by David Archer
Morgan grinned. “See what I mean? He’s pretty bright.”
Heather’s eyes were wide, but she was smiling. “I actually like that idea,” she said. “How about letting me keep Rex here, Jimmy?”
That got a laugh out of Morgan. “If I left him here,” he said, “you wouldn’t be paying much attention to the computer, or anything else. Don’t let her fool you, Rex—Heather’s just a bit of a nymphomaniac.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying your work, now, is there?” The smile on her face told Noah that Morgan was probably correct.
“I think I need to keep Rex with me,” Morgan went on, “but I’ll have him look into these panic buttons. If we can find something and get it set up, I wouldn’t have a problem with letting you have one of the boys for a watchdog. How’s everything else going?”
“Pretty good,” Heather said. “All of the offices are doing pretty well, right now, but I think Fayetteville is probably bringing in the most money. Of course, Fayetteville is a lot bigger than we are; they’ve got thirty girls over there. I’ve only got twelve out of this office, but they do stay pretty busy.”
A door opened in the back of the building at that moment, and two women walked in together. They gave Morgan a wave, then turned into a room off the hallway that led to the back.
“That’s Pam and Janine,” Heather said. “They’ve already had a client each this morning, so they’ll hit the showers and be ready for the next ones.”
“Good,” Morgan said. “It’s all about keeping the inventory fresh.” He laughed at his own little joke, and Noah offered a chuckle of his own.
They left a few minutes later, and Morgan told him to drive over into Eureka Springs. They’d gone more than halfway through the tourist town when he told Noah to take a right turn, and they went downhill into an area filled with very old storefront buildings. Morgan had him turn onto Springs Street and pointed to one, so Noah pulled into the parking lot beside it.
This particular building looked like it might have once been a furniture store, but the big glass windows had been painted over. It was a two-story building, but when they walked through the door it was instantly obvious that the second floor had long ago been removed. Noah was surprised to see dozens of slot machines and video gambling games. All of them seemed to be occupied, and there were scantily clad women walking around holding trays of drinks. A bar at the back of the large room seemed to be pretty busy.
“It isn’t only the Indians around here who get to run casinos,” Morgan said. “This little place makes me more than a million dollars every month, because there are several thousand people who convince themselves they can beat the games. They can’t, of course, because they’re all run by computers that are programmed to know when and how much to pay out. For every dollar somebody wins off one of these machines, it will take in almost five hundred dollars. That’s what we call house odds, which means the house always wins.”
A small man in an expensive suit came walking toward them. Noah recognized him as Leonard, another of the lieutenants he’d met that morning.
“Hey, Leonard,” Morgan said. “Just showing Rex around. Everything going okay today?”
“It’s going great, Mr. Morgan,” Leonard said. “The hotels are pretty busy right now, and we’re getting a lot of the guests coming over. Some of them even mentioned that they learned about us the last time they were here, and came back because they like our games.”
Morgan turned to Noah. “An interesting little trivia fact about Eureka Springs,” he said, “is that two of the most haunted hotels in the country are here, the Crescent and the Basin Park. People flock to them because they heard the ghost stories, but we make sure they find out about our little casino while they’re here. Brings us in some new blood every day, right, Leonard?”
“Sure does,” the little man said. “Right now, since it’s fall, they’re starting up the ghost tours again, and the guides are happy to pick up an extra hundred dollars a day for telling their groups about the casino. Keeps us pretty busy.”
“That it does,” Morgan said. “What do you think, Rex? Got any ideas how we can improve things here?”
Noah had realized as soon as they entered that, with the second floor gone, the room was more than just large; it was very tall. From the floor to the ceiling, he judged, was probably close to eighteen feet. That would have been reasonable if the store had once sold very large items of furniture, of course, but now it only meant there was a lot of empty space above all of the games and stools. “First thing I would do,” he said, “is put in a surrounding mezzanine, like a second floor that’s open in the middle so people can look down into all of this. Make it a VIP area and put in some soft, comfortable couches, someplace where your high rollers can get intimate with one of the girls. Put some special games up there, like real poker with dealers, real blackjack, a roulette wheel, maybe a craps table. If you tell your regular gamblers that they have to bank a few thousand dollars to get up there, it’ll make everyone think they can win more if they get up the stairs.” He looked at Morgan. “I haven’t been around a lot of gambling, but I’ve read about how casinos use human nature to make people want to lose more money. If being a VIP means dropping more cash, those who can are going to do it.”
Morgan looked around the high blank walls and nodded. “I can see it,” he said. “Leonard, let’s plan on closing down for a couple weeks next month for some renovations. Let all your regulars know that things are about to get a lot better here, all right?”
Leonard looked like he was about to hit a jackpot of his own, and Noah realized he must be working for a percentage of the house take. “I certainly will, Mr. Morgan. This is going to be exciting.”
Morgan nodded and motioned for Noah to follow him, and they left the building. Instead of heading toward the car in the parking lot, however, Morgan turned and started walking down the street.
