The Casino Switcheroo

by Michael P. King

  “Yes?”

  “Can we come in?”

  Max stood out of the way.

  “I’m Detective Johnson and this is Detective Gower. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Do we need a lawyer?”

  “Have you done something wrong?”

  Kelly Jo leaned against the back of a chair. “What are your questions?”

  “Why did you run from the casino?”

  “Run from the casino?”

  “You work at Solomon Island. You ran after the attempted robbery.”

  “We were afraid,” Max said. “Nobody knew what was going on there. Something blew up in the building. We got out of there as quick as we could.”

  Johnson turned to Kelly Jo. “Why weren’t you at the reception counter?”

  “I was on break. We were out in front, so we ran onto the ferry.”

  “That isn’t what the surveillance video shows.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I just know what we did.”

  “Then why didn’t you come forward afterward?”

  “We didn’t know anything. We were outside, and then we left.”

  “Then why did they come to kill you?” Gower asked.

  “Who?”

  “You’ve been staying at a rental on Tulip Street since the robbery.”

  “Until yesterday, when some guys shot the place up,” Johnson added.

  Max cut in. “You think it was the casino robbers?”

  “Who else?” Gower asked.

  “Why would they be after us?”

  “You tell us.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they think we’re witnesses.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you all had a falling out about the money.”

  “What money? I thought you guys stopped them.”

  Johnson turned to Kelly Jo. “Did you leave a shot-up Camry behind the Caffeination coffee shop on Randal Street?”

  Max and Kelly Jo looked at each other as if they were entirely mystified.

  “We’re taking prints from Tulip Street and from the Camry,” Gower said. “They’re going to match. What are we going to find when we run them through the database?”

  “I don’t know,” Max said.

  “One of Smithson’s crew was murdered up on Francis Scott Key shortly after your place was shot up,” Gower said.

  “Saw something about it on the news,” Kelly Jo replied.

  “Somebody’s hard after you two.” Gower handed Max a business card. “When you decide you’ve had enough, you give us a call.”

  “Are we done here?”

  “For now.”

  The detectives left. Kelly Jo peeked through the blinds to watch them get into a blue sedan. “They’re gone.”

  “And we’re not arrested, so these identities must still be good,” Max said.

  “Or they’re using us for bait. They didn’t have any trouble finding us.”

  “Which means they’re not going to pounce when the fingerprints come back.”

  “Are you in the new database?”

  “I don’t know. The system wasn’t digital the last time I got busted.”

  “And that was a long time ago—before we got together. What are the chances that somebody took the time to scan them in?”

  “Too many variables. Might have been too smudged to scan. Might not have been scanned. I’m not worried. So who do you think is tracking us? Smithson for sure, probably the cops, and Koenig’s crew could show up anytime.”

  “Definitely.”

  “We look like completely clueless mopes. It’s perfect.”

  “So what now?”

  “Smithson’s guy must have tracked Koenig’s boys from our house. Which means Koenig’s been flushed out of his hidey-hole. He won’t take the chance of being found. He’s moved to a backup place, a new neighborhood, a place where no one notices people coming and going, few kids, not a motel. He’s got too many people with him, and he won’t give up his protection just to blend in, not yet, so a by-the-month rental in a marginal neighborhood where people don’t trust the cops or help nosy strangers. And they’re not suspicious of white guys.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  Max got out his phone and clicked on a map app. “He doesn’t like the country. Once you’re found, you’re found.” He pulled up a map of the city and started examining the neighborhoods. “Have a look,” he said. He sat on the side of the bed. She sat down beside him. “What about over here next to the old warehouse district? Lots of ways in and out.”

  “That’s a big area to cover. What makes you think we’re going to have any better luck than when we were hunting the transmitter?” she asked.

  “We’ve got nothing better to do. We’ll do a Where’s Waldo after breakfast. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  When the police detectives arrived at the Budget Inn, Sally and Rita were sitting in a banged-up Toyota Corolla at the far end of the parking lot, sipping on takeout coffee while they watched the door to Max and Kelly Jo’s room. “Here comes that pain-in-the-ass Gower. Who’s the black guy?” Rita asked.

  “The black guy is Jamil Johnson, I think.”

  “Aren’t they the casino robbery cops?”

  “They’re organized crime,” Sally replied.

  “We should call Ninovich.”

  “Let’s wait to see if they take them.”

  When the cops got back in their car, Sally got out her phone. “Ninovich?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The casino robbery cops were just here at the motel, talking to Max and Kelly Jo.”

  “Really? How long?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  Johnson took a right out of the Budget Inn parking lot. “We should have arrested them. You know there were guns in that room. They dumped the Camry, boosted the Chevy from the Caffeination coffee shop, and left it in the parking deck when they took the RAV. We’re going to match up their prints. They’re professional thieves. They belong in jail.”

