The Casino Switcheroo

by Michael P. King

  “Where?”

  “They’ll tell us at two. Me, Tim, you, and one of your guys. O’Brian’s people will deliver the money to you today. Two million. Count it. You need to be ready to go. No mistakes.”

  “You and Tim don’t need to be there. Mikey knows me.”

  “We’re going to be there.”

  “Okay, I’ll take care of all the details. I’ll be at Rocky Shore Drive at two.”

  The line was quiet.

  “Mr. Smithson?” Ninovich asked.

  “Do you know who did this yet?”

  “We’re making progress. A guy who works for us told us about a guy who may be helpful. We’re tracking him down.”

  “What about the idiots we scooped up?”

  “They don’t know anything.”

  “You sure?”

  “They’d tell us if they knew. They always do.”

  “Call me as soon as you know anything.” Smithson ended the call.

  In the basement of the Ridgeway safehouse, Raymond watched Mikey in the special room through the two-way mirror. A TV with a game console stood against one wall. The toilet and sink were in the far corner. A McDonald’s bag sat on a shelf in front of a small sliding door. But Mikey wasn’t eating or playing a game. He just sat on the sofa fidgeting.

  Raymond spoke over the speaker. “Relax, kid. No one in your family was hurt. You don’t have to believe me. Turn on the TV and look at the news.”

  Mikey glanced around until he found the speaker the voice was coming from. “Let me out of here.”

  “I know you’re uncomfortable, but no one is going to hurt you. You’re too valuable. Your gramps will pay, and you’ll be back with your family tomorrow. So relax, eat, sleep. Tomorrow will be here before you know it.”

  Raymond turned to Hernandez. “We need to make sure someone is down here watching this kid all the time. Nothing happens to him.”

  “He can’t get out.”

  “What if he tries to hurt himself? Somebody watches him all the time.”

  Raymond went up the stairs. Koenig was sitting in the dining room, working at his laptop computer, double-checking the routes and details for the exchange. “How is he?”

  “Quiet. He hasn’t eaten anything.”

  “Get a pint of ice cream out of the freezer. The one with the chocolate swirls. I bet he’ll eat some of that.”

  “Good idea.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Raymond. The kid’s not going to get hurt. Before the end of the month, he’ll be bragging to his friends about how tough he was.”

  Raymond nodded toward the computer. “Everything check out?”

  “We’re set. The exchange site, the next safe house, all the details in between have the usual redundancies.”

  “We lost two guys on the island. Plus Lulu and JB. And three guys are missing.”

  “It was to be expected. None of them can talk because they don’t know anything. We still have five guys, as well as you and Hernandez, moving forward. Tomorrow we make the exchange. Then everything gets easier.”

  “I’ll take Hernandez to make the exchange. The kid trusts me, and Hernandez is our best guy.”

  Koenig shook his head. “That’s why Hernandez has to stay with me. Anything goes sideways, I might need him. You take Sanchez. The kid’s already seen him.”

  After dinner, Max was sitting on the sofa in the living room, flipping through the channels on the TV, looking for any updated information on what the media was calling the Solomon Island robbery, when his phone rang. It was Anders.

  “Talk.”

  “I’m sorry, man. But I work for Ninovich all the time. I told him you didn’t have anything to do with the kidnap—”

  Max sprang to his feet and crammed his phone into his pocket. He yelled down the hall. “Run!”

  Kelly Jo sprinted out of the bedroom, pulling on her jacket as she headed toward the door to the garage. Max was right behind her. She pressed the garage door opener. He dove into the driver’s seat of the Sentra and jammed the shifter into reverse. She was slamming her door as the car raced backward down the driveway. The tires squealed as Max turned the wheel and stomped on the brakes. He shoved the shifter into Drive. They left the garage door open. He turned right at the first intersection, and then left, taking the shortest route to the boulevard and the freeway. As he sped along, he filled her in.

  “Damn it,” Kelly Jo said. “I never thought Anders would sell us out.”

  “He lives here. At least he gave us the heads-up.”

  He heard the short bleat of a police siren and saw blue lights in his rearview mirror. He flipped on his turn signal and pulled over. The police cruiser pulled in behind him. He kept his hands on the steering wheel. A woman officer, her hand on the butt of her holstered pistol, came up to his window. He lowered it.

  “License and registration, please.”

  “My license is in my back pocket.”

  She nodded. He dug out his wallet and got out his driver’s license.

  He glanced at Kelly Jo. “Honey, could you get the registration from the glove box?”

  She found it among the pens, scraps of trash, and loose change and passed it to him. He handed it to the officer.

  The officer looked over the license and the registration. “This isn’t your car.”

  “Borrowed.”

  “Uh-huh. Turn the car off.”

  He turned the key. The officer went back to her cruiser with his license and the Sentra’s registration.

  “Will the car hold up?” Kelly Jo asked.

  “Anders said two days.”

  “Not really trusting Anders right now.”

  “He didn’t know he was screwed when he chose the car.”

  “I’d just hate to kill this cop.”

  “I know. It would be a lot of extra trouble.”

