The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  “This is preposterous,” Faust said, punching a button on the phone and hanging up on the woman. “Mr. Belltower has a professional art buyer on retainer. There is no chance that he has forgeries in his collection. But if you’d like, you can send someone out this weekend to—”

  “This weekend?” Fletcher wheeled to face Andrew. “I have to be in Toronto tomorrow!”

  “I know,” Andrew said, his voice low and calming.

  “You know? Well, know this: if I don’t lay eyes on these Renoirs tonight, I’m opening an investigation on the whole collection. And that’s on you, Jenkins.” He pushed a finger into Andrew’s chest, then turned his attention to Faust. “Here’s my contact information,” he said, pulling the modified business card from its case. “Give me a call if you decide to stop playing games.”

  Faust glanced at the card for just a moment before slipping it into his inside jacket pocket. “I think we can accommodate you tonight,” he said, forcing a smile. He turned to Belltower and asked, “Are you planning on staying in this evening?”

  The old man smiled pleasantly. “We’ve nothing at the lodge, so yes. Feel free to stop by. Not too late; I turn in rather early.”

  “How’s eight o’clock?” Andrew asked.

  “Sounds delightful,” the old man said, clasping his hands together.

  “Fine,” Fletcher said. “We’ll see you then.”

  They were halfway to the door when Faust called after them, “Mr. Lyons, if you don’t mind my asking, how long have you been with Ultima Insurance?”

  Fletcher took a half step back into the office. “I don’t work for Ultima directly. I’ve been contracting with them as a freelance appraiser for four years now.” He noticed that Faust had Happy’s phony business card in his hand once again and was studying it.

  “You don’t mind if I check up on you a bit, do you?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  Fletcher smiled politely. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT,” HAPPY ASSURED THE OTHERS, BACK IN the van. “I set up the usual background stuff: An account on LinkUp with connections to a bunch of people in the industry. Jordan Lyons’s name shows up on the archives of a variety of university and art museum websites and publications. Just what you’d expect of an appraiser starting to build his name.”

  Fletcher leaned against the computer-laden counter, his weight causing it to sag. “We’ve got our invite,” he said. “So what’s the objective?”

  Andrew handed him a rolled-up blueprint of a sprawling Georgian-style house, which Fletcher unfurled on the counter, pushing aside a soldering iron and a collection of cell phones.

  “Here is where the art is stored,” Andrew said, pointing with an ink pen. “You’ll keep Faust and Belltower busy there while I enter here, directly into the library, and access a safe hidden there.”

  Happy giggled. “Who has a library?”

  “Rich people,” Fletcher said. “But the question is, what do they hide in the library?”

  Andrew shrugged. “He called it a satchel.”

  “Like a book bag, with a strap?” Happy asked.

  “No strap. It’s a leather case, a little smaller than that.” He gestured at Happy’s laptop. “That’s all I know. The Alchemist wants it, so we need it. Happy will keep in contact with eyes on the house from this vantage point in the woods, just the other side of the property line. We’ve been set up there for two weeks without being discovered.”

  “How many on his home security staff?” Fletcher asked, studying the plans.

  “Four,” Andrew answered. “But there’s a brief window in the evening when only Faust is on-site. We’ll be in and out before that window closes.”

  Fletcher traced his finger along the natural routes and ran through the basic plan in his head. “This leaves too much to chance. What if Faust leaves during my appraisal and does the rounds?”

  “It’s your job to keep him by your side. Besides, guy’s a control freak. He won’t leave you alone with the old man, let alone with all that priceless art.”

  “I don’t know,” Fletcher said. “I think we need another player. Someone to run an Uncle Billy if things get dicey.”

  Andrew pursed his lips. “Now that’s not a bad idea. How much cash you got left in the briefcase?”

  “Almost four grand.”

  “That’ll get us our choice of cast members. How about the Trilby kid? He could run an Uncle Billy in his sleep and then pop around the back and help me with the safe.”

