Лоуренс Блок - One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

And if there was one thing Baron couldn’t stand it was an amateur crook. They didn’t know the ropes and all they did was make things rough for the smart boys. Here was this blonde now, working like a slave to con a con man. How dumb could you get?

“Sure,” he said, deciding to play along. “Let’s go upstairs.”

On the way to the elevator she took his arm, which was another mistake. She should let him do all the work — that way he’d believe she was a straight chick taking a first fling. It would make him hotter for her and at the same time scare him silly when her partner came on the scene.

“My name’s Sally English,” she said. “My husband and I are from Cedar Rapids.”

He nodded and she tightened her grip on his arm. “I suppose you think I’m a tramp,” she went on. “I’m not, not really. Don’t you think I’m a tramp?”

“I think you’re swell,” he said, thinking that anybody who made such a mess out of a simple badger dodge ought to starve to death.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said. “I mean, pick up somebody I never met before and take him to my room. But I get so lonely.”

In the elevator she leaned against him and he could feel the warmth of her flesh through the thin cocktail dress. Hell, maybe he’d wind up making it with her if he played it right. She might be dumb, but she was certainly built for action. The top of her head was inches from his nose and he could smell her perfume. It was cheap stuff and she used a little too much of it. But there was no denying that it increased his desire for her.

Her room was on the floor beneath his. She led him inside and closed the door but didn’t turn the lock, explaining that her husband couldn’t possibly get home before one or two. Again, that was part of the pattern — but she shouldn’t have bothered with the explanation. She was being too damned obvious about the whole thing.

She fished around in the dresser and came up with a fifth of blended rye, pouring tumblers full for each of them. He wondered idly whether she might be working it solo, planning on drugging him and picking his pocket. It was possible.

At any rate he had better things to do than swill cheap rye. When she wasn’t looking he emptied his glass on the rug beneath the bed.

He slipped his arm around her and she turned to him, fastening her mouth on his. He kissed her and her tongue probed his mouth. Even if she played the rest of it wrong she knew what to do once she was in the bedroom, he decided. That one kiss had been enough to make him ache with desire for her.

Suddenly she stood up and reached behind her to unzip the dress. He stood up and helped, noting with approval that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Everything under the dress was hers.

He had to draw in his breath. She had a superb body — firm and young and vibrantly alive.

He took a step toward her.

And then, right on schedule, a key turned in the lock, the door opened, and hubby walked in.

Baron was perfectly calm as he looked first at the man and then at the girl. The man should have had a gun; it would have made the situation more convincing. Outside of that the pair were effective actors. The girl was cringing against the wall. The man had fury blazing in his eyes and his hands were knotted into fists.

“Cut it,” Baron snapped, suddenly angry at the amateur quality of the whole thing. “It doesn’t work this time.”

The man advanced on him, swearing.

Baron decided he had had just about enough of the whole thing. Besides, he wanted the girl, wanted her as he hadn’t wanted a woman in a long time.

He meant to have her.

He met the man’s rush neatly, blocking a punch and countering with a right to the chest. The man sagged and Baron chopped him savagely on the side of the neck.

Such a chop, properly done, kills a man. Baron had killed a man in just such a fashion several years back when he had to play it heavy for a change. This time he held back slightly with the blow. The man crumpled to the floor, alive but unconscious. He would remain unconscious for at least twenty minutes.

Baron turned to the girl. She was cowering against the wall, her eyes wide with terror that was quite probably genuine.

He laughed.

“Didn’t expect that, did you? You ought to learn to tell who’s a mark and who isn’t.”

“Please,” she said. “Please.”

“This time,” he said, “you’re going to have to go through with it. Maybe you’ll learn better next time.”

He took her by the shoulders and heaved her toward the bed. She stumbled for a few steps and sat down heavily. She didn’t move.

Back in his own room Baron felt thoroughly relaxed for the first time in weeks. Sally English — or whatever her name might really be — was more woman than he had had in quite a while. She had one hell of a body and she knew what to do with it.

Baron smiled, remembering and enjoying the memory. At first she had fought, but after a while she quit fighting and started to enjoy what she was doing.

He laughed suddenly, wondering what the poor dope of a partner would think when he came to. The guy had been expecting a mark, not a guy who would knock him cold. It served him right for being such a damned amateur.

Well, maybe they would drop out of the rackets now. The badger game was a short con to begin with and not an especially good one at that, but that pair wasn’t cut out for anything so professional. Maybe the girl would hustle and the guy would pimp for her. He decided that the guy wasn’t much better than a pimp. And the girl would make a fine hustler.

Amateur crooks. They only got in the way, lousing things up for the boys who knew which end was up. They didn’t know who to take and who to pass up.

And they always got caught. And when they got caught they didn’t know what to do, and so they wound up in the tank. Which, Baron reflected, was precisely where they belonged, the whole pack of them.

The professionals got caught too — but they didn’t wind up in jail, not the smart ones. When they hit a town they found out who was the fixer and they established contact with the fixer before they started grifting. That way they stayed out of the jug.

If they got busted they either bought the cop right away or got word to the fixer, who bought whoever had to be bought. Sometimes the fixer would get to the mark and pay him off to get him to drop charges. That was the way most of the cannon mobs operated. If that failed, the fixer bought the judge. Almost any judge would square a small rap for the right price.

But amateurs! If a mark turned in Sally and her partner they would be lost. They might have the brains to get a lawyer, but if they did they’d still wind up doing a year or two apiece. Because the same judge who could be bought would go extra hard on an amateur, just to keep his record looking good.

The hell with them, Baron thought. They deserved whatever happened to them.

Mentally he went over all the ways the pair had played the game wrong. To begin with, Sally’s whole approach was too heavy. She should have sat down a stool or two away from him instead of right next to him. She should have let him offer to buy her a drink — the second drink, not the first. She should have mentioned her husband right away and then left the rest of it up to Baron.

And, of course, she should have caught on to what he was talking about. The first words he spoke were, “I’m working the C out of Philly.” This meant, quite simply, that he was a confidence man who started originally in Philadelphia. But she didn’t even listen to him.

Then, later, he had told her he had just finished pulling off a rag, a phony stock con. Anybody but a damn fool would have caught that.

And her “husband” was just as stupid. He should have knocked first, then used the key. He was supposed to be expecting to find her in, so why in the hell didn’t he knock? And he should have had a gun. Not loaded, of course. Not even a real gun, if he wanted to play extra safe. But as soon as he came in swinging he was making things hard for himself. Hell, even a mark might have gotten lucky and clipped him one.