Risky Undertaking (16 page)

“There's the blackjack tables.” Susan pushed her wineglass ahead like a baton. “Oh, my God, it can't be.”

I found the nearest blackjack sign and then looked beneath it. Two men sat side by side on stools directly across from the dealer. One looked like a rotund potato that had fallen out of a giant grocery bag. It was Mayor Sammy Whitlock in a brown polyester leisure suit that must have been the fashion hit for fifteen minutes in 1975.

The other man was long and lean with his baggy black trousers hitched up halfway to his armpits. He wore a western-style shirt and a string tie, evidently his idea of a cardsharp's wardrobe. A pair of sunglasses rested on top of his curly white hair.

I stepped quickly ahead of Susan and hurried to the table. I leaned in and whispered to the taller man, “Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”

Uncle Wayne turned around and glared at me. “Ssshh,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “We're undercover.”

Chapter Sixteen

I looked at the mayor. He stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge my presence.

“You two have to get out of here immediately,” I said.

“Is there a problem, sir?” The dealer spoke to Uncle Wayne with the hint he could make the problem go away.

“No.” Uncle Wayne flipped up his facedown card. “Blackjack.”

The dealer slid over a stack of chips and I noticed my uncle sat with a small fortune in front of him.

“Sammy, would you hold my seat for me?” Uncle Wayne asked the mayor. “Is that all right, young man?” he asked the dealer.

“Yes, sir. Take your time.”

“Oh, this won't take long at all.” Uncle Wayne slid off the stool and dropped the sunglasses over his eyes. He must have thought he looked cool. He looked blind. “Come on.”

He led Susan and me away from the congestion of the tables to a spot under the wide stairway to the second level. “Sammy and I are helping Archie help Luther.”

“Archie had no business bringing you into this,” I argued.

“All we're doing is watching some guy Archie's playing poker with. The guy doesn't know us from Adam.” He looked around the casino. “Look at all the old people. Sammy and I blend in better than you and Susan.”

As he spoke, a busload of seniors came through the door. My uncle had a point.

“That's all,” I insisted. “Just watch.”

“If the guy gets up to go to the john or grab a smoke, we'll shadow him.”

“No. Definitely not.”

Uncle Wayne drew his old frame up to full height so he was looking down at me. “What's the difference between watching him play cards and watching him walk to the bathroom?”

“You have to be in motion.”

“Me and hundreds of other people. Sammy and I will spread out. The guy's not going to think either one of us is Joe Friday.”

“Who?”

“You know. From
Dragnet
. Just the facts, ma'am.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Never mind. Before your time.”

My knee-jerk reaction to losing an argument was to latch onto any possible problem. “But you don't know what the guy looks like.”

Uncle Wayne waved the objection aside. “Archie's got that figured out. First time the guy ups a bet, Archie's going to tug his earlobe.”

“And you think he won't notice that?”

“Of course not. Archie's tugging his own earlobe.”

I heard Susan's unsuccessful attempt to smother a laugh. I knew I'd lost.

“I've got to get back to the table,” Uncle Wayne said.

“How many of those chips are your money?” I asked. “I don't want you losing your shirt.”

“Thirty dollars.”

“Thirty dollars? There must be three hundred dollars worth of chips at your seat.”

Uncle Wayne shook his head in disbelief. “Well, ain't that the point? When I was stationed in Korea, I doubled my pay playing blackjack and sent it to your mother each month. I may be old, but I still know how to hold my own in a place like this. Might be fancy, but the cards still come out one at a time. Now, if you'll excuse me.” He flipped the sunglasses up on his head and walked away.

“Maybe you've got the wrong guy in the poker room,” Susan said.

“Maybe we need to come back here with my uncle and our lifesavings.”

Susan hooked my arm with her own. “It's almost seven thirty. We'd better get in place.”

“Yes, my queen.”

We ascended the curving staircase, arm in arm, with our wineglasses in our free hands. We were halfway to the top when my left elbow was knocked to the side, sloshing pinot grigio down my pants and splattering the back of the aqua-blue shirt of the man pushing by me.

Frankie Tyrell scowled over his shoulder without so much as an “excuse me” or “I'm sorry,” and then bolted up the remaining stairs.

“I don't know if he's a killer,” Susan whispered, “but he's a first-class jerk.”

