The Big Con (7 page)

Mr. Bates is chary. Is Maxwell trying to make a touch? What is this deal? Is it legitimate? How much would he have to invest? And, though he does not say so, the really serious question is:
How much is the profit involved?
He stalls for more information.

Mr. Maxwell drops the question of financing and tells him about the deal. He explains that through his central office pass the race results for all the bookmakers in the city, that the horse-poolrooms are growing fat on the profits from gambling on races, that rich men with inside information can win through the bookmakers, but that the poor fellow with only a form-sheet to guide him always loses more than he makes. He says that he has worked out a system whereby he can beat the bookmakers at their own game by delaying the results long enough to ’phone them to his assistants who are to be stationed next door to the poolroom and who will bet on the races after they are run. Then the results will be released, and of course their bets will pay a very neat profit. And no one will suffer but the rich and dishonest bookmakers.

Once the mark has gone this far, he seldom backs out. If he does, further pressure may be put on him or he may
be dropped altogether. But we will assume that Maxwell’s smooth voice and sincere manner have had their effect. Bates likes the proposition and sees in it a high profit with no risk. It is a sure thing.

“Now,” says Mr. Maxwell, aside to Mr. Bates, “Louis doesn’t understand much about this business and I will count on you to take the responsibility of seeing that everything goes all right. You and he go on down to this address on 48th Street and look the place over. Then go into the drugstore next door and wait for a call from me at three sharp. I’ll give you the name of the winner and hold up the results just long enough for you to go next door and place your bet. I can’t hold them for more than three or four minutes. That way we can see whether or not our system will work, and of course you and Louis can keep anything you win for yourselves. If it works out, we will want to try something bigger.”

Mr. Bates and Louis follow the instructions they have received. They visit the poolroom and find there all the paraphernalia that go with a booking establishment. Races are chalked on the blackboard. The ticker is thrumming merrily. Prosperous gentlemen are winning and losing large bets nonchalantly. The caller calls the races with great zest. Bets of $10,000 to $20,000 are laid casually. Very large amounts of cash are changing hands like nickels in a crap game. Everywhere there is cash. The patrons peel off large bets from fat bank rolls or from bulging wallets. The cashier counts out $40,000 winnings without batting an eye. Louis and Mr. Bates are much impressed. A little of the fever of that atmosphere has worked its way into Mr. Bates’ blood.

Three o’clock approaches. They return to the drugstore. Maxwell gives them, shall we say, Seabiscuit as winner. They hasten back and plunge into the thick and throbbing atmosphere. Both Mr. Bates and Louis put a ten-dollar bill on Seabiscuit to win. Mr. Bates feels a
queer sensation of mingled guilt and triumph. It is a wonderful feeling to bet on a sure thing, even for ten dollars. They have hardly placed their bets when the caller says the magic words, “They’re off!” Then he calls the race. Seabiscuit wins, at 4-1. Our pair of innocents collect fifty dollars each. The larceny in Mr. Bates’ veins begins to percolate. He can already see a fortune stretching out ahead of him. Why, there is no limit—except the resources of the bookmaker—to what one could make out of this thing. And there are thousands of bookmakers.

They look about them while they await the next race. The same air of dignified, restrained feverishness prevails. No one seems to notice them. Mr. Bates looks the crowd over. It is not large, but it is sporty. Brokers with pasty faces. Sportsmen, tanned and casual. A financier with a Vandyke and highly tailored clothes. The thick blue haze wherein mingle the thin silver streams from a dozen fine cigars. They are betting, joking, absorbed in themselves.

Mr. Bates is a little taken aback at the nonchalant way in which these men handle money. He likes it, and would like to feel that he is a part of it. But he knows that he isn’t. He turns to his friend Sanborn. The next race is coming up. They retire to the ’phone for more information. Then they bet fifty dollars each on War Admiral to win at 4-1. He does.

This nets them $250 apiece. “I think I’ll shoot the works on the next race,” says Mr. Bates. Sanborn counsels caution. After all, this thing is just starting. This is only an experiment to see if their plan will work. Charley knows what he is about, and perhaps they had better do as he says and place only small bets. But Mr. Bates is hooked. He returns to the telephone, awaits a horse, and comes back with the firm intention of placing the $250 on his nose. Louis cautiously refrains from betting this time.

