Billy Billy Bunco
.... by D. Grant DeMan
Billy Billy Bunco, grifter, con
Suck us dry 'til our life blood's gone
Rob us of our homes and dignity
Damned to hell for eternity
In the dead of blue winter I was helping Bassy move from his heritage Montreal apartment, when a
tiny pregnant girl, her black hair barely covered under a slash of scarlet scarf, approached him: "I'm Maria
Gomez. You're Bassy, aren't you?"
"Ah uh yep, that's me?" He glanced at her belly. "You looking for Billy?"
"I haven't heard from him in weeks. He promised to call. Where is he?"
"I'm afraid he's gone, Maria," Bassy gave her his best look of funereal consolation.
"He said he'd marry me. We even had rose tattoos together with our initials entwined. He was
clearing it with The Bureau. Are you with the FBI too? And you are Stone?" Tearfully, Maria's eyes sliced
into mine. "You're in the CIA, right?"
"Sorry, Maria," Bassy told her. "I'm a stock clerk with Eaton's, Stone's at Simpson's. Billy was a
trainee at Morgan's. Went to Scotland." Snow fell as Maria walked away, one of many girls Billy Billy
manipulated into stealing appliances, turned them in for commissions, and subsequently sold the items.
A month previously after a day's work I was mellowing to Duke Elington's Blues to Be there on the
tiny room radio, when I heard a banging at the curtained glass door. "Hey Stone, it's me, Billy Billy. Open
up."I longed to ignore him, but a whispering voice warned a 'go away!' wouldn't cut it.
"Why Billy, come on in!" I feigned surprise. "Sit down. I suppose a VO would look good on you
about now." I poured one for him, topped my tumbler, and sat on the bed while he disappeared into the chair.
"Hate to bother you Stone, but I'll be leaving for Scotland, want to bid farewell to my old chum."
"Well, ain't that precious. Well, so long to ya Billy Billy," I reached to shake his hand, fully
expecting the rest of a song and dance before closing time.
"You know I'll soon marry the sweet lassie I'm writing, and I won't be making the money I do
here," he explained. "So's -- and I hate to say this -- I wondered if you was about to pay me back that twenty I
so eagerly lent you the night we left the Blue Angel for the East End Club Cherie."
So here's the last pitch. Billy's final bite into the gang. My mind wandered back to Toronto,
when I'd first heard about Billy Billy. I didn't hardly believe it then, and barely comprehend it now.
In those days I was recruited by a firm we called The Company, though known by various names
according to clientele, a top investigative organization so secretive all correspondence was confined to
yellow copy paper, pseudonyms and numbers. Following a stint in New York, our team of undercover
agents was dispatched to clients in Toronto, mission: to weed out thieves trashing client's bottom lines. My
partner was Bassy, assigned to Eaton's Department Store. I took Simpson's, across the street.
Soon I began getting stories from him, "Damn, Stone, there's a guy over there name of Billy Billy,
who's putting me into some fine material. He made a deal with the boss for no pay raises ever, and takes
commissions -- his cut of the profit. What a guy. He's Scottish and just a little bit of a fellow."
Sounded good until Bassy told me over a beer, "That Billy Billy! You know what he's went and
done? Got impatient looking for crooks so he organized his own gang, and they're taking home the store."
The next week, more dope: "Security arrested Billy's gang, and have a warrant on him. The boss transferred
him to Montreal. What a guy!" No doubt he sold the stolen goods before he left, were my thoughts.
Later Bassy also had himself transferred when a slipup wound him in a jackpot with a switch-blade
packing suspect who came stalking "the rat." So there I was, wishing I could follow them to Montreal, a
city of lights and fun. One day it happened. And that French burg was all they claim for it.
Bassy had a splendid apartment, stocked with merchandise stolen and purchased from thieves using
Company money, which he shared with his lady, Maureen, brother Sean, studying at McGill. And of
course, Billy Billy. "So where is this great man?" I asked him after settling in.
"Oh, Billy's on a little vacation," Bassy was obscure. "New York, I believe."
"On vacation? New York? Why would he be going there? He just came here?" Getting little
answer to that, I asked, "Can I use the telephone. I'll call Arthur and tell him I've arrived."
