Hot shot, p.12
Hot Shot, page 12
The moment the two men were eyeball to eyeball, Lomax demanded to know what Lionel was doing at the clubhouse.
They were equally tall, equally muscled, both nicely dressed, both groomed, but Lionel was twenty-two and Gentry Lomax was sixty-two, which put Lionel at an advantage should things ever come to a showdown. The other obvious difference was that Gentry Lomax was white and Lionel Lewis was black. Lionel knew that Lomax was a racist. Bessie Love had confided to him that little factoid. And Bessie should know because she was also black and in constant contact with Lomax as his assistant.
“Mrs. Cricket’s people asked to meet with me and my boys. I agreed. It’s 110 degrees out right now, so I had Dom go in and turn on the air-conditioning. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Lomax?” he asked coolly. “Mr. Cricket gave me a key to the clubhouse and said I could come and go as I please, as you well know. Just the way he gave me the master key to all the units at Happy Village. I have never abused the trust he placed in me, and you know that as well.”
The boy’s having a set of keys did bother Gentry Lomax. So much so that he’d asked Cosmo Cricket why and was told quite bluntly that it was none of his business. So, yes, it did bother him. “About what?” he snarled.
“Well now, Mr. Lomax, I won’t know the answer to that question until I talk to them, will I?” Lionel replied, mustering the cool not to add “you fool” as he wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
“You know you’re supposed to check in with my office when you come on the property. You didn’t do that, did you?” Lomax snarled a second time.
Lionel sucked in a deep breath of the hot, humid air and wished he hadn’t. He was a hairbreadth away from losing it. “No, Mr. Lomax, I did not do that, because the moment I turned the engine off in the car, I saw your office door open and you walking toward me. I didn’t see any point to it in this heat. If there’s nothing else I can do for you, then, I’ll go along to meet Mr. Cricket’s people. They’re parking their vehicles now, as you can plainly see.” Lionel clenched his teeth so tight, he thought his jaw was going to crack. He didn’t mean to say the words, but somehow they slipped through. “So am I dismissed?” he said, snapping off a sloppy salute. Without waiting for a response, Lionel turned and sprinted toward the clubhouse and the people Mrs. Cricket wanted him to talk to.
“Introductions can wait until we’re inside,” Lionel said as he ushered the small group ahead of him. “We need to get out of this heat.”
“Did that guy back there give you a hard time? It looked like it from where I was standing,” Jack asked.
Lionel snorted. “The man lives to make my life miserable. Nice dog. Does he need water or anything? It’s 110 degrees, with the humidity in the high nineties.”
Jack said Cyrus was good. Cyrus barked to show his appreciation of Lionel’s concern for his well-being.
Even though it had only been a few minutes, the inside of the clubhouse was frosty cold. Dom offered cold Cokes from the kitchen refrigerator, and they all accepted as Maggie made the introductions.
“Nice room,” Jack said, looking around. And that’s all the clubhouse was, incorporating a huge kitchen, his and her bathrooms, and a pantry lined with shelves that held mostly paper products. A mini stage of sorts was raised against the far wall, with a portable podium pushed into a corner. Folding chairs and long folding tables were neatly lined up against the far wall. Eddie and Dom set up one of the tables and unfolded the chairs. Nick handed out napkins from the pantry for the dripping Coke bottles.
Maggie liked the look of the young men. They were all dressed in jeans, boat shoes, and button-down shirts, the sleeves rolled up. All of them had regulation haircuts, and she didn’t see even one piercing or tattoo. A definite plus. She could tell they were all good friends and had respect for one another regardless of their ethnic background. Lionel was black, Dom appeared to be a mix of Italian and Asian blood, Eddie was Spanish, and Nick was a Brit.
Lionel took the lead. “I only have an hour, because I have a class at three-thirty. Nick has a class at three. So until then we’re all yours. How can we help you? Anything Mrs. Cricket wants, we’re up for. First, though, is there any news on Mr. Cricket? We call the hospital every day, and they just say the same thing—he’s holding his own, or words to that effect. One day I did talk to the doctor. Nice guy. All he would say, though, was he was optimistic.”
