by Joan Boswell
“Faith,” Janet murmured, “Faith will be a fine name, my girl.”
Susan C. Gates is a recovering public servant, a reformed banker and a volunteer with two organizations serving children. She shares her Ottawa home and varied music collection with two discerning Shih Tzus, Molly and Murphy. An earlier version of this story received an Honourable Mention in the 2001 Capital Crime Writers Contest.
Jagger He Ain’t:
The Saga of a Rock Wannabe
He purchased a car like his hero’s
But he never would let me get in:
“You are much too old for this beauty.”
Ooo, the chill in my haemoglobin.
His black leather pants almost killed him
As he sucked in his low hanging gut,
He told his young pals “That’s my mother,”
And made fun of my widening butt.
He was always away on a club date
Getting “Satisfaction” in some sleazy bar,
And refused to discuss his big problem
This dream that he’d be a big star.
When I was finally able to tell him
How his delusion affected my life,
How he was only heading for heartbreak
His dismissing words cut like a knife.
Now the look in his eyes was pure madness
As he told me to pull in the claws.
“Your job is to look after my needs
And not constantly whine about yours!”
The next morning he jumped in his sports car,
Taking off in a great whirl of dust,
To chase his past youth like a demon,
To be like Mick Jagger or bust.
Making light of my worries was wrong, Hal,
So I’ve set up a big concert for you,
You’ll be rocking with the devils in Hell, Hal,
’Cause the brakes on your car are cut through!
Joy Hewitt Mann
Let Me Drive
Violette Malan
You want me to steal a car?” I placed my cup and its bone china saucer on the desk that separated me from the Boss. All without my hands actually shaking.
“Ms. Caine, please.” The Boss spread his hands. “Not just any car. A collector’s item, a cultural icon about to be shabbily used.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, but I’m a grifter, not a car thief.”
“My people are otherwise occupied, and in any case, I prefer to use someone who owes me a favour.”
“Tommy didn’t actually kill anyone,” I pointed out.
“If he had, I would simply have collected my percentage and . . . persuaded him to return to his own lucrative line of business. But your brother only pretended to be a killer, and took money to perform that service, money that should legitimately have come to my people—you can see how I can’t allow that.”
Sure I could. Anybody could. Except Tommy.
“Do you know where your brother is?”
“For all I know, he’s sitting in his apartment watching Voyager reruns,” I said.
The Boss narrowed his eyes, his cup of coffee held halfway to his mouth.
Here it comes, I thought. In real life, no bad guy can take your word for it that you don’t know anything, they always have to torture you to be sure.
Not that I’m calling anybody in the Firm a bad guy, you understand.
Still, I wasn’t as frightened as you might think. Usually, in this kind of situation, women have more to worry about than being tortured and killed. They have to worry about being raped, tortured and killed. But the Boss had three daughters, and it was well known that he disapproved, some said violently, of any kind of molestation of women. So rape wasn’t on the cards. The Boss was a gentleman, he’d just kill me.
Maybe I could come back and haunt Tommy.
Finally, the Boss nodded. “Since your brother is unavailable, you will have to obtain this automobile for me.”
I tried my best to agree without looking like I was thanking him. The Boss didn’t need to spell out that the killing option was still on the table. Like he didn’t need to spell out that he’d let my family operate in his territory for years without even asking for a percentage. The Boss was what social historians call a benign despot. He had all the power, but he was usually fair and equitable about how he used it. In the past, people had made the mistake of thinking that fair and equitable were synonyms for soft and easy. No one made that mistake any more.
Two men in spiffy suits dropped me off at my place. My answering machine was blinking, but at the moment what I needed to do was stand in my living room and call Tommy every name I could think of while kicking the sofa. I repeated a couple of the names for good measure.
Who would have thought that not being a hitman could get a person into so much trouble? Certainly not my brother. No, as Tommy Caine would put it, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
That’s what Tommy usually says. And, as usual, he was getting away with murder, metaphorically speaking, while big sister Lillian was called on the carpet. Story of my life.
Don’t get me wrong about Tommy. His heart’s in the right place, and he’s honest-to-god not as thick as he seems. After all, on the surface, pretending that you’re a hitman specializing in the removal of awkward spouses is a pretty good grift. And, again on the surface, foolproof. Even if the mark realizes she’s been taken (it’s more likely to be a woman, men usually manage to kill their spouses themselves), what are they going to do, go to the cops?
Still, I was well aware that I had no time to waste being annoyed with Tommy. The Boss had given me a week to work in, but what I’d told him was true; I’m a con artist, not a car thief. I stuck on my latest blues CD, hoping the music would relax me enough to come up with a plan. By the third song, I found myself smiling. Ah, for the days when my biggest problem was a cheating boyfriend! I almost laughed when I found myself singing along with the chorus of the seventh cut, “Move over honey, let me drive”.
