Bingo Boogie

By Ellis Hoff

Reduced to waitressing in "German Wench" attire to pay off her husband's gambling debts, Cleo doubts things can get any worse. She's Wrong. When a gorgeous undercover agent, a money laundering scheme, and a lovesick pit boss all collide…she's got worse. And so much to lose. Her Pride. Her heart. Her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597051750

Book preview

Dedication

My dedication is to Jim, always. For so much.

I would also like to recognize sister writer, best friend and my biggest fan Kim Sanford to whom I would give anything... except Jim.

One

"G reat! Just... fabulous ," Cleo seethed trying to pump life back into the stiff, silent Volvo as she rolled toward the next hairpin curve. The coffee mug in her right hand became unmanageable with the sudden loss of power steering and she blindly slid the wide rubber bottom over the dash until she found the closest thing to a flat spot. Why now? Why here?

Why anywhere?

A half hour earlier and she’d have been flying down the freeway doing something in neighborhood of seventy. That might have been worse. She could have easily caused a major pile up and, according to the local news, road rage was on the upswing. Even in a minor metropolis like Duluth that sported a basically stoic temperament. What was the world coming to?

Cleo swallowed her breath steadying herself for the demand at hand: Getting this piece of junk off the road. There was a criminally narrow shoulder on old Sixty-one and it was getting dark. The complete silence of her usually noisy engine, coupled with the sudden loss of lights, radio and power steering, suggested this was a serious problem. She’d have to wrench the wheel to the left and brake hard or she’d nose herself right into a ditch that resembled the Grand Canyon. Perturbed motorists, suddenly, didn’t seem so bad.

She forced the sticky wheel to the left in an unfamiliar hand-over-hand maneuver that was clumsy, and a little painful, but provided the leverage she needed to guide the dead vehicle onto the grassy knoll that rose up with a misleading sense of welcome.

Bump, clump... thomp, thomp, thomp, thomp...

The pressure of her foot was not enough to put the lurching relic to rest. Not by a long shot. She felt the muscles in her thigh spasm as she called on them for help.

Better, slower, but the Volvo was still inching toward the outside edge of the green embankment. Damn!

Cleo shifted her body so her combined force met the pedal through her, now tingling right foot. Still moving. Barely. Slower... slower... thomp... e-e-e-e-ek!

As slow as she’d been going, the final halt lifted her from the driver’s seat completely. It was all she could do to remember the parking brake on her way down.

The parking break worked. It was, she conceded with one of those awful relief smiles that threatened to turn giggly, the only thing that did with any regularity. The engine had over a hundred and forty thousand miles on it; an on-again-off-again affair she’d been having all summer. The radio, when it deigned to grace her with its company, played only AM stations and, then, only from the lower half other the tuner. God, farm reports, or her choice of two equally vigilant country music stations. Minnesota meets Memphis.

And... this was her life.

Not always, and not forever, but now.

The last seven years folded her up like an old friend’s arms. A lying, stealing, backstabbing friend but, hey, what she hadn’t known had been the best part of that friendship. Seven years of ignorant bliss that offered up new cars and shiny plastic cards. Tasteful designer clothing. And shoes. Boxes and boxes of lovingly chosen designer pumps. The best restaurants, the hottest shows. Gone now, all of it. Even her hair, once her crowning glory, spiraling ginger tendrils that reached beyond the small of her back, was gone.

I could get a grand for that hair, a woman in line behind her at the deli had told her in an amorous, but deadly serious, tone one afternoon just a few days ago. Her last credit card had just been cut up and she was overdrawn. Again. A thousand dollars sounded, at that moment, to the broke and vulnerable Cleo like, well, a million once had. She could still, now, conjure up the sound of those click-clacking shears.

Cleo swung the passenger door open and weighed her options. With only two, it was a timely exercise.

Walk or wait?

It was a desolate stretch of road. It was getting dark. There would be traffic, of course, but for the next couple of hours most of it would be headed toward the city and away from the casino. As much as she wanted to go with them—and, God did she ever—Friday night tips could not easily be dismissed. They could match, if not out do, the worth of the now useless Volvo.

Walk.

Oh, yeah. Right.

Part of ensuring those big tips were the six inch stilettos that complimented, ever so perfectly, her German wench get-up.

