The Waiting Game

by J. L. Fynn

  My eyes snapped open and I turned my head, but the other side of the bed was empty. I jumped from the bed, not bothering to dress, and sprinted the few feet into the kitchen. The broken table told me what I needed to know. Everything that had happened between us had been very real. I turned to rescue my cold mug of tea from the sink and noticed a note on the counter.

  Tommy. Tonight was wonderful, but I have to go home and I didn’t want to wake you. I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again, so if I don’t see you before you leave, remember that the entire summer, I’ll be thinking of you…and what we had tonight. — Maggie.

  I re-read the note four times, then let out a long sigh. What the hell were we doing? Thank God we’d be leaving for the season, but when I was home again I didn’t see how I was going to be able to stay away from her. The Village was only so big, and the longing I felt was so intense it seemed impossible to overcome. In the past, whenever I heard stories of someone sleeping with another man’s wife, I’d never understood it. Why couldn’t he find a woman of his own? As if all women were interchangeable. I was so naive. Your heart took you where it wanted, and there was no use arguing.

  There was a knock at the door and I glanced over at the sound. The thought that it might be Maggie sent me flying to the door, and I’d nearly pulled it open before I realized I was naked as a peeled apple. Luckily, my jeans were still in a heap on the floor, and I stepped into them, yanking them up on my way to the door.

  I pulled it open and was startled to see Jim waiting on the other side. I felt exposed, even with the jeans on, and it occurred to me that he might be here to kick my ass. Did he know what had happened? Could he read it on my face? Every single thing about me felt different. I had to look different too.

  “What the hell happened here?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t know, Jim. I—I just—”

  “Stop stuttering,” he said, as he pushed past me into the trailer. “This thing is a trash heap, you know that? I bet you set a plate of eggs on that table and it just collapsed. You need a new trailer, Tommy boy. You could get one that’s top of the line for only twenty.”

  My mind reeled. His tone seemed…lighthearted. So he wasn’t here to kick my ass? Maybe he didn’t know about Maggie. “Umm, I don’t know. I’ll get a new one soon, probably.”

  “Well, this’ll suit our purposes for the season, but you better fix that damn table.”

  “Sure.”

  “Like, today, because Pop finally handed out our territories. We were given Minnesota.”

  “Minnesota?” What was Pop thinking? Everyone hated that state because the people there were a lot more skeptical than those in other parts of the country. Most everyone knew everyone else so it was harder to make big money.

  “Yeah, I argued with him about it as best I could, but he said that we got to go to Pennsylvania and Virginia last year so it was only fair that we got Minnesota this year.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “But,” Jim said with a smile, “I did get him to agree to allow us to do some work in Missouri on our way up north so we oughta be able to make some quick money.” Missouri was called the “Show-Me” state supposedly because they didn’t believe anything until they saw it. Well, that hadn’t been our experience.

  I smiled, but glancing down at the broken table brought back the events of last night with a stunning clarity. How was I going to work with Jim all summer knowing that I’d slept with his wife?

  “How are things going with Maggie?” I asked, not knowing how to start this conversation.

  “What do you mean, ‘How are things going’? We’re about to go on the road.”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think you’re going to miss her at all?”

  Jim looked at me as if I’d offered him a shit sandwich. “Look, we’re going to be away from the Village for seven months. That’s seven months I don’t have to deal with her. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up again. I don’t want to think about her, graani?”

  “Yeah, I understand,” I said, giving him a thin-lipped smile. If Jim didn’t want to talk about Maggie during the time we were together, then I didn’t either. We’d both be better off.

  “Glad we’re on the same page,” he said. “I got an idea for what we can do while we’re in Missouri. Make sure to bring ten grand with you to use in a drop.”

  Getting my hands on cash wouldn’t be difficult. Travelers didn’t believe in depositing money in banks, so I had quite a bit of cash stashed in a safe deposit box. “You really think it’s a good idea to try a pigeon drop?”

  “Sure, why not? It might be the only good money we make all season.” A smile played across his lips, and he wriggled his eyebrows at me in a conspiratorial way that made me both excited and a little wary. “Plus, it’ll be fun.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “WE SHOULD’VE BROUGHT John,” Jim said as we walked toward our destination in one of the more unsavory sections of Kansas City.

  “Why? You know how Pop feels about him going out on the road with us.” Even if John didn’t have a huge income, Pop would still be able to secure a wife for him this summer. Still, at twenty-two it was long past time for him to get out on the road, one leg or two.

  “Yeah, but just think about it. This scam would be a snap with him. It’s impossible to distrust someone with a limp. We could get him a camo jacket from an Army Surplus and tell people he just came back from Desert Storm. It would be amazing.”

  I smiled. “You have a point. But since when do you need a gimmick to play the game?”

  Jim looked around, obviously nervous. “We’ve had a pretty good run the last seven or eight years, but we’ve never done nothing like this before.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I said in a tone that was meant to put him at ease. Even so, I gripped the leather bag in my hand more tightly. Twenty grand wasn’t exactly my life savings, but it was enough that I’d be mighty pissed if someone stole it from me on the street. “We’ve been working this out for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, not sounding completely reassured. Considering this was his idea, I was annoyed that now that we were set to go, he was losing his nerve.