  “I’m all for marking down a win,” Gower said. “And we will put them inside before this is over with. But right now, they’re trouble magnets. They got away from the island, and we don’t know how. They’re connected with the kidnapping, and somebody—not Smithson—wants them dead. The earlier bodies could have been either side cleaning up. But Tulip Street and Francis Scott Key are definitely the kidnappers hitting back, which makes the Barlows our best lead to finding the kidnappers and putting an end to all this street killing.”

  “Okay, I hear you. But if we’re going to use them, we’ve got to have surveillance on them twenty-four seven.”

  Max and Kelly Jo drove down into a neighborhood of small houses that had once been the homes of the union warehouse workers before the commercial docks closed. They saw retirees out on porches, corner boys working their territories, for sale signs in weedy front yards, but no evidence of Koenig or his crew. When they got back the Budget Inn, Ninovich was waiting in front of the door to their room.

  “Remember me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you left a definite impression,” Max said.

  “You going to invite me in?”

  “Here’s good.”

  “What did the cops want?”

  “What they always want. A free ride.”

  “Did you like the help you got with Koenig’s guys?”

  “That was you?”

  “We need to help each other.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Right now, you’re an endangered species. I hold the keys to your cage. But it’s your lucky day. I don’t care about you. So you’re going to give me half of what you’re planning to skim from what Koenig stole, and I’m going to let you escape.”

  “You call that a fair deal?”

  “I do.”

  “But first we’ve got to find him.”

  “I’ve got confidence in you. Either you’re going to find him, or he’s going to find you. When that happens
, you’re going to give me a call. I’ll let you make your play, and we all get what we want.”

  “So the two women who’ve been following us are yours?”

  “Yeah, they work for me.”

  “You play straight with us, we’ll play straight with you.”

  “You keep in touch.”

  “As soon as we know anything.”

  They watched him walk back to his Mercedes Benz. “He’s going to fuck us the first chance he gets,” Kelly Jo said.

  “Of course,” Max replied. “But now we know who the shadows report to, and we’re got a little more room to run.”

  Koenig sat in the living room of a vacation rental house up the coast thirty minutes from Bathsheba City. He had his escape packet—new ID, new passport, new bank account—and the two million. Smithson’s people didn’t know where he was. Max didn’t know where he was. This was exactly the point in the job where his own crew members might decide he’d outlived his usefulness, which meant it was time to create the confusion that would enable him to get away clean. “Raymond.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you found Max and Kelly Jo?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. They’re at a Budget Inn. Two women are watching them.”

  “Smithson’s people, no doubt.”

  “Clean them all up?”

  “Not so fast. We’re going to play with them first. Since Smithson doesn’t want them dead, we’re going to create another diversion. You’re going to meet with Max.”

  “Meet with him?”

  “You’re not up for it?”

  “I’m up for anything.”

  “That’s the spirit. You meet him, tell him we want him off our backs, that we’ll give him a hundred fifty thousand to get lost. He’ll want to meet me. You say no but finally agree. Both of them must come—Max and Kelly Jo. You make sure the two women see you. You give them enough time to report in before you kill them.”

  “Why not just kill Max and Kelly Jo as well?”

  “We want Smithson to feel betrayed—to be looking for Max, thinking he killed those two women and skipped. We want Max thinking we really are going to pay him off. Then we kill him and Kelly Jo at the meet. Dump them somewhere quiet. Smithson can waste his time searching for a dead man.”

  “What if he slips out of the trap?”

  “Not this time.”

  “But what if he does?”

  “Smithson will still be after him, and we’ll still have the money.”

  At 6:00 p.m., when Raymond pulled into the Chanticleer restaurant, he spotted the beat-up Corolla in the outer row of parking spots. It was well placed to see the front of the restaurant without being obvious. And both of Smithson’s women were in the front seats, the tall one and the tiny one. So Max and Kelly Jo had to be inside. Raymond parked up against the far side of the restaurant and strolled around to the front entrance so that the women would be sure to see him. The restaurant was full. Several couples were waiting to be seated. Raymond spotted Max and Kelly Jo seated at a table near the back and wove his way through the other diners to reach them.

  “Easy now,” he said, sitting down at their table. “We don’t want any killing with all these witnesses.”

  Max kept his hand in his jacket pocket. “What can I do for you?”

  “We want to buy you off.”

  “Finally talking sense.”

  “We’ll give you your one hundred thousand.”

  “That was before you tried to kill us. I’m touchy that way.”

  “What’s your number?”

  Max turned to Kelly Jo. “Honey, why don’t you go to the Ladies?” She scooted up from the table. Max continued. “Tell you what we’re going to do. You give me a hundred and sixty thousand—that’s everything I was promised—and I meet with the old man, we’ve got a deal.”

  “No way. You deal with me.”

  “Then let’s find out who Smithson catches up with first.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “I meet Koenig, or we’re done.”

  “Okay, I’ll check with him. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll check.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be convincing.”

  “But if we meet, it’s both of you.”

  “She’s not at the table, is she? I’m dumping her before I get the cash.”

