One Night Wife (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  It wasn’t till she met Kibali that she had reason to doubt all over again.

  Kibali was the eight-year-old son of one of her microloan recipients. He was a twin, a charmer, and a terrible truant. Fin met him at the clinic when he came in for a bandage change on a nasty cut that he’d gotten on an adventure when he should’ve been in class.

  “Miss, you are very, very good at bandages, even if you are not a proper doctor,” Kibali said.

  “Thank you. I’m trying my best. Maybe if you went to school, you wouldn’t need to have your cut taken care of, and you could become a doctor.”

  “I don’t have time for school,” he said with a dramatic sigh, then went with, “You should know, Miss, that I like your watch very, very much.”

  “You should know that it would be better if you went to school.”

  He gave her an adults-are-pathetic look, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a strip of leather, and announced he would make her a friendship bracelet, which he did, knotting, twisting, and plaiting the leather before he tied it on her wrist.

  “Now Miss, it would very much benefit my education if you would give me your watch.”

  She blinked at him. His leather bracelet was the equivalent of a held drink, hair twisted in an earring, a dropped purse, a small charitable donation to warm up a large one.

  “If I could tell the time, imagine how good a student I would be. I would never be bored at school. And I could help other boys to learn. They would learn so very much and so very quickly with my excellent help. Your watch would bring great benefit to many boys and even teachers. You can get another watch, but in all seriousness, Miss, I should have that one.”

  Marilyn said she’d never fooled anyone, just let men fool themselves. She also said fear was stupid and so was regret.

  When Fin left Windhoek, Kibali was wearing her watch.

  She’d been expertly conned by an eight year old, for an excellent reason.

  Everyone lies and everyone cons.

  And some cons were righteous and made the world a fairer place.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A week after Fin had taken Cal’s money, the go-bag, and his heart, he rustled up three blue plastic cups, a couple of red marbles, and a card table. He dressed in a pair of old jeans, a plain black shirt, a pair of scuffed boots, and a cap. He found a bodega with a wide storefront on a corner location near a bus station, then set up the card table and waited.

  At first, he let the people who stopped to play win. The more players he let win, the more people crowded around, and they sent for their friends. Every day he showed up, so did a group of people keen to play. He let the women with kids, the old folk, the players who looked him in the eye and smiled because they didn’t expect to win, take his money.

  Anyone who shoved, got impatient, talked over a player, was boastful or made a spectacle of themselves, he cheated. Anyone who was rude or cocky after a polite warning, he punished by building their ego up and then taking every cent they had on them, and in some cases, the money they borrowed.

  But his criteria were all wrong. The man in the trucker cap with the arthritic fingers who was polite could well beat his wife. The woman with the three kids might be a careful mother but a drunk driver. The crude teenager might’ve been mouthy for show but a decent, church-going boy.

  Most cons didn’t care. Everyone was a potential mark, but that’s not how it worked for a Sherwood. A Sherwood had a finely tuned appreciation for justice and was skilled in sifting good people from bad, protecting those whose intentions were honorable and targeting those who were motivated by unreasonable greed.

  Of course, the cops moved him on. He’d wait a few hours and set up again. The bodega owner liked the crowds he attracted—they got thirsty or needed a snack, so Cal’s shell game was good for business. Cal liked the bodega owner’s cat. It reminded him of Scungy.

  Zeke and Tresna tracked him down. He didn’t ask how, it didn’t matter. For a day, they ran a more sophisticated version of the game, with Zeke and Tres playing the role of marks making easy money to inspire confidence in potential players. It was like they were kids again. The three of them cleaned up enough for a decent meal together, and he forgot for the moment to feel wretched.

  Two days later, Zeke came back alone. “How long you going to do this?” he asked as they ate meatball subs huddled under the narrow shop awning as it poured.

  “Does it matter?”

  “It’s not going to help.”

  “It’s sharpening my skills. Hand eye coordination. Mark selection.” It was keeping his hands busy and his mouth away from a bottle of woe.

  “It’s not going to bring her back.”

  Cal watched as two cab drivers almost came to blows, honking and yelling out their windows. Everyday road rage. What he was doing had nothing to do with Fin.

  And everything to do with Fin.

  “At least tell me you don’t seriously think she long conned you.”

  He’d had time to mull that around, to get over the wrench. “She was devastated. She wanted to make me hurt. It was a crime of opportunity, not something she planned.”

  “More like a crime of passion. You’re not wrong about Fin being in love with you.”

  “What do you think about his weather, hey?” he said, in a pitiful attempt to stop Zeke’s interrogation before it really got going.

  Zeke let a beat pass and then hit him with, “You need to come back to work. Halsey is fretting. You turned your phone off, no one can reach you. I don’t want to be CEO. Neither of the girls do. I don’t know how to continue with Brainstorm, and I’ve already annoyed everyone.”

  “It’s your turn. Did you think I was going to want to do that job forever?” He balled the sandwich bag in his hand and tossed it at a trash can. It missed. “It’s a grind. Unrelenting.”

  “Yeah, I did. We all did. You love that unrelenting job, and we’d follow you anywhere, like we have since we were kids.”

