Nobody Dies in a Casino (19 page)

Even given her mistrust of him, there was no mistaking this producer's energy and enthusiasm now. Charlie could feel it in the small space.

“What do you think, Mitch? It's okay, tell me.”

“Well … it's kind of murky.”

Charlie took another look at the superstar. Was this a new Mitch Hilsten? She thought he ate murky for breakfast.

“I know this is long for a pitch, but you're a deep mind.”

“Where do I fit into this?” the deep mind asked.

People will flock to see you do anything. Even if it's stupid. That's how you fit in.

“You, Mitch, are a pilot for Janet. You know what that is?”

“Call name for a certain airline flying workers out to Groom.”

Charlie was not surprised he knew that. Mitch probably knew all about compounding and DRIPs too. Even with smeared lenses, she was seeing all kinds of holes in this theory, but wouldn't think of interrupting a young genius and a superstar. AIDS, for instance. Cigarettes, for another. Or were they not part of the conspiracy theory because they were very real dangers?

“Your wife is the one taking your young children to school, panicking at the fresh-vegetable bins at the local grocery because of a TV newscast reporting one child dying a mysterious death after eating an avocado or something. This is all short background playing behind the front credits.”

“Hope my wife isn't Cyndi Seagal. She drives me nuts.”

Evan had him and knew it. His smile said it all. As his agent, Charlie should be happy.

“Nah, she's too old. We'll come up with somebody.”

Cyndi Seagal, younger than Charlie by several years, was a client of Congdon and Morse Representation, Inc., on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. And a favorite of Richard's. She was also a hell of a lot younger than Mitch Hilsten. She and Mitch had starred together in the hit that had rejuvenated his career. Didn't seem to be doing as much for hers.

“But the point here is Groom Lake—Area Fifty-one is the ultimate showcase of what happens when people feel victimized by what they perceive to be a conspiracy. Their fears come true. Their belief in those fears, instigated by a callous media, make them so. And nowhere more than on the vast military-owned desert spaces of Nevada. This is no big Spielberg extravaganza, Mitch. It's a quiet, low-toned, ‘creep up on you and you'll never forget it' film.”

“
Psycho
meets
The Player,
” Charlie interjected.

“Exactly.” Evan's approval was discouraging. She'd thought she was being funny.

“Where are you going to get footage to pull that off, Black? Fake it in a studio? Computer animation?”

“Don't have to,” Evan said.

“Already in the can,” Mel said. “Right, Charlie?”

“You'd have seen it by now, if I could get in my house. There's a lot of it Charlie hasn't seen either. Most of it, in fact. Some great satellite stuff.”

Mitch turned his full attention to Charlie now. “Hear you found the bodies. Rough. I'm sorry. Tell me you're not going to do any investigating.”

“I'm not going to do any investigating.”

“Charlie?” Bradone came out of her trance.

“I'm just helping Bradone. Tagging along, you know.”

“No, I don't know.” Mitch turned around to face Charlie and thus Bradone across the table. The astrologer sunk back into her trance. “But Maggie says you're in bad need of a vacation, and this doesn't sound like one.”

Oh really? “You talked to Maggie Stutzman?”

“Well, you wouldn't answer my E-mail.”

“Everybody's ganging up on me. Jeesh.”

“See? Conspiracy.” Evan rubbed his hands in obvious glee. “Charlie's indicative of the national mood. Everybody who sees this film is going to relate. And they'll never forget it was Mitch Hilsten who was flying for Janet. How did you know it was called the Janet Terminal, Mitch?”

“The Internet.” But Mitch was still glaring at Charlie.

“Well, okay, enough. Maybe we better go topside and let you two have a big fight and then kiss and make up or whatever you kids do.” Evan jumped down from the bunk and held an arm out to Bradone. “Come on up and tell me about your investigations, Detective McKinley.”

“Wait, how do you know that nameless government guy with Battista hasn't confiscated this footage you're so proud of?” Charlie called up after him. And all that cash Loopy hoped you weren't keeping at home?

