Cons, Scams, and Grifts

by Joe Gores

  “He’s not . . .” Lil stammered. “That’s not . . . not . . .”

  But the Prussian was mussing his own carefully thinned hair, was removing his muttonchop whiskers, and dropping them with his monocle on the floor. Suddenly he was Lulu’s strapping nephew from Europe, known to many of them in the room.

  “I said I would never forget such a man!” exclaimed Dina.

  “Welcome, kinsman!” shouted Staley.

  The erstwhile Baron gestured grandly with his left arm.“I am proud to introduce you to my magnificent friend, Freddie, who was lost and now is found.”

  “Sit, sit!” went up the cry. Freddie was already being accepted by the company, responding to their almost mystical connections to animals. Chairs were shifted, and the Baron found space next to the orangutan.

  “We cannot stay long,” he said. “There still is danger to Freddie. This very night we fly from Oakland in a private jet arranged by certain highly placed friends.”

  “But you must eat something, and Freddie . . .” Lulu trailed off as she stared at the ape sitting next to her husband.

  “There is always time for hab-naske,” agreed the Baron. “As for Freddie, he is easy, my aunt. Some fruit—an apple, an orange, a banana. Some nuts, some seeds . . .”

  As they all feasted, the Baron and Staley took turns describing the people and events that had shaped their plan of grand Gypsy tricks, called bengipe. And they told how gradually it had grown into the most audacious Gypsy con game ever played on the gadje by any tribe in the long history of the Romanipe. The children especially listened with rapt attention, intelligence moving like wild animals in their black Gypsy eyes as they absorbed every detail, delighted in every triumph over the gadje.

  “Why do you have need of him?” asked Dina’s little son. He had been stroking Freddie’s massive forearm and hand-feeding him bits of cornbread.

  The Baron quickly spooned the last of the cornbread onto his own empty plate.

  “Because Freddie is not an ordinary ape, oh no,” he said. “He is master of many tricks, he can even use a computer. The man who taught him in Hong Kong will soon join us to continue his education . . .”

  Tucon, twelve years old, twinkling of eyes, already a trainer of racehorses at Golden Gate Field, broke in.

  “And the gadje of DKA? What of them?”“The last I saw of them—from the air, mind you—they were standing on the rooftop of the world twenty miles from the nearest town!”

  Then it was achsòv devlèsa to the Baron and Freddie. The Baron embraced many of them, both he and Freddie shook hands all around, then were out the door with cries of lacshès kusmètsi ringing in their ears.

  Later that same holiday morning, Victor Marr helicoptered into Xanadu with his pilot, Carmody, at the controls, and his bodyguard, Marko, carried on the books for tax purposes as his personal assistant, at his side. Marr was boiling but was so disciplined he would never show his rage to a pair of mere employees. Freddie, the totally unique possession unmatched anywhere in the world, had been his. And was now another man’s.

  “There never was any Baron Knottnerus-Meyer,” he told Marko. “This morning I spoke with the head of the firm in Berlin. They never had such an employee. He is probably the agent of the man who bought the beast in the first place—sent to retrieve him. Whoever he was, he went into Xanadu, cased the place, then conned Cal-Cit Bank into hiring a gang of repomen to steal my ape!”

  “So first we go after the repomen, then—”

  He stilled Marko with a gesture. “Until the very last moment, they thought they were testing Xanadu’s defenses. When they realized what was going on, it was too late.”

  “I’ll leave for Europe tomorrow,” said Marko. “After I kill this man and get Freddie back—”

  “We . . . don’t know who he is.” Marr sounded uncomfortable. Money and power had always worked for him before; but now he was faced with a slyness he could not comprehend. No organization he had ever dealt with had moved so swiftly and so secretly. “There is no record of him leaving California with Freddie, no record of him arriving with him at any major airport in Europe.”

  Marko audibly ground his teeth. Marr was reminded of the Dobermans at Xanadu. Marko said, “I’ll fly to Hong Kong—”

  “I talked with Kahawa this morning,” said Marr. “Brantley has disappeared. Again, no record of his departure.”

  “Five minutes,” said Carmody over the intercom.

  Once on the ground, Marr started for the perimeter fence with R.K. at his elbow.

