King Con (19 page)

F
UCKING TEXACO PHILLIPS,
TOMMY THOUGHT AS THEY
sat in his apartment overlooking the Boardwalk. Calliope was shopping her brains out, looking for “darling outfits” to take to the Bahamas. Texaco sat across from Tommy, looking red-faced and stretching the seams of a maroon, thousand-dollar sport jacket, like a corn-fed ham in Saran Wrap. For the life of him, Tommy couldn’t understand why his brother kept this foul-smelling, ignorant piece of shit around.

“Look, Tex,” Tommy said slowly, “all I want you to do is find ‘em. My cousin Peter works for a travel agent and he punched up the flight manifest for Delta. She flew to San Francisco with two guys named B. Bates and J. Bates. I don’t know who the hell these two fucks are, but don’t you try and find out. Don’t fucking try and solve this, you’ll fuck it up. You just find ‘em. They got phones in San Francisco, pick up a fucking phone and call me. Got it?”

Texaco both nodded and shrugged at the same time. It was a gesture of acknowledgment and indifference and it pissed Tommy off, so he back-handed the big, ugly ex-linebacker on the shoulder.

“Hey, dipshit, I don’t hear no answer here.”

“I’ll call ya, Tommy,” Texaco said softly.

“My cousin Peter will be checking to see if they book seats outta there. His number’s written on this card.” He stuffed it in Texaco’s tailored breast pocket. “His name’s Peter Rina. The kid’s just outta college, so don’t tell him nothin’ he don’t need ta know. He’s in Jersey, but he can check this shit anywhere in the country.”

So Texaco became a posse of one. He flew to San Francisco, and was now wandering around in the City by the Bay looking at brightly clothed tourists and wondering how the fuck he was supposed to find Victoria Hart and these two guys named Bates. What he did find was a great gym near his hotel where he could get illegal steroid shots in the ass for fifty bucks a jolt. He also found a great Italian restaurant half a block from there, where the osso buco and the mozzarella marinara were world class. He alternated between four-hundred-pound dead-lifts, shots of jump-juice, and the great Italian cuisine. He was power lifting and eating his way through the first day, when he decided to finally call Peter Rina and have him scan the airline reservations for Victoria Hart and the two Bateses on all flights out of SFO. The kid told him he’d found nothing so far. Texaco figured eventually they would either leave and go someplace else or Tommy would tell him to come home. His heart wasn’t in the hunt. Beyond that simple truth, his walnutsized brain had not wandered. When he got back to the hotel, he had a message to call Tommy.

“The fuck you doin’ stayin’ in that hotel in town?” was Tommy’s first question, passing right over “Hi” and “How are you?”

“You said—”

“Hey, musclehead,” Tommy charged on, “you gotta wait at the airport. If they show up and buy tickets at the counter, you gotta be there. What the fuck’s wrong
with you? I give you Peter’s number and he tells me you only call him once.”

“Jeez, Tommy,” Texaco whined, “what’m I supposed t’do, call him every hour?”

“Fuckin’ A right. He’s checking every hour, you call him every hour. What’re you doin’ out there? Gettin’ a Chevy parked up your asshole or something?”

“Come on, Tommy.” Texaco Phillips was beginning to truly hate Tommy Rina, but the more he hated him, the more he was afraid of him. It was a strange formula. He promised he would call Peter Rina every hour on the hour and move to a hotel at the airport. When he hung up, he had completely lost his appetite.

There was a small Western combo and some pretty slick line dancing going on in the nightclub at the Red Barn in Keats. Steven Bates and his wife, Ellen, were dressed up, starched, and pleated. Twelve-year-old Lawrence had on a wide, frayed, striped tie that looked like it had been handed down through three generations. The music flowed through the open door of the nightclub into the dining room while they all ate delicious barbecued ribs and buttered corn.

“… ‘course, since we settled down here in Keats, we ain’t been doin’ no roofing or driveway husdes. We go out on the road once, twice a year, fleece some mooches, come back, and use the money to build our legit contracting business,” Steve said. He was talking as he ate, wiping barbecue sauce off his chin. They were a lean, raw-boned couple, weathered by exposure to the outdoors. Steve had a con man’s kind blue eyes and a receding hairline. Ellen was a fading beauty with a short, no-nonsense hairstyle and intense black eyes that examined you with a laser focus. Victoria thought that little Lawrence was going to be quite a charmer. He was just twelve years old, and his voice had not changed yet, but
he had the same dazzling con man’s smile that seemed to run in this family, and he was not afraid to use it.