A German restaurant in an Indian operated casino had been a foreign concept to Cleo six weeks ago when she’d wandered into the money pit that had claimed most of what she’d considered hers but now, she had to admit, it made perfect sense. Great Water’s clientele had a prominent senior factor. Senior citizens in Minnesota who had an affinity to gamble, eat and enjoy the reasonably priced entertainment offerings of Tony Orlando minus Dawn or some assortment of once famous county singing brothers, likely hailed from either German or Scandinavian roots. The Bruderlein Hof was a huge draw for tipsy couples who’d run up their bills with Southern Comfort Old fashions and leave perfectly pressed twenties tucked under empty low ball glasses. A good night was four bills. A great night was six.

There was no way she was walking away from—

"Honk! Honk... honk!"

The fading orange bus roared by with the ceremonious honking of a satisfied day group. Slotties. Winners and, Cleo knew, losers. Blue hair and shiny heads bobbed in the row of windows coupled with waiving ivory hands. She hoped they’d all left with a little more than they’d set out with this morning, but the odds were against it. Nobody knew this better than Cleo. Nobody except, maybe, Lewis.

A flattering still frame of her ex-husband exploded in her mind and she shook it loose. She didn’t have time for this now. Time or patience. Besides, she’d been down that path a time or two... thousand. Lewis Leighton was a nonentity as far as Cleo was concerned. A bad memory. A horribly expensive bad memory.

Just for the hell of it, she flipped the little knob on that would ignite her flashers if, in fact, she had any.

Even the ceremonious ticking she’d come to think of as the soundtrack to her new existence, was now absent. No flashers. Utterly, unbelievably, fabulous.

There were other words she could use to describe her situation. In fact, her refined demeanor of the last seven years suffered a hairline crack so huge it swallowed her up whole when Lewis split and she’d begun spewing them like a truck driver until she scared, even, herself and got into therapy. Dr. Langston had been a huge help until the well ran truly dry and she could no longer afford to pay him. Resourceful, he’d come up with an alternative payment plan but Cleo was crazy, not easy, and opted to leave therapy to slug it out on her own. Still, his replacement word practice was something she’d hung onto, and, it had grown on her. For every profane four letter word she wanted to use she had to come up with four or five others that were not banned by the F.C.C. None of them, of course, had quite the same punch but, said in the spirit, could come damned, or oops, awfully close to conveying the meaning she was groping for.

That reminded her.

Mikey, the mechanic at the grungy little service station that still, foolishly, extended her credit had mentioned something about the Volvo’s electrical system. It couldn’t have been good, Cleo thought, though she had trouble remembering most of their conversation. She’d been backed up against the slimy concrete wall of the station’s office trying to fend off Mikey’s leering stare and Wild Turkey breath. Was it her imagination, or was there an over abundance of men in this town who favored penniless divorcees with bad haircuts?

Enough already. This was now. Problem, seemingly huge, at hand. Deal with it.

Walk, or wait?

THE CAR WAS DITCHED. One glance in the rearview window and his foot instinctively hit the brake pedal.

From thirty feet away, he could see she was pretty.

Not just the female shape outlined by the dim left light (though that, he thought—what he could see of it over the dashboard—looked above average in curve differential) but the cut of her face and the way she’d lifted it when he’d skidded to a full halt in front of her.

He was a big man. The driver’s seat of the Suburban was positioned to the farthest back setting and still he was cramped every time he got in, or out, of it. At six foot eight, fitting into the world of little people around him was not always easy. Or, comfortable.

Now, it was her turn.

He watched the way her shoulders fell, no doubt relieved that help had arrived.

Let’s just see, Armand thought as he pulled back the handle and set one eel skinned boot down on the peppered gray pavement, how her comfort level adjusted to the fact the her highway assistance came in the form one big Indian.

"HE’S... huge."

The words wafted around her in the dead silent Volvo and she realized she’d said them instead of only thinking them. Another nagging habit that had surfaced since Lewis’ sudden departure. One she would have to work on.

She was sitting. Maybe that was it. Maybe he just looked bigger than...

...no, he was huge. Monstrous. His shoulders, she reasoned with a sudden, smothering dread as he dismissed the distance between the two vehicles with three enormous strides, matched the width of the Volvo’s hood. He was a giant and she...

...was alone.

On a deserted road. No phone. No protection. No feeling in any of her appendages.

He raised one opened hand making that I come in peace gesture that translated into every language. Surely serial killers, and roadside rapists, were familiar with the gesture.

A wide, crooked smile nearly undid the menacing impression of his stature as her eyes flickered over it landing, fully, on the rest of his features. A huge smile on a huge face donned with the deepest, darkest eyes she’d ever seen. He was, she conceded in this state of hesitation teetering on desperation, not bad looking... for serial killer.

Ma’am, he offered shifting his huge, hard frame fluidly from one enormous leg to the other, holding his distance, having a little trouble with your car?

