The Scam

by Janet Evanovich

  Nick and Kate played blackjack for three more hours. At one point, they were up by $3 million. But by the time it was over, they’d lost all of their winnings and were out of pocket another $2 million.

  Kate’s adrenaline drip had slowed to barely a trickle, and she was thinking more about cheese puffs than blackjack.

  “Do you think the buffet is still open?” Kate asked.

  “You’re hungry?” Nick asked.

  “Ravenous,” she said. “I could eat two million dollars’ worth of crab legs and tiny key lime pies.”

  “I like this side of you.”

  Goodwell approached the blackjack table. “Pardon me. If you’re done for the night, Mr. Trace would like to invite you to his private dining room for drinks.”

  Nick glanced at Kate, then back at Goodwell. “If he’ll throw in a couple of steaks, we’ll be there.”

  “How do you like your steaks prepared?” Goodwell asked.

  —

  Trace’s private dining room was behind an unmarked door near the high-limit parlor of the casino. Goodwell opened the door for Nick and Kate and waved them through. They stepped into an atrium that was filled with tropical plants and flowers. A sleek Plexiglas-bottomed bridge arched over a koi pond and into the wood-paneled dining room decorated with contemporary artwork. Kate looked down at the pond as they walked over the bridge, taking note of the silver-green fish. They were about five inches long and had red bellies. Piranha, she thought. More appropriate to the setting than koi.

  Trace was waiting to greet them on the other side of the bridge. He wore a midnight blue silk tux jacket, a white dress shirt, skinny jeans, and black crocodile loafers.

  “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m Evan Trace.”

  “We appreciate the invitation,” Nick said. “It was an unexpected treat.”

  “I could say the same about the two of you,” Trace said, smiling at Kate, his attention momentarily caught by the red dress. “It’s not often that people we don’t know walk in off the street, book our best suite, and gamble millions of dollars.”

  “Surely you don’t know everyone with money,” Kate said.

  “Everyone but you,” Trace said.

  A table near the atrium was set for three, and a bottle of red wine had been decanted.

  Trace pulled out a chair for Kate. “I’ve taken the liberty of choosing a bottle of wine from my private reserve. I hope that’s okay.”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely,” Kate said.

  Lovely, she thought. She had actually said lovely. Good Godfrey, she sounded like a lady.

  She was facing the dining room and looking across the table at the artwork on the walls. All large abstract paintings and a familiar painting of seven dogs sitting around a table playing poker. She’d seen the picture a thousand times before. It wasn’t something she’d expect to see in Trace’s private dining room.

  “I like that you’ve included the painting of the dogs playing poker,” Kate said. “It adds some whimsy to your collection.”

  “A print of that painting was on the wall in the motel room I rented when I first came to Vegas. But what you see there is the original oil painting, created in 1903 for a cigar advertisement. I bought it to always remind me of how I got started.”

  “How did you end up in the casino business?” Nick asked.

  “I like to say it was a sign from God,” Trace said. “I’d gone bust as a gambler in Vegas, so I headed for Palm Springs to be a tennis instructor. I was driving across the desert when my Chevette broke down. It was a thousand degrees outside. I had to walk miles to the nearest gas station, which was this wooden shack in the middle of nowhere run by this grizzled old Indian. I staggered in, sunburned and thirsty, and the old coot welcomed me to the sovereign Chuckwalla Indian nation, total tribal population: one. I had a revelation then and there.”

  “You saw a vision of a casino,” Nick said.

  “That’s right, my sign from God. My burning bush. Once I proved that the old coot’s obscure tribe was real, that his barren patch of desert was truly their ancestral land, and that he was the one Indian left, raising the money to build a casino there was no problem.”

  The butler brought their steaks to the table and, while they ate, Trace talked about running the Indian casino, selling out his shares once it was a huge success, and using his profits to build Côte d’Argent.

  “That’s quite a story,” Nick said.

  “What’s yours?” Trace asked.

  “I’m an international entrepreneur,” Nick said.

  “I see. And what type of entrepreneurial endeavors do you favor?”

