Con Ed

by Matthew Klein

Peter’s a good guy. I haven’t paid him a cent since I got out of prison. I guess his generosity is coming to an end. I probably owe him a few thousand dollars. At $3.94 per day in gross profit, I should be able to settle my debt with him in two and a half years. From the hopeless tone in his voice, he seems to have run the same calculation.

  The answering machine beeps and the second message plays. I’m surprised by the voice. I haven’t heard from him in six months—since Christmas. Toby seems to always come around when gifts are being distributed.

  “Hey, Dad,” Toby says. “Just checking in.” His voice sounds casual—too casual. I know my son. He wants something. “Called to see how you’re doing. Nothing important.” He pauses, thinks about whether to leave further details on the machine. He decides against it. “Okay, then. Catch you later.” He hangs up.

  I cook myself the usual dinner: Ronzoni spaghetti ($1.19 at Safeway) and Ragú tomato sauce ($2.30 per jar). As I eat, I think about the day—about Ms. Lauren Napier’s surprising offer to hire me for a mysterious job that pays a hundred grand, and about my son’s alarmingly vague telephone message.

  Guys like me get feelings in their bones. My bones say this story is just beginning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Pigeon Drop works like this.

  You’re walking from the supermarket, heading to your car. You see a pretty girl coming toward you and you smile at each other. As you pass, she looks down at the ground. She stops suddenly and says, “Whoa, look at this.”

  You follow her gaze. She has found a brown paper bag. Even without examination, you can see twenty-dollar bills practically falling out of the bag; it’s stuffed full of cash.

  She bends down, picks up the bag. She removes a wad of twenties, thick as the Sunday paper, and flips through it. “Jesus,” she says.

  She looks inside the bag and finds a folded piece of paper. She hands it to you. She says, “Mister, you read this. I’ll count the money.”

  While she’s counting the cash, you unfold the note and read it out loud. It says something like this: “Tyrone—Here’s your cut of the deal. I’ve already paid off the cops. You pay off the DA like we agreed. See you in Cabo—Juan.”

  After you read the note, you put two and two together. You say, “This money must be from a drug deal.”

  The roper (as the female con artist is called) has finished counting the cash. She announces, in a half-whisper, “There’s over five thousand dollars in this bag! What should we do with it?”

  Before you can answer, a well-dressed young man in a suit walks up. This is the cap—the second con artist. He says to the girl, “Listen, I don’t mean to intrude, but I want to warn you folks not to wave that kind of cash around. This isn’t exactly the safest neighborhood.”

  The girl says, “Actually, we just found it. We don’t know what to do with it.” She says to you, “Show him the note.”

  You hand the note to the young man in the suit. He reads it. “This is illegal drug money,” he announces.

  “Should we return it?” the girl asks. “Maybe we should bring it into the supermarket over there, in case someone claims it.”

  The man smiles at her simplicity. “Lady,” he says, “I don’t think many drug dealers are going to come forward to claim this.”

  “Well,” the girl asks, “can we keep it?”

  The guy shrugs. “I don’t know.” He thinks about it. “But I’ll tell you what. I’m a paralegal. My boss is a pretty big lawyer. He’ll know the answer. My office is three blocks down the street. If you want, I’ll go ask him what to do with the money.”

  “All right,” the girl says.

  The cap takes off, ostensibly to talk to his boss. In reality, he heads to the nearest coffee shop and buys himself a donut and a cup of joe. While he’s gone, the cute girl says to you, “Listen, mister, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I was brought up to treat people fair and square. You were here when I found this money. So half of it is rightfully yours, okay?”

  You thank her for her sense of decency.

  After a few minutes, the cap returns to the parking lot. “I have some good news, folks. I spoke to my boss. He says you can definitely keep the money. If you want to be totally legal about it, you’ll need to report it on your income tax at the end of the year. But otherwise, you’re free and clear.”

