Simple Grifts

by Max Cossack

  “Yes, you’ve been very sensitive. And I know you can use the money to accomplish so many important things. I appreciate your patience.”

  “Until now, I’ve avoided the subject.”

  “It’s more complicated than you may imagine,” she said. “I have a lot of assets, but they aren’t all liquid. To free up that amount of cash, I have to move a lot of things around and juggle here and there.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  His hands were folded on the table between them. She placed one finger on his hands. “You do understand, don’t you?”

  “A situation has come up.”

  “And you need the money now?”

  “Yes.”

  She sipped her tea. “I see. But I’m not quite finished with all the moving and juggling. Giving all the money now could be an inconvenience.”

  “Is there anything you can do now? Like an installment?”

  “Can you tell me about this situation that’s come up? Maybe if I knew more, I’d know more about how I could help.”

  “Well…”

  “Or is it confidential? Secret?”

  He said, “Somewhat.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me?”

  “Okay. Well, the DCA has an opportunity to forge an alliance with a friendly organization.”

  She asked, “An organization?”

  “A power. And this alliance could do a lot for the Movement.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Where does my money come in?”

  “They want a contribution,” he said. “A kind of gesture of good will, of intent, showing we’re worth the effort and we have something to contribute on our part. That we ourselves are also the real deal.”

  “And they’re the real deal?”

  He nodded. “The real real deal.”

  “The real real deal?”

  “Yes,” he said. “This can make a huge difference to the DCA. Elevate its own importance within the Movement.”

  She said, “Like getting a franchise?”

  “A franchise?”

  She sipped her tea. “Well, my dear Emerson wanted to start a restaurant. A place to put some of all his facelift and buttlift money. Tax reasons, you know. But he faced fierce competition. Rather than start his own restaurant, he researched and found out the simplest way to go was to open a Chick-fil-A franchise. That gave his restaurant automatic credibility—I mean, with the sort of people who eat at Chick-fil-A. He wound up making a pile.”

  “I see what you mean. Yes. We’d be like an American franchise.”

  “For this power?”

  “Yes.”

  She added, “And landing this franchise would put the DCA as an organization ahead of its competitors within the Movement?”

  “It would help.”

  She said, “And you’re being the one personally to land this franchise for the DCA will that also put you personally ahead of any competitors within the DCA?

  This woman was much savvier than he’d anticipated. Soren said, “You’re very astute.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I spent years with that serpent Ilianius and his punk Alfonso. Artists. A greedier pair of conniving sneaky snakes you never met. Make divorce lawyers look like pussies.”

  Who was this woman? Suddenly, Soren found her more alluring than ever. What had he been missing? He said, “You’re showing a side of you I’ve never seen.”

  “When it comes to my money, I’m a shark. Drink your tea.” She stood. He did as she instructed and watched her over the top of his mug as she paced around her kitchen.

  She stopped and faced him. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I can come up with a hundred twenty-five thousand right now. The rest will have to wait. At least a month.”

  38 Two Tracks Rolling

  “Now we are rolling,” Abarca said.

  Abarca had just looked inside the slim briefcase Soren handed him and seen sixty thousand dollars in cash. Abarca didn’t even blink. But Roper stumbled back in shock against the wall.

  Soren wasn’t going to repeat his cashier’s check blunder. He’d been very specific with Flo about how he wanted the money. Almost unable to believe it could really happen, he’d waited in the Wayzata Bank and Trust parking lot in the passenger’s seat of Flo’s Mercedes while she went inside with a slim briefcase. One hour later, she came back out with the same briefcase and got in the driver’s seat and handed the case to him.

  Soren laid it on his lap and snapped it open. When the lid popped up, he couldn’t believe how little space one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars took up. The tidy bundles of crisp flat one-hundred-dollar bills fit snug but easily.

  Flo hissed. “Close it. Not out here in public.”

  He snapped the case shut.