“Mr. Cricket is improving. They had to take him back into surgery, but he came through that okay. He was in a coma, but he came out of it. He’s a fighter and has a lot to live for, so like Dr. Wylie said, we’re all optimistic,” Jack informed the young men. “Now, tell us what you know about this place and the day the shooting happened.”
“See, that’s the thing, Mr. Emery. We were all in class. We usually don’t come out here during the day, unless one of the tenants calls us. If we have a slow week, we will come out during the week, at least once or twice a day. We work in shifts. Basically, though, we’re the night patrol. Mr. Lomax is in charge during the day. My boys and I take turns. There are nine of us on any given night. Sometimes all twelve of us are here. And Mr. Lomax doesn’t want us out here during the day anyway. The guy hates us, hates the ground we walk on. None of us has ever shown him one ounce of disrespect. Never, not once.
“He wanted us gone from day one, but Mr. Cricket put his foot down. That settled things. We try not to get in his way. I just wish he would do the same thing, but he’s determined to get in our faces every chance he gets. For some reason, he thinks this place is his. And he does run a tight ship. This place runs smoothly. I’ll give him that. The tenants don’t like him for a variety of reasons that are none of our business, and we try to stay out of it.
“But to get back to your question, no one here knows anything, and I made sure my boys and I talked to every single tenant. Most of these people are up in years, and they play their televisions loud because most of them don’t have hearing aids, so the sound of a gunshot wouldn’t register. Trust me when I tell you, if they knew anything, we’d know it before Mr. Lomax.
“To my knowledge, Mr. Cricket doesn’t usually come out here much during the week. I’ve seen him pretty often on weekends, when we’re all on duty. He’s always trying to do more for the tenants. This is just a guess on my part, but the boys here agree with me. So for whatever it’s worth, we think Mr. Cricket came out here that day specifically to see Mr. Lomax because he was upset about something. We think it was about the twenty tenants who have gone AWOL. But we don’t have anything definite to base our opinion on. Bessie Love confided in me that Mr. Gentry gets a bonus at the end of the year based on the rentals. With empty units, his bonus goes down. He even squawked about Bessie’s getting a reduction in her rent or maybe free rent to work in the office. I’m not sure how that works, and it’s none of my business anyway. All she has to live on is her Social Security, and it isn’t much. She’s a kind soul, and Lomax treats her like a slave. One of these days, he’s going to pay for that.”
“So what you’re saying is, you and your people really don’t know anything. Do you suspect anything?” Ted asked.
Nick raised his hand. “I think—and this is just my opinion—but I think Mr. Lomax makes too many trips outside the village on a daily basis. Some of the tenants who are a little more alert and sharper started to keep track at our request. The day of the shooting was a legitimate trip to pick up sinks. That we verified. One of the tenants told us that one day Lomax left wearing his standard outfit, khaki pants and the Happy Village T-shirt, but when he returned he was wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt. I don’t know what if anything that means.”
“Do you know anything about Zack Meadows, Mr. Cricket’s partner? Does he come out here, do you know?” Ted queried.
The four members of the Cavaliers looked at one another and shrugged. All eyes turned to Lionel Lewis, who suddenly looked like a deer caught in the headlights. The young man cleared his throat, not once but twice, before he spoke.
“We met him, of course. Several times, actually. It’s my understanding that he doesn’t come out here during the day. Some of the tenants said he’s been here on the weekends and huddles with Mr. Lomax. I have no reason to doubt that, but we’ve never seen him in the flesh. But I did see what I thought was his car. At night going as far back as maybe seven months ago. No one around here drives a Mercedes, so it was natural to assume it was Mr. Meadows’s vehicle. We aren’t able to run a license plate, but I’d stake my life that it was Mr. Meadows’s car.