  “Suck it up, man. Go stand in front of the convenience store we cased out yesterday. I’ll wait ten minutes and then walk by a few times until I spot a good gull. You know what to do, right?”

  “Of course I know what to do. I play the waiting game until you come along. Remember, Tommy, you’re the one with the easy job. You just position yourself right when you approach to gull, and I’ll close the deal, got it?”

  Apparently telling him to suck it up had pissed him off. Good. Pissed off Jim was a hell of a lot easier to motivate than freaked out Jim. I waited at the corner of two rundown-looking streets, and after ten minutes, I walked toward the shop. I passed by the convenience store and saw Jim hanging around outside drinking a coke. A beautiful black woman was coming out of the store, and a young Hispanic guy held the glass door for her and then walked inside. I didn’t like the idea of scamming a woman, and there was nothing overtly wrong about the man, but there was something about him I didn’t trust. Or rather, there was something about how he held the door that made me think he’d be too upstanding for this scam to work. I kept walking.

  I passed by the store ten or eleven more times over the next two hours, and I could feel Jim getting more and more anxious. The thing about a pigeon drop was it required a mark that’s even greedier than the con. Someone who was out to make a quick buck and didn’t mind doing something a little shady to get it.

  I walked by the store one more time and finally spotted our gull. He was a white man in his late fifties. His clothing was some off-brand, but nice and new, and he wore a watch that most people would mistake for a Rolex. In another context I might’ve thought he was just some upper-middle class man with no fashion sense, but the fact that he was in the hood at a corner mini-mart told me there was something more to this guy. He wanted to pres
ent himself as something he wasn’t—richer, more connected. He was just the sort of person who would fall prey to the scam we were running.

  I waited until he’d finished paying for his pack of cigarettes before I started toward the store. I held the leather bag in front of me, only half-zipped up. No one else was walking by—St. Jude had our back, apparently—so everything was set up nicely.

  The gull opened the door toward me, and when he did, I fumbled the bag, letting it fall just enough that both he and Jim, who was still nursing his coke by the door, could see its contents. I quickly snatched the bag back to my chest. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking around nervously. Part of the nervousness was put on for the benefit of the gull, but most of it was very real.

  “What you got there?” Jim asked in a mid-western accent. Usually it made me chuckle when he talked this way. You’d think accents from New England, New Jersey, or even North Dakota would be the most humorous, but there was something about Jim sounding perfectly middle-American that was just plain ridiculous.

  “Umm.” I looked around a few times like someone might be following me. The gull looked around too. Good. He was picking up what I was putting down.

  “I’ve seen you around here a couple of times before, isn’t that right?” Jim asked.

  “Umm, yeah, probably,” I said, still looking around.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sam.” I said the first thing to pop into my head.

  “Nice to meet you, Sam. What you doing with so much cash?”

  “Let’s go over here to talk.” I motioned toward the alley that ran next to the convenience store. I looked to the gull, who still hadn’t said a thing, but he followed the two of us to the alley. He was clearly on the hook. Now Jim and I just needed to reel him in.

  “I need both of you to promise if I tell you this secret, you won’t tell anyone.” My feet shuffled nervously on the dirty pavement.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Jim said.

  “I won’t tell anyone either,” the gull repeated.

  “All right. Well, in this bag I have $20,000. But it’s not mine.”

  “Whose is it?” the gull asked. Good. That meant he was invested. A lot of this type of con was making the gull think everything was his idea.

  “My brother was into some pretty shady stuff.” I lowered my voice even further. “He was selling drugs.” I waited for that piece of information to sink in, then continued. “Well, a deal went down with some marked bills. My brother caught wind of it, so he didn’t spend any of the money. That’s what’s in this bag. The bank was pissed not getting its money back, so it put out a $10,000 reward for whoever turns the money in. But my brother was too afraid. He thought if he turned it in, they’d figure out he was involved. He’s tired of the life. He wants to go straight, so he decided to get out of KC and start fresh. He left me the bag of money, and said I should turn it in since I’m totally clean.” There were holes in this story so big you could drive a truck through them, but it didn’t matter. The gleam in the gull’s eyes told me he was buying it.

  “So why don’t you turn it in?”

  “I’ve been walking back in forth in front of the bank all morning, but I’m too scared to go inside. What if they make the connection between my brother and me? I’m afraid of getting in trouble. I need someone with no connection to him at all.”

  “That’s a tough one, bub,” Jim said. “Why don’t you just keep the money?”

  “The bills are marked, remember. If I spend the money, I’ll be picked up for sure.”

  “I got an idea,” the gull piped in. Finally. I was beginning to worry I’d been wrong about him. “What if one of us turned it in for you?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “I guess that could work.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Jim interjected. “I only saw a flash of what you have in that bag there. How do I know you have as much money as you say?”

