Stealing the Golden Dream Read online

  The cops took Eddie straight from the crime scene to lockup, where he’d been for the past three hours. When he walked out to meet Jordan, something about his wounded expression bothered her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. He looked and smelled a lot better than when he was locked up last time.

  He hugged her.

  He turned to Ann and offered to shake. “Thanks, Detective Murphy. Your endorsement obviously goes a long way with these guys down here.”

  She ignored his hand. “If you’d brought us and the Tucson cops in on this, we could have set up a sting operation. We’d have the coins, we’d have the perp, and we wouldn’t have three bodies. What were you thinking, Marino?”

  Eddie had the grace to look at his feet. “Sorry.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the three sat down with Detectives Rico and Castro from the South Tucson PD and Pima County Sheriff’s Office.

  Rico, the city cop, was buff and good-looking, while Sheriff’s Deputy Castro looked to be about ten years past retirement age and getting softer before Jordan’s eyes.

  “Lucky Louie was known to black market stolen goods to his contacts in Mexico. He’s been on our watch list for a while now. This was bound to happen sooner or later,” Rico said.

  Castro shoved a file across the desk toward Ann. “These are his connections on the other side of the border. Since you told us about the stolen coins, we’ve notified agencies in Sonora to be on alert.”

  “Mexico? Good luck with that,” Eddie muttered.

  Rico said, “As far as we can tell, Mr. Marino was only fifteen minutes or so behind the killer. We think ballistics will show that the same gun shot all three. So, one guy. The security cameras were disabled with a magnetic pulse at ten fifteen. Only about five minutes later, reported gunfire sent us to the crime scene. Probably when it went down. But we’ll know for sure when we get the ME’s report.”

  Castro spread his hands. “That’s it, people. We got nothing else. We’re hoping anything you come up with, Detective Murphy, you’ll play nice and share.”

  Ann stood. “We will. And you’ll reciprocate?”

  The cops nodded.

  While Ann traded contact information with the officers, Jordan and Eddie walked out together and stood in the parking lot under a big mesquite tree while they waited for the release of Eddie’s truck from impound. A couple of black-and-whites were parked in the lot. Most forces as small as South Tucson’s couldn’t afford to have any inactive vehicles.

  The sun came out over the Tucson Mountains from behind the clouds and exploded in a double rainbow. It would be so much simpler if the Dahlonega coins were in the pot at its end.

  He said quietly, “Whoever this guy is, he’s dangerous. That’s the second time he’s blindsided me.”

  He cut his eyes at her, and she knew he was worried. It was what she’d seen on his face when they set him loose earlier. She was worried, too.

  “I can’t seem to get out in front of him,” he said. “Smart. I gotta tell you it scares me some. He seems to know exactly what I’m going to do and when I’m going to do it. I don’t like what that could mean.”

  Chapter 18

  Florence Prison had to be the most depressing place on the face of the planet, and after his experiences with jail cells the last couple of weeks, Eddie was freakin’ delighted to be on the walk-away side of the table.

  He and Diego sat waiting in the empty visitation room at a simple table-and-chairs setup that made Eddie want to order a burger. One Simon Cooper, who according to Diego’s contact was the go-to guy for tattoos in the Federal lockup, was on his way from his cell. Their objective was to grill him for information about the tattoo from Muggs’s cellphone.

  It was nine p.m. Sunday night and visiting hours had been over for a long time, but Diego’s guy—a security guard who just happened to work the weekend night shift—had set them up to see the con.

  The clank of the gate release echoed off the concrete floor, and a boy—there was no other way to describe him—walked into the dim, empty visitation room with Diego’s pal.

  Simon Cooper was about five eight or nine by Eddie’s measure. Slim. The orange jumpsuit hung on him. His blond hair was cut short, but some of it still hung down over his forehead. Puppy, Eddie thought. Your all-American boy next door. Probably pretty popular with the other cons.

  Eddie and Diego stood.

  The con sat at the table.

  Diego reached out for the guard’s extended hand. They shook. Diego stepped back. “Eddie, this is Federico.”

