Bob Moats - Jim Richards 01-03- 3 for Murder Box Set (38 page)

They detained the men, and Deacon ran in the direction I was heading. Aaron didn’t see me. He ran down the long arm of the mall and into Macy’s. I followed as fast as I could. My cell phone rang. It was Deacon. I told him my location and that I was losing sight of Aaron. I stopped to get my bearings and couldn’t see Aaron anywhere. Deacon came running up and stopped next to me. He said they got the two men at the food court, and Lynn said they got the driver of the Toyota. I said, “But we didn’t get Aaron. Shit!”

*

Chapter Fourteen

We searched around Macy’s for Aaron, but he was nowhere to be seen. Deacon and I went back to the food court. Lynn and her officers had the two men in cuffs and were examining the backpack. As we came up she smiled at us and pointed to the pile of drugs on the table.

“The back pack was stuffed with drugs of all kinds. It’s a big hit. I called Weber, and he said to thank you guys for preventing this from getting away,” she whispered to Deacon. “I’ll thank you later on.” He grinned and she continued, “From their I.D.s they’re from Reno. I called Reno police, and they tell me these fine citizens are wanted for drug sales to a gang in California. The California police tracked them to Reno and were waiting for them to return. This drug bust has far reaching implications, from California to Reno to here.”

My mind was on Aaron at the moment. I borrowed Deacon from Lynn and said I had an idea. We excused ourselves and went back out to the SUV. I told him my idea as we drove over to Paradise.

“Aaron saw the cops coming towards him. He didn’t know why, but he figured trouble. He ran off, and we got his driver so he’s on foot or cab. I figured he would go back to the Pink Slipper to either pick up the rest of his drugs, if any, or to destroy all evidence of his involvement, not knowing how much time he would have before the police went to search the place,” I said thinking of the computer in the dressing room. “So we will take a chance and go there to see if he shows up again.”

I looked in my rear view mirror and saw Lynn right behind us in her patrol car. I laughed and told Deacon to look back. He smiled when he saw her.

“I guess she had the same thought or just decided to tail us.” I pulled into the parking lot of the party store next to the Pink Slipper. I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea for Aaron to see the patrol car. We parked, got out of the car and met with her.

“I assumed you two were going to do something stupid, so I thought I’d tag along and do something stupid, too. It’s been paying off so far.” She grinned.

I told her what I thought, and then we went around the building to where we could see the side and back of the Pink Slipper. As far as we could tell, Aaron hadn’t shown up yet. Since we took away his transportation, we might have a few minutes to act. I suggested what we should do. Lynn agreed, and we ran across the parking lot to the bar. The cleaners were just finishing packing their cleaning equipment, and the back delivery door was still open.

Lynn flashed her badge and told them to get out quickly. They did. We went in, and Deacon and Lynn about jumped across the room when the tiger roared from his cage. I laughed and said it was another of Aaron’s projects. We walked through the bar and ran into the manager. He was surprised to see us and said so. Lynn told him we were pursuing a felon, and it would be a good idea if he went into his office and locked the door so he didn’t risk getting shot.

He nodded quickly and headed off. There was a door slam from the rear of the building where we had just come from, and we headed back that way. From a distance we could see Aaron come through the double doors of the kitchen and go into his dressing room.

Lynn asked me, “Does that room have another exit?”

“I don’t think so. The couple of times I was in there I was busy talking to Aaron and didn’t really study the place,” I replied.

We got to the door and Lynn, gun drawn, kicked open the door, entered, and swung around finding no one there. I entered with Deacon and looked up at a security monitor with a view of the bar.

“He saw us coming, but where did he go?” I asked.

We searched the room. Deacon found a loose panel under the desk and pulled it. The wall opened into another room. We crawled through and found it was a large storage closet. Lynn went to the door of the room and started to open it just as bullets came bursting through the door. Luckily Lynn was standing off to the side when that happened. She pulled the door open wide and went low, blasting out with her gun. Deacon followed low and looked around the room.

There was another door, and she opened it carefully outward, going low, and looked into the face of the tiger. She screamed and tried to pull the door back, but the tiger had its paw on it. We ran back out the last door we had come through with the tiger following. Deacon was trying to push the door shut, but the tiger was pushing back. I let Lynn go through the crawl hole, and I followed her. Deacon let the door go and slid through the opening into Aaron’s room. 

We left that room, closing the door, and went back around to the kitchen. We could hear banging from the delivery room and peeked around the corner to find Aaron tugging the tiger cage apart. He was pulling out bags of drugs hidden in a double wall at the back of the cage, an old magician’s trick to hide a switch from lady to tiger. Lynn yelled for him to freeze. He fired his gun until he ran out of bullets then started to run for the delivery door. Lynn blasted away at the door causing Aaron to go the opposite direction. He ran to a door off the side and went in. I said, “Wasn’t that where the tiger was?”

We heard screams and ran to the door. Lynn opened it carefully and peeked in. She laughed and closed the door. Deacon and I looked at her, wondering why she was laughing so hard. She opened the door a bit and let us look. Aaron had evidently discovered the tiger coming back into the room and climbed up on some shelves against the wall where he was hanging with arms and legs around the sprinkler system pipes as the tiger tried to jump up to him.

“I’d better call animal control, and after they get here, we can cage Aaron.” She smiled and got on her two way radio for emergency dispatch of animal control to deal with a loose tiger.

