The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  Dante laughed again, a bit more genuine, and a weak smile remained on his face like a shadow. “You want advice?” He raised his bloodshot eyes to Fletcher’s. “I’ve learned only one thing in my whole life worth sharing: Don’t get comfortable with people. Don’t trust anyone. I should have run my own game.” He seemed to be talking to himself more than to Fletcher. “You let anyone else call the shots, you wind up stuck.”

  The smile disappeared and, in the process, the man seemed to age twenty years. “That’s all I got, man. Sorry.” And he disappeared down a narrow hall, leaving Fletcher standing alone.

  “I’ve learned that one too,” he said to no one in particular.

  CHAPTER 19

  Lugging the briefcase in one hand and a gym bag he’d purchased to hold the fruits of his supply run in the other, Fletcher entered the Church of St. John the Baptist the same way he’d left, making as little noise as possible. He quickly changed back into his own clothes. His wedding ring was stuck at the first knuckle and his finger was already turning a deep crimson.

  Checking the time, he picked up the pace. It was 5:32 and, according to the Xeroxed schedule they’d all received at orientation, the service groups would return to the church between 5:00 and 5:15 each day, with dinner following at 6:00. He could already hear laughing and shouting above as teenagers poured in.

  The shopping list had been eclectic, necessitating visits to half a dozen stores. Many items were still a mystery to him. The roll of duct tape made sense. The suction cup shaving mirror and the MP3 travel speaker, not so much.

  He carefully folded the suit and button-down and shoved them, along with the dress shoes, into his new gym bag before taking a moment to assess his storage options. Only one of the cabinets was large enough to accommodate the bag and the case—a wide, concrete-reinforced job. There had been a lock at one point, but the entire mechanism was now missing. Fletcher pulled open the bottom drawer and resisted the urge to carefully examine an antique leather-bound book, instead placing the briefcase carefully atop it and shoving the gym bag into the next drawer up.

  The chore of shopping for supplies had given him some time to clear his head. He’d tried seeking out a mentor, and what had it gotten him? He wasn’t entirely sure. A fellow grifter? Fletcher had never come across the praying man before, but that didn’t mean much; his circle of criminal associates was limited to Andrew’s preferred collaborators. At any rate, the man who had handed him a flyer at the women and children’s shelter carried a trick Bible and had stolen the donor list from at least one charity.

  But Officer Roberts had suggested an older mentor as well. Fletcher’s thoughts turned to the resident clergyman-in-charge, whose church contained hidden compartments guarded by laser alarms. He wasn’t sure about God, but it did seem like the universe might be trying to tell him something.

  Fletcher took a moment to mentally prepare himself for the inevitable confrontations that lay ahead, and was surprised to find that they seemed small and easily manageable. He thought of Brad, huffing and shouting and calling him “convict.” Nothing. No queasy feeling, no nerves. Was it because he had much bigger problems at the moment? No, that wasn’t it. He smiled. Brad was the easiest mark in the world. His peg was obvious: he wanted to feel big and important, as if every aspect of his little life was of tremendous consequence. How had Fletcher failed to exploit that?

  It was his pride. The same shortcoming that made Fletcher Andrew’s mark back at the museum had kept him from playing Brad. Well, no more. He allowed himself one more thought of the contents of the gym bag and the impending job, feeling a little rush in return, then stepped up the stairs, blending into a throng of kids wielding Nerf guns. He moved through their midst, following the flow of traffic down into the fellowship hall for dinner.

  He spotted Brad from a distance and planned his move. He needed this to go down where no one else would see. Brad was looking over the heads of the kids around him, eyes searching. Then he found Fletcher’s gaze, and the two locked eyes.

  Fletcher turned on his heels and headed down a side hall, into a small classroom. The smell of chalk and slate brought him back almost twenty years to high school. He pushed the memories and all the other thoughts out of his head. If he was going to keep all of this from blowing up, he needed Brad off his back. You’re a grifter, he told himself. Grift.

