The Dream Merchant (10 page)

I do, but look where we are. They were right out in the open. People were passing. Shouldn't we go back to your place? There were couples walking around the park, a lady in a wheelchair pushed by a young man, her son probably. This was a real church town, conservative, pious, and neat as a pin. Ava guided his hand beneath her plaid skirt. He laughed and so did she. She had a real proper voice, like a schoolteacher. She was wet and tight, slick, with a hard belly, astonishing body, lean but achy soft in all the places. He was sick with wanting to fuck her. She climbed into his lap and turned to kiss him deeply, urgently. They kissed for a while, and soon he couldn't help himself, had it out of his pants, and she raised herself and let him, right on the bench. Ava held him in place and moved slow. If you glanced over from the sidewalk, there was a girl on her boyfriend's lap beneath the statue. It was a handsome Norman Rockwell moment. Barely moving, but she was squeezing Jim inside and letting go and sometimes laughing in her discreet way.

 

10.

Three years later. Jim and Ava were on a raised stage beneath a colorful billowing tent on the outskirts of Montreal. There was a crowd of about three hundred, mostly men. It could have been a revivalist meeting or the start of a sideshow in a rural circus. Jim was holding a microphone, smiling, while rock and roll blared from big speakers. A storm was gathering outside and gusts of wind whipped the canvas. There was excitement you could taste, hunger. Ava was shimmying to the rock and roll that was raunchy and wild. Jim began describing the opportunity at hand. But it was hard to make out his words, such was the enthusiasm and welling of expectations. Ava stoked them, clapping to the beat, teased the guys to drown out Jim's words and make him suffer. Jim shrugged. I give up—the noise, the wind, and Ava were too much for him.

All of this was written into Marvin's script. She wore red heels, a dark skirt, and a low-cut blouse. She did a vampy version of the twist that sizzled. This new kind of dancing was like sex. Do you want to get rich? announced Jim above the singing of Chuck Berry. Do you want to have fun? Ava was clapping and shaking her head, no, no, no, deep into something while Jim, practically shouting, explained the deal in shorthand. Spend fifty dollars tonight on an electric iron and make twelve hundred sixty dollars during the next month or six weeks. When will you ever have such a chance to buy something useful and make money at the same time? Enough cash to buy a car or to put an extension on your house, to take the vacation trip you and the wife have dreamed about for the last twenty years. Where could you ever find such an opportunity? Buy tonight, get started, and bring friends to our next meeting in two weeks.

*   *   *

The script was about opportunity, taking hold of a dream, like Ava, who was rocking to her own music, bemused by something. Marvin gawked at Ava, with her perfect angel face and devil body, spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth. He watched her from his canvas office at the back of the tent where he counted the money. Most days in the week Jim, Ava, and Marvin were rubbing elbows, planning for the next big meeting, going over the script. With a glance Ava made Marvin weak and fevered. More than once his arms had jerked out toward her. She smirked and stepped aside.

If you don't buy right now, you could lose the chance, said Jim, selling with fervor. The moment is here and then it's gone. Our days are numbered. Our days are haunted by losses and missed opportunity.

Loss, loss, Marvin had hammered this reminder to Jim during their coaching sessions. Fear of loss closes the sale.

How many of you can tell a story about a house you might have bought and now it's worth five times as much? Jim asked the quickened audience of mostly workingmen, farmers, construction workers, a sprinkling of wives. It was a warm summer evening and the men were sweating.

You should have bought the neighbor's farm and today you would be a wealthy man, Jim continued. And now you're old. Makes you sick, right? We get old so fast. Makes me sick, the chances I had. My daddy had chances, but he died a poor man. Poor and bitter. Spent too much time dreaming about gold. It didn't need to be that way. Believe me, it's only a question of deciding and making a move. Don't sit on your hands. You're not too old. Not yet. But it's coming, sure as I'm standing here; opportunity passes. Jim was saying what he knew to be true, what he learned growing up. Of course he understood that their Ponzi scheme was against the law, but he also believed that the business was more than a fair deal for his customers. What was the harm if he was giving back nearly as much money as he was keeping? Everyone was a winner in their money tent.

