On a recent trip to the parks, I binge-listened to Season Two of Deep Cover: Mob Land, about the one-time Chicago criminal defense lawyer and fixer Bob Cooley. During the seventies and eighties, Cooley helped the Chicago Outfit bribe judges and fix cases. In March of 1986, Bob walked into the office of a federal prosecutor and volunteered to help take down the Outfit. He assisted in the prosecution of a liaison between the made guys and the politicians in the First Ward, and he was also instrumental in the re-trial of a hitman who had gone free because of a bribe that Bob had given to the judge for the first trial. Then, Bob disappeared. If the podcaster is to be believed, he did not go into the Witness Protection Program because he did not trust the security that the feds offered and because Bob, well, does not like to take orders. Since 1989, he has bounced around the country under different names. He can’t work, marry or even own furniture. Quite a change from the Big Eighties Corrupt Chicago lifestyle he gave up.
(When Bob walked into the US Attorney’s OC task force office in the Loop, I was preparing to graduate from college seven miles to the south. The previous summer, I had driven a cab in Chicago. When I applied for my hack license in the city office downtown, I noticed a big sign behind the desk of the person who gave the eye test that said, “No bribes are taken in this office. Any person offering a bribe will be prosecuted”. At the time, I reflected that that clearly meant that bribes were accepted in that office, and that it might even be read as a solicitation. Now, I am not sure whether the sign was not part of the eye test. If you could read the word “bribe”, you were disqualified from receiving certification from the city government.)
One term used in the podcast was “bagman”. I had heard the term once before, when I read about the Abscam case in law school. Until then, the word was for me like “ferncote”, “Zybel filter”, or “menstrual cramps”. I knew in which contexts I could expect to hear it. I could even use it myself and sound like I knew what it meant, but I did not really understand it. The podcast explained that a bagman is a guy who handles bribes on behalf of a public figure. He is an agent for the bribee who is used to provide plausible deniability. There is no formal written agency contract, but the public figure has enough on the bagman to ensure his loyalty. I understand that much of Putin’s wealth is held on his behalf by oligarchs who are referred to as “Putin’s wallet”. Money held in Swiss bank accounts and condos in Miami, London and New York are not labeled “held on behalf of Vladimir Putin”, but the person who holds legal title knows that he or she would be in a world of hurt if they used the applicable asset in any way other than the way in which Putin would like it to be used. That’s not a wallet. That’s a bagman.
So, when I got back from the trip, I emailed an old student who is now a famous criminal defense attorney, “How can I find a bagman?”. He reads this blog, so he responded, “From what I have read, you have lots of people to choose from in your mobile home parks. Although I wouldn’t bank on the money actually getting to where you want it to go”. In a fit of cultural insensitivity, I replied, “Would you suggest Wears Tin Hat, or Shovels Snow Wearing High Heels (admittedly, my Sioux is rusty)?” He responded, “I would go with Many Snow Plow Man”.
That made me snarf my kombucha.
In my defense, the calque on made-up Lakota came from my memory of Fools Crow, by the Native author James Welch. He, if anyone, had the right to use that language. I recommend the book highly. It is the best example of being parachuted into another time and place by a work of art that I know of, and the intended and unintended historical irony baked into the narrative made me unable to say anything other than, “Waa”.
Another potential bagman would be Refines Gold. Refines Gold is my age, Black and heavy-set. He lives in my park in northern New York and works as a nursing home administrator. For a long time, I called him “Doctor”, until he corrected me and said, “I am not a doctor”. He moved to the park two years ago from Pennsylvania to be near one of his sons. Mike, the manager of that park, hates him, because his lot is not as clean as Mike would like. I enjoy passing the time with the Doctor, but I disagree with him often. The second-to-last time I was up there, I asked if he was vaccinated. He said, “I’m sick of the Governor”. I said, “Why?”
-He won’t release reserves of Tamiflu.
-Why do you want Tamiflu?
-It’s a viral medicine. It works against viruses.
-Go on.
-Viral medicines block Covid.
-Have gotten, you know, vaccinated?
He looked at me shocked and said, “No”. I asked, “Why not?” He said,
-You know why I don’t get vaccinated?
-Why?
-Because vaccines don’t work!
I did not know how to respond to that without losing my cool, so I said, “Enjoy the rest of your day”, and walked toward the office.
When I walked past his home last Wednesday morning, I saw a big white appliance as tall and as wide as me, wrapped in styrofoam and heavy shrink-wrap, sitting on a pallet on his lawn. I thought that he had ordered a fridge or a washing machine. He was not around. Maybe, I thought, he had gone to find help moving the thing into his home. Later in the day, I walked by again and saw that the pallet and a bunched-up ball of shrink-wrap were there, next to a hand-truck, but the thing was sitting on his porch. I stopped to look, and noticed that the Doctor was standing there, under the awning above his front door. I thought, as I do each time I see him, When I have man-breasts like that, take me out back and shoot me. He pointed at the pallet and said, “I’ll get rid of this garbage today”. I looked at the thing standing on its short end on the porch, just outside the front door and said, “What is that? He said,
-It won’t fit through the door.
-What is it?
-They told me it was thirty inches. My door is thirty inches, but just. This stuff takes up at least another inch.
I looked at the open doorway, and looked at the thing. Inside, some people were talking and playing music. I could smell barbecue. I said,
-You could take the molding off and replace it once it’s inside.
-Yeah, but.
-What is it?
-It’s a ventilator, for my hobby.
-What’s that?
-I refine gold.
-You refine gold?
-Look at this. It won’t fit. I’ll have to put it in the shed.
The Doctor’s shed is new, equipped with an access ramp, and, in violation of the fire code, only eighteen inches from his home. I said,
-Will you have to run an extension cord from the home to the shed?
-I have electric in there.
-Will you have to vent the roof?
A ventilator has to ventilate. That means ductwork, pipes, or, at least, a hole in the roof. I envisioned something like a stove hood. Refines Gold said,
-It won’t fit in the door.
-What do you refine gold from?
-I melt down old jewelry. I separate out the different metals.
I was too tired to engage further. Mike was wrestling with a particularly nasty water leak, and I had started the drive that morning at 4:00. Extracting pure gold from a mixture seemed like a negative sum game to me. At best, you would end up with exactly as much gold as you started with. You would lose a few molecules to friction. The jewelry likely had value for its workmanship, which you would lose, if you melted it down. But who was I to question what the Doctor did, so long as he paid his lot rent? I just run the bawdy-house. So long as I get paid and nobody gets hurt, what happens there is the customers’ business. I said,
-Well, save a brick for me, and another for Mike, please. He works hard.
And then I walked away, toward Wears Tin Hat’s lot. I had to mollify him about the trench Mike was digging under his home. It was only later that I realized Refines Gold might be a good bagman. He could not only hold assets – he could melt them down and make them untraceable. And when questioned about their whereabouts, he could send up a thick smoke screen of not-always-relevant information, each byte and bit of which would have to vetted by the feds.
To whom are you planning to send the bagman?