Дэвид Балдаччи - The Collectors

Leo suddenly looked embarrassed, lit another Winston and shakily blew smoke to the ceiling. “Anybody who’s done business with that bastard wants to kill him. So what?”

“I don’t want to kill him, Leo. I just want to steal so much money from Jerry that it’ll hurt him where it matters the most. You could wipe out his whole family, and it wouldn’t bother the guy nearly as much as knowing somebody got the money he’s been piling up from the poor schmucks that trip through his casino every minute of every day.”

“Sounds cool,” Tony chimed, while Freddy still looked uncertain.

Leo stared in fury at the young man. “Cool? You think it’s cool? Let me tell you something, you little know-nothing punk. You mess up in front of Jerry Bagger like you did at that bank, there won’t be enough left of you to send in an envelope to your mama for burial.” Leo turned and pointed a finger at Annabelle. “Let me make something real clear right now. I am not taking on Jerry Bagger. But I am really not taking on Jerry Bagger with this screw-up along.”

“Hey, I made one mistake. You never made a mistake?” Tony protested.

Leo didn’t answer. He and Annabelle were engaged in a lengthy stare-down.

She said quietly, “Tony’s role is limited to what he does best. He has no face time with Jerry.” She glanced at Freddy. “And Freddy’s backroom all the way. He just has to make some good-looking paper. The success of the scam depends on you. And me. So unless you think we’re not good enough, I don’t see a valid objection.”

“They know us, Annabelle. We’ve been here before.”

She walked around the table and opened a manila folder that sat on the table in front of her chair. She held up two glossies of a man and a woman.

“Who’s that?” Freddy asked, puzzled.

Leo answered grudgingly as he gazed at the pictures. “Me and Annabelle, from a long time ago. In At-lan-tic Ci-ty,” he spat out.

“Where’d you get the photos?” Tony asked.

Annabelle explained, “Every casino keeps a face bank, what they call the black book, of people who’ve tried to scam them, and they share that intelligence with the other casinos. You’ve never tried to rip a casino, Tony, and neither has Freddy, which is one reason I looked you two up. I still have a few contacts in this town; that’s where I got the prints. They never actually caught us and photographed us. These were made from composites based on descriptions of us. If they had real photos, I’m not sure I’d be here.”

“But you two don’t look anything like that anymore,” Tony said. “Some intelligence,” he added with a sneer.

Annabelle pulled two more glossies out of the folder. These looked more like the real Leo and Annabelle. “Like the police do with missing children, the casinos hire experts to digitally alter the photos to take into account normal aging. They feed that into their black book and also into their electronic surveillance system that has face recognition software. That’s why we’ll look nothing like this when we make our run at Jerry.”

“I’m not making a run at Jerry,” Leo snarled.

“Come on, Leo, it’ll be fun,” Tony said.

“Don’t piss me off, kid,” Leo snapped. “Like I need an excuse to hate you!”

“Let’s take a walk, Leo,” Annabelle said. She held a hand up when Tony and Freddy stood to follow them. “Stay put. We’ll be back,” she said.

Outside, the sun was coming out from behind a patch of dark clouds. Annabelle pulled a hood over her head and slid on sunglasses. Leo pulled a ball cap low over his head and donned shades as well.

They walked along the Boardwalk, which ran between the casinos on the main strip and the wide beach, passing couples on benches staring at the ocean.

“They’ve fixed up the place since the last time we were here,” Annabelle said. The casinos had stomped into town in the late seventies, plopping down billion-dollar gambling palaces in the middle of the seaside resort’s stark decay. For years afterward a person would not want to venture far away from the casinos because the surrounding city was not the safest place. The powers-that-be had long promised a general cleanup of the area. And with the casinos throwing off lots of money and jobs, it looked like that promise was finally being fulfilled. They stopped and watched a large crane lifting steel beams up on top of a structure that a sign announced would soon be luxury condos. Everywhere they looked new construction and rehab of existing places was going on.

Leo veered toward the beach. He stopped to take off his shoes and socks while Annabelle slid off her flats and rolled up her pants. They walked along the sand, drawing close to the water. Finally, Leo stopped, bent down, grabbed a seashell and tossed it at an incoming wave.

“You ready to talk about it?” she asked, eyeing him closely.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Running a con? That’s what I’ve been doing all my life. You should know that better than anyone, Leo.”

“No, I mean, why’d you come and get me, Freddy, the kid? You could’ve had your pick of just about anyone for this action.”

“I didn’t want just anyone. We go way back, Leo. And I thought you’d want to take another run at Jerry. Was I wrong?”

Leo threw another seashell into the water and watched it disappear. “Story of my life, Annabelle. I throw seashells at the waves, and they just keep coming.”

“Don’t get all philosophical on me.”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Is this because of your old man?”

“And I don’t need you playing my shrink either.” She moved slightly away from him, crossed her arms over her chest and looked out to sea where at the edge of the horizon a ship slowly made its way somewhere.

“With thirteen million dollars I could buy a boat big enough to take across the ocean, couldn’t I?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess. I’ve never had a reason to price one.” He looked down at his bare feet, crinkled the sand between his toes. “Annabelle, you were always smart about your money, a lot smarter than me. After all the cons you’ve pulled, I know you don’t need the cash.”

“Who ever has enough money?” she said, still watching the boat drift by.

He picked up another shell and hurled it. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”

“Part of me doesn’t. The part of me I listen to knows I have to.”

“The kid says nothing?”

“The kid says nothing.”

“If this goes bad, I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen to us.”

“Then don’t let it go bad.”

“Do you have a single nerve in your body?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.” She picked up a shell and chucked it into the face of a crashing wall of water, then let the ocean race across her feet and ankles. “Are we good?”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“No more going ballistic on me?”

He cracked a smile. “That I can promise to no woman.”

As they walked back to the hotel, he said, “I haven’t heard anything about your mom in a long time. How’s Tammy doing?”

“Not great.”

“Is your old man even alive?”

“I wouldn’t be the one to know that, would I?” Annabelle answered.

It took a full week to make the preparations. As part of that work Annabelle gave a list of the documents and IDs she needed to Freddy. When he came to the end of the sheet, he did a double take.

“Four U.S. passports?”

Tony looked up from his computer. “Passports? What for?”

Leo stared at him contemptuously. “What? You think you cross nutcase Jerry Bagger and stay in the country? Give me a break. Yours truly is going to Mongolia and becoming a monk for a few years. I’d rather wear a robe and ride a yak around than let Bagger cut little pieces of my body off while he’s screaming about wanting his dough back.” He returned to working on his disguise.