by Iceberg Slim
10
THE BATES PLAY
At the end of the week, Folks, Trevor and Bates, the mark, driven by Speedy in a rented limousine, drove toward Nevada to tour Bates’ ranch for sale.
In town, Kid’s woman, Rita, the fledgling grifter in the minor role of Lance Wellington’s Baroness sister, stood impatiently on the front porch of the mob’s museum-mansion set-up in a secluded area of the city. She awaited arrival of a crew of back-up shills recruited for the Bates play. The spires of the pearly prop seemed ablaze in the brilliant noon sun. It appeared afloat like a gem boat in a landscaped sea of jade.
A legitimate employment agency bus labeled Peerless Personnel Service pulled into the parking area on the right of the showplace. A group of uniformed servants spilled out and moved toward the mansion’s front door.
Rita inspected the nails and uniforms of the servants as they passed her and entered the mansion. The back-up players, costumed as titled aristocrat jet swingers, arrived and emerged from limousines. Rita was haughtily regal in her role as Lance’s sister and hostess as she stood in the crystal chandeliered entrance hall of the mansion. She greeted her elegantly attired confederates.
A monocled fake count, with a sex pot brunette on his arm, approached Rita. He bent at the waist and kissed the back of Rita’s extended hand. He said, “Good afternoon. How lovely you are, dear Baroness!”
Rita replied, “Count! Countess Fertig! How marvelous you both came. Countess, you are just ravishing!”
“Thank you very much, Baroness.”
A heavy-set ex-convict shoplifter, with an aristocratic face and bearing, entered the hallway and approached Rita.
With a clipped English accent, Rita said, “So good to see you again, Duchess!” Then under her breath, “Myrtle, watch yourself! The servants are from a legit employment agency. Now get to the powder room and dilute your mascara.”
The fake Duchess said, “How very kind of you to invite me, dear Baroness.” She plucked a mote of lint off Rita’s black lace dress and whispered, “Lint in the cleavage is a worst omen than playing for a blind or crippled mark.” The Duchess moved on.
Flo Baumgarten, ex-pickpocket and spurious French noblewoman, approached, wearing pince-nez glasses perched precariously on her long aquiline nose.
She embraced Rita and gushed, “Oh Baroness, so good to see you in gorgeous living, beautiful flesh! You dear woman, I’ve missed you since that marvelous summer on the Riviera. Dear Baroness, thank you for inviting me. How’s Lance?”
Rita said, “Lance is fine. We’re all expecting his arrival shortly.” Then she whispered, “Flo, your breath stinks like bootlegger mash! Deodorize your breath before the play!”
Flo whispered, “It isn’t whiskey, Rita. It’s gin, your favorite poison.” Flo smiled and moved on.
Rita finally received the last group of the shills and moved with them into the palatial mansion.
A crew of grifter menials in coveralls feverishly hung counterfeit Old Masters on the silk-covered walls. Several of the crew went down a short flight of stairs to a high domed room, pregnant with mysticism in its lighting and decor. They pried open a huge wooden crate to reveal a compelling giant plaster replica of the Aztec Princess Statue.
Two hours later, the mob settled in drinking and chatting as they impatiently waited for Folks to lug Bates in for the play.
Speedy, in chauffeur’s uniform, tooled the limousine, with Folks, Trevor and Bates on the rear seat down a dusty ranch road. The bedlam of snorting mustangs, bellowing steers and shouting cowboys rent the afternoon air. Speedy’s passengers scrutinized herds of cattle grazing on seemingly endless rolling hills of green as the limo moved to the ranch exit.
Four cowpokes swung open massive oaken gates. One of them, the real ranch owner, smiled as Bates, the government undercover ace, winked at him. Speedy rolled the limo onto the highway.
Trevor, as Folks’ pompous business manager-accountant Glitz, shuffled notes and examined them through heavy horn-rimmed glasses.
Folks said, “Mister Glitz, may I see your evaluation?”
Trevor gave Folks his notes.
Folks took them and studied them for a long moment. “Glitz, congratulations. Your opinion is mine.”
Trevor beamed. “Thank you, Mister Wellington! I knew instantly, the property was ideal for your purposes. I will have our New York office prepare the paperwork and get an instrument drawn as a binder for your deal with Mister Bates within the next two weeks.”
