Popped Off (10 page)

Authors: Jeffrey Allen

BOOK: Popped Off

10.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

We followed Elliott Huber out of the gas station and along the frontage road of the highway for about ten minutes before we turned off and cut down a country road that seemed to lead absolutely nowhere. But after a few miles, barns and farmhouses began dotting the countryside and signs of civilization reappeared.

“Is this a good idea?” Julianne asked, staring out the window. “Following some weird guy into the country?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay. Just asking.”

I had tried to call Victor but got his voice mail, so I’d left him a message about where we were and what we were doing. He hadn’t called back.

“How did he find you?” Julianne asked.

“No clue,” I said. “He didn’t say.”

“You might wanna ask him that.”

“Duly noted. I was a bit distracted by all the fake hair.”

“I can’t wait to see it up close.”

“The wig is better than the mustache.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

We turned off of the country road we’d been traveling on, and the wheels of the minivan crunched the gravel on a road that wound up and over gently rolling hills. At the bottom of the hills were two buildings, a small farmhouse and a large barn.

The Bug parked next to the barn, and we pulled in next to it.

Elliott got out and stood next to his car, watching me carefully. Julianne came around to my side of the car.

“This is my wife,” I said. “Julianne.”

She held up a hand. “Hello.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything. He readjusted the hat again.

“The mustache is pretty good,” Julianne whispered.

Elliott seemed to be deliberating on something, but I wasn’t sure what.

“Now what?” I asked. “You asked me to follow you, and I did.”

He walked to the barn. “Wait here.”

He pried open the large doors and disappeared inside, closing the doors behind him.

“Well, this seems totally normal,” Julianne said, leaning back against the van.

“We can leave,” I offered. “We don’t have to stay.”

“Maybe the barn is filled with fake hair products.”

“That would be creepy.”

“But fun.”

“If you say so.”

“Do you think the soccer guy is in there?” Julianne asked, glancing at the barn.

“I’m guessing yes.”

“What if he’s not?”

“Then we will be getting back in the van and heading home.”

“You are so sexy when you have a plan.”

“Thank you.”

The barn doors opened, and Elliott emerged.

He walked over to us. “What are you going to do with Moises if you find him?”

“You mean when I walk into the barn and find him?”

“No. He might not be in there. I mean when you find him.”

I shuffled my feet against the gravel. “I want to ask him some questions about some missing money. And trophies.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“You aren’t?”

Elliott was wearing on my patience. “No. I’m not. I thought you knew who I was.”

His mouth twisted. “I do. I mean, I think I do.”

“Your cousin knows me.”

“Not well.”

“But he knows I’m not a cop.”

“Maybe you’re undercover,” Elliott said, his eyes narrowing. “Maybe you’re wearing a wire.”

I turned to Julianne. “Let’s go. We are wasting our day here.”

“Wait!” Elliott cried. “Don’t go!”

“Then tell me why we are here, or we are leaving,” I said, irritated.

“My cousin is in the barn. He is not elsewhere.”

“I know.”

“How did you know?”

I couldn’t understand how anyone this dense had managed to steal money from a casino.

“I was just guessing,” I said.

Elliott nodded slowly. “Good guess. I guess you are a good detective.”

I glanced at Julianne. “See? I’m good at my job.”

She raised an eyebrow. “
This
is your evidence?”

She had a point.

“Come on,” Elliott said, motioning to the barn. “My cousin wants to speak with you.”

About time.

The inside of the barn was massive and warm, filled with haystacks and old farming tools. Rays of sunlight fought their way in through the cracks in the exterior.

Elliott walked us over to a computer on top of a blanket on top of a haystack.

“Where’s your cousin?” I asked.

“He’s not here.”

“You told me he was.”

“I was fooling you.”

“See?” Julianne said. “I told you he wasn’t a good reference.”

“We’re leaving,” I said. “I don’t like games, Elliott, and you’ve been goofing around since you were spying on us at the gas station.”

“I actually started spying on you at the casino,” he said.

“Whatever. We’re leaving.”

“You don’t wanna speak to Moises?”

“He’s not here. You said so yourself.”

“But we can speak with him.”

“How? Telepathy?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Elliott said.

I sighed. “How can we talk to Moises?”

“He’s being held hostage.”

“Hostage?”

“Yes, but he’s all right.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Then how are we going to talk to him?”

He pointed at the silver laptop. “On that.”

I looked at Julianne. She shrugged.

“I can contact him,” Elliott said. “But I don’t know where he is. His kidnappers are totally devious.”

“You know who they are?”

The skin around his jaw tightened. “Yes. They are evil.”

“Who are they?”

“I can’t say. They might come after me.”

He moved his eyes to the ground, staring at his feet.

His fear seemed real, so I left it alone for the moment.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk to your cousin.”

Elliott knelt at the laptop and booted it up.

“Where are we, by the way?” Julianne asked. “Whose farm is this?”

“I dunno,” Elliott said. “The house is vacant. But I can still get Wi-Fi out here.”

“How did you find it?” she asked.

“I was just driving,” he said. “I didn’t want to be near the casino.”

“Which reminds me,” I said. “Did you take the money from the casino?”

“Let’s talk to Moises first,” he said. “Then it will make sense.”

I doubted that but said nothing.

He logged into Skype, pushed the call button, and waited. The Skype application rang, but there was no answer.

“Weird,” Elliott muttered.

He disconnected the call and tried again.

The application dialed again, and the ring was interrupted almost immediately.

“I’m here. I’m here,” a voice said. “Sorry. I was finishing lunch.”

