by Steve Brewer
Nick lit a cigarette and stared off into the distance. He didn’t seem inclined to offer assurances.
Lola wanted him to hang onto his share of the casino. She wanted him to marry her, so she’d end up with a piece of the Starlite, one way or the other. Nick didn’t have any family anywhere. He was fifteen years older than her and not in the best of health, what with all his smoking and drinking. She’d almost certainly outlive him. She’d done the math plenty of times. But if he chucked it all and moved way, Lola could wind up empty-handed. And she’d worked too hard to let that happen.
She slid her hand up his thigh, but got no reaction. He remained lost in his thoughts.
Something had been eating at him for weeks, and she hated not knowing what it was. He’d perked up lately, and she’d hoped he’d made it through his rough patch and things would get back to normal between them. Now this robbery had turned everything upside-down again.
She thought back to when he first returned from that trade show, how he’d been more upbeat than he had in months, all smiley and mysterious. She’d assumed he’d been brimming with ideas about how to pull the Starlite out of its slump. But now she wondered if something else had happened in San Francisco.
The timing seemed awfully coincidental. He comes back, all cheered up, and a couple of weeks later, the casino gets robbed. Was there a connection? Maybe she could find out.
Such information could prove valuable to the right people. Might even be enough to vault her to her rightful place in this town. With or without this moody Greek.
Lola enjoyed Nicky, with his craggy good looks and his bad habits, but she was a great believer in hedging her bets.
Chapter 28
Tony awoke the next morning to hammering in the apartment across the hall. He pulled his pillow over his head to block out the noise. It didn’t help.
“Jesus Christ. What time is it?”
Eve stirred beside him, reaching for the clock.
“It’s after nine. We should’ve been up an hour ago.”
“Too tired,” he mumbled from under the pillow. “Head hurts.”
They’d celebrated the night before, polishing off a few bottles of Napa Valley wine with the boys before the Coopers yawned off toward the apartment they shared and Angie went home to his family in the Mission District.
Tony wondered whether Ross and Don would open the garage today, whether Angie would show up for work at the moving company. Always better to stick to the routine, in case anyone checked later, but he wouldn’t blame them if they skipped a day. That’s what he would’ve done, if he’d had a straight job.
He pulled the covers up to his chin.
“Cold?” Eve said.
“Seems awfully chilly here after a few days in the desert.”
“Looks foggy outside, too.”
“There’s a surprise.”
He peeled the pillow off his face and checked the window. Through a gap between curtains, he could see the sky was the usual summer gray.
“I’ve got to go out this morning, too. Stash that cash.”
“Oh, there’s a hardship.” She giggled. “Poor man has to go out in the murk to put a hundred grand in our safe deposit boxes. Some people work a whole year for a fraction of that.”
Once they’d divided the money the night before, and cut out the casino manager’s share, each of the five robbers had ended up with nearly sixty thousand dollars. Tony had put his and Eve’s share into a gym bag that he’d stuffed into a little safe in the bedroom closet.
“Pretty good haul for a couple weeks’ work,” he said. “Sure you don’t want to put your share somewhere separate?”
“How many times have we gone over this? You already divide the money into safe deposit boxes in three different banks.”
“Just checking. We can always change the—”
“We don’t need to change,” she said. “I trust you. You trust me. We’re partners.”
She slid out from under the covers, naked and lithe, and padded toward the bathroom.
“Besides,” she said without looking back, “what if you get locked up? I need access to all of our money.”
“For my bail?”
“For my new life with some other guy.”
He threw the pillow at her, but it hit the wall next to the bathroom door as she ducked inside, laughing.
Tony sat up, pulled on the boxer shorts he’d left on the floor the night before, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. He had a hitch in his back, and he stretched and bent, trying to loosen it up, as the coffeemaker gurgled and grumbled.
Eve came in, wearing a slinky sky-blue robe, and said, “Hurt yourself?”
“I think you did it. That was pretty wild last night.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
“Lot of wine,” she said into his chest.
“You always get that way after a job.”
“Nice release after all that tension.”
“That’s the real reason I pull robberies,” he said. “It’s not for the money. It’s for the sex afterward.”
“Works for me.”
The hammering next door started up again. Bam-BAM. Bam-BAM. Bam-BAM-bam. Bam.
“You’d think those guys would at least develop some rhythm,” he said.
“They’re carpenters, not drummers.”
“Too bad.”
She stepped away from him and got cups from the cabinet. The kitchen was so small, there barely was room for both of them. Getting coffee together was like slow dancing.
Her warm proximity had its effect on Tony, tenting the front of his boxers. Eve looked down.
“My, my, what have we here?”
He took her in his arms and pressed against her. As their eyes met, she bit her lip to fight back a smile.
“I thought your back hurt.”
“It does. I should lie down.”
“Want to drink your coffee first?”
“No.”
“Brush your teeth?”
“No.”
“What about the carpenters—”
He pressed his lips to hers. Ran a hand through her loose hair. When he stepped back, she took his hand and led him toward the bedroom.
The hammering got even louder as another rhythm-free carpenter joined in, but Tony barely noticed.
