Chapter 7: Kobus

Jacobus Merkel had arrived in America with his father just after the First World War. Johannes Jacobus Merkel, or J.J. as he was known, had left the devastation of post war Europe to join other family members in a dairy farm in Wisconsin. He had good reason to go, as during the fighting, he had found himself on the wrong side of the somewhat fluid Danish German border, and had been drafted into the German forces in 1916. During the agonizing trench warfare in Alsace he had been caught, as had many others many other times, in a change of wind that had carried the mustard gas back over German lines. The several months of recuperation from the poison gas kept him out of further harm till after the armistice, but he like many others did not believe that the Germans would take this defeat lying down.

The farm in Wisconsin prospered, but J.J.s health did not. The residual lung damage from the gas and the awful winters in Wisconsin combined to cause him to be very sickly, and only ten years after arriving in America, he succumbed to another bout of lung congestion and died. It happened during one of the severest Wisconsin winters in memory, and that plus the grief arising from his loss, drove Jacobus now known to all simply as Kobus, to leave the farm. The rest of the family purchased what was now his share of the undertaking for a generous price and he headed for the city, a moderately wealthy young man.

Shunning Milwaukee, he settled in the small industrial town of Naperville in Illinois. Using his money wisely, he soon was the proprietor of a local bank to which he gave his family name, Merkel. The bank grew rapidly, and it was not long before Kobus had several of the surrounding factories as his clients. One of these, the rapidly expanding farm implement company McPherson’s, became the first of several firms to ask him to prepare their weekly payroll. With over two thousand workers, all paid in cash, this weekly task was mammoth.

Every Wednesday, a van would pick up the cash at the downtown Chicago Branch of the Federal Reserve, and on Thursday two dozen women would be sequestered in a small building to sort and count out two thousand plus pay packets each down to the last cent. Come Friday the van would load up the cash and by two thirty would have distributed it to the pay offices at each factory location. Having completed their delivery, the truck would swing round to each corporate office and pick up a check equal to the amount of the cash plus a nice service fee.

Everything went well until one Wednesday the van was hijacked on its run back from the reserve bank, and the driver was killed. Although insurance covered the bulk of the loss, Kobus was incensed that someone had got hold of his money. As a precaution, he added armed guards to his vehicle and separated the payroll service from the bank as a separate operation. This had two benefits, the guards, a novel innovation for that time, definitely cut down the danger of being hijacked, and the separation freed the company from the regulations applicable to banks, and allowed him to expand all across the Midwest. Soon his armored trucks became a familiar sight from Cleveland to St Louis.

By now Kobus was approaching fifty, still a bachelor, and well satisfied with his life when at a city function he met a lady nearly thirty years his junior. All of a sudden his work was no longer enough, this Laurie Patterson became an obsession, and he wooed her with all his means. At first, the young lady rejected his approaches, after all she was less than half his age, but over time, lured by the wealth and the fact that with his tall blonde Germanic frame, he was rather handsome for a fifty year old man, eventually consented to be courted.

It may have been just coincidence, but as his attentions were focused on winning his girl, the number of attempts on his trucks increased, and correspondingly the amount of his losses to these robberies increased also. The problem became distracting to the extent that Kobus was ready to sell the whole show, despite it’s extensive profits.

Then, just the week before he was to announce his engagement to his beloved Laurie, Kobus received a package in the mail. There was a photo of Laurie outside her apartment, to which a note had been attached by a simple paper clip, “We really don’t need to steal your money, nor hurt anyone!” There was no signature, no identification of any kind. On the back of the photo were the words “Clancy’s restaurant, tonight, alone.”

The implication of the cryptic words were obvious and serious; this was an invitation he must accept. “Hemel,” he thought, under the stress of the moment, reverting briefly to the native tongue, “let us hope the US mail is not a day late.”

Kobus had heard of Clancy’s, it was an upscale restaurant situated in the no-mans land between Cicero and the city of Chicago. It was owned by two guys about whom there were several rumors regarding their sexuality, but the food was good, the service excellent and for these reasons it was frequented by many of the business and union leaders around the town.

