Conman

by Richard Asplin

  A car hissed past us, headlights bright. A dog barked in the distance somewhere. A firework banged, lighting up the street in pink neon. The world dropped into silence again.

  “No. These people are fools, Neil. Saps. Dunderheads. Boobies. Antelopes queuing up to put their heads into the lion’s mouth – too gutless to go hunting themselves.”

  From the warmth of his passenger seat and the comfort of his logic, Christopher looked at me, eyes glinting. He plumed a little pipe smoke once more.

  “Oh they’ll pretend it’s because they are ‘good guys’. Because they are fine upstanding citizens. Nice, honest fellows who don’t think that way. And I suppose as the lions gnaw at their throats, tearing them to bloody bits, they can lie back with a clear heart. But the truth is that it’s because they’re fools. Fools who can’t grasp the rules of the game. But hell, good luck to them,” and he raised his pipe in a mock toast. “We are born screaming onto a cold and lonely planet, Neil. Three score years and ten and then we are food for worms. If you want to spend that time being poor, polite and picked-on like a martyr, go ahead. You’ll get a big turn out at your funeral, I expect.”

  “But then so did Reggie Kray,” Henry drawled, handing me back my empty jug. He began to pile the repair kit back into the back of the van.

  “Our mark is a fool. Simple as that. A greedy, dishonest –”

  “Dishonest?” I said, hauling the sarcasm on with a truck. “Well mercy me, what next?”

  “Lions hunting lions is at least a fair fight, Neil,” Christopher said without missing a beat. “You would prefer we targeted you? Your lovely wife?”

  I swallowed hard. I turned and looked back up at the window, winter wind ruffling my collar, prickling my neck. The nets twitched and Jane was there, bathed in a cosy indoor glow, Lana bobbing on her hip. She tilted her head to one side. My wife. My family. My home.

  Five working days, is it, this emergency cover?

  Hn? Oh. Oh yes. Yes.

  “Look,” I whispered, a sick claw gripping my gut. “I need …” My stomach wriggled free and gave an uncoordinated back-flip, a feeble 3.2 from the judges. “I-I need assurances. It’s just a consultancy job. You didn’t tell me why you needed the information, I didn’t ask, right? I mean … Christ, I mean it’s not dangerous, right?”

  “At last when he was out on the street, he exclaimed ‘Oh God, how loathsome this is!” Christopher warbled camply. “Could I really? No, it’s nonsensical! It’s absurd. Could I really ever have contemplated such a monstrous act? It shows what filth my head is capable of though. Filthy. Mean. Vile. VILE!”

  “Chris?” Henry said, slamming the back doors. “You want to lay off the Dostoyevsky?”

  “Forgive me Neil darling. The most dangerous part of your role my dear fellow, will be taking a crisp cheque for a hundred thousand smackerooni’s up to the poppet at your bank next Wednesday and handing it over without peeing your pants with excitement.”

  “Wednesday?”

  “November fourth. Five days Neil. That’s all it’ll take.”

  Five days.

  My heart thudded. A cold London wind flicked grit and ash about my face. Somewhere distantly the dog barked again. A siren whooped. Policemen. Out catching bad men.

  “It sounds risky …”

  “But what had he said about risk?” Henry said, shutting the bonnet with a clunk and twirling his keys on a finger.

  “Thank you Henry,” Christopher bobbed. “Risks were what made the whole thing fun.”

  I looked at him.

  “Ripley. Certainly more fun than a court appearance. More fun than selling the sorry, sopping remains of your shop for a pittance.”

  “All right, all right. You don’t have to –”

  “Disappointing your wife. Your father-in-law. Certainly more fun than spending cold nights like this kicking around in a freezing bedsit, eating Pot Noodle and wondering if you’ll ever see your daughter again.”

  Henry climbed into the van cab and started the engine.

  “It’d really be helping us out mate,” he said. “Trust me.”

  “Trust you?”

  “Trust me,” Christopher smiled, pipe bobbing. “Come on, old chap. What do you say, eh? What do you say? You onboard? What do you say?”

  six

  “Mr Martin?”

  I jumped. And I mean jumped. Copyright Scooby Doo 1975 Hanna-Barbera All Rights Reserved. Limbs shot out, keys dropped, feet left the floor. I might even have made an involuntary mnyehhha noise.

