The Freeport Robbery Page 14

  “We’ve had two incidents in twenty-four hours. This must not continue.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He ended the phone call, but he was still holding the phone in his hand. There was no good reason to put this off. He called Denison’s hotel suite. “Mr. Denison? It’s Mr. Chen.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “There’s been an incident at the hospital involving your wife.”

  “My wife? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “It appears that someone tried to take her away.”

  “Someone tried to kidnap her? I warned you. I told you she needed protection.”

  “Mr. Denison, she’s fine. She hasn’t been harmed. There’s a security officer on the way to her room as we speak.”

  “I’m going over there.”

  “Mr. Denison, I’m very sorry I didn’t take your concerns more seriously. We’ve never had an incident like this before. Did you call your own people?”

  “Yeah. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “They will have our full cooperation. Mr. Denison, I’m sorry about all of this. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Can I look at the security camera footage from the streets to see if anyone was following Rickover?”

  “Just in case his killer might be after your wife? Our cameras aren’t set up to facilitate such a search, Mr. Denison, but if you want to view the video footage, we’d be happy to accommodate you.”

  Ron used the keycard to open the door to Rickover’s hotel room. It was a standard room with one queen-size bed. The curtains were partially open, and the bed was made. A few shirts and pants hung in the closet. He went through the pockets. They were empty. He glanced in the bathroom, but he didn’t see a shaving kit. One of the drawers in the cabinet under the TV contained socks and underwear. He went back to the closet, pulled out the suitcase, and opened it. Nothing. He got down on his hands and knees in front of the room safe. Just another device designed to keep the cleaning staff honest.

  He had it open in a few minutes. Inside the safe he found a file folder. He took it to the table by the window and sat down to go through it. On top was a two-page summary outlining Rickover’s scheme to implicate Philips in the theft of the Cellini casket, with the intent of getting access to his freeport locker at the Nohamay Mountain Vault. Poor bastard. Hard to believe he really thought such a simple plan would fool a gangster like Philips.

  Ron looked at the next document. It was a gym membership agreement for the hotel fitness center and spa. With it was a gym pass, which had what appeared to be a locker number and locker combination written on it. Rickover didn’t play sports—not that Ron knew of—and he definitely didn’t work out. Ron stood up and looked carefully around the room. He’d checked everywhere, but just in case, he lifted the edges of the mattress and felt underneath. Nothing.

  Ron took the elevator down to the mezzanine level. A young woman wearing designer yoga wear, her brown hair pulled up on top of her head, stood behind the counter at the entry to the spa. He showed her the gym pass. She input the member number into her computer and gave him a nod. He pushed through the door into the empty men’s locker room, found the locker, and entered the combination. On the shelves in the locker were a towel, gym clothes, cross trainers, and a gym bag. He unzipped the gym bag. Inside were several banded bundles of one hundred dollar bills. Jackpot.

  He stuck his hand into the bag and flipped through the bundles. Ten, which meant $100,000. Had to be Denison’s money. Part of the physical evidence of the casket changing hands. What was up with Rickover? How could he be sure the money wouldn’t disappear from the locker? Why had he been so confident he could take down Philips? Where was his backup? Had Mosley been in on it with him? And if so, why had she folded? Or had she really thought he’d gotten on the plane and was out of harm’s way? He zipped up the gym bag and pulled it out of the locker. The money was his now. He nodded to the receptionist on his way out of the spa.

  Denison sat in his wife’s room, holding her boney hand. Nothing had changed. She was exactly the same as she had been yesterday and the day before that and the day before that: yellow skin; sunken eyes; shallow, raspy breath. The herbs and supplements weren’t helping at all. Even he had to finally admit it. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring her here. Maybe the kids had been right. But he just couldn’t give up if there were even the slightest chance. How could he live without her? What was he going to do? He sighed, and laid her hand down. As he got up to leave, Dr. O’Brian rapped on the door and entered the room.

  “Mr. Denison. I heard you were here. I just wanted to say how sorry we are about the incident.”

  “Stacey looks the same.”

  “We examined her. Being moved into the hallway didn’t affect her.”

  “And her prognosis?”

  “Would you like to sit down out at the nurses’ station?”

  He shook his head.

  “When you first contacted us, and we looked at her records, we felt we had a thirty percent chance of being able to help her. Unfortunately, sometimes medical science isn’t strong enough to overcome a particular illness.”

  He started to tremble. “So you’re saying that she…”

  Dr. O’Brian put her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How much time?”

  “I don’t know. No one can know. Soon.”

  He glanced back at his wife, and then he looked past Dr. O’Brian to the open door. His eyes were wet with tears.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down?” she asked.

  “No, I’ve got somewhere I need to go.”

  He walked past the female security guard sitting in a chair by the door to Stacey’s room without really looking at her. He needed to stop thinking. He needed something to do so that he could stop thinking about the decisions he’d made. He raised his arm and blotted his tears with his sleeve. He’d really known that Stacey was going to die for some time; he just hadn’t been ready to accept it. Dr. O’Brian had merely confirmed what he really knew in his heart. It didn’t change anything. He could still protect Stacey and make sure that she was comfortable.

