by Bob Moats
"Hey big guy, do you party?" said the voice from an attractive brunette. She was barely twenty and had on a tube top that held back her enormous breasts. Buck could tell right away she wasn’t a cop.
"Sorry babe, I don’t do customers. Try the sideshow." Buck grinned and started up the machine. The woman gave him a frown and walked away.
About an hour later two women came up and said the phrase Buck was waiting to hear.
"I may have a party you might like, it’s at the Luxor. Just a few good people who like to have a good time, if you’re interested?" Buck said to them.
The blonde smiled and said, "Can I bring a couple friends?"
"Sure but only four is the limit. Can you handle that?"
"I can, when shall we meet you and where?"
"Eleven-thirty, right here. And dress to party."
The two women laughed and went off. Buck was ready to take a break so he called Skeeter Lynn to cover for him and Mac. About ten minutes later, Skeeter and another man came up and filled in as Buck and Mac went off to the tent to eat. On the way Buck stopped in front of a porta-potty and told Mac he had to take a pee. Buck entered the commode, locked the door and pulled his cell phone.
~~*~~
I was in the lobby talking to Lacey about Jessie and how she was doing in school when my cell phone buzzed, it was Buck.
"Hey Buck, what’s the word?" I asked.
"Not a lot, I’m in the potty, I just made contact with the women, told them to meet us at our ride at eleven-thirty. Have everyone ready to go." He hung up and I dialed Lynn.
"Just talked to Buck, he’s made contact with the officers, so all is good to go," I said when Lynn answered.
"Warren found the room where they may be, it’s a good bet since the room was rented to a Lucius Cole. He’s either in town or they are just using his name."
"I thought hotels need identification to register now?"
"Easy enough to fake, especially if they do this enough times. Anyway, we have both rooms on either side registered to LVMPD. We have one woman wired, not taking chances, but I don’t think the men will be worried that they are being infiltrated. We couldn’t get into the room yet to bug it, but we have a couple officers in custodial outfits going in to plant one shortly. If you want to be in on the bust be at room 1035 by eleven and don’t look too suspicious."
"No problem, I’ll just stagger down the hall like a drunk and come to the door. Are you going to let the men take the women, or stop them in the room?"
"We’re going to play it by ear. I’d like to find out where they are going, so I may let them go. I hope Buck and Mac are away from the area when that happens."
"What if they drug the women?"
"They’ve been warned about drinking anything. One of the officers is going to actually drink; the others are going to pretend. If the one woman starts to feel like she is going out, the rest will pretend also. We have it all covered so far. I just don’t like unknowns."
"Your people are all professional, they’ll do the job. Besides, you have plenty of back-up, so you can pull the plug anytime if it looks bad."
"Yes, we have good people. I hope all goes well and we can find the boys and shut down this fucker. Dark will regret his coming to Vegas."
We finished and hung up. Lacey looked to me, I told her Mac was going to be all right.
"He better or I’m coming for you," she said with an evil grin.
*
Chapter 11
Jacob Dark had been to four different jewelry stores before he rested in his car staring at the last one he had entered. He pulled his cell phone and made a call.
"I’ve got a good one, get Kenny and Ben and meet me at our arranged spot. We can hit this one tonight." He hung up and put the phone away. He started the car and drove out of the parking lot of the large Jewelry store, heading to the restaurant where he would meet his men.
~~*~~
Earl was at our door by six and eager to go see what would happen at the Luxor with Buck and Mac.
"A bit early aren’t you?" I asked.
"I just wanted to spend some quality time with my favorite people." Penny heard that from the couch and laughed out loud. "Hey, that offends me," Earl responded.
"You are offensive," I said, "Come on in and get comfortable, we’re just watching TV waiting for eleven o’clock to get here."
"Eleven, is that when we roll?"
"You can roll, we’ll drive. Lynn said to meet them at the Luxor at eleven o’clock. Buck and Mac are bringing the police women by midnight."
"Why so late?"
"The carnival closes by then so they will be at the Luxor by midnight."
"Makes sense, whatcha watching?" he said glancing at the TV.
"Make yourself comfortable, we’ve been channel surfing, there’s not a lot on."
Earl went to an easy chair and plopped down, "No beer," he said when he saw the Pepsi bottles on our snack tables.
"Nope, I’m driving tonight and want to keep a clear head in case this goes sour. Do you want one?"
"I’ll take a Pepsi too." I knew he wanted a beer but he was being wise to wait.
We sat watching a cop show as Earl complained about the plot. I just told him to shut up.
~~*~~
Buck and Mac were closing down the round-up and saw the women coming up the midway. Buck called to Mac and he came over.
"Ladies, how are you doing tonight?" Buck asked as the four women approached. They were dressed to party in tight, flashy clothes. Buck thought they were looking a little too much like hookers, but since they worked in vice, it was probably standard dress for them.
The lead officer answered, "We are ready to party." She looked around and saw there was no one close enough to hear, "I’m Kim, this is Tina, Mary and Lindsey. I’m wired so stay close to me to pick up conversations. Lindsey is going to be our designated drinker, we’ll just pretend. Watch her for any sign of drugs in her drinks. Are we ready to go?"
