James Swain - Super Con

“Any witnesses?”

Morris shook his head. He was normally the timid one. That had obviously changed. Morris was growing up, right before his eyes.

“What about your neighbors?” Billy asked.

“I turned the TV on full blast before I plugged him. It drowned out the shots.”

“Is his body still in your house?”

“We wrapped him in plastic sheeting and backed the car up into the garage, then put him in the trunk,” Cory said. “We rent an air-conditioned storage unit where we have a foot locker. We put the body in the locker along with bags of ice.”

“So you iced him,” Billy said.

The joke was lost on them. It was out of line to make fun of the dead, only the way Billy saw it, Travis’s departure was a blessing and could not have come a moment too soon. Everyone got what was coming to him in this life, and Travis had gotten his.

“What did you do with his car?” Billy asked.

“We parked it in the garage at our house,” Cory said. “We wanted to ditch it, but by the time we got back from the storage unit, it was light, and we didn’t want anyone seeing us.”

Up until this point they’d been batting a thousand. Keeping the car was a major foul ball, and Billy reminded himself that they were both still young. “The car is new and probably has a stolen vehicle recovery system. If Karen files a missing person’s report with the cops, they’ll turn on the system and find his car in your garage. You need to get rid of it.”

“His wife is in Reno with her kids, visiting relatives,” Morris said.

“Who told you that?”

Morris removed a sleek Samsung Galaxy cell phone from his pocket. “His phone did.”

“That’s his cell phone?” Billy said incredulously. “For the love of Christ, there are apps on the Internet that let you trace a cell phone just by number. Turn the fucking thing off.”

Morris slid the phone across the table. “You need to read some stuff first.”

“What stuff?”

“After I shot Travis, his phone let out a beep. Broken Tooth had texted him, wanting an update. So we texted him back.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“What else were we going to do?” Morris said. “If we ignored the text, Broken Tooth would know something was wrong and kill Leon. We had to act, so we did.”

“You realize that just about anyone can trace that phone.”

“We know that. Come on, Billy, read it.”

Billy hit the text icon on the cell phone’s screen. A thread of messages between Broken Tooth and Travis appeared. Travis was big on the bullshit and had told Broken Tooth that Gabe, Pepper, and Misty were on board, when in fact the opposite was true. To complete the story, the final message in the thread claimed that Cory and Morris were ready to leave Billy’s crew and run with Travis. This was the message that Cory and Morris had composed.

In disgust, Billy tossed the phone onto the table and shook his head.

“You guys are something else,” he said. “You need to get rid of the car, the phone, and the body, and then you need to get the hell out of Vegas and lay low. And make sure you get the trunk of your car cleaned, just in case.”

“What about the Gypsies’ super con?” Morris asked. “You need us to pull it off. Let us hang around until the job’s done, then we’ll split.”

It was all Billy could do not to explode. He reminded himself that Cory and Morris were invincible twenty-three-year-olds, and they had no concept of how miserable their lives would become if the police linked them to Travis’s death.

“You’ll leave once you finish cleaning up. Understood?”

“Are you firing us?”

“Call it a sabbatical. I don’t want either one of you getting arrested.”

“Where should we go?”

“Cancun’s nice this time of year. You can stay at my condo.”

Billy threw down money, and they walked out of the pub. No one said anything until they were in the parking lot.

“Are you going to try and save Leon?” Morris asked.

Billy nodded. He was expecting to meet up with Broken Tooth later and get the good-faith money to give Night Train and his pals. At this meeting, Billy would ask Broken Tooth to release his driver now, instead of after the big game. Billy had kept his end of the bargain and hoped Broken Tooth would cut him some slack.

His car was parked by the pub’s entrance. Billy hit the unlock button on his key chain, then stopped. “Before you shot him, did you ask Travis what his beef was?”

“Yeah. Travis didn’t like you critiquing his sleight of hand,” Cory said.

“Pissed him off, huh?”

“In a major way.”

Cheats who did sleight of hand were called mechanics. In Billy’s experience, mechanics had inflated egos and high opinions of themselves. Every cheating move had a bad angle that could be detected by a powerful camera lens. Yet somehow Travis had forgotten this and let Billy’s criticisms get under his skin. Talk about ruining a beautiful thing.

“Call me after you dump the body,” he said.

Mags never knew what to expect when she came onto the set. It was always high drama, courtesy of Rand. He was obsessive about the show and always making changes. One morning, he’d handed Mags a brand-new scene, and she’d retreated to her trailer and spent an hour learning her lines. Another time, Rand ordered the director to reshoot the previous day’s scenes because the lighting was off.

Every day it was something new.

This morning’s surprise was a roulette wheel and table with a green felt layout. The pilot did not have any scenes with roulette, and Mags could only guess what Rand had up his sleeve. Hud stood off to the side with a cameraman. Their director was not happy with the change of scheduling, not that it mattered. Rand was the moneyman, and his word was law.

“Why, good morning, Mags,” Rand said. “You look as stunning as usual.”

Her reflection in the mirror this morning had looked anything but stunning. The show was eating her alive, and she put on her brave face. “Hello, Rand. I want you to meet my daughter, Amber. Amber, this is Rand Waters, our producer.”

Rand’s eyes fell upon Amber. “You look just like your mother, which is to say you’re amazingly beautiful. Do you act? I’d love to fit you into the show.”

“You’ve already corrupted one of us,” Mags scolded him. “Leave my baby alone.”

“Of course,” Rand said. “We have a change in plans. The honchos at CBS are having a programming meeting tomorrow to discuss this fall’s lineup, and I wanted them to see a clip of you doing the chip move you described to me. What’s it called again?”

“The Savannah?”

“The Savannah. That has such a nice ring. Yes, that one.”

“What about the scene that we’re supposed to shoot?”

“It can wait. Now go get your makeup, and we’ll get started.”

“Wait a minute — where are my lines?”

“We’re going to ad-lib it. Think of this like a visual postcard. You can say whatever you want, just be yourself and it will go great.”

“What the hell is a visual postcard?”

“You know what I mean. Make it fun. The guys at CBS love this kind of stuff.”

Rand went to talk to Hud. A hand dropped on Mags’s wrist. It was the makeup lady. She was anxious to get started and make Mags look presentable to the camera.

“Are things always this chaotic?” Amber asked.

“This is nothing,” Mags said.

Twenty minutes later, they shot Rand’s visual postcard.

“Hello, my friends at CBS,” Rand said to the camera. “It’s with great pleasure that I introduce you to television’s next sensation, the beautiful and talented Maggie Flynn.”