  All understandable of course. From the moment Christopher and Henry had left me on Friday night, taking their pipe smoke, Halfords kit and a large chunk of my soul with them, I had been on the jumpy side: checking out of windows, drumming my fingers, fidgeting through Have I Got News For You.

  “Mr Neil Martin?”

  I turned. A tall, broad black man with cropped hair and a dark voice stepped out from the doorway across the street, squinting into the grey morning light.

  Policeman. Everything about him said policeman. Late thirties, waxy barbour, dark khaki slacks, the black, thick-soled shoes, the rolling, world-weary nowwhatavewe’ere gait. He had a coffee in his large hand and a rolled-up tabloid under his arm. He moved slowly towards me across the icy cobbles.

  Oh God. Oh God.

  Hands jittery, knees loose, I twittered with my keys. This was it. Accomplice. Accessory. It was all over. I turned to resume unlocking the shutters, trying to act naturally. Fumbling, hands numb, I dropped the keys again with a heavy clink. Shit. Shit, come on. From behind the grille, inside the shop, a row of faded faces watched, damp cardboard edges fluffed and bent: Clint Eastwood; Edward G Robinson; Mae West. They sighed a collective, cardboard sigh. Some villain you turned out to be.

  In the greasy reflection, I could see the policeman still approaching. Not smiling. Either he was one of those men who couldn’t do two things at once or I was in trouble.

  “DI Thomas,” he said in his dark voice, winter breath swirling around the steaming coffee. I turned slowly. He had stopped a cuffing’s distance from me. Big frown. Big trouble. “You’ve been speaking to my colleagues I understand?” he said.

  “Uhm, your colleagues?” The world slowed down a little. I thought back to the last time I had had policemen in my life. Indeed, in my lounge. “Er … you mean from Monday? Laura’s car?”

  “Car?” DI Thomas looked at me, easing his head forward an inch, peering hard into my eyes.

  He had a big face. Big and broad. A wide slab of forehead and a close cropped afro. His eyes, white and wide, scoured mine.

  We stayed locked like that for an awkward moment, cold wind biting our faces, until eventually the policeman broke the stare, broke a smile, stepped away and waved his newspaper in the air like he was signalling a taxi.

  “Just being careful mate,” he said, grinning. “I understand you’re our store man?”

  “Store – ?”

  “Good morning, Master Martin,” another voice said, and suddenly I was surrounded. Christopher was at my side, a take-out tray in one gloved hand, pipe in the other, Financial Times under his elbow, Walkman headphones looped about his neck. He smelled of leather and aftershave and his tray smelled of breakfast.

  “He’s clean,” the policeman said, sucking on his coffee.

  A third gentleman was flanking my left. Younger, late twenties or thereabouts. Dark, sunken eyed, he had olive, Mediterranean skin, a wiry, angular way about him and was topped with an unruly thatch of long dark curly hair. He looked dazed and tired, mouth hung open like its catch was broken. He blinked dully at me, Walkman hissing away in his ears. He sucked hard on a stubby cigarette, stale and musty, like a Goth’s laundry bag.

  “Happy Hallowe’en,” Christopher smiled. “Introductions over croissants I think,” and he waggled the cardboard tray, eyebrows bouncing towards the shutters. “Shall we?”

  It was Saturday, it was ten past eight and it had begun.

  “Don’t worry about Pete. Come c
ome, have a pastry,” Christopher wafted, slapping down his newspaper and setting up the breakfast things on the counter as the phoney copper moved swiftly through the cold shop, snapping on surgeon’s gloves and heading through to the back office.

  Julio, he of the olive skin and unruly hair, had dumped a large purple Reebok sports bag to the filthy floor and was now sending his eyes scurrying about the shop’s ceiling, floorboards and windows like a timid child looking for loft spiders. He curled an unimpressed lip before tugging out another set of surgical gloves, snapping them on in a cloud of talc.

  “What that fackin’ stink?” he said in a slow, Portuguese accent.

  “Sorry,” I shrugged. “Downstairs, there’s been a –”

  “An’ you some gaysexual?” He peered and sneered about the walls.

  “God, why does everyone think I’m some kind of – ?”

  “Back door?” the black policeman said, appearing in the shop again.

  “What?”

  “Back door. Where does it go?”

