Popped Off (15 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Allen
39
I doubled my money.
Julianne called and said they were going to have lunch out and take their time getting home. I made myself at home on the sofa and turned on the football games, and in two hours’ time, I won both bets I’d placed that morning.
I grabbed the laptop and logged into my account.
The winnings were already there.
This wasn’t a sham. These girls were flat-out legitimate bookies, and they made good within fifteen minutes of the end of the last game. They knew what they were doing, and they had enough cash to cover the bets they were taking.
And I thought that also made them dangerous.
Maybe there was a little more urgency in finding Moises.
I went to my desk and grabbed the stack of e-mails that Victor originally gave me from Moises’s computer, and sifted through them again. The first time I looked through them, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. This time, I still wasn’t sure, but I felt like I at least had a little more information about Moises to go on.
The fifth one in was the first to catch my attention.
It was from Joel Metairie. Joel was an acquaintance in town, someone I knew just from living in Rose Petal. I knew he had kids at the elementary school, but I wasn’t sure what ages they were. And he apparently hosted the poker game that Moises was kicked out of. The e-mail was from several months back.
Seven o’clock start time, boys, it read. You bring the beer and your money, and I’ll have the pizzas and your money by the end of the night. Two-bill buy-in will get you started. Let me know if you’re in or out. Joel.
I grabbed my computer again and punched Joel’s name into a search engine, looking for a phone number. I didn’t get a number, but it did bring up an address just a few minutes away.
I changed into my running clothes, tied on my shoes, and headed out.
The summer sun hadn’t completely permeated the air yet, so I was able to breathe as I ran through the neighborhood, sweating out the alcohol and wings from the previous night. I waved to several neighbors as I went, raising my hand up as I huffed and puffed along. I didn’t know all their names, but they were people I saw on a daily basis, the kind of people who always smiled and waved back and gave me the feeling that they’d let me borrow a piece of lawn equipment or kitchen utensil if I needed it. I complained a lot about the idiosyncrasies of Rose Petal, but it was nice living in a place where nearly everyone was happy to loan you their weed whacker.
I slowed down as I approached the address I’d found for Joel Metairie. I recognized him in his driveway, washing a massive Ford F-350 pickup. His Cowboys T-shirt and cargo shorts were soaked in water, and his thinning hair was sticking out in multiple places. He was big, with broad shoulders and a forming beer belly, and looked exactly like the kind of guy who would drive a truck the size of an elephant.
I walked up to the edge of the driveway, catching my breath, and he turned my way as he picked up the bucket full of soapy water. He started to give me a cursory wave, then realized he knew me.
“Hey, Deuce,” he said, lifting his chin up. “How’s it going?”
“Hey, Joel,” I said, holding my hand up. “Good.” I pointed at the truck. “They kick you outta the car wash?”
He grinned and set down the bucket. “They see me coming, and they put out the
CLOSED
signs. Afraid I’ll use all the water.”
CLOSED
signs. Afraid I’ll use all the water.”
He came down to the edge of the drive, and we shook hands. We talked about school and kids for a moment, before I attempted to make the awkward transition. It was an investigation skill I had yet to master.
“I’ve got a weird question for you, if you don’t mind,” I said.
Confusion rooted on his face. “Weird? Like what?”
“I heard you have a regular poker game.”
Confusion changed to a smile. “Oh, heck yeah. You want in? Once a month, decent money, a lot of laughs. Some good players, too.”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m not good enough for that, to tell you the truth.”
“All the more reason you should come,” he said, winking.
“If you can’t spot the sucker, you are the sucker,” I said. “That’d be me.”
“Ah, it’s all in fun. You should come.”
“I wanted to ask you about one of the guys in your group.”
He shrugged, the confusion back. “Okay.”
“Moises Huber?”
The confusion dissipated to a look of annoyance. “Oh. Yeah.”
“He plays in your game?”