“How you gonna play the bubble?” Steven asked, leaning in closer.

“Gonna rope the mooch with a tat, steer him with a mack, probably put him on the country-send to his drop, and play him off against the wall.”

Victoria wondered what the hell they were saying as Steve continued. …

“A cold playoff is kinda dangerous.”

“If I have to, I’m gonna bring in the Hog Creek families,” Beano added.

‘You ever worked with them before?” Steve asked.

“Nope.”

“Watch out. Them Bateses been living up in that Arkansas valley for a hundred years, inbreedin’ an’ drinking sour mash. They come rollin’ outta them hills in wide-tire trucks, kickin’ ass and eatin’ their victims. They ain’t too delicate.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Beano put down his fork. “Probably set up the farm tomorrow. I think I found one that looks good for the play. I want you t’run the paintin’ crew and I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars, plus one tenth of anything we can skim.”

Steven Bates closed his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Victoria almost thought he’d gone to sleep until he opened them and looked at his wife, Ellen, who seemed to read his mind, and nodded. He turned back to Beano.

“You mentioned you was doin’ this on account’a your cousin Carol,” Steven finally said.

“Yeah. She got killed by the two mooches we’re gonna play this game on.”

“Kinda pisses me off when one of our extended family gets screwed up. I don’t take that kindly. Seems wrong fer us t’be makin’ money off Carol’s death.”

“Look, I appreciate that, Steven, but she was very close to me—you don’t have to work for nothing.”

“Thing is, I never run a Big Store. You let me in on this … lemme play on the inside. That’d be enough payment for me.”

“You sure?”

“You’re somethin’ of a legend; be an honor,” Steve said, and Ellen nodded in agreement.

“We seen you on
America’s Most Wanted
,” Lawrence chipped in. “Only you had black hair an’ no mustache.”

“Okay,” Beano smiled at the couple, “but if we end up with surplus cash, I’ll cut you in for a tenth.”

“Fair ‘nuff.”

The business having been completed, they switched to other subjects. Victoria said very little. There was one family detail that amazed her. … All of them had a tattoo under their watches, including Beano. The tattoo was a script
B
with the date of each family member’s first scam. Lawrence Bates had gotten his just last summer.

“Yep,” Steven said, as his son removed his watch. “Dropped some leather over in Portsmouth at the fair. Worked the drag with his fifteen-year-old cousin Betsy.” Lawrence showed his tattoo proudly. Under the capital
B
it said: 7/3/96.

Later that night, after they rented rooms in the motel in Keats, Beano invited Victoria to his room for a nightcap of vodka and Coke that he had picked up at the liquor store. Victoria was determined not to get giddy this time and sipped her drink cautiously as Beano pulled a small, electrically heated press-on steamer out of his bag.

“This is the same kind of thing they use to steam pictures and logos onto T-shirts,” he said, as he filled it with water and plugged it into the wall socket to let it warm up. He pulled out the two jump-suits they had
bought at Hobbs Ranch and Farm Supplies. He laid them out on the faded green motel bedspread. Beano took the small white decals, which were only a half-inch high, and placed them over the breast pocket so that they said U.S.
AGR. DEPT.
He looked at them critically.

“Whatta you think?” he said. “Would you buy into that?”

She looked for a minute, then rearranged them in a semi-circle above the pocket. “Better?” she asked.

“Much,” he acknowledged. He tested his steam heat iron and, using the hard desk top for a base plate, he imprinted the decals onto the jump-suits.

After fixing both jump-suits they moved out into the motel parking lot and began to affix the same letters to both front doors of the Ford Escort, this time using the larger two-inch yellow decals. As they worked, she asked him what “dropping some leather” meant.

“It’s the old pigeon drop,” he explained. “Actually the con is almost a thousand years old. It was first played in China. It’s been called a bunch a’different things over the years: ‘Doping the Poke,’ “The Drag,”The Spanish Handkerchief Switch.’ Had a lotta names, but it’s always the same game.”

“How’s it work?” she asked, fascinated.

