Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) (33 page)

He was right. There were two, both from my sister.

Message One:

Davis, the people you worked with before you were a jailbird are looking for you. A man named Jeremy has called and said it was urgent, and a woman named Natalie called and said the same thing. They both want to know where you are.

Oh, God! Did she tell?

Message Two:

I’m taking this phone off the hook. The man won’t stop calling.

Just then, the phone rang. I screamed.

“Okay,” Bradley was trying to calm me, log on his laptop, and hold the phone between his ear and shoulder at the same time. “Got it. Thanks.”

Every casino in town had Double Whammy Deuces Wild, but only three had banks of hundred-dollar progressives: Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, and Wynn. Very upper crust. Just her style.

*    *    *

Mandalay Bay was our last stop, and that was where she breezed by us, never batting an eye, because she certainly wasn’t looking for Bradley, and she was the very reason I didn’t look like myself.

It was almost four in the morning; we hadn’t slept since we’d napped on the airplane. We were about half, if not whole, drunk from hanging around the video poker machines at the first two casinos.

At Bellagio, it was a slot attendant we got chummy with, who told us that no one had touched the machines in days.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “no one ever plays these.”

At Wynn, it was a waitress. “I’ve been in these mothers eight hours.” She showed us her gold shoes. “And no one’s played these. In a few minutes, Candy will be here, thank God, and she can tell you if anyone played on her shift last night.”

Another round of drinks, then Candy showed. Same gold heels.

Nope.

We weren’t surprised, but look under every rock, you know?

There were two things wrong at both casinos: Bellagio had five machines hooked to the progressive, Wynn had eight, and both had totals inching toward the two-and-a-half million mark, so no one had come anywhere near winning them in months, if not years.

“It has to be the right set-up,” I explained to Bradley. “Nine machines. Like at Wild Bill’s.”

“One last stop.”

Mandalay Bay was at one end of the Strip, and even in a city that’s famous for not distinguishing between night and day, the Mandalay Bay seemed to know what time it was, because it was deserted. We couldn’t even find a waitress for (one thing) coffee or for (another thing) information. What we did find were the Double Whammy Deuces Wild, in the right configuration. They were even spaced far enough apart to see the magic button between machines four and five.

“I can’t see a thing,” Bradley said, peering between the machines. “Must be the tequila.”

We took off in search of buckets of coffee, so that we might be able to hold our heads up until we at least found a warm body and got some kind of information out of it. Both of us were exhausted beyond all reason.

“If I’d known all this was going to happen, I’d have gotten more sleep in prison.”

“If we don’t hurry,” Bradley said, “you’ll get to go back and get a nice, long nap.”

“Only if you go with me.”

He smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

The only coffee to be had at that ungodly hour was an escalator ride below the casino at a twenty-four hour bistro. The sound of our footsteps bounced off the domed ceiling until we reached the end of an empty corridor full of dark, locked retail shops. The bistro was ghostly quiet, with one machine hissing steam, one employee asleep behind the pastry counter, and the rest of the room divided into sections of unoccupied seating areas of upholstered chairs, sofas, and circular ottomans.

“Let’s take ten.” Bradley held two smoking cups of coffee.

“You betcha.”

We sank into an armless sofa with a view of the corridor, both of us groaning.

“What does this tunnel lead to?” I asked.

“The Four Seasons,” he said.

“And they don’t have the poker machines, right?”

“They don’t have
any
machines.”

“Is it like your casino?” I blew across the top of the coffee. “Mostly table games?”

“The Four Seasons doesn’t have a casino at all,” he said.

“Wait,” I said. “Are we not still on the Strip?”

“We are,” Bradley said. “Can you believe there’s a hotel here without a casino?”

“I can’t. Who stays there?”

“Celebrities,” Bradley said, “high rollers who have markers all over town, and anyone else with a ton of money who wants to hide.”

I let my head fall back. My view reduced to a thin line of the empty corridor.

“Davis,” Bradley whispered, “don’t fall asleep.”

I shook myself awake, then had to fix the damn wig again.

