“What the hell are you two doing here?”
“Good question,” I said. “Give me the code. Make it quick. If that alarm goes off you are a dead man.”
He gave me the code and I entered it.
“How many sacks have you got tonight?”
“What is this, a robbery? This isn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow. You two have got to be nuts,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But you’re going to be dead, so the answer isn’t going to matter one way or the other to you. Now I’m asking again.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the counters make a move toward a button on the wall next to where he was sitting. I darted him before he could raise his hand and he fell over onto the floor. I quickly put another dart into the pistol.
“Okay, your turn now,” I said pointing the pistol at the supervisor.
“You killed him.”
“No, not yet, but your future could be different if you don’t answer my question.”
“Thirty bags,” he said.
“What’s the count?” I asked.
I watched as his eyes clouded over. The room was probably bugged to guard against an insider helping himself to an early retirement. When he still didn’t answer I took out the twenty-two and aimed it at his knee.
“Okay, okay. There’s five hundred thousand in each bag, more or less. We won’t have an accurate count until we get it to the bank in Jacksonville.”
“I thought the money was heading offshore,” I said.
“I don’t have any knowledge where it ends up. I just know it goes to Jacksonville from here,” said the supervisor.
“That’s better,” I said. I then darted him as Hilary darted two of the other counters and I got the last one. They were out cold where they sat. In a few minutes, when money wasn’t going back upstairs to pay off the winning bets, the security people would be down here in droves. I opened the deer bags and placed three bags of money in each. After zipping them up, Hilary and I dragged each bag out into the hall. When I shut the cash room door the red light came on.
“Now what, Big Boy,” said Hilary.
“I thought you would never ask. Grab the handle of each deer bag and follow me.”
“Where?” Hilary asked. “The door is back there.”
“We’re not going out that way.”
“I thought there was supposed to be fifteen million here?”
“Fifteen million is a target, never an absolute. We won’t know how much is here until it’s counted. There might be more than fifteen million. When we hit the place fifteen years ago, we were just lucky.”
“Some luck,” said Hilary.
“Come on,” I said. “We’re running out of time.”
Chapter 72
Sam Burns was head of security at the Golden Slipper. Before he took the job at the Slipper, he had been head of security at a casino in Atlantic City. He hated working in New Jersey. There were too many high rolling crooks and he had to be on his toes all the time. Working for the Indians was a like a working vacation. They never seemed to be that concerned about anything. The only problems he had, was dealing with the partners of the Indians, especially Sonny Cap. He was always around asking about security and the days when the counts were the highest and worried about the Slipper’s loses.
“Hey, boss, someone just went into the money room.”
“Yeah,” said Sam. “How do you know?”
“Well, the door always beeps when it is opened, no matter whether the alarm is set or not and it just beeped four times real quick like.”
“You buzz Charlie to check it out?”
“Yeah, I did. That was the first thing I did.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t answer.”
“I bet he’s out smoking somewhere.”
“Yeah, but he never breaks without calling in and he hasn’t called in.”
“Shit,” said Burns. He hated when he had to go to the damn cash room. The supervisor should have been on the phone calling in. Now he had to walk five hundred feet and take the freight elevator down to the basement to check it out before he called the powers that be and give them the bad news that they had been hit. Maybe everyone in the cash room was taking a break.
The basement area was a little spooky because it was so dark. The elevator opened out onto the hallway to the cash room and Burns felt a little relieved when he saw the red light on over the door. That meant someone was inside and they were probably just too busy to respond. Still that didn’t explain the four beeps. Once he opened the door he would get the answer soon enough.
Chapter 73
Sonny Cap had not planned on coming down to the Island until the day after tomorrow when the robbery was to take place. He wanted to be in the Casino when they hit it. It always gave him a bit of a rush to see all that money. Right now he was going to just enjoy himself and have a good time on the house. Walking down the large staircase to the betting area, he looked over the place and wondered who he would sleep with tonight. His ex-wife hated the place, even though Sonny had met her at the Slipper. As he walked down the stairs his cellphone vibrated in his side pocket. At first he ignored it and then it vibrated again. Annoyed, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and hit the receive button.
“This had better be important.”
“Mister Cappoleto, this is Sam Burns down in security. I think you should come down here.”
“Where’s here, Burns?”
“The cash room, we’ve been hit.”
Chapter 74
“How do you know the amount is always just around that number?” said Hilary as she helped me hang the bags in the little room off the hallway deep in the underground cavern area.
“That’s easy. Benny always said it was around that amount. It was never to be exactly fifteen million, but that night we just got lucky. We hit it on the nose. It can happen in this business,” I said.
“Let me understand this. The Casino takes in about five to eight hundred thousand a night? Have I got that right?”
“About that,” I said.
