A Shared Confidence

by William Topek

  “How can Jimmy be alive, Mr. Caine? I saw him shot to death.” Ryland put down his fork, unable to wait any longer. The meatloaf and iced tea had put a little color back into his face. We could talk now; I just had to figure out the best place to start.

  “Did you examine Jimmy after he was shot?” I asked. “Try to take his pulse, put a mirror under his nose, anything like that?”

  “Of course not!” He looked around and lowered his voice. “There was no need. I saw Mr. Stanton shoot him two feet in front of me.”

  “Did you dig the slug out of him? Check Stanton’s gun to see if it was really loaded?”

  “No, I didn’t,” he answered, starting to sound a little annoyed. A good sign.

  “Where was Jimmy shot? Face? Neck? Chest?”

  Ryland shook his head, uncertain. “I think…it looked like Stanton fired right into Jimmy’s open mouth.”

  “The bullet come out the back of his head?” Very few people have seen someone shot close up, which makes it a lot easier to fake.

  “I…I don’t think so.”

  “Anything come out the back of his head? Blood? Brains? Bits of skull, maybe? You said there was blood.” The waitress came by with a slice of pie for each of us. I dug into mine.

  “The blood came out of his mouth. It must have.” No doubt Ryland was having a little trouble trusting his memory after weeks on the run, but he remembered the blood. “Some of it got on me. On my face. It was warm.” His fingers strayed absently up to his right cheek.

  “I’m sure it was,” I agreed, helping myself to another bite of lemon meringue. “Did you take a sample to a laboratory? Have it tested to make sure it was human blood?”

  “What do you think?” Ryland was sounding really annoyed now.

  “I think you saw a gun, heard the shot, felt the blood, and watched a man fall. Your mind did the rest, just like it was supposed to.”

  He picked up his fork, tapped the tines against the edge of his plate a few times, thinking.

  “Okay, let’s say that’s possible. How do you know that’s what really happened, Mr. Caine? How can you know?”

  “Because I’ve heard that story you told me before, Mr. Ryland. Many times and from many different people. I know exactly what happened. You were roped on the ship, given the point-out, told the tale, slipped a few convincers, handed off to the inside man, set up for the big play, put on the send, and then cooled out hard.”

  He stopped tapping his fork and just stared at me for maybe five seconds.

  “I didn’t follow a word you just said.” I couldn’t blame him. Criminals have their own highly specialized lingo, and that includes confidence men. My statement would sound like gobbledy-gook to any normal citizen. It would have to me but for my time at Pinkerton’s. Not that confidence games had been my specialty, but when you read enough reports and talk to enough experts, you pick up a lot.

  I explained as best I could to Ethan Ryland that he’d been the victim, the “mark,” in an elaborate confidence game. Jimmy Canfield was a professional roper, a fellow who spent most of his working day on trains or passenger ships, scouting out men with money. The prime marks were wastrels, young idlers from rich families who had little idea of the value of money and less knowledge of how to hold onto it. But there were plenty of men like Ryland as well, men who’d worked hard to make something of themselves, who could be convinced that it was time for all that hard work to pay off even bigger. Men who were ripe for people like easygoing, likable Jimmy who, once he’d gained Ryland’s confidence, had contacted Clay Stanton and arranged for the latter to happen by in his limo at the appointed time.

  “Stanton looked the part and talked a great game. And he gave you a few convincers. Jimmy gave him money and he brought back more money. You and Jimmy both gave Stanton money and he did it again. It was enough to convince you to go to Baltimore with them.” I tried to go slow, give Ryland enough time to absorb each piece in order.

  “But the brokerage office he took us to,” Ryland started to protest, and a light went on in his eyes. “You mean he had someone working there who was part of this as well?”

  I had to be a little careful here. Otherwise, the truth would sound too outlandish and Ryland would think I was nuts.

  “He had several someones in that office who were in on this, Mr. Ryland. Try everyone.” Long con operators like Stanton, I explained, use what they call a “store.” The brokerage office was a fake through and through, made up to look just like the real McCoy but all of it rented props. The caged windows, the board with the numbers always changing, every stick of furniture right down to the ash trays.