That’s what I needed, some way to get the owner to give me his car and let me drive. Some way to persuade a shrewd operator—strictly in the business sense—to give me his vintage Aston Martin. And not just any Aston Martin, but the car actually driven in Goldfinger by James Bond himself, Mr. Sean Connery. Hmmmm.
I stopped singing and picked up my pen.
The next afternoon found me on a job site. A vintage loft building on Church Street was being turned into a restaurant. I had on a nice suit, the skirt just short enough to distract without being so short that people would wonder how I thought it possible to walk around a construction site. A couple of phone calls had told me who was insuring the place, and a walk through their office let me pick up the right letterhead. It’s amazing what people will let you do when they think you’re there to service the photocopiers.
Now, with my clipboard, my little skirt and my bouncy blonde curls, I was ready to take a walk through for the insurance company.
The guys were only too happy to down tools, lecture me about site safety (which of course was the reason I hadn’t worn hard hat or safety shoes), and tell me all about how well they’d followed the building, plumbing and fire-and-safety codes. They were also happy to tell me when the car was due to be installed, who was building the installation, and when the security would be in place.
I knew that skirt would do the trick.
The very next day I was sitting across a very impressive glass desk from Guy Travelle, the owner of both the car and the theme restaurant in which it was to be installed as an attraction.
This was the desecration from which the Boss wanted me to save the car. Go figure.
I’d had some cards printed, and my cousins Nicola and Sarita were lined up to look after the telephones. Travelle wasn’t the kind of guy who’d check these things, but he was the kind of guy who would have an assistant who’d check these things.
At this stage of the game, play could have gone a couple of ways. Ideally, I w
ould have conned the guy into giving me the car—you know, letting me take it somewhere, and by the time I didn’t bring it back, it would be too late for him to do anything about it except confess to the cops how stupid he’d been. A surprising number of people don’t want to do that, especially men, and especially businessmen with a reputation for being hard-nosed.
It took me about thirty seconds to figure out that I would have to go with Plan B.
“As I told your assistant,” I said, crossing my legs, “CatsEye Productions is doing a documentary on the Aston Martin, to air over the next month on Car Week. We’ve pretty well completed filming, but it’s come to our attention that you have a famous example of the car yourself, and we’d like very much to include it in our documentary.” This is called “make the mark think he’s doing you a favour”. For some strange reason, people are more suspicious of you when you try to give them something, less suspicious when you’re asking them for something.
“Including your car would really underline the importance of the Aston Martin as a cultural icon,” I said, wishing the Boss could hear me. “We’ll want to film outside and inside the restaurant, will that be a problem?” Notice how I took it for granted that he’d agree? That’s a trick marketing people use, and it hardly ever fails. On marketing people, that is.
“Hey, happy to help.” I could see the dollar signs flashing in Travelle’s eyes.
“We’d like to film on Wednesday the ninth, that way we can guarantee to get your segment in.” He had no way of knowing that I already knew the car, and its fancy security system, was due to be installed on the Thursday.
“No way you can film on the tenth?” he said, brow furrowed as he saw his free publicity going up in smoke.
Frown prettily, tap lower lip with Montclair pen. “If it was just me, no problem, but I have to get the film and sound crew. We’d like to interview you on the spot, much more effective, and the ninth is the only day they’ll give me.”
I watched him add it up. The security system couldn’t be installed earlier, as I’d found out from a call I’d made that very morning. Just how risky was it, Travelle was thinking, weighed against all that free publicity?
Just how greedy was this guy, I was thinking.
“Of course, filming on the ninth would mean that the segment would air on that Saturday’s show,” I said, giving him the clincher I hoped would seal the deal. The restaurant was scheduled to be opened on the Friday. This kind of coverage the very next day was as good as money in the bank.
I saw all of that pass through Travelle’s mind.
“Let me make a call,” he said. “Jason! Get Barb on the phone . . . Barbie? Guy Travelle. Can I get delivery on the ninth? I can? Great.” He turned back to me. “It’s a go.”
“Perfect. Let me call my people.” I got out my cell phone, called the number on the business cards and almost smiled when Nicola answered, right on cue, “CatsEye Productions.”
“Call up the crew,” I told her. “We’re a go for the ninth.”
The next phase was in place when I ran into a snag in the form of the Boss’s son-in-law sitting in my kitchen, drinking my imported beer.
“Have any trouble breaking in?”
“I’d watch my tone if I were you, Lillian. I’m not my father-in-law.”
He was the eldest daughter’s husband, and at the moment the only son-in-law. He wasn’t exactly next in line for the throne—I think the Boss was hoping the other daughters might do better—but you might call him the heir apparent. Most people were hoping the other girls married soon.
“About the car,” he said. “What’s been done?”
I debated saying that I wasn’t about to report to him, and then decided not to push it. He’d already as good as told me I couldn’t rely on his having any of the Boss’s gentlemanly instincts.
I got myself a beer and sat down across from him. No point in making it obvious that I was scared.
I filled him in on everything I’d done so far.
