Private Vegas (15 page)

A CARD GAME was in progress in the soundproofed room behind the green door. Two goons with crossed arms and bulging biceps stood just inside the entrance.

To my left, ten players sat in high leather chairs around the oblong green felt table. The players were old and young, snappily dressed and sloppily, male and female. They all looked bored, but I was sure that they were anything but. From the height and number of the stacks of chips, the stakes were very high.

The dealer wore a red-velvet vest over his starched white shirt and had a perfect black bow tie. He was sliding cards from the shoe, snapping them down in front of the players. He looked up when I came in, did a double take when he saw me. Then he shifted his hard gaze across the table to a player with his back to the door.

That player was Tommy. A pile of chips was at his left hand and he was turning over his cards with his right. A girl with short platinum hair in a skintight black dress was draped across Tommy’s shoulders like a sweater. She wore a rope of pearls turned to the back so that the long loop of them fell almost to her waist.

The dealer said to my brother, “Who’s this, Mr. Morgan?” He angled his chin toward me.

Tommy turned, saw me, and jerked his chair around. His eyes narrowed and he said, “You need something, Jack?”

The platinum-haired girl was pretty, twenty-one or so. She looked up at my face and said, “Wow.” I took this to mean that she thought she was seeing double.

“I’m Jack,” I said to her. “Tommy’s brother.”

“I’m Isabella. Izzy. Tommy’s girlfriend.” She stuck out her hand and we shook. “Nice to meet you.”

Tommy looked at his cards, folded, said to me, “Let’s take this outside, huh, Jack?”

“Nice to meet you too, Izzy,” I said. “Tommy didn’t mention that he had a twin?”

“Nuh-uh. No. I don’t know if I could tell you apart.”

“Even Mom couldn’t do that. You know, of course, that Tom is married. Has a lovely wife and a wonderful boy. Lives in Hancock Park under a big mortgage. And he’s a degenerate gambler. Maybe you know that.”

Tommy shouted, “Hey.”

Izzy said, “That’s not true. You’re not married. Are you, Tommy?”

“Okay, wise guy. Let’s cut it right here.” Tommy stood up to his full six one, same height as me.

“I wouldn’t get mixed up with him, Izzy,” I said. “He’s a liar and a cheat. And those are his good qualities.”

Tommy had shaken her off, was standing with his fists clenched, and his face was clenched too. He wanted to hit me, and I wanted him to go ahead and try. He telegraphed a roundhouse punch, which I blocked; I teed up one of my own, and as my brother pulled back, I grazed his chin.

We’d been fighting for some thirty-five years and neither of us had any moves the other didn’t know.

Still, Tommy was thrown off balance. He staggered back against the table, and players vacated their chairs. Drinks spilled. A woman screamed, and doormen inserted themselves between me and Tommy.

I said, “This is a warning, Junior. You come into my place and mess with me, I’m going to return the favor.”

Tommy was shouting over the bouncers, “You pea brain. You ass-wipe.”

“There’s no problem, gentlemen,” I said to the two guys with the bulging biceps and the buttons popping off their shirts. I held up the palms of my hands to say,
I’m not a problem. I’m not going to get physical.

I backed away, still with my hands showing, then turned and left the club by the fire door, setting off the alarm for a memorable and satisfying exit.

A minute later, I was outside, crossing the street. I got into my loaner and turned on my phone. Yep, there was the GPS signal showing me the precise location of Tommy’s car.

All things considered, it had been a good night’s work. And it wasn’t over yet.

JUSTINE SAID GOOD night to her date and waved as he drove up Wetherly and then rounded the corner at the end of her block. She stood in her driveway for another moment, watching taillights and fireflies, thinking about the evening, the temptation, and the many reasons why she should stop this while she still could.

Then she walked up the flagstone path to her darling little cottage in the flats, cute and low maintenance, protected by neighbors on all sides, perfect for a single working woman with a dog and a cat.

Her house was simple and uncluttered. She wished she could say the same for her mind.

Justine punched in the alarm code and opened the door, and her dog, Rocky, bolted out, jumping and generally making a fool of himself. She returned the joyous greeting, then led Rocky through to the rear of the house, and let him out into the backyard.

She was in her updated 1930s kitchen preparing dinner for Rocky and a purring, rubbing, lip-smacking Nefertiti when the phone rang.

Justine said to Nefertiti, “This better not be work. I am done for the day.”

It was her mother, Evangeline Pogue, calling from her sailboat somewhere off Tortuga. Justine pictured Vangy in her shorts and halter top, drink in hand, sitting cross-legged on the bowsprit under the night sky, her third husband down in the galley.

Vangy said, “Justine, I’ve called and called.” When it came to her only child, Vangy had high anxiety.

“I was out, Mom. Haven’t even kicked off my shoes.” She did that now, then put Rocky’s and Nefertiti’s food on the floor, went to the sitting room, threw herself into her favorite chair, and put her feet up on the hassock.

“Is everything all right?” Vangy asked.

Justine sighed. “Jack’s car was set on fire.”