  “A con game,” said Marr thoughtfully. It all had been a con game. Hitting Xanadu. Grabbing Freddie. Disappearing Brantley from Hong Kong. Smoke and mirrors. He had never faced anything like it before.

  They stopped at the fence. “Firecrackers,” he said, shaking his head. “An old trick.”

  “In the dark, we could only figure we were taking fire.”

  “And they kept you occupied downstairs with a few ball bearings tossed on the floor, while the helicopter . . .” He got his rising voice under control. “The helicopter was landing on the roof to take away Freddie. Where was the duty officer?”

  “He was, ah, locked up in the ape’s cage.”

  “By the ape, no doubt,” said Marr in dry sarcasm.

  “Ah—as a matter of fact, yeah.”

  Marr found himself nodding approval of the mirrors affixed to the light beams on the Observation Room door frame. He stared up at the crossbow-driven arrow with the expanding head in the ceiling of the Observation Room.

  “And the white powder scattered on the floor?”

  “Just seems to be talcum. I can’t figure out why they—”

  “To make the light beams visible,” sighed Marr.

  He looked over at the glowering R.K.

  “You’ve got one hour to be out of Xanadu,” he said. What else could he do? If R.K. was not an incompetent, then Victor Marr himself was at fault. Victor Marr was never at fault. “I will see you never hold any sort of security job again.”

  “That isn’t fair! And the Jeep’s gone. I got no way—”

  “Walk,” said Marko.

  R.K. walked. Vowing, with every step of those twenty miles down off the mountain, vengeance against Dan Kearny some day.

  forty-seven

  At nine on Tuesday morning, the day after Memorial Day, a grim-faced Dan Kearny stormed into Stan Groner’s office. Groner’s assistant jumped to her feet behind her desk.

  “You can’t go in there, Mr. Kearny, he’s not—”

  Kearny flung the private door open and started across the carpet, then slowed to a stop. Stan was not alone. Jackson B. Gideon, president of Cal-Cit Bank, was beating the desktop with a sheaf of rolled-up papers and yelling.

  “The bank’s image, Groner!” Thunk, thunk, thunk. “You have compromised this bank’s image!”

  Gideon, a man with a beaked fleshy nose and pig eyes under eyebrows like bleached fuzzy caterpillars, wore a dove-grey wool suit that wished it was two sizes larger. His mouth was twisted with the same rage that had turned his fleshy face red.

  Stan began, “But, sir, you were the one who told me not to do anything to upset—”

  “None of your whining excuses, Groner.” Catching a glimpse of Dan Kearny, he pointed a finger at him. “Kearny! DKA will rot in hell before you get any more auto contract recovery assignments out of us.” He stormed toward the door, throwing over his shoulder, “Explain it to him, Groner!” and waddled out.

  “Yeah, Groner, explain it to me,” said Dan ominously.

  Stan was behind his desk, head in hands. “So sue me.”

  Dan sat down. The disaster was not DKA’s alone, obviously. Stan’s feet were also in the fire. It just went on and on.

  “Why don’t you take it from the very top,” he said.

  “The Baron is no baron. The company in Berlin never heard of him. He conned Cal-Cit corporately, and me personally. The bank—on my assurances—paid him an advance and got stuck with the cost of his hotel s
uite, the chopper, everything. Marr is of course refusing to honor any commitments we made.” Groner was on his feet, pacing. “And we were made to look like fools with the company in Berlin in the bargain. There never were any merger talks. That bastard Baron just made them up. I’m hanging on to my job by a whisker, Cal-Cit sure as hell isn’t going to pay DKA anything or assign you any repo work. Not now, anyway.”

  “If he isn’t Knottnerus-Meyer, who is he?”

  “We don’t know. Robin Brantley, the guy in Hong Kong who recommended him in the first place, has disappeared. Gideon is blaming me, but he’s the one who told me to handle the Baron with care and never checked on him with Berlin. So I take the fall.”

  “So do I,” said Kearny. “So does DKA. Thanks just a hell of a lot for getting me into this, Groner.”

  “I didn’t. Actually, the Baron asked for you by name.”

  “I’ve never heard of Brantley. What’d he do for Marr?”

