Stephen Cannell - King Con

"Perfect solution. Why didn't I think of it?" she smiled back.

They got into the car and he looked up the town of Oak Crest on the California map, then swung out of the parking lot and headed east.

Oak Crest was beautiful, the acres growing green with alfalfa. The clear California sun beat down on this lush valley. Beano filled his lungs.

"Whatta you smell?" he said expansively.

She took a deep breath. "Alfalfa," she replied.

"No, down under the alfalfa, under the subsoil and the cap rock… down where the arenaceous shale butts up against the anticline, down there in that great stratigraphic trap."

"Oil," she said, grinning.

"Me too," he smiled.

They drove around looking for the right farm. Beano thought Steve Bates was right. This place was perfect. To begin with, it was beautiful. "It's always better to take a mark to a beautiful setting," Beano explained as they drove around looking at the farms. "It makes them feel good. It's always hard to sell lakefront property in a desert." There was lots of greenery in Oak Crest, California. Old oak trees hung shade over the two-lane highways like gnarled visitors from another world. The architecture was rustic, with old wood-frame, brightly painted houses. Where the lush green alfalfa didn't grow, cattle or horses grazed in picturesque herds.

Beano was looking for a particular setup, and he found it at Cal Oaks Farm. The farm, like most in Oak Crest, grew alfalfa. The irrigation pipes were large, but needed painting. They ran for miles next to the road above-ground. There were huge water cisterns to help the farm through California's frequent dry periods. The cisterns dotted the landscape like big, two-story pillboxes. Horses grazed lazily in the lowland down by the river. It was truly beautiful, but what made it perfect was that directly across the street from the farm was a large construction company that had gone out of business. A weathered sign banged in the afternoon breeze, hanging from two chains on a post arm. The office building was three stories high and had plate-glass windows that looked out at the picture-postcard farm on the other side of the road.

Beano parked the Escort and climbed over the gate. He walked all around the empty building. Before he climbed back over, he got the name of the real-estate agent off the sign in the window and called her from Victoria's flip-phone. He was told he could lease the property on a month-to-month basis for a very reasonable rate. Beano told the agent he would call her back. He explained to Victoria that he wanted to make sure he could cut a deal with the farm before he tied up the construction company property.

Beano got out of the car and looked at the pillbox cisterns and miles of exposed metal pipes punctuating the expansive landscape. "Think we might a found our moose pasture," he finally said.

FUCKING TEXACO PHILLIPS, TOMMY THOUGHT AS THEY sat in his apartment overlooking the Boardwalk. Calliope was shopping her brains out, looking for "darling outfits" to take to the Bahamas. Texaco sat across from Tommy, looking red-faced and stretching the seams of a maroon, thousand-dollar sport jacket, like a corn-fed ham in Saran Wrap. For the life of him, Tommy couldn't understand why his brother kept this foul-smelling, ignorant piece of shit around.

"Look, Tex," Tommy said slowly, "all I want you to do is find 'em. My cousin Peter works for a travel agent and he punched up the flight manifest for Delta. She flew to San Francisco with two guys named B. Bates and J. Bates. I don't know who the hell these two fucks are, but don't you try and find out. Don't fucking try and solve this, you'll fuck it up. You just find 'em. They got phones in San Francisco, pick up a fucking phone and call me. Got it?"

Texaco both nodded and shrugged at the same time. It was a gesture of acknowledgment and indifference and it pissed Tommy off, so he back-handed the big, ugly ex-linebacker on the shoulder.

"Hey, dipshit, I don't hear no answer here."

"I'll call ya, Tommy," Texaco said softly.

"My cousin Peter will be checking to see if they book seats outta there. His number's written on this card." He stuffed it in Texaco's tailored breast pocket. "His name's Peter Rina. The kid's just outta college, so don't tell him nothin' he don't need ta know. He's in Jersey, but he can check this shit anywhere in the country."

So Texaco became a posse of one. He flew to San Francisco, and was now wandering around in the City by the Bay looking at brightly clothed tourists and wondering how the fuck he was supposed to find Victoria Hart and these two guys named Bates. What he did find was a great gym near his hotel where he could get illegal steroid shots in the ass for fifty bucks a jolt. He also found a great Italian restaurant half a block from there, where the osso buco and the mozzarella marinara were world class. He alternated between four-hundred-pound dead-lifts, shots of jump-juice, and the great Italian cuisine. He was power lifting and eating his way through the first day, when he decided to finally call Peter Rina and have him scan the airline reservations for Victoria Hart and the two Bateses on all flights out of SFO. The kid told him he'd found nothing so far. Texaco figured eventually they would either leave and go someplace else or Tommy would tell him to come home. His heart wasn't in the hunt. Beyond that simple truth, his walnutsized brain had not wandered. When he got back to the hotel, he had a message to call Tommy.

"The fuck you doin' stayin' in that hotel in town?" was Tommy's first question, passing right over "Hi" and "How are you?"

"You said-"

"Hey, musclehead," Tommy charged on, "you gotta wait at the airport. If they show up and buy tickets at the counter, you gotta be there. What the fuck's wrong with you? I give you Peter's number and he tells me you only call him once."

"Jeez, Tommy," Texaco whined, "what'm I supposed t'do, call him every hour?"

"Fuckin' A right. He's checking every hour, you call him every hour. What're you doin' out there? Gettin' a Chevy parked up your asshole or something?"

"Come on, Tommy." Texaco Phillips was beginning to truly hate Tommy Rina, but the more he hated him, the more he was afraid of him. It was a strange formula. He promised he would call Peter Rina every hour on the hour and move to a hotel at the airport. When he hung up, he had completely lost his appetite.

There was a small Western combo and some pretty slick line dancing going on in the nightclub at the Red Barn in Keats. Steven Bates and his wife, Ellen, were dressed up, starched, and pleated. Twelve-year-old Lawrence had on a wide, frayed, striped tie that looked like it had been handed down through three generations. The music flowed through the open door of the nightclub into the dining room while they all ate delicious barbecued ribs and buttered corn.

"… 'course, since we settled down here in Keats, we ain't been doin' no roofing or driveway husdes. We go out on the road once, twice a year, fleece some mooches, come back, and use the money to build our legit contracting business," Steve said. He was talking as he ate, wiping barbecue sauce off his chin. They were a lean, raw-boned couple, weathered by exposure to the outdoors. Steve had a con man's kind blue eyes and a receding hairline. Ellen was a fading beauty with a short, no-nonsense hairstyle and intense black eyes that examined you with a laser focus. Victoria thought that little Lawrence was going to be quite a charmer. He was just twelve years old, and his voice had not changed yet, but he had the same dazzling con man's smile that seemed to run in this family, and he was not afraid to use it.

"How you gonna play the bubble?" Steven asked, leaning in closer.