Mr. Bates hurries to the window to place his bet. He
has the $250 in his pocket, ready to be laid. But there are several men just ahead of him. They are laying down very big bets. He cannot help noticing the fat, sleek piles of fives, tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds in the cashier’s drawer. He sees the piles of bills on the shelf behind the cashier. He sees the deft hands swiftly paying out and taking in thousands of dollars. He grows impatient. Time is short. The race will be called any moment now. He pushes the line along, but it doesn’t seem to move fast enough. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and peers ahead. Only one man, now. Laying a fifteen thousand dollar bet. Will he never get that money counted down? The man moves casually away, biting the end off a heavy cigar. Mr. Bates removes the wadded bills from his pocket. Challedon. Charley said Challedon to win.

“They’re off!” shouts the caller.

Mr. Bates stands there, futilely fingering his money. Betting is closed. Challedon …. Where is Challedon? He lags to the rear. He is under wraps. The caller reads off the ticker with such animation that he might as well have been an eyewitness. Will Challedon never make his move? Here it is. They enter the stretch with Challedon moving up. He is booted home a winner. And 6–1. Mr. Bates does a little sketchy mental arithmetic and wonders why he wasn’t just one ahead in the line at the window.

He doesn’t know it, but he has been given the “shutout” or the “prat-out,” a clever method of stepping up the larceny in the veins of a mark when the manager feels that he is not entering into the play enthusiastically enough. It may be repeated several times so that the mark is fully impressed with what he has missed. The shills who surround the mark at the window usually play for more than the mark is being played for; if the mark is being played for $25,000, the air is full of $50,000 bets; thus the mark always feels like a piker instead of a
plunger. Furthermore, ambitious marks must not be allowed to get too much of the store’s cash into their pockets.

Mr. Bates returns to Louis. “Tough luck,” says Louis.

A suave-looking gentleman approaches them. He is quiet, polite, but authoritative. And just a little condescending. Mr. Bates doesn’t know just why, but he feels embarrassed.

“Are you the gentlemen who have been placing these small bets?” he asks, waving a pair of slips.

“We just made a fifty-dollar bet, if you call that small,” says Louis.

The manager looks at them with patronizing good nature. “Well, I’ll have to ask you not to place any more small bets here,” he says. “We have other poolrooms for working men. Small bets make too much bookkeeping for us.” He smiles and gently starts them toward the door. Mr. Bates feels patronized. He doesn’t like it.

“How much does a man have to bet here?” asks Louis.

“A thousand dollars is usually the lower limit,” answers the manager, smiling. “Beyond that, you can go as high as you like. Come back, gentlemen, some other time.”

As they pass the doorman, they see Maxwell coming down the street. “Did it work?” asks cousin Charley. “If it did, we can all make a fortune.”

“We won a couple of hundred dollars apiece on two bets,” volunteers Louis. “But we never got any further. They called us pikers because we didn’t bet high enough.”

“Never mind that, my boy,” answers Charley. “When the time comes we will arrange to bet high enough to suit them. Let’s go over to the hotel. I want to discuss this thing further with you in private.”

Up in the suite at the Fairdale Mr. Bates hears what he wants to hear.

“This particular poolroom,” says cousin Charley, “is the one that I have marked to work on. I know that they have
very extensive financial backing. Their volume of business must be tremendous.”

Mr. Bates, with a mind full of greenbacks, reflects that it certainly must be.

“They can lose a million and never miss it,” continues Charley. “My plan is to take eight or nine hundred thousand in four or five days, then quit. What do you gentlemen say?”

Mr. Bates and Louis agree that it would indeed be a desirable course of action.

“But we have to have cash to finance it,” says Charley. “That is why I was so concerned about Brown. He could dig up the cash we need. Let’s see, I believe you were thinking that you might raise some for us?”

“How much would you need?” asks Mr. Bates, fearful of appearing too anxious.

“Do you think you would be willing to finance it?” asks Charley. “After all, you know, I haven’t much except my salary and Louis here is just getting a start. How much can you raise?”

