The Collectors cc-2

by David Baldacci

  Over a two-day period Annabelle and Leo had grilled Tony on every conceivable obstacle he would face when passing the bad checks. They took turns playing the roles of tellers, managers, security guards and bank customers. Tony was a fast learner, and at the end of the two days they pronounced him ready to take his baby steps as a bad-check passer after he had watched Leo perform a few times for real.

  The first ten passes went very smoothly. Annabelle was a redhead at one, a blonde at another and a brunet at a third. The back of the van had been set up as a changing area with a small makeup table and mirror. After several passes she and Leo would hop in the van and alter their look on the way to the next bank. At some places she wore glasses, at another a scarf around her head, at another pants, sweatshirt and a ball cap. With the right makeup, clothing, padding and hair she could significantly change her appearance and age. She wore only flats, since her five-foot-nine-inch height was less noteworthy than one of six feet with heels on. And while she never looked at it, Annabelle was always conscious of the bank surveillance camera taking her glossy.

  Leo was, in turn, a businessman, a company gofer, a retiree and a lawyer, among others.

  Annabelle’s practiced delivery with the tellers was smooth, without a trace of apprehension. She immediately put the clerk at ease, talking about the person’s clothes or hair or how much she loved the beautiful city by the Bay, even with the gloomy weather.

  With the eleventh teller she confided, “I’ve had this consulting business for four years, and this is the biggest payment I’ve ever gotten. I worked my butt off for it.”

  “Congratulations,” the female clerk said as she worked on the transaction. “Forty thousand dollars is a big payment.” The woman seemed to be scrutinizing the check and Annabelle’s perfectly forged identification and corporate papers a bit too much.

  Annabelle noted the woman wasn’t wearing a wedding band but had worn one recently, because the skin was lighter where the ring would’ve been.

  “My ex left me for a younger woman and cleaned out our accounts,” Annabelle said bitterly. “I’ve had to build my whole life back. It hasn’t been easy. But I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction, you know? I’ll take the damn alimony because I earned that. But he’s not controlling my life.”

  The woman’s demeanor changed, and she said in a low whisper, “I know exactly what you mean,” she said as she completed the deposit. “Twelve years of marriage, and my ex decides to trade me in for a new model too.”

  “I wish we could just give them a pill that would train them right, you know?”

  “Oh, I want to give my ex a pill, all right. A cyanide pill,” the clerk said.

  Annabelle glanced at the docs on the counter and said casually, “I suppose there’ll be a hold on the funds, won’t there? It’s just that I have some vendors to pay. I wish I could get to keep the whole amount, but my profit margins are only about ten percent, if I’m lucky.”

  The clerk hesitated. “Well, normally, there would be with a check this size.” She looked at Annabelle, smiled and eyed her computer. “But the account the check’s drawn on has plenty of money to cover it. And there have been no problems in your company account. So I’ll make the funds immediately available.”

  “That’s great, I really appreciate it.”

  “We girls have to stick together.”

  “Yes, we do,” Annabelle said as she turned and walked out with her deposit slip showing her “company” to be $40,000 richer.

  Meanwhile, Leo raced through his group of checks, usually not spending more than ten minutes at each bank. Speed was the key here, he knew. Speed without sloppiness, however. His method was typically to crack a joke, usually at his own expense, to break the ice with the teller.

  “I wish that money was going into my personal account,” he told one clerk in his guise as a company gofer. “Then I could make my rent payment. Is there anyplace in this damn town that doesn’t want your firstborn for a security deposit on a one-bedroom?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of,” the teller answered sympathetically.

  Leo went on, “I mean, I don’t even have a freaking one-bedroom. All I’ve got is a one-sleeper-sofa apartment.”

  “You’re lucky. On what the bank pays I’m still living with my parents.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got about thirty years on you. With the way I’m going, by the time you’re running this place, I’ll be living with my parents.”

  The teller laughed and handed Leo a deposit receipt for $38,000. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” the young man chided.

  “Not to worry,” Leo replied, tucking the paper in his pocket and walking off whistling.

  By later that afternoon they’d passed seventy-seven of the eighty checks, with Tony moving ten of them and growing more confident with each one.

  “This is easy,” Tony declared in the van as he changed clothes along with Leo. Annabelle was behind a sheet strung up across part of the van doing the same thing. Tony added, “Those idiots just stand there and take every line you feed them. They never even look at the paper. I don’t know why anybody bothers robbing banks anymore.”

  Annabelle poked her head over the top of the sheet. “We’ve got three more checks. We’ll each take one.”

  “And watch your head when you get out of the van, Tony,” Leo said.

  “Watch my head, what are you talking about?”

  “I mean, it’s so big right now, it might not fit through the doors.”

  “Why the hell do you keep giving me a hard time, Leo?”

  “He’s giving you a hard time, Tony, because passing altered checks isn’t easy,” Annabelle said.

  “Well, it is for me.”

  Leo said, “That’s because Annabelle in her infinite wisdom gave you the easiest ones to pass.”