  A utility van screeched in at an angle in front of them. Two bruisers jumped out of the front wearing garage coveralls and carrying shotguns. Max and Kelly Jo looked back at the police car. The officer was walking toward them with her pistol drawn. The bruisers opened the doors to the Sentra and pulled Max and Kelly Jo out. “Don’t do anything stupid,” the one who had Max said. “We can’t kill you, but we can fuck you up so you’ll wish you were dead.”

  They pushed Max and Kelly Jo onto the hood of the Sentra and patted them down, taking their pistols and their smartphones before they zip-tied their hands behind their backs.

  The one behind Kelly Jo nodded toward the officer. “The boss says he owes you one.”

  The officer holstered her gun. “You guys taking care of the car?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The police officer got back in her cruiser. The two men shoved them into the back of the van. “Sit down.”

  They sat on the floor. There were no windows in the back of the van and no door handle on the inside of the back door or the side door. Kelly Jo looked at Max. He mouthed the word Wait.

  After forty minutes of potholed streets and sharp turns, they pulled to a stop. The two bruisers opened the back. “Get out.”

  They were in a large warehouse. The men led them to a storeroom, unlocked the door, and pushed them inside. The bolt in the door grated home. Max felt along the wall and found a light switch. One bulb burned overhead. The storeroom was ten feet by ten feet, with built-in shelves all along both sides. Two men lay dead at the back of the space. Their legs splayed out at odd angles. Their clothes were tatters. Their faces were unrecognizable masses of bruises and cigarette burns.

  “Fuck me,” Max said.

  They heard screaming from somewhere close by, punctuated by short, intermittent bursts of garbled pleading.

  Kelly Jo slipped and banged into the wall. Max stepped up against her to keep her from falling. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know you’ve had some bad luck in tight places.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “We’re not dying here. Right
now, Koenig is laughing at us. But we’re going to find him. We’re going to kill him, and we’re going to steal his score. That’s what we do.”

  She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, it was just a physical reaction; my mind’s in the game.”

  He kissed her cheek before he stepped away from her.

  “Who do you think they are?”

  “Got to be two of Koenig’s guys. Let’s see what we can do.”

  He looked along the metal shelves until he found a sharp edge and then ran the zip tie binding his wrists over it until it snapped. “That’s the spot.”

  While Kelly Jo did the same, he got down on his hands and knees and methodically went through the dead men’s pockets. Nothing but lint. Then he looked over every inch of the walls. No vents, no repairs, no place that could possibly be forced open. He sat down beside her.

  “I could have told you,” she said.

  “Had to try.”

  After a while, the door opened. It was the two bruisers who had brought them there. They were carrying a dead man between them. They pitched the body into the room. It landed on the others with a sickening thud. “You been enjoying the company of your friends?” one of them asked.

  “Not our friends,” Max said.

  “Come out of there.”

  When they stood up, the men noticed that their hands were free. “You’ve been busy,” the other one said.

  “Not looking for trouble. Just passing the time.”

  They pushed them along, guiding them across the open part of the warehouse to a large garage set up for vehicle repair. JB and Lulu, naked and unconscious, dangled from chains run through overhead pulleys, their toes barely touching the floor. A rolling tool bench with knives, pliers, and hammers laid out on its top was positioned beside them. Two folding chairs had been set out facing them. “Have a seat,” one of the men said.

  They heard a toilet flush. Another man, shorter and beefier, bald on top, came around from behind them. “How are you?”

  “I guessing you’re Ninovich,” Max said.

  He smiled and nodded. “Anders is a good man. A company man. He would never screw us over. You two, on the other hand—you were planning to steal from us.”

  “Not you. We’re not that stupid. We were stealing from the guy who’s stealing from you.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “Because that’s what we do.”

  “Running the inside crew, seducing the assistant manager, kidnapping the boss’s grandson.”

  “We didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping.”

  He nodded toward JB and Lulu. “That’s what they said. How do you think that’s working out for them?”

  “Kidnapping the kid was a gutless move. Ask Anders. That’s not the way we work. We don’t mess with civilians. Ever. Period.”

  “Maybe I’ll let my boys play with your girl awhile. See if your story changes.”

  “You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, but our story won’t change. You want the kid back?”

  “We’re going to get the kid back.”

  “What about the guy who planned this thing?”

  “Going to kill him.”

  “You won’t even find him. He’s a ghost. He’s two steps ahead of you, leaving pawns on the table to slow you down. That’s what the three casino robbers were. That’s what those two are.”

  “That’s what you are.”

  “You’re right. That’s my point. Nobody you see is going to be that guy.”

  “But you know who he is.”

  “I do. I know who he is and how he works. So I could help you find him. Nobody else can do that.”

  “So you can kill him and keep our money?”

  Max shrugged. “How bad do you want him dead? How bad do you want the complete gratitude of your boss?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Right now? Right this minute? His name is Koenig. As soon as he has the ransom, he’ll disappear and his name will be something else. All you’ll catch is more like you already got. Pawns who know nothing useful.”

  Ninovich took his phone from the pocket of his coveralls and walked away. They could hear him talking, but they couldn’t make out what he was saying. When he returned, he turned to his men. “Give them their gear.”