  “But I recognized some of the companies they had listed,” Ryland countered. “I know they’re real.”

  “Uh huh. Stanton ever have you deal shares on any of them?”

  He thought for a second, then slowly shook his head.

  “So the people who worked there…?”

  “Everyone you saw in there was working, Mr. Ryland. Working for Stanton. Every clerk behind the window, every business man in a suit waiting to buy or sell shares or talking stocks with one another or reading magazines and checking out the board. The listless old duffer who came in with a broom right around closing time. Every one of them were on Stanton’s payroll. They’re called ‘shills’. Their job is to help sell the con by creating atmosphere – absolute verisimilitude – and every one of them got a cut of the money Stanton took off you.”

  Ryland blinked at me, incredulous.

  “They created that entire office out of nothing? Leased and staffed it just for me?”

  “You and the other marks they bring there.”

  “So some of those men–”

  “No, they never bring more than one mark into the store at a time. Too risky, the two of them might start talking. Everyone you saw was a shill.”

  I countered a few more of his queries, pointing out little details that made more sense to him now. Did he notice how the office was conveniently uncrowded when the manager explained to him that his check was no good? How, because of that, they had the time and relative privacy to arrive at some kind of arrangement? And the carefully orchestrated shift in Jimmy’s character. First he’s a virtuous heir, determined to make his own way in the world. Then he’s a lazy loaf and a careless one, making a greedy mistake early on and having to be lectured about it. That served two purposes: the first was to hand Ryland off to the inside man, Stanton. Thus a man Ryland had come to trust was supplanted by someone seemingly more trustworthy. Second, revealing Jimmy as a screw-up made it more believable that he’d do something colossally stupid like buy when he was supposed to sell. And for that matter, how about Stanton showing up with this incredibly sweet deal just when Ryland was about to get his hands on nearly half a million dollars?

  Ryland didn’t want to believe any of this, of course, but now that he wasn’t being blinded by easy money on the stock market or the threat of John Law breathing down his neck, he had little choice but to see the facts as I laid them out for him.

  “How could they have known I’d go along with it all?”

  “They didn’t, not from the beginning. These people are experts at what they do, Mr. Ryland. There are infinite variations to big cons like these, and big-time confidence men are fantastic improvisers. They got to know you, felt you out. That was the purpose of all those meetings and dinners. They learned more about you than you realized, figured out the best way to play you. Jimmy was keeping an eye on you day and night that last week, and Stanton even convinced you you were doing him a favor by keeping close to Jimmy.”

  Ryland stared down at the untouched pie on his saucer, raised his fork, then set it back down.

  “You must think I’m the biggest dope in the world, Mr. Caine.”

  I laughed and shook my head, reaching for a cigarette. “No offense, Mr. Ryland, but I’ve known men a lot sharper than you who’ve been taken in, some of them for even more money and some of them more than once. It’s true. Hel
l, a lot of them never figure out they’ve been conned, and some refuse to accept it even when it’s explained to them.” I also pointed out that, while it had taken Ryland a couple of hours to tell me his story, he had lived it for weeks. And all that time, Stanton and Jimmy had been working on him, operating on his desires, his ambition, his nerves, and finally his greed. “Which we all have,” I added quickly. “Besides, Stanton and Jimmy knew you weren’t a fool or they wouldn’t have cooled you out so hard.”

  “They wouldn’t have what?”

  I took a breath. “It’s called ‘cooling out the mark’. Once the big play has been made and the con is over, you have to find some way of getting rid of the mark. What’s more, you need to make sure he doesn’t kick up a fuss. Some guys you can just send on down the road. Hey, tough break, but we’ll keep you in mind the next time we got hold of a sure thing, after we fix this mess and are ready to go again.

  “But you,” I took a drag off my cigarette and continued, “they had you pegged as smart enough to figure it out afterward, and they couldn’t risk that. So Stanton loads his gun with blanks and Jimmy gets some fresh blood from a butcher’s shop, keeps it warm in his mouth inside a tiny pouch of some kind. Stanton shoots Jimmy and now you’ve just witnessed a murder. In the ensuing shock to your nerves, you’re made an accomplice. It’s a fairly desperate gambit and most con men only use it as a last resort. But like everything else these people do, if it’s done right it works like magic.

