“I can think of maybe two: CIA and NSA. Neither one gives me much comfort.”
“What do you think they wanted?”
“I first spotted the van outside the rare book shop. It might have been following us before then, though.”
“At DeHaven’s?” Reuben snapped his fingers. “You think this has something to do with that Cornelius Behan prick? He’s probably joined at the hip with the spy guys.”
“It might, considering the timing.” Maybe this wasn’t tied to his past, after all.
Reuben looked nervous. “Oliver, if they were following us, do you think they might have had a tail on Caleb and Milton?”
Stone was already on his phone. He reached Caleb and told him some of what had happened and put his phone away. “He just dropped Milton off at home. They didn’t see anyone, but they probably wouldn’t have.”
“But what did we do to get spooks after us? We told Behan what we were doing there. What interest could he have in DeHaven?”
“He might have an interest if he knew how DeHaven died. Or perhaps more accurately, how he was murdered.”
“You’re saying Behan might have had his neighbor killed? Why?”
“You just said it, his neighbor. It’s possible that DeHaven saw something he shouldn’t have.”
Reuben snorted. “On Good Fellow Street, with the rich and obnoxious?”
“It’s all speculation, but the fact remains that if you hadn’t shown up, I’m not sure what would’ve happened to me.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Since it seems no one was concerned about us until we went to Jonathan DeHaven’s house, we start there. We find out whether the man was murdered or not.”
“I was afraid that’s what you were going to say.”
Stone settled himself in the sidecar, this time with his legs where they ought to be. Reuben started the motorcycle and they set off.
Just like old times, Stone thought. And that clearly wasn’t a good thing.
The men in the van reported in to a very upset Roger Seagraves.
“We could’ve taken the old guy even though his buddy showed up, but we figured it might be too dicey,” one man said over the phone.
Seagraves stared at his secure phone for a moment, thinking what his next move should be. “They were at DeHaven’s for how long?”
“Over five hours.”
“And then to a rare book shop, and then you followed them to the White House.”
“Yep. One of them has a tent in Lafayette Park. And according to the Secret Service, his name is Oliver Stone. What a joke!”
“He spotted your tail, so I don’t know how much of a joke he is,” Seagraves snapped. “And I don’t like you flashing your creds around, especially to the Service.”
“We just got in a jam and had to do it. But we are with the Agency,” the other man countered.
“But not on official duty tonight,” Seagraves shot back.
“So what do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. I want to check out Mr. Stone more thoroughly. I’ll be in touch.” Seagraves hung up.
A man calling himself Oliver Stone has a tent across from the White House, can spot expert surveillance and visited the house of a man I had killed. Seagraves could feel another thunderstorm coming on.
CHAPTER 16
IT WAS RAINING AND CHILLY IN Newark when the plane touched down. Annabelle now sported brown hair, cherry-red lipstick, sleek eyeglasses, funky clothes and blocky-heeled shoes. Her three companions were all dressed in two-piece suits with no ties. They didn’t leave the airport together. They drove south and rendezvoused at a rental unit in Atlantic City.
Being back in the town after so many years, Annabelle could feel her tension level rising. The last time, she had come far too close to dying. But being tense could easily get her killed this time around. She would have to trust her nerves to weather what was coming. She had prepared nearly twenty years of her life for this moment. She did not intend to waste it.
Over the last week she’d wired the funds from the altered checks out of the corporate accounts. Those sums plus the stash from the ATM scam had been put into an overseas account that did not abide by a single U.S. banking regulation. With $3 million in seed money, the men were anxious to hear Annabelle’s plan for the long con.
And yet she was clearly not ready to tell them. She spent much of the first day walking the town, scoping the casinos and in discussions with certain nameless people. The men spent the downtime playing cards and shooting the breeze. Leo and Freddy regaled young Tony with stories of old scams embellished and polished to the degree that only distant memories could inspire.
She finally called them all together.
