The Big Con Read online

  A black Town Car appeared from the pine grove shadows and came up the driveway. Rebecca emerged from one of the rear doors. I waited for Julie St. Jean to step out, always the last one to arrive on the scene for maximum dramatic effect. I learned early on that she applied her showmanship to all facets of life, including the order of who came through the door last. But no one trailed Rebecca out of the sedan.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “No, I just got here,” I answered, and watched the sedan back out of the driveway. “Where’s the boss?”

  Rebecca sensed my impending frustration.

  “She’ll be here,” she replied firmly. “Let’s go inside.”

  Rebecca pulled a key from her purse and with some effort swung the big door open. She hurried over to the alarm panel but stopped a few feet short. There was no chirping that signified a code was needed. She stared quizzically at the little box and then made an obvious statement.

  “She must be here already.”

  “I rang the bell but didn’t get an answer,” I said, following Rebecca past a formal sitting room and into an expansive kitchen that looked like something out of a magazine photo shoot. Even the appliances seemed like decorations.

  I was drawn to the westward-facing wall, which was really more of a window than a wall. It ran floor to ceiling, and on closer inspection, I could see hinges in the frame that meant the windows could fold open like an accordion door. Each of these probably cost twenty-five grand, and the entire west wall was covered in them. That, more than any other ridiculously expensive feature in the house, filled me with envy.

  “Too bad it’s cloudy,” Rebecca said from the entrance to a hallway. “It’s an amazing view from Long Beach Harbor all the way up to Malibu.”

  But all I saw was a dense mist that shifted slightly in the onshore winds and made me slightly queasy as my eyes searched for something to fix on. I suddenly felt very cold and glanced around the room. They either didn’t believe in heat or the system was out of order, because the house held the kind of cold that seemed to permeate every object inside it. The expensive terrazzo floors were probably pleasant in the heat of summer but on a wintry day like today you wanted something soft—a heavy pile rug, a threadbare throw, a scattering of hay, anything to keep the cold from coming up through the soles of your shoes.

  Rebecca gestured for me to follow her. She led me down a long hallway lined with the same accordion doors as the other rooms. With no view to provide a distraction, it felt more like a dimly lit tunnel.

  I followed a few feet behind Rebecca and found myself studying her figure. She had always been a slender woman but up close she looked even thinner. She wore black slacks that were always two sizes too large. Her belt, already cinching a narrow waist, looked like it could tighten to yet another hole or two.

  I felt a little ashamed that I had known this woman for nearly twenty years and had only now taken the time to actually regard her with even the slightest interest. Julie’s gravitational pull was just too strong, I thought. When you see Jupiter, who thinks to gaze at the nameless moons orbiting it?

  The hallway banked away from the ocean and now there were rooms on each side of us. Rebecca humbly pointed out her office on the left—half the size of Julie’s on the opposite side and lacking the key feature of the house: any kind of view. We passed through a set of doors and entered the far southern wing. The décor changed dramatically from a pale, seaside color palette to something much more exotic.

  It looked like a smorgasbord of Buddhist, Hindu, Babylonian, Turkish, and whatever other living and dead cultures and religions sat under the very wide umbrella category of “the East.” Museum-quality artifacts lined the walls, and looming statuary stood guard in the corners. You could almost see the fingerprints of the looters who had “rescued” these antiquities from their tombs. Someone had overdone it on the frankincense air freshener, because it reeked of resin and made it difficult to breathe.

  Rebecca stood proudly off to the side to let me take it all in. I had entered what executives far above my pay grade referred to as “the Dojo.” This was where Power of One held its individualized coaching to work out specific challenges. These sessions were legendary among the C-suite members for their three-day antics and vows of secrecy regarding what went on. Over the years scraps had leaked out and rumors built them into an entire narrative that was probably only partly true. It was all part of the gimmick to make them “exclusive.” And as obvious as it was, I still resented that I had never been asked to participate. I was deemed worthy enough to teach their nonsense to the masses at the firm, but I didn’t warrant an invite into this sacred room.

  And it pissed me off.

  The annoyance that had been bubbling in me all morning was about to boil to the surface. I was annoyed that I had to work on the weekend, annoyed that I had to do so on the other side of the city on a cold Sunday, and annoyed that the person who put me in this situation didn’t feel it necessary to grace us with her presence.

  Rebecca unlatched the carved wooden doors to the official part of the Dojo. Beside the entrance was a stand holding a ceremonial rin gong singing bowl. I took up the mallet and struck the bell hard, too hard, and announced an entrance worthy of royalty.

  “Entering!” I shouted.

  Rebecca shot me a look that chastened me enough to regret the childish outburst. I grabbed the bowl in an attempt to silence it but the vibrations only made my hand numb and the bell continued its sickly tone.

  Rebecca’s glare went from me to an object in the dimly lit room. She took one step forward then two steps back. I entered the small room, which was covered in stone and sparsely decorated with a few low benches. At the center was another found object of some supposed religious significance, but on closer inspection I realized this one wasn’t very ancient at all.

