Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  She wagged a finger at him. “Oh, no, Grant Lambert. No one would dare do that to me.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “That’s what I know. It’s also why I never contract out my services, unless I know and trust the person I’ll be working with. You used to be in that category, but now I think you must be getting a little soft in the head.”

  “Hey!”

  Constance ignored him. “And let’s say I decide to work this job with you. How are you gonna pay me? You expect me to do this for free?”

  “Well…” Grant frowned. “Remember, our plan is to collect the thirty grand from Peebles. You’d get a cut of that.”

  “And if he turns you down?”

  “We’ll still have that indiscreet photo he took.”

  She frowned. “That’s just great. You get no money—maybe you even end up going to Rikers—but at least you’ll have the peace of mind knowing you own a picture of a politician’s penis.”

  Chase changed the conversation so abruptly it threw off both Grant and Constance. “So what’s your current scam, Constance?”

  She cocked her head. “That’s my business.”

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  “Where are you going with this?” His answer was nothing more than a knowing smile. “Okay, fine. I’ve got a friend at the front desk of one of the Times Square hotels. He used to feed me credit card numbers for wealthier guests, but management started sniffing around and scared him. But when he gets the chance, he still passes me names and phone numbers that connect directly to the rooms. Then it’s up to me to con the guests into giving up the rest of the information. It’s safer for him—’cause if anyone complains, management figures the guests gave their information to a random grifter working the tourist crowd—and it still pays off for me. I just have to do a little more work to make it pay off. Satisfied?” Chase nodded. “So why are you asking?”

  He held an index finger in the air. “What do you do with the credit card numbers?”

  “I order shit. And then I fence it or sell it. What do you think I—”

  “And where do you have the merchandise shipped? Not here, I assume.”

  “Of course not. I know this guy…” She frowned. “You want to tell me where you’re going with this?”

  Chase smiled. “You have it shipped somewhere. To a friend.”

  “Not really a friend, but you’re on the right track.”

  He was ready for his triumphant moment. “Suppose this non-friend decides to keep the merchandise for himself. Then what?”

  Constance opened her eyes widely, finally understanding the reason for Chase’s long, convoluted, seemingly pointless string of questions. “I get it! You’re trying to draw a parallel between what happened to you and Grant with what could happen to me.”

  Chase was feeling very proud of himself. “That’s it! It’s all about the breakdown of trust.”

  “Except…” Her mouth fell into a scowl. “Except I would never let that happen to me. Someone fucks with me—even once—I know these Dominican guys that’d happily and permanently take care of the problem just for the fun of it.”

  That deflated Chase.

  Grant, who was born deflated, asked, “So this credit card fraud gig. How’s it working out for you?”

  She smiled. “It’s like fishing, Lambert. Or sex. Some days you sit there and do nothing but hold your pole, and some days they’re biting. Why?”

  There was no need to tell her he was already thinking about the next scam. “Just wondering.”

  With that, Constance looked at the grandfather clock tucked in the corner of her living room. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

  Back out on the stoop, Chase said, “I really thought she’d see the light.”

  Grant never really expected success and was far less surprised than his partner. “We’ve got another person to talk to—and maybe a few more, if we can figure out what we need—but we’d better start preparing to pull this job on our own.”

  “We still have Mary Beth on our side. And Lisa, sort of.”

  “That’s a very iffy ‘sort of.’”

  “And Jamie.”

  Grant stared at the sky, silently praying that a falling air conditioner would put him out of his misery.

  They were one-for-two. A great percentage for batters, but not so great for criminals.

  It was time to visit Brooklyn.

  Paul Farraday’s tiny basement apartment in East Williamsburg was not meant for entertaining. It was meant for a lot of things—writing unreadable, bleak poetry, drinking alone, lamenting one’s irreversible mistakes in life, attempting suicide—but not entertaining. That’s why Farraday was pretty much the only person who’d ever been inside the front door.

  Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca were two exceptions, and even their visits were few and far between. Yet there they were again, on the sort of warm day that didn’t feel like the end of September.

  He parted a tattered curtain and watched them ring the buzzer until Chase noticed the curtain moving and an eye peering out, at which point he figured he’d better let them come inside.

  Farraday’s bulk filled the doorway when he opened the door and greeted them with an unhappy groan. “What?”

  “Is that any way to invite a pal inside?” asked Grant.

  “How do you figure I’m gonna invite you inside?” He eyeballed the visitors for a few seconds before he caved. “Okay, come in. But make it fast.”

  “Why? What’s doing?”

  “Getting ready to drink.”

  “That’s friendlier.”

  “Don’t push it, Lambert. I’m on a schedule.”

  “Your first mistake,” Farraday said, after they’d given him their pitch, “is that you took a job referred to you by Jamie Brock.”

  Grant’s shoulders slumped. “No argument there.”

  Farraday leaned against the bar, the only item in the apartment that showed a pride of ownership. “The guy is useless.”

  “I get that. But it sounded like a good idea at the time.”