  “Uh, nowhere. Just out to the alley. It’s an old fire escape. What do you – ?”

  “And who are your neighbours?”

  “Neigh – ?”

  “Next door, gaylord,” Julio sighed. “Left right. Who got we?”

  “God. Uhm, right is a design studio. Empty most of the time. Left is a guy called Schwartz. Rare books. Wouldn’t worry about him. Memory like a sieve. If I’ve asked him to clear up his rubbish once, I’ve –”

  “That come down?” and Pete pointed a business-like finger at the wall where Garland and Astaire clinched in faded technicolour.

  “The Easter Parade? Well, I-I suppose –”

  “And that the basement?” he thumbed at the peeling doorway. “Show me.”

  “Chop chop gentlemen,” Christopher said, popping his pipe into his mouth and rummaging in his overcoat pocket. “Shutters up, thirty-eight minutes,” and he retrieved a kitchen timer. Pale blue plastic, its front cracked and greasy, he gave it a wind and set it down purring amongst the cups.

  Dizzied with the activity, I led Pete to the bulging, buckled doorway and heaved it open.

  “Christ,” Pete scowled, gloved hand over his face. “You got sewage down there?” and he reached in, twanging on the bulb. The black water had risen, now covering the bottom three steps. A deflated bin bag drifted past on the oily tide like driftwood.

  “What remains of my livelihood,” I said.

  There was a loud, rusty scrape from the back office, followed by an even louder tutting.

  “Oh no no no,” Christopher twittered, emerging. “You’ve a back door that sounds like a Melbourne housewife, Neil.” He had his black notebook out and was jotting with his silver pencil, pipe bobbing in his mouth. “First job, sort out those hinges. Pete? Oil. I want that door smoother than Guinness. Than Guinness spilt on cashmere, in fact.”

  Julio tugged a can of 3 in 1 oil from his purple bag and tossed it to Pete who snatched it from the air and disappeared out the back. From the bag then came a small Roberts radio which Julio clicked on to a mumbling news programme and propped on a rack. This was followed by a copy of USA Today and a Daily Mail, both of which joined the other papers on the counter. The cover stories were streaked and striped with coloured highlighters.

  “Hey,” Julio sighed, standing up within a cloud of foul smoke. His accent was tired, thick and phlegmy. “Laptop. Pet or partner?”

  “Sorry? Pet or … ?”

  “Your password, dear chap?” Christopher whispered, leaning in a little.

  “Oh. Uhmm, pet. Streaky,” I said, spelling it out. The man rolled his eyes and disappeared into the back office. “Aren’t we … aren’t we missing someone?” I asked.

  “Humn? Oh, young Henry might be with us a little later with any luck,” Christopher said, flipping through the Daily Mail. Occasional stories were rung with the same highlighter colours. “He should be picking up our MacMuffin, as Julio dear likes to put it.”

  “Fack-you,” a voice snapped from the office.

  “Tick tock tick tock,” Christopher said, popping the top from his latte and licking the frothy lid. “Nerd-watching 101 begins in thirty-eight minutes and we’ve still the papers to get through. Neil, we’ll keep to your office back there if we may? Base of ops, so to speak,” and he moved over to the radio, turning up the volume.

  “MacMuff – ? McGuffin, right?” I said.

  “The key element in any suspense story. Very good dear boy, very good. You know your Hitchcock. Although,” Christopher said, checking his Mickey Mouse watch. “Twenty past eight? Hmm. It’s possible Henry’s now deep in conversation with the desk sergeant at Paddington nick, buying his freedom and selling us all down the Swanee Vestas. Now then Neil-i-kins, we’re going to need a full set of keys, my poppety-poo. Each, I’m afraid. And a handful of air fresheners while you’re about it.”

  “Wait, did y-you say desk sergeant?”

  “Hmn? Well it’s possible of course. If Henry’s been picked up pulling some short-con for a little beer money, dropping us lot in it would be the natural thing to do. Now then, these keys …”

  “But,” I jittered, glancing about the shop. Christopher was rootling through his pockets, wrinkling his nose, humming absently to himself. Pete and Julio rattled about in the back office. None of them seemed remotely bothered that, apparently, the police were swooping and whooping down Wardour Street towards us at that very moment.

