by David Bishop
That can’t be. There’s nothing behind me but a credenza and safe.
Creswell sat down slowly, his eyes straining into the darkness. Again he eased open the belly drawer of his desk. He reached in, his hand groping for his twenty-two. It wasn’t a loud gun, but it could stun a man, put him down with a lucky shot. Maybe it would require more than one shot, but that was okay. He would empty the twenty-two into the jerkoff.
Oh Shit.
He slid his hand from one side to the other, then back to front. His fingers crawling over and between the other items in the drawer until it became unmistakable. Creswell gave up all pretenses of not doing what he was doing. His hand desperately lunged and groped deep into the drawer. His twenty-two was gone.
He started to ball his fist, but the shallow belly drawer prevented him doing so. A heavy thud startled him. He looked up. On his desk, under the dome of the light, lay his twenty-two. Someone had dropped it there, someone right now, someone close.
“Looking for this, Mr. Creswell?” The voice was the same and came from just beyond his desk. He looked up at a man dressed in black, his eyes revealed through narrow slits in a black ski mask. The man’s thighs were pressed against the outside of the desk.
Creswell reached for the gun, but stopped when a brief metallic rain fell on his desktop. The man had dropped the cartridges from the gun.
“What do you want?” Creswell asked.
“You’re a federal fugitive,” Testler said. “You ran out on your bail to avoid testifying against your bosses. I have three choices. One: I can kill you. In which case you’ll be identified and it will go down as some kind of gangland killing to assure you can’t testify. Two: I can turn you in and get a modest reward, which I doubt is your or my first choice. Or three: You can help me. In return you neither die nor get arrested. Which sounds best to you?”
“Go ahead and rob the casino. I don’t give a shit.”
“Let’s start with you handing over that bag you just took from under your desk, the one that contains nine thousand dollars for Billy Cranston.”
“If I don’t give that to Billy, I’ll lose my sanctuary. I’ll be a fugitive on the run.”
“I thought you decided to help me? If not, I’ll have to pick from the other two: kill you or turn you in for the reward.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll help you. But let me keep this money for Billy. I’ve got more in the safe, maybe a hundred thousand.”
“No you don’t. I’ve got it. I took it before you came in here. The safe’s locked again, but it’s empty.”
“Then why didn’t you just take off before I got back?”
“Ah. That’s a good question.” Ryan could see the sweat on Creswell’s face glisten in the faint light rising from the hooded lamp. “I wanted us to talk.”
“About what?”
“Billy Cranston’s operations here in town, not just here at the casino. Who else in town is a fugitive paying Billy for a place to hide? Where does Cranston keep his illegal money? The background on who runs his whorehouse. Who else is muscle for him other than Carlos Molina, before he got himself dead? I want all of it. If I find out you left out anything I’ll sic the Feds on you before you know what hit you. Run and I’ll kill you before you get out of town. Stick around and help get rid of Cranston and you will continue to be safe.”
“Get rid of him? Do you plan to kill Billy Cranston in his own town?”
“Not important. Billy Cranston will be gone from this town and his power hold will be broken. Now start talking. Tell it all and don’t stop until you have.”
After talking for over an hour about Billy Cranston’s payoffs to the sheriff and judge, his access to the mails and his capacity to tap any phone without due process, he placed his hands flat on his desk. “Can I sit down?”
“No. Go down to the far end of the conference table. Move the chair at the end and the first one on each side of the table. Put those three chairs along the side walls.”
“What the hell is that about?”
“Your job is not to reason why, only to do or die.”
When Creswell had done this, Ryan told him, “Stand against that paneled wall. Spread your arms out straight, shoulder high. Reach as far as you can with each hand toward each sidewall, palms out, legs shoulders width.” When Creswell had done this, the voice said, “Keep talking.”
“I’ve told you all I know. I’m dry.”
Creswell head involuntarily jerked toward his right. His eyes found a knife sticking in the paneling about six inches from the side of his head. It still reverberated from the force of its penetration. “What are you doing? I’ve told you all I know. You said I’d be safe if I talked.”