  Eddie shook the guard’s hand. “Fred.”

  The guard nodded.

  “Thanks for setting this up,” Eddie said. “We won’t forget it.”

  “No hay problema, guys. You got fifteen minutes, tops.” He turned and walked to the corner of the room, where he stood, waiting and watching.

  Eddie and Diego sat back down.

  The boy smiled. Eddie knew the type, a white-collar criminal who could charm the bloomers off Mother Superior.

  “Knock it off, kid,” he said. “You’re cute and all, but it’s wasted on us.”

  The boy seemed just fine with that. He reached over the table and shook their hands respectively. “Simon Cooper. My friends call me Coop. What can I do for you guys?”

  Diego pulled a print of the watch tattoo they took off Muggs’s phone and slid it across the table.

  Coop picked it up and held it face out to them. “Yep, it’s mine all right. You like it?”

  “It’s nice work,” Eddie said. “A watch with no hands. Says time is meaningless when you’re in the joint. Right, Coop?”

  He nodded. “I could do a lot more if I had some decent equipment, you know. Say, you won’t mention this to anyone here, will you? I could get a couple of weeks in solitary if they find out I’m slinging ink. It would delay my release.”

  “We won’t say anything.”

  Coop narrowed his eyes and sat back. “Then what can I do for you?” He fingered the edge of the photo. “You want one like this? I’ll give you a good deal.”

  Eddie laughed. “Thanks, but no tattoos. Here’s what we need, Coop.”

  They brought him up to speed, only including the barest of details. Diego asked, “Any chance you know whose arm this is?”

  Coop took another look at it and shook his head. “Sorry.”

  Eddie and Diego exchanged a look. Total frustration.

  Coop went on. “Shouldn’t be a problem, though.”

  They looked back at him.

  “I only did eight of those.”

  Hallelujah, Eddie thought.

  Diego was more vocal. “Gracias a Dios, we finally caught a break.”

  “Eight names, Coop? Doesn’t sound like it would be too hard for you to provide eight names,” Eddie said.

  Coop smiled again, showing all his teeth this time. “Don’t prematurely ejaculate here, guys. What’s in it for me?”

  Eddie sighed. Negotiation, always negotiation with cons. “What’s on your wish list, kid?”

  Coop crossed his arms on top of the table and grinned. “I’m outta here on Tuesday. Free as a bird, sort of. Parole. You know.”

  Eddie waited for it.

  “This was my second go here. First time I did three years. Targeted this fat CEO and managed a half mil in kited checks before they got me. This time, it was eighteen months on a hacking charge.”

  “Hacking?” Diego asked.

  “Yeah. Robin Hood. You know? Hacked the IRS, gave out a bunch of refunds. Didn’t take a nickel for myself.”

  Yeah, I bet, Eddie thought.

  “But the Feds didn’t seem to care much.” Coop looked Eddie straight in the eye. “Point is, I can’t come back here.”

  Eddie said, “Not much I can do about whether you come back here or not.”

  “Hear me out,” Coop said. “The con who watches my back—literally, if you get my drift—is released next month. He’s kept me safe here. Says I remind him of his son. Good old guy. He ma
kes sure I got no problems with lovesick inmates.”

  Diego snorted. “I can see where that might be a problem for a pretty boy like you. How old are you, anyway? Sixteen?”

  The look Coop shot him made him appear altogether different, more like a man who could be taken seriously. “Twenty-three.”

  Diego said. “Man, you look like a baby, dude.”

  “Back to your wish list?” Eddie said.

  “I need a job, something nice. Something I’m good at. Something mostly indoors.”

  Eddie nodded. “Yeah? What makes you think I’m the guy to talk to?”

  Coop gave him a give-me-a-break look. “I asked around about you when Fred talked to me. I know who you are, Mr. Marino, who you were, what you do. You could use a guy like me.”

  “I could, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. You could. So here’s my proposition.” He looked Eddie straight in the eye.

  Eddie liked this kid more by the minute. Reminds me of me.