  Feeling that someone should probably do something, I scuttled a panicky scuttle up the shop, sliding home the bolts on the front door.

  “Shouldn’t we … ?” I began, having not the faintest idea what it was we should or shouldn’t. “I mean … Henry?”

  “Or on the other hand, he might just be running a bit late,” Christopher shrugged. “Who’s to say? Nobody knows anybody, Neil.”

  “There no honour among thief,” Julio said, emerging from the office doorway, clicking off his Walkman, hoisting it from his belt. “Trust no one. Absolute no one. You think I trust Pete boy? Or Mr Cheesy Big here? Not for second.”

  “Me neither,” Pete added, behind him. “Hinges sorted. Guinness on cashmere on Leslie Philips.”

  “But you must …” My head span. “I mean, you all work together?”

  “Insurance,” Christopher said, peeling off his Rupert-check scarf to reveal a paisley cravat. “We are each other’s ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ cards. Any of us, if caught, could buy our freedom by naming everyone else. That’s why we have each other around.”

  The three men fell silent. From the radio, the news burbled to itself.

  “Holy crap,” I said, dizzily. What the hell had I got myself into?

  “Now Neil, be an utter love pot and cut us four sets of keys.” He had flipped to the back of his notebook and peeled out a fifty-pound note. “Wardour Street should have somewhere. Neil? Neil, you still with us dear chap?”

  “Me? Uh-uh, no way. I’m not leaving you here by yourselves.”

  They looked at me, a frozen tableau. Three nations: Pete and Julio in the doorway, Christopher by the radio, clutching his coffee. Apart from their hands, sheathed eerily in white surgical gloves, all tall, rather plain, rather forgettable men.

  “No offence,” I said, trying and failing to assert some sort of authority. “But … I don’t know if I trust you. Not yet.”

  “Yes. Terribly wise, dear fellow, terribly wise,” Christopher sang. “You don’t want to be too trusting young Neil. Places you in grave danger.”

  “From who?”

  “People like me, as it happens. Now then, Pete? Make a list. You’re going shopping.”

  Julio, Christopher and I spent the next hour clearing the back office, hauling dripping, stinking bin bags out to the back alley in an atmosphere of clinical detachment. At one point I attempted to lighten the mood and enquired as to how long they had all been friends.

  Julio promptly snorted, lit a foul cigarette and turned up the volume on his Walkman.

&
nbsp; “Friends, dear boy,” Christopher wafted, patting down his pockets for his tobacco, “is an American televisual programme. Friends are merely enemies who haven’t found you out yet. In life, as in diarrhoea, we are alone.”

  And it certainly appeared that way. There was no chummy banter, no small talk. Words that were exchanged were about the job and the job alone. Escape routes, doorways, timetables, costumes. Julio, Pete and Henry were just men in Christopher’s line of work. Men bound by mistrust, suspicion and paranoia. Never relaxed, never at ease, never off guard. Circling each other. Backs to the wall. Twitchy at the doorbell. Jumpy at the phone.

  Almost as jumpy as me, in fact.

  “I’m not stalling, Maurice, I’m not. You will get the rest of your money. I’ve agreed to accept Cheng’s five hundred for my Sting, so … I know, but he assured me that sale would open the doors to his other contacts. Plus my insurance company are … Well I’ve told your solicitors, they’re well aware … I’m just saying, you’ll get it. Just a few more days. There’s no need to come round kicking my shutters and … Fine, fine, you do that. See how far it gets you. Hello? He-hello?”

  Shit. I hung up the phone, clammy hands all a tremble.

  “Problem Neil?” Christopher piped up.

  “Huh? Uhmm, m-maybe. Look … you’re sure about this hundred grand right?”

  “In good time, poppet. You were telling us? The Golden Age … ?”

  “Oh, er yes. Right. Basically all collectable comics fall … It’s just this guy, his solicitors? I’ve got to pay him. In a week’s time they’ll start handing out summonses.”

  “Fall – ?”

  “Sorry. Fall into ages. Golden Age, Post-Golden, Pre-Silver, Silver and Post-Silver.”

  I breathed deep, trying to steady myself, push worry aside. The three men sat in the chilly office among the remains of take-away breakfast, below the dangling, piney tang of a dozen Magic Trees sellotaped to the strip lights and scribbled their shorthand obediently.