Bagger had grown up in places just like this, hustling for scraps. Nearly sixty years later he was still hustling, only the scraps were now valued in the millions. Yet sometimes he wished he were again that dirty-faced kid with the infectious smile and mile-a-minute mouth ripping people off for dollars with tried-and-true scams, the marks never knowing what had hit them until he was long gone and on to the next scheme.
“So what do people do for fun in this town?” he asked the bartender.
The man started mopping the bar and said, “It’s not a town built for fun, least that’s my opinion.”
“Serious business here, you mean?”
The man grinned. “Only place that can nuke you and tax you.”
“Some people think we’d all be a lot better off if somebody nuked this place.”
“Hey, just give me twenty-four hours’ warning.”
“I’m from Atlantic City.”
“Cool place. Afraid I dropped enough of my retirement dollars there, though.”
“Ever been to the Pompeii?”
“Oh yeah. Neat casino. Guy who runs it is bad news, so I’ve heard. Real hardass. But I guess you gotta be to make money in that racket. So more power to the man.”
“You been tending bar long?”
“Too long. I wanted to be a Major League pitcher, but my stuff wasn’t quite good enough. By the time I realized it, pouring drinks was all I knew how to do. But with three kids to feed, you do what you gotta do.”
“What about your wife?”
“Cancer, three years ago. Just when things were looking good, life kicks you right in the gut. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.” Bagger laid ten Franklins down for a tip and rose to leave.
The stunned bartender said, “Mister, what the hell’s this for?”
“Just a reminder that even assholes aren’t all bad.”
Bagger walked back to his hotel. His cell phone was buzzing, no doubt his security detail checking up on him. He had a lot of enemies and his boys didn’t like him being out alone. It wasn’t because they loved him, Bagger knew. If he went down, their jobs went away. In Bagger’s world you got loyalty either at the end of a gun barrel or by waving enough dollars in front of someone. He didn’t bother to answer the call.
He passed by the Washington Monument and stopped. The 555-foot-tall obelisk wasn’t capturing his attention, it was the man and woman walking hand in hand along the path near the monument.
Bagger had never had a serious relationship with any woman; he’d been too busy hustling for his fortune. All the women he’d been involved with had either been paid for or looking to get some action from old Jerry in return for giving in. He knew they didn’t really care for him and so he never cared about them.
That was his life until Annabelle Conroy had come along and turned him upside down. There had been something about her right from the get-go that had hit him in a place he didn’t think he even had anymore. He’d allowed himself to believe that she actually cared for him and not because he could do anything for her.
And then the bottom had dropped out and here he was in the city he hated almost as much as Vegas, looking to kill a woman he could’ve loved forever. The loss of the forty million hadn’t destroyed him. He could always make more money when it came down to it. Yet Annabelle Conroy had stolen the unthinkable from him: his heart.
So enraged was Bagger by this sense of betrayal that if he’d had a gun, he would have shot the couple passing just a few feet away from him. It was all he could do to keep himself from running over and pounding both of them into the dirt.
He turned and walked quickly back to his hotel. When he got there he was in for another surprise. Mike Manson and his sidekick had just returned looking bloody and disheveled.
Before Bagger said anything to them he motioned to one of his other men and mouthed the word, “Clean?”
“We searched ’em,” the man said. “No surveillance devices.”
Bagger looked at Mike. “What the hell happened?”
“We blew it, Mr. Bagger,” Mike admitted. “We had ’em in the van, then the old guy got the gun away from me and tied us up. Took us all this time to get free and back here.”
“We had to walk five miles,” the other man said.
“I don’t give a shit if you had to crawl using your tongues,” Bagger roared. “You let a woman and a damn librarian get the drop on you?”
“It wasn’t the librarian,” Mike said. “He was an older guy, but he was one serious dude. He stuck a finger against my ribs and my whole body went numb.” He pointed to his wounded ear. “Then he took a chunk of my ear off with a round from my gun like it was nothing. He was a pro, Mr. Bagger. We weren’t expecting that kind of trouble.”
“Mike, if I didn’t know you’re not a screw-up, I’d put a round right through your head.”
Mike said nervously, “Yes sir, Mr. Bagger. I know. We crawled behind some trees, and Joe found a chunk of glass we used to cut the ropes off. Right as we were taking off the cops showed up. They must’ve called them. They didn’t see us, though.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes sir.”
“The guy who nicked you was a pro, huh? What’d he look like?”
Mike told him.
“Maybe a fed?”
“He wasn’t dressed like a fed. And he was a little old for that. But the guy was still a pro. And he and Conroy were tight.”
Bagger slowly sat down in a chair. Who the hell was Annabelle hooked up with?
CHAPTER 51
THE SENATOR WAS NOT IN TODAY, having departed on a sudden fact-finding trip, taking many of his staff with him and leaving only a skeleton crew behind. Finn had found this helpful information out on Simpson’s Web site, where the senator touted the trip as one that would benefit all Alabamans and Americans. How a first-class trek to the Grand Cayman Islands was going to accomplish that, Finn didn’t know. What he did think was that Simpson had been warned about the other killings and had decided to get out of town. That was all right, he had to come back to D.C. at some point. After all, he was a U.S. senator. They couldn’t avoid their duties forever, though some had made valiant efforts to do so over the years.
Finn was dressed in government-standard work clothes, his badge dangling from his neck, his case of tools swinging in one hand. His assured demeanor, dead-on photo ID and polished story of work to be done here resulted in his being quickly allowed on his way.
Getting off the elevator, Finn eyed the glass door of Roger Simpson’s office, the Alabama state flag next to it. The banner was a crimson Saint Andrew’s Cross on a white field patterned after the Confederate battle flag. As it had over 150 years ago for the Union Blue, the flag represented a perfect target for Harry Finn. He walked up to the door and through the glass saw the young receptionist sitting at the front desk.
He’d enlarged the photos he’d taken of the office and the woman on his previous visit here. They had clearly shown her nameplate on the desk.
He poked his head in the door and held up his phony work order. “Hey, Cheryl, Bobby from building maintenance. I was called about your front door lock a few days ago. Sorry I’m just getting to it, but we’ve had a backlog. Do you know what’s wrong with the darn thing? We’ve had complaints from other offices about theirs too.”