Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) (8 page)

NINE

There’s Lick Skillet, Alabama, and then there’s Lickskillet, Alabama. Let me apologize on behalf of the state I was born and raised in for the confusion.

There’s a place called the Lick Skillet Pizza Barn and Auction House at the intersection of Butter and Egg Road and Charity Lane in Hazel Green, Alabama, in Madison County. Alabamians mistakenly call the location Lick Skillet. It’s not. It’s Hazel Green. So it gets confused with the real Lickskillet in DeKalb County, about ninety miles east. The one I’m interested in is the latter, the home of Red, Missy, and Quinn Jennings. Lickskillet is so northeast, it’s a jump and a hop from both the Georgia and Tennessee state lines. The closest grocery store is seven miles of mountain pass down to Fort Payne, home of the Country Music Hall of Fame sensations, aptly named Alabama. Surely those guys are retired by now.

Lickskillet is listed as a “populated place,” as opposed to a city or township, and backs into the Little River Canyon National Preserve. The area is dense, woodsy, mountainous, almost uninhabited, and a river runs through it, making it a great place to grow Christmas trees. (Right?) Honestly, Google Earth showed three things in, near, or around Lickskillet: the Jennings’ mansion, the Jennings’ Christmas tree farms, and the Jennings’ small private landing strip and huge airplane hangar. You can barely see any of it through the forest terrain. The Jennings’ lived way, way off the beaten path. And their son Quinn was on the other side of the door smoking a bowl with Little Sanders and between them, what looked to be a hooker.

If I lost my job over this, and I very well may, Baylor was going down with me.

I’m not so shocked that the boys were smoking pot, even at Thomas Sanders’s tender age, I was more shocked about the girl, and I was horrified they were in our offices. Under no circumstances should Little Sanders have the codes to get in and out of our offices. When I left him safe and secure on the sofa two Pop Tarts ago, I left him in a fortress he couldn’t exit. I know I certainly didn’t give him the code to get out, or back in, for that matter, or for elevator access, also supposedly secure, and I know neither No Hair nor Fantasy had passed out passcodes either. That only left Baylor. Then I remembered what a sneaky little shit Little Sanders is. Maybe I’d let Baylor have three seconds to defend himself before I killed him. Just in case.

Our offices had never been breached, until now.

Did the Jennings kid get a good look at me when I threw open the door? Did the hooker? If they did, did it matter, since Quinn wouldn’t recognize me in the casino, because he wouldn’t
be
in the casino? And the hooker wasn’t in much of a position to point fingers. Where and how did they get weed? How much dirt were Little Sanders and I going to have on each other before this was over? How long was I going to stay locked up in here contemplating my disastrous future? Wasn’t it about time for these two boys to go back to school?

#Furious

*     *     *

@STRIKE_TEAM Countdown till GO—3 days. #StrikeItRich

*     *     *

“So you’re in her good graces.”

“I think.”

It was two in the morning. Fantasy and I were parked across the street from Elspeth Raiffe’s apartment on Cedar Lane Road. Watching. Waiting. On, so far, nothing.

“Honestly, Fantasy,” I said, “it’s simple. Take good pictures, write clever little captions, make slide shows, put it to music, find a kid who can put it all together, then blast it out to everyone.” I trained my thermal-imaging monocular on Elspie’s bedroom again, and again, she was still passed out in the bed. Sawing logs. (#Jealous) She hadn’t moved a muscle since we’d arrived at midnight. “Every time I did it today, she texted me little cartoons of fireworks, party hats, and smiley faces wearing sunglasses. So I think I’m good.”

“It’s the new way to communicate,” Fantasy said. “We’re going to have to get onboard.”

“I’m already overboard.”

“It is irritating,” she said. “The phone dinging every three minutes.”

“Tomorrow, she wants me to stop bothering Strike employees and start bothering Strike players.”

“I don’t want to be you tomorrow.” She stretched her long legs. “I want to be me tomorrow.” Fantasy had to show up for Bellissimo Barre in just a few short hours, but after that, she got to go home and sleep all day. Her reward for accompanying me tonight. I didn’t get a reward for accompanying her.

“It’s all set up on something called sweet hoot,” I said. “All the little movies of Strike hors d’oeuvres, those chairs, and Baylor’s boots? All done.”