  “You could say I’m a professional gambler, only not at cards,” Nick said. “I invest in business ventures of various sorts around the world and hope that they work out. Fortunately for me, they usually do.”

  “What sort of ventures?”

  “Moneymaking ones that involve considerable risk,” Nick said. “The risk is almost as important to me as the profit potential.”

  “You’re being vague,” Trace said.

  “Yes,” Nick said. “I am.”

  Trace shifted his attention to Kate. “And you? What do you do, Ms. Porter?”

  “While Nick’s busy looking for the next big thing, he forgets to take care of the last big thing and everything else that’s going on in his life. That’s my job. I manage the details.”

  “I get bored easily,” Nick said.

  “As do I,” Trace said, his eyes drawn to Kate’s cleavage.

  Trace redirected his focus and cut what was left of his steak into tiny, bloody squares. “I hope, at least, we’ve managed to keep you entertained so far at Côte d’Argent.” Trace tossed the squares of meat into the koi pond, and the water churned like it was boiling. The piranha swarmed on the meat in a feeding frenzy.

  “I always thought the idea of a koi pond was to provide peace and tranquillity,” Nick said as he watched the seething water.

  “Koi just swim around getting old and fat. I don’t get any serenity from that,” Trace said. “Piranha are the only small fish with any energy, any joie de vivre. I could watch them do this for hours. The hard part is finding someone willing to clean the pond.”

  “That would be an authentic experience,” Nick said.

  Trace gave up a tight smile. “I’ll be sure to put that in my next commercial.”

  Kate’s cellphone vibrated in her clutch purse. She’d received a text message. Only Nick, Jessup, and her father had the number to her phone. It couldn’t be good news.

  “Forgive me, gentlemen,” Kate said, standing up. “It’s been a real pleasure meeting you, Evan, but I think I’ve had too much excitement for one night. If you don’t mind, I’m going to leave you two and head back to my room.”

  Both men got to their feet.

  “I should go as well,” Nick said. “You’ve been a wonderful host, Evan. But we’re leaving in the morning and I want a chance to enjoy the view from our terrace pool.”

  “You’re going to love it,” Trace said. “I hope we’ll see you both at Côte d’Argent again soon.”

  Nick smiled. “You can bet on it.”

  “You’re not going to like what I have to tell you,” Goodwell said to Trace when they were alone. “We got some good shots of Sweet and Porter on the security cameras in the high-roller room and ran them through the biometric facial recognition system. We came up with nothing. If they’ve gambled before, it hasn’t been in Las Vegas.”

  “What about their fingerprints?”

  “We lifted perfect prints off their cocktail glasses and I had my contact at the Las Vegas Police Department run them through AFIS. Nothing came up. Sweet has an American passport and lives in New York in a Park Avenue apartment owned by an offshore shell company that exists in name only. They produce no products or offer any services, at least as far as we can tell at the moment.”

  So Nick Sweet probably made his money illegally. That much Trace knew before Goodwell’s report, and it di
dn’t bother him. What did bother him was that it was hard to exploit a man’s weaknesses and desires without knowing what they were. Trace believed the key to successfully recruiting high rollers was to get them to see that exploitation as exceptionally attentive customer service.

  “What about Kate Porter?”

  “She’s also a U.S. citizen. Sweet’s shell company owns her home in Park Slope. She graduated with an MBA from Stanford and worked for a couple of major accounting firms before he hired her. The details on her are suspiciously thin, too. They clearly don’t want anybody to know who they are or what they are doing, and they have the resources to make that happen. That concerns me.”

  “I don’t see why. It means they have plenty of money to spend. Comp his suite and give him your card. I want to be sure he does all of his future gambling with us.”

  Trace didn’t care where Nick’s money came from as long as he continued losing it at Côte d’Argent. If that laissez-faire attitude turned out to be a mistake, and Nick ever became a serious problem, it would be Thanksgiving Day for the piranha.

  —

  Nick and Kate walked across the casino and stopped just short of their elevator.

  “You could have stayed with Trace,” Kate said. “I left because I got a text message and thought it might be important.”

