The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  Meg sat up and was immediately offered a paper cup of coffee.

  “Okay, people, it’s time,” Andrew said. He handed Fletcher an electric razor.

  Twenty minutes later they were all as ready as they would be, gathered in the cramped van, reviewing the plan for the day. They went through it twice, and Andrew grilled both Meg and Dante on each detail.

  When he was satisfied he stood, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “This is what we do, people,” he said, sounding like a football coach before the playoffs. “We play the Inside. Everything’s in place. Fletcher and Meg, I rented you a Caddy. Keys are here. Anyone have any questions?”

  Meg half raised her hand. “Can we pray?”

  At 6:30 a.m. Fletcher was up in Happy’s perch alongside William Belltower’s house. The overnight security guard rounded the corner and came up the walkway. He patted two of the dogs on the head, yawned violently, and then checked his hand for the security code. Fletcher was feeling good about their chances here. This was definitely the weak link in Julian Faust’s security plan.

  “Okay, start walking,” he said into his phone. “You need to hit the doorbell in three . . . two . . .” He ran down the embankment and jumped onto the chain-link fence, a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters in his hand. He knew he had just tripped the proximity alarm, but this part of the plan had worked before. Then again, it had been dusk then.

  Meg rang the doorbell. She heard someone loudly complaining inside, then found herself face-to-face with a muscular man in his late twenties. The annoyance in his face faded instantly as his eyes flicked down to her sleeveless T-shirt and jeans and back up to her face, which was smudged with just a bit of engine grease.

  “If you’re here for a puppy, that was a prank,” he said.

  “A puppy?” She scrunched up her nose and shook her head, causing her ponytail to wobble. “Do you know how to change a tire? I got a flat just up there.”

  “Mr. Belltower!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes!” He turned back toward Meg. “Lead the way.”

  Fletcher snipped through the last link and felt his hands cramping up. He had started near the top of the fence and snipped his way to the bottom, creating something of a curtain, which he pulled back and slipped through. The dogs converged on him immediately. He popped open the peanut butter, scooping up the biggest dollops he could with rawhide and sending them off in the direction of any canine he saw. When he thought they were all occupied, he broke into a run toward the house, downgrading to a brisk walk when the faster pace seemed to recapture the dogs’ attention.

  Finding the phone box on the side of the house, he snipped the service line with the wire cutters, then pulled out his cell and called Andrew.

  “Landline is cut.”

  Andrew laughed. “Probably the last time a thief will actually say those words.”

  Fletcher ended the call and texted Meg. You are go.

  Meg felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She held it up and walked this way and that, as if trying to get a signal.

  “Excuse me? Rick?” she said to the man jacking the Cadillac up off the ground.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I use your phone real quick? I don’t have a signal out here.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Calling your boyfriend?”

  Meg smiled playfully and said, “I don’t have a boyfriend.” She accepted the phone and withdrew from the car about twenty feet, waiting until Rick was fully reengaged in his task. She quickly scrolled through the contacts and copied Faust’s number onto the burner phone they’d bought that morning. Then she slid the back cover off Rick’s phone, pried up the battery and removed the SIM card, and quickly reassembled it.

  On her own phone she texted Andrew. Cell is toast. Then she switched to the burner and called Julian Faust’s number.

  “Hello?” came his crisp voice. Meg could hear road noise. Good.

  “Hi, my name’s Barb,” she said in her best Baby Boomer impression. “Do you know an older man named William Bill-tower?”

  “I do. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I’m by the old Hudson’s building, and he’s down here looking for his wife. But I think he’s confused or something. The first number he gave me to call didn’t even have enough digits.”

  Faust expelled an angry sigh. “Can you stay with him until I get there? It should only take me about twenty minutes.”

  “Yeah, ’cause they demolished that building years ago. It’s just an empty lot.”

  “Will you stay with him?” Faust snapped. “I’ll pay you when I arrive.”

