True Grift

by Jack Bunker

  “Here you go, gentlemen,” said Wanda. She stood by the table, her arm relaxed with the tray at her side as she studied the batting statistics flashing on the screen.

  Al looked at J.T., then at Wanda, then back to J.T.

  “Could we get some ketchup for the fries, hon?” J.T. asked. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you when you went back for the drinks.”

  “Not a problem, señor,” she said, and walked back to the bar for a bottle.

  “You were saying,” J.T. said.

  “I was saying there’s a nice, easy, untraceable buck to be made under the right circumstances.”

  Wanda returned, shaking a bottle of ketchup. “Anything else for you fellas?”

  “No, thanks. I think we’re good, sweetheart,” said J.T.

  Wanda hovered in the area, wiping off a table in big slow arcs as she watched the Angels run off the field for the bottom of the third.

  J.T. looked at Al.

  “Hey, Wanda?” said Al, scratching his chin. “On second thought, you think I could get a side salad with this?”

  Wanda looked up, startled from her gazing at the game. “Sure thing. Be right back.”

  Once Wanda was out of earshot, J.T. raised his eyebrows.

  “Okay, hypothetically now,” Al continued, “let’s say there’s a victim injured in some minor accident on the property of one of GSAC’s insured here in Riverside County. I’m not talking about maimed or paralyzed or anything, just your garden-variety soft-tissue injury.”

  “With all its attendant symptoms,” said J.T.

  “Your insomnia. Your nightmares. Physical therapy; pain and suffering. You got the idea.”

  “So were somebody to bring a case like this, you could guarantee a quick settlement?”

  “You get the right policyholder, the right victim, and the right claim, yeah, I can guarantee a quick settlement.”

  J.T. chewed his lip. “And you’ve got two-hundred-grand settlement authority?”

  “Hold on now. Yeah, technically I can sign off on that, but if I were to approve an obviously bullshit claim, there’d be FBI and half of Sacramento crawling around in my BVDs. My granddaddy used to say, ‘Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered.’”

  “So you got something different in mind,” said J.T.

  A few more old-timers stood up from their table, creaking and huffing, then hobbled out to the parking lot.

  Al wiped his lips with a cocktail napkin. “I’m saying it’s soft tissue. Whiplash. Strained meniscus. Some bullshit like that. That’s not a two-hundred-thousand-dollar injury. But you get some good backstory? Maybe a doctor that’ll play ball? Some way of building it up so there’s a chance the fucking thing might go to trial? Maybe then you’re looking at a buck and a quarter.”

  In spite of having skipped lunch, J.T. ignored the smell of the T-bone sizzling on his plate beneath sautéed mushrooms and onions. “So how do you see the settlement breaking down? That is, assuming you were able to find the right claim.”

  “Well, first off, the lawyer always gets his cut off the top, am I right?”

  “I know this one does.”

  “Okay, let’s say it’s one twenty-five. Forty for the lawyer, maybe five for medical expenses. Maybe we get a couple of opinions, you know what I’m saying? Need to spread a couple bucks around. That leaves eighty. Half for the victim; half for me.”

  “So the victim only gets a third?”

  “Only?” Al huffed. “He’s not even hurt, remember? Soft tissue? Means it doesn’t show up on an X ray. Keep him up for a couple of days before he sees the doc. Get an erratic heartbeat. Some dark circles under the eyes. Even a legit doctor will have to admit that’s consistent with acute pain causing insomnia.”

  J.T. stretched his neck and looked at the screen across the room. A rangy guy in his twenties, blond hair parted down the middle, came in wearing dusty work boots, grease-streaked jeans, and a faded Mira Vista golf shirt. J.T. recognized him as the kid who worked in the greenskeeper’s shed. The blond kid let the door swing closed just as another young guy was walking into the 19th Hole. Another maintenance guy. Black. The club manager didn’t want maintenance staff in the place during the day, but on Friday nights he left early. With most of the members and daily-fee players gone, the staff in the 19th Hole looked the other way when the guys came in for beer or a hamburger.

  Wanda approached carrying Al’s salad on her cork-lined bar tray.

