Ill Gotten Gains: Diary of a Gentle Grifter, page 28
And, like destiny, determined to continue to throw obstacles in my path, my cell phone buzzed deep in my pocket. I fished it out and saw that it was Sammy calling.
“What is it, Sam?”
“Dude, can you come over to my mother’s house right away?” His voice sounded shaky. “Do you know where it is?”
“I do, but why? What’s up? I thought you weren’t allowed over there.”
“What are you talking about?!” he nearly screamed. “You told Elizabeth my mother had a heart attack and that you left her here. She’s dead, man. My mother is dead! Did you even try to perform CPR, man?” He started screaming. “Did you even call 911, you heartless fuck?! What is wrong with you?!”
I jumped to my feet and switched the phone from one ear to the other. “I am so confused, Sammy. What are you talking about? Lucia isn’t really dead. Not dead dead. It was something your mother cooked up. She asked me to tell Elizabeth she’d died in order to buy her some time to figure out her next move.”
There was silence on the other end for a few moments while he apparently processed that information. “But that makes no sense.” His voice cracked. Then I heard him suck in some air. “I mean, she’s dead, Macon. She’s very dead and—Macon. Man! She’s stiff as a board. She’s not fake dead. She’s dead dead. Really dead. I saw her.”
Drucilla was on her feet now, too, trying to figure out what was going on. I mouthed, “Mother is really dead,” to her, but she wasn’t getting it. I waved her off for the moment and turned the other way. “Sammy. This can’t be true. Is this true?”
“Motherfucker!” he screamed. “How many times do I have to say it? Are you a retard or something? Just please come over here.” And he terminated the call.
I tossed the phone onto the couch and put a hand to my warm forehead. “Jesus Lord in Heaven, what is happening?”
“What is happening?” Dru pleaded. “I couldn’t hear a thing.”
I told her what Sammy told me.
“How’d Lucia get dead?”
“I don’t friggin’ know. Maybe the gardener came back to finish the job? Maybe he saw me leave her alone there at the house? I don’t know. I know nothing now.” I was truly at a loss. “She wanted to fake her death and then she died? For real? It’s—” I had no more words.
Drucilla shook her head. “You are not going back there. That would be insane. You’re not going to Lucia’s. I will not allow you to go. We should probably pack up and get out of town. Right? That’s what we should both do.”
I thought about that for a moment while I paced the length of the living room. “No. I think I have to go back. I’ve got to go find out what the heck really happened…plus, we have Mitch’s money coming today. We’re going to have to manage that situation very carefully or it’ll slip through our fingers.” I quickly turned on my heel and faced her again. “Drucilla! We have millions of dollars being wired to a woman who is dead. Really dead dead.”
Dru’s face slowly brightened as she processed that information. Within a few seconds, she had an ear-to-ear grin on her face. “This is huge. Holy crap.”
“Holy crap, indeed. We might very well have just hit the ultimate payday. Could we keep all of the money?”
“Oh my goodness.” Dru let that sink in. “Geez. You know you can’t tell Mitch that Lucia’s dead, right?”
“Of course not, then he wouldn’t have a reason to follow through with the rest of the dough. Wait. What happens to the money with Lucia dead? It’s being wired to a nameless, numbered account at a bank in the Caymans. Will it just sit there forever, untouched? What a waste that would be. That’s our money. We worked hard to make this happen.”
Dru collapsed onto the couch. “Could the Cayman information be in Lucia’s safe?”
I nodded my head. “Maybe. But, then again, Lucia did have hyperthymesia, like Marilu Henner.”
Dru looked at me like I was a crazy person. “Hyper-what? Marilu-who? What are you talking about?”
“Lucia had total recall memory,” I explained. “The actress, Marilu Henner, you know her, from that old sitcom Taxi?...well, she has it, too.” I massaged my temples. “I didn’t know the official term for it. I had to look it up. But Lucia apparently had it and she could remember everything. Every last damned detail of her life going back to when she was a little girl. She knew what she had for breakfast a thousand and one Saturdays ago. She memorized every telephone number she ever dialed. Everything, I tell you.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.”