  One of the bruisers walked away. Max and Kelly Jo sat there, their eyes focused on Ninovich, waiting to hear the rest of it.

  “You’re going to find this Koenig. You’re going to deliver him to me. If you try to run, we’ll hunt you down. I’ll make it my fulltime job. And after we catch you, you’ll wish we had given you the same treatment as your friends here.”

  “You’re getting the kid back?”

  “It’s already set.”

  “We need to be at the exchange.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Quickest way to Koenig is to track the money.”

  “What makes you think we won’t be doing that?”

  “You won’t be able to keep up. I told you, I know him. I know how he works.”

  “Okay,” Ninovich said. “Be ready to go at two o’clock tomorrow. I’ve got your number.”

  “Can you get one of those GPS dart guns?”

  “There’s no flies on you, is there? Yeah, I can get one.”

  “We’ll be waiting for your call.”

  The bruiser came back, carrying their phones and their guns. “Your car is out front.”

  They walked out of the security door next to the oversize garage door at the front of the warehouse. It was dark outside. At the corner, under the streetlight, the sign read Fifth Street. The Sentra was parked at the curb with the keys in it. Max slid into the driver’s seat. Neither of them spoke until they were two blocks away.

  “That was a squeaker,” Kelly Jo said.

  “I’m a closer.” Max held up one hand. It was trembling. “Of course, we were lucky in the order. They’d already killed enough people to know that I was right.”

  “But you still had to sell it.”

  “You think we should run?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “I want Koenig dead as much as you do. We’re going to take his money—”

  “Skim his money. Most of it will have to go back.”

  “Skim his money and kill him. And Raymond too. In the beginning I thought that you were being a little obsessive, but now I know why you call Koenig the snake in the Garden of Eden. I still don’t know why he would think this was a winning hand.”

  “With all the collateral damage?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s the way he always works. You’ve got to admit his plan was a thing of beauty.”

  “Baby, it’s a thing of beauty if it’s happening to someone else.”

  “True.”

  “And the kid was off limits.”

  “Also true. But it makes Smithson crazy. Easier to outsmart.”

  “So it’s back to the house?”

  “Might as well. They’re probably following us, and we don’t want to spook them. We’ve got to wait for a call. That’s as good a place as any.”

  Back at the warehouse, two of Ninovich’s men loaded the last body from the storeroom off a wheeled cart and into the back of the utility van. Another man was power-washing the storeroom, starting with the ceiling and working his way down the walls. Ninovich stood in the vehicle repair garage, talking on the phone. “Karen, are you tailing them?”

  “I put a transmitter on the car. I’m about half a block back.”

  “Don’t lose them. I’ve called in Sally and Rita. As soon as they get in touch with you, you’re done for the day.”

  He ended the call. One of the men pushed the empty cart into the garage. “Yeah, Chucky?”

  “We’re ready for these two.”

  Ninovich operated the pulley control. JB and Lulu lowered into a pile on the floor. Chucky pushed the cart up next to the
bodies. “Say, Ninovich, you think the grifters know we had the storeroom bugged?”

  “Don’t know.” He turned away from the garage and speed-dialed Smithson. “It’s going just like you wanted.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’ve put our best trackers on them. Tomorrow we’ll get Mikey back, we’ll let the grifters find Koenig, and when they’ve got our guy, we’ll kill them all.”

  “We’re not going to have any mistakes.”

  “Short leash. If they turn out to be trouble, we’ll put them in the landfill.”

  “You get this done, I’m not going to forget you came through.”

  Smithson ended the call. Ninovich made another call. “Mario? I’m going to need that armored Volvo SUV tomorrow.”

  “The XC90?”

  “Yeah. You’re driving.”

  “Will do.”

  “And Mario, find me a GPS dart gun.”

  “I’ll have to go to the cops.”

  “Just do it.”

  Ninovich put his phone away. So far, so good. Get the kid back. Clear up the mess. He was one step closer to becoming the heir apparent.

  Sergeant Park, a Korean American with a midwestern accent, sat in a Chevy on Fifth Street across from the warehouse. He’d followed Ninovich here from Galaxy Yacht Sales. The Diet Coke he’d drunk had been a mistake. He was awake all right, but now he needed to pee. He had almost convinced himself to make a quick trip behind the dumpster in the alley behind him when he saw a gray Sentra pull up to the front door of the warehouse. A big guy in coveralls got out. Park picked up his camera. He looked at the license plate through the viewfinder, but the plate was too far into the shadow for him to make out the numbers. A few minutes later, a man and a woman came out of the warehouse. Park took their picture while they were still under the entry light shining down in front of the doors. They got in the Sentra and drove away.

  A half hour later, the garage door opened and a utility van drove out. Park managed to photograph its license plate. There was something odd about the van. Was the back end riding low? Was it the way the van lurched around the corner? He couldn’t put his finger on it—but he couldn’t follow the van. He was supposed to stay on Ninovich. He took out his phone and called for a patrol car to investigate. He watched the closed doors to the warehouse. How much longer was Ninovich going to be here? His back teeth were floating. Maybe there was enough time to make a quick trip behind the dumpster.