Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  That night, Gibson met a girl. Well, a woman, she was 35, but young at heart, a small blond with a ready smile who never took him seriously, and quite soon he stopped taking himself seriously, stopped taking his car business seriously, stopped taking LA seriously. It was all a joke. Relax and enjoy.

  They met in a bar. He heard her voice, took one look, the whole night changed. Most women can’t laugh and they shouldn’t try, it comes out like a shriek or a cackle, but Betty had a soft warm chuckle that did good things to the bar lights, made them softer and warmer. Milt eased his way near to her and within a minute she was giving him her cockeyed smile—one side up, the other down—and saying: “I’m looking for a really good bad joke to tell grandpa.”

  “Show him the mayor. He’s the biggest joke in LA.”

  “Cheap shot.” She looked away.

  He was being tested. Amazing. First time a woman had done that. Fail, and he’d lose her. “Okay, try this. Guy meets an old couple, asks them the secret of a long and happy marriage. Man tells him, oral sex. Every night we get into bed, I say to her ‘Fuck you,’ she says ‘And fuck you too,’ we fall asleep.”

  Betty chuckled. She took his arm and they walked out of the bar. Milt was astonished: it was all so easy!

  They went from bar to bar, drank, ate, talked. By 2 a.m. they were in a lazy competition to see who could name more of what didn’t matter a damn. “Baseball,” she said. “Just an excuse for guys to scratch their crotch and spit.”

  “The Alamo. We lost! Forget it.”

  “Pizza. Hot cardboard with garbage on.”

  “Pigeons. Rats with feathers.”

  “Detroit,” she said, and that silenced him. “Fess up, Milt,” she said. “You don’t own that fancy car business. It owns you.”

  He leaned back in his chair, hands linked behind his head, and stared at a couple of wizened green balloons, left over from a St. Patrick’s Day party. “It’s all I’ve got,” he said.

  “You’ve got the world. I’ve got a Harley-Davidson. We can leave this stinkin’ city and go ride around the wonderful, beautiful world.”

  “Yes,” he said, and that was it. They kissed, for the first time; nothing sexy, just a kiss to seal the deal. Milt knew his life was about to take a huge and happy leap into a glorious adventure for two.

  Betty had a good reason for taking a trip around the world on her Harley-Davidson.

  A Seattle lawyer called Earl McGrath had hired her as his secretary. He was 40, looked a bit like Charlton Heston, drank a bit like W.C. Fields. He got bored with the law, said it was the same problems with different faces. Told Betty he was going to quit, move to Hawaii, did she want to come with him?

  She knew how much there was in his client accounts: about 25 grand. She also knew he sometimes borrowed from these same accounts to cover his debts for a few days. Strictly illegal, but he paid it all back, he never got caught. They were in a bar, having a few drinks, it had been a long hard day, and Betty took a dumb risk and asked if the client accounts were going to Hawaii too. She laughed and made it a joke. Earl laughed and the muscles at the corners of his jaws bunched like little rosettes, and she knew. “Where’s the harm?” she said. “It’s not really stealing. Insurance covers everything.” He tugged his lower lip while he thought. “The years I’ve paid that indemnity,” he said. “Years and years. For what?” Now they both knew she knew. Either she agreed to go to Hawaii, or he fired her.

  Next morning he was in court and she was in their bank. They knew her well and she knew his signature very well. Nineteen thousand four hundred and six dollars was a big withdrawal. She told them the big man was settling a big case. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be riding shotgun.” They liked that. Betty was a good sport. They gave her a cashier’s check and she went a couple of blocks to a different bank and cashed it. She walked out with big brown envelopes full of dollars, climbed onto her Harley and was halfway to LA before sundown.

  A week in the big city was plenty for her. She got restless: there was bound to be a warrant out for her arrest. People in Seattle knew she had a Harley, and in 1953 not many women did, so the cops had something to look for. Time to move on.

  The track at Santa Anita looked its best when seen from the rows of patrons’ boxes, high in the stands, where the seats were soft and you could order a drink or place a bet without having to stand in line, in the sun, like the thousands of losers a hundred feet below. From this distance, their ceaseless buzz was beelike. Vito DiLazzari thought: Those bums are the workers. Up here, we’re the queen bees. He didn’t tell Uncle that. Queen bees wasn’t exactly right. Still, that’s how the honey was made, a dollar at a time down there, a steady stream of the sweet stuff. Nothing wrong with those words. “Look at that,” he said. “A river of dollar bills. Never stops. Can’t we get into the action, somehow? Wash our money in the river. This place is bigger than any laundry.”

