Lucky Break (7 page)

Romeo pursed his lips.
 
“From an old rifle?
 
How would you know that?”

I looked at the blade.
 
1859.
 
The year was right.
 
I had a sinking feeling.
 
I flipped the blade over.
 
G.G.
 
I knew it.
 
Gresham Gittings, the patriarch of the Gittings line—his statue atop a horse graced the grounds of some capitol building in the South; I hadn’t bothered to remember which one.

“I have a good idea where this came from.”
 
My tone indicated I wasn’t happy about it, which I wasn’t.

Romeo’s head jerked up, his pupils dilated.
 
“What?”

Irv Gittings was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room and I was the only one who saw him.
 
“I knew a guy once who had a rifle he was very proud of.
 
A family heirloom, rich with tradition and tales of derring-do to hear him tell it.”

“You always have a guy you once knew.”
 
Romeo thought that funny; then he sobered.

“Be thankful you didn’t have to live through my bad choices.”
 
I gave him a look intended to shut him up.
 
“Remember Irv Gittings?”

His eyes bugged.
 
“Shit, really?
 
Isn’t he in jail?”
 
A girl shoved out of a tour helicopter and landing in the middle of the Pirate Show in front of TI had brought Romeo and me together.
 
And together we had put Irv Gittings in jail for it.

Which is where I thought he still resided.
 
“As far as I know.
 
But it wouldn’t hurt to check.”
 
In my gut I knew the answer, but I wasn’t ready to accept it or believe it just yet.
 
As if the metal had suddenly grown hot in my hands, I tossed the bayonet back to Romeo.
 
“When you get the crime scene stuff from the coroner, can you forward the photos and measurements to me?”
 

He caught it and looked at it with renewed enthusiasm—enthusiasm I didn’t share.
 
I’d put Irv where he belonged once.
 

Romeo seemed to be thinking the same thing.
 
When his eyes met mine, they were dark and angry, his smile a memory.
 
“You got it.”
 

“And when the techs finish with the crime scene?”
 
I didn’t need to elaborate.
 
We’d worked together long enough for a bit of verbal shorthand.
 

“The full report, you got it.”
 
He turned to go, then paused.
 
“And what are you going to do?”

“With Irv in jail, his hotel gone, and his apartment and hotel foreclosed on, I’m going to try to figure out what happened to his gun collection, who bought it, where it went.”

“And how this,” Romeo held up the bayonet, “could’ve ended up buried in Holt Box’s stomach.”

“Precisely.
 
And I want you to figure out who other than Teddie might’ve wanted Holt Box dead.”

“The wife might be able to help with that.”

“A good place to start.
 
But in the meantime, let’s shake some trees and see what falls out.
 
Maybe his manager, his P.R. person.”

“His wife has been his manager for years. His P.R. firm is in L.A.
 
A gal by the name of Kimberly Cho handles his account.”

I grabbed his arm.
 
“She was the one at the party.”

“What one at the party?”
 
Romeo clearly wasn’t following.

“She came up to me in the lobby before my interview.
 
She wanted to talk to me.
 
She was scared.”

“What did she want to talk about?”

“I don’t exactly.
 
She warned me to be careful.”

“About what?”

“A man.
 
”
 
I remembered her expression, her warning.
 

“Which man?”

“I don’t know.
 
She said he was someone she’d known from before.”
 
I tried to remember her exact words.
 
“She told me to be careful.
 
That’s all.”
 
I felt a horrible sinking feeling, that disappointment in myself.
 
“I didn’t have the time to talk right then.
 
She was going to catch me after the interview, but she never showed.”

“How do you know her?”

“She handles PR for a lot of folks, big names.
 
She’s doing some work for us in Macau.”

Romeo pulled out his pad and flipped through the pages, shaking his head.
 
“She wasn’t at the party.”
 
His eyes met mine.
 
“Or she left before talking with anyone at Metro.
 
How do you know her?”

“The Big Boss has a large operation in Macau that is scheduled to come on line next year.
 
The thing has been a morass of cultural clashes and palm greasing.
 
Kimberly knows her way around Macau, knows the right people to get things done. She’s been incredibly helpful.”

Romeo slowly folded his notebook closed, stuffing it back in his pocket.
 
Lost in thought, it took him three tries.
 
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

I thought for a moment.
 
“Yes, I think I might.”

Paolo waited nervously by the car.
 
He seemed unscathed as he opened the back door and ushered me inside, so he must’ve remembered the single malt.
 
My father lounged, head back, legs extended in front of him, a crystal double old-fashion glass cradled in both hands on his lap.
 
“What do you think?” he asked, knowing I had no more answers than he did, perhaps fewer.

“I’m trying not to.”
 
I pointed at the glass in his hands.
 
“Pour me one of those.”

He handed me his, then leaned forward to pour another.

“Tell me what Teddie said,” I asked, as I popped off my shoes—even the flats killed my feet.
 

My father raised the privacy window and made sure the intercom was off, as Paolo settled behind the wheel.
 
His Old Spice cologne filled the small space.

Teddie wore Old Spice.

