Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 661 & 662, September/October 1996

Breakfast Date by S. K. Hodson

© 1996 by S. K. Hodson

Shelagh K. Hodson’s debut piece is the third EQMM first story to have its origin in a single writers group in Rochester, New York. This would be a remarkable coincidence were it not that all three shared a superb writing teacher, EQMM author Miriam Grace Monfredo. Congratulations to both students and teacher!

I first spot him in that gay bar, and no, I’m not. I just work there, not as an employee but scamming the crowd for small change and something to do while I look for my next mark.

See, the pretty boys haven’t put in the hetero-bar time their straight brothers have. My guess is they stayed in until they came out. Anyway, the stalest cons are new here. I clear maybe twenty, thirty dollars a night on bar bets, making change in my favor, and the other tired grifts, all for the cost of a pitcher of sangria for my new buddies.

Pocket money. I’m looking for someone who fits a size 12-D con job. Something about this guy draws my attention, for no real reason. I trust my gut, as usual. You gotta have a feel for these things.

It’s a two-way street; he’s checking me out, smiling. I nod, pretending I’m shy, and turn my attention back to my glass.

You wouldn’t know he was Mr. Right to look at him. He’s plain, maybe thirty, with sandy hair receding a little, soft and stocky but not fat, dressed out of Sears. He looks like a poor Republican from a smallish town, nervous about being here. The regulars eye him and turn away. He’s not special. Not even trying to be.

What do they know? He’s special because he’s here, as out of place as a coyote in a salt-water aquarium. Since he’s not dressed to attract, I know he wants somebody who is. Which means he has what it takes. What I want.

Money.

We don’t speak, although our eyes meet again later that night. He lifts his drink, something with a cherry, in an across-the-room toast. A manhattan, in Milwaukee? At least it’s not beer. I raise mine back, acknowledging.

When he leaves around ten, I follow him to a shabby apartment building on North 25th. I keep going after he turns into the lot.

He doesn’t spend his money on clothes, his car, or his apartment. What, then?

I’ve been working the con for five years, and I tell you, men get some expensive toys when they’re around his age. Thirty is when the single boys indulge.

These are the guys who keep studio-quality sound and video equipment in crappy apartments they’re too lazy to leave. Or five or six state-of-the-art computers. Model trains, planes, or ships, woodworking tools, rare books, cameras — something. You get into the apartment and you can leave with a couple thousand in goods.

Or you can study it and use what you learn to buddy up later and take them for ten times that, once they teach you to separate the best they’ve got from the rest.

Over the next several weeks I see him often. He likes the younger guys, buys them lots of drinks, but it isn’t enough. The hustlers don’t have the nose for a score, or the patience. My instincts tell me he’s definitely got something rare, something private, so I follow him when he leaves maybe four times. He’s just one of several irons I have in the fire, not always the hottest.

He usually goes home alone. Once he gets lucky with an effeminate young black guy who goes inside the apartment building and doesn’t come back out in the five minutes I watch.

Okay, so I’m not his type. There’s a million scams that don’t need looks. I just need to know how to work him.

One night I follow him thinking I’ll see if he goes right to bed; I can do a passable drunk clumsily trying to unlock “my own apartment,” except a couple keys are lock picks. I’ll just wait until he’s been asleep awhile, go in and look around for five silent minutes, and lock up when I leave. I’m good, nearly as good as I am at the con, but burglary’s not for me. Too many armed citizens.

Our eyes have met enough times that I think I could start a conversation, maybe buy him a drink. Once he finds out I’ve just fallen for and begun collecting whatever it is he has, he’ll tell me all about it. I can expect a tour of his hoard, if I do my job right.

His lights don’t go out until eleven-thirty. I figure I’ll give him forty minutes to get to sleep.

Except he comes out and gets in his car, carrying something no bigger than a shoebox.

