Con Ed

by Matthew Klein

  “If they have nothing, why did they come here? How did they know about Datek and the brokers?”

  “Maybe you weren’t careful,” Napier says.

  “Fuck you,” Peter says.

  “Whoa,” I say.

  Napier raises an eyebrow. For the first time since I met him, he speaks softly, half to himself. “Watch yourself, Peter.”

  “Watch myself? What are you going to do about it? Beat me up?”

  Napier keeps smiling.

  I say, “Peter, please treat Mr. Napier with respect.”

  “Sure,” Peter says. “You want respect? Here’s respect.” He looks at Napier. “Respectfully, I want to let you know—” He turns to me. “That I’m out of here.” He walks to the door. He opens it, pauses at the threshold. “By the way,” he says, turning to us, “if you think I’m going to leave evidence lying around, pointing to me, you’re out of your mind.”

  He leaves, slams the door.

  “One thing I’ve noticed,” Napier says, as if he’s continuing a different conversation, “is that these computer guys are arrogant little shits. They always think they’re the smartest guys in the room.”

  “In Peter’s case,” I say, “it’s true.”

  “We’ll see,” Napier says. He’s looking into the distance, thoughtfully. If I had to guess what he’s thinking, it would be: Should I have Peter killed now? Or later?

  Napier says, “What did he mean when he said he wasn’t going to leave evidence around?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Napier looks at Jess. “Jessica?”

  “I have no idea,” she says.

  I say, “Peter’s been acting strange these last few weeks. He’s been nervous about getting caught.”

  Napier nods. Finally he says: “Peter now has other things to be nervous about.”

  Later, after Napier leaves, Toby and I take a taxi to Hank’s Service Station on Willow Road, to retrieve my Honda at last. I pay cab fare for what I hope will be the final time, settle up the bill with Hank (the insurance deductible of five hundred dollars), and then we are off, speeding along Willow to go back home. With the con approaching its climax—four more days, tops—I am feeling munificent, and mull over taking Toby out to dinner.

  Toby is in the back seat, with his leg cast propped on the gearbox near my elbow. He stares out his passenger window, thinking quietly. This is a new side of Toby that I was previously unacquainted with: thinking, quiet. It is a side of him I wish I had seen more of, growing up.

  He says finally, “It’s called a button, right?”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you have imaginary FBI agents show up at your office, to scare the mark. To put pressure on Napier.”

  “Is that what you think?” I say.

  “You really should tell me, Dad,” Toby says. “I thought the whole idea was to teach me about cons.”

  “The whole idea,” I say, “was to prevent you from getting killed.”

  “Which you’ve done.”

  “So far.”

  More silence as Toby stares out his window. Finally, he says, “So am I right? Is this a button? The FBI agents aren’t real, are they?”

  “No,” I say, “they’re not.”

  “Just actors?”

  “Just actors.”

  “They were good,” Toby says. “Very convincing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I like the muscley black guy. Nice touch.”

  “I thought so.”

  “And the shaved head. Very Kojak.”

  I turn left at Middlefield, head into Palo Alto. On the horizon, I see rain clouds—unusual for this time of year. Typically, Northern California has two seasons: Wet and Dry, and never the twain shall meet. Recently, though, in the past few years, it has begun raining in the summer, and staying dry in the winter. I believe this is all part of God’s cosmic plan to Screw With Your Mind. Entire religions have been founded to explain why God would want to do such a thing. But I am untroubled by the question. A con is a con, no matter who perpetrates it.

  Toby says, “And what about Peter?”

  “What about Peter?”

  “He’s just acting, too, right? Part of the con?”

  “Toby, you ask too many questions.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “You know what they say about curiosity.”

  “I just think it’s strange, is all.”

  “What?”

  “Being part of a con, and not knowing what’s going on.”

  “Don’t be insulted,” I say. “It’s for your own good. The less you know, the better.”

  Toby grunts. This may be a gesture of agreement, perhaps even a sign of growing maturity in my son, that he accepts, finally, that some things are unknowable. Or perhaps it is merely a grunt, an involuntary clearing of the throat, a choke on swallowed phlegm.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The big question, in every con, is how to end it. It’s easy to steal money from someone; it’s the getaway that’s the problem. You don’t want your mark going to the police or—in the case of rich, powerful, and frightening men—hunting you down on their own, chasing you to the ends of the earth.

  Ideally, when it’s over, your mark should be unaware that he’s been conned. He should think his exciting venture failed due to a misunderstood phone call, or bad luck, or poor timing. He should be anxious, in fact, to try the con again! The sign of a great con, then, is one in which you can play your mark two or three times in succession, with increasing stakes, until you have taken everything from him. If your mark walks away unaware that he has been played, then you have succeeded, and you should be proud.

  So how to get rid of a mark once you have his money? The button, which Toby mentioned, is one way. You run a button like this:

  You set up the con over several weeks. You allow your mark to slowly learn that, by participating in an illegal scheme, he can make vast amounts of money, risk-free. You let your mark win a few times, to start the greed dripping into his veins. He wins a few horse races, thanks to “intercepted” telegraph messages, for example. Or he makes a million dollars in the stock market, thanks to an illegal router box hidden in a manhole in Manhattan.

