I looked around at the crumbling, graffiti-covered dirty walls, once painted a color now unidentifiable, and felt a pang of pity for the humanity crossing this threshold. Some places should be razed to the ground, just on general principle.
We passed a counter, also nasty looking and littered with used paper cups, booze bottles, and trash. An emaciated-looking man sat on a stool behind the counter watching a small black and white television, topped off with a wire clothes hanger instead of rabbit ears. The man saw us and grinned a cadaverous smile, a few missing teeth completing the picture.
Flint threw another ten-dollar bill on the counter, bothering a nearby cockroach that scuttled away. The manager made a lunge for it, the bill not the roach, and winked at us. He went back to his television show, while we headed for a rickety staircase further back. I guess he thought Flint and I were planning to use one of the rooms on an hourly basis. As we started up the creaky staircase to the third floor, I turned to Flint.
“Nick must really be scared to be hiding out in a place like this. It could make him dangerous. Let me handle him. Don’t say anything. Stay in the background. I want him to consider you the silent, but ever ready, plan B.”
“We’re going to play good cop, bad cop?” Flint asked, with a lopsided grin. “I make a great bad cop.”
“Okay, but let me lead the way.”
At the top of the stairs, a small, twenty-five-watt bulb hung from a frayed electrical wire in the center of the narrow, dark and oppressive hallway. I felt something small scurry by my foot and was pretty sure it wasn’t someone’s Bichon Frise out for an evening stroll. I managed not to scream but stood on tippy toes the rest of the way down the hall. I remembered a small flashlight I keep on me and pulled it out. For the record, this is a part of an investigation that is sooo not me.
Even with this pinpoint of light, what with the dark and so many door numbers broken or missing, it was hard to make out which room was which. We arrived at what I thought was room 310, and I looked at Flint with a shrug, hoping for some kind of reaffirmation. He shrugged back as un-reaffirmed as me. I decided to go for it and knocked on the door. The knock echoed through the silent and gloomy hallway like someone had hit a cymbal with a baseball bat.
Nothing. I waited a few seconds and then knocked again. More nothing. I put my mouth to the crack, which I was loathe to do given what I’d seen loitering in the cracks around here.
“Nick,” I whispered hoarsely. “Nick. It’s me, Lee. Let me in.”
Just then, my cellphone rang out with the New York Philharmonic’s version of Beethoven’s Fifth. I really need to rethink that ringtone. While I struggled with my pants pocket to relieve it of the phone before it blasted us with yet another surge of bum, bum, bum, bum, I stumbled against the door. Nearby, Flint backed up into the shadows, swallowing laughter. The cellphone blasted again, and leaning against the door, I looked at the number.
“Richard,” I squawked. “I’ll call you right back.”
While fumbling to close the phone, the door opened, and I fell inside with a yelp. I sat on the floor and looked around. It was a tiny room, only able to hold a single, lumpy bed, a beat-up wooden chair, and a sagging chest of drawers, with no knobs and one missing drawer. A miniscule, chipped sink with a loud water drip hung on a battered wall next to a tiny, doorless room with a toilet, sans lid and seat. Charming.
“Well, if it isn’t Liana Alvarez. And where she goes can the rest of the Alvarez clan be far behind?”
From a shadowy corner, an older, thinner, and stressed out Nicholas
Papadopoulos stepped forward. He still had the same thick, dark, curly hair, but now the hair was flecked at the temples with gray. His face wore a two or three-day stubble, also slightly flecked with gray, and one of his eyes—those dark, velvety brown eyes I used to find so irresistible—was recovering from a pretty bad bruise. Something looked different with his nose, too, but maybe I wasn’t remembering everything right. It had been at least four years since I’d seen him.
Fear dominated his being, even though he tried to hide it. His whole demeanor was the same as when he’d relive some of those raids he went on in the Persian Gulf, where he knew he stood less than a fifty-fifty chance of coming back alive.
I opened my mouth to say something and was stopped by Flint pushing his way into the room, more like a tsunami than a man.
Terror tracked across Nick’s face. He backed up the full length of the small room, which was three steps more or less, and banged into the wall, where he froze.
“Jesus Christ!” he said.
“It’s all right, Nick. This is Flint. You may remember me mentioning him to you when we were married. He’s a friend of mine.”
Flint grunted a greeting, something like a Kodiak bear would do right before it eats you, and folded his arms across his enormous chest, the fringes of his deerskin being the only movement in the room.
“What do you want?” Nick stuttered. He looked at me and then at the glaring Flint. I think if he could have climbed up the wall to get away, he would have done it.
“I want to know what’s going on, Nick.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why did you call Stephen the night before he died, warning him not to run the race? What were you trying to warn him about?”
“How did you find me?” Nick countered. “Go away. Go away.”