“There’s a lot of history in this old town,” he said. “A lot of famous people were connected to it back in the late 1800s, when it really got started. The story goes that one of the springs here, I don’t know which one, had healing properties. Long time ago, they say an Indian princess who had gone blind was brought here by the tribe and got her sight back, and that story spread all over the place. I don’t know who the first white man was to try it, but he claimed he got cured of some kind of ailment, and it seemed like lots of folks swore by it. There was a doctor who actually built a hospital where he claimed the spring would cure cancer, but I read where he got in trouble over that. The hospital is what we call the Crescent Hotel nowadays.”
“It definitely looks old,” Noah said. His eye was caught by a large neon sign that bore a surprising resemblance to male genitalia. “The Palace Hotel and Bath House,” he read. “That sign…”
Morgan burst out laughing. “Every visitor to this town sees that sign, and they always have the same reaction. Yeah, it looks like a pecker and balls, but the interesting thing about that sign is that it was the very first neon sign ever installed west of the Mississippi River, and that it was made by the Frenchman who actually invented neon signs. It was sent on a ship from France to America, then on a train to Eureka Springs. Rumor has it that the reason it looks like that is because the place was actually a bordello at the time.”
Noah looked from the sign to Morgan and back, then shook his head. “That is a bit of history I never would have imagined,” he said. “I do like the architecture of these old buildings, though. Is that limestone?”
“Limestone blocks, yes. They were quarried just a few miles from here, in a place called Beaver. Some of the buildings also have dolomite blocks, but they’ve faded from the original red color, so it’s hard to tell them apart from the limestone, anymore.”
Morgan turned left and crossed the street, and Noah stayed right beside him. They entered a small building that looked like an antique store, and a gray-haired man looked up from behind the counter and smiled.
“Morning, Ji
mmy,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“Hey, Chuck,” Morgan replied. “This is Rex—he’s my new right hand. I’m showing him around so he knows everybody.”
Chuck extended a hand, and Noah shook with him. “Good to meet you, Rex,” he said, and then he looked back at Morgan. “What can I do for you fellers this morning?”
Morgan grinned. “Tell Rex what we do here, Chuck.”
Chuck’s eyebrows rose slightly, and his smile seemed to fade just a bit, but he looked at Noah without hesitation. “Why, we sell antiques,” he said, but Morgan cleared his throat. Chuck relaxed a bit at that point, and his smile regained its brightness. “Of course, that isn’t all we do,” he said with a chuckle. “We make loans, Rex. Before I retired, I was a loan officer at one of the banks in town for almost thirty years, and people know me. I had been through a bad time not long before I retired—my wife had cancer, and passed away, but the medical bills just about wiped me out—so Jimmy offered to set me up in business and loaned me the money to open my little antiques store, here. I guess a lot of people thought I must’ve been rich, because they started coming and asking me if I could loan them some money, and we decided that it might be another good business for Jimmy to get into.”
Noah nodded. “I can see where that would be profitable,” he said. He reached up to adjust his glasses on his face again.
“It is,” Morgan said. “People come from all over Northwest Arkansas to borrow money from Chuck, and most of the time they pay it back when they’re supposed to. Every now and then, though, I have to send one of the boys to remind them to make a payment. It usually doesn’t take long to collect.”
Noah smiled. “I bet not.”
That made Morgan chuckle. “Any ideas for this operation?”
Noah grimaced, then shrugged. “I’m afraid high finance isn’t something I know much about,” he said. “I’m guessing these are just signature loans? No collateral?”
“Yep. But don’t get the wrong idea, this isn’t the kind of thing you see in the big city with loan sharks. Chuck showed me that the way to make money by lending money is to let people make small payments they can afford, but keep the interest higher. Somebody borrows ten grand for his business, we charge him thirty-six percent interest, but he only has to pay it back at three or four hundred a month. With the interest, though, he’s still paying me ten years later and I’ve made three and a half times what I loaned him.”
With a grin, Noah said, “I think he probably knows a lot more about it than I do. I doubt I could really suggest anything he hasn’t thought of.”
Morgan chuckled. “That’s okay, that’s okay,” he said. “I just want you to know all about the entire operation. You never know when I might need you to handle something, so you need to know exactly what I’m talking about if I tell you to come see Chuck.”
From the corner of his eye, Noah saw Chuck’s face pale just a bit. The man’s smile never wavered, but Noah knew instantly that the old fellow was skimming some of the profits and was terrified Morgan might have found out. He turned and looked Chuck in the eye, then winked at him.
“I’ll be happy to help anytime you need me, Chuck,” he said. The old fellow nodded graciously, but his body language was screaming in terror.
Morgan didn’t seem to notice, as he waved goodbye and led Noah back out of the building. They walked back toward the casino, where the car was waiting.
“The reason I’m giving you this little tour,” Morgan said to him as they walked, “is because I want you to be able to think like I do. I’ve spent years knowing I was pretty much the smartest guy around here, and I’ve got high hopes for Ralphie because he ain’t stupid, but I need somebody else I can trust who can pretty much figure out what I want without having to ask me. I think you might be that guy, Rex. What do you think?”
