This isn’t the beginning, if you need to catch up, look Here. I told the Orlons to stay put and pray I got to Adroppov Goldinson before the hitman did. What have you gotten yourself
This isn’t the beginning, if you need to catch up, look Here.
I told the Orlons to stay put and pray I got to Adroppov Goldinson before the hitman did.
What have you gotten yourself into this time, bro?
I had to start my car up again to charge my phone so I could put another call into my assistant, Lucky.
It rang twice before he picked up. “Good news, Boss?”
“Yes and no. The wife’s not the target.”
“That’s a surprise.”
“Yeah. But that means we’ve still got to find the guy who is. A two bit conman using the name Adroppov Goldinson.” I paused for him to jot it down. “You should also check for his given name: Raymond LaGrange.”
“LaGrange? As in—”
“He’s my brother. Now help me find him before his latest scheme gets him killed.”
“I’m on it, Boss.” His voice was uncharacteristically kind. “Are you coming back in?”
“Not yet, I’ve got a few errands to run first. Call me if you find anything.” I hung up and pulled out onto the road headed back for the city proper.
My first stops were at the motels I knew Orlon had visited. If his little notes hadn’t been picked up yet, there was a chance to keep the hitman out of this entirely. It cost me two hours and a hundred and fifty bucks just to find that the rooms were already clean. I even checked the stupid TV remotes, but there was nothing. And at neither place did the maid I spoke with recognize the little scrap of paper with the hitman’s coded instructions. Though given how high the one was, I doubt she would have recognized her own face in a mirror.
But odds are good there’s a hitman out there with my brother’s name on his list now. And I burned two precious hours playing catch up.
Lucky still hadn’t called with any updates on my brother’s location, so I decided to try some scams I knew he’d run before.
Though if he’s conning bankers out of massive payouts now, he’s probably not still running the same old tricks I remember.
But I didn’t have a better place to start. My first stop was the airport. Last I’d heard, Ray was bouncing around the West Coast, so for him to suddenly show up in town, he must have flown.
Or driven east sometime in the last year. It’s not like he and I are close.
I didn’t plan on going in. Without knowing what day he’d arrived, all my questions would do was alert the TSA to my brother’s sketchiness. Getting him out of this alive might require an unplanned flight to some distant city, and I didn’t want the airport security messing that up. Besides, there were less suspicious minds that were likely to have encountered Ray.
The valet hurried around to my driver’s door with a little ticket in his hand. The kid barely looked old enough to drive.
I held up the last crumpled fifty from my wallet. “This is all yours for a few honest answers.”
He nodded vigorously and squatted down by my open door, more or less out of sight of the valet stand.
“Did this man pick up a car recently?” I pulled up an old photo of my brother on my phone to show the kid. “He would have been older than this, and maybe sporting a beard.” If he’s trying to pass himself off as Russian.
The valet studied the picture for a moment. “I don’t know. He looks kind of familiar, but I don’t remember seeing him specifically. Do you have a picture of him with a beard?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. But he probably spoke with a Russian accent if that helps.”
“Oh, the Russian guy! Why didn’t you just say so? He was here a couple of days ago. Made a big stink about us losing his car even though he was the one without his ticket.”
“Yeah, that’ll be him. What kind of car did you give him?”
He frowned. “None, he didn’t have a ticket. He said he’d be back with the spare key to prove which car was his, but we haven’t seen him since.”
You’re losing your touch, bro.
“Good. And which day was it he was here? Exactly.”
“Must have been Friday. It was pretty slow, other than him, so he really stood out. More people heading out at the beginning of the weekend than coming in.”
It was my turn to frown. “This past Friday?”
“Yeah.”
So he’d been in town less than a week—including a weekend. Not much time to ruin a banker’s life. Didn’t Orlon say it was a couple of months ago they met?
Slow down, Angola, the banker said they were in touch. Ray might have only flown in to finish the deal.
“Thanks for your help.” I pressed the crumpled bill into the kid’s hand and drove off.
Something didn’t add up. I’d been trailing Orlon most of the week after he’d already been acting suspicious enough for his wife to hire me. But the deal with Ray couldn’t have happened any earlier than last Friday? That was hardly enough time for Orlon to figure out that he’d been had, let alone get desperate enough to try and hire a hitman.
I called Lucky back with my newest clue—even though it didn’t seem to fit.
“He only just got to town? Well that narrows my search down a bit.” His voice crackled over my poorly charging phone.
“I’m going to start hitting hotels.” After a stop at the closest ATM.
Dammit, Ray, thanks to you this job’s going to cost me money.
“If you find anything—”
“Call you, I know. Good luck.” He hung up.
At the ATM I crossed my fingers and withdrew another three hundred. The machine thought for a long moment before spitting out the fifteen twenty-dollar bills.
