Deadly Ruse

by E. Michael Helms

  “McClellan, I’ve only got a minute, so listen up.” Dakota sounded like she was speaking through clenched teeth, which was understandable considering the beating she’d taken. “Caitlin Medlin and her crew were pushing ice and weed and other crap to select customers around the Royale. Whit Coleman and Summer Tyson were covering Chipola and other places.”

  “Ice?”

  Dakota let out an annoyed breath. “Crystal meth. Not only did they have a meth lab in the house, but they were also shaking and baking the shit. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow the friggin’ neighborhood to kingdom come.”

  “Shaking and baking?”

  “Never mind, McClellan, just listen. They had Medlin snuffed out before she could bargain with the DA’s office. They couldn’t risk having a police investigation ruin their legit casino operation.”

  “Who exactly is ‘they’?”

  “I think you’ve got that pretty much figured out.”

  “What about Coleman?”

  “My nickel says he’s dead, too.”

  “Summer Tyson?”

  “Like I said, she was working the college scene with Coleman. When the bust went down she had the good sense to get while the getting was good.”

  “The little catfight you two had behind The Green Parrot—what was that about?”

  “I suspected Tyson was dealing at Chipola and I needed an excuse to be able to approach her there. I knew she was dating a guy I’d gone with in high school, so I put the heat on her to lay off my boyfriend. Then I conveniently picked a fight in a public place when the two of them were together.”

  “Dakota the tough girl.”

  “Yeah. Now keep quiet for a minute and listen. I managed to get into Alice Spence’s office and went through some of her files. Before you ask, I picked a couple of locks. Your Wes Harrison is now Russell Weston. He’s a silent partner and spends most of his time in the Caymans. He’s a real wheeler-dealer with some pretty sticky fingers. Him and Spence have a friggin’ shitload of money stashed in banks on Grand Cayman. We’re talking millions here, mostly legit from what I could tell. They’ve done a lot of investing in the Caribbean over the last decade; nightclubs, casinos, restaurants, real estate, a lot of crap. They also have a home on Grand Cayman, more like a walled compound on several acres.”

  “Why did—”

  “No time for Twenty Questions, McClellan. I got careless and overlooked a security camera in Spence’s office that was hidden on a bookshelf. By the time I noticed the friggin’ thing it was too late. I got out of there, but I’m sure that’s how they fingered me, and why they sicced the dogs on me. I think those bad boys who jumped me are pros down from Hotlanta. These people aren’t fooling around, so watch your ass. And don’t let Sheriff Pickron know I called you or he’ll have mine. Gotta go.”

  After talking with Dakota my mind was spinning. I was in over my head, so I called Frank and brought him up to speed on my rather eventful Saturday.

  “It looks like we can shelve the idea of me buying into Alice’s little enterprise,” he said. “Things are moving way too fast for that. Pack up and get out of there and lay low, Mac. My guess is that Wes Harrison is not a very happy investor at this point. Pickron knows something’s up now. Let him and the department handle this.”

  Frank was right, and I fully intended to follow his advice. With Caitlin Medlin out of the picture, the drug dealing was pretty much a nonissue at this point. But the odds were sweet that the Palmetto Royale stood to get a nasty black eye by proxy from Caitlin’s little business venture. If that happened Wes Harrison could be in deep shit. Plus, there were goons on the loose, probably the same goons who’d already tried to silence both Kate and me and take out Dakota. Saving my bacon was way up there on my current list of priorities.

  But first there was something I had to do. I changed into shorts and a fresh polo shirt and packed my things. Then I tore a sheet of notepaper from the pad on the telephone stand beside the bed and jotted down a quick note:

  Leave here as soon as you can and don’t come back to work until you hear from me. The cavalry is on the way.

  If Dillon was working the tiki bar, I hoped she would understand the message I intended to slip her. If she wasn’t there, I’d call her on my way back to St. George. I set the suitcase by the door and then secured the Smith & Wesson in the back of my waistband under my shirt. I hoped it wouldn’t be too obvious, but I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere without it. Then I headed for the elevator.

