Cash Out

by Marshall Thornton

  We entered a long, open, two-story tall area that had ticketing counters along one side—dozens of them representing at least ten airlines—all with metal stands and black, crowd-control ribbons in front of them. Hundreds of people waited to talk with the ticketing agents. Bad weather in Chicago meant hundreds of people had to be rerouted.

  Delta was close to the far end. We rushed across as quickly as we could, though we did often have to nudge people out of the way. As we got closer, I saw them. They were already talking with a ticketing agent, buying tickets to God-knows where. Matching gray suitcases sat at their feet, each had a Wilma Wanderly backpack hanging on her back. I had to wonder if their mother had dressed them as triplets when they were little girls.

  Becky was the closet to the ticket counter. She was yelling at the ticketing agent. “No, we want our money back. We don’t want another reservation.”

  “Oh my God, Becky, look!” Reba said, seeing us.

  We were almost there. Becky turned and saw us, and then instinctively began to run. Just as instinctively, I ran after her. I wasn’t that far away, plus she was dragging a suitcase with her. When I got close enough, I reached out and snagged the backpack. She tried to keep moving, but I came to a deliberate stop. I yanked her back, knocking her to the floor. In the process, the backpack—which was cheaply made—came apart. Cash fell out and scattered across the floor.

  Becky screamed, “No! No! No!”

  She was instantly on her knees snatching the money up by the fistful. In a flash, Reggie and Reba were also down there grabbing at the money.

  When I caught my breath I said, “The three of you killed Sonny. We saw you on the surveillance tape.”

  “Well, we didn’t,” Becky lied. “So, you couldn’t have!”

  “We saw you and Reba leave your rooms. You went to the room Reba had on another floor and changed into the maid uniforms your sister Reggie had already stolen. Then, you came back to the floor, entered my mother’s suite through a secret passageway, and waited there for Sonny.”

  “That’s… crazy,” Becky said, less confidently. “Secret passage? That’s so ridiculous—”

  “I walked through it. We all did.”

  “He knows,” Reba said, and ominous tone in her voice. “Becky, he knows.”

  “Shut up, Reba,” Reggie said.

  “You booked the extra room in your own name, didn’t you?” Tina asked Reba.

  “Of course, not—”

  “No one’s saying anything without a lawyer. Where’s my father. We need our father.” Becky said, as she stood up, having shoved as much money as she could back into the Wilma Wanderly backpack. She held the bag crushed to her chest.

  “Your father’s back at the hotel with my mother. The police are on the way. They’ll give you each a phone call.”

  “Of course, you might have some trouble getting an attorney,” Louis said. “You know, since you killed one.”

  To Leon, I said quietly, “You should call the police again and tell them exactly where we are”

  “But it’s still daytime—” he said, then stopped himself. He rolled his eyes and got out his phone.

  “It was her,” Becky said, pointing at Reba. “It was all her idea. Her plan all along. And she’s the one who—”

  “Oh, you are such a liar,” Reba said. “I should have known better—”

  “How could you do it?” Tina asked. “You said you loved him. How could you kill him for money?”

  “Not just for the money,” Reba said. “He was cheating on me.”

  “He was my husband,” Becky yelled. “He was cheating on me.”

  “He was cheating on both of us, okay?”

  The two girls were quiet for a moment as Reggie said, “I just did it for the money.”

  21

  Airport security arrived before the LVPD. Since there was still a great deal of money lying around, which was attracting a crowd, they decided to hold the girls until the real police got there. A few minutes later, two LVPD officers arrived and handcuffed all three girls. They refused to answer any questions and demanded an attorney.

  Brace Hyland didn’t arrive for nearly half an hour. We’d already given verbal statements to the uniformed officers, and been instructed to come into the main station to sign written ones. Of course, when Hyland did finally get there, he ignored us and spoke only to his officers.

  Begrudgingly, Leon let me use his phone to call the hotel and tell my mother what had happened.

  “Be succinct,” Leon said, every few sentences.

  “Oh, I see,” my mom said when I finished. Then, in a very low voice she added, “Well, I never really believed it was The Outfit. Cotton is going to be very upset.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, dear. It’s far from your fault.”

  And then I had to quickly say goodbye since Hyland was finally walking over. For the tiniest moment, I thought he might thank us for solving his case. It was possible, right?

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Our pre-file investigation is nowhere near complete. And now there’s virtually nothing about this case you people haven’t touched and that’s a disaster! A defense attorney will have a field day throwing suspicion on you. All of you. I don’t even know if the D.A. will press charges now that you’ve put your sticky fingers all over everything. I mean, we can try to plead, but who knows what will be left of our case after pretrial motions.”

  “But—they were leaving,” I said, trying to defend us.

  “I know they were leaving! But what is the point of keeping them if I can’t prove anything?”

  “There is the surveillance tape,” Marc said.

  “That I haven’t seen!”

  “There’s also the money,” Leon pointed out. “It’s a lot of cash.”

  “Oh my God, someone in Las Vegas had a lot of cash! How incriminating.”

  “They basically confessed,” Tina said.