“Not two weeks, Mister Glitz! I want that half million dollar binder money in Mister Bates’ possession within a week!”
Trevor said, “Of course. I’ll fly back after I have assisted you in the acquisition of the Unhappy Virgin Relic.”
“Very well, Glitz. I have acquired a spectroscope to test her authenticity when we have discovered her precise location.”
Speedy turned his head back. “Mister Wellington, sir, do I proceed directly to the mansion?”
Folks said, “Gifford, I think Mister Bates wants to take in the ooh-la-la’s on the Vegas strip.”
Bates said, “I’ll pass up the pony broads. Take me to my hotel just to slip on a tux. Then Lance, my boy, I’m raring to bust elbows with those beautiful people at your place.”
Folks said, “Marvin, I’m sure they all will enjoy meeting you!”
Trevor and Folks brought Bates to the set-up mansion at twilight. He was introduced all around to the mob. After a sumptuous early dinner, they all went to the rec room to dance to the music of a country-western band. Rita magnetized Bates as expected. He hounded her for every dance. She was frazzled and grateful when the band took a break.
The crowd went to bar stools at the rec room bar. Folks and Flo, the fake French noblewoman, sat next to each other.
Flo said, “Lance, I’d just love to see your latest acquisitions of exotica.”
Folks said, “That’s a great idea, Erika! Perhaps the others might enjoy my collection.”
Rita said, “Lance, what a fabulous idea! Let’s all go!”
Folks got to his feet and led the way. He said, “Come on everybody! I’m inviting all of you to the museum.”
Everybody followed him from the rec room. There was a gush of pleasure and excitement from the fake aristocrats as the group moved through the palatial set-up to the mystically lighted display of fake artifacts whose history existed only in the facile and ultra-inventive minds of the Kid and Folks. There was a carefully effected ambience here, the mystique of countless centuries with their zillion souls now entombed and keening from the rows of glass topped crypts, from the Dracula visages of statuary sentries that stalked the shadow-haunted murk.
Bates’ eyes gazed ahead toward the rear of the museum. He walked over to stare at the Unhappy Virgin statue, ten feet of fierce-faced Aztec glory cast in copper-hued plaster. Bates returned to Folks’ side, with the grifter troupe.
They peered into and moved past cases. Folks moved toward the giant statue to start his lecture to ignite the crossfire that would validate the statue and artifacts. Trevor paused beside a spectroscope on a dolly between a pair of the display cases. Bates stared at it.
Trevor said, “Congratulations, Mister Wellington! This is the latest in spectroscopes.”
Folks said, “Yes, it’s self-contained, transistorized for x-raying artifacts in remote areas.”
Bates rubbed his hand across the spectroscope. “That’s a mighty impressive machine you got there, Lance. Reminds me of the contraption in the hospital that took a picture of my gallstones when I had ’em took out last year.”
The mob chuckled. The group moved on to stand tittering as they gazed into a display case of ancient chamber pots.
Folks pressed his index finger against the glass above a squat brass beauty that had an intricate gold filigreed lid. He said, “Loves, in the category of portable johns, this is the crown jewel of this collection. Tireless search by my curator and field staff led to this acquisition from a Russian peasant in Siberi
a. She was ignorantly using this gem as a . . .” Folks paused for dramatic impact. “. . . common chamber pot! Credible legend has it that Rasputin, by hypnotic persuasion, conquered the Czarina’s near terminal . . . ah, problem on that very vessel! What outcries of joy and gratitude must have shaken that Royal Chamber!”
Bates and the mob laughed.
Folks led the group to upholstered chairs arranged before a movie screen and projector, then sat at the machine. The others took their seats around him.
Folks said, “This film I’m about to show is a brief, but authentic reproduction of the events that depict the tragic dilemma of how an Aztec Princess, centuries ago, perished in a castle tower prison.”
Folks turned on the projector. The room darkened. An image of the Unhappy Virgin statue appeared on the screen to start the brief documentary and Folks’ narration.
Bates said, “Lance, she’s flat out got Sam Houston’s statue down home snookered!”
