Nobody Dies in a Casino (2 page)

The three men at the curb stood so close, their shirts could have been sewn together at the shoulder seams. “What do you bet they're going to try to force him into a car?”

But her client had gone on through the harem doors without her.

Charlie was pushing her way to the curb, her eyes on the three heads not turned toward the volcano at the Mirage.

When the head in the middle disappeared.

The other two moved in opposite directions. If she could get the license plate of the car they'd jammed him into, she could report an abduction to the police.

But they hadn't jammed the hunk into a car. They'd pushed him
in front
of one.

Charlie lost her margaritas in the gutter next to the part of him not still under traffic.

CHAPTER
2

C
HARLIE'S SKIN STILL
tingled from a hot shower when room service arrived with poached eggs on a bed of corned-beef hash, little bottles of catsup and jam, thick slices of toast, a huge glass of fresh orange juice, and a
big
pot of coffee.

She settled back into the king-sized bed, an abundance of pillows bunched behind her and the tray on her lap. Life and all its little upgrades seemed incredibly precious this morning.

It wasn't noon, as Charlie had planned, more like 8:30. But, for a vacation night, she'd gone to bed early. And not only had she slept, she was hungry.

It had taken forever to get the ambulance through the traffic last night to pick up the body. Somebody from Loopy's came out to cover it with a gaming-table cover. The cops gave up and threaded the crowd on foot. One of them managed to get through on a bike.

Charlie broke both yolks and let them run over half the corned-beef hash, refusing to associate her food with any images of the grisly gutter, even when she topped the mess on her plate with the red catsup.

You made a mistake getting involved to begin with. Stay out of the whole thing.

I thought you were my conscience.

I'm your good sense. This is Rambo's world, not the Good Witch of the West's.

She ate slowly. Hell, she had all morning to fight with her demons and seriously sluggish conscience. Besides, she hadn't kept much down for the last ten hours. It takes strength to face reality.

She really had irritated Congdon and Morse's hot new client this time by insisting on explaining what she'd seen in some detail to the skeptical bicycle cop, the only one who even consented to listen to her. Evan Black, who had come back our when he realized that she hadn't followed him, nudged with his elbow, pleaded with his eyes, and finally told the policeman, “We have to go now, Officer.”

The officer had simply nodded with relief. Charlie ate half the hash mess while puzzling Evan's reaction. She finished off the juice, splurged on a piece of toast with the first cup of coffee, and made the mistake of reaching for the remote.

Just in time for the news.

After informing the population of the wonderful weather and not-too-terrible smog, the morning anchor turned to his lovely partner and said, “I understand there was another pedestrian error on the Strip last night.”

“Error? He was pushed.”

The local newswoman ignored Charlie's outburst and went into a patient but lengthy recounting of the numerous accidents resulting in death on the heavily traveled Strip when pedestrians jaywalked instead of waiting for traffic lights at the corners.

“He wasn't jaywalking. He could hardly stand up.”

The guy anchor also ignored Charlie and explained the efforts of the mayor's office to educate tourists on the dangers. “You know, Terry, visitors get so caught up in all the fun and excitement here—they don't mean to break the law. It's such a shame.”

“He wasn't a visitor, he was a pilot, dickhead.” Charlie spilled coffee down her front.

You know he was a pilot. You do not know he lived here. And we do not say dickhead, even when alone.

“Oh, shut up, all of you.” Charlie squirmed herself and the breakfast tray across the expanse of the kingsize.

“Right, Barry, a tragic shame, and the pedestrian error last night is no exception.”

“It was murder, you—” At this rate, she'd need another shower before getting dressed.

Remember, we have an ulcer and a daughter to raise.

Libby is raising herself in spite of us … ohmygod, now it's we, us. “I'm too young for Prozac.”

Charlie was talking to herself in the mirror, the front of her scanty robe dripping with coffee. Terry was talking on the television about how the poor victim had yet to be identified.

“Shit, I can identify the murderers. What more do you need?”

