The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  “It was a file on Julian Faust,” Fletcher said. “But there was something else inside, something the Alchemist was willing to kill to protect.”

  “But they covered their faces,” Dante said. “Tried to grift you into thinking they were assassins for the Knights of Malta.”

  “We’re being grifted all the way around,” Fletcher said. “And I think William Belltower is too. Guy’s like a charter member of the Order, and his head of security belongs to a group trying to usurp their power? I think Faust wants the necklace.”

  “Speaking of the necklace,” Andrew said, “did Happy get anything useful?”

  They all looked to Meg, who had been sifting through the Fonseca and Balsamo files. After counting to two hundred behind the bar, Fletcher had managed to summon the will to unclip the shoulder strap from Happy’s bag and slide it out from under his body.

  Meg looked up, eyes lifeless and red from crying. “I don’t know,” she said. “José Fonseca’s file is just a will—nothing jumps out at me. Cagliostro’s has the opposite problem. There’s, like, two hundred and fifty pages. Nothing specific. The first entry is dated June 15, 1789. Listen to this: ‘Men who live by the art of misdirection should never apologize.’ ” She dropped the page onto the others. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  Fletcher and Andrew exchanged a look.

  “It’s real?” Fletcher asked.

  “What’s real?”

  “Meg, can you compare the handwriting with the letters to Fonseca and Rohan? Is it the same?”

  She shuffled through a stack of papers until she found the right ones. “Looks about the same.”

  “When is the last entry dated?” Andrew asked.

  “June 13, 1798. But I thought Cagliostro died in 1795.”

  “I told you,” Andrew said. “Faking his death and swapping out a corpse is child’s play for the world’s greatest grifter.”

  “What’s the last entry say?” Dante asked.

  “ ‘I conclude these pages of instruction as I prepare to vanish into the ocean mist, having carried out the greatest ruse the world has ever seen and having acquired the greatest treasure ever amassed.’ ” She flipped the page over and found the other side blank. “That’s the end. But that’s thirteen years after the necklace went missing, so what’s he talking about? What happened on June 13, 1798?”

  Dante grabbed up Happy’s notepad and found the time line he’d sketched from his library books. “Here. ‘June 13, 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte seizes the island of Malta and expels the Knights.’ ”

  “No way,” Fletcher said, rising to his feet. “The ship?” He began to pace.

  “What ship?” Meg asked, her voice devoid of curiosity.

  “What if the French Revolution wasn’t some misdirection-gone-out-of-control? What if Cagliostro and the Grand Masters were actually setting it up on their terms, trying to keep their wealth even after the whole system went down?”

  “I don’t get it,” Dante said. “What’s the angle?”

  Fletcher resumed his seat. “The Knights didn’t come out of the Revolution in very good shape,” he said. “They’d thrown in with the throne—wrong side of history and all that—and the people were really starting to hate them. In 1798, Napoleon showed up on the shores of Malta in force, and all the French knights refused to fight him, which was a pretty good chunk of the total number.

  “Napoleon allowed the Knights to leave and take the hand of St. John with them. But the rest of their treasure—all the church art, relics of the crusades, all the wealth amassed over the centuries—was carried onto one of Napoleon’s ships, eventually destined for Paris. But the English fleet got the jump on them not long after, and it all went to the bottom of the sea. To this day, nothing more than a few coins has ever been recovered.”

  “Could have pulled a switch,” Andrew said. “Definitely would qualify for ‘the greatest ruse the world has ever seen and the greatest treasure ever amassed.’ That’s seven hundred years’ worth of accrued wealth: gold, silver, captured pirate treasure, spoils from the crusades, prizes from Jerusalem, Egypt, Cyprus, Algiers, Tripoli—all sunk to the bottom of the Aboukir Bay. Or not.” He looked at Meg. “Object permanence.”

  “How does this help me get my daughter back?” she asked.

  Andrew cracked his neck. “Let me tell you what I know from my time with the Alchemist. The Republic of Malta gave the Knights the Castel Sant’Angelo back in 1999. That same year, my mentor’s passing interest in Cagliostro turned into a full-blown obsession. He caught wind of something they found hidden in the walls of the castle—a clue to a long-lost treasure. I’ve heard and overheard enough to piece things together. I know why he wants the necklace so bad.”

