The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  Fletcher cleared his throat. “Actually, uh . . . I never finished the PhD.”

  “Yes, you did,” Meg said.

  “I finished the course work and submitted my dissertation, but I never actually got around to defending it.”

  She stared at him, mouth agape. “But we had a party.”

  “I know. It’s just—you were so excited when I said I was done and you kept going on about how nice it would be to have me around for Ivy’s milestones and everything . . . I didn’t have the heart to tell you there was more to the process.”

  “I’m glad your family was such a priority,” she said quietly. “Really panned out.”

  “I’m sorry, Meg. I was—”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I just want to get Ivy back. So how do we get these letters?”

  “Probably have to wait till dark,” Andrew said. “I’d guess security is lax at a midsized private college.”

  “Forget that,” Fletcher said. “You ever been to one of these snooty college libraries with their little restricted areas?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, I have, and I guarantee the only thing standing between us and these letters is some egghead college junior trapped behind a circulation desk while his classmates come and go, laughing and making plans. How do you think we get in?”

  “You mean we pull a Coletto,” Andrew said. They all looked at Meg. “You think she’s got it in her?

  CHAPTER 39

  Honestly, the last thing I want is to eat,” Meg said. “My stomach is in knots.”

  “Get some toast then,” Fletcher said. “You’ll need fuel if you’re going to pull this off.”

  Andrew scoffed. “This isn’t the Louvre. It’s a college library.” He snapped his fingers at a passing waitress. “Dear, we’re ready to order. Bring us a pot of coffee, some toast, and three hippy hash breakfasts.”

  “Ah, what the heck,” Dante said. “Make it four.” Happy grabbed his shoulders and shook him excitedly.

  Andrew was straightening and restraightening his silverware—an annoying habit. “I suppose this is sort of an initiation, though, isn’t it?” he said, giving Meg an appraising look. “I mean, if you’re going to be on our team, we need to make sure you’re up to the challenge.”

  Meg stewed for a moment, opening her mouth just as the waitress arrived with the coffee. A flurry of activity followed as cups were filled and packets torn.

  When all was calm again, Fletcher said, “Look, hon, you already know how to do this. It’s just like theatre. A good grift involves all the same elements as a play. You’ve got the audience—that’s your mark. You’ve got costumes, makeup. A grifter needs to know his character’s motivation and backstory. You have to make it so real that people don’t notice any of what’s going on behind the scenes. And you have to sell your performance. That’s why they used to call grifters ‘confidence men’—you have to truly believe that you are this person in this situation or your mark won’t believe it.”

  “Just like theatre,” Meg repeated.

  “I actually picked up a lot from watching you practice and perform.”

  “Lovely,” Meg said, stirring her coffee. “But we don’t have time to put together a real show. That takes months.”

  “You’re right. And that’s okay. I mean, some of the greatest grifts have had a huge scope, like a Broadway production—workshopping, full cast and crew, dress rehearsals. They involved a complex web of coordinated grifts, perfectly synchronized to create a smoke screen. But we’ve got a skeleton crew here and almost no budget.”

  “That’s how we roll,” Happy said.

  Andrew tipped back in his chair. “Those large-scale classic cons were built around what they used to call the Big Store. It was a semipermanent setup, made to look like a well-established operation. Maybe a bookmaker’s office, maybe a bank. The illusion of permanence set the mark’s mind at ease. It’s like Dante’s place. Looks like a church, all the trappings of a church. Why would anyone think it wasn’t a church?”

  Dante stared into his coffee cup.

  “But we play the mark against the wall,” Andrew said. He refilled his coffee as he spoke, topping it off until the meniscus was visible above the brim of the cup. “No Big Store, no permanent location. The best grifters change with the times, just like Cagliostro. Back in the twenties a grifter had to part with a chunk of his profits to hire solid shills—those are like the extras who posed as bankers and telegraph men.” He carefully slurped some coffee from his overfilled mug. “But not anymore. Today people walk up to an ATM or type a password on their laptop and then believe whatever the screen tells them. And what makes up the information on the screen? Little glowing dots. Did you know that little glowing dots work for free? We only need to pay their supervisor.” He slapped Happy on the shoulder. “And glowing dots never get greedy or drop the ball or quit at the last minute. A skeleton crew is an asset these days if you do it right. And it all comes down to one thing.”