“I hope Archie cleans him out,” I said.

The poker room was crowded and it took several minutes for me to spot Archie at one of the back tables. Monitors placed around the room listed names of players waiting for positions to open, and I guessed Tyrell had been in a hurry to take his seat before he was bumped. I saw him in his wine-splattered shirt sitting directly across from Archie. There were ten players in all.

“Where are the dealers?” Susan asked.

“These are electronic poker tables. Everything is handled by a computer. Players use a shielded monitor to view their cards and place bets. You buy in and add funds to your account through the cashier.” I pointed to a window in one corner. “They only bring in live dealers for the big national tournaments.”

Susan walked to one of the tables nearer the door. She watched a couple of hands and then returned. “They're playing a different kind of poker than I learned.”

“Yes. They don't take their clothes off.”

She gave me a sharp elbow in the ribs. “You're one to talk, Mr. Wet Pants. You should go change before people think you're incontinent.”

I did feel sticky. And cold. “Let me watch them get started, then I'll run up to the room.” I angled my position so that I could see a side view of Archie and Tyrell. Both men concentrated on the center of the table where the community cards were displayed.

“You probably learned stud and draw poker.” I told Susan. “This is called Texas Hold'em. Each player gets two cards face down on his personal screen. The Hole cards. Cup your hands around them and the corners fold back for viewing. There's a round of betting. Then three cards called the Flop are dealt face-up in the center, and there's another round of bets. A fourth card named the Turn is dealt followed by bets, and finally a fifth card, the River, comes up. After a final round of betting, those five community cards are played in common and the player who makes the best five-card poker hand combining his cards with the community cards wins the pot.”

I saw Archie's eyes trace the progress of the betting as he studied each opponent's face in turn. Tyrell did exactly the same. Each man sought any facial or body tells that would prove an advantage over the course of play. When the sweep of Archie's gaze landed on Tyrell, he tugged his left ear. I glanced back at the door and saw Uncle Wayne and the mayor. My uncle displayed no reaction to Archie's gesture, but Mayor Whitlock gave an OK sign that was as subtle as a cannon blast. Uncle Wayne quickly retreated, leaving the erstwhile undercover, overly dramatic His Honor to scurry after him. I hoped they would find discreet viewing positions along the mezzanine outside the poker room.

I took a few minutes to study the other players at Archie's table. Although I thought Kevin's theory that Tyrell might connect with someone during the game was not only a long shot but extremely risky on his part, I memorized the eight faces in case one of them met Tyrell afterwards. All were men; all were white. Four seemed to know each other. Probably poker buddies who were on a guys' retreat. They sat beside each other arcing the table from Tyrell to Archie. From their ages, I took them for retirees who could hang out overnight at the casino in the middle of the week without worrying about a treacherous drive home through the curvy mountain roads.

On the other side of Tyrell sat a player in his mid-twenties. He looked nervous and unsure of himself. An older man on his right frequently whispered to him. I took them to be father and son. Perhaps dad was teaching the game as part of the family heritage.

The two remaining players to Archie's left weren't so much serious gamblers as serious drinkers. The game hadn't gone five minutes before they signaled for another round. They made exaggerated gestures when they folded and I expected their card acumen to fall as their alcohol level rose.

I decided to risk sneaking a photo that I could send Kevin. I whispered my plan to Susan and used her as a shield while I readied my phone for the picture. I made sure the flash was off and then slid from behind Susan, holding the phone against my dark suit. I snapped a few shots and then checked them. The light level was sufficient so I repeated the maneuver from two other positions to get at least a decent profile of each player. I sent the three best photos to Kevin.

From the tone of the table conversation, I gathered that Archie and Tyrell were the more consistent winners. Occasionally one of the others would win a big hand, but that seemed to be in spite of their playing ability. Tyrell and Archie watched each other closely, each apparently realizing the other was the strongest competition.

“Is Archie doing OK?” Susan asked.

“As far as I can tell. The other players are providing a flow of chips to keep him in the game with Tyrell. The two of them seem evenly matched.” I tugged my sticky pants off my thighs. “This is a good time for me to change if you're comfortable staying alone.”

“With Uncle Wayne and Mayor Whitlock as backup? Don't give it a second thought.”

