Page 10 of Catching a Con Man

“I keep reminding you. Addison is my father, call me Ade. Harvey, this is Tyler.”

The man reached out one big, callused hand and shook mine, completely enveloping it. He was handsome in a gruff kind of way with scruffy stubble a shade darker than his hair. He had a kind smile with slightly crooked teeth and his arms were each about the same size as my torso. He was wearing a khaki t-shirt that barely stretched over his barrel chest and cargo shorts with dog toys and treats sticking out of every pocket.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. He sounded common compared with Ade, with a Cardiff twang to his accent. “Guessing Addison, sorry, Ade, has told you the whole family history of this place? Myrtle is our favourite patron, she visits weekly. I see most of the family every now and again too. Come on through!”

He signalled to a door on one side of reception and I walked ahead of Ade, holding the door open for him this time. He smirked as he passed through, like he knew what I was doing.Yeah, two can play at that chivalry game, motherfucker.

“Myrtle is my mother,” Ade said to me. I knew that, I’d done my research. But I wasn’t about to admit that, so I just nodded as if it were entirely new information.

We were in a corridor, where dogs were kept behind plexiglass in little rooms. Some were alone, some were in pairs or in groups. But every single one of them that I could see from the doorway was groomed beautifully and bright-eyed.

Harvey came through a side door with the poor castrated Rottweiler and gave us another goofy smile. “We’ve had another ten adoptions in the three weeks since I last saw you,” he said to Ade. “We’ve had twelve dogs come in, though I can’t see them staying with us long.”

He walked us down the corridor. Every little doggy room was carpeted with astroturf, there were food and water bowls and toys for them, as well as a dog flap to the rear of each little room. Harvey pointed out individual dogs to us, Alfie trotting dutifully alongside him at all times. “Look, Alfie, I haven’t got room for you,” he said. “I live in a flat, yes I do, and I don’t have the garden space you need. But someone’s gonna come and get you, because you’rebeautiful.”

I shared a look with Ade. It was like when Harvey focused on the dog, everyone else in the room disappeared. Alfie looked quite happy to be talked to like a human, though.

“So, have my siblings been down recently?” Ade asked Harvey as we walked down the long corridor. Harvey looked up from Alfie as if surprised we were still there.

“Ah, you know, I’ve seen Beckett now and then. And Dylan and Eliza are always running social media campaigns to promote puppy adoption.”

“No Cam?” Ade sighed.

“Ah, the illustrious Cam,” Harvey laughed. “Nope. The one Crane I don’t have wrapped around my little finger when it comes to donating their time and money.”

“My brother is a bit of a recluse,” Ade said to me as an aside. “Well, I say abit. He makes Hol…he makes your grandfather look like a social butterfly. Absolute computer genius, but I never see him outside of the house.”

“Never even met him,” added Harvey.

We came to the end of the corridor, and Harvey opened the big double doors to the outside. There was a huge fenced off area filled with dogs playing. There were a few people dotted around, workers and prospective adoptees. I was almost immediately barrelled over by an excited Golden Retriever, but Ade steadied me with a hand on the small of my back again. Just for a second, I let myself lean into it.

“I’ll leave you two to look around,” said Harvey. “Ade, if you want anything from me, let me know. You know I’ll do anything for our favourite patron. Tyler, if you ever fancy giving some money to a worthy cause…we’re here. And if you’d like to adopt one of our beauties, that can already be arranged.”

I scratched behind the ears of the Golden until it dropped a ball at my feet. I threw it across the field, and it ran off after it.

“Why have you brought me here?” I asked Ade.

“To show you I believe in your idea,” he said. “To show you that I think you’re on the right track. We create local initiatives, and we’re passionate about them. But Iknowthere’s more we can do. There’s more to give, and more wealthy people to convince to let go of their money.”

I heard the words that were implicit in his statement. Even if I’d convinced him perfectly that I was one ofthem, the hidden words were still there.We’re not all bad.

And I was starting to believe him.

Ade

Iwas a pervert. There was no other explanation for what I was doing, watching a man work without his knowledge.

I had swapped my conspicuous car for a prototype of one of next year’s family cars, a much more reserved affair that had still had a couple of car enthusiasts knock on the door to ask if they could take pictures ofnext year’s Electro. A couple had even asked me for a selfie, and I’d waved them away with excuses of corporate secrets so that I didn’t draw attention to myself.

Because I was sat in my car on the street outside an inconspicuous, run down corner shop. And, hidden behind privacy glass, I’d been watching Tyler Bevan at work through the window.

It was strange to see the real Tyler. Without gel in his hair, he kept having to push his fringe out of his eyes to work. He had a genuine, kind smile for customers. And at one point in the hour I sat mesmerised watching him, an elderly woman shuffled slowly into the shop. When she got to the counter with her milk and biscuits and patted down her pockets, her face turned to a frown, and a minute of frantic pocket searching later, she shrugged and turned to walk away. Tyler called her back, and pushed the bottle of milk and packet of biscuits toward her, holding one finger to his lips with a smile.

When the old woman exited the shop, it was with a little spring in her step that hadn’t been there before. I realised I was watching Tyler’s equivalent to me spending ridiculous amounts of money on a tip for a poor server. He was giving what he could.

And it made my stomach churn. This man was lying to me. He was trying to scam me out of, in his own words, millions, and I just couldn’t…I couldn’t reconcile the man I watched help the elderly, hold babies for parents, and clean up spills and smashes without complaint, with the man I knew him to be. Was he some kind of pathological liar? Was he stealing from his customers whilst treating them with kindness? I sat like a peeping Tom in my car for hours, just watching him. Just wanting to know what was underneath.

Worse than anything else was that he hadn’t texted me in two weeks. It had been that long since we’d seen each other, since I had shown him my passion project and done my best to rumble him with a stupidly large charitable donation. But he seemed to take lying in his stride, and it made me deeply uncomfortable to know he could lie so easily. Were the little touches we shared lies too? I just…didn’t know. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent him a message.

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