Jerry gave me a sly grin as he toggled a few switches. “My pleasure.”
In no mood to play, I ignored the exaggerated leer that followed.
Besides, nobody in Vegas really cared about cleavage anymore. These days, everyone had a set of first-class, custom jugs. Five grand and serious pain just to be like everyone else. There was an interesting irony there.
Made of white gold, with what appeared to be a rather ornate pattern in precious stones on the cover, the watch looked expensive.
“Interesting bauble for a girl always low on funds. I wonder what happened to it. It wasn’t around her neck when I saw her on the Ferrari.”
“Dane took it, maybe?” Jerry commented, his eyes never leaving the feed. After a few moments, he froze the picture. Tapping it, he looked thoughtful. “There’s something…”
“What?”
“Hang on.” His chair shot back as he stood. Without a word, he strode from the room, leaving me alone with the silence and the ticking of the clock hanging on the wall.
Not much time passed, not even enough for me to get nervous, before he burst back into the room, waving a piece of paper over his head. “That watch rang a bell.” He thrust the paper at me. “It’s stolen.”
“Really?” I snatched the paper from him, smoothed it on the table, and began reading. Two weeks ago. From one of our nicest suites. “Do you know these people?”
“Big fish from Toledo. The suite was comped.” He turned the paper back around and read from the second page—I hadn’t made it that far. “The watch they reported stolen had been in the family several generations, they were pretty upset. Apparently some famous ancestor had inscribed his initials on the inside cover.”
“I wonder how it ended up in Sylvie Dane’s possession?” I also wondered what happened to it, but I didn’t voice that. If Jerry knew, he’d have told me. But I knew who might be able to shed some light. Dane had some answering to do—he hadn’t mentioned the necklace, nor, come to think of it, the missing shoe. “Could you get me a photo?”
“It’ll be grainy, but your wish is my command.” Jerry moved the cursor over an icon and pressed. Somewhere in the darkness behind us a printer whirred to life.
After flipping open the cover on the watch, Sylvie made a show of checking the time, then snapped it shut and tucked it back into its nest. Most of the men at the table were riveted. Even the Hawk. Even Marvin Johnstone who stood off to the side.
For the next forty-five minutes, Sylvie played fast and loose until her stack was gone. Rachael escorted her from the table, as she said she had. Sylvie didn’t look afraid, just…angry. When Dane joined her, she narrowed her eyes as she grabbed his elbow whirling him around. Her mouth set into a grim line, with an in-your-face tilt to her chin, she motivated him toward the exit.
Dane and his wife made a striking couple as he untangled his arm and grabbed one of hers just above the elbow, turning her skin white from the grip of his fingers. Neither of them looked pleased to see the other. No, they both looked mad as hell.
Not what I expected, but somehow that didn’t surprise me—disappointed me, perhaps, but surprise? Not so much. I could be really stupid, but I was a fast learner—with Dane everything was smoke and mirrors, a clever game of misdirection.
Forcing my focus back to the screen, I watched for a moment. Something else wasn’t right, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. “Rewind that section, would you?”
I kept my eyes on Dane and his wife as Jerry did as I asked, “Again.”
By the third time I had it.
Her shoes. Slingbacks with a peep-toe. There’s-no-place-like-home red. With a red sole. I’d seen those shoes before.
“Damn.” I leaned back in the chair and let my breath out in whoosh.
“What?” Jerry asked as he crushed the butt in the ashtray. He seemed oblivious to the fact it was overflowing.
“I saw those shoes on a girl in the casino.” I closed my eyes, playing back my mental tape. What had she looked like? Leaping out of the chair, I squeezed my eyes shut as I paced across the small cubicle—not much room to think. Trying to picture her face, I could only conjure vague details. Brunette, I thought. Hispanic, maybe. Medium height. Medium weight. Average everything. Well,
that
really narrowed it down. She’d seemed nervous, anxious…and tired. I’d passed all that off to a new job and a late night. Why hadn’t I paid more attention? Because I was fixated on the friggin’ shoes, that’s why. Boy, I sure had a case of the stupids. And it was getting worse. Not a good sign.
“Dane’s wife was wearing them, then they show up on some chick in the casino?” Jerry asked as he rose and stepped out of his cubicle. Returning a few moments later, he handed me the print of Sylvie Dane’s watch, which I folded and pocketed. He parked one butt cheek on the edge of the console and pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiping his brow before he stuffed the bit of cloth back where it had come from. “You think Dane’s wife has somebody else’s shoe planted in her neck? And, do I need to point out that those red shoes on her feet in the video and the ones you saw could be different pairs?”
