Double Trouble

by Gretchen Archer

  I looked at the time first—six o’clock a.m.—then batted for the ringing phone and answered with something along the lines of, “What?”

  “Mrs. Cole, this is Damon in Security. I just got an unusual call I thought I should pass along.”

  Zest for Life Senior Living called Bellissimo Security. Was Birdy James at work? (No.) Did we know where Birdy James was? (No.) She hadn’t shown up for her five-forty-five minibus ride to the Bellissimo. The door to her Senior Living unit was wide open. Her apartment had been tossed, her bed hadn’t been slept in, and her cat, Mortimer, was missing too. Birdy hadn’t told anyone she was going anywhere, and she hadn’t checked herself out.

  Bellissimo Security had no idea, so they called me.

  I only half listened—that’s not true; I only one-tenth listened—until I heard Zest for Life and Birdy James, at which point, I sat straight up in bed, because Birdy-Lost-and-Found-blue-bag-five-million-dollars woke me up. I hung up on Damon in Security and immediately called—that’s not true; it took five minutes for the switchboard to patch me through—Vault.

  “This is Davis Way Cole. Mr. Cole’s wife.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Cole.”

  So far, there’d been nothing good about it. And six o’clock could hardly be considered morning.

  “I need you to pull your log from yesterday and see if you picked up from Lost and Found.”

  “That’ll take a minute.”

  By then I was out of bed.

  “Can you give me a timeframe?” the vault man asked.

  “Nine-ish.”

  “Morning or night?”

  “Morning.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We picked up from Lost and Found.”

  Whew. I found the money. Again.

  “I had some,” the man said.

  I sat down on the bed. “Some what?” I asked.

  “Cake,” he said. “Wedding cake. Buttercream frosting.”

  Then I fell on the bed. “Wait,” I said. “Read me the log. The entry. Exactly what it says.”

  “Under received, it says, ‘Wedding cake, three tiers, to be locked in the vault until Mrs. Cole calls.’ Is this you calling about the wedding cake, Mrs. Cole?”

  I hung up.

  I called Fantasy.

  I told her the whole ugly story.

  By the time I finished, it was six thirty. In the morning. Birdy James was missing and so was the five million dollars.

  FOUR

  Fantasy said, “There are all kinds of things wrong with this story.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “The vault shows it received the cake, but no money,” she said. “What does Birdy’s transfer paperwork say? What do her notes say?”

  “Her transfer paperwork says cake,” I said. “It says Birdy transferred cake to the vault. And I can’t read the note. She wrote it in Birdyhand.”

  “In what?” she asked.

  “Shorthand.”

  “Did I hear you right?”

  “You heard me right.”

  “Is her shorthand like her Dewey Decimal System? She made it up and she’s the only one who can read it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does,” she said. “If it’s normal shorthand and not Bird Woman shorthand, we could find someone to read it.”

  “Fantasy, I have no idea if it’s normal or abnormal shorthand.”

  She processed for a long minute, then asked, “Are you sure you told her to send the money to the vault? Is there any way she could have misunderstood you?”

  “Let’s say she misunderstood every word out of my mouth.”

  “Okay.”

  “Still,” I said, “common sense would dictate five million dollars doesn’t belong in a Lost and Found cage. Especially five million dollars that aren’t even ours.”

  “But she doesn’t really use common sense, Davis. Bird Woman uses the Dewey Decimal System.”

  “Which has nothing to do with anything.”

  “It probably has something to do with Bird Woman sending cake to the vault. Did she really send cake to the vault?”

  “She sent cake.”

  “What flavor?” Fantasy asked. “Under the buttercream frosting?”

  “Are you kidding me? Could we please get past the cake?”

  “Davis, the power has gone to your head.”

  “What power?” I asked. “What head?”

  “You’ve been in charge of the Bellissimo for less than twenty-four hours and listen to yourself. You’re a wild woman. I asked a simple cake question.”

  “Fantasy.” I spoke slowly. And ominously. “A little old lady and five million dollars are missing.”