  “Because it’s worth a hundred million dollars,” Dante said.

  “It’s more than that. It’s the key to finding the take from the greatest heist in history.” Skepticism ruled the room. “Here, I’ll prove it to you.” He opened the cardboard tube, carefully pulled out the map, and unrolled it. “You guys think I just took the monstrance because I don’t like losing, but there’s a better reason.” He unwrapped the monstrance and set it on the map. The three ornate feet fit perfectly into three outlines drawn on the map.

  “The key is pi alpha 19.12, right? I’m no Greek expert, but I’ve been doing some research. It could stand for proelthen astrape . . . Am I saying that right, Fletcher?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it means for a shaft of light to move along a particular path.”

  “Not quite,” Fletcher said. “And that’s pretty awkward Greek. It means ‘lightning came forth.’ ”

  “Whatever. This is what the Alchemist expected. It’s why he sent us after the monstrance. One of the diamonds paid out to LaMotte was replaced with a crystal replica, which will fit into the monstrance, right in the middle. Then we shine light through it at 19.12 degrees, or maybe nineteen degrees, twelve minutes, and it will show us where on the Island of Malta the treasure is hidden.”

  “That’s Indiana Jones,” Dante said.

  “I know. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “No, that actually happens in Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  “Haven’t seen it,” Andrew said.

  Dante shook his head. “First you don’t like my Mustang, now you haven’t seen Indiana Jones. Back me up here, Fletcher.”

  “That is pretty sad. Nobody tell Happy. He’d have a—” He remembered and swallowed back some tears. “Dante’s right; seems pretty farfetched.”

  “Either way, it fits,” Andrew said, gesturing at the map. “You can see that. If we locate the treasure before he does—”

  “Listen to yourself,” Fletcher interrupted. “You’re in a fantasy world! Even if I wanted to, I can’t go to Malta. I can’t go to Paris. I can’t go to Cleveland without permission. I’m on parole.”

  “We wouldn’t come back,” Andrew said. “You get Ivy, we all go, we all get rich, we start over.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Dante said.

  “We are not getting sidetracked,” Fletcher said. “Happy’s dead; my daughter is not going to be next. We find this necklace, we give it to the Alchemist, we get Ivy, we go home, and I get back to filling my vending machines. Comprende?”

  Fletcher’s phone rang, and he checked the display. “It’s my parole officer,” he said, color fleeing from his face. “He must have heard about the monstrance getting pinched. He’s going to want an alibi from me, and I’ve got nothing.”

  “I’d answer it, man,” Dante said. “Don’t dodge your PO.”

  “Hello?” Fletcher said, suddenly sunny. He stood and walked off toward the far wall. “Oh, yeah, going great, going great . . . Nope, haven’t seen any of my old associates. Still praying, still reading the Bible, absolutely . . . I tell you what, Officer Roberts, we’re in the middle of a team-building activity here; can I call you back a little later? Thanks. Okay, good-bye.” He pocketed the phone and addressed the group. “He was just seeing how I was holding
up.”

  “You really think these people would file a police report?” Dante said. “No way. They will find us. That’s why you don’t grift the Illuminati. Mark my words: if they’re not on their way here, they will be soon.”

  “Shhh,” Andrew said, holding up a hand. “Did you hear that?”

  “Shut up,” Dante said.

  “I’m serious.” His eyes traced the ceiling from corner to corner. They heard the sound of breaking glass above them. Then footsteps. Someone was upstairs.

  CHAPTER 53

  Dante’s hand disappeared into his jacket and came out gripping his Glock. He ran to the stairway, raised the gun, planted his feet. Fletcher instinctively moved between his wife and the threat. He glanced over at Andrew, who was eyeing the exit.

  “Andrew,” Fletcher hissed. He nodded at the revolver in his partner’s waistband.