A little trouble? Cleo thought stifling the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. The deep baritone had an almost velvet quality that seemed, somehow, to unhinge her usual resilience. She’d been prepared to walk five miles on six inch heels and now... now she felt as if she could barely get out of the car.

I’ve got a few tools. Want me to take a look under the hood?

This time she did laugh. Hard. Unabridged fits of hysteria so out of place they echoed off the golden cliffs of sandstone like the battering fists of a madwoman.

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Cleo.

Cleo who?

Cleo on the verge of a well deserved breakdown.

I’ll take that as a... no, the man said, rubbing his smooth, wide chin with an enormous hand. He didn’t look alarmed, which said something. She wasn’t sure what. Maybe he was as crazy as she was.

Good choice, unless, she said sliding her legs out from under the wheel realizing, suddenly, just how short her uniform was, looking away from the eyes that openly assessed her body, you have a magic wand in there.

THEY WERE MAGNIFICENT legs, Armand assessed taking advantage of the view. Carved calves and smooth thighs widening at just the right junctures.

The woman, using the steering wheel as leverage, ousted herself from the vehicle in a manner that was enticing, to say the least. Probably, he mused, because it wasn’t the effect she was going for. Even in the corseted push-them-up-and-show-them-off get-up, she sported an element of reserve that hung over her like a brawny body guard.

Can you get me to the casino? She asked, staggering on the stilts attached to her feet like a colt getting its legs. It was an attractive portrait. Spirited. Too busy adjusting to circumstances to apologize for, or be embarrassed by, them. It was all he could do to stop himself from reaching for her, steadying her. There was a well of strength beneath the flamboyant garb and an engaging face that warned him that she was on her own. Wanted it that way.

Great Waters? He asked.

Unless you know of another one on the way.

Armand bit back a smile. Feisty and smart and... half clothed. Either she was trying to level the playing field with the cutting retort or she had one gigantic chip on her shoulder. The car was only part of the problem, he was sure of that. The rest of it probably played out in one hell of an interesting story, too bad he didn’t have the time to get involved. Still, he thought, he could give her a hand. A ride. He was going in her direction. Hell, he was going to her destination.

What about the car? He asked.

Traitor. I say we call the sheriff and have her hanged at high noon.

We could just... tow it, he offered playing straight man to her witty rant. Without intending to, he’d accepted the gauntlet. She could play brains, he’d play brawn. He’d done it before. The game had become a bit of bore, or, so he’d thought. Until now.

Tow it? She echoed as if the concept was so foreign the words had never before formed on the full, pouty lips. He surveyed the Volvo for a split second then dismissed the possibility. This car knew the cold feel of steel hook as intimately as it once knew three missing hubcaps.

Sure, he said, an involuntary half step forcing him toward her as she quelled a dangerous teeter. I’ve got a rope and a big truck. I’ve seen it done.

The look on her face was priceless. A probing seer that took in every peak and valley of his resting, finally, on his eyes. Hers were golden, so openly searching, that he wasn’t altogether sure he could pull this off.

I don’t want to trouble you, Mister...

Bluesky. Armand Bluesky.

The look stayed even. Open. He’d expected that flicker of recognition, that "uh, huh, I thought he was an Indian look, but it didn’t surface. No bother, Ma’am. I’m headed to Great Waters myself, can’t see the sense in you paying some grease monkey a hundred bucks to do the honors. I say we tie the old girl up an’ take her with."

He’d struck a cord. And not, Armand thought, with his comfy, old boy routine. It was the mention of money. The flicker of sudden interest she’d tried to conceal by batting the huge pools of soft brown had not been lost on him. A hundred bucks was a big player in her arena and Armand felt a twinge of... something. Something unfamiliar.

Well, she said, "if it’s not too much trouble." Red apples stood out on the smooth face, the reaction to a stoically forced smile that was oddly enticing.

She was not, Armand thought, accustomed to taking help. Her circumstances, the thumbnail sketch he had of them, were fairly new to her. He’d bet on it.

I don’t want to keep you from your—

No trouble at all, Miss...?

Baumgarten. Uh, Cleo Baumgarten. A hand shot free of the emotional armor and Armand swallowed it with his own.

Warm. Hot. The little slip of white flesh she offered seemed to pulse in his palm. The shaking was the abbreviated kind, the two beat gesture he was familiar with from his meetings with government officials and prominent crime lords. It was the moment after, when her soft fingers laid cradled in his, that set it apart. He met her eyes. You can get in the truck. I have to back it up. He smiled, holding her gaze a moment longer as she slipped her hand free of his. The rope isn’t that long.

