The December Hunt (Work in Progress)

Part 6. (Placeholder Title) (v.1.1)

Rick's foot was starting to ache as he half-ran, half-stumbled through the casino, as the casino patrons started to clear out. Rick was lagging behind most of them, but some were still trailing behind. 

Rick could hear Carla and her accomplices yelling across the room to each other, but he wasn't paying attention anymore. He'd made it into the foyer and the glass doors of the casino were now in front of him. Suddenly, Christmas sweater ran past  on his right, but tripped on the carpet and fell hard. He let out an "oof" as the wind was knocked out of him.

Rick stopped, looked over at Christmas sweater, looked at the exit a mere 20 feet in front of him, and then looked back at Christmas sweater and sighed. He stumbled over to the man and grabbed his arms, lifting him back on his feet and giving him a gentle but firm shove towards the exits. 

Right at that moment, the lockdown protocol of the casino activated, and iron shutters quickly descended down outside of the casino doors. Christmas sweater drove his hands into the push bar on the door, but the doors were obstructed by the iron shutters and wouldn't open further. 

"Well, it looks like we aren't going out this way, monsieur," he said to Rick. Rick grunted and turned back to the casino floor. 

"What in the world do these guys want?" Rick said to him. "Are they trying to rob the place?"

"I believe so," Christmas sweater said back. 

"Well, if they want the money, they can have it," Rick said, walking off to look for a fire exit. 

----------***----------

"There," Albert said as he put his smartphone away in his jacket pocket. "The casino is now locked down. Police have authorization to lift the lockdown if they so choose."

"Fantastic," Nicholas said back to him. He rolled up his sleeves as he began to walk over to the café near the entrance to the building, which had an entrance into the lobby as well as out onto the street. Albert looked over at Nicholas in confusion.

"Sir, aren't you worried about what's going on at the casino?", he asked him, stepping in line with Nicholas as they approached the café entrance.

"Frankly, Albert, I don't care if that place goes down. I do care if trouble gets tied to me somehow. I know I don't have a clean past, but I do not want to be accused of anything criminal just because it happened inside my place of business." They entered the café and were met by the smell of dark roast coffee and the sound of Dizzy Gillespie.

Nicholas ordered a mocha with whipped cream. Albert had a black coffee.

They sat down at a small table with two chairs. Around them, people worked on their laptops or read books or newspapers. Some were writing in notebooks or thumbing through photos on their phones. Nicholas took a sip from his mocha. "You think it's a robbery?" he asked his head of security. Albert sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "We have money in the vault, but it's just been moved to the bank three days ago. If they did come for money, they came at a bad time."

"A good time for us, though," Nicholas said, raising his cup to Albert. "If we do get robbed, the insurance will probably cover the whole sum, since it's only three days' worth of revenue." He raised his mocha to his lips again, then froze. "What if the police think it's an insurance scam?", he asked suddenly, his eyes growing wide in alarm.

Albert laughed and put his coffee down. "There's no way," he replied back, taking his phone out and pulling up the casino's live security feed on the screen. "The only way the blues would be able to pin this on you is if you had ties to any of these would-be casino robbers." He turned the screen around to face Nicholas. Nicholas stared at the feed for a while. The casino was mostly empty at this point, save for a few unlucky patrons who hadn't made it out before the doors locked. Some of the people walking around were holding guns and yelling to each other across the floor, looking around as if searching for something.

Nicholas sat back and took another sip, carefully watching the screen while doing so. Albert's arm started to grow tired. Something caught Nicholas's eye.

"Zoom in on the blonde with the fancy pants," he told Albert.

Albert looked at the phone, paused the feed, and zoomed the camera in on the blonde's face. He turned the phone back to Nicholas, who stared at the screen for a few seconds.

"That's a K-pop star," he said, visibly confused. Then he let out a small yell and spilled some of his mocha into his lap. "My son is dating her!", he cried out.