Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [30]
A friendly older man was working at the hotel’s front desk. When he gave Kathy the key to her room, he asked her how she was enjoying her stay in Dublin. Kathy told him she liked the city and then told him about the incident with the stolen laptop. When she got to the part about how awful she’d felt and how she’d offered to give Patrick money, the man at the desk said, “Jaysus, you didn’t give him the money, did you?”
“Yeah,” Kathy said. “Actually, I did.”
“I was afraid of that. You fell for a scam, I’m afraid.”
“A scam?” She had no idea what he was talking about.
“Was there another man there, besides the one who lost the laptop?”
“What do you mean?”
“They work in a team of three. One has the laptop, one steals it, and one comes over to help. Is that what happened?”
Remembering the guy in the suit who’d offered to call the police, Kathy said, “Yeah, there were three guys, I guess. But I really think you have it all wrong. This guy’s laptop really was stolen.”
Kathy went on, explaining what had happened, but the man at the desk cut her off and said, “I’m telling you, love, it’s happened before and we were even talking about warning our guests about it.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Kathy said, recognizing the anger and frustration in her voice because she was starting to realize what had happened but didn’t want to admit it to herself yet. “This guy went to the bathroom and someone else—a stranger—came running down the block and—”
“It wasn’t a stranger,” the man at the desk said. “They were working a scam. They must’ve picked you out as a tourist. Were you holding a camera or a map or something that made you stand out as a foreigner?”
Kathy couldn’t believe she’d let this happen to her.
“Yeah, actually, I was.”
“Jaysus, it’s awful this happened to you. You didn’t give him a lot of money, did you?”
“No,” Kathy lied. “Just ten dollars … I mean euros.”
“Well, that’s a blessing,” the man said. “This retired couple from Florida gave them a thousand euros because they felt bad for the guy. I’ll tell you one thing, though—that guy must be a good actor. I mean, to get people to believe him—that takes some talent.”
“Well, good night,” Kathy said, and started away.
“Should I call the Gardaí?”
“No, that’s okay. It was only ten euro.”
“But the Gardaí should really know about this so they can—”
“I really don’t want you to call … but thank you.”
In her room, Kathy tried to forget about the whole thing. There was nothing she could do about it now and she definitely didn’t want to get into a whole thing with the police— answering questions, maybe even having to go to a precinct or wherever. It was better just to forget about it—pretend it hadn’t happened.
She washed up and got into bed. She’d bought a few thick paperbacks to read during the trip, but she wasn’t in the mood. She turned on the TV and flipped around, but there was nothing to watch except soccer and news. She was watching the BBC News reports about the latest violence in the Middle East, though she was thinking about Patrick. He’d seemed like such a nice young guy—so charming and helpful—but that should’ve been a warning sign. The whole thing was such an obvious setup, the way the thief had appeared out of nowhere to grab the laptop and then how that guy with the business suit came right over to help, and of course it was he who’d offered to call the police. She was angry at herself for falling for that crap, for being such a victim. In New York, there was no way something like this would have happened to her. In New York, she always had her guard up and was naturally suspicious of everyone. If someone started talking to her at a Starbucks in New York she would’ve said a few words to him and ignored him. And in New York she never would’ve been so vulnerable. She was traveling alone for the first time in a foreign city and she was preoccupied with a lot of personal things. They’d probably zeroed in