The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  “Okay, here it is,” Happy was saying. “They’ve got infrared sensors in that conference room.”

  “Not surprising, given its contents,” Andrew said. “Can you kill them?”

  “Not outright. But I think I have a work-around. There’s kind of a grid of invisible beams on the ground. You break one and the alarm goes off. But there’re actually two grids, staggered, laid down on top of each other. They avoid false alarms that way. I’m going to give one of these grids”—he could hear Happy typing a hundred miles an hour—“a two-second delay . . . There! You’ll need to take tiny steps—more of a slow shuffle really—but I think that should do it.”

  Fletcher pulled the headset from his ear and dumped it on the console. “If you must know, this fell out of your Bible this morning,” he said, bringing the card out of his pocket and tossing it onto Meg’s lap.

  “This just happened to fall out?”

  “I wasn’t going through your Bible, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  Meg read the card to herself. “It’s just a note of encouragement.”

  “There’s one person who ‘cares for you’?”

  “He’s talking about God,” Meg said.

  “And I suppose it’s also God calling you Gorgeous.”

  Dante cleared his throat. “Um . . . I’m gonna go . . . smoke?” He stepped back over Scott and out of the van.

  “Why would you keep that?” Fletcher demanded.

  Meg seemed to realize that she was clutching the card up to her chest and consciously put it back on her knees. “Father’s Day, last year,” she said quietly. “Pastor Dave was preaching about what a blessing it is to have a godly father in the house. I lost it halfway through the sermon and ran into the foyer, crying. No one followed me. No one came out to see if I was okay. Except Brad. He let me cry on his shoulder—literally. I got tears and snot all over his suit jacket and he just told me not to worry about it. He was there for me!”

  Fletcher snatched the card back from her. “This is not Brad being there for you. This is Brad wanting to be with you. And you held on to it.”

  “Fletcher, you on?” Happy said. “Fletcher? Hey!” He glanced at his phone—still had a connection. “Dante? Are you up there? It’s me, Margaret.” Nothing. “Well, if anyone is listening, I’m accessing the backups now.” He clicked his mouse a few times and paused. “This is weird, you guys. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Happy needed to upload his virus, but something was off. The backup could be opened, but that was all. “Here goes nothing,” he said, and double-clicked.

  Suddenly the floor fell out from beneath him and the room was filled with a huge rumbling sound. Happy shouted and flailed, falling hard against the concrete. It took him a moment to get his bearings and realize that the floor hadn’t actually moved; rather, eight wide horizontal file cabinets had come thundering up from somewhere underground.

  He sat up. “Whoa. That is an old-school backup system.”

  Andrew made it back to Room 624 without encountering the man in the vest with the silver hair. He walked quickly up to the door and pushed down on the handle—locked. Great. A cursory look at the mechanism told him it would take fifteen minutes to pick, minimum. It was similar to the one at Belltower’s house, only three or four generations newer. And how was he supposed to do that kind of work, crouched in a hallway, without arousing suspicion?

  He thought about Scott Sprague’s keys, which he had seen earlier, sitting on the counter in the van and now in Happy’s pocket—although he had insisted they were unnecessary. After all, Happy had reasoned, any place as high-tech as Fonseca’s headquarters would not employ archaic lock-and-key technology.

  Trying to look both busy and nonchalant, Andrew ran over his options. He could try to get the keys from Happy, although that would almost certainly involve two semi-convincing, ball cap–wearing IT managers in one place, which was begging for trouble. And even if they managed a hand-off, Andrew had his doubts as to whether the key was even on Scott’s ring, which bore only four keys. No, picking the lock as quickly as possible was his best option. He was fishing for his lock pick set when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “There you are, Sprague. Who do you think you are, walking away from me?” It was the man with the silver mane. And he was standing right behind him.

  “You lied to Courtney, you know,” Meg said.

  “What? Who’s talking about Courtney? I’m talking about us.”

  “So am I. You told her you’ve never pulled a long con. That’s not true; you ran one for years. And I fell for it.” She chuckled darkly. “The illusion of permanence set my mind at ease, and I never let myself see the truth. Our whole marriage was one big grift to you.”

  Fletcher was silent.

  “Don’t feel too bad,” Meg said. “For me, it was just another role.”

  Fletcher grabbed the headset and popped it back into his ear. “Where are we, Happy?” he asked.

  CHAPTER 51

  Oh, nice of you to join us,” Happy said. “I’ve got good news and bad news and they’re both the same news: I’ve accessed the backups and they’re in some kind of antique steel lateral files. Oh, and one of the keys on Sprague’s ring opens them all.”

  “How is that bad news?”

  “I can’t make copies of all this. I’d need a Xerox machine and a bunch of boxes. And that would take twenty hours. We’ve got, like, ten minutes, tops, until the fire alarm goes off.”

  Andrew stood frozen, not out of fear or even indecision, but because it seemed like his best option. The grifter’s quick read of the silver-haired man suggested someone who rarely made eye contact with underlings. That might come in handy.

  The man reached past him and inserted a key into the lock of door 624.

  “My presentation is at one,” he said. “I want everything ready. None of the glitches we had last time. Understand?”