Thwap.
Creswell reacted to a similar sound, this time near the left side of his head. He jerked his eyes in that direction to see a knife handle no more than two inches from his ear.
“We’re not done here,” Ryan said. “Who are you going to tell about this meeting?”
“No one. Nobody. Never.”
“Billy will have to know about this. He’ll have to be told you no longer have the money to pay off winners, not to mention the skim you pay him for hiding in his town. I might add, if Billy knew you were skimming his payoff he’d kill you and I wouldn’t have to. Your interests and mine are now more closely aligned than yours and Billy’s. Welcome to my team.”
Creswell’s arms dropped to his sides. Right then, a sound told him another knife had found the paneling. This time it stuck between his legs, not far below his groin. “What more do you want?” his voice nearly crying.
“Tell Billy you were robbed. First tell Sheriff Blackstone. I’m guessing he’s the one you would have given your payment of nine-thousand. He’ll tell Billy and Billy will then want to hear it from you. Hold to your story. I was here. Tell him that. You did not open the safe. I did. I took all the money including the nine-thousand you were to pay him which you had not yet taken out of the safe. Do not mention our having this discussion. Now, what else have you got to tell me?”
“Nothing. I swear. I know nothing else. You’ve got it all.”
“Who else in town are fugitives paying Billy protection money? Be careful, I know the answer, I’m asking you only for confirmation.”
“As far as I know, there’s no one else. For a while I thought Zack Stevens was. He runs Billy’s brothel, but one of my gals here dates him some. She said he used to run a bed and breakfast somewhere and handled action for a few girls on the side. Honest mister, that’s all I know.”
“Tell me what you know about Billy’s wife.”
“Martha Cranston?”
“Talk.”
“There’s not much to tell. She’s the boss’s wife. Far as I know, she doesn’t know any more about her husband’s operations than any other woman in town. Well, more obviously, but she doesn’t participate in any of it.”
“Billy’s a real asshole. Martha must be involved with someone else. Who?”
“She was seeing Carlos Molina on the side, sneaking around. Sometimes they met here in the casino. They tried to make their rendezvous look like off-chance meetings. But I could tell. Off-chance meetings don’t occur that often. I’ve see them leave together several times. Usually on the same nights that Billy meets Vera Cunningham in his hotel. They both figured no one knew.”
“I already heard about her and Carlos. Who else is Martha seeing?”
“No one I know about.”
“Did Billy know about his wife and Carlos Molina?”
“I’m guessing he did. He has his finger on the pulse of everything. The town’s crawling with snitches. I can’t say for certain. Listen mister, I’m being straight with you. That’s all I know.”
“Good. It’s not easy throwing these knifes in faint light. I’m going to need to knock you out and tie you up. You live alone so you won’t be missed right away. That little fact saved your life. Local ordinance requires you be closed today. Your staff will find you tomorrow m
orning. You won’t be able to get loose, but I’ll tie you to minimize the trauma of being tied. If you need to piss, use your private bathroom off this office, use it now. I’ve removed anything in there you could have used so don’t waste your time looking.”
Creswell went into the small private bathroom and returned.
“When they untie you Monday, call Sheriff Blackstone. Tell him you need to see him here. You can’t tell him on the phone. Tell him you won’t speak to him unless he brings Billy Cranston along. That Cranston will want to be here. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“You know what to tell him?”
“Just what you said. You hid out inside while the staff left. You took the cash. We never talked.”
“Forget about my tossing knives at you. If you tell him that, he’ll know we talked. He’ll know this is more than a stickup. That will make my life more difficult and make your life end. Get me?”
“Yes. Right. . . . Okay.
Creswell hit the floor.
Ryan lifted Creswell into his chair and taped him in with common duct tape, around his chest and his legs. After that, he added rope. With the casino manager bound securely and still unconscious, Ryan picked up the three small voice recorders he had placed around the room which said, “I’ll take that, Mr. Creswell.” He opened a fourth recorder, above the acoustical ceiling, and removed and replaced the disk inside. He took the one with the recording of his entire conversation with Creswell.