  “Alone time with Trace isn’t high on my list of preferred activities,” Nick said. “That guy is scary.”

  “The piranha got to you?”

  “The way he thinks got to me. He’s a con man and a sociopath. Did you see the hostess take our glasses when we left the blackjack table? She wore gloves and held the glasses by the rim. I don’t think she was worried about catching Ebola. She didn’t want to smudge our fingerprints.”

  “Don’t worry, Jessup has our back. The prints won’t bring up your shameful criminal record or my triumphant accomplishments in law enforcement.”

  “And the text message?” Nick asked.

  “It’s from my dad,” Kate said. “SOS Bludd’s Money.”

  “Any idea what it means?”

  “None, but I’m a little freaked by it. I’ve never received an SOS from him before. I just texted him back but it’s not getting delivered.”

  “Try calling.”

  Kate tapped in Jake’s name on her speed dial. No answer.

  She tried Jake’s friend in Hawaii, Harlan Appleton.

  “Appleton residence. Lieutenant Gregg Steadman, Kahuku Police Department, speaking.”

  Kate felt a twinge of panic. A cop was in Harlan’s home, answering the phone. That probably meant the home was a crime scene. More bad news.

  “This is FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare,” Kate said. “A couple days ago, my father flew out to visit Harlan. They’re old Army buddies. Now I’m having trouble contacting my father.”

  “Do you know if he arrived before or after the explosion?”

  “Explosion?”

  “Harlan’s food truck blew up while it was parked at the old sugar mill. He’s in the Kahuku Medical Center, recovering from the injuries. Nothing serious. He’s got some broken bones, and he’s a little burned around the edges.”

  “What are you doing in his house?”

  “A few hours ago someone shot the place up with a machine gun. The windows are shattered, and they must have pumped a thousand rounds into the walls. Doesn’t look like anyone was in the house when it happened.”

  Kate thanked the lieutenant, ended the call, and took a beat to compose herself. Her military and FBI training told her to stay calm, to think logically. But this was her father, and she was having difficulty breathing.

  Nick watched Kate struggle with emotion. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close against him, waiting patiently while she gained control.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I had a moment, but I’m fine now.” She stepped away. “Cash in our chips, and I’ll send the bellman up for our bags. We’re leaving now.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to Hawaii,” Kate said. “You’re going to have to stay behind. We can’t be seen there together. I’ve already identified myself to the police as an FBI agent, and I may need the resources of the local field office to help find my dad.”

  “No way am I staying behind. He’s your father and my friend. We’re all family. Besides, how many regimes has he helped overthrow in his career? He might be plotting a revolution. Hawaii could declare its independence if we don’t do something.”

  —

  The private jet carrying Nick and Kate landed at Van Nuys Airport at midnight. Nick was met by a chauffeured Rolls-Royce and motored away into the darkness for parts unknown. Kate drove to her apartment in Tarzana, packed a bag, booked a seat on an 8 A.M. flight out of LAX to Honolulu, and stole a few hours of sleep. At 6 A.M. she called Jessup on her way to the airport. “I need to take a couple personal days. I’m having trouble contacting my father in Hawaii. I’m worried something is wrong.”

  “I’ll alert the TSA you’re traveling and notify our field office in Honolulu. If there is anything else I can do, just let me know. All I ask is that you please take care of yourself, limit the property damage, and try to avoid killing anyone.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Kate said.

  —

  Her plane landed in Honolulu a little before noon. Kate rented a Jeep Wrangler and headed for the North Shore, following the directions to the Kahuku police station on her phone’s map app.

  The freeway snaked up through the mountains, lush with palms and pines, then descended on the other side, passing through vast pineapple fields that led to the sleepy beach town of Haleiwa, the heart of the North Shore.

  Haleiwa had a pleasant laid-back, hippie vibe. Oceanfront homes ran along the coastline, buffered from the two-lane highway by groves of banyan trees. There were a few parking lots for public access to the sand and the rocky shoreline. The beaches were stunning, and the waves were huge. On the south side of the highway there were some bungalows, an occasional small restaurant or shop, and beyond that, the thick forest leading back up to the jagged green mountain range.