  My luck was holding. Dillon was working with a pale-skinned, freckled young woman sporting a lip ring and eggplant-colored hair streaked with fuchsia. The bar was still crowded, but I found an empty stool in the area Dillon was serving. My back was to the office doors. I didn’t care for that, but at least I’d be able to see anyone walking past the bar and heading in the direction of the office.

  It was a couple of minutes before Dillon noticed me sitting there. There was a quick widening of her eyes, but she quickly recovered. She flashed a businesslike smile as she walked over. “Hi, there. What can I get for you?”

  I ordered a Michelob, and as Dillon turned and walked away I pulled three dollar bills from my wallet, and the Alexander Hamilton that I’d folded over the note. In a minute Dillon returned with the beer, a frosted mug, and some napkins. “Here we are,” she said, flashing her pearly whites.

  I declined the mug and smiled. “Thanks.” I pushed the three singles across the bar. She scooped them up and started to turn away. “Wait, this is for you, honey,” I said, holding the folded ten-spot out to her. I placed the bill into her waiting hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and winked. “For your friendly smile.” I hoped like hell Dillon would get the message that I was flirting with her.

  She returned the smile, thanked me, and slipped the ten into her short’s pocket without looking, then went about her business. I nursed the Michelob and kept my eyes peeled for anyone I might recognize. A man sitting to my left tried to strike up a conversation, but I wasn’t in a talking mood, and he soon turned his attention to the person at his other side.

  About halfway through the beer I felt something hard press into the small of my back a little to the right of my revolver. A head leaned over my left shoulder just out of my peripheral vision, and a gruff voice muttered quietly, “Turn around real slow and come with me.”

  I straightened my back and polished off the beer in four gulps. I figured I could use all the liquid bravado I could get, but I knew one beer damn sure wasn’t going to help much. For a second I considered my chances might be better settling this with the guy right there at the bar, but if things turned nasty I didn’t want any innocents getting shot. This wasn’t their fight.

  As I stood I glanced and saw Dillon with her back to me. Damn, scratch one slim chance of getting rescued. I did a one-eighty as ordered, and the guy turned with me like a dancing partner, keeping just out of my sight with what I figured was his gun hand still pressing against my back. He slapped my shoulder with his free hand and laughed like we were old friends and said, “We better go check on Phil before he gets into any more trouble.” And then me and my new old buddy walked away from the bar toward the office.

  When I came to, it was dark and my head hurt like holy hell. It took a minute or so before I realized I was sitting in a chair with my hands tied behind me and lashed tightly to the back spindles. There was a ribbon of light on the floor underneath a door across the room to my left front, and I thought I heard murmuring voices coming from that direction. Given the current circumstances, I didn’t figure Isabella was getting ready to make a grand entrance into the room and treat me to a Royale Deluxe, although I sure as hell could’ve used one right then. After a few minutes the voices stopped.

  My head finally cleared enough that I remembered my dancing partner had led me past the office doors where he relieved me of the .357. We continued down the long corridor with all the tropical plants and squawking birds to a door somewhere on the left side of the spa building. He rap
ped twice on the door, and that’s when I’d made my big move.

  I rammed an elbow into the guy’s solar plexus and heard the air rush from his lungs. I spun around and saw he was bent over double, so I jerked my knee up, cracking him hard in the face, and watched him tumble backward flat on his back. I was trying to retrieve the S & W when my running lights went out.

  I sat there for several more minutes as my senses slowly returned. My chivalrous intentions to warn Dillon had landed me up to my neck in shit stew. I glanced around the room but saw no windows. I guessed it was sometime Saturday night. I remembered that I was supposed to visit Kate in Destin on Sunday. She was going to be highly pissed when I stood her up, especially with no phone call to explain why.

  Phone call. My cell phone had been in the right front pocket of my shorts. I moved my feet and found they weren’t tied. A modicum of good news, as Sherlock Holmes or Watson might have put it. I wiggled my right leg back and forth but couldn’t detect anything in the pocket. It didn’t really matter at that point with my hands bound behind me. The luck I’d felt when I found Dillon at the tiki bar and managed to slip her the note had wasted little time turning around to bite me on the ass.