  “Oh sure,” Meg said. “I’ll stay.”

  She quickly sent Andrew another text: Faust on his way, then walked back and slid Rick’s phone directly into his pocket. He looked up at her and smiled, bumping his head on the wheel well.

  Andrew read the text. He and Dante were already waiting at the corner of Gratiot and Woodward, overlooking the lot that had once housed the historic building. “And now we wait.”

  All was silent for thirty seconds until Dante said, “This really is a nondescript van.”

  Fletcher shielded his eyes against the glass and looked into the library. Belltower was sitting in an armchair, flipping through an old magazine. Fletcher knocked.

  The old man unlocked and opened the door. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “It’s me—Jordan,” Fletcher said. “You don’t remember your old pal Jordan? Are you ready to go?”

  Belltower smiled broadly. “Are you taking me to the lodge?”

  Fletcher snapped his fingers and pointed at the old man. “I am taking you to the lodge!”

  “I’ll get my hat.” He disappeared for a moment and returned wearing a derby and grinning ear to ear. He took a step up the walkway toward the street.

  Fletcher caught his elbow. “Let’s go this way,” he said, pointing back toward the fence.

  “Fine, fine,” the old man said. As they navigated the maze of dogs, each one approached him, looking for a scratch behind the ears. They arrived at the fence, which Fletcher held open for Belltower.

  “Adventurous. How fun,” Belltower said.

  When they were on the other side, Fletcher closed the fence back up with three plastic zip ties.

  Rick had finished changing the hot lady’s tire and gotten exactly the reward he’d hoped for—a number. He chuckled to himself and slid the slip of paper into his jacket pocket as he walked through the gate into the backyard.

  First he noticed the dogs. Then he noticed the fence. He bolted to the side door, swiped his card, and ran inside.

  “Mr. Belltower!” He felt an impending sense of danger he hadn’t experienced since Afghanistan. Faust would kill him. Or fire him, at least. And then maybe kill him. He pulled out his cell phone to call his employer.

  NO SIM CARD the display read. He remembered the woman fiddling with his phone and making sure he didn’t look at it again. He dashed over to the landline. Dead. He closed his eyes and recalled the license plate number, writing it on his hand next to today’s code. He’d memorized it, figuring he could always arrange a chance encounter somewhere if she didn’t give him her digits. He reread the plate number from his hand. He was 99 percent sure that was right. Now to find a phone.

  CHAPTER 61

  Faust pulled his BMW up onto the sidewalk and hopped out, making two full laps of the lot. Finally he pulled out his phone. That’s when Andrew called him from about fifty yards away.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Faust,” Andrew said. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. You, sir, are being played. The old man you think is harmless and feeble is neither, and he’s about to humiliate you.”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is just a friendly warning.” Andrew hung up. “GPS tracker still connected?” he asked Dante.

  “Yep,” he said, looking at the iPad in his lap. “Looks like he’s taking the old way. If you hop on 75, we can beat him there by five minutes.”<
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  Andrew pulled the van up onto the freeway and punched the accelerator, causing a number of objects in the back to crash to the floor.

  “Now who drives like an amateur?” Dante said. They drove in silence for about ten minutes.

  “There’re Meg and Fletch,” Andrew said, pointing at the Caddy zipping along the freeway in the opposite direction.

  “Why didn’t they just stay there?” Dante asked.

  “We want to get the old man as far away as possible, as quickly as possible. That way, even if you and I get made, we’re still holding some cards.”

  Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the woods next to Belltower’s house, covered the van with a ready-made pile of brush Happy had kept on hand for that purpose, and crawled up to his perch. Down by the house they could see the security guard pacing and hear him swearing. Dante checked his watch; the day shift was due to arrive in ten.

  Just then Faust’s BMW came thundering up to the house and screeched to a stop. The night security guard rushed up to meet him. Dante and Andrew watched them exchange impassioned words for a minute or two before Andrew called Faust again.

