Nobody Dies in a Casino Page 4

  She checked her electronic Day-Timer. It was Tuesday.

  She knew that.

  She had a luncheon appointment with Evan Black.

  She knew that too. Somehow, she didn’t figure he’d show. But she’d be there in case. She had about two hours to kill at blackjack, or finding out which police station housed the bicycle cops, or wandering around openly to see if the goon in the Jacuzzi was following her, or she could just do nothing.

  Charlie had lost the skill to just do nothing years ago, when she realized she was a kid with a kid to raise. But Richard Morse saved her the need to make a decision.

  “Charlie, I’m in love,” he breathed over the house phone. “I need your help.”

  “Whoa, I don’t think I can help you there.” I barely fought off Tami myself. “I’ve been around, but not that far.”

  “But you’re a woman.”

  “That’s not the answer to all problems, Richard. I mean, it’s not like compounding or anything.” But she agreed to meet him down by the gleaming black Dodge Stealth in the lobby.

  “So where’s”—she almost slipped and said Tami—“this wonderful new love?” Surely, Tami wouldn’t accost Charlie in all this public.

  But Richard led her around the Stealth, a prize for some contest that offered yet another opportunity to part with your money, and through the rows of bleeping, blinking slots to the blackjack tables. He pointed to Bradone McKinley.

  She played at the same table as yesterday, the same pit boss keeping watch, the one with the clenching fist. Suddenly, he was watching Charlie too.

  “Is that class or what? I took one look at her, Charlie, and knew. I just knew. Like in them dumb romance novels. Me, Richard Morse, can you believe it?”

  Richard, who’d never read a novel, let alone a romance novel, often talked like a truck driver, but he always dressed well, everything tailor-made just for him, and not in Hong Kong either. Most agents dressed like used-car salesmen. Today, he was suitably dressed down in a tan blazer and shirt open at the neck. Charlie had seen this outfit before, but she’d never seen his face so radiant.

  “Richard, that’s the woman who turned a hot shoe into a fortune yesterday morning. Remember, I told you at the pool?”

  “Can’t be—she’s losing like a just cause. But look at her—serene and happy as a lobster anyway. That’s—”

  “Class. I know.” Losing is what she’s supposed to be doing now. Or lose her livelihood. But Charlie had to admit Bradone McKinley was a whole flight of stairs up from Tami. Richard’s dapper outfit included a silk scarf like film directors used to wear in black-and-white movies. It mercifully concealed his Tami hickey. “Richard, you’ve been divorced three times.” And survived our bodybuilder. “What do you need me for?”

  “This is different. I wanted you to get to know her. Find out if she is married, involved, you know.”

  “I had dinner with her last night. She’s not married. She has a houseboy. I don’t know if she’s involved.” And she’s no kid. Probably no more than fifteen years younger than you, which is not your style, boss. “I do know she travels a lot and is very independent. She’s a practicing astrologer.”

  “I don’t care if she’s an astronaut. And as long as you know her, you can introduce us.”

  “Let’s wait until she’s done losing, okay? She’s also very serious about blackjack.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. Bradone was one of two at the table, the other player—an Asian gentleman. The house cleaned up. Bradone rose and bowed slightly to the dealer and her partner in loss, an almost-smile on her lips.

  “Just look at that,” Richard the smitten effused. “That’s elegance. That’s Greta Garbo meets Julia Roberts, right?”

  Bradone, in powder blue with navy accents today, walked toward them, the grin turning unmistakable, the eyes in full satisfied hilarity. To Charlie, she resembled more Faye Dunaway meets Agent Scully.

  “Charlie, how nice to see you again.” The mesmerizing voice took hold of Charlie as before and Bradone took her arm, overlooking Richard Morse completely. “You know, I realized after we parted last night where I remembered seeing you. You’re a very close friend of Mitch Hilsten, right? You lucky girl. And you didn’t even mention it. I told you all about me.”

  “She doesn’t love him anymore,” Richard said, taking Charlie’s other elbow and squeezing hard. “Hi, I’m Richard Morse. Of Congdon and Morse? Charlie works for me.”

