Death On the Flop (22 page)

“Maybe he doesn’t exist,” Frank offered. “Maybe the films don’t exist beyond an urban legend.”

“Oh at least one exists. I saw it. A few months ago, he sent a boy to meet me. He had an iPod that showed the movie like a music video. I got a preview as an advertisement. It was for sale for a hundred thousand dollars. And it was real. The sex, the death.” Cyrano was ashen. It had to have been worse than horrible to turn the stomach of professional smut distributor.

“And you told this to authorities?”

“Yes, I called the FBI. They didn’t believe me, probably still don’t, because of course I had no evidence. They traced the number that he called from and it was one of those prepaid phones you can buy at Wal-Mart with a twenty dollar bill and no identification. And the whole affair has put a damper on my reputation. I’m afraid they are watching me now. You and your brother were the first time I’d tried anything extracurricular in months and now, look, I’m in the mess all over again.”

I could tell Frank was frustrated. For as disgusting as Cyrano was, his story rang true. “Who did you talk to at the FBI?”

“I didn’t call local police, because you never know who is corrupt and who’s not. If I’d happened to get one of the ones expecting a bribe, I would have been angry, because they are just too expensive. It was worse odds than the craps table. Therefore, I just dialed a California FBI office. I can’t remember the agent’s name.”

Another dead end. Frank shook his head.

“Why do you think Benjamin is with them?” Cyrano asked me. “Is he mixed up with this style of entertainment?”

“No, I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What do you know about Steely Stan?” Frank asked, playing a hunch I thought.

“He’s famous and he’s feared here in Vegas.”

“Feared? Why?” I asked.

“Because he’s ruthless and not just in cards. I hear he’s been acting more and more like a cornered tiger.”

“But why?” Frank asked. “He’s at the top of the hottest gambling game in the world, wouldn’t an expected reaction be arrogance instead of desperation?”

“Maybe because he’s about to lose his sponsor and maybe he’s afraid he won’t be able to sustain the lifestlye he’s become accustomed to on his winnings alone.”

“But why would Fresh Foods want to drop him?”

Cyrano got a hard, faraway look. “Maybe because Fresh Foods doesn’t like the image he has begun presenting.”

 
In the end, we let Cyrano go. We both thought we’d
gotten out of him all we could, and frankly I think we both liked him in a weird, “I have a freak as a friend” kind of way. He really did care enough about me that he didn’t want me to die, even though he wanted to watch me on video doing icky things.

Vegas was not black and white, that’s all I can say. And it was either morphing me or warping me. I wasn’t sure which. Either way I was going home changed.

Frank and I were back in his suite when he told me where he’d been while I went to check into the tournament. “I was talking to a colleague of mine who was researching Steely Stan Trident. His real name is Donald Sipowecki, age forty, born and raised in a small town outside of Detroit. He changed his name ten years ago and settled here. Smart guy, graduated from University of Michigan in accounting, which would explain his razor sharp ability to calculate odds in Hold ’Em. It’s my experience when someone changes their name, it’s not because he didn’t like what Mama gave him, he just is running from things.”

“What ‘things’ was Donald running from?”

“Accusations, but no charges apparently, of duping some seniors out of their savings for a moneymaking scheme. Accusations, again no charges, of pilfering from a company he worked for after that. Three out of wedlock children whose mothers are looking for alimony. Guess none of them play Hold ’Em or they might have recognized him.”

“None of that is accusatory in this case, though.” I pointed out.

“Except his tendency toward opportunism. He’s not some criminal mastermind, just a guy without a conscience who likes to make a buck illegally when he can.”

“So what do you think that means in this case?”

“I think it means that I need to get my guy to delve more deeply into the Fresh Foods connection. If Stan holds true to pattern, Fresh Foods’ sponsorship was another opportunity.”

“And Ben somehow got in the way of his opportunity and that’s why he’s being held captive.”

“We don’t know that for sure. We can assume whatever we want based on how we read Stan’s comment to you tonight, but at this point we only have evidence linking Conner with Ben’s disappearance. We don’t have anything yet linking Conner with Stan. Of course we can assume he is the one they were talking about in the stairwell.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I called from my cell phone and left a message for Stan at the front desk, giving the dummy room number. I said that I wanted to talk about Donald. It’ll shake him a bit. Likely make him paranoid, distracted, less careful.”

“What if it makes him hurt Ben?”

“Actually, it will make him less likely to do that, because he will be confused about Ben’s compadres. It will cause some infighting, which is always good to produce among the enemy.”

Hmm. Now Frank was sounding like a soldier. Maybe he’d been a military cop in California. I wish I had a faceless “colleague” to go research him.

“I need to do the same with Conner but I wanted to wait until you’d made your first appearance at the tournament.” Frank slid his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed the front desk and asked to leave a message for Detective Conner. “I think he left something of his in the dumpster behind the Galaxy.”

“Now let’s wait and watch,” Frank said, as he put his phone away.

“But what if he goes and takes the body away?”

Frank shook his head. “I called and reported it from a pay phone earlier. He knows the cops found the pieces of Pete. So, this will make him very nervous and very confused. He’ll probably suspect one of the men in blue is on to him.”

“Since we’ve shaken them up a bit, they might try to move Ben. I can’t get to Stan’s room, it’s a keyed penthouse. But we can follow Conner. I’ve got a friend who just came into town and I’ve put him on Conner’s tail.”

“Won’t a cop know he’s being tailed, especially a dirty one?”