  Meg shrugged impatiently. “What?”

  “This.” Andrew tipped his coffee cup over in her direction. She gasped and scrambled halfway up onto Fletcher’s lap.

  “Oops. Nothing in the cup,” Andrew said, smiling. “But you knew for a fact that there was. That’s object permanence. It separates infants from toddlers, and we couldn’t get along without it, but a grifter can use it to his advantage. That’s why we always say ‘show, don’t tell.’ If your mark’s peg is money, you show money. It’s no good to just talk about it. Talk might stir up a little interest, but people lose all rationality when they actually see it or, better yet, feel it. Even in the age of glowing dots, nothing beats fat stacks of cash.

  “The old confidence men would have a safe in the wall at the Big Store with a trick panel in the back. The mark would see money changing hands all around him and stacks and stacks of it deposited in the safe. What he didn’t know is that it was the same stacks going in again and again, then coming around from the next room and back into the pockets of the shills. In the mark’s mind, the total is growing in that safe. That’s object permanence.”

  “We think it works better without the Big Store,” Fletcher said. “People see no room for sleight of hand. What’s in that briefcase I just handed you? If you’ve seen the inside of an identical briefcase a minute ago, your mind will fill it in.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Or what’s in that fanny pack on the back of your desk chair?”

  Meg kept her eyes locked on Andrew. “So how would I use that at the college? I’m not offering the librarian money.”

  “It’s all misdirection,” Andrew said. “You create an event over there—something complex, something outrageous—while you’re helping yourself over here.”

  The waitress arrived, precariously balancing the many plates on a single tray.

  Fletcher felt his stomach twist at the sight of the hippy hash in front of him. He scraped it away and slid the egg out from beneath. “The goal is always the same,” he said. “Get your mark chomping on the bit to convince you of your own grift. Never be overeager, never try to close the deal. That’s the mark’s job. You just find his peg—money, power, pleasure, whatever—and twist it.”

  “Cupidity is your friend,” Andrew agreed.

  “Cupidity?” Meg asked.

  “It’s an old grifter word. It’s like greed, but deeper.”

  “The Bible calls it covetousness,” Fletcher said.

  Andrew shook his head. “I like cupidity better. Rhymes with stupidity, which works because people are at their stupidest when they want more and more.”

  “Like the platinum ring you gave me,” Meg said, turning toward Fletcher. “You knew I wanted it, and it made me stupid enough to miss what was really going on with you guys.”

  “No—”

  “Exactly,” Andrew said.

  “What do you think of the hash?” Happy asked Dante.

  “I could see it growing on me.”

  Happy laughed. �
��I could see it growing on something.”

  Meg pushed her plate away and rested her head on her hand. “I can’t believe you had this whole other life and I was oblivious to it.”

  Andrew reached across the table and squeezed her elbow. “Hey, anybody we grifted was trying to get something he didn’t deserve. They should have listened when their parents told them ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably ain’t.’ ”

  “Is,” Meg said.

  “Hmm?”

  “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

  “Not how I heard it,” Andrew said. “It’s good, but it isn’t true.”

  Happy shook his head. “No, Meg’s right. It’s true, but it isn’t good.”

  “Either way,” Fletcher said, “it’s cupidity, and that’s key. Because you can’t grift an honest man . . .”

  “And there are no honest men!” the four veteran grifters thundered, followed by a smattering of laughter around the table.

  Fletcher felt Meg glaring at him and locked eyes with her. His smile froze, then faded.

  CHAPTER 40

  Undo one more button,” Happy said. “What? I’m not being creepy, that’s just—”

  “He’s right,” Fletcher said from behind the wheel of the van. “Misdirection.” He changed lanes to avoid a pothole.