  My eyes finally adjusted to the darkness some, and I could see shadowy objects. There were filing cabinets and shelving of some kind lining a couple of walls. A utility desk stood before me, and the shelves behind it were lined with books and big binders. To my right was a metal door. I could make out the round knob, but no trace of light shone through any of the edges. Most likely it led outside and was probably the door I’d been hauled through when my noble escape attempt had royally flopped. I jerked when a telephone sitting on the desk rang. Somebody picked up from another room during the third ring.

  Another half hour or so dragged by. I spent it generally feeling sorry for myself and mentally kicking my ass for being so damn careless. Some private eye I’d turned out to be. I should’ve vacated the premises ASAP, but for some reason I’d felt an obligation, maybe even a duty, to warn Dillon first. After all, what Marine worth his salt would leave a person who had trusted him in a lurch? Semper Fi, do or die, oooraahhh! Shit. I did what I did because I had to. Simple as that.

  The back of my head still throbbed like somebody had nailed me with a two-by-four or baseball bat, which they probably had, à la Caitlin Medlin. But why hadn’t they finished the job? After thinking for a minute, it was an easy enough question to deduce. They were waiting until things quieted down around the resort before transporting me elsewhere to slit my throat or blow my brains out or however they planned to do me in. After all, why splatter blood or brains or both all over their shiny new facilities for the cops to find after the big vamoose back to the Caymans?

  This pleasant thought was still bouncing around my head when I heard footsteps clacking toward the door with the strip of light at the bottom. The handle turned, and then a rush of light nearly blinded me as someone opened the door and flipped on a switch. I lowered my eyes and blinked against the glare as footsteps clattered into the room. A few seconds later I glanced up, squinting directly into the beautiful green eyes of Alice Spence. She was wearing the same jade party dress I’d seen from my balcony earlier in the day, or at least I assumed this was still Saturday. Only now I saw the front and was treated to a plunging neckline that balanced nicely with the mid-thigh length. And standing beside Alice in the flesh was none other than the late Weston Russell Harrison, or the very much alive Russell Weston. Take your pick.

  “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Mac?” Alice said with a smirk spread across her full lips.

  I mustered up a smirk of my own. “You know what they say: a day without Alice is like a day without sunshine.”

  “You should learn to mind your own business.”

  “Well, when somebody tries to kill a close friend of mine, and then me, I tend to make it my business. And now you’ve gotten careless and let an employee’s two-bit sideshow threaten to bring down your empire. By the way, how was your board meeting?”

  The smirk stayed in place. “Great. Business is booming and our profit margin is up nicely for the quarter.”

  I nodded. “I guess those smuggled diamonds are still paying big dividends after all these years.”

  Harrison stepped over and slugged me in the jaw. The room spun for a minute and then gradually slowed to a stop. All in all, it was quite an introduction. “Not bad for an immovable target,” I said, after checking with my tongue to make sure none of my teeth had abandoned ship. “Did you tie up those Mexican girls back during high school before you beat them, too? Or did you just schmooze them into obeying you with your irresistible natural charm?”

  He made another move for me, but Alice reached out and grabbed his arm. “Uh-uh, leave him alone.” She moved the few feet to the desk and like an agile feline perched herself on the desktop. Crossing those well-toned legs of hers at the knees, she flashed me a teasing up-skirt peek. Placing a hand on the desk on either side of her thighs, she leaned slightly forward, accentuating her cleavage. Even though Alice was probably going to have me killed in the not-too-distant future, she was still one hell of a sexy, good-looking woman.

  “And how did your meeting with your ex-wife and her fiancé turn out, Mac? Did you get all those pressing family matters resolved?” Alice said, slowly swinging her crossover leg back and forth.

  I shook my head. “Turns out I was right about them standing me up. I think they decided to go to the French Riviera instead.” I ran my tongue around my mouth again and spit out a little blood, both for show and to dirty-up her shiny tile floor. “Tell me something, Alice,” I said, nodding toward Harrison. “You’re obviously a savvy business-woman and probably have more money than you could ever spend in ten lifetimes, so why stay hooked up with this loser all these years?”

