Conman (6 page)

However, when the dreaded ‘daughter’ word was eventually wheeled into his Chelsea Park Gardens study? Oh the glare. The blame. Me and my plebby working-class sperm. All
probably
on strike or at the dog track the day they were called up for action.

I had received the lecture. Me sat in one of his fat leather chairs, nursing a peaty scotch, Edward pacing under an oiled ancestor. I wasn’t to hesitate to come to him. Whatever his granddaughter needed, day or night, she’s not to go without, best of everything. On and on.

But all the time I knew.
I knew.
And he knew I knew. I don’t know why he didn’t just say it.
Son, you can’t support my daughter. So let’s speak man-to-man shall we?Well, man-to-scruffy-Nancy boy at any rate.

No honestly, that’s his voice. I’m telling you, Windsor Davies playing Shere Khan.

I’m well aware of your upbringing. Who your father was. What he did. So let’s not pretend shall we? I’ll help you buy your tatty shop. You do what you can with your posters and nick-nackery, but I’ll provide for Jane, as you probably expected me to anyway, eh? I’ve seen how your eyes prowl over this house. Now finish your drink and get out.

So for the past month, well you can imagine can’t you? The fear of Jane’s
dearest daddy
finding out? It would have proved, in his whisky-addled mind at least, that he was right all along. And he would have been
thrilled
to hear about my fuck up. Not in front of Jane of course. No no, in front of Jane it would have been hand holding and chin-upping and there-there-ing. But
afterwards
? He’d have dined out on it for the rest of his life. Golf club, functions, board meetings. My idiot son-in-law,
fwahh fwahh fwahh.

But hell, that was the past. That afternoon, I was grinning. Heart light, bursting, floating like the last day of term. Because I knew I wasn’t going to have to hear it. I was going to return to the table, coffee and mints, sign a contract for twenty per cent
commission
, hang whatever this eccentric guy wanted hung in the window and be in the clear.

In the clear.

The only thing that did worry me slightly, as I zipped up and rinsed my hands in the bath-sized basin, was that my new business partner had yet to get around to giving me his real name.

“Whittington? Oh, I see. No, no poppet, we must start as we mean to go on,” my host said, plucking a white card from his breast pocket and sliding it across the linen.

“
This
is you?” I picked the card up. “J Peckard Scott?
Motivational speaker
?”

“Less or more,” he said. “My vating is that of the motor-driven variety, yes. Geeing up, confidence boosts. I slap backs. Tell people what they want to hear. What’s interesting about the whole procedure of course,” he said, glugging my wine glass up another inch, “what your
Watchdogs
and your
Daily Mails
don’t realise is that
innocent
parties are never involved. Oh they like to
suggest
those we catch out are poor
victims
. Guilty only of being in the wrong place at the right time. But it’s drivel, of course. Imagine the logistics of picking marks at random. Poppycock. We’d spend all of our time laying out the game, telling the tale, putting him on the send, setting up the whole damned store, only to find he didn’t have any money, or he was too savvy, or too stupid. Nonsense, nonsense,” and he shook his head sadly. “It’s a myth. The
likelihood
of a hopscotching grifter just pouncing on a hapless
innocent
and fleecing him for his life savings are zero.”

“Did you say
grifter
?” I didn’t much like the sound of where this monologue was going. Principally because it didn’t appear to be going anywhere we’d agreed on. In fact the whole lunch so far had something of the unlicensed minicab about it.

I tried to get a handbrake on this conversation before he veered us both into a lamp post.

“You said you have something you want me to sell …”

“I need your help, Neil, that much is certain. This memorabilia lark isn’t what you’d call my field. Not my crop, not my farm. I’m on very muddy ground in fact and these aren’t even my wellies.”

“You being a motivational speaker,” I said, to which Scott made a disconcerting
nyeeahhh
noise.

“Let’s say I level the playing field Neil. I even things out. Assist the intelligent, the hardworking. Give them a step up. Which means, thanks to Newton, the lazy and stupid take a step down. But that’s fair isn’t it? I mean isn’t that what we all
really
want?” “Well I s’pose,” I said.

“Anyhap, enough of that. We still on, what do you say? Still like to earn yourself an easy hundred grand or so?” and he picked up the envelope once again. “Of course you would. Because you
deserve
it, correct? You’re a hard workin’ man, tired of just
getting
by
, I expect. Getting by while crooks and scroungers get to swank about in Essex mansions bedecked with sovereign rings. Hardly fair now is it? Which is why it’s only right, what you and I do. Evening out the score. Rewarding the hard-working, intelligent and gracious,” Scott turned the envelope in his small hands. “Punishing the lazy, rude and spoilt.”

