The Scam

  “It’s the PA’s job to keep McVeety standing,” Ainsley said, following Nick’s gaze. “It’s an honor. Film students line up for the opportunity.”

  “I’m sure they do. He’s a legend.”

  “McVeety is old school, in the best sense. None of that postproduction, green-screen, CGI crap for him. If it’s not in front of the camera, it’s not in the film. He’s all about authenticity. That’s why we’re shooting in Closter City. You know, for the allegory.”

  “Allegory and gore,” Nick said. “That’s Christian McVeety’s trademark. I’m going to ask him about that.”

  “You can interview him after his nap,” Ainsley said.

  “Cool. I’d like to talk to his special effects guy in the meantime.”

  “That’d be Chet Kershaw. Follow me.” Ainsley led him toward a big tent where several zombie vampires in various stages of decomposition sat in folding chairs, killing time listening to music on their smartphones or reading books. One female zombie vampire nibbled on an Atkins bar, careful not to disturb her makeup.

  “Chet’s family has been doing monster makeup and on-set special effects since the days of silent films,” Ainsley said. “What he does is a dying art.”

  “So it’s ironic that he’s using his talents on the walking dead. The same could be said of McVeety.”

  Ainsley smiled at Nick. “Sounds like you’ve already written your story.”

  “I never start anything without an angle,” Nick said.

  Chet had his back to Ainsley and Nick as they approached. He was a bear of a guy, big enough to be a boxer or a linebacker, but his size was belied by the delicacy he was using to apply latex pustules to the face of the zombie vampire sitting very still in the director’s chair in front of him.

  “Chet, do you have a minute to talk with Fangoria?” Ainsley asked.

  “I’m a crew of one who has to make up thirty zombies and rig two exploding heads. I don’t have time to pee and I’ve needed to for an hour.” Chet turned around, holding a latex pustule daintily with two fingers. When he saw Nick, he broke into a big smile. “But peeing is overrated.”

  Ainsley saw the recognition on Chet’s face. “You two know each other?”

  “I’ve interviewed Chet before,” Nick said. “I’m a big fan of his work.”

  Kate had drafted Chet for the Derek Griffin con. Chet believed that Nick and Kate worked for a private security firm that pushed the boundaries of legality to get the job done.

  Chet stuck the fake pustule on Ainsley’s cheek. “Hold on to this for me. We’ll be right back.”

  Chet put his arm around Nick and took him to the far corner of the tent, where they could speak privately.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Chet said. “Seems like just when I’m ready to slit my throat out of boredom and self-loathing, you or Kate show up to save me.”

  “Is working on this movie really that bad?”

  “No, I’m thankful to be here. I’ve hardly worked since I did that last project for you,” Chet said. “I got this gig because McVeety is computer illiterate and my grandfather worked on his first film in the 1950s.”

  “Attack of the Flesh-Eating Martians,” Nick said.

  “That’s the one,” Chet said. “He’s been basically making the same movie for sixty years. But God bless him. Once he’s gone, I may have to find a new line of work. I’ve been studying for a realtor’s license.”

  “That would be a tragedy. Maybe I can save you from that, at least temporarily. We’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to help us take down a bad guy who launders money for mobsters and terrorists.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Kill me,” Nick said.

  Chet smiled. “I’d be glad to.”

  It was early evening when Kate walked into Tom Underhill’s workshop in an industrial section of suburban Rancho Cucamonga. It was a cinder block building that had once been a mechanic’s garage. The workshop walls were covered with pictures of the imaginative playhouses, tree houses, and dog houses that Underhill built for a living. She saw photos of kid-sized castles, hobbit dens, igloos, gingerbread houses, and even a flying saucer that seemed to have crashed into a tree. What she didn’t see were any photos of the structures and vehicles Tom had built for their cons.

  In the center of the workshop was a vintage Airstream trailer that had been gutted. Tom was inside the trailer, working on something with a blowtorch, his back to Kate.