“Not happening, Nicky Boy,” said Flint, his deep voice filling the room.
“Go away and leave me alone, can’t you?” Nick visibly shrank next to the wall, looking around for an escape.
“I’m not going anywhere, Nick, until you tell me why you’re here,” I said. “Why did you disappear on Kelli a week ago?”
“Kelli?” he said, his voice became high pitched, filled with panic. “What do you know about Kelli? How do you know Kelli?” I’d said the wrong thing, apparently.
Flint moved forward, and Nick slid to the floor, arms flailing to protect himself. My big friend bent over, grabbed Nick by his rumpled polo shirt and hauled him up.
“Let me rough him up a bit, Lee, just a little bit.”
Slack-jawed, Nick stared at me. I didn’t see anything of the former marine in him, which shocked me, but I tried not to show it.
I put a hand on Flint’s arm drawing back in preparation for a punch. “No, no. Even though you could say he done me wrong, let’s not get rough.” I paused dramatically. “Not yet.”
Flint let go, and Nick fell onto the unmade, crumpled bed, although how he could do that considering what might be sharing the space with him, I’ll never know.
I stared down at Nick, who sat up and cupped his face in his hands, rocking back and forth. I had never seen him this scared, this pitiable. What had happened to the man I’d known and loved?
I crouched down and put my hand on his knee, trying to look into his face. No matter which way I moved my face, he turned away. This was the time to be gentle, I knew instinctively, even though I wanted to kick him in the groin for somehow being involved in Stephen’s death.
“Nick, you need to tell me what’s going on, and you need to do it fast. If we found you, whoever you’re afraid of will find you, too. It’s only a matter of time.”
He looked at me with tear-filled eyes. “How do I know you’re not here to kill me?”
I got angry. “That’s not my style, and you know it. Since when did I turn into a thug? But I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.” He shook his head and lowered it into his hands again, all hunkered down into himself.
“Okay,” I said, exhaling and standing up. “Let’s go, Flint. If he won’t talk to us, he won’t talk to us.”
“You mean, let those other guys have him?” Flint said with a straight face but a twinkle in his eye. “Sounds only fair. I got better things to do with my time than watch a grown man act like a scaredy cat.” We both turned for the door.
“Wait a minute,” Nick said, looking up at us. Then he stood. “You’re just going to leave? Leave me like this?”
I gazed at him for a moment. “That’s the plan.” I turned for the door.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. But not here. What if Lou’s men come? You can’t fight them off. There’s too many of them.”
“Who’s Lou?” Flint and I said in unison.
“We have to get out of here,” Nick whined. “I can’t stay here. Like you say, if you found me, they can, too.”
I looked at Flint and nodded. In the car, we’d discussed where we might bring Nick for safety, if it came to it. While my first choice for lodgings in Vegas would have been the Bellagio, this wasn’t the time or place. Besides, I’d rather go there one of these days with Gurn.
“I know a safe place,” said Flint, “but you’d better not bring any bedbugs or lice with you. I run a clean establishment.”
Chapter Seven
I Don’t Know Who’s the Bigger Idiot
Without much conversation, we jostled Nick out of the room and down the stairs. As a precaution, we used the back exit, Flint flinging boxes of DVDs every which way so fast, the clerk only managed one “hey” before we were out the door. The exit led to a narrow back alley filled with garbage, trash, and more small scurrying animals that should be calling the SPCA to complain about the conditions under which they’re forced to live.
While Flint went to bring the car to the side of the alley, I waited in the shadows next to Nick and pulled out the Glock. The irony of the situation hit me like a double charge on a credit card bill for shoes not only too tight to wear but last year’s style.
On the left, a disgusting dumpster; on the right, an even more disgusting ex-husband. And me stuck in the middle as usual—a reluctant PI if ever there was one.
Rather than inhaling the stench of fly-ridden garbage, I’d really rather be sniffing out dastardly doings of computer sabotage or thievery, in particular, long after said dastardly deeds have gone down. It’s my idea of a good job, especially when I get to zip off whenever I want and have a great lunch.
The part I like best—besides the food—is sitting at a highly polished, recently vacated mahogany desk in an air-conditioned office, sifting through the rubble of high-tech deceit and betrayal. I like gathering enough evidence to point a manicured fingernail at the culprit and shout
j
'
accuse
! Backlit by enough briefs, memos, emails, and other telltale papers, the culprit is mine. That is a real high.
This was a real low. But I had to think about Stephen. My cousin was dead, and Nick knew something about it. Hell, maybe he even had something to do with it. And, of course,
there were the cats. If Nick was in any way responsible, I might do him in myself and save whatever goons there may be the trouble.
All these things were flitting through my mind when Nick—the stupid idiot—made a lunge for my gun, muttering he could take better care of himself than I could. Sometimes an ex-marine, like an ex-husband, needs to get over himself.
