The Scarlet Ruse Read Free Page B

together. "Eighteen months ago, a little longer ago, I guess, this man phones up, his name is Frank Sprenger, he wants to have a talk with me about investing in stamps. He says he heard about me from so and so. I knew the name. Excuse me, I don't like to give out names. It's a confidential relationship. So I drove over to the Beach, and he's got a condominium apartment, like a penthouse, in the Seascape. It's in the afternoon. There is a party going on, girls and laughing and loud music and so forth. Sprenger comes and takes me into a bedroom down a hall and shuts the door. He is big and broad, and he has a great tan. He has a great haircut. He smells like pine trees. He is not going to tell me what he does for a living. It is entertainment, maybe. Like with girls or horses or importing grass. Why should I care who I deal with? The protections are there. I do a clean business and pay my taxes. I give my sales talk. He listens good. He asks the right questions. I show him a sample of the agreement and a sample receipt like I sign to show the total investment and a sample inventory list like he can have if he wants. He says he will let me know. He finally lets me know it is yes. We meet at the bank and set up the box, and I sign the agreement, and we get it notarized. He says he can't say how much or how often, but it will usually be cash and is that okay? I tell him okay. He gives me forty thousand in cash in a big brown manila envelope right there, and I put it in my business account. Who wants to walk these streets with money like that? He had the two fellows who came with him waiting in the car. I'm alone. The items I showed you, that's not Sprenger's account. Sprenger said he didn't want anything well known, any special item that dealers would know on sight. I said it would make a little more volume. He said okay, but keep the volume down."
    "Did his request mean anything to you?" I asked Fedderman.
    "What do you mean?"
    "He planned to turn over cash in unpredictable amounts for merchandise which couldn't be traced. Did you make any guesses about him from that?"
    "Guesses? A man can do a lot of guessing. Why should I care? I can prove the money turned over to me from my copy of the receipt and from my deposit record. I can show where it went, show my percentage for my own taxes. Suppose it isn't his money. Suppose he's getting ready to run. Any time he wants, he can meet me at the bank, give me back my signed agreement, take the merchandise home."
    "What did you invest in?"
    "Superb unused blocks of four without plate numbers. High values. Columbians, Trans-Mississippi, Zeppelins. Some larger multiples, like a beautiful block of nine of the two-dollar Trans-Miss, mint, sixty-five hundred it cost me. Same kind of purchases of Canadian Jubilee in the high-dollar values. Also some older stuff when they were perfect singles, used or unused, like a nice mint copy each of Canada numbers one, two, five, seven, nine, and thirteen. Twelve thousand, five hundred right there. Value." He leaned toward me. "It is the most valuable stuff, Mr. McGee, on a size and weight basis, the world has ever known. Some years ago Ray Weil and his brother, Roger, bought a Hawaiian stamp at auction for forty thousand. Very thin paper. Some newspaper guy in New Orleans, I think it was, figured out that it came to one and a half billion dollars a pound."
    "I'm impressed."
    "It doesn't come with bubble gum."
    "I said I'm impressed, Mr. Fedderman."
    "Call me Hirsh, please."
    "Hirsh, I want to know what happened. How did you get taken? Or did you get taken?"
    "You know those early Canadas? The way I came onto them, there was this old guy up in Jacksonville, he-"
    "Hirsh!"
    "Okay, I'm sorry. They were switched."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I mean what I said! Sprenger did a lot of business with me. A lot! I had to really hustle to find the right stuff. I know the figure by heart. Call it nineteen months. Three hundred and ninety-five thousand. My ten percent on