  He didn’t need to hear that. He picked up the sandwich bag, stepped back, aimed, and tossed. Missed again. He could well have led them into total financial ruin by trusting Fin.

  “Look, the rain is letting up.” It was thumping down, and he didn’t want to know about Sherwood; it was too painful to think about what he’d lost. “Shit happens. I don’t get to have Fin, and I’m not fit for the corner office.”

  “It’s still there, waiting for you. We’re all waiting for you.”

  God, that was infuriating. He shouldn’t have to pitch his own family on the reason why they were better off without him. “I fucked up. I’m not capable of being the leader right now.”

  “You fucked up, but everyone does. Everyone lies, everyone cons, everyone fucks up. It’s not like there’s a higher standard for you than the rest of us. Also, how the hell do you handle Mom? She looks you in the face and lies if she thinks it’ll keep one more albatross from eating a plastic bottle top.”

  Cal rescued the wet sandwich bag and tossed it again, a lazy looping throw that should’ve missed. It didn’t. “You only want me back so you can go cult busting.”

  “I want you back because you were born for leading us, I was born for cult busting, and Halsey was born to the wrong family because he hates uncertainty. Sherin might be right about cyber fraud eating our lunch, Tresna is seriously out of control, and Rory is over you and doing fine now. You had a close call. You got your heart broken and your pride smashed. That’s all this is.”

  The rain had slowed to a sprinkle. The air smelled of wet rubber and greasy sidewalk, and people were starting to reappear.

  “Fin despises me. The woman I love made me her mark. She took my money and ran.”

  “I get it. You need time to sulk.”

  Cal pulled his card table out from where he’d stowed it to keep it dry. He had to shove Zeke out of his way to get to it. “I’m not sulking. I’m regrouping.” He was sulking. Nothing made sense without Fin. He put the marble under the middle cup. “If you’re s
ticking around, you need to play, otherwise you’re poisoning my well.”

  Zeke flipped him off and laughed as he stepped away. Cal watched him disappear into the crowd of pedestrians. His heart cracked, pride bruised, ego in tatters. He should’ve been watching his game.

  “I’ll play.”

  He looked around slowly because the city was loud, and he was distracted thinking it was only luck it was Zeke who’d come to remind him who he was meant to be and not Mom.

  “What do I do?” she said.

  She was pale and had dark smudges under her eyes. Her hair glittered with raindrops and his whole body tensed, every sense set ringing.

  She touched a fingertip to the middle cup. “I’m not very skilled at games. I get confused about the rules and when you can break them. But I’m a fast study with the right instruction.”

  The card table wasn’t much of a barrier, but it was enough, combined with the weight of unspoken things between them, to stop him reaching for her. “You look like you can handle anything to me.” She looked like bravery and hope and everything he wanted for the rest of his life. All she had to do was stand there.

  “But you’re a sweet-talker. King of the pitch. Can’t believe a thing you say.”

  Her tone was lighter than her accusation and easier than he deserved. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I like your sweet-talk. I appreciate what you can accomplish with it.”

  She was flirting. If she’d have come at him with an axe, it would’ve been less surprising. “What are you doing here, Finley?” A wrecked heart should make him numb; it made him seesaw, teeter, angst and anticipation at war in his limbs.

  “I came to play.”

  “This isn’t the game for you. It’s impossible to win.”

  She folded her arms. “You see, once upon a time if someone said that to me, I’d have thought, yeah, too hard, I’m not going to waste my time. I didn’t commit. I was a quitter. A flaky little wannabe. I’d have moved on, left the mess behind. But I’m not that person anymore. Now I think, bring it. I’ll deal.”

  Ah Fin. “You can get hurt.”

  “A little hurt only makes you stronger.”

  “Woman, you playin’ or what?” The intruder wore a death metal sweatshirt. They both ignored him.

  “Tell me what to do here?” Fin said.

  He didn’t understand what she was asking. He picked up the middle cup and showed her the marble. “Win or lose, you walk away.” It was better, safer for her that way because he was con artist and always would be.

  She laughed. “That’s not how I want to win.”

  “I don’t play fair.”

  “Yes, Cal. You do. It just took me a while to understand that.” She took a wad of cash from her pocket and placed a handful of bills on the table over his stake. “Double or nothing.”

  “Watch carefully. It’s not always what it seems.” Using both hands, he swapped the middle cup with the cup on the right and then back again, making it impossible for her to lose.

  She put her finger on the cup on the left and grinned at him.

  She was trying to lose.

  “Nah, nah, not that one,” said Death Metal. “It’s the middle one. Pick the fucken middle one, dumbass.”

  On another day, Cal would take Death Metal’s rent money for the rest of his life. On this day, he wasn’t losing focus on Fin. He used a second identical marble to the one in play to slip under the cup Fin chose as he lifted it. “You win.”

  “Motherfuck,” said Death Metal and then proceeded to explain to other gawkers what he thought happened.

  Fin shook her head. “I’m not walking away. I don’t do that anymore.” She put another handful of notes down over the first lot. “Again.”