  A moment later Brad burst into the room, golf shirt billowing around him. The sight of him filled Fletcher with a growing rage. He collected it in his chest and found himself able to transform it into what he needed it to be. There it was. He’d just been out of practice.

  “Why do I hear that you left your post today?” Brad demanded like a wartime officer about to drag a truant guard to the stockade.

  Fletcher looked him in the eye, then let his gaze drop to the floor, an act of submission among all primates. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I kind of had a crisis.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brad asked. His words were still loud, but the edge had left them.

  “We were working with all these kids whose fathers had left them,” he said, letting his voice crack, “and I couldn’t help but think, I’m just like these deadbeats. You know? I’m no different.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Brad said, adopting a fatherly tone, albeit a father midlecture. “Get your act together, Doyle. It’s not too late to step up.”

  Fletcher sniffled and wiped his hand against his nose. He winced; his ring was still stuck, and the finger stung like the victim of a hundred little needles.

  “I just needed some time alone. It won’t happen again.” He glanced up at Brad as vulnerably as he could. “You’re not going to tell the director, are you?”

  “I suppose we can let this one slide. But get it together, okay, Doyle?” Brad whacked him on the shoulder, a little harder than the average friendly gesture, but confirming for Fletcher that he’d pulled it off, and walked out of the room.

  Fletcher waited half a minute and walked out into the hall, practically colliding with Meg and Ivy on their way to the fellowship hall.

  “Hi, Father!” Ivy waved, grinning.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  Meg’s face bore signs of concern. “Brad was looking for you again. He looked really mad.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Promise me you’re not going to mix it up with him again.”

  “Ivy, can you go ahead and grab us a place in line?” Fletcher asked. “I need to talk to your mom a minute.”

  “Got it,” she said, and half ran into the fellowship hall.

  “Come here a minute,” Fletcher said, leading his wife back into the same classroom he’d just left. She crossed her arms, a barrier of protection against what news she might receive. “I think I smoothed things over with Brad. It’s not fair, the position I’ve put you in with him and the house and everything.”

  Meg’s hands moved down to her stomach.

  “I apologized and he accepted,” Fletcher said. “Not that everything’s going to be great with the guy, but I’ll make it work.” He didn’t want to be turning his wife’s peg with such expertise, but he was in the zone and he almost had no choice.

  Meg smiled. That smile.

  Fletcher realized that at some point he’d pushed his wedding ring the rest of the way on. He gave it an absent-minded turn and looked at his wife. He’d tried timidity—hanging back, giving her space, letting time work its magic. It had gotten him nowhere. He grabbed her around the waist, yanked her in close, and planted a kiss on her, the very opposite of timid. She hesitated for just a moment before returning the kiss—their first in seven years. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed into him, right there in the church basement.

  Amazing what a little confidence could accomplish.

  CHAPTER 20

  JANUARY 31, 1785

  PARIS, FRANCE

  The séance had concluded with the girl in the booth, through convulsions and the grinding of teeth, channeling the recently deceased Voltaire and
the would-be assassin Robert-François Damiens. The girl, who would be paid a few coppers for her troubles, was led away, ostensibly to recover from the ravages of prolonged divination. Count Cagliostro bowed deeply and bid his guests adieu.

  Cardinal de Rohan, bouncing and giggling with all the foppishness he could muster, was practically dragged from the hall amid the sea of spectators, waving wildly at Cagliostro with both arms and promising to visit again soon.

  Cagliostro withdrew to his laboratory, a converted parlor, where three large furnaces covered the back wall, surrounded by fine cabinets filled with the tools of metallurgy and alchemy. A man of medium height and build was bent over one of the furnaces, examining a crucible. He wore the black cloak and white cross that had so enthralled Cagliostro some years earlier. It was a simple symbol, but meant so much more to the men who wore it, who battled the Moslems and hunted Barbary pirates under its standards.

  The man, hearing the count approach, turned to face him. His wig was flawlessly placed, his nose long and Romanesque, and his mouth pulled into a wry smirk.

  “I see the secrets of alchemy unfolding before me,” he said.

