The Scam

  “If you’re going to do all of that,” Jake said, “why do you need to tell Alika about the video? Why take the risk of bringing the Yakuza into this?”

  “As a convincer,” Nick said. “To prove to Trace that the jeopardy is real.”

  “Trace will hear from his own trusted sources that the Yakuza wants him dead,” Kate said. “After seeing Nick and Boyd brutally killed, that terrifying news will close the deal.”

  “I get killed, too?” Boyd said. “Who is killing me?”

  “I am,” Kate said.

  “Do I get a death scene?”

  Kate pulled a gun from behind her back and fired three times in quick succession at the mannequin, blood spurting out of its chest on impact, splattering the polo shirt.

  She lowered the gun and reholstered it. “Whatever performance you can squeeze into those three shots before Chet and Tom pull your body into the van and Willie speeds off.”

  “Plenty of time to make my death resonate emotionally with the audience,” Boyd said.

  Willie was still looking at the mannequin. “How did you do that?”

  “Kate was firing blanks,” Chet said and held up a tiny remote the size of a key fob. “I used this to ignite a vest filled with red-colored corn syrup under the shirt. It’s a common Hollywood trick. Or at least it was until CGI came along.”

  “How are you blowing up the car?” Jake asked.

  “I knew you’d have a special interest in that,” Nick said.

  “Do I get to use my rocket launcher?”

  Chet stared at Jake. “You have a rocket launcher?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Jake replied.

  “No, you don’t get to use your rocket launcher,” Kate said. “Or your hand grenades.”

  Chet looked at Jake again. “You have hand grenades?”

  “The bullet hits to the car will be a special effect,” Nick said. “The car will be rigged with explosives. But before Chet triggers the blast, I’ll escape through a trapdoor constructed in the floor.”

  “I guess that’s what I’m building,” Tom said. “Where are you escaping to?”

  “The sewer,” Nick said. “I’ll be crashing the car right above a manhole that will be rigged with a fake cover that you’ll design to open when I drop on it. We’ll replace it with a real, pre-scorched manhole cover from below immediately after the explosion.”

  Boyd applauded. “Magnificent. A grand finale.”

  “I see three problems,” Jake said. “The first is that I don’t get to use my rocket launcher. The second is Trace’s security team. How are you going to stop them from shooting at the van?”

  “Nick and I will handle that,” Kate said.

  “Okay, but that leaves the third, and the biggest problem,” Jake said. “The fire department, the police, and the crime scene techs are going to come and they have to find Nick’s charred corpse in the car.”

  “They will,” Nick said.

  “I’m sure Trace has contacts in the police department,” Jake said. “He’ll know immediately if it’s not a real corpse.”

  “It will be,” Kate said.

  “Where are you going to get a body?”

  “We have plenty of volunteers already lined up,” Nick said.

  —

  Boyd arrived in Honolulu the next morning dressed for the part of a Canadian mobster in paradise. He walked off the plane in a wide-brimmed Panama straw hat, yellow bowling shirt, Bermuda shorts, and flip-flops, rented a Cadillac Escalade, and headed for the North Shore.

  He’d been to Hawaii once before to host an infomercial for the Smootherizer, a blender that was specially designed to make tropical fruit smoothies. The Smootherizer infomercial aired nationwide, night after night, and Boyd had expected some big residual checks. That was before some Smootherizers that were left plugged in and unattended in kitchens spontaneously combusted and burned several houses to the ground. The infomercial was yanked, a class-action lawsuit was filed, and the manufacturer fled the country. Boyd never saw a dime. Thinking about the betrayal and the injustice of it all put him in the right mindset for the scene he was about to play with Lono Alika.

  He parked in front of Da Grinds & Da Shave Ice as if he owned the place and got out of the car. Alika was sitting in his usual spot on the patio.

  “Aloha, Lono!” Boyd called out.

  Alika set aside the huge slice of lilikoi cream pie that he’d been eating. He wiped the whipped cream off his lips with the back of his tattooed arm, and stood up to greet his friend with a bear hug.

