Callahan's Place 09 - Callahan's Con (v5.0) by Spider Robinson Page B

cause talk.”
    Bert nodded.   “We don’t want no more a that in the world than necessary.   Okay, gimme a minute.”   He sat back in his lounger, aimed his face at the horizon and closed his eyes.
    Zoey and I exchanged a glance.  
    Finally he opened his eyes, studied the horizon a moment, and nodded.   “Okay,” he said, “It’s risky, but at least it’s a shot.”
    We displayed respectful attentiveness.
    “Ya can’t take him out, ya can’t drop a dime on him, an ya can’t let him attack ya.   So there’s only one thing left ya can do.”
    “What, Bert?” Zoey asked.
    “You’re gonna have to con him, dear.”
    My wife and I smiled.
     
    *   *   *
     
    “We got some people who are pretty good at that,” Zoey assured him.
    “Really?”
    She nodded.   “Worldclass.”
    Bert nodded.   “That’s gotta help.”
    “I don’t know,” I said dubiously.   “Their experience has mostly been in conning humans.   How do you con a gorilla?”
    “Same way ya con a chimp,” Bert said, “or a college professor.   Ya figure out what he wants bad, and then sell him somethin that smells just like it.”
    “That’s what I mean,” I said.   “What Tony Donuts, Junior wants bad is everything .”
    Bert shook his head.   “Don’t matter.   Lotta guys want everything.   I known a few in my day.   But there’s always some one thing they want most .”
    “So how are we going to find out what Tony Junior wants most?” Zoey asked.
    “Oh, I know, kid,” Bert told her.   “Everybody does.”
    “You do?”
    “Sure.   He wants a button.”
    “Huh?”
    “He wants to get made.   Tony Junior wants ta be a wise guy.   Common knowledge.”
    I was skeptical.   “Are you sure, Bert?   The way I hear it, the Donnazio family and the Mafia have always given each other a wide berth.   I mean, I met the guy.   He’s not just a loose cannon, he’s a loose nuclear weapon.”
    “No argument,” Bert said, holding up his hands.   “I’m not talkin’ what he’s gonna get, I’m talkin what he wants.   Real bad.   I think it’s a way ta, like, succeed where his old man couldn’t.”
    Zoey was frowning.   “I don’t see how this helps us.   We can’t sell him a counterfeit mob membership card.”
    Bert’s hands were still held up; he turned them both around in a beats me gesture.   “I’m just tellin’ ya what he wants most.   He talked ta me about it one time, like soundin me out.   I hadda tell him I didn’t see it happenin.   He wants ta know, what if he put a couple mil on the table?   I told him it ain’t money, any asshole in a suit can bring in money.   Ta be made, from the outside…I ain’t sayin’ it never happened.   But it’d take something special.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    “I dunno.   Somethin’ different .   Outa the ordinary, like.   Bringin’ in a new territory…takin’ out a whole police department…dreamin’ up some new racket…somethin flashy like that.   And it’s hard to picture Tony Junior pullin’ off somethin’ that impressive.”
    Zoey said, “A new territory, you said?   How about Key West?”
    Bert shook his head.   “Nah.   Fuck’s heah?”
    Zoey shrugged with her eyebrows, conceding the point.   “Then I don’t get it.   How is shaking down bars in Key West supposed to help get Little Nuts a button?”
    Bert spread his spotted hands.   “Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?”
    The four of us sat for a silent while together and watched the sea, the sky, and all the sweating swarming people in the way.   Key West is people-watching paradise: you get to see them temporarily freed of nearly all the inhibitions that help define them back home up north, to see them with their wrapper off, so to speak.   Well, most of it: despite the lateness of the hour, the sun was so intense today that even drunken college kids slathered with Factor 100 sunblock had had sense enough to put at least a tee-shirt on.   The sun