Casino Capers

by Dan Kelly

  Red asks, “Something’s been bothering me, Sam. Since you were helping Carl, why didn’t you give the sketch artist a phony description? Your accurate description was one of the key things that led to his downfall.”

  “If I hadn’t and someone else he knew, a fellow employee for example, had seen the sketch with Carl’s name on TV, I would have been caught in the lie and the spotlight would have been turned on me. I would have been asked a lot of questions that I wanted to avoid at all costs.”

  “Okay, that makes sense, but why did you tell Mr. Petersen when he called you about places Carl liked to frequent that he liked Chinese buffets? You could have lied then?”

  “By the time Mr. Petersen called me, things were really getting out of control. I was hoping that the information would lead to his capture before I got any more involved. No such luck though.”

  During this exchange, a nurse comes in to check Carl Carducci’s bandages and reposition him to help prevent bedsores. In doing this, he has to pull the sheets down to keep them from getting in the way. For an athletic type of guy, Carducci’s legs aren’t exceptionally muscular which kind of surprises Red.

  Jillian decides to come back later, hoping the Chameleon will be awake and she can talk with him then. As they are walking down the hall to the elevator, Red is bothered by something else about Carl Carducci that has registered in his subconscious mind, but it just won’t come to the surface.

  As they’re walking through the lobby of the hospital, Jillian remembers that she left her sunglasses on the bedside cabinet next to Sam, so they head back upstairs to retrieve them. As soon as they walk into the room, Red realizes what is bugging him and softly says, “Impossible! This can’t be. The odds of this are astronomical.”

  Looking at his brother, Nate asks, “What are you mumbling about?”

  Red whispers, “Their feet. Take a look at their feet!”

  Carl’s are back under his blanket, but Sam’s sheet and blanket are down at the foot of his bed because the sheet rubbing on his foot causes him to flex his toes which brings on a jolt of pain in his leg. On the top of the foot of Sam’s injured leg, smack dab in the middle, is a most unusual pyramid like scar.

  Still whispering Red says, “Carl has a similar scar on his ankle. I saw it when the nurse was in attending to him. I don’t believe in coincidences. Something really weird has just come into play.”

  Using the call button, Red summons a nurse. This time it’s a woman. “Is there a doctor available that we can speak with?”

  “Why do you need to speak with a doctor?”

  “It’s something about the physical condition of these two patients that we want to discuss with a doctor. Is there one available?”

  Red’s thinking, “Okay, I laid it on a little thick, but I don’t think she’d bother a doctor with what I want to ask him. It certainly isn’t an emergency.”

  She said, “Let me see if I can find someone.”

  While they are waiting, they all glance over at Sam. He has a very confused look on his face. Red’s thinking, “If there’s ever been or ever going to be a poignant moment in this man’s life, this one is going to hold center stage for as long as he lives.”

  The young doctor who comes to hear what they have to say is quite annoyed by Red’s request for him to compare the scars on the two men, but since he’s there he complies. They are a perfect match in every way.

  After the doctor leaves, the three of them have such stunned looks on their faces that Sam is provoked into barking out, “What’s going on? Why are you looking at each other like that? What’s wrong?”

  Red answers with, “Sam, You are not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. We don’t think Mrs. Carducci gave birth to fraternal twins that were attached. We believe she gave birth to fraternal triplets and one of them was attached to two of his siblings. We think you’re one of those triplets. The scar on your foot matches exactly with the scar Carl has on his ankle.”

  The expression on Sam’s face was like one you used to see in an old Tom and Jerry cartoon when Tom would be outwitted by Jerry. Reflecting shock and disbelief, his eyebrows are raised, his eyes are as big as saucers and his chin is at half-mast. When they try to talk to him, he just shakes his head.

  The nurse that had gotten the doctor chooses that moment to come in to check on Sam and when she sees the look on Sam’s face becomes alarmed and tells them they will have to leave because they are upsetting the patient. Jillian whispers to Red and Nate as they’re leaving, “That has to be the understatement of the year.”

  On the way down to the lobby in the elevator, they’re all thinking the same thing. How did Sam get lost in the shuffle?

  Back at Rex’s, having shared their discovery with Rex, Popeye and Joe, Joe remarks, “You know, the longer this Chameleon adventure goes on the more surreal it becomes. If we ever tried to tell the story surrounding this guy, nobody would believe us. They’d think we were making it all up or we’d all gone bananas.”

  Rex said, “Well, it’s certainly one for the books. It’s an experience I’ll remember for the rest of my life that’s for sure. I’m going to call a friend of mine over at the Hall of Records to see if he can help us clear up the mystery surrounding Sam Ferguson’s birth.”

