King Con Read online

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  Early on the morning after boarding the train in Catania, Edgar and the fascist officials arrived in Rome, its tan skyline fretted with spires and domes. There, Edgar became the houseguest of an Italian aristocrat who had a villa close to the sprawling, sparsely ornamented Palazzo del Quirinale, home of King Vittorio Emanuele III, now the focus of widespread speculation. Mussolini’s opponents, still boycotting parliament, hoped to persuade the king to exercise his constitutional prerogative and fire Mussolini as prime minister.

  Newspaper coverage of the ongoing tour by the king’s Cherokee counterpart having already made Edgar famous in Italy, passersby pointed out “the prince” as he swanned around the capital. While he was there, he made an ostentatious display of consulting an attorney about his avowed problems with the British government. And he kept up to date with what had become a regular correspondence with Milania, during which he’d gotten into the habit of mailing her some of the commemorative photos, gifts, and other trophies he was collecting.

  Milania’s replies were colored by a maternal tone that sought to protect him from what she regarded as his tendency to be “too generous and a bit disorganized.” Her stepdaughter, who penned fond and admiring letters to him, shared this slight frustration, and even ventured to reprimand him gently about his behavior.

  Writing to Milania from Rome, Edgar claimed he’d taken the liberty of speaking on her behalf to members of the fascist government. They were, he informed her, sympathetic toward her family’s long-running struggle to obtain compensation for the damage to their property inflicted during the Great War.

  Due to rejoin the Cimarosa following almost a week away, Edgar soon afterward quit Rome. He then made the 117-mile journey along the coast to Naples, a city unlike anyplace he had visited. Its celebrated beauty, backed by the busty silhouette of Mount Vesuvius and fronted by the blue waters of the harbor, was at odds with the teeming squalor of its pungent streets. Many of these, heaped with trash and spanned by clotheslines, echoed with the hooves of goats and cows. Others were haunted by tenacious beggars. Among Edgar’s colleagues in the con game, it was held that giving money to a beggar—“a plinger,” in grifters’ slang—would always be rewarded by good luck. But Edgar couldn’t go on handing out so much cash without getting the ever-pliable Milania to make another bank transfer.

  From Naples, he sent a telegram requesting that she wire money to Genoa, three stops further along his itinerary. As bait for Milania, who made no secret of her and her stepdaughter’s desire to see him flourish, he explained that the money would bring him an appointment as a colonel in the Italian military. Secure in her conviction that Edgar was an eminent person who possessed ample finances, Milania needed scant encouragement to lend him however much he requested.

  Back on the Cimarosa, he left Naples and traveled to Palermo, then Cagliari, an atmosphere of excitement prevailing ahead of each stop. People even rented windows overlooking streets where they might glimpse Prince Tewanna Ray, whose generosity earned him comparisons to the virtuous heroes from fairy tales. Accounts of him dishing out large sums of money spawned obsequious begging letters, addressing him as “Your Highness.”

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  Italians sometimes used the phrase la superba when referring to the city of Genoa. As Edgar discovered in late July when he landed there to a familiar tumultuous reception, Genoa merited that label by virtue of its spacious parks, sweeping views, and seaward slopes barnacled with marble palaces and dusty yellow houses. He cabled Milania a request for another loan. The money would, he said, cover newfound expenses, incurred as the upshot of being appointed to a senior position within the PNF. Milania transferred twenty thousand lire—a figure on a par with the annual salary of a top Italian sportsman—to an account in Genoa.

  Edgar was, however, penalized for his greed when he called at the bank. Weighed down perhaps by Milania’s cash, he appears to have tripped while collecting it. His ankle was so badly sprained that he had to retreat to the Cimarosa and have his injury examined by a doctor.

  Instead of setting off for Milan, as previously planned, Edgar stuck around in Genoa while he waited for his injury to mend. He was visited aboard his ship by both of the contessas, who appear to have consoled him with scotch, a bunch of roses, and a further fifty-five thousand lire. They also probably let slip that Georg had been making inquiries about him.