  They drove in silence back to her house and laughed their way upstairs to her bedroom. Two hours later, he took off for Ojibwa City. Tickled by the danger of carrying so much fungible treasure, he stopped at a Starbucks he chanced on. He laid the briefcase on top of a vacant table and stood in line for ten minutes resisting the temptation to look back over his shoulder at the case.

  He returned to find the briefcase still on his table. He skimmed the New York Times someone had left. He drank his herbal tea and got back on the road and made it the rest of the way to his house in ninety minutes.

  He took the case into his basement and removed slightly more than half the cash and stowed Flo’s case behind his water heater. He put the sixty thousand dollars in a smaller thinner case and made it back to Abarca’s in two more hours.

  Soren had risked the unthinkable loss of the cash and come away unscathed. He had cut off a nice slice for himself. Now he had delivered the sixty thousand safely to Abarca. Emboldened, Soren slipped past Roper and took his rightful seat in his gold upholstered chair. He crossed his legs and smiled up at Abarca. “A Frescolita, please? The drive made me a bit thirsty.”

  Abarca bestowed on Soren his warmest smile to date. “For you, my friend, of course.” Abarca went to his mini-fridge and took out a can and snapped up the pop-top and handed the can to Soren. “You are beginning to appreciate our national beverage?”

  “I’m starting to,” Soren said. “It takes a while to get used to the sweetness.”

  Roper was still standing in the corner, shaking his head in apparent shock.

  Abarca sat on his sofa. He reached his left hand over and patted Soren’s thigh. “Now,” he said.

  “Yes,” Soren agreed. “Now.”

  Abarca nodded.

  Soren asked, “Now what?”

  Abarca said, “Now we proceed on two tracks.”

  “I see,” Soren said, although he didn’t.

  “Yes, we have the cash—you can get more?”

  Soren nodded.

  Roper said, “How much more?

  Abarca glared at Roper. “We won’t ask that question just this moment,” Abarca said. He turned back to Soren with his charm face back on. “But your access to any new providential cash will be track one. At the same time, the painting will be track two. You see?”

  “I see,” Soren said. “The painting.” In his excitement over the cash, the painting had almost slipped his mind.

  Abarca said, “As it happens, my friend, we have an offer.”

  Soren asked, “Really?”

  “I’m the one got us the offer,” Roper said.

  “That’s right,” Abarca said. “Roper gets the credit for the offer.”

  “That’s great,” Soren said. He gave what he intended as a respectful nod to Roper.

  Roper shrugged off Soren’s comradely gesture. He said, “But the offer depends.”

  “On what?” Soren said.

  “Let me show you,” Roper said. He left the room and a moment later returned carrying the painting. He leaned it against the wall. The three men looked at it.

  Roper said, “Now we can all see and agree that this painting is piece of crap.”

  Abarca murmured something affirmative. Soren said, “
That’s true.”

  Roper said, “So, all that matters is whether anything of value hides under the top layer of paint.”

  Soren said, “That’s something I’ve never understood. How could that happen?”

  Roper said, “Alfonso Jones was protégé to Ilianius. Quality canvases can be expensive. A lot of struggling artists re-use previously painted canvases to save money. The rumor is that there’s a lost Ilianius work under there. An Ilianius that Alfonso painted over when he was broke. Before his surgery put him on the map.”

  “Okay,” Soren said. “So why don’t we just grab some scrapers and get to work and see what’s under there?”

  Abarca said, “Can’t do that. We might damage the underlying Ilianius.”

  Roper said, “Correct. We have to use a non-invasive procedure.”

  Soren asked, “Like what?”

  “Like infrared scanning or multi-spectral imaging technology,” Roper said. “Or Terahertz spectroscopy—that’s the type of radiation they use at the airport to scan you.”

  “Sounds technical,” Soren said.

  Roper nodded. “It is. And expensive. Which is where your timely infusion of this little chunk of change comes in handy.”

