Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

He didn’t deny it. “I will buy you lunch at MC-Squared.”

“Do they even serve lunch at MC-Squared?”

“To us they do.”

Josh Croswell was eating his lunch in the office, keeping his eye on the scanners, when a burly mid-50s Jew entered the jewelry store. He had Semitic eyes quick with intelligence, a grey-shot patriarchal beard, and an unobtrusive black skullcap. His blue suit was rumpled; his narrow tie was carelessly knotted.

“I am addressing Mr. Joshua Croswell?” he asked.

“You are,” piped Josh in his best customer’s voice.

“Good.” With his heavy guttural voice, it came out as “Goot.” “Solly David from the Los Angeles Gemstone Mart.”

“Am I glad to see you! Your e-mail message said—”

Solly waved a small quick hand. “I hadda be up here today anyway, I thought I’d drop by, see can we do a little business.”

Josh locked the front door, flipped the OPEN sign over to CLOSED, and led Mr. David back to the narrow cluttered office.

“Pretty soft, retail, three hundred percent markup — you must be rakin’ it in. Me, I deal in fine gemstones, wholesale only, for the trade.” With a thick finger, Solly opened the flap of a small folded envelope. “Fine gemstones like this here one.” A glittering emerald slid out across the desk blotter. “Fifteen carats, rectangular, Portuguese step cut.”

Josh stared at the stone, trying to pretend expertise.

“Ah... are you sure that’s fifteen carats?”

His very beard seemed to stiffen. “Get out the scales.”

“Oh, no, no, no need of that,” Josh said quickly. “Um... how much are you asking? For the trade.”

“It’s a bargain at seventy-five K,” said Solly carelessly.

Seventy-five thousand! That was as much as Donny was offering Josh for it. He had to talk this guy down. With a jeweler’s loupe he peered intently into those brilliant depths.

“Am I seeing an occlusion in—”

Solly snatched the emerald back, highly offended.

“This stone is not from outta Africa, it’s from Colombia, where all the best emeralds come from. Smuggled out from a mine in the mountains the Colombian emerald cartel don’t know about.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” interrupted Josh, almost desperately, “but I’ve got a client here who’ll only go so high.”

“Not my problem. Look at the color! That brilliant green comes from the high chromium content in stones from this mine. Seventy-five, first, last, and only offer.”

“I was thinking more like thirty-seven-five,” said Josh.

Solly shook his head sadly, took out his little envelope.

“Forty-two-five,” said Josh.

Solly paused. He checked his watch. He sighed. “Okay, fifty K an’ I don’t gotta take it home with me on the plane.”

Josh sat down behind the desk, got out the corporate three-tier checkbook. He’d have the money back into the account before Mr. Petrick’s return. Fifty K against 75K: a net of $37,500 for him from the sale of the two emeralds, tax-free, plus his commission on the $12,500 half of the first sale that he would let Mr. Petrick know about. It was dead easy.

“So Ephrem is dead,” mused Kearny.

“You knew Ephrem?” Staley let his surprise show.

“He’d hear things about the Lowara, the Kalderash, pass ’em along.” Dan added the lie glibly, “Never about the Muchwaya.”

“Yeah, well, now he’s dead and the cops think Yana killed him. We gotta find her fast and first.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.”

Staley repeated with new emphasis, “We gotta find her.”

“Jesus, I can’t believe this! You’re trying to hire DKA to find a missing Gyppo girl before the cops do?”

“You find people all the time.”

“For banks and big corporations.”

“Finding is finding.”

“I trust banks and big corporations.”

Staley tried to look hurt, then they both had to chuckle.

“Look, Mr. Kearny, act like Yana is one of those Cadillac cars you chased all over the country to take away from us. We’ll even pay you a repo fee for her on top of time and mileage, just the same as if she was a automobile. Full load. No discount.” He took a big roll of greenbacks out of his pocket and dropped it on the desk. “A good deposit up front.”

It was the goofiest idea Dan had ever heard of, and it came from the twistiest man he had ever known. But he liked Staley, there was a hell of a lot more going on here than saving a Gypsy girl from a murder charge, and he wanted to find out what it was.

“Okay. I can put one man on it full-time—”

“Who? Who you gonna put on it?”

Kearny could see no harm in telling the truth. “Ballard.”

“Wonderful! He outwitted Rudolph Marino, how many men ever done that? I couldn’t ask for no better recommendation.”

“Okay,” Dan said. “Now we gotta talk terms.”

That took another hour and sadly depleted Staley’s roll of coarse notes thrown so confidently on the desk. When the haggling was complete, they shook hands on the deal.

Giselle, hearing all about it after her return from her lunch, asked a bit snidely, “You’re going to let Larry start up all that stuff with Yana again?”

“He’s gotta find her first.”

Giselle shrugged, then chuckled.

“I wish I could have been here to take a photo of it.”

“Photo of what?” demanded Dan suspiciously.

“You and Staley. The devil shaking hands with himself.”

Dan Kearny was not amused.

A sober, rejuvenated O’B was questioning people on Toyon Court as they got home from work. At the naked taxi driver’s house the door was flung open by a slender pretty barefoot blonde in tight jeans and a scoop-neck sweater that advertised her lack of a brassiere. Her lean face almost burned with intensity.

“You’re the redhead was askin’ questions about Tim Bland.”

“Guilty.”

In the living room, that morning’s Chronicle was a paper blizzard across a sagging chintz couch facing the TV. She swept the paper to the floor, sat down, gestured at O’B to join her. The couch smelled of chips, stale beer, sweat, tobacco.

“Jake’s sty,” she said. “He’s a fuckin’ pig. Oink oink.” On the coffee table was a shaker and a full martini glass. “I’m Vix as in vixen. You want a drink?”

“I’m O’B as in I’m on the wagon.”

“I oughtta be.” She shook out a Virginia Slim, lit up, blew smoke from the corner of her mouth away from him, took a hefty slug of her drink. She blinked. “Whew! I musta forgot to wave the vermouth bottle at this one. You a friend of Tim’s?”

The moment of truth so often faced when you were trying to get information rather than just thug a car. Take a chance.

“I want to take his car away from him.”

“That dark green Panoz kit car?” she demanded avidly. He’d chosen right. She said, “No wonder he took off when I mentioned you’d been askin’ Jake questions about him.”

“Any idea where he might have gone?”

She stood, drained her martini in a single gulp, began walking with quick, angry strides about the living room.

“When Jake’s working overtime, bastard Tim likes to drive me in his precious car up to his old man’s cottage in Sonoma so he can spend the weekend shoving that cigarette-size dick of his into me.” She hurled her martini glass into the fireplace, shattering it, yelled, “G’wan, get outta here, ya nosy bastard!”

O’B got out before she threw the martini shaker at him. He could be in Sonoma by 11:00 P.M.. Check on a phone listing for the father. Cruise the grid of downtown streets. He didn’t know what a Panoz looked like, but Sonoma wouldn’t have more than one.