  Cal recovered the second marble, made a show of where the primary one was, and then changed the position of the cups so slowly it would be impossible to slip up. Again, Fin pointed to the wrong cup. Again, he slipped the replacement marble under it before he revealed it. “You win. You’re on a hot streak.”

  She waved a hand at him to go on. “Everyone is a sucker sometimes.”

  They played hand after hand, the pile of cash on the table growing so tall, he had to set a pebble on it. He barely moved the cups. Fin always picked the wrong one, so he had to work hard at the sleight of hand that turned her loss into a victory. Around them, the crowd got bigger and louder.

  She won, again and again and again. She would always win, no matter how badly she played, because he’d make sure of it.

  A dozen hands later, when the crowd had gotten so big the shopkeeper came out to see what was going on, Fin said, “You don’t seem to know how to play this game.”

  “Maybe I want you to win.” He shuffled the cups. She’d stopped watching them altogether and picked at random.

  She shoved a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “I don’t mind if the rules are bent. I just want to know what they are.”

  He lowered his eyes to the table because looking at her made him want to bend logic, time, and chance to his will, but Fin was a prize outside the grifter’s game.

  “Tell her the rules, man,” said Death Metal. “No one likes a fucken cheat.”

  “There aren’t any rules here.” He snapped his head up and someone bumped against the table. He had to steady it to stop the money toppling off. “Nothing is fair. It’s all an illusion.”

  Fin put her hand over his as it rested on the table. “Zeke told me there was a rule about outsiders. I understand better now.”

  Damn, Zeke. He pulled his hand from under Fin’s. “Everyone is an outsider.”

  “What happens when an outsider wants to become an insider?”

  He reset the cups. “Never happens.”

  “But it could happen for the right person.”

  He moved the three cups in a random pattern. When you knew how to warp the world, anything was possible. That didn’t make it right.

  “Ask that question you were going to ask me. The one that came with a bended knee and a velvet box.”

  He lost concentration and fumbled the cups. The primary marble rolled off the table and went missing in a jumble of feet. There was a scramble to find it, people shifting, laughing, pointing, their eyes down on the sidewalk. He watched it, a comedy of motion, oddly more graceful than the lurching about going on in his body, though he stood completely still.

  Fin was undoing him, making hope simmer on low heat in his gut. But hope was for dreamers, dupes, and patsies. Certainty was the only thing that mattered.

  “This game can get rough. It can be hard on the soul if you’re not born into it,” he said.

  “Yeah, I can see that, but I’m stronger than I look, and I learned something about myself recently. You want to know what that is?”

  He wanted her to take the money and walk away before he had a chance to hurt her again. He bundled it into her hands.

  “I’m a better actor than I gave myself credit for. You see, I took this part. I didn’t know I was going to have to play it, but you don’t always get to choose. Sometimes a part is thrown at you, and you have to do your best with what you’re given. And sometimes a part you didn’t want can make your whole career.”

  They were never going to find the marble, it had vanished, and so had Cal’s ability to pretend this uncertainty with Fin wasn’t agony. Their audience started drifting away.

  “And sometimes you don’t see that until you’ve quit,” she said. “This part I had, I loved almost all of it, except there was a twist I didn’t see coming. My character was confused, and she felt humiliated because she didn’t know about shell games. She didn’t understand how sometimes the wrong thing was also the right thing. And just when she thought she was starting to get her life straightened out, to do work she was proud of, to be happier than she thought possible with a man she was in love with, she discovered she was the shell game. And she kind of lost it.”

  “I see what you’r
e saying. Sounds reasonable to me.”

  “Does it? I thought so at first. I was convinced of it.”

  “But now?” He stacked the cups and pocketed them. Wasn’t sure he wanted her answer.

  “I realize the truth was a distraction, a sleight of hand. You never lied about the most important thing.”

  He folded the table and leaned it against the shop wall, keeping his hands busy because she was so near and there were fewer and fewer barriers to taking her in his arms. She came back. She wanted to play. She understood the rules, and she was willing to take a risk on him. But this could be a crude trick because he wanted her so much it clouded his judgment.

  “What’s the most important thing?” She could tell him up was down, death metal was opera, and he’d believe it.

  “You don’t know?”

  He jammed his hands into his pockets. No cue he sent her would be appropriate. “I’m a con on a street corner running a shell game. I’m a man who deceived the woman he loved and made her run. What would I know?”

  “The most important thing is that you didn’t lie to me about how you felt.”

  Except he had. For too long, he’d kept how he felt from her, how the sound of her voice made him smile, the shine in her eyes made him want to laugh, and her humor, the way she looked at the world dead in its eye and dared it to disagree, made him adore her more every day.

  He’d felt unbeatable with her by his side. Without her, he might as well be a two-bit street corner hustler.

  “Not ever, not once, Cal. You made it clear why we couldn’t be together until it became unbearable not to be. When we came together, you wanted to give me everything you were. It was the most honest relationship I’ve ever had—the most honorable.”

  His back hit the glass wall behind him. “What are we doing?”

  “You must be rattled. You’re asking W questions. I’m not sorry for what I did. I took a lot of money, and I gave it to people who need it more than you do. But that’s what you do with it anyway, and you can make money again. You can make it in the rain with three cups and two marbles.”