He’d pick up the new disk later, after it captured the anticipated meeting Creswell would have with the sheriff and Billy Cranston. That one, in Billy’s own voice, would further establish that Billy owned and controlled the casino and that Creswell, the fugitive, paid Billy to hide him in his town. That would establish Billy’s guilt of aiding and abetting a fugitive from the feds.
Chapter Twenty
I put out black caviar and pimento cheese spread on Ritz crackers
SUNDAY
Linda didn’t go out for breakfast Sunday morning. She wasn’t up to starting her day with another encounter with Billy Cranston. She considered going to the Stop By, but ended up settling for a banana in her room. At noon she would have tea and sandwiches with Hildegard Caruthers, whom Vera had described as evolving into somewhat of a recluse. The real question was why would her former teacher want to see Carol Benson?
Dix knows who I am. Does Ms. Caruthers know too?
Linda climbed the stairs to the floor above the pharmacy. She knocked softly on the door at precisely twelve o’clock. Hildegard Caruthers opened the door so quickly she had to have seen Linda enter from the street and waited just inside her door. She looked down the stairs, saw no one and didn’t bother to extend her hand. She stepped back from the doorway and motioned.
“Come in, Linda Darby. Come in quickly.”
She knows.
* * *
“Mr. Cranston, Sheriff Blackstone is out here. You asked me to get him over here as soon as possible.”
“Get in here, Reggie,” Billy Cranston bellowed, his voice carrying past his secretary and through the door into the waiting room. Billy then waved his secretary away as if shooing a fly.
“You can go home now,” Billy said to the attractive backside of his secretary who didn’t usually work on Sunday.
“Shut the door.” Sheriff Blackstone did as he was told. They were alone.
While the sheriff soaked three ice cubes in a generous measure of bourbon, Billy Cranston started in on him. “Who the hell is this Benson dame? I have to have this, Reggie. We need it to decide how we’re going to deal with her.”
“Or determine we don’t need to deal with her. The way I see it, we just need to wait it out and she’ll leave, maybe on tomorrow’s mid-day flyer. I don’t think she’s any threat to either of us . . . sir.” After speaking in opposition to his boss’s thinking, something he rarely did, the sheriff took a long starter swallow of his bourbon.
“Leave the thinking to me, Reggie. Just follow orders. What have you got?”
“The FBI has no match for her prints. On a separate note, I could find no birth record anywhere for a Carol Benson that even began to match up as a possible.”
“So what did you find? You had to find something.”
“I’ve got the Connecticut driver’s license she used to rent the car.”
“What about the credit card she had to leave on deposit for the car?”
“She used a card from one of those banks that promote credit cards across the country. I can’t recall which one. It could have been the one that uses those Viking warriors in their TV ads. Those guys are a hoot. If you want to know which bank it was, I got the report back at the office.”
Billy stood and came around his desk to stand over Sheriff Blackstone who looked up at him.
“Now hold on boss, before you get your tail feathers in a ruffle. I ran the credit bureau using her driver’s license info. I found an address in Sedona, Arizona. I got the local Sedona cops checking it for me. I could get their reply anytime now, but it will likely be Monday. Clearly the locals there don’t consider this as urgent as you do.”
Billy kicked over the end table next to the couch in his office. A lamp fell and broke. He sat back down. His elbows on the arms of his desk chair with his fingers intermingled in front of him, his thumbs hard-rubbing back and forth against each other. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” he said to no one in particular. “I like this less and less every day. Maybe we need to pick her up and toss her tight ass in solitary for a couple days, without making a record of the arrest.”
“Not a good idea, Billy. Not without knowing who the hell she is. I’ve learned she had a private room on the train, so she’s got some dough. She paid for her train ticket with the same credit card.”
