Stealing the Golden Dream Read online

  Another hit on the Guinness. Another smile.

  Jordan felt left out of the loop. Why the heck were they talking in circles? She sat back and let Eddie take the lead.

  “Palmer, there are certain things people in our line of work don’t discuss openly, or at least in specific terms.”

  Jacoby nodded.

  Eddie went on. “I know this might be one of them.”

  Our line of work? Eddie was in the same line of work as she. Wasn’t he?

  “Very well, you two. Let me just say, if I had knowledge of such a caper, I wouldn’t be in a position to discuss it.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “I’m a retired crime reconstruction agent living out my waning years in the warm Arizona sun.”

  “Mm-hmm, and I’m heir to the British crown,” Eddie said.

  Palmer smiled yet again. “I always knew there was something special about you, Eddie, aside from those remarkable, complicated security systems you build.”

  “Why thank you, Palmer. Let me just return the compliment and say I’ve always admired how quickly you can take them apart.”

  Jordan had no patience for the mutual admiration club, especially since Palmer Jacoby was someone from Eddie’s dark past. “We have a special interest here, Mr. Jacoby. We were on the job that night. It was our duty to protect the items stolen from the museum, and it was our friend and employee who was murdered.”

  Palmer couldn’t hide his reaction this time. The color drained from his face. His brows drew together. “Someone was killed?”

  Eddie said slowly, “Sometimes it pays to watch the news. It was Muggs Baxter.”

  Palmer sucked in his breath. He blinked. Tears glistened in his eyes. Jordan looked away. It was obvious Palmer Jacoby had no previous knowledge of Muggs’s murder. Nobody was that good an actor.

  Chapter 14

  It was about four o’clock by the time they left Jacoby, and rush hour was in full swing. The junction where State Route 51 ended and traffic merged onto 101 west was a parking lot.

  Eddie and Jordan rolled forward a few feet at a time.

  “I know you don’t approve of the way I handled things with Palmer,” Eddie said. “There’s a protocol, a kind of honor among thieves. We don’t press. If Palmer gave up anything about what went down on one of his jobs, he’d never work in this state, let alone this town, again. He’s too old to plan this stuff on his own anymore and his reputation has to be rock solid or he won’t be hired.”

  She stared at him. “We don’t press?”

  He glanced at her as they finally moved onto the 101 and into the HOV lane. “Did you want to get anything out of him or not? Unless I spoke to him just right, he’d have clammed up on us.”

  “Oh, I see.” She slanted a hard look in his direction. “And because you pussyfooted around with him, he gave us so much. As far as I could see, the visit was a waste of time.” She shuddered. “You have no idea how much it scares me when I see you consorting with these people. You fit back in so seamlessly.”

  “Fit in? What are you talking about? I don’t fit in with them. Not anymore.”

  “It doesn’t always seem that way.”

  “It’s not all bad, you know,” he said. “There are advantages to having a partner who knows what buttons to push, what doors to open to help the company, our company, when the timing is right.”

  Jordan could only agree with him. “I just wish you weren’t so comfortable pushing those buttons.”

  The owner of Westside Trampoline Center had called the office and asked them to come around and tweak the surveillance system. Apparently a kid had bounced off cockeyed, the camera had missed it, and now the parents were suing for negligence. To accommodate them, their client closed early. Eddie used the key provided to the firm to open the door then enter the alarm code.

  Even though they were trying to focus all their resources on the Arizona Heritage Museum burglary and Muggs’s murder, their client insisted this was somewhat of an emergency. Whether it was or not, they felt obligated to tend to it.

  The place was located in a strip mall in a space previously occupied by a grocery. A service desk, a snack bar, and a small locker room took up the front area.

  The actual entrance leading to the trampolines was an open archway.

  Eddie stopped before entering and toed the heel of his boots. “Shoes off, Miss Jordan.”

  She gave him a look.

  “I mean it. Those pads cost a fortune. We don’t want to pay for the punctures those shoes would make.”

  She slipped off her shoes, Joan and David teal suede kitten heels. “There’s no one else here, right?”