  “I’m not that kind of actress,” Meg said. “The button stays.”

  They had stopped briefly by St. John the Baptist, where Meg had run in and retrieved luggage and air mattresses from the women’s sleeping quarters. She had been planning to grab Fletcher’s as well, but she heard a number of male voices coming from the men’s quarters and thought better of it. What if Brad was there? Or someone else from their group? Better not to have to explain her presence.

  “And to think you didn’t want me to pack this,” Meg said, indicating her suit. She had changed en route in the back of the van while Happy covered his eyes, and Fletcher became suddenly preoccupied with checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. She was now trying to straighten her twisted shirt.

  “Come here a minute,” Happy said, leaning off his chair and pinning an ugly old turquoise brooch to her lapel. He then plugged an audio connector to the back of it, inside the jacket. “Run this wire around to the small of your back and clip this on your waist,” he said, handing her a bulky plastic casing. “That way we can listen in. If you get in trouble, Fletch’ll save the day. Always does.”

  Meg twisted in her chair and felt the telltale bulge in her coat. “This is pretty obvious,” she said. “Do people still wear an actual wire? I thought that was just an expression. Can’t they fit everything into the pin itself?”

  “You can buy that stuff, but I make all our gadgets, custom. And hiding a bug in a watch or a cufflink is pretty much impossible. You’ve got a bunch of components—mic, power source, transmitter—that all have to fit in a tight spot without being obvious.”

  “What if you have to bug someone without them knowing?”

  “Well, a cell phone already has a mic and a battery and the capacity to broadcast sound as a digital signal. All that’s missing is for somebody like me to hack the device, reprogram it to transmit all the time, and you’ve got a steady stream of audio wherever they go. They’ll even recharge the bug for me every night.”

  Meg crinkled her brow. “Really? I’ve been pocket-dialed before. You can’t understand what people are saying.”

  Happy waved a hand dismissively. “The right software can filter out most of that rustling and isolate the voice. Plus, people rarely let their phones leave their hands anymore.”

  Meg turned her attention to the items on the shelf behind her. “What’s this thing?” she asked.

  Fletcher had seen this brand of curiosity before; Meg dealt with nerves or stress by asking an endless stream of questions and focusing on minutiae.

  “That’s a squib vest,” Happy answered proudly. “This little bulb here is from a blood pressure cuff. You squeeze it and blood squirts out of your chest. Fake blood. It’s for pinching the gizzard.”

  “ ‘Pinching the’—I’m sorry?”

  “In the old days, if a mark got too curious, the Outside Man would put a little rubber pouch full of chicken blood in his mouth. Then the Inside Man would shoot him with a blank and he’d bite down on it and blood would pour down his chin.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “It works, though,” Fletcher said. “You overwhelm someone’s senses like that, they’ll disappear.”

  “What about this?” Meg asked, picking up a short node at the end of a thick wire.

  “Don’t touch that!”

  Meg yanked her hand back.

  “Sorry. I call that the Happy Zapper. Far superior to your standard police Taser. Except you have to lug this battery pack around, so it’s not very stealthy.”

  “About five minutes and we’ll be there,” Fletcher said.

  Meg closed her eyes and pushed her fingertips to her mouth.

  “You’ll do fine,” Happy said. “Remember, cupidity leads to stupidity. Find your mark’s peg and his snare.”

  Meg opened her eyes. “Snare? What’s that?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Never mind.”

  “No, tell me. It’ll keep my mind off—you know.”

  “The snare is something shameful or illegal—so forbidden that your mark would rather swallow his losses than admit what he’s done. If he was trying to skirt the law himself or he was trying to cheat the grifter, then he can’t really go to the cops without incriminating himself. Or if he’s a family man and he was after another woman, or he’s a politician and he was promising favors—he’s actually swindled himself and then he gags himself. That’s your back end, your insurance.”

  “Like blackmail,” Meg said.