One of the first lessons you learn as a PI is to not to carry a gun if you’re going to let anybody take it away from you. All the years I’ve been carrying, ten to be exact, people have taken all sorts of things from me—including my virtue—but never my gun.
So when Nick came at me, my knee went up fast, strong, and accurate. Ex dropped to the ground in a fetal position. God only knows what else was lying there with him, but I left him on the dirt, anyway. He was busy moaning while I cocked the Glock and gave a 360-degree spin, prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep the jerk safe. At least, for the moment.
Fortunately, no one showed up except a passing rat or two, excluding the one I stood over. After what felt like a lifetime, I saw Flint’s headlights, although I’m sure it didn’t take him more than three minutes to get there. I helped Nick up. He limped to the car, and Flint, bless him, raised an eyebrow over Nick’s condition but didn’t say a word. What a guy.
During an uneventful fifteen-minute ride to Flint’s apartment, I rang an excited Richard back and learned he had commandeered a piece of software, which overlaid a grid onto his tracking map, enabling him to pinpoint the whereabouts of Tugger’s carrier within five hundred yards. According to Richard’s calculations, the cats should arrive in Las Vegas in about an hour and a half.
I was mightily impressed, not to mention hopeful, but couldn’t respond with much enthusiasm on my end. I didn’t want Nick picking up any information, him being a first class louse. Said louse was quiet once I’d bested him, sitting next to me in the backseat of Flint’s Jeep. I watched him lean his head against the window with his eyes closed. I whispered to Richard that Nick was in the car, and after he told me Lila had landed without incident in Phoenix, we ended the conversation.
* * * *
Flint resides in a two-story apartment complex, complete with gardens and pool, in an upscale residential area of Vegas. Sometimes I forget people actually live here. Being a transient visitor, I tend to think of Vegas as a transient place, but there’s a large population willing to call this gambler’s paradise home. Flint was one.
He’d left the police force and reservation, where he had been until his early thirties, and set up shop in Vegas. He was still committed to his people, donating money, sponsoring kids for college, contributing funds for tuitions, all that good stuff, but he’d moved off the reservation twenty or so years ago and never returned. His son once mentioned a falling out with the elders over the burial of his wife, who committed suicide after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. As far as I could tell, he’d never returned to the reservation.
We entered a two-bedroom corner apartment on the second floor, with enough sophisticated locks on the front door to make the picking of them pretty undoable, further aided by an alarm system which could wake the dead. The back door had been cemented up years ago, and each window wore interior bars, released from an inside latch. There was only one way in or out, and that’s how Flint liked it. When he came home, he once said, he wanted to know it was his castle and not his crypt. It’s the downside of doing his type of work, with divorce and bond jumping being a major part, but nobody does it better than Lonato, aka Flint. He makes a very good living.
I gave the living room a quick once over and saw a room heavily decorated with Native American art, blankets, and crafts. Nick ripped my attention away from the décor, his whole demeanor changing once inside this restful space. He stood taller and wore a smug grin. “I could sure use a shower,” he said, turning to the bigger man.
Before Flint could reply, I gave Nick a shove, threw him off balance, and onto a sofa covered with intricately woven and colorful blankets. He fell down, with a surprised look on his face.
“Not until you answer some questions, Nick. Now who’s Lou?” I sat on the edge of a sturdy looking coffee table across from Nick and leaned into his face.
“All right, all right. Don’t get your liver in a quiver.”
“And you can drop the cocky, smart-assed routine, too, before somebody does something to you I’m not going to regret.” Flint played along with me and scowled at Nick in a menacing way. “Now who’s Lou?”
Nick licked his lips and ran a fast hand over his stubble. “Okay. Okay. Lou Spaulding.”
He paused and looked down at nervous hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Flint react to the name.
“Who’s Lou Spaulding?” I looked from one man to the other.
“Believe me,” Nick said, “you don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s bad news, Lee,” answered Nick.
Flint came forward, folding his arms across his chest. “He came to Vegas about three years ago from Chicago and financed the new hotel across from the Encore, the Fantasy Lady. It’s for serious gamblers. No families, no penny slot machines; just big players from all over the world. Rumor is, it’s part of a syndicate coming out of Dubai, run by some of
the world’s wealthiest businessmen. They’re into heavy betting, and they play for keeps.”
“You don’t want to mess with them, Lee,” said Nick, looking down and picking at a scab on his hand.
“We messed with them when we took you out of that hotel room, Nicky Boy,” said Flint.
I glanced at him and then back at Nick. “Right,” I said. “So what’s Kelli got to do with this Lou Spaulding?”
Fear washed over Nick’s face again at the mention of his wife’s name. I smacked him on the leg to get his attention again.
“Talk to me,” I yelled into his face.