I left the poker room and stayed on the second floor, following the signs to the hotel tower elevators. A large senior tour group must have been checking in below because each time the elevators opened, the interior looked like an AARP sardine can. After four unsuccessful attempts, I opted to take the stairs. Our room was only two flights up and I would avoid being remembered as the stinking wino who jammed himself into the herd of gambling grandparents.

I pulled the door open to the fourth floor and started to step into the corridor. To my surprise, Kevin Malone was bent over the electronic lock of one of the rooms a few doors down. He was between me and my room so I couldn't walk by without being seen. I immediately ducked back.

I cracked the stairwell door enough to peer out. Kevin held some black box about the size of a cell phone. Short wires curled from it to the edge of a card inserted into the slot of the lock. Kevin was watching the elevators farther down the hall. He hadn't heard or seen me.

The latch clicked. He pushed open the door and pulled his mysterious device free. I had no doubt he'd somehow generated the security code and was breaking into Frankie Tyrell's hotel room.

I waited a few minutes to make sure he wasn't immediately coming out and then I tiptoed down the hall to my room. I fell back on the bed, my mind racing. Had Tommy Lee suspected Kevin would try something like this? Why else would he have pointed out no one would be watching Kevin? We were to be Kevin's alarm system in case Tyrell left the poker room. This whole alleged stakeout was nothing but an opportunity for Kevin to execute a warrantless search without fear of being surprised.

But what should I do? If I called Tommy Lee, I'd be forcing him to confront his friend, set Kevin up for disciplinary action, and maybe enable a guilty Frankie Tyrell to get off. Kevin knew he couldn't use anything he discovered in the room. Maybe he was looking to confirm his suspicions and then press for a warrant when he was certain a search would yield incriminating evidence. A more ominous possibility struck me. What if Kevin was planting evidence?

My phone rang and I thought Susan must be alerting me that Tyrell had left the game. I snatched it from my belt and read a number, not a name. “Yes?” I answered.

“Barry, it's Hector.”

Detective Sergeant Romero. He and the Cherokee Police Department would be brought in if I reported Kevin.

“You got my message?” I asked.

“Yes. I didn't call you back because I went straight up to Emma Byrd's place.”

“Had she seen Swifty?”

“No. But Eddie Wolfe had been out there.”

“He didn't say anything to us about it.”

“That's because he hadn't gone yet. He went right after he left us. When he saw Jimmy's ball-play stick, he must have thought Swifty had been up there and maybe gone back.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No. He'd left.”

“Did you go up to Jimmy's?”

“Yes. I didn't see anything different from when we were there yesterday.”

“You checked both the summer and winter lodges?”

“Yes. The asi looked like it hadn't been disturbed in months. Emma said Jimmy usually moved into it about the first of October.”

“Just a week away,” I said. “The nights are getting cold enough that I'd want a fire if I were out in the open.”

“Or staying in the asi,” Romero added. “I asked Emma to keep an eye out and let me know if she saw, heard, or smelled anything.”

“Is she OK? I mean with someone possibly trespassing on Jimmy's property?”

“She's worried about Swifty. She knows he was close to her grandson. She's hoping he'll show up.”

“All right. What next?”

“Assuming Swifty doesn't come home tonight, we need to talk to Eddie Wolfe tomorrow morning.”

“We?” I asked.

“Yes. I find it curious that Eddie didn't suggest to us that Swifty might be at Jimmy's. And even more curious that he told Emma to let him know first if she saw Swifty before notifying anyone else. That would link Swifty and Eddie in a way that sounds like Eddie wants to interject himself into your case.”

I agreed. “He either wants to know what Swifty knows, or make sure their stories match. Either way strikes me as having underlying motives.”

“That's what I think,” Romero said. “Emma said she'll call me first.” He paused a second. “Can you stay over in Cherokee? I can put you up if you need a bunk.”

I hadn't told the detective that Susan and I'd be spending the night because I didn't want to explain the now-tainted surveillance of Tyrell. “Thanks. Susan and I decided to make an evening of it so we got a room.”

“Good. Can you be ready for an eight o'clock pickup?”

“Yes. I'll be waiting where you dropped me this afternoon.”

I hung up. Suddenly my murder case had too many moving parts. A missing boy, a friend of the murder victim wanting to control access to that boy, a mobster hit man, a PR man who might be sabotaging his own client, and a potentially rogue cop making up his own rules for his own version of justice.