“Actually, Jarvis, my old friend. Things are starting to look up.”
Jarvis took out the toothpick from pearly white teeth. “That’s what I like to hear. You’re a good friend, Calvin.”
“You’re easy to talk to, Jarvis, and always the first with rational advice. You also know a lot of people and came through for me when I needed you. What’s with the new facial hair?”
The man rubbed the tuft of hair under his lower lip and above his chin. “Are you mocking my soul patch?”
Calvin chuckled. “I’ll miss you, Jarvis.”
“You leavin’ us, Calvin?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Well, good luck, my friend.”
Calvin grabbed a USA Today and tucked it under his arm. He pulled two singles from his pocket and stuffed them inside the blind man’s pocket. “Keep the change, old man.”
“Much obliged.”
He entered Ed’s Diner.
“Hey, Calvin!” The cook and owner nodded to Calvin from the back.
“Evenin’, Ed.”
He ordered a cheeseburger with the works. Skipping the front page of the paper, he went straight to the sports section. He sipped at his coffee, enjoying the quiet.
He saw a picture of Toby Jenkins, his former roommate at college, on the front sports page. Jenkins had been Calvin’s USC teammate and his backup. The only time Jenkins had seen the field was when the Trojans had a big lead and wanted to rest Calvin. Jenkins, half the player that Calvin had been, had just signed a three-year contract for twenty-four million.
If Calvin had done what was best for his team, he would have been the one to sign that contract.
He was thumbing through the rest of the section when he heard the news on the TV. He glanced up. “Can you turn that up, Doris?”
He approached the counter.
The newscaster did a stand-up on the edge of a wooded area. “Doug Grant, owner and operator of the Greek Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, was brutally killed and left for dead in the backwoods of Las Vegas late last night. Local police will not offer any details now and say this is an ongoing investigation they cannot compromise.”
Next came a short clip of the mayor, praising Grant as a model citizen and pledging that the killer would be brought to justice.
Calvin returned to his booth in a trance. Maybe the police were already at his apartment. He had opened the doors, used the phone and searched the papers on Grant’s desk. His prints were all over the office. He’d be the primary suspect—tailor-made as a violent killer and an African American one to boot.
The waitress dropped his meal in front of him.
“I’ve lost my appetite, Doris.”
The waitress laughed. “Yeah, right. Calvin Watters will not inhale his food in three minutes.”
“Just bring me the bill, please.”
Her smile disappeared. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and walked out like a zombie.
The sky had darkened. He pulled the hood over his head, jammed his hands into his pockets and hurried toward his car. He’d taken only ten steps when he was stopped by a voice at his back.
“Hey, Calvin, wait up.”
He saw Ed jogging down the sidewalk toward him.
“What’s up?” Calvin asked.
Ed handed him a twenty. “This one’s on the house.”
A freebie from Ed wasn’t rare. It was inconceivable. “What gives, Ed?”
Ed took him by the arm and led him around the corner to an open space between two buildings. Glancing around, he whispered, “Listen, I know your story and I think you’re a good guy. So I have to tell you this.”
Calvin was silent. Ed did not say much and he never wasted words.
“I have a friend who works down at the police station. He overheard two homicide detectives talking and your name came up. You know that casino owner who was murdered?”
Calvin nodded and said nothing.
“Your fingerprints were found at his office.”
“Hey…” His mouth went dry. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
Ed nodded. “But they know you were there. This is where, in the movies, the pal says, ‘Go to the cops. That’s your best choice.’ But I know the Vegas cops. So all I can say is that I’ll help you if I can.”
“Thanks.”
The restaurant owner left him standing in the alley alone.
Things had heated up. He’d gone from free to hunted in ten minutes. He was now on the run, but he didn’t know in which direction and he hadn’t anticipated or prepared for it at all.
Book Two: The House Always Wins
Chapter 15
During the car ride to Grant’s private office, Dale read Watters’ bio.
His mother was deceased, his father unknown and his brother was a detective with the LAPD. Now that was interesting. Dale didn’t automatically love every cop family, but it showed the Watters brothers were not both thugs.
There was little about his past before college, when he’d been clean. Since leaving college, he’d spent some local jail time before Pitt discovered him. That was over three years ago. Since that time, he’d been clean as a whistle, on paper anyway.
Jimmy knew from the street that Calvin was considered terrifying. But he couldn’t be dumb to have stayed so low profile.
Dale looked at his partner. “Big fucker isn’t he?”
Mark McAllister was waiting on the side of the road when the detectives pulled up.
Dale turned to Jimmy. “This guy? He’s the ‘Vegas safe cracker’? He looks more like an aging hippie. What’s his story?”
“The department found him on the streets. He was just a kid in his twenties who had become a successful criminal and was looking at hard time. The cops spent so much time tracking him, they made him an offer. Go to prison, or join the team. McAllister took the deal. He
McAllister had a bald dome but a long ponytail. He jumped into the patrol car and seemed spaced out, a little bored.
The office was already unlocked and had been stripped clean, so they showed McAllister where the safe was hidden. It took him only seconds to get inside.
On top of a stack of papers, banded together and stacked in a pyramid, was $100,000 in cash. Dale removed the money along with a sheaf of papers and spread the papers across Grant’s empty desktop.
“Make sure you mark that money before we get into trouble,” Jimmy warned.
“You do it. I hate all this paperwork.”
Jimmy took the money and started filling out the papers.
Dale again found it hard to believe the amount of money that Grant had been worth. He lived a Spartan life. If the casino owner had owed Pitt funds, he would not be someone who had trouble paying the debt. All his records were in order.
“Hey, Jimmy.” Dale looked up from the small pile of documents in the safe. “Have you heard of Nick Trump?”
