Cons, Scams, and Grifts

Fifty-one

Just north of the Aurealian wall lies the 17th Century Villa Borghese, six kilometers in circumference and still a place of harmony in the heart of the Eternal City. Twelve hectares are given over to the Giardino Zoologico. At 4:00 P.M... an iron-haired, stern-faced priest entered the zoo through the main entrance and did a quick tour of the grounds. Dan Kearny had noticed that the clergy seemed able to move around Rome without anyone noticing them; with his lack of the language, he needed any edge he could get.

The zoo seemed to have too many bears and large cats, not enough primates. But a new small modern-looking building caught his eye. A large sign on its locked door announced grandly, INSTITUTO DEI PRIMATI.

“This’ll be it,” he muttered to himself.

At four-fifty, when the zoo started closing for the night, he buried himself in a dense thicket near the new facility. It was a warm evening and the light lingered until nearly ten o’clock. After the voices of departing patrons died down, he dozed off.

Just at midnight, a dozen dark figures passing close by woke him up. He followed them discreetly.

Looking like a Rom was an asset for this scam. Nanoosh Tsatshimo and Wasso Tomeshti, dressed in Gypsy garb, let half a dozen of the English-speaking believers they had encountered in the bar in Piazza Leonina into Freddie’s room after collecting their hefty fee. Rudolph was waiting outside Freddie’s cage to give note paper and an envelope to each mark.

“In the thirties,” Staley told them, “the Gypsy saint, Ceferino Jiminez Malla, traveled throughout Spain with Freddie’s grandfather as his companion. Jiminez Malla could foresee the future and God let him pass this gift on to his beloved ape.”

Make it mysterious enough and hard enough to believe, and the marks would fight to give you their money.

“Jiminez Malla’s beloved companion finally died, but Freddie, last of the line, still has the gift of second sight. Seal your question about the future in the envelope, and be careful to let no one see it. Not even Freddie will ever see it — but he will answer your questions even so.”

The marks did as directed. Rudolph presented the sealed envelopes to Freddie. He selected one and pressed it against his forehead. He shut his eyes. He swayed. He opened his eyes. He tossed the unopened envelope into the waste bin attached to the wall under the observation window. He went to his computer.

Freddie started hitting his keys. Unseen behind the one-way glass, Willem started hitting his, and the answer showed up on the screen in Freddie’s cage. Freddie pointed at the words.

RED DRESS WOMAN STOP SAD. BEATRICE HAPPY IN HEAVEN. SAY BINGO GET WELL SOON.

In the observation room, Immaculata Bimbai retrieved the sealed envelope from the open back of the phony waste bin, tore it open, and handed it to Willem. She watched through the one-way glass as Willem quickly scanned the first real question and Freddie pressed the next envelope against his shiny black forehead. He grimaced and swayed. He typed. So did Willem.

LAURA LOVE YOU. SHE FAITHFUL. MARRIAGE BLESSED.

Dan Kearny had the impression that he had already met the receptionist. Dark eyes, arched brows, a strong-bridged nose, black hair pulled back to tumble down her back in a single twisted braid. No. He had been seeing that same classical Roman face all week long in the art museums on saints, angels, martyrs, Madonnas. This one, 21st Century instead of 17th, gave him a big smile. She gestured at the closed door behind her.

“Please go in. The curator can see you now.”

Willem Van De Post, curator of the Rome zoo, was a large, fit man in his early 60s with ashy thinning hair. Piercing blue eyes looked up from the papers on his desk and widened in surprise as Kearny spoke without preamble.

“I was locked in your zoo last night by accident. At midnight some Gypsies...”

“Surely not, Father!” exclaimed Van De Post.

“Tell me about the orangutan, my son.”

“It’s a long story,” said Willem. “Making this zoo a world-class primate center has been my life’s dream. People don’t come to the zoo to see hedgehogs and foxes, you know. Our board of directors supported the idea of such a center, but could not budget it. When I became curator I got a chance to buy an old silverback gorilla from the Munich zoo, but until now there have been only two great apes in the primate center.”

“The gorilla and who else?”

“Myself, Father.” Willem leaned back and waved a hand at the computer. “I was exchanging e-mails with Dr. Ulysses Seal, a medical doctor in Minnesota and a prodigiously energetic conservationist. He put me in touch with captive breeding specialists in many zoos. But I had no money to buy a large primate, and had no animal of like value to exchange.”

“But then Our Lord sent you Freddie.”

Willem looked at him quizzically. “I suppose you could say that. I’ve known Robin Brantley for years from various wildlife conferences around the world, and of course knew his work training Freddie in language skills. As the date for the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong approached, he learned that the Peking Zoo wanted to take over Freddie. He flew my wife and me to Hong Kong as his guests to meet his pupil.”

“And he asked for your help,” said Kearny.

“Yes. Brantley made me an offer. If we could find enough money for him to get them both out of Hong Kong clandestinely, he would give Freddie to the Rome zoo. My wife’s family are animal trainers, we both agreed that Freddie would suffer great psychological trauma if removed from Brantley’s custody. For me it was the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“How did Marr get into the picture?”

