“I’m sure it’s okay. I got enough antibiotics for two more days.”
“You need to see another doctor.”
“As soon as possible.” Marshon was immensely relieved that the issue of the ransom money appeared to have been dropped from the discussion agenda.
“You still going to the Caribbean?”
He pondered his answer. “Before all this happened, I told you that was my plan. To move there and change my lifestyle. Like I told you, I bought a condo on St. Thomas. I’m going to stay there while Saperstein works out a deal. I’m not fleeing to a country that doesn’t have an extradition policy with the United States. St. Thomas is in the American Virgin Islands!”
He tried to sound just slightly indignant, and Gail seemed somewhat chastised. Obviously, he didn’t trust her completely, since he lied once again about the location of the house. At that point, Marshon just wanted to get away cleanly.
“You remember when I told you at the Hyatt I wanted to come with you.”
“And, I agreed with your dad that it’s a bad idea at this time. You could get entangled just like I am. Cops are natural conspiracy theorists. They’ll conclude you were in on everything from the beginning. Believe me. Worse of all, they would implicate your dad, because he warned me about the grand jury at the Dewhurst reception.”
Gail’s mouth dropped open and she momentarily looked away from the road directly at Marshon. “Oh, my God!”
“Yeah.”
“You’re right. If I were to come with you now, they’d be looking for both of us the rest of our lives.”
It was at that moment Marshon knew that it was highly unlikely they would ever be together. He was a murder/kidnapping suspect and the statute of limitations would never close on those charges, even though he was mainly innocent. There was evidence — hundreds of eyewitnesses and a supporting videotape — that would clear him of being directly involved in the killings at The Wheel, but could he trust the prosecutors to reveal all the evidence to the grand jury? Carmen Salazar and Cathy Kennedy should testify on his behalf, but what if the prosecutors argued that he, Marshon, operated behind the scenes, in cahoots with Semanski? They could advance the theory that Marshon protected Ace by covering up the killings at The Wheel, and then forced Ace to kidnap Cathy Kennedy. The prosecutors would argue that Jemmy was there to make sure Ace did his job, which was exactly what Ace told the cops! If anyone scoffed at that theory, they’d simply say, “Where’s the ransom money? Marshon Johnson has it, of course.” Richey had the other half. It would look bad.
About that time, one of Marshon’s cell phones rang, causing his heart to race. He looked at the calling number; it was Richey. Marshon answered and listened to the chilling five words: “I’m caught. Dump your phone.” The call ended but Marshon kept his cell phone to his ear, until he finally said, solely for Gail’s benefit, “Thanks, man, talk to you later.”
“Who was that.”
“You don’t want to know, Gail.”
Marshon considered that the cops also had the smashed Walgreens cell phone he’d left in the stairwell. Technicians might be able to extract the number of its twin. He opened the glove box and searched through it until he found a corkscrew. He looked questioningly at Gail, who arched her eyebrows and shrugged. Marshon took the battery out of both cell phones and used the corkscrew to destroy the batteries. Then, he rolled down the window and threw them into the ditch.
“I gather the police may have the numbers of those phones?”
“Possibly.” A few minutes later, he opened the window and threw out both of the cell phone casings.
Marshon didn’t mind living the rest of his life in the shadows. He would adapt, with a new identity; and, perhaps another new one after that. He’d have his fingerprints sanded off. He’d never given an official DNA sample. Whatever would happen would happen, although his odds of being caught would decrease with every passing day, week, month and year. He could turn his back on his old life, even his Nanna and Uncle Clyde, if that was necessary. Gail might bravely commit to the same lifestyle in the beginning, but in time it would wear her down. Their love would fade and perhaps even mutate into resentment and hatred.
“We can’t talk for the next few months, Gail, until things sort themselves out. It’s for your protection, too. You, and your dad.”
For the next two hours, they talked about past good times and managed quite a few laughs. For a while, it was as if the events of the past five days hadn’t taken place, and that they were lovers facing a bright and happy future. In life, illusion often precedes disillusionment.