I nodded. “Anyway, I guess Mother could have the banking information written down somewhere besides her head. That’s possible. And if it’s in that godforsaken ancient house, and Sammy gets his hands on it before we do, well then, the money would be his. I mean, that’d be fair with all he’s put up with over the years from that woman, right?”
“Sammy gets ten million and we get three? That doesn’t sound fair, especially since the guy shot you.”
I laughed. “That’s true enough, but let’s not forget that the three million dollars is still three million more than we had a week ago.” I shook my head. “But we’ll see. Maybe we can get Sammy to give us some of whatever he ends up with as a finder’s fee or something. Because as far as we know, he doesn’t have an inkling the money is even coming his mother’s way. How would he even know to look for it?”
“You’re a smart cookie.” Drucilla absently picked up a tiny cucumber sandwich off the small silver tray in front of her. “This is the last one. Do you want it?”
“What? No. Who could eat at a time like this?” I seriously felt sick to my stomach.
I watched as she popped the crustless sandwich into her mouth. She looked sexy when she chewed.
“I was going to ask you if we could leave Flo’s house now,” she said, “but I’d miss this cute teatime food and the fresh blueberry muffins hot out of the oven when I wake up. Flo’s an absolute doll.”
I sat down next to her. “Mm. I guess she is, but I think I’ll still go back to the Strip tomorrow, so we can get out of Flo’s hair. Do you want to come with me?”
“I do, yes. I’m not quite ready to go home.”
I liked the sound of that. “And then on Monday afternoon,” I said, “I’m renting a house over in Spring Valley for a week.”
“Another hideout? Why would we need to do such a thing?”
“Not we. You aren’t coming.”
She instantly pouted. “I’m so confused. Why the heck can’t I come?”
I glanced out the window for a moment, then back at her. I decided there was no downside to telling her; we had been glued to the hip for the past week and she knew everything else anyway. “It’s a long, convoluted story, but my parents are coming for a visit on Tuesday, and they kind of, sort of think I live in my own house. One that I actually bought.”
“Why do they kind of, sort of think that, Macon?”
I threw up my hands. “Because that’s what I told them.”
“And what did you tell them you do for a living to pay for this house you don’t really own?”
I chuckled at that. “I’m a senior account executive at an outdoor commercial lighting company.”
“Well, that’s interesting. That’s better than a line cook at Denny’s, or a dirty, scheming grifter involved in multiple deaths in the last week.”
I feigned a look of horror, but it might as well have been real. For one, she reminded me that I desperately needed to clean up my act. I had no desire to continue down this dangerous path I’d been on. And I really, really never wanted to be shot, or shot at, ever again.
She placed a hand on my knee. “And what am I supposed to do while you’re entertaining your folks?”
“What did you do before we left for Palm Springs and we weren’t together twenty-four-seven?”
She frowned. “I guess I can do that.”
My stomach somersaulted—you’re going to miss me, Drucilla, aren’t you? “It won’t be for long, Dru. I’d consider introducing you as my honest-to-goodness girlfriend, but then there would be a gazillion questions, trust me. They’d want to know absolutely everything about you, and you’d have to lie so many times, you’d forget what it was you told them. It’d be a real big headache.”
She thought about that for a few moments. “What if it were true?”
“What if what were true?”
“What if I was really your girlfriend?”
I swallowed hard then sat forward in my seat. “Are you being serious? You’re married, for one, and you’ve been sending signals that you aren’t interested in me like that.” What am I saying? “No, not signals; you’ve told me as much. You flat out told me there was no chance.”
“A girl can change her mind, can’t she? And my marriage…come on…I told you about me and Mr. Bender. It’s just on paper. Just a document, Macon.” She held up her left hand. “Do you see a ring?”