  I let it sit there.

  “Davis, remind me never to wake you up at six in the morning on your day off with a five-million-dollar problem.”

  “You didn’t wake me up at six in the morning on my day off with a five-million-dollar problem,” I said. “I woke you up at six in the morning on your day off with a five-million-dollar problem.”

  She let it sit there.

  I finally said, “Strawberry. Strawberry cake.”

  “That’s better,” she said. “Now, who’s looking for the money?”

  “Me,” I said. “And now you.”

  “No, I meant whose money is it?”

  “Someone who banks in Philly buying property in Seattle,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

  “We’ve had the money since Friday?”

  “Friday at midnight on the dot.”

  “Why didn’t the Casino Credit cashier refuse the wire? Or wire it right back when she received it? I thought we wired money twenty-four-seven.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any such thing as refusing a wire. I think it just shows up. And we do wire money in and out twenty-four-seven,” I said. “Clearly banks do too, because it arrived at midnight from a bank in Philly. But apparently title companies in Seattle don’t. They only receive wire transfers during regular business hours. Someone has to physically be there to accept the wire. Title companies don’t let that much money float around all weekend. Now the money is missing, and we have to find it in time to wire it to Seattle.”

  “Did you see that movie Bird on a Wire?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Why?”

  “Birdy. Wire. This is reminding me of that.”

  “Could we stay on the subject?”

  “There you go again,” she said. “When?”

  “When what?” I asked.

  “When are we supposed to wire the money back?”

  “Before the real estate closing in Seattle,” I said.

  “When is that?”

  “Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Our time or theirs?”

  “Theirs.”

  “That gives us until five o’clock our time to scare up Bird Woman, and no doubt she’s at her sister’s in Shreveport,” she said. “Road trip, Davis, find a babysitter.”

  “The sister doesn’t live in Shreveport. She lives in Bossier City.”

  “Shreveport and Bossier City are the same thing,” she said. “They’re like Dallas and Fort Worth. One runs into the other. Which doesn’t even matter. Get a sitter. We’re hitting the road.”

  We did love a good road trip. And it had been a while. Months on end of nothing but paperwork. No real roll-up-our-sleeves-and-work work. Honestly, my job had been so boring for so long, I was beginning to worry. Although, I wasn’t sure, as acting Director of the Bellissimo, taking off on a Fast and Furious cash recovery job with the acting Property Manager was a good idea. I would need to run it by the acting head of Casino Operations.

  I dialed. “Baylor,” I said, “get up.”

  Baylor lived four floors below our twenty-ninth-floor Bellissimo
President’s Residence in a Bellissimo condo.

  “It’s six in the morning, Davis. I didn’t leave the casino until four. I’m not getting up.”

  That was how it went with Baylor, and had been going, since we returned from hurricane break. He had the bigger job, the full-time job, he had the best assignment, and he took full advantage of it. “It’s six forty-five in the morning, Baylor, and might I remind you, I’m in charge this week.”

  “Sure you are.”

  I didn’t have time to go there. “This is a courtesy call, Baylor,” I said. To let him know Fantasy and I were hitting the road for the day. Maybe into the night. Until we found Birdy James and five million dollars, I didn’t say. “You should thank me for calling.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks, Davis. I’m hanging up.”

  “Wait—”

  He interrupted with, “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” I asked.

  “Yes, whatever,” he said. “Whatever it is, I vote yes.”

  He hung up.

  On the Director of the Bellissimo.

  Make that acting Director.

  Who needed to act fast.

