LITMIR.BIZ

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fine,” he added.

      “I assure you,” Dillinger continued. “They’re all fine. They’re in the music room.”

      The music room took up most of the left side of the downstairs. It would be the right place to hold a group of people.

      Except...

      Someone, somewhere, had to know that something was going on here. Surely one of the employees or guests had had a chance to get out a cell phone warning.

      “I want to see them,” she said. “I want to see that everyone is all right.”

      “Listen, missy, what you do and don’t want doesn’t matter here. What you’re going to do for us matters,” Dillinger told her.

      “I don’t know where the stash is. If I did, the world would have known about it long ago,” she said. “And, if you know everything, you surely know that history says Anthony Green hid his bank treasure in some hut somewhere out in the Everglades.”

      “She sure as hell isn’t rich, Dillinger,” Barrow said. “Everything is true—she’s taken a part-time job because what she’s working is off-off Broadway. If she knew about the stash, I don’t think she’d be slow-pouring Guinness at an old pub in the city.”

      Dillinger seemed annoyed. Kody was, in fact, surprised by what she could read in his eyes—and in his movements.

      “No one asked your opinion, Barrow,” Dillinger said. “She’s the only one who can find it. I went through every newspaper clipping—she’s loved the place since she was a kid. She’s read everything on Jimmy Crystal and Anthony Green and the mob days on Miami Beach. She knows what rooms in this place were built what years, when any restoration was done. She knows it all. She knows how to find the stash. And she’s going to help us find it.”

      “Don’t be foolish,” Kody said. “You can get out now. No one knows who you guys are—the masks, I’ll grant you, are good. Well, they’re not good. They’re cheap and lousy masks, but they create the effect you want and no one here knows what your real faces look like. Pretty soon, though, walls or not, cops will swarm the place. Someone will come snooping around. Someone probably got something out on a cell phone.”

      She couldn’t see his face but she knew that Dillinger smiled. “Cell phones? No, we secured those pretty quickly,” he said. “And your security guard? He’s resting—he’s got a bit of a headache.” He shook his head. “Face it, young lady. You have me and Barrow here. Floyd is with your friends, Capone is on his way to help, and the overall estate is being guarded by Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly and our concept of modern security and communication and, you know, we’ve got good old Dutch—as in Schultz—working it all, too. I think we’re good for a while. Long enough for you to figure out where the stash is. And, let’s see, you are going to help us.”

      “I won’t do anything,” she told him. “Nothing. Nothing at all—not until I know that my friends and our guests are safe and that Jose isn’t suffering from anything more than a headache.”

      Not that she’d help them even then—if she even could. The stash had been missing since the 1930s. In fact, Anthony Green had used a similar ruse when he had committed the bank robbery. He’d come in fast with six men—all wearing masks. He’d gotten out just as fast. The cops had never gotten him. They’d suspected him, but they’d never had proof. They’d still been trying to find witnesses and build a case against him when he’d been gunned down on Miami Beach.

      But her demands must have hit home because Dillinger turned to Barrow. “Fine. Bring her through.”

      He turned to head down the hallway that led into the music room—the first large room on the left side of the house.

      It was a gorgeous room, graced with exquisite crown molding, rich burgundy carpets and old seascapes of famous ports, all painted by various masters in colors that complemented the carpet. There was a wooden dais at one end of the room that accommodated a grand piano, a harp, music stands and room for another three or four musicians.

      There were sofas, chairs and love seats backed to all the walls, and a massive marble fireplace for those times when it did actually get cold on the water.

      Kody knew about every piece in the room, but at that moment all she saw was the group huddled together on the floor.

      Quickly searching the crowd, she found Stacey Carlson, the estate manager. He was sixty or so with salt-and-pepper hair, old-fashioned sideburns and a small mustache and goatee. A dignified older man, he was quick to smile, slow to follow a joke—but brilliant. Nan Masters was huddled to his side. If it was possible to have platonic affairs, the two of them were hot and heavy. Nothing ever went on beyond their love of Miami, the beaches and all that made up their home. Nan was red-haired, but not in the least fiery. Slim and tiny, she looked like a cornered mouse huddled next to Stacey.

      Vince Jenkins sat cross-legged on a Persian rug that lay over the carpet, straight and angry. There was a bruise forming on the side of his face. He’d apparently started out by fighting back.

      Beside him, Betsy Rodriguez and Brandi Johnson were close to one another. Betsy, the tinier of the two, but by far the most out-there and sarcastic, had her arm around Brandi, who was nearly six feet, blond, blue-eyed, beautiful and shy.

      Jose Marquez had been laid on the largest love seat. His forehead was bleeding, but, Kody quickly saw, he was breathing.

      The staff had been somewhat separated from the few guests who had remained on the property, finishing up in the gardens after closing. She couldn’t remember all their names but she recalled the couple, Victor and Melissa Arden. They were on their honeymoon, yet they’d just been in Texas, visiting the graves of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in their separate cemeteries. They loved studying old gangsters, which was beyond ironic, Kody thought now. Another young woman from Indiana, an older man and a fellow of about forty rounded out the group.

      They were all huddled low, apparently respecting the twin guns carried by another man in an identity-concealing mask.

      “Kody!” Stacey said, breathing out a sigh of relief. She realized that her friends might have been worrying for her life.

      She turned to Dillinger. “You’d better not hurt them!”

      “Hurt them?” Dillinger said. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, really. Okay, okay, so, quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. But Barrow there, he’s kind of squeamish when it comes to blood and guts. Capone—my friend with the guns—is kind of rabid. Like he really had syphilis or rabies or something. He’d just as soon shoot you as look at you. So, here’s my suggestion.” He paused, staring Cody up and down. “You find out what I need to know. You come up to that library—and you start using everything you know and going through everything in the books, every news brief, every everything. You find that stash for me. Their lives depend on it.”

      “What if I can’t find it?” she asked. “No one has found this stash in eighty-plus years!”

      “You’d better find it,” Dillinger said.

      “Help will come!” Betsy said defiantly. “This is crazy—you’re crazy! SWAT teams aren’t but a few miles away. Someone—”

      “You’d better hope no one comes,” Dillinger said. He walked over to hunker down in front of her. “Because that’s the whole point of hostages. They want you to live. They probably don’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other, either, but that’s what they’re paid to do. Get the hostages out alive. But, to prove we mean business, we’ll have to start by killing someone and tossing out the body. And guess what? We like to start with the big-mouths, the wise-asses!”

      He reached out to Betsy and that was all the impetus Kody needed. She sure as hell wasn’t particularly courageous but she didn’t waste a second to think. She just bolted toward Dillinger, smashing into him with such force that he went flying down.

      With her.

      He

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