  “Knock knock,” Kate said, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the torch.

  Tom peered out of the trailer and smiled when he saw her.

  “Kate!” He dropped the blowtorch, lifted off the goggles, and stepped out of the trailer. “This is a first. It’s always been Nick who stops by.”

  “I wanted to see where the magic happens,” she said. “What are you building this time?”

  “You know I have three kids, ages four, ten, and twelve,” Tom said. “Well, my wife is pregnant again.”

  “Congratulations,” Kate said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “We’re thrilled, but it was a surprise. It means I either have to turn my office into a nursery or buy us a new house. So I’m giving her a nursery and building a man cave on wheels that I can park in my driveway. It’s going to be a home theater, game room, and office all rolled into one.”

  “So you’re finally creating a playhouse for yourself.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way but, yeah, I guess I am,” he said. “It was building that fake oceanographic survey ship and remote-controlled submersible for that con in Portugal that helped pay for this.”

  “We have another job for you, if you’re interested.”

  “I’ve got to put four kids through college someday and I’d like to do it without having to sell my man cave on wheels or take a second mortgage on my house,” Tom said. “So yes, I’m interested, especially if it pays as well as the last gig.”

  “A hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “But I have to warn you, it comes with the same risks.”

  “And I hope the same adventure. These jobs make me feel great. My wife notices the change in me, too. She jumped my bones the minute I got back from Portugal. That’s how she ended up pregnant again.”

  “Just a reminder,” Kate said. “We’re going after a major criminal, but we’re using illegal means to get him.”

  “If he’s even half as rotten as the last two guys I helped your detective agency take down, then so be it. There’s something wrong with the law if it allows people like Griffin and Menendez to remain free.”

  “Maybe so, Tom, but if things go wrong, you could end up in prison or worse.”

  “You keep warning me about that.”

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t,” Kate said. “You’re a husband and a father. I’m torn every time we come to you. I want your help, but part of me always hopes that you’ll turn us down.”

  “That’s why I trust you,” Tom said. “What am I building?”

  “For starters, you’re putting an escape hatch in the floor of an Audi A8.”

  “That’s not much of a challenge,” he said. “How about if I also add an ejector seat, machine guns behind the headlights, and a flamethrower in the exhaust pipe?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “But those would be nice to have in my car.”

  “I’m sure we could work something out,” Tom said. “Where are we going this time?”

  “Las Vegas.”

  “No freakin’ gondolas,” he said.

  “Funny you should say that.”

  —

  The San Luis Obispo County courthouse looked like a large mausoleum and, perhaps fittingly, Sara Quirk, the twenty-something assistant district attorney, had the pallor of a corpse, the fashion sense of a mortician, and the warmth of a tombstone. She occupied a windowless office that felt as cramped and suffocating to Nick as a coffin buried under six feet of dirt.

  “Mr. Petrocelli, your client is
charged with grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, and fifty-six counts of kidnapping,” she said, sitting across from Nick at a neatly organized gunmetal gray desk. “Your suggestion that we should simply release her with a stern warning is utterly absurd.”

  “I think it’s the only way that your office, and the tour bus operator, can come out of this debacle without embarrassment and ridicule,” Nick said, both of his hands flat on the briefcase resting on his lap. It was the day after his visit to Closter City. He wore the off-the-rack suit that he got for free from Jos. A. Bank for purchasing the suit that he wore for the State Department con. “The way I see it, we’re doing you an enormous favor.”

  “You can’t be serious, counselor. Yesterday morning, Wilma Owens stole a tour bus carrying fifty-six Japanese tourists from the parking lot of the Camarillo outlet mall and drove it a hundred and twenty-five miles before being apprehended in the parking lot of the Pismo Beach outlet mall by San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s deputies. That’s a serious crime.”

  “Before arriving in Pismo Beach, Ms. Owens stopped the bus in Solvang, and stayed there for over an hour, did she not?”