Kobus walked up to the Concierge, “I am ….”

He was not given a chance to finish, “Yes Mr. Merkel, They have been expecting you, come this way.” The concierge led the way to the far end of the restaurant and held aside a curtain to allow Kobus to pass into an immaculately furnished lounge with a blazing fire on the far wall. Four men stood with their backs to the fire drinking from crystal goblets.

The lighting in the room was subdued so Kobus could not make out any of the men’s features, all he could notice was that the man second from the right was shorter than the others, and a little stocky. It was this man who spoke, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Merkel. Cognac, Scotch?”

Kobus refused both, and when the concierge had left them alone, the same man continued, ”There is no need for you to know who we are at this time, but we have a proposition for you.” The voice was soft with just a hint of a foreign accent. “We know you have had some trouble with losses from you trucks. How would you like this to stop?”

“Ok, here it comes, the old protection pitch. How much is this going to cost me,” thought Kobus but he was totally unprepared for what came next.

“We have a weekly surplus of a considerable amount of cash money, we know you use a lot. You take our cash, you give us commercial checks for it, you keep five percent, and the trucks are unmolested, as are you and your lovely fiancé.” This was the man on the far right, and his voice was not soft, and his accent was markedly foreign.

Kobus shuddered. “So this was being between a rock and a hard place, protection but with a twist,” he thought. Out loud he said, “it will need a few weeks to change over or someone will suspect something, and I suppose you don’t want anyone to investigate what is going on.”

“You are right,” again the short man, “Don’t worry we are patient with our friends. Incidentally, you will have no reason to see us again, Pat O’Reily here will be your contact. Perhaps you and he can sit over there and work out the details.” He motioned to a group of comfortable chairs on the far side of the room, away from the fire, but closer to one of the dim lights.

As they sat down Pat remarked casually, “Don’t worry, I’ve been working with them for years now, and they are men of honor. Your honor mainly, I suppose, but if you do what they want, they are pleasant and generous. On that subject, my fee is a low two percent.” Pat’s voice was distinctly Irish, and the fact that he lowered his voice as he spoke the last sentence alerted Kobus to the fact that Pat’s fee did not have the approval of the other men whoever they were. In every other respect Pat was professional and courteous. “We package the cash like any good bank, have all denominations, clean, good condition. We need just twenty four hours notice, and the pick up is here in Cicero, no need to make that long haul down town.”

After several months of the new arrangement, Kobus was happy to pretend that everything was the same as before, with no need to worry about hijackings. These had stopped completely. The new supply of cash worked well, and as his business grew, he was able to keep a reasonable demand for cash on the Federal Reserve, so he was sure that no one suspected anything. Once a month Pat called round for the commercial checks for ninety five percent of the cash supplied, and always checked carefully for the separate check for two percent, made out to bearer.

Kobus began to prepare in earnest for his wedding, now just a few months away. Laurie had said she would prefer to live in North Chicago where they were developing some beautiful homes on the Lakefront. He decided to sell the bank in Naperville to a downtown firm looking to expand. Free of the tight regulations of the banking commissioner he decided to exploit his deep interest in stocks and bond, and opened a brokerage cum merchant bank called of course, Merkel Capital.

With the departure of the bank to new owners, the services division became more and more independent, and, over time, Kobus became less and less interested in it. The division still generated a considerable profit which helped Merkel Ca[ital weather many a financial storm, but it lacked the glamour of the brokerage business. So when Pat O’Reily, who had become a sort of de facto CEO, recommended employment of some of his associates, the suggestion was accepted with little examination.

Later when Pat wanted to add other friends to the ranks, he didn’t even ask, and for that matter Kobus didn’t really care.

When Jan Versteen left Ellis Island that day in 1937 he was confused. He had arrived on a cargo vessel with several hundred other immigrants from Holland. The agents processing his papers had been distracted or downright careless, or perhaps they just didn’t care. Whatever the cause, his arrival papers listed him as Yon Ferstine. Certainly this was a more or less phonetic spelling of his name, but was that really an excuse. Perhaps the fact that neither he nor his young wife could speak any English accounted for the mix up.