“I didn’t see a way to get the guy to give me the car,” I concluded. “I don’t have time for that long a set up. The way I’ve worked it, he’ll put the car in place a day before the security system is ready. So I’ll just get it the old fashioned way. I’ll steal it.”
“You’ll go in overnight?” He nodded, chewing on his upper lip. “I like it. Maybe you shouldn’t go to any trouble, though. I’ll get my people to take the car.”
I got a real cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“You think that’s a good idea?” I asked. “The Boss asked me to do this.”
“I think it’s a good idea you do what I tell you,” he said. “I think it’s a good idea if someone does something for the old man, it should be me.”
I wanted to argue some more, but something about the way he picked up his empty beer bottle by the neck told me that wouldn’t be such a great idea.
I waited until he was gone, and I had the door locked and bolted and the alarm on before letting myself think about what had just happened. I was so scared I didn’t bother to call him names and kick the sofa. I leaned against the locked door and hugged myself. Talk about a rock and a hard place. This was going to be a lot more complicated than I thought.
The sun wasn’t up on the morning of the ninth when there was a pounding on my door. I thought it would be the son-in-law, and I was wondering if pretending I wasn’t home would work, but when I checked the peephole, it wasn’t the son-in-law I saw.
It was Tommy.
The good news was, the minute he’d heard I’d been summoned by the Boss, he’d headed back. The bad news was, I wasn’t off the hook.
“I haven’t got the money,” Tommy said, helping himself to the last of the coffee. “I didn’t even make the pick-up on the last mark, she’s the one who blew me to the Boss.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it would make any difference. We’d still have to run the game. We’re paying off our fine for encroaching on the Firm’s territory.”
“Paying off my fine, you mean.” Tommy rubbed his face with his hands.
I opened my mouth to tell him to hit the road, get in the wind, his being here couldn’t help me and might hurt me, if not himself. But then another song lyric sang its way through my head, “You’ve got to share the driving if you want to make good time”.
I looked Tommy over carefully. Good haircut, recent shave. A real grifter, my brother, ready for anything. “Can you get your hands on a good suit?” I asked him.
To meet Guy Travelle at the restaurant, I dressed in typical film crew gear—in other words, like a goth commando. To say Travelle looked alarmed is an understatement.
“Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll be filming my questions at the studio. This,” I swept my hand over my clothes, “is just to show solidarity with the crew.” I indicated the people hauling cameras and microphones out of a van. All three looked as if they’d borrowed their clothes from someone much bigger and then slept in them for a week. As of course they had. “Union,” I mouthed at Travelle.
Travelle nodded like what I’d said made sense. People will accept the most ludicrous explanations if they involve political correctness. This whole PC thing is a godsend to the con game.
The real point, of course, was that I didn’t look anything like the cute blonde the construction guys had seen before. Today, they never gave me a second glance.
Still, I didn’t really feel at ease until the flatbed arrived with the car. For a moment, I could almost understand what the Boss was on about. As a piece of machinery it was beautiful, but it was more than that. It wasn’t just a car from a movie, it was a car from a better world.
Then I snapped out of it. This was a car that was going to get me killed, if I wasn’t very lucky indeed.
The delivery guys drove the car off the truck and positioned it right in front of the restaurant’s glass doors, where we could get a good shot of both the car and the big sign. Just as Travelle was getting his businessman’s smile
ready for the camera, a tall, thin blonde man in a very good suit marched up and cleared his throat. He had the thinnest lips I’d ever seen on a human being, and he looked like trouble.
“Mr. Travelle?” Without waiting for an answer, Thin Lips handed Travelle a business card. I caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking letterhead.
“I’m from Shipstone Mutual. We received word that you were taking delivery of the Aston Martin insured under policy number CD45597 today instead of tomorrow.”
“Hey, I called you people yesterday. Talked to the man, I’m covered.” I lifted my eyebrows, but the Thin Lips took it in his stride.
“That’s as may be, Mr. Travelle. I have a disclaimer and supernumerary rider here which needs your signature before you can proceed.” Thin Lips waved some documents under Travelle’s nose. “We’d also like you to explain what additional security arrangements you’ve made, since we understand the alarm system doesn’t go in until tomorrow.”
This was just what I needed.
“Hey, no problem, I got the firm that covers my offices to give me a guy for overnight with the car.”
Oh my god, I thought.
“I suppose that will do, Mr. Travelle, if you’ll just initial this note to that effect, thank you very much.”
“Hey.” We all turned to look at the cameraman. “Can we get the car moved forward ten feet? Yeah, and can we get it turned around? Like, facing the other way? Look more British, like, you know?”
“I’ll move ’er.” One of construction guys stepped forward. He looked a little familiar to me, and I didn’t think it was from seeing him on the job a few days before. He looked an awful lot like someone who’d been playing cards in the room outside the Boss’s office. Or maybe driving the son-in-law’s car.
I couldn’t take any chances. “Oooh,” I said, “let me drive it. I’d love to.”
Smiling, Travelle was opening the door for me, when Thin Lips butted in.