As they headed up Las Vegas Boulevard, Mary Lou noticed a suit a hundred feet behind them.
“Kiss me.”
She twisted round on the sidewalk so she could face what she thought she’d noticed in her peripheral vision and Frank complied because he detected the note of authority in her voice. He remained with his back to the potential threat.
“What you seen?”
“Possible Fed. They all dress the same and he looks like he’s in the same uniform as the G-Man on the train.”
“Spotted him?”
“Yes, he’s stopped to check out a shoe store window. Must like the heels.”
“Let’s walk half a block and see what happens.”
Arm in arm, they strolled along the sidewalk allowing everyone to storm past them. If the guy was a civilian, he’d have to catch up with them soon because of their ridiculous slow pace. One minute later they stopped to kiss again, like the lovebirds they were.
“And now where is he?”
“Still hundred feet behind. Maybe a hundred fifty.”
Frank eyed their vicinity and took Mary Lou toward a women’s boutique.
“He won’t want to follow us in here and he won’t want to stand outside.”
She knew Frank was right: the place was a lingerie store and no Hoover man wanted to hang around lady’s panties for long.
They grabbed some items off the hangers and she asked the location of the cubicles. A sales assistant pointed to the back of the retail outlet.
“You don’t mind if my husband joins me. We’ve just got married.”
Mary Lou giggled coquettishly and the helper agreed.
“Well, as there’s no-one else trying anything on.”
The changing rooms comprised a series of cubicles with a curtain and a door leading out. Frank tried the handle and it opened without effort. He took a glance outside and came back inside.
“It’s an alleyway.”
“Can I take the bra and panties set? They're divine.”
“You’re not a thief, babe. We’re hardened criminals on the lam. Come on.”
Mary Lou dropped the underwear and followed Frank out the door. Ten minutes later they were at the Mint with no sign of any G-Man in their wake.
PHIL MCNAMARA AND Ted Goodwin stepped onto the Union Pacific platform with one carry bag each and headed out the Las Vegas station. The Fed sources were certain the couple were in the city but Phil had no idea who were these sources. If he had known the mob was the source of their information, he might not have been so keen to head west.
They stood on the sidewalk and hailed a taxi to their hotel, the Hacienda was near the interstate and opposite the Tropicana, way down Las Vegas Boulevard at the far end of the strip.
After they checked in, McNamara called his local office.
“There’ve been several potential sightings of our couple but nothing confirmed.”
“How many men are on the ground searching?”
McNamara looked down at the floor.
“Just the two but I'm assured they’re very good.”
“They’d need to be to cover an entire city. What gives, Phil?”
“Upstairs wants to catch the Lansdowne gang and recover the money but you have no idea the rivalry between all the offices. The FBI is a series of mini kingdoms. Hoover plays one against the other. The whole thing is a mess.”
Goodwin listened in disbelief.
“I always thought you guys would be different. It’s just like in Baltimore only with bigger cases. We are in trouble.”
“Yeah. The good news is that the information we’ve gathered has been mighty accurate. First those waitresses gave an excellent steer on the couple and our New York sources have sent us here.”
“How did New York here about this?”
“We have several undercover operations in progress and they pick up all sorts of gen.”
Goodwin nodded to show he understood but Phil hadn’t answered his question. If well-placed persons in the Five Boroughs knew about the Lansdowne gang, there was far more to this caper than a bank robbery.
Sounded more like something mob-run and that made Ted nervous. He was a small town cop out of his home state chasing down a million dollars in cash. What world was he living in?
“Let’s get out there and catch us some bad guys.”
“Yep, Phil.”
They strolled up and down the strip hoping to see a man and woman matching the description Glenda and Lucy had provided but no joy. Hardly surprising - they didn't even know if the pair were still in town. Needle in a haystack.
“Shall we split up and cover twice the area?”
“Sure. Can’t hurt. Let’s meet at the hotel in two hours.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Goodwin prowled round the strip until he reached the Union Pacific Railroad where he took a right onto Fremont past the Mint Hotel. Then back on Las Vegas Boulevard followed by the left fork of Paradise Valley Road. The places on this drag were less fancy and would be where criminals might head.
As he sauntered, hands in pockets, he noticed a couple kissing in the middle of the sidewalk. This was not what people did: strange. He stopped at a store window to keep an eye on them and realized he was facing shelf upon shelf of women’s shoes. Too late. Looking for his wife, maybe?
The pair continued and Goodwin carried on following from three hundred feet away. They stopped again, so he ducked into another store window. Had they made him? Again, off they trawled twenty feet and then it was their turn to duck into a lady's emporium. He carried on walking towards them hoping to get a better look.
By the time he’d got to the store, they were inside somewhere. Then his cheeks reddened as he saw the underwear - panties and bras in all shapes, colors and sizes - hanging in the window. There was no way he could stay outside here to wait for them to come out. Goodwin moved on, not even certain if the pair was anything less than a lovey-dovey type. An hour later he met up with McNamara.
“Any luck?”
“Perhaps. There was one couple I saw but I can't be sure. She had a black bob and he was blond.”
