Dead Money Run (20 page)

B
y
the time Hilary and I finally made it back to our hotel, it was almost midnight and I was dead on my feet. What I had just heard was hard to believe. I wanted Hilary to say something, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Finally she said, “What do you think?”

“What about? There are so many things to think about that I don’t know where to begin.”

“Or, who to believe,” she added.

“There’s that.”

“Okay, let’s say these two are on the level, which, we are agreed, they’re not. How many Indian-backed casinos do you think there are in the U.S. today operating under the auspices of various Indian treaties and such?”

“I don’t know,
” I said, “maybe five hundred?”

“Well,” said Hilary. “Let’s assume you are right and say the average take annually at each one is a hundred million and Consolidated is taking in five percent as a premium from each one. That’s five million dollars per location or for a grand total of
two and half billion dollars per year. Then factor in the robberies and say the average is five million. Sonny and his band of clowns could be clearing over five billion dollars a year in money from the robberies of casinos they already own. What a deal. It’s sort of like getting paid to rob from yourself.”

“That still doesn’t explain
Susan’s death and why they need their fifteen million dollars that is long gone under the bridge.”

“I thought about that Lo
u. What if the Outfit or Syndicate or whatever they want to call themselves, has divided up the country into operating units and each unit has to pay the top dogs a percentage of the projected profits each year whether the money is there or not. Sort of like what some churches do. They send out projected funding quotas and the units have to send in that amount or else. How they get the money is each unit’s problem.”

I had to hand it to Hilary, she might have something.

“If you are right about that,” I said, “and Sonny can’t get this money back now, he basically will be out of runway. If he drops another fifteen million in another robbery, the Outfit will be down another fifteen, plus what they have to pay the Indians for the loss, adds up to an additional thirty million dollars in losses. Add that to the thirty million they already have in the pot that adds up to over sixty million dollars in losses. Even for them, that is a lot of money.

“
This could be the start of a whole new cottage industry if word gets out that these casinos are vulnerable to being knocked off. So, maybe hitting the casino on Cumberland again might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

“One question,” said Hilary. “What does the government get out of breaking Sonny?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Well that is not exactly right. They stop the money laundering operation, but they could have already have done that if they wanted to. They have to be waiting for something else. Something that is part of a larger deal.”

“Exactly,” said Hilary. “So why do it? There must be something else.”

“Maybe that’s column ‘B’,” I said.

We both started laughing. The thought of
robbing the Golden Slipper Casino was starting to take hold. I wondered if they could be that stupid and keep the same type of systems that allowed us to get to the money the last time.

“There are some hurdles,” I sa
id.

“No kidding,” said Hilary.

“What about your buddy, Silvio?”

“What about him?”

“Maybe he would be willing to part with some information that would be helpful?”

“I doubt it. He’s one of them.”

“Maybe we have to ask the right questions,” I said.

When we finally made it to our room, Crusher was asleep on the couch
. Empty plates, with the remains of chicken wings, two pizza boxes and two empty six packs of beer were scattered on top of the coffee table.

“Must have been a good match,” said Hilary. “Should we wake him up and tell him what we have so far? He might not want to get involved in a repeat performance at the Cumbe
rland Island Casino?”

“No, let him sleep. Can I make you a drink?” I said.

“I’ll have what you’re having.”

“You want a double vodka martini?”

“In that case, make mine white wine.”

We sat out on the balcony overl
ooking Peachtree Street. Our room was on the sixteenth floor and there was very little traffic that early in the morning. The air was cool and we could sit and talk. I could tell from the way Hilary was looking at me that she had something to say.

“Lou, it seems a little preposterous that some gover
nment agency is going to let us rob a legitimate business and walk away with the money.”

“I thought about that too
, but you said the magic word, ‘legitimate’.”

“If they suspect there is illegal activity, why fake a ro
bbery. Why not just get a court order and shut the place down?”

“Maybe they can’t
or don’t want to do that now. This could be the beginning of something bigger, much bigger and they want to see how we play this out. After all, someone is cleaning up after us. It would make sense that someone is Homeland Security.”

“
Lot of maybes,” said Hilary. “And how does this get you closer to who killed your sister?”

“Don’t know, but I figure we can keep knocking on doors and see what happens,” I said.