  While you’re thinking about whether you’re actually going to bother reporting your half of the five thousand dollars on your tax form, the young man adds one more bit of information. “The only thing is,” he says, “you have to wait thirty days before the money is rightfully yours. So you can’t spend a cent of it until a month from today.”

  “That’s fine,” the girl says. “Me and this gentleman”—she means you—”will just hang on to the money for a month.” She thinks about it. “Hey, listen,” she says to you. “I’m new in town. I don’t even have a bank account. Why don’t you hold on to the money?” She hands you the brown paper bag.

  Before you can claim it, the young man pushes the bag out of your hands and back toward the girl. “Whoa,” the young man says. “Wait just a second.” He’s looking at the girl as if she’s the stupidest person on the planet. “You never even met this guy before. How do you know he won’t just keep the money for himself?”

  The girl is angry. “Look, mister, I appreciate your help. I’ll even give you some of my cut in return for your time and trouble. But I resent that you’re talking about this nice gentleman that way. He helped me find this money. I happen to trust him completely.”

  The cap looks apologetic. “All right, sorry. It’s your money. Do whatever you want with it.” He pauses. “It’s just that, if you’re going to hand a guy a few thousand dollars in cash, you ought to know whether he’s trustworthy. He should show some good faith, that’s all.”

  You’re staring at the bag full of cash. It’s only inches away from you. The girl is this close to handing it to you. So you say, “What do you mean ‘good faith’?”

  “Look,” the cap says, “chances are, you’re a decent guy. But how does this lady know you’re not some kind of scam artist? Sure, you’re dressed in nice clothes. But maybe you don’t have a single dime to your name. Maybe you’re just a poor hustler, and you’re going to spend all the money on your own—”

  “I have money,” you say.

  “But how does she know that? Can you prove to her that you’re a trustworthy guy? That you have your own money?”

  At this point one of two things will happen. Either you will volunteer to show them that you have money, or you won’t. If you remain silent, the girl will start to agree with the cap. “Yeah,” she’ll say, “you’re probably right. I don’t know if this guy has any money. I guess I should keep the bag . . .”

  In either case, you quickly will be convinced of the need to demonstrate your financial resources.

  So you lead your two friends to the nearest ATM machine, or—if the con men decide your daily ATM withdrawal limit is too low—they’ll convince you to make a personal appearance at your bank branch. To “prove” that you are a man of means, you’ll withdraw five thousand dollars from your account.

  You return with five thousand dollars of cash and show it to the young girl and her suspicious new friend. The girl is suitably chastened. “All right,” she says, “you convinced me.”

  “Yeah,” the cap admits, sheepishly. “Me, too. Sorry I doubted you.”

  You say that you understand, that you probably would have done the same thing.

  The girl takes your cash and stuffs it into the brown paper bag, alongside the drug money. Now the three of you exchange names, addresses, and telephone numbers. You agree to hold the bag of cash for thirty days on their behalf and then to call your two new friends when the month is up.

  What you don’t know is that, while telephone numbers are being scribbled and traded, the girl switches the brown paper bag with an identical one containing newspaper. Before parting, she hands it to you. She says, “Keep
this safe. I’m trusting you.”

  The young gentleman looks around the parking lot, ever suspicious. “Be smart,” he warns. “Keep that bag closed. Don’t flash the money around. Keep it hidden and closed until you get home. You promise?”

  “Yeah,” you say. “I promise.”

  Maybe, depending on your own level of greed, you have given your two friends a fake name and contact information. Maybe you’ve already decided how you’re going to spend the entire five thousand dollars.

  Or maybe you’re an honest guy, but a stupid one. Maybe you intend to divvy up the money after thirty days, fair and square.

  It doesn’t really matter. Because when you get home, you open up the paper bag, and you discover that, because of your own stupidity and greed, you’ve been had.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next morning I leave for work at six o’clock, in order to arrive by seven. It’s my job to open the shop for my boss, Imelda. Dry cleaning is an unpleasant business. Half your customers show up before eight in the morning. The other half show up during lunch. For the rest of the day, you sit around an empty store, smelling perc fumes and worrying about those state-mandated signs on the walls that ominously warn that the State of California Believes Dry Cleaning Fumes Will Make Your Forehead Sprout a Third Testicle. What you’re supposed to do with this information is unclear.

