Private Vegas (13 page)

The hair on the back of Luke Warren’s neck stood up. He knew full well that those douche bags were not gay.

“Do you know where the Stanleys are staying?”

“They never said.”

“I need a copy of their sales receipt.”

Captain Warren knew there was little he could do to put the blocks to Remari and Mazul. Even if they were caught with the stolen jacket in their possession, even if they were positively identified by Brian Finnerty, it would still be swept under the diplomatic-immunity rug.

The captain got the name of the Stanley women’s hotel from the credit card company and he called their room. No one answered, so he left a message on voice mail asking them to get back to him immediately and not to go anywhere with the men they had met at Mariah Koo.

Then he called Jack Morgan.

I HAD BEEN following Tommy’s car since the end of the business day. He left his office alone, drove to his house in Hancock Park by the shortest route, and not long after that, he got back into his car and headed west.

Sure, I might be wasting time and energy, but while my eyelashes grew back, and before something else blew up in my front yard, I really couldn’t have too much information about what my brother was up to.

I was driving my loaner car, a black Mercedes like a hundred thousand identical cars in LA, and Tommy didn’t know that I had it. I was sure that he hadn’t noticed me weaving in traffic behind him, staying on his tail, but suddenly, I lost him. Tommy had made a red Ferrari disappear.

With luck, I’d be able to put a GPS tracker on his car, save me tailing him in the future.

The sun was going down as I headed east on Beverly Boulevard, passing the Wilshire Country Club on my left, looking for the Ferrari in all directions at once. That’s when I got the call from Captain Warren saying that Khezir Mazul had almost killed a couple of salesclerks on Rodeo Drive and he and Gozan Remari were planning to take two women tourists out for dinner that evening.

“Drug them, you mean. No dinner.”

“Jack, I don’t know where to look for them. I can’t even put out a BOLO, since as far as the chief is concerned, these guys are off-limits.”

“I’ll get back to you,” I said.

I was passing through estate country, an area of expensive homes and grounds manicured to the quick. I called my hotelier friend Amelia Poole, known to her friends as Jinx. She made a few calls to her inner circle and then let me know that two men had checked into Shutters, in Santa Monica, under the name Remari.

I called Cruz and then I got back to Captain Warren, told him what I was doing. I was saying I’d check in later when Tommy’s car suddenly appeared. It took a right onto Melrose, then, a short distance later, another right onto the 101 South to LA. Then the car crossed the 110.

I was three cars back, and then I was right on Tommy’s tail. I thought for a second that the Ferrari had slowed so that he could check me out, but I was wrong. Tommy was taking the Broadway exit. Then he made a sharp right. And I stayed behind him.

Tommy’s brake lights flashed and I saw the club up ahead.

Was that Tommy’s destination?

A club?

Tommy pulled into a parking spot and I drove past him, watched him get out of his car. If he’d seen me, he’d have given me the finger. I kept him in my rearview mirror, and when he crossed the street on foot, I parked.

A minute or two later, I stuck a tracker under his bumper. Then I went toward the entrance of the homely cement block building that had once been a lightbulb factory and was now a club called the Socket.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS EMILIO Cruz and Rick Del Rio were sitting in loungers on the deck overlooking the canal outside Del Rio’s house. It was a nice house and a nice view and a pretty sunset, but both men were wired as tight as guitar strings.

They were drinking beer and throwing bread to the ducks, and when Del Rio spoke at all, it was only to say some version of “Maybe this is the last time we’ll get to do this.”

And Cruz would say, “Don’t be crazy, Rick. You’re innocent.”

Del Rio had told Cruz that he hadn’t beaten Vicky Carmody, and Cruz believed his partner, but he was afraid for him. No one knew what a jury would do, and Del Rio didn’t look like a choirboy.

Cruz felt awful for Rick, but after sitting with his partner for hours, there was nothing left for him to say that he hadn’t already said.

Del Rio said: “This could be the last fresh air I breathe for ten years.”

Cruz, half joking, half exasperated, said, “Look. I’ll rent your house, Rick, okay? You’ll make money, and you’ll only be how old when you get out? Fifty-five?”

Del Rio looked at Cruz like he’d just said that he was having sex with Del Rio’s mother.

“What did you say, you son-of-a-bitch? You think this is funny?”

Del Rio leaped from the webbed aluminum chair, grabbed Cruz by the neck, squeezed his throat with both hands, then pushed the chair over and managed to straddle Cruz while pressing his thumbs into Cruz’s throat.