  “You should not be in this room,” Cagliostro said.

  “Yes, your lackey told me the same thing,” the Grand Master said. “It did not go well for him.” He opened the hinged lid of the crucible. “I open this side, and I see lead.” He flipped the crucible over. “But look! A little time in the furnace and we have gold,” he said, tipping open the other side.

  The man was Emmanuel de Rohan, a distant relative of the cardinal of Strasbourg—now boarding his carriage outside—and the current Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. He was fifteen hundred miles from Valletta, and that had everything to do with Cagliostro.

  “It’s in the wrist,” the count answered. “I keep the light low in the laboratory and stand hunched such that my Masonic apron obscures the move.” He bent his knees. “Like so.”

  “I see.” The Grand Master studied Cagliostro’s outfit, from the turban down. “Why do you have the Grand Master’s sword in your possession?” He pointed a gloved finger at the blade hanging from the count’s belt.

  “Your predecessor bequeathed it to me.”

  “It was not his to give.” Grand Master de Rohan replaced the crucible and took a step toward him.

  “I see that you have replaced it with an even finer sword,” Cagliostro said. “I hope you have not traveled all this way for a duel. I am no swordsman.”

  Grand Master de Rohan laughed, his age showing around the eyes. “No, I am here because of the letters you sent me and because I would like to continue the plans you began with Grand Master da Fonseca.”

  “I am happy to hear it.”

  “Before we move forward, however, I must tell you that I share neither my predecessor’s belief in the occult nor his gullibility.”

  “All the better,” Cagliostro said.

  “I do share his desire to keep my position and wealth in a world that is sliding headlong into chaos.”

  The Grand Kophta removed his turban and smoothed his hair back. “I have anticipated your visit and have already set everything in motion for the next act of our unfolding drama. Your kinsman is just now leaving with his buxom ecclesial escorts. He is more willing than ever to do whatever I advise in order to reenter the queen’s favor.”

  “I assume that the good cardinal has seen this transmutation of lead into gold?”

  Cagliostro smiled darkly. “Mercury into gold, which is harder to accomplish but far more impressive. Not here, but in my larger laboratories, which I keep in his episcopal palace. Unlike you, Cardinal de Rohan shares both Fonseca’s gullibility and penchant for the occult. While I lived in his palace, he lavished me with every gift and luxury.”

  The Grand Master snuffed derisively. “Sadly, the House of Rohan has become a breeding ground for naiveté and superstition, particularly the Guéméné branch. When I think that such a man is both a prince and a cardinal of the Holy Church, I almost begin to sympathize with the revolutionaries on the streets and in the Bastille.”

  “He aspires to even more power. The end goal of all Cardinal de Rohan’s machinations is that he attain the position of prime minister, to which he thinks he is uniquely suited.”

  The Grand Master grimaced.

  “But remember,” Cagliostro said, “that you are a prince and a cardinal as well. And you must protect what the Great Architect has entrusted to you.”

  De Rohan nodded. “Tell me where things stand,” he said.

  “I have spoken with the Monsieurs Böhmer and Bassange.”

  “The jewelers?”

  “The finest in all Paris. Perhaps all of France. They work their craft in an extraordinary and ostentatious mansion on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. But what few know is that these men are broken in spirit and very nearly ruined financially.” He sat down on a bench, smoothing his skirts around him. “The source of their grief is a necklace. A diamond necklace commissioned by King Louis’s late father for his mistress—a gaudy and impractical piece of jewelry, composed of hundreds of diamonds and costing far more than one million livres. They bring it out on occasion in their showroom, and many have seen its opulence, although few know the full story.”

  The Grand Master sat on an adjacent bench, facing Cagliostro and leaning forward attentively.

  “Before the transaction could be completed, the king died and his mistress was banished. This left the fine jewelers in a horrible position. Without payment for the necklace, they were crippled with debt, unable even to keep up with the interest they owed.”

  “And who could afford to buy such a lavish piece?”

  Cagliostro nodded. “They have twice tried to sell it to His Majesty, as a gift for the queen.”

