by Jenna Payne
Laura thought about it while eating her burger. After a few bites she shook her head.
“No, not really. It would be nice. Especially since these are the guys who attacked me,” she said hesitantly.
“Oh, I want to see them go down for that. It lacked class in so many ways I don’t know where to start. Don’t worry, they will get busted for that. We just won’t be arranging things for the cops to get them on the theft. All of our contacts would dry up if they thought we were informers,” Jack said.
That made sense to Laura and she was glad that at least her attackers would be punished for the assault.
“So what exactly is this artifact?” she asked.
“Oh, it is an old coin from that era. About the size of a penny. Not much to look at, but it is of huge historical value,” Brock explained.
She nodded, holding her shock inside.
“That reminds me of something. I will be right back,” she said and went to her room and dug through her pants pocket.
There it was. A French coin from the days of Charlemagne, in her capris’ pocket. She went back to the others and hopped back up on the bar stool, holding it out.
“Does it look like this?” she asked calmly and watched their jaws drop in shock.
“What? How? What the hell?” Brock said succinctly. They both stared at her and Brock took it from her to examine.
“Where did you get this?” Jack asked and she could hear suspicion in his voice.
“Hey, hold on!” she began holding her hands up.
“It was in the tip box from the room I was serving those creeps in. Jason the security guy gave it to me when I left last night after dinner. I had no idea what it was. I just thought one of them took a bunch of change out of his pocket and accidently left his good luck charm. So I put it in my pocket for luck,” she shrugged and the two guys calmed down a little. Then they began smiling.
“It is the piece everyone is looking for. You, Laura dear, are our good luck charm,” Brock said and gave a shout of happiness, jumping up to embrace her and swing her around. Laura laughed and when she was set back down they both turned to Jack who was smiling slightly watching them.
“Done yet?” he asked.
“What’s wrong Jack?” Laura asked confused.
“Depends on your point of view. The Tortelli brothers are looking high and low for this piece and they think you have it. They set up this sale and international interest has brought many in the underground out to bid on it. These are people who do not like to have their time wasted so if the Tortellis cancel the sale they will never be trusted again. What’s more, they know this and have to get it back before tomorrow. Trust me when I say, they are looking high and low for you right now. From what you just described, I can only conclude that one of them dropped it in your box before they got arrested and now knows where it went,” he finished. That brought the mood down considerably.
“Kinda Debbie downer man,” Laura told him. He laughed.
“How about Dan downer at least,” he said.
“Why can’t you guys just hop a plane and be gone. It is their problem?” she pointed out.
“That would leave you holding an empty bag. I like you too much for that,” Brock said.
“Well, I was hoping you could take me with you?” she admitted sheepishly.
“Honey, you are free to accompany us anywhere we go. Unfortunately, that won’t work either. This would be a huge blow to their reputation, no matter how it goes down. They will never stop looking for you. The only thing I can think of is to set them up, lure them in thinking they can get it back. They should be getting desperate soon. I am glad we did not go back to your hotel Laura. We would be trapped there. At least now we have freedom of movement. It gives us a little more control for the game,” Jack said.
Laura could see his point and she too was beginning to think of it as a game. High stakes to be sure, but a game. She felt her blood pumping and her excitement level rise.
“So how do we do that. I agreed to help,” she said eagerly.
“Oh don’t worry, you are going to help. You will be earning your keep. We need to get you ready to go back to the Hotel Florence,” he said, confusing her completely. Brock laughed.
***
Laura walked into the Casino Florence just before eleven o’clock in the evening. She was dressed in her old clothes from the night before. Brock had said wearing any of the new dresses would set off alarms for other players in town. Especially the Tortelli brothers. Jack had added that they probably knew that she was with Brock and Jack, but wearing all new, expensive gowns would look like she was bought off. So she went as her everyday self. She smiled and waved to a few co-workers and said hi to Mandy.
She made her way to the back poker area, the place where the high rollers set up games. She had reserved a table for herself and several select guests. She believed she was good at poker, but had been warned that wasn’t the purpose of this exercise. Laura had pouted a little but understood. It wasn’t really that sort of game this time. She sent the dealer off, allowing that she would be dealing, as it was a private game. The dealer left and Laura set up the table. Then she sat herself down and played with her chips with her back to the staff door behind her. Within a half hour the Tortelli brothers came in. All of them had dyed their hair and were wearing more Americanized clothes, and not the Italian suits they had previously worn. She thought the baseball caps were a nice touch.
“Hi guys,” Laura said fiddling with some chips in her hands. “I wanted to offer you gentlemen a chance to just walk away and leave me alone. It has become clear that you are trying to get something from me and I want it to end so I can go back to my job and my life. What do you say?” she asked as she carefully set her chips in a tall stack with a little French coin on top. They all saw it and she glanced up at the cameras as they stiffened. She felt a nervousness in her gut now that she was here in front of the thugs. If anything went wrong she could become a statistic. Guys like this played for keeps.