Another bar at this hour doesn’t feel right. Boyfriend? I follow him, keeping well back because there’s hardly any traffic. He’s a good driver, signals his turns, obeys the limit all the way to a brick factory building where he parks and walks in with one of those metal lunch boxes.

Graveyard shift. I figure I have not five minutes but hours to peruse his treasures. The lock is unfamiliar, obviously tenant-installed. He didn’t even repaint around the different shape. Like I said, I’m good; strange lock, but I’m through the door in three minutes.

The smell is unpleasant, and familiar. It takes me a minute to place it: Taxidermy. And cigarettes.

Where am I gonna fence a moose head? I think, laughing to myself. New lock means valuables. “Valuable” in taxidermy would be rare animals, I guess. Endangered species? Yeah, like he’s gonna have mounted pandas. Probably he’s into more than one hobby. Taxidermy can’t cost all that much. Maybe he hunts and mounts his kills.

Guns. Depending on what he’s got, a small fortune is entirely possible. I’m smiling as I softly close the door behind me, making sure it latches. It wouldn’t do to have some neighbor see it ajar and walk in.

I spend some time looking around, but whatever he’s got, I sure as hell can’t find it. I’m pretty thorough, without leaving any sign that anybody was here. There’s a big pot on the stove simmering real low, and a steel drum that stinks when you get near. I don’t peek into either one. I don’t think I want to know how these guys get from living creature to mounted specimen.

Okay, then, I’m out of here.

The door doesn’t open from the inside. There’s a place for a key, but no matter what I do with my lock picks, the handle doesn’t turn. I can’t even feel the tumblers, much less make them click.

I force calm. Think. The brain that works every mark smooth as wet glass is the same one that saved me from several beatings before I got so good. I can think on my feet. A grifter’s greatest gift.

Another way out, then. Apartment 213 is too high to jump; at the least I’d break both legs, at worst my back or skull. No way to climb up. Okay, call for help. There’s a lock on the phone, like people have to keep their kids off those 900 numbers. Self-conscious, I shout “Help!” out the two windows I can get open, but nobody responds even when I abandon my pride and scream “Fire!”

Fire? I see smoke detectors, but I don’t think anything less than a real fire is going to get the firemen here. I’m not starting a fire where I’m trapped.

Annoy the neighbors until they call the cops? Usually I avoid interacting with the police, but for this I’ll make an exception. I thump walls, floors, and ceiling, blast the radio and TV, but it falls on deaf ears or empty apartments.

Think, I order myself. Do your damned job.

Before any big scam I conduct a rousing internal pep talk. Hey, I can do it! I’m the guy who talked four Marines into betting, and losing, their tickets home, convinced them not to beat me up, and let them buy me one last drink before they left. Now that was hard. This is one guy, an easy one who’s smiled and nodded and toasted me. He already likes me.

Good thing, because he’s going to find me here in his apartment when he gets off work. I’ll have to learn what I can, then wing it. Good; my best work is off-the-cuff, everybody says so.

I might have to do some pretty distasteful things; he’ll recognize me from the gay bar. I’ll pretend I’m new at it, confused and scared, but that I like them. And him.

To a con man, knowledge is power. I have an eight-hour factory shift to learn everything I can about this guy, to have exactly the right answer for any damned thing he says or does, the right reaction to every action. He’s not only going to let me leave, but we’ll make a date for later.

I find photo albums and memorize what little they tell about growing up with Mom and Dad and Grandma and a tidy suburban house.

Canceled checks will tell more. Kroger’s, Sears, cash, the phone company, rent, Target, Exxon, Kroger’s again, but then, my exit visa: a whole string of ten- and twenty-five-dollar donations to charities.

He may not have much, but he wants to help people with less. Isn’t that the essence of being a good man? A good man capable of forgiveness, even mercy? Okay, not great, but it’s a jumping-off place. I have seven hours to hone it until it sings.

I put back the checks, every one signed in an uncommonly readable hand: Jeffrey Dahmer.

I’m betting that I not only get away with breaking and entering, but that he has me for breakfast.