“Then Sonny Cap and his boys show up every couple of months and take the money in an apparent robbery. Because the Indians are insured they don’t say anything, but they report the heist at some round figure, say twenty million dollars. The insurance company pays off the Indians with funny money on the claim. The Indians keep the actual amount of their loss and Sonny and his old man get the difference. Have I got that?”
“Not to make a pun, but you are on the money,” I said.
“You mean to tell me that the old man, Nick Cappoleto, is ripping off the Outfit?”
“That’s pretty much right,” I said. “They don’t call it Dead Money for nothing.”
“So when you actually hit the number at fifteen million, the two Cappoleto’s got nothing and had to kick in the fifteen or the Outfit would have fitted them for a concrete suit.”
“Right,” I said. “Now come on, we got to go. Keep your night goggles on. You’re going to need them until we get to the end of this tunnel.”
“What tunnel?” Hilary asked.
“We are in a tunnel that goes out to the river. This foundation has been here since the 1700s and they used this tunnel first to hide from Indians and pirates, and then to hide from Union soldiers during the Civil War.”
Walking toward the end of the tunnel, I could make out the river. At this point I had no idea how we were going to get off Cumberland. I had hoped to make it back to Crusher, but that move was out of the question now. If we had to, we’d swim and let the incoming tide carry us back to the St. Mary’s cutoff and the Crooked Creek dock. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“I can see the river now,” said Hilary. “I never thought I would be so glad to see water.”
“It’s real shallow at this point. We are going to have to swim for it.”
“Little late for a swim, don’t you think, Malloy?”
When I turned towar
d the sound of the voice, I saw Sonny Cap’s trigger man, Fingers Bellay, standing off to one side holding a forty-five with a suppressor on it.
“Don’t get any ideas, Malloy. You make a move and your girlfriend gets one between the eyes. At this range I won’t miss.”
Hilary was standing near the tunnel entrance where it curved slightly before it got to the opening. While Bellay probably could get a shot off, he would have to be damn accurate to hit her. It was a gamble I had to take. Bellay didn’t know about the dart guns. Besides, not making any noise when the dart left the cylinder, if I pushed the velocity to ‘high’ on the pressure regulator of the pistol, the dart would travel to point of impact in about a second or less. It was more than enough time if my aim was right.
“I guess you got me, Bellay.”
“Damn right I do. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
“You kill Susan?”
My question seemed to confuse him and he made a big “O” with his mouth. That’s when I released the dart. It hit Bellay right in the middle of the “O”. Dropping his pistol he reached up to take the dart out, but it was too late. He sagged back and relaxed, but before he did, he said, “I just killed her. It was Sonny, he…” Then he was out. I walked up and pressed the twenty-two into his right ear and pulled the trigger. His head made a slight jerking movement.
“Goodbye, asshole,” I said.
After shooting Bellay, I turned and started walking back down the tunnel to the cash room. Hilary began running after me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going to find Sonny,” I said.
“Now? Are you nuts? They’re out there waiting for us. We…”
I took hold of Hilary’s hand on my arm and removed it.
“Look, I can understand how you feel. You can go back through the tunnel and take the river around to the state park.”
“Oh sure. That’s a good plan. I’m sure I’ll make it just fine. There probably aren’t more than about a hundred sharks and alligators in that river and that’s not counting the snakes. I like my chances with you better.”
Chapter 75
I didn’t wait for Hilary to make up her mind. I was already to the door from the tunnel opening out onto the hallway to the cash room. I now knew what I had always suspected was the case. Sonny had raped and sodomized my sister before she died. That was why they went and got the body and had it cremated. There would be no DNA evidence to link Sonny to the deal, or so they thought. Nowadays in cases of sexual crimes they always stored the DNA from an autopsy.
When I walked out into the hallway, I heard someone yelling.
“God damn it, Burns. Who the hell you got working for us? Huh? A bunch of orangutans? Wake these assholes up. I want to know what happened.”
Stepping into the cash room, I said, “I can tell you, Sonny, if you really want to know.”
Turning to face me, Sonny said, “What are you doing here, Malloy. You didn’t learn much while you were in the joint. Here’s a question for you. Where is my money? Where’s the fifteen large? I want my money.”
“That’s two questions asshole, but here’s the answer to the one that counts. You give me back my sister and you get the money.”
“You think I killed your sister?”
“No, Bellay killed her. You’re the one who hurt her.”
I watched the ‘tell’ in Sonny’s eyes. “So what? She was a good piece of ass. One of the best I ever had, but she shit where she ate, and you never do that with me. She was a cop and was selling me out.”
“Who told you that?” I said.
“A guy named Reynolds.”
I had him talking now and I wanted to hear it all before I gave him the news. After he made his spiel
“Listen Malloy, your sister was a cop, but she was dirty. She was working for us to get some information on this guy Reynolds and his operation within Homeland Security. We were supposed to get some technology that she took from the government that we paid her a bunch of money for. But she sold us out. I couldn’t allow that to happen. End of story.”