If I’d had those at the cheap motels, I might still have a little cash.
But if I’d just pulled off a big bank job, I wouldn’t be staying in some fleabag motel. And if I knew my brother, he’d be living it up in the highest luxury he could find. I doubted I could afford the kind of palm-greasing it would take to get information from the staff at a swanky place, but they were also a lot more accustomed to deliveries. Forty dollars worth of food from the McD’s was more than enough to look like two orders.
In the parking lot of the Lorenz Luxury Suites, I threw on an old jacket and baseball cap from my trunk. It wasn’t much, but hopefully it was generic enough not to be memorable.
With a bag of food in each hand, I rushed into the lobby and up to the front desk.
The man in the well-pressed suit who stood behind the desk gave me a judging glare. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a delivery for…Mister A. Goldinson?” I glanced at the bag in my left hand like there was a name on the receipt.
“Hold on.” He tapped a few keys on his keyboard. “There are no guests here with that name.”
“Ah, man. I must have put in the wrong address. But I’ve also got one for an R. LaGrange, are they here?”
“No.” He didn’t bother looking again.
I sighed. “My boss is going to kill me.”
The man offered no solace or advice, but simply turned his attention away as I walked back out to my car.
That’s one down.
By the time I’d repeated that scene at three more fancy hotels, the only thing I’d gotten was cold food and sore feet. I was looking for the next big hotel when Lucky called.
“Tell me you found something.”
“Would I call you if I hadn’t?” His voice dripped with smug satisfaction. “I was talking with a buddy of mine who—”
“Address first. You can tell me about how clever you are on the way.”
He gave me the name of an old Italian restaurant downtown. “My buddy says there’s an underground poker game in the back room there almost every night. And when he was there two days ago, this Russian was cleaning up. Sounds kind of like our conman to me.”
“Yeah.” I checked the time. Late enough that most of the restaurant crowd would be gone. “I’ll stop by and see what they know.”
I didn’t expect to find him there. It would be a dumb move to roll into town, rip off a bank, take that money to a underground poker game, win big, and then return to that same game a few days later. But I’d also never thought of Ray as a particularly clever criminal. He was too easily suckered into the next big scheme—most of which ended up costing him whatever he had left from the last one.
Of course, I’d never seen him pull off something as big as the job Orlon had described either. Maybe the West Coast taught him a few new tricks.
The restaurant was closed when I drove by, but there were still a few lights on in the back.
Not the most subtle bunch these guys.
I parked a little ways down the street and then walked back to the alley that ran behind the restaurant. I kept one hand wrapped around the gun in my purse. Ray wasn’t likely to have many friends among the players, but that didn’t mean they’d be happy to see a stranger.
A kid in a dirty apron sat on the back step of the building, puffing on a vape. To the casual onlooker, he probably looked like just another teen taking a smoke break. But he was a little to attentive to the ends of the alley.
A lookout. I must be in the right place.
“Hey, kid.” There was no sneaking up on him, so I went for the more direct approach. “You want to make a few bucks?”
He eyed me suspiciously. “What you have in mind?”
“I’m looking for the Russian who was here the other day. Adroppov Goldinson.” I pulled a twenty from my purse. “You see him?”
“Not for twenty.”
Well, if I hadn’t already known he’d been here I was certain now.
“How much?”
“A hundred.”
“For a hundred I want to know which way he went too.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
I pulled out the bills and passed them over.
The kid tucked them into the pocket of his apron. “Yeah, the Russian was here the other day.”
“And which way did he go?”
“I didn’t see him leave.”
I stifled a curse.
“But, I can tell you where he is.” He grinned. “For another fifty bucks.”
“Since you already owe me a direction, how about I throw down another twenty and we call it even?”
“You’re the one who want to know.”
This kid is worse than Ray or Lucky ever were.
“Fine.” I scrounged two more twenties and a ten out of my purse. “But if he’s not where you say, I’ll be back here to collect.”
Those bills joined the others in his pocket. “No worries. He’s inside with the boss.” He gestured over his shoulder at the restaurant.
“Right now?”
“Yeah. The game usually runs most of the night, and if it’s any thing like last time, you’re Russian friend will be in it until the end.”
“Thanks, kid.” I reached for the door, but he jumped up to stop me.
“Whoa, you can’t just go barging in there.” His grin returned. “At least not for free.”
The gun was the next thing out of my purse. “Listen, kid. You’ve made a good deal for yourself already, don’t sour it by pushing harder than you can afford.”
“Easy.” His hands went up by his ears. “I’m not looking for any trouble.”
“Then get out of my way.”
He did, and I went in. I passed through the empty kitchen to the poorly lit back room with a small poker table set up in the center of it. There was space for six players, but only five chairs. Each of them held a lowlife thug or wannabe gangster. And at the head of the table sat my brother.
To Be Continued…