Con Ed

by Matthew Klein

  “How are your teeth?” he says.

  “So so.”

  He stares at my teeth. I smile like a sixth-grader on Picture Day.

  “You look like my grandmother, may she rest in peace. Different colors.”

  “I’ll have it fixed.”

  “Sorry about that,” Napier says. “Jackie got a little . . . enthusiastic.”

  “Like wrestling,” I say.

  “Sorry?”

  “Nothing.” I think about sitting on my couch with Toby, watching Killer Eight Ball and Frankie the Fist. That was fun, while it lasted.

  “Let’s drink,” Napier says. He walks to the mosaic tiled bar at the side of the room, pours two glasses of scotch. He hands me one. “Scotch,” he says. He raises his glass. “To success.”

  “To success,” I say. I drink.

  Napier says, “Ahh,” and puts down his glass. “Stay for dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  He cocks his head, leads me into the dining room. The table is set with two places, on white linen. We each walk to a chair. He says, “Looks like I’ll win the Tracadero.”

  “Yeah, I thought you would. I don’t think Sustevich is in any position to match you. He’ll have his hands full with damage control. Angry partners wanting to know what happened. How he lost the deal. How he lost all their cash.”

  Napier says, “Those Russians can be difficult. Take it from me. I know.”

  We sit down. I gesture to a third spot at the table, one that is conspicuously missing a place setting. “I take it your wife won’t be joining us?”

  Napier shakes his head glumly. “I’m afraid not. She’s had a bit of an accident.”

  “I see.”

  “So you were right about her, too.”

  “Not something I like being right about.”

  Napier shrugs. “I always suspected. But what can I say? She was super-hot. A great fuck.” He pauses. “As you know.”

  I think about that night in The Clouds, about the black semi-globe eyes-in-the-sky in the ceilings of the casino. I think about Lauren Napier’s room on the thirty-third floor, the tatami mats, her legs wrapped around my waist, her painted toenails that looked like Red Hots.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I say. “I guess I got a little . . . enthusiastic.”

  Napier smiles.

  That was my first clue: Napier’s wife. It was a bit strange, wasn’t it, that she happened to find me in a bar one afternoon? That she offered me a hundred thousand dollars to set up her husband? That she had a sob story ready about being beaten silly and scared for her life?

  And then, a few days later, to learn that my own son owed money to a Russian mobster? Hey, lucky break: My son desperately needed money, and Lauren Napier was offering it! My stars were certainly aligned.

  Those kinds of coincidences probably wouldn’t register with most people.

  But men like me, we get feelings in our bones. A coincidence is a sign from God, a clue that must be treated with respect.

  When did I figure out that it was Sustevich who was behind Lauren Napier? That it was the Professor who wanted to ruin Napier, in order to snatch the Tracadero, and perhaps other pieces of Napier’s empire? I’d say I knew for sure the moment the Professor allowed me into his Pacific Heights mansion. He was too polite, too interested in investing in my con. Guys like me are used to being treated like shit. Treat us any better than that, and we’re immediately suspicious.

  So Sustevich, in a frenzy of greed, found out how I was going to set up Napier, and he decided he wanted a little piece of that action, too. It wasn’t enough for Sustevich to watch me destroy his enemy. The Professor also wanted a little vig on the side. As I knew he would.

  Using the Russian mob’s money, Sustevich started buying up HPPR. Since I was the only owner of the stock, he essentially paid me. On average, he paid six dollars per share for a stock he thought would rise to ten dollars. That would have been a good investment, if only it were true.

  Unfortunately, he will soon learn that he paid six dollars for stock that is worthless. I will split with Ed Napier the proceeds—about twenty-five million dollars for each of us—less the money we owe Elihu Katz for the fronted diamonds.

  The diamonds are a distraction. Sustevich lent me six million; I will pay him back fifteen million. When the Professor and I part ways, he’ll think I’m the best investment he’s ever made. In the meantime, without his even knowing it, I’ve stolen him blind.

  This is as Ed Napier and I agreed to, so many weeks ago.