  Her body was curled up like that of an exhausted child, her thumb extended toward her mouth where, if no one was watching, she’d find the soothing comfort to lull herself to sleep. Her head was cast in a halo of crimson, her long, blond hair now caught up in a matted mess in the sticky puddle.

  I stared at the blood and my breath seemed to escape me. I found myself on one knee in a pose of exaggerated genuflection. I placed two fingers onto the cold stone, solemnly bowed my head, and vomited all over the floor.

  JARGONITES

  Palos Verdes Estates police officers buzzed in and out of the front door to the house in an endless stream. I didn’t understand why so many uniformed officers were needed at an already-secured crime scene. The majority of them just stood around talking about last night’s game. Of the handful of groups, only one discussed the actual murder.

  They were led around by a young man in a new suit, the only one among them not in a uniform. I gathered he was new to the detective ranks by the way his peers followed him with begrudging respect and by the fact that he was relegated to perimeter duty when the real action was some hundred feet away in the Dojo. That didn’t stop him, however, from forming a hypothesis about the killer.

  “The perpetrator likely knew, or was very close to, the victim,” he stated, and got a lot of head-nodding from the officers around him. Group-think led them to view whatever the young detective said as gospel. “Faced with the consequences of his actions,” he continued, “disgusted with what he’d done to someone he was close to, he lost control of his bodily functions.”

  Unfortunately, the basis for this theory rested entirely on the fact that someone had thrown up at the crime scene. He incorrectly assumed it belonged to the murderer, not the guy sitting in a wingback chair ten feet from them.

  “Actually, that was me,” I said sheepishly. The nodding stopped and all eyes shifted in my direction. “I think it might have been—” I started, and then thought better of trying to explain it away on a stomach bug that was supposedly going around.

  The police officers stared at me with the kind of pity reserved for a half-a-man. The youn
g detective was less compassionate since I’d blasted a truck-size hole in his theory. He slowly made his way toward me.

  “What’s your connection to the deceased?” he asked.

  I used to think jargon was a scourge unique to the corporate world but later realized it was the weapon of choice for every incompetent in every job in existence. The words themselves might be different, but the intent behind them was always the same—use a made-up language to make it sound like you know what you’re talking about. Cops were some of the worst perpetrators.

  “The ‘deceased’ has a name,” I began, rising out of the chair to give my self-righteousness a little more weight. “Her friends know her by that name. The people who brought her into this world gave her that name.”

  The truth was I didn’t know her name either. We must have been introduced at some point but she was always “that woman with the sketchpad” to me. All that, however, wasn’t going to stop me from getting up on my cross in front of an insensitive cop.

  “She may be just an object to you, young man, but she’s still a human being to all of us.”

  The detective lowered his head like a contrite teenage boy. The other cops stared at their shoes. There was a fair amount of feet shuffling, and radios were turned down to bring a little more respectful quiet to the room.

  “I’m sorry,” the young detective finally said. “What was your friend’s name?”

  “That’s hardly important right now,” I stammered. “I knew her on a professional level. We were collaborators on a number of large initiatives at my firm. She was a creative dynamo, a real visionary, and a consummate team member. It’s…it’s tragic.”

  “Lois,” said a voice behind me. “Her name is Lois.”

  Rebecca emerged from the hallway with the senior detective in tow. She entered the circle of police and gave the unfortunate woman the respect she deserved.

  Lois Hearns was married, Rebecca related, didn’t have any children, and lived in Burbank with her husband. She had worked for Power of One for nearly three years on a contract basis. She might have been raised in the Midwest but Rebecca couldn’t be sure. She was an artist.

  “Was Ms. Hearns working with you recently?” asked the young detective.

  Before Rebecca could answer, the lead detective stepped in. To prove he was in charge, he asked the same question, just in different words.

  “She had a small role in one of our new engagement programs,” Rebecca said.

  “Can you think of a reason why she would be inside your house?” the older man asked.

  Clearly the detective knew something I hadn’t: that Julie St. Jean’s sprawling Palos Verdes complex was where Rebecca lived as well as worked.

  “I don’t know,” Rebecca replied.

  “Does she have access to your home? Perhaps a key?”

  “I’ve never given her a key,” she answered.

  The young detective chimed in that there was no sign of forced entry, but everyone, including Rebecca, ignored him.

  “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have one,” Rebecca clarified.

  There was a subtext to the latter part of her statement, something the lead detective quickly picked up on.

  “When’s the last time you spoke to your wife?” he asked.

  Everyone at work naturally assumed that Julie St. Jean was a lesbian because of the “irrefutable” evidence of a deep voice, butch haircut, and androgynous clothing. But I don’t think anyone had made the connection between Julie and Rebecca. I certainly hadn’t.

  Yet again, I took a moment to study Rebecca. For twenty years I looked over this woman’s shoulder when she spoke. We must have had countless conversations but not a single one that I could recall. I may have given her my physical time—often more than I gave to friends or relatives—but never a minute of my attention.

  “Two days ago,” Rebecca answered after a slight hesitation.

