by Jeff Shelby
The knot punched me in the stomach grew bigger . “What? ? ”
“A hundred bucks,” he said, smiling. “I'm going to march into that giant lit-up castle over there, find an ATM machine that will charge me, like, eight bucks to make a withdraw a l, take out one hundred of our dollars and then gamble with it.” His smile grew. “Play some blackjack, maybe a little poker. Who knows?”
“Jake, we can't — ”
“I can do whatever I'd like,” he said, holding up an index finger to silence me. “You've brought me here under false pretenses. I am allowed to have a good time. And in order to have a good time, I will need to put our hard-earned money at risk in some of these games you despise so much.”
He was pushing all of my buttons. At once. He knew how much emphasis I placed on not wasting money and I'd always maintained that gambling was a huge waste of money. He was trying to torture me, make me feel bad for tricking him into the date night at the casino and also let me know he was irritated that I'd gotten myself further involved in the computer theft.
I hated payback.
“Maybe I'll win,” he said, then smiled again. “Or maybe I'll lose.”
“I should punch you,” I said.
He cackled. “This may turn out to be fun after all.”
Both Brenda and Johnny were turned around in their seats, watching us. Johnny seemed amused, but Brenda looked concerned.
“Fine,” I said. “Take out your money. I hope you lose it all.”
“Yeah?” Jake said. “Maybe I'll take out two hundred then.”
I started to say something, but he put up his index finger again. “No, no. False pretenses and all that. I can do whatever I'd like while we're here.” He leaned closer to me. “I hate investigating and you hate gambling. So if you're gonna play Jessica Fletcher, I'm gonna play Johnny Chan.”
“ Who the hell is Johnny Chan?”
“ On e of the greatest poker players and gamblers to ever live,” he said. “One time — ”
“ I don't care!” I said. “And you know how I feel about gambling. It's totally different than...whatever it is I'm doing.”
“ Totally diff erent?” he said, widening his eyes. “Oh, I'm sorry. Have I not said about seventy thousand times that I am not in favor of you continuing to act like some undercover cop? Have I not said it loud enough? Should I yell it right now?”
“ No, because I'll put my fist in your mouth as soon as you open it.”
“ I even told you the other day that if you were going to keep doing this stuff, that maybe you should at least get paid for it,” he continued. “But I'll take a huge guess and assume you aren't getting paid for this little expedition tonight?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me I'm wrong and that you're getting paid and I won't go yank a bunch of cash out of the ATM right now.”
I didn't say anything.
He thrust his arms up in the air. “I win! Show me the money!”
I turned to Brenda. “You'll help me hide the body, right? After I kill him?”
“Oh, definitely,” she said, smiling. “I know all of the good places.”
“Good luck prying her away from the slots,” Johnny said.
She swatted him on the shoulder.
We got out and walked through the garage to the elevator. Jake tried to hold my hand in the elevator, but I yanked it away from him and made a face at him. He chuckled and shook his head.
I glared at him. “You are totally blowing it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How's that?”
“Before you started threatening me with gambling, this was gonna be your lucky night,” I said.
“Lucky night?” he asked. “How do you figure?”
The elevator reached the main floor and the doors opened. I waited until Johnny and Brenda walked out ahead of us.
I looked at my husband. “I was gonna have lots of sex with you tonight when we got home. Now?” I held up my index finger and wagged it in his face just like he'd done. “You won't even get to touch my boobs.” a glimpse of what I was going to offer.”
I made a mental note to pu ll out my long-sleeve pajamas and to make sure I wore socks to bed that night.
Jake frowned at me. “But—”
“ No buts.” I frowned back at him. “Literally.”
I stomped out of the elevator, smiling, leaving him standing there to ponder that.
THIRTY SEVEN
The interior of River Star was an assault on all of my senses.
The space building seemed endless, with rows and rows of slot machines, all ringing and making cartoon like sounds, as people sat on stools and punched the buttons on them. Beyond the slots, I could see more rows of tables for card games. The purple and pink neon lights were everywhere, advertising everything from games to food to drinks. Waitresses dressed in skimpy purple and pink outfits flitted about with trays full of drinks. Shouts of joy and groans of disappointment rose above all of the machine noise every few moments. And there were throngs and throngs of people.
The River Star was thriving.
Brenda rubbed her hands together. “So, I think I'll just go wander and see where I end up.”
“Bet I know,” Johnny said.
“Be quiet,” Brenda said, then headed into the sea of slot machines.
“And I'm going to go find an ATM,” Jake said, grinning.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He blew me a kiss.
Forget one night without sex.
He was now looking at a month.
“Nate said to meet him near All Kinds of Wall of Walleye,” Johnny said.
I tried to refocus. “What the heck is that?”
“Apparently a place to eat. That serves lots of walleye.” He pointed to the opposite side of the casino. “Says all food is that way.”
I nodded and we entered the giant mob that seemed to be moving in that way direction . I was struck by the different types of people that were in the casino. Couples, singles, seniors, college students, nicely dressed people, folks with barely any clothes on at all. Tall, short, big, small, blonde, brunette, long hair, bald. Everyone was there. Apparently, I was one of the few people in the state of Minnesota who didn't have any interest in gambling.