When they stopped in a rest area off the interstate, Marshon waited for an appropriate time when no other traveler — or Gail — appeared to be watching, and tossed his thirty-eight into a retention pond. It was evidence of his having made a decision not to shoot it out with the cops — or give them an excuse to execute him.
As they neared Lambert Field on the city’s west side, Marshon saw advertisements posted alongside Interstate 70 for various hotels.
“There’s a Marriott at the next exit. Drop me there.”
“I could stay the night with you,” Gail said, as they pulled up to the hotel entrance. “I wouldn’t have to use my real name.”
Marshon’s eyes roamed over Gail’s gorgeous body, but he hesitated only seconds. The calculating aspect of a lifelong street hustler soon overcame his erotic fantasies. He’d have to use the Marcus Jones identity to check in, because the fake identity he used to rent the car was undoubtedly compromised. The police were bound to have found the rental Buick in the parking garage, and the Caleb McDear alias was blown.
There were other considerations. He was still in disguise as an old man. His clothes, which probably were not clean to start with, now gave off a distinct body odor that even made Marshon frown. Others were bound to notice. Gail always attracted attention no matter how she dressed. The disparity would make them even more conspicuous. There would be security cameras creating a video record, which otherwise would be discarded — unless someone, or some couple, stood out for some reason and caught the attention of someone who might look at the video. Finally, he might have been caught on some surveillance camera in his present disguise. For all he knew, the police could have given that image to the news media, and they might have broadcast it.
“It’s not a good idea, Gail. There’s a good chance we’d be recognized or remembered. You could get into a lot of trouble. Let me get out of this mess first and then I’ll contact you, and we’ll arrange to get together, somewhere. The break will allow you time to think things over. And you need to do that.”
After Gail drove off, Marshon took a cab from the Marriott to a Holiday Inn Express. He checked in using the Marcus Jones I.D., which he removed from his overcoat lining. Marshon slept soundly that night, but he was up early in the morning, anxious to enter the second stage of his escape. He almost immediately ruled out airplane flight because he’d have to put the suitcase full of cash through an x-ray machine. He wasn’t certain of the law, but he seemed to recall that a U.S. citizen taking more than $10,000 out of the country had to fill out a form filled with questions. He couldn’t do that.
He initially considered taking the train, or possibly a bus, to Florida. That meant making a half dozen or more connections that would require him to expose himself in depots and terminals rife with surveillance cameras, security officers and cops. Maybe the kidnapping and all the dead bodies it generated would make the national news. In the end, Marshon rented a car and decided to drive. It was 1200 miles to Miami and he could drive it in 17 hours, straight through if he wanted, in which case no one would see him up close. He made arrangements over his room phone, again exposing the Marcus Jones identity. As a result of his agreeing to buy a membership in an exclusive company program, Hertz promised to have a Buick Regal with a GPS system out front of the hotel in an hour.
Using the phone in his room, Marshon next made an international credit card phone call to Philli
p Dahlgren, his lawyer in Nassau. Dahlgren had brokered the sale of the house on Scrub Island, when Marshon purchased it from a South American drug dealer. Dahlgren had arranged the financing and handled the monthly mortgage payment. The lawyer charged a standard twenty percent for all these services. Mainly as a good will gesture, Marshon had additionally invested about $100,000 with Dahlgren when the lawyer bought into a shopping center development on St. Maarten. In short, he had been a good customer for the Nassau lawyer’s various services. Still, this was a dicey situation and Marshon needed to know where the lawyer stood. Marshon’s former friends were not necessarily his future friends.
“You got my e-mail?” Marshon asked, when Dahlgren came on the line.
“Yes. Are you still coming to Florida?”
“Yes, but I’ve run into a bit of trouble here, because of my association with a friend. You may have heard about it?” Marshon needed to know.
“I subscribe to a news service that alerts me when various names are mentioned in the media.”
“What do you hear?”