  The deafening blast of a gunshot grabbed their attention, and they looked up to see Dante blown back onto the wood floor, his skull bouncing once and then landing hard. The gun clattered from his hand.

  Three men charged into the church. The first held a pump shotgun, smoke chugging from the barrel. The others brandished bats.

  “Nobody moves,” the gunman said. He wore sagging pants and a baseball jersey. He looked down at Dante. “Can you talk, homes?”

  Dante grunted.

  “You shot him!” Meg shouted. “Of course he can’t talk.”

  The man sneered. “First one was a beanbag. A riot round.” He racked the pump. “Gets your attention. The rest are slugs. I told you I was coming for my ten large. Not for me, for my brother. He spent two nights in the hole, charges five large per night.” He walked up between Dante’s splayed legs and took aim at his chest.

  “Don’t have my money?” he asked.

  Dante wheezed.

  “That’s what I thought.” He nodded at his two companions, who went to work—one smashing a display case with his bat and the other knocking photos from the wall. Dante squeezed his eyes shut, forcing a cascade of tears to run down his temples.

  Fletcher knew they were going for maximum sound and chaos. Shattering glass was disorienting and had the power to quickly change a person’s disposition. He glanced at the monstrance, sitting unassumingly on a card table near the back wall between a stack of Happy’s books and a bulky backpack. The man with the black do-rag would reach it in a moment at his present rate. Fletcher could only imagine what an attractive target it would make. The sunburst design looked a bit like it was already in the process of exploding.

  Apparently Meg had also noticed its impending destruction. She stepped out from behind Fletcher and approached the demolition man.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Excuse me!”

  The man stopped swinging.

  “What you’re doing makes no sense. How is this helping you?” From the other end of the room, they could hear splintering of the Communion rail, section by section.

  “You got something to offer?” the man said, letting his bat hang at his side and taking a step toward Meg. “Yeah, I bet you do.” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand.

  Fletcher tasted rage and bile. He began to gather it in his chest. With Dante out of commission, it would be up to him to talk them out of this. Then he realized he couldn’t corral his anger. He would have to use it.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” the man with the shotgun yelled up toward the chancel, where a brass cross and chalice lay bent and crumpled on the floor. “That’s sacrilegious, man!”

  The fat man squeezed his bat and murmured, “Sorry.”

  Flat on his back, Dante caught Fletcher’s eye and nodded. It was almost imperceptible, but the message came across: Now. Do it now, while the focus is over there.

  Fletcher snatched the revolver from Andrew’s waistband and smashed it into the bridge of the lanky gangster’s nose. The bat bounced to the floor and rolled away. He swung again, connecting with the man’s temple. Dante kicked the legs out from under the leader, sending the shotgun sailing, and the two grappled for Dante’s handgun, just out of reach.

  Andrew shoved the lanky man to the ground and kept him there with a kick to the abdomen.

  The big guy was rushing down to the aid of his boss, who was beginning to overpower the injured Dante when another earsplitting blast from the shotgun instantly quelled the room. Meg cycled the action, ejecting the spent cartridge, and leveled the gun at the approaching man and his bat. Fletcher took three long strides up to the leader of the intruders, sprawled on the ground, and aimed the .38 at him. He slowly pulled back the hammer, savoring the chik-chik-chik of the wheel advancing.

  Dante rose to his knees, recovered his gun, and stood with some effort.

  Andrew, the only one in their group not holding a firearm, took charge. “You three, on your stomachs right here.” He turned to Fletcher. “We need the monstrance, the map, and the letters,” he said. “And take everything you want to keep. We’re never coming back to this place again.”

  The man in the jersey forced another sneer. “We’ll find you,” he said. “I—”

  Meg cycled the shotgun again, sending an unspent round flying across the room. “Shut up.”

  “The gentle art of the grift, you called it,” Fletcher spat. He was driving them north on 75 at eighty miles an hour. “Now Happy’s dead, Dante’s busted up, we’re all fighting and shooting guns. But nobody gets hurt, right, Andrew?”

  Andrew sat silently in Happy’s chair. The sun was setting, and a warm orange glow filled the cargo hold.

