Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (13 page)

“Hello, Detective,” Lorelei said. I just nodded, waiting.

Oh God, waiting for what?

“Mr. Lowenstein, I’m sorry to have to tell you this…”
 

Ben reached for me as I stepped to his side. Jack waited until I took Ben’s hand.

“Who?” Ben said, bracing himself.

“Gus Morgan was shot a few hours ago.”

Chapter Ten

G
us wasn’t dead. At least not yet. We were taken to the hospital by Jack Schiller instead of the morgue this time.

This time. Funny how quickly you can come to expect the worse.
 

Expect there’d be more times.

Actually,
I
was taken by Jack Schiller. Lorelei and Ben followed in the Lexus. I don’t know how that worked out, it seemed like I should drive Ben myself, but somehow he and Lorelei headed to the Lexus and Jack took my arm and led me to his car telling Lorelei which hospital we were going to.

“Was he found at the same place that Danny was? That parking lot?” I asked as he drove. His hands were strong and sure on the wheel and it made me feel better to look at them.

“No. He was at home. Coming home, actually. It happened in the walkway to his apartment from the carport.”

Gus had moved into a ground-floor apartment after his last divorce saying he’d never buy another house only to see it end up as part of a settlement. Saul had said he should give up the wives before giving up houses, but Gus had only laughed.

He used the guest bedroom as a walk-in closet for all his beautiful suits and shoes. Arranged with loving care by color. I smiled to think of it, and then just as quickly my smile faded as I thought of Gus lying in a hospital. I tried to put on my poker face. Too bad I didn’t have poker skin.

“How bad is he?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. Detective Botz is at the hospital with him. A couple of patrolmen are getting Saul and Jimmy. I came for you. For Ben. We’re rounding up his friends, getting them to the hospital.”

“His friends, or your suspects?”

He looked across at me, his eyes conveying something I couldn’t quite read. Compassion? Pity? “This tends to put a different spin on things.”

“So, The Corporation members are no longer suspects?” I asked. “Not that they ever should have been,” I quickly added.

I looked over at him. We were at a red light and he turned fully to me. He reached out a hand; I think intending to touch me, but who knew with him. Instead he pulled his hand back and put it on the wheel.

I knew what he was going to say, and the dread made me cold.

“Suspects? No,” he said. “Potential victims? Yes.”

I
remember reading once that when Jackie Kennedy was asked why she took her children to Greece she said, “They’re killing Kennedys” about life in the United States.

I knew what she meant.
They
were killing The Corporation, and all I wanted to do was put Saul, Jimmy and Ben in the back of that big Lexus and drive. And drive. And drive.

But nobody was leaving the hospital waiting room until we had word on Gus.
 

He’d been in surgery for three hours. Jimmy, Saul, Ben, Lorelei, Jack, Detective Botz and I all sat in the various couches, loveseats and chairs. Lorelei and I took turns running for coffee. The detectives had left when we’d all first arrived—returning to Gus’ apartment. But they were back now and had grouped us all together, moving some of the furniture so that we could all see each other.

They pulled out their notebooks and we all shifted more upright in our seats.

“Any word?” Jack asked me.

“Still in surgery,” I said, and he nodded. He checked his watch. I wanted to ask him if that was good or bad, that Gus had been in for so long, but I didn’t know if I wanted to hear his answer.

“Gentlemen,” Jack said, looking from Saul to Jimmy to Ben. “We have reason to believe that Danny O’Hern’s murder and Gus Morgan’s shooting are related.”

Saul let out a soft moan. Ben grabbed for my hand. Jimmy snorted and said, “No shit,” under his breath.

“The question is, why were they targeted, and can we assume that the three of you are also in danger?”

This time I grabbed Ben’s hand.

“Why would anybody want to murder us?” Saul asked.

“Revenge or money,” Jack and I said at the same time. Our eyes locked, he gave me a small nod of approval, and, yes, I admit it, a small thrill shot right through me.

“Money? None of us have any money to speak of. We did okay, but we were all working stiffs. Hell, Anna’s probably got the most money out of all of us,” Jimmy said.

Jack raised a brow at me. All I could think of was the debt to Vince hanging over my head and the ticking clock.
 

I just shrugged. “So, it must be revenge, then,” I said.

“Revenge for what?” Ben asked. “We’re just a bunch of retirees.”

Detective Botz flipped back through his notebook.
 
He wore a Yogi Bear tie today that clashed with his sports coat. “That may be true, sir, but didn’t all of you set the odds at various casinos for a lot of years?”

We all nodded. “And you probably caused some people to lose a lot of money,” Detective Botz continued.

“And many to win a lot of money,” Ben pointed out.

“Those people don’t tend to seek revenge,” Jack said.

“Why would someone seek revenge on the odds makers for a lost bet? Wouldn’t they be more likely to try to kill the player that lost the game for him?” I asked.

“Unless it was for a lot of losses, a lot of different teams, over a lot of years,” Detective Botz said.

“Then you’d just go after the guy at the casino you bet at, not every odds maker,” Jimmy said. He didn’t dismiss the idea of revenge for lost bets, I noticed, just wanted specifics on the logistics.

“Unless you blamed all the odds makers of the time? Thought they were in collusion or something?” Detective Botz offered up. The three men scoffed, insulted.

“It was a point of pride that the boys all set their own odds, Detective,” I said gently. It seemed to pacify Jimmy, Ben and Saul.

“But, we haven’t set odds for over twenty years. If this was revenge, why now?” Saul asked, anger and what I guessed was fear in his voice. He beat his hand on the coffee table in front of us. “Why now!”

The magazines that had been on the table fell to the floor from the impact. I bent over to pick them up, laying back on the table months old editions of
People
,
National Geographic
and
Sports Illustrated
.

