Lucky Bastard (32 page)

“Stop her,” I shouted, but I was too late.

Miss Becky-Sue had vanished.

Thundering footsteps sounded behind me as I darted toward the opening. Pointing at Moony, who stepped out of my way, I said, “Tell Security to get busy securing all the exits from the basement floors. That’s their first priority. If they have any manpower left over, they can help me—but not until we’ve sealed off all escapes. Got it?”

I caught her quick nod, then I levered myself over the railing and fell.

Bending my knees, I braced for the fall. My feet hit solid wood sending a jolt through me, jarring every bone I had. My ankle screamed. Tears leaked into my eyes, as the breath left me in a whoosh. Jolts of adrenaline spiked through me. Pain…and anger…snapped across my synapses.

Miss Becky-Sue had a head start. Glancing around, my eyes locked on to those of a workman, opened in shocked surprise. At my questioning glance, he pointed around a corner. I sneaked through the lower railings. The workman offered me his gloved hand, which I gladly used to take the weight off my bum ankle. Only a moment, but it was enough.

Turning, I ran in the direction he had pointed.

Three underground floors formed a labyrinth beneath the Babylon. We’d landed on the first level, which left two below us. Miss Becky-Sue might make it to the next one down, but she’d be shot on sight on the third level down. That one was the money floor, which housed the counting room and various vaults. Heavily guarded, it was penetrable only by those with the highest clearance. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I had enough stroke to wander down there.

On the two accessible floors, I had the advantage. The place was a maze—endless, wide hallways best traversed in golf carts. Of course, it was a bit like Oz with different colored center stripes painted on the floor and pointing the way to various corporate divisions. Human Resources, Payroll, Accounting, they were all stuck down here—beehives of activity caged by windowless walls. At this time of night, the corporate offices were down to a skeleton staff. In Vegas, the open sign remained lit 24/7.

While the corporate staff would be downsized, with the work slowing during the waning hours, the laundry, receiving dock and freight storage, along with the employee grub hall, where employees could dine before their shifts started, would be working at full capacity.

Miss Becky-Sue would be like a fox in a rabbit warren. I knew my way. All I had to do was keep her running blind, until I had her cornered. A daunting thought—nothing like being empty-handed when facing a cornered animal. Right now, I’d sell my mother for a stun gun—top dollar for Mona.

At the next intersecting hallway, a guy barreled into my periphery in a golf cart. Flashing my executive badge, I commandeered his ride and motored off. My ankle wouldn’t take much more pounding. Hopefully, Miss Becky-Sue was in as wretched a state as I was. Surely she’d have to be slowing down soon.

With the various department doors closed and locked, I followed the only path open to her. Silently I glided past the motor pool where all the Babylon’s vehicles were cleaned, serviced, spit, and polished. Being addicted to internal combustion, my heart soared at the sound of compressed air impact wrenches. I wheeled in next to a mechanic busy removing lug nuts. “You see a woman running by here?”

“Cowboy-lookin’ chick?” He had wavy black hair, blue eyes, and big muscles…and a way with cars.

I swallowed hard and nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“She took a left at the next corner.”

Pressing the accelerator, I glided away, in hot pursuit. She’d turned left, toward the banquet kitchens, which provided food for everything from gala events to the staff mess hall. No golf carts allowed. I parked as close as I could, and hoofed it through the double doors.

Sound and energy slammed me. From the quiet of the deserted hallways to the hustle and heat of commercial kitchens at full throttle, I paused to get my bearings. Preparing for a shift change, the chefs barked orders to their staffs. Sous chefs and other minions leaped to the task. Wonderful aromas hung in the air. Steam rose like cool-morning fog off a warm lake. At the far end, food was plated then passed through to the waitstaff on the other side. They then stacked covered plates on trays and disappeared through double doors into the mess hall.

I let my gaze sweep over the gleaming stainless counters, past the huge gas stoves, through the white-clad staff seemingly moving to a silent shared song in a perfectly choreographed dance. Where was the person out of step? I restarted my scan.

There! Just easing past the cold prep area. A flash of fringe, and she was gone.

“Someone stop her!” I shouted as I pointed, but not one head turned in my direction. Mine wasn’t the voice their ears were listening for. Trying not to disrupt the flow too much I pushed my way through. Hurrying, a sense of urgency prodding me, like a pin left in my shirt, I made it to the far end without mishap. Bolting for the double doors, I met a waiter coming the other way.