  “Brah, dis a big surprise. Si’down, have a lilikoi pie. Make like dis home,” Alika said and snapped his fingers at Neon Nikes, who immediately got up from his seat to get another slice of pie from the server at the window. “Watchu doin’ here?”

  “I came to see you.” Boyd sat down across from Alika at the picnic table. “So this is your Bada Bing.”

  “Bada what?”

  “Tony Soprano’s strip club. His domain. Mine is a truck stop outside of Vancouver. I got a booth in the back where I do all of my business. Come up sometime and I’ll treat you to poutine and some flapper pie.”

  Neon Nikes set down a paper plate with a slice of lilikoi pie and a plastic fork in front of Boyd and retreated to his seat at the back of the patio.

  “You didn’t come all dis way fo’ talk TV an’ eat da grinds,” Alika said.

  “Don’t take this as an insult, but I don’t get half of what you say. You’re going to have to drop the Hawaiian gibberish and speak plain English, because it’s important that we both understand each other.” Boyd leaned forward on the table and lowered his voice. “I came to see you face-to-face because I don’t trust phones, and we’re both in deep trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “We’ve been set up.” Boyd pushed aside the plate of pie, took out his cellphone, and held up the screen to Alika. “Take a look at this.”

  Boyd played a few seconds of the video of Evan Trace making his pitch to Billy Dee.

  “You won’t really be losing your money,” Trace said. “Whatever you lose gambling will become your off-the-books investment in Monde d’Argent.”

  “I thought laundering my money playing baccarat was a good deal,” Billy Dee said. “But this sounds even better.”

  “It is,” Trace said. “Instead of washing your illegal profits, you can make them work for you in the gambling capital of the world.”

  Boyd fast-forwarded to another section of the video.

  “What did that loudmouth Canadian want in return for his money?” Billy Dee asked.

  “He took me at my word,” Trace said.

  “He’s a bigger gambler than I thought. Are my hosts in on this, too?”

  “No, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this between us.”

  “And Alika, too, I suppose,” Billy Dee said.

  “I’ll be talking to him next. I’m seeking investors with a certain profile, and Nick Sweet doesn’t match it. Mr. Alika does.”

  Boyd stopped the video and put the phone back in his pocket. “Evan Trace and Nick Sweet are informants for the FBI. They have us on video, too. They’re setting us up in return for leniency on whatever charges the feds already have against them.”

  Alika’s face had gone as rigid as stone. He spoke very slowly. “How did you get this?”

  “I’ve been banging Kate,” Boyd said.

  “Fo’ real?” Alika said.

  Boyd had startled himself when he said it. He was supposed to say he had an informant in the FBI, but “banging Kate” came out instead. That’s what happened when he was totally into character. His instincts took over. He was committed to it now.

  “Nobody was more surprised than me. Maybe it started as customer service or maybe I’m irresistible or maybe she’s never had a Canadian before. What do I care? Ass is ass.”

  “Dat’s true.”

  “When Kate got back to L.A., she stumbled on texts between Nick and his FBI handler. It totally
freaked her out. So she called me for help. Who else was she gonna call? She’s terrified that she’ll go down with us.”

  “We aren’t going down. Dey are. Dey gonna die dead.”

  “Die dead,” Boyd repeated. “Is that a Hawaiian thing?”

  “Worse kine of dead. Da woman, too.”

  “Seems like a rotten thing to do to her after she tipped us off.”

  “If she’d bang you, she’d bang da feds. No disrespect, bruddah. But if dare’s no witnesses to testify, dare’s no case.”

  Boyd sighed. “It’s such a waste, but you’re right. Better safe than sorry. I’ll kill Nick and Kate, and I’ll go for Trace, too. Problem is, if I miss my shot at Trace, and he hops on a plane to Macau, I can’t touch him. My reach doesn’t extend that far. How about your business associates in Japan?”

  “Nobody can hide from dem,” Alika said. “They’d find you if you jumped in a time machine to da future, took a spaceship to a-nudder planet, an hid in a-nudder dimension. An den dey would cut out yo guts, string you up wit’ dem, an’ set you on fire.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Boyd said.