“My plan is to turn our three million into a lot more, in a relatively short period of time,” she informed them.
“I just love your style, Annabelle,” Leo said.
“Specifically, I plan to turn our three million into at least thirty-three million. I walk away with thirteen point five, and you split the rest three ways. That’s six and a half per. Anybody have a problem with that?”
The men sat there stunned for a full minute. Leo finally answered for them. “Yeah, boy, that just sucks.”
She held up a warning hand. “If the scam doesn’t work, we could lose some of the seed, but not all. Everybody all right with rolling that dice?” Each of them nodded. “The amount of money we’re talking will necessitate taking certain risks on the back end.”
Leo said, “Translation, whoever we’re ripping off will never stop looking for us.” He lit a cigarette. “And now I think it’s time you told us who it is.”
Annabelle sat back and slid her hands in her pockets. She never took her gaze off Leo’s face, and he stared back in turn. Finally, he said nervously, “Is it really that bad?”
“We’re hitting Jerry Bagger and the Pompeii Casino,” she announced.
“Holy shit!” Leo yelled, his cigarette falling out of his mouth. It landed on his leg and burned a small hole in his pants. He angrily swiped at the burn mark and pointed a shaky finger at her. “I knew it! I knew you were gonna pull this crap.”
Tony looked at each of them. “Who’s Jerry Bagger?”
Leo said, “The meanest son of a bitch you hope you never cross paths with, sonny boy, that’s who.”
Annabelle joked, “Come on, Leo, it’s my job to get him juiced about the scam. Keep that up, he’ll want to take on Jerry all by himself.”
“I’m not taking on Jerry effing Bagger for three million, thirty-three million or three hundred and thirty-three million because I won’t live to enjoy it anyway.”
“But you came here with us. And like you said, you knew I was going for him. You knew it, Leo.” She stood, came around the table and draped a long arm around his shoulders. “And if the truth be known, you’ve been waiting for a shot to take that weasel down for the last twenty years. Admit it.”
Leo suddenly looked embarrassed, lit another Winston and shakily blew smoke to the ceiling. “Anybody who’s done business with that bastard wants to kill him. So what?”
“I don’t want to kill him, Leo. I just want to steal so much money from Jerry that it’ll hurt him where it matters the most. You could wipe out his whole family, and it wouldn’t bother the guy nearly as much as knowing somebody got the money he’s been piling up from the poor schmucks that trip through his casino every minute of every day.”
“Sounds cool,” Tony chimed, while Freddy still looked uncertain.
Leo stared in fury at the young man. “Cool? You think it’s cool? Let me tell you something, you little know-nothing punk. You mess up in front of Jerry Bagger like you did at that bank, there won’t be enough left of you to send in an envelope to your mama for burial.” Leo turned and pointed a finger at Annabelle. “Let me make something real clear right now. I am not taking on Jerry Bagger. But I am really not taking on Jerry Bagger with this screw-up along.”
“Hey, I made one mistak
e. You never made a mistake?” Tony protested.
Leo didn’t answer. He and Annabelle were engaged in a lengthy stare-down.
She said quietly, “Tony’s role is limited to what he does best. He has no face time with Jerry.” She glanced at Freddy. “And Freddy’s backroom all the way. He just has to make some good-looking paper. The success of the scam depends on you. And me. So unless you think we’re not good enough, I don’t see a valid objection.”
“They know us, Annabelle. We’ve been here before.”
She walked around the table and opened a manila folder that sat on the table in front of her chair. She held up two glossies of a man and a woman.
“Who’s that?” Freddy asked, puzzled.
Leo answered grudgingly as he gazed at the pictures. “Me and Annabelle, from a long time ago. In At-lan-tic Ci-ty,” he spat out.
“Where’d you get the photos?” Tony asked.
