The Gold Dragon Caper: A Damien Dickens Mystery (Damien Dickens Mysteries Book 4)

by Phyllis Entis

  THE GOLD DRAGON CAPER

  A Damien Dickens Mystery

  by Phyllis Entis

  Copyright 2018 Phyllis Entis. All rights reserved.

  Published by Quintzy Press

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Prologue

  Part One - No saying dark enough

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Part Two - Slip the surly bonds

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Part Three - Promises to keep

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Part Four - Touched the face of God

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Also by Phyllis Entis

  Connect with Phyllis Entis

  Preface

  This is a work of fiction. With the exception of certain historical references, the characters and events described in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real.

  It would not have been possible to write this book without the unwavering support of and encouragement from my husband, Michael Entis. Not only was he a patient listener to early drafts, but he also contributed several suggestions for how some scenes should unfold. I also am indebted to my beta-readers, Barbara Bloomfield, Alison Henderson, Erin McIntyre, Krystyna Miedzybrodzka, and Victoria Schwimley (in alphabetical order), who helped me to keep my characters honest and my plotting on track. Finally, a very special word of thanks to the talented and very patient Hilary Quint, who guided me through the design of the cover for The Gold Dragon Caper, as well as the redesign of the covers for the first three Damien Dickens Mysteries.

  Even more so that my previous books, the action in The Gold Dragon Caper ranges over a wide swath of the USA, including Atlantic City, Vermont, Utah and Las Vegas. All of the towns and cities that form the backdrop for this novel are real, and I have tried as best I can to be true to the way they looked and felt in the early 1980s. Cisco, Utah really exists and truly is a ghost town. I know, because I’ve been there.

  Finally, a word about the quotations that begin each of the four parts of this book. They are from The Oft-Repeated Dream and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (Part One and Part Three, respectively) and from High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (Part Two and Part Four).

  Prologue

  “NO!”

  I watched, helpless to intervene, as he raised his gun. He fired once, and Millie crumpled to the ground. Turpin turned to face me. “I warned you,” he said. “I promised you’d be sorry.”

  Part One

  No saying dark enough

  Chapter One

  February 18, 1983

  I sat bolt upright, my heart pounding against my ribcage, cold sweat running in rivulets down my chest. Turpin’s final words reverberated inside my skull, and I was panting as hard as if I had run a four-minute mile. I waited for my breathing and my pulse to return to normal, then carefully swung my legs over the side of the bed. Millie stirred in her sleep. “Dick,” she mumbled, “is something wrong?”

  “It’s nothing, honey,” I told her. “I had a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” I pushed myself to my feet and walked into the bathroom to splash cold water onto my face. My sweatpants and sweatshirt were draped over a chair in the bedroom. I shrugged my body into them, pulled on an old pair of athletic socks, and shoved my feet into the ratty sneakers laying on the floor by the bed. The walls were closing in, and I needed to get out. I retrieved my Smith & Wesson 29 from under my pillow, checked its load, and slid it into my shoulder holster. Grabbing my ski jacket from the hall closet, I disarmed the ‘at home’ setting on the security alarm and opened the apartment door. Hershey, our three-year old Labradoodle, raised his head and whimpered. “You stay here,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Stay with Millie.” I reset the alarm, locking the door carefully behind me as I left.

  My ’78 Celica was sitting at the curb under a bright street lamp. I circled the car, wincing at the rust spots pockmarking the ice-blue paint. A cursory inspection revealed no new damage: no slashed tires, no key scratches, no spray-painted graffiti on the windshield. I unlocked the door, climbed in and started the engine. It was barely 3:00am, and the roads were clear of traffic. I drove mechanically, not caring where I was heading. With no memory of how I got there, I found myself at the foot of Iowa Avenue, where it dead-ended by the Boardwalk. I parked and locked the car, climbed a set of steps, and started walking. Trying to empty my mind of thoughts, I focused my eyes on my feet, and my ears on the wood-deadened thunk of my sneakers on the Boardwalk’s planks. A cold gust of wind slapped my cheeks, helping to clear the dregs of the nightmare from my brain.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I opened the Dickens Detective Agency in the mid-1970s, and was on the verge of drowning in paperwork when Millie Hewitt walked into my office and into my life. Within a few days, she’d brought the workings of the front office under control, enabling me to focus on the needs of our small portfolio of clients. I wondered at the time how she knew I needed help, and how she managed to survive on the pittance I could afford to pay her.

  Julius Augustus III, ‘Gus’ to his friends, has been both my client and my attorney from the day I opened up shop. Last year, Millie finally revealed that Gus, an old friend of her late parents, was the one who had sent her to my rescue, and had supplemented her income until my struggling detective agency was out of debt. Gus was Best Man, and his wife was Matron of Honor when Millie and I were married in September 1979. He and Zoe remain our closest friends.

