The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas (9 page)

‘There could be something in there, though. Imagine if she was a suicide. There might be a note.’

‘Unlikely.’

‘But possible.’ She turned to the front of the Houdini biography and fanned the first few pages.

‘Take it,’ I told her.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The book. If you like it, you should take it.’

Victoria set the book down onto the bedside cabinet. She raised her nose in the air, looking very prim all of a sudden. ‘No, thank you.’

‘But it’s something you’d like to read?’ I pressed. ‘It interests you?’

‘Perhaps if I saw it in a bookshop.’

‘So take it.’

‘I’m not going to just take it, Charlie.’

I propped my elbows on the bed and my chin on my fingers. ‘Why not?’

‘Because.’

‘Because it’s stealing? Look, it doesn’t seem as if Josh will be returning for it in a hurry. And unless it happens to be overdue from the Nevada State Library, I’d say it’s a win-win situation for you.’

‘It’s not mine.’

I frowned. ‘You do remember we accessed this room illegally?’

‘For good reason.’

‘Listen, breaking in somewhere and not taking something, it’s kind of pointless. And it’s just a book, Vic. You could try selling it second-hand and you wouldn’t get anything for it.’

Victoria showed me a lot of eyeball. ‘Are you going into that bathroom?’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘Because of the dead body?’

‘Don’t make out like it’s a minor thing. Trust me, I’ve seen people who’ve been killed, and it’s a long way from pleasant.’

She smiled glumly. ‘You do have a rather unfortunate talent for stumbling across corpses.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of your Faulks novels have fewer killings in them than you’ve experienced in the last couple of years.’

‘Well, it’s an interesting point. And something I’ll give a good deal of thought to. Assuming we’re still alive by this time tomorrow night.’

Getting up from my knees, I moved around to Victoria’s side of the bed, picked up the Houdini biography and scanned the flap copy for myself. Victoria looked from me, to the bathroom door, and back again.

‘What if I go in there?’ she asked.

‘I’d advise against it.’

‘But would you let me?’

‘Be my guest. Just don’t expect me to watch.’

After a moment’s hesitation, Victoria removed a strand of hair from her eyes, rose to her feet and walked around to the bathroom door. She circled her head on her shoulders, cleared her throat, and reached for the handle. It seemed as though she was all set to go through with it when she lowered her hand.

‘Shouldn’t there be a smell?’

‘You mean from the body?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I imagine it depends how long it’s been there. I didn’t notice one earlier, but maybe when you open the door . . .’

She swallowed. ‘I see.’

‘Sure you want to go through with it?’

She closed her eyes and squeezed her fists tight shut.

‘Come on, Victoria,’ she said, in a quiet voice. ‘You can do this, girl.’

I suppose I should have been mesmerised by her little pep talk, and to some extent I was, because it did make me wonder if she would do something similar before calling my editor to plead for a slightly less measly advance. But the truth was I’d long since learned to seize upon an opportunity when it presented itself, and so while her eyes were shut I stuffed the Houdini biography down under the waistband of my trousers. I just had it secured and happened to be jerking my hand away from my groin when Victoria’s eyes snapped open. She gave me a somewhat perturbed look, then faced the door, pushed down on the handle and stepped briskly into the bathroom.

I covered my eyes with my hand, afraid of her reaction when she saw the dead woman for the first time.

‘Oh God,’ she gasped.

I braced myself, wondering if she might faint and whether I’d be able to spring across the bed to catch her before her head struck the floor.

‘Charlie.’ She gulped. ‘I really think you’d better see this.’

‘Nuh uh. I’m through looking at corpses.’

‘But that’s exactly my point. The bath’s empty, Charlie. There’s nobody here.’

TWELVE

Victoria was absolutely right. The bath was empty. No water. No floating corpse. Not even a ring of bath scum or a wayward hair caught up in the plughole.

I checked behind the bathroom door. The robe and the pink leotard were no longer hung up on the floor. They weren’t on the hook behind the door, either. They’d vanished along with the body.