Mel Goodall rose and stretched, chuckling. “Because the can wasn't in the house.”

“Was it there yesterday when those three men were murdered?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe that's what they were looking for.”

But Mel and his long, lean Dockers disappeared above deck, leaving Charlie and Mitch to stare at each other across the table.

“Sounds like you're going to deal.”

“Certainly going to think about it, and seriously. Evan Black is becoming an icon in the industry. I keep thinking I should pay you instead of Lazarus. You've done more for my career.”

“Mitch, I admire Evan's work as much as you do. But this project is being financed illegally, and I think you should walk away from it. And I didn't do anything to get you this part.”

“You suggested me to your client for it.”

“He wanted me to ask you because he thinks I'm your girlfriend. He thought he was using me. But I didn't ask you. He merely mentioned my name to your agent, hoping that you'd think I lined this up. I didn't do anything, Mitch. I've been too busy with all the dead men.”

“And you didn't get Richard Morse to suggest me for the role in
Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel
when Eric Ashton walked at the last minute, I suppose. The role that turned my sliding career around.”

“I've told you a million times, Richard called me to approach you for the part the morning after our one infamous night together in that rat-infested motel in Moab. He thought he was using me too, but I didn't do anything that time either.”

“What do you mean, you didn't do anything? Most exhausting night of my life.”

“I mean I didn't ask you about the part for Richard. He suggested I sleep with you to get you to play it. The pig.”

“But you already had.”

“Not to get you to take the part—it was just—”

“Estrus. I know,” he said fondly. “Know what?”

“No, what?”

“I've had my astrologer charting this estrus thing.”

“What?”

“Guess where the moon is tonight, Charlie? It's in your eighth house.”

CHAPTER
23

“T
ERRY, DID YOU
know that Mitch Hilsten is in town?”

“Yes, Barry, he's shacking up with that Hollywood agent Charlie Greene. She represents Evan Black, the young genius.”

“Yeah, well, did you know this Charlie Greene is an unwed mother and that she told her own poor old brokenhearted mom to sit in front of a fan when she complained of hot flashes?”

“Really? She's shacking up with Mitch Hilsten at Loopy Louie's. We better get a camera crew over there right away.”

“And Terry, that's not all—this Charlie Greene is responsible for the murder of Ben Hanley from Kenosha, Wisconsin, as well as Officer Timothy Graden, who left two small sons, one still in a high chair, and she's been stealing secret weapons from our government.”

But the combination of the words
camera crew
and the fact her eyes burned brought Charlie upright, heart trying to pound its way up her throat. She should have discarded her contact lenses and let her eyes rest overnight, replacing the lenses with fresh ones in the morning.

There was no camera crew and it
was
morning. She didn't have any new lenses with her because she was at Loopy Louie's, just like the news team said.

But the TV screen was black, the set silent. It sat huge and square and out of place in the center of the room on a round table that revolved to face any direction ordered. Instead of exhibiting the ugly bulges of most TVs, the back of this one had a pictured cover depicting a view of sand dunes and desert palms rippling in a wind that blew at the flaps of the tent door framing the scene. Like the old animated beer signs.

Another table surrounded the square TV's rotating table, this one narrow and itself encircled by a continuous round divan. The narrow table contained the remains of a sensuous dinner eaten and drunk in installments, interspersed with business utilizing other sensations.

The round bed had gauzy curtains looped back with menacing curved scimitars. A scimitar hung above the bed too, just below the mirror in the ceiling. Charlie looked away fast. Not the time of day to be looking in a mirror.

With the bed round, the bedside amenities sat along a shelf at the top, and of course the only remote within reach was on the other end of the shelf. Actually, there were four remotes in the room, and one made things rotate, including the bed itself, but Charlie wasn't up to that either.

So she had to reach across the superstar for the one on the shelf. Round beds, even as large as this, force people to sleep pretty much in the center, unless they are curling up in fetal positions.

Mitch stretched out right alongside her, facedown, back bare.