“What
I
do?”

“In your little shop. The Siegel & Shuster photograph? No bidders yet I notice. I’d check your emails if I were you. Bound to have someone offering cash for a quick sale.”

“Wait,” I said firmly, hand held up.

“But don’t fret over it, sweetkins. After all, to some extent
everyone
acts as judge and jury on every soul they meet. Usually on nothing more than fleeting circumstantial evidence. Their shirt, their shoes. We at least –”

“
You
.”

“
We
give our defendants an opportunity to display their grace. A chance to state their case before we dish out a suitable sentence.”

At which point I stopped him. I’d had just about enough of this. I can’t recall exactly what I said, being a little drunk at the time. Something like,
stop, I’ve had just about enough of this
I expect. I do recall I held a hand up like a traffic policeman which was unusually assertive of me. But frankly I wanted some answers. What was all this
about
?

Scott waited. He took a swig of water. He waited some more.
About
? he said. Then, looking over my shoulder briefly, he fixed me with both eyes and told me. Quite calmly.

Justice, dear boy.

I blinked back at him. The restaurant paid neither his motive nor my blinking much attention.

He said it again, something fluttering like a shadow across his demeanour.

“Justice?” I queried, head thudding, “Sorry, I’m not sure I –”

“
Justice
. Man’s to mete out and man’s alone. Who else will even the eternal score?
God
?” and he barked an angry laugh. “No no. There lies a long, cold, wormy wait for those hoping for
judgement
day, young Neil. No retribution is coming, no bearded
magistrate
waits in the wings to bang the almighty gavel.”

“Justice for
what
?” I said. “You’ve been ripped off?”

“Ripped off, ripped apart, ripped to pieces,” Scott said. The mood seemed to have shifted. “We all have been at some time. Ravaged, raped and ruined. Dreams crushed, guts torn out by a harsh, unfeeling world.” Scott’s jaw ground, bitter muscles bulging in his cheek. “Posit love, for example.”

“You what?”

“You love someone and they don’t love you back. Happens all the time. Your whole world for three aching lonely years. It’s destroying. Agreed? Observe the sentencing though.
You
are destroyed,
they
are not. You are dejected,
they
are not. Is that fair? Is that
justice
? Look at the crimes.
My
act is to see beauty in another and worship unconditionally.
Their
act is to reject this worship. To ignore, to pity and to condescend. But it is
I
who am sentenced to spend the rest of my days alone. While the one I love goes on, brushing the speckled lint of her guilt away with a laugh and a gesture.”

I sat and listened.

“The world we have created,” Scott said, sitting back a bit, chin up, “has scales tipped crazily off kilter. Good folk weep alone, sobbing at kitchen tables, heads full of their love’s face, the lonely night stretching out forever. And the
selfish
objects of their
innocent
desire?” He spat the word, spittle glistening on his lip. “Those who think they are
better
, are out laughing and drinking, sparing no one a thought but
themselves
. Now, Neil. In a world
this
crazy,
someone
must even out the score, don’t you think?”

The table went quiet. I wiped clammy palms on my trousers, dizzied by the open wound of his confession.

“
And
,” I said, my voice cracking. “S-Sorry. And this … this is why you do … whatever you
do
? Because of … a
woman
?”

Eyes wet and weary, Scott looked at me solemnly for a beat.

And then his face sagged, cracking a goofy grin.

“
Naaahh
, not really,” he laughed loudly. “Ha! I do it for fun. Shits and giggles. No more than that.”

“What? But – ?”

“Tut-tut, Neil. Too many
movies
dear,” he smiled, leaning over and tapping me one-two-three on my forehead with a firm index finger. “That’s your problem. Things aren’t always
about
things, Neil. There’s no convenient back-story to people. And why should there be?”

“You –”

“I mean bally jove, nobody goes looking for a
shark’s
back-story
, do they? To find out what went on in
his
childhood that made him a killing machine.”

“We’re not sharks,” I said, angry, confused and not a little bit drunk.

“Ahh, but do you know why, though? The only reason I am not a shark is that my mummy and daddy weren’t sharks. That’s all. The only reason
you
aren’t a shark is that Mr & Mrs Martin happened not to be sharks. Now, you going to let that itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot quirk of fate cost you your
business
? Your home? Cost you …” and he paused. He looked at me. “Your
family
?”