“We should have gotten espresso instead of coffee,” he said, “so we could get hyped up in a hurry.”

If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d have laughed, because it was so Natalie. Espresso. And at that exact moment, she appeared.

Natalie Middleton, wheeling a Louis Vuitton, was a smoky-glass storefront away, on her way to the Four Seasons.

I thought I might be hallucinating until she stopped right in front of us, glanced at the bistro, took a quick peek at her watch, then changed her mind about coffee and kept going.

It was Nattie, all right.

Without taking my eyes off her, I grabbed at Bradley, aiming for his thigh.

His head was against the sofa back, his eyes closed. “Honestly, Davis, I’m not sure if I can.”

*    *    *

I ran into the passageway, my love interest/lawyer/landlord on my heels, but no Natalie. She had disappeared into thin air.

“Davis,” Bradley said, “you’re so tired. Maybe you just thought you saw her.”

“It was her.”

There was nothing between the bistro and two huge gold doors that led to the Four Seasons except a fire escape, and it was heavy on the dire warnings side.

“Don’t do it, Davis. There’s an alarm on that door that will wake people up in Dallas. She didn’t go in there.”

I slid down the cold wall to the floor and rested my head on my knees.

“Come on,” Bradley held a hand out. “Let’s see if we can find her at the hotel.”

Bradley Cole could have had enough hundred-dollar bills in his wallet to wallpaper the front lobby, and there was still no getting any information out of the Four Season’s Customer Service Associate behind the desk. Or his boss. They passed me a house phone. It was Security, who strongly suggested we might want to speak to the Las Vegas Police, and he had them on speed dial, at which point we decided to call it a night. We took a cab back the four blocks back to the Grand Palace, because neither of us could walk.

*    *    *

We’d been asleep no more than three minutes when I sensed something wrong, a presence of some sort. I sat straight up in the bed to find No Hair twenty feet away in a chair, staring at me. He was wearing a tie that was, I kid you not, an eye-exam chart. The big E was under the knot.

“Morning,” he said. “Or noon, rather.”

I was down to the sixth line of the eye exam when I had to squint to read it. R, D, F, C, Z, P. Without taking my eyes off the chart, I reached over and batted at Bradley to wake him up.

“Okay, Davis,” he said to the pillow. “This I can do.”

No Hair stood. “I ordered us coffee. I’ll be in the next room.”

“No Hair.” My first words of the day. “It’s Natalie.”

“I know.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“When did you know?” I tied the belt of the Grand Palace robe tighter and settled in a chair across from No Hair.

“A few days ago,” he said, “or a few years ago. I can’t decide which. You?”

“A long time ago,” I said, “or yesterday. I can’t decide which.”

We locked brains.

“So, Natalie. Miss Follow the Rules, and—” it was on the tip of my brain.

“Paul.”

“Paul,” the word tasted funny, “have been behind all this.”

No Hair nodded slowly.

“And Bianca hasn’t killed anyone or had anyone killed.”

“Bianca is a lot of things,” No Hair said, “but to the best of my knowledge, she’s not a killer.”

“Was I set up to go to jail from the beginning?”

“You stumbled into jail on your own, Davis.”

“Yeah,” I added thick sarcasm, “that was all me.”

“The only goal in bringing you in was for you to figure out how to win the game. You going to jail was just gravy.”

No Hair gave me a quiet moment.

“Listen,” he said. “What’s done is done. From here on out, it’s damage control.”

“Okay.” I placed my coffee cup in the saucer. “Let’s establish a timeline. At what point did you suspect Bianca had gone around knocking off electricians?”

“Natalie started in on that a while back,” No Hair said, “maybe a year ago. We knew Bianca was skimming from the poker game; it was already the elephant in the room. Then one day Natalie began hinting that maybe there was more to it than money.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like homicide.”

“Brave of her to toss that out there, considering.”

“She’s as cold as they come.” 

As hard as I was listening, the picture wouldn’t come into complete focus. “When did you realize it was a setup?”