“That’s not the description though.”
“No, but their features looked like the artist’s impression. And anyone can dye their hair.”
“If you thought it was them, why didn't you carry on following them?”
“Because I wasn't sure and because ... well ... they popped into a lady’s apparel boutique.”
McNamara laughed.
“You were afraid of a pair of panties?”
“Not afraid, no.”
He carried on chuckling so much so that Goodwin got annoyed.
“Keep your wig on. It’s not that funny. And besides, a single man walking into a place like that would have let them know they were being followed.”
“You crack me up. You fell for the oldest trick in the book: embarrass a cop with lace and fluttering eyelashes.”
McNamara broke out into laughter again and Goodwin sat and seethed. Once he’d calmed down, McNamara called the Vegas FBI office and let his people know the description might be wrong about hair color. Later they dined in their hotel. Steak and coffee, then they agreed to hit the casinos hoping to spot their fugitives in the hustle and bustle of life on the nighttime strip.
FRANK AND MARY Lou stood in the lobby, holding hands. The adjusted wedding band still felt strange on her finger, not so much digging into her flesh as just there. Married. It was good if uncomfortable.
“Best if we lie low for a while. The streets aren’t safe for us, babe.”
“You said it. Where shall we go?”
“I owe you a honeymoon.”
“We owe each other a honeymoon, Frank. Where were you thinking?”
“I know a little place not too far from here.”
Mary Lou's expression scrunched up quizzically. He dragged her toward the elevators and hit a button. Perhaps they were off to the top floor. Two seconds after they’d started their ascent,
the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Frank took them out. No rooftop bar, then.
They padded along the carpeted corridor until they arrived at their room. Frank looked at Mary Lou and smiled.
Inside he helped Mary Lou took off all her clothes and then she reciprocated. They stood naked opposite each other soaking in the sight of the other. Then he stroked her fingers - ever so gently - and their fingertips touched. He ran a finger over her palm, up her arm and around the front of her neck. Then it followed a downward trajectory and cascaded over her left breast, over her heart, and toward her belly button. Then it reached the top most petal of her rose and downwards, heading to the base of the rose stem.
Tingles ran up and down her spine but she stood there, soaking in the rapture of the moment. Motionless.
Frank stepped closer and kissed her on the lips, his other hand caressing the back of her neck. She raised one leg and wrapped it around his calf - and then as high past his knee as she could manage. He held her so she didn’t lose her balance. They carried on kissing and the tingles increased.
Within a few minutes they were lying on the bed, Mary Lou licking Frank’s chest and stomach. She looked up, along his torso to his head. His eyes were closed and she sensed the strength of the muscles in his body. This was the man she was married to. With his brown-dyed hair and half a million bucks. Mrs. Mary Lou Belle Lagotti. She carried on licking and kissing him until his moaning began. Then she giggled and stopped.
Frank opened his eyes, questioning, as she made her way back up his torso to kiss him on the lips. As she did so, his groin neared hers, and the intensity of Frank’s kissing meant he’d figured out her plan too.
Ten minutes later, Mary Lou slithered off and lay next to him, close enough for him to experience her hairs next to his hip. He stared at the ceiling and moved an arm so Mary Lou's head could use it as a pillow. She stroked his chest with a hand.
“Happy honeymoon.”
“Straight back at you, babe.”
“That was lovely.”
She squeezed his groin and returned her hand to his chest.
“Straight back at you, babe.”
“Is that all you can say?”
“Pretty much right now, yes. You’ve a mighty powerful rose down there.”
This time he found a spare hand and rolled over sideways to reach her groin. Only his hand didn't retreat and kept massaging her until the tingles screamed through her brain in intense pulses.
“I love honeymoons!”
“Me too, babe.”
Given the physical exertion, they dozed for an hour or two until the late afternoon merged with the early evening and her stomach rumbled loud enough to wake Frank and stir herself.
“Should we call room service?”
“It is our honeymoon after all.”
Half an hour after the food was ordered came a knock on the door. Mary Lou scuttled into the bathroom, still naked, and Frank put on a robe and held a gun behind his back.
The bellboy walked in with a tray and Frank hid the weapon before pulling a note out of his wallet, passing it to the bellboy in a handshake - the time-honored method of delivering a tip.
Once they’d eaten, Mary Lou flopped onto the bed to rest and digest. Frank cleaned his firearm and then he checked the revolver he’d given to her. Never can be too careful.
“What we gonna do now, hon’?”
“We need to get ourselves some clean money, babe.”
“Any ideas?”
“Yep. We should play the wheels.”
“Huh?”
“By the time we come back tonight, we’ll have a couple of hundred bucks in good notes. But you'll have to put some clothes on before we can start.”
Mary Lou used one finger to beckon him toward her.
“In that case, you’d better finish your marital duties before we do anything else, Mr. Lagotti.”
She opened her legs and Frank lay in between them. Forty five minutes later, they left the room hunting for a roulette wheel. In any other town, that would have been a tall order, but this was Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world.
