I knew there was no reason for anyone to pay particular notice to me, other than the unseen cameras that I knew were ubiquitous here. My disguise was designed primarily to fool video surveillance. Of course, I didn’t know what kind of database the camera operators were working from, but I assumed that Poe had me on a list somewhere and wanted to know whenever Max Plank paid a visit.
I couldn’t be sure if the disguise would fool Poe or Angelique if I was face to face with them, but it might do the trick, or at least buy time in the meanwhile.
I’d texted Alexandra from Marsh’s condo to get her room number. She’d checked into the resort in the middle of the night and had had loads of Marsh’s money to play with since then.
I stepped out of the elevator and into the whirling maelstrom.
Right in the center of the massive arena-sized room was a pirate ship, a replica of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean. I assumed Poe got rights from the filmmakers or Johnny Depp himself, who might very well be pleased to be associated with a modern-day pirate like Poe.
Blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and endless rows of slot machines covered the deck of the massive ship and spilled out onto other, smaller vessels nearby.
The ceiling was painted black with starburst patterns, and the light overall was romantic dinner dim. The floor was deep blue mimicking an ocean appropriate to float the Black Pearl and its attendant ships.
The jangly sound of the slots mixed with the raucous retort of people laughing, crying, shouting. The sweet stench of excess spirits underlaid the thrum of the casino itself. The punch from the place was visceral, entrancing or off-putting depending upon your turn of mind.
I always remember my first visit here with my good friend, Bo Fiddler.
Bo and I had played a few rounds of blackjack and caught a show in the lounge featuring a stoked and Hawaiian-shirt-clad Steve Miller. We’d both had more than our share of luck, an unusual circumstance in my experience. This was in the early days after the casino opened and perhaps Poe had the machines rigged to pay out more frequently then to entice customers back for a return visit sooner rather than later.
In any case, we’d met two lovely women, Katherine and Paula. Both approaching the dangerous age of forty—lifelong friends from Hoboken and Palm Beach respectively—they’d been on a weekend getaway to see if they could recapture a touch of something lost after divorces and other depredations of age. They were kind enough to spend the evening with us. I like to think they recall that night with fond smiles, and maybe a blush or two.
So, despite everything I knew about the place, I had a soft spot, a warm memory to offset the slightly icky feeling that usually accompanied my visits here.
I glanced over at the reception area to my left, which featured islands of sand, palm and coconut trees made of metal, treasure chests, babbling water fountains, comely wax wenches. The employees still wore SwashbuckIer hats and pirate gear, with the added bonus, depending on your point of view, of low-cut corsets for the females.
Looking at them, my disguise paled in comparison, and I felt slightly more comfortable in the getup.
I veered around the reception and headed straight back to the bank of elevators serving the first ten floors of the hotel complex.
I knocked on room number 1001 and stepped back so Alexandra could size me up in the little viewfinder. The hallways were long, wide, and high-ceilinged, and the floor was covered with royal red carpeting festooned with golden doubloons spewing geyser-like out the mouths of smiley-faced slot machines.
As I waited for Alexandra to open the door, I doubted myself for having risked sending her here. It suddenly seemed crazy to me. A total shot in the dark and I knew it.
Yes, Alexandra is a photo journalist and a fine investigative reporter working freelance for several media publications—primarily for one of the top British journals specializing in digging up international crimes and malfeasance.
Poe had only met her a couple of times, and only once for any length of time, when we sat at a nearby table at a fundraiser for the victims of sex trafficking, one of Alexandra’s main areas of investigation. Poe surprised everyone by showing up with a five-thousand-dollar check for the cause.
He’d come over with the excuse of wanting to meet the woman who would dare date a scoundrel like me.
Alexandra had found him suave and charming, which he was. Afterward, I filled her in the other side of his character, and she was shocked at the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the beast.
Alexandra was a worldly woman, experienced with the worst acts that man committed upon his fellow humans. But true evil has no one look or definition. It’s infinitely adaptable, like cancer, growing in the darkest, deepest reaches of any organism unlucky enough to accommodate it.
Nevertheless, while Alexandra was a relative novice when it came to casino games, she knows her way around crooks and criminals, and I thought her snooping around to see what she could see while spending enough money to get the attention of higher ups in casino management might yield dividends. She was also going to see if she could get anyone to talk about the recent scams that had been in the papers.
The door opened and Alexandra, looking flustered and decidedly unlike herself in the wig and bawdy dress, clapped her hand over her mouth and said, “Wow.”
I pinched my tie and wiggled my hips.
“I like the suit, not so much the mustache. The black hair is just weird.”
“Take a good look because you’re unlikely to see me in it again.” I paused, ran my eyes lasciviously up and down her body. “But, you, my dear, make a very attractive floozy.”
She frowned at me and said, “C’mon quickly, Max. Something’s happened. I have to get back down to the casino in fifteen minutes.”
I stepped into the room, which was a suite with two separate bedrooms, along with a kitchen and wet bar and even a hot tub tucked into a corner overlooking the Bay.