  Now Edgar developed a sudden desire to leave the country. But the Document of Identity that he’d obtained in London didn’t entitle him to do so, meaning he was trapped in Italy, a country well on its way to becoming a dictatorship, a country where anyone who fell foul of the fascist regime was in line for a beating or worse—far worse, as Giacomo Matteotti had discovered.

  And you could guarantee the fascists wouldn’t be too happy when they cottoned on to the fact that Edgar had played them for suckers.

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  Despite his sore ankle, Edgar went to see Britain’s acting consul general on the morning of Saturday, August 9, 1924. Keeping up the fiction that he was a Canadian Cherokee, he took with him the Document of Identity. He filled in the acting consul general about his travel plans, which received the go-ahead.

  “No objection to bearer proceeding to Spain,” the British official wrote on the back of the Document of Identity. He also signed and rubberstamped it, leaving Edgar free to instruct the captain of the Cimarosa to plot the envisaged course for Barcelona via Marseilles. In the minutes before departing, he doled out a few hundred lire to the stevedores loading the ship with provisions, to a homeward-bound widow, and to the chief customs officer. But the latter handed back the money, saying that he and his staff weren’t permitted to accept gifts. He was ultimately persuaded by Edgar to keep the five hundred lire and donate it to charity.

  Slipping out of the harbor around noon, the Cimarosa headed west along the low, sandy coastline of the Italian Riviera, Edgar’s sprained ankle probably aggravated by the swaying deck. Through the daylight hours, he’d have seen brown-sailed trawlers, wheezy-motored cargo vessels, and—when the wind let up—schooners towed by boats that were powered by swarthy, semi-naked oarsmen, perspiring like the galley slaves who had preceded them hundreds of years earlier. After nightfall Edgar would have seen the tremulous light from acetylene flares. These were used to lure fish toward the trawlers, whose crews then tossed dynamite into the shoals, its dull concussion reminiscent of the depth charges dropped during his wartime voyage to France.

  Edgar had the Cimarosa make for Porto Maurizio. From some distance out at sea, the pale dome of the town’s cathedral was visible, protruding from the jumble of buildings that clung to the sloping promontory. On the streets of this bucolic little burg, through which old women carried baskets on their heads, dark-eyed girls in richly colored shawls sauntered, and farmers led donkeys, foreigners of any description—never mind an American attired in his idea of a Cherokee chief’s costume—were a novelty.

  He remained there just long enough for his extravagance to yield gossip and for him to elicit a fifty-thousand-lire loan that Milania sent to the local branch of the Credito Italiano. Yet the bank was so dubious about Edgar that it declined to release the money. Both Milania and her stepdaughter soon rendezvoused with him in Porto Maurizio, presumably so Milania could vouch for him at the bank. She or Atta may also have mocked Georg’s suspicious nature and talked about his detective work to Edgar.

  Georg had, in the meantime, secured an appointment with the head of one of Britain’s consulates. At the meeting, he followed up his inquiry about Prince Tewanna Ray. The consul—who obviously hadn’t troubled to question the relevant officials in Britain or Canada—had soothed Georg’s anxieties by saying, “This man is worth ten million.”

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  The threat from Georg’s investigation lifted, Edgar gave up on the idea of goi
ng to Spain. Once he’d distributed another wad of Milania’s money, some of it in high-denomination bills, he hired a car and was driven a short way down the coast to the adjoining town, where he’d arranged to meet Atta and Milania a day or two later.

  Set amid woods and olive groves as characteristic of the region as its azure sea and sky, Diano Marina was a modern seaside resort. Edgar checked in to the highly recommended Hôtel du Paradis, which faced a palm tree–dotted strip of park and the ocean beyond. His recovery monitored by a doctor, he passed the second half of August there with Milania and her stepdaughter. In surreptitious exchange for the money that continued to be given him by Milania, he appears to have assumed a grudging role as her lover.