  “I never loved him. I still like him as much as I ever did.” I just don’t know what to say to him.

  “Bradone McKinley.” She reached across Charlie to shake his hand, and he had to let go of Charlie’s elbow to take it. “Have you two had breakfast?”

  “Yes,” Charlie said.

  “No,” Richard said, and actually bowed. “But allow me the pleasure.”

  “Allow me the pleasure?” Charlie stared at him, but he ignored her.

  So did Bradone. “No, I insist. You must come up to the penthouse.”

  * * *

  The penthouse put Richard’s pseudo-Tudor mansion in Beverly Hills to shame. Marble columns, a butler and a cook.

  “I’d heard about these,” Richard whispered. Poor Richard, he only had a suite. And they’d come up on a totally different elevator. “These are only for the mega–high rollers. What’s she doing playing down in the casino with the riffraff? And blackjack to boot?”

  The butler, Reed, poured them coffee. The cook, Brent, was off in the less formal regions, preparing something Bradone claimed would amaze them. They were already amazed. And they were from Hollywood. Bradone was off either making or taking a telephone call.

  “You mean there’s more than one of these penthouses?”

  “Oh yeah, three anyway.” Richard sat, visibly deflated, on the edge of a billowy couch like he was afraid it would consume him if he relaxed. “You got—what?—eight acres of pool and tennis and putting range deck down there, there’s gotta be a lotta here up here.” This was the same man who’d said, “Allow me the pleasure”?

  Charlie should have enjoyed his discomfort. Instead, she felt sorry for him.

  Why? He puts you down every chance he gets.

  “Richard? I have a problem. I need help.”

  “You have a problem?” He snorted and gestured to the walls of window that looked out on Vegas and beyond. “Look at this. What chance I got with this woman?”

  “Richard, Georgette Millrose fired me yesterday. And I witnessed a murder the night before. And I’m fairly sure it had something to do with a cop dying in a hit-and-run later that night. I’m worried the killers might think I have the same information the cop did. All I know is what the guys who committed the first murder—which the cops still think was an accident—look like. And I saw one of them here at the hotel.”

  “Well, it probably was an accident. Charlie, you don’t want to get involved in murder in this town. And has Millrose ever made the New York Times best-seller list? After all these years? You’re better off without her, and so is Congdon and Morse. Just help me figure out what to do about my problem.” He gestured around the room again.

  “Evan Black was involved with the first murder victim and he’s acting very funny about the whole deal.”

  “Charlie, babe, I’ll back you on the Millrose thing to the hilt. But we both know Black is bucks. You know? What have I taught you?”

  “Back off Black?”

  “Good girl.” He patted her knee and sat up straight as their hostess entered with Reed, the butler, and the amazing breakfast.

  CHAPTER 6

  CHARLIE GREENE TOOK a cab to Yolie’s to take Evan Black to lunch, certain he wouldn’t be there. She was determined to enjoy her lunch anyway, to put off going to the police—she never had much luck with them somehow—and to get the taste of the amazing breakfast out of her mouth. It had come in a glass with a long spoon and looked, smelled, and tasted like yak curds. Not that Charlie had ever tasted yak curds, but she knew.

 
; Yolie’s smelled of mesquite, cilantro, garlic, and grilling flesh.

  To her confusion, Evan Black rose from a table to greet her. He was having a martini. Up. Like Georgette Millrose had last night. Uh-oh.

  Evan was shaved. His ponytail gleamed, his black silky outfit brightened with some kind of white flower at the throat where other people might wear a tie. She wouldn’t ask.

  Knowing better, she ordered a Dos Equis. It would take something special to scrape the yak curd crud from her tongue.

  Tongue, shmung. You know beer will go straight to your thighs.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “All I said was hello.”

  “Evan, I’m sorry. Myself was reminding me that beer goes directly to my thighs. When I get rattled, I talk to myself aloud. It’s so embarrassing.”

  “Everybody who knows you, Charlie, knows that about you. It’s one of your endearing qualities.” Behind him, a window across the back wall revealed the biggest indoor barbecue she’d ever seen.

  “What, talking to myself out loud?” That’s what elderly people do. “Or getting rattled?”