  Tony whirled around to look at her. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” she said bluntly, her bare shoulders showing above the top of the sheet.

  “I can take care of myself,” Tony shot back. “You don’t have to baby me.”

  “I’m not doing it for you,” Annabelle answered. “If you go down, you’ll take us with you.” Her eyes glittered at him for an instant and then relaxed. “Besides, it makes no sense to throw a talented con in over his head. That can do a lot more harm than good.”

  She ducked down behind the sheet. With a little light coming in from the van’s tinted windows, the sheet was somewhat transparent. Tony stared at Annabelle’s silhouette as she shed her clothes and put others on.

  Leo jabbed him in the ribs and growled, “Have some respect, kid.”

  Tony turned slowly to look at him. “Damn,” he said quietly.

  “What, you’ve never seen a beautiful woman undress before?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I have.” He looked down at his hands.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Leo asked.

  Tony looked up. “I think she just called me a talented con.”

  CHAPTER 11

  IT WAS THE LAST PASS. TONY was standing in front of the teller, a cute young Asian woman with shoulder-length black hair, flawless skin and walnut cheekbones. Clearly intrigued, Tony leaned closer and rested his arm on the counter.

  “You lived here long?” he asked her.

  “A few months; I moved here from Seattle.”

  “Same sort of weather,” Tony said.

  “Yes,” the woman answered, smiling as she worked away.

  “I just moved here from Vegas,” Tony said. “Now, that’s a fun town.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “Oh, man, it’s a blast. You’ve gotta go. And like they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” He looked at her expectantly. “I’d love to show you around.”

  She looked at him disapprovingly. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Okay, we don’t have to start with Vegas. Maybe we just start with lunch.”

  She said defiantly, “How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?” />
  “As gorgeous as you are, you probably do. But that means I have to work all that much harder to make you forget him.”

  The woman blushed and looked down, but now she was smiling again. “You’re crazy.” She hit some keys on her computer. “Okay, can I see some ID?”

  “Only if you promise you won’t say no when I officially ask you out.”

  She took the ID from him and let her finger graze his. He gave her another smile.

  She glanced at the ID and looked puzzled. “I thought you said you just moved here from Vegas?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But your ID says Arizona.” She turned it around to show him. “And that really doesn’t look like you.”

  Oh, crap! He’d pulled the wrong ID from his pocket. Despite Annabelle instructing him to only take one ID pack at a time, he’d stubbornly carried them all. In the photo his hair was blond and he had a small goatee and was wearing Ben Franklin eyeglasses.

  “I lived in Arizona but worked in Vegas, it was cheaper,” he said quickly. “And I decided to change my style, new color, contact lenses. You know.”

  As soon as he delivered these lame lines, he knew it was over.

  The teller stared at the check, and her look became even more suspicious. “This is a California bank check and a California company, but the routing number is for New York. Why’s that?”

  “Routing numbers? I don’t know anything about that,” Tony said, his voice now quavering. From her expression Tony knew the woman had already pronounced him guilty of bank fraud. She glanced in the direction of the security guard and placed the check and Tony’s fake ID down on the counter in front of her. “I’m going to have to call my manager over,” the teller began.

  “What is going on here?” a low voice said sharply. “Excuse me.” The woman pushed Tony out of the way and confronted the teller. She was tall and plump with blond hair and dark roots. Her glasses were slim designer models hanging on a chain, and she was dressed in a purple blouse and black slacks.

  She spoke quietly but firmly to the young woman behind the counter. “I’ve been standing here for ten minutes while you two play cutie-pie with each other. Is that the kind of service this bank provides? Why don’t we get your manager over here and see?”

  The clerk took a step back, her eyes wide. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, I was just—”

  “I know what you were just doing,” the woman interrupted. “I could hear it, everyone in the bank could hear you two flirting and discussing your love life.”

  The clerk’s face reddened. “Ma’am, we were doing no such thing.”

  The woman put her hands on the counter and leaned forward. “Oh, really, so when you were talking about boyfriends and Vegas and he was telling you how gorgeous you were, that was what, official bank business? Do you do that with all your customers? Would you like to talk to me about who I sleep with?”

  “Ma’am, please, I—”

  “Forget it. I’m done with this place.” The woman turned and stalked out.

  Tony was already gone. Leo had steered him out a few seconds after the woman had appeared.

  Annabelle joined them in the back of the van a minute later.

  She called out to the driver, “Let’s roll, Freddy.” The van immediately pulled away from the curb.

  She wrenched off the blond wig and put the glasses in her pocket. Next she took off her coat and stripped away the padding around her middle. She tossed Tony’s ID to him. He caught it, shamefaced, and then exclaimed, “Omigod, they have the check—”

  He stopped talking as Annabelle held up the check, neatly folded.

  “I’m sorry, Annabelle, I’m really sorry.”

  She leaned close to him. “Little piece of advice, Tony. Don’t ever hit on the mark, especially when you’re pretending to be someone else.”