Joel shifted his weight from one foot to the other and pulled at his wet shirt. “Played. Not anymore.”
“You mind me asking why?”
“Are you a friend of his?”
“No, not really,” I said.
“Because he is not welcome here, and I don’t mean to be rude, Deuce, but anybody who is friends with that guy just isn’t welcome at my home.”
“Understood. I only know him from soccer.”
He nodded. “Yeah. That was how I knew him originally. One of the other guys that plays with us told him about the game. He wanted in right away.”
I didn’t say anything.
“So he came a couple of times,” Joel explained. “Seemed like a decent enough guy. Maybe third or fourth time, he showed up short.”
“Short?”
He started to say something, then stopped. “You do, like, private eye work or something like that, right?”
I nodded.
“I don’t wanna get in trouble for running a game,” he said. “It really is just for fun.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not asking so I can bust up your game. I play in a much smaller game on a regular basis, so I get it. I’m really just interested in Huber.”
“Did he really take all of the soccer money?”
“I’m really not sure. I’m trying to find out.”
Joel nodded. “Fair enough. Okay, so he came up short. He didn’t have enough to cover his bets for that night.”
“Gotcha.”
“And, you know, one time, no big deal,” he continued. “It happens. You get caught up, and things get a little crazy, and boom. You owe more than you brought.” He shrugged. “No big deal. You make arrangements with whoever you owe, and you pay ’em during the week or next time we get together. I’ve done it. Most of the guys have done it. Not like we send out some guy to collect or anything like that. Everyone’s friends, and no one wants to be the guy that stiffs someone else, you know? And a couple of the guys, they don’t like to play for the big money. So they stay out of those pots. Which is cool, too. There’s no pressure. Guys bet what they want, and we drink a bunch of beer and have a bunch of laughs.”
“Sounds a lot like my game,” I said.
“It probably is, Deuce,” Joel said. “Probably just the amount of money in play that’s different.”
“Sounds like it.”
Joel nodded, pleased that we were on the same page. “So, anyway, he comes up short. He gets real apologetic and says he’ll run to the ATM, blah, blah, blah. We tell him to relax. It’s no big deal. He can pay Chuck later in the week or whatever they work out. It was Chuck Blasingame that he owed that night. You know Chuck?”
“Know the name.”
“Good guy. Has a roofing business. Good guy. Anyway, he tells Chuck he’ll get to him later in the week.” Joel’s expression clouded. “But he didn’t.”
“Okay.”
“Chuck sends him an e-mail or two, giving him a hard time, mainly just kidding him, because Chuck honestly doesn’t care,” Joel said. “Each time, Huber says he forgot, or some crap like that. He’ll get it right to him. Never does.”
Joel pulled at his wet shirt again. “So next month rolls around, and Huber shows up. But he brings Chuck’s money, so we’re all good. Chuck’s almost embarrassed to take his money at that point. You know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“Then he comes up short again that night. Goes all in on a big pot and can’t cover when he busts out.”
“What’s big?”
He thought for a moment. “Think it was around a grand.”
“Whoa.”
“Like I said, we don’t limit. Guys put in play what they’re comfortable playing. Or losing.”
I nodded. The thought of a thousand dollars being in play at my game made my stomach turn. I liked gambling, but not when the stakes were the size of mortgages.
“This time it’s not Chuck, though,” Joel said. “It’s Kane Delacorte. Know him?”
“Nope.”
“Well, Kane’s a bit of a red ass. Decent guy but kinda serious. And he’s irritated that he’s getting stiffed. Some of it was that it happened the month before, but mostly because Kane wants his money.” Joel chuckled. “And he immediately says he wants it by the end of the week.”
“What did Huber say?”
“Said no problem, he would have it to him, and would bring it to his house by midweek,” Joel said. “But, of course, he didn’t.”
Two kids on bikes pedaled by and hollered at Joel. He waved back.