Chapter 29
Nick Papadopoulos sat in his office, using a remote to replay the security videotapes of the robbery on a television in the corner.
The exterior video didn’t show much. The aluminum roof that shaded the loading dock blocked the view, and the visors of the fake guards’ hats put their faces in shadow. One was nearly as large as Big Jim’s behemoth, Shamu, but that was the only distinguishing feature anybody would get from the tapes.
He’d talked to his security people, and they couldn’t offer much more. The usual: It all happened too fast, they were too busy ducking bullets, by the time they realized something was wrong, the bogus guards were already back inside the armored car, blah, blah, blah. The best they could offer was that one of the robbers was big and another had freckles.
No one, it seemed, had paid much attention to Tony when he accompanied Nick upstairs to his office or when he departed a few minutes later. Nick had watched the tapes from the indoor cameras several times, had even pointed out Tony for the cops, but only after he’d seen they’d get nothing but a lanky guy moving briskly across the casino, looking at the floor, his face hidden by the bill of his baseball cap.
Nothing on any of the videos to give the robbers away, and sure as hell nothing to indicate Nick was involved with them. Just a matter of riding it out now, suffering through more interviews with the cops and the insurance assholes until he got paid.
He figured he’d net forty grand from his share of the robbery take, and that would be enough to get his ex-wife off his back and pay some of his other personal debts. He might make a little money off his house, if he could find a buyer stupid enough to pay top dollar fo
r a residence in this fucking burg. Still not enough, though. He’d need to rake off some of the insurance settlement on his way out of town.
Sometimes, Nick’s own audacity took his breath away. He’d bled profits off the Starlite for months now, using the money to dig out of a financial hole, counting on Cindy Duquesne to cover up the losses. On the books, it looked as if the money had gone into improvements at the Starlite, remodeling that the dump certainly needed. So far, Nick’s partners hadn’t questioned the expenses. But if Bobby Calabrese ever sent someone to check on the improvements, Nick was screwed. You didn’t scam the Mob. Bobby would send every soldier he owned to shoot holes in Nick Papadopoulos.
Nick lit a cigarette and stared out at the casino floor. He’d expected business to drop off after the robbery, but it was up today, if anything. Rubberneckers stopping by to feed off the vicarious thrill of the brazen robbery they’d heard about on TV. Assholes. Place them in the middle of a real crime and see how they act then. They’d cry and scream and try to burrow into the fucking floor. Even the toughest guy could go to pieces when the bullets started flying. Not Nick, though. In that kind of situation, he got calmer. His pulse and his breathing slowed, his vision cleared, his hearing sharpened. He never felt more alive than when death was at hand.
At least, that was the way it used to be, back when pulling a trigger was part of his job description. He worried that he’d gotten soft, sitting around the Starlite for the past few years, pretending to be something he wasn’t. He almost welcomed the idea of Bobby Crabs sending some mugs out west to try and punch his ticket—
The intercom on his desk squawked.
“Mr. P?”
He pushed the button. “Yeah?”
“There’s a man on line one? A Mr. Smith? He says it’s urgent.”
Son of a gun. It was almost as if Nick had conjured up the call by thinking about Bobby. Nick had left “Mr. Smith” a message about the robbery the day before. The sawed-off mobster’s timing was impeccable, as usual.
“Mr. Smith,” Nick said into the receiver. “How you doing? How’s the family?”
“Everybody’s fine. Bobby Junior got accepted to Princeton.”
“You must be very proud.”
“Cost me a fortune to get him in. I’m adding a wing to their science building or something.”
“Awfully civic-minded of you.”
“Yeah.” Bobby’s voice took on an edge. “That’s why I was upset when I got your message saying I’d lost a fucking fortune in a robbery.”
“We’re insured,” Nick said. “You’ll get it back.”
“That’s not the point. Nobody robs me and gets away with it. Who are these fucking mooks, think they can steal from me?”
“No idea. The cops don’t seem to have the first clue how to track ‘em down.”
“Fuck cops,” Calabrese said. “We’ll do it ourselves. You need me to send some people out there?”
“No. Let things cool down a little. We’re getting a lot of scrutiny right now, you know? Cops, insurance companies, the gaming board. We don’t want a bunch of goombahs hanging around, drawing attention.”
Bobby sighed into the phone. “Tell me how this thing went down.”
Nick explained about the armored car switch, how the heist crew made its getaway, how the cops found the truck later, burned up in the abandoned gas station. He didn’t mention that it was the same gas station where he bumped Dino Stormante years before. That would just confuse things.
When he was done, Bobby said, “You’re telling me this guy just walked into your office and drew down on you?”
It figured that was the part of the story he’d seize upon. The part that made Nick look worst.
“I thought he was a customer with a complaint or something. I’d just come to work. Last thing I was expecting, first thing in the morning, was for the fucker to pull a gun on me.”
“And then there was nothing you could do about it,” Bobby said flatly.
Nick felt heat crawl up his neck. Bobby was pissing him off.