“Brilliant.” Fantasy’s head popped up. “Yo. Car.”

A dirty white Ford Fusion pulled in and parked in front of Hashtag’s ground-level apartment.

“Why would someone drive that car if they didn’t have to?”

“Go get yourself a new car, girl,” I said to the shadowy figure. “You look like you work for the government.”

The woman climbed out and slung a large bag over her shoulder. She paused to beep the car door locks, then walked at a pace and posture suggesting she’d been on a road crew for three shifts.

“They’re roommates.” Fantasy said as the girl worked the lock on the door to Elspie’s apartment.

“Maybe.”

We jumped a little when Elspie’s bedside lamp lit. Her fuzzy red image crossed the room to meet the other fuzzy red image in the front room.

“Should we be watching this?”

“If you can’t handle it,” I said, “don’t look. And don’t discriminate.”

“Are you really talking to a black woman about discrimination, Davis?”

It never crossed my mind that anyone would discriminate against Fantasy. Ever.

“If you want to talk to someone about discrimination, Davis, you go talk to Elspie.”

Fantasy’s right. I should be ashamed. No telling what Elspie dealt with.

One thermal image sat on one side of the room. The other blurry orange blob sat on the other.

“Did we bring the bionic ear?”

“No,” I said. “That thing doesn’t work anyway. It’s just a bunch of murmuring and static.”

“We need to learn how to read lips.”

I pulled my monocular down and turned to her. “How would we read their lips? Press our noses up against the window?”

“I guess you’re right,” Fantasy said. “I’m going to press my eyelids up against my eyeballs and rest for a minute. You watch them.”

The two women sat across from each other, talking, I presume, for twenty minutes. I’d never seen Hashtag Elspie sit still for that long. Finally, the lights were out, including Fantasy’s. “Hey.” I gave her a gentle prod. “Wake up and take me home.”

“Who’s sick?” Fantasy’s head spun around and around. “Reggie?” Reggie is Fantasy’s husband. Reginald. Reginald Erb. He’s a freelance sports writer. He covers a lot of New Orleans Saints stuff.

I patted her arm. “You’re gonna be okay. Start the car. Drive.”

I would run the blonde girl’s plates after I got some sleep to see if she could shed any light on who gun-toting Elspeth Raiffe might be. So far, it looked like Elspie was simply one of those people who carried a gun. There were no records of her being the victim of a crime, no affiliation with anything radical, and she wasn’t from Tennessee. (Always packing, those Tennessee people.) There’s a slice of society that carries guns simply because they can. For no apparent or discernible reason. (I do. I carry a gun. But I have a discernable reason—work. Social Media Directors, on the other hand, aren’t on any discernible-reason gun list.) The first layer of Elspeth’s background check came up clean. The second layer, again, nothing popped. It was the third round of Who’s Elspeth that raised all the flags, because there was no third layer, and that’s why we were parked outside her apartment in the middle of the night instead of at our respective homes in our nice warm beds.

The Social Security number Elspie was using had only been hers for four years. It had been in the system for sixteen years, used by three different individuals during that time. Digging deeper, I learned that her beaming parents, the same ones photographed with young Elspie at the Grand Canyon and teenage Elspie at Six Flags Over Texas, didn’t exist. Nor did the University of Kentucky have anything at all on Hashtag Elspeth but a bachelor’s degree in communication. Apparently, she’d walked into the Chancellor’s office, gotten her degree, and walked right back out. There wasn’t an ounce of proof she’d lived in Lexington, taken a class, attended a basketball game, or eaten even one package of ramen noodles. Which warranted a stakeout.

Fantasy was driving two miles an hour. At this rate, I’d get to bed as the sun was rising.

“How’d we get so busy all of a sudden?” she asked. “What if it had worked out and you had gotten married and you were off on your honeymoon?”

“Well, it didn’t, we can’t, and I’m not.”

“When are you planning on taking care of that?”

“What’s today?” I asked. “Tuesday?”

“No, that was yesterday.”

“I’m going tomorrow,” I said. “First thing.”

“Wednesday?”

“No.” I looked at her. “Are you awake? If this isn’t Tuesday, then it’s Wednesday. That makes tomorrow Thursday.”

“And what’s next?”

Now she was scaring me. “Friday?”

“Strike it Rich!”