Bassy looked a little cowed. "Sorry, they've been slow putting in a telephone."
"So how do you keep in touch?"
"Telegrams. See here." Bassy showed me a stack of messages requesting Billy Billy contact home
base. I soon learned that Billy had just taken off back to New York leaving Bassy to mail in his post-dated
reports, some even claiming expenses, overtime, and fingering employees who may not have even heard of
the little Scot. God! What utter gall! "I guess we have to cover for him, Stone. I just don't know."
That Thanksgiving weekend I booked a suite at the Sheraton Mount Royal where I was joined by
Toronto secretary, Cheryl, and Mary, a petite Irish colleen working as a click-click girl on a Parker Pen
assembly line. Sean met us for breakfast, and we retired to the apartment where Maureen carved a chicken
dinner. "I guess that's the Scottish blood in you, Maureen," someone remarked. We all laughed at the
Thanksgiving Chicken we dined on that day.
No sooner had we placed our slices upon plates when we heard him on the stairs: "Ye tak the hee
rood, and I'll tak the loo rood, and I'll be in Glasgee afore ye…" The door swung open and there stood a
resolute minute figure releasing two large suitcases. "Hoot Mon! A wee lassie for me?" he cried, strode
over, plucked little openmouthed Mary from her chair, slung her over his shoulder and marched directly to
his bedroom, where the couple remained for an hour.
All we got from her later: "Such a darlin' old fashioned boy is Billy Billy. You know he shaves with
a straight razor and soapy cup, just like me old man. Bleedin' good, that is."
"Yeah. Bengalls in a presentation case. We all got one he boosted from Morgan's," Bassy scowled.
Hitting the clubs, money and cocktails flowed. At the Scandinavian, my exuberant date Cheryl
said, "Let's take souvenirs," while feigning a stuffing of her purse with the table lamp. "How about this red
tablecloth? Think they'd miss it?" Billy Billy gestured we go dance. By the time we returned he'd snatched
the crimson covers from every table circling ours, rolled and handed them out. I still have mine.
Next Monday at the Monterey I was blue with missing Cheryl, when Billy Billy got an idea, "You
poor laddie, longing for your girl. Let me see…" He knelt at another table, where two couples sat enjoying
the music of Ronnie Prophet, and spoke softly for twenty minutes.
When he rose so did one of the dapper couples. "I understand you are a young man, missing very
much your sweetheart," said the fellow. "Please accept the company of Babette for the evening." Though
suspicious, I found Babette to be a charming St. Joseph's Hospital nurse. Billy Billy -- what a slice of life!
Billy had been corresponding with a debutante Edinburgh lassie. Pad and sharp pencil in hand he'd
lay back watching some love story on television, gathering gushy expressions which he transferred into
letters, and soon had that lady of substance drooling to marry him. And so he came full circle: The loot,
ladies with child, the grift, felony and escaping to fortune. Now he was burning me in his tail wind..
I clinked my tumbler of VO against his. "Nice try for extra traveling money, Billy Billy. Not on
your life. I had five hundred in my sock at the Club Cherie. Would I borrow twenty from you?"
"Well Stone, can't blame a laddie for trying," he shot back and left. I scanned my room in disgust to
check if he might have stolen anything, noted the absence of my Gold Dunhill lighter and went after him.
That moving day as we pondered the figure of Maria Gomez walking to oblivion, Maureen dashed
out waving a newspaper. "It's here in the Star. Look: Man's body, throat slashed in Lachine, floating in the
Ste. Lawrence."
"So?" Bassy was stoic.
"He's five one," she screamed. "That's gotta be Billy Billy."
"Ah, go on with ya Maur. They get a dozen bodies a day in the river."
"London Fog raincoat? Oh. Rose tattoo initials M.G. M.G.? What's that?" She scrunched up her
nose. "I guess I was wrong, huh?"
"He's in Scotland. Somebody got a letter from him, Maureen," Bassy's voice was consoling. "It was
a logical conclusion, though a mistake." She scurried into the building as Maria Gomez' footprints
disappeared. Bassy eyed me, and I looked back with the kind of understanding some guys have between
them. Nothing mentioned, nothing said. Somehow we knew.
Billy had stepped too close to the razor's edge, recieved his natural comeuppance, and part of the world was safer for it.
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