Cons, Scams, and Grifts Read online

  “We got a call from Harry Bosch, the Hollywood Homicide cop,” said Guildenstern around his sandwich. Rosenkrantz blew on his coffee and nodded to go on. “Seems a guy got knifed down in LaLa and died in the arms of the snoopy old broad from next door. His dying words were that it was his wife did the nasty to him.”

  “Heavens! A wife killing her husband? I’m astounded.”

  “Harry said both the vic and the perp were from up here. Ephrem and Yana Poteet. Even had a local address where we can start.” He turned to Beverly as if she had asked a question. “Victim and perpetrator—guy who got did, guy who done it.”

  “In this case, broad who done it,” said Rosenkrantz.

  Both big men pulled ten-dollar bills from their pockets and laid them on the bar. Beverly started to shove one of them back, but Rosenkrantz made such an evil face at her that she stopped. Guildenstern finished his sandwich in one big gulp.

  “How can you tell when an auto mechanic’s just had sex?”

  Covering her ears, Beverly said, “I don’t want to know.”

  “One of his fingers is clean,” said Rosenkrantz inexorably.

  After they left, she picked up their tens, dropped their plates and cups and silver into the double sink’s hot soapy water, then burst out laughing. They would have to do something much more heinous than tell dirty jokes to make themselves unwelcome here. A few months ago, Danny disappeared; she got him back damaged but repairable only because Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern had galloped to the rescue, jokes flying.

  She started cutting French rolls for the lunch trade. Yana and Ephrem Poteet. The names rang faint bells. Something Larry Ballard had been involved in a year or two ago. Gypsies, maybe?

  Yes indeed, Gypsies. During the 1,500 years since they were booted out of their native India, the Gypsies have existed in other lands by doing the things those societies’ citizens can’t or won’t do. In Western Europe and the Balkan countries and Russia, unless exterminated, they have been forced to abandon their nomadic ways to live in slums at the edge of big cities.

  But in America, land of the free and home of the brave, they still wander at will, these days usually by Cadillac rather than the horse-drawn vardo, and work the welfare and benefit systems for all they’re worth. Ironically, in an age where computers and Internets and electronic snooping diminish all freedom, these last free people on earth still bind themselves by traditions and taboos as strict as those of Orthodox Judaism.

  There are at least two million Gypsies in this country, of at least four recognized nations: Kalderasha, Muchwaya, Tsurana, and Lowara. But they keep so far outside the population mainstream that they are missed by the census-takers and anyone else who might try to curtail their way of life.

  Gypsies don’t mingle with gadje, they don’t look back, they live only for today, and one thing is certain: they cause all sorts of mischief. Because Christ Himself, dying on the cross, gave them dispensation to con, scam, and grift from the gadjo—the outsider, the non-Gypsy—with perfect moral impunity.

  Ramon Ristik, a swarthy, bright-eyed man of about thirty, was a member of the Muchwaya nation and much given to the con, the scam, and the grift. His last time in San Francisco he worked North Beach, where topless was born when Carol Doda removed her bra while dancing atop a piano at the long-gone Condor.

  Because the ofica of his sister Yana (professionally, Madame Miseria) was around the corner and up a steep narrow alley known as Romolo Place, Ramon favored the Columbus/Grant/ Broadway intersection for his work. After convincing the marks of great impending evil in their lives, he steered them to Madame Miseria, who stripped them clean. He impartially conned gullible tourists, local warm-blooded Italians, and superstitious Chinese.

  During Ramon’s subsequent wanderings elsewhere, Madame Miseria went out to the Richmond District’s cold fog-blown Avenues. Here Ramon, upon his return, found gullible Chinese, but few warm Italians; few hayseed tourists, but many recently immigrated Russians. Russians could be tough.

  The Troika on Clement had a silver samovar in the window; guttural Slavic tongues vied with English at a crowded bar thick with forbidden cigarette smoke. Ramon slipped onto a stool just as the manicured hand of a short tousle-haired bespectacled man slapped a rare $500 bill down on the bar.

  Catching Ramon’s surreptitious glance at the bill, the Russian demanded, “You—something?”