  “No way,” Fletcher said. “I’m breaking my parole by talking to you guys, by being in this stupid van. Every person from my past we add to the roster increases my chances of going back to prison. It’s got to be a stranger.”

  “What about Mad Mike?” Happy offered. “You ever worked with him?”

  “Yeah, that check-cashing thing. Andrew, you’ve got to know somebody from before my time.”

  “Guys are spread all over. New York, Indy, LA. It’s not like there’s a job board to keep track of who’s in town.” Andrew rubbed the back of his neck. “I think we might be stuck making this work with the three of us.”

  Fletcher felt his hand instinctively go for his pocket, as if it remembered the folded piece of paper before he did. “I’ve got it,” he said.

  “Someone you met on the Inside?”

  “Someone I met yesterday.” He climbed up over the console into the passenger seat. “Head up to Broadmoor. We’re going to church.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Happy was nervously plotting their surroundings, assessing potential danger, his trademark paranoia operating in the vicinity of threat level orange. “Hurry up, Fletcher,” he said. “This is not a great neighborhood. And look at us. We’re like a violent criminal’s coupon over here. Three for one. Like a triple-scoop sundae for muggers, and I’m the cherry on top.”

  “You mean the carrot on top?” Fletcher asked.

  Andrew chortled. “The carrottop.”

  “Carrottops are green, moron.”

  Fletcher pounded again on the metal accordion gate stretched over the front door of Broadmoor Outreach Tabernacle. He could see a light on inside, back where the preacher had disappeared the day before, but no other signs of life.

  He pulled out the flyer once again, along with his phone. He had two more texts from Meg, both asking how he was doing. “Hang on a second,” he said, quickly responding to his wife.

  Still sick, he wrote, resting. Before he’d finished dialing the number on the flyer, another message popped up from Meg.

  So U R at the church then?

  He paused, unsure how to answer. What if she had returned to the church herself and this was some kind of a trap to catch him in a lie? He decided to put it off. He could always claim that the necessities of illness and bodily functions had kept him from responding. She wouldn’t push for details there. He closed the message and dialed the contact number for the Father the Fatherless campaign.

  After two rings a scratchy voice answered. “It’s a blest day at Broadmoor Outreach Tabernacle. How may I help you?”

  “Hey, this is Fletcher. We met yesterday.”

  Nothing.

  “You showed me your Bible, remember?”

  “Right. What do you want?”

  “I’m standing outside your church. You want to let me in?” He could almost feel Dante’s irritated sigh blowing out through the earpiece of the phone. “Look, I know you don’t trust anybody, so I brought payment up front. It’s not half a mil, but it’s better than nothing.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  A moment later Dante appeared, unlocking the gate and waving them in.

  “What are we talking about here?” he asked. Every muscle in his face was drawn back, taut. “I don’t have time to play around.”

  “I’m going to be straight with you,” Fletcher said. “You’re on the grift. So are we. My name’s Fletcher. These are my partners, Happy Ganton and Andrew Bishop.”

  Da
nte pointed at Andrew. “You, I’ve heard of.”

  “We’re not talking long con here,” Fletcher said. “We’re talking one night. We need a fourth, somebody on standby for an Uncle Billy, maybe help keep an eye on the big picture. Pays two grand.”

  “Three,” Dante countered.

  “Two point five,” Andrew said, his tone closing negotiations.

  “Okay,” Dante nodded. “I’ll accept twenty-five hundred tonight and a line on another job tomorrow. Take it or leave it.”

  “You got it,” Andrew said, reaching out his hand.

  Dante’s brow crumpled. “Grifters don’t shake on a deal.”

  “Just checking,” Andrew said with a smile. “So what’s your name?”

  “Call me Trick.”

  “GUN IT! TAKE A LEFT HERE.” FLETCHER DUCKED DOWN IN THE passenger seat.

  “What is it?” Andrew asked.

  “Meg and Ivy are getting out of that van back there. They’ll be in the church in a second. Pull me around to the other side. Quick! Yeah, pull over here.”

