Conman (32 page)

“
Listen
,” Andrew whispered appearing at my side, hand on my shoulder. I glanced over. Laura hadn’t moved. “Listen old man. What choice do we
have
? The game’s up. She
knows
you and I are in this together now. What else
can
we do but trust her?
Let her go
? Let her tell Christopher about our cosy little meeting? We
have
to trust her. Hell, maybe she
does
want out. Why else would she let on about the Sparrow Plop trick or whatever it is?”

I turned and looked deep into Andrew’s anxious face. The same kind face I’d looked at across a chess-board a decade ago.

“Trust. Right,” I said and looked over at the liar in the chair. “Laura. My
dear
. You want to tell Andrew here about trust?”

Laura shifted a little, hands loose, reaching for her wine glass.

“The scam you revealed. What was it?
The Pigeon Drop
?” 

She held the glass in her hand, turning it slowly, the lamp light playing on the grease of her lipstick. She looked up at me. She said nothing

“Explain the details
again
if you would.” I began to pace a bit, trying to keep a lid on my jumpy, twitchy anger. “Andrew here would just be providing the
bait
, right? That’s what you told him? And
together
you’d all con this wealthy mark Christopher has found. Tell me, this wealthy mark. He wouldn’t be a rather rotund, rather
portly
gentleman would he? With perhaps, oh I don’t know, perhaps a blue baseball cap? Leather handbag? Suite at the Waldorf? Am I warm?”

Laura looked at me. Then over at Andrew. Back to me.

I took this look and tossed it over to Andrew. Andrew threw it back to Laura. We did this for a while like three five-year-olds with a tennis ball.“Do you want to tell him?” I said finally.

“After you,” Laura sighed.

“Will
somebody
tell me?” Andrew spat, exasperated.

So I told him.

“
Me
?” he said a few moments later as I rounded off what I’d spent my cramped minute under the bed putting together. It was pretty much what I’d expected him to say. “
I’m
the target?”

“Just like I was.” I spun around and faced Laura. “This is how they do it. Con you into thinking you’re helping them play
another
swindle. I’m guessing the Pigeon Drop goes according to plan, but at the last minute it all happens to go terribly wrong?” I said. Laura flicked a little ash and blinked a slow, tired blink. “And that
valuation agreement
you had Andrew sign at the restaurant a few hours ago with the big fat fountain pen?”

“An insurance policy,” Laura said, beaten. “Accidental loss. So when you realise you’ve been swindled and try to report it, the police find
that
and presume you must have been in on it for the insurance.”

“Jesus …” Andrew whistled.

“Okay okay, I didn’t give you the
whole
plan. But I’m telling you,” Laura pushed. “It doesn’t matter either way. Because the Fraud Squad will pounce and the whole thing will –”

“And this.
This
is who you want to trust to help us?” I spat.
“God. What the hell are we doing here?” I felt sick. Physically, deep down in my gut.

“But
Neil
. Neil,
think
man,” Andrew said, trying to slow the whole world down. “What else do you suggest? You want to walk
away
?”

“What do I
suggest
?” I yelled. “What do I – ?” My mouth flapped loose for a moment, my elbows and wrists deciding it looked like fun and joining in wildly. “I
suggest
she just gives me back my fifty thousand pounds. She gives me my fifty thousand pounds or we turn her in.” I marched across to the bed and snatched up the brown hotel phone. “How’s that for an off-beat fucking idea?”

“There is no fifty thousand pounds,” Laura said.

“Oh really?
Really
? What a fucking surprise. All gone has it? In four fucking days?”

“It was in that envelope. The one Henry was waving at the table. Now? Who knows. It’s probably luring some other sap into some other scheme somewhere.”

“Then you get it,” I hissed.

“Just like that. For old time’s sake?”

“
No
,” I writhed. “No, because it’s that or the
police
,” and I waved the handset awkwardly.

“The
police
? Who are going to be involved
anyway
? I told you, I’ve got a barrister negotiating a –”

“Then … then because
otherwise
…” and I stumbled a little bit here, losing my momentum rather. I gathered my thoughts up quickly, aware that stuff like this was all in the delivery. “Otherwise I go to Christopher and tell him you’re selling him out.”

“Do that,” Laura shrugged. “You still won’t have your money back. But, if it’ll make you feel better while you’re living in your one-ring bedsit visiting your daughter every other weekend.”

The retort caught in my throat, fat and thick. I stood, glued to the carpet, phone receiver in hand. I swallowed hard, blinking.

Edward. Edward coming home on Tuesday. Talking to Jane. The accountants.