  Red said, “Bill Kieffer has a lot of experience with in-depth background checks and knows a lot of people that might be able to shed some light on what happened. I’ll give him a call and get him involved too.”

  Rex’s friend comes up with the name of the physician who delivered the ‘twins’ and the name of the neighborhood medical clinic where they were born. This info is passed on to Bill Kieffer who is able to determine that it is a small neighborhood clinic that provides medical services to the lower middle income families living in the area. The doctor’s name is Raymond Styversant and his wife, Elaine, an RN, assisted him.

  Further inquiries reveal that Dr. Styversant is in a mental health facility, suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, but Elaine nee Ferguson was still working at the clinic three days a week. Bill thought that Elaine’s maiden name being Ferguson was too much of a coincidence to be overlooked, so he flies to Chicago, bunks in with everybody else at Rex’s and then shows up unannounced to speak with her on the next day she is scheduled to work.

  Bill explains why he is there and, at first, Mrs. Styversant is reluctant to answer any of his questions, standing behind a curtain of “I don’t knows.”, “I don’t remembers.” and blank stares. Gradually, she becomes more belligerent with statements like, “How dare you come in here and insinuate that I’ve done something improper.” and “What right do you have to accuse me of any wrong doing?”

  Her evasion and truculent attitude only make him more persistent, so he continues to put the pressure on by saying, “Mrs. Stuyvesant, denying your involvement in Sam’s forged birth records won’t keep the truth from coming out. When investigators and Sam himself confront his parents with the medical evidence, how long do you think it will take for them to come clean? I’ll bet not very long. I’m sure they’ve been living with the fear of being found out ever since Sam came into their lives and will be relieved to have the truth finally come out.”

  Elaine starts to say something beginning with “I don’t” and then stops. There are pregnant pauses and there are pregnant pauses. This pause was so pregnant it was about to give birth. Bill’s holding his breath as he waits for her to continue, hoping that he didn’t push too hard for some straight answers. Then the look of resignation spreads across her face, her eyes tear up and the words pour out of her mouth like a flash flood. She’s speaking so fast it’s hard to understand what she’s saying, but Bill is afraid if he asks her to slow down, she’ll clam up again.

  Elaine has a brother, Thomas, and he and his wife, Pauline, had been trying for years to have a baby without any luck. There didn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with either one of them, but it just wasn’t happening. They were thinking about adoption, but were discouraged fr
om applying because they had heard that the waiting list was very long.

  When Mrs. Carducci came into the clinic, gave birth to the triplets and then passed away, Mrs. Styversant saw it as a chance to make her brother’s dream come true.

  “Mr. Kieffer, I love my brother and his wife very much. It’s easy to rationalize your behavior as something that is right and good when you want it so badly. I figured by taking one of the babies I would be doing something good for my brother and his wife as well as Mr. Carducci. My brother and his wife would get the baby they longed for and Mr. Carducci would only have to worry about caring for two children instead of three. It would be extremely difficult for him to raise two kids by himself no less three.

  “I was able to talk my husband into helping me and from there it was really quite easy. Since my husband and I were the only people in the delivery room, after he had separated the infants, I took one, cleaned him up and took him out a back door to my car and drove home. My husband filled out the required documents showing that Mrs. Carducci had given birth to fraternal twins and separate documents showing that Pauline gave birth to a baby boy and named him Samuel Ferguson.

  “Tom and Pauline never told Sam the true story. I can’t imagine want through his mind when he was told about the scars. I’m not sorry for what I did and would do it again in a heart-beat if I had to do it all over again. What’s going to happen to me now?”

  Mrs. Styversant, to be honest with you, everything about the Chameleon situation is a legal nightmare. I’m not an attorney. I know nothing of statute of limitations and how decisions to prosecute are made. You probably should get yourself an attorney, but I think after that all you can do is wait and see what happens.”

  Chapter 78

  When Bill gets back to Rex’s, he fills everybody in on Mrs. Styversant’s confession. Jillian says, “I can’t get over how ironic it is that Carl and Sam should wind up as buddies from the time they were little kids, neither one of them noticing the similar scars.

  Red says, “Well, I’m glad it’s finally over. I think it’s time for us to pack up and get out of Rex’s hair. While I have everyone here though, I have something I want to say. Rex, I want to say in front of everybody, thank you for standing by me through all of this. There aren’t too many people who would’ve brought a new man on board, knowing he might have to put with a heap of trouble, and gotten involved as much as you have. Thank you.

  “Joe, thank you for all of your support, acting as liaison with the other casino managers, bringing Vince into the picture, sticking your neck out, knowing that the Chameleon might try to lop your head off at any minute and allowing Jillian to work with me and paying her while she did. Thank you my friend.

