is quite high. He lives in a pre-Revolutionary estate on four acres of land just south of Tenafly. The grounds are walled off and patrolled by armed guards. Rumors circulate that associates of his who have disappeared over the years are buried in wooded areas of the estate.
“But that, too, is largely immaterial. More to the point, Platt has broadened and extended the scope of his operations. As I said, he did not take over completely upon Longostini’s death. He gave up gambling interests in return for full control of loan shark activities. And, early in nineteen sixty-six, he widened his interests to include the banking business. It was at that time that he acquired control of the Passaic Bank of Commerce and Industry.”
Simmons said, “With a criminal record?”
“His control is unofficial. The president of the bank is Jerome Gegner, who has no criminal record. Gegner’s former employment includes a stint as manager of the Thirty-Thirty Club in Paterson. He also served as vice-president and treasurer of Harco Automatic Vending, Inc. Both of these firms were originally owned by Philip Longostini. Members of the board of directors of the Passaic Bank of Commerce and Industry include several other known associates of Platt’s. One of them is surprisingly young to be a bank director. His name is Silvertree. Oddly enough, he happens to be married to Albert Platt’s niece.”
The colonel paused to give the note-takers a chance to catch up. Some of them, he knew, would be able to read back his words almost verbatim. Dehn and Simmons were like this. Murdock, on the other hand, would write down almost nothing, preferring to rely on his memory.
“Banking and finance seems an odd choice for Platt,” he said at length. “When Eddie brought this whole matter up, my first reaction was that Platt must be the organizer or financier of a gang of robbers. The idea of criminal interests actually owning a bank did not even occur to me. Since then I’ve learned more about criminal resourcefulness. It seems Platt was only following a current trend in gangster circles. As long ago as nineteen sixty, men like Platt have sought out banks with a rather poor profit picture, banks that may be acquired with little difficulty. There are several banks in the Chicago area that are known to be under mob control, along with one on Long Island and several others in various parts of the country.
“They serve a very valuable function. For one thing, they provide an ideal cover for the extraordinary cash flow involved in criminal enterprises. They also permit loan sharks to cloak themselves in an aura of legitimacy. Suppose, for example, that a businessman wants to borrow a truly substantial sum of money. A hundred thousand dollars, let us say. His credit situation is such that he cannot obtain the loan from a legitimate source. He goes to Platt, who loans him the money at standard terms, except that the borrower signs a note, not for the hundred thousand he receives, but for twice that amount. Thus Platt has a bona fide note for two hundred thousand dollars, along with a staff of thugs to make sure that the debt is eventually collected. And his books show no profit beyond the legal interest on the principal of the note; the extra hundred thousand dollars is invisible profit.