A Devil's Bargain

by Jonathan Watkins

  “Not anymore,” Darren said and sipped his coffee.

  * * *

  In the expansive and golden-lit souvenir shop of the casino, Issabella talked the situation out while Darren plucked items from the shelves.

  “Luther runs the family firm your great, great, great grandfather founded. Or am I missing a few greats? It doesn’t matter, the fact is—”

  “I doubt he was all that great. I’ve seen portraits. He had shifty eyes and a weak chin.”

  “Don’t interrupt. I need to sort this out.”

  “It isn’t really a law firm anymore, either,” Darren corrected while trying on a black baseball cap with the casino’s name emblazoned on its front. “I mean, Luther calls it a firm, but there’s nothing particularly legal about what the Fletcher Group does these days.”

  Issabella considered what she knew. The Fletchers were an obscenely rich family, whose fortunes extended back to the earliest days of the nation, when Darren’s ancestor hung a legal shingle in downtown Philadelphia. Over the long years, that law office became a firm, one that specialized in servicing the needs of what today would be called ‘blue bloods’—the powerful landholders whose grip on the reins of power had only strengthened since the revolutionary war.

  “It was a legit law firm when it started, right?”

  “I suppose so. I’m not really sure, Izzy. Whenever Father started talking about it, I tuned him out. Luther paid attention for both of us.”

  “Okay, but sometime early on, it became what it is today.”

  “Yes.”

  “A mafia-like cabal who service the powerful and the corrupt.”

  “Bingo.”

  “That’s what you were born into.”

  “Exactly,” he agreed, and put a matching black baseball cap on her head. It was too small, and she scrunched her nose in discomfort, so he put it back and continued perusing the shelves.

  “And at some point the firm moved to Chicago.”

  “More than a hundred years ago. You know, that’s the one thing I can thank my ancestors for. Chicago is a great place to grow up. We need to get out there sometime, just you and me. You can have a hell of a good weekend. Here, try this one.”

  Darren put another cap atop her head, this one pink.

  “I don’t need a baseball cap.”

  “Sure you do. Everyone should own at least one baseball cap. It’s patriotic.”

  When they exited the souvenir shop and made their way to the casino’s parking garage, Darren had two large shopping bags bulging with mismatched clothing in his hands. At the trunk of the Lexus, he deposited the bags inside and began shrugging out of his suit coat.

  “Two questions,” Issabella said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why would your brother’s firm send Gil Sharps to break into Theresa’s bar?”

  “We’re going to find that out presently.”

  “Great. Second question.”

  “I think I might know what it is.”

  “What the heck are you doing?”

  Darren had taken off his suit coat and his tie. From one of the bags he selected a black fleece jacket with the casino’s logo emblazoned across the back of it in white. As she looked on, he turned the jacket inside out, revealing its red lining. He began to shrug his arms into the inside-out jacket.

  “Legally speaking, I’m checking off the ‘substantial steps’ element of attempted burglary. Probably it wouldn’t really be complete until I’m closer to the place to be burgled. That’s what I’d argue if I was defending me, anyway. I could still turn back now and not burgle anything so the attempt isn’t complete and conviction at this stage would be highly unlikely. Not that I’m turning back. I am utterly committed to burgling, Izzy. It’s only fair to admit that.”

  “Fair to who? Me?”

  Darren produced the black baseball cap next.

  “We’ll need a black marker to obscure the logo on this. Let’s try a convenience store. But, yeah, fair to you. You still place some value on your license to practice law, don’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “So maybe I should drop you off at home before the burgling commences.”

  Issabella saw Theresa in the back of the squad car, alone, confused and doing her best to keep the fear out of her eyes. Her friend wasn’t that accomplished an actor. Issabella leaned forward and selected the pink baseball cap out of the second shopping bag and pulled it down low on her head.

  “If I say to hell with my license, does it mean you’ve at long last corrupted me?”

  Darren grinned and pulled her in close so he could kiss her.

  “Yes,” he said and shut the trunk.

  * * *

  There was no convenience store to be had at that hour in downtown Detroit, so Darren settled on turning the black baseball cap inside out as Issabella pulled the Lexus to a stop on the curb on Beaubien, two blocks south of the Greektown Casino Hotel.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Darren said. “Gil Sharps also had a pass card for room 422. What we—”

  “Wait. So why did we just waste all that time in the MotorCity Casino? Greektown has a better buffet anyway.”

  “Cameras, Izzy. Casinos are lousy with them. I don’t want any visual record of you or me being inside Greektown Casino tonight. If Gil Sharps has ever had himself fingerprinted, that detective will know who he is pronto. She’ll run a—”

  “Oh. Wait. You stole his whole wallet, not just that black access card.”

  “Yeah. I took his wallet, his phone, and a set of keys. Didn’t I mention that?”

  “Nope.”

  “I left him his gun.”

  “Very sporting.”