The whole sumptuous room seemed to lurch slightly, like it was trying to pull out at a busy junction. Scott began twiddling the envelope in front of him. My better judgement nudged my back bumper, tooting.

But I stayed where I was.

“What do you know about my family?”

“Well Zilch McGrew, as a matter of fact,” Scott shrugged, “but I know something about
people
. I know, for example Neil, that young men with thriving businesses, savings tucked away and a bank manager they play golf with, tend not, by and large, to go to lunch with peculiar-acting men. That’s more the behaviour of the desperate, wouldn’t you say?”

I blinked at him, keeping him focused.

He went on, as I rather feared he might, turning the envelope slowly.

“More the behaviour of a man in need of a quick fix. A
one-off
, chance of a lifetime deal, that’ll get him out of whatever unfortunate hole he’s stumbled into. Coffee?”

I should have left. I don’t know why I didn’t. But I should have.

Though actually –

Actually no, I know
exactly
why I didn’t. It’s because – and I’m aware of how stupid this sounds – it’s because I hadn’t seen inside the envelope yet.

It was there, inches away, and it had something in it of value otherwise what was all this about? And hell, it’s not like we’d done anything wrong. We were just two guys. Just two guys talking. So I let him order coffee. And I told myself, a coffee, a look in the envelope then go.

Just for curiosity’s sake.

Coffee, envelope, go.

“Picture this if you might,” Scott said, fine crockery now between us. “You’re out walking one lunchtime and you spot something valuable in the street.” He had sat back and was turning the
envelope
in his fingers. “Say … a gold watch. Like this one,” and from the side of the table, Scott’s foot slid out quickly. Lifting his brown brogue, he revealed beneath it a heavy-looking gold watch. He returned his foot to under the table. The watch remained where it was, curled on the carpet.

“Naturally,” Scott said, “you bend to pick it up.”

I looked at the watch, lying there. I looked up at Scott.

“Well, go on then,” he said.

Hesitantly, feeling this was the first in what might turn out to be a long line of regrettable moves, I leant over to retrieve the watch from the floor, when Scott suddenly lunged for it gruffly, the table clattering. He grabbed it up with a snarl of
Mine
!

Startled, I looked up and Rudy’s greasy hat was back, along with his character it seemed.

“Now I’m a fuckin’ tramp, arn’ I,” Scott drawled, face low
among the wine glasses and coffee cups. “Didn’ see me lurkin’ in a doorway did ya? See, I spotted this watch too. Juss as you did. An’ I wanna pawn it, sharpish. Get m’self a few beers wiv’ dis li’l beauty I bet. Look at it shoine,” and he curled it in the lamplight. “Rolex an’ all. Heavy. Bet we could get two ’undred nicker for it, eh? Whaddya say mate?”

I wasn’t sure what my line was here. I was toying with ‘uhmm’, or possible ‘goodbye’ when Scott kicked me, helpfully, under the table.

“Ow! Uhmm, maybe. Okay, yes,” I said. “Look, what is – ?”

“You better do the deal though mate,” Scott interrupted, handing the watch over. He was right. It was made by the nice people at Rolex and had the easy weight of a housebrick. “No bloke’s gonna truss’ me are they. Fink I ’arf inched it or summink. Nahh, you’re the
gent
. Best you try an’ flog it. See if you can get two ’undred. Then we’ll split it.”

The table went quiet. I glanced about for a prompt.

“Well go on then, man,” Scott said brightly, dropping out of character for a second. “Off you pop. You’re the salesman. See if you can shift it. Try our dessert waiter. He could do with a bit of reliable timekeeping.”

So up I got. Was it his charm? His smile? The fact I’d got outside the better part of a bottle of wine and the envelope was now on
my
side of the table? I don’t know.

But up I got.

I was halfway around the room, wandering woozily among the tables when our waiter naturally approached. Did I need
something
? I figured, in for a penny, and I offered him the watch. Well, you’ve got to have a go, haven’t you? But bang, just like that, he asked me how much.

So I said make me an offer and he looked at it, umming and ahhing. And he said
three-fifty.

Three-fifty
? I said back, just out of surprise, to which he said ‘all right,
four
.’

So eager to bring a halt to this bizarre charade and get back to my table where I could work quietly on my headache, I agreed. He said he hadn’t got the cash on him, he’d have to get an advance from the head waiter, but he’d bring it over to the table with the bill.

Job done, I returned to the table, thinking hell, maybe this has proved … whatever the hell it was meant to prove.

“Aah ja’ get on then mate?” Scott asked with a theatrical burp.