  Three years ago, we were on top of the world. By the summer of 1980, the Dickens Detective Agency had brought a complex investigation to a successful conclusion, and we were amply rewarded by our client. Millie and I acquired a new puppy, and were talking about buying a house. But in besting Derek Turpin during the course of that assignment, we’d made a dangerous, vengeful enemy, and the last three years had been a slow descent into hell.

  The first sign of trouble arose when we applied to our bank for a mortgage. We had accumulated enough cash for a down payment, and our multi-year retainer contract with Sutherland Enterprises was more than sufficient to cover the monthly mortgage installments on the house we had found. Nevertheless, our bank turned us down flat. We tried our luck with several other banks and mortgage companies, without success. After some discreet poking around, Millie learned that the word on the street was ‘No.’ Any institution accepting our loan application would incur Turpin’s wrath. We resigned ourselves to the situation, and approached the management of our block, The Carver Hill Apartments, about moving into a larger unit. That’s w
hen the second shoe fell. Not only were we refused, but we were told we must get rid of our dog or face eviction.

  After several weeks of searching, we finally settled for an apartment on Atlantic Avenue, one floor above Caravaggio’s Pawn Shop. It wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, but it was the best we could do. The area was noisy, the local crime rate the highest in Atlantic City, and a steady stream of homeless men and women littered the sidewalks and alleys. On the other hand, there was plenty of free parking behind the building, and our friend, Sophia Caravaggio, gave us a good deal on the rent. I knew I could count on Hershey, a 60-lb labradoodle who looked twice his weight, to keep Millie safe when I wasn’t around to protect her. Hershey is a gentle giant, but potential assailants don’t know that, and Millie has trained him to respond to a ‘protect’ command by baring his teeth and growling.

  Finding living quarters was only the start of our problems. Millie is a whiz at running background checks, the bread-and-butter of our business. The work is time-sensitive. Employers can’t wait forever for reports on potential new hires. City and county officials became less and less cooperative whenever she visited their offices to examine public records, often entangling her requests in unnecessary red tape and delays. We started losing business to our competitors. Turpin’s protégé, Duke Zyklos, was able to jump to the head of every line, and scooped up our most lucrative clients.

  Then there was the harassment. Again and again, our office was broken into. Trashed, despite the sophisticated security locks and alarm systems we had installed. Our cars were targeted by vandals at least once a week, and our insurance premiums quadrupled. Worst of all, we began to receive threatening phone calls at random times both at the office and at home.

  Turpin’s relentless persecution was taking its toll on our marriage as well. Day by day, it became harder to deal with the stress. Day by day, our squabbling intensified. Brick by brick, a wall of resentment was rising between us. A wall that was becoming increasingly difficult to breach.

  A gust of wind jostled me out of my reverie. When I looked up, I was facing the ghostly remains of the Steel Pier. Once a major tourist attraction, it had fallen on hard times. A couple of years back, its buildings were converted into warehouse space by the owners of the Resorts International Hotel & Casino. Last December, the Pier was destroyed by fire. There were murmurings of arson in the aftermath of the conflagration, but no evidence was found, and the fire was ruled accidental. I stared at the sad remnants of the Steel Pier. Fire-blackened wood beams still lay scattered over the sand, casting eerie shadows in the predawn light. Twisted steel pylons, which once had supported the weight of the wood superstructure, poked feebly above the troughs between the waves.

  Another gust of wind sent pages of a discarded newspaper cartwheeling down the boardwalk. One of the sheets came to rest against my leg. Mechanically, I bent over to pick it up. ‘Iconic Gold Piece Stolen from Las Vegas Casino,’ the familiar headline trumpeted in heavy black typeface. Beneath, in smaller type, I read, ‘Reward offered for return of Gold Dragon nugget.’ Millie and I had talked about the heist the day before. Half-joking, she’d suggested this was a job for Team Dickens, if only we weren’t half a continent away. There had been a wistful undercurrent in her voice, and I hadn’t known how to respond. I crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

  The chilly night air had cleared my head. I turned on my heel and started walking back to where I had left the car. The Resorts International complex loomed ahead on my right, reminding me of the first time Millie and I had crossed swords with Derek Turpin. The Boardwalk was changing, I realized. Atlantic City was changing. Casinos were taking over, and glitz was the order of the day. I passed the former location of one of the Boardwalk’s venerable resort hotels, the Marlborough-Blenheim, torn down a few years ago to make way for the Bally Park Place. The clinks and bells of the slot machines wafted out of Bally’s main entrance, providing a clamorous counterpoint to the peaceful lapping of waves against the sandy shore. The Boardwalk Regency, which had opened the same year as Bally’s, announced its presence a block ahead, the first tentative rays of sun glinting off its gilt-framed windows. I passed Boardwalk Hall, home to the annual Miss America Pageant, and one of the few remaining landmarks from my youth. A couple of minutes later, I was back at my car.