  “I’ll help you out with a list of eight names. You check and see who’s on the inside and who’s on the outside, and maybe one of those outside dudes could be your man. Then—here’s the good part—somebody comes around on Tuesday, picks me up and takes me to work at Shea Investigations and Security, where I become a gainfully employed, upstanding member of the community.”

  Eddie met his direct look. “Sounds like maybe you’re getting more bang for your buck outta this deal than we are.”

  Coop shrugged. “Maybe. You just gotta decide what those names are worth to you.” He leaned forward, serious all of a sudden. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Marino. I’m good. Ask around. I’ll do whatever you need me to do within reason. You won’t be sorry.”

  Eddie spent a long minute looking into Simon Cooper’s eyes. The kid didn’t look away. What he saw there was reassuring. Earnestness and decency.

  He stood. Diego got the signal and stood also.

  “Okay, kid,” Eddie said. “Give me overnight to talk to a couple of people.”

  “Meaning your boss, Jordan Welsh?”

  Smart kid. “My boss? She’s my boss, all right.” The boy inched up in Eddie’s esteem yet again. “Did your homework, Coop. I’ll give you that. Like I said, give me overnight. We’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 19

  “That’s not happening.” Jordan spun on her heel and walked away.

  Eddie’s chin dropped to his chest. He’d come straight to the office Monday morning to plead his case to Jordan. To say she was reluctant was putting it mildly. He couldn’t bring Simon Cooper into the firm without Jordan, and he needed Coop’s cooperation in the worst way.

  Coop might have been right; Jordan might just be the boss after all. “Jordan, hang on a minute. Listen.” He hurried after her then realized he wasn’t just hurrying, he was scurrying. He slowed down. Only two souls in the entire galaxy could make him scurry. Mama Rose and Jordan. Mama knew it, but he couldn’t let Jordan know she had that kind of power over him.

  She crossed the reception area to her office, her hands talking as loud as her mouth. Her voice was strident. “Like I don’t have enough problems here? I need an ex-con running around the place?”

  She strode into her office and slammed the door.

  He turned to Gina. “What the hell do I gotta do to get her to give this kid a chance?”

  Gina shrugged. “Diamonds are good.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re a big help. We need this Cooper guy, and to tell you the truth, I think there’s a place around here for a guy like him. But if I’m going to get this by Jordan, I need backup. Who can I get?”

  “Simon Cooper is a good kid who just got in with the wrong crowd,” Ann said.

  “Wrong crowd?” Eddie asked. “You mean like the World Wide Web?”

  She went on. “I was with the FBI when they made the arrest. That’s why my name is on his file. But, Eddie, he’s brilliant. There’s no end to what he could do with the right guidance. What he needs is a good role model.”

  Eddie grinned. “I could be a role model.”

  “Yeah, you’re a pillar of virtue, you are.” But the look she gave him made him think they might be on the same page. “Simon coming to work for you guys would be good for you, great for him.”

  “I’d really like to help the kid out, Ann. It seems like the charitable thing to do.” He looked up at her, trying for the puppy-dog eyes Simon Cooper had used on him. “I don’t think Jordan will go for it, not just on my say-so. If somebody else said it was a good idea, somebody she likes and trusts ….”

  Ann narrowed her eyes. “What’s your angle, Marino?”

  He opened his eyes really wide and said, “Angle? The kid could use some help.”

  Ann looked skeptical. “What’re you up to? There’s something in this for you besides Boy Scout of the Year.”

  He took a minute to consider whether he wanted to come clean to Detective Ann Murphy. The answer was easy. No. She didn’t need to know everything. Not now, anyway. Muggs was dead, and Eddie wanted first shot at whoever killed him and took the coins. Ann could just stand in line. But it had been a week and half since the robbery and he was desperate for a break in the case. He needed her to help him convince Jordan.

  “Look. Guy I know—guard down at the state pen—calls me up and asks me to do him a large. Says this kid Simon Cooper needs a leg up when he gets out. I owe the guy, so I say, ‘Sure, why not?’ Like my friend said, and like you said, ‘The kid could use some help.’ ”

  “He could.” She pursed her lips. “Let’s go talk to Jordan.”