  “Purchasing agent for him in the Orient, I assume.”

  Kearny paced, blue-grey eyes computing. “And the Baron was the agent for the man in Rome who wanted Freddie.”

  Groner was on his feet, too. “Whatever you say. Water under the bridge now. I’ve got to get out of here, get busy on damage control if I’m going to keep my job.”

  Kearny waved a disinterested hand after him as he stormed out, and sat back down, thinking furiously.

  The Baron had asked for him by name. Logically, the only place he could have gotten Kearny’s name was Cal-Cit Bank. But only Stan at Cal-Cit would have mentioned Kearny. And it was the Baron who had told Groner to get DKA. Who else was there? Himself, he realized with a start. But where to begin? DKA did no work at all for overseas clients.

  He gave a sudden grunt, as if someone had poked him in the gut. Then he gave a wry chuckle.

  Staley Zlachi, King of the Muchwaya. He had all sorts of overseas contacts, and he had recently been a DKA client. The Gypsies had dropped out of sight when the Homicide cops had shown up with a warrant for Yana. Kearny was suddenly on his feet. What were the Gypsies up to these days? He had to find sly old Staley and shake some answers out of him.

  On the sprawling grounds of the Villa Borghese in Rome, Freddie’s facility was much like the one at Xanadu, itself based on Brantley’s setup in Hong Kong. A box of a room with a cage inside it and a one-way glass observation window in the wall. Looking into Freddie’s room through the window was Willem Van De Post. Thanks to the Baron, he had his beloved ape at last.

  In Freddie’s room, Robin Brantley, newly arrived from Hong Kong the night before, was outside the open cage door with a half-dozen sealed envelopes. Brantley was very British-looking, tall and almost gangly with a long horse face and a lock of greying blond hair hanging down over one eye.

  They were teaching Freddie a new trick; Freddie loved new tricks. Even so, Willem’s voice on the speaker said, “Once more to be sure.”

  Brantley carried the envelopes into the cage. Freddie selected one, slapped it against his forehead, held it there. He shut his eyes. He swayed. He opened his eyes and tossed the envelope, still sealed, into a waste bin attached to the wall under the observation window. Then he turned to his computer. After a moment of unmerciful mugging, he started punching keys.

  Words appeared on the big monitor screen behind the computer.

  RED DRESS WOMAN STOP SAD. BEATRICE HAPPY IN HEAVEN. SAY BINGO GET WELL SOON.

  Freddie stopped typing. No more words appeared.

  “Perfect!” exclaimed Willem’s voice.

  Brantley gave Freddie a handful of pumpkin seeds.

  When Dan got back to the office, he asked Giselle, “Heard anything from the Gyppos lately?”

  “Nada since the cops kicked us off the case.”

  “Find them for me, Giselle. And quick. It’s important.”

  “Okay, will do, Dan’l,” she said cheerfully.

  Easier said than done. She could use none of the usual skip-tracing avenues—friends or relatives, credit or DMV applications, medical records—to find them. Gypsies left no paper trail, not even any Internet trail, because none of them ever used the same name twice.

  Four hours later, she still hadn’t found a single Rom. Staley’s number at the hot-electronics shop was disconnected. So was Rudolph’s East Bay number. So was that of Eli Nicholas, the Gypsy guitarist. So were all the other Gypsy contact numbers DKA had accumulated over the years. Her Rolodex came up empty.

  Had Yana disappeared also? Not likely, with the cops after her and no access to a Gypsy documenter for a passport. And it was time for Giselle to make the decision she had been mulling over since Sunday night. She dialed the contact number Geraldine had given her. The phone was picked up but nobody spoke.

  “This is Giselle,” she finally told it. “Let’s meet.”

  “Sappho’s Knickers,” said the phone. “Eleven tonight.”

  Larry and Midori were eating pasta with mizithra sauce at the Lakeside Café on Ocean Avenue just a few blocks from the Stonestown Mall.

  “We one person short in menswear,” said Midori. “Luminitsa taking leave of absence.”

  Larry asked sadly, “Old Whit?”

  Her nod danced lustrous black hair around her face.

  “She say he’s”—she raised her eyebrows—“sinking fast?” Larry nodded. “So she gotta take care of him until he dies.”

