Fast and Loose (21 page)

Chapter 19

T
he only people left in Charles's suite were Charles, Fergus, and Maggie. Cyrus was there, too. Maggie paced. Frantically, she mumbled to herself, stopping from time to time to glare at Charles and Fergus.

“I need to be out there. I need to do something,” she said.

“You are doing something, dear. You're waiting, and you're wearing out the carpet,” Charles said quietly.

“It's almost nine o'clock! I should be arriving at Chezmarie about now. This is going to go badly. I feel it in my bones.”

A loud knock on the door startled them all. They looked at one another, their eyes wide. Cyrus raced to the door, but he didn't bark. Fergus made his way to the door and opened it.

A bellman held out a manila envelope. “The desk asked me to deliver this to Mr. Martin's suite. It's addressed to Maggie Spritzer.”

Fergus reached for the envelope, but before he could make contact, Maggie, hearing her name, sprinted to the door and snatched it out of the bellman's hand. Fergus offered up a tip, then closed and locked the door. Cyrus went back to his spot on the sofa and went to sleep.

Charles and Fergus watched as Maggie started ripping at the envelope. She stopped in her tracks and held up a flash drive. Frowning, she looked at the tattered envelope she had just eviscerated. Then she smiled, and the smile turned to outright laughter. She held the flash drive up triumphantly.

“What is it? Who sent you a flash drive?” Charles asked.

“Now, who do you think sent it? It's from Abner. He sent it to me. Me! That has to mean he isn't angry with me, just the rest of you guys. Well, let's just see what's on this baby,” Maggie said as she slipped the flash drive into her laptop.

Fergus and Charles crowded around her to see whatever was going to pop up. A blizzard of symbols, numbers, and letters flashed across the screen; then the screen went blank for ten seconds. The threesome stared at the screen, waiting, hardly daring to breathe at what was important enough that Abner messengered it to Maggie.

“Oh, my God!” was all Maggie could say. “I don't believe this! Do you believe this, Charles?”

Cyrus barked.

Maggie bent over to eyeball the shepherd. “I know you believe it, Cyrus. I know.”

“How do you know Abner sent you this?” Fergus asked.

“Because I know Abner's writing. He half prints and half writes in cursive. Trust me, this is from Abner.” Suddenly, Maggie's eyes welled up.

“It's all here. Their whole plan. If we had a mind to, we could turn this over to the local police, and that would be the end of it right now. How in the world did Abner get all this?” There was such awe in Charles's voice, Maggie could only stare at him.

“He didn't. His friend RCHood got it and, for reasons we'll probably never know, gave it to Abner, who in turn sent it to me. Me! Me, because he trusts me. Not you, not Jack, not Sparrow.
Me
!” Tears rolled down Maggie's cheeks as she mourned the loss of her friend through no fault of her own. “Here!” she said, tossing the flash drive to Charles, who caught it expertly in one hand. “Do whatever you want. I'm going for a walk, and I'm taking Cyrus with me.”

Cyrus was up and at the door before Maggie could locate his leash.

Maggie kept up a low commentary as she led Cyrus down the hall to the service elevator. “Because you're a dog, we have to take the service elevator. Before we leave here, I'm going to let them know what I think of that particular rule. I do not know where we're going, Cyrus. Just outside. I need some fresh air, and I want to think. Let's get an ice cream cone. I know you like those waffle ones. I always get a brain freeze for some reason when I eat an ice cream cone, but that still doesn't stop me from eating it.

“You aren't listening, are you, Cyrus? And if you are, you don't care. I'm just babbling here, venting, if you will. I feel lower than a snake's belly right now. I want to cry some more, but I don't want anyone to see me cry. How stupid is that? I need to do something, Cyrus, but I don't know what it is I need to do. Just
something
.”

Something
literally smacked Maggie in the face when she bumped into Pete Justice. He apologized profusely, asked if she was all right, and walked with her across the casino floor to the door. “I thought you checked out.”

“Why would you think that, Mr. Justice?”

