King Con

Chapter Nine.

VICTORIA DROVE BACK TO TRENTON ON SUNDAY night. She had notified the D.A.'s office that she was going to take some vacation time. On Monday morning, she intended to sleep late but woke up at six A.M., just like always. She showered, toweling her short hair, forgoing the dryer. She put on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed her navy pea-coat, and went out for breakfast.

At ten o'clock, she found herself sitting alone on a bench in Bromley Park, watching birds flutter around, trying to steal an old sandwich crust out of a trash basket. She wasn't sure what she would do. She had decided to set out to prove that the Rina brothers had killed Carol, Tony, and Bobby, but her expertise was litigation, not investigation. She wondered if she could hire Reuben Dickson, a retired homicide detective whom she had befriended. He was good, methodical and not afraid to dig deep, but he was old with arthritis. Last time she'd seen him, he could barely walk. She had several thousand dollars in the bank she could use to hire him. She thought she still had his home phone number from a case they'd worked on together just before he pulled the pin. She was just getting set to leave the park when a small terrier came up and sat in front of her. She looked down at him.

"Hi, honey," she said, and he jumped up on her lap and licked under her chin. She laughed and scratched him behind the ears. Then, without warning, he moved off her lap, snapped up her purse in his mouth, and took off across the park with it. "Stop, come back," she yelled foolishly. Then she jumped up and ran after him. The dog raced into the women's toilet. She chased him in there and slammed the door shut so that he couldn't get out. The terrier came out from the stall and dropped the purse at her feet.

"Bad dog," she said and picked it up and looked inside. "Son-of-a-bitch!" she said, discovering her wallet was gone. "You little thief, what did you do with my wallet?" she asked the dog.

Then Beano Bates stepped out from one of the stalls, holding it in his hand. He had her case folders under his other arm. "He's not the smoothest dip in the world, but in a pinch, it's better then breaking into a house." He was counting her money. "You don't carry much cash, do you?"

"You know something?"

"What?"

"I've never met a bigger asshole."

"Compliment accepted," he said. "I need your help. I think we want the same thing."

"Highly unlikely," she said, thinking he seemed like a completely different person from the one in the restaurant. That man had been unsure and flustered; this one was in charge and self-assured. She could see he was a remarkably good actor. She decided she couldn't trust him for a second.

"Carol was your friend, I could tell. I could see on TV how much you cared for her-"

"Hey," she interrupted, "forget the rubdown."

"You know, for a good lawyer, you aren't much of a listener."

"It's because most everything you say is honeybaked bullshit."

"I'm going to get even with Joe and Tommy Rina for killing Carol. But to do that, I need information. I stole your case files because I thought the depositions you took would be in there. I missed. I need to know where these guys keep their pickle jars buried."

"Their what?"

"Money. I need to know what businesses they're in. How their action works, what people they're afraid of, who and where the leverage is."

"I hope they're afraid of me." She glowered.

"No offense, Vicky, but they're not afraid of you. You had your shot, you whiffed it. Now it's my turn. I'm gonna get these two gavones. All I need from you is an hour or two of careful briefing."

"And just how do you figure to get Tommy and Joe Rina?" she said, getting mildly interested.

"I was thinking I'd get Tommy to testify against Joe, get him to turn State's evidence on the Trenton Tower murders."

"You're a moron."

"I am?" He smiled.

"Yeah, you are. Tommy and Joe are brothers. Tommy thinks his younger brother walks on water. He's been protecting Joe since the sixth grade. Tommy's never gonna testify against Joe. Won't ever happen."

"I don't think their relationship has ever been adequately tested."

"And you're gonna test it?" She was sure he was wasting her time. This guy had nothing; she'd be better off taking her chances with an arthritic homicide dick.

"Hey, you know what a good mark and a mob boss have in common?"

"What?"

"Greed. Without greed no con works. I'm gonna throw a few pounds of red meat between those two Rottweilers and see what happens."

"You're Frank Lemay, aren't you?" she said, abruptly changing the subject. "You're the one who got beaten at the Greenborough Country Club."