I sat down on a red stool at the bar, twirled it around once, faced her, and said, “You’ve already gotten an upgrade?”
“It didn’t take them long to notice me. They act fast here. Can you believe that it’s comped?” she said, marveling at what throwing money away can get you, at least temporarily.
“How much of Marsh’s money have you spent?”
“Too much,” she answered, blushing. “I think just over ten thousand dollars now.”
“In less than a day. Wow.”
“Wow is right. You’re sure it’s all right with Marsh?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She paused reflectively and said, “That photo you texted me yesterday. The one of the woman who came to see you pretending she was Bobby’s daughter?”
I nodded. I’d sent it to her almost as an afterthought, without really thinking it was serving any purpose. As soon as Portia had sent it to me, I’d forwarded it on to Alexandra.
“I think I might be friends with her,” Alexandra said, giving me a veiled look.
“What?” I said.
“It was weird. I was playing at one of my usual tables and—”
I laughed.
“Hey, c’mon. You told me to pretend to be a high roller, a shark, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“A whale.”
“Shark. Whale. Whatever. Anyway, I was at this roulette wheel, betting obscene amounts of money, and I noticed this woman at a nearby table playing blackjack. There was something about her that caught my eye. She seemed both nervous and strangely self-possessed at the same time, if that makes any sense. It didn’t to me, but that’s how it struck me.”
She paused, thinking back on the moment, then added, “I picked up my remaining chips and stepped back from the table and opened the phone to the photo. I examined it and then the woman and couldn’t determine if they were one and the same person. But I thought it was close enough to warrant my time. So I went over and sat down at her table.”
I wanted to say good girl but didn’t.
“After we play
ed for a while, she took an interest in me. I was betting a hundred dollars or more per hand, so I think that got her attention. We started chatting and she told me—”
“So is it really her, Alex?” I said, hardly able to contain myself. This seemed like the impossible break that I’d been hoping for. Despite our wild speculations about how this whole thing may have started, I’d never expected to find Jewel Allen lurking here in Poe’s domain.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Even seeing her up close, I can’t be sure.”
“But what do you think? Did she tell you her name?”
“Yes, we got chummy. I told her my phony alias, and she said her name was Dot. She didn’t give me a last name.”
“That’s her,” I said.
“I’m not sure. I don’t want—”
“Her real name is Dorothy. Marsh confirmed that. She went by Dot as a child, according to Leslie at the gym. What are the chances that a woman who looks like her and has the same name is here at Pirate’s Cove? I’m a little surprised she would use that moniker, but I guess she takes you for a local rube.”
“Pardon me?” Alexandra replied, a note of irritation in your voice.
“It’s absolutely perfect, honey. You’re great. You’ve obviously played your part to the hilt, and I can’t thank you enough.”
Her peeved facial expression morphed into a sly smile. “Thanks,” she said.
“When did you last see her?” I was trying to figure out how this jibed with the timing of my dangerous escapade at Carlos’s house. I was sure the woman in the background there had to be Jewel. That had been late this morning, less than eight hours ago.
“It was early this morning.”
“How early?”
“About 6 a.m. I’d been playing for a couple of hours. When I was at the blackjack table with Dot, a man came over, a pit boss I think, and whispered in my ear, offering me an upgrade to my room. I’d just dropped my bag in the one that you reserved for me on the third floor and come out to spend Marsh’s money as fast as I could. After he left, Dot looked at me curiously, and I told her what he’d said. She was impressed, and I think that cemented our bond. After we played a little longer, she asked me if I wanted to have breakfast with her.”
“And you did.”
“Yes. At Pete’s Pirate Shack. And so—”
“How long were you with her? I think I ran into Jewel around 11 a.m. so if—”
“Hold on. I haven’t got to the most interesting part of all this. I think that woman who you had the run in at the Fairmount a couple of years back, the one you said was one of Poe’s most dangerous people…” She paused, locked onto my eyes.
“Angelique?”
“Yes, I think maybe she dropped by our table. I don’t know if it was her because you never really described her except for saying she was tall and black and a mix of another nationality, which gave her an exotic look.”
“Describe her to me.”
Alexandra, with her reporter’s eye, gave me enough information, along with the additional obvious fact that she was right here in the casino, for me to be pretty sure that it was Angelique.
I remembered the shadowy figure outside Bobby’s motel door just before I found his dead body, and an uneasy feeling again rose up in my chest.
“Did she talk to you or Dot?”
“No. She didn’t. It was strange. She just kind of lurked nearby. Close enough for Dot to notice her. Soon as she did, Dot’s mood changed. She went from kind of light and bubbly to very serious. The two of them exchanged a look, and Dot turned to me and said she had to go. She got up and started to leave, but turned back and asked me to meet her tonight at 7:30 at the same blackjack table if I could. Then she joined the woman, Angelique I guess, and they walked off together.”
“That’s incredible,” I said.
What the hell was going on?
Was there really a bigger scam behind the scam pulled off by Jewel and Leslie and Carlos and the rest of the gang?
And was Poe at the heart of it?