  “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” drifted from the old-fashioned jukebox. Red candles lit the tiny tables. Cozy little place, Sappho’s Knickers. Giselle tried to imagine Ken Warren here. Or Larry, or even Rudolph. Orientation aside, few men would be comfortable in this place.

  She barely recognized the woman waiting in a booth. Yana was now blond, but beyond that, by some subtle shift of attitude and skillful use of makeup, she looked just a whole hell of a lot like a very specific blonde. Giselle Marc, to be exact.

  Deliberate? Very deliberate, Giselle decided, but didn’t comment on it. She was committed. She hesitated, then put a manila envelope full of money on the table.

  “If I’m wrong about you . . .”

  “You’re not,” said Yana.

  She met Giselle’s eyes. Limpidly. She had succeeded in conning Giselle Marc! But she also had an absurd impulse of gratitude. Careful, Yana. That would show weakness.

  “Where will you go?” asked Giselle.

  “Wherever the first plane out takes me,” Yana lied. Because of a remark overheard the night she met Giselle at the House of Pain, Yana knew exactly where she was going. And what she was going to do when she got there.

  It’s better than the old turkey baster.

  Corinne Jones, Bart Heslip’s ever-loving lady, ran her own travel agency in the 400 block of Sutter Street. She had a classic Nefertiti profile, gleaming ebony hair to Giselle’s spun gold, café au lait skin to Giselle’s alabaster. The next evening she sat down at Giselle’s table in the Jeanne d’Arc, a French bistro in the basement of the Cornell Hotel on Bush Street.

  “Great place!” she exclaimed, looking about the narrow restaurant with its snowy napery and gleaming silver.

  “The food’s even better,” said Giselle.

  Then she launched into an explanation of what she hoped Corinne could help her with. Corinne listened, her almond-shaped eyes brimming with good humor and intelligence.

  “Are these the same Gypsies you guys messed with over all those Cadillac cars a couple of years back? The ones that Bart’s been working on in Vallejo and down in L.A.?”

  “The very same. The whole tribe of them took off for parts unknown very recently, in a hurry, probably en masse by plane.”

  “Charter flight? No. I doubt they could find one in a hurry this time of year. They might use scheduled flights, individually or in small groups . . . You have any names for me?”

  Giselle handed her a list. “These are the names we know them by. Look especially for Rudolph Marino under the name Angelo Grimaldi or something really Italian like that. He’s been living over in Point Richmond
, if that’s any help.”

  “It might be. I’ll get on the Net tomorrow with a bunch of other local travel agents and see what I can find out.”

  Scorning the creaky old elevator, Yana trudged up to her third-floor room at the Hotel Canada on Via Goito, just a few blocks from Rome’s Stazione Termini, the central train and bus terminal built by Mussolini in the 1930s, where many of Rome’s Gypsies hung out. She tossed her two suitcases on the bed, took from one a small carryall, and went out again.

  Just after dark, the well-dressed young woman set her carryall down on the stazione platform. Instantly two ragged ten-year-old kids with shoe-button eyes approached her, one from either side. “Signorina!” exclaimed one of them. When she turned toward him, the other snatched the carryall.

  Yana grabbed each boy by one arm, sinking her fingers into the flesh. “Muchwaya?” she demanded. They shook their heads. She let go, gestured at one boy to open the carryall. He boldly unzipped it. It was stuffed with cheap plastic toys, red and blue and yellow, silver and gold. Their eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Muchwaya?” she asked again.

  “I Muchwaya Americani. Ma non sono qui, Signorina. Sono in Trastevere.”

  “Trastevere?” she asked.

  They both nodded and gestured vigorously. The second one said, “Trastevere, si! Il Papa. Il Vaticano. Hanno fatto una bella storia, i Muchwaya Americani!”

  A pretty story? Back at the hotel, she used the lobby pay phone to call Geraldine in San Francisco and tell her about a rather astounding phenomenon that she thought might interest some of Geraldine’s friends. She was sure some of them would want to take advantage of it.

  forty-eight

  Bart bounded into DKA like he was entering the ring. He leaned across Giselle’s desk to point a demanding finger at her.