Hard Cash (6 page)

A short story of broken dreams

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HERE IS AN EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW OF

THE DOWNTOWN DEAL

A NOVEL

The third installment in the

Jack Barnett / Las Vegas series

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AVAILABLE

THE
DOWNTOWN DEAL

© Mike Dennis 2012

ONE

H
er
eyes
were probably once tinged with blue, but now they were the color of stone, as
they stared lifeless up at the fluorescent ceiling. She was dead, all right,
just like Blake had said, but what he didn’t tell me was how beautiful she was.
Even with the bullet hole in her forehead, I could see she was stunning in
life.

If I’d stopped to think about it, I’d’ve probably
pegged her as a real looker from the get-go. I mean, she was Blake’s ex-wife,
and that meant a long ride on the top rung: the big house, the Benz, the
jewelry, it all went with the territory. Nothing was out of reach for John
Brendan Blake, real estate big shot, and that included the most desirable women.

I nodded at the morgue attendant. He covered her
lovely face with the sheet, then motioned me toward the door. As we exited the
chilly portable storage cabinet that held her and about twenty other bodies, he
doused the light, leaving them in their cold, quiet blackness. I thanked him,
slipped him a hundred, and got the hell out of there.

Outside, I took a deep breath, calling the crisp
night air into my lungs, but I couldn’t exhale the death vibe that had fouled
my insides. Morgues do that to me. It would take a couple of Scotches to
cleanse that away. That’s one good thing about living in Las Vegas. You can get
a drink any time you want it. Or need it.

And right now, I needed it.

≈≈≈

I aimed my car toward the
Four Queens Hotel and Casino. They have a place in there called Hugo’s. It’s a
fancy restaurant, actually, located below street level, away from the racket of
the casino floor. People in suits and dresses buzz around the place, but the
bar is one of my favorites. It’s cozy, friendly, and most important of all,
they serve Dalmore, my brand of single-malt Scotch. I ordered one, as I took
the last empty stool, while Dean greeted me with a wide smile from behind the
bar.

He brought my drink, asked how my poker was coming
along, and some other small talk under the dim lighting. Then it was my turn.

"Dean, you ever see the corpse of a gorgeous
woman?" I watched his reaction, as I put the single-malt Scotch to my
lips. It serviced all the right spots, sliding down down smooth and easy. I
started to relax.

"No, but I’ve seen a lot of live ones."
His round, dark eyes sprang to life. I could tell he was thinking of one in
particular.

"I’m serious. I just saw one."

The grin flew off his face. "What? Where?"

Right away, I regretted bringing it up. I wasn’t
sure how far I wanted to get into this with him. We were friendly, but apart
from sitting at the same poker table on a few occasions, I never really saw him
outside Hugo’s.
 
He was a pretty
good guy, though, plus I felt like I needed to get the whole dead-body thing
out of my system, so I dropped my reluctance.

I said, "Down at the morgue. She was murdered
last night."

"What?" He leaned over the bar, a little
closer to me. "Did you know her?"

I shook my head. "She was the ex-wife of a
guy I know."

Suddenly, the sixtyish man on the stool to my left
spoke up. "It’s always the ex-husband who did it." I made his accent
to be from the Great Lakes, maybe Chicago or Milwaukee. He sounded pretty sure
of himself.

Turning his bulk around in the stool to face me,
he looked me over with watery eyes of an indeterminate color, somewhere between
green and gray, with a splash of yellow. Jowls hung well below jaw level, and
they shook when his large mouth opened to speak. Right now, it opened wide,
revealing uneven teeth.

He said, "Jealousy, betrayal, lust … ahh,
motives like that’ll drive a guy to just about anything. Including murder."

He returned to his drink, which had a carbonated
mixer in it along with lots of ice.

I didn't appreciate his intrusion. I wanted to
tell him to mind his own business, but instead, I said, "Well, I don’t
think it’s the ex-husband this time."

"And why is that?" He scanned me up and
down again, searching for the source of this opposite opinion.

"He’s the one who hired me to find whoever
did it." Right away I realized I shouldn't've said that, but hey, I'm not
licensed anymore. I can say whatever the fuck I want.

Mr Great Lakes said, "He did? Would you be a
private detective, sir?"

I was not wild about the drift of this
conversation, but since I started it, I couldn't really back out just yet.
After another slow taste of the Dalmore, I said, "Not exactly. I used to
be."

That was all he was getting out of me. I damn sure
wasn’t going to get into how I lost my license over in LA, or how I split town
in the middle of the night to come here, just so I could squeeze out a living
playing low-limit poker over at Binion’s, all the while trying to stay a couple
of steps ahead of the California law.

"Well, let me shake your hand. I've never met
a real private eye before. The name's Travis. Travis Haynes."

"Jack Barnett."

He gave me, oddly, a European single-stroke
handshake. His large, pale hand was a good deal whiter than his flaccid face,
which was red, but not from blushing.

"Tell me, Jack, what does this guy, the ex-husband,
do for a living?"

"I can’t talk about it."

"Does he have a lot of money? You know, is he
filthy rich?"

"I can’t talk about it."

"Because if he is, he’s almost certainly your
man." He paused to swallow the remainder of his drink. There were mostly
ice cubes left in his glass, with only a trace of whiskey, and he got one of
the cubes in his mouth. He spoke around it as he crunched on it. The sound of
his teeth against the ice was driving me crazy and I had to strain to
understand him when he said, "If she was beautiful, like you said, there’s
another man in there somewhere and she was screwing him for sure. You can bet
on it. Then, if her husband is rich, oh brother, watch out! You put jealousy
and sex into bed with big money, and man, you’d better get out of the way. Ha! It’s
like a bunch of hemophiliacs running loose in a razor factory. Someone is damn
sure gonna bleed."