  Al drained the last of the vodka in his glass. “Thing is, I don’t have a lot of time to screw around. I’m stalling on this transfer thing, but if I get shipped up to Weed, I’m out of the loop. I need to move on this.”

  Wanda arrived at the table and put Al’s salad down. “Blue cheese, right? You didn’t say, but I remembered you ordered it before.”

  Al nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine, thanks.”

  Wanda stood by the table. “I remember back when I was a paralegal, there was a lawyer used to order salad with blue-cheese dressing every single day without fail. Every time I smell it I think of that guy.” She blew an invisible curl from her face and wiped her forehead with her wrist.

  J.T. looked at her with a polite smile. She had nice skin. White, even teeth. Big dark eyes. Huge tits. She was too tall for him, but if she lost some weight she wouldn’t be half bad.

  “What do you think, guys?” she said. “One more round?”

  “Sure, why not?” J.T. said, his smile widening.

  She cocked her finger at him and started back to the bar.

  Al poked at his salad with his fork. “So? What’s the verdict, counselor?”

  “I think I wish we had more time to set up a few of these.”

  “Unh-uh,” said Al. “I’m one and done. I’m not looking to be greedy here. Just enough to get my grubstake and go out on my own.”

  “Where you’ll be mining the database of Golden State’s proprietary information.”

  “Beats the shit out of transferring up to Weed,” Al said through a mouthful of salad.

  J.T. was looking at the bar. The maintenance guys were on barstools, watching the game with the sound off. The white kid was nibbling something he’d pinched from the bar.

  “So you got any thoughts on a potential dummy?”

  Wanda approached again with her tray, trading fresh drinks for empties. As she turned around, she spied the white kid reaching over the bar and grabbing a handful of olives from the bartender’s fruit tray.

  “Hey!” Wanda shouted. “Get your grubby hands out of there!” The kid was laughing as Wanda approached and swatted him with a bar towel.

  J.T. crunched the ice in his glass as he watched the tableau at the bar. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”

  When Wanda returned to clear the plates from the table, J.T. told her to buy the guys at the bar a round. She set two draft beers down on the bar and pointed at J.T. and Al in the corner. Both maintenance guys raised their glasses to J.T., who waved the pair over to the corner table.

  “Thanks for the beers, sir,” said the blond kid.

  “Yeah, thanks, man,” said the black kid.

  “Hey, forget it. You guys been doing a great job.” J.T. extended his hand. “J.T. Edwards.”

  Mack and Buddy took turns shaking hands with J.T. and Alvin. “Mack McMahon.” Mack tilted his head toward the black guy. “This here’s Buddy.”

  “You guys work on the carts, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Carts, tractors, mowers, pumps, compressors…pretty much whatever needs doing, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” said Buddy.

  “Well, I see you fellas out there in that hot sun. I remember what it was like. I used to work outdoors myself back in the day,” said J.T. “I know what it was to knock off on Fridays with a couple of cold ones.”

  “So what do you do, Mr. Edwards?” asked Mack.

  “I’m an attorney.” J.T. reached into his wallet and handed each of the young men his card.

  Al stood up. “If you all will excuse me, I need to hit the men
’s room.”

  J.T. gave him half a wave. “So where you fellas from?”

  “Van Horn, Texas,” said Mack.

  “Originally from Two Egg,” said Buddy.

  “Where?” said J.T.

  “Two Egg. It’s in Jackson County, Florida. We call it LA for ‘Lower Alabama.’”

  “You’re a long way from home,” said J.T.

  “Yes, sir,” said Buddy, sipping his beer. His eyes met J.T.’s, then he turned to look at the ball game on TV.

  Al Boyle was washing his hands when the door opened and Frankie’s presence filled the men’s room.

  “Whaddaya say, Al?” asked Frankie, moving toward the urinal. “Didn’t expect to see you in here tonight. You said you got something for me?”

  Al nodded. “Frankie.” Al reached for his wallet and pulled out two twenties and a ten. “Yeah, had a date, but got stood up.”

  “That sucks.” Standing at the urinal, Frankie leaned his head back and rolled his neck around.

