You Can't Catch Me(37)

“Okay, maybe I have.”

“Of course you have,” I say. “We’re different now. Different than all of them.”

I motion to the crowd around us. So many families having a nice Friday together. I’d never had a day like this, full of candy and sunlight. I guess Jessie hadn’t, either, based on what she’d said about her upbringing. The LOT was dark in general, and then there was the Back Forest, where the old-growth trees were so thick it felt like no light could get through.

“I guess you’re right,” Jessie says. “But what does that have to do with conning someone?”

“It’s the challenge, I think. Seeing if you can get a stranger to trust you . . .”

I turn and look at the river. The water’s dotted with sailboats, paddleboards, and kayaks. I wonder what it would be like to be on one of them. The wind in my hair, the rough chop beneath my feet, the horizon a destination.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m pushing this, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself. It’s an impulse that’s gotten me into trouble before.

“What do you say?” I ask Jessie. “You want to do it?”

“I’d like to try,” Jessie says in a small voice.

I smile. “Cool.”

“Should we do three-card monte?”

“What about something a bit harder?”

“Such as?”

“It’s funny,” I say. “They all have these fancy names. Like the Widow or the Driver.”

She looks at the boats. “I don’t know those, but there is this one I read about once, I think it’s called the Bar Bill Scam? It’s this thing where you make nice with a guy and then pretend you can’t pay at the end of the evening.”

“That sounds like college. Or dating.”

She smiles. “True.”

“Are you serious?” I ask. “You want to do this?”

“Ah, hell, why not? It’ll help defray our costs since this trip was a waste and all. And it might give us some insight into Jessica Two, right?”

“It could. So, we hit on a guy and get him to buy us dinner?”

“Basically.”

I look down at what I’m wearing. Broken-in chinos and a stretched-out long-sleeve T-shirt I think I stole from Liam years ago. Jessie’s a bit neater, in a pair of slacks and a short-sleeve shirt with flowers on it, but neither of us is dressed for fine dining. “I don’t think we look the part, though that might be an advantage.”

“How so?”

“I think you need to be unexpected. That way, they don’t see you coming.”

I look at Jessie. She’s nodding in agreement. We probably shouldn’t be doing this, but I have to admit I don’t see the harm in it, so long as we pick someone who can afford to pay at the end of the evening. Is it really any different from the nice meals I’ve had on a guy I had no intention of sleeping with or ever seeing again?

Moral relativism. That’s Liam’s voice in my head. But for once, I want to banish it.

“Okay,” Jessie says. “Let’s do it.”





Chapter 16

Bar Bill Scam

The Back Forest wasn’t just a place; it was an idea. Sort of like the cave that Luke goes into on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back—somewhere where your worst fears could be realized. We were provided with a tent, a shovel, some matches, and a water jug. That was it. Any food we ate, anything else we needed, we were on our own. I remember how quiet it was in that thick wood. How Kiki tried to hide her tears from me. I remember notching a tree when I thought a day had passed and then giving up on the other days because night and day were barely distinguishable.

“Will they come for us?” Kiki asked me every “morning” as we rose from the beds we had fashioned out of leaves and dirt when our internal clocks woke us.

“They will,” I assured her, though I barely believed it myself.

Solitary confinement, it was supposed to be. Only the forest was alive. We were cut off from the others, and in the end, even from ourselves. For Kiki, it was a descent into an even stricter obedience. She would barely blink without permission.

But for me, it was the solidification of an idea. I would find a way out. And when I did, no one would ever find me.

Here’s how the Bar Bill Scam goes down.

We find a restaurant that has a happy hour from five to seven. It’s a low-key place where a man might stop in for a drink before he heads home for the night. There’s a large square bar in the middle of the room surrounded by high-top tables. English pub food, and a mix of regulars and one-timers with a sleepy-looking bartender wiping down the bar. Perfect.

We take up seats away from one another around the bar. Jessie pulls out her book; I look at my phone. We both order a glass of white wine. These are the signals that we want to be disturbed. Because nothing says Talk to me like “I’m busy reading,” if you’re a man on the make.

Sure enough, within five minutes, a man in a suit with his necktie loosened sidles up to Jessie. He’s holding a full tumbler and strode past fifty a few years ago. I don’t see a ring from where I’m sitting, but he looks married. Jessie puts down her book reluctantly and begins to make small talk. She gives him clipped answers to begin with, then opens up slowly until he makes her laugh. He signals for a waiter, and she orders a glass of champagne and asks to see the menu. The champagne is a test we devised in our hastily made plan. If he balks at the price, then we’ll abandon and move on to another mark.