  “Every buck you bet, the state takes its cut,” Uncle said. “It figures the odds, it always wins, and we’ll never get inside it. You know that, Vito.” He was jovial because he had just won handsomely on Blue Lagoon in the second race.

  The track had been raked, the horses were cantering to the start, the jockeys’ silks were brilliant splashes of color. “What do you fancy?” Vito asked.

  “Stay away from Holy Smoke,” Uncle said. “She’s dogfood.”

  Vito put twenty bucks on Holy Smoke. She lost by a head. So they were both wrong. The state of California won again. Vito didn’t care. He was thinking the name, Holy Smoke. Religion was big business in LA. A big church must have a big turnover. He pictured a mass baptism of Mob dollars. The FBI would never suspect.

  Sterling Hancock III had never made so much money, so fast, and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t make a lot more, a bit faster. He traded in the Oldsmobile for a previously owned but carefully driven Lincoln Zephyr. “Got more class,” he told Luis, “and being old makes it even classier. New cars worry other people, they feel challenged. This Lincoln says we’re established and reliable. We’re safe, we’re friends. We’re not a threat.”

  “I’ve been wondering,” Luis said. “Maybe I should arrive with a small gift, like flowers or Belgian chocolates. A gesture of sympathy.”

  “Hey, back off. We’re not that friendly.”

  “Or maybe a tiny cat. A white kitten, it could sleep in my briefcase, just the head showing, create a harmonious atmosphere.”

  “Yeah. Crap on the carpet, how about that atmosphere? Come on, Luis, we’re lawyers. Don’t distract the customer with animals. He wants stability. We send him to bed happy. Keep it simple.”

  Luis nodded. But the truth was, he didn’t enjoy stability. This con was lucrative but it had become routine and every time they worked it, the routine was less exciting. “I’ve been reading The International Journal of Brain Surgery” he lied. “You know what? I think we’ve been selling the Swiss clinic short.”

  Hancock tugged his ear-lobe. “Could be. You don’t get the world’s best neurologists for peanuts.”

  “Think of the price of drugs. And x-rays. The aftercare. The therapy.”

  “Six thousand is crazy. Nine minimum. To save a life.”

  “Nine nine-fifty,” Luis said. “And even then the clinic won’t make a dime profit. We need to show a picture, too. A slim, fair-haired boy with a shy smile. And let’s take a doctor with us.”

  “Julie,” Hancock suggested. “Keep it in the family, yes? Hey! Stevie could be the boy’s girlfriend. They don’t need to speak, they just make up the numbers, look serious, create a little emotional blackmail.”

  Julie didn’t like the idea. She didn’t have the right clothes, if asked she wouldn’t know the right medical jargon, she couldn’t maintain a polite expression of interest while the men worked their con. But Stevie jumped at the chance to play the girlfriend. “Longsleeve shirt buttoned to the neck,” she said, “plaid skirt, white knee-socks, loafers with tassels. And a sad, brave smile. See?” She showed them. “I
can keep that look for hours.”

  “They’ll give you Alka-Seltzer after ten minutes,” Hancock said, “and a Purple Heart after twenty.”

  If Stevie was going, Julie agreed to go too. “But we’re extras,” she said. “Walk-ons. No dialogue.”

  “Just one line,” Luis said. “If anyone asks you about neurostatic hypoplasia, say it’s an idiopathic disorder causing acute nervous autonomy.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “And therefore everything.”

  3

  Gibson cleaned up his office, paid any bills, emptied his bank account, talked to some people who might want to buy the business. That left a final touch: a leaving present for Agent Moody, something to keep him quiet. Gibson put on oil-stained overalls and old sneakers, and drove to Konigsberg.