  “Hello!” Faust shouted.

  “You may want to look in your safe.”

  Faust craned his neck and looked all around. Dante and Andrew ducked down.

  “The GPS tracker I placed in your rear-passenger wheel well tells me you’ve arrived at William Belltower’s estate,” Andrew said. “How are the letters you keep in his safe?”

  “Good save,” Dante whispered.

  Reaching up under the car, Faust groped around until he found the GPS transmitter. He threw it to the ground and rushed into the house. A moment later they heard a muffled bamph and Faust emerged, his face completely covered in bluish-red dye.

  He pushed his phone to his ear and again demanded, “Who is this?”

  “I’m the man who took the letters from your safe. And they led me to something much more valuable. I’ve cleaned you out, Julian.” He hung up.

  Dante and Andrew followed, a few car lengths back.

  “Wish we still had that GPS on him,” Dante said.

  “He would’ve made us. Anyway, I actually know how to tail a car.”

  “He’s on the phone up there,” Dante said. “He’s not going to lead us to anything.”

  “No,” Andrew said. “Remember his weakness. He’s a control freak. If he knows where the necklace is, he’ll have to see it with his own eyes. Nothing else will satisfy him.”

  “This is nice,” William Belltower said. “I haven’t been on a drive just for the enjoyment of it in years. No one will go with me. Julian thinks it’s a waste of time.”

  Fletcher began another circuit around the city. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” he said. “Sure is a nice day.” He glanced over at Meg. She checked her phone and shook her head.

  “You two make a nice couple,” he said. “Clara and I would always hold hands when we went for a drive. You should try it.”

  Fletcher reached over and squeezed Meg’s trembling hand.

  “I know where he’s going,” Dante announced.

  “Probably Belltower’s office,” Andrew said.

  “No, man. The lodge. He’s hiding it right under their noses.”

  They followed him for another three blocks, then pulled over kitty-corner from the Egyptian Mystery Rites Lodge. Sure enough, Faust was climbing out of his car, which he had parked in a fire lane. His dye-stained face drew looks from passersby. He took the stairs up to the lodge’s entrance two at a time.

  Dante peered through a pair of binoculars. “Does that thing really work?”

  “Wait and see.” Andrew cracked his window a few inches and pushed the end of the surveillance microphone into the gap. “It’s directional, so there’s an art to it. Happy could follow the conversation of two people walking through a crowd,” he said, fiddling with a nob. “I’m not that good, but I think I can—”

  “But you do know me!” Faust’s voice suddenly filled the van. “I’ve been here a hundred times.”

  An elderly man in a brown smoking jacket held up his hands, palms out. “You are not an initiate of our lodge, and you haven’t uttered the words or shown the emblems.”

  “Arcana Arcanorum,” Faust said impatiently. “Those are the words. He says them with me right here next to him. Twice a week! You know me.”

  “You recording this?” Dante asked.

  “You know it.”

  Another man, who could have been the first man’s father, appeared in the entrance beside his fellow Mason. “But where are the emblems?” he asked. His eyes were wide, and his white hair looked like the result of a small explosion.

  “I haven’t got them with me,” Faust said. “But I’m here on behalf of William Belltower. This is urgent.”

  Both lodge members shook their heads in perfect synchronization. “The Rule of Thebes and Memphis is clear,” the man in the smoking jacket said. “No man may enter unaccompanied without the emblems.”

  “Why are you purple?” the older man asked.

  “I know the emblems,” Faust said, trying to keep calm.

  “But you need to have them with you: the septangle and the rude ashlar. Or else you can’t come in.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Faust spat, shoving the closest man aside.

  The man with the hair pulled a dainty revolver from his crested blazer, aiming it from the hip. “Just try me. I didn’t back down in Korea, and I won’t back down now.”

  Faust took an angry step back.

  “Consider yourself banned from the lodge, purple man!”