“I could’ve refused to call downstairs,” he said. “But I have no doubt the man would’ve shot me. And they still would’ve gotten away with the money.”
“How much did we lose?”
“Three hundred large or thereabouts,” Nick said. “But the insurance company will cover—”
“They’d better by God cover it,” Bobby snapped. “You better get back every nickel that’s coming to me.”
“I’ll do my best—”
“I don’t want to hear it. If the Starlite takes any kind of loss, it comes out of your end, understand? Me and my people, we get paid. Period.”
Nick thinking: How’s that any different from usual? But he said, “I’ll take care of everything.”
He heard Calabrese take a deep breath and blow it out, getting himself under control.
“You do that, Nick. Don’t let this thing become a problem between us. You’ve done a fine job running the Starlite. Keeping a low profile, always on time with our share. Don’t fuck up now, when it counts the most.”
Nick felt himself scowling, but his voice was calm as he said into the phone: “You can rely on me.”
Bobby Crabs hung up without saying good-bye. Nick set the phone down and lit another Winston. He huffed the smoke toward the ceiling, then muttered, “Fuck you, Bobby.”
His gaze went to the casino floor again, to the desperate losers pouring their hard-earned money into the slot machines, ignoring the odds, living on hope. For once, he thought he knew exactly how they felt.
Chapter 30
Lola Cantrell had gone through nearly all the phone numbers on her list, and come up with nothing. For this she’d sneaked around Nick’s house in the middle of the night?
Not that it had been much of a hardship. She hadn’t been sleeping anyway, not with Nick snoring away, his belly full of booze. She’d tiptoed into the kitchen, and located his cell phone, a notepad and a pen. Then, she’d gone through his calls, writing down every number that began with 415, the area code for San Francisco.
This morning, she was so sure she was onto something, she could hardly wait to get home to her apartment and start checking the numbers. But now she was beginning to doubt her theory. She’d made a half-dozen long-distance calls without turning up anything peculiar. She got the Marriott where Nick had stayed, a trio of restaurants, a couple of taxi services. The usual stuff expected from a business trip.
She dialed the last number on the list, and poured herself another cup of coffee while she listened to it ring. The phone rang five times, and she was about to give up, when a raspy voice said, “Berg’s Pawn.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is Berg’s Pawnshop. How can I help you?”
A pawnshop? What the hell?
“Hello?” the man shouted. “You there?”
“Sorry. I, um, I must’ve gotten the wrong number.”
“Apparently so,” the man grumbled. “Dimwit.”
The phone clicked to dial tone. Lola was so busy thinking, she barely registered the insult. Nick at a pawnshop? Was he so desperate for money that he’d hocked something for cash? He could’ve done that right here in Fowler. At least three pawnshops sat across the main drag from the casinos, catering to idiot gamblers trying to finance one more roll of the dice.
Maybe Nick was afraid he’d be seen going into a local shop. Maybe he was ashamed. But he never seemed to give a good goddamn what people thought of him. Why would he start now?
She pondered it a while longer, making a plan, then redialed the number. Two rings this time, then, “Berg’s Pawn.”
“Yes, hello.” She lowered her voice an octave and spoke in a clipped manner. “I’m calling on behalf of Nick Papadopoulos.”
“Yeah?” The old man drew out the word, sounding cautious.
“Mr. Papadopoulos was recently there in San Francisco on a business trip.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Unfortunately, he lost a
credit card while he was in the city, and he asked me to call all the places where he might’ve left it.”
A pause, then the man said, “And he told you to call here?”
“I’m calling everywhere he went while he was there. I know it sounds strange, but—”
“It sure as hell does. Nick didn’t use a credit card here. Who did you say this is?”
“I work for Mr. Papa—”
“What’s your name?”
Lola hung up.
She was onto something here. She was sure of it. But what to do next?
Chapter 31
Nick’s first thought when he saw the investigator: The frigging Marines have arrived.
He’d expected the insurance company to send some squirrelly little guy with glasses who spent all his time poring over actuarial tables. But this man was meaty and muscular, looked like he did push-ups for fun. His navy blue suit stretched across broad shoulders and his posture was perfect. His fireplug of a head was topped by sandy hair buzzed precisely flat.
“Mr. Papadopoulos?” the man said as he entered Nick’s office. “I’m Howard Beck from Silver State Accident and Casualty.”
He crushed Nick’s hand and gave it a single up-and-down pump. Soon as he let go, Nick flexed his fingers to make sure they still worked. Damn.
He led Beck over to his desk. Beck marched behind him and was sitting straight-spined by the time Nick flopped into his swivel chair. The investigator had a slim attaché case lying flat across his knees.
“I’ve already talked to the police,” he said. “They’ve promised me copies of their incident reports, but I’d like to hear from you exactly what happened yesterday.”
“Sure.”
Beck opened the attaché and pulled out a metallic device no bigger than a pack of gum. “You won’t mind if I tape the interview.”
It wasn’t a question, so Nick didn’t bother to answer.
Beck punched a button on the recorder and set it on the edge of the mahogany desk. “Go ahead.”
Nick sighed. He was awfully tired of repeating this story.