by Al Boudreau
I tried my best to follow, but didn’t have the advantage of people stepping out of the way for me like they did for the blade-wielding perp.
It was looking as if Turner would succeed in making his escape when a Good Samaritan whipped her forearm out directly in Turner’s path. The woman caught Turner in the throat, her follow-through taking him off his feet. He sailed back, his head hitting the hardwood floor first, his body following suit with a sickening thud.
A collective gasp filled the air as the crowd huddled in, followed by deafening applause, cheers, and whistles as the patrons discovered Turner had been knocked out cold.
The bouncers managed to muscle through the dense congregation of onlookers to round up the motionless criminal. They each hooked one arm under Turner’s armpits, hoisted his limp body up off the floor, and headed for the stairs. Turner’s head hung down between them as they marched off, the tops of his shoes dragging along behind like he was some human-sized rag doll being taken out to the trash.
The hoots and hollers only grew as the trio exited the room.
The crowd now focused their attention on the biker posse as they made their way toward the stairs. Blood soaked the towel that the bartender had pressed firmly against the wound.
I pulled out my phone to call Andrew while keeping an eye on the young woman who Turner had been accosting. I heard sirens outside the building.
“What’s going on, Carter? I just pulled up in front of the casino. A cop car nearly ran me down, and three more are about to try.”
“They all Cooper’s Beach town cops?” I asked.
“Yep. Oh, and here come two ambulances.”
“Here’s what I need you to do. Call Detective James. Tell him the Cooper’s Beach cops are about to take Anthony Turner into custody. Remind James that Turner is the suspect who worked at the casino until three days ago, then disappeared without giving his notice.”
“Got it.”
“Once you do that, stay put,” I said. “I’ll call you again shortly.” I ended my call with Andrew and then approached the young woman Turner had harassed. “Excuse me, miss. I was wondering. Could I have a word with you?”
They all sized me up before she responded. “What is it that you want, mister? Because I’m a little freaked out right at the moment.”
“My name’s Carter Peterson. I run a private investigation firm.” I reached for my wallet and handed her one of my cards. “We’re investigating the man who was harassing you. Would you mind telling me what you two were arguing about?”
She turned and looked at her friends. Both shrugged then locked back onto their respective cell phone screens. “Tonedeaf used to work here. He’s been bugging me to work with him for months now. I told him a while back that I might be interested if the money was right, but I changed my mind. And he just won’t, like, let it go.”
I scratched the details down in my notebook while wondering how much information she’d be willing to share with me. “He looks a little different today than when he worked here, no?”
“Yeah. He told me he was, like, worried the staff might recognize him,” she said. “But this place is a goldmine for that loser.”
“You called him ‘Tonedeaf.’ Is that a nickname?” I asked. My question got a giggle out of her two friends, but wasn’t quite funny enough to distract them from their devices.
“Yeah. I actually gave Tony that name. He tries, but he can’t sing worth a crap,” she replied.
“Mind me asking what he wanted you to do for work?” I asked, figuring her ‘goldmine’ comment meant she had inside information concerning the details of what he was into.
“Recruiting,” she said matter-of-factly, as if it were as common as waiting tables.
“Did he say for what?” I asked, realizing I was going to have to extract every single bit of information out of her piece by piece.
“Of course,” she replied with a full-on eye roll. Tonedeaf claims he’s the one who came up with Sixteen-Sixteen. And, of course, he wanted me to find him players who were willing and able to scrape up the buy-in so I could send them to his onion.”
I was writing as fast as I could, with absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “Sorry for my ignorance with this stuff, but what exactly is Sixteen-Sixteen?” Apparently this question buried the needle on the funny meter, as her two friends burst out laughing while actually making eye contact with me and one another.
“How old are you?” she asked. “Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Around sixty?”
I cleared my throat. “Uh, no. Not quite.”
“Sorry. Um … have you ever even heard of the D-dub?”
The look on my face must have answered her question.
“The DW,” one of her friends chimed in, “you know, like, the dark web?”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” I said. I was about to ask what their names were and see if I could get more info about Sixteen-Sixteen when one of the bouncers who dragged Turner out of the room approached, a Cooper’s Beach police officer in tow. Probably coming over to get a statement from the young girl.
“Okay, Rex Trailer,” the bouncer said in a condescending tone. “We need to have a word with your granddaughter here, so … if you don’t mind.” He waved me off with his fingertips, as if whisking crumbs off a table. The young officer, who couldn’t have been any older than 25, chuckled as he stepped in between me and the young woman.
I shook my head. Two wise-cracks about my age within two minutes. I was almost beginning to feel self-conscious.
It was looking as if my time with the young woman had come to an end, so I began to make my exit.
I pulled my phone out to call Andrew when I heard a female voice call out, “Mr. Peterson?” I turned, and much to my surprise, one of the young woman’s friends stood before me.
“Hi,” I said, and offered my hand.
“Oh … hi,” she said and gave my hand an awkward single shake, suddenly appearing shy. “Um, I … just wanted to say sorry for us being, like, rude. I know you’re just trying to do your work.”
