The casino was in crisis mode. I’d made it downstairs before they sealed off the penthouse levels. It was easy enough to play the role of confused bystander. The patrons downstairs had heard nothing of the gunfire but the arrival of the police had things stirred up.
Still, I made it to the parking garage without incident.
I suspected they may have the exits sealed soon so I’d have to hurry.
“Waldo, open the trunk for me, will you?”
The trunk of the Boss popped open and the interior light came on. I took off my jacket and donned my shoulder holster, making sure my Stinger was secure. But when I went to don my jacket again, my earpiece fell out and landed on the ground. I heard Waldo say something through it but it was too faint to make out. I finished adjusting my jacket, then bent down to pick up the earpiece. “What are you saying, buddy?”
But the shadow that fell over me made me turn at the same time. I looked up just in time to see the gigantic meaty fist that hit me in the face. My head ricocheted off the roof of the car. Then the lights went out.
When I came to, I was bound in the back of some kind of cargo van. Smelled like dirty laundry. Probably because it was full of dirty laundry. A towel bearing the logo of the casino hotel had been tucked under my head and when I groaned and tried to rise, I found the towel was stained with my blood.
I could feel my pulse in my scalp.
“About time you woke up, you piece of shit.” Someone kicked me. I blinked and looked up to find Magic Max seated on an overturned five-gallon bucket of bleach.
The back door of the van was ajar. Parked somewhere dark, though Tommy the Tank blocked the view. I made out the sound of cicadas and frogs beyond him. Not much else. Wherever we were, it was remote. That didn’t bode well for my longevity.
“Where’s our fucking money?” Max punctuated the question with another kick to my gut.
I groaned. “No idea.”
Magic Max gave a chuckle. “You know I should have recognized you sooner. The night you were outside Foster’s place. The dog catcher. Only it was dark and I didn’t give a shit.” He was holding a chrome 44 Magnum Desert Eagle. He gestured with it. “But when I saw you inside the house? Then I remembered. Mister hero from the casino. Guess that sucker punch didn’t make you dead as I thought it would. Going to have to use something more reliable this time.”
My wrists were handcuffed behind me. I still had a chronometer on but no way to see or activate it. Not a lot of options. I squirmed but couldn’t move much. “What makes you think I have your money?”
“’Cause you were in the house, weren’t you. Foster walks in, he’s got the relocator. I go in to get it from him, and surprise surprise he ain’t got it no more. But who do I see? Mister Casino hero. Just standing there. So where is it?”
“You saw me leave when you shot me with the sucker punch. You know I don’t have it.”
“We done some research on you, Greyson Travers, private detective. Now I don’t care what your angle is. You knockin’ boots with Foster’s old lady or whatever, I don’t give a shit. I’m not losing no sleep over him being dead neither. But you’ve got money don’t belong to you and now it’s time to pay up.”
My brain was fuzzy. He wasn’t making sense.
“I didn’t take the money.”
“Well it wasn’t in the house, so where the hell is it?” Max pressed the Desert Eagle to my temple. “You tryin’ to tell me you roll up in there and pop our boy Foster and you don’t do nothin’ with the box? It was in that house.”
I blinked.
“Hold up. You think I killed Foster?”
“Took me by surprise, I don’t mind saying. Seeing how you pulled that hero act trying to keep me from shooting him. But I figure that’s for the benefit of the widow, huh? Make her think you ain’t the one who got rid of him.”
What? My head was pounding. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right.
“So . . . you’re saying you didn’t kill Foster,” I muttered.
“How could I kill him after you killed him? You think I go around putting extra holes in dead guys for the fun of it?” He gestured with the gun again.
My head was spinning and not just from the blood loss.
I’d been wrong. I’d been so wrong.
“You didn’t kill Foster,” I repeated. “You were just there to find the money.”
“And if you don’t got it, then I guess we got no more use for you. Tommy, get this piece of shit out of here.”
Tommy the Tank grabbed my ankles and dragged me backward out of the van till my feet hit the ground. He hauled me upright and held me still as Magic Max climbed out.
He wasn’t Foster’s killer. How had I been so blind?
Max lifted his chin. “You know why they call me Magic Max?”
“Because you make people disappear,” I said.
“Because I make people—” He glared at me. “Yeah, that’s right, asshole. I make chumps like you disappear.”
I shrugged. “You didn’t think I’d get that? You’re a mafia legbreaker. Not a hard leap. Maybe they should call you Captain Obvious.”
“Okay, wise guy. How you like this?” He threw a punch that snapped my head to the side. But I was expecting it. Too much arm and not enough body in the swing. Nothing like Tommy’s punch. I blinked a few times and was over the worst of it.