When the phone rang, Charlie watched it instead of the TV. If it was her boss next door or teenaged daughter back in Long Beach, Charlie would lose her corned beef for sure. If she didn't keep something down, she'd be too sick to care if some poor unidentified pilot's murderers got away with pedestrian error or not.

She finally picked it up, relieved when it was Evan, the client, producer, director, writer.

“Charlie, I hate to do this to you, but Caryl won't listen to reason. She's determined to talk to you.”

“Caryl.”

“Caryl Thompson, my pilot? The bar girl at the Barbary Coast? We're downstairs. Charlie, it was her brother who died last night. I don't think she's going to take no for an answer.”

Charlie slipped into shorts and a shirt while Terry and Barry turned their attention to Yucca Mountain, where the nuclear industry and the military hoped to conceal and ignore the deadly residue of their trades. Hadn't the dead pilot mentioned Yucca Mountain in his phone conversation at the airport? And a ridge she couldn't remember the name of.

The news team went on to relate apparent security breaches—mainly tourists trying to get too close—not only at Yucca but also at Area 51, or Groom Lake, some ninety miles out of Vegas. Here, the air force did not disclose it had a top secret installation to test new aircraft, and so popular myth accused it of concealing everything from the latest time machine to alien body parts. The world was such a loony place the way it was, Charlie couldn't figure why anyone would worry about woo-woo stuff like that.
They
were everywhere. Not the aliens, but people who seemed to have an inexplicable craving for woo-woo.

She'd once had a close encounter of the carnal kind with one of the more famous of these people and could personally attest to the strength of their beliefs. Fortunately, this particular guy had a few other strengths, not the least of them a fantastic back.

Barry and Terry didn't pretend Area 51 was nonexistent, and they warned that security forces in restricted areas, “armed response personnel,” were highly professional, heavily armed, and authorized to use deadly force.

Evan Black arrived disheveled and sweating, and Caryl Thompson was crying. How could anybody's pilot be that young? Obviously, Evan didn't share Charlie's fear of flying.

Charlie fought guilt. He was wearing what he'd worn the night before, along with a morning beard, uneven in length and patchy. He had not slept well like she had. He bent to pick up a flyer somebody had slipped under her door.

A sky blue flyer with a golden cross and an unlikely cloud formation in the background that spelled out “
REPENT
!”

“… should not be allowed to advertise brothel services in the city,” Barry said.

“You've got to tell me everything,” Caryl said.

“I already told you,” Evan said.

“I want to hear it from her.”

“
FOR THE TIME IS AT HAND
,” the inside flap of the flyer said.

Caryl hadn't changed her clothes either. Charlie got them seated on the couch under the window, where the sky backdrop was blue but the few clouds weren't spelling out anything.

She tossed the tumbled bedclothes toward the headboard to cover the suspicious stains spilled coffee had left and ordered up juice, coffee, and bagels. Just as she reached for the remote to get rid of Barry and Terry, Terry said, “Yes, and although the crime rate is high in Las Vegas and gaming is often blamed for it, did you know there has never been a murder in a casino?”

“Hell no, they just walk them outside and push them into traffic while everybody's watching a frigging volcano,” Charlie answered her.

Caryl's face crumbled into Evan's shoulder and he sent Charlie a beseeching look.

“Well, folks, now that you know where the safest places in Vegas are,” Barry reassured them, “go out and have some fun.”

Caryl Thompson made no effort to keep the vest in place and her nipples played peekaboo with the atmosphere. She and her brother had been born in Vegas. Their parents divorced and moved to opposite coasts. “But Pat and I both had work flying the ditch and were building hours, so we stayed. And now, now I don't have anybody.”

“The ditch?”

“Grand Canyon.”

Charlie described the three men on the sidewalk and her suspicions to Evan and a calmer Caryl. Their breakfasts came and both claimed a lack of appetite, then proceeded to pack most of it away.

“You'll just have to go to the police and tell them who the victim was and that he'd lived and worked here all his life. They're convinced he was a tourist, too excited about the wonders of Vegas to watch where he was going,” Charlie finished.

