After Kylie had slammed three cups of hotel syrup-coffee and Micah had finally finished his morning toilette, Kylie flounced into the bathroom and turned on the shower, and then she sat on the toilet to whisper into her phone. “I’m so sorry.”
Her phone had been blowing up since two o’clock in the morning the night before when her friends had realized Kylie hadn’t made the rendezvous.
“Seriously, where were you?” Rita demanded, her eyes worried. Her voice sounded tinny coming from Kylie’s cheapo phone. “We sat in that car for forty-five minutes before we finally got your lame-ass text about how you were pulling an extended game on some guy. Priyanka said she saw you with the blond Italian who ghosted you. Please, for the love of God, tell me that you didn’t go back for seconds.”
“Well,” Kylie said, waffling.
“Please, no,” Priyanka said. “Please, dear God, no. I tried to text you to tell you to get away from that dude. Please tell me that you didn’t spend the night with the dude who tried to rip you off for eighty grand.”
“Things got complicated last night,” Kylie told them.
Rita said, “Say a number between one and five if somebody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to call us.”
“Ten! I’m fine. There isn’t a problem.”
Alma asked, “Did you go to Mass this morning? You didn’t have our money from the week. Salvatore Grande is going to be pissed.”
“Don’t worry about The Gecko’s money. I always get it to him. We’ve never had a problem, right?”
The other three women agreed, but Alma said, “So, spill it. I think we need to come rescue you because you’re in the Blond Italian’s cult.”
Kylie continued, “Okay, so, the blond Italian found me again last night. He explained what happened.”
Much groaning and slapping came through the phone as all three eye-rolled.
Rita asked, “Girl, what the hell is your problem? ‘Explained what happened.’ That’s how you take an easy mark again.”
“So, I’m in his hotel suite, and he didn’t try to frame me last night,” Kylie said.
“Talk about the bar being so low that it’s on the ground,” Rita said.
“Look, he’s pulling a really big job, and he said he’d give me half a million dollars to pull it with him,” Kylie told them.
Priyanka said, “Yeah, sure. And I’ll give you a whole million dollars to get the hell out of his hotel room before you end up owing the Tropicana eighty grand, too. You are at the Tropicana, aren’t you?”
“No, we went back to his suite at the Ocean Resort last night.”
More lamenting and slapping.
Alma asked, “You let this guy take you to a second location? What the hell is wrong with you? We never, ever do that. That’s how girls get killed.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“So, what was it like?” Priyanka asked her. “Was it like this guy seemed too good to be true? Like he offered you an impossible amount of money to do something you knew was wrong? Because that is the very definition of how a con starts. You can only con people who want to do something wrong, who feel like they’re getting away with something, who know they’re breaking the rules. Don’t be the mark, Kylie.”
“I’m not the mark,” Kylie insisted.
Always the most levelheaded, Rita asked, “Then what are you?”
Oh, God. It sounded stupid even as it left Kylie’s mouth. “I’m his accomplice.”
A crescendo of groaning, slapping, and retching sounds emanated from her phone and echoed off the bathroom tile.
Kylie said, “Look, I know it sounds bad, but I trust this guy, at least a little bit, at least enough to see if he actually gives me the money. If he doesn’t give me the up-front money, I’m out of here, I promise.”
“So he hasn’t given you any money yet,” Priyanka said. “Doesn’t that seem like a red flag to you?”
Kylie argued, “He bought me even bigger earrings last night. Right, Priyanka? She saw us in Tiffany and Company again.””
“Yeah, he did that last time,” Priyanka said, “and you ended up paying for them, or at least added to your room charge that the Borgata tried to stick you with.”
“He said the up-front money would be here soon,” Kylie said.
More scoffing from her friends.
Alma said, “That is the oldest line in the book. Did he ask you to lend him some money because he’s going to have a whole bunch soon, either as an inheritance or he’s going to sell a bunch of stock, and then he’ll pay you back with interest?”
“No!” Kylie scream-whispered into her phone.
Rita said, “Okay, okay. Kylie can read people well. She makes the lion’s share of the profits every night because she knows which mark to pick. Like when we did the lesbian breakup routine last weekend, she zeroed in on the guy who was not only going to give her some cash but also jewelry. Kylie has a gift. If she says that this guy is going to cut her in on a deal, if her nose smells that this guy is where the money is, maybe there’s some substance there.”
Priyanka and Alma were quiet.
Rita asked, “But Kylie, are you sure you’re thinking with your brain and not your clam?”
Kylie chuckled and said, “If it was just sex, I would have bolted that first night before he got the chance to be the first one to leave, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have talked to him a second time. If I smell anything wrong, if anything seems too dangerous or too weird or too good to be true, I promise I will leave. I will stand up and walk out and not look back.”
Rita said, “Okay. We trust you, and we are always here for you if you need backup. Now, what’s this con that he wants you to run with him?”
Kylie winced. “I think we’re going to swindle Salvatore Grande out of a painting worth half a million dollars.”
The groans turned to howls this time.
Rita said, “First of all, have you lost your damn mind, thinking that you’re going to swindle a mafia boss? And second, if the painting is worth half a million dollars, and he offered you half a million dollars, why is he doing this? There’s no profit in it for him.”
Yep, that was what had been bothering Kylie, and she hadn’t been able to quite put her finger on it. “That’s a damn good question. I know from looking online that the last couple of paintings by this artist sold for around half a million dollars, but maybe he thinks this one is worth more. And he said that the upside might be five million or more.”
Priyanka asked, “Does he have a buyer set up? Is this a commission job?”
“You know, I think this job is bigger than what he said. He said we’re going to sell the painting to the Sovereign Prince of Monaco.”
Alma and Priyanka burst out laughing.
Priyanka said, “Oh, honey. No.”
Rita was clucking, and Kylie could imagine her shaking her head while she asked, “Is he going to sell it to the prince of Nigeria, too?”
“Look, I know this looks bad, but there’s something about him,” Kylie wheedled. “If I get half a million dollars from this guy, we can all get out. We can pack our things and move to Alaska or Thailand, or somewhere Salvatore Grande will never find us. I know it seems crazy. It seems like betting on the double-zero in roulette. But sometimes, the double-zero hits. I’ve got a feeling about this guy. I’ve got a feeling that he could be our ticket out of Atlantic City and away from Salvatore Grande and to a better life.”
That shut them up.
Rita said, “You be careful. I need you back in one piece, Ky. If anything seems screwy about this, walk away. You can always tell Salvatore what this guy is trying to do, and Salvatore will take care of him for you. Salvatore’s finder’s fee would probably be worth more than any money this guy would actually cough up.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Kylie said.
“Don’t get hurt,” Rita told her. “You can stay for two days, but if he hasn’t come up with a whole hell of a lot of money by then, get the hell out.”