Grift

by Jason Mosberg

  “We did it,” I whisper to him.

  I don’t know why I whisper. After all, we have the room to ourselves in a city where big reactions seem to be a part of everyday life.

  “I know.” He opens his arms. I fall into them, and our embrace lingers for nearly a full minute.

  “Minus the million to Charlie Moses, and we’re still sitting on ten million dollars,” I say, still talking in a whisper.

  As Jesse and I stare at each other, I can see the reflection of my eyes in his eyes.

  The moment reminds me of the night of my surprise party. The night of our first kiss in the pool. It reminds me of the feeling I got where it seemed like Jesse and I couldn’t possibly go on without something happening.

  The last few days have only pulled us closer, and once again, I believe we have to be together. Like the Earth couldn’t continue looping around the sun unless Jesse and I confronted the force between us. That’s when Jesse makes the face. The face before he kisses me. Seeing that face, I can’t resist leaning in and kissing him first. I peck Jesse on the lips. After I pull away, for a moment, it’s unclear if I was wrong. Had I misread him?

  But then he leans in and kisses me. A real kiss. Like our first one in the pool, where I had questioned if the water conducted our energy. We’re not in water this time, but our energies seem to fuse together into one super energy.

  As magical as it is, it’s not quite as magical as our first kiss in the pool. It’s like there’s a newly constructed jetty inside my body holding back the wave in my stomach – some shield to prevent or at least diminish future heartbreak.

  The kiss settles back into a hug, and I rest my face on Jesse’s shoulder. Sleepiness overcomes every ounce of my body. I just want to lie down with Jesse and close my eyes and sleep for hours. When was the last time I slept?

  As if Jesse can sense my growing fatigue, he steps back from the hug. He opens the duffel bag, and together, we count out the million dollars for Charlie Moses.

  “What should we put it in?” Jesse asks.

  Neither of us have a bag. I suggest a pillowcase, but they’re slightly translucent – in fact about the same grade of translucence as Dennis Cane’s murky green fiberglass table. Any witness to the pillowcase might realize it was stuffed full of cash.

  “I’ll buy a backpack or something from the gift shop,” I volunteer.

  “Good idea,” he says.

  I head downstairs. It serves as much of an excuse for me to call and check on Sophie. Walking to the gift shops in the Mirage, I call her room in the Luxor.

  She answers, “Hello?”

  “Sophie, it’s me. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Where are you? What’s going on, Piper?”

  “I’m going to come get you soon. Okay? Everything’s going to be okay now. Everything’s going to be… good.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just stay in the room, and I’ll be there soon enough.”

  My mind shuffling through the 10 places I planned to take Sophie once I got her back, I duck into a gift shop. Still daydreaming about Sophie, I have a huge smile on my face when I toss a $17.99 bag down on the counter. But a cold, hard stare meets my smile. The cashier stares at me like she knows me, glaring like I stole her boyfriend or ran into her car without leaving a note.

  Oh no.

  It’s one of the cashiers Mars and I conned a couple weeks ago.

  Not now.

  I fumble, trying to pull a twenty out my purse. I try not to panic. Maybe she’s not 100% sure it’s me. But when I look up, there’s not a doubt in my mind that there’s a doubt in hers. She definitely recognizes me.

  I reach my hand back in my purse and pull out three one-hundred-dollar bills. “Keep the change.” I pick up the new bag and walk out of the store. The cashier never says a word.

  Once back upstairs, I recount the incident to Jesse, and we share a laugh. “Imagine, after all this,” he says. “You get arrested on a glim dropper.”

  I laugh, but in my head, I can’t help analyzing it. Although I paid her off just now to avoid any trouble, she really couldn’t have called the police. What would she have said? That she offered me money for a briefcase and I took it? Nothing illegal about that. Max – as much as I now hate him (and I do hate him) – mastered the confidence game, and he taught us well.

  Jesse puts the one million dollars in the newly purchased bag. “I’ll take this to Charlie,” he says. “You take the rest of the money and go ahead and get Sophie. I’ll meet you back at TI in an hour.”

  “Okay. You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  We head down the elevator together. As it hits its max speed, Jesse gives me a quick kiss.

  Just outside the hotel is where we’ll part ways for now. Jesse hands me the duffel bag. Then he pecks me on the cheek and walks away with the smaller Mirage bag.

  “See you in a few,” he says as he turns back for only a second.

  What an ending. What an ending to a tragic few days. Bliss and grace fill me as I head to go get my sister.

  Everything hovers at perfection for a brief couple minutes before I snap out of it. My feet stop, and I just stand there.

  It hits me. Like a baseball bat to the gut. Or a golf club to the temple.

  I don’t have to look in the duffel bag to know it’s not full of money. It’s probably full of hotel brochures or spare rolls of toilet paper. I know Jesse, and I know he took it. After we parted ways, he went back to the hotel and got the real money. Jesse told me he couldn’t be with me because he knew he’d hurt me, and it looks like he was right.

  Over a series of long breaths, melancholy floods my body and bliss runs out of it. I just stand there. Breathing. And looking around at Las Vegas. Looking at the goddam lights of Sin City. Neon and noir.