I didn't want to go any further with this, but the
thing was, old Travis made sense. That’s exactly how this kind of thing usually
went.

Only, it couldn’t have been Blake who did it. Not
that he wasn’t capable of it, mind you. He’s got goons that’ll do whatever he
tells them. I ought to know; they beat the shit out of me one day back in
February during my initial encounter with him on another matter.

No, if he did do it, he had no reason to hire me,
especially if he knew the trail would lead right back to him. Besides, he was
paying me ten thousand dollars right now, and ten more when I finished the job.
For that kind of money, I was going to find the shooter, no matter how long it
took, if the cops didn’t find him first. And Blake knew it.

Dean filled a drink order for a waiter, then
turned back to me. "Where’d it happen, Jack?"

"In her home. She lived in that fancy gated
community called Beachview, out on Lake Sahara."

"Gated? Wait a minute, I saw something about
that on TV this afternoon. Yeah-h-hh." I could see his memory coming back.
"Is that the one you're working on? How’d he get through the gate?"

I finished off my drink. Within ten seconds, Dean
had the Dalmore bottle in hand, replenishing it. "If she knew him," I
said, "she probably let him in. If not, well, I have no idea. And my
client, if you can call him that, has an airtight alibi."

I didn't mind throwing that last part in, since I
knew it would be in the papers. Cops always look to the ex first in cases like
this, and since the ex was a local heavy hitter, they'd want to make public the
fact that he was cleared.

Travis shrugged and made a grand hand gesture. I
wished he would shut the fuck up and go back to chewing his ice, but of course,
he didn't. He said, "Well, maybe he paid someone to do it. You've gotta
consider that. Or better yet, maybe it was the third member of the triangle.
You know, like the other man."

Irritated, I threw a sidelong glance over at him.
"Might be," although I wasn't aware of any other man just yet.

Blake only approached me about this earlier today.
We met briefly in his fancy corner office in the Bank of America building
downtown. All he knew was that his ex-wife — Sandra was her name — was
found in the living room by her maid early this morning, dead of a gunshot
wound to the head, as the maid arrived to clean the house. The coroner
tentatively estimated the time of death at sometime between six o'clock and
midnight last night.

Blake told me they were married for eleven years,
no children, and that the split came about a year ago, around October of '02.
He didn't want to go into the reason for it, so I didn't press the issue, but
to hear him tell it, he took it hard. Said she was the only woman he'd ever
really love, and all the rest of it. I wasn't sure I believed him, but I leaned
in that direction. I had one of those women in my past myself and I'd crossed
that bridge. Besides, Blake could be pretty convincing when he put his mind to
it.

I drained the second Dalmore, and with it went the
creepy-crawlies from the morgue. All I wanted now was to get back to my
apartment and fall into bed.

Which is exactly what I did.

II

I
set my alarm for seven the next morning. I don't usually do
well at that hour, but I wanted to be at Sandra Blake's house on Lake Sahara by
no later than eight, in case the cops were still nosing around. If they were, I
might be able to wangle a little information out of them before their coffee
brought them to their defensive senses.

If they were gone, then I could have a look around
myself to see what I might pick up in the way of information, with the rest of
the day still in front of me.

Lake Sahara sits on the west side of town, just a
few miles from the Las Vegas Strip, nestled among a cluster of gated
communities. Its shore is ringed with mostly big, extravagant homes.
Apparently, the one where Sandra Blake died was the one she and Blake had
occupied when they were married, so it became part of her divorce package.

On the drive out there, I phoned Blake to get the
gate code. He gave it to me, then I said, "When I'm done at the house, I'd
like to see you. There's a few more things I need to speak to you about."

He sounded agitated. "Is it absolutely
necessary? I'm looking at a full day here, and I've already told you everything
I know about it."

"Well, of course, it's up to you, Mr Blake.
But you're paying me a lot of money. Why not let me earn it? I'm not out to
waste your time."

"All right, all right. Lunch, then. Say
around one o'clock?"

"One it is. Meet me at the Stardust coffee
shop."

"The Stardust? Are you kidding?"

My voice shifted to a lower, more patient, gear. "Okay,
it's not exactly the Las Vegas Country Club, but think about it. It's an ideal
place. Friendly, well-lit. You damn sure won't run into anyone you know
there." Before he could respond, I added, "One more thing. I'm sure
you have a photograph of your ex-wife, one that's a good close-up?"

"Yes, but —"

"Bring it. Oh, and don't worry. They have
valet parking there. Even I use it."

He sighed. "The Stardust at one."

≈≈≈

I entered the code into
the keypad and the big gate swung open, admitting me into Beachview Estates.

I have to admit, it felt kind of strange, my being
allowed to enter these hallowed, exclusive grounds. Back in LA, when I had my
license and when the money was coming in pretty regularly, life was good, but
nothing like this. I mean, I had a nice two-bedroom in a four-plex down in
Redondo Beach. I had a decent car, too, before I had to sell it. But this —
this was another world altogether.

Lake Sahara came right up to meet the access road
just inside the gate, lapping at the shore. The view was enchanting, the sharp
blue of the clear October sky hovering overhead. Mountains rose dramatically in
the distance, backdropping the homes across the lake. A few ducks and geese provided
the only visible motion on the otherwise placid water.

On land, there were no moving cars or people
anywhere in sight. There were plenty of million-dollar homes, though, each one
garnished with a carefully-designed array of vegetation. These very large
houses were clearly populated by people with even larger bank accounts, who
would no doubt regard me with deep suspicion if they ever noticed me traipsing
around in their perfectly-manicured, walled-off world.

In fact, just the sight of my eleven-year-old car
contaminating their immaculate streets might well have sent some of them
running for their phones.