Cash Out
A PINX VIDEO MYSTERY
Marshall Thornton
Kenmore Books
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Louis’ Loaded Oatmeal Cookies
Shit-Faced Fruit Salad
Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries
The Less Than Spectacular Times of Henry Milch
Also by Marshall Thornton
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 Marshall Thornton
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Published by Kenmore Books
Edited by Joan Martinelli
Cover design by Marshall Thornton
Images by 123rf stock
First Edition
Created with Vellum
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Joan Martinelli, Randy and Valerie Trumbull, Nathan Bay, Tina Greene Bevington, and Mark Jewkes and Louis Dumser.
1
“Viva Las Vegas,” Leon sang out for like the tenth time since we’d left L.A. We had at least three more hours in the car—plus an hour of smoke breaks—so I fully expected to hear it at least two dozen more times. That thought made me want to fill my ears with molten lava. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, none of us had packed any molten lava.
We were on the 15 in Marc’s Infiniti heading northeast. The green reflective signs told us Victorville was coming up soon. Louis was behind the wheel with Marc riding shotgun. Roy Orbison’s greatest hits were playing on the CD—one of a zillion CDs they’d gotten through a music club. A pretty woman was walking down a street.
Leon and I were in the backseat with Tina squeezed between us reading a script on her knees by the light of a tiny flashlight attached to her keychain. The Infiniti was anything but large. It was, however, the most comfortable car any of us owned due to its leather seats, sunroof and only being two years old.
It was well after midnight on Thursday, April 8. The ninth was Good Friday, the eleventh Easter. My mother was getting married in between the holidays on the tenth. Gasp!
The whole idea of her getting married made me queasy. I’d only known it was going to happen for two weeks, and I kept telling myself the reason I felt uneasy was that it was all so new—not that I believed a word of it. Something was off and I didn’t know what.
We’d actually left L.A. a few minutes before midnight on Wednesday the seventh. Louis had insisted on driving across the desert at night since there would be absolutely no traffic. And since he was the one driving, we’d all agreed.
Marc had videoed our departure. He’d purchased a Sharp Camcorder to tape the wedding. He planned to return it to the store on Monday morning for a full refund of his four hundred-and-some dollars—saving the more than a hundred bucks renting a camera would have cost. The camcorder looked sort of like a thick paperback with a camera lens attached. I did my best to stay behind him and off camera.
“So, Noah, what do you know about this guy your mother’s marrying?” Louis asked over his shoulder. I could have sworn he’d asked me that when they’d accepted the invitation and again a few days later over dinner and—
“His name is Preston Cotton and he’s a lawyer,” I said.
“That’s it? You haven’t learned anything else?”
“He likes to be called just Cotton.”
“I don’t blame him,” Marc said. “Preston Cotton sounds like something you’d pay extra for at the dry cleaners.”
Ignoring the joke, Louis asked, “What kind of law does he practice?”
I couldn’t remember, so I said, “Ummmm—”
“Finance,” Leon answered for me. “Very dry stuff.”
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“I talk to your mother. Do you talk to your mother?”
That was offensive. I did talk to my mother. Once a week like clockwork. Usually Saturday mornings around eleven. Sometimes we’d talk during the week if something came up but mostly it was just Saturday. Although, to be honest, I’d been doing my best to keep the calls short for most of March since I’d had an awful case of the flu. When I did talk to her, I’d dose myself and steam my head in order to sound almost normal, and then claim I had to run off to an important social event five minutes into the call. I’d thought I was being clever, but now realized I’d missed a lot.
“Cotton is a money guy?” Louis asked Leon.
“Yes, I suppose you can say that.”
“He’s a lawyer so that would mean other people’s money.”
“Mmmm…” Leon agreed. “He’s a lawyer so it won’t be other people’s money for long.”
As much as we all loved L.A. Law, we had a very low opinion of lawyers. Though, come to think of it, there might have been a connection.
“Who else is coming to the wedding?” Tina asked.
“I think it’s just us,” I said.
“So, no one on Cotton’s side is coming?”
“His daughter, I think,” I said.
“Three. His three daughters,” Leon corrected me. “And at least one son-in-law.”
“They’re all coming?” I asked. I was sure my mother had said that he had three daughters but only one was coming.
“Yes, dear, just like in King Lear.”
That didn’t sound good. I fervently hoped Cotton wasn’t planning to divide his kingdom during the rehearsal dinner. That could get messy.
“What about the girls’ mother? Is she alive?” Tina asked.
“Yes. They’re divorced,” I said. “Obviously.”
“Are she and Cotton on good terms?”
“Yes,” I said.
“No,” Leon disagreed.
“Really?”
“Your mother said she’s been causing trouble, trying to turn the girls against her.”