  They pulled into a drive and past a large sign that read CASTILLE COLLEGE, surrounded by immaculately pruned Old Garden roses.

  “Self-blackmail,” Happy said. “Anyway, no need for all that here. All you’ll need to cool this mark is to give him your phone number before you leave. And you really should undo one more button.”

  Fletcher pulled into a parking spot. “Looks like that’s the library just past the fountain there. Remember, as many pics as you can get.”

  Meg hopped out the side door and walked around to the driver’s window. “Any last words of advice?” she asked.

  “Yeah. If you think you’re made, just smile,” Fletcher said. “Or better yet, laugh. Nothing makes you look guilty faster than trying to look serious. And make sure your eyes crinkle when you smile.”

  “Should I try and fake a dimple too?”

  Courtney had been thrust back into the bare room two hours after being taken. She’d been sobbing but wouldn’t say why. Ivy rubbed her back and said, “Shhh shhhh” like her mother always did when she was upset.

  “You should splash some cold water on your face,” she said, walking over to the door and banging on it. “Excuse me,” she called out. “We need to use the bathroom! Hello?”

  A moment later the door opened a few inches. Ivy took an involuntary step back at the sight of the man with the scar. “You just went a few hours ago,” he said gruffly.

  “Girls have to go more than boys.”

  He entered the room and ordered them both to turn around before again blindfolding them and leading them the thirty paces to the men’s room. Once inside he pulled off the blindfolds, ordered, “Make it quick,” and left the room.

  Courtney splashed some water on her face while Ivy—again channeling Meg—ran some paper towels under the faucet, wrung out the excess water, and placed them on the back of Courtney’s neck. She rubbed the older girl’s back again for a minute before Courtney announced, “I actually have to go” and disappeared into the bathroom’s lone stall.

  Ivy plopped to the floor and opened the cabinet beneath the sink, pawing through the dirty space. There was an aerosol can of disinfectant, a mostly empty plastic tub of liquid soap, and
two small bottles made of amber glass. She pulled out the two glass bottles and tipped them toward the sink. Empty. They were only about four inches tall and looked very old and very interesting. She turned on the water and began rinsing them out.

  The toilet flushed and Courtney emerged, far more composed. Squeezing up next to Ivy, she pumped some soap onto her hands and ran them under the water.

  “You’re still doing that thing with the bottles, huh?” she asked.

  Ivy said nothing, just dried them off and placed one in each of her shorts pockets. “We’re all done,” she bellowed.

  The man with the scar reblindfolded them and led them back to their room, where he—or someone—had spread out two sleeping bags while they were away.

  “Thank you,” Ivy said. The man grunted and shut the door. She looked at Courtney and noticed that the whole side of her face had begun turning a deep blue. Leaning in close, she wrapped her arms around her friend’s neck and whispered in her ear, “I could see out the side of my blindfold on the way to the bathroom. There’s a door and a window.”

  “So?” Courtney whispered.

  “There’s only one of him and two of us. And there’s some chemical cleaner under the sink. The next time he takes us to the bathroom, one of us can spray him in the eyes and we can run for the door.”

  Courtney shook her head violently. “No. We can’t.” Her calm was receding as fast as it had settled in. “We need to just do what they say.”

  “Don’t you watch TV?” Ivy asked. “Kidnappers never let you go. They always kill you.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Meg looked at her reflection in the glass doors as she approached the library, trying to gauge the effect she would have on a stranger. She paused. Maybe she should unbutton one more. No, she would not follow Fletcher’s script. Look where it had gotten him. She would help get Ivy back from these monsters, integrity intact.

  The library was larger than Meg expected, with low light and walls of finished dark wood and framed art. She approached the circulation desk, tentatively at first, then remembered that it was all about confidence. She straightened her spine and walked with quick, purposeful steps up to the desk. There was nobody there. She rang the little bell, wincing at how loud it was in the otherwise silent room. Hearing someone approach from behind, she panicked and undid another button.