  Someone had tried to kidnap her—maybe someone who was part of that Crenshaw gang. Or was that Ron? Was it all just a ploy to get Stacey a security detail? He didn’t know. He needed something to do. There was nothing more he could do at the hospital, but there was still the surveillance footage to look at. Maybe he could find out if Mosley was working with the Crenshaw gang. He could do that. That was something he could do—something that could occupy his mind so he wouldn’t have to think about the choices he’d made and the choices he’d have to make.

  Ron squinted against the light reflected off the pavement as he came out of the side door from the lobby of the Great Circle Casino Hotel with the gym bag in his hand. It was time to set up plan B. They needed to be ready to run if they couldn’t get the casket, and now they had the money to make it happen. He turned left up a side street and walked toward the old part of town where the permanent residents lived. In a potholed gas station parking lot, he saw an old Camry with faded red paint and a cracked right front bumper. There was a For Sale sign on the windshield. Maybe he was on a lucky streak. He went into the gas station. The glass front door was smudged with greasy fingerprints and a thick layer of dust covered the counters. The window air conditioner rumbled softly. A teenaged Native American wearing a black tank top with a picture of Jimi Hendrix on the front sat on a stool behind the counter, and a white man with bad skin and a gray ponytail and mustache, his red check flannel shirt rolled up his forearms, sat in a folding chair up against the far wall.

  “How much for the car?” Ron asked.

  The teenager looked at the old man. The old man sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Haven’t really given it much thought. What’s it worth to you?”

  “Does it run?”

  He nodded.

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sp; “You have a clear title?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Five thousand.”

  The old man chuckled. “I don’t guess you’ve ever bought a car around these parts before. I’d take twenty for it.”

  “How old is it?”

  “It’s nine years old.”

  “Nine years old? I’d be Santa Claus giving you ten thousand. Bet you haven’t done any maintenance on it.”

  The old man stood up and spat on his hand. “Ten thousand it is.”

  “Eight thousand.”

  He shook his head. “Ten thousand.”

  “I’m bringing it back if it doesn’t run right.”

  The old man shrugged. “Mister, you won’t ever see me again.”

  Ron shook the old man’s hand. They went out to the Camry. The old man got out the keys, sat down in the driver’s seat with the door open, and started the engine. It roared to life on the first turn of the key. Ron looked inside. The upholstery was badly faded from the sun on the passengers’ side, as if the car had always been parked in the same place, and there were cigarette burns on the seat. The old man glanced at him. Ron nodded. The old man got out, took the car title out of his billfold, unfolded it onto the hood of the car, and signed it over to Ron. Ron took the title and compared the VIN to the metal plate on the Camry. “Let me see your driver’s license.”

  Ron compared the name on the license with the name on the title. “Looks good.” Ron reached into the gym bag and pulled out a bundle of one hundred dollar bills.

  The old man smiled broadly, revealing a set of brown-stained teeth. “Thank you kindly.”

  “You bet.”

  The old man walked back into the gas station. Ron got out his phone. “Nicole? I’ve got some good news.”

  “Really?”

  He told her about finding Rickover’s $100,000 and then tripping over their getaway vehicle.

  “That’s great. We deserve a few breaks. You going to put a starter disconnect on the car?” she asked.

  “Don’t you think that’s overkill?”

  “It would be crazy if we were running to the car with Philips’s guys behind us and the car was gone.”

  “Our luck has been pretty bad lately, hasn’t it? I’ll see what I can do.”

  Ron walked back into the gas station. “Is there an auto parts store in town?”

  The old man nodded. “Yep. Taber’s, over on Sundog Road. West end of town. They can do about anything.”

  Nicole stood in the casino by a pillar between one of the bars and the blackjack tables. Grace Mosley was at an otherwise empty blackjack table, sitting on a stool and talking with the dealer, a full-figured blonde in a knee-length black skirt, a white shirt unbuttoned to show her cleavage, and a red, black-fringed vest. They weren’t touching, and they definitely weren’t flirting, but something about their interaction seemed intimate.

  When Mosley got up to leave, Nicole thought she saw—what was it? Something about the dealer’s eyes, the way she laid her hand on the edge of the table, the way she exhaled. Nicole’s eyes flitted back and forth between Mosley and the dealer as Mosley walked away. The dealer watched Mosley until she was out of sight, but Mosley never turned to look back. Could it be? Could the blackjack dealer be in love with Mosley? And what was Mosley doing about it? She’d slept with Rickover—maybe even helped him wreck his marriage. Was she sleeping with this woman as well?

  Nicole trailed after Mosley, staying well behind her so she wouldn’t be noticed, but when Mosley started down the hallway to the hotel, Nicole stopped and turned around. Something was going on with the blackjack dealer—something that wasn’t casino business. Maybe she and Mosley were lovers. Maybe they were just friends. Maybe they were just both connected to Philips or the Crenshaw crew. Whatever it was, it seemed that the dealer might be in a part of Mosley’s life that she and Ron didn’t know anything about, and that part of Mosley’s life, if it existed, would provide an excellent place for her to hide the casket.