  I looked around nervously a few more times, then opened the bag. It was filled with twenties. You’d be surprised at how paltry twenty grand looks in hundred dollar bills. I mean, when you think about it, twenty grand is only two hundred bills. It always annoyed me watching movies where someone said they had twenty grand and then opened a briefcase filled with hundred dollar bills. A briefcase filled with hundred dollar bills would be a quarter million, at least.

  The gull and Jim took in the money, and I closed the bag back up again. “So,” the gull said, “you give us the money, we’ll take it down to the bank, and I’ll bring you back your reward.”

  “I don’t know…” I said, trailing off. “How do I know you won’t just take the reward money for yourself and run off with it? I don’t even know you.”

  The gull looked at his fake Rolex. “I could give you this to hold onto,” he said. “It’s worth at least five grand. That should put your mind at ease.”

  Trying to con a con. Who did this asshole think he was? “I don’t know. I feel like if I’m going to give you this cash, you need to put up some of your own. If we all do this together, we should split the reward money. To show me good faith, maybe you could put up $3000—my third of the reward money—to show me that you’re trustworthy. Then I’ll give you the bag with the twenty thousand.”

  “Sorry, bub,” Jim said, kicking a pebble on the macadam. “Don’t have three grand.”

  “See, I knew you were trying to screw me,” I said, pulling the bag to my chest and turning to leave. This was it. Either the gull would call me back, or a day’s work would be wasted, and we’d have to set up at a new place tomorrow.

  “I can put the money up,” the gull called after me. “I’ll put up five grand, and then we can split the reward money, fifty-fifty.” A huge smile of triumph spread across my face, but by the time I turned back to him, it was gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I WAITED FOR the gull on a side street near the bank that I’d told him was giving away the reward money. Jim was around the corner in a car we’d rented to make our getaway. All I needed to do was get the gull’s money, give him my bag, and get out of there as fast as possible. Simple.

  I stood in front of a dumpster. Its stench was starting to get to me, but I didn’t move. This was the perfect spot and everything was in place, so this was where I’d stay.

  When I spotted the gull walking toward me, it dawned on me that I’d never gotten his name. Oh well, better I didn’t know him. I wasn’t looking to be his friend—I just wanted his money.

  “You got the money?” I asked when he was in front of me.

  “You got the money?” he shot back. I reached down next to the dumpster where I’d stashed the leather bag filled with cash. I picked it up and opened it for him to inspect. When he was satisfied, I set the bag back down and asked to see his five grand. He pulled a wad of hundreds out of his pocket and handed them to me.

  “You know what to do,” I said as I put the money in my pocket. “You go in the bank, ask for Mr. Goldman. He’s the manager, and he’ll give you the reward. At that point the ten grand’s all yours.” I reached down and picked up the leather bag under the dumpster and held it out to him, but then quickly pulled it back. “You’re not going to screw me, are you, and just run off with this money?”

  “The bills are marked, dumbass. Anyway, what’s it to you, Sam? You got your five grand.” He was certainly right about that.

  I handed the leather bag over to the gull, and he took it from me in a jerky movement. He turned around and started walking toward the bank.

  Move faster, I yelled at him in my mind. I was itchy to pick up the bag still behind the dumpster. The one filled with money that he hadn’t noticed me switch with the one he now had in his hand.

  He got to the end of the street and was about to turn the corner when he opened the bag and looked inside.

  Shit. He was not going to be happy with a bag full of shredded newspaper.

  I grabbed the bag full of money and booked it in the opposite direction, toward
where Jim was parked.

  “Hey, you!” the gull yelled after me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I heard the man begin to run after me just as I rounded the back of the bank. I glanced over my shoulder to see where he was, and I was horrified to realize he was only a few dozen feet away. Damn, he was fast for an old man.

  I jumped into Jim’s waiting car. “Step on it!” I yelled.

  Jim stared at me blankly. “What’s going on?”

  “The gull figured it out. Go!”

  The minute I yelled the word, I heard a thump on the back of the car. I looked back and saw that the gull pounding on the trunk. Jim slammed his foot on the gas pedal and we shot forward.

  I heard the gunshot crack half a second before the back windshield of the car exploded.

  “Shit! He’s got a gun,” I yelled. Both of us slumped in our seats and Jim pressed the gas pedal flat to the floor. The car careened into the street ahead of us, and Jim cut the wheel hard to the left. The tires screamed in protest, and we fishtailed. The back end slammed into a minivan parked on the opposite side of the street, but Jim yanked the wheel again. The car righted itself, momentarily wobbling into the opposite lane and the path of an oncoming sedan, but we quickly slid back onto our own side of the road. I spun in my seat to look out through the crumbled window. The gull had chased us into the street. Cars screeched to a halt in both lanes as he stood in the middle of the road waving his pistol in the air. Still, he didn’t fire off another shot.

  I looked at Jim, and he turned to look at me, still heavy-footed on the gas pedal. We both stared at each other in wide-eyed shock, panting from excitement and coursing adrenaline. Then, without warning, we both laughed our asses off.

  ***

  Jim didn’t stop speeding until long after we made it back to where we’d parked my trailer. We damn near ran inside and immediately opened a beer each. “What the hell are we going to do about the rental car with the back windshield all shot to hell?” I asked.