  Years of cocaine and morphine dependency had by then left him with a fixed stare that contributed to his vague manner. To exacerbate his problems, he was also drinking heavily enough to unveil a coarse and argumentative disposition that Milania had not hitherto witnessed. She heard him rail against the British authorities, which had, he said, stolen £200 million from him. Probably influenced by the regional leader of the PNF’s decision to grant him a two-soldier escort whenever he wanted, he spoke in support of Mussolini’s beleaguered government. He said it was the only one capable of comprehending the plight of the Italian people. Edgar also dropped hints about how he wanted to sell his oil fields and seek Italian citizenship.

  Atta endeavored to pull some strings on his behalf by writing to Tullio Tamburini, the Florentine fascist leader.

  “Noble Contessa,” Tamburini replied. “I am trying to obtain what the chief desires—citizenship. Tell him to forward his documents to me right away.”

  Edgar’s desire for Italian citizenship was surely less about switching nationality than about posing as an ardent admirer of Mussolini’s regime. The fact was, Edgar never got around to mailing Tamburini his somewhat meager documentation.

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  Over dinner with the contessas on the terrace of the Hôtel du Paradis, where they’d likely have been able to enjoy such regional specialties as bouillabaisse and zuppa di pesce, Edgar was introduced to Count Ludovico Barattieri di San Pietro. A suave twenty-three-year-old, serving as a senior officer in the fascist militia, he had dark hair atop a face dominated by close-set eyes and an aquiline nose.

  Milania presented herself and her stepdaughter as the aunt and cousin of Prince Ray Tewanna, Chief White Elk.

  “Don’t call me ‘Prince,’ but simply ‘Ray,’ ” a falsely modest Edgar told the count.

  Ludovico quickly demonstrated his exalted connections by introducing Edgar to a series of aristocratic women from his native Turin, who were on vacation there. Promising Ludovico the gift of a villa situated near some hot springs in Canada, Edgar wound up hiring the count as his secretary.

  Through Ludovico, Edgar angled to secure a meeting with Mussolini, known by the reverential title of Il Duce—the Leader. PRINCE WHITE ELK WISHES TO DISCUSS SERIOUS MATTERS WITH YOUR EXCELLENCY, announced Ludovico’s initial wire to the Italian prime minister. It precipitated an exchange of telegrams between Edgar and Mussolini—telegrams from one leader to another. Edgar sought to get in Mussolini’s good graces by warning him that he was suffering from a stomach ulcer. “As a medical practitioner, I recognize these ailments,” Edgar wrote. “I can tell from the way you breathe and your eyes and how you hold your hands and how you move.”

  Sure enough, Edgar bagged an appointment with Mussolini, whose political position remained precarious. The naked corpse of the abducted socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti had just been found in a shallow grave near Rome, giving the king even greater justification for dismissing Mussolini as prime minister.

  Before leaving the contessas and setting out for Rome, where the meeting was due to take place, Edgar told Milania that he’d use his time in the capital to try to persuade the British government to return his confiscated assets. Partnering him for the trip was Ludovico. On the morning of Thursday, August 28, 1924, they headed for the busy Piazza Colonna. Across from the massive Roman column in the center was the Palazzo Chigi, to which Edgar and Ludovico reported. Decorating its interior were Renaissance statuary and painted ceilings. Soon Edgar would be talking with Il Duce, whose pugnacious profile may have been familiar to him from grainy newspaper photos.

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  But Edgar eventually discovered that Mussolini couldn’t see him. Il Duce had needed to hurry to Tuscany to deal with a miners’ strike. Were Edgar to admit the truth about his futile visit to the Palazzo Chigi, he’d have risked losing credibility with Milania. When he next wrote to the contessa, he made a point of saying how well his Roman trip was going. He added that the British government remained obstructive, so he wondered whether she’d mind lending him some extra money to tide him over. This time he didn’t ask for 50,000 lire. He asked for 110,000.

  More convinced than ever about the lofty social and economic realm inhabited by Chief White Elk, Milania transferred the money to him via Ludovico’s bank account. Edgar preyed upon her seemingly unshakable belief in him by swiftly submitting further requests—for 15,000 and then 125,000 lire, which she sent him by the same route.