As we collided, his tray went flying. Thankfully the dishes were empty—wasted food was almost as egregious a sin as wasted alcohol. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t stop to help, I couldn’t.

One quick scan and I spied Miss Becky-Sue. Afloat in the sea of uniformed staff, she stuck out like a clothed gawker in a nudist colony. Sauntering between rows of long tables where the staff ate communal-style, she was trying not to attract attention.

“Someone grab that friggin’ woman!” I shouted as I pointed.

This time heads turned, cutlery hit plates with a tinny clang. For a moment, motion slowed as heads swiveled my direction, then followed my finger. Two big guys dressed in valet uniforms, rose from their benches. Miss Becky-Sue hiked up her skirt, stepped on a bench, then up on one of the tables. Her skirt still in her hands, she turned and ran. Employees grabbed their plates and leaned back out of the way of flying glassware and serving pieces kicked by Becky-Sue as she ran past.

One look at the table, and I ruled out following her. With my bulk and bum ankle, it wouldn’t be pretty. Instead, I stayed on the low road—I’d been traveling there a lot lately—and monitored her progress as a few more liveried bellmen joined the chase. So nice to have reinforcements.

A huge fish tank formed the center portion of the wall at the far end of the hall. Fish to be served at the high-end restaurants swam lazily, unaware of their impending fate. Lobsters crawled across the gravel bottom. I avoided meeting their eye. Staring at my dinner face-to-face was a bit cold-blooded for my taste.

My pace slowed as Miss-Becky-Sue hit the end of the table at the fish tank. The men closed in on either side. Trapped with nowhere to go, she cast frantically around the room looking for an escape. Nothing.

One of the men reached for her. Tugging her skirt out of his reach, she turned and leaped. Grabbing the edge of the tank with both hands, she worked one foot up, then a leg, followed by the rest of her.

Her eyes caught mine as she disappeared.

I waited. It couldn’t have been much more than a fraction of a second. Then I heard it. The splash as Miss Becky-Sue, in all her fringed leather finery, landed in the fish tank. If she could get to the other side, she might have a chance of continuing the race. But I wasn’t too worried—Michael Phelps himself couldn’t make it.

Not in leather. Not in boots.

She sank like a stone.

I took a deep breath as I pushed through the gathering crowd. Nose to nose with only the glass between us, Miss Becky-Sue and I stared at each other. Her anger apparent even as terror crept in around the edges, Miss Becky-Sue glared at me.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” I motioned to two to the valets, “get her out of there before she kills the fish.”

***

After calling off Security and telling everyone the chase was over, the quarry caught, I settled in a chair at one of the banquet tables and perused the selections on the employee menu while I waited. I wasn’t really hungry, but I had nothing better to do while the valets secured Miss Becky-Sue and brought her to me. Above the din of the dining room returning to normal, I heard occasional wails and shrieks, much like the sounds made by a cornered feline. Feigning disinterest, I smiled to myself. Better the men dealt with it than me.

Finally, the odd little trio presented itself in front of me. The two hulking, water-drenched valets bracketed a tiny Miss Becky-Sue who, arms at her sides, was wrapped tightly in a tablecloth and cinched with a rope. One of the valets sported fresh scratches on his cheek. The other had a red welt on his arm that looked suspiciously like a bite mark. Both wore angry expressions. Miss Becky-Sure looked ready to rip my throat out.

“You,” she spat. Not particularly eloquent, but the message was clear.

I stood, slowly pushing myself to my full height. Stepping close, I looked down at her, checking surreptitiously that her arms were indeed tethered to her sides and the two men had her firmly pinned between them. Apparently Miss Becky-Sue was the exception to the old adage that one’s bark is worse than their bite.

I reared back and slapped her across the face…hard, surprising us both. “That’s for Slim.”

She staggered back. The two men kept her from falling.

Pulling herself together, she looked at me with venomous eyes. “I didn’t kill him.”

The doors opened behind me and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Frank huff into the room, red faced. He lumbered through the crowd, shouldering in next to me.

Miss Becky-Sue’s face brightened. She nodded toward him. “He did it. Not me.”

“You bitch,” he roared.

