Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [65]
After so many years of scraping by, Ponzi found he liked the feeling of money passing through his manicured fingers in exchange for a bauble or a building. The more he bought, the more he wanted to buy. As Bostonians became enmeshed in the mania of smashing piggy banks to invest in postal coupons, Ponzi became caught up in the mania of spending their money and making himself the man he had always dreamed of becoming.
He imagined himself a latter-day Count of Monte Cristo, reveling in the parallels he found between his life and the fictional experiences of Edmond Dantès, the title character in Alexandre Dumas’s classic. After fourteen years of false imprisonment, Dantès escaped and found a hidden treasure. He appeared mysteriously to benefit the good, wreak vengeance on his betrayers, and expose the ills of society. In Ponzi’s version, his fourteen-year ordeal spanned the difficult period from his 1903 immigration to his 1917 return to Boston. It included his two prison terms, both of which he considered as unjust as the trumped-up treason sentence suffered by Dantès. But now, if everything went as planned, he envisioned borrowing a page from Dumas’s book. He would use his money, his bank, his businesses, and his savoir faire to upset Boston’s caste system.
The money itself, he averred, was secondary to what it could do. Ponzi declared that he wanted to “test its power. To derive from it the thrill incidental to the accomplishment of things called impossible.”
On the other hand, Ponzi’s favorite phrase became “Wrap it up, please. I’ll take it.” He enjoyed saying it regardless of whether the item was a box of cigars or a building. He grew disappointed if a day passed without a big purchase, and he was feeling that way in mid-June when a car salesman dropped by the School Street office.
“I have a car,” Ponzi told him, testing his visitor’s salesmanship.
“A good car?” the man asked with a hint of sarcasm.
“What do you think? Do you think I drive around in a wheelbarrow?”
Shifting his tack, the salesman said, “I have been told that you own a Hudson.”
“It’s very true.”
“But you need a much larger and more expensive car.”
“What, for instance?” asked Ponzi. “What are you selling, anyway?”
“Locomobiles,” the salesman answered proudly, spreading out a brochure like a magician fanning a deck of cards. Ponzi saw a photo of a dark blue limousine and jumped to the bait. “How much for that?”
“Twelve thousand, six hundred dollars, delivered,” the salesman answered.
“All right,” Ponzi answered, “send it right over.”
The salesman blanched. The car Ponzi had picked was two weeks away from completion, he explained. Like all Locomobiles it was a custom job, in this case for a New York millionaire. That made Ponzi want it all the more.
“Fine!” he said. “Have it downstairs, in front of the door, by July first.”
“But that car is already sold.”
“Listen, young man, I want that car,” Ponzi said. “And when I want something, I am prepared to pay for it. Have that car here by not later than one o’clock on July first, and I will give you a thousand dollars more for it.”
Done deal.
The person least interested in Ponzi’s money was Rose. Though she loved their new home, she missed the simple joys of life in their little apartment in Somerville. Not long out of her teens, she was uncomfortable overseeing a staff as the lady of the house. “The more servants, the less freedom,” she would say. “I like a house where you can talk and not be overheard, where you can say what you like at all times.” And no matter how clean her maid kept things, deep down Rose believed she would have kept them cleaner.
One day Ponzi came home with a glittering diamond bracelet while Rose was entertaining her friend Lillian Mahoney, the wife of Ponzi’s agent Harry Mahoney. Embarrassed by his extravagance, Rose insisted that he return the thousand-dollar