Noah thought about how to answer for only a couple of seconds, then looked directly into Morgan’s eyes. “I’ve always known I was smart,” he said. “I’ve always been able to look at things a little differently from everybody else, and that usually lets me see ways to improve something. Loans, that’s not something I really know much about, but it did give me an idea for something else. Mind if I ask a blunt question?”
“Hell, no,” Morgan said. “Spit it out. What do you want to know?”
Noah grinned. “Do you do anything in the insurance business?”
“Insurance? I’m not sure I follow.”
“My sister, Katie, made a comment the other day that I thought was interesting,” Noah said. “She said that she can go on vacation and leave her door standing wide open, because you don’t put up with thieves and burglars in your domain. I’m thinking that some of the businesses around here are benefiting from that, and it seems to me they ought to be rewarding you for making them so much safer.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “And how would you make that happen?”
Noah shrugged innocently. “I’d just have somebody pay them a visit and suggest they wanted to join the Morgan Mutual Benefits Association,” he said. “Membership means nothing bad happens to their business, and if somebody does break in or something, we do whatever it takes to find out who and shut them down. I think just about any intelligent business owner would agree that protection like that should be worth ten percent of their annual net, don’t you?”
A light flared in Morgan’s eyes as they suddenly got wider. “Holy geez,” he said. “Why the hell I ain’t never thought of that?”
“Like I said,” Noah replied, “I look at things a little differently. You’re already providing the protection, just because most other criminal elements are scared to death of you. From what I gather, there are probably thousands and thousands of businesses in Northwest Arkansas that should be members of the Association. I doubt if many of them would be stupid enough to refuse to join, and you’d be looking at getting ten percent of all the profits they make.”
“We’re talking billions,” Morgan said, his voice hushed in awe. “And if they don’t join, of course, something really bad does happen. Fire, something like that, maybe.”
Noah just smiled at him as they walked into the parking lot and got into the car. “That would probably work.”
Morgan shook his head. “Man, I like the way you think,” he said. “I had never thought about something like that. I mean, I’ve heard of the protection rackets that the mob used to use, and I guess this is really the same thing, but I never considered just how much money you can make with it.” He looked over at Noah. “You ready for some lunch?”
“Sure.”
“Me, too. Cut out of here and take a left. I’ll show you some of the best food in all the Ozarks.”
Noah drove back up the hill, where Morgan had him turn left again. The winding road that went through town was busy with fall tourist traffic, but it was only a few minutes before they came to the hotel on the right and Morgan told him to turn in.
“The restaurant here serves the best fried chicken you’ll ever eat anywhere,” Morgan said. “You do like fried chicken, right?”
“One of my favorites,” Noah said. He parked the car and locked it as he followed Morgan inside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The woman in the lieutenant colonel’s uniform was escorted into the office by one of the security guards, and Nick Weber looked her over carefully. She appeared to be in her early fifties, her hair a bit grayer than he would’ve expected a woman to allow, but she looked to be in good physical condition. He rose from his seat behind his desk and extended a hand, which she shook firmly.
“Colonel Hogan,” he said. “We don’t often see the Army here. What can I do for you?”
The woman who called herself Lieutenant Colonel Janice Hogan looked pointedly at the security guard, who glanced at Weber and waited for a nod before exiting the office. Once he was gone, she sat down in the chair just in front of Weber’s desk and crossed her legs.
“Good to see you, Nick,” she said, and Weber’s eyebrows came down
in the center. “I know, I know,” she said, “the voice is familiar, right? Maybe this will help.” She reached up with both hands and hooked her thumbs into what Weber had thought was a natural hairline. She lifted slightly and he suddenly saw the blonde hair that was tightly packed under the gray wig.
As she pulled the wig back down into place, Weber looked at her face again. “Allison? Allison Peterson, right?”
Allison smiled. “I didn’t think I was that forgettable,” she said. “You’ve come up in the world since I got transferred. Deputy Director of Analysis, and from everything I know, the job suits you well.”
Weber grinned. “The pay isn’t much better than it was when we worked in the Middle East room, but I don’t spend as many late nights in the office as we did back then. What happened to you?”
“I got my own division,” she replied. “I’m the director of E & E.”
Weber’s eyebrows suddenly shot upward. “Seriously?”
“Yep. You’ll remember when I was called to the White House over my suggestion that a certain prime minister should be eliminated.”
“Right, I remember.”
“Well, the president and the joint chiefs decided to concentrate everything to do with assassination under a single agency and offered me the job of running it. Naturally, I took it. That’s why, whenever your people want someone removed nowadays, you have to put in a request to my office. If I agree with that request, then I send one of my teams out to take care of it.”
Weber leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. “I knew that somebody was making those decisions,” he said, “but I didn’t have any clue it was you. Congratulations. Now that I think about it, I think I’d have to agree that you’re the right person for the job.”
“Thanks, Nick,” Allison said. “It’s not always easy, but somebody’s got to do it.”
Weber nodded. “Somehow, though, I don’t think you’re here to reminisce about the good old days in the Middle East room. What can I do for you, Allison?”
