The Con (10 page)

He sits down on the stool and watches me in
silence as I clean up. It's unnerving, but it's also Jagger. I
think he secretly gets off on making me uncomfortable.

When the kitchen is finally somewhat
presentable, I bring my attention back on him. "What did you want
to talk about?"

God, he looks so sexy. He's older now, his
body has filled out and although he's still lean, his frame is
solid. I can see a hint of his abs from under his white t-shirt
when he stretches his arms.

"Do you ever just wish you had enough money
to get out of here and start new? You know, somewhere fresh where
everyone didn't know about the family you came from and the trailer
you grew up in?"

That is not the kind of question I expected
to be answering at three in the morning. A part of me thought,
hoped a little, that coming in was just an excuse to get in my
bed.

I wish I had money to get out of here all
the time, but the reality is it'll never happen for me. Sure, Pearl
is making a life for herself and has a fruitful career ahead of
her, but I'm an adult now. I'm no longer her financial
responsibility.

"Sure, but wishing and hoping is a dangerous
thing."

"What would you do if I told you I could get
you the kind of money you need to get out of here. What if I could
make that happen?"

Standing across from him, I roll my eyes and
place my elbows on the countertop as I lean in. "I'd say you are
full of it."

He continues to look me right in the eyes;
his mouth is the only part of his body that moves. "I'm not."

His expression is firm, confident. I almost
want to believe him.

Almost.

"You're saying you have a way for me to get
out of this hell hole and start fresh and you're just going to give
it to me? No strings attached?"

"I never said I'd give you anything."

"Of course not, because at the end of the
day you don't have a way for me to leave this trailer park and
you're just toying with me. Is this a game to you? Do you just sit
around on days you're really bored and say to yourself 'I think I'm
going to find more ways to fuck with Ronnie,' because you haven't
played with my emotions enough?"

A painful expression crosses his face before
he masks it. "Two hundred and fifty grand."

"Is there a punch line to go with that
statement?"

"That's how much money you'll have in two
weeks if you agree to what I'm about to propose. There's your punch
line."

My mouth drops as I inwardly salivate at
that kind of money. "You're going to give me two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars? What in the world could you need me to agree to
that will get me that kind of money? Selling my body wouldn't even
be worth that much, not that I'd ever offer it up."

The truth is I'd sleep with Jagger for
nothing. I have real issues, enough for a lifetime worth of
therapy.

"Don't worry, twinkle toes, what I'm about
to propose requires you to keep your clothes on."

"So what is it?"

"Not so fast. I can't give you the details
until you agree to do this with me. You need to go into this
blind."

"I'm not agreeing to anything without
knowing the facts."

"Then I guess you're not the girl for this
because I never bring anyone into one of my jobs until they are
fully vested in it with me. I thought a quarter of a million was
enough to entice you. I guess I was wrong."

This is a con. He needs me to pull off a con
with him. He needs me to be calculating and cunning.

I can't do what he does. I've watched him
over the years and it always seems so effortless for him. Like
getting people to hand over their money to him is second
nature.

But... two hundred fifty thousand
dollars...

My eyes drift over the outdated brown and
white wooden cabinets in our kitchen and the fake wood flooring.
The trailer is probably 48ft by 14ft at most. It's a little
rectangular box. With the kind of money Jagger is offering me, I
could finally get a place of my own. A real place. Pearl wouldn't
have to help take care of me anymore. I could help her, too. Pay
her back for all that she's done for me.

Plus, this could be a way for me to get
closer to Jagger. He barely knows me, but he trusts me enough to
ask me to do this with him.

Or maybe he's drunk. It is almost four in
the morning.

Whatever his reasoning is, I'm still the one
he wants to do this with. I'm still the one he's willing to help
get out of this hellhole I've lived in my entire life, and start
fresh. No matter what the con is, I can't see it being bad enough
to turn down that kind of money. But is money really
everything?

"We make a living by what we get, but we
make a life by what we give," I mumble under my breath.

"What was that, twinkle toes?"

"Nothing. It's just a quote by Winston
Churchill. You should meditate on what he was trying to say. It
might make you reconsider your line of work."

He laughs under his breath before pulling
the cigarette from behind his ear. "Do you mind if I light up in
here?"

Pearl would be pissed if she knew someone
was smoking in our place. I'll have to get the smell out before
Monday. "Nope. Go right ahead."

He lights up, taking a drag as the fiery
embers burn at the end. "Do you want to know what my favorite
quotes is, twinkle toes?"

I move to the cabinet that holds our dishes
and grab a cup, sliding it over to him so he has a place to flick
the ashes. "Sure."

"With my mind on my money and my money on my
mind." He flicks the ash into the cup before adding, "Snoop
Dogg."

I wait for him to laugh, something to
indicate he's joking, but he's not.

"It sounds like you worship money."

"Don't we all? We need money to survive–to
eat, to have a place to sleep, electricity, running water, you name
it. The rich have too much of it and greedily want more and the
poor, like us, can never attain enough of it to live comfortably.
It's the way our world was programmed to work, so yeah, I guess in
a way I do worship it, but it's only because I remember what it's
like to not have any, to go days without eating, and I'm never
going to live that way again, and I don't have an education to get
money the honest way." He pauses to take another drag of his
cigarette.

"So this is how I live, twinkle toes. You
can take it or leave it, but ask yourself this. Why do you work the
club scene every night? Why do you wear next to nothing while men
holler disgusting things at you as you hand them flyers inviting
them into a seedy club, while they maybe try to cop a feel or two?
It's because you make good money. It's because you make more doing
that than you would ringing up groceries down at the convenience
store. So in your own way, you worship money, too. You just do it
differently than I do."

