The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  Brad emerged from the church bus in front of them and barked, “Unload quickly! Chop!Chop! We need to make room for the other church groups coming behind us!”

  Courtney sidled up to Fletcher and bumped against him with her hip. “Hey!” she chirped. “You forgot something.” She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and offered it to him.

  “Did you steal my phone?”

  She laughed. “Pretty good, huh?”

  Fletcher glanced up and saw Brad glaring at them.

  “I programmed my number in for you,” she said with a smile, “in case you ever need to text me.”

  “Um, thanks. Better get your stuff unloaded.” He looked up again. Brad was gone.

  “THIS PLACE IS SO JUNKY,” NOAH ANNOUNCED. “I THOUGHT WE were staying in a new church with a gym!”

  “Lower your voice,” Brad chided. He addressed the eighteen youth and five adults gathered around him in the vestibule. “Last night a water pipe burst at Life Journey Church, so they’re not going to be able to host us. Several churches around the city have been kind enough to take up the slack, including this one. I do not want to hear any complaints, okay, people? They’re doing us a favor here. Oh, and the neighborhood is iffy. No one goes outside without an adult. No exceptions.”

  A priest strode up to the group. He looked to be in his early sixties, with graying hair and olive skin, and was a head shorter than Brad and Fletcher.

  “Greetings, and welcome to our historic church,” he said. “My name is Father Alexander Katrakis. Most people call me Father Sacha, but I know that might sound weird, so you can call me Father Alex if you like. If you would be so kind as to follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

  They all picked up the duffels and suitcases they’d dropped only moments before and followed Father Sacha down a hall into a more recent addition to the church. Probably sixties or seventies, Fletcher thought—somehow even more depressing than the church building back home.

  Noah poked up between Fletcher and Brad and pointed at the priest’s collar.

  “Why do you wear that?” he asked. “My pastor doesn’t have one of those.”

  “There are many reasons,” Father Sacha answered, “but personally I like to wear it so that people know they can come to me for help or counsel or prayer. Wherever I am, people know I’m there to show them God’s love.”

  “Does it come off?” Noah asked.

  “It does. It’s held on by two little buttons called shanks. See?” He pulled up the collar.

  “Shank means something different to you, doesn’t it, Fletcher?” Brad asked quietly. “Ooh, gotta be on guard in the lunch line.” He turned to the priest and said, “Seriously, keep an eye on this guy here.” His voice was playful, but he looked back at Fletcher with pure spite.

  They arrived at the door of a large, open room, the floor covered with a sea of inflated air mattresses and sleeping bags.

  “Here is where the men will sleep,” the priest announced. “You’re the last church to arrive, but I’m sure you’ll find room enough.”

  “A lot of those mattresses are queen size,” Brad observed with no little annoyance.

  “Let it go, Brad,” Fletcher said as he separated his bags from Ivy’s.

  “I guess you’ve slept in worse, right?” Brad said a little louder.

  Courtney balled up a fist and belted her father on the arm. “Stop being such a jerk!” An awkward beat passed.

  “Uh, if the ladies want to follow me, I’ll take you upstairs to your accommodations,” Father Sacha said.

  The women filed away, and the boys poured into the room, intent on staking out the best of what little real estate remained. Fletcher and Brad lingered, eye to eye.

  “We need to talk,” Brad said.

  “No, we don’t.” Fletcher rehefted his duffel bag onto his shoulder and made for the door. He felt himself pulled back by Brad’s right hand on his upper arm—stronger than he expected.

  Fletcher dropped his bags and took a threatening step. “Are we finally gonna do this?”

  “Go ahead. Knock my block off. We both know it’s just a matter of time before you go back to your cage, Fletcher. You might as well get it over with.”

  “You’re nowhere near worth it.” He wanted to spit for some reason, but knew he shouldn’t in the church. “You got something to say to me? You’ve got five seconds.”

  “I have two things to say. First, don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at this church when we pulled up. Don’t get any ideas. Anything valuable disappears, you’ll be the only suspect. I don’t want to see you skulking around where you’re not supposed to be. Just stay with the group.”

  Fletcher said nothing.

  “More importantly, keep away from my daughter. She was kind enough to take Ivy under her wing when they were the new kids in town, but I don’t want you influencing her. Got it?”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Brad. I’ll steer clear of your daughter if you stay away from my wife.”

  Brad shrugged. “I’ll do my best, but your wife is a grown woman. She can make her own choices.”

  “Okay, how about this one? You stay away from my wife or, prison or no prison, I will take you apart.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dante had been brainstorming all morning. He had exactly three ideas, all of which were sure to fail. He’d called in every marker and some favors too, which had put him up near thirty large, although he had none of it in hand. Both of his cars were now listed at very attractive prices, which could bring in another fifty if he got what he asked.

  He’d also made a list of easy marks, but his lack of an independent team made a large-scale job impossible. There had never been a lucrative one-man grift in the history of the art. By himself, the best he could hope to pull down was a few hundred here or there.

