Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  “He was doin’ his best. His last words.”

  “Men got no stayin’ power,” Princess said. “They marry you, richer or poorer, till death us to part, and then bam They beat it an’ leave you flat on your ass. Hold your head up, honey.” She was sketching again.

  “Ranching,” Luis said. “Now that’s a profession a man could take pride in. Where is Wyoming, exactly?”

  “It’s a question they ask even in Wyoming.” Julie passed him the sketch. “This is pure testosterone, but is it pure gold? Try not to bust your buttons.”

  Luis looked at it for so long that the others grew restless. At last he frowned. “Cattle ranching’s bloody boring. It’s just hamburger on the hoof. Whereas showbusiness … You need taste and imagination and daring. Yes …”

  “The drawing, dummy,” Julie said.

  He looked. “Left foot only has four toes,” he said.

  “Pardon me while I go outside and shoot myself,” Princess said.

  “He has an extra testicle which he’s very sensitive about,” Julie said. “Keeps it under his pillow, next to the Colt 45.”

  “Or there’s advertising,” Luis said. “Calls for flair. I’ve got lots of flair, I think.” He blinked hard. “What is flair, anyway?”

  “Forget the ad game,” Julie said. “My advice: run away with the circus.”

  “I got five toes, Luis,” Stevie said. “I got everything a man needs, all in mint condition.” She wiped away a tear.

  “Spare me!” He stood up and flung the sketch in the air. “How did I end up here? I’m sick of this town. It’s one great big con, it’s a fantasy, how can you con a con? They worship Mickey Mouse, for Christ’s sake. Look at me: surrounded by women! I spend my life raising the toilet seat. George Parr was right, he was innocent, fetch me his gun and I’ll shoot the lot of you!”

  “I got a better idea,” Princess said. “We give you bus fare, you go and live in San Carlos.”

  “That’s the most unheard of thing I ever heard of!” Luis shouted. “In fact …” He stopped. Someone was knocking on the front door. He turned to Stevie. “Have you told your bloody father we’re here?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “The milkman,” Julie decided. “Get two quarts of full cream.”

  Luis went and opened the front door and saw a tall man, comfortably padded, in his fifties, dressed in a clerical gray suit, white button-down shirt, dark blue tie with faint light blue stripes, black brogues. His hair was battleship gray, trimmed short and on its best behavior. He carried a thin briefcase, color deep oxblood. His face sagged, but not as much as Othello’s. His gentle smile was pure courtesy: he wasn’t selling it and he would take it back if nobody wanted it. “Mr. Norton Todhunter?” he said. “I’m Sterling Hancock, of Eagleston, Chappell and Hart.” He offered his card. Luis read Sterling Hancock III. Partner. It was a law firm. In Boston, Massachusetts. That explained the accent: calm and cautious. “Is this a convenient moment, sir?” Hancock asked.

  Luis led him to the library and offered refreshment. The lawyer suggested iced tea. Luis excused himself and returned to the women. “Make us some iced tea, would you?” he said to Julie. “I smell money. Put a shot of bourbon in it.”

  Back in the library, Sterling Hancock III was glancing at some typed papers. He slid them into the briefcase. “Take a seat,” Luis said. They settled themselves in deep leather armchairs. “Perhaps I should begin,” Hancock said, “by expressing our condolences for your recent bereavement.”

  Luis nodded, slowly and graciously. “A sad affair.”

  “We deeply regret that necessity requires us to intrude on your private grief so soon after your loss.”

  “Life must go on.” Luis blew his nose.

  “Correct me if I am wrong, sir, but our understanding is that you, Norton Scripps Todhunter, are the sole beneficiary of the estate of your father, the late Daniel Scripps Todhunter.”

  “Dear old dad. Words will never do justice.”

  Hancock had his briefcase open again. He put on his bifocals and shuffled some papers. “Your father traveled, which is not surprising. Business trips, and so on. He visited New York some twenty years ago. Do you recall?” Luis stared into space. “No reason why you should,” Hancock said. “Nothing memorable about it, except for one small event which inevitably has had larger consequences.”

  “He gave a dollar to a bum,” Luis said, “and that man is now Governor of Texas.”

  “Alas, no.” Hancock squared his shoulders and breathed deeply. “Your father had a brief liaison with a young woman. Their son, also named Daniel, is now aged nineteen and in poor health. He has asked Eagleston, Chappell and Hart to represent him.”