  Soren didn’t like the slighting reference to his sixty grand, but he ignored it. “Does the College Physics Department have the equipment for this?”

  Abarca was quick to say, “No, can’t risk doing it here. We need the tightest possible security.”

  Roper nodded. “Right. We lined up another source.”

  39 The Big Test

  Roper drove Abarca, Soren and Enrique to the test site in his Audi heap. Of course, Abarca took the front passenger side, which left Soren jammed in behind Abarca in the tiny rear seat, Enrique’s wide bulk squashing Soren in from the left.

  Roper’s Fox bumped and jumbled them along in another St. Paul neighborhood until Roper pulled up in front of a white two-story house was much nicer than Abarca’s. They all got out and went to the front door. Roper stuck a key in the front door.

  A man riding by on a bicycle stopped. He shouted, “Hey!”

  All four turned around and looked at the biker. He said, “Hey, how you doing? Haven’t seen you around.”

  The four all looked at one another. Then Roper shrugged at the other three and said to the biker, “Haven’t been around.”

  “You going to be?” the biker asked.

  “No,” Roper said. “Just dropping by with a package.”

  The man said, “See you around, then,” and rode off.

  Roper said, “That guy must have noticed me before, when I visited this place to set up the test.”

  To Soren, Roper’s explanation came off as lame. The bicyclist acted like he knew one of the four of them, and evidently it was Roper. Was Roper not on the level? Abarca seemed indifferent to the odd incident. Next chance Soren got, he was going to warn Abarca about Roper. But then Abarca always seemed to defend Roper and get mad at Soren whenever he said even the tiniest thing.

  Roper opened the door and led the other three through the kitchen to the basement stairs and down.

  As they passed through the living room, Soren couldn’t help noticing the fancy granite coffee table with its fine china, as well as the richly upholstered sofa and Afghani rugs. “Whose place is this?”

  “A friend of the Revolution,” Roper said.

  The finished basement was equally well furnished. An elegant plush easy chair sat on luxurious carpet in front of a big HDTV. High stools with red plush seats stood in front of a bar top of honey colored walnut. The sofa was ten feet long.

  Enrique took L’Amination out of a temporary box into which Roper had stuck it. Enrique unwrapped its bubble wrap. He laid the painting face up on the bar and stepped back and folded his arms.

  Enrique took a laptop out of a case and set it next to the painting. He plugged in the laptop and booted it up. He removed a black cable from the case and plugged one end into a laptop port. The other end began to glow with a white light.

  “What’s that?” Soren asked.

  Abarca said, “It’s for the Terahertz spectroscopy.”

  “We’re spending ten thousand dollars of my contribution for that puny little thing?”

  “Don’t forget to take into account the specially equipped hardware and software.”

  “The tube is so small,” Soren said.

  Abarca said, “My friend, this is not one of those old science fiction movies, with the big flickering lights and giant wall-sized computers with their spinning tape decks. Miniaturization has advanced wonderfully.”

  He added, “Roper, please turn off the lights.”

  Roper went to the wall and flicked a switch and the lights went off. The glowing end of the tube cast the only light in the room.

  Soren asked, “Enrique is running this test?”

  “Despite his lack of loquacity, Enrique possesses extraordinary technical fluency. I rely on him completely.”

  Enrique keyed some adjustments to something he saw on the laptop screen. He held the glowing end of the tube at the top left of the painting, then moved it steadily left to right, then began systematically working his way down the painting.

  Soren asked, “What’s he doing?”

  “Scanning,” Abarca said.

  Soren asked, “Is he using a laser?”

  “In a manner of speaking, Different electromagnetic wavelengths, though.” Abarca said.

  Humberto spent the next ninety minutes methodically working his way down the painting.

  Throughout, Abarca stood serene with arms folded. After a few minutes, Roper shrugged and dropped his chunky body onto the couch like he owned the place. In two minutes he was on his back snoring.