“I know, pedestrian error. There is a lot of that going around.”

“Caryl, it was wall-to-wall traffic. If you'd wanted to jaywalk, you'd have had to hop from one car hood to the next. They must have waited for the light to change and cars to begin creeping again and timed a shove to get him to street level at all. He was definitely not himself.”

“I can't go to the cops.”

“Caryl—” Evan warned.

“You have to. Your brother was murdered.”

Charlie, stay out of this. It is not your business. And you don't
know
the dead guy was her brother. And Evan's looking funny. Vegas may be a great place to have fun, but it's a bad place to get involved.

“You're right,” Charlie told her common sense.

“She is?” Evan looked from Charlie to Caryl and back again.

“I am?”

“Absolutely. I've told you all I know about your brother's death. And the police too. It's up to you now. Would you believe I came here for a vacation?” Charlie stacked their dishes back on the tray, pointedly opened the door to the hall. To hell with her conscience.

“You mean you're not going to do anything?” Caryl was youthfully plump in only the right places. It gave her a healthy innocence, hard to square with the vest.

“Hey, he wasn't
my
brother.”

Evan Black and his lovely pilot left, obviously disappointed in her. What did they expect?

They were trying to use her.

Charlie applied a trace of eye shadow, tried to improve on her hair, and grabbed her purse. This time, she would listen to common sense and leave well enough alone. If poor Pat the pilot's sister couldn't talk to the police, Charlie sure as hell wasn't going to. Evan Black wasn't telling all either.

“I'm on vacation.” Charlie yanked the door open to a blonde who stopped just short of knocking on Charlie's forehead.

“I am too.” The blonde withdrew her knuckles, tightened her tit and ass lines, and walked into the room as if it were hers. “How'd you know? I mean, that I was outside the door before I could even knock?”

“I was on my way out.”

Charlie's visitor looked around the room, checked the bathroom. “Are there two of you?”

Actually, sometimes there are, me and my common sense. “Not at the moment.”

“I'm Tami.” Tami reached into a back pocket of her jeans and withdrew a tightly folded note. “Are you Congdon and Morse, Inc.?”

“Uh … I'm part of it.”

“I understood this was going to be a guy gig, but I'm flexible.” Tami stretched a well-muscled body to prove her point. Her eyes were an even deeper blue than Caryl's.

“He didn't tell me you were coming.”

“Hey, got it. You're a couple who want to go home with fantasies to keep things hot for months, right? Well, I'm your girl.”

“Poor Richard.”

“I can take care of poor Richard anytime.” Tami dropped herself to her knees, and her halter to her waist. “And you too.”

Tami reached for the snap on her jeans and for Charlie's crotch.

CHAPTER
3

I
T WAS STILL
early. There was only one blackjack table operating in the Hilton's casino downstairs, where acres of crystal hung from the ceiling, at odds with the arcade decor below it.

Charlie made a third player at the table and accepted a free Bloody Mary from the breakfast cocktail server. This was party-twenty-four-hours-a-day town. Right?

Besides, Charlie'd earned it, rescuing herself just in the nick from a fate worse than death. She'd convinced Tami the bodybuilder to hurry next door and relieve Richard Morse of his anxieties and no doubt a good portion of his cash. The agency didn't cover Tamis as an expense, surely. Did Tamis take Visa?

Charlie might be on vacation, but she had an early dinner date with a local book author at an outdoor restaurant at the Flamingo around six and she was determined to enjoy the rest of the day before that, no matter how many people were struck dead around her. One always dined with Georgette early because the author was in bed by 8:30. Charlie had the feeling Georgette Millrose was not going to be a happy date.

There were six decks in the shoe—a clear plastic box with a ramp on its face that delivered one card at a time—all mixed up together. Dealers rarely played the shoe down much over halfway. Treasure Island had the reputation for dealing down the farthest. With three players at the table and ten burn cards shoved into the discard box, she couldn't know how many face cards and aces had already turned up.