Jackpot Bingo

During a career spanning over 35 years as a private investigator, manager and trainer of investigators, Robert A. Stevens has worked cases involving organized crime, commercial fraud, drugs, gangs, murders, burglaries, domestic disputes and insurance claims, and was also the investigator for a cruise ship. His short stories have been published in Red Herring Mystery Magazine and Futures Magazine; his column, Through A Private Eve Darkly, appears in Mysterical-E. Robert is a member and past vice president of the Orange County, California, Chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Southern California, where he is currently working on a novel featuring Mich (Bingo) Barnett.

“We’re missing forty-two bingo cards, Mr. Barnett,” Captain Constantine said, black eyes glowering from beneath the brim of his cap. “A passenger reported seeing some children on deck outside the main salon last night during the game. A boy was throwing something overboard. You will find that boy. I will not have thieves on board my ship.”

He’d probably hang him from the yardarm. I turned on my heel and exited the bridge.

Fifteen years as a private investigator, and I was reduced to this -- bingo sleuth. Overall, though, I had to admit this cruise ship gig was a sweet deal. Every Monday and Friday for the last two years, I’d met the ship when it docked in San Pedro after its Mexican excursion, and investigated any injuries or illnesses that might result in a claim or suit against the line. I was usually done by ten or eleven, and could spend the rest of the day windsurfing, or bicycling, or simply catching some rays on the sand at Horny Corner, the stretch of beach across from my duplex in Belmont Shore. But this morning, the captain had wanted to see me.

The passenger who’d reported the bingo card incident told me he’d seen three or four youngsters around ten or twelve years old playing near the railing on the Emerald Deck sometime after midnight last night. One boy had been throwing something overboard, sailing them like Frisbees out over the inky water below. His description of the miscreant wasn’t going to help me much.

“I told you he was a kid. They all look pretty much alike, far as I can tell.”

I went to the purser’s office to pull up the passenger manifests on his computer. After printing a list of passengers traveling with children in the right age group, I logged onto the Internet to check out the FBI’s Most Wanted list, as I did at the end of each cruise.

Out on the Promenade Deck, I checked the display of passengers’ photos taken by the ship’s photographer during the cruise, trying to match the vacationers’ faces to those of the desperadoes I’d just seen on the Fed’s web pages. Someday I’d spot some big-time crook, get my picture in the paper, maybe even a write-up in Newsweek or People. Then I wouldn’t have to waste my time chasing bingo bandits.

I interviewed four of the ten kids on my list before one of them broke. A pigtailed girl of eleven burst into tears when her mother explained that I was a detective, looking for the pirates who’d made off with ship’s property. No doubt imagining herself walking the plank, the girl identified a boy named Brian as the culprit.

Checking my list, I found only one Brian, a twelve-year-old traveling with his mother. I thanked the girl, promising leniency despite her complicity in high crimes at sea, and went off to confront Brian the Bingo Brigand.

“My name’s Mitch Barnett,” I said to the half-inch crack between the cabin door and its frame. “I’m with the cruise line, and I just need to talk with you and your son for a minute.” Sometimes it’s better not to tell them you’re a detective, at least not right off. It’ll just spook them.

For a moment I wondered if she would let me in, but she finally relented. After all, it’s not like she could get away from me. We were in port, and sooner or later they’d have to leave the cabin.

“But that’s not possible,” Miriam Kessler said in a husky voice once we were seated inside, and I’d explained my mission. “My son hasn’t left this cabin without supervision the entire cruise. Isn’t that right, Brian?”

She turned to peer over the tops of thick lenses at her son, a towheaded youngster who fidgeted in a chair. His downcast eyes and rapidly reddening ears gave him away.

“You did it, didn’t you, you little sneak? You snuck out of the cabin last night after I fell asleep.”

The malevolence of the glare she cast at the boy seemed intense enough to melt the thick tortoise-shell frames of the woman’s eyeglasses.

I felt a little sorry for the kid. He had simply let his youthful mischievousness get the better of him, and slipped away in search of some adventure at sea. I had a feeling his mother’s punishment would far outweigh anything the captain might have in mind for him.

“It’s really not such a big deal,” I said quickly. “Just a kid’s prank. If you’ll pay for the cards, I’m sure I can square it with captain.”

A look of relief swept across Miriam Kessler’s features as she reached for an over-sized straw handbag. “How much?”

As the woman reached to scrounge in her purse, the scarf at her throat fell away slightly. She quickly pushed it back into place. Not a lock of her thick red hair moved as she bent close to the checkbook she pulled from the bag and opened in her lap.

“Since we’re in port, I’m afraid it’ll have to be cash,” I lied, a hunch beginning to take shape. I didn’t want to give the captain a check drawn on a non-existent account. I’d be the one hanging from the yardarm.

“I’m also going to have to ask you to stay in your cabin until I give you the word it’s safe to come out.” I rose, reaching for the greenbacks and counting them. “The captain is really on the warpath about this bingo card business. You’re going to have to give me a little time to calm him down.”

With the woman’s money securely in my pocket, I went back to the Promenade Deck, and examined the photos once again. In addition to all the pictures of our guests at play, the ship’s photographer had snapped the passengers as they boarded at the start of their cruise. Miriam Kessler had started to turn away just as the shutter snapped, but the photographer had still caught a good likeness -- same thick glasses, same red hair, even the same dress and scarf. But not the same Miriam Kessler.

I returned to the purser’s computer to satisfy my hunch, then scanned a number of casting sites for aspiring models and extras before finding Brian’s photo.

I used the purser’s desk phone to dial the local FBI office. I knew the number by heart after all the times I’d fantasized about this call.

“It was a really ingenious disguise,” Special Agent Marks said, once the fugitive who’d posed as Miriam Kessler had been discreetly taken ashore and into a waiting unmarked car.

“We knew Lenny Paxton was hiding out somewhere in South America, and suspected his bosses would try to sneak him back into the country sooner or later. His talents are too valuable for them to let him stay disappeared, especially with the Russians and Armenians muscling into their rackets. We were covering the usual ports of entry, but who’d have thought to look for a notorious hitman masquerading as a female tourist on the return leg of a four-day Mexican cruise. Hiring a child actor to pose as his son was ingenious.”

“Yeah,” I said, “if only the kid had stuck to the script, Paxton would have gotten away with it. But the boy’s prank tripped him up.”

“There was something wrong with the dynamic between the kid and his so-called mom. The chemistry was all wrong, and she was obviously wearing a wig.”

“Yep, but they don’t have men’s throats. She tried to hide it with a scarf, but I spotted her prominent Adam’s apple when she reached for her checkbook.

“What do you suppose happened to the actress they hired to wear the wig and glasses for the first half of the trip?”

“Most likely in a shallow grave somewhere in Mexico. And the kid would have met a similar fate once his talents were no longer needed.”

Lavishly praising my investigative expertise, Captain Constantine happily accepted the twenty-eight dollars after I tracked him down in the officer’s mess, where he was sharing a post-cruise libation with a few of his staff. The line would get my bill later – four hours at forty-five dollars per. But the captain was happy. The thief had been caught.

As I left the room, one of the junior officers began to sing softly, and the others quickly joined in. I knew then that my life would never be the same.