  Soren stood next to Abarca, but for Soren, the process was excruciating. He found himself shifting his weight back and forth between his two feet. After about forty minutes, Abarca said, “My friend, perhaps for your own ease and peace of mind you should take a seat.”

  “Why is Enrique taking so long?” Soren asked.

  “You must realize he must obtain a very high definition image. A lot of pixels.”

  Soren wasn’t sure what a pixel was, but he knew the more of them, the better defined the final picture. He sat down on a Barcalounger and watched Enrique from there.

  As Enrique worked, he continued to check the laptop screen from time to time, occasionally keying something. After another forty minutes, seeming to be satisfied, he unplugged the tube from the laptop and coiled it up and put it back in his case.

  Soren asked, “Now what?”

  “I admit I myself do not understand all the technicalities. He must execute a certain special software to consolidate the scans into a viewable image. This of course takes more time.”

  More time meant another two hours. Throughout, Roper snored like a sump pump. Abarca stood unwavering in the middle of the room, watching Enrique glare at the screen and from time to time punch keys. Soren sat glum on his chair and endured. He had no confidence in the stolid and uncommunicative Enrique, who seemed to him like just another ignorant South American campesino, but apparently Abarca had confidence, and Abarca was in charge.

  At last, Enrique stepped back from the laptop and nodded at Abarca. Abarca stepped up to the laptop and peered at its screen for several minutes.

  Soren asked, “What are you seeing?”

  Abarca said, “Come look for yourself.”

  Soren jumped up and moved to the screen. At first, he saw no clear image, but gradually he made out the dim outline of a strange, distorted naked figure of a man with pale skin and black hair and thickly biceped arms sprouting from thin shoulders. “What’s that?”

  Abarca’s eyes glowed, perhaps from some inner fire of excitement, or maybe from the reflection of the light from the laptop screen. “That is the under image.”

  Soren peered closer. “A nude?”

  “Yes, it is a nude. And unless I miss my guess, an Ilianius nude. Exactly what we’ve bee
n hoping for.”

  Soren said, “So this is good news.”

  Abarca said, “Indeed, my friend. Very good news.”

  “So what now?”

  Abarca snapped at the man on the couch. “Roper!”

  Roper didn’t move.

  Abarca gave a head shake and Enrique walked over and poked Roper with the stubby brown index finger of his right hand.

  Roper stirred and sat up. He looked around and said, “What the hell?” Then he blinked as if he suddenly recalled his situation. He said to Abarca, “What’s the verdict?”

  Abarca said, “Your buyer will be ecstatic.”

  40 Mattie Takes Center Stage

  The entire bunch was meeting again in Gus’s living room. They sat in their usual spots. The others were dumbfounded to learn from Hack that Pafko had shown up with sixty thousand dollars in cash.

  Gus asked, “Where from?”

  Hack said, “At first he didn’t want to say, but Cali pried it out of him. A rich doctor’s widow in Wayzata named Flo Thorpe—some kind of fellow traveler or girlfriend,” Hack said.

  “Or both,” Gus said.

  “Safe to assume,” Hack said.

  “Which is both good and bad,” Gus said.

  Gloria asked, “How?”

  Cali said, “It’s bad because it gives him more resources. We got the sixty thousand, but how much more can he come up with? We don’t know.”

  Gus said, “But it’s also good, because we just made a nice score for ourselves, and maybe we can tap him for even more. But it takes the focus off the painting.”

  Gloria asked. “So what’s the solution?”

  “I need to think,” Gus said. The others watched as he got up and paced. Then, out of nowhere, he said to Hack, “I meant to ask, did you get Lily’s permission to use her house?”

  “It used to be my house too,” Hack said, “And Lily and I share a long-term ongoing understanding.

  “No you don’t,” Gus said. “She divorced your ass.”

  “I won’t cavil over details,” Hack said.

  “Could have cost us when that neighbor on the bicycle recognized you,” Gus said.

  Hack shrugged. “No harm done.”