  Kate continued to follow the Kamehameha Highway for a few more miles, and finally came to an old sugar mill. The blackened wreckage of what must have been some sort of vehicle was parked in the lot. She assumed this was Harlan’s food truck.

  The Kahuku police station was just up the road from the sugar mill—so close that the cops could have arrived at the crime scene faster on foot than in their cars. It was a significant fact to Kate. If the explosion wasn’t an accident, someone had either big cojones or the cops in his pocket. Neither prospect thrilled her.

  Kate parked beside the lone police car, got out, and walked into the station. She flashed her FBI badge to the desk clerk, a bored Hawaiian woman doing paperwork, and asked to see Lieutenant Gregg Steadman. The clerk nodded in the direction of the door behind her. Kate walked through the door into a cramped squad room that looked like a storage unit for surplus office furniture, old files, and obsolete computer equipment. Sitting in the middle of it all, behind a gray metal desk, was a slim, slightly rumpled guy in his thirties.

  “Lieutenant Steadman? I’m Special Agent Kate O’Hare.” She offered him her hand.

  He stood up, shook her hand, and cleared some files off the seat beside his desk. “It’s Gregg, and you don’t need to play the FBI card. I’m going to help you all I can, and since you’re in law enforcement, I’m going to be more candid with you than I would be with a civilian.”

  “I appreciate that. All I’m interested in is finding my dad and making sure he’s safe.”

  “I don’t know where he is, but I doubt he’s safe. Harlan Appleton operates a food truck in the old sugar mill parking lot. He makes some tasty barbecue and gets a long line at lunchtime. This doesn’t please the locals running the shrimp trucks. I don’t have proof, but I suspect Harlan’s food truck was blown up because he refused to pay protection money
to Lono Alika’s gang. Now Harlan’s in the hospital, and the next thing I know I’m getting a call that Lono’s chromed Ford F-150, the Hawaiian Bentley, has also been blown sky-high. Lono loved that truck. Might be why Lono’s gang shot up Harlan’s place. If your dad was staying there it’s a miracle he got away. They pretty much demolished the house with gunfire.”

  “So why aren’t you sweating Lono and searching for my father?”

  “Both Harlan and Lono say their trucks exploded by accident. Harlan isn’t filing charges over the damage to his house, and there’s no evidence your father is doing anything but enjoying his vacation.”

  “You know that’s not true,” she said.

  “Look, Lono Alika owns the North Shore. He’s not just running a protection racket. He’s the Yakuza’s major drug distributor on Oahu and one of the biggest meth producers in Hawaii. I’m sure you’re familiar with Yakuza.”

  “They’re members of a Japanese transnational organized crime syndicate. I know of them, but I haven’t had any personal contact.”

  “I’ve been trying to make a case against Alika for years,” Steadman said, “but even the locals are terrified of him. Some of the cops, too. You don’t blow up that man’s truck unless you have a death wish. Not only will he kill you but he’ll do it in the most agonizing, horrible way.”

  Kate was pretty sure she knew who blew up Alika’s truck. It was justice, Jake-style. Jake was fiercely loyal to his friends and had taken on brutal dictators, revolutionary generals, and international terrorists in his career. He wouldn’t let some island mobster intimidate him.

  “Does the name ‘Bludd’ mean anything to you? Or ‘Bludd’s Money’?”

  He shook his head. “No. Why?”

  “It was a message my dad sent me before he disappeared. I can’t figure it out.” Kate stood. “Thanks for filling me in. I appreciate you taking the time.”

  Harlan Appleton lived at the end of a dirt road in a one-story eight-hundred-square-foot home that backed up against the dense forest. His home was a typical Hawaiian camp house, built in the early 1900s for the sugar mill workers. It had a tin roof, a long porch, double-hung windows, and thin walls made only of tongue-and-groove redwood planks. The bullets had destroyed all of the windows and punched holes through the wooden walls. Harlan’s bullet-riddled Jeep was slumped in the mud like a dead animal, the tires shredded by gunfire.