Annabelle explained, “Every casino keeps a face bank, what they call the black book, of people who’ve tried to scam them, and they share that intelligence with the other casinos. You’ve never tried to rip a casino, Tony, and neither has Freddy, which is one reason I looked you two up. I still have a few contacts in this town; that’s where I got the prints. They never actually caught us and photographed us. These were made from composites based on descriptions of us. If they had real photos, I’m not sure I’d be here.”
“But you two don’t look anything like that anymore,” Tony said. “Some intelligence,” he added with a sneer.
Annabelle pulled two more glossies out of the folder. These looked more like the real Leo and Annabelle. “Like the police do with missing children, the casinos hire experts to digitally alter the photos to take into account normal aging. They feed that into their black book and also into their electronic surveillance system that has face recognition software. That’s why we’ll look nothing like this when we make our run at Jerry.”
“I’m not making a run at Jerry,” Leo snarled.
“Come on, Leo, it’ll be fun,” Tony said.
“Don’t piss me off, kid,” Leo snapped. “Like I need an excuse to hate you!”
“Let’s take a walk, Leo,” Annabelle said. She held a hand up when Tony and Freddy stood to follow them. “Stay put. We’ll be back,” she said.
Outside, the sun was coming out from behind a patch of dark clouds. Annabelle pulled a hood over her head and slid on sunglasses. Leo pulled a ball cap low over his head and donned shades as well.
They walked along the Boardwalk, which ran between the casinos on the main strip and the wide beach, passing couples on benches staring at the ocean.
“They’ve fixed up the place since the last time we were here,” Annabelle said. The casinos had stomped into town in the late seventies, plopping down billion-dollar gambling palaces in the middle of the seaside resort’s stark decay. For years afterward a person would not want to venture far away from the casinos because the surrounding city was not the safest place. The powers-that-be had long promised a general cleanup of the area. And with the casinos throwing off lots of money and jobs, it looked like that promise was finally being fulfilled. They stopped and watched a large crane lifting steel beams up on top of a structure that a sign announced would soon be luxury condos. Everywhere they looked new construction and rehab of existing places was going on.
Leo veered toward the beach. He stopped to take off his shoes and socks while Annabelle slid off her flats and rolled up her pants. They walked along the sand, drawing close to the water. Finally, Leo stopped, bent down, grabbed a seashell and tossed it at an incoming wave.
“You ready to talk about it?” she asked, eyeing him closely.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Running a con? That’s what I’ve been doing all my life. You should know that better than anyone, Leo.”
“No, I mean, why’d you come and get me, Freddy, the kid? You could’ve had your pick of just about anyone for this action.”
“I didn’t want just anyone. We go way back, Leo. And I thought you’d want to take another run at Jerry. Was I wrong?”
Leo threw another seashell into the water and watched it disappear. “Story of my life, Annabelle. I throw seashells at the waves, and they just keep coming.”
“Don’t get all philosophical on me.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Is this because of your old man?”
“And I don’t need you playing my shrink either.” She moved slightly away from him, crossed her arms over her chest and looked out to sea where at the edge of the horizon a ship slowly made its way somewhere.
“With thirteen million dollars I could buy a boat big enough to take across the ocean, couldn’t I?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess. I’ve never had a reason to price one.” He looked down at his bare feet, crinkled the sand between his toes. “Annabelle, you were always smart about your money, a lot smarter than me. After all the cons you’ve pulled, I know you don’t need the cash.”
“Who ever has enough money?” she said, still watching the boat drift by.
He picked up another shell and hurled it. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”
“Part of me doesn’t. The part of me I listen to knows I have to.”
“The kid says nothing?”
“The kid says nothing.”
“If this goes bad, I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen to us.”
“Then don’t let it go bad.”
“Do you have a single nerve in your body?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.” She picked up a shell and chucked it into the face of a crashing wall of water, then let the ocean race across her feet and ankles. “Are we good?”
He slowly nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”
“No more going ballistic on me?”
He cracked a smile. “That I can promise to no woman.”
As they walked back to the hotel, he said, “I haven’t heard anything about your mom in a long time. How’s Tammy doing?”
