The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More(66)
‘Yes,’ Henry said. ‘I shall move very fast from place to place, from country to country. And every day, I shall send the profits back to you through the banks.’
‘Do you realize how much it will add up to in a year?’
‘Millions,’ Henry said cheerfully. ‘About seven million a year.’
‘In that case, I can’t operate in this country,’ John Winston said. ‘The taxman will have it all.’
‘Go anywhere you like,’ Henry said. ‘It makes no difference to me. I trust you completely.’
‘I shall go to Switzerland,’ John Winston said. ‘But not tomorrow. I can’t just pull up and fly away. I’m not an unattached bachelor like you with no responsibilities. I must talk to my wife and children. I must give notice to my partners in the firm. I must sell my house. I must find another house in Switzerland. I must take the kids out of school. My dear man, these things take time!’
Henry drew from his pocket the £17,500 he had just won and handed them to the other man. ‘Here’s some petty cash to tide you over until you get settled,’ he said. ‘But do hurry up. I want to get cracking.’
Within a week, John Winston was in Lausanne, with an office high up on the lovely hillside above Lake Geneva. His family would follow him as soon as possible.
And Henry went to work in the casinos.
One year later, he had sent a little over eight million pounds to John Winston in Lausanne. The money was sent five days a week to a Swiss company called ORPHANAGES S.A. Nobody except John Winston and Henry knew where the money came from or what was going to happen to it. As for the Swiss authorities, they never want to know where money comes from. Henry sent the money through the banks. The Monday remittance was always the biggest because it included Henry’s take for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, when the banks were closed. He moved with astonishing speed, and often the only clue that John Winston had to his whereabouts was the address of the bank which had sent the money on a particular day. One day it would come perhaps from a bank in Manila. The next day from Bangkok. It came from Las Vegas, from Curaçao, from Freeport, from Grand Cayman, from San Juan, from Nassau, from London, from Biarritz. It came from anywhere and everywhere so long as there was a big casino in the city.
For seven years, all went well. Nearly fifty million pounds had arrived in Lausanne, and had been safely banked away. Already John Winston had got three orphanages established, one in France, one in England, and one in the United States. Five more were on the way.
Then came a bit of trouble. There is a grapevine among casino owners, and although Henry was always extraordinarily careful not to take too much from any one place on any one night, the news was bound to spread in the end.
They got wise to him one night in Las Vegas when Henry rather imprudently took one hundred thousand dollars from each of three separate casinos that all happened to be owned by the same mob.
What happened was this. The morning after, when Henry was in his hotel room packing to leave for the airport, there was a knock on his door. A bell-hop came in and whispered to Henry that two men were waiting for him in the lobby. Other men, the bell-hop said, were guarding the rear exit. These were very hard men, the bell-hop said, and he did not give much for Henry’s chances of survival if he were to go downstairs at this moment.
‘Why do you come and tell me?’ Henry asked him. ‘Why are you on my side?’
‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ the bell-hop said. ‘But we all know you won a lot of money last night and I figured you might give me a nice present for tipping you off.’
‘Thanks,’ Henry said. ‘But how do I get away? I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you can get me out of here.’
‘That’s easy,’ the bell-hop said. ‘Take your own clothes off and put on my uniform. Then walk out through the lobby with your suitcase. But tie me up before you leave. I’ve gotta be lying here on the floor tied up hand and foot so they won’t think I helped you. I’ll say you had a gun and I couldn’t do nothing.’