White Sister (38 page)

"Fruit of Islam security personnel will all be wearing hats similar to mine." He pointed at his African Kufi. "Please bring any concerns or observations regarding security to our attention and do not attempt to deal with them yourself. Anything you want to add, Mr. Wright?"

Lionel smiled and then announced loudly, "Everybody, we're here to have a party. So like Elijah said, leave your pistols and choppers in your cars and let's all go to the bang." This was followed by cheers and a smattering of applause. It wasn't lost on me that nobody went back to his car to ditch a weapon.

I spotted Curtis Clark standing with a small group of admirers over by the boarding stairs to the plane. He was scowling, his normal expression.

Lionel turned to me. "Listen, cuz, despite all the drama here, I'm askin' you not to bag up on any half-loads tonight."

"Do what?" I said, wondering what he was getting at.

"The man is telling us there's gonna be drugs," Rosey clarified. "He don't wanta face no twelve-ten prosecutions."

"Don't worry," I said. "I've got priorities here. Besides, once we get out of California, my badge doesn't work anyway."

He slapped me on the shoulder and everyone began to board the plane.

The BBJ comfortably accommodated thirty. The jet was divided into three main seating groups and there was a separate owner's suite in the tail, complete with a queen-sized bed and a bathroom with a stand-up shower. Two caterers were busy working in the forward galley, serving food and drinks. The interior decor was lush. The cabin was outfitted with gray, dove leather club chairs, long, tufted sofas, and mahogany and gold tray tables that lifted effortlessly out of wall pockets. As the plane filled, laughter and conversation surrounded me.

I found myself somewhere in the middle of the cabin in a seating group of club chairs with Rosey and Sally. I'd lost sight of Rafie and Tommy when we boarded, but then saw them sitting with four exotic-looking women near the front of the plane.

"Anything to drink before takeoff?" a beautiful Asian flight attendant asked, leaning down and favoring me with a whiff of designer perfume.

"Beer," I said. "Heineken, if you have it."

"We have a full bar menu." Then, hoping to upgrade my tragically blue collar order, she added, "We have a fresh supply of Alize I could recommend. It's a French beverage that Mr. Wright stocks. It's quite an expensive aperitif made from passion fruit and cognac."

"As much as I love passion fruit, I think I'll stick with the Heineken."

The flight attendant frowned and hurried away to get my order. "I think you ruined her perfect day," Sally said.

The plane was pulled from the hangar by a tug. Once we were out of the building, the engines fired and five minutes later we were thundering down the runway and lifting up into a smoggy, late afternoon sky. People all around me chatted and laughed. They sipped exotic drinks made with passion fruit and cognac. Sally, Rosey, and I sat quietly, contemplating the trip we were embarking on, pondering the insanity that had brought us here. The black case containing David Slade's AR-70 rested ominously at my feet.

Chapter
57.

MY LITTLE GUY is just starting T-ball," Sally Quinn was saying. Rosey had gone to the head, and my partner's freckled face lit up by degrees as our conversation segued to her youngest son. "The Valley homicide unit was great for a soccer mom, because it's a light division and the rotation is slow, so I could swap out hours and still drive carpools."

I saw where this was heading. "You want, we can stay flexible
as long as you don't stick me with all the autopsies," I said.

She smiled and patted my hand. "I wasn't looking for that, Shane. Just worried about missing games. I'll handle my end. You don't have to worry." She turned and looked out the window of the expensive jet. "I gotta hand you this much," she said. "This is a much sexier gig. Sure beats working dust-buster beat-downs in the Valley."

Then a shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw Elijah Mustafa standing in the aisle.

"You got a minute for me, Mister Scully?" His voice was soft and his expression stoic as always.

"Sure." I stood and followed him into the empty bedroom suite in the rear of the plane. He closed the door and turned to face me.

"What's in the black case?" he said without preamble.

"Jammies."

"What caliber jammies?" Not smiling.

"Look, Elijah, I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm here to prevent it. I hope you'll realize soon that we're on the same side."

"Mister Scully
"

"Detective Scully," I corrected, trying for some status.

"This trip is a big problem," he went on. "Most of the men on this flight are street G's. Mister Wright tells me they're his friends, and since I'm his temporary employee, I must take him at his word. I've done my best to check them out, but he has instructed me to walk lightly because as you know, insults to honor can turn deadly."

"You're in a tough business," I said.

"Yes, I am." He favored me with another of his long, penetrating stares before adding, "So I ask you again, what kind of fire stick are you lugging around in that bag?"

"Beretta-seventy with two, thirty-round clips."

"Not exactly a close combat piece. Kinda hard to open fire with a full machine gun inside a populated casino. That gun is at best useless, at worst dangerous. You look smarter than that to me."

"I'll make you a deal. We'll leave it in the Navigator after we get to the Mandalay Bay. However, if something happens out on city streets, you may be glad we have it."

He gave it some thought, then finally nodded. "Can you hit anything with it?" he asked.

"Let's hope we don't have to find out." Then, to get his mind off it, I said, "Why don't you tell me which of these people you're worried about and I'll put a call in to the department from one of these air phones and see what comes back."

"I'm worried about all of them," he said. "Given what happened at the Oasis Awards, I'm looking for anybody who has an affiliation with those Sixtieth Street G's. Here's the passenger manifest." He reached into his pocket and handed me a sheet of paper. "How long will it take?" he asked.

"Ten, fifteen minutes."

Then he said, "That was good work at the El Rey Theatre. My people missed those two in the elevator. We almost walked into it."

"Thank you for the compliment, Mister Mustafa."

"It was only an observation," he said softly, but a smile so slight it was barely there, bent the edges of his stony expression.