“Done. I’m guessing this is what, some sort of –”

“Got me’ share ’ave ya? I need that ’undred.”

“Not yet. A few minutes. The guy’s bringing it over with the bill.”

“I ain’t got toime to ’ang about ’ere wiv you. Where’s me ’undred. C’mon, I ain’t gettin’ shafted. ’Arf the money’s mine by rights an’ you know it. C’mon, ’undred nicker. C’mon.”

Our waiter appeared at the table shifting nervously within his waistcoat, eyes darting.

“
Boss has cleared it
,” he hissed. “
I’ll be back with it in five minutes
,” and he scuttled away to the kitchen.

“’Undred. Now,” Scott said. “Or I’m takin’ this for m’self,” and he picked up the watch from the table.

“Okay okay,” I said, sliding my wallet out and flipping woozily through most of the shop’s remaining petty cash. “Here,” I said, counting out five twenties.

“Cheers guv, gawd bless ya,” Scott said, slipping the twenties away in his top pocket and pulling off his hat. He sat up with a small smile.

“Now what?” I said.

“How do you mean?”

“Now what happens?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s
it
?” I frowned. I craned around and saw the waiter in conversation with an older major domo looking chap in stripey trousers. He was handing him a white envelope. “You give me a watch and I sell it? I don’t understand. Is this meant to represent something? The shop? My selling skills?”

Scott just smiled.

The waiter appeared at our table as expected, but then as very much not expected, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yanked off his tie and tossed it to the table, pulling up a spare chair and glugging out the last inch of wine into a new glass. I looked him over. He was tanned in a gap-year sort of way, about my age, but weathered by sunshine and outdoorsyness. His blond
hair was patchy and bleached and he had a healthy Colgate smile.

“Neil?” Scott said. “I’d like you to meet Henry David.”

“Pleasure mate,” Henry said in a brand spanking new Australian accent. “You wanna top up?”

I looked at him. I looked at Scott.

“Goes back to the forties,” Scott said. “As most confidence tricks do. The tat, the poke, the gold watch. These were a grifter’s bread and butter.”

“Confidence – ? But, wait,” and I looked to and fro at Scott and Henry again, click clack back and forth for a day or so. As I did, Henry opened his white envelope and slid out a small sheet of grey paper.

“My P45,” he said.

“And the watch?”

“For insurance purposes,” Scott pursed like an antiques dealer, “our experts would recommend a value in the region of about four of your Earth pounds. Keep it though. A souvenir.” “And my hundred quid?” I said.

Scott smiled.

He gave me my money back eventually. Said
the first lesson is always free my boy, the first lesson is always free.

Scott continued, laying out the finer details of the short con while I
righty-ho
-ed as convincingly as I could. But truth was, this was all getting about as wrongty-ho as things got. What had happened to coffee, envelope and go? What was I still doing here?

“No,” I interrupted after a deep breath, sliding my coffee away. “Sorry, but whatever it is, the answer’s no. You’re going to play this gold-watch trick, right? On some helpless guy? Using
whatever’s
in here,” and I picked up the middle one of the three woozy envelopes beside me, “to con him out of his money?”

The two men looked at me.

“But you can’t do it without
me
, right? That’s what this lunch is all about?”

“Regrettably the man we are targeting is not interested in fake gold watches. Nor diamonds, art, antiques or dead-cert greyhounds. He’s a buff. Buffer than that envelope you’re holding in your hand
in fact. Memorabilia. And a real expert. Not the sort to be taken in just by Henry and I slipping Spider-Man into the conversation and wearing Albert Hitchcock T-shirts.”

“Al
fred
.”

“Well exactly. The grift is all about trust, Neil. If we’re going to skin this fellow – and frankly we’d be raspberry fools not to – we have to first convince him we’re his kind of people.
Your
kind of people. Dealers. Experts.”

“Nerds,” Henry added helpfully.

“Right,” I said. “And that’s okay because … ?”

Scott and Henry exchanged bemused looks.

“I mean, it’s all right for you to skin this man out of his money because what? He’s stupid?”

“And greedy,” Henry said.

“
Terribly
.”

“No,” I said again.

“
No
?”

“No. No, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. My father? Now
he’s
someone you should talk to.”

“Father!” Scott cried, hands leaping. “That reminds me. Thank you old chap,” and he began to flap about in the bag next to him. Henry and I watched for a moment.

“But I’m not like him,” I said slowly. “I’m not like my father. If that’s where you’ve got this idea from? I’m …”

“
Honest
?” Henry suggested. Scott emerged with a jiffy bag.