  Finally, you have to wonder.

  How long ago did Sustevich start planning his own con? Napier met Lauren—the woman who would become his wife—four years ago, at a fashion show. Was she already Sustevich’s employee? Did the Professor know, even then, that Ed Napier would become his eventual target?

  Perhaps it was not such a cunning leap. If you are the Russian mob, anxious to gain a foothold in Las Vegas, to wash your money clean, to make millions more in the process, you know who stands in your way. You know that Ed Napier is the King of Las Vegas. To win the crown, you will need to remove it from his head. So you start planning years in advance, by handing Napier a new queen, a beautiful young girl who is destined to betray him . . .

  Back in my hotel, I check my home answering machine. I will not return to my apartment—not for a while, perhaps not ever.

  The first message on my machine is from Celia. “I’m just checking in,” my ex-wife says. “I haven’t heard from you. So . . . either one of you—call me.” Either one of you. It’s official: She’s calling the apartment of Kip and Toby. Father and son. It has the makings of a charming Friday night sitcom. Young ne’er-do-well moves in with hardworking Dad. But get this— (I picture the eager studio exec pitching the series to his bosses) —the old guy, he’s a con man. See? Brilliant.

  The second message is from Mr. Santullo’s Arabian grandson. Even before he finishes saying “Hello Kip” I know something is wrong. He says quietly: “I would have told you in person, but with everything going on . . . Just in case you didn’t know, my grandfather died last night. We’re having the funeral on Saturday, at St. Mary’s at one o’clock. If you can come, I’m sure he would have liked it.”

  I hang up the phone and think about that night, just weeks ago, that I had drinks in Mr. Santullo’s apartment. My landlord was a good man. He lived a long life. At the end of it, he was alone, the winner of an actuarial contest in which you find out, too late, that winning means you’ve lost. That you’ve outlived your friends, and your wife, and even your daughter. That you are abandoned, taken advantage of by people looking to make a buck, people for whom your remaining days are an inconvenient hurdle between them and lucre. I suspect that the old man is shuffling around heaven right now, in a terry-cloth bathrobe and a wife-beater undershirt, with a highball glass in his hand. I wonder: Will I meet the same fate as Mr. Santullo? Will I, too, die alone, abandoned by those around me, because they could not trust me, and because I could not trust them? I hope Mr. Santullo keeps a second highball glass ready for me, wherever he is.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  On Saturday, against my better judgment, I leave my hotel and drive to Palo Alto to attend the old man’s funeral. When I walk into the church, I think I’ve come to the wrong place. It can’t possibly be a funeral: Nobody’s here.

  But then I see the mourners up front, barely two rows of them—a handful of the frail and elderly, a few younger faces I recognize—the Arabian, and his wife; our neighbor with the poodle; the guy with the eye patch down the street.

  It’s obvious that the priest doesn’t know Mr. Santullo, perhaps never even met him; and he sticks with safe generalities: about how Mr. Santullo brought much joy and love to the people he touched during his many years on the earth, and that he is now at God’s side.

  At the end of the funeral, I leave the church without exchanging words with anyone. I know I ought to get back to San Jose and my hotel room before anyone in Palo Alto sees me.
I’m only one day away from boarding a plane and leaving California. This time tomorrow, I will be in the air, heading to someplace as of yet undetermined—but certainly someplace warm, someplace where the economy depends heavily on rum-based drinks.

  I descend the church steps, cross the street, fidget in my pocket to find my car keys. I press the remote. My rental Ford Escort chirps happily.

  As I place my hand on the car door handle, I know something is wrong. At first, I am unsure of what. Then I realize: no traffic. It’s Saturday at noon, downtown Palo Alto, a block away from the Whole Foods supermarket. The street should be filled with yuppies in Volvos, software kids in the New Beetles, heading over to stock up on quinoa and free range chicken. Instead, the street is empty—silent. I look two blocks down the road and see, in the distance, a yellow police barricade and a uniform shooing cars away. I turn around. A sedan with tinted windows rides slowly toward me, the wrong way up a one-way street.