  Darkness. There’s darkness in him. That darkness seeps into his desires and even his decisions. I guess I’ve always known that. But with all the highs and lows, and everything we’ve just been through together, I can’t believe he would con me. I can’t believe he would take everything and run. I thought I knew him.

  In my head, the dramatic events of the last week run in a slideshow. Seeing them successively, the events fall into perspective. But right after the moment I accept Jesse’s treachery as secondary to the triumph of getting Sophie back, I get a strange boost of optimism straight from my gut.

  Yes, the more I contemplate it, the more I truly believe that I know what Jesse will do. In the moment, he might be tempted to try to deceive me. And it’s more than temptation: it’s like a reflex he can’t control. And that reflex seized the opportunity for Jesse to prove himself a better con artist than any of us and walk away with all of the money.

  But I do know him. I know he’ll change his mind. He’ll come back. He’ll show up at Treasure Island.

  ***

  “We’re going back?” Sophie asks as we walk towards Treasure Island. “You just said it was Max who did this to me.”

  “We don’t have to worry about Max anymore.”

  Sophie’s curiosities all get answered when I update Mars, Kim, and Rob on everything that went down. I tell them about the new agreement and how we’re safe from Max moving forward.

  They ask about our home. About Treasure Island. And I tell them Max is gone. The penthouse is ours. We can stay. I figure we just have to take over the cash payments to the hotel manager.

  Everyone wants to know where Jesse is. I tell them that he had to run an errand, but he would be here soon with the cash. No one thinks anything of it.

  We collectively decide it’s time for a celebration. Officially, it’s a coming home party for Sophie. But it’ll be a celebration of many triumphs. The 36 hour, one million dollar set of cons. Defeating Dennis Cane. Freeing ourselves from Max. Getting to stay in our home at Treasure Island.

  While we set up for the party, I can’t help but wonder about Max. We paid Charlie Moses, the mastermind criminal who runs the Las Vegas mob, a million dollars to exile Max. I don’t ki
d myself. Charlie probably didn’t tell his guys to give him a slap on the wrist. They probably beat him and dropped him somewhere in the desert. I picture Max bleeding and groggy, wandering through the sand, trying to find a road to hitchhike his way back to society. Then taking a bus to who knows where. A sad ending for the man I once referred to as my friend, my mentor, and my father.

  What goes around.

  ***

  Music, dancing, swimming, eating, drinking: Inside the penthouse, everyone celebrates. Mars plays a list of songs off his computer. We order all kinds of glorious foods from the best take out places in Las Vegas. We sing Karaoke, swim in the pool, and embrace our youth in all the best ways.

  We pile some rafts on top of each other and Sophie climbs on top and sits perched atop the rafts like royalty. Mars shouts that the princess of Treasure Island has returned. I laugh hard and then cry harder.

  Throughout the party, I steal glances at the entranceway. Continuously hoping to see Jesse standing there with his sheepish grin. But each time I look over: no Jesse.

  As the hours slip by, I become more and more nervous. Nervous that Jesse will defy my expectations. Nervous that he won’t show. Nervous that he was right about himself. Nervous that I was wrong about him.

  But then, for what feels like the hundredth time, I look over at the entranceway, and…

  There.

  Is.

  Jesse.

  Just like I imagined. Standing in the entranceway with his sheepish grin. He appears frozen in the doorway, shocked to hear the music and to see the celebration that’s underway. Surprised no one’s angry. Instead Rob gives him a high five that morphs into a hug.

  Mars runs over to the pair, hugging them both. “We did it!”

  Rob screams, “Boo f-ing ya!” Then does an epic (and painful looking) belly flop.

  After Kim gives Jesse a celebratory hug, Jesse looks at me strangely. He goes to kiss me on the cheek. I turn into it and our mouths meet for a quick kiss. I whisper to him, “I know you.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What? What do you want to tell me, Jesse? That you took the money. And now you’ve brought it back.”

  “You knew I took the money?”

  I nod.

  “Then why? Why were they all celebrating if you all thought I was gone with the money?”

  “They didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t tell them?”

  Jesse’s baffled eyes search for answers.

  “I didn’t tell them it was gone, because I knew you’d be back. Because I know you.”

  Jesse didn’t know he’d come back. But I did. I knew him. Better than he knew himself. Our eyes meet. His fingers touch mine, and our hands clasp together. I can tell how much it means to him that I believed him. That I trusted him. I know that’s it my faith in him that will give him faith in himself. Enough that he and I can be together now.

  Jesse and I are together now.

  “Mars! Rob!” At the sound of their names, the two guys rush over to me. “Don’t you think Jesse is way too dry right now?”

  Mars and Rob grab Jesse and launch him into the pool.

  Standing there, my mouth and cheeks start to fatigue, but I just can’t stop smiling. He came back.

  THE NEXT CHAPTER – More to all this

  I refuse to open my eyes.

  It’s the morning after our epic celebration. Or maybe it’s already the afternoon.

  Jesse had come into my room halfway through the night, and we had snuggled for hours. Dozing. Whispering. Kissing. Dozing.