  The smirk changed into an adoring smile as her gaze shifted to Harrison. He looked really pissed. Her eyes lingered for a moment and then moved back to me. “Love... money... the thrills. All of the above?”

  The honey-eyed look Alice laid on Harrison told me she was still as infatuated with the guy now as when she’d been a love-struck college girl. In Alice’s case, the old adage about good girls being attracted to bad boys was chiseled into her stony heart. I put my smirk back on. “Speaking of love, I need to call my girlfriend. We’re supposed to have dinner together tomorrow. Could I borrow your phone a minute?”

  Alice’s lips formed a phony pout. “Why, Mac, just last night you told me you had the hots for me. I’m soooo hurt.”

  “So I lied. You’re one gorgeous woman, Alice, but I wouldn’t touch you with his stick,” I said, tilting my head at Harrison again. “Whatever it is you have, I sure as hell don’t want to catch it.”

  Alice damn near levitated off the desk and slapped me hard across the cheek. At least she had the courtesy to choose the side Harrison hadn’t used. She moved her face close to mine and put on a nasty sneer that seemed to come as natural as breathing to her. “You don’t realize just how much trouble you’re in, Mac. I’d strongly suggest you keep the smart remarks to yourself.”

  I forced a laugh. “Is keeping my trap shut going to make any difference? And yeah, I do realize the trouble I’m in. Let’s see, Caitlin Medlin, Whit Coleman, uh, who else? Robert Ramey, Eric Kohler, Rachel Todd, maybe?”

  Harrison shot Alice a glance when I mentioned their old cohorts, but she kept a poker face.

  “Oh, by the way, you might want to consider hiring a new set of goons after this. Those two clowns together couldn’t take out that girl you set up for Caitlin Medlin’s murder.”

  “How did you know about that?” It was the first time I’d heard Harrison speak. His voice was higher-pitched than I would’ve imagined for a man his size.

  Alice flashed him a stern look. “Shut up, Wes.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, shut up, Wes. By the way, shouldn’t you be hauling ass out of the country right about now? I hear the cops are looking for you. Last I
heard, murder for hire is still a crime in this country.”

  Harrison clenched his fists and turned red, but Alice kept him heeled. “You’re bluffing, McClellan,” he snarled. “You can’t pin that on us.”

  “By the way, nice brown eyes you got there, Harrison. Colored contacts?”

  No answer, but I decided to keep goading him, hoping it would stall the inevitable for a while. “Didn’t it bother you just a little when your hired guns tried to take out Kate Bell by rigging her car to crash? You two had been pretty damn close, at least she thought so.”

  “Kate was okay, but nothing special, just a convenient piece of tail.”

  My jaw clenched, but I kept my poker face. “How about Travis Hurt?”

  Harrison looked confused. “Who?”

  “You know, Rachel Todd’s brother, or was it lover? Or lover and brother?”

  Harrison’s brow wrinkled even tighter. “What?”

  I had a nice pot of confusion stew started, so I decided to add a few more ingredients. “Why don’t you ask Alice? Or didn’t you know Eric Kohler was banging your boss, Ramey?”

  Harrison’s jaw dropped, and he turned to Alice. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  I jumped in before Alice could answer. “You’re a real rocket scientist, Harrison. I thought you and Kohler were best buds. Looks to me like the old Destin gang kept you in the dark about a lot of crap. Maybe they figured you were too stupid to handle all the details.”

  Alice walked over and slapped me twice with alternating hands. Ouch. “Shut your fucking mouth, Mac! Any more out of you and you’ll regret ever drawing your first breath.”

  I couldn’t resist. “Alice, such language! What would dear Aunt Darla say?” That earned me another right palm to left cheek, and this one caught my nose hard enough to start it bleeding.

  “Gag this son of a bitch!” she said to Harrison. “There’s a roll of duct tape in the bottom left drawer. And hurry it up.”

  Harrison searched through that drawer and then rifled through the others. “It’s not here.”