He looked off into the distance as she ran the offer through the steely gates behind the pretty face. He could almost hear the hum of wheels. He didn’t have a lot of time to kill, but he liked the fact that she didn’t jump into the Suburban, no questions asked. Smart. She was not the kind of woman to be easily intimidated, regardless of her situation. And her situation was, he thought, pretty crappy.

I think I’ll wait until you get her, it, hooked up. You might need help.

Not likely, he thought, but a good call on her part. A damned good stall. I just might at that.

Armand turned making his way back to the Suburban. He folded himself back into the confining space. Then, glancing into the rearview mirror, inched the big truck closer to the old Volvo and... closer to her. Yes, it was a pity he didn’t have time to get involved. Cleo Baumgarten was just he kind of woman he’d make some for under normal circumstances.

Two

T hey made the deal . We’re in.

Jerome Cobalt sat up with the same steely attention that had once commanded his body, now soft and spilling out over the top of his designer trousers. He could almost feel the metal rod pulling his head back, forcing his buttocks firmly into the crux of the leather desk chair.

They took the money? He asked. A thin strip of nervous perspiration materialized directly over his top lip and he lapped it up with a single swipe of his tongue, destroying the evidence A rekindled reflex from his days on the beat, it was a familiar gesture if not a troubling one.

Hook, line and ‘trigger happy’ sinker.

Jerome cradled the receiver. Close. Our man...

Leroy.

Yes, Jerome accepted the name as if it had been on tip of his tongue. It should have been. How did he seem? Any reason to suspect he was under duress or—

"Leroy is fine. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was running the show. Hell, Franklin’s trademark laugh sounded scratchier over the phone than Jerome remembered, maybe he is. That boy’s a born leader. Find a group of weirdos, toss him in and ten minutes later he’s holdin’ office. Good move sending him in."

Good move?

Yes and... no.

The burly young agent Leroy was smart, resourceful and built like a linebacker. If this operation (approved or not, that’s exactly what it was) had a chance in hell, they needed the best. The very best.

I’m glad you approve. I pulled a lot of strings to get him. He’s officially on leave if anyone asks.

Nobody will.

Easy for you to say, Jerome thought, his chin sinking into a manicured hand as he glanced at the collage of family pictures on his desk. Janice was bugging him about putting in a pool this summer, had spent a fortune getting some quack to suck the fat out of her thighs in preparation. Jerome couldn’t afford to lose his job or get bumped down to agent.

So, why was he doing this? Why was he risking his comfortable office, decent hours and respectable salary on some covert arms operation he had no single piece of evidence existed? Sure, there were a bunch of rednecks setting up camp near Minnesota’s Canadian border, but that was hardly news. The agency was aware of them. Kept tabs on them. Groups like these, enthusiastic until the first hard snow, came and went in Minnesota’s wild lands and probably, always would. The feds weren’t alarmed, had, in fact, turned down his proposal to set up a sting. Jerome hadn’t bothered to mention the most potentially explosive piece of the equation. He knew how this department, like every other government agency, feared treading on sovereign toes.

What was he was doing, then, giving the go-ahead to Franklin and Bluesky? If he got caught, if someone uncovered his willing dismissal of orders, he’d be history.

Hey, Geronimo, Franklin broke into Jerome’s thoughts with the old nickname that gave him his answer by stirring old loyalties, you’re not having second thoughts, are you? Bluesky’s on his way in, should be there by now. If you’re thinking of pulling out—

No. Jerome hoped his swift answer conveyed some sense of confidence. Even false confidence would do. I’m not having second thoughts, I just have to be... careful. We all do.

There’s just the four of us, Franklin said. You, me, Bluesky and Leroy.

If this comes apart, and I can scramble away from the wreckage, Jerome thought to himself, there might just be the three of you.

He was doing the right thing by getting involved, but even his conscious had limitations.

FRANKLIN CLOSED THE portable phone and tossed it unceremoniously onto the cracked vinyl seat of his seventy-eight Impala. Lost in new, somewhat disconcerting thoughts, he’d almost missed the street sign that never failed to make him smile.

His mother, an urban immigrant fresh off the reservation and adamant her first born have an English name, had been able to see the L shaped sign from the tiny apartment she’d shared with a man who may, or may not, have been his father. She’d made a gift of her first noted landmark, penciling Lyndale into the box that said Father’s Surname and Franklin into the one beside it. Had he been a girl, she’d told him, the order would have been reversed.

