Hot shot, p.4
Hot Shot, page 4
“I gotta tell you, Jack, Cyrus is real good company on a road trip. Thanks for letting him ride with me. I know you missed him. As to what’s new . . . that tall doctor—surgeon I guess, the one in the cowboy hat—took Cosmo back into surgery, which he himself performed. Some pretty long hours. I fell asleep. When I woke up, they made us leave. Charles said Cosmo was critical but holding his own. The cowboy stayed at his side and is still there, I think. When we asked why he was going back into surgery, the guy just said it was complicated and we wouldn’t understand anyway, so we had to leave it at that. He did say he was cautiously optimistic. At this stage of the game, that’s as good as we’re going to get. Everyone is here now. Where’s Lizzie?”
“We dropped her off at the hospital and drove here in her car. With her permission, of course.”
“Okay, well, when you’re ready, come up to the penthouse. Charles and Fergus are making breakfast.”
“Hold on a minute, Abner. Harry and I were going to go to the police station to see if we could get a copy of the police report.”
“Ted and Espinosa went and got it. No clue what it says, though. Guess we’ll find out when we all meet up. See ya!”
Cyrus sprinted across the room and held out his paw to Abner, who dutifully shook it. “My pleasure. You can ride shotgun with me anytime, Cyrus.” Cyrus woofed his thanks for the compliment, and then it was just Jack and Cyrus in the room.
Jack dropped to his haunches and eyed the big dog. “Damn, I really did miss you. That was a good thing you did, riding with Abner. Settle in while I shower and shave, then we’ll go up to the penthouse and get some breakfast.”
Cyrus leaped up onto the bed and stretched out. Jack laughed. God, he loved that dog.
Forty minutes later, Jack and Cyrus stepped out of the private elevator into the foyer of the penthouse. The scent of freshly roasted coffee and bacon struck his nostrils, reminding him of how hungry he was. Cyrus barked to show he was in agreement as he pranced into the huge penthouse and made the rounds so everyone could pet him and tell him how glad they were to see him. He waited just long enough to see where Jack was going to sit at the dining-room table before he found a spot next to his master’s chair. He flopped down and closed his eyes just as Harry arrived and sat down next to Jack.
“Okay, we’re all here now,” Jack said, “so let’s hear something. Right now, I’ll take anything you all want to share. Abner told me that Ted and Espinosa got a copy of the police report. Somebody clue us in.”
“Not much on it, Jack. The gunning down, the shoot-out, whatever you want to call it, went down in an area of town that is being, I guess the word is, refurbished. Renovated or whatever. It was originally an area off-limits to most people because of the crime and decay. The renovations have been going on for years, and real progress is being made. Cosmo owns it, along with a partner. Not sure whether it was gang related because their turf was invaded. No one has been arrested. Someone, no one knows who, called 911 when shots were fired. I did a little research on the area in question, and while originally seedy and less than desirable, it has never been known for gunfire. An ambulance came, and the first responders did what they had to do and whisked Cosmo to the clinic. He was able to tell the first responders where to take him, then he was out. As far as we know, he never said another word.”
“That’s it?” Jack said, disbelief ringing in his voice.
“Pretty much,” Dennis said. “I did some digging, too, and that whole quadrant of the city is owned by Cosmo Cricket and someone named Zack Meadows. I googled him, and he’s on the Gaming Commission, so it’s a safe bet he’s a good friend of Cosmo’s. In addition, three blocks of buildings are inhabited by senior citizens. The buildings and their grounds are in tip-top shape. It’s the only nice, decent part of that whole area, which is otherwise full of decaying buildings, but that’s changing on a daily basis. Maybe an eighth of a mile up from the complex is a little park with benches, where the seniors go to play checkers, chess, people-watch, that kind of thing. As I said, the area is being refurbished, but slowly.” Dennis spread his hands, palms up, as if to say, There you have it.
