Conman

by Richard Asplin

  “Go on?”

  “I’ve …No, I’ll tell you when I see you. And don’t forget the clothes. I don’t think stripy jim-jams really say professional memorabilia expert somehow.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Andrew hung up. Breathing deep and slow, I crept out of the sitting room, down the dark hall, under the suspicious gaze of Luthors Hackman and Spacey to the bedroom. Easing open the door with a carpety hiss, I held my breath and slid inside. With one eye on the soft rising and falling of the duvet, I pulled on my jeans silently, tugging a shirt over my head and sliding sticky feet into my canvas baseball boots. Teeth clenched, I then eased open the wardrobe and picked out an armful of my baggier, Andrew-shaped clothes: jeans, T-shirts, jumpers, the wire hangers tinkling like wind-chimes. I crept back out, sliding the door shut behind me.

  I breathed out. Moving quickly to the kitchen, I fetched a bin-bag from under the sink and, in the dim light of the cooker-clock, shovelled most of the clothes inside, knotting the top tight. I hefted the bag onto my shoulder and slid out, down the stairs silently like Santa Claus.

  In the darkness of the freezing street, toes cold in my thin All-Stars, I unlocked the van and pushed the bag in among the boxes and poster tubes. Easing the metal doors shut with a wince, I took a quick look up at the warm windows of my home before climbing into the driver’s seat.

  The next time I saw my home, all would be well. All would be back to normal.

  Please.

  I started the engine, revs bouncing loud off the quiet houses, ground the gears and slid out onto the morning street.

  It was Friday. It was ten past six.

  It was time.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said as Andrew greeted me in his hotel-room doorway. He was in just his pants, a taped-up blood-bag and an anxious mood.

  “I know, I know,” he said, taking the bulging bin-bag from me and sliding me inside. “This the Geek-Couture?”

  “Morning gorgeous,” Laura said, appearing in the bathroom doorway and leaning against the jamb with a coffee cup. “Ready for a little payback?” She was dressed for battle. Boots, combats and a black vest, hair tied back under a New York baseball cap. Face pale, she was without make-up for once, save, naturally, the trademark vibrant stripe of red lipstick.

  “Ready? No. Not really no,” I jittered. “I’ll be glad when this is all over. More of that coffee about?”

  “You sure you brought enough kit?” Andrew said, upending the bag and tumbling armfuls of clothes onto the bed. “It’s just me we’re outfitting, old man. Not the whole cast of Revenge of the Nerds.”

  “I wasn’t sure what would fit you. How’s the chest-bag?”

  “Heavy,” Andrew said, holding my blue Superman shirt up over it, tossing it aside instead for a baggier Incredible Hulk number. “Feels like I’m six months’ pregnant. And this damned syrup stinks. Plus the tape’s taken half the hair off my shoulders.”

  “Yowzers,” I said.

  “And the bloody drawing pin on my wedding ring keeps – ouch, bugger – keeps catching on things.” He waggled his hand with a scowl.

  “Put the gear on,” Laura said, sliding into the fat hotel couch, pushing aside Andrew’s syrup-stained polo-shirts. “Let’s see how you look.”

  Andrew hopped about, tugging on one of my old pairs of black jeans, turn-ups grimy with basement sewage, before sliding the Incredible Hulk over his head, pulling it down.

  “Loose,” I said, pouring a coffee. “Nobody tucks them in.”

  Andrew stood in front of us, arms out for inspection.

  “Not bad,” Laura nodded.

  “Not bad? They don’t fit,” Andrew said with a squirm. “Under the arms? And this waist is a bit –” He puffed, breathing in a little.

  “You’re a geek,” I said. “You’re not meant to care. Your mind is on higher things. Star Trek Voyager. Battlestar Galactica. What Wonder Woman looks like naked.”

  “Blood-bag all right under there?” Laura asked. “Comfortable?”

  Andrew adjusted it a little bit under the Hulk before miming a gunshot, bringing his hand up sharply to his stomach.

  “Hey hey, easy there cowboy,” Laura said. “We’ve got three hours yet. We don’t want a puncture at this stage.”

  “What news of O’Shea?” I asked. “All ready for lunchtime?”