Fuck.

I sucked down half the Scotch.
 
It burned its way down, then exploded white-hot in my belly, but it couldn’t dissipate the chill of dread permeating deep to my bones.
 

My father didn’t speak right away.
 
I didn’t know whether that was good or bad, but I knew not to press.
 
Paolo eased the big car out of the parking lot, leaving the darkness behind as he aimed the machine toward the bright lights of the Strip.

“I’ve been going over and over the whole sequence of events, and I just can’t make sense of it,” my father began, his voice husky, roughed up by the grit of emotion and the medicinal sting of the Scotch.
 

Moving down in the seat, pressed by the weight of worry, I lay my head back and closed my eyes, letting his story unfold over me.
 

“Teddie found me pretty quick.
 
He’d been into the booze; I could smell it on him.
 
But he appeared himself, under control, modulated, so I figured the liquor was just enough to put a mouth on him and give him a bit too much courage.
 
I didn’t think he’d do anything stupid.”

“Stupid?
 
You mean like kill someone?”
 
I didn’t try to hide the snark.
 
Had my father been a bit more aware, all of this could’ve been avoided.
 
Of course, put in his position, would any of us have thought Teddie would kill?
 
“You think you know somebody …”

My father shot me a look—I didn’t have to see it; I could feel it.
 
Father-daughter connections.
 
Aren’t they wonderful?
 

“I’ll be quiet, let you finish.”

“How did you … ?”
 
He slurped from his glass.
 
“Never mind.
 
You and your mother terrify me sometimes.
 
Anyway, as I was saying, Teddie clearly wanted to chew on me over the whole Holt Box thing.
 
We both knew I was within the letter of the contract, but I didn’t think it would hurt to give him a shot at me, make him feel better.”

Although I found fault in his logic, it still shouldn’t have led to murder. “By the way, what you did ... the contract thing?
 
It doesn’t make me proud.”

“It was legal,” my father said, as if hiding behind the law could clear one’s conscience.

I didn’t need to tell him that was a dead-end.
 
“You dangled a carrot, knowing Teddie would do anything to get it.
 
You had all the power.
 
He’s a singer, not a tough guy. And just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.”

His sigh spoke volumes.
 
“No, it doesn’t.
 
If it helps, I’m not proud of myself either.
 
In some way I must’ve been punishing him.
 
Clearly, I didn’t understand that at the time.”

“Punishing him?
 
For what he did to me?
 
Don’t make this my fault.”

“Well,
I’m
not the one on trial here.” He threw the words at me.

“But, curiously, in all of this, you’re the one feeling guilty.”
 
I thought about sipping more Scotch, but that meant I’d have to raise my head, and open my eyes, and that would make all of this real.
 
“Anyway, Teddie’s story?”

“I let him have his say, about everything: the contract, you, me.
 
The guy unloaded.
 
He was angry, sure, but in control.
 
I put him off.
 
Told him I didn’t have anything to do with his personal life … that was between you two.”

“Pretty much a lie.”

My father paused.
 
I could feel the heat of his anger spike, but he didn’t argue.
 
“As to the contract, I gave him the old, tired story about trying to find a solution, an alternative.”

Part of me wanted to hear what Teddie’d had to say about me, but the part of me that didn’t won.
 
“What did he say to that?”

“He wasn’t interested.
 
Said he had another gig lined up.”

My heart sank.
 
His tour.
 
He was going back on tour.
 
Now that horse had been shot out from under him.

“And then?”

“Then Benton shouldered in.
 
You know Benton?”

“Head of the Gaming Commission?”

“Yeah.
 
He wanted to bend my ear about putting some tables and machines in Cielo.
 
I told him he was talking to the wrong person.”

Vegas, still a good ol’ boy town, even if it wasn’t still run by the wiseguys.

“We’d only chatted for a few minutes.
 
Over his shoulder I saw Teddie making for the kitchen.
 
It took me a minute to put together exactly what he meant to do.”

“And what was that?”

“There were two men in there he probably hated equally.
 
I wasn’t sure which one he might be after, but I thought it wise I take a look.”
 
His voice was taut with emotion when he said, “You have to believe me.
 
I had no idea he’d try to kill one of them.”

“I wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion either.”

That seemed to placate my father; his voice settled.
 
“I excused myself from my conversation, and I followed him.”
 
The ice clinked in his glass as he took another hit.
 
“By the time I pushed through the door, Holt Box was slumped in Teddie’s arms.”

“What was Teddie doing?”

“Shouting for help.”

“No one had noticed anything?”

“The kitchen was on overdrive.
 
Everyone was busy with their own tasks, in their own world.”

I knew exactly how it would be.
 
His reputation on the line with each dish, Jean-Charles was a tyrant in the kitchen.
 
His staff, highly trained and equally anal-retentive when it came to quality, would’ve been lost in their perfectly choreographed dance, their own piece of the symphony.
 
“Jean-Charles didn’t miss his new sous chef?”

“Jean-Charles wasn’t in the kitchen.
 
His executive chef was.
 
What’s his name?”