  But the real missing factor was time, not targets. Even if he bled every mark dry, it would take months or even years to get where he needed to be. And he had six days. Dante had seen firsthand what Marcus Brinkman did to people who welched on their debts. Excuses were repaid with broken bones, missing fingers, missing people. He thought again about running. Then he thought of the stack of pictures, which reminded him of Brinkman’s stipulation that he not cut into Bella Donna’s profits. He went down his list of marks and one by one crossed off every single name. Who did he know outside of his connections through the Syndicate? No one.

  Except the members of his little congregation. He felt a familiar twinge of guilt at the thought. He could scarcely afford to take any options off the table at this point, but these were faithful people, struggling people, and they were already giving from what little they had to prop up Dante’s front of a church. Besides, they were all lower income. They would be no help either.

  He pushed his face down into his hands, a posture that had become more and more common over the past twenty-four hours. He had more than enough skill to pull off his own game; if only he’d been less dependent on others in the beginning, he wouldn’t be in this impossible situation.

  Dante had always been able to play people. It was second nature. Or perhaps it was just nature. Two of his grandparents were white, one was black, and one Cuban. As a result, his skin was lighter than some Caucasians, and a pool of rather Irish-looking freckles hung on either side of his nose. But his hair and facial features were distinctly African.

  He learned quickly how to adapt based on where he was and, particularly, who he was with. He could instantly adopt anyone’s voice and mannerisms and mirror them back with no effort at all—something that had an immediately disarming effect.

  It was in high school that he realized the depth of his talent. He’d been suspended from school for three days for fighting. Knowing he’d be out on his ear if his mother found out, he’d gone directly home, marched up to the attic where his father’s old clothes were kept, and found a suit that fit him well. Then he walked right back into the school, up to the very same principal who had suspended
him, and pretended to be his own father. The administrator never questioned his identity, and Dante was able to successfully renegotiate the three-day suspension into half a day. He ran home, changed back into his own clothes, and returned after lunch.

  That’s when his friends started calling him Trick. And Trick could talk. He was everyone’s best friend for the remainder of high school. If you were in with Trick, he could get you free basketball tickets, buy you alcohol, or square things with your mom when you came in late.

  Then one day, when Dante was nineteen, a good friend of his was sentenced to six months in jail.

  “I’m afraid you can’t see him,” Dante was told when he tried to visit. “Each inmate is allowed six family members and friends on his visitation list,” the lobby officer had said, “plus clergy and legal counsel.”

  “I’m clergy,” Dante said without missing a beat. Ordinarily, clergymen were required to provide a valid ordination certificate to be added to the chaplain’s list, but again, Trick could talk. He was allowed to see his friend at once and bring in his ordination certificate next time, which he did. It was very official—seal and all—and cost him all of twenty dollars and a few hours of his time.

  Once he realized that clergy were not subject to the metal detectors, Dante had promptly tracked down horn-rimmed glasses and a double-breasted suit at local thrift shops, made his cutaway Bible, and begun visiting his friend weekly, bringing in cigarettes, food, and other desirable items. Dante’s friend told a few of his most trusted associates in lockup, and before long his client base was established.

  It was five years later that new regulations required eligible clergy to list a street address for their house of worship, and that was when Broadmoor Outreach Tabernacle was born. Purchasing the deserted front and retrofitting it as a church took much of Dante’s accumulated profits, but it was necessary. And it had attracted the attention of La Bella Donna, who found herself in need of a mechanism for smuggling items in and out of the old county jail. It was certainly a niche service. Prisons were far less problematic. Any prisoner knew which guard could be paid off to slip an odd item into the bottom of his lunch pail and get it to an inmate, but the jail—home to pretrial felons and those serving less than a year—was Dante’s domain and his alone.

  What a waste. His talents, which had at one time seemed like a sure pass to unfettered success, had dead-ended here—a half million in the hole and six days to pay. He looked down at his three options and made a decision. It was time to launch the city’s first Father the Fatherless campaign. He would begin with an initial fund-raising drive. He looked in the mirror and smiled.

  “My name is Reverend Dante Watkins, and I’m helping to raise money for fatherless children. Will you help us reach our goal of five hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Fletcher, come here a minute.” Meg beckoned her husband from the door of the men’s sleeping quarters. He leapt his way over air mattresses and duffels until he was face-to-face with her.

  “What’s up?”

  “Ivy forgot her toiletries. It’s the only thing I asked her to pack, but somehow she forgot them. Can you find a store and get her some deodorant—unscented—and a toothbrush. She can share the rest with me. Here, I wrote it down for you.”

  “No problem.” He took the note and gave her a peck on the lips. He made contact, but it was impossible not to notice her involuntarily pulling back. Fletcher looked at the note for a moment and walked out onto the street without another word. He felt like brooding, but it was a gorgeous day—seventy-three degrees with an intermittent breeze—and here he was, back in the city he loved.

  Fletcher had been single-mindedly trying not to despise his life in the suburbs. After all, it was better for Ivy. Now that money was tight, the city was no place for a child to grow up. He’d reminded himself of that a thousand times as he tried to find their new town quaint and charming, and he’d almost convinced himself. But now that he was back where he belonged, the truth was all too clear.

