Being bossed around by Hasso was annoying, but I wasn’t about to get into any pissing contests with this behemoth. Besides, in this case it was nothing worth arguing about. I could show that I was bigger than his childish need to strut his authority. So I did as ordered.
The discreet bronze shield featured the bas-relief of an old-fashioned player piano, and this legend:
NANCARROW LOGISTICS TRUST MANAGEMENT, LTD.
“QUALITY RESIDENCES FOR QUALITY CLIENTS”
I returned to the car, saying nothing. Hasso didn’t quiz me or shed any light on what I had read.
We drove out of Seven Oaks and soon found ourselves on the edge of town, not far from Giuffre Memorial Park, that popular riverside reservation managed by the state.
“You like baseball?” Hasso inquired.
“Yeah, well enough, I guess. I actually like basketball better.”
“Me, too. But let’s have us a look at a baseball stadium anyhow.”
Hasso took us off the main road at the entrance to the new stadium for the Bandits, the Class A minor-league team that made its home here. The place had gone up while I was jailed, replacing the rickety old structure some miles away. I had not seen the new field since I got out. My first impression was of a well-wrought, functional, appealingly modest venue—fitting for the humble stature of the Bandits. It seemed as if the developer had not skimped on materials or design. I was willing to bet that a family could have a good, comfortable, inexpensive night out here.
Hasso pulled the car up next to one of the wide concrete pillars that supported the upper stories, and I saw a bronze shield featuring that same player piano.
NANCARROW LOGISTICS TRUST MANAGEMENT, LTD.
“RECREATIONAL FACILITIES THAT FOSTER COMMUNITY SPIRIT”
Hasso said, “You know what used to be here? A dairy farm. It lasted a hundred and fifty years in the same family. But Mrs. O’Leary’s cow must’ve kicked over a lantern or something, because one night it caught fire, sudden-like.”
We left the stadium behind and drove to several more spots, all of which featured Nancarrow properties that had arisen, according to Hasso’s narration, from the ashes of vest-pocket infernos.
Our final stop was at the new Department of Public Works facility. Inside a chain-link fenced lot, big snow plows lay quietly in summer estivation, and I was reminded of the December evening when I saved Hasso’s life.
Here, the Nancarrow plaque was more subdued, and subordinate to the city’s own official seal.
NANCARROW LOGISTICS TRUST MANAGEMENT, LTD.
“CIVIC DUTY AND ENGAGEMENT THROUGH ECONOMICAL DESIGN”
I said, “There used to be some kind of rectory or monastery here, wasn’t there?”
Hasso put his large hands together palm to palm like a giant altar boy and looked skyward. “The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Just two wrinkled, half-deaf old nuns squatting on twenty thousand square feet of falling-apart castle, on land worth a few million. Luckily, they both came down with food poisoning and were in the hospital when the place went up.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, that’s who they were counting on. But neither the nuns nor Jesus nor any of these other owners could hold a candle, so to speak”—here he mimed a little bow from the driver’s seat—“to the team of Nancarrow and Hasso.”
I looked at him with what surely registered as stunned disbelief. He beamed with evident pride.
“Oh, sure, you won’t find my name on any incorporation papers or nothing. I was kind of a silent partner, you see.”
His face went dark. “Until there came a parting of the ways. On which the books ain’t quite closed yet.”
5
Reasons why I like Danny’s Cavern: It’s just a couple of miles from Uncle Ralph’s house. The drinks are cheap. The seasoned, stolid, disdainful help, who have seen and survived every tragedy imaginable, leave you alone, neither disbursing nor soliciting sympathy. None of my old friends would be caught dead in this down-market dive, thus forestalling any embarrassment for me or them. And there are no televisions, flat-screen or otherwise, blaring at the patrons.
