The bullpen was on the second floor of Sidney Coe's office building, and although the ceiling and walls were soundproofed, the place was bedlam.
Almost twenty yaks worked in that madhouse, their splintery desks cramped side by side. On each desk was a telephone, script, sucker list, and overflowing ashtray. The air conditioner was set at its coldest and operated constantly, but the smoky air in that crowded room rarely got below 80°, the humidity was a fog, and some of the men stripped to the waist.
The yaks were currently hawking platinum, selling ounce bars of the metal with "free insurance and storage" included in the sales price. At the moment, the price was $500 per troy ounce (ten ounces minimum purchase), and any mooch could consult the financial pages and see he was buying at $23 per ounce under the market price.
"Because we have an exclusive source of supply that's liable to dry up any minute, the demand is so great. Now's the time to get in on the greatest money-making opportunity we've ever offered. Here's the chance of a lifetime, but you've got to get in on it NOW! Tomorrow may be too late. How much can I put you down for? Mail in your check today, and then go shopping for a new Cadillac because you're going to be rich, rich, RICH!"
Twenty yaks made this pitch, talking into their phones as rapidly and loudly as they could so the mooch was confused, didn't have time to think, heard only the shouted NOW! and RICH! and decided he better get in on this bonanza before the exclusive source of cheap platinum was exhausted.
Checks arrived daily from all over the country, so many in fact that Sid Coe made two trips to the bank every day, hoping the checks would clear before the mooches had second thoughts and stopped payment. Few did. Even more remarkable, suckers who had lost money with Instant Investments, Inc., on precious gems, uranium, rare coins, and oil leases, sent in checks for platinum, hoping to recoup their losses.
"They like to suffer, Cynthia," Sid opined to his wife. "I tell you it's pure masochism. For some reason they feel guilty and want to be punished."
"Thank you, Doctor Freud," she said.
Coe stalked the boiler room like a master lashing on his galley slaves. "Close the deal!" he kept yelling. "Close the deal, get a meal! Get the cash, buy the hash! Get the dough or out you go!"
He hung over their sweaty shoulders, nudging them, spurring them on. Occasionally he grabbed the phone from their hand and demonstrated his version of the hard sell: raucous, derisive, almost insulting.
"Go ahead," he'd shout. "Put your money in CDs and savings accounts. Take your lousy eight percent. Haven't you got the guts to be rich? Does it scare you to make real money? I'm offering you a chance to get out of that rut you're in. Do you want to live like a man or do you want to play kids' games all your life?"
Invariably he closed the deal.
Manny Suarez loved the place, couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. It was eight to twelve hours of noisy action, right up his alley. Coe assigned him one of the few vacant desks, gave him a script and sucker list, and turned him loose. Manny imitated the other yaks, with a few significant changes.
He picked out the Hispanic names on his list, and although he made the pitch rapidly in Spanish, he never shouted. Instead, his voice was warm, friendly. Their health? The health of their family? And how did they like the United Sta'? Then, after a few moments of his intimate chitchat, he launched into the spiel.
He discovered he had a real talent for bamboozling. He closed the deal on almost half his calls, a percentage that rivaled that of the most experienced yaks. And during the second day he was on the job, he sold $25,000 of nonexistent platinum to a mooch in Los Angeles, a coup that impelled Sid Coe to give him a $500 bonus on the spot.
Payday was Saturday afternoon. The yaks filed into the ground-floor office, one by one, and were paid their commissions in cash from a big stack of bills on Coe's desk, alongside a brutal.45 automatic. For his first week's work, Manuel Suarez earned over $900, including his five-yard bonus.
"You're doing real good," Coe told him. "You like the job?"
"It's hokay," Manny said. "But I need more Hispanic names."
"You'll get them," the boss promised. "I buy our sucker lists from a guy in Chicago who supplies most of the boiler rooms in the country. I called him, and he's going to run his master list through a computer and pull every Spanish-sounding name for us. He says it's a great idea, and he's also going to get up an Italian list, a French list, and a Polish list. Apparently no one ever thought of ethnic sucker lists before. It could help the whole industry."
Suarez pocketed his earnings and drove down to headquarters. It was then late Saturday afternoon, but Anthony Harker was still at his desk, working on a big chart that he covered up when Manny came into his office.
"Hey, man," Suarez said, flashing a grin, "I got a small problem."
"Yeah?" Tony said. "How small?"
"I just got paid at Coe's boiler room. Do I gotta turn in the moaney to this organization or what?"
"I asked Crockett. He says you'll have to turn in the money. Sorry."
"Hokay," Suarez said.
"By the way," Harker said, "how much did you make?"
"Almost three hundred," Suarez said, and bopped out to his car, snapping his fingers and smiling at all the women he passed.
He stopped at a few stores before returning to the home of the Cuban lady where he was staying. She was nicely put together. And she seemed muy simpatica. Manny bought five pounds of barbecued ribs, a liter of light Puerto Rican rum, and drove homeward whistling "Malaguena."
On Monday morning there were new scripts on all the yaks' desks. They were no longer peddling platinum. Now they were to push shares of stock in something called the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund. One dollar per share; 1,000 shares minimum. Suarez picked up his phone and went to work.