  Here there was room to wander and explore. Here you could blend in or stick out. This was the city where grifters, con men, and cardsharps had invented the game and honed their craft a century earlier—men like Curley Carter and Big Lawson. He loved the fact that he could walk for half an hour in any direction and he’d still be in the sprawling city. Yeah, he might get shot, but he’d never get bored.

  By contrast, the smallness of his life as a parolee—the menial job, the lack of public art or culture, the smug, small-minded people—was suffocating. It was somehow smaller than life in prison. In a way, it was prison. He loved his family and, for their sake, he would continue to do his time. But for the moment, it was nice to be Outside.

  He wandered for forty-five minutes before he remembered the task at hand and circled back toward the church. When he was about six blocks away, Fletcher spotted a sign that read PHAR ACY in large neon letters. He opened the door with a jingle and stepped in. Whatever the missing letter had been (Fletcher’s money was on an M), the store was clearly in the midst of an identity crisis. One wall, running the length of the entire shop, was stocked floor to ceiling with liquor. Three fixed security cameras kept an eye on the merchandise. In the back corner, where the pharmacist had once stood, was a selection of pipes, bongs, and rolling papers.

  Sure, this place was grim, but it was still the city. Fletcher could smell cars being manufactured nearby and feel six-figure deals being closed dozens of stories above his head. He located the slim selection of personal care items and grabbed a toothbrush and some deodorant. Meg had both underlined and circled the words fragrance-free, but Fletcher couldn’t exactly be choosy here. Perhaps he would come across another store and see if he could find something better. For now, he got in line to pay.

  The man in front of him held a bottle of wine in each hand and a copy of the Free Press under his arm. Fletcher silently admired the weave of the man’s suit and suddenly felt self-conscious about his T-shirt and jeans. The man took a step forward, and the newspaper fluttered down from under his arm. Fletcher knelt and quickly gathered it up.

  “Here you go, buddy,” he said, extending the newspaper. “You dropped your pa—”

  Fletcher froze at the sight of the man’s face.

  “Andrew?”

  “Fletcher!” Andrew wrapped his arms around Fletcher and nearly lifted him up off the ground. “I can’t believe it’s you. I thought you were still in the pen.”

  “No, I . . . um . . .” He clamped his eyes shut and reopened them, not at all surprised to find that his mentor and former partner had not vanished into thin air. Andrew Bishop was a couple inches taller than Fletcher and about ten years older. His brown hair and eyes and square jaw made him the grifter’s ideal—handsome, but not memorably so. He oozed enthusiasm on everyone he engaged in conversation, but in a way that left them feeling like it was their own.

  “Good grief, kid, I haven’t seen you in six, seven years? You look great.”

  “Thanks. You look pretty good too. Doing well for yourself?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right. But forget me. How are you? How’s Meg? Ivy must be, what, ten years old?”

  Fletcher suddenly felt sick. He was violating his parole talking to this man, and he did not like hearing the names of his wife and daughter from Andrew’s lips. He stepped back toward the door, instinctively pocketing the toothbrush and deodorant.

  “I’m . . . They’re fine, Andrew. I have to go.”

  He backed out the door and almost ran right over an older man who apparently had been just standing there, staring at the door of the PHAR ACY. Fletcher stopped his retreat a moment to gawk. The man was short and ugly and dressed like it was Halloween, wearing a loose-knit robe that dragged on the ground. With both hands he held a long, dirty piece of fabric up to his heart. But what had Fletcher locked in were the man’s eyes. At first he thought they were crazy, the eyes of your everyday sidewalk madman, but then he realized that it was the way the man was staring at him, into him—a
lmost with a familiarity.

  Fletcher backed away slowly, then turned and headed back to the church at a clip. Perhaps the city was not as great a place as he remembered.

  CHAPTER 10

  Fletcher’s extended errand had caused him to miss lunch, and his stomach growled audibly through a lengthy and dreadfully dull orientation that he could have summed up in nine words: We break up into teams and go help people. Brad had nodded vigorously during the entire presentation, which annoyed Fletcher all the more.

  He was approaching hangry status by the time they formed a winding line in the church’s fellowship hall, leading eventually to a makeshift buffet full of grayish meat and mixed vegetables. As he watched both being slopped onto his tray with large metal serving spoons, he couldn’t help but note the similarity to the chow line at Jackson.

  “Ivy can’t use that deodorant,” Meg said as they shoveled the tasteless food into their mouths. “She’s allergic to the perfumes they use. I told you it had to be fragrance-free.”

  “Sorry,” Fletcher said. He was trying to forget the afternoon rendezvous with Andrew and the creepy old man in the robe.

  “How did it take you that long to get two things?” There was an edge to her voice that could have been accusation or something more benign. “There’s a Rite Aid, like, three doors down.”

  “It was nice out,” Fletcher said, trying and failing to identify his meat. “I hadn’t been to the city for years, so I took a walk.”

  “Well, Brad was on the warpath. Be warned. I tried to cover for you, but he was ranting and raving about how we’re responsible for these kids and what if we all just wandered off and on and on.”