by Dan Kelly
“Okay, Rex. Red and I can sit in on it here. Who else do you have to track down?”
“Just Popeye. He’s been on the phone all morning which is unlike him. He hates phones, says they make his ears itch, so I figure something unusual is going on and I’ll not bug him. I can’t wait any longer though as Tucker is chomping at the bit to get moving. Hold on a minute. I’m going to get one of the deck hands to go pound on his door and tell him to get down here lickety-split.”
Two minutes later Rex is back on the line with Popeye standing by his office window looking out at Old Miss, but not really seeing her. Rex is wondering what the big guy has been up to.
“Alright. If I’ve pushed the right buttons, everybody should be on the line.” Rex did a quick roll call and then turned the call over to Tucker.
“Hi everybody. I’m going to be very brief because I want to keep the Chameleon’s head start to a minimum. The more time he has to think, the harder it will be to find him and take him out of circulation.
“Rex has hired me to do two things, catch the Chameleon and protect you. I’m going to pull out all of the stops in my pursuit of this guy. We’re going to rush him so hard ,so fast, he won’t have time to eat, poop or pee. We’re going to keep him winded and panicky, not giving him the time to think straight. He’ll make a mistake and he’ll be ours. Hopefully, he won’t have time to go after any of you, but this man is not your normal fugitive. Anything could happen with him on the loose.
“To keep him on the run, I’ll be using every spare man I have and taking others off of other projects that can be put on hold for a while. There’s one drawback to this. I won’t have anyone available to provide protection for you. As I see it, there are three viable alternatives that should be considered, but there are drawbacks to these as well.
“One alternative would be to put all of you up at the same motel or hotel somewhere under lock and key with hired bodyguards keeping 24/7 vigil until we nail the Chameleon. Safety in numbers would be a factor as well. . The obvious drawbacks to this idea are you’d be giving up your freedom to carry on with your lives as usual and if the Chameleon were to find out where you were hiding he’d have an ideal opportunity to come up with something to eliminate you in one fell swoop.
“Another alternative would be for all of you to split and take off in different directions, telling no one where you are headed. You could stay in touch with Chuck regarding how the manhunt for the Chameleon is going. The main drawbacks to this are once again your loss of freedom to carry on with your lives as usual and you’d be without bodyguards, the support of the rest of the group and the benefit of safety in numbers.
“The last alternative is you stay put, continuously change your daily routines, hire undercover 24/7 bodyguards, rotating them amongst yourselves and randomly replacing them with new ones. This would make it difficult for the Chameleon to assess the risk he’d be taking to go after any of you at any particular time and delay any assault he might be planning. The main drawback to this idea is that it’s the most dangerous. Changing your daily routines will make it hard for him to anticipate where you’ll be at a specific time, but he’ll have a handle on your general location and he could get lucky and find you at a time when you’d be exposed without protection for the time he’d need to get the job done.
“The choice is yours. The best protection I can give you right now is to catch this guy before he has a chance to harm any of you. Are there any questions? Does anyone have any other ides? If not, I’m gone.”
There weren’t, they didn’t, he hung up and the rest of the group was silent, wrestling with the pros and cons of the three alternatives offered.
Rex broke the silence with, “Don’t let the cost of the bodyguards influence your decision. I’ll cover that and don’t give me any flak about it either. We’re all in this together and we should pool our resources whatever they might be. When you’ve made your decision, let me know and I’ll pass it on to Tucker so he can factor it into his game plan.”
The only feed- back he got from what he said was a sequence of clicks as people dropped off the line.
Jillian looked at Red and asked, “What are you going to do, Red?”
“I think I’ll hang tight and stay put. I’ll be damned if I’ll let Carducci scare me off. I’m hoping that I’ll be the bait that tempts him to stick his neck out so we can collar him.” Then laughing he adds, “Bill would be proud of me for that double entendre. It’s something he would say and then make sure that I got it. How about you? Have you decided?”
“I think I’ll hang around too. He’s really ticked at me and maybe that will be the deciding factor when he’s determining who he’ll go after first. Maybe we could try again to set up a trap to snare him.”
“I was thinking along the same lines when I was driving over here. The way he went after you in the courtroom is a good indicator that your number one on his hit parade.” Pausing and smiling he continues with, “I don’t believe it. Two double entendres in less than a minute. I’ve finally caught whatever has been inflicting Bill all these years. I sure hope there’s a cure for it. It’s embarrassing.”
Finally, she burst out laughing and Red was glad to see it happen. “Good. That she should relieve a lot of her tension.”