Buck gave his famous walrus grin and they went to their vehicles. Mac was driving his pickup and the women would follow in their car. They drove out from the carnival grounds and up Vegas Boulevard. The Luxor was just up from the south end of the strip, so the ride didn’t take long. They parked and Buck pulled the paper from his pocket that Skeeter gave him earlier in the day, it had the room number. They entered the huge pyramid shaped building and found the elevators to the tenth floor.
~~*~~
In one of the side rooms, Lynn was listening to their conversations as they came in range of the receiver. She nodded to me and Earl as we stood by listening. We had arrived about a half hour prior to Buck’s entrance, waiting for them. Penny decided to stay home; she was tired and not wanting to get in the middle of a gun fight if things went wrong.
~~*~~
Buck and his party came to the door of their room and Buck knocked. The door was opened by one of the carnies that Buck recognized, but didn’t know his name. The man smiled and said to come in. Buck let the women go in first, then Mac. The man identified himself as Louie, said to the women to make themselves comfortable and then pulled Buck and Mac aside.
"The plan has been changed, we’re not grabbing anyone tonight."
Buck was startled when he heard that. "Why weren’t we told about this at the carnival, would have saved a lot of time."
"Things came up at the last minute, no time to get word to you."
"What about these women?"
"Hey, you got a luxury room and four hot women, use your imagination." the greasy man grinned, showing a mouthful of teeth that needed pulling.
Buck was now desperate, "Well, we could take the women to the place where they need to go."
"Nah, everyone is going to be busy at the jewelry store. So there won’t be anyone to take care of the women."
"Jewelry store, what’s up?"
"Oh yeah, you’re new, Dark likes to hit a couple jewelry stores in the towns we’re in, helps build our retirement funds," he laughed
and walked out the door.
"Well, fuck," Buck exploded after Louie was gone.
Kim came over and asked, "What’s up?"
"The snatch has been cancelled, Dark is committing other crimes and he can’t be bothered with us."
"There’s going to be no kidnapping tonight?"
"That’s what I’m told."
Buck heard a banging on the room door, he figured it was Lynn and opened the door. He was right.
Lynn entered and said, "I sent a couple men to follow Louie, maybe we’ll catch Dark pulling his crime." She wasn’t happy.
"You heard that through the wire while Kim was across the room?" Buck asked.
"We have good equipment. Now we need to regroup and find out what Dark is up to. This sucks and was a total waste of resources. Weber is going to have a nut when he sees the overtime on this."
"Well if we can find out what jewelry store Dark is hitting, it may be a save."
"I told Warren to call when he got a fix on the store, we’ll head out as soon as he has something."
Lynn turned to the female officers and said, "I’d like to thank you for coming out, but stay prepared in case we have to go again."
The women left silently and Kim went to the other room to have her wire removed. We just stood in the room waiting for Warren to call.
"Wow, nice view from up here," Earl said as he looked out the window overlooking the strip all the way up to the Stratosphere.
"If we could open the window you could slide down the side of the pyramid," I joked.
"I’ve been on a real pyramid in Egypt, on a mission to stop a terrorist. We got our man and I got to see the top of the pyramid."
"If you want to go to the top of this one, I won’t stop you," I said with a laugh.
Lynn said, "You two should start your own comedy routine, I know the entertainment director for the Golden Nugget."
"Hey, where’s Deacon? I forgot all about him." I asked.
"He’s on a mission, to close down an escort service operating illegally out of Circus, Circus," Lynn said.
"Hooker clowns?" I laughed.
"Shut up Jim, Deacon is…" Before she finished, her cell phone buzzed. She grabbed her phone, looked at the caller ID and smiled, then answered.
"Warren, talk to me." She listened for a moment and hung up. She yelled to her men, now in the hallway, to head out. Buck and Mac said they were staying in the room for the night, it was better than the camper, so Earl and I followed the cops. She gave the address to everyone in the elevator on the way down.
We went to our cars and drove up the boulevard to Flamingo Road and east to where Warren said the jewelry store was located. We pulled into the small strip mall and up to the store on the corner. It looked empty from the front, and there was no alarm sounding. Warren was parked down the lot and came up.
"Williams went around back, I haven’t heard from him yet."
Lynn tried the door, it was locked. She told a couple of her men to watch the front and took the rest of us to the back. We carefully came around the side and saw a couple cars parked in the back alley. Lynn motioned to two of the uniforms to go around the back of a wall along the alley and to come up from the other side. They left and Lynn turned to Warren and asked, "Where’s Williams?"
"He said he was going back here, God I hope they didn’t grab him."
"That would be Williams, always a fuckup. Okay, let’s go down to the door to see what’s up?"
Lynn, Warren and two uniforms crept down the alley and up to the back door. Earl and I were behind them, with our weapons drawn. We got to the door of the jewelry store and Lynn told us to wait. She tried the door, it was also locked. She backed up and said to wait for anyone to come out.
We stood in the alley as Lynn called back to the precinct to get the listing for the owner of the jewelry store and to have them come down. I looked around and only saw two cars, if Dark had a big hit going on here there should be more cars parked around. I looked down the alley and could see the two uniforms, waiting.
