Page 27 of A Long Con

“I have to tell you. We’re not Antonio and Santos, whoever they are.”

We stood in front of the sushi joint, which looked mainly like an expatriate restaurant. We could not go in and break bread with this man without revealing our mission.

O’Bell looked over at Berkeley then back at me. “You’re not Antonio and Santos, my helpers? But you look just like Antonio.”

I said, “Appearances can be deceiving. Listen, I don’t know or want to know what you’re up to here in Hermosillo.”

“Hunt club!” declared O’Bell, as though it should be obvious to anyone.

Berkeley butted in with fervor. “Yeah, well, that didn’t look like any damned squirrel you were shooting at.”

O’Bell knitted his brow. “Squirrel? Listen, if you’re not my helpers, then who the fuck are you?”

I answered him by pulling out the bearer bond and displaying it to him—from a distance, of course. O’Bell did try to swipe at it, but Berkeley took one sidestep and blocked him.

“So you know what that is,” Berkeley said, darkness shading his voice.

“That’s—that’s—how’d you get that?”

I said, “By beating the crap out of the thief who stole the painting from us, that Pothole weasel you bought it from. That painting belongs to us, and we’ll burn this bond once the painting’s back in our possession.”

O’Bell looked skeptical. “How do I know you’re the real owner?”

I had no clue, actually, but Berkeley whipped out his phone and swiped to a photo. Oh, right. I’d taken a photo of him standing in front of the painting when it was displayed on his family room table. He showed it to O’Bell as I secreted the bond back into my inner leather vest pocket. Yes, I’d begun wearing a sort of cut that made me look—and feel—like one of the Bent Zealots. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

A sea change came over O’Bell once he saw the photo. I should’ve been more suspicious of how rapidly he changed his stance. After all, he wasn’t even the buyer—he was the courier. There must be some bigger Mexican wig who wanted an authentic Duchamp for his collection. It was none of our business who that was as long as O’Bell gave us back the painting.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll bring you to my hotel room where the painting is after dinner. I want you to try this one type of sushi they’re famous for here.”

I looked at Berkeley. His eyebrows were raised in surprise too.

Berkeley shrugged. “Can’t hurt. We haven’t eaten anything in awhile.”

I ducked to get through the low threshold. Though we kept O’Bell in between us, he darted aside to talk to an Asian chef behind the bar. The bar, too, was low, but not low enough to sit cross-legged at. It was almost as though you had to kneel, as though it was built for some of the height-challenged people I’d worked with in the ring. Too, it was dark like a liquor bar, not the ideal lighting for eating something as delicate and focused as raw fish.

But there were several other Europeans there laughing like goons as they sampled a wide array of elegantly sculpted fish.

I sat in the middle, so Berkeley asked the older, elite woman, “What’re you eating?”

“This is killer whale,” she replied.

I knew that was illegal in the States, but obviously not here, where things were so much more loosely regulated.

“What are you sitting on?” Berkeley asked. “Mind if I see?”

She gestured at her butt, so Berkeley stood and went around the corner of the bar. “Oh!” he cried, enlightened. “I see!” The elite woman waved an arm and Berkeley dove into a dark corner, emerging with some large, puffy pillows.

That worked. Now I could see what I was eating. And the first plate set in front of me looked okay. Raw tuna on rice, the usual.

“Eat this slowly, savoring every bite,” instructed O’Bell. “Don’t just gulp it down in one bite. Take two, and don’t mess it up with wasabi.”

We did, and Berkeley and I shrugged at each other. I exchanged grins with the gray-haired tourist woman and her husband. For some reason we were sharing a special experience.

We had California rolls, unagi, and tobiko. We had specialties like a Dynamite Roll, a Super Crunchy roll, and seared salmon that looked like a piece of toast. I wasn’t sure what I was eating, but since the elite couple, Steve and Melanie, and the hipsters on the other side of the table behind a display of fake flowers all seemed to be jovial, I was jovial too.

“So how’d you get ahold of the painting?” asked O’Bell.

I allowed Berkeley to speak for himself, since I hadn’t even heard the story yet. “A guy at my art school thought he was selling a bad copy of Number Two, which as you know is the famous one.”