  When you finally do see customers, they’re not nice. Everyone’s in a hurry. No one’s happy to see you. You’re the guy who handles their blouses with underarm stains, ties with pasta splatters. No one likes seeing their clothes in this state. You’re a walking, breathing reminder of the customer’s own filth and imperfection.

  But an ex-con eleven months out of Lompoc doesn’t have many employment choices. I interviewed at nine places before Imelda agreed to hire me. She never asked if I had been to prison. So I made a point to volunteer that fact ten minutes into my interview. She said, “Sweetie, you’re not getting out of here that easy. I don’t care if you were a Catholic priest. You’re hired.”

  God bless Imelda, even if she pays only ten bucks an hour. Plus tips.

  This morning, traffic on 85 is brutal. I arrive at the store five minutes late. By the time I unlock the door, there’s a line of four angry customers.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, jangling the keys in the lock. I push open the door, flip on the lights, circle around the counter. Before I can put down my keys, a man shoves a bundle of shirts into my arms. He grunts his last name.

  I try to smile. “Thursday after one,” I tell him. I write a receipt and hand it to him. Without acknowledging me, he takes the receipt and leaves the store.

  The next customer, a woman in her forties, dressed like a lawyer, is worse. She’s annoyed that she had to wait five minutes for me to open the store. Her look says, “My time is billed at three hundred per hour. What’s your time worth?” I feel like telling her, Ten dollars an hour, plus tips, and pointing at the “Tips Please” jar. She slides a crumpled blouse and a pants suit across the counter to me. When I hand her the receipt, she doesn’t make eye contact. That’s my job in a nutshell: I’m invisible to customers, an inanimate piece of dry cleaning machinery, like a cog or a rotator drum.

  I serve the other two customers and make it through the morning rush. Imelda shows up at nine-thirty. Imelda is forty years old, of indeterminate Asian ancestry. I’m guessing Filipina. I’m also guessing that Imelda is a transsexual. She’s five foot ten, with a deep voice and an Adam’s apple the size of a Braeburn. More important: Her hands are huge. When she lifts plastic-wrapped hangers from the ready-rack and offers them, with bulging biceps, to customers, you can’t help staring at those hams, huge as oven mitts.

  She waltzes into the store and says in a singsong man’s voice, “Hello, my dear!”

  Imelda either wears an auburn wig or is the victim of a ghoulish hair coloring accident. In the early morning light that streams through the shop window, I catch a glimpse of dark facial hair. “Good morning, Imelda,” I say.

  “How’s my favorite man today?”

  When Imelda tries to flirt with me, I can’t help glancing at those huge hands and feet of hers, and I get the heebie-jeebies. “Not bad,” I say.

  “You got a call yesterday, after you left. Some guy.”

  “He leave a name?”

  “Nope.” She looks me up and down, smirking, as if I have a delicious secret. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  Imelda thinks everyone is secretly gay. I say, “No.”

  “Well, he said it wasn’t important.”

  I recall the telephone message my son left me at home. Now I’m sure. He’s in trouble. As usual.

  Imelda disappears behind the clothing storage racks, into the back bathroom. There’s a moment of silence, and then I hear a long, manly fart reverberate in the porcelain bowl. I sit down on my stool and stare thoughtlessly out the window, as well-dressed professionals go about their business outside.

  I return to my apartment at six o’clock that evening. Mr. Santullo is waiting in the driveway for me, dressed in his bathrobe and holding a rolled-up newspaper as if to swat me on the ass.

  When I climb from my Honda, he says, “My grandson wants to talk to you.” He chuckles.

  “Oh?” I look around. I don’t see the grandson anywhere.

  Then I hear his voice behind me. He appears from around the side of the apartment. He’s holding a paintbrush, dripping with white paint, and a bucket of Glidden enamel.