I estimated that Danny’s was last redecorated sometime during the first Clinton administration. The booths featured lime-green vinyl, patched here and there with duct tape of roughly the same shade and trimmed with fat-topped brass nails. The bar stools, with their padded seats of an unlikely floral fabric akin to slippery chintz, would have pleased Aunt Gillian. I suspected a bargain job-lot purchase. Luckily, the gritty, Carhartt-clad backsides of thousands of working-stiff patrons had imparted some roughness to the seats, although patrons deep in their cups still tended to slide gradually floorward, aided by the slick fabric. From the spray-textured ceiling, sixty-watt bulbs shone through globes of pebbled ruby-colored glass. Below, the occasional missing linoleum tile revealed floorboards the color of buttery mashed potatoes mixed with cigarette ashes.
Stan Hasso and I had a booth in the rear section, next to the swinging kitchen doors, whose padded surface showed a million greasy handprints. Danny’s Cavern featured a limited menu along the lines of cold-cut sandwiches, ready-made shrimp cocktail, stuffed cabbage rolls, and Jell-O of the same hue as the vinyl booths.
Hasso was working on an enormous grinder, washed down with a pitcher of Old Milwaukee. His latest bite bisected a pickled pepper, arcing a squirt of clear juice across the table in my direction. I had little appetite and was nursing a mojito, having long since become inured to taunts from some of the regulars about having a “girly drink.” The tropical cocktail allowed me to fantasize about the Brazilian vacation I had taken at the height of my crimes, to experience Carnival. That existence felt increasingly like someone else’s, which I had viewed in a movie.
Hasso finished his sandwich and all but half a glass of the beer. He belched contentedly and sat back.
“Okay, now that you had the tour around town, you’re ready to hear the whole story about me and Nancarrow, including how he done me wrong. Then we’ll talk about the plan I got to soak him for somewheres around twenty million. First off, you’ve heard of Barnaby Nancarrow before today, I bet.”
“Yes, of course. He’s one of the city’s leading businessmen and philanthropists. Made a fortune in real estate, always giving away a couple of thousand here and there to various charities. Spreads small sums around rather than focusing on any one cause. Likes the ladies very much but has no special partner. Is eager to have his picture taken with politicians and other powerful people. I was actually at a party once where he showed up, but we never talked.”
“Yeah, you traveled in special circles once upon a time, didn’t you? Musta felt nice. Me, I never woulda been allowed in the same room as him when we were operating together, and certainly not now. Despite all I did for him. Anyhow, that’s a pretty good short description, but it leaves out a lot. First thing is—which hardly anyone knows—he wasn’t born Barnaby Nancarrow. He dug up the first name from some old TV show. Thought it sounded classy but kinda old-school like. Not threatening, folksy, and all that crap. ‘Nancarrow’ he took from some famous guy that played the piano a shitload of years ago. Pretends now that he’s descended from this other Nancarrow, and that’s why he uses the piano on his signs and letters and stuff.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because Barnaby Nancarrow—or, as he was then known, Algy Teague—grew up side by side with me. Algernon and Stanley, bosom buddies. Both our families were dirt poor. Food stamps, church pantries, charity coats in the winter. You remember that neighborhood they called the Gulch?”
“Sure,” I said. “Now it’s a mall and the water park and a lot of pricey restaurants.”
“Well, back then it was piss-smelling alleys and roach-filled tenements and weedy lots where dead bodies tended to accumulate. Rival gangs of about six different ethnic types who all hated each other, all struggling for t
urf. That’s where me and Nancarrow spent the precious days of our youth, hustling and angling for the main chance. But after a certain point, we went our separate ways. I dropped out of school and started scrabbling for whatever work I could find, on the shady or the sunny side of the street. But Algy—Nancarrow—he got lucky. Or maybe he was just naturally brighter than me. Some charitable guy thought he had potential, and took him under his wing and got him into some fancy college on the far side of the country, all for free. That’s where he changed his name, all legal-like, and emerged four years later all polished up, shiny as a new penny straight from the mint. Why he came back to this stinking burg, I’ll never figure. I guess maybe once the Gulch is in your blood, you can’t escape it entirely. But his family was all gone, along with pretty much everyone else from the old hood, once they bulldozed the place. He musta felt safe returning to a place where he knew the ropes and no one knew him.”
