Money Men

during the last stretch, though the sides were still red and frizzy. He ordered another straight soda.

The bartender washed glasses. 'I've seen you before,' he said. His facial features were small, rodentlike, except for a set of oversized, improperly spaced teeth. He wore a long-sleeved polka-dot shirt with underarm stains.

'Think so?'

'Yep. You used to be with Tony Dio a few years back. I was tending bar at the Crossroads in Beverly Hills. You and him used to come in all the time. You guys were always buying rounds.'

So big fucking deal, thought Red. 'Small world,' he said, looking at his watch. Ronnie, where are you? he said to himself.

The little man filled a glass with ice, poured soda, and placed it gently next to Red's half-full drink. His fingernails were dirty. 'I remembered because of the soda. You always ordered straight soda. I never forget a drink…Name's Gabe.' He hesitated a moment before sticking out his hand. 'You probably remember me.'

They shook hands. As Red had feared, the handshake suddenly made things chummy. Gabe rested his elbows on the bar and leaned close to Red's face.

He whispered, 'I figure you must have just got out. I remember the case in the papers. Five years ago. It took the bank months to figure out what had happened. What was it? Phony bank loans to get stocks?'

Red shook his head. 'Phony stocks to get bank loans.'

'Yeah.' The bartender beamed. 'How did it work?'

'Too complicated to explain.' Red looked at his watch again.

'I'm glad to see classy dudes like yourself in here. You ain't got no worries in here. I know most everybody that comes in. What goes down in here stays here. No turkeys in this crowd.' He wiped his hands on the front of his pants.

Gabe shuffled to the end of the bar and served drinks to some bookmakers who had been alternately using the phone in the men's room. He hurried back to his old buddy.

Red cringed.

'Tony Dio's big now. Real big,' Gabe said. 'He can get anything done.'

'That's what I hear,' Red said.

Ronnie Boyce walked in the door in a blast of acrid L.A. heat, and Red's entire stomach felt better immediately. He motioned to Ronnie with both hands.

'What took so damn long? I thought you got popped or something. Jesus!'

Ronnie sat down on a barstool. 'Couldn't find a bus back. I parked it down on Central Avenue. When the cops find it, they'll figure some nigger stole it.' He motioned to the bartender.

'Very good. Very good,' said Red. He removed a ball-point pen from his pocket and wrote on a cocktail napkin 'Recovery operation.'

'I'm proud of you, little brother. Stage one is complete,' he said. 'We're ahead of the game by ten grand. I want you to keep two grand for yourself right off the top. Buy yourself some clothes or something.' He spoke is earnestly as possible, not sure if even dumb-as-a-rabbit Ronnie would buy what he said.

'I'll need the rest to start setting up the 'front.' Just like we talked about in the joint. These things take money. For a successful project we'll need a dummy office in Century City or on Wilshire Boulevard-and that takes money. You know that. Put the bucks in to get the bucks out. The suckers are out there just waiting. Right, partner?' Red put his arm around Ronnie's shoulder, waiting for a reaction. Ronnie nodded.

Red continued, speaking briskly. 'With the getaway and everything, I still haven't got the exact details. I want you to relax and tell me just what happened in the room. After a caper it always pays to check for loose ends.'

Ronnie's voice was youthful, soft. 'I knocked on the door; he let me in. He was alone. Everything went pretty much just like you told me it would. He shows me the buy money, then I set my case on the bed between me and him. I whip out the sawed-off and let loose. You should have seen it. He flew back all the way across the room. And you know something? When he went down, I saw that he had an ankle gun on. If I wouldn't have done him, he might have done me, right?' Ronnie tapped his chest with his thumb.

Red swallowed hard. 'You did exactly the right thing. You just made the big time. I'm proud of you, little brother. Your old Red buddy is proud.'

Ronnie smiled broadly. 'It really worked, just like you said it would.'

Red patted his arm. 'And the best part is that there isn't going to be any heat from the cops. When the cops find a stiff in a motel room, the first thing they do is run fingerprints. When they do that, they see that the dude has an arrest sheet. The first thing the cops figure is that it was nothing but a thieves' argument and they close the case. That's as far as they go. See, I know how the pigs think. I used to have a lot of 'em drinking in my place in Long Beach in the old days. I used to hear 'em talk when they didn't think nobody was listening. You see, they actually like to find a dead thief. They get off on that kind of shit. And that's no lie. That's how they are. To them a dead thief is just less work.'

Ronnie nodded his head without speaking, an athlete listening to the coach after competition.

Red continued. 'I want you to take the sawed-off and stash it like I explained, and then enjoy yourself for a couple of days. Go see your old girlfriend like you been talking about. Why don't you meet me here day after tomorrow and I'll fill you in on stage two. As soon as we have enough capital, we'll be able to pull one big con and we'll be set for life, partner.' The words flowed easily for Red. It was the same thing he had been telling Ronnie in stir for years, though Red knew that the last thing he would ever do would be to get involved in a confidence caper again. He was well known by the Feds and bunco cops from Hollywood to Fort Lauderdale. Christ, how many confidence men had red hair?

Red was too old to get his own hands dirty and end up doing another stretch.

FIVE

On the way to the hotel Red Diamond drove past the glass-and-steel high-rise buildings in L.A.'s Century City: twenty-story condominium structures and plushly carpeted office suites for rent or lease. This is where I belong, thought Red. My milieu. He knew that with a few bucks he could rent an office in one of the high-rises again. He could start putting people on 'hold' by pushing the lighted buttons on the phone. 'Hold, please, for Mr. Diamond,' the secretary had said. The high-rise world was a mystery to the pussy-headed group counselors at Terminal Island. 'Inflated self-image,' one had called it. 'Don't you think your schemes could relate to your childhood conflicts?' the counselor had asked him.

Red remembered how he had slowly, carefully, over the period of a full year of tedious prison-counseling sessions, faked coming around to the counselor's point of view. It had been sort of a challenge, not to mention that there was nothing else to do. The pussy-headed dollar-an-hour dumb bastard finally bought his rehabilitation act and at the end of the year gave him a progress rating high enough for parole consideration. The counselor had taken the hook and swallowed it because he was like every other sucker in the world-prone to accept his own fantasy and susceptible to flattery. Red's credo proved true again.

Imagine, Red thought, a two-bit Department of Prisons civil servant with two semesters of psychology writing a report on the behavior of Mr. Rudolph Diamond, former president of Gold Futures Unlimited, Sun King Recreational Properties Corporation, and the International Investment Bank of Nassau, in the Bahamas, whose buxom young secretary used to blow him as he leaned back on the Danish modern sofa in his office at the Century Building.

Red pulled up in front of the multistoried hotel and handed the car keys to a doorman dressed like a caballero.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the suite door. He was conscious of dampness in his armpits.

The door was opened quickly, chain still on, by a husky man in a flowered shirt. Red noticed a gun bulge at the man's waist.

'I have an appointment with Tony Dio,' Red said.