“He won’t know this guy is there,” Frank assured me. “He’s the best in the business.”

“The security business,” I sighed.

“Exactly.”

“Now I guess I’ll turn in,” I yawned.

“No, now I guess you’ll turn into a real poker player.” Frank got up and started a pot of coffee.

“What?”

“Tomorrow night is a whole new game, Bee,” he explained, coming to sit down next to me. “The way the tournament tonight was set up, some people qualified with no money in, some, like Ben, paid up front, and others came just to see the pros. With that mix, it played more like a home game. No one could really bluff effectively because few folded, and luck was a major factor. Don’t get me wrong, you played well, you read body language and stayed cool. But get ready for the heat to get turned up.

“Tomorrow every player will smell the money. You may be at a table of all pros. They will underestimate you. Use that. Act a little sloppy; slurp down drinks. Try to lose a few hands where you can afford to so you can bluff them later. The rest, just do what you did before. Calculate the odds, but remember, anyone can do that. Read the body language. That is your big gift.”

Three knocks sounded at the door. I cocked my head at Frank and tried not to let my heart race out of control. Had Conner found us? But Frank smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s just the same group that taught you last night. Tonight, they are going to play a different game to warm you up for tomorrow.”

I slept until one o’clock in the afternoon, which wasn’t
bad considering we’d stayed up playing Hold ’Em until dawn. I shuffled out into the living room and knew I was alone. I had a moment of panic when I realized how much I’d come to rely on a man I’d only known a couple of days. That was not a good thing. Relying on a man had never done me any good.

Besides, I really didn’t know Frank Gilbert. He could be using an assumed name, like Stan, for all I could prove. I didn’t know what his motivation was in helping me find Ben besides being bored or nice or both. Or neither. He could be Conner’s sworn enemy, out to bring him down. He could be someone Stan beat at a poker tournament once who vowed to get even. He could be another snuff film supplier here to take out the competition.

Why finding out he was any of those things, besides the last one of course, would make me feel better, I didn’t know.

I wandered over to make coffee and saw his note.

 
Hmm. I hated to be told what to do. I decided to forgo the coffee in favor of dressing, going downstairs and nosing around. I washed my face, threw my hair up, pulled on my low rise Calvin Klein jeans, a white silk shirt and the jeweled thongs that were becoming my uniform shoes. Vegas had changed me, I realized as I made my way to the elevator. I’d forgotten all about earrings. I don’t think I’d been this fashion lax since I was ten years old.

I got in the elevator and joined a half dozen people inside. We were about halfway down when a voice from the back said, “Hey, it’s Bee Cool.”

I looked back. “Hi, Amy.”

“This woman is going to beat Steely Stan,” Amy announced to the captive audience.

A couple of people murmured, “Oh, you made it through the first round?”

Now I understood why my mother always told me to put on clean underwear because you never knew what was going to happen when you went out of the house. Sure enough. I hadn’t put on makeup or even earrings, thinking I was in a city full of strangers. The tournament had changed that. Great.

“We’ll be watching you, Bee Cool,” one of the men said, as I waved and escaped into the lobby.

I’d been unlucky to run into Amy but surely she was the only one who’d recognize me. I relaxed as I made my way to the casino to get some dirt on Stan. I’d planned to sit at a Hold ’Em table and talk up the dealer who was bound to have heard stories about Stan before he got famous. I got some chips and joined a $10-$20 table with eight players and an empty chair next to the dealer, who was a man. I was tired of hearing about Stan’s pheromones from his female fan club.

“So I guess you know Steely Stan, huh?” I asked as I peeked at my pair of eights.

“Not personally,” he answered, tossing off the burn card.

“I heard he used to do what you do for a living.”

He looked at me sharply. Uh-oh.

“He was a Hold ’Em dealer at Galaxy, right?” I clarified carefully, pushing some chips forward to raise the bet.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered, throwing down The Flop and a lot that was unsaid.

“He didn’t have
another
job, did he?” I said, raising again as I looked at the unsuited eight, deuce and Queen Flop.

“Not an official one,” the dealer answered.

Ah-ha. Now we were getting somewhere. Just then I heard, “Bee!”

Damn, I looked up, along with the rest of our table, to see my Nova Scotian accountant friend, Ringo, waving from three tables over. He pointed at me. “There’s the woman who’s going to win the tournament! Bee Cool! Woman with ice in her veins.”

What bad timing. My dealer clammed up immediately, giving me a narrow-eyed look that reprimanded me for trying to get dirt on Stan to use against him in the tournament. My whole table looked at me and folded when Fourth Street dropped another eight. Double damn.

I collected my couple hundred dollars in chips and left the table, walking past Ringo. “Nice to see you again, Ringo. Have you been talking to Amy?”

“Who’s Amy?”

“I think she came up with that silly nickname for me.”

“What are you talking about? I came up with that myself. You said your name is Bee Cooley. You are one cool customer at the table, so the ‘Bee Cool’ thing is obvious. I got my money on you.”

“Thanks, Ringo.”

For the first time in my life I could see why movie stars resented fame. Talk about cramping my style. Cranky, I waited in line to cash in my chips when a hand swooped in and grabbed me out of the line.

I glared at Frank. “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

“Doing what you told me not to do.”

“Exactly.” Frank blinked, apparently unaccustomed to women stating the obvious. “Why?”

“Because I felt like it.”

Frank leaned in and whispered harshly. “You felt like dying today?”

I narrowed my eyes and used Toby’s favorite term. At least I learned something in five years. “Don’t be melodramatic.”