A man standing near Frank grabbed him as he coiled to launch himself at Miss Becky-Sue. “Hold on there,” he growled. Amazingly, Frank did as he asked.

I turned back to Miss Becky-Sue. “Oh, you set him up pretty good. Except for one thing.”

She tossed her head. Her eyes held a challenge. “What?”

“There was a witness.”

A flicker of surprise crossed her face, but her smile stayed in place. “A witness?”

“Mmmm, to Sylvie’s murder. I’ll get to Slim in a minute.” Time to see how my poker face would hold up. Lying isn’t one of my best things. “A young woman. She saw everything.”

That took a bit of the starch out of the bitch. I bit down on a gloat—that would ruin everything—as I dangled the bait. This was like trying to catch crabs—you put a chicken neck on the line then lowered it into the water in front of them. They’d snatch it. Then you’d ever so slowly pull them up to within net reach. They were too focused on the prize to realize the danger. My fingers were crossed that Miss Becky-Sue was a crab. My heart beat so fast I thought it’d leap out of my chest at any moment. Trying to maintain my composure gave me a newfound appreciation for Perry Mason.

“I don’t believe you.” She eyed me, assessing.

I shrugged. “I don’t care,” I lied. “But, let me ask you about the shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“The Loubous. The one’s you bought.” I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Frank. His eyes widened as I talked. “The ones Sylvie Dane was wearing when she died.”

“I didn’t buy those shoes. Red isn’t my color.”

“How’d you know they were red?” I asked, my voice going all quiet and deadly.

“Sylvie told me…” Miss Becky-Sue looked around, wild eyed. “Before. She told me before.”

“No, you’d just arrived in town and she hadn’t been here more than a few days.” I stepped in closer. “And those shoes weren’t at the scene, so you couldn’t have learned about them from someone who was there. Nothing was mentioned in the paper. They showed up on a young woman. She was there. She took them.” I stared Miss Becky-Sue down. “You set Slim’s death in motion, then left to deal with Sylvie. I think I know why. You wanted her proof of the backdoor in the algorithm.” I paused. Slim. The coldhearted calculation, the planning, of the conniving bitch. I wanted to circle her neck with my hands and squeeze the life out of her.

“Slim was a heart attack waiting to happen,” Miss Becky-Sue countered. “You said so yourself more than once.”

“Yes, but you accelerated the timetable. There was enough Viagra in his system to drop his blood pressure to the floor when he popped his usual nitro pill.”

Miss Becky-Sue’s eyes were still black holes in her pale face, ringed with mascara, but I could see just a hint of wild-eyed white.

“You got the pills from Frank when his packet of them spilled in the plane. You knew he’d have them, that’s why you called him to come meet with Slim. The police found residue in Slim’s beer bottle that he had been drinking from before he went to the can. Sort of an odd thing to find in a Lone Star longneck, don’t ya think?”

“Why would I kill Slim?” She softened, blinking back invisible tears. “I loved him.”

“Save it for the jury.” I turned my back to her for a moment. My anger boiled to the surface. If I didn’t get myself under control, the jury wouldn’t have the opportunity to decide her fate. Turning back around to face her, I took a deep breath and unclenched my hands, letting them hang loosely at my sides. “You loved his money. Which, he threw into Aces Over Eights.”

That took a little bit of the starch out of her. “He was an old fool.”

“An idealist, perhaps, but no fool. And, when you got wind of the improprieties, the cheating going on, you took matters into your own hands.” Reaching down, I plucked a knife off the table, but not before I saw Miss Becky-Sue flinch. “What I want to know is how did you find out that Kevin Slurry kept a backdoor?”

Her eyes darted around the room.

Casually, I turned the knife over in my hands, running a finger lightly down the blade. The thing couldn’t cut butter, but Miss Becky-Sue didn’t need to know that. “Here’s what I think. Sylvie Dane got the better of you. She dangled the bait and, just as she knew you would, you swallowed it whole.”

Becky-Sue glared at me.

“Hit a nerve, have I?” I stepped closer. She took a wide-eyed step backwards. “You were played the fool.”

“That bitch.” Miss Becky-Sue unraveled before my eyes. Shaking with anger, seething and scared, she wanted to strike out. The only weapon she had was the truth. “She came sniffing around. Dropped that little stink bomb in our laps. Slim went all righteous on me.”