Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

Ač tu, ač tu, čá mánge; ăć tu, ăć tu, ăć káthe!” exclaimed Yana. “Be thou, be thou, only mine, stay thou, stay thou, stay here!” The tomcat meowed. She scratched him behind a shredded ear, added, grinning, “Stay here and keep watch. If Rudolph comes, delay him. Ahayàva ?”

The cat purred. Sternly.

Rudolph slipped the ladies’ room lock, then went through the open window in a gymnast’s dive learned during two boyhood years with one of the Midwest’s last traveling tent shows. He landed in a shoulder roll that brought him to his feet just short of the far side of the narrow blacktop alley.

To be struck in the face by eighteen pounds of clawing, snarling fury. A one-eyed black tomcat almost took his eye, shredded his ear, then disappeared into the shadows with a shriek of triumph.

Rudolph leaned against the brick wall, bleeding, panting. Now he was sure the woman was Yana. His lacerations were real even though the black cat that had made them was not, only some malevolent spirit set there by Yana to guard her backtrail. Rudolph would make no further attempt to find her in person. Let the gadje detectives of DKA feel the weight of her occult powers.

She was only five blocks from the women’s residence, but Yana told the old black cabbie who picked her up on Van Ness to take her to the Exploratorium, two miles in the opposite direction. She would take no chances on being followed home.

The driver had kinky white hair and melting chocolate eyes that held hers in the rearview mirror.

“Exploratorium’s closed this time of night, missy.”

She gave him a dazzling smile, said, “I’m meeting my friend there,” and paid him off with too much money. Then she rode a bus up to Lombard Street and caught another cab to City Hall, two blocks from Columbine House.

During the cab ride she realized she knew the big handsome 60-something gadjo with the ashy-blond hair. He had been raised in a vitsa in Holland and was married to Lulu’s Italian Romni niece and had some high-powered gadjo job. Where was it — Georgia? Florida? — maybe fifteen years ago, when she was twelve, he and his wife came to visit Lulu. Yana had a secret crush on him for a long month after he’d left.

Now it all made sense. Rudolph was after the money and the valuable papers taken from Ephrem’s light fixture the night he’d... departed. To say nothing of the proceeds from his big Universal Tour score that day. Once Rudolph had the money, he’d turn her in to the police because Rudolph was a man and she was a woman and, after all, marime.

No, Devèl! Never! She would bide her time until she saw a way to safety.

At 9:30 P.M., Ken Warren left his truck in his usual spot at the end of Raymond Street behind the all-too-familiar boat and trailer, and walked down to 557. He was just going to ask where the Mustang was and demand the keys. He laid one big forefinger against the doorbell and left it there. After thirty seconds, the door opened on the chain to let the dark face of Christian Roxborough’s wife peer out at him. He took his finger off the bell. Recognition entered her eyes. The door slammed.

Ken laid his finger against the bell. Left it there.

Rattle of security chain. The door was suddenly flung wide by an enraged Christian Roxborough, dressed in designer running shoes and designer jeans and holding a pump shotgun at port arms across his body. He pumped it once, loudly. He didn’t sound like any leader of the community to Ken.

“Warned you gonna blow your shit away motherfucker!”

Ken snatched the shotgun out of his hands with a movement almost too quick to follow. He twirled it like a marine at dress-parade, slammed it stock-down against the wall beside the door frame even as his forefinger found the safety and pushed it in. Then he waggled a monitory finger in Roxborough’s face, turned, and walked back down the stairs. His massive moral indignation kept him from even glancing back to see whether Roxborough had snatched up the shotgun again. At the end of the street, he got back into his truck.

He had barely settled in before red and blue revolving lights approached, fast. From his inner jacket pocket, Ken removed a folded piece of paper. The silhouetted shape of Roxborough capered around in the street, waving the forgotten shotgun as a patrol car slewed sideways to a stop. A bullhorned voice bellowed.

“Drop the shotgun!”

“It’s okay! It’s okay! I’m the one who—”

“DROP THE SHOTGUN!”

Roxborough threw the weapon away in sudden panic as the cops emerged with drawn guns. He pointed up the street at Ken’s truck, the words tumbling out of him.

“I’m the one who called you. Him , right up there at the end of the street in his truck, he’s the one you want! He came to my door and threatened my wife, and—”

“With the shotgun?”

“No, that’s mine, but—”

“What did he threaten her with?”

“Well, nothing, but—”

“What did he say to her?”

“He never says anything , that’s the trouble. He just keeps harassing us. I’ve filed complaints with the precinct...”

“We’ve read them,” said the tall one without enthusiasm.

The shorter, wider one added in neutral tones, “Seems you allege he spends a lot of time sitting in his truck at the end of the street.” By this time they were within a dozen feet of Ken’s truck, their weapons still in their hands. Short-and-Squat pointed a powerful flashlight at the windshield, dazzling him. “Out of the car, pal, and keep those hands in plain sight.”

Instead of getting out, Ken, with no sudden moves, pressed his sheet of paper, face-out, up against the window with a splayed hand. The light shifted to the paper. Hard cop’s eyes in a round red cop’s face under a blue cop’s hat stared at the paper, turned away to Roxborough.

“Shit, pal, he’s legal, he’s got a repo order on your car.”

Roxborough was jumping up and down again.

“But that’s what I’m telling you! He’s harassing me for a nineteen sixty-six Mustang convertible that I don’t have!”

“California-Citizens Bank says you do.” The flashlight went out, the guns disappeared. The tall cop said, “Guy’s sittin’ in his truck on a public street, you’re runnin’ around wavin’ a shotgun. Argue it out with the bank.” He shook his head. “Saturday night fever in Visitacion Valley.”

Ken started his truck as the cops, chuckling, walked back to their cruiser through the crowd of gawkers. He knew now where the Mustang had to be hidden.

Cruising, Trin Morales spotted the ’99 Honda off the constantly updated hotsheet fastened to his visor in hope of that rarest of scores, a drive-by repo. He stopped in a fire hydrant red zone to dig out the file on the red Civic. Sí! REPO ON SIGHT. Client, Earl Watters Motors at the top of the hill in Daly City; Subject, Gustave Dumont; three payments down, dead skip from the given address.

A Ballard account, reassigned to Trin while Ballard was off dicking around on some hotshot special assignment. Might have known. That cabrón couldn’t find his butt with both hands.

But the Cisco Kid could. He’d take care of Gustave Dumont.

Except the last thing he needed was a big crowd of gawkers at ten o’clock on a Friday night in the Castro. When Trin got back to the Civic, the Castro Theatre two blocks away was just letting out and 18th Street was crowded with people strolling through the usually quiet neighborhood. Two nuns, cowled and wimpled and wearing long black habits, stopped to watch him.

“What do you think you’re doing, young man?”