Stone Cold

She cocked her head. “Seen, or done?”

“Who’s after you and why?”

“That’s no concern of yours.”

“It is if you want me to help you.”

“I’m not looking for help. I just wanted you to understand why I have to leave.”

“Do you really think you’ll be safer on your own?”

“I think you and the others will be a lot safer without me around.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“I’ve been in plenty of jams before and I’ve always managed to get myself out of them.”

“Out of a jam this tight?” He glanced at the paper. “This person doesn’t seem to fool around.”

“Tony made a mistake, a big one. I don’t intend on doing that. I lay low, for as long as it takes, and as far away from here as I can get.”

“But you don’t know what Tony might have told them. Did he have any information that could be used to track you down?”

Annabelle perched on the edge of the fireplace’s raised hearth. “Maybe,” she said tersely. “Probably,” she corrected.

“Then all the more reason for you not to go this alone. We can help protect you.”

“Oliver, I appreciate the sentiment but you have no idea what you’re getting into. Not only is this guy the scum of the earth with a lot of money and muscle behind him, but on top of that, what I did was illegal. You’d be harboring a criminal on top of risking your life.”

“Not the first time on either count,” he replied.

“Who are you?” she asked pointedly.

“You know all you need to know about me.”

“And I thought I was a world-class liar.”

“We’re wasting time, tell me about him.”

She rubbed her long, thin fingers together, drew a deep breath and said, “His name’s Jerry Bagger. He owns the Pompeii Casino, the biggest in Atlantic City. He was run out of Vegas years ago because he was a whack job. He would literally rip out your intestines if you tried to steal a five-dollar casino chip.”

“And how much did you, um, relieve him of?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“It’s important to know how much motivation the man has to come after you.”

“Forty million dollars. Think that’ll motivate him?”

“I’m impressed. It doesn’t sound like Bagger is a man easily conned.”

Annabelle allowed herself a brief smile. “It was one of my better scams, I have to admit. But Jerry is also very dangerous, and not entirely sane. If he even thinks someone is helping me, that person might as well be me. He’ll get the same treatment: death by pain, great pain.”

“You have no reason to believe that he’s aware you’re in D.C.?”

“No. Tony had no idea I’d be coming here. Neither did the others.”

“So there are others on the con team? Bagger might get to them.”

“He might. But like I said, they don’t know I’m here either.”

Stone slowly nodded. “Of course, we can’t be sure of what Bagger really knows or doesn’t know at this point. I’m sure that the public details of our little adventure involving the Library of Congress didn’t include your name or picture. However, we can’t be absolutely certain there isn’t something out there that would help him track you down.”

“My original plan was to head to the South Pacific.”

Stone shook his head. “Fugitives always head to the South Pacific. That’s probably the first place Bagger will check.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Partly, yes. But only partly.”

“So you really think I should stay here?”

“I do. I’m assuming you’ve covered your tracks well. No trails leading here, names, travel arrangements, phones, friends?”

She shook her head. “Coming here was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment thing. And all under an alias.”

“The smart thing to do would be to find out, as quietly as possible, what Bagger knows.”

“Oliver, you can’t possibly get anywhere near that guy. It would be suicide.”

“I know how to look, so let me start looking.”

“I’ve never asked anyone to help me before.”

“It took me decades before I could ask anyone to help me.”

She looked puzzled. “But you’re glad you did?”

“It’s the only reason I’m alive right now. Move out of your hotel and into another one. I’m assuming you have money.”

“Cash is not a problem.” She rose and started to the door but turned back. “Oliver, I appreciate this.”

“Let’s hope you can say that when it’s all over.”

CHAPTER 7

“DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID?” screamed Jerry Bagger. The casino chief wedged his arm against the other man’s windpipe as he mashed him against the wall in Bagger’s luxurious office on the twenty-third floor of the Pompeii Casino. The drapes were closed. Bagger always closed the drapes when he was either going to bang a willing lady on his couch or kick the shit out of somebody who deserved it. These matters should always be kept private, he felt. It was a point of honor with him.

The man didn’t answer Bagger’s question chiefly because he couldn’t breathe. However, Bagger wasn’t waiting for a reply. His first blow caught the guy flush on the nose and broke it. The second one knocked a front tooth out. The man fell to the floor weeping. For good measure Bagger kicked him in the gut. That made the beaten fellow vomit on the carpet. As the puke spread across the expensive inlaid wool Bagger’s own security force had to pull their furious boss off the fallen man before real damage was done.

The guy was carted away, crying and bleeding and mumbling that he was sorry. Bagger sat down behind his desk and rubbed his cracked knuckles. Glaring at his security chief, he growled, “Bobby, you bring me any more pissants like that one who say they know something about Annabelle Conroy and end up trying to shake me down while feeding me a sack of shit, I swear to God I will kill your mother. And I like your mother but I will kill her. Do you hear me!”

The burly black security chief took a step back and swallowed nervously. “Never again, Mr. Bagger. I’m sorry, sir. Really, really sorry.”

“Everybody’s sorry but nobody’s doing a damn thing to get me the bitch, are they?” Bagger roared.

“We thought we had a lead on her. A good one.”

“You thought? You thought? Well, maybe you should stop thinking, then.”

Bagger hit a button on his desk and the drapes opened. He jumped up and looked out the window. “Forty million bucks she took from me. This could screw up my whole business, you know that? I don’t have enough reserves to meet the state regs. You get a government bean counter in here right now looking at my books he could shut me down. Me! You used to be able to pay those assholes off, but now with all this anticorruption and ethical bullshit going around, you can’t do that no more. You mark my word, that full disclosure crap is gonna destroy a great country.”

“We’ll find her, boss, and get the money back,” his security chief assured him.

Bagger didn’t appear to be listening. Staring down at the street far below, he said, “I see the bitch everywhere. In my dreams, in my food, when I’m shaving there she is in my mirror. Hell, even when I’m taking a leak, her face is in the toilet bowl staring at me. It’s driving me nuts!”

He sat on the couch and calmed down. “What’s the latest on our boy Tony Wallace?”