Dead Money Run

by J. Frank James

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing, really. Just observe and stay alert. Might even get to use that big gun you wear on your hip.”

  Chapter 66

  At this point, solving my sister’s murder seemed like wishful thinking. The case was ice cold. One thing I was sure about, her murder had something to do with the Indian casinos.

  From the start of my quest, I had counted on one of the button guys the Outfit had been sending rolling over and giving up the information I needed. So far there was nothing. Then I expected the Outfit would have made a move on me by someone other than their farm team. When that hadn’t happened, that meant they weren’t involved at the higher levels in the organization. That left Sonny Cap, but I could not see how that would lead to anything concerning my sister.

  Then there was the Stanton and Miles team and what to do about them. I found it hard to believe they cared anything about the money laundering operation. It had to be something else. Hightower’s operation fit into the puzzle somewhere, I just did not know where at this point. I had to deal with the business at hand and that was the money. At the end of the day, it all ended up there.

  Walking back to the room, I set some timelines. At ten o’clock tomorrow night we were going to leave. I hoped to be out of the Casino and on the road no later two o’clock. Since the Casino was a twenty-four hour operation, 365 days out of the year, no one would be suspicious of a maid and a groundskeeper walking around the place early in the morning. Crusher was going to stay out of sight with the air rifle and watch for anyone who might give us any grief. Once we got in the casino, the rest was a piece of cake. When I got to the room, Hilary and Crusher were waiting for me.

  “What, someone die?” I said.

  “No yet,” said Hilary. “But that’s just today’s report.”

  I could see lines of worry on their faces. Hilary and Crusher had been very loyal and they had a right to know what I actually planned. I didn’t want them to know until we got to the Casino. I believed in the old rule that what you didn’t know would never hurt you. In the case of this deal, that might not hold true.

  Chapter 67

  In the Eighteen Eighties, Thomas M. Carnegie, brother of Andrew Carnegie, bought land on Cumberland for a winter retreat. He built his retreat on the same site where former owners of the Island built a big home they named Dungeness. Benny told me that when Carnegie built his home he kept a lot of the old mansion’s foundation rooms. The Indians, when they built the casino, they did the same thing. The sub-foundation was a labyrinth of rooms and hallways. A person could hide all the gold in Fort Knox in the foundation under the Golden Slipper and it would never be found.

  My plan was to pack the money up and store it in the old area in a dry cavern and then leave. As far as the Casino was concerned the money was gone and that would trigger the payoff from the insurance company. Sonny would have his head in a noose. Later, I could come back and get the money during the off season.

  Like all plans, they have their twists and turns and this one was not going to play out any different.

  Chapter 68

  When I woke up Saturday morning, I was up early. I wanted to call the real Reynolds in Atlanta and give him our schedule.

  “I want to be sure that we are clear Reynolds on the safety and security of Hilary and Crusher. They will be free to go.”

  “You have my word Lou. All we want is to shut down the insurance scam and to put a stop to the Hightowers caper.”

  “What about the money?” I asked.

  “What money? As far as we are concerned, that is beyond our jurisdiction,” said Reynolds.

  “In other words, you are leaving that up to the locals.”

  “Exactamundo Mister Malloy. Just don’t get caught and good luck.”

  Well if there was a day to sell my soul, this was it. I had made a commitment to become part of something I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. All I had was one man’s word and for me that was something I never had done before.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning and I had a lot to do. I had to go and check on the truck and Crusher was going with me. When he showed up outside the room, he was unusually quiet.

  “You okay, Crusher?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just trying, you know, to figure out what I’m gonna do if this doesn’t work out.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, there’s Bunny. I haven’t talked to her in a few days. I don’t know if everything there is okay. If something happens to me, I don’t know what she will do.”

  I got it now. He was asking the same things I would have asked if I had been in his shoes.

  “Crusher, there are some things that you will soon learn that will make everything we are doing a little clearer. The thing you need to remember is that we are a team-you, Hilary and me. As a team, we watch out for each other, just like you and I did when we were in prison together. You have to trust me on this.”

  Crusher was a big man. He stood at least four inches taller than me, but it was like talking to an overgrown kid at a playground. Crusher looked at me and I could see a need for understanding.

  “Thanks, Lou. I knew you would appreciate my issues.”

  “I’m with you, Crusher. Now let’s get this thing done.”

  When we got to the truck, it was right where we left it, still full of fuel and ready to go.

  “We leave tonight,” I said. “If you want to call Bunny go ahead.”

  “No,” said Crusher. “She doesn’t need to know. If I called it would just create more problems. Let’s just hope we don’t take a hit on this. Not sure I could handle it.”

  When we got back to the room, Hilary was eating a pizza and watching a baseball game.

  “Who’s playing?” I asked.

  “Braves. They’re beating the tar out of Boston, which is a surprise.”

  “Any more of that left?” said Crusher.

  “I ordered two extra-large with the works. They are on top of the little refrigerator. The one on the right is Crusher’s. It has everything in it.”