  “Huh? Oh, account’s all set. No thanks to Keatings. But it’s just a matter of completing and a telegraphic transfer of funds, making him the new proud owner of a hundred-thousand square feet of prime City office space.”

  “And you, by extension, a proud partner with corner share-options overlooking Long Island. I guess congratulations are in order?”

  “Thank you. But no.” Andrew was climbing into his denim jacket gingerly, standing in front of the wardrobe mirror. “I spoke to Veronica. About what you said yesterday? Had a long talk.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “I asked her how she fancied a new permanent houseguest. An aging, eco-idealist with a Jack Kerouac novel in his bag, a Bob Dylan album on his iPod and a Range Rover full of sick sealions. I think he’s someone Veronica and the twins would like to have around, don’t you?” He smiled the smile I hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Are you serious? How – ?”

  “When this deal goes through this afternoon, Keatings are going to make me a partner. And with a partnership comes a healthy bonus.”

  “How healthy?”

  “Healthy,” Andrew said. I watched his grinning face in the wardrobe’s reflection. “Enough to get us out of Manhattan and onto a boat. Well, a ship, really. Artic circle. Six months.”

  “My God. Won’t …won’t Keatings mind?”

  “Let them mind,” Andrew said. “Once I’m partner and their cheque’s cleared, there’s nothing they can do. Funny thing is of course, I’d never have been able to afford to do it if I hadn’t made such a killing in real estate. And I wouldn’t be in this bloody business if it wasn’t for people like this Christopher. In a strange way, on this – the last sorry day of the bastard’s life – he’s actually doing some good.”

  The last day of his life. The words hung heavy in the hotel room for a moment, stale and sickening, like old cigar smoke. We all sat and inhaled them in silence for a moment.

  “Well good for you, pal,” I said loudly, opening a metaphorical window and squirting a metaphorical air-freshener. “Really. Good for you.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without you, old stick,” Andrew said and he turned to face me. I got up. Andrew extended a hand.

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” Laura interrupted from the couch. “As much as I hate to break up the shaving-cream ad’ here fellahs, it’s quarter past seven.”

  “Hn? Oh, right,” I said and Andrew and I examined our shoes for a moment, coughing self-consciously.

  “Now, you handled one of these before?” Laura asked.

  I looked up and saw that she had an oily chamois leather in her lap which she was peeling back, unwrapping corner by corner like a picnic.

  Christ.

  “Er, no. No I haven’t.”

  “Here,” she said. She had her palm held out, the cloth draped over it. In the centre lay apparently as much handgun as a modern passport will buy.

  “Bloody hell,” Andrew whistled. “Bit flashy?”

  Licking my lips and swallowing hard, I reached out and took it.

  It was heavy. Much heavier than movies had taught me. Like a brick. It had a shiny, oily finish and smelled like dead batteries. I bounced it a little in my grip, fingers flexing over the wooden handle.

  “It’s a good thing your passport was new,” Laura said. “The nickel finish comes at a price.”

  “It had to be nickel?”

  “Nickel is what Julio’s got.”

  “And it looks like this?”

  “A year or so older but otherwise identical,” Laura said.

  “Explain again why Neil can’t just swap the bullets?” Andrew asked, perching o
n the end of the bed cautiously, fussing with the sticky-tape under his shirt.

  “Time,” Laura said. “To remove all six blanks and replace them with six live rounds would take a good minute, even for an expert. He’s not going to have that long. Back of the van, glovebox open, swap, glovebox closed, out again. This is the only way.”

  I looked the ugly gun over again. The six gold circles in the six barrels behind the hammer.

  Soon to be just five.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Andrew, you have the receiver there?” Laura said.

  Andrew reached into his denim jacket and plucked out a tangle of wire, unspooling his fountain-pen and handing me the little black box.

  I wrapped the gun in the chamois and placed it carefully on the bed, taking the receiver and unwrapping the earpiece.

  “Batteries are fresh and will go for six full hours,” Laura said. “So don’t worry. Keep it on, keep the earpiece in and keep calm.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Check, check?” a voice crackled close by, making me jump a little. It took me a moment to follow the words out of my head, through my ear, down the wire to the blinking light on the receiver. I looked over and saw Andrew whispering into his pen with a smirk.

