“How come?” Freddy asked.

“Because she has the one quality Paddy never had. Fairness. She got it from her mother. Tammy Conroy was a straight–up piece of work, at least for a con.”

“Fairness? Strange quality for people like us,” Freddy remarked.

Leo said, “Paddy always led his teams with fear. His daughter does it with prep and competence. And she’ll never ever screw you. I can’t count the times Paddy blew town with the entire haul. That’s why he ended up working alone. Nobody would touch his action anymore. Hell, even Tammy finally ditched him, so I heard.”

Freddy remained silent for a bit, apparently letting all this sink in. “Any word on the long con?”

Leo shook his head. “It’s her game to call. I just work here.”

As Freddy and Leo headed into the kitchen to get some coffee, Tony peered around the other doorway. He’d left his notebook in the room and had come back in time to hear the entire conversation. He smiled. Tony loved knowing things people didn’t think he knew.

Chapter 9

The scam netted $910,000 because Tony had gotten greedy at one of the ATMs.

“What’s the poor schmuck gonna have to do, trade in his Pagani?” he said snidely.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Annabelle said firmly as they sat over breakfast in a new rental house five miles from the first one, which had been thoroughly cleaned in case the police paid it a visit. All the Hertz cars used to steal from the thirty accounts had been turned back in. The disguises that had been worn were in several Dumpsters scattered around town. The money was in four different safe–deposit boxes that Annabelle had leased. The film footage and computer files had been erased and the notebooks destroyed.

“What’s an extra ten grand?” Tony complained. “Hell, we could’ve taken ‘em for a lot more than what we did.”

Annabelle pushed a finger hard against his chest. “It’s not about the money. When I lay out a plan, you follow it. Otherwise, you can’t be trusted. And if you can’t be trusted, you can’t be on my team. Don’t make me sorry I picked you, Tony.” She stared the young man down and then turned to the others.

“Okay, let’s go over the second short.” Then she eyed Tony again. “And this one is a face–to–face con. If you don’t follow instructions and play the mark just right, your ass is going to the can, because the margin of error is zero.”

Tony sat back, not looking nearly as enthusiastic.

She said, “You know, Tony, there’s nothing better than seeing a mark eye–to–eye and taking a measure of him and yourself.”

“I’m cool.”

“Are you sure? Because if it’s a problem, I need to know right now.”

He glanced nervously at the others. “I got no problems.”

“Good. We’re heading to San Fran.”

“What’s there?” Freddy asked.

“The mailman,” Annabelle replied.

• • •

They made the six–hour drive to San Francisco in two cars, Leo and Annabelle in one, Tony and Freddy in the other. They cut a two–week lease on a corporate condo on the outskirts of the city with a partial view of the Golden Gate. For the next four days they took turns pulling surveillance on an office complex in a posh suburb of the city. They were watching the pickups from the outdoor mailboxes that were filled to overflowing on most days, with packs of mail stacked next to the stuffed container. On each of those four days the mail carrier arrived within a quarter–hour window, between five and five–fifteen.

On the fifth day, at precisely four–thirty, Leo, dressed as a mail carrier, drove up to the box in a postal truck that Annabelle had gotten from a contact of hers an hour’s drive south. This gent specialized in providing everything from armored cars to ambulances for less–than–honest purposes. From a car she was parked in across from the mailbox Annabelle watched Leo approach in the truck. Tony and Freddy were posted at the entrance to the complex. They’d alert Leo through his ear fob in case the real mailman showed up early. Leo would only be taking the mail stacked outside the box, since he didn’t have a key to unlock the box. He could’ve picked the lock quite easily, but Annabelle had vetoed that as unnecessary and potentially dangerous in case anyone saw him do it.

She’d said, “What’s lying on the ground or sticking out of the box will be plenty.”

As Leo stacked the mail inside his truck, Annabelle’s voice came through his earpiece.

“You’ve got what looks to be a secretary running at you with some mail.”

“Roger that,” Leo said quietly. He turned and faced the woman, who looked disappointed.

“Oh, where’s Charlie?” she said.

Charlie, the regular mailman, was tall and good–looking.

“I’m just helping Charlie out because there’s so much mail,” Leo said politely. “That’s why I’m here a little early.” He looked at the stack of letters in her hands, and he held out his mail sack. “You can just dump that right in here.”

“Thanks. Payroll’s gotta go out tonight. That’s what’s in the letters.”

“Really? Well, I’ll take super–good care of them, then.” He smiled and went back to collecting the stacks as the woman returned to her office.

• • •

Back at the condo they searched through the haul quickly, dividing up the usable from the irrelevant. The letters that were of no use Annabelle had Tony take down to the corner mailbox and post. The others were pored over by Annabelle and Freddy.

When Tony came back, he said, “You guys cut loose a bunch of payroll checks. What’s that about?”

“Payroll and accounts receivable checks are useless to us,” Freddy said with the confidence of the expert he was. “They have laser locks binding the toner ink to the paper and secure number fonts so you can’t alter the dollar amounts.”

“That never made any sense to me,” Leo said. “Those are checks going out to people they know.”

Freddy held up a check. “This is what we want: a refund check.”

Tony said, “But they’re being sent to complete strangers.”

“That’s what doesn’t make sense, kid,” Leo said. “You put security stuff on checks sent out to people who work for you or you do business with. And you got zilch on checks going out to who the hell knows.”

Annabelle added, “I picked that office complex because it houses regional offices for a number of Fortune 100 companies. Thousands of checks flow out of those places every day, and those accounts are loaded with money.”

Five hours later Freddy had assembled eighty checks. “These are pretty clean. No artificial watermarks, warning bands or detection boxes.” He carried the checks over to a small workshop he had set up in one room of the house. With the others’ help he placed Scotch tape over the signature line, front and back of each check, placed them in a large baking pan and poured nail polish remover over the paper. The acetone in the polish remover quickly dissolved everything on the checks that wasn’t written in base ink. After they’d taken the tape off the signature lines, all that was left were essentially eighty blank checks signed by the company’s CEO or CFO.

“Somebody ran a bad check on my account once,” Leo said.

“What’d you do?” Tony asked.

“Tracked the bastard down. He was an amateur, doing it more for kicks, but it still pissed me off. So I did a change of address on him, diverted all his bills, and the guy ended up being dunned by creditors for a couple of years. I mean, you got to leave this stuff to the professionals.” Leo shrugged. “Hell, I could’ve ripped him off big–time, assumed his ID, the whole nine yards.”

“So why didn’t you?” Tony asked.

“I’ve got a heart!” Leo growled.

Freddy said, “After we dry out the checks, I’ll redo the Federal Reserve routing numbers.”

“What’s that?” Tony asked.

“Are you sure you’re a con?” Leo asked in a bemused tone.

Tony exclaimed, “My tools are computers and the Internet, not nail polish. I’m a twenty–first–century con. I’m paperless.”