  Leo added, “It was a good thing we decided to back you up on that one.”

  “Why did you?” Tony asked glumly.

  Annabelle answered. “Because you walked out of the van way too cocky. Cocky kills cons. That’s another good rule to remember.”

  “I can go to another bank and pass it,” Tony said quickly.

  “No,” she said. “We have enough for the long con. And it’s not worth the risk.”

  Tony started to protest but then slumped back and said nothing.

  Leo and Annabelle exchanged glances, each of them letting out a sigh of relief.

  Two days later, at the rental condo, Leo knocked on Annabelle’s bedroom door.

  “Yeah?” she called out.

  “Got a minute?”

  He sat on her bed while she put some clothes in a carry-on bag.

  “Three mil,” he said reverently. “You know, you called ’em shorts, but to most cons those were longs. Things of beauty, Annabelle.”

  “Any con with decent skills could’ve done them. I just upped the ante a little.”

  “A little? Three million cut four ways isn’t little.”

  She glanced sharply at him.

  “I know, I know,” he said quickly. “You get a bigger share because it’s your game. But still, my share could last me a few years living high on the hog. Maybe even take a real vacation.”

  “Not yet. We have the long con, Leo. That was the deal.”

  “Right, but just think about it.”

  She dropped a stack of clothes in her bag. “I have thought about it. The long con is next.”

  Leo stood, fingering an unlit cigarette. “Okay, but what about the kid?”

  “What about him?”

  “You said we were going all-star on this. Now, I’ve got no problem with Freddy, his stuff is first-rate. But the kid almost cost us everything. If you hadn’t been there—”

  “If I hadn’t been there, he would’ve thought of something.”

  “Bullcrap. That teller had him made all the way. He gave her the wrong freaking ID. Talk about your bonehead moves.”

  “You’ve never made a mistake on a con, Leo? Let me think for a second. Oh, how about Phoenix? Or Jackson Hole?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t on a multimillion-dollar scam, Annabelle. I didn’t have that handed to me on a damn platter when I was still in diapers like Tony.”

  “Jealousy doesn’t score you any points, Leo. And Tony can hold his own.”

  “Maybe he can and maybe he can’t. The thing is I damn sure don’t want to be there to find out that he can’t.”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  Leo threw up his hands. “Great, you worry about that for all of us.”

  “Good, I’m glad we have that settled.”

  Leo prowled the room, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  “Is there anything else?” she asked.

  “Yeah, what’s the long con?”

  “I’ll tell you when you need to know. And right now you don’t need to know.”

  Leo sat down on the bed. “I’m not the CIA. I’m a con. I don’t trust anybody.” He eyed her bag. “And if you don’t want to tell me, then I’m not going wherever the hell it is you’re going.”

  “You knew the deal going in, Leo. You quit now, you get zip. Two shorts and a long. That was the arrangement.”

  “Yeah, well, part of the deal wasn’t babysitting some punk who almost landed us in prison either, so maybe we need to renegotiate the deal, lady.”

  She stared at him contemptuously. “What, you’re shaking me down after all these years? I gave you the best action you’ve ever had.”

  “I don’t want more money. I want the long con. Or I’m not going!”

  Annabelle stopped packing while she considered this. “If I tell you where we’re going, will that be good enough?”

  “Depends on where it is.”

  “Atlantic City.”

  All the blood seemed to drain from Leo’s face. “Are you out of your damn mind? What, the last time wasn’t bad enough?”

  “That was a long time ago, Leo.”

  He snapped, “It’ll neve
r be long ago enough for me! Why don’t we do something easier like hitting the mob?”

  “At-lan-tic Ci-ty,” she hissed, forming five words out of two.

  “Why, because of your old man?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  Leo stood and pointed a finger at her. “You’re certifiable, Annabelle. If you think I’m walking into that hellhole with you again because you got something to prove, you don’t know Leo Richter.”

  “The plane leaves at seven a.m.”

  Leo stood there nervously, watching her pack, for a couple more minutes.

  “Are we at least flying first-class?” he finally said.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because if it’s my last flight, I’d like to go out in style.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, Leo.”

  He walked out the door while Annabelle kept right on packing.

  CHAPTER 12

  CALEB SHAW WAS IN THE RARE Books reading room working. There were several patron requests to see some material from the Rosenwald Vault; that required a supervisor’s approval. Then he spent a good deal of time on the phone consulting with a university professor writing a book on Jefferson’s private library, which he sold to the nation after the British had burned the city during the War of 1812, forming the basis for the present-day Library of Congress. After that, Jewell English, an elderly woman and a regular in the reading room, asked to see an issue of Beadle’s Dime Novels. She was very interested in the Beadles series and had a nice collection, she’d told Caleb. A slender woman with powdery white hair and a ready smile, Caleb assumed she was also lonely. Her husband had died ten years ago, she’d confided in Caleb, and her family was scattered around the country. It was for this reason he engaged her in conversation whenever she came in.