“The reason I say that is on Fridays I go to Mr. Cricket’s office to pick up our paychecks, and this one time about two months ago, Mr. Cricket asked me to do him a favor, and of course I said yes. He wanted me to deliver a package to Mr. Meadows at his office. He just said he didn’t want to send it by messenger, and I was right there and it was on my way home. I obliged. I’m pretty sure I saw the same Mercedes in the parking lot. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think it was the same license plate. Other than that, I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
Maggie looked at Jack and suddenly felt an itch between her shoulder blades. Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod, and she knew instantly that the young man sitting across from her knew or suspected something but wasn’t going to volunteer it unless directly asked. She was trying to figure out how and what to say when Dennis West leaned over the table and asked, “There’s more, isn’t there? What aren’t you saying? Whatever you say stays with us, and there will be no ramifications. In other words, we’re on your side.”
Lionel cleared his throat again and looked around at his friends, who shrugged. “I was taught from early on by my mother that if you don’t have something good to say about someone, don’t say anything. I have opinions like everyone else, of course, but that’s what they are, opinions.”
“Let’s hear them,” Ted said. “Let us judge if it’s important enough to worry about.”
Lionel looked around as his friends gave imperceptible nods. “Like I said, I go to Mr. Cricket’s office every Friday. He has a nice comfortable office, like most corporate offices. Nothing to take your breath away, that’s for sure. In a word, his offices are tasteful. I’m sure he makes a very good salary for someone in his position, and he has a sterling reputation, as you all know. Plus he has to have income coming in from Happy Village. He’s just an all-around nice guy. He doesn’t flaunt anything, dresses down, blends in, that kind of thing. Ordinary.
“Mr. Meadows is . . . different. I know he and Mr. Cricket are partners in Happy Village. I have no clue how much money they make or how all that works, and I don’t want to know, because it’s none of my business. The boys and I, we keep our heads down and do what we’re paid to do. Mr. Meadows is what my mother would call all flash. He wears expensive suits and shoes, gets manicures, gets his hair styled, and his office blew me away when I got there. It was like . . . regal . . . imperial or something.
“I’m sure he is paid a decent salary, something I’ll probably never earn in my lifetime, plus he has whatever monies he gets from the Village partnership. And he drives a high-dollar car. He appears to live high. He looks through you, not at you. My mother would say he’s pretentious, and I guess that’s as good a term as any I could come up with.
“I couldn’t help myself when I was in his office, it was so . . . grandiose that I was looking around, and he said, ‘I guess you don’t see anything like this from where you come from, eh?’ That kind of put my teeth on edge a little, but I didn’t say anything. I just handed him the package, and it looked as if he knew what it was and didn’t want to take it from my hand. I don’t know, maybe it was me and he would feel tainted somehow if he touched something I was holding. I just laid it on the desk, and let me tell you about that desk. It’s an absolute replica of the Resolute desk in the White House. Anyway, this might be just my imagination, but he looked . . . I’m not sure if frightened is the right word, but that was my first impression. I just got out of there as quickly as I could.
“Oh, there is one other thing. Mr. Cricket said I was to call him after I delivered the package. I did, and he just said thank you. Then I went home.”
“Is Mr. Meadows very active socially, do you know?” Jack asked.
The boys all burst out laughing. Nick laughed the hardest. “With every showgirl in Vegas is the rumor. He’s a ladies’ man. Everyone in Vegas knows that.”
“Rumor has it he lives in a ten-million-dollar condo. Where’s the money coming from?” Lionel asked. “Maybe he goes to Reno to gamble and maybe he made a killing,” he answered himself. “Of course, he’d have to go in disguise, since employees are forbidden to gamble. I know this because Mr. Cricket told me it was in Mr. Meadows’s contract. Well, he didn’t exactly tell me that. I overheard him talking to someone about it. No, he did not mention Mr. Meadows by name, if that’s your next question. It is my understanding that it’s up to each casino if they want to allow their employees to gamble in their off hours. Likewise the Commission. Don’t quote me on that, because I am not one hundred percent sure.” Lionel looked down at his watch, his eyes widening. “I have to leave now so I can get Dom to his class and head off to mine. If you want to talk more, we’ll be back here tonight by seven o’clock. I have to lock up now. I’m sorry we don’t have more time.”
“No, it’s okay, I think you helped us a lot. I can’t think of anything else at the moment anyway. If you think of anything, call one of us,” Jack said, writing cell phone numbers on the back of his business card. “Call us anytime, day or night, if you think it’s important. Don’t be shy about the time.”
