Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

“There never was any Baron Knottnerus-Meyer,” he told Marko. “This morning I spoke with the head of the firm in Berlin. They never had such an employee. He is probably the agent of the man who bought the beast in the first place — sent to retrieve him. Whoever he was, he went into Xanadu, cased the place, then conned Cal-Cit Bank into hiring a gang of repomen to steal my ape!”

“So first we go after the repomen, then—”

He stilled Marko with a gesture. “Until the very last moment, they thought they were testing Xanadu’s defenses. When they realized what was going on, it was too late.”

“I’ll leave for Europe tomorrow,” said Marko. “After I kill this man and get Freddie back—”

“We... don’t know who he is.” Marr sounded uncomfortable. Money and power had always worked for him before; but now he was faced with a slyness he could not comprehend. No organization he had ever dealt with had moved so swiftly and so secretly. “There is no record of him leaving California with Freddie, no record of him arriving with him at any major airport in Europe.”

Marko audibly ground his teeth. Marr was reminded of the Dobermans at Xanadu. Marko said, “I’ll fly to Hong Kong—”

“I talked with Kahawa this morning,” said Marr. “Brantley has disappeared. Again, no record of his departure.”

“Five minutes,” said Carmody over the intercom.

Once on the ground, Marr started for the perimeter fence with R.K. at his elbow.

“A con game,” said Marr thoughtfully. It all had been a con game. Hitting Xanadu. Grabbing Freddie. Disappearing Brantley from Hong Kong. Smoke and mirrors. He had never faced anything like it before.

They stopped at the fence. “Firecrackers,” he said, shaking his head. “An old trick.”

“In the dark, we could only figure we were taking fire.”

“And they kept you occupied downstairs with a few ball bearings tossed on the floor, while the helicopter...” He got his rising voice under control. “The helicopter was landing on the roof to take away Freddie. Where was the duty officer?”

“He was, ah, locked up in the ape’s cage.”

“By the ape, no doubt,” said Marr in dry sarcasm.

“Ah — as a matter of fact, yeah.”

Marr found himself nodding approval of the mirrors affixed to the light beams on the Observation Room door frame. He stared up at the crossbow-driven arrow with the expanding head in the ceiling of the Observation Room.

“And the white powder scattered on the floor?”

“Just seems to be talcum. I can’t figure out why they—”

“To make the light beams visible,” sighed Marr.

He looked over at the glowering R.K.

“You’ve got one hour to be out of Xanadu,” he said. What else could he do? If R.K. was not an incompetent, then Victor Marr himself was at fault. Victor Marr was never at fault. “I will see you never hold any sort of security job again.”

“That isn’t fair! And the Jeep’s gone. I got no way—”

“Walk,” said Marko.

R.K. walked. Vowing, with every step of those twenty miles down off the mountain, vengeance against Dan Kearny some day.

At nine on Tuesday morning, the day after Memorial Day, a grim-faced Dan Kearny stormed into Stan Groner’s office. Groner’s assistant jumped to her feet behind her desk.

“You can’t go in there, Mr. Kearny, he’s not—”

Kearny flung the private door open and started across the carpet, then slowed to a stop. Stan was not alone. Jackson B. Gideon, president of Cal-Cit Bank, was beating the desktop with a sheaf of rolled-up papers and yelling.

“The bank’s image, Groner!” Thunk, thunk, thunk. “You have compromised this bank’s image!”

Gideon, a man with a beaked fleshy nose and pig eyes under eyebrows like bleached fuzzy caterpillars, wore a dove-grey wool suit that wished it was two sizes larger. His mouth was twisted with the same rage that had turned his fleshy face red.

Stan began, “But, sir, you were the one who told me not to do anything to upset—”

“None of your whining excuses, Groner.” Catching a glimpse of Dan Kearny, he pointed a finger at him. “Kearny! DKA will rot in hell before you get any more auto contract recovery assignments out of us.” He stormed toward the door, throwing over his shoulder, “Explain it to him, Groner!” and waddled out.

“Yeah, Groner, explain it to me,” said Dan ominously.

Stan was behind his desk, head in hands. “So sue me.”

Dan sat down. The disaster was not DKA’s alone, obviously. Stan’s feet were also in the fire. It just went on and on.

“Why don’t you take it from the very top,” he said.

“The Baron is no baron. The company in Berlin never heard of him. He conned Cal-Cit corporately, and me personally. The bank — on my assurances — paid him an advance and got stuck with the cost of his hotel suite, the chopper, everything. Marr is of course refusing to honor any commitments we made.” Groner was on his feet, pacing. “And we were made to look like fools with the company in Berlin in the bargain. There never were any merger talks. That bastard Baron just made them up. I’m hanging on to my job by a whisker, Cal-Cit sure as hell isn’t going to pay DKA anything or assign you any repo work. Not now, anyway.”

“If he isn’t Knottnerus-Meyer, who is he?”

“We don’t know. Robin Brantley, the guy in Hong Kong who recommended him in the first place, has disappeared. Gideon is blaming me, but he’s the one who told me to handle the Baron with care and never checked on him with Berlin. So I take the fall.”

“So do I,” said Kearny. “So does DKA. Thanks just a hell of a lot for getting me into this, Groner.”

“I didn’t. Actually, the Baron asked for you by name.”

“I’ve never heard of Brantley. What’d he do for Marr?”

“Purchasing agent for him in the Orient, I assume.”

Kearny paced, blue-grey eyes computing. “And the Baron was the agent for the man in Rome who wanted Freddie.”

Groner was on his feet, too. “Whatever you say. Water under the bridge now. I’ve got to get out of here, get busy on damage control if I’m going to keep my job.”

Kearny waved a disinterested hand after him as he stormed out, and sat back down, thinking furiously.

The Baron had asked for him by name. Logically, the only place he could have gotten Kearny’s name was Cal-Cit Bank. But only Stan at Cal-Cit would have mentioned Kearny. And it was the Baron who had told Groner to get DKA. Who else was there? Himself, he realized with a start. But where to begin? DKA did no work at all for overseas clients.

He gave a sudden grunt, as if someone had poked him in the gut. Then he gave a wry chuckle.

Staley Zlachi, King of the Muchwaya. He had all sorts of overseas contacts, and he had recently been a DKA client. The Gypsies had dropped out of sight when the Homicide cops had shown up with a warrant for Yana. Kearny was suddenly on his feet. What were the Gypsies up to these days? He had to find sly old Staley and shake some answers out of him.

On the sprawling grounds of the Villa Borghese in Rome, Freddie’s facility was much like the one at Xanadu, itself based on Brantley’s setup in Hong Kong. A box of a room with a cage inside it and a one-way glass observation window in the wall. Looking into Freddie’s room through the window was Willem Van De Post. Thanks to the Baron, he had his beloved ape at last.

In Freddie’s room, Robin Brantley, newly arrived from Hong Kong the night before, was outside the open cage door with a half-dozen sealed envelopes. Brantley was very British-looking, tall and almost gangly with a long horse face and a lock of greying blond hair hanging down over one eye.