I dragged into my condo as if I’d worked four straight shifts on a road crew. It had been a gruelingly long day. I dealt with the pot-smoking teenagers and a high-as-a-kite hooker, then attacked Baylor, who, as it turned out, was off the hook for this one. It was Bianca who’d given Quinn Jennings access to our Super Secret office, and according to Baylor, Missy and Red Jennings (hang onto your hat)
hired
the hooker to babysit their son. But it was Bianca who’d allowed our Super Secret offices to be violated. “It’s your fault, David, because
you
didn’t answer the phone.” Blame David. All the time, blame David. “What was I supposed to do? I’m homeless! I can’t entertain
children
.”

What. A. Day. I woke up with the dark cloud of my PRIOR EXISTING MARRIAGE looming over me, which I’d worried about all the way through Bellissimo Ballet (#Overslept! #Sorry @ElspieBabie) Then I’d met with and still didn’t confess to my boss about the alleged shooting in the lobby. Next it was Bianca, who demanded I sufficiently scare the living daylights out of the incompetent home furnishings people or find myself a new job.

On to her pot-smoking teenage son letting strangers and hookers in our offices, which interrupted me trying to get divorced, then the next eight hours devoted to gun-slinging Hashtag Elspie. At the end of the day, which was well into the beginning of the next day, when I finally walked in my own door, I undressed in a trail down the hall. I climbed into the bed beside sleepy Bradley and vowed to never get out of the bed again.

I got out of the bed.

I ran the Ford Fusion plates. The blonde’s name was Brianna Strother. She drove a government-issue looking car for a very good reason, a reason that might shed some light on why her roommate packed a pistol. Brianna was FATF. She worked for the Federal Action Task Force.

*     *     *

@LuckyStrikePlayers #WelcomeToTheBellissimo #WhereDreams #ComeTrue #StrikeItRich Let the winning begin in 2 days!

*     *     *

No Hair and I had coffee at his place Thursday morning before the chickens were up and before I took off for enemy territory. His office was an extension of his physical person—large, threatening, and neat as a pin. He had a circular electric tie rack beside his desk, and everything smelled like his car, leather and spice. I’ve never been a guest in No Hair’s home, but I’d venture a guess that the Man Cave Business stops right here. No Hair’s wife, Grace, is porcelain-doll feminine, and I bet somebody has to leave his big shoes at the door and use little doily coasters under his drinks.

I didn’t frequent No Hair’s office. Maybe once, twice a month. Fantasy and I were careful not to be seen in the same disguise in the same place twice, and it was easier for No Hair to come to us downstairs in our basement offices, where we didn’t have to hide and had more room, or for all of us to meet in Mr. Sanders’s office when he was out of town. Mr. Sanders had been way
in
town for several weeks in a row, which was nice. Things ran smoothly with him at the helm.

He and Bianca were leaving the property soon to take Little Sanders to Million Air, the private airport in Gulfport, and see him off for his return to school. Thank the Lord. Bianca had come
this
close to asking me to dress up as her and say goodbye to her son at the airport.
This
close.

No, I didn’t rat on Little Sanders. To Mr. Sanders, anyway. I’m still avoiding Mr. Sanders lest I get roped into another conversation about the shootout in the lobby business. I ripped Little Sanders a new one, started ten sentences with, “If I
ever
…”, then tossed it to No Hair. Let No Hair throw his little butt under the bus, because to my knowledge, Little Sanders didn’t have any dirt on No Hair.  Thomas didn’t rat me out on the small gun incident, or for slamming his head into a car hood, or for making him piggyback me up twenty flights of stairs, so I didn’t go straight to his dad with his juvenile delinquency.

Now we were even, and all bets were off. I don’t know if No Hair turned him in or not. I do know if No Hair threatened him with his eyeballs, the Laser Lock, Little Sanders won’t even unclench for five years, much less burn a fat one with a prostitute.

After sleeping until noon on Wednesday, then spending the rest of the day in control central hacking through NSA-worthy firewalls to put these suspicious players we were suddenly surrounded by in their respective places, I was going over everything with No Hair before I ducked out for a divorce.