“Here’s the news Cap. Reynolds is a phony. His real name is Stanton. He works for the Hightowers. That name mean anything to you, asshole?”
I could see the surprise on Sonny’s face. He was oblivious as to whoever Reynolds really was. Stanton had done a good job on him with the story.
“Yeah, Sonny, that’s right. Reynolds is not the real Reynolds. The one you been dealing with is part of another gang looking for something worth more than money. You missed it, asshole. It’s not the money. You’ve been played for a fool. It was always just the technology. Never the money. You should have concentrated on that.”
Standing in the room I felt the barrel of a gun press up against by back.
“Don’t move, Malloy.”
It was one of Sonny’s men.
“Good boy, Butchie,” said Cappoleto. “Well Malloy, it looks like your luck has run its course.”
I felt the ground move under my feet. After a few minutes another of Sonny’s men poked his head into the room and said, “Boss, someone is driving a big track loader through the Casino and so far he’s wiped out the gaming floor. Now he’s moving toward one of the restaurants. If we don’t stop him, he’s going to collapse the whole damn building.”
I looked at Hilary at the same time she looked at me. We both mouthed Crusher’s name. It had to be him. Good old Crusher.
“Burns,” said Sonny. “You take these men and get upstairs and stop that guy. I’ll stay here and take care of these two. Butchie, stay with me.”
When I killed Bellay I had taken his forty-five. It was still was in my hand hanging down at my side. In the excitement, no one noticed that I had it. In one movement, I kicked Sonny in the balls and shot Butchie in the face. When I kicked him in the balls, Sonny dropped his gun and was hunched over holding his nuts and moaning. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back. As I did, his mouth opened.
“Don’t shoot Malloy. I didn’t know who she was. I thought she was just another hooker. I can make it worth….”
I never waited for Sonny to name his price. I shoved the forty-five in his mouth and said, “Say goodbye, asshole,” and shot him in the mouth. The force of the impact blew his brains all over the computer screens.
After I pulled the trigger, I heard was Hilary say, “Nice shot.”
Chapter 76
When Hilary and I reached the main floor in the casino, pandemonium had broken out. Crusher was driving a track loader the size of a locomotive across the bottom floor. We saw him punch out of one restaurant, heading into another. There were about fifty men dressed in black with Kevlar vests on rounding up Sonny’s men and some of the Casino people, shoving them into a bar area. I saw Max Reynolds dressed in a navy blue blazer, white shirt and dark tie over gray pants. He reminded me of pictures I had seen of Elliot Ness when he was alive and kicking in doors in the days of Al Capone. People were coming up to him, asking questions. Most of the customers had cleared out.
Hilary and I were trying to get Crusher’s attention. Finally he looked our way and climbed down from the loader.
“What’s the haps big guy? What do you think of my new toy?”
“I think you need to think about a career in demolition,” I said.
At the entrance to the Casino, there was some sudden movement. A man was standing at the entrance holding a thirty-eight in a two handed stance pointing it at anything that moved. I heard him shout, “Everyone here is under arrest. No one move. I’m here for a Lou Malloy and a Hilary Kelly. They are wanted for robbery and murder.”
Standing next to him was an Indian who looked like he belonged in front of a cigar store. In one movement, the Indian disarmed the cop holding the gun and told him to stand down.
“What they hell you talking about, Two-Tree?” the cop yelled
“This isn’t your party, Ramiro. You’re just a guest. You’re subject to the same tribal laws as everybod
y else is in this room. Now put this gun away or you are going to be subject to arrest.”
At this point, Reynolds was looking at us and smiling.
“Let me guess who you are,” he said.
Pointing first at me and then at Hilary, he said, “Lou Malloy and Hilary Kelly. The name of your friend escapes me.”
I knew I had to play along.
“Name’s Crusher,” I said.
“First off, you three are now in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. Anything you say or do, can and will be used against you in a court of law. If you wish, you have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be provided for you. Any questions?”
No one answered. There was nothing to say.
“Are we under arrest?” I asked.
“I’m thinking that one over Mister Malloy.
“Sergeant O’Hara, take these three people to the casino offices and keep them there. I’ll be along in a minute.”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, and Sergeant, if any of them try to leave your control, you have the right to shoot them.”
Chapter 77
I wasn’t sure how long we waited in the casino executive offices. It seemed longer because no one was saying anything. The agent named O’Hara and Crusher sat in large chairs watching something on the television acting like a couple of school kids playing a video game.
Hilary sat next to me looking like a prisoner waiting in line for the guillotine. I wanted to say something, but there really wasn’t anything to say. We had done our best and on the bright side of things, I found Susan’s killer and the reason for her death. It seemed now like a hollow victory. Maybe that was just as well.
Dead Money Run Page 22