Shadow Of Greed

by Nora Kane

  “Feeling a little paranoid?”

  He looked at her and without a trace of humor said, “It’s not paranoia if someone actually is out to get you.”

  For a long second she looked at him and wondered if she could be missing the obvious. The rumor was that Mal was some sort of gun for hire, one with a badge. The idea Stone or some rival of Stone paid Mal to kill Katrina Stone wasn’t that far-fetched. It wasn’t impossible that she had shot him in self-defense. Once again, the only person who didn’t believe he was guilty was Margot.

  If he hadn’t got shot, she wondered what he would have said to her. Everything she was doing could just be him keeping her busy while he figured out how to get out of town. Finding out who owned the car might be the first step to putting an end to the charade.

  “I’m going outside to make the call, I think better while I’m walking,” she told him, keeping her eye on the gun as she spoke.

  “Okay, say hi to Doreen for me.”

  He didn’t sound like someone thinking about killing her.

  “I’m asking her for a favor. I don’t think bringing you up is a good idea.”

  He smiled. Margot wished seeing him smile made her feel better.

  Chapter 10

  “Detective Gomes, fraud. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, Doreen, this is Margot. You have a second?”

  “I do, but you don’t. You are in some serious shit right now.”

  “I noticed.”

  “No, I don’t think you did. Otherwise, you’d get your pretty lawyer to arrange for your surrender. This has the potential to get ugly.”

  “You think my lawyer’s pretty?”

  “Of course I do, but look, I’m not kidding.”

  “I know, I’m working on it. As soon as I have something to tell Ames, I’ll set it up.”

  “It’s not just Ames you have to worry about. In fact, he’s the least of your worries.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the feds. The F.B.I.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, that’s not the kind of thing they share with fraud. All I know is they’re here asking about you and they looked pissed off.”

  “They always look that way.”

  “Maybe because they always are. Whatever you’re setting up, you’d better set it up quick. They don’t play around.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Could you run a license plate for me?”

  “Is it part of this mess you’re in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t hold out on me, Margot. I’m putting myself on the line.”

  “It’s just a plate.”

  “Yeah, for a federal fugitive.”

  “Okay, I’m sure Katrina Stone was the victim of a professional hit…”

  “Everyone else is too. They have the hitters' names too. You may have heard of him.”

  “It wasn’t Mal.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Margot remembered the way he looked in the motel room. Only minutes ago she’d been wondering the same thing, but she told Doreen, “Yeah, I’m sure. The license plate belongs to the car the actual hitter was driving.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it, but I still think you should consider turning yourself in. If you didn’t have anything to do with it, you’ve got nothing to worry about it.”

  “I’ll consider it, but I’d rather come in with something to give them. Something other than a declaration of innocence they won’t believe.”

  “Give me the number.”

  “It’s a partial, California plates AMO 67. It belongs to a Chrysler 300 not any more than five years old I would say.”

  “That ought to be enough. I’m not doing anything right now and I’m right in front of my computer. Stay on the line and I’ll pull it up, save you some time.”

  “You sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account. You can call me back.”

  “No, it’s no trouble. Now is the perfect time.”

  Doreen hadn’t run a lot of license plates for Margot but every other time she had insisted she do it when she wasn’t on the clock. She always called back, usually the next day. Margot was thinking this might be a good thing, considering the F.B.I. was in on this. Then she heard the helicopter.

  “Just call me back,” she said.

  “No, just give me a minute.”

  “Are you keeping me on the line so they can trace my call?”

  Doreen was silent.

  Ames came on the line. “You can hang up if you want, we’ve already determined your location. If it helps, we didn’t give her much choice. I told you worse than me would be coming for you. You should have listened. Tell Mal to come out quietly.”

  Margot ended the call. She’d walked over a block. A look back showed a pair of black SUVs—probably belonging to the F.B.I.—rolling into the parking lot of the Seashell Motor Lodge. Following close behind was a S.W.A.T. vehicle, more like a tank than a truck.