“Tommy, take this piece of shit over to the ditch and shoot his ass.”
“Why I gotta do it?” Tommy moaned. “I like this gun.”
“Then you should be excited to use it.”
“’Cause then I gotta chuck it in the river. I’m tired of throwing my shit in the river. Maybe this time I use your gun and we throw that in the river.”
“My gun? My gun is brand new. On account of this asshole taking my last one.” Magic Max drew the chromed Desert Eagle from his shoulder holster. “This is a thing of beauty right here. Not throwing my gun in the river. You nuts?”
“Then why didn’t you bring another gun? I’m not throwing mine in the river neither.”
“If I might offer a suggestion,” I said. “You can use my gun. I won’t be needing it after.”
Magic Max stared at me, then at Tommy the Tank. “So use his fucking gun.” He gestured toward me. “You need the marks to tell you how to do your job now?”
Tommy shrugged and walked to the passenger door of the van. He came back with my shoulder rig, hung it on the open rear door of the van and pulled my Stinger 1911 from the molded holster. In his hand it looked small. He lumbered back to me and waved the gun. “Okay, let’s go.”
I walked past the van and toward the bend in the road ahead. We were still a dozen yards from the guardrail when he called to me. “That’s far enough.”
I kept going but looked back over my shoulder. “Not going to tell you how to do your job the way your partner does, but if we go up around the corner a little there’s more shrubbery and such. I fall down the ditch here some biker will see it right away. Up there? Hell, that’ll take ’em days to find a body and you won’t even have to drag me down the hill. Probably roll right into that scrub brush.”
Tommy peered toward the far end of the guardrail.
“Plus, if you pop me here, Max’ll think you’re lazy. Then you’ll have to drag me. I ate a heavy lunch.”
“Just shut your mouth for once and keep walking.”
By the time we reached the far side of the guardrail, we were just out of range of the car’s headlights. I walked to the edge of the shoulder. I wasn’t wrong. If I rolled down this hill and wasn’t already dead, the fall would kill me. It was steep enough that someone would have to be looking almost straight down to notice a body.
I turned around to face Tommy the Tank. He was breathing heavily from the walk but trying not to show it.
“You stick around a while, maybe you add some cardio to your day.”
“Shut up.” He leveled my Stinger at my head. “You got any last words?”
“You have my phone? I want you to record them.”
“What?”
“My last words. I need you to record them for me on my phone. You just push the red button on the camera app.”
“I know how to record a video.”
“Okay, so do it. You can show it to your boss later to prove you shot me.”
He begrudgingly fished in his pockets for my phone and opened the camera. He held it up. “Okay, what’s this important message?”
I looked directly into the camera. “I’m ready, Waldo.”
Tommy the Tank’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re a weird dude, you know that?” He tossed my phone to the ground, pointed the gun at my face and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“The hell?” he muttered and checked the gun. He popped the magazine out and back in again and chambered another round. The previous round ejected onto the asphalt and hit with a ping.
He pointed the gun at my face again and squeezed.
Nothing.
“What kind of piece of shit gun is this?”
“One not made in the dark ages,” I said.
While he was still focused on the gun, I took two quick steps forward and kicked him hard in the groin. “Mother fu. . .” he managed as he doubled over. Then he finally went for his own gun. I backpedaled, angling sideways to the very edge of the road. He dropped the Stinger and switched his Ruger to his dominant hand. He almost had it aimed when a black shadow erupted from the darkness and the front end of the Boss caught him mid thigh. Tommy the Tank rolled partway up the hood before the car braked hard and he was launched forward amid a squeal of rubber. Tommy’s lower body clipped the edge of the guardrail before cartwheeling over the edge of the ravine. He hit the slope of the hillside at least once on the way down, but by the time I got myself to the edge to look over, he was sprawled at the bottom of the slope with his neck broken and legs splayed out at an odd angle.
I turned back to the car. “Thanks buddy. Electric drive system comes in handy, huh?” Waldo flashed the running lights once in response. I scooted around to the passenger side of the car, pried the door open and managed to access the glove box by backing into the car butt first. I located my lock pick set in the glove box. I had a few spare handcuff keys floating around but opted for a shim instead, sliding the thin strip of metal between the pawl of one locking mechanism, then the other.
Ten seconds. Not my fastest time but now wasn’t the occasion to mope about it. I walked around the front of the car again and Waldo backed the Boss up, revealing my Stinger on the ground where Tommy the Tank had dropped it.
It unlocked in my hand the instant I picked it up. I also retrieved my phone.