“Even with my diminished IQ I considered that, but it’d be one heck of a coincidence, don’t you think?” I tapped the screen that still showed Sylvie Dane frozen in time. “Those shoes are a special, limited-edition kind of thing, I’ve seen them in the holiday fashion mags. Christian Louboutin. And expensive beyond the reach of us commoners. Can I have a print of that still shot also?”
It only took him a moment to get me what I wanted.
“Get some of your guys on those shoes right now,” I barked at Jerry in my best follow-those-shoes voice. “Last I saw her, the girl was near Delilah’s. That would be around four or four thirty. Sorry I can’t be more precise—time is getting away, lately. With a picture, HR can give us a name.” Before he could grab his box of cancer sticks, I snatched it. With a flourish, I squashed the thin cardboard in my fist as I held it under his nose. Then I let the remnants sift through my open fingers into the wastebasket.
“I’ve had enough folks dying on my watch, thank you very much.”
On
autopilot, I tapped my foot as I waited for the elevator. Unable to handle even the tiniest glimpse of reality, I studiously avoided looking at myself in the mirrored surface of the bronze doors. One floor down to the lobby—even though Security was on the same level as my office, there was no direct route between the two. I should’ve taken the stairs, but my recent enthusiasm for self-betterment seemed to be flagging. Somehow, while I had been busy actually enjoying myself, life had done a one-eighty and galloped into the gloom.
Teddie was gone. Bodies were piling up.
Along with “the bad die young” I should add “the good times never last” to the Lucky O’Toole Book of Wisdom—a very thin volume, but each sage, clichéd, tidbit learned the hard way.
Silently the elevator doors slid open and I stepped inside. With my shoulders pressed against the back wall, I crossed my arms across my chest and closed my eyes, letting my head lean back. I took a couple of deep breaths. The truth of it was, I was running on fumes. I couldn’t sleep, hadn’t been eating, and had been drinking more than even
I
thought was healthy. The only exercise I got was running from one crisis to another. I had a sneaking suspicion that my friends were thinking of staging an intervention.
After a moment of unfamiliar introspection, it dawned on me that, given the option, Sylvie Dane would probably want to change places with me. A very real example of my mother’s frequent admonition that things could always be worse. Clichés apparently ran in my family. Too bad it couldn’t be something useful like long legs or a sunny disposition.
I needed to get over myself. This whole down-in-the-mouth thing was so not me—well, not the old me, anyway. But the new me was definitely a whiner—so much so, even
I
didn’t like hanging out with me.
So no more pouting. No more pity party of one. Time to get my life back.
Pushing myself from my leaning position, I threw my shoulders back. Chin up. Chest out. For a moment I felt better, stronger. More…me.
Then the crushing weight of bitter disappointment fell on my heart once again. Hope abandoned me as quickly as it had come as I sagged against the wall.
One foot in front of the other, my father always used to say. Clichés on both sides of the family...lucky me. And some days, survival was the best I could do. This apparently was one of those days.
A bell dinged my arrival at the requested floor and the elevator doors slid open. I launched myself through the opening and strode into the lobby.
Even with the bad visual of Sylvie and the shoe, and even though I’d walked through the lobby a gazillion times, it still took my breath away. Gleaming white marble floors and walls inlaid with brightly colored, intricately patterned mosaic, and peaked cloth in rich, multicolored hues conjured a sultan’s vision of ancient Babylon—the Sultan in question being my father. All of this was his creation.
Reception ran along one wall, the brightly tented cloth above it reminiscent of the tents of a Persian oasis. At the far end of Reception, the one closest to the front entrance, a vaulted, brick entranceway invited all passersby to come enjoy the Bazaar that lurked beyond. Our humble marketplace, the Bazaar, offered all the baubles to satisfy any self-respecting royal’s most outrageous desires—from glittering jewels, to Italian sports cars, to French couture, to gourmet hamburgers.
Gourmet French hamburgers.
An insult to every self-respecting French gourmand.
I don’t know why, but there was something so satisfying, so heartwarming, about poking a hole in Gallic culinary snobbery that, even as grumpy as I was, I mustered a thin smile. Perhaps I found it appealing because I had dealt with so many arrogant French chefs….