  Nicole took a seat at the bar where she had a good view of the blackjack tables, ordered a glass of merlot, and asked for a menu. She’d have some late lunch and chat up the bartender. She needed to know when the casino work shifts changed and where the employees’ entrance was located if she were going to follow the dealer home.

  Ron found Taber’s Auto Parts between a QuickGas and a McDonalds in the last strip mall at the west edge of town. A long time ago, he’d been taught a trick for disabling a car. It was probably not necessary, but Nicole was right, the way this deal had been going, a little paranoia was probably in order. The parking lot was empty. A bell rang when Ron went through the front door. An unshaven man with a ragged mustache, wearing blue coveralls with the name Jay Taber embroidered on the pocket, stood behind the counter. “Can I help you?”

  “I need a remote car starter with the starter disconnect.”

  “Really? We don’t have much call for them around here. Folks mainly need them in cold weather.”

  “But do you have one in stock and can you install it?”

  “Let me check my inventory.” He shifted to a grease-smudged desktop computer on the counter and keyed in the information. “No remote car starter.”

  Ron started to turn away.

  “Hold on, buddy.” Taber clicked through several pages before he looked up. “Okay, I think I’ve got you hooked up. I’ve got a car alarm system that includes a remote car starter. Last year’s model. It’ll cost you a little more than the remote car starter.”

  “But does it have the starter disconnect?”

  He squinted at the specifications. “Yeah, sure does.”

  “Can you install it for me?”

  He peered out the front windows. “What you driving?”

  “A 2007 Camry.”

  “I can get you fixed up, no problem. Pull around into the bay in the back.”

  Ron sat on a folding chair nursing a Coke while Taber installed and tested the car alarm system. Then he drove back toward the hotel, circling around until he found a supervised parking deck that appeared to be mostly full. He waved at the uniformed attendant as he drove in. On the second level he found a spot in full view of the security cameras. He popped the trunk and looked inside. There was a rusty white metal box labeled First Aid, fast-food wrappers and used to-go cups, a couple of wadded-up oil-stained blankets, and a car jack and tire iron, but no spare tire. He pushed the gym bag containing the $90,000 down into the wheel well where the spare should have been and set the wheel well cover back in place before he adjusted the junk to make it look as if no one had opened the wheel well. He slammed the trunk lid, locked the car, set the car alarm and starter disconnect with the remote, and walked toward the stairwell.

  Then he stopped, turned around, and looked at the car. Perfectly camouflaged. No one was going to bother that beater. It wasn’t worth the trouble. Every other car on the deck was more valuable. Now he and Nicole were no longer dependent on the airport, and if anyone did try to steal the car, they’d have a hell of a time trying to figure out why it wouldn’t start. He continued to the stairwell and came out on a side street one block over from their hotel. As he walked toward the hotel entrance, he noticed two of the Crenshaw crew—the guy with the blond crew cut and the black guy with the goatee—moving toward him.

  Nicole was standing by a parking deck on the shaded side of the street across from the employees’ entrance to the casino. The blonde blackjack dealer—Clare, according to the bartender—no longer wearing her fringed vest, walked out onto the sidewalk talking with a redheaded man dressed in a cook’s white jacket. They walked to the corner together, and then Clare crossed the street and walked north into a residential area of small houses with dusty, grassless yards. Trash cans were out at the curb as if it were trash day. In some yards, small children played on swing sets or dug in the sand with beach tools. In others, wash hung out on clotheslines to dry. Nicole followed the dealer three blocks to a row of stucco one-story condos with tile-red doors. Clare
went into condo number 893 D. Nicole walked by the front of the condo and continued down to the end of the row. Then she got out her phone and called Ron. His phone rang—eight, nine, ten rings—and then turned over to voice mail.

  “Ron,” she said, “I’ve got a lead, I think. Call me as soon as you can.”

  Denison sat at a computer monitor in the security office of the city offices building. Wounded-Bear sat beside him, going over some paperwork spread out on the desk in front of him and occasionally looking over at the on-street security camera footage that Denison was viewing. Denison had already looked at the footage from the last two days at three important intersections and found nothing. Now he was looking at the footage of the main intersection between the casino and the airport. This footage, like the others, was grainy and most people appeared indistinct as they moved through the intersection with the walk light, because the system was only designed to give an overall view of the intersections to aid in traffic control and accident response.

  Denison stopped the film for a better look whenever he thought he’d found something. He’d seen Mosley, or a person he thought was Mosley, and he’d seen some men dressed in business casual wear who might have been in the Crenshaw crew, but he hadn’t seen them together, and he hadn’t seen Rickover even once. He rubbed his eyes. Thus far, this exercise had been a complete waste of time. All that was left was today’s footage. Rickover wouldn’t be on it, but he had nothing better to do.

  He saw four figures who he knew were Mosley and Ron and Nicole and himself. Then he saw two men dressed business casual, one black and one white, taking someone through the intersection in the direction of the airport. He squinted. Was it Ron? He shifted his eyes to see if Wounded-Bear were watching and then closed the computer program.

  “Find anything?” Wounded-Bear asked, without looking up from the report he was marking up with a pencil.

  “No.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. Anything else I can do for you?”