  She ducked her head and kept going the other direction. It looked like they had tracked her phone to the general location and then figured the most likely place for her and Mal to be hiding was the Seashell. Mal had a deal with the owner, but they weren’t going to risk getting on the wrong side of the F.B.I. over Mal.

  Margot saw a bar and walked inside. If they’d already spotted her, it would merely allow her to get a drink before she got arrested.

  She sat down. It wasn’t the kind of place anyone took a date. A fat guy wearing a baseball cap with the words ‘Layla’s West’ embroidered across the front was behind the bar. Margot hadn’t looked at the sign out front but figured it also read ‘Layla’s West.’ He smiled like he was genuinely glad to see her. Looking around, she could see why. She was his only customer.

  “Makers on the rocks.”

  “How about Jack? I’m all out of Makers.”

  “Jack on the rocks it is.”

  He poured her the drink then left her alone. Margot sipped it, waiting for the door to burst open and men with guns to come in. When she finished and no one came in, she figured they hadn’t see her. With her car a block away, there was at least a chance they hadn’t see that either. She could still hear the helicopter though.

  Margot took a hundred dollar bill out of the stack Dean Stone had given her and set it on the bar.

  “How much for your hat?” she asked the bartender.

  “This hat? This hat is not for sale.”

  Before Margot could say anything, he held up his index finger and reached under the bar. For a second, even though there was no way he could know anything, she thought he was going to pull a gun out and make a citizen’s arrest. Instead, he came up with a cleaner version of the hat on his head.

  “I can sell you this one for about fifteen bucks. I got the bright idea customers would buy these things, didn’t really work out. I can sell you a shirt too, it’ll only cost you ten bucks.”

  “I’ll just take the hat.” She tapped the c-note sitting on the bar. “If you let me walk out the back door you can keep the change.”

  “You in some kind of trouble?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Yeah, take my money and let me walk out the back door.”

  The bartender took the money and pointed to a door marked emergency exit only. “There’s no alarm or anything. Good luck to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Come back, okay? I’ll pick up a bottle of Maker's Mark just for you.”

  “Then if I can, I’ll be back.”

  Margot put on the hat and stuffed as much of her brown hair under it as she could before she walked out the back door.

  She could still hear the helicopter, but with the rotors echoing among the building, it was impossible to fix its location on sound alone. She didn’t dare look up so she just had to walk down the alley like she belonged and hope if they saw her it would be from overhead where her feeble attempt at a disguise might work.
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br />   Margot wanted to run, but all that would do was attract attention. She couldn’t really even walk fast. The longer she was on the street, the more likely it was someone would spot her, but trying to go fast would mean they’d see her for sure.

  All the way to the car she could hear the helicopter, but at no time did she hear anyone telling her to freeze. She unlocked it and got in.

  Just like when she was walking, the temptation to drive fast was strong. Instead, she took a deep breath and forced herself to drive the speed limit until the sounds of the helicopter faded.

  Chapter 11

  Margot circled the neighborhood a couple of times to make sure no local or federal police were around before parking a couple of blocks away and walking to Mal’s little two-bedroom house.

  She figured Mal’s place would be among the last places they’d look for her and he wasn’t the only who’d kept a spare key after they had stopped dating. She let herself in and then listened. Ames and the F.B.I. had already proven they could be one step ahead of her. It wouldn’t have surprised her to have one or more of them sitting around in the dark waiting for her to show up.

  When no one arrested her, she went to Mal’s bedroom and lay down. She was exhausted, but the adrenalin rush of having to run from the law was still keeping her heart beating fast. As tired as she was, it was going to be a while before she fell asleep.

  She was sure Mal had a bottle of something with a high alcohol content around that would help her relax, but she’d already had one glass of whiskey and wanted to keep her wits about her. Unless she was the one refusing to see the truth and Mal really did do it, Katrina Stone’s killer was still out there.

  Margot checked her phone. She’d turned off the ringer while driving when Ames called her. He’d called a few more times and Doreen had called her as well. While she was scrolling through, Doreen called again.