Fifty thousand withdrawn?

Divorce. Custody.

“See, divorce lawyers tend to look more favourably on the
parent who
hasn’t
lost the child’s trust fund in a confidence game, Neil. They’re kind of old-fashioned like that.”

Andrew and I stood fuming, teeth grinding, our combined
frustration
threatening to set off the smoke alarms.

“I
can
get you your money back,” Laura said finally. “But only if
you
can help me get Christopher. Working with me,
double-crossing
the Pigeon Drop.”

“You’re already double-crossing the Pigeon Drop.”

“All right, all right,
triple
-crossing it then. Setting up this play and leading Christopher and the others to the police. It’s the only way you’ll
ever
see that money again.”

Andrew and I exchanged sad, spent looks. The world turned beneath us for a while.

Eventually our shoulders slumped and we sighed shruggy sighs.

“So … how would it work?”

“God, there you are,” Jane scowled at the top of the stairs, Lana hoisted to her hip. “Where have you
been
? It’s almost nine o’clock.”

I clambered upward making my apologies and checking my stupid watch. She was right. I gave Jane and Lana a minty kiss, courtesy of Andrew’s hotel gift-shop Polos, and peeled off my jacket hurriedly, my heart thumping like a marching-band bass drum.

“Sorry, sorry. Mondays, y’know. It was …” I shook my head in an attempt to imply a frankly unlikely non-stop twelve-hour day of poster tubes and ringing tills and scuttled into the kitchen to glug a chin-full of tap water.

“Mr Dufford’s been through what I could find, but we needed you here for the shop stuff.”

I wiped sweaty hands on my jeans and shut off the tap.

“Mr … ?”

“You
forgot
?” Jane withered.

“Forgot? No, no no, don’t be silly. I-I was just held up, that’s all,” and I smiled a thoroughly unconvincing smile. Jane turned and left and I followed, head thudding and spinning.

Forgot? Forgot what? Dufford?Why does that name mean something?

I pushed into the sitting room.

What was
– ?

Oh.
Shit
.

Mr Dufford was perched on the edge of our couch. Fountain pen in hand, glass of wine by his feet and parting professionally centred, he had an irritated,
in-your-own-time-mate
scowl buried behind a professional banker’s smile. He stood, hand out.

“Mr Martin,” he boomed. “Nice to see you again. Busy
afternoon
?”

“Uhm, y-yes,” I gulped.

“You know each other?” Jane queried, the world tipping over a little.

“We bumped into each other this mor –

“Mor … e fool me for forgetting. Ha. Right. Good good. That long ago eh? Crikey. Ahem,” I interrupted, wrestling the words from him, easing him back into his seat boisterously. “Good to er … good to … uhm … crikey, you have been busy …”

Christ. The sitting room floor was an assault course of files and papers, stapled and paper-clipped, fanned and folded, stacked and strewn. On the couch, among box files and bank statements, Dufford’s laptop glowed in the sitting-room light, a bright Excel spreadsheet filled with black and red columns.

“Anyway, sorry I missed you,” I jollied, picking my way across the paperwork checkerboard floor to the stereo. “Perhaps we could reschedule for later in the month? Is there more wine sweetheart?” I quickly slung on disc two of
Now That’s What I Call the Best Amadeus Hits Album in the World Ever,
which Jane had sworn worked in soothing soon-to-be-born Lana. I was hoping it would prove to be just as soothing to soon-to-be livid wives and
soon-to-be-aghast
financial advisors.

“Actually,” Dufford coughed, “we haven’t much more to look at. Your wife has given me most of what I need. It’s just the shop’s books. Do you have them to hand?”

Fountain pen poised, the sitting room went quiet.

“Might you have that to hand? At all? Mr Martin?”

Oh Christ.

“Neil?
Hello
?”

“Did you … sorry? Did you say there
was
more wine?”

“Neil, the books?” Jane pushed, jigging a gurgly Lana up and down.

“Oh. Uhm sorry, I think … God, actually I think I left them at work,” I said, face collapsing in contrition.

“Oh
Neil
.”

“Sorry. Sorry Mr Dufford. I … I remember now, I took all the paperwork in to work to sort out. Y’know, t-to make this evening easier.”

“When was this?” Jane pressed.

“When? Oh, Saturday.”

“
Saturday
? Oh that’s all right, I’ve seen a file of yours in the study …”

“What?!” I squeaked. “I-I mean, what? Which … er, where?” but Jane had wandered off to search the study. “
Shit
,” I hissed, leaping after her. “Jane, Jane wait, don’t – Sorry Mr Dufford, uhmm, sorry, one second.”