“Not great.”
“Is your old man even alive?”
“I wouldn’t be the one to know that, would I?” Annabelle answered.
CHAPTER 17
IT TOOK A FULL WEEK TO MAKE the preparations. As part of that work Annabelle gave a list of the documents and IDs she needed to Freddy. When he came to the end of the sheet, he did a double take.
“Four U.S. passports?”
Tony looked up from his computer. “Passports? What for?”
Leo stared at him contemptuously. “What? You think you cross nutcase Jerry Bagger and stay in the country? Give me a break. Yours truly is going to Mongolia and becoming a monk for a few years. I’d rather wear a robe and ride a yak around than let Bagger cut little pieces of my body off while he’s screaming about wanting his dough back.” He returned to working on his disguise.
Annabelle said, “We need the passports to get out of the country for a while until things cool down.”
“Out of the country?” Tony exclaimed, half rising out of his chair.
“Jerry’s not infallible, but there’s no sense in being stupid. You can see the world, Tony. Learn Italian,” she advised.
“What about my parents?” Tony said.
“Send ’em postcards,” Leo growled over his shoulder as he struggled to fit a toupee to his head. “Talk about your freaking amateur hour.”
“U.S. passports are difficult to make, Annabelle,” Freddy said. “They go for ten grand each on the street.”
Annabelle gave him a hard stare. “Well, you’re being paid six point five million to do these, Freddy.”
The man swallowed nervously. “I see your point. You’ll have them.” Freddy went off with the list.
“I’ve never even been out of the country,” Tony said.
“Best time to go is when you’re young,” Annabelle said, sitting down across from him at the table.
“Have you ever been out of
the country?” he asked her.
Leo piped in. “Are you kidding? You think the States are the only place to run a con? Ha!”
“I’ve been around,” Annabelle admitted.
Tony looked at her nervously. “Well, maybe we could travel together. You could show me around. You and Leo,” he added quickly. “And I bet Freddy would want to come too.”
Annabelle was already shaking her head. “We split up. Four apart is much harder to catch than four together.”
“Right, okay, sure,” Tony said.
“You’ll have plenty of money to live on,” she added.
Tony brightened. “A villa somewhere in Europe, with my own staff.”
“Don’t start throwing the cash around. That’s a red flag. Start small and keep your head down. I’ll get you out of the country, and then you take it from there.” She sat forward. “And now here’s exactly what I need from you.” Annabelle explained Tony’s task in great detail. “Can you do it?”
“No problem,” he said immediately. She eyed him questioningly. “Look, I dropped out of MIT after two years because I was bored!”
“I know. That was the other reason I picked you.”
Tony looked down at his laptop and started typing. “I’ve actually done it before and fooled the place with the best security in the world.”
“Who’s that, the Pentagon?” Leo asked.
“No. Wal-Mart.”
Leo shot him a glance. “You’re kidding me? Wal-Mart?”
“Hey, Wal-Mart doesn’t mess around.”
“How quickly can you do it?” Annabelle asked.
“Give me a couple days.”
“No more than two. I want to test it.”
“I’ve got no problem with that,” he said confidently.
Leo rolled his eyes, said a silent prayer, made the sign of the cross and went back to his toupee.
While Freddy and Tony were working on their assignments, Leo and Annabelle donned disguises and headed to the Pompeii Casino. The largest casino on the Boardwalk and one of the newest, having risen from the ruins of an older gambling den, the Pompeii, true to its name, also sported a working volcano that “erupted” twice a day, at noon and six in the evening. What came out of the volcano wasn’t lava, but certificates that one could use to get drinks and food. Since casinos practically gave food and alcohol away to keep people gambling, it was not much of a sacrifice on Bagger’s part. However, people loved thinking they were getting something for nothing. Thus, the twice-daily eruptions were a surefire draw, the crowds lining up early and then proceeding to dump far more money in the casino than they would ever get back in food and liquor from the belches of the fake volcano.
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