  I think about running. Too late. The voices are just ten feet behind me. “Mr. Kip Largo! Freeze!”

  “FBI! Put your hands up!” a female voice says.

  Without turning, I raise my palms over my head. Across the street, the mourners from Mr. Santullo’s funeral straggle from the church and start down the stairs. I see the Arabian and his wife. He’s looking curiously at me, trying to figure out what’s going on. Then his brain clicks, and you can almost see the expression on his face change from curiosity to disgust: He can’t believe I’m being arrested at a funeral.

  Neither can I, buddy, I want to tell him. Before I can, my wrists are pulled behind my back and snapped with a plastic band. My head is pushed down like a spent jack-in-the-box and I am shoved into the waiting sedan.

  I’m chauffeured by two stone-faced men in suits who ignore my attempts at conversation. We drive south on 101, thirty minutes to San Jose, and pull into the underground garage of an office tower on Bascomb Street. We take the freight elevator up to the fifteenth floor, just me and the two marble statues in suits. Neither looks at me during the ascent. The elevator chimes and the doors open, and I’m led down a short hall to a gray double-door without signage. One of my handlers gives a little shave-and-a-haircut knock on the door. The door opens.

  We walk past a bank of desks, some occupied by serious-looking men, some empty. I’m taken to a windowless room with a table and four chairs. One of my captors takes a pocketknife from his pants and slices through my plastic handcuffs.

  He says, “Please have a seat, Mr. Largo.”

  “Am I under arrest?” I say.

  “Please,” he says again, in a tone somewhere between patience and menace, “have a seat.”

  I sit down on the wire frame chair. The agent nods. “We’ll be right with you.”

  The agents leave.

  I’m left alone in the room for a few minutes, probably so I’ll have time to get nervous and talkative. Finally the door opens, and two new agents appear. The first is a woman in her forties, with blondish gray hair, cut short, and a navy pants suit. She looks like a soccer mom who just stepped out of her Chrysler minivan. She smiles pleasantly when she enters the room, as if she might offer me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Mr. Largo, I’m Agent Warren,” she says. I notice that when she stops smiling, the corners of her mouth stay wrinkled long after her lips relax.

  The other agent is a thin man, in his forties, with closely cropped dark hair, skin pulled tightly across his skull, and bright blue eyes. The effect makes him like a very, very surprised skeleton. He introduces himself as Agent Davies.

  He says, “Mr. Largo, do you know why you’re here?”

  “Let me ask you something,” I say, ignoring the question. “Are you guys real FBI?”

  “Real FBI?” Agent Davies says.

  “Yeah. Am I being conned? Is this a button?”

  “A button?” Agent Warren says.

  Davies shakes his head. “Mr. Largo, I assure you: We’re the real thing.”

  “Yeah, but how do I know that?”

  Agent Davies reaches into his pocket. “Here,” he says. “I have a business card.” He hands it to me.

  “Oh,” I say. I examine the card carefully. “A business card? You didn’t say that.” I reach into my own pocket, pull out Agent Crosby’s business card. I hand it to him. “See? Mine’s nicer.”

  Davies squints at the card. “Who’s Agent Crosby?”

  “Black guy. Shaved head. Ever work with him?”

  Davies thinks about it. It takes about eight seconds, and then he realizes I’m yanking his chain.

  “Mr. Largo, please,” he says. “Let me start again. Do you know how you got here?”

  “Well,” I say slowly, “when a man and a woman love each other very much, like my mommy and daddy, a man puts his penis—”

  “Mr. Largo,” Davies says, “I don’t have a lot of time. Please. I need your help.”

  This is the first FBI-like thing I’ve heard all day. No threats of prison sentences or violence, no bluster. Just a decent request. I slump back in my chair. “Okay, I’m sorry,” I say. “Start again.”

  “In the interest of time,” Davies says, “let me get to the point. You’re not under arrest. Not exactly. Not yet. I may change my mind about that at the end of our conversation today.”