It was Franklin’s idea to bring in Jerome. This was big. Too big for him and Bluesky to handle on their own though his partner, and oldest friend, would have undoubtedly given it a shot. Bluesky was smart, too smart under normal circumstances, to put himself or the agency at risk, but this one had gotten to him. Franklin needed someone higher up to part the waters a little before Bluesky came crashing through the surf. Half Chippewa, and raised for a good part of his childhood on the Cracked Rock Reservation in northern Minnesota, Armand Bluesky had assimilated well enough to get by but had never, Franklin knew, fully disconnected himself from his roots. Where Jerome had been fearful back in their academy days that his tribal connections (diluted compared to Franklin and Armand’s) would hold him back, Armand had offered his up with pride. It was pride that put him in that bar fight back in eighty-four, taking a broken beer bottle meant for Jerome, nearly losing an ear in the fallout.

When Bluesky came to him with the message on his voice mail last week, Franklin saw the same look he’d seen twenty years before in that awful little dive in St. Paul. A chilling observation, but one Franklin could not ignore. Not in this lifetime.

Old Claude, he’d said in a voice void of his normal calm, says they’re moving guns through the casino. Guns and money.

Old Claude, Franklin knew, was Claude Eagle, the senior member of the five man council that oversaw Great Waters, one of the biggest casinos in the state. He was also, at one time, a close friend of Armand’s father; had stepped in as a father when Richard Bluesky died the day before his son’s twelfth birthday. We’ve got to go in, Armand declared without consult or hesitance.

Franklin agreed, but cautioned his partner. Move within the system, he’d said, or, something to that effect. It was the same exchange they’d had before, so many times it had become routine. Then, Old Claude had washed up the next day on the banks of the St. Louis River and all hell broke loose. Franklin called Jerome. He owed them one.

This would be the one.

CLEO Baumgarten?

The name had rolled off of her lips as if the last seven years had been magically erased. Until now, she’d only toyed with the idea of resurrecting her maiden name. Legally, she was Cleo Leighton. She was still in the process of divorcing her A.W.O.L. husband and, so far, had shied away from making any other life changing decisions that didn’t require her immediate attention. This one, obviously, had already been made for her. Somewhere in her subconscious, she mused. All that spendy therapy of recent months had gone deeper, worked harder, than she’d realized. That had to be it. The only other explanation... well, that was ridiculous. He was a handsome man, friendly and probably not, she reasoned, a serial killer. Maybe even single. No wedding ring or tempering that hungry look that swallowed her up when she was getting out of the car. And... something else. She couldn’t put her finger on it, exactly, but the way Armand Bluesky stood in the dying light, the evening breeze playing with the dark hair that hung thick and straight just below his ears, gave Cleo the impression of someone, something, unattached. Free of ties.

Silly, she chided herself. Silly and stupid. Impressions were one thing. Reality, she’d learned the hard way, was something all together else. For all she knew, Mister Armand Bluesky had a wife, three kids and an aversion, as some men did, to jewelry. And, even if he was available, she was not. Not yet. Maybe, not ever. Not even for a therapeutic roll in the hay, offers of which she’d received in droves since Lewis’ untimely, cowardly departure. Offers she promptly dismissed with such finality they were instantly, shamefully buried by the weekend Casanovas she encountered at the casino. No, she reiterated with certainty, the timing of her desire to be known by a name that held no trace of Lewis Leighton was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with this man.

This man... who was now squatting in front of her Volvo, denim stretched taunt over powerful thighs, the unmistakable shape of muscles straining against the flannel sleeves of his shirt. Head bent, smooth raven tresses reflected the amber glow of near night and she... had the overwhelming urge to touch them. As if the most pressing issue in her life was to find out if they were as soft as they looked.

Oh, for crying out loud, Cleo, she said realizing, as the words spilled out around her, that’s exactly what she’d done. Couldn’t she just scold herself with an inner monologue like everyone else? Sheesh!

You say something? The man asked, turning his face toward her. A smudge of grease just below one eye made him look anything but ominous. She smiled, groping for any answer but the truth.

Oh, uh, I just said, there’s... bound to be a crowd, Cleo bit her lip and shrugged. You know, at the casino. Tonight.

Think so? The man asked before turning his attention back to the Volvo’s bumper.

Sure. It’s the weekend. The weather’s nice. Property tax refunds came out this week. It’ll be packed.

He stood. Rose. Into the sky, or, so it seemed, his enormous frame enhanced by the orange glow that outlined it. He shifted easily, the weight of his solid body moving from one side of his faded blue jeans to the other as he swiped the back of them with his hands in what could only be deciphered by her