Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

“Oh come on! Did you get anything salient?”

“After lunch,” said Sofia firmly. “If I lose my civil service pension ’cause I stole worthless records for you, I want to go down full of good Italian cooking.”

The three men were having lunch at the shining chromium-and-glass Fog City Diner on the waterfront. Baron Herbert Von Knottnerus-Meyer had thinning too-black hair combed across his scalp, muttonchop whiskers, a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, and a monocle on a black woven silk cord strung through his lapel buttonhole, a monocle that kept falling out of his right eye as he talked. He kept replacing it as he held forth, in a Prussian accent, about a certain class of animals descended from arboreal phalanger stock.

“All thirty species uff dot kangaroo, best known uff de marsupials, are found only in Australia unt New Guinea. Since development uff de young marsupial takes place partly in dot mother’s uterus unt partly in dot pouch, dere iss perhaps even something Freudian in deir reproductive strategy. Vould you not agree, Herr Kearny?”

“I have no opinion about it, Baron,” said Dan blandly.

“You do know vut a marsupial is, don’t you, Herr Kearny?”

“Pogo the Possum,” said Dan sagely, to Stan’s shocked expression and the Baron’s bewildered one.

“Possum? Dis I do not unterstand,” muttered the Baron.

“Little rat-tailed guy about as big as a cat.” Dan drew a quick sketch on his cocktail napkin. “Good eating where I come from. Got the stomach pouch for the kits and everything.”

“I vould like to see one,” said the Baron solemnly.

Groner said quickly, “The Baron is an amateur naturalist in the true sense of the word — he is devoted to animals...”

“Animals haff naturally goot manners,” agreed the Baron. “People dogs do not trust, vor instance, are chenerally untrustvorthy. How do dogs feel about you, Herr Kearny?”

“We get along all right. A little kick here, a little—”

“Goot. A joke.” He stood up, made the slightest of bows. “Iff you vill excuse me...”

The two men stared after the Baron’s stiff retreating back. He was heavy without being fat, his erect military posture causing rolls of flesh to form above the back of his tight shirt collar. Dan turned to look at Stan unbelievingly.

“People who dogs don’t trust are untrustworthy?”

“You gotta go along with me on this, Dan! He’s a major stockholder in one of the bank’s biggest international clients. Their deposits in our Berlin affiliate would make you weep.”

“What’s this company do?”

“Consults. The Baron is here on a security consultation for an American, a real heavy hitter in financial circles in L.A., who’s worried about his private art collection in the mountains behind Big Sur. The firm was recommended to him by a man in Hong Kong; they need to liase with someone local who can keep his mouth shut.”

“We’re private eyes, Stan, not security guys.”

“But you know a lot about security systems and alarms from getting in and out of places on the sly. I’ve watched you operate, remember? And you’re smart and a quick learner.”

“I’m the only guy you could think of on short notice?”

Stan cast a quick look down the long narrow diner toward the rest rooms. “His people came to me , personally, for an expert, so I vouched for you, personally , with the bank.”

“Who pays us, and how much?”

“The client pays the Baron’s people, they pay you — lots.”

“With Cal-Cit Bank guaranteeing our payment,” said Dan.

“That goes without saying,” Stan agreed airily.

Giselle asked, “You think Dirty Harry is really dirty?”

“He sure lies a lot.” Bart Heslip was sorting through the arrest records on Giselle’s desk. “He said it was a cop friend in Vallejo who told him Ephrem was a dip at Marine World.”

“Ephrem was a dip at Marine World.”

“Marine World’s security never notified the Vallejo cops about him. They didn’t know, so how’d Harry find out? He claims he didn’t know either Ephrem or Yana personally, but...”

Giselle scaled a file folder across the desk at him.

“He arrested Ephrem twice for reading palms without a license, Yana once for illegal fortune-telling.”

Bart, scanning the records, said, “Dirty Harry never showed up to give evidence, so both cases were dismissed.”

“Small potatoes if they slipped him a few bucks for the no-show,” she said.

“Yeah, but dammit, Giselle, there’s a lot of death going around in this one all of a sudden. Two old men are dead, Ephrem Poteet is dead — Yana’s the only one left standing.”

“Except for Dirty Harry,” said Giselle. “Get down to L.A., Bart, and find out what Ephrem was doing on the day he died.”

“Damn!” Bart exclaimed. “We should have asked your buddy Sofia for a mug shot of Yana.”

“I did. She said it was really hard for her to access closed files and get the mug shots out of them to copy.”

“I bet I’m gonna wish I had one to show around,” said Bart.

Waiting to take Midori to a late lunch in the Stonestown Mall before going to talk to Geraldine Tantillo, Larry saw a familiar face. Whit Stabler, who reminded him of his grandpa less than before because of his costly but too-youthful duds. Larry went over to shake the old gentleman’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” stammered Whit. “I don’t... do I know you?”

“No reason to remember me, sir. We met just the one time through Luminitsa.”

The rather vague blue eyes sharpened. “That Luminitsa! She’s some babe, eh? She’s real good to me.” He dug an elbow into Larry’s ribs. “Magic salt in the soup. Better’n Viagra.”

“Magic salt,” agreed Ballard. Poor old guy was losing it.

He looked around for Midori, but it was Luminitsa who came up to hook her arm possessively through Whit’s.

“What lies have you been telling my beautiful Larry?”

“He told me you were some babe,” said Ballard.

“Well, that’s no lie!” she said with a laugh so wide it showed her back teeth. She gave Whit a little tug. “Come on, you, let’s get you home for your nap.” She winked bawdily at Larry over her shoulder as they went off.

Over fresh Mex at Chevy’s, Midori said, “Luminitsa say she been taking poor Mr. Stabler to see the doctor, but she no ought to sleep with him. He pretty sick, she maybe hurt him?”

“Sick how?” asked Ballard around a big bite of burrito.

“Something called leukemia, maybe?”

“That’s sick, all right,” agreed Larry sorrowfully. He liked the old banty rooster who wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“Luminitsa say she gonna maybe have to take leave of absence to take care of him if he keep on getting worse sick.”

Geraldine Tantillo had called in sick — the first day of work she had missed since starting her job at JeanneMarie’s beauty salon. She sat in front of the window of her one-room walk-up under the eaves of this old five-story Victorian in Dolores Heights, bawling her eyes out.

Last night, as she was getting ready for the workweek, someone knocked on her door. She opened it and perfidious Ariane, beautiful of face, beautiful of hair, tall and willowy but with a luscious bosom, peach-soft skin, and lo-o-o-o-ong legs, fell into her arms.

“I’m back!” cried Ariane, covering her face with kisses.

Geraldine somehow extracted herself from the embrace, and somehow found the strength to say coolly, “Where’s my seven thousand dollars?”

Ariane collapsed loosely into Geraldine’s woven wicker chair. “It’s all gone. Every penny.” She made a wan gesture. “I barely had enough left for the flight back from Cabo.” She brightened. “But now the two of us are together again!”