  I dialed again. That time I called Baylor’s much better half, July, Bex and Quinn’s nanny, who happened to be on the other side of the bed. (Baylor and July were trying hard to get married. Their first attempt was rudely interrupted by Hurricane Kevin. Then Baylor missed their second wedding, what was to have been a holiday wedding, because of a blizzard in Kansas City. He’d attended a Casino Cage Operations conference at the JACK Cincinnati Casino, and afterward, boarded the plane to get married in Biloxi, only to be rerouted to Houston, then to Amarillo, then to Denver, where he was stuck at the airport for the next three days, including his and July’s second wedding day. Their third crack at holy matrimony was just weeks away, and the weather, so far, was cooperating. There wasn’t a hurricane, snowstorm, flashflood, tornado, mudslide, or artic cyclone in sight. We were in the middle of an unusual heat wave, but I’d never heard of a heat wave postponing a wedding. Third time could be the charm for them.)

  “July, it’s me.”

  Baylor must have heard me. Or maybe he just knew I’d call July next. “No,” I heard him say. “Whatever it is, I vote no.”

  “Ignore him,” I said.

  “Are the girls okay?” she asked through sleep.

  “They’re fine.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. But something’s come up. Is there any chance you could keep Bex and Quinn today? Maybe into the afternoon?” She hesitated, which I knew meant no, so I let her off the hook. “It’s okay, July. I understand. It’s Sunday.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, “it’s my bridesmaids. I’m meeting them in New Orleans this afternoon for their final fitting. The bridal salon is opening just for us because today was the only day I could go.”

  Those poor bridesmaids already had Hawaiian Aloha bridesmaid dresses, red velvet Christmas bridesmaid dresses, and now, baby-blue strapless sundresses. They were dedicated. And most likely, broke. From buying all the dresses.

  I said, “Go back to sleep and don’t think another thing about it,” then hung up before she talked herself into canceling her afternoon with her bridesmaids, which I knew she’d do. I immediately dialed my sister, Meredith.

  “Help.”

  “Call me back when the sun is up, Davis.”

  “Meredith, could you keep Bex and Quinn this afternoon?”

  “Are you bringing them to me?”

  Meredith lived in our hometown of Pine Apple, Alabama, a block from our parents, two hours from Biloxi, and in the opposite direction of Shreveport and/or Bossier City, Louisiana. “I can’t bring them to you, Meredith. I need you to come here.”

  “You want me to get out of bed and drive two hours to babysit Bex and Quinn? Where’s Bradley?”

  “He’s in Vegas.”

  “Where’s July?”

  “She’s with her bridesmaids.”

  “At seven o’clock in the morning?”

  I looked at the clock. Somehow it was seven.

  “Davis, I can’t,” Meredith said. “Good luck. I’m going back to sleep.”

  Then my sister, my only sibling, hung up on me, just in time for my phone to ring in my hand. At the decidedly unholy hour of seven in the morning, which, given that I’d already woken up four people with phone calls, was probably just karma paying me back.

  It wasn’t.

  It was Security. A large white envelope with my name pasted on the front in cutout mismatched magazine letters had been delivered to the front desk. Two Safety Officers were on their way upstairs with it. No one wanted to open it for fear of anthrax.

  Big Security and Safety Officer babies.

  It was just an envelope.

  Big chickens.

  I dialed Baylor again. “Baylor, get up here. I need you to open an envelope.”

  “No,” he said. “Call Security.”

  “They’re the ones who called me.”

  “Work it out.” Then he hung up on me. Again. I dialed back and his phone went straight to voicemail. I couldn’t leave Bex and Quinn alone to ride the elevator to Baylor’s condo and beat on the door, and I wouldn’t wake them and take them with me. Before I could decide exactly what to do, Security was beating on my front door. To deliver the envelope.

  FIVE

  Security at the Bellissimo was made up of two and a half components.

  First, there was Surveillance, the eye in the sky, thirty-four hundred eyes, to be exact, scanning and recording every blink, every blank stare, and every Baccarat table. There were blind spots—in and around the residences, the upper-echelon executive offices, accounting offices that processed sensitive player information, and locations where nothing ever happened, like long boring employee-only passageways. Other than those few exceptions, Surveillance watched everything, even (and this is terrifying) (or maybe just creepy) the treatment rooms at the Bellissimo spa. Because of lawsuits. It wasn’t like Surveillance could see anything; the lights were dim and the clients under wraps. But it was one of the reasons I never went to the Bellissimo spa. The other reason was the spa made me sleepy: the cricket music, the comfy beds, the warm blankets. A fifty-minute massage was a three-hour ordeal for me when I tacked on the two-hour nap after, and I didn’t have time to nap my life away.

