Our Nigel is in deep. Too deep. It gets less impressive as it goes on.
Meanwhile, an apology: I missed the last two paragraphs of Ads Part 37 in the previous post. They were lurking on a short overrun page under the rest of the text in the original document. Carla, Bill, and Felicity are now partners in the agency. Now added.
Alan, the private detective who was so unobtrusive that Al had to remind himself he was one, came into Al’s office early in the morning with an expression on his face that was entirely uninformative. Silently he handed Al a news clipping. It was a pretty big usage of paper, and Alan said he needed to talk to Al after he read it.
Most of it was pictures. In the corner was a large picture of Nigel, evidently while helping brewers sleep well. The headline said, “Huge Cosmetics Heist Arrests.” There was another picture of rows of boxes of perfumes, colognes, etc., and in the background a glimpse of a warehouse roof. The article was no triumph of recklessly informative zeal:
“Mr. Nigel Bottomley, of London, was today charged with the alleged theft of several million dollars’ worth of designer cosmetics and threatening behavior. Police said that Mr. Bottomley was discovered selling the stolen goods in Bondi, and that a search of his home had located several dozen boxes of various goods identified as those stolen from a distributor last year. Subsequent investigations located the warehouse (pictured) with the stolen goods, and Mr. Bottomley was then formally charged. Mr. Bottomley then allegedly threatened the arresting officers, saying that his contacts would “get them”.
Mr. Bottomley’s lawyer denied that his client had threatened police, and said that Mr. Bottomley had a perfectly legitimate business reason for being in possession of the cosmetics, and was unaware that they were stolen, and disputed that any of his merchandise was part of the stolen items. Police further noted that Mr. Bottomley was currently listed as a missing person, and said that they intended to question him regarding that matter. Mr. Bottomley, when asked, yelled to a reporter that he’d never been missing in the first place, and that he hadn’t reported himself as missing.
A friend of Mr. Bottomley’s, identifying himself only as Bruce, when informed of his arrest, said “I believe Nigel’s a decent person at heart? He’d only have all those perfumes if he really needed them? You know?”
A final picture showed Piranha Woman being restrained by police. With her malocclusion flashing in the sunlight.
“OK, Alan, I have no idea what to make of it. What’s the story? Obviously there’s more to it than that.”
“Thank God I know I don’t need to explain that to you. The cosmetics are the least of the matter. You’ll remember we were talking about money laundering, and that all those contacts Fazzina and Nigel made were likely to be set ups for a major scam? The police found a list of contacts in the States in Nigel’s place. I was wondering if you’d like to come down to the station and have a look.”
“Try and stop me.”
They arrived at a modern if maudlin building in Surrey Hills, and were directed to a somewhat sparse interview room. In walked Stan, their friendly local policeman, dressed as a very obviously very senior policeman. That threw Al, because the guy had been so informal in all the months he’d known him that it simply hadn’t occurred to him to ask what rank Stan was. It so happened that Stan, as an area commander, had been aware of a few irritants in his area, and in his spare time, with Alan’s assistance, had been doing a bit of creative digging of his own.
He must have looked surprised, because Stan grinned and said,
“Yeah, I dress up occasionally. Have a go at this little phone book of names here.”
There were no surprises, until he got to Harvey White and a long line of American names that Al knew by reputation. Of course, this didn’t actually pin anything at all on White: “So someone’s got my name and number; so what? I’m in the phone book,” about covered it. Al tried to imagine the combination of Nigel and Harvey, and understandably winced. The other two noticed the expression come and go.
Alan said that they were about to interview Nigel, and that they thought it might be useful if Al was present, because he knew the US contacts, and could explain who they were. Al was sited with Alan behind a one way mirror as the police began their interview. He noted that the recording of the interview was being done meticulously, and that few TV shows ever really captured the vibes. This was a real formal process. The police on duty obviously felt the presence of Stan, too, so the interview was done strictly by regulation.