  “What? You worried someone’s going to walk off with your shoes?” Eddie held up a hand as if making a vow. “If they disappear, I promise to buy you a new pair.”

  The main room was like a video game board, with a grid made up of lemon yellow pads and bright blue trampoline net covering the floor and climbing the walls. Jordan felt like an avatar in Tron.

  They crossed all the way to the back and passed through another big open archway to a service area. Eddie turned on all the monitors and video cameras. It took only a minute for everything to come online. He stood, chin in hand. “Four, seven, and twelve need just a bit of a tweak.” He grabbed a ten-foot long aluminum pole with a pistol grip and spring-operated claw.

  They returned to the main room, their feet sinking into the vinyl-covered foam mats.

  Eddie stood beneath the camera marked four, took hold of it with the claw and shifted it ever so slightly.

  Jordan craned her neck. “How’s Mama Rose doing?”

  “Okay, I guess.” He shrugged. “How do you mean?”

  “You know, about Muggs.”

  “I’m guessing it hurts her some.” His voice was soft.

  “At least she’s not badgering you to quit the business and take up the cloth.”

  He didn’t look at her. “Your mom?”

  “Who else?” she said. Something had been bothering Jordan. “Why do you think Mama Rose was so adamant it’s the mob?”

  “Mama blames the mob for a lot of my trouble. Back when we were kids ….” He repeated the angle adjustment on number seven.

  “Kids? You and who else?”

  “Me, Muggs, Tank, and Diego, we got in some major trouble. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. They hauled us in front of a judge, who was sick and tired of seeing Cleveland kids. He said, ‘You choose. Serve your time in jail or in the military.’ Didn’t seem like we had much choice. Tank and I went with the Army. Muggs and Diego joined the Marines.”

  “The few, the proud?” Jordan asked. She knew all this from a previous conversation with Gina, but it was good to hear it from Eddie.

  “Yeah, those Marines. Anyway, Mama always believed the mob was the reason we got sent away. I can see her point. No love lost there.”

  Camera number twelve was shoved to the left.

  “Was it? The mob, I mean. Were you guys in trouble because of the mob?”

  Eddie turned away and headed back to the service room. “No. Not that time anyway, but we all did work for Anthony Vercelli. Before he moved his main operation out here.”

  “What is it between the two of you?”

  He put the pole back in the utility closet and sat down in front of the monitors. “Who? Me and Vercelli? Is this going to be a replay of the talk we had when you found out I used to work for him?”

  “When we went to his place last year about the fraud case, it was like you didn’t want to hurt his feelings or something and you said you“

  “Respected him.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “It’s still complicated.” He ran through all fifteen cameras, switching back and forth using the remote.

  “Don’t, Marino. Don’t give me the runaround. Your sleight of hand routine.”

  “Okay.” He spun the chair and faced her. “Here it is. The man helped me. He gave me work when I needed it most. Wit
hout him, me, my sister and my sweet mama would have been out on the street.” He stood. “We’re done working here.”

  She followed him back into the main room. “He took advantage of a naïve kid,” she said.

  “Not so naïve if I’m honest, but you can believe what you want. Because of our history, I still have a certain allegiance to him.”

  She stopped in the middle of the room.

  He stopped a few feet in front, his back to her. His shoulders slumped. Eddie had never liked talking about his time with the mob. He turned, came back to her and waited, arms folded more in submission than anger or resistance. “Go for it, Jordan. Get it out of your system.”

  She dove in. “When you were moving among Vercelli’s people on the Foundation case, I didn’t worry about it. You were out of there, gone. Done with them. Whatever drove you away, kept you away. But today you talked to Jacoby like you were birds of a feather. And here comes this Sofia person sniffing around you, and I don’t know anything about her, and ….” Her voice broke.

  He put his arm around her waist and drew her to him. “Okay, partner, here it is. I talked to Jacoby like that because otherwise there wouldn’t have been any dialogue with him. I’m not going back to that life. Not now, not ever. And Sofia? You got nothing to worry about there.”