  Andrew nodded slightly and slipped into the room.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” the man called.

  “You’ll just have to be selective about what you take,” Fletcher said. “How are they organized?” He could feel Meg staring at him from the passenger seat, but resisted the urge to look in her direction.

  In the back, Scott Sprague rolled over, mumbled something, and lifted his head for just a moment before curling back up in the fetal position.

  “Looks like the first cabinet is files on principals, high rollers—lots of stuff in here going back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The others seem to be general files and corporate personnel.”

  “So grab José Pinto da Fonseca for starters.”

  “What’s that under, F? D? P?”

  “I don’t know. Try F,” Fletcher said.

  “Let’s see . . . E . . . F . . .” Happy stopped. “Oh, man. Whoa . . .”

  “What?”

  “You will never guess who has his very own folder here.”

  “Why would you make me guess, Happy? Just—”

  “Julian Faust.”

  Andrew took little steps over to the framed document on the wall and looked closely at the inscription in the corner: the Greek letters pi and alpha, followed by the number 19.12. It was a map of the island of Malta—rather detailed and aesthetically pleasing. Even apart from their present quest, Andrew thought he might have stolen it anyway, just by reflex, given half a chance.

  He inspected the frame, particularly where it made contact with the wall. He’d come prepared for a standard art alarm, comprised of a cable, affixed to the back of the frame and loosely plugged into another cable running into the wall. In such a case, removing the framed item would break the connection and trip the alarm. There were a dozen ways around that.

  What he was less prepared for was a frame that was built directly into the wall, apparently welded to the beams behind it and plastered into place. He carefully made his way over to the monstrance and saw that the cover over the small niche had been similarly const
ructed. These items would both take time to properly steal. But Scott Sprague’s pushy boss said he would be back in ten minutes.

  Andrew checked his watch. Make that eight minutes.

  He patched back in to Fletcher and Happy. “I’m in the conference room,” he said. “I can’t even figure how they got the things in there. Looks like they built the whole place around them. You getting what you need, Happy?”

  “Sort of,” Happy answered, mopping his forehead. He had in hand the files for Julian Faust and José Pinto da Fonseca (which he had found filed under D) and was now looking for Cagliostro. “I’ve got Cadelmo and then Caulfield,” he said. “No Cagliostro.”

  “Look under B,” Andrew said. “Remember, his real name was Giuseppe Balsamo.”

  Happy walked his fingers through a dozen folders. “Balsamo! Here it is,” he said.

  Then the fire alarm went off.

  Happy rushed to his computer and hit the Enter key, executing the script. “Go time, guys. I’m deleting today’s video surveillance files as we speak. Andrew, you want to be out of the building by the time it finishes.”

  “Fire alarm?” Fletcher asked.

  “Yeah,” Andrew said. “I’m hanging up now. I’ll see you guys at the rendezvous with the map and the monstrance.”

  “Leave the monstrance!” Fletcher yelled, but it was too late.

  Happy lingered by the computer, watching the progress bar inch along. He looked down at the three files in his hands and began flipping through Julian Faust’s. There were medical records, military documents, photos. He felt a sudden spike of adrenaline, stopped flipping, and thumbed his way back to a picture of some men standing in a courtyard. The person next to Julian—that was someone Happy recognized.

  Out of options, Andrew tried the only thing he could: the Rescue Hammer. It was a gimmick, meant to be stowed in a car in case one wound up trapped inside at the bottom of a lake. The light plastic hammer contained a weighted metal spike at its head and could shatter safety glass that might otherwise survive a seventy-mile-per-hour collision with a deer.

  He pulled the plastic hammer from his bag and struck the center of the map. The glass spider-webbed, and a second shrill alarm filled the building, largely drowned out by the fire alarm. He swung it again, and a thousand little pieces of glass came pouring down off the wall.

  “Fletcher, you still there?” Happy asked. The clanging of the alarms made everything else seem quieter.

  “Yeah, but we need to hurry. Our Happy Napper is waking up over here.”

  “Dante can deal with that,” he said. “I need to talk to you. Privately. Like, now. You know that place a few blocks away that used to have those thirty-nine-cent tacos?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Meet me there in ten minutes,” Happy said. “Just you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I know who the Alchemist is.”

  CHAPTER 52

  Where are you going?” Meg demanded. They could hear Scott stirring in the back.

  “Looking for Dante,” Fletcher said, punching a memory button on his phone. He stood up on the van’s running board and peered into the pool of people gathered near the building, slowly growing as more trickled out. The sound of the alarms seemed to be driving the group incrementally farther out into the parking lot.

  Scanning the crowd, he saw one of the decoy Scott Spragues exit the building and head toward the north rendezvous. At this distance, he couldn’t tell them apart. Dante’s voicemail picked up.

  “I’ll be right back,” Fletcher said, heading for the crowd. He wasn’t supposed to be interacting with the marks here, and he wasn’t the least bit prepared. Andrew had taught him a ritual to prepare for this sort of thing: he would stare into his own reflection without showing a bit of recognition. This was great practice for interacting with a partner midgrift. Fletcher felt a little naked for having skipped it, but at the end of the day, staring at his face in the mirror was a useless exercise. He didn’t know that guy anymore anyway.

