It
all began two and a half years before and quite by accident. After spending
five years at Stanford studying finance, economics and law, Marty Reingold
wanted time to relax. The average looking nerd wanted to reflect on life and to
have some fun. To pay expenses, he worked part time as a waiter at Café Claude
in San Francisco.
Matt Hunt, was a college
drop out. He attended UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara but spent most of his
college years surfing and bumming around the West Coast working his way north.
He had a real love and talent for dealing with vegetation of all kinds. In
spite of his dislike of any kind of labor, he ended up with a fairly lucrative
landscape business serving the most prestigious home gardens in San Francisco.
His radiant personality and movie star looks attracted clients, especially of
the female variety.
One
night Matt was out with the daughter of one of his clients at Café’ Claude. He
and the waiter struck up a conversation and by the next day Marty Reingold
became an employee of Matt Hunt’s landscape service. The young men
developed an unlikely but deep friendship.
Marty
impressed enough of the landscape clients with his education and knowledge and
Matt with his good looks and personality, that soon the twosome was included in
San Francisco’s elite nightlife making society’s invitation list as available,
interesting bachelors.
At
a party on Nob Hill, not wanting to wait in a long line, Matt dodged into the
owner’s private bathroom next to his study. When his landscape customer
entered the room and began talking on his phone about a business deal Matt
peaked his head around the corner to eavesdrop. He saw the man remove a large
bundle of papers from the wall safe hidden behind an oil painting. Lester
McCracken talked as he rustled through them. When he dropped the stack of
papers they spread around the room. Matt was about to offer to help retrieve
the flying mass when a woman opened the door.
“Lester, you’re needed right now for the toast.”
“Damn it. I can’t come right now. I have to pick up these bonds.” The
man continued locating and re-stacking.
“Oh, forget that. You have to come right now. The crowd is waiting on
your announcement.”
“I’ll call you back later. Eleanor issued an order.” Lester hung up the
phone looked around the room at the mess and then left, locking the door behind
him.
Matt exited the bathroom and picked up one of the old bonds meaning to
return it to the stack. U.S. Treasury Department was written across the
top. Not being able to resist the urge, he slipped several into his jacket
pocket and left the room re-locking the door behind him.
He
joined Marty, had a few more drinks and the two of them left with friends spending
the evening at a local jazz bar. They ended the night very late as usual. Matt
forgot about the bonds until the next morning when he was hanging up his
jacket.
As
he sipped his coffee he looked at the documents. “Oh my God. These things are for
two-hundred-fifty-thousand each.” Matt called Marty excitement in his voice.
“Get over here quick. I need to show you something.”
Once Marty arrived at Matt’s he confirmed the amount of each of the
bonds. ‘These look authentic. But, the government doesn’t issue these things
anymore. They’re bearer bonds.”
“What exactly are bearer bonds?” Matt asked.
“They’re fixed-income instruments, owned
by whoever is holding it, rather than having a registered owner like regular
bonds.”
”So,
are you saying they’re like cash?”
“Superior to cash, really, because they’re unregistered, no records ever
kept of the owners or the transactions.
“Wow, what a find!”
“Matt, you have to get these back to McCracken or you’re going to be in
big trouble. Just a little lesson for you my friend. Bearer bonds have
historically been the financial instruments of choice for money laundering, tax
evasion, and concealed business transactions in general. Because of this, new
issuances of bearer bonds were severely curtailed in the United States in 1982.
All the U.S. bearer bonds ever issued have matured yet the treasury has over a
hundred and thirty-five billion still outstanding. The ones you have are a
drop-in-the-bucket. Nowadays bearer bonds are used mostly by the drug cartels.
They’re better than other ways of exchanging funds. Interesting that these were
issued in 1944.”
“Ole Lester didn’t even know I was in the room. But, I’ll stick them
back under a piece of furniture in his study sometime when I’m doing landscape
work at his place. Since you’re such a wizard, why don’t you do some research
and find out why he had a big stack of them.”
***
A
few days later Marty reported what he found out with his on-line research.