I smiled. And it was an extraordinary smile. “I think I’d like that a lot, if you’re really, honestly being serious.”
She smiled right back. And, as usual, it was captivating. “Me too, and I am. I’m very serious.”
Then, a few minutes after that—despite a distraught Sammy and a dead Lucia waiting for me across town—I coaxed my new girlfriend to one of Flo’s guestrooms, and we quickly sealed the deal.
And it was even better than the night in Palm Springs, something that I didn’t think was humanly possible.
But it was.
And even better than that? She’s the one who stated that fact out loud. And, man, she did it loudly.
37
SAMMY BEREAVES
Drucilla convinced me to change my clothes before I left the house to go see Sammy; she too believed the preppy J.Crew outfit wasn’t in line with my usual brand. So, dressed in my favorite well-worn jeans and a fitted Imagine Dragons concert tee, I reluctantly drove back to the late mob boss’ house and rang the bell. A disheveled Sammy answered the door without a word and ushered me in.
I scanned the room. “Where is she?”
He shook his head slowly. “Gone, man. They took her away.”
“Who took her away? Who else was here?”
The big Italian guy eased down onto one of the kitchen stools and grabbed at his temples with both hands. “It was awful, dude. Just awful. It took three of them to get her on the stretcher.”
“You called an ambulance? A real one?”
“Are there fake ambulances, Macon? Of course it was real. But I didn’t call it. It was here when I arrived.” He started rubbing his face, pulling and prodding at his cheeks. “The EMTs were pretty darned sure she had a heart attack. My mother hasn’t been well for years, man. Diagnosed with a bad ticker back in the 1980s or so. She took handfuls of pills for it. Handfuls every day. I guess this was bound to happen eventually, especially with all this stress she’s been under.” He closed his eyes. “It was sad, dude. They only let me get a quick look at her before they covered her up. May she finally rest in peace.”
“Amen,” I said softly. “Who found her? Who called the ambulance?”
Sammy opened his eyes and stared at me. “Who?”
“How did the EMTs know to come here if you didn’t call them?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I don’t know.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how those guys got in. No one can get into this house unless they’re invited.” He looked back at me with wide eyes. “Shit, Macon, I better find out, huh? But, on second thought, she must have called them herself, unlocked the door, then collapsed.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Really? Come on. How likely is that?”
He shrugged slightly. “There’s no other explanation.”
I wasn’t sold. “A housekeeper? A security guy? One of her other goons?”
Sam shock his head. “No one gets in here without being let in, except me. No one, Macon. And she did the housework herself. Always.”
I leaned up against the brick wall next to the giant fireplace. Earlier that day, she made a plan to fake her own death in order to get the drop on whoever it was out to get her, and then she actually dropped dead? Something…everything…wasn’t adding up. “I don’t understand,” I said after several long, quiet minutes.
“What’s not to understand? She must have known something was wrong. She called 911. The EMTs arrived and found her. And now I’m an orphan.” He wiped away a stray tear, then jumped off the stool and embraced me without asking. He hugged me so tight, I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Okay, man. There, there,” I struggled to say. “It’s going to be okay. Maybe it’s possible Lucia’s in a better place now. Maybe.”
He let go, but then forcefully grabbed me by my still-sore upper arm and held me in place. “I’m free of Elizabeth now, I guess. She has nothing to hang over my head anymore. She can’t tell a dead woman that I’m gay, can she? That’s something.”
I nodded my head. “True. But you could also keep working for Elizabeth in order to get to the bottom of this craptastic mess. Wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do?”
He crinkled up his face. “To what end, man? Wouldn’t she see right through that? What would my motivation be to stay by her side? It’s over.”
“But it’s not over, Sam. Do you know who Elizabeth’s client is? Do you know who was out to get revenge on your mother?”
“I don’t.” He let go of my arm then took a few steps backwards. “Do you think we need to know?”
I was dumbfounded. “Well, yeah, since someone new is apparently coming to town to pick up where Lucia left off! I think we’d better find out who that is. Don’t you want to know?”
