by Jim Wilsky
LOSING STREAK
A Grifter’s Song
Jim Wilsky
Series Created and Edited
by Frank Zafiro
Copyright © 2019 by Jim Wilsky
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Zach McCain
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Losing Streak
About the Author
Also by the Author
Preview from Countdown by Matt Phillips
Preview from The Ornery Gene by Warren C. Embree
Preview from Swann’s Down by Charles Salzberg
Chapter 1
Sam signed off with David Bloom and looked over at Rachel. His mind raced back over the short conversation with the developer just now. He crossed his arms and started to pace back and forth, something he hardly ever did.
“What?” Rachel was dressed for the meeting, laptop satchel in one hand and car keys in the other.
Sam didn’t answer, just walked to the third-floor window and looked down. He felt her hand on his shoulder.
Shaking his head slowly, he thought it might just be his nerves. Maybe it’s being overly cautious because of the losing streak they were on. Started with them fumbling the ball so badly with the high-grade comic book in Wisconsin, making only a fraction of what they could have. Forced to sell too quick. Madison had been a close call with Little Vincent’s man. Too close.
“Sam, what?” She pressed against his back lightly and he could smell her perfume. “We need to get going, babe. What is it?”
Then Joliet he thought, which failed even before it got started but not until they had already spent their dwindling money on a shopping center strip storefront. On the second day, the mark had been arrested on forgery charges.
This one though, this job is perfect. It’d been a long one, taking almost a month and a half. But worth it. Real Estate. Big con. They were going to cover all the expenses to set it up and clear at least a seventy-five thousand. Hell, maybe twice that before it’s over. Except it isn’t perfect, is it, Sammy boy? his inner voice chided.
He finally turned to her. “Pack.” He walked to the bathroom to get his shaving bag. “Got to go.”
“Wait. What…What are you talking about? We can’t, we…” She stopped mid-sentence.
“Pack, Rachel,” he called. “Pack right now. It’s done, we’re out.”
He came out of the bathroom and grabbed his bag out of the small closet. He threw it on the bed and started grabbing shirts and pants.
“What did Bloom say? I mean, today is the day. This is it. I don’t understand.” Her voice was confused and had a touch of anger to it.
Sam didn’t look up, “I felt it at yesterday’s meeting. You felt it too. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
“He was nervous and a little shaky yeah, but that doesn’t mean this is over. We’re right there on this.” She held her fingers an inch apart. “He’s ready to do this.”
“Bloom said he couldn’t meet at his office just now. Said he wanted to meet here at the hotel instead. Told me he was on his way and to stay put.”
Rachel didn’t reply. Just stared at him.
He looked up from packing his clothes, “His voice was all wrong just now. He’s a shitty actor. I’m telling you, somebody is onto him, after him…or he’s after us. Pack, Rachel. We gotta go. Gotta go now.”
She didn’t move and looked up at the ceiling. “We need this one, Sam.”
“I know.” He walked to her and cupped her face. “But trust me on this.”
She met his eyes and locked on. After a long pause, she sighed and asked, “Where?”
Avoiding the elevator, Rachel headed for the stairwell. Sam’s phone chirped as he was going down the steps to an exit door on the side of the hotel. He glanced at the screen and kept going. It was Bloom.
They crossed the parking lot casually and threw their bags in the back seat. His phone chirped again as he got in. He ignored it and buckled up.
“Which way, left? Can’t remember where the ramp is,” he said as they pulled out of their space and headed toward the hotel exit.
Rachel looked down at her phone. “No, go right. We’ll be on Britton Road then, about a mile turn left on Second Street. I-35 ramp will be about another mile.”
Sam wasted no time pulling out of the hotel parking lot and Rachel turned in her seat to glance out the back window.
There was a light a block ahead and it was green but the car ahead of him was just puttering along. Sam glanced to his side, ready to pass, but he saw a car just behind them in the other lane. The light switched to yellow up ahead and he slowed to a stop.
Rachel turned to him. “Dark blue SUV just pulled out of the hotel…in a hurry. Two cars behind us.”
They did not speak while waiting for the light to change. Rachel adjusted her visor mirror. Underway again, Sam saw a gas station up ahead and without signaling or slowing down much, he pulled in. Cutting through, he dodged a guy getting out of his car and exited onto another road on the other side.
“They’re following.” Rachel’s voice was calm and measured.
He went around the block and came to Britton Road again. He looked at the oncoming traffic quickly, saw a break and went through a stop sign, continuing along the route they had begun.
“Still there.”
They took a left on Second Street and headed for the interstate ramp.
“North or south?” Sam asked, eyes straight ahead. The light ahead went green and he accelerated through it.
Rachel didn’t answer, she was locked onto the rearview mirror.