  “Yeah,” Al said, and laid the bills on the counter. “Here you go.”

  Frankie zipped up and moved to the sink to wash his hands as Al crumpled up a handful of paper towels and lobbed them into the wastebasket.

  “You want to get something down on the Belmont?” said Frankie, washing his hands. He nodded toward the fifty dollars on the counter. “Press?”

  “Think I’m gonna pass. Thanks, though.”

  “You bet.” Frankie chuckled as he dried his hands and scooped up the bills. “How ’bout that? Get it? You bet.”

  “Yeah, Frankie, I get it,” said Al as he opened the door to exit the men’s room. “That’s a good one.”

  J.T. waved at Wanda behind the bar and circled his hand for more drinks for the table. Wanda nodded and started drawing more beers.

  Al stopped at the bar and intercepted his drink while J.T. talked to Mack and Buddy. He watched Wanda behind the bar. Beneath a pink men’s golf shirt, the band of her bra was four inches wide across her back. As she went about replacing glasses above the bottles of liquor, Al noticed she didn’t even have to stretch to reach the top shelf.

  Frankie waddled up next to where Al stood, then plopped down onto a barstool and spun it around so he could watch the Angels game.

  In spite of Frankie’s company, Al was in no hurry to get back to the table. He didn’t have anything against drinking with the maintenance guys. He was just nervous. He couldn’t believe he’d actually spilled his idea to J.T., a complete stranger. He’d been thinking about it for years. How easy it would be with the right partners. He didn’t want to think of the word accomplices. If it hadn’t been for the vodka, he would never have had the guts to mention it. Then where would he be? Freezing his ass off in Weed fucking California, that’s where.

  He watched Wanda bend over and unhook an empty keg, tossing it out of the way like an Easter basket. She picked up the full replacement keg by one handle and then set it down to maneuver it into place beneath the tap. When she stood up, she grabbed the empty keg and walked back to the kitchen, the door swinging back and forth behind her.

  Al noticed Frankie had turned to watch Wanda haul the empty keg away.

  “Pretty girl,” Frankie said, looking sideways over his shoulder. “Could stand to lose a few.”

  Al sipped his drink. You fat fuck. Look like you swallowed a goddamned life raft and you’re calling somebody fat? “Yep.”

  Wanda came out from the kitchen. “You boys going to want anything else?”

  Al looked at his watch. Then he glanced around at the guys at the table, all watching the last inning of the Angels game. The picture seemed a little doubled up, so Al squinted with one eye.

  “No, we’re all done here, I think,” said J.T., who now looked at his own watch. “I need to get going anyway.”

  Mack and Buddy looked at each other and downed what remained of their beers as J.T. and Al pushed their chairs back from the table.

  J.T. grabbed the check and gave it a quick glance. No one else made a move for it. He signed the tab and pulled a fifty from his money clip for Wanda.

  “They ever give you guys a day off here?” J.T. said to Mack.

  “Yes, sir,” said Mack. “Usually Mondays.”

  “You interested in a little part-time work?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mack.

  “Why don’t you come by my office on Monday morning? You know the Inland Empire Tower? Address is right there on the card.”

  “Sure. That sounds great,” said Mack.

  Buddy just nodded and didn’t say anything.

  J.T. gave Mack a wink and walked toward the door. Wanda thanked J.T. for the tip, patting him on the shoulder as he stepped into the warm night. Al followed, grabbing a handful of peppermints from a little basket at the corner of the bar.

  When the door closed behind him, Al stepped a little quicker to catch up to J.T.

  “You really thinking that’s your plaintiff?”

  “I’m thinking he’s going to be fine. Mack, not Buddy. Buddy’s too quiet. I suspect he’s also probably a little sharper than Mack, which ain’t saying a whole lot.” J.T. opened the door to his black Mercedes, the cracked windshield shining white, a baleful snow-flake in the darkness. “You see his eyes light up when he thought he might be able to make a little extra money? Probably thinks I want to hire him to shoot a porno for five hundred bucks.”

  “I can’t believe we’re even thinking about handing that retard forty grand.”