  “Hell’s bells! The old man had his wicked way, and now …” Luis got up and began striding about the room, kicking a waste basket. “How much?”

  “Specialist treatment in Switzerland is urgently required at a cost of one thousand dollars.” Julie came in with Othello and a tray of iced tea. Hancock said: “A paternity suit, I need hardly explain, would be infinitely more costly. And, of course, inevitably but regrettably, a very public matter. In these sad circumstances,” Hancock said gravely, “I feel sure that nobody wishes to see your father’s indiscretions of so long ago exposed in the press.”

  “I would,” Luis said. “I think it would be a laugh a minute … Julie Conroy, meet Sterling Hancock. He thinks I’m Norton Scripps Todhunter, which I’m not, and I think he’s a con artist, which he is. Have a glass of tea, sir. You’ve earned it.”

  “Not Todhunter?” Hancock said, suddenly alert and stern. “Then what are you doing in 3525 Santa Marta Canyon Road?”

  “Beats me, chum. This is 3525 Santa Monica Canyon Road.”

  “Damnation.” Hancock’s shoulders slumped. “Yours was not the behavior of a gentleman, sir.”

  “The guy’s a heel,” Julie told him. “And you’re no angel, by the sound of it. Drink up. You want a sandwich?”

  “Ham and cheese on rye,” Hancock said. “No mustard.”

  6

  Milton Gibson was barreling along Interstate 15 from LA to Las Vegas in his blood-red Jaguar and he was feeling good. The top was down, the wind was in what remained of his hair, the sun was behind him, the motor had a purr like a well-fed tiger, and he was two weeks divorced from that redheaded disaster. He was past the San Bernardino Forest and now the Freeway was as straight as a rifle. The radio was playing The Ride of the Valkyries and he was conducting it sforzando with one hand. A green station wagon came in view ahead, trundling home with five kids and two dogs probably, so Gibson drifted into the outside lane and went past it as if the other guy wasn’t there. He glanced in the rearview mirror for the pleasure of seeing the station wagon shrink and he saw an arm come out and clamp a light on the roof. Shit and double-shit. The light flashed. A siren began to swoop. For two seconds he thought of gunning the Jag and just vanishing, but the cop probably had his number and he definitely had a radio. Highway Patrol would be up ahead, waiting. He pulled over and killed the motor.

  The station wagon strolled up and stopped behind him. Milton Gibson felt his armpits sweat. He listened to the Jag’s engine tick as it cooled and to the cop’s footsteps as he approached.

  “Any faster and you’d have been airborne, sir,” he said. Apple green sweater. The guy was off duty. Friendly face, plenty of gray in the crewcut, honest brown eyes. Gibson relaxed. He’d get away with a ticket, maybe just a caution. “Identification, sir?” the cop said, and showed a badge that made Gibson’s heart kick his ribs. He was an FBI agent. As Gibson fumbled for ID in his hip pocket he said, “I guess I was goin’ kinda fast, but that’s sorta picayune stuff for the Bureau, ain’t it?” With a smile. No big deal. “I trade in foreign cars, see. This beauty got a mind of her own.”

  “Uh-huh.” The agent had more questions. Going where? Vegas. Business or pleasure? See a client. This client got a name? “Well, he ain’t Machine-Gun Kelly,” Gibson said jovially. Big mistake. “Pop the
trunk for me, sir,” the agent said. Soon afterward they were standing next to the open trunk, looking at a small pool of jewelry with an emphasis on diamonds, retail value in excess of seventy-five thousand dollars.

  “There’s hot, and there’s extra hot,” the agent said. “This collection, I could cook a steak on.”

  Gibson was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  The agent moved sideways until the sun was in Gibson’s eyes. “Milt G,” he said. “I didn’t know you at first. You put on a few pounds. Hair looks very black too. Your name came up in the office just the other day. Well, nickname. Gee Whiz, that was it, right? Mr. G. Whiz, busiest villain in LA until we nailed you to the wall, you and your pals. When was that, 38? 39?”

  “I’m totally legit now,” Gibson said. “Classic Car Imports, that’s me.” He gave the agent his business card.