  “Trace will die dead, bruddah,” Alika said. “Guaranteed.”

  There’s always a surgical conference going on somewhere in Las Vegas and usually it’s at one of the major casino resorts. The conferences are sponsored by medical device manufacturers in order to train doctors in the use of their latest high-priced surgical tools and implants. The hope is that those surgeons will then want to use those products, which would force hospitals to buy them. So there’s a constant demand on the Strip for cadavers.

  One of the companies that served the cadaver need was CorpsSource Services, Inc., which was located in a nondescript building in an office park near McCarran International Airport. Nick drove up to the front door in his 2006 Chevy Cobalt at 11 P.M., two days after Boyd’s meeting with Alika. The only other vehicles in the lot were the two refrigerated trucks that CorpsSource used for hauling bodies.

  “It looks dead to me. There isn’t a living soul in sight,” Nick said to Kate and Willie, who were also in the Chevy. The three of them wore white CorpsSource-logo jumpsuits. Willie’s jumpsuit was too tight and unzipped to show off her cleavage, purely out of habit, not necessity.

  “That’s not funny,” Willie said. “This whole thing creeps me out.”

  “All you have to do is hot-wire the truck,” Nick said. “If you stay in the cab, you’ll never see the body. Kate and I will do the rest.”

  “At least we’re not in a cemetery,” Willie said.

  “That would be grave robbing, and I wouldn’t do that,” Nick said. “It would be desecration.”

  “How’s this any different?” Willie asked.

  “These people willed their bodies to science,” Nick said.

  “This isn’t science,” Kate said.

  “It’s criminal science,” Nick said, and got out of the car.

  The women got out, too.

  “I’m sure that wasn’t the science they had in mind when they made out their wills,” Kate said, walking with Nick to the front door while Willie headed for the trucks.

  “I’m thinking they no longer care,” Nick said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kate said. “We’re all going straight to hell.”

  Nick took out a pair of lock picks and opened the door as easily as if he had the key. They stepped into the lobby, and Nick typed a code into the security keypad by the door, deactivating the alarm.

  “How did you get the code?” Kate asked.

  “I showed up yesterday, posing as a rep for a medical device company, at the same time the office manager arrived here to open up,” Nick said. “I saw her punch in the code, and she was even kind enough to give me a complete tour.”

  Kate went around the receptionist’s counter and opened cupboards until she found the DVR unit for the security cameras. She gave it a quick examination. “We’re in luck. It doesn’t back up to the Web.”

  “I’ve seen cookie jars with better security,” Nick said.

  Kate unplugged the cables going into the DVR, took it out of the cabinet, and lugged it away under one arm. The two of them walked through the front office and down a corridor to the cold storage room. They opened the heavy steel door, pushed aside the clear vinyl strip curtain flaps, and stepped inside what was essentially a very large walk-in freezer. Dozens of cadavers in black body bags were stacked on four long aisles of shelving units that looked like bunk beds. Nick grabbed one of the gurneys that lined the far wall and wheeled it down the first aisle, as if he were shopping at Costco. Kate put the DVR on another gurney and followed him.

  Each body bag had a card in a clear plastic sleeve that listed the sex, age, and cause of death of its cadaver. There was also a bar code and some serial numbers. Nick and Kate each took one side of the aisle, checking out the cards on the body bags.

  Female, 87, congenital heart disease. Male, 66, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Male, 83, lung cancer. Female, 72, kidney failure.

  “There are a lot of old people here,” Kate said.

  “That’s the nature of the business, especially in a retirement community like Las Vegas. Here’s a possibility. Male, forty-two, massive body trauma.” Nick unzipped the bag and immediately reared back. “Holy crap. He’s flattened. That won’t work.”

  “Why do they have a body like that here? Don’t they prefer them in relatively good shape?”

  “Most of the time,” Nick said, zipping up the bag. “But they also need bodies for trauma surgery training.”

  They continued down the aisle and on to the next one, going from body to body. Kate found another contender.