Charlie smelled like canned tuna fish.

Mitch was not as tall as he looked in his films, but his back was state-of-the-art. It had heavy muscle and some moles and a patch of fine blond hairs where it tapered toward the buttocks, a scattering of freckles across the shoulder blades. Muscle and bone were well defined, any love handles exercised off.

Mitch was basically a granola, yogurt, pasta, fish, fruit, and vegetable guy unless he felt amorous. Then it was red wine and red meat.

Remote in hand, Charlie paused to measure. The entire length of her arm and hand with remote extended could not reach across the width of his shoulders. In the attempt, she brushed the marvelous flip side and he groaned.

“Guys with smiles insured by Lloyd's of London shouldn't sleep on their faces.”

“Protecting myself.” He lifted his face off the pillow to shake his head. “Jesus. Gotta up my insurance to cover more parts.” He lifted to his elbows and reached above them for the phone. “I need coffee.”

“I need eggs.”

“What I really need is oysters, raw.”

“Do they work?”

“I doubt it. How do you want your eggs?”

“Over easy, toast, orange juice. Coffee.” Charlie punched the remote to Barry and Terry. “No potatoes.”

“I'll eat your potatoes.” He ordered and then added, “Just leave it at the door.”

“Raw oysters and camel fries?” Charlie wasn't shocked to find Barry and Terry on the screen—they seemed to live at the station. But she was surprised to find it the noon broadcast.

“You must have a bladder to match your libido,” Mitch said when he came out of the bathroom to find her immersed in the noon news. Their clothes were still scattered across the divan.

How come he didn't smell like canned tuna? Wasn't fair. There'd been no time to talk to Evan last night, and Mitch didn't want to discuss business, like why he should turn down this project.

He gathered the congealed and bloody remains of their prime-rib dinner, placed them on the wheeled table on which they'd arrived, and rolled them toward the door.

“Mitch, do not open that door until you put on a robe. There could be a camera crew out there.”

“Why would there be a camera crew out there?” He looked down at himself, which was everywhere apparent. He was blond of hair and tan of skin wherever the sun got to him. If only he could see his back, where she had left not one scratch anywhere. A work of art is to be respected.

“I don't know. I just sense that it might be.”

Mitch disappeared immediately and reappeared looking like Lawrence of Arabia without the headdress. His powder blues damn near shimmered. Problem was, Mitch Hilsten believed in Charlie's nonexistent powers of being able to “sense” things.

It drove her nuts.

“… last night at Rachel. In other news—”

“Rachel?” Lawrence whirled his robe and all back into the room. “What news about Rachel?”

“I don't know, it's over.”

“Four young men are dead and five wounded after the shoot-outs yesterday afternoon in front of Loopy Louie's and a second outside the Golden Nugget. Mayor Jan Jones has requested law enforcement be beefed up on the Strip and on Fremont Street. Authorities believe the incidents are drugrelated and have videotape of them in progress at both places.”

“Yes, Barry, since the private security guards at the two casinos in question were armed only with nightsticks, they had to wait until the shooting stopped before entering the fray. The killers escaped, but the security guards—and the Metro officers who arrived shortly thereafter—chased fleeing tourists with camcorders instead of armed killers. Witnesses say that the acts, the murderers, and the victims are captured on film from every angle and at every moment because so many vacationers use video cameras.”

“Modern technology has certainly changed the world and the way we do things,” Barry concurred. “The debate now seems to be—should private security guards at the casinos be armed?”

“And should they be allowed to tackle fleeing tourists with camcorders?”

A taped interview with one of the fleeing tourists followed. The tourist's face and voice were disguised, but his fear was not. “Hey, man, I just filmed it because it would be fun to show family and friends at home, okay? I don't want to be no witness at no murder trial, man, you know? On
Good Cops, Bad Guys,
the cops catch the bad guys. On the real-life channel, the bad guys' friends catch the witnesses, man. You know?”

“But your identity is kept a secret from the bad guy,” the interviewer insisted.