“Please, call me Pete.” He thought about her question for a minute, then said, “I really don't know why I thought that. Dixson must have said something.”

“Speaking of Dixson, where is he? Do you know? We've been trying to locate him with texts and phone calls. They all go to his voice mail. Bert is beside himself, as he's been trying to reach him for hours. The people I came here with are all out here somewhere looking for him.”

“He's not answering any of my pages or texts, either. He's due back here at ten o'clock to relieve me. He's never, ever, to my knowledge, been unavailable to Bert, me, or this casino. I hate to say this, but I am worried something happened to him. I'm seriously thinking of calling around to the hospitals and clinics to see if he had an accident or something.”

Well, this guy is certainly chatty
, Maggie thought. He did look genuinely concerned, however, and she knew for a fact, thanks to Abner, that Pete Justice was not involved in anything that was about to go down.
A nice, likable guy, but a babe in the woods
, was her next thought.

“Maybe he had some personal business he had to take care of,” Maggie said helpfully.

“I guess. I have to leave you here and get back on the floor. If you need anything, just call. I really like this dog,” Justice said, scratching Cyrus behind the ears. “Sorry about that mix-up with you checking out.”

“No problem,” Maggie said, leading Cyrus through the door.

It was a perfect evening, Maggie thought as she looked up at the star-studded sky. Not even sweater weather. Almost summer weather.

As she walked along, Maggie wondered what she was doing out here with a dog. She should be back inside, where she could be of help, if need be. She rounded the corner, walked to the end, then turned around and headed back. She stopped twice when Cyrus tugged her to a tree or pole. And then they were back inside the casino, where the slot machines beckoned.

She fished around in her pocket and found a crumpled ten-dollar bill. Knowing she was going to lose it, she straightened it out and slid it into the slot. She waited, pushing the red button again and again, until finally she heard a blasting whistling sound. She looked down at three diamonds and grinned at Cyrus. “What that means to you is that you can have a porterhouse steak if you want it. I just won three hundred fifty dollars!”

Maggie carried the winning slip over to the cashier and asked if the Sunshine Foundation lady worked at night. The harried cashier pointed her in the right direction. “Let's give that little lady a treat, Cyrus. Here. You clamp it in your teeth and give it to her.”

Cyrus yipped his pleasure and did as instructed. The little lady beamed and held out her hand. Cyrus offered up his paw, and they shook hands.

Across the floor, by the penny slots, Pete Justice watched Maggie and the shepherd head for the elevators. He'd always prided himself on having good gut instincts, and right now those gut instincts were warning him that something wasn't right. He looked down at his watch. It was almost ten o'clock, and still no word from the boss. He fired off a text and asked for an update. He didn't know how he knew, but he was absolutely certain there would be no updated text coming through anytime soon.

Justice sent off a text to his aide, Artie Ryan, and told him to take over for twenty minutes. Justice was going to the Tiki Bar for a ginger ale. All he wanted to do was sit down in a dark corner and try to figure out what was going on and how it involved him,
if
it involved him. His gut was telling him that whatever was going on was serious. He carried his drink to the far end of the bar, sat down, and closed his eyes, but not before his phone chirped that a text was coming through.
So much for a quiet twenty minutes
, he thought when he saw that the text was from Bert, asking if Dixson was back. He hoped his succinct
no
would end the matter and he could relax. He was way too tense. Way, way too tense.

Ten o'clock came and went. Justice was back on the floor, having relieved Artie Ryan. His gaze swept the casino floor; he was hoping for a sighting of his boss.

Nothing.

* * *

Director Sparrow of the FBI was proud of himself and had turned himself into a pretzel to pat his own back at how quickly he'd put together a team of agents to hit the casinos and bring in the showgirls for questioning. Admittedly, there had been a lot of shrieking, wailing, cursing, and shouting, with the agents simply flashing their gold shields. No one in authority had intervened when they saw the agents holding up their shields and the huge yellow block letters on the back of the Windbreakers, clearly proclaiming them to be FBI special agents. Their matching ball caps, along with their guns, had confirmed that they were indeed federal agents.