  “I think we should ditch the van,” Dante said, unbuttoning his shirt and examining his bruised chest. “If those punks aren’t looking for it, the police will be as soon as they find the body.”

  “No,” Andrew said, fiddling with a soldering gun. “It’s registered to me. Won it from Happy in a card game a couple years ago.”

  Dante touched his side experimentally, wincing at the pain. “I’m sorry about that whole mess,” he said.

  “That’s the weakness of the Big Score,” Andrew said. “Angry mark can come back and catch you with your pants down.”

  “We need to get somewhere no one knows about,” Meg said. “How about a hotel?”

  “No way. I’ve lost track of how many people are hunting us. No credit cards, no IDs, no maids or clerks.”

  Dante nodded. “Somewhere private, but untraceable.”

  “I think I know a place,” Meg said.

  Ivy hadn’t heard Courtney’s voice in at least two hours when the door opened again. The man with the scar dropped a five-gallon bucket to the floor and kicked it toward Ivy. Inside was a roll of toilet paper, a box of Triscuits, and a gallon of water.

  “You better hope Daddy Dearest brings us what we’ve got coming before that runs out,” he said.

  “Where’s Courtney?” Ivy asked, but he was already shutting the door. “Where’s Courtney?”

  She heard the lock turn. Courtney might be dead, she realized, and if she was alive, she was badly hurt and needed help.

  That’s when Ivy made a decision: the next time the door opened, she would do whatever she had to do to save Courtney and free them from this place.

  CHAPTER 54

  This seems really stupid,” Fletcher whispered. They were crowded around a service entrance of the Orangelawn Shelter while Andrew worked at picking the lock.

  Meg shook her head. “Dr. Foreman said they ran out of funding halfway through renovating this wing. He had us bring some boxes back here and he said no one had been here in weeks.”

  “We’re in,” Andrew said. They followed Meg up a flight of stairs and down a hall lit only by the dim trickle of twilight through the filthy skylights. The stink of fiberglass insulation hung heavily in the air.

  They passed through a door, the handle of which was shimmering with some greasy unknown filth. Dante drew a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to turn the knob. He hated doing that, as it seemed like full-on mental illness, but it was better
than touching that thing with his bare hand.

  “This was the room,” Meg whispered, pointing at a padlocked door. “There are cots in there and a long table and chairs. It’s perfect.”

  “A padlock,” Andrew said. “Your move, Fletcher.”

  “You have bolt cutters in the van?” Dante asked.

  “Don’t need ’em,” Andrew said.

  Fletcher was on his knees, spinning the dial. “There aren’t that many possible combinations.”

  “You sure about that math?” Dante said. “Forty times forty times forty is like sixty-four thousand possibilities.”

  Andrew chuckled. “You’d think so. Except a glitch in the design means there’re only a hundred. Once you find the base number, some basic third-grade math can open any padlock in under five minutes. Fletch claims he can do it in three.”

  “I can,” Fletcher said, writing on his arm with an ink pen.

  “You say that, but in Birmingham it took you seven.”

  “I can do it in three if nobody talks to me.”

  “Let’s go grab our bags,” Dante said to Andrew.

  “No hurry. We’ve got at least seven minutes before the room is available.”

  Dante looked down at the handkerchief in his hand. There was a thick, round stain where it had touched the doorknob, but it was also filthy throughout, streaked with grime and filth, which he was sure hadn’t been there that morning. He dropped it to the ground.

  “There are little snakes all over this,” Meg said. “Isn’t that sort of satanic?” She was examining the base of the monstrance as Andrew and Fletcher deposited the rest of their belongings on a bench next to the row of metal-frame bunk beds.

  “No, there are snakes everywhere on Malta,” Andrew said, “especially in churches and religious buildings.”

  “Why?”

  “Because St. Paul survived a snakebite there,” Fletcher said. “It should have killed him, but he didn’t even swell up. The people assumed he was a god. Acts 28.” He pointed at Meg’s Bible atop her suitcase. “Wait a minute! Pi alpha 19.12. That could be Paulos Apostolos—that’s how St. Paul begins most of his books of the Bible.”