My hand traced the letters on the SI cover, invoking a memory.

“Because he didn’t know who you were until now,” I said quietly, more to myself than the group.

But Saul, sitting on the other side of me from Ben heard me. “What, Hannah? What did you say?”

I held up the magazine. “The article about you guys. It finally gave him names.”

“What article?” both detectives said at the same time. Jack snatched the magazine out of my hand.
 

“Not in that one. That one’s ancient. But there was an article about The Corporation in
Sports Illustrated
about three weeks ago.”

“What was in it?” Detective Botz said, putting his pen to paper, looking at me expectantly.

“Wait a sec,” Lorelei said, her head half buried in her huge purse. “I think…yeah…no…” Her hand came out of the bag with the magazine attached. “I thought I still had a copy in there.”

We all looked at her, dumbfounded.

“What?” she asked.

Jack reached for the magazine but I snatched it out of Lorelei’s hands first. I quickly flipped to the article about the boys, scanning it quickly, looking for casino names.

“They don’t mention which casinos you each specifically worked at. They don’t even mention all of them.”

“So?” Ben said.

“So,” Detective Botz said. “Say somebody’s been holding a grudge for twenty years and this lands on his lap and now he’s got names and faces but not sure which one was his odds maker. He starts eliminating one by—” his voice cut off as he saw the expression change on our faces.
 
He seemed to remember who he was surrounded by. “We’d like to take that magazine Miss Dawson,” he said reaching out his hand.

I held my finger up for him to wait. I swore I heard a little snort out of Jack, but I kept scanning the article. “Seems to me there was mention of…yes…here it is. Hell, it’s even in a pulled quote. That had to piss him off.”

“Who?” Jack said as the others said, “What?”

I flipped the magazine to the page I had looked for, folding it over and then turned it around. I placed it on the coffee table and pointed down to the pulled quote box.

“Everybody won. Except the bookies. And the poor schmuck from Pittsburgh that bet the Steelers at four and a half,” Jack read out loud. When he got to the word Pittsburgh he gave a very pointed look to his fellow detective. The others were looking down at the magazine and had missed it, but I caught it. Detective Botz wrote several things down in his notebook.

“Explain this,” Jack said pointing to the magazine.
 

Saul launched into the story of odds making, point spreads, over under ratios.
 

Jack held up a hand. “Whoa. Whoa. I don’t speak gambling.” He looked at me. “Explain this to me in layman’s terms.”

“Superbowl Thirteen. Steelers and Cowboys. The point spread fluctuated so much because of first Steelers bets and then Cowboys bets that with the final score falling right in the middle, everybody ended up winning and the casinos lost millions.”

“Except some schmuck from Pittsburgh,” Jack said, pointing to the quote while Detective Botz wrote furiously in his notebook.

Jimmy took up the story for me. “Some big time money came in at the last minute betting on Pittsburgh. At each of the casinos.” He waved his hands at Saul and Ben who nodded agreement. “But it was too late to make a difference on the spread, and he was the big loser. Besides the casinos. Word at the time was it was some hotshot CEO at one of them steel places in Pittsburgh. Old money, they said.”

“And that money came in at each casino?” Jack asked.

“The five we worked at, yes,” Ben said. “We talked about it at the time, after the shit had hit the fan. We’d all thought about changing the spread again late because of that amount of money. But none of us did. It was just so close to game time.”

“So, this guy loses huge. Everybody else wins. He stews about it for thirty years and then this comes out.” Jack summarized, lifting the magazine.

The two detectives looked at each other. Then Jack looked at me, almost expectantly.

Then I got it. “Revenge
and
money,” I whispered and he nodded.

“
Mishegoss
,” Ben murmured. It wasn’t some of the Yiddish that I’d picked up over the years between Saul and Ben, but I context clued it out to totally fucked up.

“
Mishegoss
,” I agreed quietly.

Just then the doctor entered the small waiting room. Lorelei, the detectives and I jumped to our feet. Jimmy, Ben and Saul remained seated, I suppose preparing for the worst.

“Mr. Morgan came through the surgery very well,” the doctor said. There was a collective sigh of relief from us all. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ben reach for Saul and Jimmy’s hands. “The bullet just missed his femoral artery,” the doctor continued. “Another centimeter and he would have bled out before anybody could have gotten to him.”

Saul cried out, his whole body sagging with relief. Ben put his arm around his life-long friend. Jimmy patted Saul’s back. Lorelei reached for my hand and squeezed. I squeezed back.

“Doctor, when will we be able to question Mr. Morgan?”

“Not for quite some time, I’m afraid. He’s going to be sedated for at least the next eight or nine hours.”

The detectives nodded. The doctor started to leave after receiving the thanks and handshakes of everyone, then he turned back to the policemen. “I’m not sure he’ll be able to tell you much though. The bullet entered from the back. And I’m no forensics expert, but it looks like he was shot at from quite a distance.”

I noticed the look that passed between Jack and Detective Botz, and I remembered that Danny was shot point blank, execution style. It didn’t seem to fit.

“Gentlemen, we’re going to ask you to be very careful. We’ll set up squad cars to patrol the area around each of your homes at regular intervals. We suggest you stay inside as much as possible. But please use extreme caution when not at home.”

Ben and Saul nodded. I saw a flash of something cross Jimmy’s face and knew he was thinking about how he’d place bets. That’s probably what I’d be thinking about too if told it’d be in my best interest to be housebound.

“For how long?” Jimmy asked.

“Until we can find out who’s behind your friend’s death,” Jack said, his voice forceful and commanding.
 

I expected Jimmy to tell Jack to fuck off, but Jimmy only looked at him for a few seconds and then nodded.