  Where was I?

  Security.

  There was Surveillance, and there were boots on the ground, Guest Safety Specialists, 180 men and women who patrolled the casino and property twenty-four-seven wearing blue blazers and carrying two-way radios, handcuffs, and small canisters of police-strength pepper gel. Everyone in both departments was highly trained to spot cheating, suspicious behavior, and drunks. (The drunks were easy to spot.) Together, Surveillance and Safety protected the casino’s patrons and assets. Then there was my team. (We were the half component.) We worked behind the scenes. Given that gaming involved such large amounts of money, and the temptation was there for casino guests and staff alike to steal, someone had to keep a closer eye than even Surveillance and Safety could.

  That was us.

  And I only worked part-time.

  Make that quarter-time.

  After Hurricane Kevin, I returned to the Bellissimo with a quarter-time job. What was a full-time-plus gun-slinging workweek when I was hired years earlier had rudely evolved to a quarter-time gun-free workweek. I couldn’t say if I was happy about it or not, because I tried my very hardest not to think about it. And when I couldn’t help but think about it, I forced myself to move on.

  Moving on.

  Ninety percent of my quarter-time job was from home and was digital—background checks, cyber security, and answering questions like these: why was the day shift VIP concierge, who mostly opened doors for high rollers checking in and out of the
hotel, suddenly driving a white-on-white Mercedes-Benz A-Class sedan instead of his usual beat-up 2009 Honda Civic? (He’d helped a high rolling blackjack player hustle his girlfriend out of his hotel suite when his wife showed up unexpectedly.) (And got a new car for his troubles.) (Which, the high rolling blackjack player said, was way cheaper than a divorce.) Mostly, and certainly lately, right up until then, actually, things had been running like clockwork at the Bellissimo since our reopening, and Monday through Thursday from ten until two, while Bex and Quinn were with Nanny July at tumbling class or aqua-tots swim lessons, I didn’t have much to do. Lately, my job had been so boring, I spent more than half my work hours playing Words Without Friends. Or gossiping with Fantasy over lunch salads. Or holding the phone while my mother droned on and on about my father’s cat, my sister’s daughter, or the latest comings and goings in my hometown of Pine Apple—population four hundred and fifty-four, one red light, zero Starbucks—where no one ever came. Or went. And that’s what I did while I waited on Fantasy, who was at least willing to open the suspicious envelope with me, I called my mother. Bradley was in Vegas, July couldn’t help, Meredith wouldn’t help, and that left my mother.

  She answered with, “Why are you calling me on the telephone so early in the morning, Davis? You barely caught me. I was about to tease my hair. I can’t tease my hair and hold the telephone at the same time.”

  Why was my mother teasing her hair at the absolute crack of dawn? Because it was Sunday. Sunday School and Worship Service. I’d forgotten.

  “I need your help, Mother.”

  “With what?” she asked. “Do you need a recipe?”

  Not once, not ever, had I called my mother for a recipe. She must have had me mixed up with someone else, because I barely cooked. We lived above fourteen restaurants. Not only that, I wasn’t friends with my new post-hurricane remodeled stove, an induction cooktop, whatever in the world that was. (It induced nothing. Certainly not bacon to fry. Or broccoli to steam. Or banana pudding to bubble around the edges.) I couldn’t boil water on my new stove, much less cook. I was, however, friends with my Instapot. Six-Minute Instapot Mashed Potatoes were Bex and Quinn’s favorite. I was friends with my microwave, and to a certain extent, my oven. And I was great friends with my toaster, because we went through the Pop-Tarts at House of Cole. Still, though, I wasn’t calling my mother at the break of day for a recipe.