  “You pretend to be invulnerable and then blow it every chance you get.”

  “I do?” I do not.

  “It’s what makes you so special.” Rubber belts drove pulleys that drove something enclosed in stationary horizontal tubes at least twelve feet long. That something rotated three-foot skewers over an open flame. “You try to be tougher than the guys. But you don’t have to. You’ve got the guys in the palm of your hand from the beginning.”

  “This is some kind of macho stuff.” Make her weakness sound like strength so she’ll be happy and do what she’s told. Been there.

  “Such a cynic. Is there no romance in you, Charlie?”

  “None.” Getting knocked up at sixteen sheds a whole different light on things, trust me.

  They spooned an excellent tomato and cilantro–type salsa onto thin, crispy flat bread.

  Evan ordered a sampler plate for both of them. She hated when men did that. On the other hand, she did like not having to make the decision right now. When was she supposed to notice this was a vacation?

  “So, how’s your pilot holding up after the murder of her brother?”

  “She’s bitter. As she has a right to be.”

  “Did you know he was flying over Yucca?”

  Evan Black had saved the olive in his drink until last. He sucked it off the little plastic sword and said around it, “Now, how would you know that?”

  “I told you I’d seen him at McCarran when Richard and I were heading for baggage claim. He was telling somebody about it on his cellular.”

  “Did he say anything else?” Her client had gone very still behind those tinted lenses.

  “Something about some ridge. He was furious.”

  The waiter brought lumps of flesh on sizzling skewers, hacked slices off onto her plate. Lamb, chicken, beef, pork—this was after he’d filled the table with salad, potatoes, polenta, rice, vegetables, and more salsa. No yak.

  “Brazilian cooking,” Evan Black explained. “Everything’s marinated for days in wine or beer and garlic and spices.”

  If this was lunch in Brazil, Charlie couldn’t imagine dinner. Whatever it was, it tasted as good as it smelled. But she couldn’t get through an eighth of it. This was her third meal of the day and it wasn’t even 3:00 P.M.

  “I didn’t want to get involved in Pat Thompson’s murder. It was his sister’s duty to go to the police.” Charlie tried to see through the dark lenses of his eyewear and into his thoughts, but there was too much light behind him. “She didn’t go, did she?”

  “No.” From a fake banana tree at Evan’s shoulder, a dead toucan inspected Charlie.

  “And you honestly didn’t see Pat come out of Loopy’s with those men?” The banana tree was a poorly disguised support column that helped hold the roof out of their food.

  “I honestly didn’t. We were having fun, Charlie. I didn’t really pay that much attention.” Brown cloth covered the column/trunk and was embellished with green silk leaves, in need of a dusting, and banana bunches.

  “If you knew who he was, why didn’t you tell the police after he was killed?”

  “Because I had to talk to Caryl first. I didn’t know they were brother and sister. I thought they were lovers. But either way, I didn’t want her finding out from some cop. I had to take your word that’s who he was. And I honestly thought it was an accident, whoever the guy might be. Maybe I still do.”

  Charlie imagined the dead toucan winked a glass eye at her. “That bicycle cop who at least listened to me for a while?” And you did everything you could to dissuade him. “Have you heard that he’s dead?”

  “Graden, yeah. Look, Charlie, it’s terrible what happened to him, and Pat too. But don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re seeing a conspiracy here. Just because you noticed two guys who turned up dead doesn’t mean it has anything to do with you or them with each other.”

  “In the same night? In a strange town?”

  “I saw them both that night, and I don’t feel responsible for their deaths.”

  “Look, I may have elastic morals, and I wasn’t there when Officer Graden got hit by that car, but I do know Pat Thompson was cold-bloodedly murdered. And Evan? Yesterday, I saw one of the goons who did it—he was in the Jacuzzi with me and Richard at the Vegas Hilton.”

  “‘Elastic morals’?” His teeth didn’t glint like Mitch Hilsten’s but they showed off nicely against the olive skin and the dark clothing. The sight reminded Charlie that Libby’s braces came off next month. “Charlie, who told you that? You are a very moral person. You’re one of the straightest people I know.”

