The Fugitive Grandma

Chapter 36 - Stealing from Thieves

Lester Cummings and Rudy Spinoza waited in separate cars in the hospital parking lot until the detective returned to her Ford Escort.

The two men had a plan. Lester would visit the patient first and decide what needed to be done. He'd return to the parking lot and flash his lights once if no action was needed. If Lester flashed his lights twice, then Rudy would know there was a job to be done. Neither of them would be too surprised if it came to that.

Harry was getting old and sloppy. He must have let it slip to one of the staff how much cash the bingo games were taking in. Or maybe he was bragging about it at one of the bars he visited every Sunday. Harry had a big mouth and could have made the whole operation an easy target, ignoring Lester's orders to stay under the radar. Now the profit from their biggest month ever was missing, stolen from the lockbox in the back room that no one was supposed to know about. Worse yet, the police were poking around Shady Palms. And Harry was laid up in the hospital with a bullet wound in the leg.

Lester signed a fake name on the visitor's form at the nurses' station.

"Terrible what happened," the attendant exclaimed, when she saw he was visiting Harry Gibraltar. "In a retirement home, of all places! There's truly no place that's safe anymore."

"Tell me about it."

Lester entered the private room where Harry was lying with his leg elevated in a sling and asked, "Your leg feeling any better?"

"A little bit. As long as I don't move it."

"Is that right?" Lester yanked Harry's leg out of its sling and raised it with a sudden jerk, bending it back toward Harry's torso. Harry groaned in agony at the excruciating pain his boss just inflicted.

"You deserve a lot worse than this." Lester looked down on Harry with rage. It was clear this was only a slight hint of the pain and violence that could be forthcoming. "Who did you tell about the money? Were you bragging about the bingo games?"

"No, I wasn't. I swear to God." Harry held up his hands pleadingly. "It was that Valentine kid and his grandmother. They're the ones that took the money. The grandma shot me from behind."

"Stella and Johnny Valentine? Frank's mom and his son? They did this?"

"Why would I make this up, Les? They found out about the lockbox somehow."

"I'll be damned."

"It was the two of them. I swear. They blindsided me."

"So, that Valentine family thought they could get away with this? Well, they must have been taking orders from Frank. What the hell's that guy trying to pull?"

"I told the detective it was a random robbery. Some black kids on drugs. That should throw them off the trail."

"Cops don't know nothing about the Valentines?"

"I don't think so."

Lester hesitated for a moment as he weighed the situation. Then he set Harry's leg back in the sling and made his way to the door.

"If the police find out anything about the bingo games, I am holding you personally responsible," Lester warned. "You'll have a lot more than your leg to worry about."