  Lying in my bed, I can feel the sun on my eyelids, but I’m scared to open my eyes. I dread seeing Jesse sitting at the foot of the bed, ready to tell me it was once again over only hours after it had once again just begun. But he’s not. When I open my eyes, he’s lying next to me. Already awake. He kisses me on the cheek, then the shoulder. Then he climbs out of bed and says he’s going to shower.

  “Okay,” I say. “I hope that’s not code for taking all the money and running away.”

  We both laugh. His temporary deceitful betrayal is already in the past. Our reunion is the present.

  I walk out of my room to find Mars and Rob already out in the living area eating bagels. Kim comes out ten minutes later. A freshly showered Jesse ten minutes after that.

  I head to Sophie’s room to check if she’s awake yet. When I open her door, I see her eyes open, so I run to her bed and jump on top of her. Hugging her. I missed her. Oh my stars, I missed her.

  I let Max be somewhat of a father to Sophie, and he kidnapped her. More than ever, I know only I can protect my sister.

  And I’m going to make everything better for her. If not enrolling her in summer camp, I’ll at least get her to join a sports team. Something where she gets to hang out with more kids her age. Maybe she wants to take lessons for a musical instrument. And now that we’re flush, I’m definitely going to hire a topnotch tutor to assist with the homeschooling.

  After some more hugs, Sophie and I join the rest of the crew in the kitchen.

  We recollect some of the more humorous incidents from the previous night’s celebration. Like Sophie singing The Killers’ “When You Were Young” from atop her floating throne of piled rafts. Or Rob juggling burning pins only to set a poolside wooden chair on fire (it happened to be Max’s favorite chair so we cheered its demise).

  Or Kim correctly calling out Jesse and me on having some newly formed secret relationship.

  The next 24 hours roll on like a nap-fest. At any given time, a couple people sit awake, chatting in the main room. Recounting stories from our grift bender. Talking with Sophie. Just appreciating each other’s company.

  And at any given time, there are a couple people sleeping. The day passes like that. Sleeping. Chatting. Sleeping. Chatting.

  By the next day, everyone seems to have caught up on their rest and caught up on their stories.

  We eat Belgian waffles for breakfast (no coincidence that waffles are Sophie’s favorite breakfast food).

  I walk Sophie into her room to get her started on her schoolwork. After I pick out some chapters for her to read from a US history textbook, I shut the door.

  “Hey, Soph, I wanted to tell you about Jesse first.”

  “It’s fine,” says Sophie.

  “Are you cool with it?”

  “Yeah, you guys look cute together.”

  I kiss her on her forehead, then leave her to study.

  I rejoin the rest of the crew in the kitchen. After a few minutes of small talk, I stand.

  “Alright, it’s 1:30. Let’s get after it. Money doesn’t make itself.”

  Everyone assumes I’m joking. Rob even lets out a snort.

  “I’m not kidding. Let’s go. Rob, it’s too hot for you to work The Strip, so head on over to Freemont Street. Mars, hit the pool halls. Anybody who heard about your $100,000 game will be wary to play you, so find the fresh tourists. And buy a round of drinks or six for the regulars to keep them from selling you out. Kim, I’ll see if Charlie Moses can get you deleted from the facial recognition database.”

  “He would do that?” Kim asks.

  “That’s the kind of support we’re paying him for,” I say.

  Kim shrugs. She appears impressed.

  Charlie Moses appears our ally at the moment, but so did Max at one time. So I won’t be naïve to think that Charlie would never cross us to better suit himself. My eyes are open wider now.

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  Rob’s face tightens up. “What, so we work for you now?”

  “No. We work for us now.”

  “What are you going to do?” Mars asks.

  “I’ve got an appointment for 2:00 PM.” I motion towards my phone. “Paige described him as an investment banker with a wallet full of cash and a keen eye for brunettes.”

  For a moment no one says anything.

  “Alright, break,” I say.

  Now everyone scatters to get start
ed on their assignments.

  We’re back.

  A bunch of outlaws living off the radar in a city no longer called, “The Outlaw City.”

  Once Rob, Mars, and Kim disperse, Jesse puts his arms around me.

  “And what do you want me to do?”

  “You? Treasure Island’s very own Long Con Silver? I’m working on something for you. In the meantime, you can do this…”

  After a short, passionate kiss, I pull away. “Sorry, I have a date.”

  I saunter into my room to get ready for my date.

  Someone might call me a swindler, hustler, harlot, scammer, dodger, scoundrel, trickster, thief, fraud, crook, cheat, faker, charlatan, outlaw, imposter, con artist, and a grifter, but I ain’t a whore. I might’ve been born to one, but life really is more like poker than blackjack: there’s more to all this than the cards we’re dealt.

  THE END

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Jake for encouraging me I could write a book.

  Thanks to Josh for always being the first read.

  Thanks to Cristoph Maier for designing the cover.

  Thanks to my agent Andrea for believing in the novel and believing in my vision for the novel.

  The biggest thanks go to my editor Rika for challenging me. (S, W, and I… haha)

  Piper may very well return. For updates on future stories, please follow me on twitter @ThreeStoryJason

  Or join my mailing list by sending an email to

  Grift@Three-Story.com