I took a swallow of my martini and crunched an ice cube. Crunching ice cubes can sometimes be helpful. The crunching helped me think.

“What
is your view?” asked Hilary.

“
These are good ice cubes.”

I was good at working on
a plan when I crushed ice.

Everyone on the
opposite side of this deal would be expecting something to happen on the anniversary of the heist, a day certain. Getting all that money into duffle bags when we first hit the Cumberland Casino had taken Benny a week. Once we made a decision to go, we would need to have someone on the inside if we followed the same routine as I did fifteen years ago. I didn’t see that happening. Since we didn’t have that person any longer and I couldn’t see Reynolds or his yard ape, Miles, doing it, there had to be another way. It had to be something else happening that would trigger the accumulation of the cash. Then it hit me. What if the Outfit was really setting up for another robbery inside anyway? If we could get that date, then we could hit them the day before and the money would be waiting for us.

“I think I got it,” I said.

“What?” said Hilary.

“How
we are going to get the money.”

Th
e
desk was one of those ornate jobs seen only in museums and places housing the very rich. The figure sat hunched over the desktop. While considered very rich, the man would never appear on Forbes’s list of the rich and famous. His empire was built on crime and human suffering. His favorite saying was, “Crime was good for business, but human suffering paid the bills.”

The one thing the man was proud of was his eyesight. Most of his former frie
nds were either dead or in jail, which at his age was as good as being dead. Looking over a floor plan of his casino on Cumberland Island, Nick Cappoleto laughed at the notion that the Indians owned it. They were no better off now than when they had to deal with a trading post and an Indian agent. He gave what he wanted them to have, but they always tried to get more.

It had taken him thirty years to build the network of c
asinos throughout the United States. He owned or controlled a hundred and forty of them. His revenue, after paying off the Indians, was about eighty percent and no taxes. Two billion four hundred million in round numbers and with the premiums from the payroll loss protection racket, his outfit was taking in another ten percent off the top or about five hundred million dollars. In addition, he was able to launder, with the fake robberies, another six hundred million a year. It was a perfect set up.

Perfect until this nobody Malloy came along and made the
hit on the Cumberland Casino and the Outfit, in the blink of an eye, was out thirty million dollars. The board was on his ass for fifteen years for him to get that money back. He had tried to get at Malloy while he was in prison, but no dice. He couldn’t be threatened, bought or for that matter, killed. At least if he had killed Malloy, he could have stood good for the loss and simply told the board he had to fucking kill him as a lesson to others that might have the same idea. If the low life’s thought they could take down the Outfit and just serve time, Nick’s life would be a short one. As it was, it was already short enough.

Nickolas Cappoleto was a proud man. His son, Santino
, was a loose cannon. When he lost Sonny’s brother, Nickolas or Little Nick, Big Nick lost his right arm. Little Nicky was not so little, but he was his favorite. Nick had worked hard to get Little Nick ready to take over.

Sonny, on the other hand
, was an idiot. He had allowed his yard ape, Jack Bellay, to torture and kill, the Malloy woman, and got absolutely nothing for his trouble. Sonny had said that it was Garcia’s doing. Big Nick knew he was lying. He told Sonny that he would end up paying a big price if the Malloy woman’s brother got out of prison alive. Sonny made all kinds of promises about what he was going to do to kill Malloy while he was in prison. He said he had connections and had a black gang inside the prison on a pad to handle the hit. Well, that came and went. Malloy had killed or maimed everyone that came at him. Things were a mess. Had to clean it up or the Board would tell him that it was time for Sonny to go. As dumb as Sonny was, Big Nick could not get his mind around the thought of killing his only boy. Things would have been fine if Sonny had not gotten Bellay involved in the business. The man was a liability and he would have to take some steps soon to eliminate him. He had to do something about that and maybe the time was now.

Reaching over, Big Nick picked up his
cellphone and punched in a number. Putting the phone to his ear, he waited for the man on the other end to answer.

“Hello,” answered
a familiar voice.

“Alexander,” said the old man. “I need your services again. Yes, I am at the house in Buckhead. I will wait up for you.”

After punching off the cellphone, Big Nick, called his son. After several rings, Sonny answered.

“Yes Papa. What do you need?” said Sonny.