“So Kane starts getting on him pretty good,” he explained. “E-mails him like twice a day. Tries to call him. Huber keeps putting him off. Tells him he’s busy. That kind of crap. But he never comes through.”
“Did he show up the next month?”
Joel nodded. “Yep. With Kane’s money. But Kane’s pissed, okay? Doesn’t wanna let him play. Huber offers to pay his buy-in for that night, because he feels bad. A little weird considering it took him so long to pay up, but he’s got the extra two hundred to cover Kane. So we let him.”
I had to wonder if Moises was placing other bets to cover his losses. I knew that was a common habit of gamblers who got in too deep. They were always just one big payday away from being flush.
“So we get to the end of the night, and Huber’s actually done pretty well,” Joel said. “He’s up pretty good. And we get to one last big pot. It’s, like, two in the morning, and there’s about three grand on the table.”
“Three grand?” I said.
Joel held his hands up in a what-can-you-do way. “Hey. These guys like poker, and they are big boys.”
I imagined Julianne coming after me with a hatchet if I gambled that kind of money in my dumb little game.
“So there’s three grand in, and Huber goes all in,” Joel said. “Room gets kinda quiet. Kane finally says, ‘Hey, man, do not go all in if you can’t cover tonight, because that ain’t cool.’“
I nodded.
“Huber says it’s no problem, he’s flush, and if he loses, he can pay up on the spot,” Joel said, his expression hardening. “No waiting or late payoffs. So we said okay.”
I waited.
“And it got down to him and Chuck,” Joel said. “And you could just tell Huber thought he had it won. He’s a decent player, but not much of a poker face. He laid down four queens and started reaching for the chips. But Chuck started giggling and dropped four kings. Entire room exploded.”
I knew that feeling. Anytime someone got surprised in our game, there was much celebrating and razzing. They were the highlights of every night.
“Huber just went pale,” Joel said, frowning. “And I just knew he’d lied. I knew he didn’t have it to cover, and I probably should’ve asked him to show the money before he played the hand, but I didn’t. He gets all flustered, makes a show of checking his wallet and acting like he’s confused because there isn’t as much money in there as he thought there was.”
I shook my head.
“Chuck being Chuck,” Joel continued, “he tells him not to worry about it. Absolutely lets him off the hook. But Kane and a couple of the other guys were pissed. And I’ll be honest. So was I.” His eyes narrowed. “He flat-out lied to us, and that was the part I didn’t like.”
“What did you guys do?”
“Kane was ready to kick his ass,” Joel said. “But I walked him outside and told him that he owed that money to Chuck, and after he paid it, he was not welcome back. I didn’t threaten him, but I wasn’t nice about it, either. The guy was ruining what’s supposed to be a fun night.”
“Wow,” I said, just shaking my head. “He ever pay Chuck?”
Joel shook his head. “Nope. Not a penny. Just disappeared.”
40
I went home and found a voice mail on my cell.
“Hey, big winner,” Amber’s voice said. “You did well today! Awesome! Let me know if you wanna play with some of that other money we talked about. Later!”
I wondered if she called all her winners like that or if she called just the ones who had promised more money.
I wondered that rhetorically, of course.
After I showered and changed clothes, I grabbed a notepad and stretched out on the sofa, waiting for the girls to return.
One trick Victor had showed me was to write down everything I knew about the case I was in the middle of, even if I had the details clear in my head. He maintained that putting them down on paper let you see them a little differently and sometimes led to finding things you couldn’t see in your head. I begrudgingly had to admit that it had worked on more than one occasion and I’d started doing it dutifully each time we worked a new case.
Of course, I didn’t tell him that.
It took me thirty minutes to get down everything I knew, which didn’t feel like much. The two things that stuck out to me were the mismatched amounts of money—the money the Huber cousins said was stolen versus the money they were accused of stealing—and the missing Viagra-filled trophies. Regardless of whether or not the money amounts were correct, if we could locate the trophies, I felt like we would at least have some leverage to get Moises back and see what he’d done with the money. I wasn’t exactly sure what that would mean for the soccer association and Elliott’s job, but I wasn’t sure that was my responsibility, either.