I returned to the bath and stared down into it, looking, I imagine, altogether gormless. There was nothing to suggest that the redhead had ever been there. Perhaps she never had. Perhaps all those years of writing mystery novels had finally caught up with me and I’d invented the entire episode. I’d been aware for some time that my imagination could play tricks on me when I was writing a book. When I was sleeping, say, characters would fill my dreams and behave in ways that contradicted everything I’d written. And sometimes it could feel as though I was in danger of falling over a mental precipice into a world where I’d be incapable of telling fact from fiction. Is that what had happened? No, surely not. For one thing, I hadn’t written a word in over a fortnight, and the Faulks novel I’d been working on didn’t feature a single redhead. And I’d stuck my fingers in the cold bathwater. All right, I hadn’t actually touched the dead woman, but she’d definitely been there. And now she no longer was.

‘This is spooky,’ Victoria said, from over my shoulder.

‘You’re telling me.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘I’m not crazy about it myself.’

‘Josh must have taken her.’

I nodded. ‘Maybe he worked out some way of disposing of the body. It’s tough enough to run from casino debts, let alone a murder rap.’

‘You really think he killed her?’

‘It’s beginning to make complete sense.’ I sat down on the toilet and idly pinched my bottom lip. ‘I was having trouble understanding why he fled in the middle of his act if he was only worried about the chips he’d stolen. I mean, yes, it’s a lot of money, and the Fisher Twins were bound to be pretty steamed up about it, but I bet he makes a small fortune from his act. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pay him close to what he stole every month – maybe even every week. So they could have straightened things out. There’s no way they would have wanted him to disappear on them like he did, because now they have a stage that’s completely out of commission, plus a heap of rumours swirling around the hotel.’

Victoria rested her head against the doorframe and crossed her legs at the ankle.

‘Charlie, do you think the scam he pulled on the roulette table could have been a cover? What I mean is, if he could make people think he went on the run because of the chips he stole, they might never ask themselves what happened to his assistant.’

I dropped my hands into my lap. ‘They’d probably just assume she ran with him.’

‘That’s what I was thinking.’

‘But didn’t Ricks say he pulled the same scam last night as well?’

‘He did mention something along those lines.’

‘So the girl could have been in the bath for over a day,’ I said. ‘Which means he might not have even drowned her. It could be he just dumped her in the water to stop the smell getting too bad.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘You’re telling me.’

Victoria folded her arms across her chest and contemplated the bath. ‘Although, I suppose the other possibility is that he planned the murder ahead of time. It could be he killed her today, but that he stole some chips last night to lay the groundwork for a smokescreen.’

I reached for the toilet roll dispenser and tugged off a few strips of paper, scrunching them in my hand as I considered the theory, turning my thoughts to the chips I’d found in his room safe.

‘You could be onto something. He’s a magician, after all. His whole act is based on diverting people’s attention from what he’s up to.’

Victoria peered at me. ‘Should we go to the Fisher Twins with this?’

I tossed the balled-up toilet paper into the wastepaper bin.

‘With what? We don’t have a body.’ I shook my head. ‘Listen, there might be some security camera footage of him carrying the girl away. He can’t have hidden her here because we’ve been right through this suite and we haven’t seen her. I’m guessing he might have used the service stairs to avoid the concierge, just like we did on the way up. But even if he’s been caught on camera, there might be no way of telling from the footage that she’s dead. And the twins have no reason to believe me.’

Victoria pressed her lips together and made a humming noise. ‘And even if they did believe you, it places you at the scene of a murder.’

‘Yup. And I don’t like that at all. If the redhead’s body is ever found, it might be possible to prove that she was killed before we arrived in Vegas.’

‘But if she was killed not long before you broke in . . .’

‘Then I could be in real trouble.’

‘Quite the predicament.’ She sighed. ‘So what’s next?’

I was about to offer Victoria my considered response to her question, when we were interrupted by a noise I really didn’t welcome – a fast knocking on the front door of the suite.

I froze, and gawped at Victoria, and she did much the same thing to me. The atmosphere in the bathroom became charged all of a sudden and my scalp prickled, as though a fork of lightning was about to strike. We waited in silence for what was beginning to feel like an unbearable amount of time, and then the knock sounded again.

