The Scam (20 page)

“A couple of condos are not going to be as valuable as a percentage of your business.”

“No, they're not,” Trace said. “But until you see a return, and are assured that you can trust me, having those deeds in your pocket will reassure you that you've actually left Macau with something to show for your money.”

“Have you talked to Blackmore? What did that loudmouth Canadian want in return for his money?” Billy Dee asked.

“He took me at my word,” Trace said.

“He's a bigger gambler than I thought. Are my hosts in on this, too?”

“No, and I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this between us.”

“And Alika, too, I suppose,” Billy Dee said.

“I'll be talking to him next. I'm seeking investors with a certain profile, and Nick Sweet doesn't match it. Mr. Alika does.”

“So you're using Nick to find guys like me. He thinks he's playing you, but you're playing him.”

“Nick is making money out of this, so everybody wins,” Trace said. “When does that ever happen in a casino?”

“Never,” Billy Dee said.

N
ick and Kate's flight back to Los Angeles the next morning on their private jet was a somber affair. Alika had taken a commercial flight back to Hawaii, so at least they'd been spared the prospect of spending a dozen hours trapped in the air with a three-hundred-plus-pound reminder of their failure.

“It's so incredibly frustrating,” Kate said. “Here Trace is, on video, admitting to a crime. If Billy Dee and Boyd were really big-time crooks, and if this was recorded as part of a legitimate FBI sting operation, then Trace would be finished.”

Nick selected a tea sandwich from the buffet that had been set out for them on the plane's credenza. “There was no way to know that Trace would turn this into an opportunity to run a scam of his own.”

“We underestimated him.”

“True.”

“You don't seem very upset by this. We were supposed to take Trace down. Instead, we spent weeks and over a million dollars bringing Trace, Alika, and the Yakuza together so they could all get richer and more powerful while we got
nothing.
This looks to me like a disaster. And the worst part is that the next time al-Qaeda pulls off some horrific terrorist attack on foreign soil that kills scores of people, we'll have to live with the possibility that it was financed with money laundered through Trace's casino and that we blew our chance to stop it.”

“We didn't blow our chance. We just hit a speed bump. We need to come up with an even bigger and better con than the original.”

“Okay, I like that thinking. At the very least we have incriminating evidence that he's using gambling losses from criminals to secretly finance the construction of his new Macau resort casino. If this video got out, it might not put Trace in jail, but it would certainly cost him his gambling license in Nevada, and that would shut him down in Macau, too.”

“The recording is inadmissible in court,” Nick said. “Even if it wasn't, you'd have to admit that you were running a con with the international fugitive that you're supposed to be chasing, a retired Somali pirate who did covert ops with your dad, and an actor whose last role was in a talking-potato version of
Great Expectations.
We'd end up in prison, and Trace would still be free.”

“As an FBI agent I should be able to do
something
with that video. Organize some sort of sting.”

Nick grinned. “I've got it. You're absolutely right. We use the video. The way to save the con is by revealing that it
is
one.”

“We're going to reveal to Trace that our junket operation is a scam run by an FBI agent and a con man?”

“Of course not,” Nick said. “We're going to reveal it to Lono Alika. We're also going to tell him that Trace is in on it, too. The video is the proof. Why else would there be an incriminating video?”

“But that's a death sentence. Alika will go crying to the Yakuza and they'll come gunning for all of us.”

“Exactly, which basically puts us right back where we would have been in our previous scam, if Trace hadn't screwed things up.”

“It's insane,” Kate said. “But it might work.”

They spent the rest of the flight honing the details of the con and by the time they landed at LAX Kate was sold on the scheme. To pull it off, they'd need to work very fast, recruit some old friends, commit grand theft, blow up an $80,000 car, and stage a violent shootout with automatic weapons.

“Those are all the ingredients of a great con,” Nick said as they got off the plane.

“Or a disaster that ends with us all in prison or graves.”

“At least then you wouldn't have to worry about adding the car to your expense account.”

The next morning Kate found her father on the hillside between Megan's backyard and the golf course below. Jake was in the bushes, digging holes in the dirt with a hand shovel. Beside him was an open rucksack full of soda cans that had batteries, electrical wires, and what looked like dabs of clay stuck to them.

She stepped off the patio and noticed a row of freshly dug, and refilled, holes in the slope. “You aren't planting land mines, are you?”

“Of course not,” Jake said.

“Then what are you doing?”

“I'm burying small, pressure-activated explosives in the dirt.”

“That's a land mine.”

“These hardly count. They are no more dangerous than a cap pistol. When weight is put on them, they make a loud pop that will startle the coyotes but won't injure them.”

“I still don't think the humane society would approve.”

“I've got no choice. Our pee isn't working as a deterrent.”

“This is where you and Roger have been peeing?”

“And some of my golfing buddies, too. It's been a great excuse to sit outside and drink a case of beer,” Jake said. “There's a severe drought going on but you wouldn't know it by how moist this hillside is.”

Kate stepped back up onto the patio and scraped the dirt off her shoe on the rough edge. “I've got something better for you to do. We're ready to make our move on Trace and we could use your help.”

“Would the humane society approve?”

“Probably. There are no animals involved in what we're doing.”