“There are two things I’m concerned with, No Hair.” Actually, at the moment there were three, but we’d had all the conversation about my marital status I wanted to. I was dressed in Social Media Assistant wear, so I could go straight to my Strike job when I returned. My hair was Chocolate Covered Bing Cherry and my eyes were, unfortunately, purple. I was going back to my old boring green and blue camouflage contacts as soon as this deal was over. Boring was easier than all the stares I was receiving. Lip-curled backing-up staring. My appearance was supposed to deflect attention, not invite it.

“Let’s hear it.” No Hair’s tie was a Sudoku puzzle.

I flipped through my notes and passed him one of the photographs Fantasy had taken several days ago during orientation.  “These women are sisters, No Hair, Missy Jennings and Cassidy Banking Williams.”

“Not good.”

A casino employee and their immediate family are never good.

“I picked up Cassidy’s trail ten years ago. She’s thirty-two years old and lived in Vegas for ten years before moving to Biloxi with the Strike team a few months ago. She’s from northeast Alabama, born and bred. It looks like she took a weekend trip to Vegas when she graduated from college and never came home. She got a job at the Montecito as a cashier, and worked her way up to cage manager. A few years later she was promoted to in-house accounts, which is when the Jennings began visiting her in Vegas.”

No Hair’s chair squealed. “So far, I’m not overly impressed.”

“Maybe this will help.”

I passed him a mini spreadsheet. “Look at the Jennings’s reported income before they started going to Vegas. Then after.” Jennings Tree Farms, on paper, hadn’t made a dime. Ever. The first few years, startup, were understandable.

What defied reasonable explanation was that from the moment Cassidy Banking began handling her sister’s casino accounting, the Jennings got a big bump in lifestyle, and all in the form of casino winnings. Lots and lots of casino winnings.

No Hair studied it, then looked up.

“Okay,” he said, “they’re bad at farming and good at gambling. The only thing I see is the sister shouldn’t be handling the account.”

“That’s just for starters,” I said. “There are several other things off, No Hair. For one, the Christmas tree farm takes up half a mountain. Red Jennings pays more in property taxes than he reports in income from the farm. No one keeps an unprofitable business around this many years. For two, these millions and millions they’ve won at the Montecito?”

“Yeah?”

“One trip a year.” I held up a single finger.

No Hair looked up. “One six-month long trip a year?”

“No,” I said. “One weekend a year.”

“No way,” No Hair said. “The odds of winning this much,” he shook the sheet of paper, “in a single weekend are astronomical. And to do it this many years in a row would be like winning the lottery every year, buying only one ticket.”

“Exactly.”

“So what kind of casino favors is Cassidy Banking doing for her sister and brother-in-law?”

“I guess we need to find out, No Hair.”

“Red flag.”

“Bright red,” I agreed. “That’s our first deal, and I’m concerned. I think we need to watch all three of them, starting yesterday, and I think there needs to be a ton of distance between Little Sanders and the Jennings kid before Thomas gets caught up in something we can’t get him out of. But in a way,” I said, “I’m more worried about Elspeth and her government-issue roommate than I am this whole Jennings business.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Davis,” No Hair said. “We don’t know the relationship between these two women. It might not have a thing to do with us. The Federal Action Task Force is an international organization. Elzbath’s roommate is probably tracking down money launderers, most likely under the umbrella of terrorist financing, and it doesn’t look like she’s doing it here.” He pointed at the top of his desk. “Last I checked, terrorists don’t take blackjack breaks.”

We had plenty of terrorists here. Not
that
kind of terrorist, but you show me an old lady being separated from her slot machine and I’ll show you a violent fanatical extremist. I ran Brianna Strother through our facial-recognition software all afternoon yesterday and didn’t get a hit. I even did weird searches, like iris pattern, nose slope, jaw curvature, and in the end, Brianna Strother simply wasn’t in our system. No one with her faceprint had
ever
walked through the doors of the Bellissimo.

“We could put a tail on her,” No Hair said, “and most likely, find her working at one of the ports. Ninety-million tons of cargo come in and out of these ports.”

True. Last year, the Port of Gulfport alone received a million tons of bananas. Chiquita trucks ruled the roads around here. That number didn’t even include the bananas coming into Mobile, New Orleans, and points between. “How could bananas finance terrorism?”

He looked confused, then said, “Let’s not get off track, here, Davis.”

It happens.

“They could be,” he said, “just friends. Or roommates. Or whatevers.”

“I’d go with that, No Hair, if Elspeth alarms weren’t going off all over the place.”

“Such as?”