Stung by Gary Stephen Ross

Author:Gary Stephen Ross [Ross, Gary Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781551996721
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2002-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

7

APRIL FOOLS

“There’s a little more to the casino business than the play at the tables. First and foremost, we have to be objective. By that I mean this business is about money, and all money looks alike. Am I right?”

– Elmore Leonard, Glitz

he Manulife Centre, at Bay and Bloor Streets in Toronto, occupies a prime city block and includes three levels of underground parking, three floors of retail outlets, sixteen floors of offices, fifty floors of apartments, and a rooftop bar that commands a fine view of downtown. The apartments attract well-heeled urbanites; the retail floors attract shoppers from Bloor Street and the nearby Yorkville district to its forty boutiques, agencies, theatres, restaurants, and banks.

One of the banks with a branch in the Manulife Centre was the Bank of Montreal, Canada’s third largest (after the Royal and the CIBC). The branch maintained two accounts — one for Canadian dollars, the other American — in the name of California Clearing Corporation. The company was incorporated in 1966 and was also licensed to do business under the name Charles K. Peterson. Branch records showed the account holder’s address as 3570 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, Nevada.

On the Las Vegas Strip it’s not easy spotting street numbers, but somewhere behind the computerized fountains and neon arpeggios and mock-Roman facade of Caesars Palace you may find 3570, or perhaps MMMDLXX, bolted to a stucco-and-chicken-wire column. California Clearing Corporation was a dummy company set up by Caesars for casino patrons wishing to deposit cash for future use or pay down gambling debts. Caesars maintained such accounts in many places, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, Mexico City, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore. Think of Caesars Palace as a kind of central vacuum system, sucking in lost bets through concealed outlets in the world’s major cities.

New Jersey law prohibits Atlantic City casinos from maintaining bank accounts outside that state. As alumni of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Jess Lenz and Larry Woolf were aware that Nevada had so such prohibition. In the baccarat pit at Caesars in Atlantic City, Lenz told Molony about California Clearing Corporation. To forward money, Molony had only to alert the Caesars office in Toronto that he was making a deposit in the CCC account at the Manulife branch of the Bank of Montreal. The money would be credited to Caesars Palace in Nevada, which would transfer it to the sister casino in New Jersey. Once the deposit was confirmed in Toronto, the money would be made available to Molony in Atlantic City.

Molony thanked Lenz and spent the weekend gambling in Atlantic City. “Brian,” Lenz said to him, shaking his head, after watching a feverish run at the crap table, “you’re worse than the Arabs.” Colizzi was still betting sports for Molony in Las Vegas. On Sunday afternoon, when Molony ran out of cash, he called Colizzi, who was about to return to Toronto. Molony asked him to stay in Nevada, the only place in North America where you can gamble legally on sporting events.

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