We moved slowly with the herd, people peeling off towards the games and others joining up as we trudged toward the large neon sign at the far end of the room that offered food. The smells of pizza and cold cuts fried chicken and popcorn wafted in the air. We passed a long bar , jammed with customers, elbow to elbow at a long wooden strip counter . I was trying to calculate the money that went through this place and couldn't even imagine. No wonder the state had wanted the casino.
A giant fish with large googly eyes loomed over us as we passed the bar , a sign positioned underneath that read and a sign in the shape of a fish below the giant googly eyed fish declared that we had reached All Kinds Wall of Walleye. It was a counter service place, where you stood in line, then pulled what you wanted from warmers as you walked toward the register. I didn't count them, but it looked to me like there were at least twent y y- five people in line, trying to decide which kind of fried walleye they wanted.
“He said he'd find us when we got here,” Johnny said, scanning the crowds. “So I guess we just wait here.”
“Alright,” I said, already feeling claustrophobic and germ y aphobic from the crowds.
“How do you wanna play it?”
“I'm genuinely not sure,” I admitted. “I'm hoping it will come to me as it...evolves.”
“I got your back,” he said, nodding. “We'll be alright.”
I was grateful that Johnny was with me. I didn't want to do this alone and I was pretty sure that if Jake had had his way, he would've turned the minivan right back around and headed for home. I wasn't quite sure might not have known how we were going to figure this everything out, but I 'm was glad I wasn't doing it alone by myself .
Johnny nudged me with his elbow and nodded toward the rows of slots. “Th
ere's Nate.”
I followed his gaze and sure enough, Nate was strolling over to his us , still in the clad in his Vikings sweatshirt , and looking calm and collected. . He wasn't looking around , or checking over his shoulder or up at the cameras that seemed to be mounted everywhere. He seemed looked more relaxed than when we'd met him in the Data Dork parking lot.
He lifted his chin as he got closer to us, then pointed for us to keep walking past All Kinds Wall of Walleye. We started walking and he fell in step next to us.
“Busy Friday night, yeah?” he asked with a grin.
“Mad house,” Johnny said.
“Pretty much like this every weekend.”
“You come here a lot?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Which wasn't an answer at all.
We followed him past the restaurants, past another row of poker tables and toward the far end of the casino floor. The crowd finally thinned, people apparently not wanting to make the walk all the way down that far to the end of the building , especially when everything they needed greeted them as soon as they entered the front doors. We reached the end of the floor a dead-end and turned left, down a narrow corridor, doors on one side, windows on the other. Johnny glanced at me and shrugged.
Nate stopped at a door marked “Floor Security” and knocked.
For a moment, my heart stopped. I thought maybe he was taking us to casino authorities or some other law enforcement officer that who was going to would scold us – or arrest us – for trying to buy stolen computers. As irrational as that sounded, I was fairly certain that's what was about to happen.
Johnny apparently though the same thing. “Wait?” Johnny he said. “Security?”
“Relax,” Nate said. “It's my brother. He works here.”
The door opened and a taller, skinnier version of Nate eyed us. He wore a River Star uniform – red shirt, black pants – with a name tag on the left side of his chest that identified him as Al Swearingchief, Assistant Director of Floor Security. His long black hair was woven into a tight braid and he waved us into his office, a small square room with a desk, a couple of chairs and a laptop on the desk.
“This is my brother Al,” Nate said, gesturing at his brother.
Al held up a hand but didn't say anything as he . He sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk.
“These are the peeps I was telling you about,” Nate said to Al.
Al nodded, didn't say anything, just stared at us.
“They aren't cops,” Nate added. “I asked them.”
Al nodded again.
We all stood there in silence for a few moments. Awkward silence.
“So,” Al finally said, leaning back in his chair. “You're interested in the computers.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “That's why we're here.”
Al looked at me. “And why are you here?”
“Because I'm actually the one that's interested in buying them,” I said.
He looked back to Johnny. “So then why are you here?”
“I'm the one that made contact with your brother,” Johnny explained. “We hang out in some of the same places.”
He glanced at his brother. “That right?”
Nate nodded. “Yup.”
Then Al stared at us some more.
“And you're not cops?” he said finally.
We both shook our heads.
And then he burst into a laughing fit so loud that I started and bumped into Johnny.
“I'm just messing with you guys,” Al said, a big grin on his face. “I like to play tough guy once in awhile, you know what I mean?”
“Um, sure,” Johnny said.
“I don't get to mess with too many people here, you know?” he said, still grinning , then . He offered his hand. “I'm Al.”
We all shook hands after that unbelievably awkward greeting.
“So,” he said, making a fist and rapping it against the desk. “You're interested in a few computers.”
Both Johnny and I nodded.
“And you wanna see 'em, I'm guessing?”
We nodded again.
He slapped the desktop. “Alrighty then. Let's go have a look-see.”