Del Rio was yelling, “You prick. You stupid prick.
You
want to do ten years? Huh? You couldn’t do ten
days
before you’d be crying like a girl.”

Cruz had a muscular neck along with the muscular rest of his body, and his arms were free. He gave Del Rio a shot to the jaw that sent Del Rio backward. It was enough to break the choke hold, but Del Rio wasn’t done. He scrambled to his feet, and as Cruz got up, Del Rio hurled himself at Cruz, who stiff-armed him.

Del Rio stumbled back, recovered his footing, threw a punch that connected with Cruz’s solar plexus. Cruz grunted, then lowered his head and ran at Del Rio; the force lifted Rick off his feet and sent him off the deck and into the canal.

Ducks flew up, squawking.

Del Rio sank, disappeared into the dark water, then bobbed up, sputtering.

Cruz shouted down at him, “Cooled off yet, Ricky? Are we done?”

“Shit,” Del Rio said. He reached for the rope ladder.

Cruz’s phone rang. He grabbed it out of his shirt pocket, flipped it open with his thumb, gave Del Rio a hand up to the deck.

The caller was Jack and he had an assignment for him: surveillance of those scumbag Sumaris, who had just checked into Shutters.

“I’m taking Del Rio with me,” Cruz said.

“Fine,” Jack said.

“He needs something to do. The waiting is killing him.”

“I said, ‘Fine.’”

Cruz stood back as Del Rio sluiced the water off his clothes with his hands. Cruz said, “I’m sorry, asshole. Your jaw is going to be purple tomorrow.”

Del Rio rubbed his jaw and said to Cruz, “So where are we going?”

THEIR CORNER SUITE at the fabulous Shutters on the Beach hotel had a wide view of the ocean and the endless sandy beach tinted by the setting sun at the horizon.

Gozan relaxed in a chaise and perused the room-service menu. He wanted a cocktail before dinner and maybe fresh oysters.

Behind him, Khezir angrily thumbed the television’s remote control, speeding through the channels.

“Khezzy, your father would have loved to see the ocean. I wish he could be here with us.”

“Those stupid bitches,” Khezir said in Sumarin. “What a waste of our time. All day working on them and then, ‘Sorry, we are not feeling well. Thank you anyway.’”

“There will be other women. This hotel is full of them.”

“Don’t speak to me of women.”

“Okay, Khezzy.”

No one understood Khezir the way Gozan did. He had been like a father to Khezzy since the day his brother-in-law, Khezzy’s father, had been murdered, stabbed through the heart by his disgruntled mistress while he was asleep.

Khezir was only fifteen at the time, but he had sought the woman out and restored his family’s honor, meeting blood with blood. Afterward, he inked his body with the dead woman’s name.

It was the first of many tattoos.

Now Khezir threw the remote control at the flat-screen, strode to the sliding doors, and went out to the balcony. Gozan knew that Khezir was bitterly disappointed that Susan and Serena had canceled the evening’s plans.

Tension was building inside Khezir, and Gozan was responsible for keeping the young man on track. Having fun was a by-product, not the objective. Much was at stake.

Gozan sighed as the sun slipped beneath the water. He was of the same blood as Khezir and he loved him.

“Khezzy,” he called out. “I am ordering oysters for two and a nice bottle of champagne. Is there anything else I can get you?”

Khezir shouted back, “You’ll be the first to know.”

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER the fistfight at Sherman Canal, Cruz parked the fleet car in a lot adjacent to Shutters, a rangy white clapboard-sided hotel with hundreds of balconies and windows and doors looking out over the Pacific. Lights were on inside, and the place looked beautiful against the cobalt sky.

From where they were parked, Cruz and Del Rio had a clean sight line to the third floor. Del Rio affixed a small, military-grade electronic listening device to the car door, angled the receiver at the suite of rooms in the northwest corner, pinpointed and locked in the settings. They were too far away to see the Sumaris through the windows, but their voices were coming in clearly and the conversation was being amplified and recorded.

Like most stakeouts, this was going to be as exciting as Bingo night in a retirement home, but Cruz was just happy he could get Del Rio out of the house and give him something to think about that wasn’t his trial.

Del Rio said to Cruz, “I’m sorry I started that fight.”

“Forget it.”

“One of us could have gotten killed,” said Del Rio.

“That’s the TV,” Cruz said of the sounds coming through the receiver. “Someone is channel surfing.”

Del Rio turned up the volume, and he and Cruz listened to snatches of a ball game, a real estate show,
Two and a Half Men
, an escort-service ad, and the ball game again. Then there was a cracking sound, like something had been thrown or had fallen.