  Andrew exploded into laughter, pounding the steering wheel. “Call Fletcher,” he said. “He’s got our ticket into that place.”

  “On it,” Dante said, pushing buttons.

  “Wait,” Andrew said. “Where did Faust go?”

  CHAPTER 62

  Where are you, Fletch?” Andrew barked into the phone. “We lost Faust, but we think the necklace is in the lodge somewhere. We’re up the block from the place right now.” He and Dante were milling on the sidewalk, eyes peeled for Faust’s white BMW or magenta face.

  “Passing you now,” Fletcher said. The Cadillac pulled up to a meter and Fletcher came out a moment later, jaunting up to Andrew. “This is perfect,” he said. “Belltower wants nothing more than to take me into that place.”

  “Do it quick,” Andrew said.

  Fletcher opened the back door of the Cadillac and helped William Belltower out.

  “We’re going to the lodge?” he asked, beaming.

  “Sounds great,” Fletcher said.

  They were at the corner waiting for the signal to change when Julian Faust came rushing up from the left, red-faced and raging. “I knew it,” he said. He drew up a compact 9mm pistol and fired a shot into Belltower’s chest. The old man collapsed to the ground, eyes wide, breathing labored.

  Fletcher dropped to his knees and instinctively put pressure on the wound. Fletcher could see Meg rushing over from the car. He cranked his neck in every direction, but could not find Faust.

  “Excuse me! I’m a doctor,” someone said, and Fletcher stepped out of the way.

  “I saw the shooter,” someone behind him said. “He was covered in paint,” came another voice. “He went that way!”

  Fletcher felt Andrew’s arm on his bicep, pulling him back, away from the action.

  It was just after noon when the ambulance roared off toward Mercy Hospital, Belltower on board. Dante dodged traffic through the intersection and climbed back into the van.

  “EMT says he’ll probably make it,” he said. “Tough old guy.”

  Andrew, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since returning to the van, said, “This was a tragedy, but if there’s an upside, it’s that Faust is out of our way. He can’t show his face until that dye wears off. At least two days. Every cop in the city is looking for him.”

  “So what now?” Fletcher said.

  “We brea
k in there,” Meg said. “We need what they’ve got to save Ivy, so we take it.”

  “Bad idea,” Andrew said. “You’re talking about an outpost of one of the most secret of the secret societies. Building’s been there a hundred and fifty years. Who knows what the security situation is? Could be booby traps. Plus, we’ve got that wild man with the cowboy gun.”

  “So, what then?” Dante asked. “You gonna talk your way in again? That went well.”

  “If we can’t play the Inside,” Andrew said, “we turn the grift on them.”

  Fletcher ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. This is the last place I’d choose to grift. This is the Rite started by Cagliostro—a secret society with passwords, secret grips, and handshakes.”

  “And emblems,” Dante added, “whatever those are.”

  “The septangle and rude ashlar,” Andrew said. “And we got the password on tape. This isn’t the Pentagon here. This place is the Stodge Majol. It’s a bunch of gomers who get together to drink brandy and reminisce about how tough Eisenhower was.”

  “I’ve got it,” Fletcher said. A smile slowly spread across his face. “Dante’s going to be our ticket in there.”

  “Me? Are you high? That place has seen nothing but old rich white guys. You two couldn’t blend in—let alone me. And now they’re going to be all on edge and extra cautious.”

  Fletcher shrugged. “We’re going to use all that to our advantage.”

  There were five cops milling about in the ER outside one particular private room while men and women in scrubs pushed past them, going in and out. Dante straightened his tie and made for that room.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” one of the uniformed cops said. “You can’t go in there.”

  “Yes, I believe I can,” Dante said, fishing his ordination card from his wallet. “William Belltower is in there.” He held the card up for the cop to see. “Unless they overturned Freedom of Religion while I wasn’t looking, Mr. Belltower has the right to a religious visit by clergy when the matter of life and death hangs in the balance.”