He contemplated that for a moment. “She said that to you? My mother? She said someone’s coming to take over the…business?” He grabbed at his head yet again. “Wait. Are you sure it isn’t going to be me? It was always supposed to be me.”
“You?!” I asked, a bit too loudly. Given the reaction on his face, I thought I better start treading more lightly. “I’m sorry, buddy; that didn’t come out the way I intended. But let’s not forget, your mother was all kinds of mad at you. She suspected, and then confirmed, that you were working for the opposition. She stopped using you to do her bidding and barred you from this house, did she not? It certainly wasn’t going to be you taking over the family business when she didn’t trust you enough to allow you to step foot inside your childhood home.”
Sammy looked crestfallen. “But there was no one else in the running. I can’t imagine who it could be. She only had a handful of dudes left on the payroll and most of them are either stupid as a rock or aging the hell out. Too dumb and too old.”
I threw up my arms. “Well, I don’t know, but there must be someone, because she wanted me to meet with the guy. You need to figure this out. And if I were you, I’d go confirm Lucia’s unfortunate death to the looney narcoleptic, then, once and for all, figure out who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes.”
“Strings?” he asked. “I don’t follow.”
Frustrated, I headed toward the front door. “Find out who the hell Elizabeth is working for, Sammy, then we can plan our next steps.” I stopped short and faced him again. “By the way, do you know the combination to your mother’s safe?”
He nodded his head. “Sure. We’ve had that thing for decades. But why’s that any of your business?”
I shrugged. “It’s not. I was just curious.” I gave him a little wave. “Buck up, buddy boy. I’ll talk to you real soon.” And I left the house.
38
HOME SWEET PHONY HOME
While Sammy purportedly went to press Elizabeth for more details—and Dru and I at a loss at what to do while we waited for the next shoe to drop—my new girlfriend and I decided to spend an indulgent weekend at the Wynn, complete with screwing, gambling, drinking, screwing, and eating…and not once did we steal anything from anyone.
From time to time, we watched the news. Curiously, there wasn’t a single blip about the alleged lady mob boss having died of a heart attack at her Scotch 80s home. There was no mention of random gunfire in Lucia’s neighborhood either, something that regularly made the television news in the Vegas area. I even checked the local obituaries online and found zilch.
The radio silence perplexed both of us.
And to top it off, I hadn’t heard a peep from Elizabeth all weekend.
“She’s been quiet since Friday?” Dru asked over a big breakfast at the hotel’s poolside café on Monday morning.
I did my half-shrug, half-nod thing. “This can’t be good. Not good at all. This not knowing what the heck is going on is going to be the death of me. I tried Sammy’s cell a few times this morning.” I glanced at the notifications on my iPhone screen. “And he’s still not returning my voice mails nor nearly a dozen texts. It’s like he’s fallen off the grid.”
“I hope Elizabeth didn’t kill him. Sammy’s a dummy, but he doesn’t deserve a fate like that.”
I crinkled up my face. “What a horrible thing to say. Why would she kill him? He’s been helping her. He could still be of help to her, I assume, if she wants to get her dirty paws on the rest of Lucia’s records. I still don’t get the motivation behind all of this though.” I took a sip of my mimosa and contemplated that for a moment. “On second thought, there’s got to be a lot of potential money to be made here in the valley. Someone obviously wants to take control of Lucia’s long-held territory. That’s got to be the gist of it, right?”
“I imagine Vegas is quite lucrative in that department.”
“Quite,” I echoed.
Dru finished off her coffee then looked around for a server to refill her cup. “And let’s not forget that your folks are coming tomorrow whether you like it or not, and we’ve got to go stage that little house, so why don’t you call the sleepy bitch and get it over with? Then you’ll be able to focus on dear old mom and dad.”
After breakfast, I dialed Elizabeth’s number while Drucilla changed out of her breakfast outfit and into what she insisted was “…more suited to house staging,” whatever that meant.
