“You ready to talk about it?” she asked, eyeing him closely.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Running a con? That’s what I’ve been doing all my life. You should know that better than anyone, Leo.”

“No, I mean, why’d you come and get me, Freddy, the kid? You could’ve had your pick of just about anyone for this action.”

“I didn’t want just anyone. We go way back, Leo. And I thought you’d want to take another run at Jerry. Was I wrong?”

Leo threw another seashell into the water and watched it disappear. “Story of my life, Annabelle. I throw seashells at the waves, and they just keep coming.”

“Don’t get all philosophical on me.”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Is this because of your old man?”

“And I don’t need you playing my shrink either.” She moved slightly away from him, crossed her arms over her chest and looked out to sea where at the edge of the horizon a ship slowly made its way somewhere.

“With thirteen million dollars I could buy a boat big enough to take across the ocean, couldn’t I?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess. I’ve never had a reason to price one.” He looked down at his bare feet, crinkled the sand between his toes. “Annabelle, you were always smart about your money, a lot smarter than me. After all the cons you’ve pulled, I know you don’t need the cash.”

“Who ever has enough money?” she said, still watching the boat drift by.

He picked up another shell and hurled it. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”

“Part of me doesn’t. The part of me I listen to knows I have to.”

“The kid says nothing?”

“The kid says nothing.”

“If this goes bad, I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen to us.”

“Then don’t let it go bad.”

“Do you have a single nerve in your body?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.” She picked up a shell and chucked it into the face of a crashing wall of water, then let the ocean race across her feet and ankles. “Are we good?”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“No more going ballistic on me?”

He cracked a smile. “That I can promise to no woman.”

As they walked back to the hotel, he said, “I haven’t heard anything about your mom in a long time. How’s Tammy doing?”

“Not great.”

“Is your old man even alive?”

“I wouldn’t be the one to know that, would I?” Annabelle answered.

Chapter 17

It took a full week to make the preparations. As part of that work Annabelle gave a list of the documents and IDs she needed to Freddy. When he came to the end of the sheet, he did a double take.

“Four U.S. passports?”

Tony looked up from his computer. “Passports? What for?”

Leo stared at him contemptuously. “What? You think you cross nutcase Jerry Bagger and stay in the country? Give me a break. Yours truly is going to Mongolia and becoming a monk for a few years. I’d rather wear a robe and ride a yak around than let Bagger cut little pieces of my body off while he’s screaming about wanting his dough back.” He returned to working on his disguise.

Annabelle said, “We need the passports to get out of the country for a while until things cool down.”

“Out of the country?” Tony exclaimed, half rising out of his chair.

“Jerry’s not infallible, but there’s no sense in being stupid. You can see the world, Tony. Learn Italian,” she advised.

“What about my parents?” Tony said.

“Send ‘em postcards,” Leo growled over his shoulder as he struggled to fit a toupee to his head. “Talk about your freaking amateur hour.”

“U.S. passports are difficult to make, Annabelle,” Freddy said. “They go for ten grand each on the street.”

Annabelle gave him a hard stare. “Well, you’re being paid six point five million to do these, Freddy.”

The man swallowed nervously. “I see your point. You’ll have them.” Freddy went off with the list.

“I’ve never even been out of the country,” Tony said.

“Best time to go is when you’re young,” Annabelle said, sitting down across from him at the table.

“Have you ever been out of the country?” he asked her.

Leo piped in. “Are you kidding? You think the States are the only place to run a con? Ha!”

“I’ve been around,” Annabelle admitted.

Tony looked at her nervously. “Well, maybe we could travel together. You could show me around. You and Leo,” he added quickly. “And I bet Freddy would want to come too.”

Annabelle was already shaking her head. “We split up. Four apart is much harder to catch than four together.”

“Right, okay, sure,” Tony said.

“You’ll have plenty of money to live on,” she added.

Tony brightened. “A villa somewhere in Europe, with my own staff.”

“Don’t start throwing the cash around. That’s a red flag. Start small and keep your head down. I’ll get you out of the country, and then you take it from there.” She sat forward. “And now here’s exactly what I need from you.” Annabelle explained Tony’s task in great detail. “Can you do it?”

“No problem,” he said immediately. She eyed him questioningly. “Look, I dropped out of MIT after two years because I was bored!”

“I know. That was the other reason I picked you.”

Tony looked down at his laptop and started typing. “I’ve actually done it before and fooled the place with the best security in the world.”

“Who’s that, the Pentagon?” Leo asked.

“No. Wal–Mart.”

Leo shot him a glance. “You’re kidding me? Wal–Mart?”

“Hey, Wal–Mart doesn’t mess around.”

“How quickly can you do it?” Annabelle asked.

“Give me a couple days.”

“No more than two. I want to test it.”

“I’ve got no problem with that,” he said confidently.

Leo rolled his eyes, said a silent prayer, made the sign of the cross and went back to his toupee.

• • •

While Freddy and Tony were working on their assignments, Leo and Annabelle donned disguises and headed to the Pompeii Casino. The largest casino on the Boardwalk and one of the newest, having risen from the ruins of an older gambling den, the Pompeii, true to its name, also sported a working volcano that “erupted” twice a day, at noon and six in the evening. What came out of the volcano wasn’t lava, but certificates that one could use to get drinks and food. Since casinos practically gave food and alcohol away to keep people gambling, it was not much of a sacrifice on Bagger’s part. However, people loved thinking they were getting something for nothing. Thus, the twice–daily eruptions were a surefire draw, the crowds lining up early and then proceeding to dump far more money in the casino than they would ever get back in food and liquor from the belches of the fake volcano.

“Leave it to Bagger to get morons to line up for that crap and then drop their paychecks in his casinos while they’re getting fat and drunk,” Leo snarled.

“Jerry collects chumps; that’s the lifeblood of the casino business.”

“I remember when the first casino opened here in ‘78,” Leo said.

Annabelle nodded. “Resorts International, bigger than any Vegas casino at the time except the MGM. Paddy ran some crews here for a while at the beginning.”

“Well, your old man never should have come back with you and me!” Leo lit a cigarette and pointed down the line of casinos. “I started out here. The casino crews back then were mostly locals. You had nurses, garbage truck drivers and gas jockeys all of a sudden dealing cards and running craps and roulette tables. They were so bad you could run any scam you wanted. Hell, you didn’t even have to cheat. You could make money just off their mistakes. That lasted about four years. I sent both my kids through college on the money I made back then.”

She looked at him. “You never talked to me about your family before.”

“Yeah, like you’re a real blabbermouth when it comes to that stuff.”

“You knew my parents. What could I add to that?”