“There’s a lot of bad blood,” Marc added.
“Wait. You talked to my mother, too?”
“I called to thank her for inviting us.” Marc explained.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course, I did.”
I was sure she’d only invited them for me. I mean, they were my friends. She’d met them and liked them, but if I weren’t going to the wedding, I doubt she’d have invited them. Or would she have? Now I wasn’t sure. There seemed to be a lot of socializing going on behind my back. Which made me cough; the remnants of my flu.
When I was able to breathe, I asked Tina, “What is that one about?” Meaning the script on her lap.
“Ugh, scripts run in trends and right now we’re going through a raft of body-swapping movies. This one is a little girl and her grandmother. Here’s the elevator pitch: A six-year-old is frustrated that she’s not older. One day her grandmother
takes her to a wishing well and she wishes to be ‘old.’ They take an afternoon nap and the little girl wakes up in her grandmother’s body and vice versa. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but I’m finding it incredibly depressing. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything great about being six or eighty-six. And casting will be impossible.”
“Shelley Winters?”
“Debbie Reynolds?”
“Wilma Wanderly?”
“I meant the six-year-old,” Tina said.
And there we drew a blank. Then Leon said, “Punky Brewster?”
“Soleil Moon Frye. No, I checked. She’s seventeen already. Seventeen! Child actors should not be allowed to grow up.”
Marc pointedly cleared his throat. He was, after all, a former child actor who’d rudely grown up.
“Present company excepted,” Tina ceded.
Then he said, “I can’t believe we’re getting to see Wilma Wanderly’s show. I’m so excited.”
We had tickets for that Friday night. In fact, we were staying at the casino where she was performing, Lucky Days.
“I’ve heard tickets are almost impossible to get,” Marc said.
“I don’t know how Cotton got them,” I said.
“He didn’t get them,” Leon said. “Sonny got them.”
“Who the heck is Sonny?” I asked.
“He’s married to Becky. The oldest girl.”
Oh my God, he was talking about my future step-siblings like he knew them, while I had no idea who was who. Then I thought, Becky and Sonny. I was going to be related to people named Becky and Sonny. That just felt wrong.
Was that where my unease was coming from? Was I not looking forward to being related to complete strangers? Well, who would be? They could be awful. They probably would be awful. I’d suddenly found myself in a Grimm’s fairy tale.
“Sonny got us the rooms for free, too,” Tina added, almost as though she were defending my awful soon-to-be relatives.
“Really? How did he do that?” I knew the rooms were free, but I’d thought my mother and future stepfather were paying for them. And I didn’t even bother to ask how Tina knew Sonny had gotten them. It had to be my mother.
“Are there any more cookies?” she asked, ignoring my question.
“Yes, hold on,” Marc said, then passed a large plastic bag into the back seat. Tina took one and then held the bag out for me. I couldn’t resist. They were Louis’ famous loaded oatmeal cookies. He put everything into them, or almost everything, and they were different every time he made them. They were also amazing.
“He’s a lawyer at some big firm in Chicago,” Leon explained unbidden.
“Who’s a lawyer?” I asked.
“Sonny. Sonny Leone. Becky’s husband.”
“Another lawyer?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Uh-huh,” Leon said before continuing. “One of his clients owns Lucky Days or at least part of it. That’s why we’re getting the royal—”
“Hold on one second,” Louis said. “Chicago? Casinos? Are we talking about the mob? Does the mob own this hotel?”
“Absolutely, we’re talking about the mob,” Tina said. “Robert’s been there for weeks designing Wilma’s costumes. He says there are mobsters everywhere at the casino, but that they’re great to work for. Very polite and they pay well. Of course, he’s talent so, you know, much less likely to get whacked.”
“Oh my God,” I said, tempted to ask Louis to turn the car around. “Does this mean my future step-brother-in-law works for the Mafia? And what about Cotton? He’s a lawyer too, does he work for—”
“Noah just relax,” Leon said. “They don’t have the Cosa Nostra in Grand Rapids.”
“How do you know?”
“Your mother told me.”
“How would she know?”
“Your mother is much more worldly than you think.”
God, I sincerely hoped not.
“Can we stop at the next rest stop?” Marc asked, just after Victorville. “Time for a cigarette break.”
Louis frowned. His goal was to get to Vegas as quickly as possible. As we left Silverlake, though, negotiations began as to how many cigarette breaks Marc, Leon and Tina would be allowed— since, of course, smoking in the car was out of the question. Six, according to Marc, Leon and Tina; four per Louis. I chose to remain neutral.