  In fact, considering what we were about to do, the mood in the room was surprisingly upbeat. Energetic, bouncy, jokey even. As if we were preparing for a beach-volleyball game. Rather than bloody revenge.

  But then, I suppose, we were all of us on the verge of something. Something better. Laura – final freedom from a life of lies, tricks and extortion. Andrew – a chance to begin a new life, the life he wanted, at last.

  And me. In three hours I would be walking away with Lana’s money back. Home to Jane. To explain. To explain everything.

  We charged ourselves up with a fresh pot of coffee and went over the play one more time, double-checking we each knew each other’s roles before Laura straightened her baseball cap and told us it was eight forty-five. We packed our gear quietly, solemnly, moving out into the hotel corridor.

  Around us, guests were appearing from rooms, exchanging nods, hellos, rolling newspapers under their arms and heading down for breakfast. My heart thumping, Andrew shut his door and we shuffled down the corridor silently, climbing into the lift.

  “I-I need the bathroom,” Andrew said, eyebrows bouncing.

  “Bathroom?”

  “I-I need the bathroom. I can’t do it. The blood, the shooting. This chest-bag,” and he shifted a little in his awkward clothes, smoothing the Incredible Hulk over the broad pouch underneath like an anxious expectant mother and shooting me a nervous look.

  “You can’t do it?”

  “It’s a job for professionals. You should have let the girl do it. You should have let Laura do it.”

  “Linda,” I corrected. “Should have let –”

  “Shit, sorry. I had it. Linda. Right, right. It’ll be fine.”

  The lift gave a ding and opened out to the cool lobby. Watery November sunlight washed through the glass, over the oak and marble, the place bustling.

  Laura and I hung back by the rubber plants while Andrew tripped quickly across the polished floor to the front desk, muttering his lines to himself again. We watched in silence as he signed a form, gave a nod and waited.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Laura said softly.

  “You know what you’re doing?” I said.

  Laura nodded.

  I turned to her.

  “I mean you know what you’re doing?”

  “Lions hunting lions is at least a fair fight.”

  “Got it,” Andrew said, appearing beside us. He had my brown satchel in his hand, knuckles tight and white about the handle.

  “Then let’s go,” Laura said.

  We marched across the bustling lobby, through the doorman entrance, pushing out to the traffic blare of the busy street.

  “Fetch your car sir?” a young man in a bright waistcoat bobbed on the steps.

  He hesitated a moment, looking over the three of us. Laura in her GI Jane utility gear, Andrew in soggy-bottomed, ill-fitting jeans, brogues and a strangely lumpy Hulk T-shirt. And me, jittering and twitching between the pair of them. I handed him the van keys and he slid off the steps slowly before scuttling off to the parking bay.

  “Taxi!” Laura hollered, a cab shutting off its yellow light and peeling out from the rank to stop at our feet. Laura cranked open the back door.

  “Keep in touch,” Andrew said, waggling the fountain pen.

  I tapped my earpiece.

  “Good luck,” I said, my voice oddly squeaky. They piled in. I shut the door behind them, Andrew pumping down the window.

  “It’ll be all right, old man. Two hours from now it’ll be all over. No more Christopher. No more lies. No more worries.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know. Look, thanks for this mate,” I said. “I …”

  Andrew winked.

  “See you soon.”

  “Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre,” Laura said, the cab wheeling away, round in a tight circle and sliding into the morning traffic. In its space, my rented blue Transit peeled up to the kerb. The bellboy climbed out, handing me back the keys.

  I thanked him and clambered in, slamming the door shut with a dull clang.

  The bell-boy stood, bobbing expectantly at the window.

  “Sorry,” I said. “You want a tip?”

  “Thank you sir,” he nodded. I started the engine.

  “Never ignore a dripping basement pipe,” I told him and pulled out into the traffic.

  twenty-seven

  “Julio? May I introduce Angus Mayo. Kindly supplying our valuables for this morning’s play.”

  “Linda here talked you through it? Good man, good man. Our matey with the baitey, yes? In your satchel there?”