That probably saved time, because Nigel certainly didn’t feel any need for brevity. Nothing was said that didn’t convey his sense of his own importance. Even his accent had gruesomely modified itself into the pseudo-theatrical voice used by people who normally speak like clogged drains. Positively fruity was this voice.[1] The only thing that did seem to unsettle him was Stan, in full regalia, saying nothing. Al, unlike Nigel, noticed that the Aussie cops were looking irritated, but doggedly sticking to the task, however nauseating. The material would have to be sorted out later. What Nigel really needed was an editor; each question was answered as below, the abuse has been left out. Most of it dealt with Nigel’s opinion of the police and their personal appearance. The interviewing officer kept his questions utilitarian.
Q. When did you come into possession of the cosmetics?
A. I don’t have to answer that. I am a legitimate businessman, and I know my rights. I think you’re trying to get at my clients. I won’t say anything that you can use against them.
Interviewing officer: (While Stan tried staring Nigel into the carpet) Mr. Bottomley, you have been formally charged with possession of stolen merchandise. It’s important that we establish whether you legally own that merchandise. If you can prove that you own the cosmetics, we can’t charge you.
A. I think you’re trying to set me up. You’re….what’s it called…..verballing me.
Q. (from Stan) Who’s Tony Fazzina?
A. A friend I used to work with.
Q. Who’s Harvey White?
A. A business associate of Mr. Fazzina’s.
The “who’s so and so” went on for a while. Stan then asked,
Q. Mr. Bottomley, some of these are very important people. So my next question is, who are you, to them?
A. (Confidently) I’m the person they want to do their business for them in Australia. I’m the one who arranges things for them. They’re my colleagues. Like I said, I’m a legitimate salesman.
Q. Do you have a wholesaler’s license?
A. A what?
Q. Do you have a retailer’s license?
A. Nah. I’m an importer.
Q. Do you have an importer’s license?
A. Not on me, no.
Q. Do you have a bill of sale or a receipt or any other kind of documentation for your purchase of the cosmetics?
A. It’s in my papers. If you’d bothered to check, you’d have found it by now. Typical incompetence……
Q. From whom were the cosmetics purchased?
A. From a distributor in the UK. He’s an old friend. He shipped them over here.
Q. From the UK?
A. Yes…….no, from the States.
Six hours of this established that Nigel was as unconvincing a liar as anyone there had ever seen. His touching belief in the idea of importing goods was fatal enough. Any import generates a paper trail leading back to Adam’s birth certificate. Stan finally pulled the plug on him.
Q. Mr. Bottomley; you are aware, I take it, that every statement you have made to this date, if true, can be verified by bills of lading, commercial sources, such as inventories, and the like, and that we can access this information easily?
A. I’m sure you can.
Q. You still maintain that you came into possession of these goods legally?
A. Silence. (Al thought Nigel was trying to look aloof, but he just looked like he had indigestion).
Stan: (finally speaking for the first time) I’ll give you until tomorrow to decide if you want to tell us anything a bit more specific, Mr. Bottomley. You’ll be seeing your lawyer in the morning, and I suggest you give him a full briefing on what you’ve said in this interview.
It was an intimidating train of thought, if Nigel got around to thinking about it, in Al’s opinion. Stan had turned Nigel around very systematically, without saying a word or doing anything except drink his glasses of water. Nigel obviously found that degree of silence intimidating. The abuse had long ago dried up, and the confidence had all but evaporated. Nigel now looked like a version of Al’s original bottomless opinion of him. Alan said, conversationally, “There’s a bloke who can keep a secret.” The police grinned.
Al had been thinking about the list. Those people were a selection of “players” in the States, not big time of themselves, but collectively they made quite a combination, in a lot of businesses. They were the sort of sleazy, bit part, people that always showed up when the money was getting spread about. They were often book entries, accounting entities, not real people, in the sense of going to work and doing a job. They had better things to do. They more or less fitted the Harvey White mould of anonymity. Generally speaking it didn’t pay to ask who they were, because no answers were ever going to be trustworthy and anything can be denied if you have no solid information. Nigel, viewed as a facilitator for them, made far more sense than Nigel doing anything in his own right being worth millions. However, this was clumsy stuff at best. Those people didn’t go in for stolen goods and such other mundane things. If they ever got arrested for anything it was all white collar and nothing serious. Nigel being that stupid was in character, though.