  I slid behind the wheel and thought about our situation. About our lives. Our future. Last summer, Turpin had tightened the thumbscrews by filing complaints against me with the New Jersey licensing board. He claimed I had threatened him, and had vandalized his office. That I had tried to run his car off the road. All lies, of course, but it made no difference. Four of the five members of the board owed their positions to his influence. Despite Gus’s best efforts on my behalf, the board found against me, suspending my Private Investigator license for six months. Although Millie’s license was untouched, at least for now, it wasn’t enough to salvage our reputation or our business. We were down to just one steady client and the occasional walk-in. Even Gus had been forced to switch to another detective agency, out of concern that my involvement on behalf of his clients would prejudice their cases.

  Reaching into my hip pocket for my billfold, I slid my PI license out of its compartment, and stared at the word ‘SUSPENDED’ stamped diagonally across it in red ink. The suspension was due to be lifted in a couple of days, but I wasn’t hopeful. Turpin would find a way to have it extended. Again, I heard the voice from my nightmare - Turpin’s voice - echoing inside my skull, mocking me, “I warned you,” the voice repeated. “I promised you’d be sorry.”

  With a sigh, I returned the defaced license to my billfold, and reached down to retrieve a piece of paper, which had fallen to the floor. Taking care not to damage its threadbare creases, I unfolded the three-year-old note and stared at it as though seeing it for the first time. The sheet held a three-word message, printed in block letters and underscored with a heavy double line. It read, ‘YOU’LL BE SORRY!’ and was signed, DJT.

  I looked across the street at the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel, another doomed Atlantic City landmark. Owned by Derek Turpin, who lived and worked on the penthouse floor, the structure was slated for imminent demolition. After years of wrangling, arm-twisting, and bribing politicians, Turpin had finagled approval to raze the Ritz and replace it with a new casino/hotel. I stared up at the grand old building and came to a decision. Starting the Celica’s engine, I slipped the car into gear and went home to Millie.

  Chapter Two

  The apartment door flew open as I was reaching for my keys. Millie flung her arms around me, drawing me inside. “Dick,” she said, her voice catching as she buried her face in my chest, “thank God you’re safe.”

  I reached up, unwound Millie’s arms from around my neck, and tilted her head up to look at her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and underscored with dark circles. Damp tear tracks streaked her cheeks. Her shoulder-length blond hair was disheveled and, uncharacteristically, she had wrapped herself in my ratty, old, terrycloth bathrobe. “Of course I’m safe,” I said. “What’s all this about?”

  “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  I shook my head. “No, I haven’t. I drove down to the Boardwalk, and took a long walk by the Steel Pier to clear my head.” I reached for her hand to lead her to the sofa. “Sit down. We have to talk.”

  “You don’t understand.” She stood her ground, gripping my hand hard. “Dick, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through Happy’s window.”

  “When?”

  “Around 2:00am, according to the report on the radio. It was bad. A four-alarm fire.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “Not as far as I know. Happy usually closes up by midnight during the week.”

  “What about the building?” I was thinking about our offices, which were located directly above Happy’s.

  “I believe the fire is out, but I don’t know how bad the damage is,” Millie said. “I thought you might have gone to the office when you left here
, so I tried calling. All I got was a ‘circuits busy’ signal.”

  I sat down with a thump, pulling Millie onto the sofa beside me. If the fire had reached the second floor, there was no telling how much damage we might have suffered. I was concerned about Happy, of course, but he was insured and could rebuild. If our client records had gone up in flames, it would be the final nail in the coffin for our struggling agency. I didn’t have to spell out the situation to Millie. She knew the score at least as well as I did. We sat next to each other on the sofa as we absorbed the magnitude of the disaster. “Look,” I said, once I trusted myself to speak, “this might be a blessing in disguise.”

  “Some disguise,” Millie said with a shaky attempt at a laugh. “Some blessing.”

  “I was about to tell you.” I took her hands in mine and looked into her eyes. “I reached a decision this morning. It’s time for us to shut down the agency and accept Susan Sutherland’s invitation to join Sutherland Enterprises full-time.” Millie opened her mouth to protest, but I overrode her. “I know what you’re going to say. But I’m tired of looking over my shoulder for the next threat. The next act of vandalism. I’m tired of the nightmares.” I shrugged. “Turpin has won.”

  Millie was silent, her shoulders slumping as she digested my declaration of defeat. With a sigh, she pushed herself to her feet. “We can hash this over later. Right now, we need to get dressed and head for the office. There’s no point in making a final decision until we know what the situation is there.”

  As we dressed, Millie flipped on the radio to catch the WMID newscast. “In local news,” the announcer reported, “a four-alarm fire at Happy’s Bar and Grill on the corner of Atlantic and North Carolina has been brought under control. According to an anonymous source within the Atlantic City Police Department, arson is suspected. Atlantic Avenue is closed in both directions, and drivers are advised to avoid the area during the morning commute. The weather forecast is for partly cloudy skies, with a light breeze and a high of fifty degrees. Stay tuned for updates on traffic and weather on the half-hour.” There was a rustle of paper as the announcer caught his breath. “This is Grant Boynton wishing you a pleasant start to your day.”