  “Jillian, there are no words that will express how I feel about you.” Giggles erupt around the room as Red realizes that there is more than one way to interpret what he just said. Turning beet red, which only adds to everyone’s enjoyment of Red’s embarrassment, Red stammers, “Ah, I ah, what I mean is, How does a guy thank someone for risking their life to help him out of a jam. Whatever I say is going to be inadequate, so I’ll just say thank you.

  “Popeye, without your help we’d still be locked in battle with the Chameleon. Your knowledge, your skill, your courage, your commitment to keeping your promise to watch my back, for all of these things I thank you, but most of all I thank you for keeping Jillian safe.”

  This time he wasn’t embarrassed by what he said. The way he was looking at her and the way she was looking at him told everyone in the room that someone else had arrived at Rex’s Chicago home. Mr. Cupid was knocking on the door.

  Red completed his thank yous and then everyone went to their bedrooms to pack. As Jillian passed by Red she whispered in his ear, “You know, I think it’s time that we got to know each other better.”

  If Red’s smile had been any wider, his face would have cracked.

  Chapter 79

  Months later, a couple of weeks before Christmas, the festive mood has blossomed throughout the community of Bettendorf. Judging from the two carat solitaire diamond surrounded by one quarter carat diamond and sapphire beauties mounted in an eye popping setting that Jillian is wearing on the ring finger of her left hand, it looks like Red and Jillian have gotten to know each other a lot better.

  They’ve just finished eating a magnificent meal at Cherie’s Jubilee and are enjoying an after dinner brandy and each other’s company. It’s a perfect evening. A lot has happened since the Chameleon was captured in Chicago and that’s their topic of conversation.

  Red was asking, “You never did get a chance to talk with Carl Carducci, did you?”

  “No, there was just too much going on after his capture and the subsequent discovery of the relationship between him and Sam. After the exhausting ordeal of fielding questions from the police, lawyers, district attorneys and the news media from Iowa, Missouri and Illinois, I was burned out on the subject of the Chameleon and decided to let it rest.”

  “Well, I’m glad Sam and Carl waived their rights to a trial by jury. At least we were spared the ordeal of public trials. The Chameleon is now going to have a chance to get a nice long rest in a maximum security prison for the criminally insane. Chuck Corrigan told me he heard that Mr. Carducci hasn’t spoken a word since he was shot.

  “Sam Ferguson’s life sentence with a possibility of parole after fifteen years seems fair to me. I think deep down Sam is a decent person. He just got in way over his head and didn’t have the courage to say no.”

  After a brief lull in their conversation Jillian asks, “How are you and Commissioner Crowley getting along these days?” It’s been a while since you’ve had anything to say about him.”

  “You haven’t heard? It’s ex-Commissioner Crowley now. A lot of the casino managers had been complaining about old Curtis’s high handed tactics for some time, but the powers that be didn’t have sufficient cause to show him the door.

  When his conduct in Chicago became general knowledge, the motion to dismiss him was on the table and under review. The straw that broke the camel’s back came from an unknown source who implied that some hanky-panky was going on between the Commissioner and his secretary, Charlotte Morrison. This was later confirmed when they were caught necking in his office.”

  With a knowing look on her face she says, “You wouldn’t know anything about this very timely tip, would you?”

  “Who, me? I’m too busy running a casino to be bothered with spreading malicious rumors like that. The timing was perfect though, wasn’t it?”

  Before Jillian can respond, Red says, “Hey look. Here come Rex and Joe. They look like they’ve been up to something. Rex has on his poker face, but his eyes are smiling and Joe has that look on his face which he always gets when he’s dying to reveal something that he’s trying to keep mum about.”

  Jillian says, “Good evening, gentlemen. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?’

  Joe says, “We were just passing by and thought we would stop in to say hello.”

  Rex gives him an incredulous look and says, “Just stopping by? Joe, it is ten o’clock on a Friday evening and by anyone’s expectations you should be at the Go For It making sure things are running smoothly. Stopping by isn’t what casino managers do on a Friday night during a holiday season. That’s the best you could come up with? Just stopping by? You couldn’t come up with a better excuse than that. Something like, ‘Rex just bought the Go For It and wanted to let you know before the news hit the streets!’”

  At first Red and Jillian weren’t sure they had heard right, then it was their turn to have incredulous looks on their faces. Red reverted to his old reliable. “Huh.” and Jillian was too stunned to utter anything. Seeing the looks on their faces, Rex and Joe couldn’t keep straight faces any longer and burst out laughing.

  Joe exploded with, “It’s true. It’s really true.”

  Rex backed him up with, “Seeing how you two are about to tie the knot, I thought it best to avoid co
nflict of interest situations by buying the place. Besides, I think it will be a good investment that will provide joint venture opportunities that will add to the revenue streams generated by both the Go For It and the Floating Fantasies.”