  You watch as your mark’s excitement builds. You can practically see his lips moving as he does the math and counts the money he is about to win . . .

  Then you set up the blow-off. There will be one more big bet, in which the mark will be able to make his fortune. But of course he must gamble everything he has.

  So he bets on a horse . . .

  Or he buys a million shares of stock . . .

  Or he purchases a winning lottery ticket from an unsuspecting old woman . . .

  Whatever the con, here’s what happens next: The mark wins. His horse comes in first. His stock triples in price. He knows, in other words, that he is only minutes away from claiming his prize—millions of dollars, vast riches! But the moment he tries to redeem the winning racing ticket, or tries to liquidate his stock portfolio, or whatever he needs to do, something unexpected happens. A visit from the FBI, perhaps? A tail by a local uniformed policeman? Or a phone call from the district attorney?

  Typically, the police burst into the betting parlor, threatening to arrest everyone. The mark escapes—just barely, without getting caught. He thanks his lucky stars. He is sad that he is unable to claim his prize, that he lost his betting stake, but relieved that he is not in prison, branded a criminal, his life in tatters.

  The mark thinks about how close he came to beating the odds, to winning a fortune. He longs for the day when the roper will call him on the telephone and offer him an opportunity to try their scheme again.

  Now that is a great con. When the mark doesn’t know he has been conned. When the mark wishes for the day when he will be fleeced again.

  So Toby is right about Agents Farrell and Crosby. They do not really work for the FBI. They work for Elihu Katz, or one of his friends, or one of his friend’s friends.
They are con men, just like me. They are based out of Los Angeles. You can hire them for five hundred dollars a day each, plus expenses, plus a small slice of the take distributed at the end of the job. I don’t know much about “Agent Farrell” and “Agent Crosby,” but I think I remember hearing that they were unemployed soap opera actors, and that Agent Crosby even had a part on Days of Our Lives for exactly two weeks, playing a doctor, until the writers decided he was “too black” and killed him off in a freak tractor-trailer jackknife-through-the-hospital-cafeteria-window accident. As far as I know, none of Agent Crosby’s con victims has ever recognized him as the man on TV. White Middle America is so frightened of being accused of thinking that “all black men look alike” that it overlooks the obvious fact that the FBI agent threatening jail time was on television performing brain surgery just a few months earlier.

  It is gratifying, in a perverse way, that Toby has discerned the mechanism of this con so quickly. He knows what we are trying to do to Napier. He knows, instinctively, that the FBI’s appearance in our office this afternoon is the setup, the preparation for the final button.

  My son, Toby, has good instincts. Part of me is proud of this. And part of me is disappointed. And part of me, I must admit, is just a little bit frightened.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Toby and I return home, vegetate in front of the TV for an hour by watching World Wrestling Federation SmackDown! (exclamation mark part of the show’s title, not an indication of my own enthusiasm) and then decide to walk into Palo Alto for burgers and beer.

  The night is warm. A breeze blows from the west, sweeping in from the foothills, carrying the smell of dust and rosemary. I feel the rain coming. For a moment, three blocks after we set out, I think about returning to the apartment to retrieve an umbrella, but then decide to keep going—the restaurant is only four more blocks—and to risk it. Life is an endless series of gambles, tiny and vast. Every time you walk out of your house, or get in your car, or try to rip off criminals—it’s the same: You take a chance. Get wet, get killed. Always playing the odds.

  Toby is skipping along on his crutches beside me. “I get this off in a week,” he says, meaning his cast.

  Unsure of what to say, I try, “Good.” Not sufficiently paternal, I decide. I add: “Must really be looking forward to it.”

  “Hell, yes,” Toby says. “Try wearing a cast for six weeks in the summer.”

  “I’d rather not,” I say.

  “Then don’t piss off the Russians.”

  “Good advice,” I say.

  We eat at Gordon Biersch, a three-location Bay Area chain that brews its own beer and caters to programmers and Stanford kids. With school out and half its clientele missing, the place is empty. I have one too many beers, but I’m feeling good, that the con is going well—no surprises—and decide to live a little.

  An hour and a half later we return home. Toby goes straight to the head, starts pissing with the bathroom door half-open. Classy.

  I decide not to say anything. Instead, I walk through my apartment, pulling the curtains shut, the coda for the day. In fifteen minutes, I will fall asleep. In three days, I will be on a plane heading somewhere far away, and warm—maybe Phuket Bay, maybe the Maldives. Even if the con goes perfectly, and the mark doesn’t know he’s been conned, it’s never smart to stick around. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Toby returns from the bathroom, too quickly.

  “You gonna wash your hands?” I say.

  “Jesus, Dad, I’m twenty-five years old.”

  “A twenty-five-year-old who just took a piss.”

  “It’s been in my underwear all day long. Cleanest part of my body.” He thinks about it, decides it’s not worth a fight, shrugs. He hobbles back into the bathroom. I hear the sound of water, and the soap dish scraping the tile basin.