“Someone is going to notice you soon, even in your excellent disguises, so if you go ape shit it will end it for you this time. You have to know that,” she told them. Mark, the better looking of the three, glanced at the other two and they sat across from her.
“What do you propose?” he asked in a passable west coast accent.
“Well, first off I wanted to ask why you risked everything dropping that little coin into my tip box? For that matter why get all drunk and violent. None of this would be happening if you had just kept your cool. Fortunately for you, I have been working in Vegas for a while and I know the things that go on here, outside of the advertising slogans. So it was not hard to discover that this stupid coin is the problem. Especially with all of the exhibits going on this week and you ransacking my apartment. Not to mention stealing my cash savings. Do you know how long it took for me to save that up?” she asked with real anger in her voice. The anger helped her growing fear. They all looked confused.
“We did not go to your apartment, other than to check it out. It was clear you would not be going there once you left that morning. Unfortunately, we could not get there in time to ah… have a talk about that piece there. You have been staying with that rich man, what is his name, Brock Wainright?” he asked pretending he did not know who he was.
“I did, they were very cool, helping me with you three and then showing me a nice time. They said they did not know you either. However, as I said, I have been in Vegas long enough to know not to trust anyone. I figured to deal with you straight across instead of asking for their help,” she told them calmly.
Inside she was freaking out. If they did not search her apartment, who did? She assumed there were plenty of thieves in town willing to do it, if they knew about the French coin. She wished she could blow off the Tortelli brothers denial but found she couldn’t. She believed they were confused about it. That meant there was someone else operating, an unknown piece in the game, as Jack called it. Laura spent a
brief moment panicking in her head, and then just decided to take care of this and worry about the unknown later. Not that she had much choice.
“Well if you didn’t do it, I guess I can’t demand my money back. I will settle for never seeing you again and you can have that stupid thing. I am not even sure why it is so important and I don’t want to know. So we have to find a way I can give you this and we all walk away. We need to do it fast though,” she said. At this point she was stalling. Reinforcements should have shown up by now. She suddenly had a new reason to be worried.
“You say you want us to disappear after you give us that. We can give you our word, that we have never broken, but you have no reason to trust us. What would you like from us as proof? It will be difficult to get testimonials on such short notice.” He smiled and she laughed a little.
He had a point, she thought. She sighed. They were getting as nervous looking as she was feeling. She had to get it done and out, somehow.
“Ok I guess I will have to trust you. I don’t have much…” Laura was interrupted by the door behind her opening. She started to turn, thinking she knew who it was and froze. Jason walked in and closed the door behind him.
“Now the proper negotiations can begin,” he said with a smile. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, street clothes. His jacket opened and they saw a gun.
“What the hell!” she said at the same time the Tortellis did.
“That’s right boys. I am going to take that little coin and you are going to jail. As for you Laura, sorry about your apartment but it had to be done,” he said. She felt herself trembling. Anger and fear were warring within her.
“You trashed my apartment?” she asked.
“And gave you the French coin. I figured it was the best way to get it out of the casino without being seen. The money was a nice consolation since the prize was not there,” he said glancing down at the coin on the chips. She heard the brothers rustling behind her and Jason put a hand on the gun.
“Easy boys. I have already put out the word that I am the one selling that piece so you are out of the game. I am going to take it and show you a way out of the hotel so you won’t get caught,” he told them as if confirming a favor.
“We will come after you,” Mark told him with a growl in his voice.
“No you won’t, I know all the cops. It would be best if you put this whole thing behind you and go away,” he told them humorously.
Even she knew that would never work. From everything she had learned there was no way they would let it go. It was a matter of pride. Considering he was the reason for her problems, she too felt obliged to see him go down.
“What about me? Do you really think I am just going to let you walk away and screw me like this? If for no other reason than you robbed me. I can’t believe you robbed me!” When she repeated it her anger became stronger than her fear and she stood up. Jason frowned and backed off a step. She leaned against the table with the chips right behind her.
“Back off Laura. You can just walk away and all of this will be a memory. You don’t want to try anything stupid over eight hundred dollars,” Jason told her. She turned and looked at the Tortelli brothers. All she could think of was to stall.
“Can you believe this idiot? Why aren’t you doing something?” she asked. Hoping to get an argument going. Mark opened his mouth to speak when she heard the distinctive click of a gun behind her.
“Enough is enough Laura. The cameras are off for this room and I can do whatever I want. It is a bonus of being a part of security,” she heard him say.
She turned back to him and he was pointing the gun somewhere between her and the Tortellis as if he was not sure who to shoot first, and the gun had a silencer on it. She felt a chill, realizing he was going to shoot them all! Her fear returned in full force and she cursed herself for coming to Vegas.