“How about letting me buy you a cup of coffee before I head back to the Floating Fantasies? We could try to come up with some ideas for another trap.”
“You’re on, but first let me tell Joe’s admin where I’ll be.”
Chapter 58
Sitting in Java Jack’s coffee house just inside the main entrance to the Go For It, both Red and Jillian are drawing a blank when it comes to building a better lizard trap. They’ve gotten as far as determining that two is better than one which in their case translates into using both of them at once as bait to get the Chameleon salivating, but now the creative well appears to have run dry. They’re having trouble getting beyond this.
Jillian’s saying, “Frequently changing our daily routine is a good tactic for avoiding contact with the Chameleon, but it’s no help when you’re trying to set yourself up as a target.”
Nodding Red said, “At first glance you’re right, but what if we make one exception to the random scrambling of our daily routine. What if we start getting together for a cocktail after work, let’s say at 6:30 every evening. The Chameleon is no dummy. He’s going to immediately recognize the frequent changes in our daily routine as a deliberate maneuver to prevent him from zeroing in on us.
“As I said, he’s no dummy, but I believe his technique when it comes to analyzing situations has a major flaw. He views things through his superiority complex, firmly believing that no one is as smart or devious as he is. When he discovers our evening get togethers, he’ll quickly chalk it up to carelessness on out part and not to some sinister plot.
“When he starts stalking us, he won’t take the chance of coming after us on board the Floating Fantasies or in the Go For It because he’ll know there will be tight security all over the place. He’ll figure that we’ll leave sometime, so he’ll station himself someplace out of sight, but close enough to see us when we leave. He most likely knows that I’ve been living onboard the Floating Fantasies, so the chances are he’ll focus on you.
“Now, if we decide to go through with something like this, is there someplace we could meet where our presence would not be a danger to anyone else and how do we capture the Chameleon without getting ourselves killed?”
“I agree with your reasoning, Red, but finding a good place to pull this off and finding capable bodyguards who are willing to risk their lives to save ours is not going to be a slam dunk. Besides, we’ve been down this road before. Time and time again, our clever planning has blown up in our faces. Before, we were just trying to capture him with a slight risk of maybe someone getting hurt. Now, death is in the mix, his, ours or both. If something goes wrong this time, someone’s going to die.”
“You’re making good points, Jillian, but t
he only other choice we have is putting our fates, our lives, solely in the hands of others. I have trouble with that. I’ll go as batty as the Chameleon if I sit idly by and do nothing to help.”
Smiling he adds, “Your reticence is a sign of your intelligence. My desire to get involved is probably a sign that mine is abandoning me. If you want out, I’ll understand and go it alone.”
“Red, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say I wanted out. I was just voicing some reservations that deserve serious consideration before we move ahead.”
“Then you’re with me on this, assuming we can find the right location and bodyguards?”
“When I agreed to help you with your Chameleon problems, it was for the duration. We’re a team, Red; you, me, Popeye, Bill, Rex, Chuck, Nate, Clyde, Joe and Tucker. I don’t give up and walk off the field because the play is getting rough.” Her eyes filling with anger and her fist pounding on the table for emphasis she finishes with, “That’s for losers and I’m no loser.”
Red just stares at her, but he’s thinking, “No, you’re definitely not a loser. You’re something extra special and I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
“I seem to have a knack for finding your hot button when it comes to your safety, don’t I?”
As quickly as it flared up, her anger dissolved into embarrassment. “Yes you do, but if the truth be known I kind of like it.’
Before Red could respond, Joe Amato walked into the coffee shop, plopped himself down next to Red and said, “I just spent a lot of loose change on keeping you guys alive and well. Some friends of mine will be flying into town early tonight and will want to meet you. Please make yourselves available.”
Looking at Joe with more than a little fear on her face Jillian asks, “Joe, what have you done? I hope it’s nothing you’ll be sorry for later.”
“Stop your worrying. It’ll wreak havoc on that pretty face of yours. Everything is going to be fine.”
Red asked, “Who did you call, Joe?”
“Some friends of mine in Atlantic City. They own a security company there and have a lot of experience in providing protection for all kinds of people, legit and otherwise and they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty if you know what I mean.”
Seeing the look on Jillian’s face he knows he’s scaring her to death, so he quickly adds, “These guys and everyone that works for them are big, tough and mean as a junkyard dog when the situation warrants it, but they’re not hoods. They operate within the law, they know all the tricks people use to get by security, but nobody in their right mind would physically challenge them.”
Red replies with, “Joe, we’re not dealing with someone in his right mind.”
