Stephen Cannell - King Con

"That's because they aren't all in there," Beano said. "The sharpers doing local cons aren't listed 'cause the cops are getting hip to the X. You'll have to get one of our cousins from around here to help you make contact. We need to put the mark in play by Sunday. Once we run the tat, we don't want to give him any time to think."

They moved to the ornate elevator and went down to inspect the floor below.

"I'm gonna put the big conference room down here for when we run the fire sale," Paper Collar John said grinning, and Beano nodded.

John handed him some airline tickets. "I had these messengered over from the hotel. You and Victoria are booked to Miami at six tonight. You gotta buy your tickets to the Bahamas from there. The Customs Shed at Sabre Bay closes at five and the last flight gets in at four-thirty, so you'll have to go over to the island tomorrow afternoon. Duffy's already there with Dakota. They took a peek at the casino, and they think the tat's gonna work fine in the main room, ground level. There's a High-roller room on ten, but they didn't want to run the risk of staying in there too long, so they didn't try to case it."

"Okay, good," Beano said, as they moved out of the twenty-fourth floor, got in the elevator, and descended to street level.

"I'll be staying at the Stanford Court, so you can reach me there," John continued as they rode down. "I'll keep you up on how I'm doing. Don't worry; even though it's short notice, one way or another, I'll be dressed and ready when the ball drops."

Because Beano always liked to have a second way out of any location, he checked the ground-level fire door on the east side of the building as a possible "blow-off" escape route. He disarmed the alarm with his pocket knife before he opened the door. Then he swung it wide… and found himself looking straight at Texaco Phillips! The big ex-linebacker was leaning against a pole, holding a newspaper, pretending to be reading while he watched the front entrance. He looked directly over at Beano, but no recognition registered on his huge, flat face.

"Hi," Beano said, smiling.

"Hi," Texaco said back.

"Just checking the fire doors." Beano made a big show of carefully checking the latch. He worked the mechanism once. "That's a big okey-dokey," he said to the mechanism happily, then closed the door. He turned with panic on his face and looked at John and Victoria. "We're fucked," he said.

"We're what?" Victoria said.

"That steroid jockey that Joe Rina keeps for a pet. He's right out there."

"Texaco Phillips?" Victoria asked, amazed.

Beano nodded. "He's out there, watching the front entrance. This jerk-off is actually hiding behind a newspaper like some character from a Bogart movie."

"Whatta we gonna do?" John asked, worried.

"Upstairs," Beano said.

They moved quickly back to the elevators and punched the button. Victoria was holding Roger. Sweat was forming on Beano's face and neck, as he waited for the elevator. The panic he often felt about Joseph Rina now enveloped him. When he'd seen Texaco Phillips, adrenaline hit his heart like a shot of cold piss. He could barely catch his breath. When the elevator arrived, he pushed twenty-five and they rode up in the plush antique-mirrored car. Nobody said anything. Beano tried to get his unreasonable panic under control. How could he possibly run a complex game against Joe Rina if the mere sight of his dumb, ugly bodyguard threw him into such distress?

When the elevator door opened on twenty-five they got out and moved into the office and locked the lobby door. Beano was badly shaken.

"Are you okay?" John finally asked, noticing the trembling.

"I'm fine," Beano lied.

"How could he be here?" Victoria asked. "We didn't tell anybody but Dakota we were coming out here."

"Dakota didn't finger us," Beano said immediately.

"How do you know? Just because you've still got a thing for her? Maybe she's mad at you."

"It's not Dakota," he said again, and this time his voice was angry, exacerbated by the adrenaline coursing through his body. His tone said that the subject was closed. "It's something else."

"You don't know that," Victoria pressed. "Somebody had to tell him. That moron isn't telepathic; I deposed him. He needs instructions to get his pants on."

"Dakota and Duffy don't even know about this building," John said softly. "I didn't tell them about it yet, so Texaco didn't get it from them." It was unassailable logic and Beano was grateful that it shut her up.

He turned to John. "Maybe he just spotted you. Have you been out of here, walking around on the streets?"

"No, never left since the real-estate deal was closed. I even had a guy from the hotel bring the airline tickets over. I booked them through the Concierge Desk."

"The fucking tickets!" Beano said and he yanked them out of his back pocket and stared at them like disloyal culprits. "Joe could have scammed an airline computer. They have cross-checks on reservations now from the city of origin. You bought them at the Stanford Court Concierge Desk; he could find that out and send Texaco over. You're registered under Bates; he followed you here."

"But how did they even know we were in Atlantic City?" she asked.

"I don't know." Beano studied the tickets some more. "Maybe Tommy finally figured out who he ran into coming out of the can in the casino. Or maybe somebody recognized me… I've been the star of that fucking Most Wanted program."

"We gotta find a way to lose this guy," John said. "He'll come back here. I haven't got time to screw with him. I got a lot to do, and no time to do it. We gotta lose him so he stays lost."

"I could call the Hog Creek Bateses, and they could sit on his chest till this is over," Beano suggested.

"Those hillbillies won't fly. They're strictly a Ram truck posse. 'Sides, they couldn't get out here till day after tomorrow."

"We gotta call 'em and then find a way to get Texaco off the road till they get here."

They were pacing around in the office. Beano was chewing on the side of the tickets, running the catalogue of usable scams in his mind. No hustle seemed quite right, except for one. Then he turned and looked at Roger.

"I gotta pick this guy's pocket, Roger. We need to kick him to the curb. I gotta sell you again, buddy. I know you hate it, but we've got no other choice."

Roger, being the good sport and team player that he was, just barked at Beano and wagged his tail.

Beano thought that Victoria was the only one that Texaco would definitely recognize. But Beano had looked the big steroid jockey directly in the eye and, dumb as he was, Texaco might still remember him, so Beano decided to go to a drugstore and buy a new hair color.

He found another side door in the building and slipped out, located a drugstore, and bought a bottle of Lady Clairol Summer Sunset and a razor, 'cause he needed to sacrifice the mustache.

He arrived back at the building ten minutes later. Before he entered by the side door, he crept around and found Texaco sitting on a bus bench across the street from the entrance. He was still hiding behind the paper like fucking Sydney Greenstreet. Beano ducked back inside, went into the ground-floor bathroom, and did the dye job. He shaved off his mustache and rinsed the excess color out of his hair. He surveyed his work in the mirror. He hated Summer Sunset 'cause it turned him into a redhead, but he was running out of Lady Clairol shades. He had added just enough red to kill the blond surfer look. He combed it quickly with his fingers and moved out of the bathroom and back up to the twenty-fifth floor.

When she saw him, Victoria thought she liked Beano much better without the mustache. Even the reddish-blond hair looked good on him. He was, she thought, one of the most handsome men she had ever known, or perhaps Beano was somehow growing on her…?