“Well you wanted excitement,” she muttered out loud to herself.
“Don’t worry Laura, it ends here!” he said just as the door behind him burst open hitting him in the back.
Jason stumbled forward and Laura turned away towards the table as his gun went off. She heard someone scream as she fell over the table when Jason fell into her. The table collapsed under them both. He rolled off of her and she rolled the other way in a panic. She heard shouting and cursing as many people seemed to swarm into the room. She saw Mr. Lander, Detective Avery as well as four more security personnel.
Then she saw Jack come in. He saw her and came over helping her up. He took her hand and she had to unclench the fist she had made to grasp his hand. She trembled in Jack’s arms as Detective Avery arrested the three Tortelli brothers. Harry was the one who got shot and the medics had been standing by. Jason was cursing and claiming to have discovered a plot. Mark, James and Harry were yelling about him pulling a gun on them. Jack quietly led her out of the room’s other door to where Brock was waiting. Once out of the room she felt her fear slowly begin leaving her and took several deep breaths to calm herself.
“Are you okay Laura? Damn I did not expect things to go sideways like that. I am so sorry to get you into this girl. I do not even know what to say,” he said.
She could see the strain and worry in every line of his face, and Jack’s as well, and that was all she needed to see.
“I am alright. You were cutting it a little close, but everything is fine. Right Jack?” she asked him.
He gave a shaky smile and held up his closed hand.
“We got it,” he said.
Laura was relieved she had managed to palm the coin as she fell across the table. Brock shook his hand as if thanking him and then turned and walked down the hall. A minute later Detective Avery found them and wanted to go over what happened.
*****
Epilogue
Laura smiled at her reflection in the little mirror. She did look good in fine clothes, she thought to herself happily. Leather and silk were wonderful things. She left the little airplane bathroom and went out to take her seat. Jack poured her a drink and they toasted.
“Nice job darling. I have never met anyone who, on a first job, would have remembered to grab the coin when a gun was pulled on them. With the scattering of the chips there was no way to tell where it went,” he praised her.
The word on the street was that the Tortellis had made a deal with Jason and it had gone wrong. Between them the coin had been lost. Her name was not even coming up. From what they had learned, the Tortelli’s organization thought Jason had screwed them, so again, Laura’s name was clear. Detective Avery got the bust of a lifetime and the gratitude of Mr. Lander, so everyone was happy. She felt the humming of the engines change pitch and put on her seatbelt like the others were doing. She had never flown before and her first time was going to be on a private jet.
“I am surprised everything went so well,” she admitted.
“We got lucky. Once the job was in motion we could not get a hold of you to tell you what we learned. The detective told us that the reports on the break in at your place showed that witnesses claimed it was done by one man, one American man. The Tortellis do everything together so it wasn’t them. After that I remembered you saying that Jason gave you your tip box. I wasn’t sure how he had anything to do with it, but knew he did. Once we got a hold of Mr. Landers he checked security and we found several cameras down and Jason gone. Bingo. He had probably heard about the auction and wanted in. Stupid of him, but then again, it is Vegas,” Brock said and sipped his drink as the plane started moving.
“So even if the Tortellis had not attracted attention to themselves by assaulting me, Jason would have tried something anyway. I was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time, or right time depending on how one looks at it,” Laura told them with a smile as the plane lifted off. She looked out the window loving the feeling in her stomach as they gained altitude quickly. These little planes really moved, she thought to herself.
“How do you look at it Laura dear?” Brock asked softly. She glanced at them a
nd saw them both watching her closely, looking concerned. She smiled for them and looked back out the window. The view from that height was amazing she decided.
“Where are we headed again?” She asked.
“Paris, France,” Jack answered.
“Then I think I was in the right place at the right time,” she told them happily. Whatever happened, she knew her life would never be boring.
THE END
Bonus Story 32 of 40
The Date
Enrico
“No dad,” I answered firmly, determined to stick to my guns with this one. My father might be the powerful sort of man that can boss the rest of the world around, but I’m not having it. I flatly refuse to. “I won’t do it.”
“Son, don’t be so ridiculous. It’s just one date – a few hours. If you do this right, it will secure things between me and Mr. Bellingham.” Then he landed the final shot. “This is your future we’re talking about here, your inheritance. Don’t you want to work towards that now, to make it great before you even get it?”
This was what it always came down to – the business that my father ran, the one that he wanted to pass onto me. The one that I wasn’t even sure that I wanted.
I knew that my father’s company was a well-established front for something more – he was pretty open about that with me, but I’d made it clear for a very long time that I wasn’t even slightly interested in anything he did that involved breaking the law.
He kept telling me that I needed to grow up, that I couldn’t escape it forever, but I wasn’t certain that I actually wanted to follow in his footsteps. I was secretly harboring a secret desire to make a better life for myself. One as an artist, but of course I couldn’t tell him that.
