Dead Money Run

by J. Frank James

“Everything about this deal is odd,” I said.

  As we drove to Jasper, my prepaid cellphone beeped. Looking at the number displayed on the small screen, I saw it was from Carl. It had been a few days and I was starting to believe I might not have pegged him right.

  “Yeah Carl, what have you got for me?”

  “Mister Malloy, I…”

  “Lou, will do fine, Carl, now tell me.”

  “Yeah, sure. I have been hanging around Roseman’s gym and a couple of hard looking guys showed up earlier today. One of them was Angel Garcia, and a bodyguard that looked like he could carry the building around on his back. After a few minutes, I heard someone say the name, ‘Sonny’.”

  “What did they want?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Garcia was yelling at Roseman and Roseman was yelling back. Garcia said that if Roseman didn’t get off his ass and get things done pretty soon, there was going to be a change in Roseman’s lifestyle, or something to that effect.”

  “What was Roseman supposed to do?” I said.

  “Don’t know for sure,” said Carl. “But I’m thinking it had to do with you.

  “One other thing, Garcia, was waiving around two photos. One was a picture of you and the other was the gal riding with you. Then I heard Roseman say he was going to have things wrapped up by tomorrow night.”

  Before punching off the call, I told Carl that he did well and that there would be an envelope at the hotel for him the day after tomorrow.

  As I sat in the car watching the trees go by, something was bothering me with that call. First of all, it didn’t say anything other than Roseman was planning to do something that would be completed by tomorrow night. Something had to have happened to alert Roseman to something. The only thing that I could come up with was that lawyer Baker was hard at work trying to stretch that grand I paid him into an annuity.

  “Turn the car around and head back to Baker’s office,” I said.

  “Why? We’re almost to Jasper.”

  “I forgot something back in Baker’s office and I need it.”

  Signaling at the next exit before Jasper, Hilary turned and crossed over the highway and down the opposite access ramp.

  “Are you going to bother to tell me what we are doing?”

  I told Hilary what Carl had said on the call and of my suspicions. She agreed it made sense. She said she didn’t like Baker from the get go.

  “How did they get our pictures?” Hilary said.

  “I suspect Roseman had a camera hidden in his office or it could have been a security camera in the gym. I don’t know at this point.”

  “Lou, you don’t think your friend, Crusher, is in on this?”

  I thought about that and said, “No. Crusher can be violent, but he wasn’t a schemer. Besides, I don’t think he even knows I’m in the area. If he did, he would have been at the gym when we pulled up the first time. No, I think the better possibility is that our man Carl has sold us down the river for the promise of a larger payoff and Baker called Carl and Carl turned over what he knew to Roseman. Sort of ‘a bird in the hand is worth more than the two in the bush’ theory.”

  “I still don’t get the point,” said Hilary. “How are they going to get to us by tomorrow night?”

  “Not sure, but there is one person who can answer that question,” I said.

  “And who might that be O’Great Swami?”

  “Stuart Roseman.”

  Chapter 39

  I took us another forty minutes due to traffic to get to Ellijay and Baker’s office. The fact that they now had Hilary’s picture bothered me more than the fact that they had mine. If they tracked her down to the corporation she was working for, then they could make real trouble for her.

  The old Caddy was still there in the same spot when we left. That probably meant Baker was still in the house.

  “Park the car about a block down the street from Baker’s place. I’ll walk back.”

  What I needed was a clipboard. A man with a pencil and clipboard was one of the most dangerous men alive. Across the street from where we were parked was a drug store. I got out and told Hilary what I was going to do and she just smiled and said, “For some reason Lou, I can’t imagine you being a meter reader.”

  After getting what I needed from the drug store, I passed a sporting goods store and went inside and bought a plain blue baseball cap.

  I stayed on the opposite side of the street from Baker’s office and walked down to the light and crossed over at the crosswalk. I didn’t want to do anything that would bring attention to me. Across the street I saw an alleyway behind the corner store. Walking down the alley, I stopped in back of every building looking at the back of each electric meter box as I went and pretended to write something down on the legal pad attached to the clipboard.

  Finally I arrived at the back of Baker’s office. I was betting the back door opened onto a kitchen. It was five-thirty in the afternoon. Baker would be in the kitchen preparing a meal. The back door to the place had glass panes in it. I saw Baker in an apron working on something near the sink with his back to me. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and gave it a slight twist. It was unlocked. Opening the door, I reached for the Glock and stepped through the door. Baker turned and made a sound like a person coming up for air.

  “Mister Baker, hope you made enough for two?” I said.

  “Ah…I…wasn’t expecting…”

  “You mean me? Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “I forgot something. I meant to ask you if you talked with Carl earlier today.”

  I could tell he was weighing his chances, but a man that heavy probably couldn’t tie his shoes, let alone move fast even to save his life. I was almost dead wrong about that.

  A person motivated by fear was capable of a lot of things. With one swift motion, Baker swept the knife he was using off the drain board from behind his back and launched it toward my chest. If I hadn’t been holding that clipboard up, he would have nailed me. As it was, I shot him in the knee and he went down so hard the floor shook and some dishes fell out of a cupboard. He was trying to hold his knee, but he was too fat to reach it.