“In a way?” No Hair squirmed. “From the beginning.” His facial features caved in on one another as he frowned in concentration. He opened his mouth to explain, then changed his mind. Finally, he leaned way in. “You know how they say if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck?”

“Yeah?” I had no idea where he was going with this. As far as my memory would stretch, I couldn’t remember any ducks. “Who’s the duck here? Natalie or Bianca?”

“Both,” No Hair said. “There’s way too much money around Bianca for her to kill for it. It was just a game for her, like her boyfriends. Natalie, on the other hand, was dead serious. I knew when she brought you in that she would stop at nothing.”

“Quack,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Natalie’s a murderer.”

“Yes and no,” No Hair said. “Paul was the actual triggerman.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would Paul go around killing electricians? They didn’t know how to win the money. Their role, and even their payday, was small.”

“I’m pretty sure Natalie gets that now. I think it just got away from them, you know? Here Natalie is, making Bianca’s toe polish appointments, and all the while Bianca, who’s never worked a day in her life and wears those damn furs all the time, walks into the casino and leaves with a million dollars anytime she wants. Natalie wanted in on the action, but she couldn’t figure out how to do it. So she goes to the software guy, can’t get anything out of him. She starts thinking he’ll rat her out, and the next thing you know, the software guy’s dead.”

I thought of poor George.

“Now she’s locked in,” No Hair said, “but doesn’t know how to win the money. A few months down the road, Bianca lands another windfall. Natalie and Paul figure out there’s an electrician in the picture, try to get it out of him, and next thing you know, they’ve got a second dead body on their hands.”

“So Bianca’s off the hook?”

“Well,” No Hair struggled with the answer, “she’s broken all kinds of laws in the casino, for sure,” he said, “but even at that she’s had some poor dumb bastard pushing the buttons every time, so proving it would be tough. And would her family, in the end, really bother? Other than that,” he shrugged, “she’s only guilty of being a first-class bitch. Bianca thinks she’s above the law, which made her an easy mark.”

“That’s two easy marks for Natalie,” I said, “Bianca and me.”

“You were a means to an end, Davis,” Bradley Cole, wrapped in a robe that matched mine but fit him better, his hair wet from the shower, stood in the doorway between the two rooms. “I doubt you were her target.”

“Okay,” I threw my hands in the air, “I won’t take this personally.”

The two men formally introduced themselves, handshakes and such.

“I like your tie, man.”

“Thanks,” No Hair said.

Bradley poured himself a cup of coffee, patted me on the head, then sat in a chair beside me. He asked, “How did she find Davis to begin with, Jeremy?”

Who?

“We were looking at Bianca’s new boyfriend,” No Hair said, “when we ran across you.” He gave me a bald-headed nod. “Natalie jumped all over the look-alike thing, convinced us you knew him well enough and looked enough like Bianca to get in there and figure out what was going on, but she didn’t define ‘going on.’”

“She wanted Davis to show her how to win the game,” Bradley said.

“Correct,” No Hair agreed, then turned to me. “I told you, you were a perfect storm for the job. You had the background, you had the know-how, you looked just like Bianca, and it was your ex-husband, for Pete’s sake.”

I’ve never understood the for-Pete’s-sake thing. Wouldn’t it be “for St. Peter’s sake”?

“So her only motive was money?” Bradley asked. “You don’t think she wanted to kill Richard Sanders?”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” No Hair said, “heat-of-the-moment, or maybe he touched her coffeepot one too many times. For all we know she was aiming for Bianca but hit Richard instead.”

Totally conceivable.

“The only thing we know for certain,” No Hair went on, “is that Natalie wanted Davis to go down for her crimes. Past and present. Her time was running short; she realized that it’s not so easy to set up someone with Bianca Sanders’ resources, but having
two
Biancas gave her the out, because you, Davis,” his head whipped my way again, “turned out to be an excellent candidate for jail, and she knew it before the rest of us heard your name. If she could get you in the door, pin everything on you, get
you
in jail, she could walk away.”

I was speechless.

“And you handed it to her on a platter.”