  “And where was that?”

  “We spoke on the phone.”

  “When’s the last time you saw her in person?” the detective pressed.

  “Almost a week,” she whispered.

  The lead detective glanced at his counterpart and made a subtle gesture in my direction. The young detective picked up on it and asked me to join him in the living room so he could ask me a few questions.

  Curiosity aside, I was grateful not to have to witness the emotional undressing of a woman in front of a group of strangers. Rebecca was being forced to divulge the details of her relationship and all its ugly imperfections to people who didn’t even know her. I didn’t want to be one of them.

  The young detective asked me a few meaningless questions and then drifted off to something more important. I lingered by the open front door. It felt like twilight but I knew it was much earlier. I found myself staring out through the trees toward the hypnotic lights of local news crews blinking on and off with each broadcast back to the studio.

  “Sir,” said a voice, “would you mind giving Ms. Piken a ride to a hotel?” Rebecca stood next to the young detective. They both looked tired.

  “If it’s on your way…” Rebecca began. “All these years in LA and I never got a license. I might be the only one,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Of course,” I answered, stirring myself back to the present. I must have been standing in the cold air for some time because my hands and legs were stiff. “Do you have a bag?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered quickly.

  I walked with her out to my car, we got in, and I pointed us down the driveway. As we passed through the front gate, camera lights illuminated the interior of the car with a pop of white, but no more than twenty feet from the driveway we found the peaceful darkness of a Palos Verdes road. By the time we reached the bottom of the great hill, the car’s heat was pumping nicely and I drove across the plain of Los Angeles in a drowsy half-sleep.

  Rebecca requested that I drop her off at the Omni Hotel downtown, which wasn’t far from my office. It catered to the corporations on Bunker Hill and charged exorbitant rates but apparently knew its clientele. I assumed that a complex filled with business types silently pounding out emails in their rooms or making brief phone calls with loved ones back home was the kind of quiet she needed.

  I pulled into the loop of the Omni and waved off the valet who was eager to break the boredom of a late Sunday afternoon with a jaunt over to the parking garage. Rebecca thanked me for the ride. I think I muttered something about an offer to help if she needed it but it probably didn’t sound sincere. Her response confirmed that, but also that she was okay with it.

  I found myself hovering as I watched her make her way inside. I saw her cross the expansive lobby and put the car into drive only when she disappeared into the bank of elevators.

  It was a short drive back to my home in Eagle Rock, where I could finally put this day behind me. And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about Rebecca and the fact that she never went to the hotel front desk. Only people who already have rooms go straight to the elevator bank.

  ENGAGEMENT

  I was back at the Omni Hotel the following morning.

  Sitting on one of the sofas in the tiered lobby, I nervously scanned the room for any sign of Rebecca. I had already placed five calls to her, but she never answered. The messages I left weren’t returned. I was approaching full-blown panic, not so much out of fear for Rebecca’s safety as out of fear of losing my job.

  It began earlier that morning with my regular touch-base with Pat Faber. The 6 a.m. start was deliberate as my boss liked to put people off their mark and see what kind of “mettle” they had when they weren’t at their best. I often fantasized about becoming his boss and holding a 9 p.m. meeting to see how he operated two hours past his bedtime.

  Surprisingly, Pat was already with someone when I got there. I heard a few insincere laughs from behind the door and knew the meeting was coming to a close. Paul Darbin, one of the managers on my team, emerged. He swung his ponytail around to wish Pat g
oodbye and then saw me standing there. We exchanged a few awkward pleasantries before Pat made it clear that his time was more valuable than ours.

  “Mr. Restic,” he barked playfully and several decibels louder than needed for the empty office. “How was the weekend? Good?”

  The second question saved me from having to answer the first. Pat wasn’t interested in chatter about the rain, anyway. These meetings had a singular purpose—to make me feel uncomfortable—and therefore weekend banter was not on the agenda. He put his arm around me in an unfatherly way and led me into his office.

  I had spent the better part of the prior evening and the drive in that morning figuring out how to get Pat to agree to hit the PAUSE button on the Power of One program and cancel that afternoon’s presentation to the board. That fifteen-minute discussion would determine my future with the firm. And without the chance to rehearse with Julie, I felt woefully unprepared.

  Getting Pat to agree to a postponement required a very delicate, very deliberate approach with carefully crafted language, which, after several minutes of buildup, would eventually reveal the reason for the delay: yesterday’s tragic developments in Palos Verdes. This was not something that could be rushed.

  “So what’s with this murder at Julie St. Jean’s house?” he asked before I could even sit down.

  Pat shot me an “I still got it” smile.

  “You beat me to it, Pat.” I laughed, and matched the look of pride on his face. “Again!”

  I filled him in on what little I knew but made sure he was aware that it was firsthand knowledge, i.e., that I had been working on a Sunday. I also purposely planted several set-up phrases like “lots of moving parts” and “searching for clarity” and “build the plane and fly it at the same time.” These would soften the beachhead when I inevitably worked back to the conclusion that we would need to postpone the presentation to the board.