“I have a call in to Mr. Meadows, asking him if he’ll meet with us,” Charles said as he set a large platter of bacon and waffles in the center of Annie’s long dining-room table. Fergus then placed a platter of scrambled eggs, toast, and pancakes at each end. Warm syrup and melted butter followed as the gang dug in. Charles’s number one rule of not talking business during mealtime was paid no never mind as everyone started talking at once.
“I guess you’re saying he didn’t get back to you,” Dennis said.
“Not yet,” Charles agreed, taking his place at the table. “I’ll put in another call to him when we finish here. If he doesn’t take my call, then we might have to ask Lizzie to pave the way for a meeting.”
“We should have heard something on Cosmo’s condition by now,” Jack said. “Lizzie swears Dr. Wylie is some kind of magical surgeon. Has anyone called him?”
“He told us not to call him. He said he was staying with Cosmo. He meant that literally. He was in the recovery room after surgery and planned to stay there until they moved him into ICU, and he promised he would stay there to monitor him no matter how long it took,” Charles said as he crunched down on a piece of toast.
“Do the police have any kind of theory?” Harry asked.
“If they do, they sure didn’t share it with us. We’re outsiders, and this is Vegas. The police do not share or confide. You know what they say—‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’ As I said, we’re outsiders, so that means we’re on our own. Even our press credentials didn’t help. If anything, they clammed up even more when we showed them,” Ted said.
“What’s your feeling about the gangs, Ted?” Jack asked.
“Did you get a feel one way or the other in that regard?” Harry asked.
“I couldn’t read it, sorry to say. Dennis found out through his research that there are two gangs. Seems there are always two at war with each other. Everyone wants to be top dog. It’s the same way back home. One gang is called the Cavaliers. The other one is called the Scorpions. When the renovations started, they had to relocate to another area, but before they did, the Scorpions raised all kinds of holy hell. They tried to burn down the senior complex. Then they blew up some cars. They messed with the city’s earthmoving equipment to delay the renovation. The skinny is that the Scorpions did it. The Cavaliers simply relocated and didn’t cause any problems. No arrests were made. It was rumored that the Cavaliers are the guardian angels and protectors of the seniors. The Scorpions don’t like that. In other words, the Scorpions are the bad guys, and the Cavaliers are the good guys, if there is such a thing when two gangs are at war,” Ted said.
“That’s crazy,” Jack interjected.
“Not if you really think about it, Jack,” Charles said. “Cosmo and his partner purchased that property years and years ago. They renovated three city blocks of dwellings to provide homes for senior citizens. Who better to protect the seniors and their investment from a gang than another gang? Cosmo is no fool, we know that. This is Vegas. He would have hedged his bets all the way around. I’m sure he’s funding the gang in some way. His own father resided in one of the buildings for a while before he passed away. I’m thinking Mr. Meadows might have had a parent there, too, at some point, and that might explain why Cosmo and he went into that venture together.
“Several years ago, I recall a conversation I had with Lizzie about everything and nothing, just a conversation, but she mentioned what she called Cosmo’s project, and she said it was his, that she wasn’t involved, just the way he wasn’t involved in her activities with the sisters. She did say that after Cosmo’s mother died, his father went dark and quiet, kind of the way Myra went when our daughter Barbara died. It was his way of getting his father back among the living, giving him a reason to carry on. I don’t know if any of that is going to help us.”
“Hanging out at the hospital isn’t going to get us anywhere. Maybe you should go out to Happy Village and talk to some of the seniors, or if you’re lucky, the leader of the Cavaliers,” Abner said. “While you guys are doing that, I can see what I can hack into in regard to the Village, the gang, and Mr. Meadows himself.”
Jack looked at Harry. “You want to stay with your guys? I can take Dennis with me. Ted and Espinosa can hit the local papers and see what their colleagues are willing to part with. Reporters are a close-knit group but usually kind to one another. Fergus and Charles can hang out here or go to the hospital. How’s that all sound to you guys?”
Everyone said it worked for them. They all agreed to stay in touch and meet up back at Babylon at one o’clock for brunch in one of the main dining rooms.