He gets up, inhaling one last drag before
placing his filter in the cup. He turns to leave, his back to me,
when I realize I don't want him to walk out that door. I'd do
anything for him not to walk out that door.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know how
to decide."

He turns back around to face me with one
eyebrow raised and a sly smirk across his face. "Ask yourself one
question. Does the risk outweigh the reward?"

I think over his question, processing what
it all means. Does the risk of not knowing what exactly he needs me
to do outweigh two hundred fifty thousand dollars? That's
impossible to answer without knowing the exact risk, but I'm
guessing not much would outweigh that kind of money.

"I'm in. I'll do it."

"I knew you were the right girl for the job,
twinkle toes. You won't regret this. It'll be easy."

"So what's the job, exactly?" I ask, playing
with a loose strand of my hair that's slipped out of the messy knot
on top of my head. I need to busy my hands and mind with anything
to distract myself from confessing my undying love for the man in
front of me, and in the same sentence telling him what a jackass he
is for taking my virginity and then ignoring me for all these
years.

"Next week you and I are going to walk into
the largest bank in Phoenix as a married couple, and walk out with
five million dollars. We're stealing from the Esposito
organization."

What the hell did I just agree to?

Chapter Nine

I must have passed out. It's the only
explanation as to why the last thing I remember is being in my
outdated mess of a kitchen with Jagger, the man I've been in love
with since I was a kid, and now I'm lying on my bed staring at my
pale yellow walls while Jagger is removing my sweat pants and
sending sparks of desire up my body.

Wait.

Why is Jagger removing my pants?

I fumble, placing my hands on the pink
sheets that cover my twin mattress and sit up, kicking my legs
gently until Jagger is no longer touching me. I pull my pants up as
fast as possible and stare at him in disbelief.

"What do you think you're doing,
Jagger?"

"I was trying to be a gentleman. It didn't
look like you were going to wake up anytime soon so I put you to
bed and was just trying to make you more comfortable." He sits at
the foot of my bed and takes in my bedroom that looks exactly the
same way it did when I was five. "Nice room."

"I haven't had time to redecorate. I don't
have money, like you do." Everyone in our trailer park has seen the
renovations made to Jagger's trailer. His place stands out in our
neighborhood.

"You will soon."

"Jagger, what happened? How did I end up in
bed?"

"You passed out after I told you what the
plan was." He stands up, his jeans falling loosely on his hips. He
reaches up for something behind his ear, probably a cancer stick,
but nothing is there. He must have forgotten he smoked it in my
kitchen. "You're not going to make passing out a habit, are you? I
can't carry five million dollars out of a bank and a dead weight
girl."

Rolling my eyes, which is my new defense
mechanism, I reply, "Out of all the plans I imagined falling out of
your mouth, I never thought it would involve robbing a bank and
stealing from one of the most dangerous criminals in Arizona. I
wasn't prepared for such a risky plan, but I am now so I won't pass
out again. You have my word."

"Yeah, well, a lot of people have given me
their word before and it's meant nothing."

"My word counts for something, and if it's
any consolation I've never passed out before today."

He smiles at me before sitting back down and
reaching for my feet, placing them on his lap. His fingers start to
move effortlessly over my feet, massaging the aches and pains
away.

"You must be exhausted, twinkle toes. You
should go to sleep and we can talk about the details in the
morning."

I raise an eyebrow at him. "I may be tired
but I want to know more about what I'm getting into. I've never
done anything like this. I need to be as prepared as possible." My
mind is clouded with lack of sleep, and I know that right now most
of what he says will be forgotten when I wake up, but I don't want
him to leave. His hands on me feel so good. I've missed his
affectionate touches.

"How about a compromise? I'll give you my
rules tonight. In the morning I'll give you the details of the job,
because then you'll have gotten a good night's sleep."

"Rules?" I ask mid-yawn, my eyes starting to
droop from exhaustion.

"I have three rules for every con I pull,
rules that have gotten me by in life. Rules that, in the rare
moments I take in a partner, are vital for everything going
smoothly."

His thumb continues to rub the instep of my
foot and it's lulling me to sleep. "Okay, what are the rules?"

"The first rule is don't back out. You can
never back out of the con, twinkle toes. Once you commit, that's
it. Backing out once it's already in the process will only get us
caught.

"Rule number two is don't forget the story.
You're Giselle Esposito during this. You need to learn all you can
about her, embrace her, and become her. You're only as believable
as your story and the words that flow past your lips. You forget
it, you drop out of character for even one second, and the whole
job is blown."

My eyes drift closed and I no longer have
the strength to open them. Jagger is quiet for a moment. He must
think I'm already asleep but I want to know the last rule. "What's
rule number three?" I mumble as I turn on my side to face the wall,
my eye still closed.

"The last rule is my most important rule.
Don't fuck it up. I think that rule explains itself."

I don't respond. I can't. I'm already
drifting off to Ronnie-land where I'll undoubtedly dream about
Jagger and all the things I want him to do to me, when I should be
having nightmares of all the ways this job can go wrong.

In my state of dreamy bliss I feel his lips
brush against my temple as he whispers, "Sweet dreams, twinkle
toes."

***

The sun shines bright into the tiny window
of my small bedroom as memories of last night flash back to me. I
leap out of bed, rushing out of my bedroom and into the small
living area of my trailer. I'm not expecting Jagger to be here, so
I'm surprised when I see him sitting on the worn out sofa with two
coffees in his hands and a prepubescent boy next him.

My stumbling into the room grabs his
attention. He turns to look at what I can only imagine is a
complete train wreck of a woman in front of him. My wavy, frizzy
red hair is probably all over the place and I'm still in the
t-shirt and sweats from yesterday. Not exactly the way to a man's
heart.

"Hey there, twinkle toes. It's about time
you woke up. A few minutes more and I was going to have to walk in
there and wake you up myself."