At the next rest stop, I got out to stretch my legs while they all lit up. Pacing back and forth, I have to admit I was just a tad traumatized. My mother was marrying into a family of mob lawyers. It was normal to be upset about that, wasn’t it? Was this why I’d been so uneasy about the whole affair? No, it wasn’t. I’d had no clue about the mob connection. It was something else, something I couldn’t quite—
“Noah, relax,” Tina said, exhaling. Her breath made a cloud of smoke and steam in the cold desert air. Marc and Leon wrapped their arms around themselves as they smoked even though they each wore heavy sweaters. Louis had wisely stayed in the running car.
Tina continued, “There’s nothing to worry about. I know my mob movies. The consigliere never ends up dead. And his wife is totally safe.”
“We have to stop the wedding,” I blurted out, then burst into a ragged coughing fit. I choked and gagged until I managed to work a cough drop out of my pocket and into my mouth.
“Noah, you’re being awfully dramatic,” Leon said. I wasn’t sure whether he meant my coughing fit or my wanting to stop the wedding. “I think Angie knows what she’s doing.”
“Does she? Does she know she’s marrying into the mob?”
“You can’t stop the wedding,” Tina said. “It’s just too Meg Ryan.”
“But if Meg can do it—”
“No. Just no. I know Meg Ryan. I’m a friend of Meg Ryan. And you, sir, are no Meg Ryan.” She couldn’t help giggling as she said that. She was making an obscure political joke about a vice presidential debate two elections ago. Totally annoying because on the one hand I wasn’t in the mood for jokes and on the other hand she was correct. I wasn’t Meg Ryan.
“Do you really know Meg Ryan?”
“She said ‘hi’ to me in a hallway once.”
It was at that point, I noticed Marc had dipped into the car and gotten out the video camera.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?”
“Taping you,” he said simply.
“How long has that thing been on?”
“Couple minutes.”
“Erase it.” I had the horrible thought he might include my wanting to stop the wedding in my mother’s souvenir video. I doubted she’d enjoy watching that on anniversaries.
“You’re such a spoil sport,” Marc said. He was playing with the buttons, so hopefully he was actually erasing it. “I’m going to do the transfer at your store. You’ll have complete approval.”
“I don’t have the right equipment for that.”
“Yes, you do. I already talked to Mikey. He says it’s easy.” Mikey was my self-styled store manager.
“You really should warn people before you start filming. I would have liked to touch up my makeup,” Tina said.
“Me too,” chimed Leon.
Leaving Victorville, Marc let me sit in the front with Louis, probably as an apology, though he said he needed some beauty rest. Things quieted down. I tried not to dwell on the disastrous marriage my mother was about to make. I have to admit, the fact that I’d been concerned about the whole thing meant I was primed and ready to freak out when I found out about Sonny’s career choices. Maybe there wasn’t anything at all to worry about.
“How’s Patty Wong working out?” Louis asked, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the others. In a moment of weakness—literally, my temperature was 103.4—I’d hired our odd neighbor, Patty, to fill in at my video store.
“Mikey hates her,” I said. “I might have to fire her as soon as I’m feeling a hundred percent.”
“You think she’ll be okay with being fired?”
“Well, maybe we just won’t need her a
nymore. That’s probably a better way to put it.”
“I think she’ll know she’s being fired.”
“Maybe we’ll just give her one shift a week…on Mikey’s day off.”
He didn’t say anything to that, which made me think I might have had a good idea. We drove for quite a while. Basia was now on the CD making me sleepy. I could have used my Walkman to listen to some Louise Hay tapes I’d brought, but if Basia was putting me to sleep, Louise would have thrust me into a coma.
I might have fallen asleep for a while anyway because unexpectedly, as we came over a hill in the darkness, a line of neon lights appeared on the horizon.
“Is that Las Vegas?”
“No, that’s Stateline,” Louis explained. “There’s a couple of casinos there for those who don’t have the patience to drive another forty-five minutes to gamble.”
The view was pretty, like a bejeweled necklace on black velvet. Louis had been to Vegas many times. The week before, he’d given me a book about gambling, so I’d know which games to play. I tried to read it, but I’d been so sick at the time I really couldn’t do much more than watch Warner Brothers cartoons on video. Of course, I wasn’t planning to gamble, so preparing hadn’t seemed very important.
“How do you feel about your mother’s getting married?” Louis asked.
“You mean beside the fact that she’s marrying a mob lawyer?”
“That’s not an established fact, but yes, aside from that.”
“I don’t know how I feel. I mean, I haven’t thought about it a lot. I suppose I should have been thinking about it,” I said, although I don’t know when I’d have found time between the flu and the store and trying to get my head on straight after the truly horrific Valentine’s Day I’d had. “Maybe I just assumed she’d be marrying a guy like my dad. Someone who was kind of a homebody, not too interesting, maybe a little dull.”
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