“Santino, I have Alexander coming to the house and I would like you here when he arrives.”

Sonny did
n’t like the sound of the call. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. His father did not make time for meetings at this hour unless they were important. The fact that he was asking that killer Alexander to the meeting only underscored its importance.

“Can we talk on the phone
, Papa?” said Sonny gazing on the naked body of the woman in his bed. “I’m sort of tied up for the moment.”

The woman
was a goddess and he could feel himself get hard just looking at her. Reaching over, the woman touched him with her tongue. When she did that he almost collapsed.

“Tell the whore with you to come back later. I don’t have time for this from you now
, Sonny. If you don’t come to this meeting you may not be alive tomorrow. This is serious, Sonny. More serious than you can ever imagine.” With that sentence, the old man hung up the telephone on his end. Sonny was left staring at the receiver.

“Who was that Sonny?”

“It’s my father. He wants to see me.”

“No
w? We’re just getting started.”

“Yeah, we’ll just have to put it on hold. I won’t be long.”

Sonn
y
stopped his car under the porte-cochere in front of his father’s house. He saw a large BMW further down the driveway. It was a 760 Li. Not a car for Granddad to drive around in. It went for about a hundred and fifty grand.

Getting out of his car, he paused to get his thoughts t
ogether. It was not good that his father had brought Alexander to the meeting. It meant that his father was out of time and patience. Sonny knew he had to propose something dramatic to get everyone’s attention. With Malloy out and about, why not set up another robbery at the casino on Cumberland. It would be perfect. The Outfit would get to wash the money, the Indians would be back in line and, best of all, Malloy would be blamed for it. The cops would take him out of the picture. Problem solved. Reaching the front door, he unlocked it and went inside.

T
ime to play hard ball.

I
was convinced Reynolds was a phony. Based on Goodman’s description there could be no doubt about it. But with Reynolds in the mix, phony or not, we were moving toward something and something was better than nothing. Which was one reason I was sitting under an orange blossom tree at the entrance to Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta at ten o’clock at night wishing I had a hot cup of coffee. Hilary sat next to me tapping her feet on the concrete like a school girl waiting for the morning bus.

“You sure about this guy Lou?”

“No. He’s a phony for sure.”

“My read too.”

“The way I see it, we have to find a break in this deal somewhere. There’s one thing we do know.”

“What’s that?”

“Reynolds’s game is not about the money. Maybe we’ll learn what that is tonight.”

“Who do you think he is?” Hilary asked.

“I think he’s someone named Joe Stanton and he’s in bed with these Hightower people. Need to find out what their position is in the game.”

“
Where’s Crusher?”

“He’s over on the top of the building to your right
sitting there with a rifle and shooting scope.”

“I can’t see him,” she said.

“Then,” I said. “That means he’s doing his job.”

After about another half hour of waiting
, a city worker in a yellow vest, the kind a city worker would wear when the city needed someone to hold a directional sign at a road repair project, was moving toward us at a leisurely pace.

“Little late for cleaning streets, don’t you think?” Hilary said.

“What I was thinking,” I said.

The cleaner
had one of those pincher sticks that they used to pick up trash so they wouldn’t have to bend over. He was moving at a casual pace. When he was about five feet from us, he looked up and smiled. It was Stanton.

“Fancy meeting you here,”
he said.

“I like your new suit.
Is this your idea of moonlighting?”

“Hardly,”
he said. “I saw your spotter on the building across from where you’re sitting. What? You don’t trust me?”

“Trust has nothing to do with it
, Reynolds. I like to think in terms of protection.

“I can’t blame you for that.

“I’m going to walk over to that truck across the way. When I get there, a cab is going to pull up to the curb across from you about five minutes after I leave. Get in the cab and the driver will bring you to where I’ll be.”

“How do we know that this isn’t some kind of trick to pick us up and arrest us?”
said Hilary.

Both
Stanton and I smiled and looked at Hilary. Stanton didn’t say anything, but looked up and as he walked off, said, “You don’t.”

When the cab pulled up, Brandon Miles was driving.
I asked him if he was in training. He tossed a large envelope over the front seat and told me to read it. Then he handed each of us a large latte from Starbucks.

“How do I know this isn’t a letter bomb,” I said.

“Don’t I wish, Malloy? Just read it. There is only one set, so you have to share. Does that sound like we’re after you?”