  Entering the outskirts of the crowd, Fletcher was struck with just how normal it all was. Then again, the majority of these people had no idea who they were really working for. He felt a hand on his shoulder and spun, his guard up.

  “It’s me,” Dante said. “Sorry. I should have stayed close. I just thought . . .” He trailed off, his eyes drawn to something in the distance. Or someone.

  Fletcher followed his gaze and felt his chest tighten. There, milling about with the displaced accountants and HR coordinators, was the old man in the robe. He was looking at them—at Dante and Fletcher—rocking back and forth slowly. For some reason, Fletcher could only think of the words of St. Paul in Scripture: Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

  “You can see him too,” Dante said.

  “Of course I see him. This is the third or fourth time.”

  “Look around,” Dante said. “No one else does.”

  Fletcher looked back at the place where the man had been, but as before, he had vanished. He suddenly remembered Happy’s message and the bar three blocks away. “Get back to the van,” he said. “You guys pick up Andrew, then wait for my call.”

  Dante shrugged and jogged back to the van, sliding in behind the wheel. He circled around and pulled up to Andrew, who slid the door open and found himself face-to-face with a groggy Scott Sprague, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  “Dude. I’m tripping,” he slurred. “Are you, like . . . I mean, am I you?”

  Andrew dragged him from the van by the shoulders of his shirt and sat him down against a tree on a parking lot island.

  “Here’s your jacket,” he said, tossing it on Scott’s lap. “Sorry about all this.”

  “Don’t mention it, man,” Scott mumbled. “My treat.”

  Andrew pulled the van door shut as they squealed away.

  “Did you get it?” Dante asked.

  Andrew reached into his bag and withdrew a bulky object wrapped in a hand towel. With a shake of his wrist, he revealed the monstrance. It was gold with a round base and three small feet. A sunburst pattern reached out from the center where a round hollow—about two inches in diameter—would house the bread of Holy Communion. He carefully handed it to Meg and went back into his bag, producing a long cardboard tube.

  “Two for two,” he said.

  Fletcher ran the three blocks to the Equinox, a defunct bar that looked no more defunct than when he and Happy had frequented it a decade earlier. He rushed around the back, where an overhang in the alley had once protected employees and patrons alike from rain while they smoked. Hundreds of bleached cigarette butts remained.

  Happy was hunched up against the wall, nervously tapping his hand against his leg.

  Fletcher slowed to a walk and tried to catch his breath. “What’s the problem?” he asked, clutching his side.

  “Look who’s got his arm around Julian Faust,” Happy said, offering a file folder in his outstretched hand. He suddenly jerked, pitched forward, and landed hard on the ground, the folder still clutched in his hand. A gaping red hole the size of a fifty-cent piece was gurgling blood from his forehead onto the cracked concrete.

  Fletcher couldn’t move. He’d never seen anyone die before, much less the violent snuffing out of a close friend right before his eyes. He stood frozen, panicked, trying not to look at Happy’s lifeless body or the brain matter on the filthy back wall of the bar. Then he saw movement to his left and heard someone—no, two people—approaching. They were dressed in all black, like Navy Seals, complete with face masks that covered everything but their eyes. On their chests were emblazoned red Maltese crosses.

  The bigger of the two stood six feet from Fletcher, gun trained on him, while the other one—much slighter—quickly wrenched the folder from Happy’s hand and took a quick look at its contents before disappearing around the corner of the building.

  “On your knees,” the man ordered. His voice sounded like two
cinder blocks being dragged against each other.

  Fletcher complied. He could hear the blood pounding through his head. On the continuum of fight or flight he was somewhere near lie down and die. He thought of his daughter, locked up who-knew-where, of his last words with his wife—angry words—and the prayer he never had got around to praying.

  “Stay there and count to two hundred,” the man said.

  It wasn’t until he reached one hundred and twenty that Fletcher realized he had seen the man before. The scar may have been covered by the mask, but there was no mistaking those eyes.

  Fletcher had only managed a few words upon returning to the van, but they—along with the blood on his hands and shirt—were enough to convey that Happy was gone.

  Back at Broadmoor Outreach Tabernacle, the shock was wearing off and the rage was building up.

  “The guy Dale with the gun,” he said. “The guy in the jumpsuit. Is he the Alchemist?”

  Andrew shook his head. “No, he’s hired muscle. Name’s Manny or Manly or something. The Alchemist brought him on after I left.”

  “He killed Happy. Or the other guy did. Wiry little guy.” He thought for a moment. “Might have been a woman.” The familiar female voice on the phone in Belltower’s office suddenly came to his mind.

  “The Alchemist does have a woman he works with,” Andrew said. “He calls her Lorenza.”

  “Cagliostro’s wife. How cute.”

  “I didn’t tell you why I broke it off with him. He was getting crazy, claimed to be Cagliostro. Literally.”

  Dante was sitting backward on a wooden chair, leaning on the backrest. “Any idea what was in the folder they took?” he asked.