The Casino Switcheroo

by Michael P. King

  You okay?

  Except for hearing.

  Keep me posted.

  There was a knock on the treatment room door. Ninovich deleted the text message from the tablet. The doctor and nurse came back in and directed Ninovich to lie down.

  Smithson deleted the text message from his phone. Two million blown up. Who would blow up two million dollars? Crazy, crazy guys. Nobody could have expected that. At least Koenig was dead. Ninovich had gotten that right. And they were still after the others. Before they were done, the world was going to know that they couldn’t come after his family.

  He walked across the patio behind his house and looked down the riprap to the rocky beach. But what to do about O’Brian? He was a major disappointment. Didn’t have control of his people. Didn’t know what was going on right under his nose. He was fine for handling the money. Good at schmoozing up the county officials. But that was only half the job. He needed to be reminded of what was expected of him. Smithson speed-dialed him.

  “O’Brian?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have you completed the personnel evaluations of your management staff?”

  “Everyone’s clean.”

  “Except the assistant manager.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Time to tie up loose ends. I want you to take care of him.”

  “I’ll put somebody on it.”

  “You’re not listening. You take care of him. Personally. You do it tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hernandez was in the airport bar and grill, nursing a rum and Coke, when he saw the news footage of the rubble at the vacation rental. The wrecked Suburban in the yard must have arrived shortly after he and Raymond left. It appeared he’d made the right decision. He’d put the $500,000 in his checked bag with his shower bag and clothes, dropped his pistol in the airport trash, bought a ticket to Denver. His plane was on time. He was safely within the airport’s security envelope.

  He glanced at his watch. Time to go to the gate. He finished his drink, ambled down the hallway and turned into the men’s room. There was no line. When he came out, two men pulling carry-on bags were behind him, talking about a presentation they had to give. As he continued down the hall, an authorized personnel only door opened ahead of him. The two men dropped their bags, grabbed him by his arms, and rushed him through the door.

  The door slammed shut. Two men wearing airport security uniforms were in front of him. He broke free from the men holding his arms, dropped into a boxing stance and stepped toward the men in front of him, swinging at the man on his left. The man shifted out of the way, and the man on his right hit him in the face with a .38. His nose broke, someone hit him from behind, and he fell.

  Hernandez woke up tied to a chair next to a mountain of crushed cans in a materials-sorting building at a resource recovery plant. He had two black eyes, and his nose was swollen shut. A bald man sat in another chair facing him, cotton in his ears and a bandage on his cheek. Two big men stood on either side of him. “You’re Ninovich.”

  Ninovich nodded. “See how this goes? You can’t save yourself. It’s too late for that. You can die quick or you can die slow. And there’s no one here to make any judgments about your bravery, so why stretch it out?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where’s the other guy?”

  “Raymond? I don’t know. We split the million and went our separate ways.”

  “What did you do with your half?”

  “It’s in my luggage.”

  “No,” Ninovich said. “The money in your luggage is counterfeit.”

  “Not possible. I got that straight from Koenig. Your guys are fooling you.”

  “Maybe Raymond screwed you.”

  “The money never left my sight. The money was in two bags. Koenig disabled the bomb in one bag, gave us the money, used the bomb in the other bag as leverage so we couldn’t kill him and take it.”

  “Two bags?” Ninovich shook his head.

  Hernandez’s face fell. “That cheating bastard.”

  “You idiot. I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.”

  Max and Kelly Jo were in a Holiday Inn Express at a freeway interchange. They’d bagged up the clothes they’d been wearing that day, showered, left the clothes in a dumpster, eaten take-out Chinese, and were now sitting on the bed in their underwear watching the late news, the duffel of money at their feet. “That house really blew up,” Max said.

  “You think Ninovich was in there?”

  “I bet he was at the scene. Was he inside? We can only hope.”

  “Cops haven’t released a casualty list.”

  “They’ll have to find enough pieces first.”

  “Why did Koenig do it? What was his plan?” Kelly Jo asked.

  “If he wasn’t inside? Something must have gone wrong. Fire can cover a lot of sins.” Max kicked at the duffel. “But why did he give us the full one hundred sixty grand?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “All in old hundreds.”

  “Because they look perfectly good. Serial numbers seem to be different. Paper feels right,” she said.

  “There’s lots of good paper out there. You can order it from China. Not the government paper, but close enough.”

  “We need a blacklight or a UV light to see if the security thread glows pink.”

  “Strip club, blacklight bowling, reptile heat lamp,” Max said.

  “There’s nothing open around here. We’ll have to figure it out tomorrow.”