Suddenly the back door opened and we all brought up our weapons, a figure came out, it was Detective Williams.
*
Chapter 12
"Bernie! What’s going on, who’s inside?" Lynn demanded.
"No one," he said.
"Okay talk to me, what happened?"
"We followed Louie, he drove around the back and we stopped in the front. I told Greg that I was going around the back and when I got there I found the door wide open and Louie’s car was gone. I carefully listened but heard nothing so went in and found the place empty. It’s a mess in there; they must have left just before we arrived. "
Lynn went past Williams and entered the building followed by everyone. The back room was torn up, boxes spilled and cabinets opened. It looked like they were in a rush to get whatever they needed.
I was studying the door, it didn’t look like it was forced. It was a heavy steel door with two locks that had to be opened from the inside. I was sure the owner didn’t forget to lock it. Lynn was now out front in the showroom and I went out there. The glass of all the display cases was smashed and it looked like they knew what to take, leaving the cheaper looking jewelry.
"This sucks worse than the cancelled kidnapping, we were too late. Damn, this is not good." She pulled her phone and called CSI to come in. We heard a noise at the front door and everyone jumped pulling their guns. A pasty faced man, short, fat and in poor shape entered. He looked shocked at the sight of all the guns pointed at him.
"Relax everyone!" Lynn yelled. She went to the man and asked if he was the owner, he said he was and his name was Joseph Lusk.
"What the hell happened here!" he yelled when he saw the mess. He went to the display cases and quickly examined the contents. "The fuckers got the good stuff. When did this happen?"
"We figure about an hour ago, we had a tip that this was going to go down, but we got here just after they left," Lynn said hoping to calm the man. He continued to rant and swear at the top of his lungs for about ten minutes searching the cases.
"Williams, will you take down Mr. Lusk’s accounting of what was stolen, please?" Lynn asked the detective to get Lusk’s attention away from the mess and to shut up his ranting.
Lynn left the showroom and went back to the rear door. She was checking it out when I came up, "It doesn’t looked forced, maybe Dark had someone on the inside, who either opened it for them or left it unlocked?"
"I’m sure the employees would have noticed an extra person in the building. Unless one of the employees was in on it." She turned to Warren and asked, "Check with Lusk as to who was working today and how we can reach them." He went off as Lynn stepped into the alley. She knelt and looked around the ground. "Too many tire marks back here and none are distinct enough."
"Trying to take my job now, Lynn," came a voice from the doorway. It was Larry Wayne, the supervisor of CSI. "I’m glad you cleared the crime scene and kept all your people from walking around on it."
Lynn stood, embarrassed, "Sorry, we got here and it’s been a bit hectic."
"It’s all right, we’ll work around your people," he said with a big smile.
Lynn went to the door just as Warren was coming up, "Get everyone out of there until CSI checks the building."
"Sure, Lusk said it was just him and his wife working today, no one else was in the building that he saw." He turned, went back in and chased everyone out.
"That he saw," I repeated. "Could Dark have gotten someone in the place to hide until after the store closed?"
"It’s possible. We’ll have to see if Lusk had security cameras running when he was closing up. Hopefully he did."
"I’m sure he did, he seems to be the nervous type about his store," Earl offered.
Lynn turned to Earl who was standing behind us by the door, "Are you still with us?"
"Yes I am. I once saw this in an old movie, circus comes to town and they distract the owner of a store while the bad guys slip a lit
tle person past the owner and he hides in a cabinet in the back room. He disables the alarm and opens the back door. Simple." Earl grinned like he solved the case.
"Little person? Like a midget?" Lynn asked.
"Can’t call them midgets anymore, it offends them," I said.
"Geez, political correctness is running rampant. Does Dark have a little person in his troop of carnies?"
"It’s possible," I said pulling my cell phone. "I’ll call Buck to see."
I went off to the side of the alley as Buck answered. "Jimmy, this hotel room is nice. Mac is relaxing in the whirlpool."
"I hope he’s not naked. Tell me, is there a little person who works for Dark?"
"Little person, you mean a midget? Yeah, Ben is a little person, stands about three-one, why?"
"Long story, I’ll tell you later. Thanks and don’t run up too big of a room bill, Dark might get upset."
I hung up and went back to Lynn, "Buck says they do have a little person in the carnival. But it’s a stretch that he was involved."
"Hey, it’s my theory. Let me have the glory of having figured it out," Earl said.
Lynn frowned, "Whatever, we need to do something. If I haul Dark and his people in for questioning because we knew he was going to pull this, that blows Buck and Mac’s cover and we may never find the boys. We’ll have to sit on this and make the kidnapping a priority. Buck needs to push Dark into going again with the women. Jim, call him back and see what he can do."
"Will do, give me a little time to set it up with him." I went back to the side and called Buck explaining everything that happened here and that he needed to prod Dark into going again on the kidnapping. He agreed and I hung up.
"He’s going to do his best to get it going again," I said to Lynn.
"So it’s a waiting game again, I’m so going to change occupations," Lynn moaned.