  “Male, thirty-eight, heart attack,” she said.

  Kate unzipped the bag and Nick came over to take a look. The dead man was about five foot five and 250 pounds.

  “He won’t work,” Nick said.

  They needed someone Nick’s size. Kate zipped it back up and moved to the next bag. And then the one after that. And several more. They were down to the last row of the last aisle before Nick found another possible selection.

  “This sounds promising. Male, thirty-eight, cerebral hemorrhage.”

  He unzipped the bag. The dead man was Hispanic, but roughly Nick’s height and weight.

  “What do you think?” Nick asked.

  She gave the cadaver a quick appraisal. “He’ll do.”

  Nick zipped up the bag and together they picked up the body, set it on the gurney, and strapped it in place. Kate put the DVR on top of the body and they wheeled the gurney out of the storage room, closed the door, and hurried to the loading dock. They lifted the slide-up garage door to find the refrigerated truck already backed up to the loading dock with the engine running.

  Kate opened the heavy door to the truck’s freezer-like cargo area and pushed aside the plastic strip curtains that kept the cold air inside. Nick wheeled in the gurney. The truck’s interior was lined with shelves and belts to secure the body bags to them. Kate set the DVR on the truck’s floor, then she and Nick lifted the body bag onto one of the shelves and strapped it in. Nick collapsed the gurney so it was flat on the floor and slid it into place under a shelf.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever stolen a body,” Nick said.

  “That’s not true. You stole a mummy from a museum in London.”

  “I stole a sarcophagus that had a mummy inside.”

  “So now you’re stealing a body bag that has a cadaver inside,” Kate said. “I don’t see the difference.”

  “The difference is the thirty million dollars in jewel-encrusted antiquities that were in the sarcophagus with the mummy.”

  “Do you still have the antiquities?”

  “I didn’t keep any of it. The sarcophagus had been looted from an ancient burial site,” Nick said. “I returned it to the rightful owner, the Egyptian government, for a handsome retrieval fee. Besides, the antiquities would have clashed with my Rembrandts.”

  “I hate
when that happens,” she said.

  They got out and closed the door. Kate joined Willie in the truck’s cab and Nick dashed across the parking lot to the Chevy Cobalt. Nick drove off first, and then Willie pulled out and followed Nick toward the glow of the Vegas strip.

  “I really hope the slogan is true,” Willie said.

  “ ‘No freakin’ gondolas’?”

  “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

  —

  It was almost midnight when Willie, Nick, and Kate pulled into a warehouse in an industrial pocket of buildings on the south side of the Côte d’Argent casino. It was close enough to the resort to fall under the black tower’s shadow for several hours each day. Willie drove the refrigerator truck into the warehouse, and Nick quickly closed the door behind her. She parked the truck but kept the refrigeration unit running.

  Willie and Kate got out of the truck and went to check on the rest of the crew, who were finishing up last-minute details of the con.

  Chet Kershaw was applying touch-up paint to the exterior of the black Audi A8 to hide traces of some of his special effects handiwork. Kate leaned in close to the car and examined the finish.

  “They’re nearly invisible,” she said. “It looks like you’ve just touched up some parking lot dings.”

  “When these little charges blow, they’ll leave M16 impact marks and gunpowder residue behind. Even the crime scene techs will be fooled,” Chet said.

  “That’s above and beyond,” Kate said.

  “Not the way I look at it,” Chet said. “The CSI guys are part of the audience, too. They’re just coming late to the show.”

  Kate moved along to Tom, who was also busy painting, putting the final touches on a Styrofoam replica of a sidewalk manhole cover. He had a genuine manhole cover on the table, next to the fake, that he was using for reference.

  “They look identical,” Kate said, glancing between the two covers. “I can’t tell the difference.”

  “You’d know right away if you tried to drop through that one,” Tom knocked his knuckle against the real cover. “You’d break your feet.”

  She turned to Boyd, who stood nearby, trying on a vest made up of pouches filled with red-dyed corn syrup. Each pouch had a wire taped to the outside that ran down to a battery pack on his hip.