Last Ditch Effort

by Isobella Crowley

  “Thanks,” he said, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket. “So, I should probably go now. Do I get to keep my other winnings?”

  “Your luck,” Albert began and pointed the pen at him as if holding a knife, “is already stretched thin today. Don’t push it, buddy.”

  Remy sighed. Typical. “Fine. Thanks for an…uh, exciting game.” He turned and left.

  Albert sat in silence and watched him depart the high-stakes table, step past Tony, walk down the hall, and turn toward the main floor and exit.

  One of the other charcoal-suited men cleared his throat. “Too much piss and vinegar in that fuckin’ guy.”

  “No shit.” The proprietor pulled his phone out and called one of the three men he’d had tailing David Remington since dawn.

  “Joe,” he said as soon as the man picked up, “our boy just left the casino—hopefully, you noticed. He’s headed to James’s place in Windham. Either way, we’re fucking sure this guy is the kind of problem we don’t need. Follow him there and see to it that he gets a nice view of the place. From the floor.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Greene County, New York

  Remy groaned. This had been a mistake, he decided. He’d never entirely wrapped his head around the sheer size of the world beyond the lower Hudson Valley.

  As the freeway zipped by beneath his tires and stretched on without end through the towns and forests, Riley lounged on the dashboard in front of him.

  “This is boring,” she complained, “but at least you don’t have to concentrate on all those other things and can look at me.”

  “It’s true,” he said, “you are lingering right in the center of my field of vision.”

  She extended a shapely leg. “Don’t you agree that clothes would ruin the effect? Isn’t my body beautiful the way it is, exposed for admiration?”

  “Hmm,” he mused and pretended to wax philosophical, “you might say that the tantalizing paradox created by a revealing outfit is more enticing than when a woman is either fully-dressed or fully nude.”

  She rolled and spread her legs. “That doesn’t mean anything. You’re only trying to confuse me while you get out of having to admit the obvious.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” he said and kept driving.

  James’s secret house, according to Albert’s note, lay in a town called Windham, at the northern edge of the Catskill Mountains and a short distance west of 87, although south of Albany.

  According to his mapping app, it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Lower Manhattan to the town in question. It had already been two hours and forty minutes when he saw his exit coming up, veered into the ramp, and slowed to bear west.

  “Ugh,” he muttered, “even if I find this place right away and only surveil it for half an hour, it’ll still be dark before I’m even back past Poughkeepsie. I should have told Taylor that the investigation won’t be completed until tomorrow. I found a lead and even a naked fairy sidekick already. That qualifies as a fair day’s work.”

  Riley made a little unhappy coughing sound at this. “Are you implying that being with me is work? It’s supposed to be pleasure.”

  “Oh, I’m not implying that at all,” he retorted. “Every single moment of your company has been positively orgasmic.”

  She smiled at that, lounged back in satisfaction, and actually shut up and ceased to bother him for a few minutes.

  He was unsurprised to discover that James’s house was not located in the town itself but in the hilly area southeast of it. His directions led him quickly onto a winding back road that seemed to average one or two houses per mile. Finally, he reached a private drive matching the address on his piece of paper.

  “There you are, you bastard,” he said to the road. “Now, let’s see what James didn’t want the taxman to know about.”

  The drive took a sharp bend, and his tires kicked gravel up as he plunged between a dense strand of trees whose deep shadows turned the afternoon almost to night. When the trees thinned, a two-and-a-half-story saltbox house appeared ahead which, although it looked like considerable money had been dropped on all the bells and whistles, did not seem lived-in. The yard was neglected and the grass was long overdue for a trim.

  Riley perked up. She stood on the dashboard and put her hands on the windshield like a kid looking through a bay window. “Wow, what a nice place,” she cooed.

  “Eh, it’s all right. It clearly belongs to someone who isn’t that rich. But it’s not bad.”

  He glanced around as he approached the structure itself, looking for any sign of security cameras or alarms or that kind of thing. He saw none, so far. The drive encircled the whole front half of the property, and he drove from one end to another, checking for anything suspicious, before he finally parked in front of the garage and turned the engine off.

  “Okay,” he observed, “it’s not like the front door will be open, but I can probably pry a window open or something.”

  “Oh!” she chirped. “I can open locks.”

  Remy nodded. “Right, you got into my car while I was kicking ass at poker. I forgot about that. If you were bigger, I’d pat you on the head.”

  He’d half-expected her to take offense at that, but she smiled at him in a way that almost made him wish she were bigger.

  They got out and approached the front door. “Riley, wait a minute while I look through the window to make sure he doesn’t have…I don’t know, a golem or a dragon or something guarding the place.”

  The fairy snorted. “That isn’t likely.”

  “Whatever.” He peered through the glass. The curtains were mostly shut although, in the small gap between them, he could see furniture and an end table. The place was dark within, and he could hear no sounds beyond those of the surrounding woods.

  Satisfied, he gestured at the doorknob and nodded to Riley. She waved her hands and silvery sparkles erupted from them before the latch clicked open. He turned the knob and opened the door.