“No worries. Apology accepted. What’s your name?”
“Kaylee. My uncle was a detective, so…”
I nodded, wondering if there was more to come, or if it was just her way of telling me we had one piece of common ground between us. “Mind giving me your friend’s name?” I asked as I pulled out my notebook.
“Allie. Allie Jensen. We’re all so over that stupid jerk, Tonedeaf. He’s been, like, after Allie, non-stop. Maybe you can help make that chaser go away for good,” she said, “like, forever.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Any help you can give me might make that happen more quickly. How old is Allie?”
“Twenty-one,” she said. “We all are.”
“Mind explaining Sixteen-Sixteen to me?”
“Oh, that. Well … Allie knows way more about it than I do, but…” She began playing with her hair. “There are sixteen players in a single game, and you have to be like, either sixteen or seventeen to play.”
“Is that why Tonedeaf wanted Allie to recruit for him? Because of the age thing?”
Kaylee nodded with enthusiasm. “Tone’s in his thirties. No way can that toad be hitting up underage kids to play his psycho game. He’d get dropped for, like, being a creeper, or something.”
“What makes the game ‘psycho,’ as you put it?” I asked.
“All that money. And the things they have to do to, like, win.”
“Can you give me some examples?”
“So, like … say the buy-in is twenty. That game would be a beginner’s round.”
“Each of the sixteen players throws twenty dollars into the—”
“Thousand,” she blurted out and began laughing at me. “Stop trying to make me choke. Twenty thousand, silly.”
I jotted down 20,000 and underlined it. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll stop kidding around,” I said. “What exactly does a player have to do to win?”
“Oh, each game is, like, different. O
kay, so, I’ll tell you about one beginner’s game. Allie recruited—” She stopped talking and shook her head. “I mean, one of our friend’s little brothers played about three months ago. The brist was to steal—”
“Brist?” I asked. “Sorry, but I want to make sure I take good notes.”
“Oh, like, totally. No worries,” she said. “Yup. B-R-I-S-T. Brist.”
My phone began ringing. It was Andrew. “I think you’re about to get kicked out,” Andrew said. “Word on the street is that they’re about to clear the building.”
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“Across the street, hanging out on the seawall.”
“Did you talk to Detective James?”
“I did. He said thank you and that he was on it.”
“Good. Stay put. See you out there in a few,” I said and ended the call. “Sorry, Kaylee. Getting back to what you were saying, is brist just another word for the objective, then?”
She gave me an odd look, as if she didn’t understand. “Kinda. So, like, the brist for the game I was telling you about was a Porsche Carrera.”
“Meaning?”
“Um … so, like, the player that showed up first. With the Porsche. At the secret location. They won, like, 80 thousand dollars,” she said.
My head hurt. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I did a loose calculation in my head: 16 players at 20 grand each was 320 thousand. If the winner got 80 … that left 240 for the house. “Did every player have to show up with a Porsche to be in line for the 80 thousand dollar prize?” I asked.
A big grin took over her face as she nodded. “Uh-huh. But the Porsches had to be brand new ones. Like, with the window sticker, and that.”
“Does the winner get the car, too?”
“Nope,” she said. “Just the 80 thousand.”
“What town do you and your friends live in?” I asked.
“Oyster Bay,” she said.
That explained a lot. Third richest community in all of Massachusetts. “And your friend’s little brother. Did he win?” I asked.
A look of sadness washed over her as she shook her head.
I was about to ask what had happened when I saw some commotion out of the corner of my eye. Just as Andrew had warned, a number of officers came marching in, the first in line announcing that we all needed to leave the premises, immediately.
“C’mon,” I said to Kaylee. “I’ll walk you out.”
Kaylee frowned as she shook her head no. “Thanks, though. I think I’ll, like, wait here for Allie and Steph.”
“Well, thank you for coming forward with this information. It’s going to help put Tonedeaf away.”
She forced a smile, nodding her head while she wiped her eyes, then gave me a quick wave and walked off.
I slipped my notebook back in my pocket and headed downstairs. I spotted the Massachusetts State Police entering the building just as I reached the arcade area, my timing spot-on. They’d likely be detaining everyone remaining upstairs to get a statement out of them.
I walked outside, the air feeling like 100 degrees after spending time in the air conditioning. I spotted Andrew sitting on the concrete wall on the other side of the crammed boulevard as hotrods, motorcycles, and convertibles plied the sweltering ribbon of asphalt. I didn’t have to wait long to cross. The traffic was more stop than go, with vehicles backed up as far as the eye could see.
Andrew didn’t spot me until I was almost directly in front of him, the scantily clad crowd apparently far more interesting than my cowboy attire. “Hey, Carter,” he said with a smile. “When did you ride in?”
“Very clever,” I said.
“Guess I’d better keep my comments to myself,” he said as he spotted my revolver. “That thing looks like it could blow a hole in the side of a tank.”
“Not quite,” I said, “but it’ll definitely stop most bad guys in their tracks.”
Andrew held his hand up. “I’m sure it could.”
“Any interest in getting a beer?” I asked. “I’m buying.”