Or was Angelique involved in some kind of rogue operation that Poe wasn’t aware of? That seemed even more unlikely, especially as she was meeting with Jewel right here in Poe’s house.
Angelique, by all accounts, was fiercely loyal to her boss, and the likeliest conclusion was that anything she did was in service to his interests and directed by him.
All this remarkable new information didn’t change my immediate goal, which was a tête-à-tête with Ms. Jewel Allen.
“Amazing,” I said.
“And I’m also on friendly terms with one of the pit bosses.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
She nudged me and continued. “He bought me a drink, which was weird because I was getting free drinks offered to me to the point of annoyance. Anyway, when I was buying more chips, he coaxed me over to a little bar and we had a chat. I thought maybe he was just trying to get to know me on behalf of the casino since I was spending so much money. But it wasn’t long before he asked me for a date. He’s taking me to dinner in the city Friday night.”
“What?” I said, my hackles raised.
“He seems like a nice guy. Good looking too,” she said.
“Alex—”
“Jealous?”
“No.”
“Of course not. Max Plank is an island.”
“C’mon, not fair.”
She sighed. “I know. But sometimes…” The corners of her mouth lowered, and she looked away. “Anyway, I’m going to stand him up. I’m working, Max. For you. I got a little chummy with him so that he’d share information. After I agreed to the date, I prodded him a bit. I asked him about the recent scams that I’d read about in the paper.”
Of course that was it. Hadn’t fooled me for a moment.
“I know he’ll seek me out again tonight, so hopefully I’ll get more, but he did mention Bobby, not by name, only as Poe’s brother. He said the whole casino staff was in a tizzy because of the murders. And he mentioned how the brothers had had a falling out after it appeared that Bobby, who Poe had helped get back on his feet, had betrayed him. Paxton said that he figured the sharks who hit the casino just used Bobby and then killed him because they were afraid he might tell his brother who they were.”
“Paxton?” I said.
“Yes. Stop it. Anyway, I pressed him a little more about Poe, if he had much contact with him, and he said that he did. That they met just about every day and he was one of Poe’s most trusted associates.”
“He was probably just trying to impress you.”
“I thought that too. I think he was just sharing the gossip and rumors that always float in and around any big organization.”
“In any case, Poe wouldn’t be too happy with your Paxton telling a total stranger, especially a high roller like you, the company’s internal, intimate affairs.”
“I don’t think he was looking at me as a stranger. We even shared a kiss.”
“Alex!”
“On the cheek. When I left, I thought it might open him up even more later when we speak.”
“You’re really taking your job seriously.”
“I like being a whale.”
I leaned in for a kiss on her lips, but she angled her mouth away and, seeing me frown, reached up and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“That’s it? Me and Paxton only get a kiss on the cheek?”
“He’s been nicer to me than you have lately.”
There it was. The reason I wanted to take her to Hawaii to work things out, to make up for whatever I’d done or not done. Before this whole mess of a case careened out of control.
She reached up to caress my cheek with her fingers and said, “After this is over, we’ll talk.”
I nodded.
I had to shake thoughts of Paxton, the pit boss, away. He and I were only temporarily on an equal footing. That was going to change. But right now, I had to get back on point. I looked at her and said, “You’ve done amazing work. Really. I c
an’t thank you enough. Now I need to have a private chat with Jewel. Do you think you can get her up to this room?”
Alexandra picked up her phone and her shoulder bag from a mirrored table. She dug in the bag until she found a small purse, snapped it open, and withdrew a thick wad of cash. “I can spend all of this and Marsh won’t mind?” she asked, pursing her lips.
“Not at all.” It helped to be friends with a very rich guy, although Marsh was hoping for a reward from Poe for solving the case.
That was seeming less likely by the minute.
“I’ll do my best to get her up here,” Alexandra said.
“Sooner rather than later, you floozy you.”
The blond wig was a tad gaudy, but what really iced the cake was the short, red polka dot dress, the seamed stockings, and the high-heeled stiletto shoes. Definitely attention-getting garb. Not that Alexandra ever had much trouble catching the eye.
She smirked at me, kicked up her heel like a can-can dancer, and blew me a kiss before flouncing out of the room.
Thirty-Four
As I waited impatiently in the room, my head started pounding again, the pain ratcheting back toward the unbearable.
I downed two more of Marsh’s experimental pain killers and, again, they worked like a charm. In roughly ten minutes, the awful hammering inside my skull started to subside, and a euphoric feeling, an amalgam of vast love and personal invincibility, began to reshape my consciousness.
How could something this spectacularly mind-altering not be addictive, at least psychologically? I had a feeling that if the stuff ever made it through the FDA approval process, we were in for another epidemic of abuse and misuse just like with the opioid crisis.
But right then and there, I didn’t care one whit.
Time passed, ever so pleasantly. I kept having to bring my mind back to the reality and importance of the moment, trying to prepare myself for what I hoped would soon be a face-to-face meeting with Jewel Allen.
I tried to worry about what was happening between Alexandra and Jewel down in the casino.
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