Jack was about to get up to help clear the table when his cell phone vibrated. He looked down at the caller ID and was surprised to see it was Little Jack. He knew instinctively the boy had a problem and it wasn’t going to be good. He knew this because it was way too early in the morning for LJ to get in touch. He showed the caller ID to Harry, who rolled his eyes.
“What’s up, little man?” Jack said, forcing cheer he was far from feeling. He listened, then let out a huge sigh. Before he commented, he walked out of the dining room and down a hall, to where he could have some privacy.
“Whoa. Whoa. Calm down now. Let me make sure I have this right. LJ, take a deep breath. This is not the end of the world. You went to bed last night and sometime during the night someone went into your room and drew sour faces on your knees with a black magic marker that won’t wash off. Do I have that right?” Jack listened as the boy on the other end of the phone fought not to sob. “All the girls are giggling. Well, of course they are. They’re the ones who did it. It’s what kids do at summer camp, LJ. You have to suck it up and pretend it doesn’t matter. Take the high road. Yeah, I get the part about the fat knees and you have to wear shorts. Emily is waiting for you to explode, to retaliate. That’s what girls do. Now listen up, this is going to be really hard for you to do, but you have to do what I tell you. I want your promise, LJ.”
All Jack could hear on the other end of the phone was sniffling. “Cut that out right now. Sniffling and crying and tattling is exactly what Emily wants you to do. She’s counting on it, depending on it making you so mad you lose your timing when you hit the water. What you’re going to do is turn the tables on her. You’re going to go with the joke, show off your knees, laugh about it. Don’t blame her, don’t even look at her. She’s expecting you to go all ape poop on her, and you aren’t going to do that. If you do what I say, she will be the one who loses time in the water because she will be trying to figure out where she went wrong and why it isn’t bothering you. You listening to me, LJ? Can you do it? Can you carry it off ?”
“All I wanted was for her to like me, Uncle Jack. My friend Luke told me she likes Trevor, but Trevor likes Sally. See my point?”
“I do see your point, but you need to see my point. So, do I have your promise? And it wouldn’t hurt to maybe show some interest in some other girl, just for fun. Okay, are we good here, pal?”
“We’re good, Uncle Jack. Thanks. I’ll send you a text later to let you know how the day goes, okay?”
“You got it. Good luck. Remember now, play it cool.”
Jack ended the call. Oh, to be that young with those kinds of problems. He felt a bit guilty about continuing to keep LJ in the dark about Cosmo’s situation, but he knew it was for the best. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Right then, at that precise moment in time, Jack Emery wished he were ten years old again and in summer camp with all the drama that occurred twenty-four hours a day and loving every minute of it.
Cyrus nudged his leg. Time to get back on the stick with his own real-world drama.
Jack was happy to see that Annie’s kitchen sparkled and everyone was on the move. Dennis was waiting, his backpack settled comfortably on his shoulders.
“Harry said to tell you he’ll see you at one o’clock and to try not to get into any trouble, because he’ll be too busy to get you out of said trouble,” Dennis said.
Cyrus didn’t like the sound of that. He woofed, then woofed again. Jack laughed as he looked around for his own backpack. “Guess we’re taking Lizzie’s Benz. Do you know where we’re going, Dennis?”
“Got the address right here. Straight drive as the crow flies. Forty minutes depending on traffic. I think we should drive around first, get the lay of the land before we tackle the senior citizens. What do you think, Jack?”
“Sounds good. Do we know who’s in charge of the housing complex?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think it’s a man named Gentry Lomax. His second-in-command is a woman named Bessie Love. I got all that from the Happy Village newsletter they publish once a month. Another thing I learned was that there are no couples in Happy Village. It’s for people who’ve lost a spouse. That’s not to say that some of them might not . . . um . . . hook up from time to time, but from what I read it’s frowned upon. It’s a friendship kind of place, and if you stop to think about it, Jack, it’s a great idea. No one can replace a wife or husband after, say, forty or fifty years of marriage. From that point on, it’s all about friendship. At least that’s what the newsletter wants everyone to believe.”
