“I know you too well not to believe you, but I’d love to hear something that supports your theory.”
Payne nodded. “Bennie? Do you want to fill him in, or should I?”
Blount glanced at the two men near his feet, then stared at Greene in the distance. “I thinks you better do the talkin’. I don’t wanna make Mr. Greene mad at me.”
Payne smiled. Blount was a hard man to read, but if Payne’s theory about Greene was correct, then Blount had to know more than he was willing to reveal. He simply had to.
“Okay, Bennie, have it your way. I’ll do all of the talking. . . . Remember how things started bugging me on the boat? How my gut knew something was wrong? Well, it was the guards. The guards acted wrong when we showed up.”
Jones scrunched his face. “The guards? I could barely see the guards from the boat, but you could tell that they did something wrong? What, are you psychic or something?”
“When we pulled up to the dock, they approached the boat expecting Bennie. They called to him, asking about the fireworks. Remember? But before Bennie could say anything, Levon told them about a security problem and started giving orders. Right?”
Jones nodded his head.
“What did they do after that?”
“They jumped to attention.”
“And then?”
Jones thought back, trying to remember. He knew the guards ran onto the dock, following Greene’s instructions, but he couldn’t recall anything else. “I give up. Tell me.”
“What did they do with their guns?”
It took a moment, but the solution eventually popped into his head. “I’ll be damned. They threw them to the ground, didn’t they?”
“Even though Levon should’ve been a stranger to these guys, he tells them that there’s a security problem, and they throw away their guns. How in the hell does that make any sense? Come on, even mall security guards would know better than that! Unless . . .”
“Unless they were told what to expect ahead of time.”
“That’s what I figured.”
Jones nodded, admiring his friend’s theory. “I have to admit, that’s pretty good. In fact, I’d give you a round of applause, but . . .”
“You can’t because we let Levon tie us up?”
“Exactly.”
“Probably not the brightest thing in the world that we could’ve done, huh?”
“Nope. Probably not.”
“Right up there with being handcuffed to the desk, isn’t it?”
Jones smiled. The last few days had suddenly become cyclical. “So, did you have doubts about Levon before the guards?”
“Nope. The guards woke me up, but then I started to think back over the past couple of days. The broken guns, his rule against police involvement, his escape through Sam’s secret door, his discovery of Bennie, and so on. I figured all of that was too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Detective work should never be this easy. I mean, two days ago, we were in Pittsburgh with a license plate and a tattoo as our only clues, and here we are on the threshold of finding Ariane. Please! Things were too simple.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about Levon until I mentioned it to him. There was a look in his eye that told me everything. He looked like a big ol’ dog that was caught sleeping on the couch—guilt all over his face!”
“It wasn’t guilt,” Greene remarked. He had circled in behind them, trying to acquire as much information as possible. “It was shock. I couldn’t believe that you caught onto me. I thought I’d done everything right.”
“Don’t kick yourself.” Payne sighed. “It was the guards’ fault. They ruined the entire scene. They should be fired immediately.”
“I concur,” Jones echoed. “In fact, I think you have a big future in acting, just like that other ex-football player from Buffalo. Hmm? What was his name? O.J. something.”
“Nah, Levon’s too good for that! He decided to skip O.J.’s second career and went right to his third . . . a life of crime!”
Jones laughed. Then, using the melody and the accent of the classic Bob Marley song, he began to sing. “He’s just a Buffalo Convict . . . works for da Posse! He took a bunch of steroids . . . now he’s their boss-y!”
“That was clever,” Greene admitted. “Very clever indeed.”
Jones gave him a big wink. “Thank you, Louisiana! I’ll be here all week!”
“Actually, you will be. Might not be alive the whole time, but we’ll worry about that later.”
Payne twisted his head and glanced at Jones. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going