The girls came home and we did dinner and I gave Carly a bath and she was falling asleep in the tub, she was so tired. I crawled into bed with her, but she was out before we even cracked a book. I lay with her in the dark until I heard her snoring, then snuck quietly out of the room.
Julianne was stretched out on the bed in our room, in an A&M T-shirt and sweats with her laptop across her legs.
I slid onto the bed next to her and kissed her neck. “Is tonight a green night?” I whispered.
She smiled. “I have no idea. But it doesn’t need to be.”
I pulled back. “Wait, I thought we were trying to have a baby.”
“We are,” she said. “But I feel like just strictly going by the charts and graphs is creating too much . . . pressure.” She looked away from the screen at me. “For me. Not you.”
“I don’t mind them.”
“I know you don’t,” she said, kissing my forehead. “But we don’t need them. At least not all the time.”
“If you say so.” I kissed her neck again. “As long as you aren’t rejecting me.”
“Never,” she said. “Give me one minute.”
I looked at the computer screen. It was some sort of contract. “What’s that?”
“My partner agreement.”
I blinked. “You’re looking at your options?”
She nodded. “I’m going to talk to James this week.”
“You mean quit?”
“I’m gonna let him know it’s on the horizon.”
“You’re not even pregnant yet.”
She closed the laptop, set it on the nightstand, and curled up next to me. “I had fun with Carly today. Just me and her, running around, wasting time, just having fun. I don’t mean without you. I just mean . . .”
“I know what you mean. Really. It’s good.”
She nodded. “It was good. And I just decided that whether or not we have another baby, I don’t want to be working my ass off for the next ten years while she grows up. Baby or no baby, I’m done with the grind.”
I put my arms around her. “Good.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
“I won’t drive you nuts if I’m around more?”
“You might, but I’ll adjust.”
She smiled and moved tighter against me. “Good. I don’t know why, Deuce, but I’m just feeling the mommy pull.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s just weird. For me.”
It probably was, and it was probably even weirder for her to say it out loud, to admit it. But I was glad she wasn’t pretending it wasn’t there. I was glad that she was being honest with herself and with me. I wanted her to do whatever made her happy.
“There’s nothing weird about you,” I said. “I would know.”
Her hands found the small of my back, and she pulled me close. Her lips attached to my neck, and goose bumps formed on my skin.
“You know how much I like to be flattered,” she whispered to me.
“Yes. I do.”
“I think you’re gonna get lucky.”
“I was hoping.”
“Daddy?”
We both froze at the sound of Carly’s voice.
Julianne sat up. “What’s going on, kiddo?”
“I had a bad dream.”
I pushed myself up. She was standing in the doorway, sleepy eyed and disheveled, holding her stuffed white cat by the tail.
“You want me to take you back to bed?” I offered.
She shook her head. “No. Can I get in your bed?”
I looked at Julianne, and she smiled at me, raising her eyebrows.
I sighed. “Yep. Come on, babe.”
Carly hopped up on the bed and crawled in between us. She burrowed under the covers and nestled between our bodies, hugging her kitty. Julianne looked at me over the top of our daughter’s head, and I looked at her, longingly.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered.
I sighed again and nodded as I lay my head down on the pillow. “Tomorrow.”
Other books
Cole in My Stocking by Jessi Gage
Deceived and Devoured by Lyla Sinclair
Box of Zombies: Rise of the Dead Volumes 1-3 by Burgess, Donna
Bring Me to Life by Emma Weylin
Osama by Chris Ryan
Somebody Like You by Beth K. Vogt
Three Major Plays by Lope de Vega, Gwynne Edwards
Whispers by Rosie Goodwin
Happy Chaos by Soleil Moon Frye