“Marr has the collector’s disease. He heard of Freddie he wanted him, and he took him. The rest you know... Mr. Kearny.”

Kearny shrugged. “I do indeed. It cost DKA ten thousand dollars to mount the Xanadu operation to rescue Freddie, Baron.”

“How long have you known?” demanded Willem.

“Since a few days ago. When I learned that Marr had stolen the animal from a man in Rome, I knew you were either that man or his agent. When you stayed in the Observation Room rather than meet Freddie yourself, it was because Freddie knew you. You couldn’t let him see you. I followed a hunch — and the Gypsies — to Rome instead of Berlin.”

“Your reasoning is excellent and your team was excellent, Mr. Kearny. But...” Willem opened his hands, sadly. “I regret that I have no money to give you.”

“Aside from the ten thousand,” said Kearny, “what about that show last night? Is Freddie going to be doing carnival tricks the rest of his life?”

“No! No!” Willem was aghast. “Robin Brantley will be the curator of our new primate center. He will continue with Freddie’s training. But last night I had a debt to pay. You were right about the Gypsies. My wife’s aunt is Lulu Zlachi. Staley Zlachi did me the great favor of recommending you for the job.”

Kearny got to his feet, walked over to the window. Freddie and the silverback lolled in the sun in their temporary fenced enclosure. Looked like a nice life to Dan. He turned back.

“You zoo guys always need philanthropists. If you can see a way to put Daniel Kearny Associates on a bronze plaque in that new primate center, then I guess we can just shake hands and go our separate ways.”

Ramon sat on the edge of the bed and watched Yana in her nun’s habit interlard 100,000-lira notes between the pages of books, into brochures, journals, even empty audiocassette boxes. Then he helped her carefully pack them all into the sturdy yellow mailing box on the table below the window of her room.

“They’re going to check this at the post office before you send it,” he warned.

“At the Vatican? With hundreds of tourists sending off packages of Millennium year souvenirs? They’ll just take a quick peek inside and seal it. Besides...” She gestured at the declaration of contents. Under CONTENUTO she had printed in bold block letters: GIORNALI, LIBRI, RICERCHE ACADEMICHE. “Books, journals, academic research. Sent by a nun in habit? What could be more innocent than that?” She met his eyes. “You’ve got to face the facts, my brother. The virgin birth scam has another month at most to run.”

“No! It will last at least until the end of the year.”

“When our first marks realize they aren’t pregnant after all, the whole lesbian community will know it’s just a scam.”

Ramon left to ready the boojo room in the house on the Via Tor dei Conti for that day’s operations, and Yana addressed the package. Then she threw back the wooden window shutters to sit on the sill and look down into the narrow sun-drenched street. Outside the convent-hotel kids played around a red metal trash can. A middle-aged woman in a shapeless robe watered the plants in her window boxes.

She loved it here, but what would she do when the con was over. What then? She suddenly leaned farther out to stare down. The stocky grey-haired priest had just issued from the convent with a box of his own under his arm. She gave a joyous laugh and turned back into the room. Barìpe! Perfect!

The branch post office just outside the Vatican walls sweltered under the noonday sun. Most Romans were behind closed shutters until the midday heat passed, but not the locust horde of sweating tourists who wanted the Roma Porta Angelica postmark on their packages. Among them was a stocky, hard-faced priest with a box under his arm and a fistful of garish tourist postcards in his hand.

“Excuse me, father, do you speak English?”

He turned. The pale slender nun with the heavy-looking yellow box in her arms seemed to droop under the heat of her full Franciscan habit.

“I do, my daughter,” he said gravely.

“Bene.” With almost a little girl’s gesture, she thrust her yellow box toward him. “I find I am feeling faint. Do you think you could mail this package for me, father?”

He accepted the proffered box. “Certainly, sister.”

“Bless you, father.”

The ghost of a smile might have passed over the lips of each of them. She laid a small clever hand on his black-clad arm for just an instant, as if in benediction, then was gone.

Dan Kearny looked at the address hand-printed in bold block letters on the box under DESTINATARIO.

He left the line. A few minutes later, in the secluded rear of a coffee bar across the street, he was not surprised to find bank-notes of large denomination between the pages of the books, Yana’s thanks for DKA getting her off the murder charges. Enough to cover DKA’s fee for the Xanadu caper. But where the hell was he going to be able to convert lira to dollars? He’d have to go to the Gypsies again.

Inside the square, the very last of the Holy Year pilgrims slipped out of the huge bronze Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica just before it was sealed for the next twenty-five years. By passing through it just now they received a Plenary Indulgence — remission of punishment for all of the sins they had committed during the course of their lives.

After a moment of silent prayer, slowly, with labored effort, the 80-year-old Pontiff Pope John Paul II pulled shut the twin thirteen-foot panels. Later, they would be bricked up until another Pope declared another Holy Year in 2025. Thunderous cheers went up from the 100,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square behind him to witness the event.

Among them was a slender pale nun, in full habit, who had been the very last person to slip through the Holy Door before the Holy Father closed it.