“Two con men work together. They pretend to find a wallet stuffed with real money in the near vicinity of the mark. The mark needs to be chosen carefully. Usually a wealthy person, a matron or a business executive, well dressed, good shoes. Always check for quality shoes and purses. It’s a dead giveaway on a wealthy mark. You position the wallet so that he also can be considered a legitimate finder. Next comes the big argument. What to do, should we turn it over to the cops? No way. Cops’ll just keep it. Then the two grifters agree that the wealthy mark should hold the wallet with all the money for a week to see if anybody comes forward.”

“Hold on by letting go,” she said.

“Exactly. But at the last minute the grifters decide that the mark should give each of them a fraction of the amount out of his own pocket as good faith money, maybe only ten percent. The mark doesn’t mind ‘cause he’s gonna be holding the poke worth five times that much. He gives ‘em the money. The grifters take off. … Then the mark opens the wallet to find out that they switched the poke on him and he has a wallet full of cut paper.”

“People fall for that?” she said, amazed.

“Every day, Victoria, in every city in the world. It’s one of the most common hustles around.”

He straightened up and looked at his work on the door of the light green Escort. Now she understood why he had insisted on that color and size car. … The mid-sized light green Ford Escort with yellow letters on the door now looked exactly like a government vehicle.

“Now all we need is yellow hard hats and clipboards. People always believe you when you’ve got a clipboard,” he grinned. “Don’t ask me why.”

That night Victoria lay in bed and listened to the crickets sing. Yesterday it had been a spandex dress and hooker heels. Tomorrow, the silly green jump-suit and a yellow hard hat. They would walk up to an unsuspecting farmer carrying clipboards and pretend to be from the Department of Agriculture. No big deal! So what? She tried to go to sleep, but for some reason her heart wouldn’t slow down; her adrenaline wouldn’t stop pumping. It was strange. … Why was this even more exhilarating than the pre-game jitters she got before a big court case? She didn’t want to admit it, but she finally had to face the truth:
It’s more exciting,
she thought, as she adjusted her pillow in the darkened room.
Because it’s against all of my rules.
But that wasn’t all there was to it. All her life her mother had
tried to get her to loosen up, but Victoria had kept strictly inside the white lines, never straying, always staying on course. Now, because of the horrible guilt over Carol’s death, she had put herself in the hands of this charming con man. She was lying and cheating and, strangely enough, loving every minute of it. In some deep part of her, a dormant ember, long dead, had started glowing again. … She had almost forgotten this feeling, but it had happened before, when she was a small child and her mother had taken her to the market. She had stolen candy from the big open bin, her little six-year-old heart beating wildly on the way out. She had gotten away with the theft, but later her mother had caught her eating the candy and had loaded her into the car along with the candy and driven her back to the market. All the way, Victoria had pleaded not to make her go. Her mother marched her inside the market and got the manager. She had to give back all the candy, apologize, and promise to pay for whatever she had eaten. She was so humiliated, she cried all the way home. She promised herself she would never ever steal again. It was a promise she had kept for almost thirty years, but now was about to break. And she had never felt more alive.

The next morning they set up the moose pasture. It was so easy, it was almost ridiculous. They drove down the entrance road of Cal Oaks Farm in their green Escort with the Agriculture Department decals on the door, decked out in their doctored jump-suits. The clipboards held prop pages torn from the phone book. Yellow hard-hats rode officially on their heads. They pulled up next to the barn where a startled, heavy-set blond man in coveralls looked up. Beano already knew that his name was Carl Harper from some letters he’d looked at in the mailbox out by the road. Beano glanced down at his clipboard as he got out of the car.

“Jill, this is the Harper place, am I right?” he said, loud enough to be heard.

“Believe so, Danny,” she said, her heart beating frantically as Carl Harper walked up.

“I help you folks?”’ he said; his pale eyes zigzagged suspiciously around, from their faces down to the door of the car and back up to their uniform pocket decals.

“Well, I’m hoping,” Beano said and gave him the rainmaker. “I’m Danny Duncan with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and we’re out here trying to help the space engineers at NASA this morning,” he grinned.

“How’s that?”

“Well, NASA and the U.S. Army coordinated on developing a brand-new kind a’paint.” He turned to Victoria. “You wanna show him, Jill?”