Con Academy by Joe Schreiber Page A

place down around your boss’s ankles.
    And that’s when we all suddenly disappear, along with the mark’s money.
    For a guy like Brandt, I’m thinking two million isn’t too much to expect.
    Dad listens to everything I’m saying without adding a word. Finally he goes to the closet, takes a shirt off a hanger, sniffs the pits, and slips it on. “That scam got us clipped down in Trenton, in case you forgot. What makes you think it’ll work any better here?”
    â€œWe didn’t go wide enough with it in Trenton,” I tell him.
    Dad sighs. “Kid, you tax me. You really do.” He rubs one freshly shaved cheek. “Who’s the mark?”
    And I tell him about Brandt Rush.
    Â 
    â€œTwo
million?
Seriously?”
    That’s how I know he’s interested, because he’s already sitting at the wobbly, cigarette-marred table in the corner of the cheap hotel room, his coffee forgotten, while he works out the figures in his small, careful handwriting. “If he’s that rich already, what makes you think he’ll go for it?”
    I hold up two fingers. “One, he’s greedy, and two, he holds a grudge. This is a guy who’s still creased that Moira McDonald turned him down for Homecoming last year, and he got twice as creased when I told him that her father sent me in to cheat him in his own casino. He’s ripe for the plucking.”
    Dad thinks about that for a long time, looking down at the numbers he’s been adding up and then back at me.
    â€œIf we do it—and I’m saying
if
—we’d need a base of operations, computers, office furniture, and at least six guys who look like they know what they’re doing . . .” His gaze drifts slightly off to the right as he considers the necessary components of a swindle this size. “They’ll have to work on percentage. I don’t know if I can swing that.”
    â€œI was thinking I could talk to Uncle Roy,” I say.
    Dad grimaces but doesn’t argue, tipping me off that he’d already been thinking the same thing. For him, going to Mom’s side of the family for money is kind of like walking into a Boston sports bar wearing a Yankees cap. But if we need operating cash, Uncle Roy might be our only option.
    â€œHow soon does it need to be set up?” he asks.
    â€œThat’s the wrinkle.” I sit down across from him. “I need to pull the whole caper off before Thanksgiving.”
    â€œFour weeks?” Dad scowls. “That’s nowhere near enough time to set the hook and make our play.”
    â€œIt’s going to have to be.”
    â€œWhat’s your hurry?”
    I don’t say anything.
    â€œYou might as well tell me, kid. I’m gonna find out anyway.”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” I say. “I just don’t want this dragging on too long, that’s all. It’s too much exposure.”
    Dad just squints at me. He’s about to say something when there’s a knock. We both stand up immediately, our old instincts instantly activated, and I duck into the bathroom as he crosses the room to the door, careful to keep away from the window. “Hello? Who’s there?”
    â€œWho do you think, silly?” a woman’s voice asks from outside.
    I hear the lock disengage and the rattle of a chain.
    â€œHey, baby,” Dad says casually, in a voice that curdles the acid in my stomach. I’ve left the bathroom door open a crack, and I can see a woman step inside the room. She’s dyed blond, probably in her late thirties but with that finely wrinkled tiredness around the eyes that comes from hours spent at the end of a bar with a cigarette in her hand, getting guys like my dad to buy her drinks.
    â€œI forgot my scarf here,” she says. “I thought I’d come back and see if you were still around.”
    â€œMy loss,” Dad says. “I was just heading out for the