  “I have been rude, forgive me,” said Ramon. Then he turned over the unresisting hand to see its palm. “Back in Mother Russia . . .” He paused diffidently. “I had a certain facility with . . . seeing things . . .”

  “Reading palms?”

  “Among other . . . abilities. As you know, your left hand suggests what your road through life might be. Your right hand shows what road you have actually taken. Perhaps I might . . .”

  The Russian said silkily, “What does this service cost me?”

  “There is no charge,” Ramon replied with offended dignity. Light glinted off the Russian’s glasses as he opened his right hand under the strong cylindrical back-bar lights. “Then tell me all, my friend.”

  Something in the man’s demeanor made Ramon uneasy, but after all, bogus palmistry was his basic profession. So he began tracing the central line that cut across the muscular palm.

  “This is your life line. See, it is long and strong. That is good. But here . . .” He indicated the place where another line crossed it at an angle. “See that . . . intersection?” He bent closer. “There is almost a break there. It could mean an illness, or . . .” His eyes widened. He swayed back slightly, casting a sharp glance at his companion. “Or . . . or danger.”

  “Danger?”

  “A psychic disturbance, a . . .” He paused again, then said, carefully, “Back in Matroushya, were you ever exposed to . . . influences that might have been connected with . . . evil?”

  “No. I had a very important job with the government.”

  Ramon took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. He shook his head. “Then it is better that I stop here.”

  “You cannot stop,” said the man with emotion. “Not now.”

  “But this is too . . . too heavy for me. I am of but limited skills, perhaps I misread . . .” He looked up into the disks of light-reflecting glass that hid the man’s eyes. “I wish you . . . no, I beg you, come with me and see my sister. She has the second sight, she is nearby . . .”

  Suddenly Ramon felt a most dreadful agony. It was the Russian’s hand. The bastard had grabbed his testicles in an iron grip! Ramon’s hands scrabbled ineffectually at the bartop.

  The Russian’s voice was low. “Yes, I had an important job with the government. I was with the KGB. We knew what to do with lying, cheating, conniving Gypsy scum like you. We would rip their balls off.” He twisted viciously before letting go. “A pity we two did not meet up in Matroushya before the fall.”

  Ramon staggered outside to the laughter of the Troika’s other patrons, almost throwing up with the waves of nausea passing through him.

  Tough, those Russians. Very tough.

  He turned quickly up the nearest of the Avenues and thus away from Clement Street: the Russian might quit chortling with his buddies too soon and glance at the bar in front of him. It had taken all of Ramon’s fortitude, while the Russian was twisting his balls, to lift that $500 bill off the bartop.

  four

  The great classic car grab by Daniel Kearny Associates (Head Office in San Francisco, Branch Offices throughout California, Affiliates Nationwide) was over. Wiley’s UpScale Motors was out of business. Or was it? Kearny and his people met in the empty second-floor reception area of DKA’s converted red-brick laundry building at 340 Eleventh Street, in the City’s SOMA District.

  Kearny sat on the scarred edge of the old desk, clipboard in hand. Behind him was the old-fashioned waist-high partition and gate that led to the head of the back stairs. Faintly from below came the clack of computers, the shrill of phones, a waft of exhaust fumes from the storage a
rea behind the building.

  Larry Ballard was tipped back in a straight chair against the wall, blue eyes sleepy, surfer-blond hair looking windblown. Far from chasing a woman last night, as Kearny had thought, he had been at a karate dojo on Ninth Avenue until midnight, working with the yawara stick the medieval Buddhist priests had called, rather fancifully, the lightning bolt of Siva. O’B and Bart Heslip were sitting on chairs under the windows.

  “Eight to go,” O’B said.

  “Seven,” Ballard objected. “We got twenty cars.”

  Giselle was sitting in what had been the receptionist’s swivel chair, facing Kearny. Beyond the wall behind her were the row of small, neat cubicles, facing the street, in which the field operatives did their paperwork. She brushed a long strand of golden hair back from her forehead.

  “Nineteen until we know how Ken made out with that 280Z.”

  “Ken doesn’t miss,” said Ballard.

  “Where’s Morales?” asked Bart Heslip.

  “He went home,” said Kearny.

