Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [105]
When the lights came on and a violinist took the stage, Ponzi went for a walk and a cigarette. The theater’s assistant manager, Bart Grady, found Ponzi in the lobby and told him that one of the night’s performers wanted to meet him: former heavyweight champion “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, who had moved from the ring to the stage with a comedy act.
“The man that licked John L. Sullivan?” Ponzi said. “I want to meet him.”
Grady took Ponzi to the big man’s dressing room, which Corbett shared with his comedy partner, Billy Van. Ponzi sat on an upturned trunk and looked in awe at Corbett, who stood a foot taller than he.
“Tell us about it, Ponzi,” said Corbett as he applied his makeup. “I was a bank clerk six years and you must have stumbled on something the bankers missed.”
“Yes,” Ponzi agreed. “Maybe it was an accident the bankers didn’t want to see. They don’t want people to get money. I told people to come and take it, and the newspapers get sore because the people don’t come fast enough. I am all alone in this.”
“Well, if they pick on you, let me know,” Corbett said.
While Ponzi stared at Corbett’s meaty arm, Van spoke up: “Sure, Ponzi, sign up with Jim and I. Jim’s got the punch, you’ve got the brains, and I’m me. We’ll knock ’em dead with our act.”
Ponzi thought about that a minute. “Maybe I will,” he said. “I’d like to be an actor. I had a chance to go in the movies. Now I got a chance to go onto the stage. I think pretty soon I’ll take a vacation and go with your act.” He seemed serious.
Ponzi returned to his family and laughed at Corbett and Van’s act. After the show he was mobbed by people hoping for a glimpse of him, and then it was time to go home.
After the excitement of the day before, Ponzi spent much of Wednesday, August 4, quietly laying plans for his new company. Fewer than a hundred people milled about in Pi Alley when the doors opened, and a majority of them were there to collect on matured notes. Ponzi kept up appearances, dressing this day with unmistakable symbolism in clothes fit for an angel: white Palm Beach suit, white cap, white socks, and white shoes.
Ponzi’s imperturbable poise impressed some of the Post’s competitors, who took glee in rubbing Richard Grozier’s nose in Ponzi’s relentless survival. Several papers rooted once again for Ponzi, apparently to embarrass the Post, especially when Gallagher, the federal prosecutor, and Attorney General Allen were quoted as saying McMasters’s story contained little of evidentiary value. Ponzi’s only comment for investigators was to publicly decline Allen’s suggestion that he reveal his assets to speed the accounting process.
“The exposé by the man who was employed by Ponzi for a few days as publicity agent has fallen into greater discredit,” the Boston Traveler intoned, “as investigating officials repudiate its value.” Ponzi himself had disproved McMasters’s claims of insolvency, the Traveler said, by continuing to pay claims “with ready cash to refute its assertions.”
Although less money was flowing than at the height of the run, the relentless withdrawals continued to drain Ponzi’s formerly bulging account. By the time the doors to the Securities Exchange Company closed in the late afternoon, Ponzi had paid out another $313,000, bringing the total for the week to more than $1 million. In the meantime, Ponzi and Lucy Meli realized that at least one of their employees had turned the run to his own advantage. Louis Cassullo, Ponzi’s former Montreal cellmate, had capitalized on the chaos by issuing forged Ponzi notes and getting straws to cash them for him. Ponzi and his trusted gal Friday realized what was happening, but Ponzi feared that refusing to cash any notes presented at his tellers’ windows would renew the run and cost him more. So he paid the counterfeit notes