25
CHARLIE PENTANGELO SENT word to his Las Vegas colleagues that he needed some help. The promise of a finder’s fee also focused minds. The Jewish community arrived early in the city when Bugsy Siegel saw the potential for an oasis in the sand and, in liaison with some Italian New York friends, several casinos sprung up as vehicles for the East Coast gangs to make a thundering amount of money.
Charlie’s interest in Frank and Mary Lou reached Paulie who oversaw the mob operations throughout the Flamingo casino and hotel. What Charlie asked, you wanted to deliver - especially when greenbacks were involved.
Paulie greeted Angelo and Rico from the Five Bouroughs and they hit the streets to find the man and woman who’d stolen Charlie’s cash. There’s nothing worse than a thief who steals. Paulie felt nothing but contempt for Frank and Mary Lou.
The three men walked all day and found nada. Lots of couples but none fitting the description provided by their source in the FBI. They also had the inside track from the Baltimore Shylock.
Rico reckoned the smart thing to do was not to walk round town trying to find two people in tens of thousands. The way he saw it, neither Paulie nor Angelo cared whether they found the man and the woman - what they wanted was the money. So instead of asking about the couple, Rico thought he should ask himself where he’d hide a million dollars in cash if he was new to the city.
His answer was telling: bury it somewhere or shove it in a safe. Vegas was surrounded by a desert, so if he buried the take, there was no way anyone would ever find it. If he’d stored it in a safe, he had a chance. A trip around town revealed only one new couple who had asked reception to put aside sufficiently large bags to fit that much cash. Trouble was they were thirty years too old to be Lagotti and his moll.
This left Rico with a final idea: there were only two other places with locked boxes he could think of: the boxes at either the railroad station or the airport. The other guys were obsessed with stalking the wide streets of Las Vegas to catch the couple but Rico was convinced.
He popped over to the airport to scout the joint but the lockers were too small. That left the railroad station. So he hunkered down and waited for his prey to come to him.
After five hours sitting in the corner of the station, nothing had happened, no-one had appeared and Rico was in desperate need to visit the head. The only thing that stopped him was the fear that if he left his post for even a minute, that would be the time they grabbed the cash and exited the city. And Paulie did not want to be the guy to give them a free pass out of town.
Meantime the three others had given up on the streets and decided to look inside the casinos. What else do people do when they come to Vegas? Without the gambling there is literally nothing to occupy a person in a city stuck in the middle of the desert.
It’s too damn hot to stay outside for more than thirty minutes and the only places open are hotels and casinos. So stood to reason the two thieves were playing poker, blackjack or trying their hand at the roulettes or slots.
Their problem was that they were outnumbered. Three of them and countless casinos to search but they had something no law enforcement officer could call on: the influence of the mob.
Each casino was awash with guys behind the scenes watching. Watching for card cheats on the tables and checking the staff weren’t taking a sneaky dip in the house winnings. There was an army of eyes staring at the inside of the casinos and once they received descriptions of the Lansdowne robbers, all those eyeballs were in the pay of Paulie’s men. It would only be a matter of time before someone spotted the two and they’d be done for.
Having passed the description to every casino they could find, the three guys headed to the bar at the Sands and waited for the word.
“Like taking candy from a baby.”
“Or a million from a pair of douches.”
Meantime, Charlie Pe
ntangelo sat in his loft apartment in New York and wondered why everyone was spending so long recovering his money. Two small time crooks shouldn't be that hard to find - not in a city where there were so many hoods hanging around.
THE NEON LIGHTS of Vegas were shining when Frank and Mary Lou appeared in the Mint reception after their honeymoon.
“Where do you feel lucky?”
“Caesar’s Palace.”
“Let’s do it.”
They walked down the strip past the Riviera, the Stardust and the Desert Inn until Caesar’s loomed on the right-hand side. Into the lobby, past reception and off into the casino.
They left the neon lights behind and passed the fruit machines to reach the cards. First thing, Frank stopped near a blackjack table and watched, draping his arm around Mary Lou's shoulders.
“We need chips.”
Off to the side, between the card tables and the roulette wheels stood a glass-fronted cashier counter. Frank pulled out two hundred dollars in dirty notes and passed them to the cashier who swapped them for a series of colored chips: ten blue and twenty red.
He split the chips fifty-fifty between them and they headed to a table with three others already playing.
“Just bet the opposite color to me, okay?”
“Sure thing. This will work, right?”
“Should do. You go first and I’ll be over in a minute.”
Mary Lou approached a table and sat down, watching the bets land and the wheel turn. She kept the chips tightly in her hand although the others left theirs lying in front on them. After a lifetime of waiting, Frank appeared on the other side of the table.
He placed a red chip - five dollars - on red so she did the same on black. They were almost certain of one of them winning - there were two green zero and double-zero options too. The small white ball stopped bouncing around the wheel and settled on black. She couldn't remember the number - it didn't matter. She had won and Frank had lost so she received a ten-dollar blue chip and Frank lost his. Ten dollars bet and ten dollars returned but with some different chips. They carried on like this for about ten minutes, churning through their chips. For the first minute, Mary Lou was up and then for the next two, Frank won.
The Lagotti Family Series Page 37