  “Basically? As in, they didn’t actually confess. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “Well, no, they didn’t say ‘we killed—’”

  “Then it’s not a confession. You’d better hope they take a plea deal, that’s all I’ve got to say. Otherwise, all five of you are likely to get ground to dust on the stand. And, poof! There goes our case.”

  He walked away, and Louis said, “I think that means we can leave.”

  Not surprisingly, there was a ticket on the windshield of Marc’s car when we left the terminal.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t be a very good idea to ask Detective Hyland to fix that for us,” Leon said.

  Marc just frowned at him.

  “We can all pitch in to pay the fine,” I suggested.

  “It’s alright,” Louis said. “We’re coming out of this ahead. You guys don’t need to worry about it.”

  Actually, I still had my five black chips. I just needed to cash them in. I decided to just put the money into my savings account when I got home. Eventually, I would need to fly to Grand Rapids for the wedding. I decided I’d save it for that.

  “You know what I don’t understand,” Marc said, as Louis pulled away from the curb. “On the surveillance tape the maid went into our room.”

  “Yes,” said Louis.

  “Why would she do that? If the maid was Becky, she knew the money was in her room. So why search our room?”

  “And mine,” I said.

  “Ours,” Leon pointed out.

  “Whatever.”

  “Maybe they wanted the police to think that the killers didn’t get the money,” Louis suggested.

  “Or, The Outfit,” Tina added.

  “That’s really thinking ahead,” I said. “It must be frustrating to plan a crime so carefully and still end up in prison.”

  “If they end up in prison,” Marc said.

  “Oh, I don’t believe a word Detective Hyland said,” Leon insisted. “He just wants to take all the credit, that’s all. Those girls would be God k
nows where if we hadn’t stepped in.”

  “In a country without an extradition treaty,” Louis suggested. “Russia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives, Burma, China—”

  “Louis! Why do you know that?” Marc asked.

  “I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web while I’m at work.”

  Of course, we were all still there Easter morning. Cotton’s daughters had spent their first night in jail. He had decided to stay for their arraignment, though he wouldn’t be representing them. He was attempting to find them attorneys, though it wasn’t easy. As it turned out, there was not a lot of money.

  The million dollars in cash was now evidence. And, since it had been stolen in the first place, the Cotton girls had no claim to it. Even if you did view it as being Sonny’s money—a dubious claim at best—Becky could not inherit it since she’d killed him. Courts were sticky about things like that. Certainly, The Outfit could claim it—since it was theirs—but that would open them to questions about where it came from. In fact, it could unravel their whole money laundering scheme. So it was pretty certain that eventually the state of Nevada would decide it was theirs.

  We ended up keeping one suite, 20103, the one Marc and Louis had been staying in with Tina. It was cheaper than three rooms for the night. They kept their bedroom while Tina allowed a trundle bed to be brought into hers for Aunt Katie. Leon and I slept on the sofas in the living room. Well, I slept on a sofa. Leon spent most of the night gambling. Personally, I couldn’t believe he was still awake.

  Very early in the morning, there was a gentle knocking on the door. I opened it and found my mother standing there.

  “Put on a hat and come with me for breakfast,” she whispered. I did as I was told. It wasn’t hard. The Accidental Tourist bag sat on the coffee table next to the sofa I’d slept on. My Minty hat was right there.

  It wasn’t until I was in the hallway that I asked, “What time is it?”

  “It’s five thirty. I’m sorry it’s so early. I’m still on East Coast time and, well, we’ve barely had any time alone so I couldn’t resist.”

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t exactly sleeping well.”

  And it was true. The sofa was not especially comfortable, and there was so much to think about. I couldn’t help wondering if we’d said something about the money would Sonny still be alive? Would the girls have canceled their plan?

  For a while, I wondered if Becky had actually planned the mix-up. Had that been part of her plan? Framing my mother for Sonny’s death? But how could she have been sure we wouldn’t have gone right to Cotton? No, maybe she just seized on it as an opportunity.

  “You’re actually looking better, dear,” my mother told me as we got into the elevator. “Your color is better, and you don’t seem to be coughing as much.”

  I hadn’t actually noticed, but she was right. I was surprised she noticed when I hadn’t.

  “I’m so glad you came. This would have all been so much worse without you. I might have gone to prison.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “You would have convinced people of the truth. Eventually.”

  We didn’t say much of anything as the elevator reached the ground floor and we walked to The Wishbone Inn. We told the hostess there were just the two of us, ignored Fruit Loop Jesus, and followed the woman to our table. As we sat down, we were told how lucky we were to be there for Easter breakfast since they were serving sliced Silver River Farms Honey-Roasted Aged Kentucky Country Ham all day long. I felt bad for her having to say that over and over again.

  After she walked away, my mother said, “Don’t you think it’s strange that we eat ham on Easter?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “Well, Christ was a Jew. I’m sure he would have passed on the ham.”

  “Not to mention the bacon,” I said.

  Fernie the waitress came by, poured our coffees, and told us to help ourselves. Today’s wig was more Kate Jackson, making me think most of her wig purchases had happened in the seventies.

  As instructed, my mom and I helped ourselves to the buffet. Our plates were only half full when we got back to the table. Buffets were completely wasted on us.