  Already he was beginning to say goodbye to Los Angeles. Santa Monica Boulevard looked a little slow and shabby, the palms a bit dusty, the traffic sluggish when the lights changed. Then he turned onto Palisades Parkway and met some sea fog misting his windscreen and soon there were flashing lights and burning flares and police waving him past a two-car crash. That was something he wouldn’t miss: LA traffic. Death on wheels. Every day in LA, fifty drivers had heart attacks. What if the guy in that black Chrysler beside him died now with his foot jammed on the gas and the wheel swung hard over? Ten-car pile-up. Big yawn. Might make the second half of the six o’clock news.

  Not for Milt Gibson. Not any more.

  The sea-fog vanished as he climbed Santa Monica Canyon Road. Tall grasses, baked blond by the summer, made a slow restless pattern as the breeze bent them and released them. The hills are alive, Milt sang, with the sound of music. He never sang. Watch out. There’ll be some changes made.

  There were no cars outside Konigsberg. That looked bad. But the front door was open. That was good.

  Othello was dozing, half-inside the house, half-out. He was the reason the door was left open. He took a heavily blinkered view of Gibson approaching and decided the man wasn’t worth moving for. Gibson stepped over him.

  Nobody asked what he wanted. He explored the house quietly (sneakers helped) and found nothing of interest until he looked into a big room that smelled of turpentine, and he saw a woman sitting on a tall stool with her back to him, working on a painting, very intense, her head only inches from the canvas. He edged toward her and saw that she was painting thin blades of grass, one by one, making a hell of a good job of it, and he was just about to say so when Princess Chuckling Stream saw his shadow move. She stood and swung in one motion. He turned too late and took a solid punch behind the right eye. His knees were water. His head hit the floor, which was polished stone. Soon, Othello smelled blood. He took a long minute to arrive. No hurry. There was plenty of the stuff for him to taste. Princess was rubbing her knuckles with turpentine. “Friend of yours?” she asked. Othello gave up on the blood: too salty. “Dumb stupid sonofabitch,” Princess said. “Not you, pooch.”

  “Hello,” Tony Feet said. He stood in the doorway, too smart to get too close. “I have my merit badge in First Aid. Or is this a crime scene already?”

  “He snook up on me. I was workin’, folk should know better.” She flexed her fingers. Milt Gibson had a hard head. “He ain’t dead.” She nudged his head with her foot. The head groaned. “You want a beer? I gotta take a break, can’t do this itsy-bitsy crap with my hand gone stiff.”

  “Sure.” Feet came forward and, not getting dangerously close, studied the painting. “Only stupendous. And the gal ain’t bad either.” He turned to Gibson, now on his hands and knees. “Never interrupt the artiste, Mac. This yours?” He kicked a rubber bucket toward the door. “Follow it.”

  They went to the kitchen. Gibson soaked his head under the cold tap and then sat on the nearest chair. Princess tossed him a towel. “I’m looking for Stevie Fantoni, an old pal,” Tony Feet said. “Ain’t here,” Princess said. “Went out. Somewheres.” She sucked beer from the bottle. Concludes item one. Next on the agenda was the bum with the headache and the rubber bucket. “What’s your story, Jack?” Tony said.

  “I’m the plumber,” Gibson said. “I check the pipes every six months. Contract is with the owner.” Yes. That sounded good.

  “Plumber.” Tony Feet thought about it while he worked on his beer. “That’s a noble profession. Allow me to shake the hand of a true craftsman.” Reluctantly, Gibson shook hands. “Soft as mashed potato,” Feet said. “And twice as white. You ain’t no plumber.”

  Gibson looked at his hands. “I wear gloves,” he said. “Some of us got standards. Jesus … I could use a couple aspirin. Anyway … what gives you the right? You know this guy?” he asked Princess.

  “We met once. Says he’s Tony Feet, a big noise from Illinois. That could be bullshit. If you two want to fight, do it in the yard. Leave the front door open.” She took another beer and went out.

  “Tony Feet,” Gibson said. “You were part of that Frankie Blanco business. In El Paso.” He was feeling weary. And the day had started so well.

  “Let’s you an’ me be friends,” Feet said. “Tell me what’s goin’ on here, or goin’ down, or comin’ up, an’ I promise you won’t get hurt.”

  “Yeah. Well, look. One thing you gotta understand is this. I used to be a guy knew his way around LA, I mean people told me things, what I’m saying’ is I moved in them circles, an’ that includes the FBI, I knew which buttons to press, I had access. Until today. Today is my leavin’ day. I’m pullin’ out. Out of LA, out of California, out the whole US of A. That’s the thing I want you to understand.”