Victoria paled and shook her head at me. I didn’t know what she was shaking her head for, but it didn’t seem good. Meanwhile, I was thinking how dumb we’d been not to hang a
Do Not Disturb
sign on the outside of the door. At least that way, if our visitor was a maid aiming to carry out the turn-down service, she’d be deterred. But what kind of hotel offers a turn-down service at a quarter to eleven at night?

I didn’t have long to pursue the thought before the knocking came again, much louder this time. It was accompanied by a male voice. The voice was high in tone, and kind of squeaky, almost as though our visitor had been sucking on helium.

‘Josh? Josh – open up!’ the voice piped. ‘We need to talk.’

At long last, I sprang into action and jumped up from the toilet seat, grabbing Victoria by the hand and dragging her out through the bedroom.

‘Josh? Caitlin?’ The squeaky voice and the knocking came again. ‘Open up already.’

‘What do we do?’ Victoria hissed.

‘Wait here,’ I mouthed, and hurried to the door on my toes.

Very carefully, I set my eye to the peephole and peeped outside. But I couldn’t see anything other than a fish-bowl view of the door to Suite G across the way.

Bang – bang – bang
.

Somebody was definitely knocking, and the force of it damn near broke my nose. I didn’t think it could be hotel staff, or else they’d be standing directly in front of the door and they’d be a lot more polite.

And right then a nasty thought occurred to me and I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. How many movies had I seen over the years where pairs of crooks, or even cops, stand with their backs against a corridor wall, pistols drawn, waiting for a hapless homeowner to snap back a door latch?

The knocking came again, and I
still
couldn’t see them. It seemed to me that my guess had to be right. Whoever was out there was flanking the door. The Hispanic security guards had done the same thing down in the basement, but I’d be truly astonished if the squeaky voice belonged to either of them. I was just debating what on earth I should do when I heard a second voice.

‘Maybe I go find janitor.’ The voice was male and the speech deliberate, laced with an East European accent. ‘Maybe I give them some money.’

‘Good idea,’ the soprano replied. ‘Give ’em twenty bucks and tell ’em to spring the lock on this door.’

That was all I needed to know. Our bashful guests were planning to get inside, come what may, and it wouldn’t do for them to find us.

Backing away from the peephole, I fumbled in my jacket for my spectacles case, meanwhile hustling Victoria beyond the glass dining-table to the double doors that connected with the neighbouring suite. Victoria groaned when she saw what I had in mind but I didn’t have time to reassure her. I armed myself with one of my more reliable picks and a short-bladed screwdriver and then I crouched down and addressed the spring lock.

I guess it helped that I’d duped the same variety of lock on the communicating doors to Victoria’s suite downstairs, but even I was surprised by my speed. I’d barely had time to hang my tongue out of the side of my mouth before I heard the muted tinkle of the internal pins lifting up and the snick of the bolt withdrawing.

I steadied my gloved hand and eased the door open a fraction. The room was in darkness. I reached inside my jacket for my pen-light and shone the beam through the crack. I poked my head through after it and swept the torch quickly around – one pass, like a lighthouse. There was nobody to be seen. I edged the door fully open, gripped Victoria around the wrist and dragged her in behind me, closing the door softly after us.

The knocking sounded again. I scurried through the blackness towards the front door of the suite and pressed my ear to the wood.

‘Come on, Josh,’ the squeaky voice whined. ‘You know you’re going to have to talk to us. Why don’t you just let us inside?’

I put my eye to the peephole but all I saw was more corridor. I cursed and shone the torch beam against the wall. There was no key card in the plastic receptacle. I mouthed a silent prayer of thanks, and then I turned and cast my torch into the darkness. The penlight revealed a mirror image of Masters’ suite. We’d entered the room just behind the dining-table, and Victoria was standing over it with her palms flattened against the glass surface and her head bowed. Leaving her to her own devices, I raced past the black leather sofa and the flat-screen television to the bedroom.