“Sounds like you can
’t afford a copier,” I said.

I opened the package
, took a sip of the latte and began to read the material. There were only ten pages, plus a fold out map of Cumberland Island and a brochure of the Golden Slipper Casino. There also was an envelope inside that had reservations in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Winston Harris from Palm Beach, Florida and in the name of Starke Strongblood. Apparently Crusher was going to play the part of a gambler. As I finished reading a page I handed it to Hilary.

“I take it that this is
part of the plan?”

“Reynolds will tell you,” said M
iles. “I’m just the gofer in this deal. If it had been my decision, I would have locked you up and thrown away the key.”

I had nothing to add to that.
I did not feel like talking as I read and Hilary didn’t either, which was a bit of a change for her.

The layout of the Casino was pretty much as I reme
mbered it. The only difference was the addition of the golf courses, marina and housing developments. His intelligence on the deal going down was good, real good. According to the report, the Outfit was planning another robbery at the Casino. The date was set for a week from today. When I saw the date, I smiled. It was the sixteenth anniversary of the robbery I pulled off fifteen years ago.

While I was familiar
with some parts of Atlanta, I had never been in the Druid Hills area near Emory University. A lot of runners were out breathing air and pumping blood through their system. It was early morning and I envied them.

“I wonder what it would be like if a person
could settle into a life like this. Getting up in the morning and putting on the coffee. While the coffee perked, take the dog for a walk. Kiss the little woman and leave the house to be at work by nine o’clock. What a life.”

“You really want to know?” said Hilary?

“Yeah, maybe,” I said.

“
What life? You’d hate it.”

“
I don’t know about that. I think I could change. I’m young enough. Thirty-three years old isn’t that old. You are only twenty-five and then there’s the kid issue.”

“Lou, are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

“
What would I tell the neighbors when they asked what we did? I could say I was in banking and you could say you were in securities, but got lucky and retired early. I can see us at our first charity ball. ‘Here pictured at the Cottontail Ball are Miss Hilary Kelly and her fiancé, Lou Malloy, killer extraordinaire. I think we need to drop you off somewhere in this place so you can get the feel of it. Maybe cut a few lawns and wash a few cars. Yuk.”

Miles stopped the cab in front of a house that looked like it had survived
since the Civil War. Getting out, he opened the car door on Hilary’s side. I had to help myself. Once I got out, he said over the roof of the cab, “Go on inside. Reynolds is in there waiting on you.”

Hilary and I turned and
walked toward the front door of the house. I felt like the lamb just before the slaughter.

“Place looks a little rich
for an agent’s salary,” said Hilary.

“
The agency must have turned their pay scales around,” I said.

“
That’s assuming he’s with the agency. The jury is still out on that,” said Hilary.

“I think we have to assume he’s not.”

I waited before knocking on the door because I thought Miles was behind us. When I didn’t see him, I knocked on the door and waited. The door looked like one of those you saw in castles. As we stood there, Hilary said, “Why do I get the feeling we are about to meet the Munster’s?”

Finally I heard the lock turn
on the other side of the door. When the door opened I was surprised to see who it was.

“Crusher, what are you doing here?”

He was standing there with a big smile on his face. He smelled of chicken wings.

“Eating a snack. Man, this place is great. Everyone is in the back. Come on.”

With a wave of one of his big paws, Crusher ushered us in. The place looked older inside. I kept waiting for Scarlett and Rhett to walk down the hall to greet us.

At
the back of the house, the hallway opened up into a kitchen that overlooked a great room with a fireplace that you could roast an ox in. The kitchen was all steel and black marble. Everything was upscale. I mean, way up there. The stove alone was probably worth more than the average person made in a year.

In the middle of the great room there was a large
plush oriental rug. Reynolds and Miles were standing next to a bar with drinks in their hands. Sitting in a chair was something that looked like a man, but I wasn’t sure. I was going to go with female, since it had long hair and fingernails Zsa Zsa Gabor would have fought for. Whatever she was, she was well over six feet tall. Her most hypnotic features were her eyes. They reminded me of a long-haired Siamese cat. In another corner of the room, I saw the smallest man I had ever seen. If Charlie McCarthy had a twin, this guy was a dead ringer, eye piece and all. Finally, sensing our discomfort, Reynolds introduced us to the two mystery guests, but I already guessed who they were and we were in big trouble.