Years before Mara, when Jim had first described this scam to me, he showed me an old photograph of himself standing on a crude stage pointing at the crowd with one hand while holding a microphone in the other. He was dressed in a tuxedo, white shirt, and bow tie. His blond hair was long and wavy, and he had a fervent expression staring into the middle distance. What a great-looking guy he was at thirty. There really was a passing resemblance to Burt Lancaster's Elmer Gantry.

*   *   *

Marvin Gesler's conception was simple but astonishing. He first came to it three years earlier when he had gone to the supermarket to buy white bread and Spam to make sandwiches for his crew of Bible salesmen. He'd spend ten or fifteen dollars on groceries and the girl passed him coupons to paste in a little book. So many coupons could be redeemed for more groceries. That was the idea, basically, to buy what you want, what you need, and collect a bonus. The best ideas were simple.

But here was Marvin's wrinkle. What if the bonus was huge and demonstrable, not a few groceries but something to change your life, or get it rolling? Put up fifty dollars at a meeting to get a quality product, maybe an electric iron, and a few minutes later collect ten dollars, five apiece, from two others who put up their fifty bucks. Ten dollars doesn't sound like a life change, but a half hour later you'd collect five apiece from four others who put up their fifty dollars for irons. Before the end of the night, you were back up on a stage again getting forty dollars for your fifty-dollar payout. And the tent was filled with other guys tramping up to get money. You'd surely drive home eager to tell friends about this opportunity to buy something useful for your home while earning money from this business or whatever it was. The following week—or if the meeting was large enough all this could happen during the first night—you'd get eighty dollars, because sixteen others had bought irons. You've actually made a nice profit for your purchase. Now you are at the apex of a small pyramid of customers, people yearning to have more. Each week you are boosted higher on the pyramid, more people supporting your future, your prosperity. And the beauty of it is that people below you, creating this cash flow siphoning upward, are at the same time atop their own little pyramids with the hope, no, the probability of enriching themselves from others who come on below them. All that each of them has to do is buy an electric iron for fifty bucks to keep the money coming. Ava and Jim would make sure that this happened.

All your friends would surely come to buy; they'd make money and you'd make money until you got to the ultimate, the $1,260 payout, and then you'd have to put up another fifty dollars and get another iron and start all over again. And you would, right? Why stop now? Who wouldn't be game for these meetings with rock and roll and this beautiful woman, very sexy though a little preoccupied, passing out money, tens of thousands? She's just giving it away. Who wouldn't want to come to such a meeting?

This was Marvin's idea. Basically, he was selling an illusion.

Who's counting how much we're giving away? How much we're keeping? he asked Jim and Ava. They're gonna want the money in their hands, he said, licking his lips and glancing at Ava.

*   *   *

The music rose for a time, drowning out Jim's entreaties, and Ava clapped to the beat, shook her chest boldly. For the moment she had stolen the scene while the music swelled the tent with hope and anticipation. Then it was his turn, talking about hardship, growing up dirt poor, not bathing, not eating, freezing in the winter because Daddy made bad choices or no choices at all. Daddy was paralyzed and dreaming about the future, and Ava moved toward the money tree, all eyes on her slow walk; they switched back and forth, sex and privation.

Don't give it away too soon, Marvin coached. Frustrate them. Pull away the bait.

Jim and Ava were so smooth. They had been doing this routine for two years. The operation was getting a reputation around Montreal. It had started out with just a handful of reluctant people meeting in a small basement room, with no music, no real pulse. Back then Marvin hadn't worked out the intricacies, but he knew that he could make out selling electric irons for fifty bucks and giving away money—he smelled profit. Now he had complicated charts. He knew that he must cut the play off after twelve levels. He calculated that they would keep 56 percent of the dollars that came through the door. Now there were big crowds showing up for their tent giveaways. People were driving a hundred miles for irons and money. The three of them gave away more and more money each time and drove off in one of Jim's cars—he now owned three Cadillacs!—a suitcase of dollars in the trunk, sometimes a hundred thousand or more.