  Crusher had moved into our room to do everything but sleep. There was a small table with two chairs in the small kitchen area. He had one of the pizza boxes open and was hunched over it eating a piece of pizza. I was so tired I couldn’t eat.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had slept, but it was long enough. When I woke up, Crusher was stretched out on one of the couches in our room and Hilary was curled up on the bed next to me. I got up real slow, because I didn’t want to wake her, but I didn’t make it. I felt her hand on my arm. She was looking right at me.

  “We going to be alright on this, Lou?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “You put that laxative where it would do some good?”

  “In his pizza,” said Hilary. “He’ll never know what hit him.”

  I thought about that and said, “Hopefully I didn’t eat any of it.”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” said Hilary. “Lou, these are really bad people. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, but I don’t want to go to jail. I couldn’t take it being in prison.”

  I looked away briefly before answering her.

  “Nobody is going to go to jail because there is no crime being committed. The only thing we have to worry about is Sonny and his gang. They are the only ones who give a damn. Hightower has other fish to fry and as far as the cops, they don’t know anything about it.”

  “Lou, I think I’m in love with you. I would follow you to moon if I had to. You are the most exciting man I have ever met.”

  “Hilary, just so you know. The feeling is mutual. But if for any reason things don’t go as I hope they will, remember where the money is at that wildlife area. It’s been there for fifteen years. Don’t go near it if anything happens. I have about three hundred thousand in the money belt that I will leave with you when we head out to the casino. Pay Crusher fifty thousand and use the rest for yourself until I get back with
you. This is plan ‘B’. Remember that?”

  “Yes Lou, I will remember. Plan ‘B’.”

  At nine, we started to get dressed. The ten deer bags I had bought I figured if they could hold a two hundred pound deer, they should work with money in them. Then, just for some extra protection, I bought a Berretta automatic hand gun with a double banana clip fitted with a suppressor. In addition, we had the two MAC-10’s, the two air pistols and the air rifle with enough tranquilizer darts to wipe out the deer and hog population on Cumberland. Hilary wanted to know what I planned to do with them and I told her I wanted to avoid killing anyone if it could be helped.

  “Are you getting soft in your old age, Malloy?”

  “Not really,” I said. “You have your thirty-eight and I have my Glock and the little twenty-two peashooter. Crusher is going to carry the Berretta, so I think we are set.”

  “What about that Colt Python you nabbed off that guy at the Marks’s house?”

  “So you know about that?”

  “Not my job to worry about it. Just asking, that’s all.”

  Before we left, Crusher said he was having stomach trouble.

  “You’re lucky you have a stomach as much garbage you put in it.”, I said.

  “Yeah. I hope that’s all I have to worry about tonight.”

  “Me too, Crusher, me too.”

  Chapter 69

  “We lost them,” said the tech to Sabrina.

  “You sure?”

  “The lead is dead. Last contact they were in St. Mary’s.”

  “Okay, keep the plan in place. We have to assume they are moving tomorrow night as planned.”

  Chapter 70

  Driving around St. Mary’s on a Saturday night with a boat trailer on the back of a car was like driving around some western town during a cattle drive. The night was filled with sailors from the Kings Bay sub base, tourists staying to in the area to enjoy the water and various island attractions and then there were the high school kids sporting around in the open air cars all of which made driving a little tight with a boat trailer on the back, but it also made things less conspicuous. With Crusher bringing up the rear in the truck, we didn’t even get a second look from anyone.

  Getting to Crooked River State Park was easier than I thought. We bought Crusher a pre-paid cellphone so he could keep in touch with us. As we entered the park, the ramp was a straight shot and there were no cars in sight other than our own.

  Crusher parked the truck near a pavilion and walked to our car to help put the boat in the water. The trailer was one of those float-on type trailers. All I had to do was unhook the boat and let it drift out beyond the trailer. After I did that, Hilary drove the car off the ramp and parked it next to the truck. Crusher unhooked the trailer from the car. When we came back after completing the job, we were planning on leaving the boat for the next lucky fisherman. The boatyard owner had insisted that we keep the Honda one fifty that was on the boat. He said, while it was an older motor, it was reliable and quiet. When I started it up, I was glad I took his advice.

  After getting in the boat with all our gear, I moved the boat away from the dock. Hilary sat on the bench seat directly behind me. Crusher sat up in front of the center console. The boat was a Carolina Skiff with a very low draft, making it perfect for shallow water of which there was plenty in and around Cumberland Island.

  Taking the St. Mary’s River out toward Cumberland, I followed that same route that the ferry took to the island during the day. The night was clear and there was no moon. Hilary was looking at the River using a pair of the night vision goggles. She was smiling. Here and there I could see some dock lights casting their shadows out on the water. Crusher had a ball cap on, wearing it in reverse fashion like a seventeen year old. He had an iPod and earphones on his head moving it to the beat of something on the little machine. If I had to guess, he was listening to the Stones. ‘Satisfaction’ was his favorite song made famous in the movie, ‘Apocalypse Now’. I could only imagine what he was thinking about. Probably Martin Sheen as he skied behind that PBR in that movie.