  12

  Loose Ends

  Friday morning, O’Brian was parked on the street when Cassady came out of a Caffeination coffee shop with a to-go cup. He’d been following him as he meandered around town, stopping at hotels and condo offices as if he was job hunting. Was he really going to kill this kid? It had been so long since he’d killed anyone, or even ordered anyone killed. He kept seeing Cassady’s family at his funeral. But it was him or Cassady. Cassady was already a dead man. If he didn’t kill him, Smithson would just have Ninovich send someone. And after Cassady was gone, he’d be next. There’d been too many mistakes. That’s why Smithson had ordered him to do it, to remind him of his place in the pecking order. If he screwed this up, Ninovich would be coming to kill him. And Ninovich wouldn’t flinch.

  This time, Cassady didn’t get back in his car. He walked down the street and turned into the Saint Denise Cemetery. O’Brian locked his car and took off after him. Inside the gate, the cemetery was row upon row of granite and marble headstones, figures of angels, gigantic family crests from the last century. O’Brian stayed in the shadow of the mature maples that ran around the perimeter, moving as quickly and silently as he could, hoping to spot Cassady before Cassady spotted him. And there he was, sitting on a bench, his coffee cup on the seat beside him, his attention on his smartphone screen. O’Brian got his hand around the butt of the Glock in his suitcoat pocket as he crept toward Cassady.

  Just as he reached the back of the bench, Cassady stood up. He jerked his hand up to his chest. “Mr. O’Brian. You startled me. What are you doing here?”

  O’Brian smiled. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Really? What for?”

  O’Brian glance around. There was no one in sight. “I keep thinking about our last conversation.”

  “Mr. O’Brian. I was such an idiot.” He looked down at his feet and rubbed his forehead. “I know you’d never rehire me. But I can’t get a job with that bad recommendation…is there any way?”

  O’Brian took a deep breath. This was a terrible place to kill Cassady. He’d have to leave the body here. It would be found within hours. But it was the best chance he would get. “Sure,” he said.

  Cassady looked up. O’Brian pulled the Glock and shot him twice in the chest. The gunfire was louder than he remembered it being. As Cassady crumpled, O’Brian spun around 360 degrees to make sure no one was there. Then he shot Cassady in the head, shoved the gun back in his suitcoat p
ocket and jogged out of the cemetery.

  That afternoon at Galaxy Yacht Sales, Smithson, Ninovich, and O’Brian were gathered in Smithson’s office. “I’m glad you took care of that problem,” Smithson said. “I really am.”

  “It was my responsibility,” O’Brian said.

  Smithson turned to Ninovich. “Your guys clean it up?”

  “Yeah, dumped him off a boat out in the channel.”

  “You were following me?” O’Brian asked.

  “Two guys,” Ninovich said.

  “You can see our problem,” Smithson said. “You’d made some terrible mistakes. I needed to know I could count on you, but I couldn’t chance being wrong. So I had Ninovich put some eyes on it. Protected us both. Proved you were really with us and got rid of the evidence.”

  O’Brian looked at Ninovich. “I guess I need to thank you.”

  “You’re great at what you do,” Smithson continued, “but you’re not boss material. You showed that, too. Ninovich’s going to run things.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ninovich offered his hand. “Nothing will change. You’ll take your usual percentage.”

  O’Brian shook hands.

  “I assume you’re getting your house in order?” Ninovich continued.

  “As we speak.”

  “Great.”

  “Change of subject,” Smithson said. He turned to Ninovich. “Four of your guys were arrested.”

  “Not a problem. They didn’t shoot at the cops. And it turns out they didn’t kill the three dead guys.”

  “That’s some horrible shooting.”

  “Lucky for us this time.”

  “So there’s no problem?”

  “Nothing significant.”

  “Then we’re done here.”

  Out in the parking lot, Ninovich watched O’Brian drive away. They didn’t have Koenig’s body, but he had to be dead. That was a hard crash. He must have been disoriented, probably had a concussion, that’s how he ended up blowing himself up. Made a careless error. Not that it mattered how it happened. The only important thing was that Koenig wasn’t coming back, and Smithson was satisfied. There was only one guy left. Raymond. They were going to find him and make him suffer. Max and Kelly Jo had done their part. He wouldn’t have found the house up the coast without them. Not in time. If they stayed away, he’d let bygones be bygones. He climbed into his Mercedes Benz. Of course, he still had to keep an eye on O’Brian. Either he would fall in line, or he would have to go. Only time would tell.

  The next day, Raymond got out of his Jeep and walked up onto the porch of the mountain cabin he’d leased six months ago. He had groceries, internet, and an unobstructed view of the county road winding up the valley. He was going to lay low for a while. Half a million in counterfeit hundreds. He couldn’t say that he was surprised. Koenig had kept them all too busy to see everything he was doing. Still, it was better than nothing. He’d need to sell it somewhere. Ten cents on the dollar would net him $50,000, but he should probably keep $10,000 in counterfeit just to make his real money stretch farther. Then, in six months or so, he’d need to set up a scam.