Sam took the north ramp and entered the northbound lanes of I-35 and made his way over to the left lane. The speed limit was seventy-five. He hit that and then some as the old Jeep Cherokee responded. Oklahoma City was behind them and Wichita was dead ahead.
“What’s our plan here, Sam?”
“It’s not Wichita.” His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “We’ve got to lose them first before we decide anything else.”
“I wish you still smoked sometimes.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
They drove on without much more conversation at all. Each lost in thoughts about what could have been back in OKC. Sam didn’t believe in luck, good or bad, but he was starting to become a believer in curses.
When they finally crossed the state line into Kansas, Sam looked back at the SUV still trailing them and said, “Pretty soon here, I’m going to exit before we reach Wichita, then head east to Missouri…Springfield maybe.”
“Alright, whatever you think. Like you said, though, wherever we’re going we need to get there without them.”
Pretty soon came about two minutes later.
After he passed a car and returned to the left lane, Sam looked up ahead at the overpass, then over his right shoulder. There was a gap and he was fairly sure he could make it, but it had to be now. “Hold on.”
The sudden move shifted Rachel in her seat and she leaned toward Sam, gripping the arm r
est hard.
At a forty-five-degree angle, he cut across two lanes. Cars and trucks behind them honked, swerving and locking up their brakes. Rachel saw the exit coming up that Sam was aiming for, but it was too late, and they were not going to make it.
Sam broke hard, fighting the Jeep just enough to stop it from flipping over, missed a sign by two feet and his left tires found some rock and grass. As he straightened out and corrected the car, he punched it and the tires dug, spit, but then dug their way back onto the exit ramp.
Rachel was completely turned around in her seat and just caught a glimpse of the dark blue car as it continued north.
Blowing through the stop sign at the top of the hill, Sam took a right and headed east on a state highway. He took it back up to eighty.
She blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “Well, this Jeep sure isn’t a Mustang, but that was a move Steve McQueen would have been proud of.”
Sam grinned at her and she returned it. First smiles of the day, but they didn’t last and melted away.
He tried to keep it positive, though. “So, they have about five miles or so to go before the next exit, unless they use a cross over and come back to this exit. That wouldn’t really save them all that much time though.”
Rachel nodded, “This has to help. Distance between us is the name of the game right now.”
“Tell you what.” He pointed at her phone. “What’s another close eastbound road that parallels us and still heads to Springfield? I’ll zig zag over to that.”
Rachel brought up a map app. “Uhm, let’s see…Next intersection take a left, then a right onto Highway 160 east.” She leaned toward him looking at the dash. “Gas?”
“Right, but we’re good for now.” Sam looked back at the empty road behind them.
Whether it had been the hit man they had run into in again in Wisconsin, or someone that worked for Bloom, or someone else entirely, they couldn’t be sure. All that mattered was, whoever they were, they weren’t in the rearview mirror anymore.
Sam and Rachel continued east, putting as much distance in between them and the tail as possible, finally crossing into Missouri. Eventually, they came to the outskirts of Springfield. On the fly, they both agreed on changing direction just one more time, but they couldn’t decide.
“You’re turn, babe. You decide. I’m too damn tired to think straight.”
A mile went by, then Rachel straightened in her seat and ran a hand through her hair. “South,” she decided. “Never been to Little Rock.” She looked over at him and her face showed the strain and exhaustion, but she worked up a small grin. “Have you?”
“Nope. Yeah, okay. Why not?”
A few miles later, Sam stopped for gas and filled it, got a cup of shitty coffee and paid cash. When he got back in the car she roused up from a curl in her seat and reached for the coffee. He pulled it back from her, though, and smiled.
“Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get there.” He put his light jacket over her as a sort of blanket.
“’Kay…just really tired.” She muttered something else he didn’t catch and put her seat down as far as it would go.
During the drive, he was left to his thoughts and think he did. About everything. Yes, they had managed to escape, but this was yet another setback. Bottom line was, being on the grift wasn’t always pretty. No matter what the popular belief or glamorous impression was of their profession and lifestyle.
Sure, there had been times in the past where the cup was running over. Long cons and even short ones, with big hits. Money to burn afterwards. At the same time though, there had also been some lean times, even teetering on the desperate side. Like now. It was simply the nature of the game and no one knew this better than Sam and Rachel.
Sometimes, you just do what you have to do. It was a time to swallow some pride, lick some wounds and take a short break. A time to regroup and reset.
It was late and raining when they finally parked in a city parking garage and checked into a non-descript downtown Little Rock hotel.
They would hunker down. They would focus on nothing. Might be a week, but that would be the absolute max. They were very low on cash money and but they were hesitant on using almost any of the credit cards in their collection. They had one Chase card they had just picked up in Wisconsin but that was pretty much it. The rest were just old pieces of plastic, and probably on the radar of anyone looking for them. After all the bad luck they’d been having, Sam didn’t want to risk it.