  As we headed toward Cumberland Island, I felt the sea air lift my soul. I felt better than I had in a long time. My hope was that somehow after this night I was going to get closure on my past and start something new. I liked being with Hilary. She seemed to care about me and I cared about her. Crusher needed a home. I could sense that he needed something stable. I had to laugh at that. Here I was, a convicted felon thinking that I was the stable one in the group, carrying weapons than someone, even with a permit, could legally carry, breaking into a place to prove a point.

  As the boat neared Cumberland, I could see the casino on the south end of the Island. It was an impressive sight. When all lit up at night, it looked like a large alien spaceship that had just landed.

  Before I got to the point in the River where the ferry turned left to go up to the dock at the ranger station, I took a right and looked for the red beacon at the mouth of Beach Creek that led to the back of the Casino. When the tide was up, as it was now, we could get almost within walking distance of the place. Reaching our drop off spot, I reviewed the timelines with Crusher.

  “It’s eleven-thirty. We have three hours before the tide starts to head out. If we are not back by three o’clock at the latest, you leave and we’ll meet you back at the Crooked Creek location.”

  “Lou, what if you are just so close finishing this thing up?”

  “You leave. No matter what,” I said.

  Looking at Crusher’s face, I could tell he was fifty-fifty on the idea of leaving us behind. “We’ll see,” said Crusher.

  “What about the money?” asked Crusher.

  “What money? We’re not bringing out the money now, Crusher. I already went over this with you and Hilary earlier.”

  “Then what the hell are we doing here.”

  “Trust me. We’re getting the money, just not now. Remember what I told you about that,” I said. “Remember, no money, no crime.”

  I couldn’t waste any more time on the subject of the money. Hilary and I had to get going. We had about a five hundred foot walk to the rear entrance to the Casino. My hope was that since we were coming in from the rear of the property there wouldn’t be a lot of security in place there, but that was just a hope. A lot of technology had changed in fifteen years since I had been here last. Hilary was handling things better than I thought. I was glad she was with me.

  Once we got into the lower area we could put on the night vision goggles making it easier for us to move at the base of the building. I had a general idea of where the rear entrance was. I was tempted to turn on the mag light I brought, but resisted the urge. It would have meant ditching the night goggles. Also, the chance of being seen was too great. Finally we reach the rear entrance of the casino.

  “Now what, Lou,” Hilary whispered.

  “I think the door is to the right around that next corner.”

  When we got to the corner of the building, we were a good thousand feet from Beach Creek. Because of the distance, I wasn’t sure we would be able to go out the way we came in. Too far to go and they would be riding up our ass by then. I said nothing to Hilary because I didn’t want to scare her. I was sure she was already scared enough.

  When I got to the corner, I smelled cigarette smoke. Someone was on the other side of the building, smoking. Taking one of the darts out of the five-pack I was carrying, I loaded the pistol. Edging myself near the corner, I looked around and I saw someone standing near the rear entrance to the Casino. The end of his cigarette glowed as he puffed away. Switching the dart pistol to my right hand, I reached around the corner and shot him in the neck. When the dart hit, he toppled over and didn’t move. I put another dart in the cylinder in case he had a buddy, but it looked like he was alone.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ve caught a break. The door is probably open.”

  “Some break,” said Hilary.

  Grabbing the guard by his jacket collar, I dragged him i
nside while Hilary held the door. The inside area was larger than I remembered, and I needed a place to hide the body. I spotted a tarp, pulled the body over to it and covered it up with the tarp. It wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

  Hilary had her goggles on. I never took mine off after darting the guard.

  “Where to now,” said Hilary.

  “This way,” I said.

  The cash room was just off to the left. They kept it down here for reasons I never understood. Before I rolled the guard under the tarp, I took his plastic swipe that opened the door to the cash room. There would be four counters and a supervisor. I told Hilary to load her dart pistol, and as she did, I walked down the hallway to the cash room. I could see the door now. It had a little red light over the top of it so that when you swiped your card and entered the room, the alarm would not sound as long as you put the code in the system on the other side of the door. A person had sixty seconds to input the code before the alarm went off. The key was to get the code in the door alarm, a code that I didn’t have. All I could do is open the door. The light was red now meaning that the alarm was engaged. Seemed like a dumb way to do things and wondered why they hadn’t changed that. Before swiping the card through the reader, I took off my goggles and had Hilary do the same so we would not be blinded by the light in the counting room. Swiping the card through the reader, the light turned green and I stepped through to the cash room and more trouble.

  Chapter 71

  Opening the door, I saw the four counters looking at screens that were scrolling down the tape readers showing all the money flowing into the cash room from the various playing areas. This was how they tracked the winners and the losers at the various betting stations. The losses showed in red and the green represented the house wins. There were a lot of green numbers on the screens. The supervisor sat at a large table with a bag under a vacuum operated tube as the winning bets came in along with the money. As he collected the money, he zipped up the bag and set it next to a stack of other bags. They were in the process of collecting the money for shipment. The supervisor was the first to see us.