Shell Game

Now you see me, now you don't.

I'm trying to pull the biggest con of my life. This time it's not a quarter I'm hiding under half a coconut shell, it's me. Like the game I used to pull down at the pier, I rented three different motel rooms in three different cities for the same days and made it look like I was hiding in them. I paid three guys who vaguely resemble me to get my distinctive haircut and check into the rooms, then traveled to each of the cities, paying everything in cash along the way, and stayed in each room alternate nights just to make sure any CCTV got a really good look at me. I then paid the guys to stay in the rooms an extra two nights while I hid myself elsewhere.

I know Rick's hunting me, no two ways about it. Luckily, the guys I hired knew to vamoose and get far, far away after getting yet another new haircut. Even if he tracked any of them down, all they know is I'm a guy who shared a hotel room with them off and on after paying them a tidy sum to get the same haircut and pretend to be me when I wasn't there. None of them knew about the others or anything, and I paid cash everywhere but at the hotels and their nearby restaurants and shops in the cities I chose as my 'shells'. All of it money he'll want to recover because I took it from his accounts. Well, more likely money he'll want to make me pay dearly for, because he not only lost that but will be majorly ticked off that I ran away after he threatened to kill me if I ever tried to leave him. When chance led me to hear about this mafia owned gay friendly resort, I knew it would be the last place he or his guys would ever look for me.

Carrillo Ranch Resort - in the middle of nowhere, where the roads are hard packed dirt, the sidewalks are made of wood, and the few buildings in town are right out of the Old West.