“All right,” I said. “So Nancarrow comes back here and looks you up right away? Not too likely in my book.”
“No, course not. He had zero idea if I was still alive or had screwed the pooch and got dead, like about 70 percent of the kids from the Gulch. And he wasn’t holding on to any nostalgia for old pals. But when word went out that some anonymous big player needed a torch, my reputation preceded me, and the next thing I know, it’s reunion time for Stan and Algy. He was a little nervous at first, coming face-to-face with someone who knew all about his real history and who could spill the beans if they chose to. Not that Algy even had much of a juvenile record to be ashamed of—just the usual misdemeanors. But the shabby start to his life woulda mortified him in front of his new high-class pals. I think maybe that’s one reason he hired me: to keep me in his pocket and indebted to him so I wouldn’t want to spoil his setup. Of course, my skills at making inconvenient buildings go up in smoke were the main reason.”
“So you’re telling me that Nancarrow’s whole fortune is built on arson?”
“Well, maybe not his whole fortune, but a big chunk of it. You see, he only had a small stake when he came back, and he wanted to parlay it into a big one, and fast. That’s the kind of lessons and ambitions the Gulch drilled into us. Make a killing any way you can, and make it quick. You never forget those rules, no matter how many fancy schools you go to. So he focused on undervalued properties. Places like the girdle factory. He’d snap them up for a song, then have me burn them down. To throw off suspicion, he used a lot of fake names and fake companies with no obvious connections to him. Worked like a charm. Nobody ever sussed out all these fires were connected to one guy. They paid off like a rigged roulette wheel. The insurance money would go toward the redevelopment. No trouble finding legit partners eager for easy money. And the property was always worth more without some shitty old factory on it than with. Big profits piling up faster and faster.”
“Sounds like a marriage made in heaven. What broke it up?”
“Nancarrow felt he’d finally made it. He was gonna go totally straight. No more torching. That left me out of a job, and I made the mistake of sounding unhappy about it. If I hadn’t been hopped up half the time back then, I woulda been smarter about shooting my mouth off. But the dope made me a little sloppy. So he ratted me out on another assignment—a job I did for someone else—and off to jail I went, to teach me a lesson. Luckily, the charge was for a smaller gig than any of the others, so I got out fairly quick.”
“He wasn’t afraid you’d take him down with you, before or after prison?”
Hasso looked genuinely affronted. “Number one, I am not a snitch—even against a bastard like Nancarrow. We were both Gulch rats, right? Number two, he put fifty thousand into my bank account the day I went in. Peanuts to him, but a lot to me. Number three, where was the evidence? It wasn’t like I had signed contracts for all the work I did for him. It woulda been just my word against his—the street trash against the society suit. Maybe, just maybe, I coulda interested some cop in my story. And maybe, just maybe, that imaginary cop coulda come up with something against Nancarrow. But what were the odds? No, keeping my mouth shut was the only sensible thing to do. I figured I’d get back at Nancarrow my own way, once I was free again.”
“And you want me to help somehow,” I said. “I have to tell you, violence makes me puke.”
Hasso snorted. “If I wanted to hurt Nancarrow some physical way, I could do it by myself. And if I couldn’t do it by myself, well, no offense, but you’re not exactly the extra muscle I’d pick. No, I’m gonna hit him where it’ll hurt him the most. I’m gonna take twenty million dollars from him and make him look like an idiot. And that’s where you come in. I need your smarts, and also something else.”
“What else?”
“That quarter of a million in gold you’re sitting on.”
6
The dim light from the dirty red globes in the Cavern seemed to thicken and slow to a molasses crawl, as if the nature of time itself had changed. The cash in my pocket assumed a supernatural weight, as if the whole trove of gold hidden back in the fireplace had jumped into my pants to join the recently converted Panda coin. Breathing seemed like a new skill I had not yet properly mastered, and my limbs tingled with a strange exhilarated paralysis.
I must have looked like a steer on its way to the slaughterhouse, because Stan Hasso adopted an expression of genuine concern and distress.