However, there was one French chef who was not at all distasteful. My French chef. For a moment, my thoughts drifted. Jean-Charles was truly
très magnifique
. But was he the man for me? In addition to the complication of mixing business and pleasure, which kept me perpetually off balance, there was another…unknown…in the mix: his five-year-old son, Christophe, would be arriving soon. I hadn’t met him yet. Would he like me?
Full of questions and short on answers, I wasn’t going to think about that either. The list of things I wasn’t going to think about was longer than a kid’s list at Christmas.
Opposite the reception desk, a wall of glass carved off one side of the lobby. Behind the glass, which was really very thick Lucite, a mountain of man-made snow beckoned all willing to pay a Sultan’s ransom to ski in the desert. Not exactly consistent with the whole Babylonian theme, but no one appeared too troubled by that. Right now, the hill was barren, closed for grooming in anticipation of the hordes that would descend once the sun actually rose today.
The false light of night on the Vegas Strip held back the darkness outside the front entrance. The valets darted to retrieve cars for the few clusters of guests waiting after what I hoped was a night well spent.
High above the grand lobby, blown-glass creatures arced in flight. A flock of multicolored hummingbirds and butterflies—a huge rainbow of color that always brought smiles. Even I wasn’t immune. I paused, my neck craned. Somehow those friggin’ birds and insects always made life seem better.
The Big Boss was a genius.
I turned left, away from the front doors, and headed toward the entrance to the casino. A placid stream flowed at the far end of the lobby, providing the demarcation between the lobby and the casino beyond. Our own rendition of the Euphrates, it meandered tranquilly. At least a dozen different types of waterfowl floated with their beaks tucked under one wing, a leg curled under them, and the other leg acting as a keel while they slumbered, drifting with the slight current. Flowering plants and shrubs lined the banks with papyrus reeds lending an air of authenticity—which was all you needed to create an illusion in Vegas—although the architects of some of the newer indiscretions seemed to have missed that point. Bridges arced over the stream at discrete intervals providing perfect photo opportunities and a bit of ambience.
The combined effect was warm, soothing, inviting all to pause, spend some time…and some money.
Like I said, the Big Boss was a genius. I only hoped it was hereditary.
Along with this hotel, my responsibilities extended to our new property, Cielo. A renovation of an aging Vegas property formerly known as the Athena, Cielo was to be my concept of an environmentally friendly hotel with a European emphasis on quality and customer service—something usually reserved for the high rollers in Vegas.
A daunting project that could suck every second out of every day.
Yes, I am my own worst enemy. If I’m good at anything it’s burying myself.
Bury myself in my job; ignore life. It used to work.
One thing that was impossible to ignore no matter how deep I dug myself in—my office was a hardhat area. After receiving my own promotion to vice president, I bestowed my former job as Vice President of Customer Relations for the Babylon on Miss Patterson, formerly my most able and loyal assistant. Her assistant, Brandy, moved into Miss P’s former position. Cleverly, I had seen to it that we all moved one step up the food chain. Unfortunately, I had clevered myself right out of an office.
Miss P had taken my old one—it went with the job. So, we carved out some space in a storage area adjacent to our old offices and two guys with one hammer spent their days trying to give me a headache. At the rate they were going I’d have to have wheelchair ramps installed by the time they were done. My first lesson in the vagaries of construction: take the architect’s time estimate, double it, then pray. My second lesson? The more you complain, the slower the work goes.
My life clearly was running me.
After a punishing dash up one flight of stairs that left me at the point of apoplexy, I found the office door was open, as I knew it would be. With a gaping hole cut in the wall where my future office door was to be, what was the point of locking up? A single bare bulb dangled on a wire from the fixture in the ceiling providing a weak circle of light. Every time I flipped the switch I thought fifty thousand volts would sizzle through my body, which, come to think of it, was sounding sort of appealing at the moment.
Stepping around buckets of drywall paste, trying not to trip on the puckers in the tarp, I headed toward a lump in the corner. Carefully I lifted the plastic the painters had tossed over my beautiful burled black walnut desk and peered under it. As I feared, the piles of paper had propagated. Whoever thought being a hotel executive was glamorous had better think twice. Signing my name was so ingrained by now I should be a rock star or at least a minor celebrity. But alas, I was just a corporate grunt…who apparently wallowed in pity parties of one.