  “Jamie Brock can sling the bullshit. I’ll give him that. But you should be smart enough to see through it. Nothing he’s ever come in with has been worthwhile. Remember the Caymans bank scam?” Grant hung his head. “Remember the time he wanted to blackmail that actor in the Hamptons?” Grant’s head dipped a little bit more. “Remember when he had the bright idea how we should rob Henry Kissinger—”

  “Okay, okay!” Grant had lived through all of it and didn’t need to relive it, especially in this dingy apartment where even positive things sounded depressing. “Would it help if you knew that Lisa and Mary Beth are very excited about this job?”

  Farraday weighed that. Lisa was an operator, and Mary Beth was a bitch, and they wouldn’t just buy into any old half-baked scam. “What do you mean by excited?”

  Chase leaned forward, more to get away from a spring in the couch that had started poking his ass than to get closer to Farraday. But whatever worked.

  “Let’s just say the excitement level is through the roof. Especially Mary Beth.”

  “Mary Beth?” Farraday had to think about that. “She don’t get excited about much except shopping.”

  “But she’s excited about this job! See what I’m saying?” Chase snapped his fingers for emphasis.

  “I dunno.” Farraday shifted and—Farraday not being a small man—the movement disturbed the stale air in the apartment. “Anyone want a drink?”

  Grant and Chase passed, so Farraday poured himself a triple in their honor. He was on a schedule, after all.

  While their host filled a rocks glass—minus the rocks—Chase continued. “Like Grant’s been pointing out, if people start to think they can take advantage of our criminal talents, well…there’s just no justice.”

  Farraday set down the bottle of scotch and raised the glass to his lips. “You might want to rethink your terminology. Seems to me ‘justice’ isn’t the word you w
ere looking for.” He sort of sipped, sort of gulped. “Here are some of the things I don’t get…”

  “Go ahead,” said Grant.

  “I was gonna.” Hostility flickered across Farraday’s face but he forced it away, reminding himself these guys were almost friends, or as close as he had these days. He took a big gulp of scotch—this time there was no half sip—and let the booze burn the inside of his throat. “First, correct me if I’m wrong, and I hope I am, but do I understand you want me to do this job without a set fee?”

  “C’mon, Farraday.” Grant leaned forward, feeling the twin brother of the spring that had attacked his partner. “Hopefully, this job clears thirty grand. So if things work out, there’ll be some money for you. Hopefully.”

  “I keep hearing you say ‘hopefully.’ That isn’t one of my favorite words.”

  Grant shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve never worked together before. When I say ‘hopefully,’ I mean—”

  “You mean I might make two hundred dollars. Or fifty. Or nothing.”

  “Well, no…but…” Grant sat back against the spring, defeated. “I suppose that could be a possibility.”

  “Okay, so there’s that problem. And then there’s another one…” Farraday stopped and looked around the room. “Is it too bright in here?”

  “It’s fine,” Grant and Chase said at the same time, since the level of light seemed to be about what you’d get if you were buried alive.

  “If you say so. Anyway, like I was sayin’, I got another problem.” He paused; the next words were going to be awkward. “I’m thinkin’ of leaving the business.”

  They looked at him, uncomprehending. If Farraday had said he was going to take his almost 290-pound frame over to the Lincoln Center and join the ballet, it would’ve made more sense.

  “Could you say that again?” Chase finally asked after the silence stretched for an uncomfortably long time.

  Farraday frowned. He didn’t want to say those words again if he didn’t have to. “You heard me.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense…”

  “Damn right it doesn’t make sense.” Grant sounded indignant. “What are you thinking? You don’t know how to do anything else.”

  That sort of pissed Farraday off. “In case you’ve forgotten, before I got into this business I used to be the best cab driver in the city. Not one of the best. Not in the top ten. I was the best.”

  They nodded. What he said was true. Farraday was a legendary cab driver until he realized he had to make a choice between the keys and booze, and the keys lost. Since then, he’d become even more legendary in the circles in which a skilled driver who could start, steal, and maneuver anything with four wheels was highly regarded.

  “I’m sorry,” said Chase, “but I still don’t get it. I mean, if you go back to driving—legit driving, that is, with long hours and responsibilities—you’ll have to give up the booze.”

  Farraday looked up from the bar where he was refreshing his triple scotch. “What makes you think I can’t do that?”

  Grant cleared his throat and almost said the wrong thing, but decided against it. “All right, Farraday, tell us what’s going on.”

  “I did.”

  “Tell us what’s really going on.”

  If he was going to do that, he was going to need more fuel in his system. So he drained the glass in three swallows and refilled it before taking a seat in a broken recliner across from where Grant and Chase sat on the couch. The chair squealed a protest and the footrest popped out a few inches.

  “Remember Mrs. Jarvis?”

  Grant didn’t. “Who?”

  “Mrs. Jarvis. That neighbor of ours from the time we pulled the job in Virginia.”

  Now it was coming back to him. It had been surprisingly easy for Grant to suppress the memory of Farraday in puppy love. “What about her?”

  Farraday fidgeted in the recliner and the footrest popped out another couple of inches. “We’ve been staying in touch.”

  Grant and Chase saw where this was going and began to feel even more uncomfortable than their host.

