Hard Cash

H
ARD
C
ASH

by

M
IKE
D
ENNIS

THE JACK BARNETT / LAS VEGAS
SERIES

This book is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without
permission in writing from Mike Dennis.

Published by Mike Dennis

Copyright 2012 by Mike
Dennis

Cover
designed by Jeroen ten Berge

Edited
by Harry Dewulf

Bought by Maraya21

kickass.so / 1337x.org / h33t.to / thepiratebay.se

Run for
your life from any man

who tells
you that money is evil.

AYN RAND

I

T
here's this place in Las Vegas they call the Neon Boneyard.
It's where a lot of the old casino and hotel/motel signs are stored. They call
it a museum, kind of like the city's version of the Guggenheim, but the place
is really nothing more than a big walled-in outdoor lot in a pretty creepy
neighborhood on the north rim of downtown.

You go there and you'll see those old neon giants
sitting on the ground, unlit, ghostly shadows of their glorious selves back
when they towered majestically over bustling boulevards.

I took a guided tour of the Boneyard one cold
February afternoon, and somewhere near the end of the tour guide's spiel, I
split myself off from the rest of the group to explore on my own. I wandered to
a remote corner of the lot where I stood alone under the chill blue sky,
without the chattering guide. Dwarfed among the enormous signs, I could feel
the spooky silence. Like they were awaiting resurrection.

I wanted to soak up a little local culture. I've
been living in Las Vegas ever since I moved up from LA almost two years ago,
back in the spring of 2001. All I really knew about this city was what I'd
heard, so I thought I'd get out and see some history, or what passes for
history around here.

A town like this, you don't have to dig too deep
to uncover the past.

≈≈≈

Following the tour, I
stepped out of the Boneyard lot onto the sidewalk. As I climbed into my car
half a block away, I heard a sudden, violent thump to my immediate left. I spun
around to see a man tumble hard to the pavement not fifteen feet away. The tan
cargo van that hit him squealed wide around the corner, weaving across both
lanes of Wilson Avenue, and sped toward Maryland Parkway, where it would
eventually melt into northside traffic. I caught printing on the side and back
of the van, but I couldn't grab the plate number.

I rushed to him. Blood streamed from his right
ear, and he struggled for breath. When I pulled out my cell phone to call 911,
he clutched my forearm as best he could, gasping for words. With thinning black
hair, he appeared to be middle-aged, of slender build, maybe Hispanic.

By the time I finished the call, he had reached
into the inside pocket of his jacket, unsteadily digging out a thick white
envelope. Quaking, he handed it to me. I saw writing, but I didn't stop to
look. Desperate brown eyes begged me to listen as he tried to speak. I cradled
his head. In the background, I heard a couple of cars passing by. No one
stopped.

"G-g-give … to … " He hacked and moaned
in pain.

"Give this to who? To who?" Without
thinking, I stuffed the envelope inside my shirt. I looked around. No
pedestrians anywhere on this back street.

His eyes rolled upward into his head and blood
kept pouring out of his ear, flowing across the cold asphalt toward the gutter.

"Who? Who?" I shouted.

His labored breath tried to form words. "Bla
… Bl …" He exhaled once, and I knew he was gone.

I departed the scene ASAP. Once the cops got here
and caught sight of a corpse, I wanted to be far, far away.

Because I'm Jack Barnett, thirty-six, former
private investigator from Los Angeles, and the authorities there revoked my PI
license back in the spring of '01. I won't go into it here, but I'll just say I
went a little too far on this one job, and my hot temper got me into deep shit
once again. Turned out to be a pretty serious affair, so I felt I'd better
split town right way. Once I got to Las Vegas, I kept a low profile, realizing
California might well have a warrant out for me. So the last thing I need right
now is some cop taking my data and running it through the system.

Also, there was the matter of the envelope.

I hustled back to my car and fired it up. I drove
away, my eyes shifting between the road and the rear view mirror. No one,
except for the dead man, was on the street. I felt the envelope bulging inside
my shirt, and from the minute I first touched it, I had a pretty good idea of
what was inside. Patting it a couple of times, I headed directly home, without
exceeding the speed limit.

Once in the relative safety of my apartment, I
relaxed and poured myself a straight-up Dalmore. I took a quick sip.

Now, I have to say right here single-malt Scotch
is the only luxury I allow myself. My income has dropped off the cliff since
moving to Las Vegas, so I'm forced to live in a sparsely furnished, one-bedroom
apartment near downtown, but I make sure I have the good shit to drink.

After the second smooth sip, I sat on the sofa and
pulled the envelope out of my shirt. It was larger than your average
letter-type envelope and made of heavy paper stock. Two layers of mailing tape
across the seal kept its dense contents from bursting it open. Handwriting on
the outside: the initials "JBB". Printed in the upper left-hand
corner were the words "Blake Enterprises" overlaying a slick-looking
corporate logo.

I tore it open. A bundle of loose cash spilled out
onto my lap. Hundred-dollar bills, every one of them. Reflexively, I stole a
quick look around my empty apartment. There was nothing else in the envelope,
nothing to indicate what the money was for, or where it came from. Just the
initials on the outside.

I began counting. Ninety-five thousand dollars and
two Scotches later, my mind lurched forward, assessing questions about the dead
man in the street, the money, and the initials on the envelope.

