Simon Says: Case of the Sin City Snatch (standard:mystery, 3830 words)
Author: pjlawton	Added: Oct 03 2004	Views/Reads: 3752/2514	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Something is rotten in Las Vegas. PI Winston Simon's daughter is kidnapped along with another young girl, the intended victim. They shouldn't have done that!

Simon Says: Case of the Sin City Snatch 

By P.J. Lawton 

Simon Says – - It's better to have bad luck than no luck at all - - yeah
right. 

At first I didn't see the blinking red light on my answering machine.
When I entered my office apartment the musty rotten food smell grabbed 
my attention. I had just returned from a week fishing trip with my old 
friend and newly retired police officer Willis Jackson. Quickly 
throwing open a window I went to investigate. 

Sure enough, in my haste to depart on vacation I had failed to
completely close the door of my small office refrigerator. Everything 
inside had spoiled. Using a heavy trash bag I cleaned out the contents 
and hastily carried them to the outside dumpster.  Back inside I 
sprayed about half a can of industrial strength air freshener to cover 
the sweet stomach rumbling smell until the fresh air from the open 
windows could do the trick. Sometimes I amaze my self. If it's 
something simple, I can surely mess it up. 

Anyway, I had been back for almost 45 minutes when I finally got around
to checking my messages. There were several stored but only one caught 
my attention. It was from old what's her name, my ex-wife. 

My name is Winston Simon and I'm a private detective. I used to be a
police officer until a Desert Storm Scud Missile took out my right knee 
and ended my police career. While I was away saving the world from 
Saddam, my wife decided she didn't want to be married to a police 
officer any more and took our daughter Jacki and scooted out to Las 
Vegas for a quickie divorce. I guess she liked it there and decided to 
stay. She was now employed as an executive assistant to the manager of 
one of the newest hotel-casinos on the strip. It was based on some 
European city; I couldn't remember which one though. I bore her no hard 
feelings anymore, but I did miss my daughter a lot. 

The message was simple. Actually there were four messages from her. The
first had said, “Simon, I need to talk with you right away. Please 
call.”  The second, third and fourth had been a little more urgent.  
They were all the same. “Simon, where are you? Call me please, I need 
your help.” The last one had been this morning about 30 minutes before 
I got home. 

I sat for a few minutes trying to decide if I should call. Tracy, old
what's her name, wouldn't call me unless it was important, especially 
four times. I hit return call on the caller ID and in a few seconds she 
answered. 

“Tracy Simon.” I couldn't believe she still used my last name. 

“Hi Trace. What's up? 

“Simon, where have you been, I been trying to get you for days.” 
Suddenly she was crying. 

“Trace, what's wrong? Come on now, stop crying and tell me. Is it Jacki,
did something happen to Jacki?” 

“Oh Simon, she's been taken.” 

“Taken, what do you mean taken, do you mean kidnapped?”  I hated
kidnappers and placed them almost as low on the scumbag list as drug 
dealers. “Why would someone snatch Jacki?” 

“Actually it was Jason's daughter Bonnie, you remember my boss Jason,
right, that was kidnapped. Jacki just happened to be with her and was 
taken at the same time.” 

“Well hell Tracy, how did that happen? He's some kind of big shot right;
didn't he have some security guards or something?” 

“Yes he did.” All of a sudden she appeared to be a little defensive.
Protecting her boss maybe? “Two members of his security team were shot, 
one died.” 


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