"Yes," he finally said. "Unfortunately, that was me."

"So, if you had come forward instead of running from the hospital, Carol probably wouldn't be dead."

He looked at her for a long moment. "We could do this together, for Carol." And then he said the first thing that touched her: "I loved her, Victoria. She was my only friend in the world."

His eyes were so sad, in that instant she could see how deep his affection for Carol was.

"I'm gonna get Tommy Rina to testify against Joe," he said, with anger in his voice that made her wonder if he just might be able to do it. "All I need from you is a little information."

"Why would I help you?" she said. "You're a fugitive. If I get caught helping you, I could get disbarred, or put in jail."

"It's the price for getting this back," he said, holding up her case folders.

"Tough break there, pal. I don't need that anymore… I've decided to move on."

"Okay, then we share the guilt for Carol. It was because of me she was there in the first place, but you blew the security arrangements. We both need to set things right for that."

She stood silently, her mind a slate of unanswered questions. Now, not just her thoughts, but her emotions were whirling like the ballerinas on her bedroom wall.

"You've read my sheet… I'm not a fuck-up when it comes to this kinda thing. I'll turn these two sharks against one another, but I need information. I can't put a game together unless I know the layout… I need a clear picture of their personal and financial setup to take them down."

They stood in the bathroom with its pungent smell of urine and disinfectant while they evaluated one another. Roger-the-Dodger finally broke the tension, his sharp bark cracking against their eardrums.

"If I help you, what's in it for me?" she asked.

"Satisfaction; knowing you helped pull these two guys under, for Carol's sake."

She suddenly knew what she wanted. She looked at Beano Bates and then down at the dog, who was still sitting at her feet, wagging his tail as if he wanted to be congratulated for stealing her purse.

"Satisfaction isn't enough," she finally said. "If you're going to run a scam on these guys, I want to be part of it."

Beano was caught off-guard. "It's not your style, Victoria. You've got target fixation. That's an okay trait for a D.A., but it's a horrible one for a grifter. Sometimes, in a scam, you have to do everything backward… you have to hold on by letting go, increase by diminishing, multiply by dividing. You'd never be able to do that."

"I'm not interested in your assessment of me. The fact is, I do know about the Rinas; I know where their businesses are, where their hidden gambling interests are, who they associate with, even where their mistresses live… the whole stinking clove of garlic. You want to know what I know, that's my condition."

"I can't," he said slowly.

"Then you don't get anything," she said. "You can drop those file folders in any convenient trash can."

There was a long moment as they stood in the dimly lit toilet. Then she turned to leave.

"Okay," he finally said, "but if I take you along, you stay back. You're just an information station, a resource."

"Go fuck yourself," she said in anger. "You come to me, spill orange juice all over my best suit, steal my case files, pretend to be half-a-dozen people from Amp Heywood to Martin Cushbury… Christ, you have more personalities than Sybil. No, dammit! Carol was my friend too. You take me because you need me. Weil negotiate the rest as we go."

"It's not a courtroom, Vicky. There are no rules. No legal equations to stick to, no motions or countermotions, no judge to referee."

"Yes or no?" she finally said.

Beano could see the fire in her eyes. She was standing before him, defiant and beautiful. He didn't know which of those traits made up his mind, but in that second, he knew the ground had shifted between them.

"Be at the Motel 6 at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. But the first time I need something and you come up dry, I'm gonna leave you on the side of the road."

"You can try," she said.

He moved past her, out of the toilet.

"Hey," she said, and he turned. "Aren't you going to give me my wallet back?"

Irritated, he threw it to her and dropped her case folders in the metal trash container inside the bathroom. She could dig them out if she wanted. Outside he whistled for Roger-the-Dodger, but the terrier didn't come. He went back inside to find the dog looking up at Victoria Hart as if he'd just found the Virgin Mother.

"Come on, Roger. You can drool on her tomorrow," he said.

Reluctantly, the dog followed him out of the restroom.

"What an asshole," Victoria said, then she left the bathroom without even looking at the folders that contained her most humiliating legal defeat.

*