There was a brief silence, but then the lawyer replied, calmly, “About Marcus Jones? Absolutely nothing.”
“I’ll be in the Miami area Monday, probably late afternoon, earlier evening,” Marshon/Marcus said. “I want to get over to your office in Nassau, but I’m undecided as to the best travel arrangements.”
“Your e-mail mentioned my yacht.”
“Islands in the Dream.”
“Hemingway would have understood. Anyway, as you may recall, we met once at my friend’s house, Nelson Richards, who lives on Key Biscayne. He and I are business associates. Nelson is an influential person. With one phone call, he can take care of any travel requirements issued by the U. S. Coast Guard or Customs and Immigration. I can do the same when you dock at my home in Nassau.”
“All right, Phillip, I’ll stop by Nelson’s house. Will he be expecting me?”
“I’ll make certain that he is. Unfortunately, I cannot be present. However, I’ll see you Tuesday at my house in Nassau.”
Marshon ended the call and indulged his paranoia. He didn’t like it that Dahlgren wouldn’t be in Florida, although that wasn’t unusual. Marshon contemplated several blocking chess moves, but couldn’t make any decisions at the moment.
Marshon scrolled through the regional television news channels, but couldn’t find any mention of Saturday’s events. He checked his wound, which had a disturbing bluish-black coloring to the surrounding skin, but red and yellow plus white pus were the colors of infection. He took a shower, shielding the incision from the direct water spray. Then, he dried off and redressed the wound, additionally applying a topical antibiotic cream he’d purchased in the hotel shop.
Using a new razor, he shaved his beard and hair, which was not an easy job, especially using his right hand on the left side of his head. The stretching aggravated his wound. He got rid of all the gray hair and now looked more like the younger Marcus Jones, all bald and hairless.
He put on his “bum” clothes, minus the yellow sweater, which he put into the suitcase, exchanging it for the overcoat. He picked up the hotel receipt someone had shoved under his door in the middle of the night, dropped his card key on the desk, and left the room. Downstairs in the business center, he used one of the computers to do a search on news about a kidnapping in the Kansas City area. The Star ran a page one story that jumped inside and took up about one-third of page eight.
Marshon audibly sucked in his breath at the sight of the photographic lineup — him wearing a tuxedo (taken at the Dewhurst fund-raising event), Richey Stanton, Ace Semanski, and Jemmy Shoemaker. A separate photograph taken in the garage showed James Kennedy cradling his wife, Cathy, and two police officers standing beside Carmen Salazar. The credit for the on-scene photos was given to a suburban resident who had been parking his car when the shootout began, and took the photos with his cell phone.
The “news report” talked about the police breaking up a kidnapping/ransom scheme and killing two of the kidnappers in the garage — Ace Semanski and Robert Young.
Jemmy Shoemaker was stabbed to death at the scene of the kidnapping and a police source was quoted as saying, “We’re not certain at this point in time as to Mr. Shoemaker’s role in this crime.” The police shot and killed Richey Stanton in a bar within the Westin Hotel when he threatened a sheriff’s deputy with a gun. Again, the police were not certain as to his role in the crime. Marshon Johnson was a person of interest and wanted for questioning, not only for the kidnapping, but also the death of Michael Williams, a prominent local architect. A police spokesman was quoted as saying they were not certain if or how the two crimes were connected.
As he read the report, tears began to roll down Marshon’s cheeks. His hands trembled so much that he grasped them together for control, although it also resembled a prayerful pose. After a few moments, he continued reading from the computer screen, his eyes coming to rest on a paragraph quoting James Kennedy as saying he paid a two million dollar ransom. Police would not comment on how much of the money was recovered, but did make a point of mentioning that $50,000 in cash was found on the body of Richey Stanton. Marshon knew it was not unusual for the cops to hold back information about the status of the ransom. They always liked to have a secret or two in reserve, so they could use it as leverage later on. In this case, they really didn’t know who had the money. And, neither did Marshon know what had happened to Richey’s share. He considered the possibility that Rinaldo Morgan intercepted Richey and took the money!