  Andrew squealed to a stop. Fletcher jumped down to the curb. “See you guys in an hour,” he said.

  “Wait.” Happy thrust a plastic bottle and a small plastic bag out the window. “Don’t forget your upset stomach.”

  “Right.”

  Fletcher was halfway up the stone walkway when he remembered his clothes, rolled up and stuffed into the gym bag in the back of Happy’s van. Idiot. Why hadn’t he changed in the van on the way back? He broke into an awkward run, encumbered by the dress shoes.

  The church would already be full of kids and chaperones; he would have no way of getting to his luggage in the sleeping quarters without answering a hundred questions about the suit and wingtips. Time to improvise. He burst in through the emergency exit and mounted the first few stairs up to the hallway. He could hear no one in the immediate vicinity, but Ivy’s laugh wafted in from a distance. She was getting closer. And she was far from alone.

  Taking a chance, he rushed up the stairs, then turned 180 degrees and raced up another floor, unsure what he’d find there. The area had been skipped during the initial tour and deemed off-limits to the youth groups temporarily calling the church home.

  A woman looked up at Fletcher from behind an old steel desk. Her matronly face formed a warm smile.

  “You must be Dr. Simonetti,” she said. “Let me tell Father Sacha you’re here.”

  “No,” he practically yelled. “Don’t—”

  “He’s been waiting for you,” she insisted, pushing a button on her desk intercom. “Dr. Simonetti is here,” she chirped.

  “I need a bathroom,” Fletcher said, trying to convey urgency.

  “There’s one just off Father Sacha’s office.”

  He could hear the priest’s footsteps approaching from around a corner beyond the secretary’s desk.

  “No, I’m . . . I’m kind of sick.” He put a hand on his stomach. “I need some privacy.”

  The woman’s smile turned to concern and empathy and froze there for the space of at least three footsteps. Fletcher’s phone began to ring in his pocket, a stupid TV theme song that had seemed cute when he’d downloaded it two months earlier. He willed the phone to shut up and the woman to speak.

  “Through those doors behind you and to the left,” she finally said. “I’ll tell Father Sacha you’ll be a few more minutes.”

  Fletcher turned and bolted, seeing the reflection of the priest rounding the corner behind him in the glass door as he yanked it open. He left scuff marks on the floor and threw himself into the small unisex bathroom, locking the door behind him. He pulled out his still-ringing phone and hit Ignore.

  His sense of panic at being cornered here quickly downgraded itself to simple concern when he saw the double-hung window, providing a view of the garden below. By Fletcher’s estimation, he was almost directly beneath the third-story room from which the priest had spotted him the day before. His phone chirped again, the tone itself seeming to grow more urgent with each unanswered call and message.

  Where R U??? it demanded. Fletcher flinched. Neither he nor Meg had texted when he was first arrested and imprisoned almost seven years earlier. While he was locked up, his wife—despite being an otherwise intelligent and educated woman—had picked up the same annoying shorthand their twelve-year-old daughter used.

  He closed the toilet lid and sat down. Bathroom on the second floor, he wrote. Still feeling sick.

  Off-limits 2nd floor? she replied.

  Yes. Needed some privacy. He was getting some mileage out of that one.

  B right there. She must have been thumb-typing while climbing the stairs as the message arrived almost concurrent with her knocking on the door, calling, “Fletcher? Are you in there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, affecting a pained voice.

  “You okay?”

  “Not really, hon. Must have been that junk they fed us last night. Worse than prison food. I’m feeling pretty torn up.”

  “Well, they’re taking us out for pizza tonight,” she said brightly. “It’s a surprise for the kids.”

  “You go ahead,” Fletcher said, remembering the bottle and small bag in his hand. “If I so much as smell pizza, I’m through.” He stood and opened the window, looking down two stories at the ground below. If he hung by his fingertips, it would only be about an eight-foot drop into some yew bushes.

  “That’s a shame,” Meg said. “It’s going to be fun. Ivy’s ecstatic. It’s Reno’s East. Remember that place? You took me there for our second date. Or maybe our third.”

