Shell Game (Stand Alone 2) Read Online Free PDF

they got from Gerald as found money, having already written the loans off their books. In return for finding the deals and managing the properties, Gerald took a ten percent ownership interest without putting up any cash, and a six percent management fee. In just a few years, he went from having no net worth and making five grand a year as a waiter in a restaurant, to having a $2 million net worth and an annual income of $200,000.
    Gerald Folsom had come a long way from those early days, but he still loved reflecting on those days, thinking about his journey from having nothing to being super wealthy. Now here he sat, attorney in tow, at a table with a bunch of federal government bureaucrats who were about to turn over to him the goose that would lay golden eggs. He briefly met Donald Matson’s gaze and almost imperceptibly tipped his head at the man. Gerald knew if Matson was a woman, he’d sleep with her to get what he wanted, even though he was an ugly man, with a flat, large-nostrilled nose, beady black eyes, clumps of hair growing out of his ears, and what appeared to be bits of food imbedded in his bushy, untrimmed mustache. God, Gerald thought, Matson would be one god-awful looking woman.
    But looks aside, Matson had been a patron saint for Gerald. He’d first met him when Matson was a functionary at the Federal Housing Administration, during Gerald’s “FHA phase.” Matson wanted to meet the sales agent who was disposing of so many FHA properties, turning delinquent mortgage loans into good assets, and their friendship grew over the years. That friendship had paid off for Gerald when Matson took a job with the Resolution Trust Corporation. The RTC was a federally-created organization established to dispose of the assets of financial institutions the federal government took over after the 1986 Tax Reform Act had helped destroy the commercial real estate market. Matson’s first big gift to his friend Gerald Folsom came in 1988 when he brought Gerald in to take over some of the assets of Wyndmoor Savings & Loan.
    Wyndmoor Savings & Loan had aggressively loaned to real estate investors and developers, and when the real estate market crashed, many of their loans were in jeopardy. One of Wyndmoor’s borrowers was Frank Winter, Edward Winter’s father. The loan was secured by real estate and the elder Winter’s controlling interest in First Savings Bank. When Frank Winter died in 1988, however, his estate couldn’t keep current on the loan payments. When the RTC began liquidating Wyndmoor’s assets, including its loan to Frank Winter, Donald Matson devised a way to assist the federal government and to help his friend, Gerald Folsom at the same time.
    Matson structured a deal whereby Folsom bought Winter’s loans for fifty cents on the dollar, getting one hundred percent ownership of all of the real estate collateral and Winter’s bank stock securing the loan. Like a shark cruising for prey, Folsom voraciously took over all of Frank Winter’s loans at other banks, as well. Folsom knew where all of these loans were housed; after all, he’d sold the real estate deals to Winter in the first place. On the day Folsom became control stockholder of Winter’s First Savings Bank, Donald Matson was given the key to a safety deposit box at that bank that just happened to hold $100,000 in cash.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Edward slapped the file closed on his desk and looked at Katherine and Nick. “Well, that does it. We’ve got three appointments next week: Van Snowden at Curtis Bank & Trust on Monday morning, Victoria Watts at Pennsylvania Industrial Bank on Monday afternoon, and Ernest Deakyne at Philadelphia Savings & Trust on Tuesday morning.”
    “Good idea going with three banks instead of just one,” Nick said. “The market’s in turmoil right now. Better to be safe. I’ll have the loan presentations, including updated financials, finished by tomorrow morning. For all intents and purposes, they’re already done, but I