  “I see.”

  Davies says: “At first we couldn’t figure out what you were up to. We spent a lot of time on that damn vitamin site of yours. What is it?—MrVitamin.com? Ordered a thousand dollars’ worth of beta-carotene, before we realized it was legit.” He shakes his head. “Nice site, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My wife is a Web designer. I should hook you guys up.”

  “Okay,” I say agreeably. I pat my pocket. “I got your card.”

  “Anyway, it took us a while. Then we finally figured it out. You stole money from the Russian mafia.”

  He looks at me. I say nothing.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure how you did it,” Davies says, “or why you did it, or how much you took. I don’t think I want to know. The truth is, it couldn’t have happened to a nastier bunch of guys.”

  Davies waits for me to say something. But I refuse, either to confirm or deny what he has said. This might be a trap. So I sit quietly, and stare.

  He continues: “Unfortunately, your little caper has caused me and my partner—and the ten other members of my task force—a serious problem. We’ve been working on Andre Sustevich for the past nine months. We’ve been building a case against him, piece by piece. Drugs, prostitution, racketeering, you name it. We were about a week away from closing down the entire Sustevich organization.”

  “So what’s stopping you?”

  “You,” Davies says. “Whatever you did—is stopping us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sustevich’s bank account is drained. He’s disappeared. Maybe he’s on the run. Or maybe he’s dead.”

  “Like you said, it couldn’t have happened to a nastier guy.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. The United States government has now spent nearly six million dollars building a case against Sustevich. This is a big deal. Our boss’s ass is on the line. Our boss’s boss’s ass is on the line. Thus: My ass is on the line. You know what that means?”

  “I’m getting a sense. Is my ass on the line?”

  He points at me, the universal semaphore meaning: Bingo, shithead.

  “Look,” I say, “I’m not admitting that I had anything to do with Andre Sustevich. But if I did, I would guess that he gambled with other people’s money, and he lost. Everything. So maybe he’s hiding from some angry Russian partners.”

  Davies says, “But you’re still missing my point.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Agent Warren, my new FBI Den Mother, interrupts. “Maybe I can explain,” she says. She speaks in a soft, gentle voice. “I think what my partner is trying to say is: We’re going to arrest someone . . . for something. We’r
e not going to shut down the investigation and come up empty-handed.”

  I’m starting to see where this is going. “Ah,” I say.

  “So the question, Mr. Largo,” Mother Warren says, “is whether we make an arrest for stock manipulation and securities fraud, or whether we make an arrest for prostitution and racketeering. Truthfully, we’d prefer to prosecute Sustevich. But if we have to, we’ll prosecute our second choice.”

  “Me.”

  Agent Warren shrugs. She has the expression of a mommy gently scolding her kid with a tummy ache: See what happens when you eat too many cookies?

  I try one more time. The safest strategy, whenever you are accused of anything—whether cheating on your wife or on your taxes—is: deny, deny, deny. “Listen, guys, I want to help you. I really do. But I have no relationship with Andre Sustevich. I have nothing to do with him.”

  Agent Davies’s face says: This is getting tiresome. He reaches into his jacket pocket, removes a microcassette recorder. He places it on the table in front of me. “I want you to listen to something.” He presses play.

  Out of the speaker comes a tinny voice, audible over the rushing-water sound of static. The recording has a compressed quality to it—all the same volume—the telltale sign of a telephone intercept.

  I don’t recognize the first voice. It’s a man with a thick, messy East European accent—like sour cream dripped over blintzes. He says: “But Kip Largo is a criminal. He’s uncontrollable.”

  I recognize the second voice instantly: dignified and careful, a crisp Russian accent. The Professor.

  “Don’t worry about Mr. Largo. He can’t surprise us. I have an employee within his organization.”

  “And who is this employee?”

  On the tape the Professor says: “Let’s just call the person ‘Vilnius.’”

  “Vilnius? Can you trust this Vilnius?”

  “I don’t need to trust Vilnius,” Sustevich says. “I own Vilnius.”