Lester’s family money came from McCraken Arms and Munitions. Marty’s theory was
that the bonds were most likely payment for some kind of World War II weapons,
maybe something the government didn’t want anyone to know about.
Two
weeks passed and neither Matt nor Marty heard or read a thing about the missing
bonds. Matt worked at Lester’s home planning to return them but when the man
waved to him and smiled from his study balcony Matt returned the smile and kept
the precious documents.
"Marty, help me figure
out a way to cash this landfall. It's all so easy. It looks like McCracken
doesn’t even know the bonds are missing. No one knows and we could be set for
life. All we have to do is figure out how to convert them to cash." Matt
tried hard to convince his friend.
"Matt, you're not thinking straight." Marty handed a copy of
the Wall Street Journal to Matt. "Today I found this small article about
the McCracken family and how one Lester McCracken was missing some family
papers. He's hired Paul Bryan Detective Agency to find them. They ask for
anyone knowing anything about the missing papers to call the listed phone
number."
***
The
next week when Matt did his regular landscaping in the McCracken gardens, a man
approached him and introduced himself as non-other than Paul Bryan. He
informally questioned Matt about his knowledge of Mr. McCracken’s home and
specifically his study. Matt told him he knew little about the inside of the
home because his work was outdoors. The detective mentioned that Matt’s name
had been on a party list and that he knew Matt attended at least one event
there.
“Mr. Bryan, I had a grand time at a party but it was held in the living
area. I didn’t know about a study. Why do you ask?”
Bryan gave Matt a long look then gave him his card and walked away. “If
you think of anything unusual you might have seen the night of that party, give
me a call. Some bonds went missing the night of the party.”
Marty had a similar
experience with the detective.
***
"Marty, my friend." Matt continued his mission to keep the
bonds. "If they wanted anyone to know
they owned these bonds the law, FBI and all,
would be involved. They can't prove anyone took
anything from them."
Matt smiled and slapped
his buddy on the back when Marty agreed to find a way to keep them. The
opportunity for quick wealth was too appealing to resist.
“Okay Matt.” Marty said. “We have to get the bonds out of the
country, into a Swiss Bank and then we need to disappear for awhile. We can't
spend the money, any of it, until things cool down. You know Bryan is going to
have us followed if we leave the country, don’t you?” Marty warned Matt.
“Yes but I have a plan that should clear us once and for all. We’re
going to outsmart ole Bryan in Italy and make a fool out of him. First of all,
don’t make it a secret we plan to take a vacation. The second part is pretty
funny.” He continued to explain to his partner. “I know an actress who
had access to all kinds of elaborate stage props. One of her gigs was a movie
about a huge bank robbery. She kept the fake currency for fun after the film
was complete. It was all very real looking U.S. Treasury bonds, not bills. I’ve
made a deal with her to buy a stack of the stage currency.”
***
On
the morning of June 4, 2009, Matt Hunt and Marty Reingold boarded Lufthansa
flight 889 for Rome, dressed in jeans and carrying backpacks. Upon landing,
custom agents assisted by Detective Bryan searched the twosome. No one found
the old bearer bonds concealed below the keyboards of their laptops but agents
did find a stack of authentic looking bonds nestled in between the pages of a
novel, Wall Street. The
authorities and Detective Bryan were thrown off guard when the young Americans
explained they were planning to make a film about a heist and the stage-bonds
were to be used for that purpose.
“Detective Bryan, your questioning and such gave us the idea for our
film. We have you to thank for that. There’s not a law against making movies is
there?”
***
A
year later, Marty Reingold and Matt Hunt smiled as they sipped glasses of fine
Italian wine at a small sidewalk café overlooking the Duomo in Florence.
Tomorrow their plane to Zurich would leave early. A representative from Credit
Suisse, referred by a friend in San Francisco would pick them up at the airport
and the final deposit of the funds would be complete.
“Hey man, I never thought we’d really pull it
off, but here we are, not a care in the world.” Marty leaned back in his chair
and looked around the plaza.
“Go
figure. It was all so easy.” Matt laughed out loud.
“Yeah. You were right, it was meant to be.”