  “Tell me, Mr. Ryland, this past month as you’ve been bouncing around hotels from one city to the next, were you thinking about how this deal went wrong or was your mind occupied with visions of life in Sing-Sing?”

  Ryland nodded, exhausted from taking all this in. “Mostly I was trying not to think about frying in the chair.”

  “Well, that’s off your back at least,” I told him. I called the waitress over and asked her to bring us some coffee. She made a face but didn’t say anything. We’d been taking up the booth for awhile now, but the place wasn’t all that crowded and I’d leave a good tip. I’d have preferred to do the rest of the talking at Lonnigan’s, but I wasn’t going to be responsible for sending Ryland right back into the bottle. His loss of anxiety over learning he wasn’t a fugitive would quickly be replaced by depression. He was still ruined financially.

  Ryland stirred sugar into his coffee, then slammed his open hand on the table, rattling the crockery.

  “Those sons of bitches!” he spat. A few people glanced our way and I motioned for him to keep it down. He looked up at me, eyes narrowing.

  “So what’s my next move? Go to the police, right?” It was the question I’d been dreading because I knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

  “You can try it,” I shrugged. “It’s not likely to do much good, though. Baltimore’s a right town, which means the fix is in. They’re paying off somebody on a regular basis. A chief of police, a district attorney, maybe a few people. It’s the only way they can keep a permanent store set up. Whatever type of complaint you swear out, you’ll never get Stanton or any of his people before a judge.”

  “No offense, Mr. Caine, but I can hardly believe that. If they’re doing this to people all the time, year in and year out, well, how many complaints can the police ignore?”

  “The police don’t get many complaints,” I said. “Very few marks report what happened to them. They’re usually too embarrassed, too ashamed. And they’re not eager for it to get out how easily they got taken. What would their business partners or clients think? How much damage could their rivals do with a story like that? As for the few who do complain, well, that’s what the fix is for.”

  “I can still try,” Ryland said stubbornly.

  “Yes, you can try. But it’s very long odds anyone will go to jail over this. And you’ll never get your money back. It’s gone, Mr. Ryland.”

  He was silent for several seconds, then said simply: “That’s not fair.”

  “No it isn’t,” I agreed. “Not one damn little bit.”

  I paid and we went outside, standing on the sidewalk under the bright sunshine.

  “So what do I do?” Ryland asked again. “What can I do?”

  I turned and looked at him, my hands in my pockets.

  “Go home, Mr. Ryland. Face the music. Work with your customers, your suppliers, your employees, and especially your bankers. Grovel a little, a lot if you have to. You built your empire from one little hardware store. You’ve clearly got good business sense.” When you’re not trying to take shortcuts, I thought.

  “It took me almost twenty years,” he said, his shoulders starting to sag again. “I was a much younger man. I built a reputation for myself. When people find out what happened–”

  “So don’t tell them. Tell them you made a bad investment. Hell, a lot of people have made bad investments. A few years back, a whole mess of people made some very bad investments, people who knew a lot more about the stock market than you or I ever will. And a lot of those people ended up jumping out of windows.”

  “I’m thirty-five,” Ryland pouted. “I’ll never be able–”

  “To get it all back? Maybe not. Or maybe you’ll build an even bigger empire. Who knows? But you can try your best. That’s all any of us can do.”

  I stepped in a bit closer and looked him in the eye.

  “Here’s the truth of it, Mr. Ryland: You’ve been dragged through a river of some pretty foul-smelling stuff. Your only chance now is to swim through more if it until you can make your way to dry land again. Go back to your hotel and get some sleep. Eat a decent dinner tonight. Then get some more sleep and tomorrow take a nice hot shower, put on some clean clothes, get a shave and a haircut. See how you feel then, see if maybe that long swim to the shore doesn’t seem just a little more possible. Because I’m here to tell you, Mr. Ryland, if you try to swim in any other direction, looking for an easier way out or a way to get back at the people who did this to you, you’ll never get the stink of that river off you.”