Joe smiles and says, “Then your Chameleon troubles could soon be over.”
“Joe, you’ve been a good friend through all of this, letting Jillian work with me, convincing the other casino managers to go along with our schemes, contributing great ideas to help us catch this guy, giving me access to your local security personnel, risking the wrath of the Chameleon by helping me, but you’re really sticking your neck out with this latest gambit, both legally and physically.
“If your Atlantic City friends kill somebody, you could be found culpable, a contributing factor in the individual’s demise and have charges brought against you. And if somehow the Chameleon finds out what you’ve done, you could become one of his primary targets. Up until now, I don’t think he’s given you much thought, but that’s not cast in stone.”
“I’m not worried about any of that. These guys are good at what they do and as long as I’ve known them they haven’t broken one law, bent quite a few, but never broken any.
“Listen you two, Chuck doesn’t have the manpower to give you the protection you need nor does Tucker because he has all of his available personnel searching the surrounding countryside looking for this lizard. I have access to the manpower needed and I’m glad to tap that resource. Now, I don’t want to hear any more buts or get any more static on the subject. It’s a done deal.”
Not hearing a peep out of either one of them Joe rises and says, “Meet me back here at 7:30 tonight and I’ll introduce you to my friends and turn you over to them.” Without another word, he turns and goes back into the casino.
Staring after him Red turns to Jillian and says, “Well, I guess the bodyguard snag in our developing plot is no longer an issue. All we’ve got to do now is come up with a place to set it up.”
Jillian says, “I think we should hold off on that until we meet Joe’s friends and let them know what we have in mind. They might have some ideas that we could use.”
“Okay. That makes sense to me.”
Chapter 59
At 7:30, Red and Jillian felt like they had just walked into the Chicago Bears locker room. There were giants walking all over the place. Joe came over and said, “As you can see, it’s kind of crowded in here. We’re going to meet in the Jackpot Banquette Room on the second floor instead.”
Red said, “Joe, I thought we were just meeting with a couple of your friends.”
“There’s been a change in plans. I’ll explain when we all get settled upstairs.”
When Red and Jillian walk into the banquette room they are surprised to see the rest of the Chameleon’s target group as well as Tucker. Joe quickly gets everybody seated in several rows of chairs that have been set up in front of a stage in the back of the room and claps his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Red, Jillian, after I talked with you this afternoon, I remembered Tucker’s comments about how urgent it was for him to get his men into the field and on the Chameleon’s tail as soon as possible. I realized then that I shouldn’t be wasting any time putting into motion what I had in mind. Any delay might give the Chameleon an opening he couldn’t resist, hence this gathering now. Nate and Clyde are tied into what’s going on here via closed circuit TV. The monitors are behind me.
“Let me start out by introducing two of my friends to all of you. As I introduce you guys, will you please stand up and face the group. The first man I want to introduce to you is Vincent Velossi, the founder and president of Vanguard Vigil Limited.”
The man is 6’10” if he is an inch and probably weighs in at 290 lbs., all of it hard muscle. His jet black wavy hair and facial features remind Red of an actor from yesteryear, Victor Mature.
“His second in command, Giovanni Marciano, is responsible for the daily operations of the company and the hiring of associates like the men that are with us this evening.”
Mr. Marciano is as big as the president and incredibly even more muscular. He’s got a Friar Tuck hairdo turning gray, a goatee to match and a stare that could cut glass.
“Vince, I’ll turn the mike over to you and you can fill them in on how you work and what you want to them to do.”
“Thanks, Joe.
“Folks, Joe contacted me because this Chameleon character that’s been a thorn in your sides for some time now has apparently decided that that’s no longer enough. It now looks like he wants to remove you from his garden altogether. In other words, he wants to kill you. My job is to see that that doesn’t happen.
“Vanguard Vigil Ltd. is very experienced when it comes to situations like this and we’ve successfully provided security for top level politicians, entertainers, visiting diplomats and businessmen throughout the country for over fifteen years now.
“Since the local police and Mr. Riley have stretched their manpower to the limit in dealing with the Chameleon, Joe became quite concerned about your safety and asked me to get involved if you folks will agree to work with us.
“All of the men you see here tonight are specially trained to deal with any security issue that might arise no matter how violent that issue might be. They are extremely observant, nothing gets by them ordinary or not, and they will be in easy reach to deal with anything that might present a danger to you.
“For us to do our job, we need your full cooperation. You must trust
us. If we tell you to do something in an urgent manner, you must do so without hesitation. Delay could mean your demise. We’ll try to disrupt your daily routine as little as possible, but there will be some disruptions.