“I guess we’ll see for ourselves once we get there,” Jack said as he followed the instructions on the navigation system.
It was barely ten in the morning, and the traffic was already bumper to bumper. Jack wished he were hitching a ride with Harry on his Ducati. If that were the case, they’d arrive at their destination in fifteen minutes.
As Jack muttered under his breath, he found his thoughts going to his godchild, Little Jack, and how he was faring with his decorated fat knees. He found it hard not to laugh that a ten-year-old girl named Emily could bring his godson to his fat little knees.
No pun intended.
Chapter 3
Dennis did his best to keep up a running conversation with Jack as they made their way to Happy Village in the stop-and-go traffic.
Jack took his eyes off the road for a moment to look across at Dennis. “If I counted right, that was about ten questions you just asked me, none of which I have the answers to. I got here when you did, so I know what you know. I don’t see any point in speculating at this point. I’m still racking my brain to try to remember if I ever even heard about this project of Cosmo’s. I know for a fact Lizzie never mentioned it, or if she did, it was in the vaguest of terms and didn’t register as something I needed to remember. On the other hand, I think I can count on one hand the times I’ve been in Cosmo’s company, so there’s no reason for me to even know about his affairs. Lizzie and Cosmo are both very private people, or at least they try to be in a town like Vegas.”
Dennis nodded as he stared out at the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the exhaust spiraling upward into the cloudless blue sky. “It’s supposed to reach over a hundred today, Jack. Did you hear that this morning on the news?” Jack shook his head to indicate no, he had not heard about the temperature.
“Do you have a plan in mind when we get to Happy Village?”
“I wish,” Jack muttered. “No. Do you?”
“No. I think we need to think about the possibility that the seniors won’t want to talk to us. As a rule, senior citizens are very much aware that there are people who try to take advantage of them, scam them because they’re up in years. We’re going to be strangers to them, and we’re going in cold, with no credentials. Yeah, we know Cosmo Cricket, and yeah, we know he’s fighting for his life. All the more reason for them to clam up to strangers. I suppose we can bandy Zack Meadows’s name about, but whoever is in charge will want to know why Meadows didn’t get in touch with him or her to warn them we were coming.”
“I guess we’ll just wing it the way we usually do. By the way, did you have any luck researching those gangs we talked about earlier?”
“You mean the Cavaliers and the Scorpions?”
“Yes,” Jack responded.
“The members of the Scorpions are all tatted up with scorpions on their arms, necks, the back of their hands, and the calves of their legs. They’re a mixed bag, white, black, and Hispanic. They are some badass dudes, from what I read. Happy Village is in the area that used to be their turf. They were forced to move away—and managed to cause quite a bit of trouble before they did. A lot of them are still in jail, but their total membership somehow increased. Serving time in jail is a badge of honor with the gangs.”
“What about the Cavaliers. They badasses too?”
“All gangs are bad, you know that, Jack. But to answer your question, no, not really. I could not confirm this, but it seems that Cosmo somehow, in some way, communicates with them, and they are more or less guardians of Happy Village. We should have talked to Zack Meadows before we came out here to get the lay of the land.”
“I tried calling him three times and left messages. He didn’t return any of my calls. That is not sitting well with me. He didn’t get back to Charles, either. I’d like to know if the guy is a silent partner or one with a voice, or is it Cosmo who calls the shots. I don’t even know if Lizzie knows. My point is that the guy should be jumping all over himself to help us, and he isn’t, is he? Why do you think that is?”
Dennis felt goose bumps race up and down his arms, and it had nothing to do with the chilly temperature in the car. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” There was angst in the young reporter’s tone that set Jack’s teeth on edge because he knew exactly what the young reporter was thinking.
The robotic voice on the navigation system instructed Jack to make a right-hand turn two hundred feet ahead.