“Hey, bro, unclench! No one’s gonna hurt you. Your secret’s safe with me. This is all about the two of us acting together for our mutual benefit. I’m gonna kick in my fifty thou, if you agree. That shows good faith, right? Anyhow, we’re just talking at this point, okay? C’mon, now, relax. Here, drink this.”
He handed me the pint tumbler with his last few ounces of warmish beer in it, and I automatically took it with one lead-weighted hand and slugged it back, although I am not normally in the habit of drinking backwash from a less-than-pristine glass. The very mundaneness of the Old Milwaukee’s skunky taste acted like some kind of noxious antidote to my initial fright and confusion, and I began to feel slightly more like a sentient human being instead of a helpless chipmunk in the claws of an owl. Even the sixty-watt bulbs in the Cavern resumed their usual low-intensity ruby glow.
Now that my immediate crisis was past and I did not seem on the point of physical or emotional breakdown, Hasso looked pleased with himself. “I hit on the real figure pretty close, huh? Not bad for educated guesswork. Just call me No-Shit Sherlock, right?”
“But how … how did you even know about the gold?”
“I told you, I scoped you out for a while before I showed up today at your door. I had to know whether or not you’d make a good partner. If I’da had any doubts about that, I wouldn’a showed up at all, or maybe I mighta just stopped by to say thanks for saving my ass back in December. But I liked what I learned about you, Glen, and so that’s why I was up front about your gold. Nothing hidden between us, right? Share and share alike. So how did I know about the gold? Simple. I followed you one day last month to Deluca’s, and I braced the coin guy for info about what you and he were doing. He gave it up quicker than microwave popcorn by the way, which makes him a weak link for you if anyone else ever comes snooping.”
“But guessing the amount?”
“Piece of cake. I just did some studying, then ran the numbers. First off, I knew how much you stole total, and how much you claimed you blew through, and how much the court clawed back out of your accounts. Them numbers were right there in all the media coverage. All the parts of the equation were supposed to balance out to zero left for you. The judge bought your story, but not me. I knew the numbers lied. If you were cashing in gold, then you had squirreled something away. But it wasn’t life-changing amounts, or you wouldn’t look so pitiful and hangdog whenever you had to sell a coin. That’s where me being a student of human nature comes in. I can read people. Tricks I learned in the Gulch, just to stay alive. I hate to say it, but in spite of al
l your crimes, Glen boy—and I’m counting the stuff lawyers do that is supposedly legal—you’re kinda innocent still. Man, I hope you never play poker, your tells are about as subtle as a billboard.”
I got a little miffed then. “Okay, so I’m a babe in the woods next to you. What’s the rest of your detective work?”
“Well, I started to think, how long would I want my raggedy little stash to last if I were in the same fix as ol’ Glen? Maybe five years or so. You were cashing out a thousand about every five or six weeks. The rest of the business was just some multiplying I could do on my fingers.”
What Hasso said made total sense. I wondered how I had ever hoped to fool anyone who tumbled to my dealings. I had been a better bluffer on dope, which gave me a kind of brazenness and audacity for the big lie.
“Okay, so I have a quarter million in gold. Big whoop. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? And it’s actually a little less, at the rate Deluca buys the coins. But however little it is, I assume you want some.”
“Some? I want all of it! For our scam! I’m putting in my fifty K, and I would add more if I could. You’re gonna invest your quarter mil and get five mil back! Now, that’s life-changing dough! Who else is gonna make you an offer like that?”
I was a little taken aback at Hasso’s genuine sincerity. He truly did not want to appear as if he were strong-arming or blackmailing me or ripping me off. Taken with his earlier statement about never snitching, he appeared to be a crook with a certain code of ethics. Maybe I could trust him. Maybe he had a scheme that would work. Maybe we could actually pull something off that netted us a big paycheck. A lot of maybes. But I was starting to think that any number of maybes were preferable to the dull, diminishing certainties that were my only other future.
I said, “You keep talking about this scam to get millions out of Nancarrow. How’s that gonna happen, exactly? Shouldn’t I hear some details before I decide to invest?”
The Big Get-Even Page 3