  “Totally legit, huh? Totally! The only friends you ever had are in the Mob. Except me, of course. I’m your best friend bar none.” Gibson was edging away, trying to escape the glare. “Come with me, Milt. Let us enjoy some luxury for a couple of minutes.”

  They sat in the Jaguar and he explained the deal. He didn’t care about the stolen goods; he didn’t even care about the client in Vegas. What the Bureau wanted was inside information about organized crime in LA. Milton Gee Whiz Gibson looked like the kind of man who would hear things. Gibson refused. “Sooner go to jail than be a snitch,” he said. The agent was surprisingly amiable. “There are worse things than jail,” he said. “Or so I’m told.”

  As the agent got out, Gibson asked: “How come you pulled me over? Feds ain’t traffic cops.”

  “You gave me the finger as you went by. I didn’t like that.”

  “That wasn’t the finger. I was conductin’, for Christ’s sake. The Ride of the Valkyries. On the radio.”

  “So blame Wagner.”

  The agent was Earl Moody, twenty-five years with the Bureau, all in LA. He was good at his job. He had no wish to manage the office; he was content to keep track of criminals. He helped catch and convict the violent and dangerous ones, but LA had a changing population of Hispanics, and blacks, and whites who were sick of winters in Ohio, and so there was always someone new in town with a keen ambition to make a truckload of money without actually working for it. Earl Moody liked to know about these people in advance.

  A week after their talk in the coffee shop, Milton Gibson’s office got hit by a team from Internal Revenue. “Random audit,” they told him. “A machine picks the numbers. Yours came up.” He did no business for a day and a half while they found discrepancies in his tax returns. He expected that: they can always find something wrong if they want to. The leader of this wrecking crew said, as they left, “This doesn’t guarantee your number won’t come up again. It’s a random audit. Anything can happen.” A week later a different team turned up and took his business apart again. “You should be okay for a while now,” they told him. Next day the Fire Department shut him down until he made several expensive changes. Earl Moody came to call while Gibson was still reading the list. “I hear the Sanitation Department plans to run a new sewer through this street,” Moody said. “Storm-water sewer. Real big. Major traffic diversions.”

  “This is harassment,” Gibson said.

  “Fire and flood, sir. City’s got a duty to protect.”

  “Oh, horseshit.” Gibson slammed the door and let the Venetian blinds drop with a crash. “You’re gonna bleed me dry. Okay, listen here. You gotta protect me every which way, so I’m fireproof and watertight. I’ll give you what I can but you gotta make it so you heard it some other way. Phone tap, anonymous tip-off, Christ knows what, that’s your end of it. You gotta promise me I won’t end up feedin’ the fishes in the Bay. You hear me?”

  “You’re no good to us dead,” Moody said. “Relax.”

  The deal worked smoothly for a couple of years. Gibson’s business got back on its feet. They had a simple telephone code to arrange meetings, which were always in the steam room of the Helsinki Hotel, a sprawling Art Deco pile on the ridge above Sunset Strip. Gibson liked it because the hiss of steam made it impossible to bug. Moody liked it because he came and left via the staff doors.

  While Sterling Hancock III was eating his ham and cheese on rye, Gibson and Moody were sitting in the steam room, naked but for towels draped over their heads, chuckling like two old friends sweating out the strains of another hard day at the rock face of public relations or some such agony. “Santa Monica Canyon Road,” Moody murmured. “Place called Konigsberg. One of those cute Hollywood follies. Recently rented by a couple from the East. Luis Cabrillo and Julie Conroy.”

  “Rings no bells with me.”

  “Also in the party is Stevie Fantoni. Of the Jersey family. Recently they met Tony Feet, out of Chicago. That was in El Paso.”

  Gibson wiped the sweat from his eyes. “Frankie Blanco,” he said.

  “Yep. Blanco checked out in their front yard. Natural causes, or insufficient evidence, take your pick. The Cabrillo-Conroy party left El Paso next day. Why come here? Not to eat Chinese at Grauman’s. Ask around.”

  “Frankie Blanco,” Gibson whispered to his dripping fingers.

  “Blanco was dumb,” Moody said. “You’re smart.” He got up and padded away. The best part about this steam room was the draft beer he had afterward. He could taste it already.