“Will do,” Lionel said as he waited for his friends to replace the fold-up table and chairs. Eddie picked up the Coke bottles and stuck them in a trash bag he found under the sink. He carried them out with him.
Maggie wondered how it could possibly be hotter than it was before they entered the clubhouse, but it was. She mopped at her face and grimaced, knowing her hair was going to frizz to a fireball in the thick humidity.
Good-byes were said, hands shaken, then the boys were gone. The foursome, along with Cyrus, climbed into their respective vehicles for the ride back to Babylon.
“Nice bunch of guys,” Jack said. “I’d take them over Lomax and Meadows any day of the week. I was hoping for . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a bombshell, a smoking gun of some kind. We know less now than before we got here. I didn’t get the feeling they were holding anything back that would be pertinent to the shooting.”
“Not quite true, Jack,” Maggie said. “We got the boys’ impressions, that counts for something. True, they have skin in the game, but I agree and found them to be credible, and obviously so does Cosmo. Otherwise he wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. Kids see things differently than adults, you know that.”
Jack poured more water into the fold-up dish for Cyrus, who lapped it up immediately. “You’re right, I do know that. You know what we forgot? We forgot to ask them about the badass gang. Well, if nothing else is going on tonight back at Babylon, we can come back here and get the skinny on what if anything they might know. It might be cooler, too, plus Lomax might get his jockeys in a knot if he sees us here at night. Three visits in one day for sure will make him a little antsy. I’m just saying. I really think there is something fishy, something off about that guy. It’s not just that ramrod military thing either, it’s something else. Right now I just can’t put my finger on it, but trust me, it will come to me sooner or later.”
“Go ahead, you can say it. The guy is an all-round prick,” Maggie said.
“I didn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities.” Jack guffawed. “But you’re right, he is definitely that.” Cyrus barked to show he also agreed.
Jack went back to staring out the window at the blistering heat that shimmered off the highway. His thoughts were everywhere as his cell phone rang. “Hey!” he said, turning to Maggie, who was driving. “It’s Harry,” he said, picking up the call. “Hey, dude, what’s up? You guys winning big? Nice of you to check in.”
Jack sat up a little straighter when he heard Harry’s frazzled voice. Harry never got frazzled. Jack put him on speaker, and Cyrus immediately leaned forward so he could hear better. Maggie craned her neck to the right for the same reason.
“Oh, the guys are winning all right. Between the four of them, they’ve won over a million dollars.”
“Wow!” was all Jack could manage to say. Finally, when there was no response, Jack asked, “So what’s the problem?”
Jack closed his eyes and pictured Harry struggling to find the right words to convey whatever the problem was. “It’s like this.... They’re still winning. Big time. We’re being watched to see if we’re . . . hell, I don’t know, using something or have some kind of system, but that’s okay, not a problem. The boys haven’t cashed in yet. They’re hoping to win another million or so. This is where you’re supposed to ask me why, Jack,” Harry dithered.
Jack looked at Maggie and rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite, why?”
“Because they want to turn it into gold. They want me to get in touch with that movie star William Devane, who does all those gold commercials for Rosland Capital. They even have the telephone number to call. They refuse to believe a celebrity such as me can’t get in touch with the guy. They don’t frigging believe me, Jack!” Harry said, outrage ringing in his voice.
Jack closed his eyes. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it. “Why? I guess my next question is whether they have given any thought to how they would transport all those gold coins or bars back to their home countries. Two million dollars will buy quite a bit of gold, and gold is heavy. And then there’s customs.”
“That’s why they’re still gambling. They want to win another million, plus enough to charter a private plane to take them and the gold home. They don’t want paper money. They saw another commercial for gold by some other company, and the guy hawking the gold said, ‘If you can’t hold it, do you really own it?’ They were off and running when they heard that. What that means is they want to hold it. They are taking what the huckster said literally. They’re starting to draw crowds at the gaming tables, and the guests are cheering them on. They’re loving all of this. Really loving it.”