“Yes. Honest. If you like.”

“Hmn. Quite a
liar
for an honest man, aren’t we Neil?” Scott said. He upended the jiffy bag and slid out a glittery greetings card, adorned with kittens and bows. He signed his card quickly with a flurry of kisses, peeling out a fat wad of five-pound notes from his wallet. He tucked them in the card and tried unsuccessfully to close it. “Sorry. For my parents. Wedding anni … oh this isn’t going to shut, it’s too … Have you got change, Neil?” and he held out the wad of fives.

“Wait, what do you mean, liar?”

“Hmn? Oh, all that stuff a moment ago? When you agreed that the intelligent and hardworking deserve a step up? And that the lazy and stupid should take a step down. You said that was what you wanted.”

“But I didn’t mean –”

“
Excuse me
?” Scott clicked his fingers, the head waiter wafting over. “My dear chap, would you be a bless dumpling and shove the bill on that?” and he handed him a credit card. The waiter glided off. Scott turned back to me. “It was the rationalisation you comforted yourself with, Neil, when you happily offered a mere tenner for Mr Rudy’s photograph.”

“Look,” I said, trying to focus. “Look that was –”

“And if you’re an
honest
man, Mr Martin, wouldn’t you have offered my Rudy two hundred pounds for the watch just now? We
both
found the watch on the floor. You agreed to split it
fifty-fifty
with the tramp …”

“… But I offered you
four
hundred,” Henry said.

“Didn’t see your honesty leap forth into the – ah,
marvellous
,” Scott beamed, the waiter gliding back. He signed the credit card slip briskly.

“I’m off to the dunny,” Henry drawled, sliding his chair out with a scrape. “Back in a bit,” and he mooched off.

“I wonder if you’d mind,” Scott was saying to the head waiter. “I have to send two hundred pounds to my parents but the bank could only give me these fives. Could you see if you have some twenties you could change for me? I can’t get the card closed,” and he waved the kittens at him. “Oh and my jacket?”

The waiter backed away with a bow.

“Look, dear fellow. All of this is spectacular in its
beside-the-point-ness
,” Scott said, “because we’re not involving you in anything dishonest. Henry and I will be the ones playing the game. We’re just cutting you in on your share of the score.”

“A high six-figure sum,” I said, my eyes flicking involuntarily to the envelope on the table once more. My life seemed to be governed by envelopes these days. Thin ones from banks, fat ones from solicitors.

This one in front of me.

“Absolutely. Twenty per cent, as we agreed. Now where’s that Henry got to? I could do with the loo myself,” Scott said, glancing about the room.

“Sir,” the waiter said, presenting a small plate. Ten purple notes lay there in two neat fans.

“Ah, my good man, god bless you,” and Scott handed the waiter his pile of fives, scooping up the twenties. The waiter began to count the notes out into the dish as I watched Scott slip the
twenties
into his card.

“That’s better, excellent, excellent,” he said. He closed the card and slipped it into the envelope, sliding the whole lot into the stamped jiffy bag and sealing it tight. With a lick of his pencil he started to write his parent’s address on the front.

“One eight five, one ninety,” the waiter finished up. “One ninety five … No no, sir, you are short by five pounds.”

“Hn?” Scott said, the envelope licked and sealed. “Oh that blasted bank, I didn’t even check it. Sorry, may I?” and he took the notes, counting them out himself. “… one ninety, one ninety five … You’re right. Damn and I’ve sealed – Neil, be a bless poppet. You don’t have five pounds you can give this – no. No, wait. Henry owes me five. Let me get it from him.”

Scott stood up.

“You’d better have your twenties back, dear chap,” he said, handing the sealed, stamped jiffy-bag to the waiter. “I’ll see where Henry’s got to. Two ticks,” and Scott wandered off towards the bathroom, humming a tune.

It’s called the Flue.

The thing, the trick. It’s called the Flue. They explained later. After I’d sat there with this stern head waiter for ten minutes of course. Fidgeting, rearranging the coffee cups. Waiting for Scott and Henry to come back. Which, of course they didn’t.

Another waiter came and flanked the table, a clean and
manicured
hand on my shoulder. The head waiter cracked open the jiffy bag and opened the card.

I don’t know how Scott did it. Secreted them, palmed them, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, he’d walked off with his fives and the waiter’s twenties leaving me to put things right, so that was the last I saw of my petty cash. The waiter let me keep the greetings card though. It was addressed to me after all.

Dear Neil,
he’d put,
like I say, only the first lesson is free. I’ll be in touch – Christopher.