  “Hopefully, I didn’t trip one of those goddamn silent alarms,” he mumbled. There were no stickers advertising a security company outside but then again, some people were smart enough to remove said stickers. Professional thieves, if they knew what company protected a property, would then know what they were dealing with and adjust their strategy accordingly.

  Beyond the front door was a small foyer-type area that opened into a spacious living room. The kitchen lay off to the right behind an island-counter. Deep gloom and silence hovered over everything, and the air smelled stale.

  “Hello?” Remy called. “I’m from the utility company. It seems you have some unpaid bills.”

  No one answered, so he shrugged, flicked the nearest light on, and stepped inside. Riley floated along behind his shoulder.

  He paused when the overhead lamp came on and illuminated the scene around him. “Oh, dear God.” He gasped.

  “What is it?” the fairy inquired. “What’s wrong?”

  “This is awful.” He shook his head in near disbelief. “It’s like a textbook case-study in nouveau riche.”

  Having been around wealth his whole life, he had seen this kind of thing before, although the Chateau James seemed to be an especially horrendous example. The whole place stank of someone who, having come into large amounts of money for the first time ever, was over-eager to spend it on something—anything—regardless of how ugly or inappropriate it was.

  The furniture pieces, on an individual basis, were expensive and of high quality. They failed, however, as an ensemble. No thought had been put into coordination or complementary colors, patterns, or themes. Nothing within the room had the slightest whiff of feng shui.

  The place also featured an abundance of pricey electronics, much of which looked as though it had barely been used. Video game consoles looked right out-of-the-box yet were covered in dust. The games for them still remained unwrapped in their plastic.

  A top-of-the-line television was so big, it hinted at compensating for something. Attached to t
he TV was an intricate surround-sound system of conspicuous black speakers, atop which the owner had mounted useless golden statuettes.

  An exercise machine was stuffed into the corner, where it would be impractical to operate. In the kitchen, fancy gadgets gleamed like they were still in a store showroom.

  Worse still, every flat surface contained random expensive knick-knacks which were neither beautiful nor even slightly pragmatic. A ship in a bottle was the most egregious offender, but similar garbage was everywhere, all of it the types of things that would be popular with trophy wives for a year or so as status symbols before slumping into the waste bin of decorating history.

  Remy drew his hand slowly over his face. “Terrible. Absolutely terrible. It’s like this place is a historical museum dedicated to preserving knowledge of the day when some tasteless asshole got rich.”

  “Well,” Riley commented and stuck a pinky finger in her mouth as she took in the sights, “at least there’s a ton of shiny things. I don’t know why most of them are here, though.”

  He nodded. “The world may never know.” He strode through the living room and glanced around for anything that might qualify as a clue.

  “Hmm.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I actually have no idea what I’m looking for. Still, we might as well explore and see what’s here to find.”

  Still in something of a daze, he moved on through the house. Each room was a badly organized treasure trove rather than part of a classy home. This did not surprise him. Nor did the fact that he found little that was worth examining.

  Riley, meanwhile, zipped to and fro to examine things from angles he could not and stuck her nose in places he would never have considered. Occasionally, she remarked on something that caught her attention, such as a dead mouse atop one of the cabinets or a part of the floor a foot or so from the toilet where the smell of wolf urine was especially strong.

  It wasn’t until he investigated the upstairs bedroom, however, that he struck pay dirt.

  “Well,” he exclaimed and narrowed his focus on the items spread out on the king-sized bed beside a plastic shopping bag. “This looks significant.”

  He stepped into the room to examine them more closely and soon realized the objects were mostly hotel stuff. A possibly stolen towel, complimentary bars of soap, a garment that may have been a bathrobe, and a small, mounted, framed picture of the hotel itself.

  The fairy followed his gaze and flew over the collection. “It smells…fancy,” she reported.

  “For once,” he said, “I agree.”

  The towels, the back of the picture frame, and the gift-shop bag itself all included the name of the hotel, The Gold Reveal. It sounded familiar—a fairly high-end establishment in Midtown Manhattan, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  Remy picked up one of the miniature soap bars, still in its untorn wrapper, and put it in his pocket. “I’m sure Taylor will find this highly interesting. She’ll have something to go on—a place where there would be witnesses. Hell, I might even be able to review the guest list myself, assuming the Remington name still carries the proper clout.”

  He paused and smiled to himself. Given his talents at so many other things, it didn’t surprise him that he was also shaping up to be a brilliant detective. The vampire would, at last, be forced to acknowledge his competence. No more scrubbing the toilets. She might even give him a raise.

  While he fantasized about the various possible scenarios, he strolled downstairs and into the living room. The sound of a car’s engine caught his attention. Someone was pulling up to the house.

  “What the hell?” He froze. Any visitors were unwelcome right now—even less welcome than himself.

  Riley darted ahead and flapped toward the window to peer through it. She turned and flew halfway back.

  “It’s three men.” The fairy gasped and sounded alarmed. “I saw two of them at that casino, and I’m very sure they have guns.”