Onstage, Ava moved slowly to a large tree, a Christmas tree with money clipped onto its branches. She enjoyed being watched. She liked to make men squirm. It made her feel alive. She'd even flirt a little with Marvin, although she'd quickly turn away, he was such a pig. There was fifty thousand in cash clipped onto the fifteen-foot tree, five-dollar bills, fifties and hundreds. There were poor people in the audience and the money tree worked like chum scenting the water. Poor people wanted that money for food and fun they couldn't afford; the dangling money made them feel unsettled. Marvin's scene might have been obvious and a little shabby, but Ava had a shine that spilled all over the room. She moved within a circle of light. The music poured over Ava's lush, swaying body as if she'd parted ways from her fundamental and fetching shyness. It must have been the sultry night air and money that made her wild and hot. Ava gave them license. Everyone wanted the money tree and this girl—even ladies could feel her pull; she incited an urge. MONEY. Jim's voice, The more we sell, the quicker you get to your goal, the $1,260 payout. Quick. There were two men laboring in the aisles with heavy carts filled with irons.

The music fell away and the spotlight found Jim in his tailored tuxedo. He seemed to be searching for the words. Ava stood to the side, the air gone out of her like a puppet on the shelf. They were a great team. Jim relished this long hesitation—what would happen—this building unease, and Marvin was nodding from behind the flap of canvas. Jim seemed to be listening for an inner voice.

Finally he said, I want you to meet someone. Jim paused and gained traction. I want you to meet someone. Chester, Chester … Chester!!! Where are you, man? Jim walked back and forth on the stage searching in vain for a man in the audience. Chester … Chester? Jim squinted a little and then he signaled with his hand. Come on up here, Chester. Chester was a butcher, a short powerfully built guy with coarse black hair on his thick forearms. Jim signaled for him to come up onstage. He had never been onstage before. Months earlier, he bought an iron, and this was his moment, what he'd been promised. And more. Chester, this is your life, said Jim, invoking the name and spirit of the TV program watched by millions. It was the moment a butcher became a star. This unfurling of fame was an essential part of Marvin's scheme. Every two weeks they made a little man a celebrity to be adulated for a time among his friends, at the bar, in his community. How much is fame worth? It was an ancient question with a new wrinkle. How much is it worth in terms of hawking electric irons? Chester had been a faithful customer. He had come to a dozen meetings, collected his payments, he brought friends and family to buy irons, and tonight was his night.

Ava was clapping for Chester to come onstage. But he was beet red and remained glued to his folding seat. How could he come to this woman? Her walk was an event, teetering on the stairs in her heels; guys reached out to help, but really they wanted to touch her butt or feel her bare arm. She slithered down the aisle and right up to him, put out a hand, her charming Southern accent: I've come to take you up there, Chester. Her hand touched the hair on his forearm. Up there, into the circle of light onstage. He was a short guy, five feet, three inches, and he'd never been near a woman like Ava. He closed his eyes and breathed her in, slow and delicious. He wasn't thinking about the money tree or what he might do with the $1,260. Chester was staring at Ava's chest heaving from her brave exertions. He wanted to plunge into Ava's creamy bosom, to swim all over her with his hairy body. Jim made a joke about where Chester was staring, but Chester didn't notice. Ava was the greatest thing he'd ever seen.

Look up, Chester, Jim said. Look up, man! Everyone roared with laughter, which roused him. Chester shot both hands up in the air and shouted, I like this! I like this!

Then, while she led him up the stairs, Jim reflected a little on Chester's hardworking life. He's the salt of the earth, Jim said with real emotion as Ava counted money out from the tree and put it into Chester's hand. But Chester didn't notice. He had fallen in love. He didn't want to leave her. Chester's nose was practically nestled into the deep cleft of her chest. Jim played on this until finally Ava led him back to his seat, leaned over, offering one last glimpse, and then she kissed his flushed cheek.

Now Jim and Ava were into the heavy work of the night, giving away cash. The air in the tent had grown thick and rancid from sweating men. But no one cared. Jim and Ava called men onstage, one after another, handing out fives and tens—they began by paying off new customers, but soon enough there were repeat winners, more and more of them. They came strutting off the stage grinning, waving dollars, as though they were moving ahead in life, as Jim had promised, while workers in the aisles passed out irons and stuffed dollars into shoe boxes.