  There was still time for Edgar to transform his second visit to Rome into more than just a financial success. In hope of getting Edgar an audience with the pope, Ludovico—whose network of connections embraced the Vatican—paid a substantial bribe to a Roman Catholic cardinal. For once, though, Edgar was the chump. His money bought nothing beyond a pair of signed photos of the pope.

  To save face, Ludovico appended forged papal inscriptions to both pictures. “The Holy Father,” read one of those inscriptions, “bestows an apostolic blessing to Your Highness, the Prince Tewanna Ray and your Indian brothers.”

  While in Rome, Edgar also tried his luck with the Italian queen mother. As a pretext for contacting her, he mailed a beaded necklace to her, accompanied by a request to visit the Pantheon and lay a commemorative crown there. She responded with a dismissive note explaining that nobody but princes and monarchs was entitled to lay crowns in the Pantheon. With her message, she enclosed the necklace and one hundred lire to cover Edgar’s postal expenses.

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  Together with Ludovico and the Spanish consul, Marquis José Alli Maccarani, Edgar drove from Rome to Florence on Sunday, August 31, 1924. He moved into a top-floor suite at the Grand Hotel Baglioni, a historic mansion that had become one of the city’s costliest hotels. It looked onto the giant obelisk that skewered the broad expanse of the Piazza dell’Unità Italiana, down the side of which streetcars rattled. Local newspaper stories about the arrival of the famously generous “Canadian prince” ensured that a crowd quickly formed there. To prevent the crowd from getting into the Baglioni, police manned every entrance.

  Bellhops and miscellaneous flunkies beat a path to Edgar’s door, carrying packages, telegrams, flowers, and letters from Italians who’d heard about him. No matter whether the author of those letters offered the gift of two brand-new motorbikes or pleaded for three thousand lire to avoid disgrace and the consequent necessity to commit suicide, Edgar opened many of them with a contented smile. Geographically and in every other respect, he’d come a long way since the days when he was laboring amid the stifling heat and toxic fumes of a zinc smelting plant in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

  Alongside his fan mail, which made it increasingly hard to distinguish the con man from the conned, mounds of pricey gifts accumulated. To safeguard his assorted booty and his jewel-spangled chief’s robes, supposedly of “incalculable value,” the manager of the Baglioni arranged for an extra police officer to be stationed outside Edgar’s suite.

  Edgar treated his robes with the offhand carelessness of someone who had grown up with priceless possessions. His jeweled getup drew admiring comments when he donned it for his second evening in Florence. By claiming his birthday
was that day, he gave himself an excuse to throw a big dinner party. Dining with “His Royal Highness” at the Baglioni were José Alli Maccarani and wife, plus representatives from the city’s fascist leadership. Edgar found favor with the fascists by toasting Il Duce, who clung to power despite the parliamentary boycott, the threat of intervention by the king, and the flood of adverse comment from press and public.

  Sufficient champagne flowed to ensure that the dinner table atmosphere was relaxed and the speeches earned a warm response. Edgar appeared moved by the occasion, his alcohol and drug intake surely contributing to his audacious duplicity, to the escalating scale of the lies he’d been telling. Now it was no longer about the money—if it ever had been. The money was just a means of calibrating the risks he was taking.

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  Bundles of ten- and fifty-lire bills filled the pockets of his chief’s costume next morning. He wore it as he walked past the police guard and out of the Baglioni’s main entrance.

  Waiting for him in the piazza was a parked car. Between him and the car, a crowd had assembled in hope of receiving cash handouts. The crowd surrounded him before he could narrow that gap. He dipped into his pockets and started doling out wads of currency to those closest to him. As he did this, the crowd congealed around him, impeding his progress still more.

  He’d exhausted his supply of bundled banknotes by the time he was approached by a man on a buggy, hauled by a skeletal horse. The man begged him for money. Assuming an expression of sympathy, Edgar handed the man a hundred-lire bill and then got into the parked car.