  “Nothing’s set in stone yet. Let’s just consider tonight a preliminary interview. We haven’t said anything yet. We’re not committed. Let’s just see how things go on Monday.”

  “I don’t know.” Al was beginning to wonder if he’d moved too quickly. Was he giving away too much too soon? “Maybe we ought to rethink the splits.”

  “What we ought to think about is logistics.”

  Now Al started wondering if he might be getting in over his head. Beyond his basic layout of the plan, he’d never given a lot of thought to logistics. “For example?”

  “Okay, at least a half-dozen people have seen us together tonight. I think we need to start approaching this like a couple of paranoids.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “God forbid something comes loose, you and I can’t have any connection. Okay, so we play golf at the same club. If somebody sees us together regularly, or if there are e-mails or phone calls that can be traced, I don’t care what your signing authority is, GSAC will sniff out anything funky.”

  “Good point.” Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself?

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Invest in a couple of prepaid cell phones. Cheap ones. The kind you can use a couple times and throw away. Use cash.”

  “Jesus, what are you, a fucking Mob lawyer?”

  “Should I be rethinking this project, Al?”

  “No, no. You’re right.” Al’s buzz was wearing off fast. “I guess things just got ramped up faster than I expected.”

  “Not too late to change your mind.”

  Al shook his head. “Fuck it. I’m good.”

  “What’s your locker number?”

  “My locker number? Eighty-four, why?”

  “Mine’s fifteen. We can use each other’s lockers as dead drops. Wouldn’t be suspicious at all if we’re not in there the same time. I’ll get a couple of SIM cards, and I’ll pass you the numbers into your locker.”

  “Um, okay.” Al’s buzz was totally gone now. He had figured J.T. was as drunk as he was, but the guy was spinning out the plan like he was ordering breakfast at Denny’s. Has he done this before?

  “Never call my office or my real cell. Just use the temp phones. We ever need to meet, we can set it up on an ad hoc basis.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “I want to tell you to relax, but I don’t think you should. From here on in, you need to be as alert as you can be.” J.T. climbed into his car and lowered the window. “If the kid plays ball, I’ll hand
le things on my end and keep you posted. Just let me know if anything changes.”

  Al jangled his keys in his hand. “Will do.”

  FOUR

  As he charged the carts and pumped up the tires, all Mack could talk about was what kind of part-time work J.T. Edwards had in mind.

  “Wonder if he’s shootin’ some kinda porno,” Mack said to Buddy, who was hosing grass clippings off the carts coming in after early-morning rounds on Saturday.

  “I don’t know,” said Buddy, who had bigger things on his mind.

  While Mack flipped through truck magazines and fucked around with dune buggies, Buddy Cromartie had come up with a simple but elegant way to extract golf balls from lake bottoms—without diving. Deploying one of the same compressors they used to pump up golf cart tires, Buddy had rigged up an inflatable bladder. Empty, it could be cast out into a pond, or even dropped over the side of a johnboat, trapped inside a chicken-wire netting Buddy had fabricated himself. Weighted slightly, the netting would sink and spread; when the bladder inflated, the rising contraption would contract, scooping up all the balls on the lake bed as it did so. From there the operator just dragged the bladder to the shore or up over the gunwales of a johnboat.

  “Maybe he needs, like, a courier or something. Like, deliver a big bag of cash down to Mexico. You see him tip Wanda a fifty?”

  “Yeah.”

  Buddy had researched the going rate of “experienced” golf balls—balls lost, scavenged, and resold—in pro shops or online. While golf-ball salvage began as a cottage industry for kids or geezers with unlimited time on their hands, at anywhere from twenty-five cents to a dollar retail, it was now big business. There were whole companies that specialized in diving for golf balls. He might have been from Two Egg, Florida, but Buddy Cromartie had a vision, and he was going to revolutionize a multimillion-dollar industry.

  “Shit, man. Fifty bucks just for slingin’ a few drinks? Sheeeiit. I bet anything he’s got going’s gonna have big dollars written all over it.”

  “Yeah, well, let me know what it turns out to be.”