Add a phone complete with texting, e-mail, and a push-to-talk walkie-talkie thing and I was tethered to my job no matter how far I ran. Teddie had been convinced the thing was also a blood pressure monitor—it had a habit of ringing at the most unfortunate moments. The memory of his hands working through the buttons on my shirt, the pounding of my pulse, the heat in his skin where it brushed mine, the look in his eyes when the ring of the phone interrupted us, assaulted me, crushing my heart and stealing my breath.
Instant access had its downside.
I don’t know why I even bothered going home. Come to think of it, now that I had moved into the hotel, I didn’t—go home that is. Life and work had merged until one was indistinguishable from the other.
And I had disappeared.
***
The pile of papers on my desk was diminished by over half when I heard noises in the outer office. Scuffling sounds then, “You fuckin’ bitch!” Newton, our multicolored macaw had a serious potty mouth. Miss P usually uncovered his cage in the morning and was rewarded for her efforts with a string of epithets. Newton had apparently had a rough-and-tumble upbringing before he adopted me. When I moved out of my apartment, the bird had to take up temporary quarters in the office. A fact that probably entitled my staff to hazardous duty pay—if they didn’t mutiny.
“Friggin’ bird,” Miss Patterson muttered. “I swear I’m going to have you stuffed.”
“Asshole!” Newton sang out. It was his best word and he said it with feeling.
I couldn’t help smiling. Leaning back in my chair, I closed my eyes and listened to the noises in the outer office. A drawer opening—Miss P stashing her purse. The squeak of wheels on the floor, then the creak as she settled into her desk chair. A beep—she was checking the messages.
“This is for Lucky…” Teddie’s voice. A dagger to my heart.
“Turn that damned speaker off,” I shouted, perhaps louder than I needed to.
He’d left. How could his voice still make me feel so…happy, sad, angry, thrilled, and all at the same time. My pulse quickened as I flushed with anger. I hated him for leaving, for breaking my heart. Yet I had loved him so…
Love and loathing. Two such powerful emotions separated by such a thin line.
“Christ! Lucky is that you?” Miss P sounded less than pleased at being startled yet glad I was there, both at the same time—like a rebuke with a hug. It was one of her best things. I had no idea how she did it.
I didn’t think she expected me to answer, so I didn’t.
Her chair banged into the wall, then she filled my doorway. Trim yet curvy in all the right places, Miss P sported a brown sweater with gold flecks that was just tight enough to get the right kind of attention. Her slacks of white winter wool looked pricey. Bronze Loubous with a semi-sensible heel and closed toe graced her feet. Cascades of David Yurman silver and gold filled her décolletage, and matching earrings sparkled in the light of the single bulb. Her spiky blond hair and subtle makeup completed the picture. The angry eyes and frown were new additions and I wondered what had gotten her knickers in such a twist.
Hands on her hips, she glared at me. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Sneak up? On
you
?” I raised my head and opened my eyes wide. “For your information, I’ve been here for the better part of two hours. Here, take care of these.” I stuffed the pile of signed papers into her hand. “And get the Beautiful Jeremy on the phone. I need his help.”
Mention of The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, Vegas’s premier investigator and Miss P’s live-in boy toy brought a brief smile to her face as she tucked the papers under her arm, pen poised to take notes.
“And Brandy? She knows American Sign Language, doesn’t she? Her parents were hearing impaired, right?”
“I believe they still are,” Miss P said with a slight air of superiority.
Teddie’s voice droned on in the background. The machine beeped through several messages, all from him. All saying the same thing: he missed me, he’d made a mistake, please call him any time, day or night.
Too much water under that bridge. And his recent recognition of something that had been so obvious, so vital to me for a long time, did little to improve my mood.
“Fine. Brandy’s job today is to find a pro poker player we’ve got wandering around here. He’s young, handsome, and deaf.”
“And what should Brandy do with him when she finds him?” Miss P looked at me over her cheaters, her face a blank slate.
“Bring him to me. Whatever she does, once she finds him, I want her to stick to him like glue.”
Miss P scribbled. Teddie’s voice finally stopped.
“I’ve been busy,” I said, apropos of nothing.
“And you deserve a gold star,” Miss P noted with a sardonic lift to one eyebrow.
It was way too early for attitude. I opened my mouth to give her a…readjustment, but she cut me off. “I was just going to stash my stuff then come looking for you. The pilots caught me on my cell on the way in. We have a problem.”
“And this is news?”
She gave me a look of exaggerated patience. “Don’t you ever take anything seriously?”