Never Coming Back (31 page)

I knew I had to get off the grid as soon as possible, but a couple of minutes after Reardon faded out, the signal kicked in on my phone again and it started buzzing in the cradle. I glanced at the display, expecting it to be Reardon; instead it was a ten-digit U.S. phone number.

“David Raker.”

A short, echoey buzz. “Mr. Raker, it's Carlos Soto.”

“Mr. Soto. Thanks for calling me back.” Just up ahead was a small passing point in the lane. I pulled into it, trying to save the signal I had. “It must be late there.”

“I've just finished my shift.”

“I appreciate your time.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping I could talk to you about a man you might have come into contact with at your casino. His name's Jeremy Cornell. I think he organizes a get-together—”

“I know him,” Soto said. “What concern is he of yours?”

“Concern?” I stopped. Soto was polite but terse, probably because Cornell brought in a shitload of money for the casino and he didn't want to rock the boat. This was going to be hard work. “His name came up in an investigation I'm putting together over here.”

“Who do you work for again, sir?”

“I work for myself.”

“You're a private investigator?”

“I trace missing people.”

“And who's gone missing—Mr. Cornell?”

“No. Not Cornell.”

A pause. “I'm not sure I follow.”

“Cornell may know some things that could help me—but unfortunately I can't get hold of him. However, as I understand it, he spends a lot of time at the Bellagio.”

“So you want me to fill in the blanks?”

“Something like that.”

“I can't comment on individual customers, sir.”

He was playing a straight bat, as I'd expected him to. I backed out and came at him a different way. “Okay. Fair enough. Let me ask you
something else: how long have you been in charge of security at the casino?”

“What's the relevance of this?”

“I mean, I'm sure I can find out, but . . .”

I didn't finish the sentence, just let it hang. He didn't answer immediately, as if he was trying to pinpoint the reason I might ask. Then, eventually, he said, “Two years.”

“So you wouldn't have worked there when Cornell did?”

“Pardon me?”

“You wouldn't have worked at the casino at the same time as he did.” That meant Soto was immediately redundant. “Is there anyone else who might remember him?”

“Sir, I think you may be confused.”

“How's that?”

“Mr. Cornell never worked here.”

That stopped me. “At all?”

“Not before I arrived, and certainly not since.”

Certainly not since
. There was a hint of something in Soto's voice—defiance, animosity—but I let it go for the moment and wheeled back to what he'd said before that.

Mr. Cornell never worked here
.

Which meant it was all one big lie. He'd lied to Graham, lied to everyone in the high-rollers group—about his history, about who he was and about what he did.

“What do you make of him?” I asked.

“Of Mr. Cornell?” A pause; one that lasted longer than it should have. I recalled what he'd said earlier:
Not before I arrived, and certainly not since.
“I don't particularly have an opinion of him either way,” Soto said eventually. “He's a valued customer.”

“That's it?”

“Pardon me?”

“He's just a customer?”

A moment's hesitation. “Yes.”

“There's nothing else?”

The line shifted slightly. “I'm not sure what you're suggesting.”

This time, I didn't respond.

“Mr. Raker?”

I glanced in my rearview mirror, checking for cars. “Look, I'm not
here to get anyone into trouble, I'm just trying to find some people that Cornell might have known.”

“I don't know what that has to do with me.”

“You're familiar with Cornell.”

“I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with him.”

“I think you have an opinion on him.”

He didn't reply this time.

“And I'd like to hear that opinion.”

Nothing.

“I'm right, aren't I?”

“What, are you a mind-reader?” The tone changed instantly. “I don't know what you want me to say—or why you called.”

“I'm trying to find a family.”

Silence on the line.

“I'm trying to find a family who went missing. They spent some time in your part of the world between February and May last year. I think Cornell knows where they are.”

More silence.

I wondered whether I'd played this right. For all I knew, Soto could have been working for Cornell. But, somehow, I didn't think so. The way he'd sidestepped questions, trod carefully around them, was deliberate; a man trying to stop himself being cornered.

“I can't help you, Mr. Raker.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I
sure
?”

“Look, I just want to find out about—”

“
Listen
to me,” he said, his reply suddenly loaded with venom. He'd lowered his voice too, as if it was the only way he could keep a lid on his anger. “I don't give a damn about your case. Is that clear enough for you? I don't care about the family, and I don't care about you. All I care about is staying alive—and going after Cornell is like rocking the hornets' nest. You make him angry, and everyone on your radar gets stung. Just leave it alone.”

A second later, he was gone.

