“That’s just one example. There could be any number of others. A man in Platt’s position inevitably handles large sums of hot money that have to be rechanneled into circulation. A bank serves admirably in this respect. No doubt he functions as a broker for other criminals as well. You remember the Ackermann kidnapping, of course. The details slip my mind, but as I recall there was a quarter of a million dollars worth of marked bills involved, and none of that money has yet turned up in circulation. A crook with a bank at his disposal could purchase that ransom money from the kidnappers for thirty or forty cents on the dollar and simply hold it as cash reserves until the heat died down.”
Giordano asked if there was any connection between Platt and the Ackermann kidnapping. The colonel said there was not. “Just what use Platt has made of his banks is immaterial,” he said.
Dehn said, “Banks?”
“Yes. He acquired a second just a little over a year ago. The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall, also in Bergen County. You’ll want to write that down. No, we don’t know just what use Platt has made of these banks, except that he seems to have been an innovator in one respect. He’s found an original way to increase his banks’ profit.”
“How?”
“By robbing them.”
Giordano had to admit it was brilliant. He listened carefully as the colonel went through the whole thing, and his own mind began racing on ahead, playing with the possibilities of the whole thing. He had thought he knew of most of the standard gambits. Fire insurance, for example. There were an incredible number of ways to burn down one’s property for the insurance, and he knew of so many cases that he often wondered if a fire had ever started by accident. From what he knew, you could make out fairly nicely that way. If you had a business that was losing money, you just made sure you were carrying the right type and amount of insurance, and then you crossed two wires and went home. That way you wound up with a little more than the business was conceivably worth, and you avoided the headache of finding somebody who was fool enough to buy it
It was a great way out of a bad situation, he thought, but not much more than that; there was no way to have both the business and the money. This bank dodge, though — that was something else entirely.
You started out by setting it up right, finding some excuse to have the maximum amount of cash in the vault. Then you sent your own men in, and they had less trouble knocking the place over than you’d have opening a can of peas. They made it look good, maybe even tossed a few bullets around for added realism. You, in turn, made sure somebody went through the motions of turning in the alarm — but not so quick as to create any hassles. The federal investigators came in and they investigated, and all they found out was that the bank had been robbed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation made most of the loss good, and whatever they didn’t cover would show on the bank’s books as a loss and would just save you that much more in taxes. So you wound up with the cash you had robbed, plus the cash from the FDIC, plus the loss on the books. And if any of the money from the bank happened to be hot, you just put it back in the vault and let it sit on ice until it cooled off again.
When the colonel finished, Giordano lifted his hand. “It’s very neat, sir,” he said. “But one thing. It’s sort of one-time-only, isn’t it? Platt can do this once and score for whatever it was, three hundred fifty thou, but he can’t do it again, can he?”
“No.”
“Because the feds would have a tip to it. Even now they might have a good idea of what happened, but unless they find the robbers and tie them to Platt, they can’t do a thing about it. But if he tried it again, they could put him in a box.”
“That’s correct.”
Simmons said, “Of course he has two banks. He might try the same trick with the other bank.”
“Maybe in ten years,” Giordano said. “Not before then.”
“Because they would make a connection, Louis?”
“They’d have to, sir. This Platt, I would guess he’s hoping nobody else just happens to knock off one of his banks. Because if either one of them gets hit, a lot of people are going to take a long look at Mr. Platt.”
He studied the colonel. There was the ghost of a smile on the colonel’s lips, and Giordano got it. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”
The colonel said, “Operation Bankroll.”
Giordano was nodding to himself. He looked around the table, one face after another, and now they all got it.
“Operation Bankroll,” the colonel repeated. “The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall. That’s Mr. Platt’s bank, gentlemen, and we are going to roll right over it.”
Eight
The pickup truck was blue, with STEDMAN’S TREE SURGERY / LAMBERTVILLE, PA. lettered in white on the sides. The back of the truck held a couple of saws, a bucket of creosote, a stepladder, and a mound of branches and odd cuttings. Simmons, dressed in overalls and a denim cap, sat behind the wheel. Murdock was at the side door of the house talking to the woman.
“See, my helper, he noticed it from the road,” Murdock was saying. “Tell the truth, I wouldn’t of seen it myself, but then he’s got sharp eyes for a nigger.”
“A Negro,” the woman said.
“Yes, ma’am. Anyway, he seen it and slowed down, and I took a look, and that limb’s got to come off, ma’am. The borers is into it so bad there’s no saving it. The rest of the tree is sound, they’ll do like that sometimes, but that one limb is rotten with borers, and all they can do is spread. I ain’t saying she’s got to come off this minute or the tree’ll be gone tomorrow, nothing like that. But I will say that they’ll be on into the trunk by fall and be killing that tree by next spring.”
The woman said, “Termites.”
“No, borers is what they are. Termites you’ll get in houses, in dead wood, but borers—”
“We had a man who insisted the house was crawly with termites. He offered to clear them out for three hundred dollars.” The woman smiled frigidly. “We found out it was a racket.”
Murdock had his cap in his hands. He was twisting it, and Simmons fought back a laugh. Thick-soled boots and blue jeans and that flannel shirt and twisting his cap — the perfect redneck, Simmons thought.
“Well, Miz Tuthill,” Murdock said. “Well, now. Termite inspectors, well you don’t have to tell me about them.”
“He said he was just passing through,” Mrs. Tuthill said. “And for that reason he would do the job at a special rate. We didn’t even have any termites, as it happened.”
“Well,” Murdock said. “Well, borers you sure do have, Miz Tuthill. You come and look at that tree and you’ll see them borers. Why, from where you’re standing you can see how the leaves is growing funny. You see that big red oak there? See where I’m pointing? Now can you see the second branch from the bottom on the right? See those leaves, how they’re a sort of a paler shade of green, kind of on the sick side?”
The woman was nodding.
“Now I’ll tell you true, Miz Tuthill, ma’am, not like any old termite inspector. We don’t entirely wait for work to come our way. You can’t, not in this business. Mr. Stedman, what he says—”
“Oh, then you’re not Mr. Stedman?”
“No, ma’am.” Murdock smiled. “Why, there’s better than twenty of us works for Mr. Stedman, he’s the biggest tree surgeon in all eastern Pennsylvania. What he says, he says you have to look for work that has to be done. He says by the time the average person notices something wrong with a tree, why, it’s too late to do more than cut the whole thing down. An oak like that, an oak must of took forty, fifty years to grow, it’s a powerful shame to lose it.”