You can bet your sweet ass I wanted to keep the
money. I mean, come on, the guy gave it to me, and I was under no obligation
whatever to pass it on to someone else. In addition, if he was run down
deliberately, the driver of the van didn't stop to get it himself, which means
he didn't know the guy was carrying that kind of cash. That meant he wouldn't
come after me for it, even if he knew who I was, which he didn't.

It all added up to ninety-five thousand in found
money. And make no mistake, I could use it. I'd been scraping along on whatever
I could squeeze out of the low-limit poker games downtown at Binion's, and
something like this would give me a lot of breathing room.

But, as the sun disappeared into night, the
questions stayed with me, like bad shrimp. Time for a few answers.

I went to my computer and googled Blake
Enterprises. Their website revealed they were a real estate outfit, operating
all over Nevada and elsewhere, with a headquarters address in the big Bank of
America building downtown. It looked as though they did mostly large commercial
projects, and their top dog was a guy named John Brendan Blake.

His photo, a head shot, showed him to be about
forty, with the faintest trace of gray attacking his full head of hair. His
eyes appeared to be bluish-green, while high cheekbones defined his face. He
was handsome, all right, but in the photo he tried for a smile that couldn't
quite get there. According to the website, he started the company from nothing.

I made a note of the address and phone number and
looked back at the money splayed all over my couch. God damn, I really could
have used it, but I'm cursed with what I call the honest bone. Some would call
it a blessing, but I know different.

Early on in my adulthood, I became a big believer
in karma. Our lives are linked, a succession of lives, really. Call it
reincarnation if you want, but I'm pretty sure that each of our lives is one
long test, to see if we can handle what we are given and to make sure we act
accordingly when something is right or wrong. If we consistently do the right
thing in one life, we get an easier go of it next time around, like a reward.

But if we fuck up, we pay.

If the dough really did belong to this guy Blake,
I knew I would have to return it to him, as much as it killed me to do it.

But first I had to be absolutely certain it was
his. And in order to know that, I needed to know more about the man who died in
my arms.

That meant waiting for the five o'clock news.

II

T
he perky blonde newsreader with the high-wattage smile finished
her stirring account of the bright, shiny future of Neonopolis, a downtown
mall, then turned things over to her male colleague.

He wore a dour look as he opened: "A
hit-and-run accident claimed the life of a Texas man this afternoon on Encanto
Road, just north of downtown Las Vegas. Ricardo Lane, 47, of Port Isabel,
Texas, was found dead on Encanto near East Wilson Avenue at around 1:30 PM.
According to police, no witnesses have come forward, but someone did place a
911 call apparently right after the incident took place. By the time
authorities arrived, the caller was gone, and Lane was pronounced dead at the
scene. Police have no suspects, but are continuing to investigate the
matter."

He then looked to his left with a smile and said,
"So, Chuck, how does it look for tonight's game? Are the Rebels gonna make
up for that loss to Wyoming?"

I went to my desk. Pulling my road map atlas from
the bottom drawer, I looked up Port Isabel on the Texas page. I suppose I
could've used Google Maps, but grabbing the atlas was just as quick in this
case. It was a small town, population about five thousand, located on the Gulf
Coast, down near Brownsville and the Mexican border. It appeared to be the
gateway to South Padre Island.

I poured one more Dalmore before hiding the money
where no one would find it.

≈≈≈

Jimmy Santiago was the guy
I needed to speak with. He was a pit boss at Binion's, where I play poker
nearly every night. A downtown hotel/casino whose better days existed only in
the fading memories of a few old-timers. Recently renovated at a cost of
millions, it still managed to look rundown. The poker room attracted mostly bad
players. That's why I played there.

 
Jimmy
hailed from somewhere in South Texas, I wanted to say Brownsville, but I wasn't
sure. Wherever it was, it figured to be close to Port Isabel.

I checked my watch. Quarter past six. He should be
getting settled in at work right about now. I reached for my cell phone.

They switched me to his pit and he picked up on
the first ring.

"Jimmy. Jack Barnett. Can you spare a
minute?"

"Sure, Jack. What's up?"

"Listen, what can you tell me about the town
of Port Isabel, Texas?"

He chuckled. "Who gives a rat's ass about
that place? Don't tell me you're thinking of moving." His voice carried
the rasp of someone who smoked for too long, but his accent was pleasant to
listen to.

"Not moving. I just want to know about it.
What kind of place is it? Who lives there? That kind of thing."

"It's on the low end of the scale," he
said. "Flat, colorless. Not a lot of people live there. Not a lot of money
circulating. Mostly Mexicans. You know, typical border town."

"Have you ever heard of a guy from there
named Ricardo Lane?"

"Never heard of him."

"What about South Padre Island? What kind of
place is that?"

"It's kind of a vacation spot, but again,
it's on the low end. Travelodge, Best Western, nothing fancy. They get a lot of
spring breakers who can't afford to go to Cancún."

"To your knowledge, is there any Las Vegas
connection in those places? Any Strip-type hotels? Famous entertainment venues?
Anything like that?"

He thought for a moment. "No big hotels or
night spots, Jack. Nothing I can think of. It's really the other side of the
coin from Las Vegas. You know, not much happening at all."

"Okay, Jimmy. Thanks."

≈≈≈

The next morning, I got up
bright and early, or at least, bright and early for me, around eight-thirty. I
made coffee and checked the Las Vegas
Review-Journal,
where I found a
very small article about Lane's killing in the Nevada section. It added nothing
new to the TV piece on it from the night before, except to say he was in the
real estate business back in Texas. The way the paper presented the whole
thing, it was clear the matter would soon be forgotten.