  Fletcher was uh-huhing as she talked and unscrewing the top from the twenty-ounce bottle. He needed its contents because he was not really sick, although his stomach was clenching all the same—clenching in regret that he had to miss a chance at some real family time; clenching in anger at the Alchemist and Andrew for their endless demands and total disregard for any collateral damage in Fletcher’s life; and clenching in guilt, because he knew deep down that he’d rather be heading to William Belltower’s estate to empty that safe than to Reno’s East with his wife and daughter.

  “That sounds great, hon,” he said. “I really wish I could go.”

  The smell from the bottle choked Fletcher a bit. The evening before, upon returning from his shopping trip, he’d dropped two dozen match heads into a cup of ammonia and screwed the top back on tightly. They had been reacting for twenty-four hours, forming ammonium sulfide, the same chemical that gave rotten eggs their distinctive smell.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to try and come?” Meg asked, the disappointment in her voice palpable. “You don’t have to eat; you could just sit with us.”

  “I’d just be uncomfortable, and I’d ruin the fun for you guys.”

  “I’ll stay with you, then,” she said.

  “No, please don’t,” Fletcher said, pulling the pack of Glisten teeth-whitening strips from the bag and stuffing several strips into the mouth of the bottle. He needed more of that foul smell. Tightening the cap again, he shook the bottle vigorously.

  “Sickness and in health,” Meg sang. “Let me take care of you, okay?”

  The bottle was getting warmer in Fletcher’s hand—a good sign. The bleaching agent was acting as a catalyst to speed up the chemical reaction. Fletcher cracked the bottle and the fumes just about knocked him over. He poured a little of the mixture into the sink, reminding himself that breathing too much could be fatal. His stomach turned further at the smell.

  This was not the impression Fletcher wanted to make on his wife, especially considering their recently rekindled physical relationship, but he knew there was no better way to override someone’s principles than to overwhelm their senses. Whether for good or ill, people could only handle so much input.

  “No, really, I can stay,” Meg said, her voice now free of conviction. Fletcher could hear her talking through her hand. He couldn’t blame her. The stench was thick.

  Andrew had taught him the trick o
f clearing a room with ammonium sulfide years earlier, and this was far from the first time it had come in handy. It may seem juvenile, Andrew had explained, but the US government had spent millions developing what they called a Standard Bathroom Malodor spray, which they used to disperse crowds almost instantly without the inherent dangers of tear gas or rubber bullets. If you can’t read your opponent’s peg, you can always create one—like the need to retreat from a horrible smell.

  He poured a little more into the sink and closed the bottle. His eyes were watering. “Really, hon. I’d just like some privacy,” he said, the words edged with embarrassment. “Promise me you won’t check on me tonight, okay? Have fun, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay.” She was another ten feet away, Fletcher could tell—backing up, probably involuntarily. “But answer my texts, all right? I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “I promise,” Fletcher said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” He heard her footsteps descending the stairs.

  Fletcher slumped back onto the toilet. The first time his wife had said “I love you” in years, and it was through a bathroom door amidst a fog of lies and the rotten-egg stench of a homemade stink bomb.

  CHAPTER 25

  AUGUST 7, 1784

  PALACE OF VERSAILLES, FRANCE

  The queen met her lovers by night in the garden of the Chateau de Versailles. Many people knew this, but few thought about it as frequently or as vividly as Cardinal de Rohan. He had read her invitation to meet there at least a hundred times over, pausing every few readings to reread their former correspondence. Marie Antoinette’s language had grown increasingly more familiar, more amorous, more leading.

  And the last letter had led him here, to the garden. Rohan’s insides were a clenched fist of anxiety. He thought of the years of disfavor, the iron ceiling halting his upward social and political movement. The cardinal had badly miscalculated in what he had written to the queen’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa, years earlier, then again in the rumors he had drunkenly repeated about the empress to women with loose morals and looser lips—the former being a preference of the cardinal, and the latter having been his downfall on more than one occasion.