I split the list with Rosey. Mustafa cleared two separate phones and we adjourned to the bedroom suite and closed the door to start running names. All fifteen men on the flight checked out
mostly they were old homies of Lionel along with some music biz types and one or two poser wannabes, but no Sixtieth Street G's. I reported this to Mustafa, who nodded but said nothing.

We touched down at McCarran, and with the engines roaring in retrograde, the plane slowed quickly, then made a turn toward the east end of the tarmac where the small corporate jet center was located. The BBJ taxied to a stop at the end of a line of executive jets and the engines shut down. While our party of gun-toting, jewelry
-
encrusted fight fans waited, Mustafa hurried down the boarding stairs and walked the short distance to the flight center.

A few minutes later, I watched from the window as a line of ten black Navigators drove onto the field and pulled to a stop on the left side of the plane.

After we walked down the exit stairs, I found myself standing with Lionel and Patch near one of the Suburbans.

"Why don't you ride with us?" Lionel said. "Mustafa tells me you've got a street sweeper in that bag there. Never hurts to come prepared."

We got into the first SUV with Lionel. Elijah Mustafa was behind the wheel with another FOI security man in the far back. Curtis Clark and two attractive women I didn't know got in last, filling seven of the eight seats in the lead car. I had met with my group and we had agreed to split up and spread out. I watched out the back window as Rosey and Sally got in an SUV in the middle of the caravan and Rafie and Tommy boarded the last one in line. Once everyone was inside, the ten vehicles drove slowly off the tarmac, a metallic centipede of shiny black Navigators. Then we passed through the side gate of the executive jet terminal and out onto the city streets of Las Vegas.

"The pre-party starts in ten minutes," Lionel announced from the passenger side of the front seat. "Mustafa wants to come in the back way for security, so we're taking Paradise Road, then doubling back to the Las Vegas Strip."

Curtis Clark had settled in the second row and was glowering insolently. "If that busta and his white mama try doggin' me out, I'm gonna buck down on his ass. Them two is gonna curl up like bitches."

I glanced at him, but I didn't see any danger in his opaque eyes. He was just scared and talking trash.

Mustafa turned the lead vehicle onto the strip and we rolled in a showy, black procession toward the Mandalay Bay Hotel. A skyline of memorable building profiles passed outside our smoked glass windows: Harrah's, the MGM Grand, the Luxor, with its Sphinx and Egyptian pyramid motif. Off on the other side was the shiny new Wynn Las Vegas, a fifty-story sliver of glass. We were hardly sneaking into town. Our showy procession was turning heads all up and down the glittering strip.

Then the glass-fronted, forty-three-story, Mandalay Bay Hotel appeared out the front windshield half a block away. We turned into the underground parking structure and started down the ramp to the sub-basement where there was a secure entrance, which Mustafa had chosen in advance. Our line of black Navigators pulled up in front of four new Kufi hat-wearing security men.

Mustafa turned to look in at us. "Local brothers," he said, pointing at the men who, true to form, were all wearing NSA-style earpieces. "Stay here until I check the downstairs corridor." Then he exited the vehicle as Curtis Clark took off his blue Floor Score baseball cap and stuffed it in the seat pocket.

The tension in the car grew. Everybody knew that once we got out and headed into the hotel, there would be a million sight lines and no turning back. Several minutes later, Mustafa returned with a Las Vegas police sergeant.

"Okay," he said. "All clear. This is Sergeant Bowman with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. He's in charge of the law enforcement contingent."

As promised, I left the street sweeper under the backseat of the Navigator and followed Lionel and the rest of his party into the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Chapter
58.

THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS lit the basement corridor as the footsteps of thirty people echoed against its hard, cold surfaces. We passed extra chairs and stage flats stacked in alcoves. It felt gray and claustrophobic down here. Everybody, even the hardened street G's, had stopped talking. After walking for almost two hundred yards under the mammoth hotel, we stopped at a freight elevator and Elijah Mustafa turned to face the crowd.

"This leads up to the main level," he said. "Then we will have to make a short trip through the kitchen and across the casino floor to another elevator that leads to the Foundation Room at the House of Blues. I don't expect trouble and our people have been screening upstairs, but it's a large casino and it's impossible to check everyone. If something goes down, one of us will yell 'Ragtime.' If you hear that word, scatter. Make your way back down to this place. There will be security positioned here to help you."

"I'm sorry about all this," Lionel said. "But after what happene
d a
t the Oasis Awards, I don't want to lose anybody. Just stick close together."

"It's cool," a street G called out. "I got this savage life down, brotha." Nervous laughter followed.

There were about fifteen tan hats standing around, and when the elevator arrived and the door opened, it was easy to see it wasn't going to be large enough to handle all of us at one time. The first glitch in Mustafa's plan.

"We're going to have to make two trips," he said unfazed. "Half will stay behind with Mohammed Sayid."

A tall, muscular FOI security guard raised his hand and people started to divide up into two groups. Mustafa put his hand on my arm and pulled me into the first elevator.

"Stick with us," he said. Maybe I was beginning to grow on the guy.

Sally Quinn and Rafie also made the first group. We were wedged in there with Lionel and Patch, Vonnie, and ten party guests.

Then the wood slat door was pulled down and the elevator started up.

As we approached the first floor, I could hear pans banging and people talking. We got out into a large pantry area where a dozen men, mostly Hispanics, wearing red coats, were filling food trays. Mustafa sent the elevator back down for the second group.

I looked into the kitchen at a dozen more people working on food orders. I wondered if Mustafa's people had checked them all.

"I don't like this," I said to Sally, who had moved up next to me. She nodded and clutched her handbag, which I knew had her thirty-eight police special inside.

Then Rafie whispered in my ear. "I'm gonna stay toward the back, cover us from behind."