  “Hi, Kevin,” he says.

  “Kip,” I correct him.

  “Right.” He lays down the paint canister and puts the brush inside. I notice wet patches on the exterior stucco wall behind him. The grandson has been doing some touch-ups. This is not a good sign. “Listen,” the Arabian says. He walks closer. “I’ve been talking with my grandfather. He wants to raise your rent.”

  I look at Mr. Santullo. He’s smiling brightly, as though delighted that he’s finally managed to get two of his favorites together for a chat. I say, “Is that true, Mr. Santullo?”

  Mr. Santullo answers a different question. “My grandson is Arabian,” he says.

  The grandson says, “Of course it’s true.”

  I don’t have a lease with Mr. Santullo. Everything has been informal, month-to-month. I’ve been living in the building and paying four hundred dollars monthly since I got out of Lompoc.

  I turn to the grandson. No use even pretending Mr. Santullo is in charge. “What’s the new rent?”

  “Twelve hundred,” he says. He waves his hand magnanimously. “But my grandfather can wait a month. Why not start in June?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  I have the sudden urge to retreat into my apartment and check today’s Mr. Vitamin sales. I’m hoping for a miracle.

  Before I even reach my apartment door, I know something is wrong. Years of always watching my back—first, when I was a free man and ripping people off, and later, when I was incarcerated and afraid of a sudden shim in the ribs—have increased my sensitivity to threat. Today I feel it as I walk past the rosebushes along the path to my apartment. The hairs on my neck tingle, electric. When I get to the door, I see something amiss: the door ajar in the frame, not locked tight the way I left it this morning.

  I push open the door with my finger, ready to hit the pavement if a lead pipe swings at my face.

  None comes. I walk inside. The curtains are closed. It’s dark. I can barely make out the outlines of vitamin cartons along the wall. At the other side of the room, my screensaver vitamin pill is happily bouncing around the cathode-ray tube. I can’t help but notice today’s daily sales total in the center of the vitamin: $9.85. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have a depressing thought that, if there is an intruder in my apartment who wants to kill me, the pathetic sales total inside a dancing vitamin will be the last thing I ever see.

  I close the door behind me. I ask, “Who’s here?”

  I hear breathing. My mind does a quick inventory of potential weapon
s in the house. On the kitchen counter: the knife block. A pair of cuticle scissors in my bedroom. A screwdriver under the bathroom sink.

  I take a step into the darkness. I think about the odds. Can I run into the kitchen and lunge for the knife block before the intruder can act? It’s my apartment: I know the layout better than the intruder. If I hurry . . .

  The lights switch on. I blink at the brightness.

  A young man is sitting at the kitchen table, leaning back in his chair, his fingers fiddling with the wall-mounted light switch behind him.

  “Hi, Dad,” he says.

  Toby has the stupid Gotcha! grin of a fifteen-year-old boy. Unfortunately for both of us, Toby is twenty-five years old. He’s a good-looking kid, with dark hair that is too long, a stoner mop-top, and a big bright smile. He says, “Did I scare you?”

  “I could have killed you,” I say.

  “Yeah, right.” He laughs. “Oooh, I’m scared.” He waves his fingers near his face to indicate fright.

  “Jesus, Toby, what are you doing here?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t seen you in a while. I thought you might miss me.”

  “Of course I miss you.”

  I last saw Toby six months before my release from Lompoc, the one and only time he visited me in prison. Five minutes into the visiting hour, he asked to borrow money so he could open a coffee shop in Seattle. When I explained that my incarceration and bankruptcy made it difficult to fund new business ventures, he got that mopey look I was so familiar with. After a few minutes of further pleasantries he left. He has called me a few times since I got out, either when he’s mad at Celia—his mother—or when he needs cash. I try my best to help him whenever I can, no questions asked. Last thing I heard, he was living in Aspen, working as a ski instructor.

  I say, “Are you still in Aspen?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really? Where do you live?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Let’s say you had to choose one: here or there.”