  “Got it. You’re leavin’. Now speak.”

  “I’m gettin’ married.” Gibson surprised himself. He only just got divorced. Hadn’t even proposed to her. “Long honeymoon. Not comin’ back.”

  “I’m happy for you both. Now make me happy for me before I cry.”

  “Here it is.” Gibson squeezed his eyes tight shut, and told himself to cut his losses, forget Moody, grab Betty, get out of town. “This couple livin’ here, Cabrillo-Conroy, they got chased out of DC by the Feds. Dunno why, but it wasn’t parkin’ tickets. They turn up in E1 Paso with a contract on Blanco. Who sez? Blanco sez an’ he’s a guy knows about such things. As a clincher he ends up dead. You were there, you saw it happen. So they beat it to LA with the Fantoni broad an’ this crazy painter lady. The word is they got a new line in dollar bills, very counterfeit, and anyone gets in their way gets what Blanco got. The Fantoni family says the same. So I came here to check out the property. It’s clean, which is no surprise, counterfeiters don’t operate at home. Now I’m through, okay? Gonna take my bride and vamoose. Jeez, that redhead packs a punch.”

  “Tell me one thing,” Feet said. “Why the rubber bucket?”

  “A thing I learned in the military. When you carry a bucket, officers leave you alone, they think you’re on a job. Same with this plumber thing. People see a guy carryin’ a bucket must be kosher.”

  “Uh-huh. You said the word was counterfeiting. Whose word was that?”

  Gibson’s head drooped. He looked at the floor, which was no goddamn help at all. “Vito DiLazzari.”

  “Yeah? That’s a big word. We’ll go and see him.”

  Gibson stood. “I can’t, I gotta get—”

  “Married. I know. Later.”

  They left the house. Othello was back in his place at the front door. He recognized Gibson’s smell and remembered the taste of his blood and tried to bite his leg, but he was too slow.

  “Morgan two-seater,” Feet said. “Snazzy. Plumbing pays well.”

  “I’m a dealer. Classic Car Imports. Or was. I’m sellin’ up, getting’ out.”

  Tony Feet gave him the keys to his Buick. “We’ll take mine, it’s got air conditioning. You drive. I like to be awestruck by the scenery.”

  4

  The men and the women, quietly dressed by Saks, got into the Lincoln and drove to the Foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where, three months
ago, Helen, widow of Ralph Pinchot Reynolds, had stumbled at the top of their grand staircase and fetched up at the bottom lifeless, thus leaving the second-largest construction company in LA to their only child, Nancy.

  The women waited in the car until they were needed.

  Hancock knocked on the door. A manservant opened it. Luis began his opening remarks and the man cut in to say that Miss Reynolds died in the hospital last night. Pneumonia. There was nothing to do but express deepest sympathy and leave.

  “No luck,” Hancock reported. “Deceased.”

  “Jeez,” Stevie said. “And we came all this way.”

  “She wasn’t expecting us,” Luis said. “Otherwise she would have hung on for another twenty-four hours.”

  “If she’d expected us, the sheriff would of answered the door,” Julie said.

  “True. And if she expected us, we wouldn’t have come, would we? Surprise is half the battle.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Hancock drove away, but slowly, on compassionate grounds.

  “Maybe that guy was the sheriff,” Stevie said. “I mean to say, young heiress, whole life ahead of her, sudden death, that’s no accident. Wake up, fellas.”

  “She was 71,” Hancock said. He reached the highway and put on speed. It was a mild autumnal afternoon. A maverick wind had blown the smog away and the San Gabriel mountains soared to their right, as clean and as crisp as a National Geographic two-page spread. The scent of chaparral—manzanita and chamise, sage and yerba santa, a dozen others—tinged the air. LA must have smelt good to the Spaniards.

  “I hate to waste a whole day,” Luis said.

  “Come back again when you know who’s inherited,” Julie said.

  “And say what? Miss Nancy had a fling fifty years ago? And we represent her long-lost love-child? Now aged 49? Sick with the mumps?”

  “Got to keep it simple,” Hancock said. “No women.”