Seven Silent Men (37 page)

“I was told to go to the twelfth floor and give it to Mister Corticun.”

“Told by whom?”

“Mister Julien.”

“Who gave you this list of amendments?”

“Mister Julien.”

“Do you have a copy of it?”

“No.”

“Who does?”

“I assume, Mister Julien.”

… Giles Julien's suit was decades out of style. His shirt collar was starched and high. The fabric of his red bow tie was devoid of sheen. He set the folder on his desk and pushed the wirerimmed glasses higher up on his nose. “Why did I instruct Mister Ulick to go directly to Mister Corticun with the changes?”

“That's what I asked,” Cub said.

“Because those were my instructions.” Julien peeked under his glasses to search the folder.

“Instructions from whom?”

“Mister Chandler.”

“Emile Chandler, the bank's president?”

“That is correct.” Julien held a page out to Cub. “This is what you're looking for. A list of deletions and additions for the original submission.”

Looking at it together, Cub and Butch Cody saw that Ulick had been generally accurate in his description. Ten names appeared. Seven were in the column to the left, which designated deletions from the original list.

The three names in the column to the right were of people who had shown up for job interviews the afternoon of August 20, the same Friday that Mormon State was robbed. All three had sought positions as night watchmen. The last man of the three was scheduled to be seen at 4:30
P
.
M
. His name was Teddy Anglaterra.

FIFTEEN

“MORMON ROBBER SEIZED!” headlined the Prairie Port
Tribune
. “LOCAL MAN ROBBER!” was the banner of the competing
Daily Portion
. Both papers reached the stands at 6
A
.
M
. Both had completely sold out by 7:30. Second editions went just as quickly. So did a third. Elsewhere across the nation and beyond that morning, front pages carried word of Mule's arrest. Toward midafternoon more personal material began to emerge. “CROOK PLEADS POVERTY!” the Los Angeles
Herald-Examiner
declared. “21C” took up the top half of the New York
Post'
s tabloid cover. The bottom half bore a cartoon of Mule, his pockets turned inside out, begging with a tin cup. “ROBBER SINGS … A SONG!” declared the Chicago
Daily News
. St. Louis's
Clarion
displayed front-page photos of Mule and Kate Smith, above which was emblazoned: PATRIOTIC ROBBER TO BOOBY HATCH! “SUSPECT ROPED, CHAINED!” protested the University of California's Berkeley
Barb
.

Rural southern newspapers, by and large, reported the incident evenhandedly. Most other publications tended, if not to favor Mule over the Bureau, then to negate FBI participation. Of two hundred and twenty-one headlines on the arrest that day and the next, only one, in the Natchez
Statesman
, mentioned the Bureau per se: FBI NABS MORMON SUSPECT.

Mule receiving media attention equivalent to what had been afforded the original robbery announcement and, later, news of the wizard, might have been anticipated. But Mule received treble this amount of press coverage and public interest. He became, overnight, America's newest pop celebrity. Had the newspapers been a trumpet obligato to Mule's apotheosis, as they certainly appeared to be, then Nancy Applebridge's article was the opening movement. Somehow she was able to find a grammar school graduation photograph of Mule in a tasseled cap and suspenders, an expression of clear stupefaction on his face. Applebridge, in her press association story that appeared in nearly a thousand subscribing publications, made no mention that Mule, a chronic test-flunking truant, was five years older than his fellow eighth-graders and had racked up an even dozen juvenile arrests by the time the class of fourteen posed for the photograph before a wooden schoolhouse that had long since gone to dust—the old Samuel Clemens Elementary School not far from where Mule's horse farm was.

Applebridge's story dealt with childhood. That she managed to exhume the facts as quickly as she did was startling. The writing, admirably Dickensian, told of poverty and abandonment on the prairie … of Mule's drunken father and the two Indian squaws he kept, either of which, or neither of which, may have been Mule's mother. The father was a drayman of no particular aspirations who maintained a small stable. Here in the stable Mule dwelt and was thrashed. He ran away. Kept running away. Was thrashed more soundly each time he was returned by the authorities. The notion that the beatings may have caused brain damage was alluded to in Applebridge's piece. As Mule grew older, rage accompanied his recalcitrance. He beat an infant with a stick and was arrested for the first time, was officially cited as a “violent child.” He became a whiskey drunk at the age of nine, complete with delirium tremens. When he was eleven he was hit full in the face by a baseball bat his father wielded. Two years later it was Mule swinging the bat full into his father's face. Mule ran and hid with an uncle, an unemployed handyman who worked as a part-time janitor at the Samuel Clemens grammar school. Arrangements were made for Mule to live in the basement of the school and attend classes. He lived there but seldom went upstairs.