  Would he listen? Would he at least think about it? There was no way to tell and it wasn’t my problem either way. I’d done what I could for the man. If he chose to spend the rest of his life licking his wounds, bemoaning the unfairness of what happened to him, well, that was his affair.

  “I do want to thank you, Mr. Caine,” he said, offering his hand. “At least I know the police aren’t after me, that I didn’t help somebody get away with murder.”

  “Then you’re better off than yesterday,” I smiled. “Things are already looking up.”

  We shook hands and parted ways.

  I walked into my outer office and Gail turned from her typewriter to face me. She wouldn’t ask me directly, she’d just stare at me with huge, puppy-dog eyes until I gave her something.

  “Yes, I listened to your sad case,” I told her with mock annoyance.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  “How the hell should I know?” She just kept staring and I sighed heavily. “His problems aren’t as bad as he thought,” I said truthfully. “Not nearly so bad. He as a few to be sure, but nothing insurmountable.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him?”

  “Nothing more than I already have, Gail. I listened to him and I set him straight on a couple of things. Tried to anyway. The rest is up to him.”

  She nodded, satisfied, and went back to her typing.

  That Friday evening I left my office and headed around the corner to Lonnigan’s, figuring to relax with a drink or two. There are few things I enjoy more than passing a quiet couple of hours in my favorite bar, though it’s a decidedly more controlled indulgence these days. I wasn’t exaggerating about having hit a rough patch at the end of last year. I’d made my way through an especially tough case, had ended up crossing some lines I didn’t want to cross and doing some things that made it difficult to live with myself sober. So for awhile, I didn’t. My work went to hell and I found myself avoiding my secretary. And people in general.

 
One night in the dark of December I was at Lonnigan’s, weaving on my barstool and embarrassing myself in front of the other customers. In fact, I’d fallen off the damn stool for the second time that night, which was hardly the record in that joint but apparently there were different rules in place for me. Lonnigan had finally had enough and caught my wrist in a ring of steel as I was sloshing a glass to my mouth. I looked up from the thick-fingered hand to the brawny shoulders, trying to pick out a pair of blue eyes that I knew had to be somewhere through that haze.

  “You’ve had sufficient for tonight,” Lonnigan said simply. “Time to leave.”

  I stared at him hotly for a moment. He released my arm and I turned the remains of my drink upside down over the bar.

  “Get out.” It was the voice I’d heard him use before on souses, rumpots, and other losers. I gathered my injured pride (sounds manlier than hurt feelings) and picked up my hat, flinging spilled scotch off the brim.

  “Thought you were my friend, Mickey,” I said in a wounded slur.

  “I am, Devlin,” he said, his voice quite low. “Maybe one o’ your last, it’s lookin’.”

  “Well, ain’t you sweet?” His eyes chilled to cold metal and I could see the patience had run out of him like sand from an egg-timer.

  “Come back when you can drink like a man,” he advised, “and not some schoolboy tastin’ his first.” I was ready to bring up the small army of old sots and souses I’d seen fall asleep in the joint, but I looked into the face of two-hundred-plus pounds of red-headed Irish bull, and even in my drunken stupor I knew I’d already pushed it as far as I dared.

  I could have just found a new haunt, but I was getting pretty sick of me, too, by then. So I dried out for a month. I stuck to water and coffee and the occasional Coca-Cola, and I made regular visits to the gymnasium, punishing my muscles in place of the unfair universe and sweating out soul-black hate in the steam room. I came to my office early and left late, working my cases, dull as they were. I read a lot, mostly the classics that are supposed to get you thinking about life. After several weeks of clean living, when I could once again pass at first glance for a respectable citizen, I braved the cold January night outside my office building and went for a stroll around the corner. Lonnigan was standing near the taps. He gave me the once-over, checking out the whites of my eyes and my neatly-shaven face, looking to see that my tie wasn’t on crooked. At last he wiped his meaty hands on his apron and sauntered over to me.