  “He felt sick from—”

  “Aw, poor guy,” said Ballard.

  “Give him a break,” said Giselle.

  “Forget about Morales,” rumbled Kearny. “We’ve got to find those missing cars and drop a rock on them.”

  Giselle was handing out the list she had printed up.

  “These are the ones that are still out there.”

  1962 Corvette roadster, white/red interior, $28,500.

  1995 Panoz kit car, dark green/black interior, $39,995.

  1982 Ferrari 400I convertible, gold/black interior, $34,900.

  1970 Aston Martin Volante, black/leather interior, $95,000.

  1990 Jaguar XJS convertible, champagne/black interior, $17,995.

  1966 Mustang convertible, red/parchment interior, $12,500.

  1995 Acura NSX, black/black interior, $62,000

  The Datsun 280Z Ken had gone after was not on the list. Keep the faith, baby. Kearny did the math in his head.

  “I make it $290,890 out of sight and out of trust. I have to go back east for the national convention in Chicago this week. Giselle will coordinate from the office, Jane Goldson will assign your current files to the other field men. Get those cars!”

  Larry read from the list, “1970 Aston Martin Volante, black with a leather interior. Not many of those tooling around—”

  “Not the point, Reverend,” said O’B. He hadn’t had a drink of anything except nonalcoholic beer for almost two months, so his blue eyes were clear in his leathery freckled Irish face. “You know the salesmen are trying to keep those demos for themselves. We gotta get into the UpScale personnel files for their names and addresses and hangouts.”

  Ballard gave a skeptical laugh. “Big John would love to catch us trying a little B and E so he could yell for the cops.”

  Heavy shoes tramped up the uncarpeted back stairs. Ken Warren’s tough face and big shoulders appeared above the landing.

  “The 280Z?” Giselle asked him.

  “Hnit’n hnin na mbahn.”

  In the barn—meaning, in the bank’s storage lot.

  “That’s one guy we won’t have to check out,” said Bart.

  “What if they hide another one in his garage just to finesse us?” asked O’B. “We need that salesman list—”

  Ken Warren’s big hand slapped a sheet of creased, greasy, lined yellow paper down on the desktop, half a dozen names and addresses scrawled on it. “Hne odtha hnthnailsmn,” he said.

  * * *

  Backward on the storefront window in the lower-rent fringe of San Francisco’s sunny Noe Valley was

  TED’S TV REPAIR

  VCRs, Computers, Major and Minor Appliances

  Sitting with Lulu in the little apartment behind the shop, Staley Zlachi, King of the Muchwaya, looked anything but the stereotyped Gypsy. No brilliantined locks here, no swarthy skin, no golden earrings or twirled mustachios. Late in his seventh decade, Staley was white of hair, benevolent of belly, ruddy of face, everyone’s ideal Santa Claus. Lulu looked like Mrs. Claus, a jolly round-faced hausfrau up to her elbows in flour.

  Together they could have conned the stripes off a tiger.

  Almost. Last month in Tennessee they sued a clan of Tsurana Gypsies over a farm equipment deal that had gone sour. Each group had been conning the other, as usual using the gadjo legal system to settle their intertribal differences. But the Tsurana whispered in the judge’s ear that Staley was a Gypsy—and the case was thrown out. Staley paid all costs. A disaster!

  Now here they were in Baghdad by the Bay, one of the best places in the country to score big bucks in a hurry because here minorities ruled. By Gypsy law, San Francisco belonged to the Kalderasha. The least that dominant tribe’s Baro Rom—Big Man—might expect was a courtesy call, gifts, some quid pro quo. Staley had been left unable to offer any of those things. But Rudolph Marino, his heir apparent, was on his way across the Bay from Richmond. He would know how to raise money.

  The phone rang. Without salutation the recognized voice of Willem Van De Post spoke to Staley in Romani.

  “What are the Muchwaya doing to celebrate Millennium year?”

  “We have many projects in hand,” Staley said untruthfully.

  “So. As I thought. Nothing. Come to Rome. It is the two thousandth birthday of our Holy Mother Church. We are having year-long celebrations, festivities, huge crowds . . .”

  Staley had thought of it, of course. The hordes of believers, the urgency of their spiritual needs . . .