He stood from the desk and led us out of the office, Nate trailing behind us. He led us further down the corridor his office was in until we reached an exterior door. He punched a couple of numbers on the keypad next to the door, the pad beeped and he pushed o pen the door, n the handle. We which put us outside again, slipped outside, at the back end of the sprawling complex. We followed Al to a line of about twenty storage trailers, large structures all with keylocked entries on them. He led us to one in the middle, punched a couple of numbers on the pad entered a code and pulled the sliding door to the side. He grabbed a flashlight from his hip and flicked it on, the beam white and bright and filling illuminating the interior of the trailer.
“I know this is all kind of cloak and daggerish,” he said. “Hope it doesn't scare y'all. Just trying to be careful.”
“This is your trailer?” Johnny asked.
Al shook his head. “No, no. Belongs to the casino. But I'm the guy in charge of them. I oversee the inventory and placement in each one. Mostly, we put outdated machines and furniture in them until we sell them off or the vendors come to reclaim them.” He smiled again. “But sometimes I put a few extra things in them. A little safer than keeping them at home, if you know what I mean ? . ”
“Sure,” Johnny said.
Al held the light high and shined it into the trailer. “On the left.”
Johnny and I both peered into the trailer. On the left wall, neatly stacked , were computer monitors and hard drives and keyboards. There were a couple of printers, too. They looked like they were in good shape. Nothing broken. And they absolutely looked like computers you'd see in a computer lab.
“Can I ask where you got these?” I said.
Al's smile dimmed. “You can ask, sure.”
Then he didn't say anything.
“But you won't tell me?” I said. “Right?”
“I'm not sure why it really matters,” Al said. “If you wanna buy computers, I've got some. If you aren't interested, we part friends.” He paused. “Hopefully.”
I didn't say anything hesitated . Because I wasn't sure what to say do . I felt like we were at a critical juncture and I really didn't know what to do. I wanted him to confirm that those computers were from Prism, but he didn't want to. And I wasn't going to actually buy the computers. Which I thought he was starting to figure out.
Al looked at Nate. “Thought you said they were serious buyers?”
Nate nodded. “Because they are. I think. Right, guys?”
We didn't say anything. Johnny and I both stayed silent.
“Or maybe you brought me some cops and we're totally screwed,” Al said, frowning at his brother. “I told you, dude. I can't go back to jail, man!”
“They aren't cops!” Nate said. “They told me they weren't!”
They both looked at us.
“We aren't cops,” Johnny finally said.
“Back to jail?” I asked.
Al waved a hand in the air. “Misunderstanding. That's all it was. I didn't mean to take the guy's car.”
“ Oh.”
“We aren't cops,” Johnny repeated. “But we need to know where these computers came from.”
“Why?”
“Because I think they came from my daughter's school I know where they came from ,” I said. Johnny stared at me, wide-eyed, his mouth in the shape of an O. “They were stolen from her school a school .”
Al immediately threw his hands up like he didn't want anything to do with that. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I didn't steal anything, alright? I'm just looking to move some merchandise that fell into my lap , alright? . I don't steal.”
“So you didn't take them?”
He looked me dead in the eye. “No. I did not.”
While I thought his whole notion that stealing was d
ifferent than selling off stolen merchandise was a little murky, I believed him.
“So where did you get them?” I asked.
He cut the flashlight and stuck it back on his belt. “ Look, I can't reveal my sources.”
“You aren't a journalist.”
“I still have sources.”
“Look, man,” Johnny said, taking a step toward Al Nate and pointing at him. “You and I both know that one of the unwritten rules of black market computer reselling is that you don't steal from kids! Everyone knows that, dude! And if you don't tell us where they came from, I'll burn you in every forum I can find and no one will bring you their stuff ever again deal with you again .” He jabbed his finger in the air again toward Al Nate . “I know people, man. People trust me. If I tell them you stole from kids, you're done.”
“ And if he's your connection ,” I said, looking at Al. “If he's your middle man, putting out feelers for things you're selling, then you're done, too.”
Al looked at his brother. Nate shrugged, as if to tell him he was on his own didn't know what to say .
Al sighed. “So you're telling me my merchandise belongs to kids?”
Johnny and I both nodded.
“Well, that's just craptastic,” he said, stubbing his toe against the as hp ph alt. Then he looked at Johnny. “You can't burn me him , man. This job doesn't pay me anything. I need him. Because I need to be a reseller just to make a living, alright?”
“I won't burn you him if you tell me us where you got your stuff,” Johnny said. “That's what we're interested in.”
“So you don't want the computers back?”
“Let's worry about that later,” I said. “After you tell us where you got them.”
He grimaced, like the force of my words had punched him in the stomach. He stubbed his toe on the ground again, clearly thinking about what he wanted to do. Or maybe unsure. Maybe Johnny's rant had gotten to him Or maybe about he was contemplating locking us up in the trailer.
“Okay,” he finally said. “So, like, in this job, I meet a lot of people, right?”
“ Uh, okay,” I said, I nodded uncertainly, not sure of where he was going.
“A lot of people come here on a regular basis,” he said. “Because they like to gamble.”