I made sure there was no one sleeping in the bed, and since I didn’t want to be accused of failing to learn from my mistakes, I checked the bathroom too. There was nobody inside it, alive or dead, but there were two wash bags beside the sink and several items of underwear, male and female, scattered on the floor amid some damp towels. The shower looked as if it had been used in the not too distant past, and the hairdryer was unhooked from its bracket and resting on the toilet cistern.

On my way out from the bedroom, I opened the closet and sorted through the clothes hanging from the rail until I found a hotel robe. Then I rushed back through the sitting room, the beam from my penlight slashing Victoria’s face. She appeared stricken, rooted to the spot. I held myself back from approaching her and hurriedly undressed behind the breakfast bar. Once I was down to just my boxer shorts, I ripped away my plastic gloves and climbed into the robe. I was just knotting the tie cord and ruffling my hair when I heard more knocking coming from outside Masters’ suite. It seemed like a good moment to stick my head out into the corridor and ask what all the fuss was about, so I yanked down on the door handle and did just that.

‘What’s all this fuss about?’

It wasn’t until I’d delivered my line and added a yawn for good measure that I chanced a look at Masters’ tenacious visitor.

At first, I didn’t see him. I blinked, trying to adjust my vision to the light in the corridor. I glanced to my left and to my right, and then I gazed down and finally understood why I hadn’t spotted him through the peephole. He hadn’t been hiding with his back to the wall – he was no more than four feet tall.

I did a double-take – I couldn’t help it – but he definitely wasn’t resting on his knees. He was a little person, or vertically challenged, or however you care to say it. It was a hell of a surprise, let me tell you, but when he turned his neckless head and began to speak, the high pitch of his voice made a whole lot more sense.

‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ he said, his larynx sounding constricted. ‘I’m just calling on my friend.’

‘Well, he obviously isn’t there,’ I growled.

The little guy gazed up at me uncertainly, and for the first time in my life I felt like a giant among men. His face was sort of squished, and his complexion was ruddy. He had a very large and prominent nose (at least for a chap his size) that looked as if it had been broken and re-set badly in his youth, and his front teeth were gapped and crooked. His dark hair was thick and bristly, grown long over his stubby ears, and his eyebrows were creeping towards one another above the bridge of his nose. It was hard to gauge how old he was with any accuracy, but once I’d factored in the bright yellow sneakers, faded jeans and Death Metal T-shirt he had on, I would have put him somewhere in his mid-thirties.

I looked at my watch – the cheap digital one, not the antique I’d swiped from next door.

I said, ‘I saw a man leave that suite half an hour ago. I’ve just arrived from a transatlantic flight and I was trying to sleep before you started hammering on his door.’

‘You’re sure it was Josh?’

I sighed, heavily, and spoke through my teeth. ‘I saw a gentleman leave that room. He was an American. He said goodnight to me. He was wearing a brown leather jacket.’

‘That sounds like Josh. Anyone with him? A girl with red hair, say?’

‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m tired and I need to get some sleep. Can I suggest you telephone him, or leave a message at the concierge desk – and that you stop banging on his damn door.’

‘Er, sure. I’ll do that. Thanks.’

I offered him a stern look, willing him to make his exit, but before I managed to send him on his way his companion came back around the corner. I suppose the good news was that I didn’t feel like a giant any more. In fact, I tend to think that if Goldilocks had happened upon the three of us, she might have been so kind as to say that I was just right. Because just as the man alongside me could be said to be a little on the short side, so his companion could be said to be a trifle tall.

I can’t tell you how high the guest corridors are in the Fifty-Fifty, but I can tell you that this guy’s head was skimming the ceiling. If I’d been so bold as to lift his pint-sized buddy up onto my shoulders, I dare say the two of them could have held a conversation eye-to-eye. But it wasn’t simply his considerable height that made the man memorable – it was also his physique. He was wearing sports clothes – a pair of huge white gym shoes, dark blue jogging pants and a pale blue vest top – and his biceps and triceps and pecs looked like an advertisement for anabolic steroids. He had the appearance of a basketball player crossed with a wrestler crossed with a male model, and if I really had been woken from a deep slumber to find him and his knee-high pal outside my hotel room, I probably would have thought that I was having a very strange dream indeed.