Folks launched into the first phase of the tale. “Congratulations Marvin, you have sensed her importance to me. Her story is the most fascinating of the entire collection. Unfortunately, I’ve had to buffer my frustrations with a plaster copy, executed from Aztec etchings. Uncounted thousands were spent over the last ten years in a fine comb search of Latin America, and recently in the Western section of this country. Dogged investigation revealed that a paranoid Aztec King had an unfortunate . . . uh, incestuous jealousy of his beautiful young virgin daughter.”
The key scenes of the Unhappy Virgin’s tragedy unfolded on the screen accompanied by Folks’ narration. An Aztec period royal bedroom flashed on the screen. It was midnight. An ethereally beautiful young girl slumbered on an opulent bed. The room was haunted with shadows and the flickering glow of an altar candle beside the bed. Suddenly, an old man in royal robes and golden crown, eased from the shadows.
Folks narrated, “The King had decided that only he would be his virgin daughter’s first lover. Insane with evil passion, the King fondled his sleeping daughter.”
The King stripped off his robe and nude, he carefully slipped into bed beside the sleeping beauty. The King pulled away the bed covers. The girl’s magnificent naked body gleamed. The King kissed her feet and traversed upward to her bosom. Her eyes fluttered open in alarm.
Folks said, “She awakened. She clawed and maimed the King.”
On the screen the Princess violently resisted her father’s assault by clawing, biting and well aimed kicks to the scrotum. The King fell prostrate on the floor as a squad of royal guards rushed into the room. The King feebly rose to a sitting position, his face lacerated and ferocious with rage. He pointed a dramatic finger at his daughter, cringing in the corner of the room and the royal guards seized her roughly. One of the guards raised his sword to decapitate the Princess, but the King struggled to his feet and seized the up-raised hands of the guard.
Folks said, “Enraged, the King planned a worse fate than death for his daughter. Imprisonment! In the castle tower! Until she agreed to lavish her royal cherry on her father, the King!”
The screen went blank for an instant before the image of the imprisoned Princess, dressed in rags and peering through a barred window appeared on the screen.
Folks went on. “The King, on her sixteenth birthday, cunningly gifted the Virgin with a be-jeweled ten foot copper statue in her image. The statue was really a spy-post for a succession of slaves, imprisoned inside the statue and watered and fed until death. The King was determined to be the Virgin’s first lover.”
On the screen peep holes in the Statue were suddenly filled with luminous human eyes. Through the barred windows, the ruined, hideously old face of the Princess peered pitifully.
Folks said, “In that terrible tower, loves, the Unhappy Virgin became old, ugly, and dead!”
The movie screen went blank and the group applauded as Folks rose to his feet.
Bates said, “We got a remedy back home for skunks like that King. A long stretch in the pen.”
Folks led the group to a prop relic, whose importance was indicated by its residency in a six foot case, spangled with fake gold leafing. This supposedly ancient counterpart of today’s inflatable mail-order sex dolls was an expertly time-hacked mannikin. It was ostensibly constructed of Napoleon-era velvet, stuffed with early Egyptian cotton. A tattle-tale gray blob of stuffing popped from a nipple, apparently lacerated by the mannikin’s famous master.
Folks started to narrate the ancient sex doll’s history. “This battered little lady did much to comfort and gratify Napoleon’s rather . . . ah, odd sex play on lonely Elba. It is even said that Napoleon, in an erotic fury . . .” Folks paused.
A fake grifter, disguised as a Western Union employee, entered the museum and gave Folks a telegram. The grifter said, “Telegram, Mister Wellington.”
Folks took it and said, “Thank you,” at the same time signing for it. The delivery grifter departed with a tip. Folks’ hand shook as he tore open the telegram. As he read, his face became radiant with excitement.
His voice trembled. “Loves! I’ve hit the Unhappy Virgin jackpot!” He excitedly waved the telegram. “This telegram brings me the electrifying confirmation that an ailing old prospector in this area known as Aztec Billy is in possession of the priceless original Unhappy Virgin statue!”
The guests moved in and congratulated Folks enthusiastically. They moved into the living room to drink champagne.