“Okay. We wait until you’ve heard from the Sedona cops. In the meantime check the American Bar Association, the Arizona Bar Association, and the one in Connecticut. Some of what she’s said suggests she may be a lawyer. If she is, find out more about her brand of law and her firm. Check the Department of Justice and the Martindale & Hubbell directory.” When the sheriff’s face took on a questioned look, Billy added, “That’s a directory of lawyers and law firms across the country. Go through the county’s legal counsel to get that access.”
“I’m on it. I’ll try to find online directories, but the bar associations won’t be open to take calls until tomorrow, Monday.”
“Get out of here. I got some thinking to do. I need to decide whether or not we should bounce that asshole, Dixon Wardley, off a few walls. See what he knows.”
“I’d like nothing better, boss. Something is up. I can feel it. If we’re facing some kind of uprising, Dixon Wardley is involved. I guaran-damn-tee it.” Billy Cranston lowered his brows and nodded slightly, emboldening Sheriff Blackstone to add, “I don’t think we should sit on the sidelines while this kind of thing festers.”
“Hold off on that for now.” Billy ran his open hand down across his mouth. “I’ll tell you when it’s necessary to brace Mr. Wardley.”
“Your call, Billy. For my money, it’s past time for us to treat that jerkoff like a ping pong ball. He thinks he’s hot shit. We need to cut him down to size.”
“You heard me, Reggie. Leave Dix Wardley alone . . . for now. I thought I told you to get the hell out of here.”
The sheriff had his hand on the doorknob when Billy’s voice brought him back around. “And don’t wait for me to ask for the next report on this Benson bitch. When you know something, I want to know it five seconds later—make that three.”
The sheriff nodded and walked out of Billy Cranston’s office.
* * *
Linda walked into the home of Hildegard Caruthers wondering how and when the retired teacher had learned she was really Linda Darby.
“Sit down, Linda. Please excuse the mess. My housekeeper died six years ago. I keep interviewing for someone to fill the position and no one has ever seemed just right. I don’t like strangers poking
and fussing with my things.”
“I understand completely. Still, you should find someone to help.”
“Well, enough about the eccentricities of age. Tell me why in the blue blazes you’re engaging in this charade?”
Linda sat down on a two-cushion couch to the left of the window that looked out over Main Street. The coffee table in front of her held a cherry coke, her favorite while growing up, but something she hadn’t drunk since leaving Cranston two decades ago.
The woman Linda always thought of as her favorite and best teacher sat in a wooden rocker with a padded seat and arm rests. She wore no shoes or socks, and had amazingly well groomed and un-calloused feet which she roosted on the stub ends of the chair’s two rockers. Her gray hair pulled into a short ponytail tight enough to lessen the deeper wrinkles in her forehead.
“My using another name is not all that ominous, Mrs. Caruthers. I’m sorry, I mean, Ms. Caruthers.”
“Mrs. Caruthers is my name. I don’t go by any of that modern fandangle crap. My husband died, we weren’t divorced. I’m still Mrs. Caruthers and I’ll die Mrs. Caruthers. Only my opinion counts in this matter.”
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Caruthers.”
“Mr. Caruthers and I had over fifty good years together, great years actually. The journey of life is about the collection of memories. I have a great many wonderful ones. Still, I would trade them all for one more day with the man.”
“You were a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Caruthers. I confess I didn’t always know it then, but you were.”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. You were a teen, a period during which young people know almost nothing while simultaneously believing they know almost everything. As for you, you were always polite, respectful. I haven’t forgotten. But, please, call me Hildy. My friends do and I’d like to count you among them, if you will think of me that way. Will you?”
Linda nodded. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. . . . sure . . . Hildy. I’m proud you remember me and think of me as a friend. How did you remember that I liked cherry cokes?”
“Mr. Caruthers and I couldn’t have any children of our own. I like to think of the kids I had in class, particularly the ones I took a shine to, as my children, in a manner of speaking. I’ve had ‘em all. Good ones and bad ones and every shade in between, even Billy Cranston about ten years before you. One never forgets their children, Linda. Please help yourself. I didn’t know what your tastes were these days so I put out a choice of black caviar or pimento cheese spread on Ritz crackers. I have tea, if you came actually expecting that.”