  “I don’t?” She hated how small and insecure her voice sounded.

  “When Sofia learned I was leaving her father’s organization, she told me she was pregnant. She told me it was mine. I was in love with her, or thought I was, and I believed what she said. I went to Anthony and asked for his permission to marry her. The old man looked me straight in the eye and said it would be his honor to have me for a son. But she lied. There was no baby. She had already told another man before me the same thing to keep him.” It seemed to drain him.

  She was afraid to hear the answer, but she had to ask. Please let him lie if he has to. “Do you still love her?”

  “I’m not sure I ever did. Anyway, are you crazy? How could I love her after I’ve been with you? You’re the hot ticket, Jordan.”

  “Good answer, Marino.” She believed him, maybe just because she wanted to. “Just one more thing before we leave.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s take those trampolines for a spin.”

  She took a running start and leapt onto the nearest one, ricocheted off and bounced back up.

  He followed suit. They fell down together, rolling and groping like teenagers in the backseat of a car at the local make-out spot, but stopped before things got out of hand.

  Back at the front entrance, Jordan slipped her shoes on and turned to Eddie. “You did turn off those surveillance cameras, right?”

  Chapter 15

  Thursday morning, all of Shea Investigations along with Mama Rose and her beau Marky Mark gathered at the Shea offices to caravan to Flagstaff and the Coconino National Forest.

  Beneath the splendor of the San Francisco Peaks and standing among the Ponderosa Pines, Eddie, Jordan, Tank, Diego, Gina, Mama Rose, and Marky Mark listened to the mournful wail of a lone bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace” and said one final goodbye to a good friend.

  Rose was inconsolable, sobbing out loud as she pulled one fancy lace hanky after another from her handbag.

  Tank and Diego turned away, overcome with strong emotion, but Eddie put one arm around Jordan, the other around his mother and wept openly.

  Jordan’s heart ached for them all, especially for Eddie, but she tried to stay strong. She, too, loved Muggs like a brother, even if the softest spot in her heart was for Tank. His sweet Southern ways had always charmed her, and his vigilance had kept her safe in the past.

  After casting Muggs’s ashes in the crisp mountain breeze, they retired one and all, including the Scottish piper, to the warm comfort of the Shade Tree Lounge at the San Francisco Peaks Hotel. The lodge atmosphere was enhanced by the cheerful blaze in the stone fireplace and heavy wood beams crossing the vaulted ceiling.

  Pizza, wings, and nachos were the staples of Muggs’s diet and the chosen fare for the evening activities, plus as many bottles of Johnny Walker Black as the eight of them could consume. While the servers pretended to look the other way, even Gina was allowed to indulge due to the occasion.

  By eight thirty, every one of them had slurred his or her most outrageous story about the man who had been Marvin “Muggs” Baxter. Eddie described the time four screaming teenage girls chased him into the men’s room at a downtown hotel, yelling “Thor!”—convinced he was Chris Hemsworth, the actor. Muggs barricaded himself in one of the stalls and called 911.

  Tank told them about the time he and Muggs returned to their parked car in the PD parking lot to discover no fewer than a dozen sticky notes with phone numbers and call me messages attached to the windshield. Most of the names were female, but a few were definitely male.

  Just before heading for their rooms, Eddie stood one final time. They all filled their glasses as he prepared to eulogize his friend.

  “Muggs was the kind of guy who always had your back. You never worried because you just knew he’d be there. He was good at what he did. Of everyone I know, he always had the cleanest gun chamber, and most well-conditioned hair.”

  Tank moaned, “I always loved his hair,” and sobbed.

  Eddie and Diego nodded their agreement.

  “Focus, Eddie,” Jordan said softly.

  “Muggs was a great dresser.” Diego’s contribution.

  But Eddie disagreed. “Give me a break. Those shirts? Guy looked like he belonged in Margaritaville. Women dug him, though.”

  Not a single other word was added, nor were more needed.

  On cue, the bagpiper broke out into Muggs’s favorite song, the Four Seasons’ “Oh, What a Night,” which sounded a bit odd on bagpipes, but no one cared.