  There’s a knock on the door. I look through the peephole. It’s Mr. Santullo’s Arabian grandson. I open the door. I think he’s going to hassle me about something, maybe that I need a business license to sell vitamins out of my apartment. Or maybe he’ll reprimand me for drinking highballs with Mr. Santullo and helping with his bills.

  But he has a different agenda. “Hey, Kip,” he says. “Can I come in?”

  I stand aside, let him pass. He stops in the front hall. “I wanted to let you know something,” he says. “Two guys came by while you were out tonight.”

  “Guys?”

  “FBI agents. They showed me a badge.”

  I’m relieved. I know instantly it’s “Agent Farrell” and “Agent Crosby,” playing their part perfectly. On the chance that my mark is having the apartment watched, he’ll see the FBI snooping around. One more true-to-life detail. Perfect. I make a mental note to give them a little extra when the con is done. They’re good. They deserve it.

  “What were their names?” I ask. “Agent Farrell? Crosby?”

  The Arabian squints, looks uncertain. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Something different.”

  “Black guy? White partner?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Both white, a man and a woman. Here—I have a card.” He reaches into his pocket, hands me a business card. It looks a lot like the business card that Agent Farrell handed me, except that it is printed on a heavier matte stock. You’re not going to get fifty of these for thirty-five dollars at businesscards.com. In order to get a card like this, you need to work for the FBI. The real FBI. The card says: “Special Agent Louis Davies” and lists a San Francisco Federal Building address.

  Now, for the first time, I feel a falling sensation, the pit of my stomach clutched by my throat. This is not right. There is no Special Agent Louis Davies in my con. Not that I hired, anyway.

  The Arabian says, “He had a warrant. He searched your apartment.”

  “Did he?” I look around the apartment. Nothing seems out of place. Then I look at the computer monitor resting on the card table. It should display my bouncing-vitamin screensaver, which automatically appears after twenty minutes of computer inactivity. But instead the screen shows my computer desktop. Someone has been on my machine in the past twenty minutes. Looking for something. But what?

  The Arabian says: “I asked them if they wanted to talk to you. They said no.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “That’s the strange thing,” the Arabian says. “They told me to tell you.”

  “They did?”

  “They said, ‘Be sure to let Mr. Largo know we came by.’”

  “I see.”

  Toby appears in the living room behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I say. I pat the Arabian on the shoulder. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Sure . . .”

  I realize that the Arabian is staring at me. “What?” I say.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me. What?”

  “It’s just . . . Your teeth. They’re two different colors.”

  “Are they?”

  “Sorry.” He shakes his head. “Keep the card.” He turns and leaves.

  Toby says: “So what does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  “You’re not sure? I thought you know everything. You plan everything. I thought there’s no loose ends.”

  “I guess there’s a loose end,” I say. My mind is racing. I’m trying to figure it out. Are those real FBI agents, snooping around? Why? What are they looking for? How much do they know? Why are they interested in me? Could they possibly know about my con?

  “That’s not very comforting, Dad,” Toby says.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I mean, this is not exactly impressing the hell out of me.”

  I look at my son, try to smile. How can I respond to that? I walk toward the bedroom. “I get the bed tonight,” I say. “You take the couch.” I close the door, and try to go to sleep.

  At night, it rains. In the morning, the radio news jockey reports that rain this time of year is “freakish” and wonders what it means
.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  But like they say: The con must go on. Once you start, it’s a treadmill, and you can’t get off. When two loose ends show up at your door with a search warrant, you can’t throw up your hands and say, “That’s it. I quit.” You’re in the middle. Napier has three million dollars of Sustevich’s money. You owe the Russian mob twelve million. You have two days to pay it back. Otherwise you’re going to be one of the first to try the brand-new drink that’s the talk of the Moscow club scene: the Acid Highball. Take one part hydrochloric acid. One part ginger ale. But ginger ale optional. Shake. Stir. Drink. Die.

  Okay. Now it’s the morning. Toby and I are driving to work. I’ve forgiven him for acting like a snot-nosed shit. He’s my son after all. That snot-nosed shit thing he does? That’s from me. I think back to when I was twenty-five. Running Pigeon Drops with my own father. Hated his guts. Probably made a few snotty comments of my own, whenever he wasn’t in jail. Did I? I try to remember. I’ve spent the last thirty years blotting out the memory of my father, who failed me in every way possible: taught me crime instead of fishing, never paid for squat, then dropped dead and left me and Mom with nothing.

  I’ve been successful at forgetting about him. Now he’s just a dark presence at the edge of my memory, a story I hardly bother to tell or think about. But of course he’s the subtext for my entire life. You never figure this out until it’s too late. Here I am, fifty-four years old, on the downside of my arc, heading toward my own end, and just now, driving in my car to commit a criminal act with my own son, I realize that everything I’ve ever done—everything—has been a reaction to my father. My attempt at leaving his world, my returning to it; my leaving Toby, my going back to him; my grasp at redemption, and my failure, so far, to find it.

  Can you tell I’m feeling sorry for myself? That’s what happens to men like me. We’re superheroes, in total control of every thread in our lives. The moment someone introduces a rip into our meticulous plans, we panic and flail. Calm down. That’s the only way to pull off this con. Stay calm. Keep your eye on the prize. You’re almost done.