After several goblets of bubbly, Bates performed on all fours his proud impression of his favorite Angus Bull in rabid heat. The mob applauded wildly as he snorted and pawed the carpet in courtship of an imaginary bovine sexpot. His moon face was sweat shiny and his tuxedo rumpled as he collapsed on the sofa beside Rita. She mopped the sweat off his brow with a handful of tissues.
Rita said, “Marvin, that was the most marvelous animal impression I’ve ever seen. You were super great.”
Bates said, “Then kiss me, Baroness!”
He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her mouth down to his. Rita’s face deformed with revulsion and resentment. The mob howled with genuine amusement at the fledgling grifter’s anguish.
Bates fell into an apparent drunken stupor at midnight and the mob put him to bed in a guest room. Next day at twilight, he insisted, as the mob knew he would, on going to the ghost town set-up with Folks and Trevor to check out the rumor that Aztec Billy was indeed in possession of the authentic Unhappy Virgin statue. Speedy drove them in the limo, pulling the spectroscope on a trailer.
Folks said, “Mister Glitz, examine the statue immediately.”
When they arrived, Kid, with red tinted face and headband to control his long, coarse black wig, was in the death shack with High Pockets Kate, in the role of Mrs. Peabody, ghost town buff staring down at expired Billy, played by the grifter trooper. The statue loomed above the shack.
Trevor and Speedy dollied the spectroscope to the statue at the rear of the death shack. Bates followed Folks into the death shack as Kid wrung his hands and covered Billy’s face with a tattered blanket.
Kid said, “I’m Jimmy Dancing Rain. I’m afraid poor Billy, my brother, has passed away. Poor black sheep Billy shed his sweat in a hundred gold camps, died a pauper with only a delirium of riches.”
Folks said, “I’m Lance Wellington. This is Mister Bates, a business friend. My sympathy to you, sir, but I am interested in the Unhappy Virgin statue owned by your late brother.”
Kid frowned. “I’m not about to sell Billy’s property piecemeal, Mister Wellington. Oh, by the way, this lady is Mrs. Peabody.”
Folks and Bates smiled and nodded.
Trevor entered the shack. He whispered into Folks’ ear. “It’s authentic! Ten points genuine!”
Bates was leaning to hear.
Folks said, “Mister Dancing Rain, I would like to bid for Billy’s property.”
Kid said, “Well, let’s go to the stable with Mrs. Peabody and take a look at the bulk of Billy’s artifacts.”
Kate�
��s face creased with aggravation.
Kid said, “You seem tense, Mrs. Peabody. Are you still upset at my decision not to sell this ghost town piecemeal?”
Kate pretended to be chastened. She said, “Of course not, Mister Dancing Rain. But Aztec Billy promised me last week that he would sell me separately all the figurines in the relic shack. Of course, I have no reluctance to bid for the ghost town itself. It would make a fabulous museum!”
They followed Kid from the death shack, and Folks, Trevor and Bates lagged outside as Kid and Kate entered the adjacent stable lit by lamplight. Speedy sat in the limo smoking a cigarette as he listened to radio jazz.
Folks said, “Mister Glitz, are you certain of the statue’s authenticity?”
Trevor said, “Absolutely!”
“Splendid! I must have that statue!” He walked into the stable followed by Trevor.
Aztec Billy groaned to halt Bates. He went into the death shack, pulled back the blanket and leaned his face close to Billy’s.
Billy rolled his eyes to the top of his head. He choked out, “Ten million . . . cash!”
Bates said, “This is Jimmy, your brother, Billy. Where is the money?”
Billy death rattled and whispered, “Virgin . . . ’neath her feet.” Billy sighed and died.
Bates covered his face and went to the statue at the rear of the death shack. He aimed the spectroscope down to see the dozen odd fat duffel bags crammed into the hole in the ground. The bags on top were gaped open to reveal a layer of real money. Folks watched Bates through a peephole in the rear of the stable as Bates feigned excitement and hurried away toward the stable.
Inside the stable, Kid stood inside an ancient wagon. Folks nodded his head as he came to the wagon to start the play. Then Kid banged a walking cane against the top of the wagon.
Kid said, “For the land, buildings and their contents, I’m bid two hundred and fifty thousand . . . once!” Kid struck the wagon with the cane.
Bates entered the stable with his briefcase beneath his arm. He stood close to Folks and Trevor, radiant with fake tension.