Stephen Cannell - King Con

"The come-through is when the mark gets wise and comes after you once you've fleeced him," Duffy explained.

"We got a cousin from Miami scheduled to fly down and pick us up at six A.M. tomorrow at the private air field near Deep Water, just ten miles west of Sabre Bay," Beano said.

"What do I do?" Victoria asked.

"Didn't you bring your knitting, dear?" Dakota said in her husky, sensual voice, with just the hint of a smile on her lips.

"Am I somehow pissing you off, Miss Bates?" Victoria asked, doing what she always did with a problem… turn directly into it.

"You're not pissing me off, it's just that you've got no function. All you are is a potential problem. If Tommy trips to this, I'm gonna be the one he's closest to… I'm the one who's gonna get grabbed and beat senseless."

"I found this place. If it weren't for me, we wouldn't even be here. I'm the one who told Beano about the SARTOF Merchant Bank of Nassau where they store all their drug assets."

"So, whatta you want, a parade?"

"I'd like you to lose the attitude," Victoria snarled.

Beano and Duffy had been watching this without comment. Finally, Dakota nodded and sucked the last of her drink into her straw with a huge slurping sound that made them all stare. Then she pushed the tall glass away and smiled.

"Sucking is my best event," she said dryly. "What's yours, Vicky?"

"Putting up with bullshit." The exchange was cold enough to freeze mercury.

"Got to go get ready to speargun Tommy. Somebody named Calliope Love is my competition." Dakota walked out of the bar, turning everybody's head in the place as she went.

"What does she do to loosen up?" Victoria said coldly.

"Don't start a cat fight with Dakota," Beano warned. "She has the most dangerous part of this scam. She's gotta rope that psychopath and steer him till this is over."

"Does she have to sleep with him?" Victoria asked, the distaste heavy in her voice. Tommy was slimy as boiled garbage. She couldn't imagine climbing into bed with him.

Beano didn't answer. He looked out at the sailboards in the cresting surfline.

"She does what she has to do to get him to believe what we want him to believe," Duffy said. "If that means she's gotta do some plumbing, then that's what she'll do."

"Yuck," Victoria said.

Beano's blue eyes were fixed on the sea, and his mind seemed far away.

"Maybe Victoria could do the bank-clearing scam," Duffy said, causing Beano to look back at them.

"I'll do it, whatever it is," Victoria said.

"We sent the casino credit department a new set of McGuire Financial Listings yesterday," Duffy explained. ' "The listings include every financial or banking institution in America. Casinos all use them to check the credit on players. We reprinted a page and added a bank in Fresno called the Central California Cattlemen's Bank. When they call the number in Fresno, a rollover line will call forward it to the pay phone outside the Sabre Bay Club. How'd you like to take the call and do some singing for us?"

"I'd like that," Victoria said.

The dice arrived back from Miami by special courier at three in the afternoon. Beano and Duffy loaded them into the arms of Duffy's wheelchair and snapped the Porta-Toilet into place. Then they got into Duffy's rented, mid-sized blue Chevy van. Beano loaded the wheelchair into the back. Roger hopped up into the front seat beside Victoria, who was behind the wheel.

Victoria had also been assigned the task of getaway driver and "lay chickie," which she found out, to her relief, was a lookout. Her job was to wait in the van with Roger near the Sabre Bay Golf Shop pay phone and watch the front entrance. They told her she had to be ready in case they needed a fast "out." She resented her minor role in the tat, but was looking forward to being the singer. In her purse she had all the information that she would give to the Credit Manager of the casino when he called. She couldn't defeat their logic. Tommy would spot her immediately. He knew her from his brother's trial. If she got close enough to be seen, his guard would come up and it would probably end the whole thing. But Victoria knew she couldn't stand on the sidelines. She'd been thinking about the problem and had been trying to come up with a possible solution.

They were ready to go and were all sitting out in front of the Xanadu Hotel in the late-afternoon heat, waiting for Dakota, who had not come down yet. When she finally walked out of the entrance and across to the van, Victoria was startled. Dakota was dressed in a sexy, yellow evening gown that was slit up the sides and was low in front. You could see everything she had right through the thin, silky material. Her nipples and hips poked against the fabric with arresting results. It was sleazy and classy at the same time.

Dakota got into the van, picking up Vicky's expression. "It's a little slutty, but I'm only allowed to bait my hook once."

They took off with Victoria driving and Roger-the-Dodger nestled in beside her, his chin on her thigh. The little terrier had definitely adopted her. They were headed back along the Grand Bahama Highway toward the Sabre Bay Club. It was almost eight-thirty when they got to the eastern tip of the island. The sun had just begun to set: a fiery orange sphere on the tropical green vanishing point. Then, like a slow-motion shot of a cue ball dropping into the pocket, it slid below the horizon.

Beano looked at his watch. "Almost nine. Where the hell is the night shift?"

Finally, several hotel vans pulled up in the employee parking lot… Ten men and women in black tie got out and headed into the side door of the casino.

"The night team," Beano said. "Table bosses, pit and stick men. Okay, you ready, Duffy?"

The old man nodded. "I'm gonna start with a 'splash move,'" indicating he was going to rehearse the switch of the dice first without actually playing them, to see if the Pit Boss would spot it.

Beano nodded. "Dak, you ready?" he asked.

She nodded, took a deep breath, and checked herself in the visor mirror.

Beano retrieved the wheelchair, bringing it around to the side where Duffy sat by the sliding door. He helped Duffy down onto the potty seat. Victoria could see that there was a hotel towel placed inside the plastic catch basin of the Porta-Toilet to muffle the sound of the dice once they were dropped between his legs. Duffy lowered himself into the chair and took out some eye drops that he had mixed. He put several in each eye… They would make his eyes turn red and watery, making him look sick. Then he began to shake with a practiced but very realistic palsy.

"You set, Uncle Harry?" Beano said, using the alias they'd agreed on. They both had phony I.D.'s saying they were Harry S. Price and his nephew, Douglas.

"Time to go south," Duffy said. "Going south" was a grifter's term for any play where you illegally removed dice or money from a casino table.

"There's a good easy-listening station on 107.6," Dakota said to Victoria as she climbed out of the van.

"Hey, Dakota…" Victoria responded, and when the beautiful mack turned around, Victoria gave her a thumbs-up. "Break a leg, kid."

Dakota nodded solemnly and then followed Beano, who was already pushing Duffy's wheelchair into the casino.

Victoria watched them until they were deep inside the Sabre Bay Club, then she drove the van around to the golf shop. She got out and moved over to the pay phone where she had an unobstructed view of the front entrance. She stood there patiently and waited for her part in the tat.

DAKOTA FOLLOWED AS BEANO PUSHED DUFFY INTO the windswept ocean-view hotel lobby. Then he turned right and rolled Duffy through a massive threshold, across an open courtyard, and into the dark, air-conditioned, windowless casino. The sound of trade winds and vibrating palm fronds was quickly replaced by ringing slots and the drone of a dozen Stick-men calling the games at their tables. Beano wheeled the chair across the rich, two-toned purple and red carpet and up to the Cashier's cage.