  The Grand Master smirked. “It is hard to imagine that Marie Antoinette would pass up such an ornament.”

  “But she did. Twice. She wants nothing to do with a necklace crafted for another man’s mistress. Besides, she knows what great public outcry would result if she were to spend so much from the royal treasury on a piece of jewelry. With the political climate as it is, such a transaction could prove the final provocation.”

  De Rohan rubbed his chin. “I am beginning to see how this fits into the scheme you laid out in your letters.”

  “And you see the potential?” Cagliostro asked.

  “As if it has already happened and we are looking back.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The Orangelawn Shelter for Women and Children went cold as Kyle and his brother were introduced to Meg, whom they apparently assumed to be the only obstacle standing between them and domestic stability wrapped in a white picket fence. It took her all of three minutes to thaw the ice and win them over entirely. Their latent plans to replace her with their mother moved quickly to the back burner and then out the back door as she chased them up and down the gym floor, unleashing dodgeballs in their direction. Ivy, meanwhile, had quickly connected with an awkward loner of a nine-year-old girl, and the two were discussing some television show about a post-apocalyptic high school. Fletcher just sat back and smiled.

  He’d been wrong in figuring the groups’ rotation and was elated to find their van pulling up to the converted school that morning. His high spirits were further boosted by the fact that there were four of them crammed into the backseat of the van, squeezing Fletcher up against his wife, who had taken his hand and tipped her head against his shoulder, leaving it there the whole ride. Fletcher suspected that the thirteen-year-old boy two seats up was in a similarly good mood for almost exactly the same reason. Nothing like a weeklong church mission trip to kindle some fires.

  “You worried me yesterday,” came a deep, resonant voice.

  “Oh, hello, Dr. Foreman,” Fletcher said. “Sorry about the quick exodus; I had to go take care of something. But I worked it out so I could come back again today.”

  “Is she your wife?” Dr. Foreman asked, gesturing at Meg, who was currently caught be
tween the two boys in a raucous game of monkey in the middle.

  “Yeah. My daughter is around here somewhere too.”

  “You’re a lucky man.”

  They watched the kids play in silence for a moment before Fletcher asked, “That guy yesterday—the one you were chewing out—who is he?”

  The minister frowned. “I fear that he is in very deep trouble. And I wish I could help him. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  They were enveloped in sudden chaos as Meg rushed over and ducked behind Fletcher, using him as a shield against a torrent of foam balls. Before he could introduce his wife to his old friend, he found himself literally pulled into a game of two-on-two basketball. Meg had played in high school and had Fletcher easily outclassed, but he didn’t argue when accused of going easy on his wife. Halfway through their game, Ivy and her new friend wandered into the gym and were cajoled with some difficulty into turning the game of two-on-two into three-on-three.

  Game over, they lined up at the drinking fountain. Fletcher felt like he’d never stop smiling. Until that annoying beep from his pocket jarred him back to reality.

  Meg raised her eyebrows and warned, “You better turn that thing off. I heard they confiscate phones here.”

  “Yeah, let me just see who it is,” he answered, withdrawing a dozen paces. He’d stuffed his own cell phone into his left pocket that morning and, against his better judgment, placed the burner phone from the Alchemist in the right.

  Since no one else even knew the phone existed, Fletcher was not surprised to see 1 MESSAGE FROM THE ALCHEMIST on the display, although he was disappointed. The temporary high from yesterday’s exploits was fading in comparison to the domestic bliss he was soaking up today. He brought up the message. Corner of Ashland & Central. 45 minutes. Bring everything.

  Fletcher made up his mind to ignore the message. He’d tell the Alchemist that he forgot the phone. Or it ran out of battery. Or the director had confiscated it, as Meg suggested. He returned it, now far heavier, to his pocket and rejoined the group, all of whom were now talking about lunch. The flow of traffic brought him into the cafeteria, where the universal smell of lunch line food filled the air. Fletcher, Meg, Ivy, and their three new friends settled in around a small table.