Mr. Bates studies. He figures on an envelope. His mind is a whirl of mortgages, real estate, government bonds. It may take a couple of weeks to sell his business. Bonds would be the quickest. Government bonds.

“I think I could pick up twenty-five thousand within the next couple of days. Or maybe sooner,” he adds, mindful of the potential Mr. Brown. “Is your friend definitely out?”

Mr. Maxwell is very cool and practical. “I hate to let Brown down,” he muses. “But I think this arrangement will be fine. How much did you say you could raise? Twenty-five thousand? How is this money? In cash?”

“No, no,” says Mr. Bates, “in bonds. Government bonds. I’ll have to have my banker sell them and forward me a draft for the proceeds.”

“That would be fine,” says Charley.

“Now,” says Mr. Bates, “how do you intend to split the profits? I would want to pay you whatever is right, but if I put up the money, I ought to get a good share of the profits. Otherwise it wouldn’t pay me to get into it.”

Mr. Bates suddenly feels important. All he needs is the information. He has the cash. That is the important thing. These men can be paid off at his own price if he finances it now, quickly, before someone else is cut in.

“I have thought that over,” says cousin Charley. “Since the plan is mine, I think I ought to have at least fifty per cent. And we should cut Louis in for about twenty per cent for his co-operation. That would leave you thirty per cent which would make you a very good return on your investment.”

Mr. Bates doesn’t like that arrangement. He wants to cut those men out of all he can. Of course they must have something, but why let Louis in on it at all? And Maxwell. Why, he would go to prison if this thing ever became known. He schemes and argues. As they dicker, Maxwell humors him by working out a compromise whereby he and Bates will split ninety per cent of the profit, and Louis will get the remaining ten. Mr. Bates still feels that they have been too generous with Louis. He moves immediately to ’phone his banker in Providence. But Maxwell interposes.

“This deal must be kept absolutely secret,” he argues. “If you ’phone in for money in a hurry, your banker may become suspicious. You know how bankers are. He may feel that you are making a mistake to dump a block of bonds like that on the market right now. It will be a little more expensive, but much safer if you catch a train out of here this afternoon and talk to your banker personally tomorrow. Explain that you are buying some real estate here in the city and want to pay down that much cash.”

“But,” interposes Bates, turning to Louis, “what about that appointment with your lawyers?”

“Don’t worry about that,” says Louis. “I’ll take care of everything for you. Just send me a telegram as soon as you know when you’ll be back and I’ll fix things up at the office.”

“That’s right,” says Charley. “And you’d better add a note in that telegram which will let me know how much money you are bringing. But we don’t want anyone to suspect you are bringing it. So let a thousand dollars equal, say, one ‘bushel.’ Then you can say, ‘Bringing twenty-five bushels’ and I’ll know you are prepared to go right ahead with the deal.”

This stage of the game is known as “the send.” It is a strange fact that, once a good insideman “tightens up” a mark, he can be sent anywhere for his money and will usually return despite all obstacles. For example, during the week of July 3, 1939, the metropolitan papers carried stories on the case of Mr. Leonard B. Reel, a public accountant of Beach Haven, New Jersey, who, with his wife, was put on the send from Mexico City. The couple flew to Philadelphia and brought back $74,000 which they lost on the rag to the Velvet Kid. They reported that they made the trip with some difficulty, having been forced down en route by storms four different times. If the con men think that they can get away with using the mails, they may not use “the send.”

Mr. Bates agrees that it will be best to make the trip. There must be no slips. For a moment he fears what might happen if this scheme came to light. Then he remembers that he is only financing it. He feels better. Also, the $250 in his wallet will more than cover his expenses on the trip home. Mr. Bates watches his pennies. But on the other hand, is it safe to leave the deal open here? Suppose Brown—or someone else—turned up with the ready cash?

“You have decided definitely that I am to finance it?” he asks.

“Yes, indeed,” says Charley. “Here is my hand on it. Well shake hands all the way around. That swears us all to keep this deal absolutely secret.”

They all shake hands, though having Louis cut in on the deal still sticks in Bates’ crop. After all ten per cent isn’t much, and Louis still holds the key to the sale of his store. Well, he’ll get that ten per cent back and more when Louis’ company takes up that option.