  That says something about where you come from, guy.

  “Which is why I need to ask you a favor.” He leaned toward her so earnestly, the flower at his throat nearly brushed his dirty plate.

  “Because I’m morally straight, or because I’m seeing a conspiracy here, or because I’m your agent?” Actually, it took the whole agency to handle Evan Black. But Charlie got to take him out to lunch because he seemed to “interface” with her best. More bluntly, in his short association with Congdon and Morse, Charlie seemed able to talk Evan into or out of things Richard wanted him into or out of. “And what do I get in return?”

  “Now you’re talking.” He actually rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to offer you some totally free information.”

  “Yeah, right.” Charlie slipped the agency’s credit card to the waiter, who seemed disappointed he couldn’t skewer them further.

  “Charlie, I’m the one Patrick Thompson was flying over Yucca Mountain.”

  “You?”

  “Well, me and Mel, my main man on the camera, and Toby, my second-unit gofer.”

  “And in return for this stunning piece of information, I am to…”

  “Take a ride with me and Caryl? And Mel? There’s something I want to show you.”

  “In your plane.”

  “Right.”

  “No deal. I hate flying.”

  “You’re on a plane to New York every other time I call the agency.”

  “That’s because I have to for my job. I love my job. This, I don’t. So, no thanks.”

  When they were out in his car, he tried again, “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything—fear of flying? Shit, this is even better.”

  “I’ll take a cab back to the Hilton.”

  But his Land Rover pulled out into traffic. “Charlie, aren’t you wondering what this is all about?”

  “Well, let’s see—two murders, a totally nasty type in the Jacuzzi with me”—not to mention an almost sexual attack by a Tami bodybuilder, and getting fired by a midlist author—“and I’ve been here what, three days?”

  “No, not that—what I’m all about? What am I always all about. Really?”

  Charlie had to stop and think. “Your work.”

  “Hey, same as you. Right?”

  “So
Yucca Mountain, conspiracy, and all this is … the next film?” You didn’t use the word movie with this type.

  “Charlie, come with us. It’s not nearly as dangerous as driving the Four-oh-five to work every day. Besides, you love to gamble.”

  “Not with my life, I don’t. Why can’t we drive?”

  “Take too long.”

  “I’m on vacation. I have time.”

  “The roads are restricted.”

  “Evan, tell me this doesn’t have anything to do with the tiny town of Rachel and Area Fifty-one. Please?”

  He grinned and pulled onto Maryland Parkway.

  “You’re kidding. Not you. That’s been parodied on every TV network and cable too. It’s so old, it’s panned in commercials. There are people on the Internet bragging about taking photographs of each other peeing on the black mailbox. That story is a dead story.”

  Reaching across her, he pulled out a thick envelope from the glove compartment and began sorting through colored photographs as he drove.

  Barry and Terry smiled at her from a mammoth billboard sporting the moral ALL THE NEWS YOU NEED, WHEN YOU NEED IT. Terry’s teeth were brilliantly clean, but somebody had been taking drive-by potshots at Barry that had pretty much torn away one cheek and drooped his smile like the Phantom of the Opera’s.

  Evan handed her one of the photos. It showed a lean guy in Dockers pants and backpack clearly urinating against a post, grinning over his shoulder at the camera. You could just make out the tip of his penis at the end of his cupped hand and the lack of graffiti on the white mailbox atop the post.

  “So?”

  “So, I’m not as out of the traffic pattern as you think. So, I have a very good reason to want to involve you in this new project outside your wonderful agenting skills—two reasons, actually. And so”—he turned a quick grin to her before returning it to the traffic—“if you knew about the brouhaha on the Internet about the desecrating of the sacred black mailbox, you had to have been interested enough to go looking for it there, right?”

  “But you’ll be the laughingstock of the industry. Why would you do that to yourself? And this is a white mailbox. I know you, Evan, and your work. You are not into alien abduction and that kind of stuff.” The black mailbox belonging to a rancher was the only sign on a least-traveled road that told the woo-woo nuts where to turn off to the undisclosed Groom Lake air base, and peeing on it had become a sort of in-joke.