  “But the cost!” he exclaimed prudently.

  “I can guarantee you will recoup it in a week in Rome if I can use your people for an operation there in California. Here are the facts as I know them . . .”

  When Staley finally put back the receiver, he said, “That was the man in Italy who is married to your niece. I have never appreciated him before.”

  “Willem? Willem Van De Post?”

  “Yes, Willem. On the side of the angels, and a saint to protect us! Almost, we will have the Italian government behind us.”

  But to do what Willem asked they were going to have to poach on Kalderasha territory in a big way, and pool all of their enterprises to raise money besides. Somehow he would have to convince his tribe to do it, and avoid the cops at the same time.

  Just then the spring bell on the front door jingled merrily. Lulu went smiling out into the shop and instantly tagged as cops the two bulky men who had just entered.

  She chirped, “What can I get for you gentlemen?”

  “Ted Terrizi,” said the bald one.

  “Ted, better known as Staley,” said the other.

  Lulu tilted her head quizzically. “Staley?”

  “Staley Zlachi,” sneered Guildenstern, “as in Gyppo.”

  “Papa,” Lulu called in a musical voice.

  Ted’s business really was fencing hot electronics rather than repairing them. Staley came through the curtain still clutching the hastily snatched-up Chronicle sports section. His reading glasses were down on his nose, an old-fashioned watch chain glinted across his ample belly. He had kicked off his shoes on the way, a nice touch: who committed crimes barefoot?

  “Papa, they call you some other name I don’t know . . .”

  With a protective arm around her shoulders, he gave them a saddened, significant Alzheimer’s eye-roll above her head.

  “Mama, she don’t always get things so good these days.”

  “What she can get us is the present whereabouts of one of your people,” said good-cop Rosenkrantz as bad-cop Guildenstern slapped a faxed photo down on the countertop.

  “You know this guy here?”

  “He looks dead,” said Staley.

  “Dead as disco.” The two old people hurriedly crossed themselves. “The question ain’t whether he’s dead. It’s whether you know him.”

  Lulu’s left eyelid twitched. Staley immediately said, “He is one of our people, yes, God rest his soul. Ephrem Poteet.”

  �
�He’s got a wife, Yana,” stated bad-cop Guildenstern.

  “Oh, her we wouldn’t know nothing about.”

  Lulu spoke over him. “She once was of our kumpania but she has been declared marime.” She addressed herself pointedly to good-cop Rosenkrantz. “You know marime, mister handsome policeman?”

  “Yeah. You tossed her out on her can. What for?”

  “She stopped following the ways of the Rom.”

  Though Gypsies were seldom involved in murder cases, both Homicide cops had picked up enough lore over the years to know that this ritual rejection by the tribe could be for anything from breaking a sexual taboo—showing too much thigh, for instance, as opposed to breast, which didn’t count—to working a straight, gadjo job. In one famous case, a girl’s whole clan had been declared marime because she had joined the Peace Corps.

  “So we don’t know where Yana is,” Staley was going on. “Don’t nobody keep track of people who’ve been tossed out.”

  “But you know whether she’s in town or not.”

  Staley nodded unwillingly. “I hear maybe she is.” Lulu’s right eyelid gave a slight twitch, so he added smoothly, “She’s a fortune-teller when she’s working, I hope that helps you out.”

  “Calls herself Madame Miseria,” nodded ever-helpful Lulu.

  As Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern were leaving, a lean, very handsome man with gleaming black blow-dried hair brushed by them in the doorway without apology. His high-cheekboned face had the piratical lines of a mob attorney of Sicilian heritage, and his suit definitely wasn’t from the Men’s Wearhouse. The cops appreciated expensive clothes as only honest men who can’t afford them do; they knew it took a K or two, easy, to waltz that grey wool number out the door.

  “Looks like a Mafioso,” said Rosenkrantz, “so why’s he goin’ in there? In that suit he didn’t fall off a potato truck.”

  “Gonna put a horse’s head in their bed,” Guildenstern wheezed. “He wasn’t carrying anything he could fence, and besides, we’re Homicide.” As they were getting into their plain sedan, he added, “You catch Mama’s twitching eyelid?”