Magic Max had to be wondering what had become of us by now and as I strode a few yards back around the bend, he was just visible in the passenger side of the cargo van. The door was open and the dome light was on, limiting his night vision and lighting him up like the target he was. I caught faint snippets of rock music. I raised my gun and kept it aimed at his head as I walked. I was still forty yards away. He hadn’t looked up. Thirty-five yards.
He must have sensed something. He turned the van radio down, squinted even more than usual. Should have his eyes checked.
Thirty yards. I only had nine rounds in the Stinger. He had cover. Patience. He climbed out of the passenger seat. “Tommy, what the hell is taking so—”
I squeezed the trigger. The shot was low and left but caught the edge of his trapezius muscle between his neck and right shoulder. He shrieked and ducked behind the door as my second shot went where his head had just been.
A vehicle door could stop a round from this distance so I waited him out. A moment later his hand appeared with a pistol in it. He squeezed off a few rounds, spraying wildly and nothing coming close. The gun was a cannon but he couldn’t see anything.
A roar erupted behind me as the gas engine on the Boss came to life. The car’s tires squealed as it tore from its position behind me and flew past. Magic Max peeked his head up over the window frame just in time to see the car coming. He shrieked again and dove into the interior of the van just before the Boss’s front bumper clipped the passenger door and slammed it onto whatever part of Max was still sticking out. My guess was a foot.
He howled.
Waldo took the Boss past the van, then torqued into an aggressive one-eighty, the rear tires sliding over the damp pavement. The car ended in an angry posture, front tires turned and headlights illuminating the van.
The top of Max’s head appeared in the vicinity of the steering wheel and I squeezed off another shot. The bullet passed through the windshield and tore apart the seat cushion but missed his head.
He shouted from the interior. “Don’t shoot! We can work this out!” He’d somehow managed to scramble into the driver’s seat. The ignition turned over.
I took careful aim and shot out the right front tire.
Max tried to drive off anyway but Waldo was there. He used the bumper of the Boss to nudge the rear fender of the van. Combined with the blown front tire, it was enough to make the van careen into the guardrail.
Max fell out of the passenger side of the van and tried to make a run for it but the engine on the Boss snarled. Waldo gave every impression he was going to run him over.
“Drop the gun!” I shouted.
Max turned with his hands up and tossed the pistol away. The collar of his shirt was soaked with blood.
“You won’t see me no more, you hear me? You let me go, you'll never see me again.”
“I don’t believe you. The only reason I’m keeping you alive is that I need you to deliver a message. Tell Roman Amadeus that I’m going to find that money but he won’t see a cent of it. It’ll go right back to the casino where it belongs. Here on out, you stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. We’ll call it square. You understand?”
Max narrowed his eyes. “Back to the casino? You ain’t gonna keep it?”
I shook my head.
“I can live with that,” Max said. He lowered his arms.
“Get the hell out of here.”
He reached slowly for his shirt sleeve, rolled it up and entered something on the keypad of his Temprovibe. He gave me one last leering grin and vanished.
I lowered my gun and groaned my way over to the Boss.
My face hurt.
Climbing inside, I took the time to belt myself into the five-point harness. “Looks like I owe you another one, Waldo.”
“Does this mean I’m getting a raise?”
“I wasn’t aware I was paying you. Figured you did all this out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I have no heart.”
“More than some I’ve known.”
“Would you like to go home?”
I stared out the windshield at the battered laundry van. “This isn’t over yet. Max didn’t kill Foster Phillips.”
“If Max wasn’t the killer, the logical assumption would be that Foster Phillips did commit suicide.”
The starry black sky outside seemed to be taunting me with its vast expanse of nothingness. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Are you concerned about telling Mrs. Phillips you were wrong?”
“No. I just can’t shake the feeling there’s something I’m missing.”
“You think your feelings are something of value?”
“Just do me a favor and pull up the images from my sunglasses cam at Foster’s time of death.”
Waldo displayed the video on the dash. It started playing. My scan of the room. Magic Max showing up, blasting me with the sucker punch. Me hitting the floor.
I played it again.
The scene unfolded once more. Foster seated at his tidy desk. A loose pen cap. Where was the pen? Computer open. The hole in his head. Gun on the floor. Max came in, shot me. I hit the ground.
Played it again. This time when the scene opened to the shot of Foster at his empty desk I sat up so fast the seat harness caught me.
“Are you all right, sir?” Waldo asked.
“It wasn’t something I was missing, Waldo. It’s something that was missing.”
I stepped on the clutch and reached for the gear shifter.
“You have a destination in mind?”
“Damn right I do. Because I just solved this case.”