“I’m here with Deuce Winters,” Elliott said.

“And his wife,” Julianne said.

“And his wife,” Elliott repeated. “I think they are okay.”

Other than the headache I was getting.

“All right,” Moises said.

The screen blinked, and Moises appeared on it. The shot was tight, mostly of his face. He hadn’t shaven since I’d seen him last, but otherwise he looked fine. All I could make out in the background was a white headboard and some obscured photos on the wall. He appeared to be sitting in a bedroom, but I couldn’t be sure.

He held up a hand. “Hi, Deuce.”

“Hey, Moises. How are you?”

He appeared a bit confused as to how to answer that. “Uh, I’m all right, I guess.”

“Okay.”

“How are you?”

“Well, I’m confused as to what’s actually going on here. Your cousin brought me here and tells me you’re being held hostage or something, and now you’re on the computer, and I don’t really know anything more than I knew this morning.”

Moises nodded. “Yeah, I could see that.”

“So I’m really hoping I’m going to get some answers here.”

“I took the money,” he blurted out. “I had to.”

“All right.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“So someone made you?”

“Yes. I mean, no.” He frowned. “Yes and no, I guess.”

“You aren’t making sense.”

“I know.”

“Start at the beginning.”

Moises glanced to the side. “I don’t have much time.”

“So you took the money?”

He hesitated. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Do you still have it?”

“No.”

He was basically admitting a felony to me. I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“That’s going to be a problem, Moises,” I said. “I might be able to help if you were able to return it, but if you can’t . . .”

“I know.”

“I’m assuming you can’t tell me where you are.”

A black police baton entered the picture and hovered near his neck, a reminder that he couldn’t say too much.

“No, I can’t.”

The baton retreated.

“I’m not exactly sure what you need from me, Moises,” I said. “I don’t know that I’m in a position to help.”

“I need more money.”

“More?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He glanced to the side. “I can’t say.”

I really wasn’t sure why Moises Huber thought I might lend him money. We weren’t close friends. We were acquaintances. Everything felt a little out of place right at that moment.

“I need to go,” he said. “They say I need to go.”

The screen went black, and the call was disconnected.

Elliott closed the laptop. “Well, there you have it.”

“Elliott, no offense,” I said, feeling the anger inside me about to erupt, “but I have
nothing
.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, looking both confused and offended. “You spoke to my cousin.”

“Yes. For a couple of minutes. And all he did was ask me for more money.”

“Yes. Can you give it to him?”

“Absolutely not!” I said.

Julianne’s hand touched my shoulder, her signal for me to tone it down and cool off.

I took a deep breath. “No. I won’t give you or him or anyone any money.”

Elliott’s shoulders sagged, and he sat on a haystack. “They are going to hurt him. I know it.”

I tried a different tack. “Your cousin admitted to taking the money. He says he needs more. Why would he need more?”

Elliott rubbed at his chin and then pulled off the fake mustache. He wadded it up and threw it to the ground. “Because he owes more. We owe more.”

“Owe? To who?”

“To them.”

“Who’s them?”

The fear I’d seen earlier returned to his face. “The girls.”

“Look, I’m not talking about the girls. Not a chance,” Elliott Huber said.

I had spent ten minutes trying to get him to open up about whoever was holding Moises hostage, but had had no luck in pulling any details from him. He was adamant in refusing to talk about whoever it was, and his fear seemed born out of actual experience rather than any sort of deception.

“Okay,” Julianne said, sensing my frustration and giving me a second to regroup. “Let’s talk about the money, then.”

He pulled off the ball cap and the wig to expose a head of short, black, spiked hair. “Okay.”

“Moises admitted that he took the money,” I said. “Did you take yours from the casino?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To help him.”

“Why does he need so much money?”

Elliott’s mouth twisted, and he fidgeted.

“I’m assuming it’s gambling,” I said.

He looked up at me. “Why do you say that?”

“Things I’ve heard. You work in a casino. Sorta fits.”

He looked past me. “Yeah. It’s gambling.”

“So he needed the money to pay a debt?”

“Yeah.”

“To these girls?”

“Man, I’m not saying anything about them.”

“I’m going to assume it’s them.”

“Whatever.”

“So he owes them money, and now they’ve kidnapped him or something because he hasn’t paid them,” I said, glancing at Julianne.

She shrugged, then nodded. She was as lost as I was.

“If you had to steal for him, his debt must be huge,” I added.

“It is.”

“So what do these girls want? Just their money?”

He shifted on the hay bale. “No.”

“What else?”

“I’m not supposed to say.”

I looked at Julianne. “I can’t believe we’ve wasted an entire Saturday with this ridiculousness. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I grabbed her hand and we headed for the barn doors.

“Wait. You’re leaving?” Elliott asked.

“Yes. We’re leaving. I’m going to go home and try to salvage this day.”

“I thought you were going to help us.”

“And I thought you weren’t going to jerk me around,” I said. “But that’s all you’ve done. And it’s gotten old. So we’re gonna go home and pick up our daughter and do something a little more rewarding than sitting around with some jackass in a fake mustache and fake wig who talks in circles.”

He flinched, like a pet who’d been scolded. “I’m sorry.”

We reached the barn doors. “Me, too.”

“It’s the trophies,” he said. “They want the trophies.”

“The soccer trophies?” I asked.

“Yeah. But I don’t know why. I swear.”

“So they want to exchange him for the trophies?”

“And the money I took,” he said.

My head spun. None of it made any sense.

“Where are the trophies?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Why do they want them?”

“I don’t know. I swear.”