He looked up, and I saw the teenage boy I’d known so many years ago, the one whose father had run off with another woman never to be heard from again. Once again, Nick reeked from betrayal, loneliness, and fear.
“How does she fit in, Nick?” My voice was softer but firm.
“She started fooling around with Lou about two or three months ago. At first, I didn’t catch on. She told me she was working at the casino late, visiting with friends, you know, girl stuff.”
“I thought she quit working once you got married,” I said, the words popping out of my mouth before I thought better of them.
“Where’d you hear that?” Nick asked. “She never stopped working. She didn’t want to, and I’ve always liked a working wife, you know that.”
Score another one for the nefarious Kelli. “Never mind. Go on.”
“Anyway, the bottom had dropped out of the real estate market by then, and Kelli, well, I think Kelli thought I had more money than I did.” He paused, picking at the scab again. The sore started to bleed, and he wiped the blood away with an impatient gesture.
“Maybe I gave her that impression. I was…I was in love with her.” He took a ragged breath. “Right before we got married, I’d bought her a new car for her birthday, ninety-five grand, but I couldn’t keep up the payments after I closed the office, so the collection agency came to take it away. The next day it was sitting in the parking lot again. I asked her about it, but she said she had some savings and went and paid for it in cash.” He shook his head. A look of sadness came over him, almost heartbreaking. Nick blinked his eyes rapidly, as if unsavory memories ran amuck before them.
“Right before I met Kelli, I was doing a pretty big deal with Lou on a penthouse condo on the strip he wanted. I had a year’s exclusive on it, one of the last deals I made before the bottom dropped out of the market. Otherwise, a man like Lou Spaulding is out of my league. I knew it, he knew it.” Nick shrugged and inhaled another tired breath.
“That’s how she…Kelli…met him. We went to a couple of parties he threw. After the deal was done, he stopped answering my calls. Looking back on it that must have been the time she started seeing him. She got the money for the car from Lou. I know it. After a while, she didn’t even hide what she was doing. She’d come and go as she pleased, staying out all hours, coming home mussed up, or smelling of another man’s aftershave. About two weeks ago, I confronted her, and she said, ‘Screw you, Nick. You don’t like it? Get out.’” Nick looked at Flint. “You got a drink? I need a drink.”
“Finish your story first,” I said. “What happened then?”
“I started sleeping on the couch. Last week while she was at the casino, two men showed up at the door. They shoved their way inside and started knocking me around, demanding I give them back what I took from Lou Spaulding.”
“What did you take?” I shot at him, the words flying out of my mouth.
“Nothing. I didn’t take anything.” He spread his arms out wide, as if offering up his life to the truth. “I hadn’t seen Spaulding in months. And what the hell would I take? I told them, but they didn’t believe me. They ripped the place apart, looking for I don’t know what. Then they broke my nose and told me nobody messes with Spaulding and his races.”
“They used the word ‘races’?” I asked.
He nodded. “They said I had twenty-four hours to return it, or I was a dead man.” Nick paused and looked at me. “And they weren’t kidding. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew Kelli had something to do with it. I sat in the dark waiting for her to come home. When I told her about the visit from Spaulding’s men, she looked me up and down and laughed. She just laughed. Here I am with a bloody nose, a black eye, they threatened to kill me, and she’s laughing. Then she did a turn around—she does that a lot. You know, one minute she accuses you of cheating on her, lying to her, or something, and the next minute she’s saying she loves you, hugging you, kissing you. Anyway, she tried to hug me, but I’d had enough. I pushed her away, took off my wedding ring, and threw it at her feet. Then I left, with her yelling at me to come back. I hadn’t packed; I didn’t take any keys, just the clothes on my back. I must have walked for hours trying to figure this out. And I’ve been in hiding ever since.”
“How does Stephen fit into this? What made you call him?”
“Right after Lou’s men left, I found a piece of paper with his name on it in the mess in the bedroom those two left.”
“You mean Stephen’s name?” I asked.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” His voice was sharp and annoyed. Flint stepped forward protectively. Nick became docile again. “I think the paper fell out of one of Kelli’s drawers when they pulled everything out. I’d never seen it before. At the time, one of the names on the list seemed familiar, so I picked up the note and put it in my pocket. I
didn’t remember Stephen was your cousin until the night I called his wife, when it came back to me. I’d met him at a New Year’s party back when you and I were married.
“Once I realized, well, seeing Stephen’s name on anything connected with Lou Spaulding was scary, so I called to warn him. I would have kept calling until I reached him, but my cellphone ran out of juice, and I didn’t have my charger. I didn’t have any money to buy one, either.”
“Tell me about the races,” I said.
“What races?” His voice gained an exasperated edge, adding to the fear and impatience. “The first I learned about any of this was the day I found that paper. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I’m scared. Those men find me…I’m dead. I know that much.”