  “Right. So Gil is a John Doe. At least for a little while longer. The point is this: once they know his name they’ll start doing their thing. They’ll find out where he has credit cards. Then they’ll run the histories on his credit accounts and they’ll know he was staying at Greektown. Then they’ll come down here and find out which room and they’ll see that someone accessed his room with his card, but several hours after his time of death. So then they’ll pull the camera feeds. And, because I thought this out, among the many things they will not see on any of those cameras are me and you.”

  “And the turning all the clothes inside out?”

  “If they see two people go in Gil’s room wearing another Casino’s swag, they’ll just go over there to that casino and look at their cameras for the night. And then the detective will see us and that’s probably the first step on our way to jail. The only place in this town we could get new clothes that’s open at this hour was a casino souvenir shop. Am I making sense?”

  “You mean do I understand your scheme or do I think you’re behaving rationally?”

  “The first one.”

  Issabella stared at his shadowed shape beside her. Enough ambient light filled the interior of the car that she could see the manic light in his eyes. It was in his voice, too, in the quick flurry of words. Darren was focused and intent. Generally, that was not one of his primary states of existence.

  “When did you work all that out in your head?” she said.

  “About thirty seconds after I found his wallet.”

  “You’d probably make a decent criminal.”

  “I totally would, yes. But I have you to keep temptation at bay.”

  Issabella turned her pink baseball cap inside out and pulled it back down over her head.

  “Apparently not,” she said with a sigh. “So all I get is a baseball cap? If they pull the cameras and I’m still wearing this outfit, Detective North will know it’s me right away.”

  Darren nodded along and said, “I figured you wouldn’t want to change in a parking garage. There’s more clothes in the trunk for you.”
<
br />   “But I’d be fine with changing on the side of the road in downtown Detroit?”

  “It’s more deserted than the parking garage.”

  Issabella retrieved the second bag from the trunk and sat back down in the driver’s seat. Inside the bag were a matching black casino jacket which she turned inside out and a pair of pink sweatpants with ‘Motor City’ emblazoned in pink letters across the butt.

  “They didn’t sell jeans,” he said.

  “I’ll just keep my slacks on, thanks.”

  “You can still wear the sweat pants at home, though, right?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not a writing on the butt sort of gal.”

  “A man can dream.”

  She slipped out of her blazer. When she had the inside-out jacket on in its place, she zipped it up to the collar and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. The jacket didn’t look glaringly wrong. It was the sort of thin springtime coat that’s interior lining wasn’t all that different from the exterior.

  But the baseball cap was another matter. Inside out, it looked ridiculous. She tugged it down until the bill hid her eyes.

  “We are going to totally be noticed like this.”

  “You should put your hair up so the cap hides it from view.”

  She agreed and tucked her hair up into the baseball cap.

  “We’re still going to get noticed.”

  “Maybe. Just don’t look anyone in the face. The staff in there are trained for politeness, not suspicion. We just walk in, hit the elevators and go up. Are you nervous?”

  “A little. Not as much as I should be.”

  Darren leaned over and kissed her cheek. He was pulling away when she leaned closer in and kissed him on the mouth. She put her hand on his neck and the kiss turned passionate, lingering.

  “What was that for?” he said in a thick whisper.

  “Because you’re feeling guilty and you shouldn’t.”

  “You think so?”

  “Gil Sharps was sent out here because you’ve been doing your best to get the authorities to investigate the Fletcher Group. Because your brother sent someone to kill our client last year. I know you, Darren. As soon as you knew that Gil Sharps worked for Luther, you decided that Theresa getting roped into this was all your fault.”

  Darren seemed to consider it for a moment.

  “Now’s not the time to let myself feel guilty.”

  “Agreed. We need answers. Maybe those answers will justify feeling guilty. Maybe they won’t.”

  “She didn’t kill Gil Sharps, Izzy.”

  “I know that.”

  “She can’t go to prison.”

  “I won’t let that happen. We won’t let that happen.”

  Darren turned and looked at her again. She watched him push the trouble out of his eyes. Watched him force a grin into place.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go commit crimes, kid.”

  * * *

  Darren swiped Gil Sharps’s room card across the elevator’s reader and watched the hotel’s reception desk out of the corner of his eye while the two of them waited for the doors to open.

  A single employee in a white shirt and black vest was positioned behind the desk. He was young and well-groomed and didn’t as much as glance at Darren or Issabella.

  “We’ll need to be fast,” Darren said. “Just grab up whatever we find and get out.”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “You say that like I’m stating the obvious.”

  “Well, I hadn’t planned on taking a bath or anything while we’re here.”

  “You can still turn around and wait in the car. We don’t both have to go up.”

  Issabella tipped her head up so he could see her face under the brim of her baseball cap. She frowned at him and said, “Stop doing that.”

  “Okay.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. Darren waved the card a second time and thumbed the button for the fourth floor. The doors slid shut and he felt a faint tickle in his stomach as the elevator propelled them smoothly up.

  “I just don’t want you getting in trouble.”