Their papers had directed them to residence in the mid west, so they headed for Chicago. After weeks of searching for employment the now John Ferstine had come to a small bank in Naperville. Luckily for him the banks owner heard him trying to make himself understood to the receptionist and intervened. “Goeder Dagt”. The salutation took John by surprise, “Sorry my Dutch was never very good,” said Kobus Merkel. “You are looking for work. How are you with counting money.”

Not needing to lie, John described how he had helped his father run their shop in Rotterdam, and had no trouble working with the multitude of currencies that passed through their hands in that the busiest international port in Europe. He had not exaggerated his talents because within weeks of joining the counters in the payroll service group he was put in charge of a shift, and within a year was appointed manager of the important Dearborn office just west of Detroit.

By the time their son was born in 1945, the Ferstines had added an “n” to the spelling of their name, and spoke English without a trace of accent. Their son William attended the best schools and even had a shot at an Ivy League university, but chose instead to attend Illinois State University at Urbana. Here he met a strikingly beautiful girl called Candice, Candice Merkel. He fell hopelessly in love, and when, after their graduation, her father realized this was a serious match he offered the young man a position in internal audit at Merkel Services, the payroll services division of Merkel Capital.

The young Fernstine had the brains he inherited from his father, but not the application, and he became expert at finding shortcuts, and evading responsibility. He also became expert at negotiating the corridors of power, and of finding ways to enhance his own bank account without arousing suspicion or concern. He had already risen to an effective vice presidents position when he became aware of some serious accounting anomalies at the Cleveland Branch. When he realized that this was a problem he definitely could not cover up, and one he could find no way to turn to his advantage, he had no option but to report it to the audit committee of the board, of which the now aging Kobus was still a member.

Bill was dispatched to Cleveland to investigate, with authority to sort things out. He was cognizant however of the advice the old man gave him before he left, “Whatever you find, don’t be persuaded to call in the police.” It did not take long for Bill to realize that the management at Cleveland were supplementing their already overgenerous salaries with unauthorized drawings of company funds, excessive expense accounts and general malfeasance. He had no other recourse. He terminated all senior management there with immediate effect, promising them direr results if they did not go quietly.

He had not intended to leave Cleveland before new management was installed but was just heading for dinner at the hotel when he was called to the phone. It was Candice telling him that her father had died in an awful motor accident on his way home from work that day. It was too late for him to return to Chicago that evening, but he prepared to do so early the next day. As he checked out the porter informed him there was a car waiting to take him to the airport. In the car were two men both dressed in dark suits, both with identical dilby hats. Bill sat in the back seat and was joined by one of the men. As soon as the car began to move, the man sitting next to him turned to Bill, “We are very sorry for your loss. Kobus Merkel was our friend, and we look after our friends. We failed him, but he will be avenged. We consider you to be our friend too, and we hope you will remember us.”

Bill sat back stunned. The import of the simple condolences could not be misinterpreted. In one blinding flash he understood the whole picture. He had never thought of himself as a criminal, or working for a criminal organization. He just thought he was lucky to be in an immensely profitable business. He believed that most of the employees of the business felt the same way. Now however he knew. Yesterday, his father in law who was a good man had been killed, probably by one of the people Bill had terminated that same day, or by someone sympathetic to those people, and that death was going to be avenged by these men or their friends. Today, he had been offered the protection of these same men and he knew that that protection came with a price. As onerous as he knew that price would be, he also knew that he would accept it, just as his father in law had those many years before him.

Had one been Chicago or Cleveland over the next few weeks one may have noticed some two paragraph reports detailing the discovery of the body of Pat O’Riely in Lake Michigan near Chicago, and a fire in Cleveland which killed three former executives of the Merkel’s Payroll services. Although no cause could ascribed to either occurrence, foul play was suspected.