Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [123]
Still others refused to give up. “You bet he’s all right,” said one man in a North End grocery store. “He could have gotten clean away with it if he’d wanted to. Would he have been fool enough to stick around if he’d been crooked?” Nearby, two children negotiating the sale of a rusty pocketknife spoke the language of Ponzi. “Give you 50 percent,” said one.
A reporter found Edwin Pride still sifting through Ponzi’s receipts. “Don’t you think Ponzi started out all right—with some sort of a coupon scheme?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Pride said. “Ponzi may have had, and may still have, the best intentions in the world. But I think he ‘played the game’ from the start.”
By the time Ponzi had entered his innocent plea, made bail, and emerged on the street, some of his vigor had returned. He began swinging his walking stick again, and as he promenaded through Post Office Square, scores of onlookers fell into step behind him. They did not cheer as they had in days past, but it was still one last parade for the biggest little man in town. Ponzi’s starched white shirt glowed bright against his dark tailored suit, and his shoes shone with high gloss as they clicked against the trolley tracks embedded in the cobblestoned street. Office workers rushed to see him. Soon every window in the square was filled with the faces of the curious and the furious. The procession passed in front of a horse-drawn carriage. Its driver surveyed the scene, peering out from under a hat tipped low on his forehead to block the sun. He kept his hands on the reins and a scowl on his face. A boy wearing knee britches, high socks, and a messenger’s cap ran alongside Ponzi’s group, smiling and calling out to the famous man. Ponzi shot the boy a crooked half grin. He still had his fans, and they still hoped he would prove the doubters wrong.
Ponzi darted into a car, but before he could get away two Boston police inspectors flashed their badges. They served him with a warrant from Attorney General Allen charging Ponzi with three counts of larceny. Once again, Allen had to settle for second place. Ponzi delayed his return home for another court appearance. He again pleaded innocent and posted an additional ten thousand dollars’ bond.
When Ponzi arrived at Lexington, he had little to say to reporters. “I am going to stay home tonight. I am not going away,” he said. “If I had planned to run away at any time I certainly would not have done what I did today.”
But Rose, who had shunned the limelight her husband had so craved, recognized that this was the moment she needed to speak for them both. Having never told Rose the true nature of his business, Ponzi could not have asked for a more loyal or trusting advocate. They stood together in the garden, her arm linked with his, a brave smile on her face.
“I love him more than ever,” she began. “My faith in my husband is as unshaken as it was before. Somehow, I am rather pleased with what happened today, for it gives me a chance to show the world and to give added evidence to my husband that I love him.”
“Of course he is innocent,” Rose continued. “He has been terribly persecuted. Allow him and he will be able to meet every obligation honorably. I suppose that not everybody has the faith in him that I have. That is because everybody does not know him as well as I. To meet my husband is to like him—at least. To know him well is to love him. I would not be able to enjoy life with ill-gotten riches. It is not in my makeup. Yet at the moment I feel almost perfectly contented for I am certain that my husband’s gains were honorably received. He is a big man who will face the danger of having his skin grafted on a woman he did not know, and serve a prison term to absolve a friend. My husband did both, and he is a bigger and more honorable man today than he ever was.”
Rose