Money wasn’t the only motivation though. It was inevitable, they both knew that. Sooner or later, it would be time to get back into the game. Even if they had a bathtub full of money, which they certainly didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. They were who they were. The lure and urge would just be too great.
A grifter’s gonna grift.
Chapter 2
Sam took a sip of his new Heineken and then sat it slowly back down on the coaster. He looked blankly at the screen behind the bar. He hated soccer. Then again, he had a long hate list these days.
It was only nine-thirty or so, but the place was starting to empty out already. That was a little early for a hotel sports bar like the Double Play, but it was a Sunday night and he supposed that made sense. Sam had come down here for a quick drink, maybe order a sandwich or something, but honestly, he was just bored and restless. So was Rachel, but she didn’t feel like having a drink and opted for watching a couple of movies.
It was your average little eight stool, ten table hotel bar, jammed into the corner of the lobby of their hotel. Dark and quiet and depressing. It wasn’t helping Sam’s mood any.
Behind the bar, he watched Amy, who was wearing a black apron, white blouse and black bow tie. Cute, fun and quick with a beer but if she had to make someone a good martini, it’d probably be a stretch. She grabbed his twenty with a smile and he watched her walk back to the register. Yes. Definitely gets the tips and probably breaks a few hearts along the way.
He turned halfway in his chair and gazed back out at the remaining people. Tired salesmen for the most part, old and young, dressed in those same styles and shades of business casual clothes. He just couldn’t help it. Even if you took grifting out of the equation, Sam still loved to watch people. Airports, hotels and bars were the best. A nice airport bar or airline member lounge? The pinnacle.
It had always been in him. The need and the ability to read people, figure them out, guess their triggers and fears. Are they hiding, cheating or running from something. Posing, pretending, bored with their lives or maybe even bat-shit crazy?
Most of these people wished they were anywhere but where they were. Just going through the motions. Desperate and bored, drinking steadily and pretending interest as they stared at their phones or at the two flat screens behind the bar. He smiled sadly. Right now, anyway, that description included himself.
There were five people left in the place now.
One guy doesn’t quite fit the formula. Probably mid-fifties and overweight. Short cropped gray hair and a face like an old fighter, who lost more bouts than he won. He was wearing a suit and tie. An old, too tight suit and an even worse looking striped tie. He was down at the other end of the bar, quietly slamming down his fifth bottle of Corona and doing his best to devour a sloppy hamburger and fries without wearing half of it.
There was a couple, man and woman, sitting at a table but across from each other. Both mid to late twenties. Guy was a constant talker, just annoying as hell and the woman was trying hard to act interested. He’s one of those that never seems to stop selling, doesn’t know how to listen and isn’t capable of having a normal conversation. Ever. They were definitely just business associates and nothing else.
Another guy had just walked in and was deciding whether this bar is worth it. He was looking at the game on the screen but was about ready to turn around and leave. Sam put him at twenty-nine, maybe thirty. White cowboy hat, jeans, nice boots and pressed white dress shirt. Squ
ared away.
Finally, there was a woman seated alone at a corner table. Early forties. Medium length auburn hair, business clothes, expensive shoes and just enough jewelry. Attractive enough but she had an ice cold, detached look about her. All she needed were those vodka tonics. The smart phone and work tablet she had on the small table were nothing more than props and people shields. Tablet and phone. Sit one down and pick the other up, back and forth.
Turning back to the bar, Sam knew there was that something here tonight, but he can’t put his finger on it, yet. But he was close.
Sam can never turn it all the way off. Sometimes he got that ping on his grift radar whether he’s listening for it or not. Something or someone that trips that wire.
His eyes drifted sideways to his left, down to the last barstool, back to the older guy, His view got blocked, though, by the undecided guy in the cowboy hat, who had evidently decided.
The man didn’t sit down, he just nodded at Sam then leaned on the bar and caught Amy’s attention. He put a twenty-dollar bill down and pointed at the bottles lined up behind her. “Woodford Reserve, neat. Make it a double.”
Waiting for the drink, the man turned slightly in the direction of the old guy at the end and said, “Well, I’ll be damned. Look who’s here…look what the dog drug in.”
“Jesus, they let anybody in here, huh?” The older guy responded, his voice a low growl.
Amy brought the bourbon set it down and took the twenty to change it.
“You can keep that, honey. I’ll be going pretty quick,” the guy said to Amy, but he didn’t take his eyes off the old man. He took a long sip and then pointed the tumbler toward the man in the suit. “Just can’t stand the smell coming from over there.”
“Daddy must have given you your allowance, huh, boy?” The old guy chuckled. There were few beats of silence, before he muttered, “You little jack wagon.” He said it low and menacing. No chuckle this time.