  “Well, I’m not doing it for you, so stop trying to protect me. If I’d found out what you found out about Gil Sharps, I’d be here anyway. With or without you. Probably not dressed like this, but still.”

  The doors opened and they stepped out into the corridor.

  “I doubt that.”

  “That I’d be here anyway?”

  “Of course.”

  They walked until they were in front of the door marked 422. Darren didn’t swipe the card through the slot above the door handle.

  “Convince me,” he said.

  Issabella crossed her arms in front of her and sighed with annoyance.

  “I’m going to get Theresa out of jail. If what we’re doing has a chance of helping that happen, then it has to be done. If it means we don’t wait for answers to our discovery demands and we just go get whatever is in this room now, then that’s the way it is. Understand? Theresa isn’t going to sit in a cell one second longer than she has to. Everything else, all the ugliness with your brother and your family’s business...I just don’t care. As long as she’s locked up, I don’t care about any of that. That’s your problem, Darren. I’m sorry, but there it is. I’m doing this for Theresa. So open the door.”

  * * *

  “Well, Gil Sharps was no slob,” Darren said and handed a pair of latex gloves to Issabella.

  “Where’d you get these?”

  “I keep some in the trunk.”

  Darren scanned the room while they talked. There were two large suitcases set on the counter beside the television set. One of them was yawning open and looked to be stuffed full of neatly folded clothing. Three sets of crisply ironed dress shirts, slacks and suit coats hung on a peg near the front door. Two pairs of shoes were set squarely in front of the yawning suitcase, on the carpet. In the bathroom, travel-size toiletries were arranged neatly beside the sink.

  Both of the queen-size beds were made.

  “That reminds me,” he said and turned around to the front door. He put the Do Not Disturb hanger on the outside knob and shut the door again.

  “In your trunk.”

  “Yeah. I forgot about them until tonight. I haven’t needed them since we went into business together. Now I just keep a box of them in my office. Why? Don’t you?”

  “I’ll start with the luggage,” she said and started picking through the clothing with her gloved hands. “And no, I don’t. Why would I need them?”

  Darren walked into the bathroom and looked around. It was outfitted with a whirlpool tub. There were no drawers in which to store anything. He looked in the wastebasket and found it empty.

  “Found a box of bullets,” she called out.

  Darren looked over the toiletries. He checked himself in the mirror and thought, not for the first time, that it was a bad idea to have told Issabella about Gil Sharps. Despite what she’d told him and despite it making sense, he felt guilty. He was putting her at risk.

  “Darren?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why would I need latex gloves in my office?”

  Darren sighed at his reflection. Too late now, he thought. She was here and they were in the thick of it. There was no use mucking about with useless self-recrimination. He turned off the bathroom light and walked into the bedroom.

  “Haven’t you ever had a client bring you a piece of evidence, Izzy? Like, a phone or a gun?”

  Issabella shook her head and kept picking through the luggage.

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  Darren bent down and lifted the edge of the comforter of the first bed high enough that he could peer down and see if anything was under
neath the bed. There was nothing. He checked under the second bed. Nothing.

  “Well, back when I didn’t have a real office to meet clients in, I’d have to use my car. So when they handed over something incriminating, I’d pull the gloves out to keep my prints off it. It happens now and then. You can use mine if you want, they’re in my desk.”

  “I hope nobody brings me a gun,” she mumbled.

  Darren checked the nightstand drawers and found a Gideon’s Bible and nothing else.

  “Maybe I was a bit too optimistic,” he said and came to stand by her. “This isn’t proving to be the treasure trove of information I’d hoped it would be. What caliber of bullets?”

  “Forty five G.A.P.,” she said. “Which means that gun under his arm was probably a Glock.”

  Darren stared at her. Issabella stuck her tongue out and said, “What? I’ve had cases that involved guns. You pick things up.”

  “I guess you do,” he admitted and walked around her to the second suitcase. It was a steel piece of luggage with wheels on the bottom and a retractable handle. Darren tried the two metal clasps along its top. They wouldn’t budge. He peered closer and saw there was a lock on the suitcase.

  He fished in his pocket and came out with the set of keys he’d taken from Gil Sharps. There were seven keys on the ring. None of them looked like a suitcase key. He tried all seven keys. None of them fit.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she said, watching him.

  “No. No, it doesn’t.”

  “Maybe he had a second key ring?”

  “I patted him down. If there was anything else on him, he was stashing it in his shoes.”

  Issabella looked around the rest of the room once more, shrugged her shoulders in resignation, and said, “Alright, then. We’re taking it with us.”

  “I guess when you commit to a crime you go all the way in, Izzy.”

  “I pride myself on my follow through, yes.”

  Darren heaved the metal suitcase off the counter. It was extremely heavy, heavier than he would have guessed. Pulling it behind him by the retractable handle, he walked out of the hotel room while Issabella held the door for him.

  “Hold on,” she said and stuck out a hand, palm up. “Key card.”