“Lou, allow me to introduce you and Hilary to Mister and Missus
Jonathon Hightower.”

When
Hilary heard the name I thought for a few moments that she was going to drop her drink. I kept my eyes on the corner figure to see if it moved. Finally Hightower got up from his seat, dropped down about six inches to get to the floor and walked toward me holding out his little hand for me to shake hands, I expected Edgar Bergen to be hiding in the room somewhere.

“Mister Malloy. Jon Hightower here and this is my lovely wife, Sabrina.”
I didn’t move to shake his hand. He finally dropped it to his side and walked back to his chair and crawled back up on it.

The Siamese didn’t move a muscle, just nodded her head and smiled. Maybe she didn’t talk and
Charlie was the real ventriloquist in the bunch.

“Mister Hightower,” I said
in greeting. Since the Siamese hadn’t said anything I didn’t speak to her.

After a few more minutes of silence, Hightower said,
“Mister Reynolds was telling me about some of your exploits, Mister Malloy. It must be exciting to be a crook nowadays?”

If the little shit was expecting me to bite on that, I disa
ppointed him.

“Well, Mister Hightower, I have to say that the hours are not bad and the pay is a little on the low side, but I have learned to live with that.

“By the way, how did you get a name like ‘Hightower’ being built so low to the ground?”

When I said that,
Stanton spit out the ice cube he was sucking on. Miles didn’t move a muscle, but the Siamese must have liked it because she flashed a smile.

“Genetics
, Mister Malloy. Something you might not understand.”

Since I was about six
foot four and Crusher, who was whipping the tar out of a bowl of chicken wings, topped out at six foot eight, I decided that our time here was done. But before leaving, I wanted to get one more shot across the little bastard’s bow.

“Mister Hightower, have you ever heard of a company called
Eclipse?”

Both
Stanton and Miles froze like deer in headlights. The Siamese uncrossed her legs and Chucky McCarthy stuttered when he answered.

“Whe..Whe
re..did you get that?”

He as good as answered me and we were done for the evening.

“You are an impertinent son-of-bitch,” said Hightower.

“Lot of that going around, shorty
,” I said. “Jonathon and Sabrina, I have enjoyed meeting you both. If we are ever in the neighborhood again, we’ll be sure to look you both up.”

In one motion
, I wheeled Hilary around and told Crusher to eat up, that we were leaving. As I turned to leave, two shooters holding MAC-10’s were staring at us.

“I think you have misjudged us Mister Malloy. The pleasure is all ours.
” It was a woman’s voice. It was deep and it was menacing.

When I turned to face the direction of the sound, I saw Sabrina Hightower taking a drink and looking straight at me.

“I am sure you value your two friends here, but I don’t. You have something that belongs to me and I want it. Either you agree to give it to me or I will have one of my friends behind you stitch a few rounds into the back of your big friend here. Your choice.”

“To be truthful, I don’t
know what you’re talking about,” I said. “However, if you tell me what I am supposed to have I will give it to you.”

“Yes, well
, fair enough.

“On the night you robbed the infamous casino,
the Golden Slipper, one of your compatriots took something from our control and added it to one of the cash bags that went into the canal behind the Golden Slipper that night. I believe his name was Henry Lowe. We caught Lowe afterwards, but he died in the course of our discussions with him. While his death was unfortunate, we then realized that you had the property even though you probably didn’t know you had it.

“Now just so you know we want to be fair about this, we will give you a chance to deliver it to us.
You can keep the money. I figure you have earned it. Just bring me the items I need. In the meantime while we are waiting we will keep Miss Kelly with us as security for your performance.”

“What is it that I’m supposed to have?” I asked.

It was Stanton’s turn to talk. “It’s something you’ll know when you see it. It’s not money, so that will tell something,” he said.

I felt Hilary reach out and touch the top of my hand. I found it interesting that
they had not taken any of our weapons before the big show and tell session. The Glock was in a holster under my left arm and the Python was tucked in front under my shirt. Hilary’s Airweight was in her purse and not reachable in the short run. Crusher had the Berretta, but I didn’t know where he carried it. I decided to play a hunch.