  They returned to Scottsdale the next morning.

  Eddie dropped Jordan at her place then went home to shower. He arrived at the office at noon, wearing sunglasses and a Cleveland Indians baseball cap. When he took off the glasses, his bloodshot eyes told the tale of overindulgence the night before.

  Jordan had beaten him to the office by a good hour.

  He headed straight to Gina’s desk.

  “You know that special project I had you working on? How’s it coming?”

  “Great timing, Uncle Eddie. I just printed it out for you.” Gina reached behind her and removed three sheets from the printer tray.

  Eddie snatched the sheets from her hand and dragged himself into his office.

  Jordan turned to her office manager. The question in her mind didn’t make it to her lips before Gina replied, “It’s a background check on Mark Garrity.” Gina rolled her eyes at Jordan.

  Oh, swell, how the heck would they break it to Rose if the guy turned out to be a creep? “How’d it come out?”

  Gina shrugged. “The dude looks okay to me … on paper anyway.”

  Jordan moseyed into Eddie’s office. “So, how bad is it?”

  Eddie sat in one of the armchairs in front of his desk.

  He stuck out a foot, hooked the lower rung of the other chair and pulled it up beside him. She sat in it, and he leaned over to share the pages.

  “You know,” she said, scanning the data, “if you hadn’t done this, I might have.”

  “Damn right, but I can’t tell you how relieved I am there’s nothing terrible here. I didn’t know how I was going to break it to Mama if we came up with anything.”

  Jordan agreed with a nod, her eyes skimming the printed sheets.

  Gina did a good job. Everything seemed to be listed there, things Jordan wanted to know about Mark, and a few things she didn’t want to know about him.

  Eddie said, “Guy was born in Queens. He’s sixty-two.”

  “Oooh,” Jordan said. “Mama Rose is a cradle robber.”

  “You call a five-year difference robbing the cradle?” Eddie massaged his temples. “Thing is, guy’s been married before—three times before. Divo
rced twice, widowed once, cancer. At least he didn’t off her. That’s a plus.”

  A plus? Only Eddie would put it that way.

  “You know,” Eddie began, “I was halfway hoping the movie thing was a con. But it’s legit. He produced a half dozen low budget films in Spain. None of them were what you’d call blockbusters, but they didn’t lose a lot either.”

  “So he’s not after Mama Rose’s royalties?”

  Eddie sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think so. The guy looks clean.”

  Jordan smiled and laid a sympathetic hand on Eddie’s arm. “So you think the old boy’s in love?”

  Eddie looked at her.

  She shrugged. “Well, why not? Mama Rose is quite a dish. But I do have one question.”

  “What?”

  She pointed at a notation at the bottom of the report. It was in red bold print and surrounded by asterisks.

  “Oh.” Eddie sounded embarrassed. “Looks like Gina took me literally.”

  Jordan cocked her head. “What does it mean? Little blue pill prescription in nightstand at hotel? Ralph Lauren silk boxers?”

  He shrugged. “I told her I wanted to know everything about the guy, even ….”

  She sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  Chapter 16

  Friday morning and not a clue in sight. Eddie’s phone rang—generic.

  Lucky Louie’s voice came over the line, so high-pitched that Eddie didn’t even recognize it.

  “Señor Marino, it’s Luis Martinez. You know … Lucky?”

  “Oh.” Eddie’s heart rate picked up. “You have something for me?”

  “Look, holmes, something you should know.” Luis spoke so quickly Eddie could barely understand him. Something sure had him riled. “There’s people got a stake in this deal you don’t want to be messing with. Bad people.”

  Eddie wished he were there to shake Luis and make him get to the point. “What people?”

  “I don’t want to say—

  “Oh, come on. Louie. I don’t have time for this.”

  Louie grew quiet. Eddie could hear him breathing heavily over the phone all the way from South Tucson. “It’s the cartels.” Eddie caught his breath. “I found out the cartels are tied up in this deal with the stolen coins.”