  “Are you trying to say,” said Grant, “that you’ve got something going with this lady in Virginia?”

  “Yeah.” Farraday was relieved he didn’t have to spell it out. “First time I’ve been happy since the divorce.”

  “But the booze…”

  “I’m thinking of moving to Nash Bog, Virginia, Lambert. And if I make that decision, nothing you or Chase can say will change my mind. Me and Mrs. Jarvis figure if I can move there and quit drinking, maybe I could get a job as a school bus driver or something.”

  Farraday stood—the recliner sighed with relief—and walked back to the bar.

  “You know,” said Grant, “maybe I’ll have a drink after all.”

  “Pour one for me, too,” added Chase.

  Farraday poured as he talked. “There’s another reason I can’t do a job right now.”

  Grant didn’t really want to hear it, but figured if it made him happy…“Why’s that?”

  “My schedule is really booked these days with flying lessons.”

  Grant scratched his head. “What, in an airplane?”

  “No, I flap my fuckin’ arms.”

  “Sorry…I just…”

  Farraday handed his unwelcome guests their drinks. “Of course I mean an airplane. What else would I mean?”

  “So…” Grant was having a hard time wrapping his head around this revelation. Sure, Farraday was the best wheelman in the Northeast, but that was a lot different from piloting a plane. Also, planes were expensive. “So you pay an instructor?”

  “Who said anything about an instructor?”

  “Well, how…?” He caught the tiniest hint of a sly grin on Farraday’s lips. “Are you telling me you steal planes to practice flying? With no experience?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you fly in skies that are above me?”

  Farraday raised his glass. “Bottoms up.”

  Grant Lambert considered himself a realist, and so—realistically—he knew there was no way he would be able to pull off a series of synchronized burglaries with only Chase, Lisa, and Mary Beth. Even with Constance and Farraday on board, he’d be shorthanded.

  “We could bring Nick back,” Chase suggested as they trudged down the block after leaving Farraday’s apartment.

  “Maybe. But that mother of his worries me. Kelly gets wind of this and I can see her running to the cops. We’re already pushing it.”

  Chase shook his head sadly. “She used to be the best on the long con.”

  “That’s the truth. But I’ll tell you, becoming a lawyer is the worst thing for a former criminal to do. A total three-sixty.”

  “One-eighty.”

  “Huh?”

  “A total three-sixty would mean she’d come back around to being a criminal again. A one-eighty would mean she’d be the opposite of a criminal.”

  Grant waved him away. “I’m not interested in fractions right now.”

  “Not fract—” Chase stopped himself and decided it’d be best for both of them to drop it.

  “So is Nick in or out?”

  “He’s a maybe. Got any other suggestions?”

  Chase shrugged, knowing that Grant wouldn’t like the only name that came to his head. “Jamie?”

  “Maybe.” Grant saw the surprise on Chase’s face. “I didn’t say yes. Just maybe. He’s pretty worthless, but I’m gonna need more bodies, and at least he’s a body.”

  Chase almost laughed as they neared the subway. “Yeah, I guess he is a body.”

  “Might be a good man to have along,” Grant added, as they began descending the stairs to the platform. “In case we need to leave someone behind.”

  That evening they sat in their kitchen in Jackson Heights and continued into a fifth hour of trying to put a gang together. Grant had a pad in front of him listing almost thirty names, twenty-five of which he’d crossed out.

  “How about tha
t Pete guy?” asked Chase. “The one from Hoboken?”

  “In jail.”

  “Really? They catch him boosting an ATM again?”

  “Nah. Pete got himself elected to the city council and the feds nailed him on a corruption rap.”

  “No kidding.”

  Grant shrugged. “That’s New Jersey for you.” He looked at the remaining names on the list. They belonged to the few people who they hadn’t rejected or who hadn’t rejected them. “Better get Jamie Brock and Nick Donovan on the line and get their commitments.”

  Chase hiked an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  “I can think of a lot of people I’d rather have on the job, but they’ll have to do. At least Nick’s already familiar with June Forteene’s office, which will be helpful. And Jamie knows the layout of Concannon’s congressional office…not that I trust him to carry off a burglary.”

  Chase dialed and Grant stared at the list again and thought, Ah, Hoboken Pete, why’d you have to go and get yourself elected to city council? I could’ve used you about now.

  One name that wasn’t on Grant’s list—for many reasons, but especially because he’d never met her before—was that of Angelina Ortiz.

  Grant had heard the name before, but it hadn’t registered with him and was gone in seconds. She wasn’t in their business.

  And yet, when things looked bleakest—when Grant’s gang consisted of himself, Chase, Lisa, Mary Beth, and hopefully Jamie and Nick—Angelina Ortiz was the woman who came to his rescue.

  At the same time Chase was working the phones, she arrived home from a long shift waiting tables at a Midtown diner. She was bone-tired and wanted nothing more than to sit and unwind over a glass of something strong.

  “Hi, baby,” she said to her longtime partner as she shuffled into their very orderly living room.

  “Hi backatcha,” said Constance Price, looking up from the computer screen. “I just ordered you a present.”

  Angelina smiled. “You did? Or is it courtesy of one of your victims?”