  Julie had a map of Los Angeles and she showed Sterling Hancock III where Santa Marta Canyon Road was: south of Pasadena, east of Glendora, forty miles away as the eagle flies. More like fifty by road, feels like sixty in the rush hour. Stevie had gone upstairs to get dressed. Princess had come to the library to find out what the action was about. She asked Hancock how far he’d come. He pointed to Newport Beach, halfway to San Diego. “Looks like I’m in the wrong county,” he muttered.

  “It’s worse than that,” Luis said. “You’re in the wrong job.”

  Hancock had finished his sandwich. He used his fingertip to pick the crumbs from the plate and he ate them one by one. “We got blueberry pie,” Princess said.

  His eyes widened. “You’re too kind, but … Really, I couldn’t impose myself further.” They all knew he could. “Unless perhaps … just a fragment. With ice cream?”

  “Vanilla.” Princess said, and he raised his arms, totally defeated. She went out.

  “This Daniel Scripps Todhunter,” Luis said. “You ever met him?”

  “He’s the father. He’s dead. How could I meet him?”

  “Yes, of course. My mistake. Norton Scripps Todhunter. Met him?”

  “That was my goal, to meet him here. The place looked right. You looked right. I assumed …”

  “A natural mistake.” Luis stood in front of a mirror. He turned his head slightly and examined himself with amused and insolent eyes. “Breeding cannot disguise itself.”

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “Luis is the bastard son of the Duke of Zanzibar and I’m Miss North Dakota of 1937.” That was when Stevie came in wearing torn jeans and a tank top that was as busy as freshly caught trout. “This is Stevie,” Julie said. “Don’t marry her. It’s fatal.”

  Stevie looked him over. “You in the movies?”

  “Lay off him,” Luis said. “He’s a Boston lawyer. Not your type.” Princess arrived with blueberry pie. When Stevie saw it, she lost interest in Hancock and headed for the kitchen. Luis put an affectionate arm around Julie. “Let’s you and me take a stroll,” he said.

  They went outside. Othello came too: there might be food out there. Never had been, but maybe today was the day, a lamb chop might fall out of the sky, a dog has to have hope or why go on? “Mr. Sterling Hancock III is working a con,” Luis said. “Very badly. But the idea’s a good one.” He repeated Hancock’s shocking news of the sickly illegitimate son, needing a thousand bucks for doctor bills in Switzerland. “Simplicity. That’s what I like.”

  “Uh-huh. Dad’s hardly cold in his grave, least thing the family needs is a scandal. Money’s no problem, he was
loaded. Pay up and move on. Right?”

  “Right.” Luis picked up an old tennis ball and lobbed it. Othello raised a hind leg and scratched an ear. Did they think he was stupid? He knew what old tennis balls tasted like. “Oh well,” Luis said. “Let’s go and talk business.”

  He took Hancock up to the belvedere. “Los Angeles,” he said. “A lot of people. Some rich, most not. My guess is you read the obituary pages.”

  Hancock didn’t like the sound of that. He polished his bifocals and put them on. He twitched his nose, which shunted his glasses up and down. “None of your business, sir,” he said. “With all respect.” He had food inside him; he felt stronger.

  “No, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s exactly my business. It’s how I make my living. I separate people from their money by solving problems they never knew they had. This enhances their life and makes them happy. So you and I are brothers. The only difference is I’m hot stuff, while you, if I may say so without offense, are only luke-warm.”

  Hancock found half a cigar in his coat pocket. “That’s right,” he said, “kick a man when he’s down. Story of my life.”

  Luis struck a match on the battlements and fired up the man’s cigar. “You win on strategy but you lose on tactics. Your mapreading was suicidal. Rule one in this business is: check everything, trust nobody. Especially yourself. Then, when I opened the door you didn’t make sure I was Todhunter. You asked, but you didn’t wait for an answer because you were in a tearing hurry to give me your card. That was not professional. An excellent card, by the way.”

  “I gave it a lot of thought. Eagleston is strong, Chappell is religious, Hart sounds honest.”

  “Your finest moment. After that, everything went downhill in a hurry. No small talk, no effort to make me like you or trust you. Wham-bam straight into the con. Too sudden, too hard.”

  Hancock blew cigar smoke at a cobweb and made it tremble.

  “And a thousand dollars was wrong,” Luis said. “The bastard son is seriously ill. Needs specialist attention. Round-the-clock nursing, expensive drugs, private rooms. Have you no idea what surgery costs?”