Mule came of age by himself, a scavenger on the prairie. He could not relate to people. Loved animals. Spent as much time with animals as possible. There was a possibility that Mule's father had sired a daughter by one of the squaws … that this daughter may have been the woman seen in the teepee the night Mule was arrested by the FBI. Perhaps this sister's name was Vonda Lizzie, the name Mule shouted out as he ran for safety. Perhaps Vonda Lizzie was the name of one of the Indian squaws, the one who was Mule's mother. Applebridge posed the questions without offering answers. The final line of the article ended on Mule's eighteenth birthday … the day he was graduated from grammar school.

Bumper stickers reading “FREE THE MORMON STATE ONE” began appearing on cars around Prairie Port. Then across the country. When Lamar “Wiggles” Loftus was returned to the city five days after Mule's arrest and publicly cited as a Mormon State bank robber, bumper stickers were amended to: FREE THE TWO!

Unable to post the $250,000 bail imposed by Assistant United States Magistrate John Leslie Krueger, Wiggles was remanded to the county jail pending trial. His court-appointed Legal Aid attorney argued that such a high bail, with no proof of the charges yet offered, was both unheard of and unconstitutional.

Wiggles Loftus was fated not to be the darling of the media and the public that Mule was. He didn't have that certain spark, lacked star quality. Journalists, sifting through his background, chose to ignore his genuine war exploits, reported on what was routine and bland. Wiggles in jail was cooperative and bland. Particularly bland in comparison with Mule, who somehow managed, from his guarded room in the mental ward, to hold a live radio telephone interview with Chet Chomsky. Mule denied knowledge of, or complicity in, the Mormon State robbery. He did answer, when asked, that he saw nothing wrong with bestiality. Mule, in the media, was faithfully referred to as Corkel or Mr. Corkel. Everyone in Prairie Port, and probably farther, knew he was called Mule. Knew what the second part of the nickname was. Knew why.

Mule's views on bestiality spawned as lively a controversy as had his calling the black assistant U.S. magistrate “white.” Some saw the “white” remark as a racial slur, others agreed with Mule. Krueger was criticized by some civil libertarians for allowing Mule to appear in chains, cited the case of black activist Bobby Seale and compared Krueger to Judge Hoffman.

When Mule refused to give further interviews, the networks competed with offers of money. An agent from the William Morris theatrical talent organization sent Mule a letter suggesting they represent him. One offer Mule responded to was from a tour-bus company that bid $500 monthly for exclusive rights on bringing visitors to the ranch, as the horse farm was now being called. Mule demanded $500 a week. A settlement was reached, $1,100 per month. The girl dressed like an Indian squaw at the ranch manned a roadblock, charged all nontour bus sightseers $1.50 admission. The concessionaire within the ranch proper paid a guaranteed $100 per week against fifteen percent of gross receipts on all sales of food, beverages and souvenirs. The biggest-selling souvenir was an Indian doll of Mule. The biggest seller in Prairie Port proper was a postcard of the Mormon State National Bank with a portrait of Mule superimposed in the upper left-hand corner and one of Wiggles in the upper right-hand corner. A local rock group renamed itself “The Mule” and tried to give a concert at the ranch.

Media preoccupation with Mule had borderline advantages for the FBI, helped divert attention from the fact that four men thought to be gang members were actively being sought. So far the names Cowboy Carlson and Sam Hammond had not been revealed. Nor had the media learned who Elmo Ragotsy was or where he was being held. The less the media knew of any of this, the better for Romor 91. The FBI needed time.

Jessup sat up front. Strom Sunstrom and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jules Shapiro rode in the back. Yates drove but had not been brought along merely as chauffeur. Jez had suggested Billy help them work out a strategy. A strategy was needed desperately.