God. Don’t let her have found anything.
Please
.

I found her rootling through the files by the computer.

“It was here …”

“Let me, let me,” I busied, flapping around her. “Go and see to our guest.”

Jane sighed, turning to look at me, head tilted, beautiful face lit by the soft green glow of the night-light. She slid the nursery door ajar silently.

“I can’t believe you were two hours late and still forgot to bring the paperwork
?” she hissed, embarrassed.
“I’ve had to keep him talking all evening. Dad’s going to go beserk.”

“I’m
sorry
,” I said, brow furrowed. “I-I mean, yes. Er …”
realising
just too late how guilty all this uhmming and shrugging appeared, so I began to quickly fuss about the baby, slipping a hand around Jane’s waist, totally over-doing that too much instead. “Busy that’s all. Just busy.”

“Always busy,” Jane said in an odd tone, peeling out of my arms and pulling open the door again, heading back to our guest.

Quickly, I scrabbled about the cheap shelving, sliding the file of business account statements out and shoving it under Lana’s cot, pushing it to the back among dust and lost toys. I hurried out to where Mozart wafted down the hall and Jane was coming back the other way with Dufford’s wine glass.

“Find it?” she said hopefully.

“Hn? Uhmm no. It er, it was an empty one. I’d taken
everything
out.”

Jane looked at me, cocking her head to one side slightly. Something was going on behind her eyes. Something she didn’t like. Something I didn’t like much either. I crossed my fingers that Wolfgang had a particularly stringy, soothy bit coming up in the next five seconds.

“Are you all right
?” Jane whispered softly, edging me away from the lounge.

“
All right? Fine. Fine, I’m … fine.
”

Jane continued her look. I began to panic discreetly.

God. What had Dufford
shown
her
?
What had she
seen?
How much did she
know?
And why was Jane
looking
at me like that
?

“
Neil
? Are you listening?”

“Huh, sorry what? I was …”

“I said you don’t
seem
fine. You’re all jumpy and nervy. Coming in late, fussing about. What’s the matter?”

“I’m
not,
” I said, guiltily. “Just busy. Earl’s Court, y’know.”

“And you’ve forgotten tomorrow I expect? Being so
busy
?”

“Tomorrow?”

Shit shit shit. What the
hell
was tomorrow? November tenth? Lana’s birthday? My birthday? Clark fucking Kent’s birthday?

“Any joy?” Dufford called through. He was closing up his laptop. “It’s getting on. Don’t worry too much if you haven’t, I’ll leave my fax number …”

Jane gave me the empty wine glass, sighed and turned, carrying our daughter off to the lounge. Stomach tumbling, I made mumbling noises and scuttled back to the nursery, pushing the door closed behind me.

Christ.

I leant against the rickety cot and closed my eyes, head hanging loose. The fat, familiar urge to tell Jane everything stirred in my stomach, waking up, rolling its shoulders, threatening to burst out and run roaring around the office chair, over the night-light and dance wildly on the mouse-mat.

I swallowed hard instead, forcing it down like bile.

God, how did our marriage come to this? Hiding under hotel beds? Hurrying home drunk and late, full of excuses and lies? What happened to the sharing? The trust? That wasn’t so long ago was it? The swapping midnight secrets? How had I allowed that to wear away? Our marriage still had romance, still had the flirting, the weekly massage, the sex. Didn’t all the magazines and manuals say
they
all disappeared first? God, wasn’t
trust
supposed to be the one, solid, immoveable constant that
remained
.

God.
Trust
. What had I done?

An hour ago, Andrew and I had been bickering about that very thing, batting it back and forth, examining it from all sides in his hotel room.

First we’d decided we couldn’t trust Laura. Simple as that. Laura worked for Christopher and Christopher was the man who’d taken my milk of kindness and left it on a radiator all summer. Either they were playing us together or somehow she was playing us all – toes in our pants, hair mussed just-so – planning to ride off with the money, the comic and our hope.

Andrew and I promptly drank some more and looked it over some more, at one point diagramming it all out in Andrew’s red notebook, trying to second-guess the whole thing. What if he was playing her? What if she was playing him? God, what if they’re both playing each other?

By the time two wine bottles were upside down in a bin littered with torn-up pages, we’d reached only one woozy conclusion. I’d thought about this as I hauled on my jacket and stumbled through the hotel lobby into the clear November night.

If Laura had been lying – making it up, spinning a line, telling us
anything
to buy her way out of the room – then that would be that. She’d disappear. We’d never see her, Christopher or the money again.