  The question seemed to bewilder Quirk. “Yes, but so what?”

  “Well, then how can you say that my client kidnapped the tourists?” Nick said. “She let them all out in Solvang, where they wandered freely through the Danish village buying wooden clogs and eating aebleskiver, before happily returning to the bus with powdered sugar all over their faces for the drive up to Pismo Beach. That doesn’t seem like the conduct of prisoners or people under duress to me.”

  Quirk shifted in her chair, making it creak. “Just because they were unaware that they’d been abducted doesn’t make it any less of an abduction.”

  “Did any of the tourists lodge a complaint?”

  “They don’t speak English, and they were unaware of the jeopardy they were in.”

  “The only jeopardy they faced was maxing out their credit cards after visiting Solvang and two outlet malls in one day. The fact is, they were so delighted with the trip that they were posing for selfies with my client at the time the deputies arrested her.”

  “This is ridiculous! Wilma Owens was not the bus driver, nor the owner of the bus, nor does she possess a valid Class B commercial license,” Quirk said, tapping the neat stack of papers in front of her with her index finger as she made each point. “She stole a tour bus and took it on a joyride up the California coast.”

  “ ‘A joyride’ is the perfect way to describe this. She brought pure joy to those fifty-six tourists, not to mention the merchants that they patronized in Solvang and Pismo Beach. The one who deserves your scorn is the bus driver who abandoned his vehicle in Camarillo to get high on pot. If anything, my client may have saved their lives. What would have happened if that impaired driver had taken the wheel of that bus? It’s his negligence that is the crime here.”

  Her pale skin had flushed bright red during the course of Nick’s argument. He was glad to see it. Because he was beginning to worry that she might be a vampire. She spoke slowly, trying to control her rage.

  “There is no evidence that the driver was smoking pot or impaired in any way.”

  “There’s no evidence that he wasn’t,” Nick said. “Did you give him a drug test?”

  Quick bolted up from her seat, unable to contain her anger for another second. “Of course not! He didn’t commit any crime.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I don’t have to prove it.”

  “You will by the time I’m done raising reasonable doubt with the jury, who will already have seen all of those pictures of smiling, sugary-faced Japanese tourists with their friendly, cheerful bus driver.”

  “She wasn’t their bus driver!”

  “She was driving the bus, wasn’t she?” Nick said. “Or are you disputing that now, too?”

  Quirk leaned forward on the desk, looming over Nick and jabbing her finger at his face. “Stop twisting my words.”

  Nick smiled and looked her in the eye. “You clearly have no case, Ms. Quirk. So unless you and the bus company crave embarrassment, which is what you’ll surely get once I alert the media, share the photos, and present my compelling version of events, then I’d release my client and call it a day.”

  Forty minutes later, Nick was standing outside the San Luis Obispo County jail as Willie emerged, a spring in her step, as if she were leaving a party instead of a cell.

  “Thank you for getting me out,” Willie said. “I didn’t know you were a lawyer.”

  “I didn’t know you were a bus driver.” Nick led her toward his rented Cadillac in the parking lot. “Why did you steal it?”

  She fell into step beside him. “It wasn’t something I set out to do. I went to the mall to buy some bras and there it was, a new four-hundred-twenty-five-horsepower, forty-six-foot-long motor coach, a big vehicle that I’d never driven before, with the door wide open and nobody at the wheel. It was an incredible opportunity. But before I could drive away, the Japanese started piling in.”

  “Where was the driver?”

  “I don’t know. Probably went to get a pretzel or something. Who cares? That fifty-four-thousand-pound monster has a three-hundred-and-fifteen-inch wheel base and a forty-foot turning radius. It’s like driving a battleship. It was one of the vehicles on my bucket list.”

  “If you wanted to drive a bus, you didn’t have to steal one. With what we’ve paid you, you’re rich enough to charter a bus for yourself.”

  She waved off the suggestion. “That’s too much trouble.”

  “Stealing one packed with Japanese tourists from the parking lot of an outlet mall is easier?”