  “Shit.” He hadn’t yet moved a muscle and honestly wasn’t sure he even could. This was, obviously, bad. At the same time, though, he still seemed buoyed by the mental high of his successful discovery and when that weighed in again, he did not feel as cowed as he might have under normal circumstances. If anything, he was curious what a gunfight might be like. He’d never been in one before.

  As the fairy wafted beside him, he asked her, “What kinds of guns do they have? It helps to know how big the magazine is.” Shadows closed in near the front windows, and he was sure he could see another guy move toward the back of the house.

  “Um…” she responded, “the smaller kind that they hold in one hand, I think.”

  Remy sighed. “Does that mean an Old West six-shooter? Bond’s Walther PPK? A Desert Eagle? A Beretta? A Smith & Wesson .40 caliber? A Colt Python Revolver? What?”

  She shrugged.

  They both retreated toward the staircase and found partial cover along the side of a tall oak cabinet with gilded fixtures. No sooner had the wood blocked them slightly from the view of the front windows when two gunshots cracked.

  “Goddamn!” he snapped and winced. “I forgot how frickin’ loud guns are in real life. Anyway, that’s two bullets fired by that guy over there.” He gestured toward the large hole in the window ahead of him and to his right. Fragments of shattered glass twinkled on the floor.

  There were also a couple of holes in the lovely hardwood cabinet. Since it was damaged already, Remy—in the grip of a thrilling surge of adrenaline—grasped the cabinet and flipped it over and up onto its side edge to act as a barricade.

  Riley gestured frantically toward the holes in the wood with her hands. “That won’t protect us! The bullets already went through it.”

  “Well…” He shrugged. “It might slow them down, at least.” He dropped to his knees and crawled behind the piece of furniture as the dark figures approached the edge of the house. One of them kicked the door repeatedly to try to break it down.

  Riley seemed to charge herself—there really was no other way to describe it—with silvery light and flung a hand outward toward the cabinet. It immediately flashed the same strange color. “That will help.”

  The front door slammed inward and a man stepped in and immediately fired two more rounds. Remy was almost positive that the gun he wielded was a Glock with a fifteen-round magazine, so it meant he still had eleven left. He thought about simply finding the nearest heavy object and hurling it at the intruder but decided that might be a bad idea.

  While he tried to decide what to do, the fairy pointed a finger toward the man as if pantomiming a gun herself. The air cracked and exploded from her hand.

  His jaw fell open in shock and his eardrums rang. Beyond the edge of the cabinet, he saw the hitman dive behind a chair.

  She flew up beside his face and spoke directly into his still-pained ear. “I can’t directly harm humans but now, at least, they think we have a gun, too.”

  “Good.” He shook his head to try to clear the ringing still present in his ears.

  The other of the two gunmen who’d approached from the front hurtled through the damaged window and climbed into the living room. His partner must have signaled him since it sounded like he overturned an end table and ducked behind it.

  Riley “fired” another couple of “shots” to keep them busy. They responded with a flurry of bullets directed mostly around the edges of the cabinet, and he had to jerk his leg back to avoid being hit.

  All the while, he counted how many rounds were fired.

  “Riley,” he whispered, “you can’t harm humans. But what about, like, putting them to sleep or something?”

  “Oh, right!” she said brightly. “I can do that, actually.”

  The first man fired a couple more shots. He now had only two remaining before he’d need to reload.

  Remy gestured to the living room. “Incapacitate that guy over there, then the second one. Once the first asshole runs out of bullets, I’ll engage him in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “If you say so,
” she replied. Despite her compliance, she sounded confused and a little nervous.

  Hastily, he flicked his hand upward and retracted it, only enough to tempt them to shoot. They did and the air blazed with pistol fire. In the instant he heard the first attacker’s gun click empty, he signaled his partner to attack the second man.

  He sprang up, charged, and snatched one of the cheap golden statuettes off a speaker. The mobster looked up from behind a broad chair and his eyes widened in sudden panic. He fumbled with the fresh magazine and managed to fit it into the grip of his gun as Remy bore down on him.

  Off to the side, two more gunshots rang out before a dull thud signaled a man slumping heavily to the floor.

  He swung the statue as the mobster raised his gun. The gold figurine struck the man in the side of the head and thunked against his skull, and his hat spun from his head. He sputtered and fell in a heap.

  “Hah!” Remy laughed and whirled around. The other intruder, too, was unconscious. “Good work, Riley.” He could barely see the fairy where she wafted on shafts of sunlight.

  Upstairs, another window broke and heavy footsteps landed on the second floor.

  Riley fluttered over but he spoke before she could. “Fly outside and make sure there aren’t any more. I think I can deal with this guy.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He hadn’t felt this good about his personal combat skills since the heyday of his Call of Duty career.

  The fairy flitted out the front door.

  Remy stepped quietly over to the loveseat in front of the television and picked up the remote control. The last assassin was already coming down the staircase. With the gold statuette still clutched in his hand, he hid behind the overturned end table beside which the unconscious assassin lay slumped.

  The approaching footsteps slowed. The man was being cautious and advanced one step at a time, probably scanning the whole house in an attempt to discover where he was and if there were any other unexpected hostiles.