“Oh Lord. Is Jack…?”

“He’s fine, Mom. We were inside the house when it started. I’m trying to find out who did it.”

“So, you and Jack? Thanks, Bernard. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Sound of Mom sipping something through a straw. “Sorry, darling. What were you saying about Jack?”

“I love him, Mom. I’m not going to lie. But it’s the same stuff, different day. I’ve started seeing someone else.”

“You are? You can do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he married, Justine?”

“No, Mom, no. So, how are you and Bernard? What’s the plan for the next couple of months? Any chance of coming out to the coast?”

“Oh gosh, sweetie. We go where the winds blow us. And right now, my dear hubby-dub is serving dessert in the aft. Will you promise to take care?”

“You bet, Mom. Don’t worry about me. All is well.”

That was a lie.

She loved Jack, but her heart was in play, which was uncomfortable and weird. She said good-bye to Vangy and as soon as she disconnected the line, the phone rang again.

It was Jack.

“I’m home. Do you want to come over to my place? I’d like you to,” he said.

It was too much.

“Oh, not tonight, Jack. I was just dozing off. Sorry, honey.”

She hung up before she weakened. She cupped her face in her hands and shook her head. She wasn’t made for double-deal dating, not for long. It just was too confusing, hurt too much, made her feel too bad.

She was going to have to make a decision before she went crazy.

TULE SAT ON the floor of the large closet, way in the back, heaps of high-heeled shoes around her, her knees folded up to her chest.

She held the cell phone close to her face and made her call to Lester Olsen at his office in Vegas.

“Please answer,” she said to her bare feet. “Please answer the phone.”

A man’s voice said, “Hello, Tule?”

She said, “Oh boy, I’m glad you answered. I’m having a panic attack.”

“What’s going on?” Lester had a very soothing voice.

“I’m scared,” she said. “He’s very big. He’s very angry.”

“Angry at you?”

“Sometimes at me. Sometimes he’s angry at one of his kids. Sometimes he’s angry at the football scores. Could be anything. He likes to be mad.”

“When he’s angry at you, what does he say?”

“Like now, I said, ‘I had another dream about you.’ Just like you and I talked about, you know? And he said, ‘What are you trying to do to me, Tule? You warning me or something? Don’t you know I can break your neck with one hand?’”

“Aw, jeez. What did you say to that?”

“I said, ‘Oh, baby, you don’t mean that.’ And then I scampered away. He threw a cup at me. Missed. Hit the wall, though.”

“Does he hit you, Tule?”

“No. Not really.”

“Do you want to get out?”

“Maybe. No. No, this is my chance. I just needed to talk to you.”

“I’m here, sweetie. I’m just glad you’re okay. On a positive note, he’s doing what you want him to do.”

“Meaning what?” she asked. Then she whispered, “Wait. I hear him.”

She listened to his footsteps on the teak floors, heard him call her. “Tuuuuule. Tuuuuuuule. Where are you, baby?”

She was breathing with her mouth open, staring at a pair of chartreuse stilettos by the light of her phone. After a minute, she said, “You still there?”

“Of course. What’s happening?”

“He’s gone now,” she said. “Big house, you know. Lotta, lotta rooms. You were saying?”

“I was saying, his ticker is a time bomb. Keep doing what you’re doing. But if you get afraid, Tule, get out. Or at least, dial it back for a couple of days.”

“Yeah. Sure, Les. Thanks for listening. I’d better go. Make him some lunch. Do a little bikini dance.”

He laughed, said, “That could do the trick.”

She laughed too. “If only. I’d dance until he dropped dead. I’ll call you soon.”

“I’m always here.”

“Hugs and kisses,” she said. “Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye.”

Tule sighed, then turned off the phone and went back to work.

JUSTINE AND PRIVATE investigator Christian Scott were in a fleet car on their way to Our Lady of the Pacific, the sixth on their list of ten schools within a five-mile radius of Jack’s house. They had been canvassing schools all morning and it was now almost two in the afternoon.

Scotty wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t turned up any leads.

“When I was a motorcycle cop, things were black-and-white. Speeding. DUI. Collisions. This is so…random.”

Justine said, “It’s a place to start, Scotty.”

“Ah. The famous square one.”

“You got it. And psychologically speaking, I agree with Sci. Teenage boys like fire. It’s sexy. It’s exciting. They set fire to buildings, to their enemies, to toilets—you name it, a boy has set a match to it. A car-bomb spree is more sophisticated than the norm, but it fits the profile. And that’s why we’re going where boys are.”

The private high school on Winter Canyon Road was surrounded by grassy hills and native foliage. The buildings were plain stucco over cement-block construction with attached pergolas supporting large, blooming bougainvillea.

Justine parked in the faculty-only lot, then she and Scotty crossed the busy school yard and entered the cool of the main building. They found the headmaster’s office at the end of a long, sky-blue corridor.

Father Joseph Brooks was stocky, balding, smiling, and he was expecting the investigators. He shook their hands, asked them to sit down, and offered coffee.