  Baker was yelling as loud as he could so I shot him in the hand and he stopped yelling, but sweat was pouring off him.

  “Don’t kill me. I had to call them. I…God this hurts.”

  “It’s supposed to,” I said. “Now, Baker, I’m not interested in killing you. I need some answers. Who did you call after we left?”

  “I didn’t call…Oh…God this hurts.”

  I didn’t have time for Baker’s litany of pain, so I kicked him to save on ammo. He moaned louder. Finally I told him I was through waiting.

  “You have one more chance, fat man, and then its curtains.”

  “How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”

  “You don’t, but then whoever you talked to is probably sending someone to kill you anyway. Talking to me will just give you a fighting chance. Tell me what you have and I’ll see about helping you into your car and sending you on down the road.”

  Baker seemed to think it over and take me at my word, which might have been a mistake.

  “Carl called me and asked if I had seen you. I told him I had. Wanted to know what I told you and I said nothing. He asked about Crusher and I told him I gave you Crusher’s address in Ellijay. He asked me for it and I gave it to him. Said he would send me another thousand on account.”

  “You running an account on this gig?” I said.

  “I charge by the hour,” he said.

  “What else have you been up to on my account?”

  He shifted his eyes to the right and then left before answering me.

  “Look, Carl said I would get fifty thousand dollars if I gave you up. He said that you were going down anyway so I might as well make a profit out of it.”

  “Carl doesn’t have any money. How were you going to get paid?”

  “He said that the man he worked for was making a big hit on some ransom money and I would
get paid out of that.”

  “And you being a lawyer, you believed him?”

  “What choice did I have?”

  “Probably could have been a better lawyer,” I said and walked out the backdoor heading for Hilary and the car.

  I figured Baker would not live to see the morning. Unfortunately for Baker, my prediction would prove right.

  Chapter 40

  “So tell me, Angel, where are we at on this thing. I’m getting to feel like I’m in a Keystone Cop movie.”

  “No, Boss. I think I have convinced Roseman that he will get his finder’s fee if we get Malloy and the woman.”

  “How come we haven’t heard about this woman before, Angel? We’ve lost ten men so far and this Malloy is making us look like assholes. You get my meaning here, Angel?”

  “Yeah Boss. I think the problem is that Roseman was the only one we had that was still around that could talk about it. Also, Roseman has a contact in touch with Malloy and Malloy thinks the contact will do for him what he is doing for Roseman. Roseman claims that Malloy told the contact he should tell you he’s coming and to get ready.”

  “Malloy’s got balls,” said Sonny. “What’s Roseman supposed to do for us?”

  “He said his contact is feeding Malloy false information to lure him into a trap. Malloy thinks Roseman’s contact is working for him. We should be able to use this somehow.”

  “What is this?” said Sonny. “Some sort of a pay as you go kind of deal.”

  Sonny thought about that and how he could use that information to his advantage. Maybe he could feed information to Malloy through this Roseman character and get Malloy to come to him. Set a trap and then slam it shut. The problem was the money. He had to get his hands on the money.

  Now that Malloy was out of prison, Sonny was running out of time. The Outfit was raising hell about not getting their share of the money. Sonny was supposed to have heisted the money and the insurance company would pay on the claim with dead money. The money would go back to the Casino where it would be cleaned. Now they were out the first fifteen million from the robbery and another fifteen million on the payoff of the claim. Sonny, since it was his job to execute the heist in the first place, had convinced the Outfit in New York that he could locate the stolen money from one of the robbers caught by the cops, but the stiff ate his gun before Angel could get his hands on him. The only other thing to do was to try and get to Malloy while he was in the joint, but that didn’t work either. So far nothing was working out like Sonny planned. Now Malloy was out of the joint and coming after him. Malloy had even told Carl to tell Sonny he was coming. Sonny had nothing to do with the death of Malloy’s sister directly, what else could this Malloy be after? His sister was a hooker. With hookers, things happen.

  “Find me? Why the hell would he do that for?”

  “You tell me Boss. This Malloy doesn’t sound like someone who is looking to join the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Look, Angel. Get back to this Roseman. Tell him he has a deal. If he gives us Malloy’s location we’ll even put a sweetener in it.”

  “Like what Boss?”

  “When we kill him, we’ll make it quick.”

  Chapter 41

  “Detective Ramiro, how long have you been working for the Jacksonville Beach Police Department?”

  “Three years, Sir.”

  “Well, to be exact, three years, two months and twenty-three days.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Branson Calloway was giving Ramiro his monthly case review. Calloway served in the military as an M.P. and ran the department like he was still in the Army. He liked everything buttoned up. So far Ramiro had nine open murder cases and nothing to show for it.

  “What have you in the way of leads on these files, Detective Ramiro?”

  “I…ah…have been working with that Indian officer named, Sergeant Two-Tree from the Timucua Tribal Police Department. He has a theory that these killings are somehow related to a robbery that happened at another casino operated by his tribe in Georgia, a place called the Golden Slipper on Cumberland Island...”

