Дэвид Балдаччи - The Collectors

Yet this time her picture had been captured on numerous Pompeii casino cameras. And she knew Bagger would take those photos and run around the con world paying people or even torturing them to get an ID on her. Every con she knew would cheer what she’d done to Bagger. Yet there might be someone who looked at the photo and let her name slip if Bagger threatened enough. Well, she thought, let him come. He might find it a little harder to kill me than he thinks. It wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it was the size of the fight in the dog. Ironically, it wasn’t her father that had told her that; it was her mother.

Tammy Conroy, despite her criminal ways, had been a good woman, and a long-suffering wife to Paddy. She’d been a cocktail waitress before tying her life to the charming Irishman, who had an endless supply of funny yarns and could sing any tune in a voice you’d want to keep listening to. Paddy Conroy dominated any room he was in. Perhaps that was why his potential as a con had never been fully realized. The best cons, you never even knew they were there. Paddy apparently didn’t care, believing that his Irish luck, pluck and smile would save him every time. And it had, mostly. But it hadn’t saved Tammy Conroy.

Jerry Bagger had personally put a bullet into her brain when she wouldn’t rat out her husband. Paddy certainly hadn’t returned his wife’s loyalty. He’d fled when Bagger started to close in. Annabelle couldn’t even attend her mother’s funeral because Bagger and his men were at the cemetery waiting for someone to show up. That was years ago, and Bagger was probably still looking for her father. Over ten lousy grand, when the man spent more on his suits than that. Yet Annabelle knew it ultimately wasn’t about the money. It was about respect. And the only way you kept respect in Bagger’s world was by doling out five licks for every one you took. And whether somebody stole ten grand or 10 million of his money, Bagger would hurt that person if he could get his hands on him. That’s why when Annabelle ratted out the cons at the Pompeii, she had also called the police. With cops on the premises Bagger couldn’t break any knees. If the cons were smart, they’d clear out fast after they’d done their time or paid their fines.

Bagger might have been a walking caricature of a casino chieftain in a bad mob film, but one thing that wasn’t phony or funny about the guy was the easy manner in which he employed violence. If you conned other casinos, you went to jail. That was not how Bagger operated. He was a throwback to the days in Vegas when the way to deal with a pesky con was to first break the knees and then the head. His utter failure to bring his methods into modern times had led to his banishment from Sin City. While he hadn’t completely cleaned up his act in Atlantic City, he had gotten far more discreet about it.

With all that, in Tammy Conroy’s case, a ten-grand con wouldn’t have ordinarily led to death. But it wasn’t a simple case, because her father and Bagger had a long running war. Personally, Paddy kept out of Bagger’s casinos, but he sent waves of teams in to do the con work for him, including, finally, his then teenage daughter and a much younger Leo. That almost led them to being fish food in the ocean the last time they visited Atlantic City. Yet over the years Bagger finally made the connection with Paddy and his casino’s troubles. He eventually showed up on Paddy’s doorstep one night far away from Jersey. But Paddy wasn’t there. Some said he had a warning and cleared out. If so, he forgot to let his wife in on it.

There was no evidence linking Bagger to the murder, of course, and he’d had a million alibis, so no charges were ever filed in the case. However, some veteran cons with inside knowledge that Annabelle had talked to were absolutely certain as to what had happened. Yet even if they’d seen the deed themselves, they would never have testified against Bagger.

Having him so close to her over the last week, Annabelle found herself thinking about putting a gun against his forehead and firing. That would have evened one old score, but the forfeit of her life would’ve been the price. No, this way was much better. Her father had never liked the long cons, arguing that it took too much time and had too many potential pitfalls. Yet Tammy Conroy would have truly appreciated the artistry and the execution of this one. And if somehow her mother had made it to heaven, she hoped the woman would take a peek from up high when Jerry Bagger discovered he’d been duped into a wild, crafty ride with an admission price of 40 million bucks.

She picked up the TV remote and channel-surfed as she ate her pretzel. The news was the same as always, all bad. More soldiers killed, more people starving to death, more people blowing themselves and others up in the name of God. Done with TV, she picked up the newspaper. Old habits died hard, and more than once she found herself looking at stories and wondering how to spin the details into a successful, creative con. That was over now, she told herself. Nailing Bagger was the pinnacle of her career; there was nowhere to go except down.

The last article she read caused her to sit up so fast she spilled her pretzel and mustard on the bed. She stared wide-eyed at the small, grainy photo that accompanied the back-page story. It was a short tribute to a distinguished scholar and man of letters. There was no cause given for the death of Jonathan DeHaven, only that he had died suddenly while at work at the Library of Congress. Though he’d died some time ago, funeral arrangements were just now complete and burial was set for the next day in D.C. Annabelle had no way of knowing that the delay had been caused by the medical examiner’s inability to find a cause of death. However, with no suspicious circumstances uncovered, the case had been set down to natural causes and the body released to the funeral home.

Annabelle grabbed her bag and started stuffing clothes in it. Her travel plans had just been changed. She was flying to Washington. To say good-bye to her ex-husband, Jonathan DeHaven, the only man who’d ever truly captured her heart.

“Oliver! Oliver.”

Stone slowly came to and sat up with difficulty. He was lying fully dressed on the floor of his cottage, his hair still damp.

“Oliver!” Someone was banging on his front door.

Stone rose, stumbled toward the door and opened it.

Reuben stared back at him with an amused expression. “What the hell’s going on? You getting into the tequila again?” However, when he noted Stone’s obvious distress, he quickly turned serious. “Oliver, are you okay?”

“I’m not dead. I take that as a positive.”

He motioned for Reuben to come in, and Stone spent the next ten minutes filling him in on what had happened.

“Damn! You have no idea who they are?”

“Whoever it is, they’re well up on their torture techniques,” Stone said dryly, rubbing at the knot on his head. “I don’t think I can even drink water again.”

“So they know about the Behan connection?”

Stone nodded. “I’m not sure it was a total surprise to them, actually. But I think what I told them about Bradley and DeHaven was definitely new intelligence.”

“Speaking of DeHaven, his funeral is today. That’s what we were calling you about. Caleb is going, along with most of the Library of Congress. Milton’s coming too, and I switched my shift at the dock so I could go. We thought it might be important.”

Stone rose but immediately wobbled.

Reuben grabbed his arm. “Oliver, maybe you should just sit tight.”

“One more torture session like that, you’ll be attending my funeral. But the service today may be important. If only for those it happens to bring out into the open.”