“I once ran a stampede of cattle through a South American village to free CIA agents being held hostage by rebels,” Jake said. “The cattle came out of it fine. Can't say the same for the rebels.”

“Our con doesn't involve a stampede. But there are explosives.”

“Count me in.” Jake put his things back in the rucksack, slung it over his shoulder, and stood up. “The kids can finish up this project.”

“You've taught them how to make land mines?”

“I wouldn't be much of a grandfather if I didn't.”

“
Suspiria
was a classic,” Ainsley Booker said. She was the rail-thin, stringy-haired, flat-chested, braless, twenty-something publicist for the horror flick
The Last Town on Earth.
She was admiring Nick's faded
Suspiria
T-shirt that featured a naked woman hanging over a pool of blood. “Dario Argento is the man.”

Nick was posing as a writer for
Fangoria
magazine. To play the part, he wore the
Suspiria
movie poster T-shirt, hadn't washed his hair in the two days since he'd returned to L.A., and drove up to the movie's Closter City location in a 2006 Chevy Cobalt. Closter City was a small central California town that was abandoned in the mid-1980s after it was feared some of the population had developed cancer from pesticide-contaminated groundwater.

“We worship Argento at
Fangoria,
” Nick said. “They should carve his face on the Mount Rushmore of horror.”

Ainsley gestured to Christian McVeety, the rotund eighty-two-year-old director who was standing in a jacket and tie behind the cameras in Closter City's weed-choked town square. McVeety watched intently as a gang of decomposing zombies with huge fangs chased two buxom screaming girls in halter tops and short-shorts past the cameras.

The movie took place after the human race had been decimated by a virus that turned most of the population into vampires. Now a handful of survivors were battling the last starving vampires, who wanted to breed humans like cattle. The humans were eager to breed, especially with buxom girls in halter tops and short-shorts. They just didn't want to be eaten, hence the conflict.

A production assistant stood directly behind McVeety with his hands palm out in a halting gesture. Nick was about to ask Ainsley what the PA was doing, but it became obvious when McVeety began to tip backward and the PA gently pushed him upright again.

“It's the PA's job to keep McVeety standing,” Ainsley said, following Nick's gaze. “It's an honor. Film students line up for the opportunity.”

“I'm sure they do. He's a legend.”

“McVeety is old school, in the best sense. None of that postproduction, green-screen, CGI crap for him. If it's not in front of the camera, it's not in the film. He's all about authenticity. That's why we're shooting in Closter City. You know, for the allegory.”

“Allegory and gore,” Nick said. “That's Christian McVeety's trademark. I'm going to ask him about that.”

“You can interview him after his nap,” Ainsley said.

“Cool. I'd like to talk to his special effects guy in the meantime.”

“That'd be Chet Kershaw. Follow me.” Ainsley led him toward a big tent where several zombie vampires in various stages of decomposition sat in folding chairs, killing time listening to music on their smartphones or reading books. One female zombie vampire nibbled on an Atkins bar, careful not to disturb her makeup.

“Chet's family has been doing monster makeup and on-set special effects since the days of silent films,” Ainsley said. “What he does is a dying art.”

“So it's ironic that he's using his talents on the walking dead. The same could be said of McVeety.”

Ainsley smiled at Nick. “Sounds like you've already written your story.”

“I never start anything without an angle,” Nick said.

Chet had his back to Ainsley and Nick as they approached. He was a bear of a guy, big enough to be a boxer or a linebacker, but his size was belied by the delicacy he was using to apply latex pustules to the face of the zombie vampire sitting very still in the director's chair in front of him.

“Chet, do you have a minute to talk with
Fangoria
?” Ainsley asked.

“I'm a crew of one who has to make up thirty zombies and rig two exploding heads. I don't have time to pee and I've needed to for an hour.” Chet turned around, holding a latex pustule daintily with two fingers. When he saw Nick, he broke into a big smile. “But peeing is overrated.”

Ainsley saw the recognition on Chet's face. “You two know each other?”

“I've interviewed Chet before,” Nick said. “I'm a big fan of his work.”

Kate had drafted Chet for the Derek Griffin con. Chet believed that Nick and Kate worked for a private security firm that pushed the boundaries of legality to get the job done.

Chet stuck the fake pustule on Ainsley's cheek. “Hold on to this for me. We'll be right back.”

Chet put his arm around Nick and took him to the far corner of the tent, where they could speak privately.

“It's so good to see you,” Chet said. “Seems like just when I'm ready to slit my throat out of boredom and self-loathing, you or Kate show up to save me.”

“Is working on this movie really that bad?”

“No, I'm thankful to be here. I've hardly worked since I did that last project for you,” Chet said. “I got this gig because McVeety is computer illiterate and my grandfather worked on his first film in the 1950s.”

“Attack of the
Flesh-Eating Martians,”
Nick said.

“That's the one,” Chet said. “He's been basically making the same movie for sixty years. But God bless him. Once he's gone, I may have to find a new line of work. I've been studying for a realtor's license.”

“That would be a tragedy. Maybe I can save you from that, at least temporarily. We'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to help us take down a bad guy who launders money for mobsters and terrorists.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Kill me,” Nick said.

Chet smiled. “I'd be glad to.”