Marshon sat back and muttered, “Oh, my God,” loudly enough that a fellow business traveler asked if he was okay.
Marshon nodded and left the business center pulling one of Richey Stanton’s wheeled suitcases containing a million dollars in cash. At the entrance to the hotel, he gave a bellhop ten dollars to put the suitcase in the trunk of the Buick. In his fearful state of mind, he imagined that the bellhop would immediately call the FBI.
He drove back onto I-70 and headed east. The interstate highway system would take him on a planned route through Nashville, Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. Twenty minutes later, Marshon spotted a shopping center that would serve several of his needs. The stores were not within one multi-level building, but rather many buildings arranged around a pedestrian mall and adjacent outdoor parking lots. Most buildings housed four to six retail stores.
He parked in front of a drug store, so he could see the car while inside, where he purchased new bandages, and various toiletries, plus another prepaid cell phone.
Two doors down at a sporting goods store, Marshon purchased a comfortable jogging suit, New Balance walking shoes, some stylish shades, several pairs of socks and two packages of underwear that would last him a week. After having paid for the items, with the receipt in hand, he asked if he could change clothes in one of their dressing rooms.
He changed quickly and stuffed all his old clothes into one of the store shopping bags. Outside, he got into his car and began driving around until he found a clothing store, two doors away from a shop selling office equipment. On the sidewalk, Marshon shoved the bag containing his old clothes into another trash receptacle.
He went into the men’s clothing store and bought a black, pinstriped suit, two dress shirts, tie and expensive calfskin shoes. He also bought two pairs of dress pants, two casual shirts, a sweater, leather coat, billfold and a wheeled garment bag that easily contained all his new purchases. Marcus Jones used a credit card to pay for his purchases. The clerk was so thankful to make a sale totaling nearly $2,000 that he packed the bag, rolled it out to the Buick and put the bag in the trunk.
At the office equipment store, Marshon bought a Toshiba laptop with 16 GB of RAM, and a terabyte of hard drive storage capacity. He also purchased a wheeled briefcase that measured 18 x 14 x 8 inches and would not only hold his new electronic equipment, but the cash as well. Both the garment bag and the briefcase had four wheels each, and he would be able to easily roll both of them at th
e same time without putting any strain on his wound.
Finally, Marshon was on his way. A couple of hours later, after turning south on Interstate 57, he pulled into a rest area and parked at the far end toward the exit. He backed into a parking space, got out of the car, opened the trunk and transferred the money from Richey’s old gray cloth suitcase into the new briefcase. It also had a compartment for the laptop and smaller pockets that held his passport, and the two flash drives. He wiped his fingerprints from the suitcase, checked it for any identification, and sat it behind some bushes.
Near the dinner hour, Marshon pulled into a Hampton Inn outside of Atlanta. He went to bed earlier as usual, suffering not only from the after effects of a gunshot wound, but the trauma of the events that had taken place in Kansas City. Widja was on the run, Jemmy and Richey were dead, and his love affair with Gail Thomas was flickering out. The prosecutors and police had a long list of charges they could file against him, including illegal gambling, accessory after the fact to several felony charges, plus bribery, failure to report a crime, blackmail, manslaughter, kidnapping and God-knows-what else. He’d had to give up The Wheel without any financial remuneration, although he couldn’t have escaped without the help of Rinaldo Morgan. That had inestimable value. Moreover, he might yet do business with Rinaldo. He didn’t plan to contact him for several months, though.
The situation with Boudra and the apartment building business was equally fluid. Would the County Attorney attempt to seize the building, alleging that the ownership by Marshon’s grandmother and uncle was simply a sham. Could Mort Saperstein prevent such a seizure? Was there any way Marshon could exert some influence, perhaps through Darieon Shoemaker, Jemmy’s brother? He’d have to contact Boudra somehow, if he wanted the income from the building. He didn’t know whether he should or would keep the promise he made to Widja. But, those were problems for another day.
The Money Game Page 49