“Bet you thought you’d never see me again?”

“Nyyeahhyy,”
I blurted, stumbling with a shallow splash, heart and larynx enjoying a quick tango. “Christ, you scared the …
Christ.
You came back then?”

“I called out upstairs but you didn’t hear me. Figured you were down here. Clean up not going so well, huh?”

It was eleven o’clock the next morning. Tuesday. Laura stood, weight on one sassy hip, halfway down my cellar steps. She was in large Ray-Bans, loose denim jeans, hung low revealing a strip of tanned flat stomach and the hint of lace knicker elastic. On top she wore a short, sharp white tee, pulled tight across her chest. A green hooded military-style coat hung over her shoulders, a fat leather bag over an arm, a newspaper under an elbow, filling the low room with the obligatory blue cigarette smoke. I, by contrast, stood ankle deep in thick black water surrounded by filthy plastic buckets, washing-up bowls, bin-bags stacked against Schwartz’s
rusted iron door, holding the pulpy sopping remains of a highly prized
Wizard of Oz
lobby stand.

“I’ve had better days,” I said, splashing over to the iron shelving, cardboard dripping. “Although damp Munchkins are the least of my worries at the moment.”

“I imagine.”

“Even if you manage to get Christopher arrested –”

“
We
manage,” Laura said, sucking on her cigarette.

“Either way, there’s still the matter of my court appearance.” I waded back across the room to gather the dripping cardboard remains of the stand. “Where a judge will decide exactly how much of my soul I’m going to have to fork over to Maurice as
compensation
for ruining all his –” and at that, the sopping cardboard gave up hope and collapsed, folding into the water, leaving me holding Judy Garland’s severed head in one hand, the Tin Man’s in the other. “ – stock.” I laid their faces on the shelf and peeled off my pink marigolds and followed Laura back up the greasy steps to an empty shop that seemed to brood with unease. However this turned out to be principally due to Bernard Herrman who I’d left slicing his way through a
Best of Hitchcock
cassette on the stereo. I snapped it off, hoping the resultant quiet would be more settling.

It wasn’t.

“What about you?” I said anxiously. “You speak to Christopher last night? You tell him Andrew’s on board? Did he buy it?”

“I spoke to him. Relax, it’s all –”

“
Relax
? Right, right.
Relax
, she says. Sure. I’ve got a court appearance in six days, minus fifty grand in the bank, a basement full of soggy Munchkins and a wanted criminal standing in my shop. All this on November the tenth of all days.”

“What’s November the tenth?”

“I have absolutely
no
fucking idea.
But my
wife,
whom I
love,
who is about to
leave me
because of my suspicious jittering, is going to have forty fits if I forget November tenth. Which I
have.
So, y’know, I’ll relax another time if that’s all right?”

“That’s all right.”

“What did Christopher say? Is he’s going to phone Andrew about borrowing the comic for his scam? The … what was it?
Pigeon Drop
?”

Laura checked Elvis above me.

“Is probably doing so as we speak. Think your friend will agree to the meet?”

“He’ll agree. A little thing called
trust
. When’s the meeting scheduled?”

“Noon.”

“
Today?!
”

“No sense in wasting time. Christopher’s going to tell him that we’ve a big score in place. He’s using this fair of yours on Friday in fact,” and she reached into her newspaper and peeled out the faded, crumpled Earl’s Court flyer I’d given her in my sitting room sixteen long days ago. “Adds a little credibility don’t you think? Dealers? Collectors? He’ll tell Andrew that we have a mark ready to bite but Henry’s dropped out at the last minute and we need an emergency bait.”

“Which is when Andrew’s supposed to offer the use of my –”

The phone jangled on the counter suddenly. Hands twitchy, I licked my lips and picked up the handset.

“
Heroes Incorporated?
”

“
It’s me
,” Andrew said. “
Were you trying to call old fellow? I’ve been in with my bosses. It’s all bloody gone knackers up. O’Shea’s threatening … Oh I don’t know what his bloody problem is. You’d think an agent had never … He’s an idiot. I never should have got involved.
”

“Andrew –”

“
Plus I’m standing here trying to reassure everyone of the firm’s
professionalism
in a shirt three sizes too small because the bloody hotel screwed up my dry cleaning again.
”

“That him?” Laura asked. “Has Christopher called?”

“
Who’s that?
”

“Huh? It’s Laura. She’s here with me. Have you spoken to Christopher?”

“Put him on speaker,” Laura said. I jabbed the button and replaced the receiver. Andrew crackled, tinny and distant.