  “And?”

  “Yes, well, he thinks that the same person who pulled off that robbery is involved with these killings somehow.”

  “Does this person have a name, Detective?”

  “Malloy, Sir. Name is Lou Malloy.”

  “What’s the Indian police officer’s reasoning?”

  Ramiro was getting uncomfortable because he didn’t agree with Two-Tree’s line of reasoning and wanted to say so

  “Well, one of the murdered people happened to be the man’s sister.”

  “You think this Malloy killed his sister for something he did fifteen years ago Detective?”

  “Ah…well, Sir, I just was telling you what the Indian thought.”

  “Detective, I’m not interested in what the Indian thinks. I’m interested in what you think.

  “In reading this report, it appears that Malloy was in prison at the time of his sister’s death. You care to fill me in on how he might have killed her while in jail?”

  Ramiro had nothing to say to his Boss’s observation since he had not thought of that angle.

  “You know what I think Ramiro?”

  “No, Sir. I mean, yes, Sir.”

  “I think you are a lost ball in the tall weeds. You know what I’m saying, Officer Ramiro?”

  “Lost ball, Sir?”

  Calloway sat without saying a word. Ramiro knew he had to say something. Anything would be better than nothing.

  “Well, Sir, I think this case has, in my opinion, all the signs of some government agency’s footprints. I can’t seem to get to first base on figuring out which one.”

  “I’m not surprised Officer Ramiro.

  “Well, let me give you a little push. Call this Indian friend of yours and get up to that Casino on Cumberland Island. Learn what you can in the way of a connection. Then after you have done that, get back to me with your findings.”

  “Yes Sir,” said Ramiro.

  “One more thing, Ramiro.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’ll be waiting to hear from you soon.”

  When Ramiro got back to his desk, he felt the steam coming out of his ears. What the hell did Calloway think was going to happen by going to the other casino? The murders were all committed here. If he started down that road he was going to have to take orders from Two-Tree and he’d be burned in hell before he took orders from an Indian.

  Ramiro no sooner sat down and his intercom buzzer went off. Picking up the handset, he said, “Detective Ramiro speaking.”

  “Ramiro, this is Captain Calloway. What are you doing sitting at your desk? You’re not going to shoot any hostiles sitting there. I don’t want to get the same SNAFU from you the next time we sit down. You get my meaning?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  What the hell, thought Ramiro. I didn’t retire to do this.

  “Hey, Ramiro.”

  Turning toward the voice, Ramiro saw Stan Goodnight standing there.

  “There is an Indian policeman in the lobby says he’s looking for you. Said something about needing a scout. You know what he’s talking about?”

  Getting up, Ramiro reached for his handcuffs and weapon and said, “Unfortunately I do.”

  Chapter 42

  I didn’t bother giving Hilary any more directions to Jasper. After being up and down the road enough times, she said she could find the place blindfolded. When she asked about Baker, I told her he was as good as he was going to get.

  “I take it you shot him?”

  “As a matter of fact I did,” I said, “but did not kill him.”

  “That’s got to be a first,” Hilary said.

  “He tried to pin me to the wall with a butcher knife. For a fat man he moves fast,” I said.

  “Would the term, ‘Close shave’, apply here?”

  “Real close,” I said.

  After a few minutes of silence, I said, “Things are ab
out to change.”

  “How so?” she said.

  “When I got that call from Carl, he told me that he had been in a meeting with Garcia and another hood at Roseman’s. At the meeting, Garcia kept mentioning Sonny Cap and told Roseman he had better deliver us up in a day or so or else.”

  “He say how Roseman was supposed to do that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Carl mention what the ‘or else’ was?”

  “Roseman probably didn’t want to know,” I said.

  “What’s Crusher going to do for us?” said Hilary.

  “Not me, you. You’re going to try and go to work at the Starlight. Get close to Garcia. Maybe he will take us to Sonny.”

  “What am I supposed to be doing, parking cars?”

  “I figure our man Roseman will get you hooked up as a hostess.”

  “You know something, Lou?”

  “I know a lot of things,” I said.

  “I wasn’t planning on inflating your ego. What I wanted to say before, and didn’t get it all out when you brought up this undercover crap, was that you’re full of shit.”

  “Well,” I said. “I suspect we all have a little bit of that problem.

  “Take a left up here at the light. Crusher’s home is halfway down on the left.”

  “Been here before?”

  “No,” I said. I held up the piece of paper Baker had written the address on. “I can read.”

  Jasper was not much larger than Ellijay. The main square was like a lot of old southern towns built on the growth of the textile industry. There were a few abandoned textile plants developers had turned into condos with stores and restaurants on the bottom. The town square was called Tate Square named after Sam Tate, who started a marble company called Georgia Marble. I told Hilary the story was a story unto itself.

  Finding Crusher’s house was easier than I thought. From the outside, the house was surprisingly neat. The grass looked like a putting green and the flower beds were free of weeds and full of calla lilies, azaleas and daylilies.

  “Looks like someone here has a green thumb,” said

  Hilary.