Right now, Sparrow was standing in the middle of a living nightmare, making him wish with all his heart that he was back in Charles Martin's suite.

The women had been separated, eight to a room, with three agents overseeing them in each. Sparrow whistled between his teeth for silence, with no results. The women were caterwauling so loud, his ears hurt. There were feathers everywhere, along with glitter and rhinestones. He winced when his feet crunched down on some oversize rhinestones that had come off their costumes. He sneezed as he plucked a feather that was sticking to his eyebrow. He looked over at the agents and asked them why they hadn't allowed the women to change.

One of the agents said, “Because the directive said, ‘ASAP and no excuses.'”

One of the women was screaming about how much she'd paid for her costume, which was now ruined. “The goddamned FBI better pony up, like, right now.
Now
!” she screeched at the top of her lungs.

The others chimed in, and from there on in, it was pure bedlam. Then, as if members of a chorus, they started to chant, “We want a lawyer! We want a lawyer! We demand a lawyer!” The chant turned into an earsplitting scream.

Sparrow weighed his options. He had none. These women were never going to shut up, and he knew it. Because he was always an agent, and was now the director of the FBI, Sparrow was never without a gun. He yanked it out from the back of his pants and brandished it in the air. It had absolutely no effect on the screeching hellcats. Sparrow clenched his teeth and fired into the ceiling tiles. The room went so silent, Sparrow thought he'd lost his hearing for a second.

“You all need to be quiet now, or the next bullet goes into one of your kneecaps. Whose? I'll just pick one of you at random and,
poof
, your dancing days are over,” he said. “Now, please, give me your undivided attention.”

Feathers sailed across the front of his face. He brushed at them. Purple feathers! He thought about pocketing one of them so he would always remember this moment in time.

“Do any of you know why you're here?” He really didn't expect an answer, so he wasn't surprised when the room remained silent. “Okay, here's a clue. Does the Dixson Kelly Alumnae Club ring any bells? Before you respond, I want to remind you that it is a felony to lie to an FBI agent. Now, who wants to go first?”

No one wanted to go first. The women tried to huddle closer to each other, but their feathered wings and foot-high, rhinestone-encrusted headpieces kept getting in the way.

“Take those damn things off,” he ordered.

“What? What?” the women screamed in unison.

“So you can see our naked bodies! That is not going to happen, Mister FBI Agent! These wings are sewn onto the costume!” one of them said.

Properly chastised, Sparrow looked around at his agents, who were trying to look everywhere but at him. Gun in hand, Sparrow waved his arms about. “Okay, I did not know that. Let's be clear on something right now. No one wants to look at your naked bodies. Let me repeat that. No one wants to look at your naked bodies. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to bend your wings, and then you are all going to sit down on the floor and fold your hands. Legs straight out in front of you, like you used to do in grade school, at story time. That will give me a clear shot at your kneecaps. I'm ready to listen to what you have to say about your . . . club. Talk!”

A brash blonde with glitter on her impossibly long eyelashes looked straight at Sparrow and said, “We do not know what you are talking about, Mr. Director.” A cloud of pink and purple feathers circled upward. The other dancers agreed with her that they didn't know anything about Dixson Kelly or a fan club with his name on it.

Sparrow sighed. He looked over at the three agents, who still had their guns in their hands. “Tell you what. Guys, take these women down to a holding cell. Start the paperwork, but there's no hurry. We have about seventy-one hours to go. I'll check the other rooms to see if those women are more willing to cooperate. By the way, there are no bathrooms in the holding cells. I need you to know that. Make sure you put that in the paperwork, Agent Connors. We don't want any he said, she said comments later. I apprised them of the fact that there are no bathrooms in the holding cells. Feel free to give them
all
the water they want.”

The women started to hiss and snarl among themselves. Finally, a luscious redhead tried to raise her arm, which was covered in glitter.