  “It was right there,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “It’s your ADD.”

  “Thirty-four double-D, to be exact. But you’re right, it’s really their fault.” She gave her breasts a gentle heft. “I wouldn’t have been at the mall if my bras didn’t wear out so fast.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your cup size, but your undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. You have no impulse control.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Kate.”

  “Well, occasionally she’s got a point. Sometimes there are easier ways to do things than breaking the law.”

  “You just impersonated a lawyer.”

  “This wasn’t one of those times.”

  “Because you were in a hurry to get me out to help you with a new scheme,” she said. “What do you need me to do for you now?”

  “Nothing much.” They reached his car and he unlocked it with his remote key fob. “A drive-by shooting.”

  She laughed. “And you’re giving me grief about stealing a bus?”

  The crew gathered two days later in the sweltering heat of a barn in Ojai, California, to go over the plan. Scattered around them were a half dozen standing floor fans, their heads turning left to right like the audience at a tennis match, but their whirring blades barely moved the heavy, dry air.

  Willie Owens, Chet Kershaw, Tom Underhill, Boyd Capwell, and Jake O’Hare sat on picnic table benches facing Nick and Kate, who stood in front of three dry-erase boards covered with blueprints, photographs, and maps. To their left, displayed like the big prize on a game show, was a new black Audi A8 with darkly tinted windows. To their right, like the booby prize, was a mannequin dressed in a blue polo shirt and tan slacks.

  “We’re here to create a big, violent action sequence worthy of a Hollywood movie,” Nick said. “The purpose is to scare the bejeezus out of this man and make him go running to the FBI for protection.”

  Nick taped a photo of Evan Trace on the board behind him. There was also a photo of the Côte d’Argent tower, which had been cut out and stuck on a blowup of a Las Vegas street map.

  “The FBI will throw Trace into prison and shut down his casino, or they’ll let him remain free and keep his casino going as a front for a government sting operation,” Kate said. “Either way, he’s done
financing terrorism and organized crime.”

  “Wasn’t that the plan to start with?” Jake asked.

  “It was, but how we’re getting there has changed,” Kate said. “The original endgame was to convince Lono Alika, the Yakuza’s man in Hawaii, to join Boyd and Billy Dee and launder his stash of drug profits through another junket at Côte d’Argent. We were going to run off with the cash, crippling Alika’s business and leaving Trace to face the Yakuza’s wrath.”

  “And the relentless fury of the Canadian mafia,” Boyd said. “We’d hunt Trace down like a moose.”

  “Is that really a thing in Canada?” Willie asked.

  “Moose hunting?” Boyd said.

  “The mafia,” Willie said.

  “Oh yeah, they’re fearsome up there,” Boyd said. “They say ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ and it’s very, very cold in Canada.”

  “Unfortunately,” Kate continued, “Trace ruined our plan by offering Boyd, Billy Dee, and Alika the chance to secretly invest in his casino empire by losing millions of dollars at his baccarat tables. It’s a clever scheme that cut us entirely out of the picture.”

  “But the good news is that Kate has Trace making that offer to Billy Dee on video,” Nick said and then pointed to Boyd. “You’re going to show that surveillance footage to Lono Alika. You’re going to tell him that Trace and I are part of an FBI sting to bring you both down.”

  “That’s a death sentence,” Jake said. “Alika will go crying to the Yakuza and they’ll come gunning for you both.”

  “Not if Boyd kills me first,” Nick said. “Right in front of Trace’s eyes.”

  Boyd grinned at Willie. “I told you the Canadians were badasses.”

  “I’m going to meet with Trace in Las Vegas,” Nick said. “As I’m leaving in my car, Willie is going to drive by in a van carrying Boyd and his shooters, Chet and Tom.”

  “They’re going to open fire on Nick’s car,” Kate said, gesturing to the Audi. “He’ll lose control, crash the car, and it will explode, blowing him to bits.”