  After a scoop of honeydew melon, I finally had to ask, “I’m sure this is all terrible for Cotton. How is he holding up?”

  “He’s gone into lawyer mode. Which is probably for the best. He thinks he may have found the girls a lawyer. Becky wants her own, but there’s barely enough money for one.”

  At that point, I could have told my mother about Detective Hyland’s remarks at the airport. It didn’t feel right though. Having been instrumental in getting the girls sent to jail, I didn’t want to be instrumental in getting them out. I also didn’t want to put my mother in the position of having to decide whether to tell Cotton. I suspected she’d want the girls to go to prison—at least for a little while. I didn’t think she’d enjoy being the one to provide the roadmap for keeping them unpunished.

  “Do you think they’ll turn on each other?” I asked.

  “That’s Cotton’s deepest fear. He’s hoping the difficulty in getting one attorney will hold things together. It’s likely to be a struggle to pay for one, no less three.”

  “You’re not giving them any money, are you?”

  “No. I’m not. And to his credit, Cotton hasn’t asked.” She delicately chewed on a piece of bacon before saying, “Of course, his best option for money is the people he and Sonny were stealing from. So, it’s all something of a disaster.”

  “What about the mother?”

  “She’s a possibility. Apparently, she invested her divorce settlement rather well.”

  “She might need it for herself, though,” I pointed out.

  “What do you mean?”

  I realized I hadn’t told her, “She lied to me about where Becky was when Sonny fell. She gave her an alibi.”

  “You mean, she could be involved,” she said with a real sense of doom. “I’ll have to tell Cotton.”

  “I suppose you will,” I said. Then I changed the subject, slightly, “I don’t think you should have forgiven Aunt Katie so easily.”

  “You’re not considering time and geography,” she replied somewhat cryptically. The look on my face made her continue, “We’re older and we live very far away from each other. It’s very possible we’ll never see each other again. In fact, I’d even say it’s likely.”

  “Does that mean she won’t be your maid of honor at the wedding?”

  “Noah, there’s not going to be a wedding.”

  “When did you and Cotton decide that?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t know yet. It’s not the right time to tell him. You know, this coffee is actually quite good,” she added after taking a sip.

  “I’m sorry,” I said reflexively. “Or maybe I’m not. I mean, he was willing to steal from the mob. You really shouldn’t marry someone like that.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that. I doubt he’ll ever try something like that again.”

  “Is it because of his criminal children?”

  She shook her head.

  “His frightening ex-wife?”

  “No, dear, all of that can be handled. I’m afraid it’s you.”

  “Oh. Well. I’ll admit I didn’t want you to marry him at first, but then I started to like the idea of you having someone. Someone of your own.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, but it’s neither here nor there. You remember he wouldn’t shake your hand?”

  Of course, I remembered, but the world was full of people who ignored medical science and believed they could catch HIV just by touching someone. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced something like that. And it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  “I can’t marry a man who’s afraid of my son,” my mom said.

  “I wouldn’t have minded,” I said.

  “I would. Noah, you’re the most important person in the world as far as I’m concerned. You know that, don’t you?”

 
“Um, I guess. But, Mom, I’m an adult. It would be okay if someone else was just as important or even more important.”

  I meant it, too. The thought of her being alone, someday, if something—

  And then I looked up and there was Leon looming over us. He looked exhausted and depressed.

  “Would you buy me breakfast?” he asked. “I’ve lost everything.”

  “Everything you won?” I asked. “Or everything everything?”

  “I can’t even talk about it. Scoot over.”

  I moved over in the booth so Leon could sit down, as my mother said, “Of course we’ll buy you breakfast.”

  “Thank you. When do you think we can wake up Marc and Louis? I have to get out of here.”

  “Someone’s changed his tune,” I noted.

  “Believe me, I know that. At this point, I have one thing to say—”

  And I knew, I just knew what he was going to say and that I was going to have to listen to him say it over and over again all morning.

  “Viva Los Angeles!”

  Louis’ Loaded Oatmeal Cookies

  1 cup butter (room temperature)

  1 cup sugar

  1 cup brown sugar

  2 eggs

  1 tsp vanilla

  1 tsp baking soda

  2 cups flour

  1 tsp salt

  1 ½ tsp cinnamon

  ½ tsp cardamon

  3 cups quick oats

  ½ cup chocolate chips (dark or milk)

  ½ cup dried fruit (cranberry, cherry, raisins, apricots or whatever)

  ½ cup walnuts

  ½ cup shredded coconut

  Blend the butter and sugar together. If you’ve forgotten to take the butter out of the fridge, use the microwave to melt it. Make sure the butter/sugar mixture has cooled before you add the eggs. You can mix the dry ingredients separately, but I just throw them all in together beginning with the flour. If you’re a health nut you could replace a ½ cup or even a cup of the flour with whole wheat.

  After blending the flour mixture into the butter mixture, add the oatmeal. This will be difficult. Using a spatula dig down to the bottom of the bowl and stir. And stir. And stir. Around the time you get a cramp in your hand it will be mixed. Then add the chocolate chips, the dried fruit, the walnuts and the coconut.