Al told Stan what he could about the people on the list, and apologized because it wasn’t much, beyond his awareness of their presence and some of the things that they were supposedly involved in. He could, and did, go into as much detail about White as he could. He wound up telling them the entire jagged, inconclusive, story of the Stone Gold White saga, and the various interactions that were going on in the States. Featherman wasn’t on the list, and was added, largely because of his association with Nigel, which struck Al later as like mentioning a dog because it was associated with a tail. He said it might be better if they asked Saul or David about them.
Nigel caved in at his lawyer’s insistence the following day. He didn’t just fold, he ironed himself as well. There was an epic of his doings over the last year or so, and the list was about three times longer when he finished. It seemed that Featherman had put him on to the person who gave him the cosmetics to sell. Featherman himself was now somewhere in Europe, according to his secretary. About all Nigel had going for him was that he really didn’t know they were stolen. That fact made him look a few unhealthy shades more ridiculous to the police, however, and his own importance had quietly shot itself in the process.
Perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view, the first stanzas of Nigel’s denouement came while Bruce and Piranha Woman were present. It may have been Nigel’s deep boozer’s need to be visible, or just stupidity, but it was a revelation to Al, seated accidentally outside the interview room out of sight. He caught his first glimpse of Bruce, a short, fashionable 50-ish, dressed in something from a rather neurotic remake of Hair, looking concerned…..maybe. Piranha Woman, in contrast, looked very macho. They talked the legs off the furniture. Nigel was silent. Stan, again in full uniform, had just entered to get Nigel to make a statement one way or the other, and was clearly unprepared for the scene. Al didn’t think anyone could ever be prepared for Bruce in person. The conversation became quite sweet.
Bruce: Oh, you must be the policeman? Nice to meet you? Haven’t we met? I was at the 1987 Masked Spinsters’ Ball? Dressed as a lamington?
Piranha Woman: Oh Nige, Oh Nige…….(Violins might have helped at this point, but most violins are a bit picky about what sort of melodrama they accompany).
Nigel: (Far too Dickensian, even for Dickens, accent at full blast) Look, copper, I got sumthink ter say. I done it. It was ver bloke wot Featherman introduced me to, vat bloke Gary, who give me ver stuff and ver trucks. Me lawyer said he don’t want no part of it if I don’t tell yer. I wanted ter be someone, yer know wot I mean? I had ter be one uv ver big boys. I…….(breaks off in coughing fit, about as glamorous as he sounded).
Stan was evidently finding the departure from “legitimate businessman” to Cockney idiot a bit hard to take. Bravely he turned to Bruce as his officers walked in. They stared disbelievingly at Stan as he said,
Stan: Oh, you’re Bruce? No, I don’t think we’ve met? I must dash? We have Nigel here to attend to?
Nigel was taken into the interview room in which Al gathered that everything but the St. Valentines Day Massacre was something to do with Nigel. Even when telling the truth he was unconvincing. Alan, sitting with him, said that with some witnesses the problem was largely shutting them up, and keeping to the point. Outside, he heard Bruce and Piranha Woman leaving, Bruce saying,
“There, there, dear? What a well-spoken policeman? Our Nigel will do the right thing?”
A policewoman on the reception desk was heard laughing like a hyena as the door closed. Inside, Nigel was finally drained of his anecdotes and sent back to his cell. Al heard Nigel telling one of the cops that “Me piles are hurting something awful,” which seemed a pretty strange choice of audience for the subject. It was also Al’s last glimpse of Nigel, an apt postscript to a very forgettable person.
Stan entered looking bemused. Alan looked sympathetic.
“How much of that did you believe?” he asked, grinning.
“I think the bit about the Cities of the Plain was perhaps a little overdone. Other than that, he’s been a great help in telling us what parts of his story he couldn’t possibly know anything about.”
“What I don’t understand is why he insisted on incriminating himself, so badly, and so often.”
[1] Those interested in the ramifications of that description are advised that a look at the Dried Fruit Act will be enlightening. It always is.