  Raymond smirked. “So that’s the way it is.”

  “That’s the way it is.”

  “We meet tomorrow. Give me your phone number.”

  Max wrote on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the table to him.

  “I’ll call with the time and place.” Raymond got up from the table and walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen. It was a cacophony of clattering dishes and shouted orders.

  A manager standing in the aisle talking to a server stood in his way. “Sir, you can’t be back here.”

  Raymond pushed past him. “I know. I’m on my way out.”

  He strode past the short-order cooks working at the stoves and the assistants prepping the plates as if he were in his own kitchen, went by the walk-in freezer and out the back door. He pulled on throw-away latex gloves as he continued around the back of the building and up the sidewalk behind the cars parked in the outside row of the lot. The women were still sitting in the front seats of the Corolla. The tall one was talking on the phone. He squatted behind the car next to theirs and waited until she put her phone away. As he put his hand on the bumper to stand up, a couple carrying a baby came out of the restaurant and started across the parking lot to their car. He crouched back down. When he saw their car turn out onto the street, he glanced both ways, pulled a Sig Sauer from his jacket pocket, stepped up to the Corolla’s passenger side window and fired four times.

  The first shot shattered the window and went into the tall woman’s shoulder. The second shot went into the side of her head, splattering the tiny woman as she reached into her pocket with one hand and grabbed at the door handle with her other hand. The third shot went over her head, but the fourth shot caught her in the neck. Raymond hunched down between the cars. No one was on the street. He scurried behind the parked cars back the way he’d come. Once behind the restaurant, he fast walked back around to where his car was parked and drove away.

  Kelly Jo stood in the hallway to the restrooms and waited for Raymond to leave before she came back to the table. Max had a satisfied look on his face. “What did you work out?”

  “They’re going to give us the hundred and sixty thousand to get lost. We’re meeting with Koenig tomorrow. Time and place to be determined. You’re not invited. He thinks I’m dumping you.”

  “So I’ll be working the perimeter?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Think he’ll try to kill you?”

  “Of course. But this is our best opportunity to put Ninovich on them, and the two women he’s got following us should help even the odds.”

  Four shots popped off in the parking lot. They both glanced toward the front windows, but they couldn’t see anything. A few other customers seemed to know what the sound was, but most seemed oblivious. “That can’t be good,” Kelly Jo said. “Not in this neighborhood.”

  Max motioned to their server. “Check, please.”

  Raymond drove around for a while to make sure he wasn’t being followed before he drove back up the coast to the vacation rental. Koenig looked up from his laptop when Raymond came in the door from the garage. “Did you get it done?”

  “Max bought it. Though I had to promise him a hundred and sixty thousand.”

  “You have to respect his work ethic. He never stops grifting. Are they both coming?”

  “He’s dumping her before he collects the cash.”

  “I don’t believe it. I told you both of them had to come. We’ll need to send someone to take care of her after he leaves for the meet.” Koenig frowned. “What about Smithson’s shadows?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Good. I’ve found what looks like the perfect place for
the meet. Have a look at the map.”

  Raymond looked at the laptop screen. Koenig was inside the property search feature of the city assessor’s website. On the screen was a map view of a parking lot behind an empty building. It was enclosed by buildings on all sides except for one driveway that ran between two buildings from Jennifer Street.

  “A fire burned through this area after an earthquake. Most of the buildings are abandoned. So no witnesses and plenty of time to set up. One way in, no way out. Take Hernandez with you and walk it off. If it’s as advertised, we’ll send Max there tomorrow.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us stay with you?”

  “I’ll be fine with the other guys. I need both of you studying the ground.”

  Back at the restaurant, Detectives Gower and Johnson stood in the parking lot watching the tow truck haul the Corolla away. “What do we know about these women?” Johnson asked.

  “The little one I’ve seen before. She was one of Ninovich’s, so I’m guessing fingerprints will tell us the tall one was as well. That makes five bodies in the last two days. Four of them on the street in broad daylight, three of them from Ninovich’s crew.”

  “Crooks killing crooks. It’s a win-win.”

  “For now. But the lieutenant is feeling a lot of pressure to get results. And Max and Kelly Jo were eating here when it happened,” Gower replied.

  “That’s no coincidence.”

  “Why wasn’t our surveillance up on them yet? If we’d had them covered, we would have had an officer right here when it happened.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir. I’ll dig into it. We’ll have them covered tomorrow.”

  “We’ve got to do better. We can’t let these mopes slip through our fingers.”

  Max and Kelly Jo were sitting up in bed in their motel room watching the late-night news. They saw the film footage of the shot-up Corolla being pulled by the tow truck. “That must have been Raymond,” Kelly Jo said. “He got up from the table and went straight for them.”

  “If we didn’t have a deal with Smithson, he might have thought we did it,” Max replied.

  “Tomorrow is the endgame.”

  “Yeah. Koenig will try to kill us.”

  “But we’re ready for him,” Kelly Jo said.