The Heist

around the room and frowned. “It smells nice, and there aren’t any urinals, but other than that, this isn’t any different than a men’s room.”
    “What were you expecting?”
    “A bowl of mints, maybe a tea service.”
    She turned and looked at him. “You spent three years undercover as a white supremacist?”
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “How did you live with yourself?”
    “I became an alcoholic,” Jessup said, and left the room.
    She gave herself another once-over, unbuttoned the third button of her blouse, and followed Jessup.
    Nick Fox wore a white T-shirt and polyester slacks and sat at a gunmetal gray table. He was in a lopsided chair, his hands cuffed behind his back and the chain around his ankles locked into a steel eyelet on the floor. He faced the mirror that hid the agents watching him in the next room, but of course he knew that they were there. It was like he was starring in a play and the stage lights were so bright in his eyes that he couldn’t see the audience in the darkness.
    Kate came in carrying a fat, dog-eared file, her crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to show cleavage. He knew the show of cleavage wasn’t normal for her, and he appreciated the effort. He would have appreciated it even more if she’d popped a fourth button.
    He smiled and Kate was almost blinded by the wattage. How does he do that? she wondered. She should have worn sunglasses, she thought, like those poker players on TV.
    She sat down at the table, placed the file in front of her, opened it, and examined one of the pages. “You’re in a lot of trouble,” she said.
    “I know,” he said. “I was taken to an ER last night and I don’t have medical insurance. It’s going to cost me a fortune. Those crooks charge fifty dollars for a tongue depressor.”
    “Was your tongue depressed?”
    “Thankfully, no. It’s very well adjusted.”
    “Because it gets a lot of exercise. You’ve got to be a fast talker in your line of work.”
    “I’m a professional hand model.”
    “You’re a con man and thief, wanted on three continents,” she said. “That’s how I knew you’d be at the Kibbee. It was the first time in decades that anyone knew exactly where to find the Crimson Teardrop and a rare window of opportunity to steal it. You couldn’t resist. I was at the auction house in Santa Barbara, waiting for you to make your move before the diamond sold, but you didn’t show.”
    “Sorry to have disappointed you,” he said.
    “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re here now, that’s what counts. And unless you can make a deal with me today, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in prison.”
    He cocked his head, bewildered. “I don’t see why.”
    “Well, for starters, we have you for impersonating a police officer, wiretapping, and possession of stolen property,” she said. “And that’s not even counting the outstanding charges on your last swindle.”
    “What swindle?”
    “You bilked six men in Las Vegas out of a million dollars each for organ transplants that they didn’t get.”
    “Really? There are people who’ve accused me of that?”
    She shifted in her seat. She didn’t know whether he’d guessed, or knew for a fact, that not one of the six men had ID’d his photo, or admitted to paying him a dime, or pressed any charges. They didn’t want to confess to trying to buy their way to the top of the organ transplant lists and they didn’t want him caught to contradict their story. So they claimed they’d come for face-lifts and had only seen a nurse. Each man gave a conflicting description of her.
    “No,” Kate said.
    “Then I’m confused. What swindle are you talking about?”
    “You trespassed on private property. You impersonated an engineer.”
    “Those are federal offenses?”
    “You swindled a hospital for asbestos cleanup that you didn’t do.”
    “Did they say they paid me?”
    “No,” she said, “but—”
    “Is there asbestos in the hospital?”
    “No,” she said.
    “I rest my case,” he said, and smiled at her. “Can I go now?”
    She wanted to hit him with a bus all over again. She was glad her back was to the mirror, to the agents who were watching, so they couldn’t see the flush on her face and her frustration as the interrogation slipped away from her.
    Kate leaned forward against the table. “There are dozens of other swindles and heists we haven’t talked about yet. You’ve been doing this for a very a long time, Nick. Scotland Yard, the