About an hour later the tiger was tranquilized and Aaron, looking frazzled, was handcuffed to a chair. His back was slightly torn by tiger claws, and an EMS officer was tending to the cuts.

Aaron looked up at me, and I gave him the finger. I walked away and said to Deacon that Aaron probably would cut all kinds of deals for information on his drug buddies, he was such a weasel.

Lynn said they had about four times the amount of drugs they grabbed at the Mall. This was going to hurt someone’s paycheck this week. Captain Weber came flying in through the delivery doors, smiling from ear to ear.

“You three have put a crimp in the Sixth Street gang’s activities something serious. Carter, I’m recommending you for a citation.” He beamed then looked at Deacon and me. “You two will definitely be in line for civilian citations. This is a great day.” He looked at Aaron still handcuffed to the chair. “Is this the drug delivery man you told me about? He looks a bit undernourished. Not what I expected.”

I offered, “Aaron is just a small cog, Captain. The big boys are still out there.”

“Yes, they are, and we will get them!” he said forcefully. Then he went over to look at the tiger. “Damn ugly animal. Find out where it belongs and get it there ASAP. I don’t want anyone chewed up.”

Captain Weber smiled at us again and said, “Good work, keep it up,” then disappeared out the door.

“He’s easy to work with,” I said.

“Yeah, but you don’t want to be around on his bad days,” Lynn added.

We finished up at the bar and had the tiger packed away for animal control to deal with. Aaron was put in the back of a patrol car and hauled off to the precinct to be grilled later. I told Deacon and Lynn that I wanted to get back to Penny for a while as she was feeling neglected. Lynn said they were going to hold Aaron overnight before she interrogated him. If I wanted to be there, she’d call me. I said thanks, went to the rental car and headed out.

I got to the convention center, and Penny gave me a big hug when I came up to the booth.

“I was starting to forget what you looked like,” she joked. “Maria heard that Donnie Osmond might be here and went off to find him. Buck has just been relaxing.”

I waved to Buck and told him to go find Maria before she got arrested for attacking Donnie. He smiled and went off.

“We got Aaron. He’s on his way to a cell to cool for a while. We caught him running drugs for a local gang, and I’m sure he’ll rat out a few of his colleagues before we’re done with him.” I kissed Penny and said, “I think we need to take some time for ourselves now. How about I see if we can get into a show tonight?”

“I’d like that. I’d hate to think I was in Vegas and never got to see anything other than these walls.”

“I grabbed a brochure at the door from the tourist bureau. It has shows listed,” I said as I opened the thing. Maria and Buck came up just then, and Maria said the rumor was false, Donnie wasn’t there. I told them about going to a show tonight and read off a few names. “We could go see Barry Manilow, Rita Rudner, Lance Burton or Amazing Jonathan.”

Maria piped up and said, “Why not go see Donnie and Marie?”

I looked at Penny, and she said that sounded good to her. I said, “I’ll call Wally and see if he can get some tickets to the show.”

Maria got excited and bounced all over Buck. I went off to call Wally, and he said he’d get hold of the Osmonds’ personal assistant and set it up. I thanked him and asked how Jamie was doing. He said everyone loved her being around, that she was a joy to work with. I said great and told him to call about the tickets. I went back and told everyone about the call, and we just about had to subdue Maria. She was ready to bounce off the walls.

Penny went back to greeting visitors, Buck and Maria were exploring the food court, and my cell phone rang. I answered. It was Lynn.

“Jim, got some info to pass on. An attempted hit on Aaron was made just as they were driving him in. A dark colored low-rider pulled alongside the patrol car and slammed it with gunfire. Luckily the driver wasn’t seriously hurt. Aaron fell to the floor and was untouched. This is getting serious. Watch your back,” she said. “Aaron is under extra protection now. I guess they’re afraid he’ll talk too much.”

“Well, now that he knows what they think of him, he may just talk a bit more,” I said. “But how did they know to hit so quickly?”

“The driver of the Toyota locked himself in the car and made a cell phone call when we grabbed him, probably to warn his boss, and they may have sent the car to watch the bar for Aaron,” she deduced.

“Or Aaron called someone after he got out of the mall to come get the drugs at the bar, and they got there after we did and were watching. They saw Aaron get grabbed and decided to silence him in case he talked. Just my guess.”

“Well, whichever, he is a target now. As I said, watch your back,” she said and hung up.

I didn’t want to frighten Penny about it, so when Buck returned I took him to the back of the booth and filled him in. I said we needed to watch Penny like a hawk, just in case. I didn’t feel we were in danger, but better to be safe than sorry. He agreed, and then we went back out front.

Wally called me about 5 p.m. and said the tickets were all arranged. I thanked him and said we’d see him after the show. I told Penny, Buck and Maria, and they were all excited. Penny continued to play hostess till around 7 p.m. when she told her producer that we had tickets to a show, and she was taking a break for one night. He said no problem. We left and went over to the ticket booth at the Flamingo Hotel, got our tickets and went to the showroom.

We had great seats, right up front, and the waitress came immediately to take our drink order. She asked if I was Jim Richards, friend of Wally. I said yes, and she gave me a note. I opened it, and it read, “Jimmy, come back stage right after the show. Don’t delay.” I told the waitress thanks and gave her a tip. Just about 8 p.m. the show started. Donnie and Marie did a fantastic job entertaining the audience. Towards the end, Donnie came over to our table and asked who Maria was. We all pointed to her.