  He sat down in the glider on the porch. He’s seen the explosion on TV, but he didn’t believe for a minute that Koenig was dead. He was out there somewhere. If he had the two million, he probably really was retired. And if he didn’t have it, he was building up enough working cash for a new score, and planning how he was going to get even with everyone who’d screwed him out of the two million. Either way, Raymond was going to make sure he was never found. Not by Koenig, or Smithson, or Max and Kelly Jo.

  Gower and Johnson stood in the front yard of the vacation rental up on the Coast Road. This crime wasn’t in their jurisdiction—it belonged to the Sheriff’s department—but since the fingerprints on a right hand found in the backyard matched a known member of Smithson’s crew, they came up to have a look. Lawn scattered with scraps of wood, shingle, and drywall, remaining walls teetering into the open hole of the basement level, a wrecked Suburban in the driveway. It was surprising there was any evidence to be had at the scene—explosion, fire, water damage from putting out the fire—but the Sheriff’s department was accumulating a fat file that they were happy to share. They still weren’t sure how many had died here—weren’t sure they would ever know. They did know that at least one person had left the scene, because a car was stolen from a neighboring house. It hadn’t been found yet.

  Gower kicked at a piece of brick. “This looks like the endgame of a messy job.”

  “We can only hope,” Johnson replied.

  “The butcher’s bill has been pretty steep.”

  “We don’t have to clear the ones killed by private security on the island. And Chucky Bowmont is going to eat the five bodies in the van that he drove out of the warehouse if he won’t cut a deal.”

  “That still leaves us Daniels,” Gower replied.

  “The car guy suffocated in his house? Yeah, that’s a tough one. Could be either Smithson or the kidnappers,” Johnson said.

  “And Bruce.”

  “The OD? I’m calling that a misadventure.”

  “What about the others? We’ve got Mario and the two women from Chanticleer restaurant, plus the guy in the alley and the three behind the record store,” Gower said.

  “Ninovich’s guys aren’t talking. Maybe we’ll get lucky when the prints come back from the national database, and we’ll be able to roll up a few more guys. We don’t have near enough to get Smithson or Ninovich.”

  “And what about the kidnapper? Or the Barlows? We ought to be able to put the guy in the alley on them.”

  “We have to find them first.” Johnson looked at his watch. “It’s only eleven-thirty, but I didn’t get any breakfast. There’s nothing more for us here. You want to go back to town for some early lunch?”

  “Sure. How about Cassie’s? They have that turkey and gravy special.”

  “Their coffee tastes burned.”

  “We’ll pull through a Caffeination afterward.”

  Meanwhile, Koenig was in the white tablecloth dining room of a cruise ship. His name was Neil Madison. He was a retired money manager. A jovial, well-mannered man who still managed money for close friends. Seated at the table with him were Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, two whitehaired lovebirds who’d found each other after their first spouses had passed away. “You are so fortunate,” he said. “I’ve never found anyone after Annabelle passed.”

  They beamed.

  “How do your children feel about it?”

  “It took them a little time to come around,” Mr. Talbot said. “But they got there.”

  Mrs. Talbot smiled.

  “Then you’re doubly blessed.”

  “How so?” Mrs. Talbot asked.

  “All of your children must be financially secure,” Koenig continued. “That’s the source of most bickering. Someone counting on an inheritance.”

  Mr. Talbot put his hand on Mrs. Talbot’s. “We are blessed. Completely and entirely blessed.”

  Koenig smiled to himself. They seemed just a little demented. He wondered how far he could work his way into their lives over the next two weeks. “Well, it was great meeting you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

  “We’ll be at the ornithology talk this afternoon.”

  “Really? So will I.”

  He walked away from the table. A cruise ship was a great place to start over. Lots of suckers and no police. He crossed the lobby to the elevator. He’d have a stake for a new scam in no time.

  Max and Kelly Jo were on the freeway headed south, driving a Cadillac Escalade they’d bought at Wild Bill’s Pre-Owned Autos in Sharpsville. Wild Bill had been very happy to take their dirty old money. They’d burned the Explorer in a farm field.

  “Koenig,” Kelly Jo said. “What a devious bastard. One hundred sixty thousand in counterfeit.”

  “Like I said, the snake in the Garden of Eden.”

  “There are easier ways to make a dollar.”


  “There are. But the satisfaction of screwing Koenig over is mighty sweet. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “But we’re not going to get to go on vacation.”

  “Sorry about that. We’ll use the counterfeit to set up a new job.”

  “You really think Koenig is dead?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet he didn’t get to keep the two million.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He wouldn’t have blown up the house if he had a choice. Not his style. Too much attention. Ninovich must have caught him off guard.”

  “You think he was really trying to put together his retirement money?”

  “Two million would make a nice package, particularly if you screwed all your partners.”

  “Hard to do by yourself.”

  “Yes, indeed. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try.”

  Kelly Jo spotted a state police car parked on the right of way on the opposite side of the freeway. “Trooper with a speed gun pointed at us.”

  “I see him. I’m not going too fast. Call Billy. See if he has any leads on a potential job.”

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