  Margot answered, “You’ve got ten seconds.”

  “I’m at home, no one's tracing this one.”

  “You're going to have to excuse me when I say I don’t believe you.”

  “I wouldn’t believe me either. They didn’t give me a lot of choice. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, you called, I answered, you said it. Goodbye.”

  “Wait, I didn’t call to apologize. I called to tell you I ran the plate. Do you still want to know?”

  “Make it fast.”

  “It was harder than it should have been because the plates in question won’t be found on a Chrysler. They came off Honda registered in the L.A. area. I’m betting someone is going to report them stolen.”

  “Sounds like something a pro would have done.”

  “Yeah, it does. That hardly clears Mal, though I read the report and the witnesses all say it was his Jeep they saw fleeing the scene.”

  “Anyone see a Chrysler?”

  “Some said there was a sedan with the lights out, but that is not universally agreed on like the Jeep.”

  Margot knew if they were tracing the call again she needed to end it, but she decided to trust Doreen and ask the question that just popped into her head. She put the call on speaker so she could open her email.

  “Can you run another plate for me?” she asked as she scrolled through the photos Mal had sent her. She stopped when she found the photo of the mystery man Katrina met at Lefty’s.

  “It won’t be until tomorrow.”

  “That will work, though I may have to dump this phone, so I’ll call you.”

  “You could turn yourself in. The longer you stay out, the more they’re going to think you’re an accomplice.”

  “They already do.”

  “I wish I could tell you differently. Give me a number.”

  Margot told her the license plate.

  “I’ve got it. Look, there’s something else I heard that I thought I should pass on. If this was a trace, they’d have you already, so you might as well give me another minute.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “They haven’t been able to find Dean Stone to tell him about his wife. There’s some concern he met a similar fate.”

  “Someone killed Dean Stone because his wife was cheating on him?”

  “I don’t think that’s what this is about.”

  “Then what? A rival? He piss someone off?”

  “I don’t know, but when was the last time the F.B.I. gave a damn about a smuggler’s wife's infidelity?”

  “Fair point. I don’t even know if she was unfaithful. Hopefully, the owner of the car I want you to run down can tell me something.”

  “Or, you could turn yourself in and leave this to the cops and the lawyers.”

  “I’ll think about,” Margot said, truthfully.

  Everything was coming up a dead end. Maybe the fact she hadn’t done anything wrong would keep her out of prison.

  She ended the call and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 12

  Margot had no idea what time it was when she opened her eyes. All she knew was it was dark when she closed them and now it was light. She checked her phone and found another call from Ames and two text messages from numbers she didn’t recognize. She opened the first one and the first thing she read was:

  ‘This is Doreen. I borrowed a phone’.

  It looked like they still had Doreen set up to have her calls traced if Margot tried to contact her. Margot kept reading.

  ‘I don’t know what this means but the car belongs to the government. I can’t trace it to an individual or even a specific agency. I can tell you the agents who showed up here today were driving the same make and model.’

  Margot considered this. If Katrina was meeting someone from the F.B.I., some professional hitman showing up to kill her did make sense. The logical reason for the F.B.I. to talk to the wife of a career criminal would be to get her to be an informant. And that the missing Dean Stone had also been taken care of by his business partners, worried about what Dean’s spouse already gave away? That made some sense too.

  The hit man’s car showing up while they were eating could have meant somebody tipped him off, someone who knew Dean and Katrina Stone. Someone like Lefty. Margot didn’t like to think about the man who served her drinks and provided a decent conversation every once in a while making a call like that. A call he had to know would result in someone dying. Still, she couldn’t discount the possibility.

  Margot wondered if this information helped. If she was right, the F.B.I. already knew someone had killed their informant. It seemed that, as far as they were concerned, that guy was Mal. Margot figuring it out wouldn’t affect their decision at all. She knew a lot more about the why, but she still needed the who if she was going to get out from under this. So, she wasn’t any closer to him than she was yesterday.