What had sent the three FBI men and the Assistant U.S. attorney speeding south this midafternoon was official word that Mule Corkel would be proclaimed fit to stand trial and discharged from the hospital the day after tomorrow. He must then be immediately rearraigned before Assistant U.S. Magistrate John Leslie Krueger so bail could be set, as well as a trial date. Mule's lawyer would unquestionably demand low bail. Worse than that, from the government's standpoint, he might demand specifics on the charges against his client. Might want to be told the names of other co-conspirators, in custody or being sought, as well as anything else the government possessed which might prove detrimental to his client in a court of law. The government, in the person of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jules Shapiro, who would be prosecuting the case when the trial began, would press for high bail and attempt to divulge as little as possible. Assistant Magistrate Krueger, still smarting over media criticism of his handling of the earlier arraignment for Mule … of chaining Mule, as the assistant U.S. attorney and the FBI had suggested … might side with the defense lawyer, might lower bail … might, and these were the two worst fears of Strom and Jez, set an early trial date and want to know if any other co-conspirators were in custody.

Trial, under present circumstance, meant action against Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy. Jules Shapiro was content with this. He considered the three to be highly prosecutable. True, no strong corroborating witness would be presented other than Ida Hammond stating Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy had been at her house with the other members of the gang. And Ida's reliability was a concern. She had wavered before. Had voluntarily told police Lieutenant Ned Van Ornum who the perpetrators were, then denied their complicity when talking to Cub Hennessy a few minutes later. But Van Ornum's testimony in court of what Ida had told him would account for a great deal, should she renege. So would her daughter-in-law Natalie's statements. Jules Shapiro put trust in the thesis that bank-theft prosecutions were exercises in circumstantial evidence. The evidence provided him by the FBI, circumstantial as it was, to his way of thinking would do the job. Even so, he reviewed aspects of it at the start of the auto trip with Strom and Jez and Yates.

Of paramount importance was the whereabouts of the three defendants at the time of the perpetration. Ragotsy, Mule and Wiggles all appeared to have been in Prairie Port. Ragotsy had admitted so in his coerced confession. Crew members of his boat confirmed that Ragotsy left on a trip Friday noon, August 20 … as had been stated in the confession letter. A waitress in a Prairie Port diner frequented by Cowboy Carlson had identified a photograph of Wiggles as being the same man she had seen having breakfast with Carlson early Friday morning, August 20. Three different witnesses attested to Mule having been in Prairie Port the same morning.

No one had been developed who had seen any of the three from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, August 22. Late Sunday night Ragotsy returned to his boat briefly, gathered up a change of clothes and left. Was gone five days. Gone until August 27. Mule wasn't seen in Prairie Port until August 28. Cowboy Carlson, following his breakfast with Wiggles on Friday, August 20, was never seen again.

The missing gang members, Bicki Hale, Windy Walt Sash, Meadow Muffin Epstein and Worm Ferugli, were all from out of state … had last been seen in their home areas a week before the robbery, over the weekend of August 14 and 15. The only eyewitness to their whereabouts after that was Ida Hammond, who confessed all were at her farm the week prior to the theft. Following the theft only two spottings had been made. The night clerk in Baton Rouge had thought Bicki might be the man with five suitcases. The most recent sighting came from a travel agent in Key West, Florida, who reported Meadow Muffin Epstein looked like the man who tried to charter a boat to fish the waters off Cuba.

Jules Shapiro didn't feel Ragotsy's coerced confession was as inadmissible as Strom did. Excerpts of it could always be alluded to. It might even be allowed in toto. The physical evidence found inside Warbonnet Ridge, added to everything else, made a strong case, in the estimation of the government's prosecuting attorney. Shapiro had no doubts that he could win in court. Should one of the suspects turn government witness, as Strom hoped, so much the better. If it didn't occur, no matter.

Strom Sunstrom had more than prosecution on his mind. He wanted the rest of the gang: Bicki Hale, Wallace Sash, Thomas Ferugli, Lionel Epstein. He wanted more physical evidence … equipment with which the actual robbery had been perpetrated. Wanted to find the missing millions. Only fifty dollars in currency had been recovered. Recovering stolen monies was J. Edgar Hoover's passion.