  Adjusting the earpiece, I swallowed hard at the thought. A few streets away, in Earl’s Court’s underground carpark, among vans, Volvos and vintage Volkswagens – most if not all slapped with peeling bumper-stickers announcing that My Other Car Is KITT and Comic-Book Fans Do It Fairly Infrequently – my best friend was handing over a leather satchel to one of Christopher’s team. My leather satchel. With what remained of my world within.

  “Look good. Should work like charm.”

  I shifted in my seat, a sick, dull cramp gripping my kidneys. I breathed deep and checked the clock on the van dashboard. 09:32.

  “You know what you doing?” Julio’s voice crackled. “Got the bag taped on good? Practised your fall? Must burst bag first time and go down loud and hard, understand?”

  “G-Got it,” my best friend said. His voice was shaky.

  “And ready for meet-up?”

  “Absolutely. T-Ten o’clock sharp, I come round that corner and spot the satchel among those bin-bags.”

  “But not before you see the boss-man and mark come down ramp. Remember, you have to catch sight of it together. All three of you. Simultaneous, or the story not hold up.”

  “Ramp. Got you. No problem.”

  A sharp car-horn jolted me from the voices in my ear. I looked up and saw the light was green, the road ahead clearing. Crunching the gears, I slid forward, following the morning traffic west along Cromwell Road.

  “And where is the mark now?” Laura’s voice. Clear. Close. Standing very near Andrew. Or at least very near his fountain pen. “Christopher got him?”

  “They’re finishing breakfast. He’s going to wheel Grayson round here, keep him chatting and they’ll be entering the Exhibition Centre through bay C, which brings ’em down the ramp.”

  I blinked hard, trying to focus on the traffic, poster tubes rolling and clanging about behind me as I took a left down Earl’s Court Road. I put my hand out to steady the bag next to me, feeling slightly sick at the thought of the cold, solid shape inside.

  It was about seven minutes to ten by the time I wheeled round onto Redcliffe Gardens. The street was quiet, Tuesday night’s BMWs now clogging
up the City, the 4×4s off blocking up the kerbs of King’s Road and Knightsbridge, their hazards blinking while nannies scoured grocery shelves for obscure olive oils.

  In my ear, I could make out Andrew’s echoey mumbling as he lurked anxiously behind a concrete car-park pillar. Watching. Waiting.

  “Come on. Come on. Five minutes. Where are they? Where are they?”

  I pummelled the van north up the quiet, leafy street. All was still, the traffic just a distant sigh. Or that might have just been Andrew in my ear. I couldn’t be sure.

  “Nine fifty-six. Come on. Come on.”

  I slowed as the van slid towards the chosen spot, finally coming to a squeaky halt at the side of the road under the residents’ parking notice. I sat in the silence of the cab for a moment, heart hammering. Breathing deep, checking the empty wing-mirrors, I ground the gears into reverse and heaved the wheel right, sliding the van around so it was at ninety degrees to the road, blocking the traffic. I then slid it forward slowly, slowly –

  “Nine fifty-eight. Cutting it fine, cutting it fine …”

  – until the front bumper was almost touching the parking sign on the pavement. I shut off the engine, taking a deep breath in the silence, licking my lips before unlocking the door and jumping out to inspect my rudimentary road –

  Shit. I clambered back in quickly.

  There was a good fifteen feet between the back of the van and the far kerb. More than enough to let Julio past. Grinding the gears, I slid the van backwards a few feet. Shutting it off, I climbed out once again. Better. There was no way he’d slide past behind me. And in front, he couldn’t possibly squeeze –

  Oh for Chrissakes. There was now about nine feet of road in front.

  “Ten o’clock. It’s ten o’clock. And where … Bloody hell, that’s … that’s them. Shit. Here we go. If you can hear me, Neil old chap, this is it. This is it.”

  I mean what the hell – ? I jittered about the van, brain crunching, squeezing, panicking, trying to fill the empty space like it were some Krypton Factor puzzle. No way. I couldn’t do it. Not without a trailer or a welding torch. Had the council been busy in the last forty-eight hours with some kind of emergency road-widening work? It had fitted. I was sure of it. Before, with Laura, that evening. She’d stood right here. Unless – ?