Andrew jumped down off the wall. “What, that’s it? We’re done all ready?” He looked deflated.
“Afraid so,” I said, “but don’t discount your role in coming down here. Believe it or not, you were a big help this morning. And I want to pick your brain about a few key aspects of this case.”
His face lit up. “Now we’re talking,” he said. “Where to?”
“There’s a little joint a block away from here where all the locals hang out during the summer. Most tourists don’t even know it’s there,” I said.
Andrew motioned up the street. “Lead the way.”
I didn’t bother trying to have a conversation with Andrew as we hoofed it over to Jackie Blue’s. Too many people on the sidewalk. I kept turning to see whether or not I’d lost him, and stopping periodically in order for him to catch up. Glad it was only a block. It was beginning to feel like ten.
I finally got to Ell Street, the foot traffic thinning out. I stood and waited for Andrew to negotiate an oncoming Segway tour group. “What a zoo,” he said as he approached. “We almost there?”
“Entrance is down at the end of this alley,” I said.
“Good. Hope they have thirty-two-ounce draughts,” he said. “I’m going to need one.”
“Sorry, pal,” I said as I slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re riding a scooter, remember? Your sister would kill me if she found out I stood by while you had one too many. One and done,” I said, then pointed at his helmet. “By the way, when are you going to get yourself a legal one? You go down wearing that piece of crap, you’re going to end up doing more harm than good.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I just bought it because of Mass’s helmet law. I don’t even need one in New Hampshire and Maine.”
“I’ve seen some ugly motorcycle accidents. You really ought to rethink your riding without one.”
We got down to the end of the alley, and I held the unmarked wired-glass wooden door open for Andrew. The tired stairs creaked out our arrival as we climbed.
Just like every other time I’d walked in the place, Jackie Blue’s was at about two-thirds capacity, with plenty of seating left to choose from. I pointed out a high top table next to a window overlooking the boulevard. “Best of both worlds,” I said as we settled in. “Ice cold beer and air on the inside, and a hot beach view below.”
Andrew nodded. “Man, I always wish I was 15 years younger when I come to places like Cooper’s Beach,” he said. “The women here are enough to make you weep.”
“Make you weep, maybe,” I replied. “I already found my keeper.”
“Yeah, no doubt. You got yourself a good one in Sarah. That woman is one in a million.”
“What ya havin,’ fellas?” the bartender came over and asked.
“A couple Sam draughts, please. Pints,” I said and shot Andrew a grin.
“Comin’ up,” she said.
“Nice concession, Carter,” Andrew said as she walked away. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem. Sixteen’s not as good as thirty-two, but better than twelve.”
She came right back with our beverages. “Stahtin’ a tab?” she asked.
“Nope. Just the one round.”
“Eight bucks,” she said.
I handed her twelve. “All set.”
“Aww, thanks, hun,” she said and gave me a wink.
I took a good pull off my glass, then looked at Andrew, “What do you know about onions? And just so we’re clear, I’m not asking about the ones you eat.”
“So we’re talking the dark web?” he asked.
I looked down at the tabletop and shook my head. “They were right. I am getting old.”
Andrew looked confused. “What’s that all about?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said and brushed it off. “So … onions. What are they?”
“Onion is a domain,” he said. “You know, like dot com, or dot net.”
“If I type an interne
t address into my browser window, followed by dot onion, that brings me to the dark web?”
“No. It’s not quite that simple,” Andrew replied. “Ever heard of Tor?”
I shook my head.
“Tor is a web browser like Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, but Tor is used exclusively for the dark web.”
“If I were to download Tor, I’d be up and running for the dark web?” I asked.
“Well, that’s how you’d get … I guess acquainted would be the best word. It’s more complicated than that”
“How do you know all this,” I asked.
Andrew laughed. “From dating women who are much too young for me.”
“Okay, fair enough. Next question. Ever heard of Sixteen-Sixteen?”
Andrew grinned. “Oh, yeah. That game’s bad to the core. Too rich for my blood. Plus, I’m not keen on going to prison.”
“Mind giving me a run-down of how it works?”
“Well, for starters, anyone can sponsor a player, but only sixteen and seventeen year olds can participate in the actual playing of the game. No other ages are allowed because you have to have a valid driver’s license to qualify and register.”
Time to start taking notes. “And sixteen players to a game, right?”
“Yeah, but I think they call each individual competition a round.”
“Have you heard any stories about specific rounds?” I asked.
“Just one,” he said, “but before I get into it, do you know about the brist?”
“All I know is that each player has to deliver the brist.”
“Right, so in the round I heard about, the brist was a Riva speedboat. These things are Italian-made and go for well over a quarter of a million dollars. The buy-in on this particular round was 300 thousand.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “That’s some serious dinero.” I sat back. “Is it your understanding the winner gets roughly 25% of the buy-in as their prize?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
“And the brist?”
“The house gets every single brist the players acquire, as well as the remaining 75% of the buy-in.”
“Any idea who the house actually is?” I asked.
Andrew chuckled. “I’ve heard all sorts of rumors. The Bush family. Russians. The Italian mob. Betty White.”