  He had a hell of a time finding the London Tea Room. Jordan just said it was a half block off Scottsdale Road on First Avenue. She didn’t say you had to park in East L.A. to get to it.

  The place was located in a standalone house probably built in the late forties or early fifties. He remembered a lot of houses like this one from back in Cleveland—one story, white siding, gabled slate tile roof.

  He met Ann at the front door.

  She looked at her watch. “Did your watch stop?”

  “Where’d you park?”

  She turned around. He followed her pointing finger to the curb in front of the place. The Scottsdale PD identification sticker was prominent in the windshield.

  “Hell, Ann. I had to walk three blocks.”

  “Quit bitching. You could have found something closer if you didn’t have to take up two parking spaces and put those stupid cones around your Porsche. Honestly, you treat the Porsche like a child.”

  Eddie grinned. “Porsche. There is no substitute.”

  They went inside.

  Eddie looked around and said to Ann. “You’re kidding, right?”

  It looked like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Not a drop of testosterone in the place. Chintz curtains with ruffles, stuff on the wall—what are those things? Oh, yeah. Samplers. Embroidered samplers. For crying out loud. What? Did I step back in time to the 1920s?

  Every female from ten to eighty turned to stare when they walked in.

  Eddie looked across the room. Jordan and Mama Rose sat at the farthest possible table from the door. And what the hell did they have on their heads?

  “Oh, there they are.” Ann moved away from him, crossing the room.

  “Ann?” There was a brief moment of panic as he realized he was now standing alone and not one of the women had looked away.

  He cursed under his breath and began to maneuver around the obstacle course of tiny tables and chairs jammed together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with not a single empty seat in the house.

  He twisted and turned—chair by chair, table by table. Forty pairs of eyes followed his every move. I wonder if this is what an exotic dancer feels like at the midnight show.

  Yep. That’s what I thought. The tug at his hip pocket confirmed it. He looked down into the smiling face of a young woman with thick eyeglasses and an enormous grin who handed him her business card. “Seriously, lady?”

  From a differ
ent table he heard, “What is it they say? Biscuits and scones twenty-five dollars … a pot of Earl Grey fifteen dollars … man candy … priceless.”

  He moved faster, the swish of their whispering followed him all the way to the back of the room.

  Jordan glanced up. “There you are.”

  “Yeah, I barely made it alive. Man-eaters circling out there,” he said, looking at her. When did this smoking hot woman start channeling Queen Elizabeth? “That’s quite a hat.”

  Jordan self-consciously slipped off the floppy brimmed lime-green hat and hung it on the corner of her chair. “This is high tea. It’s what you wear to high tea.”

  “Not what I’d wear,” he said. “Mama, how’s your day going?”

  Mama Rose reached into a Victoria’s Secret bag on the floor beside her, pulled out a lacy, blue, fluffy thing and waved it at him.

  “Something blue,” she said. “You know, for the honeymoon.”

  He gulped. Lingerie. “TMI, Mama.”

  He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek then pulled out one of the spindly-legged chairs and sat.

  Jordan looked at Ann. “What’s up? Sounded important when you called me.”

  Ann laid her hand on Jordan’s arm. “I’m calling in a favor. I want you to let Simon Cooper work for you.”

  Jordan glared at Eddie, then at Ann. “Ganging up on me?”

  “Simon who?” Mama asked.

  “Simon Says,” Jordan said.

  “There’s this young boy, Mama.” Eddie told her the whole shebang.

  Mama turned to Jordan. “You should help the poor boy out, sweetie. It’s the right thing to do. Pay it forward, honey.”

  Eddie leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He smiled across the table.

  Jordan conceded. “It must be pretty important if you felt like you needed backup.” She studied him for a long moment. “Okay. Here are my terms. I want to know everything about this kid. I mean everything.” She glanced at Mama and winked at Eddie. “You know, boxer shorts, etcetera?”

  Eddie glanced at his mother and nodded discreetly.

  Jordan went on. “And put Tank on him. We’re going to keep such a close eye on Simon Cooper, he won’t brush his teeth without someone watching him.”