Monday, June
25, 2012
| Five Months Ago

On the northern fringes of the Southern Highlands golf club, south of Las Vegas where the I-15 started its gentle, lonely journey into the desert, was the house belonging to Carlos Soto. Part of a small, gated community in San Sevino, it was tucked away in a triangle of land between South Highlands Parkway and Dean Martin Drive. From the Parkway you could see some of it, hidden behind a six-foot wall: a window on the side for one of the three bedrooms; a door beneath it, leading out of the kitchen and into the backyard; a covered area immediately outside the rear doors; and then a small, ten-meter swimming pool. You couldn't see the backyard or the pool from the road, only the gentle shimmer of the water reflecting off the cream-colored exterior walls.

But Cornell wasn't out on the road.

He was inside the house.

He'd been watching Soto for seven months now, ever since a cop on his payroll called Ridgeway warned him that Soto was sniffing around. Soto could have been a problem. He was just a security grunt now, but he'd been a cop before. A good one, by all accounts. That made him dangerous. So Cornell headed him off. He found out about the things Soto held dear, and he started watching the intimate rhythms of his life.

Soto left at seven every weekday morning, unless he was working weekends, when he'd usually take Thursday and Friday off. On weekends he always left later, between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., and always came back after midnight but before 3 a.m. Cornell got to know Soto's route through the casino too—where his office was, his weekly meetings, the people he talked to most—and then, finally, he got to know his home life, invading the sanctity of his home, letting his gloved fingers touch Soto's furniture, his bed linen, his clothes. Soto had no wife, no kids, and both his parents were dead—and he was lonely. Desperately lonely. On his computer, in the history, Cornell found lots of dating sites, evidence of short, failed relationships, some sort of diary where he talked about wanting kids—a son he could play baseball with, a daughter he could watch grow up and become a mother—and then a blog full of dripping sentiment where he wrote about his father. He knew Soto went out to eat a lot, and he mostly ate by himself, usually at a hole of a Tex-Mex place near the airport where he seemed to know the manager. But Cornell knew that the manager and the food weren't the real
reasons Soto went there. The real reason was he liked to get his dick hard talking to a waitress called Ellie.

Cornell knew about her too: thirty-six, from Seattle, divorced.

He knew everything about Carlos Soto, but Carlos Soto knew nothing of him. The best Soto had was a connection between Schiltz and the whore, and the fact that Cornell had asked for the CCTV footage and room key information from the night the laptop was taken from Schiltz's room. The rest was just a bunch of loose ends. Everything in Cornell's life—the photograph, the old man, Firmament—were buried so deep, if Soto ever had the resources to get there, Cornell would be waiting. Seven months of watching him gave Cornell all the advantage he'd ever need. He was in control of Carlos Soto.

And, somewhere down the line, he knew he would kill him.

Just like everybody else.

Cornell stopped at the rear doors. Both closed, they led out under the covered roof to the kidney-shaped swimming pool. Around it were a series of small, potted palms and a barbecue. An inflatable pool chair drifted across the surface of the water, right to left, caught in a faint desert breeze. But it was something else that got Cornell's attention.

Removing his phone, he dialed into Las Vegas Metro, and asked to be connected to Lieutenant Ridgeway, the cop who had first raised Soto as a potential problem.

“Homicide,” the detective said.

“It's me.”

A pause. “Uh, is there a problem?”

Cornell enjoyed the concern in Ridgeway's voice, the moment of panic as he tried to figure out what he might have done wrong. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Ridgeway.”

He turned away from the swimming pool and looked back across the living room. Sixteen-inch tiles throughout, immaculately clean. Off-white walls. Maple cabinets, all of which he'd been through, each of them full of inane reminders of Soto's worthless existence. At the back of the room, a breakfast bar divided the living room from the kitchen, and then an island was beyond that. Cornell zeroed in on a set of expensive Japanese cooking knives stuck to a magnetic strip. He started back across the room toward the knife rack, keeping Ridgeway waiting.

“Hello?”

“I really hope I haven't been the victim of sloppy police work,” he said, and, as he got to the island, ran his middle finger, protected by latex, down the flat of one of the knife blades. It made a gentle whine. “You haven't let me down, have you, Mr. Ridgeway?”

“It's Detective Ridgeway.”

“It's whatever I want it to be.”

There was a pause on the line.

Cornell prolonged the silence. He touched a santoku, ran a finger down the hardwood handle, and it shifted on the rack, the blade rocking gently against its bed.

“Did you get me everything you had on Soto?”

“Yes,” Ridgeway said. “Of course. Why?”

Cornell looked out through the rear doors. “A few things still concern me.”

“Like?”

“I've read over the information you sent, I've watched him for seven months, I know everything about him, every detail of his tedious life—and yet there are still things that continue to surprise me about him. Little details. Things that are
 . . .”

“That are what?”

Cornell shrugged. “Out of kilter.”

“Out of kilter? What does that mean?”

He listened to Ridgeway, his breath making a gentle crackle on the line. “You do know that, if you've missed something, that's going to be . . .
a problem.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Why, does it sound like one?”

“You're damn right it does.”

“Oh, well, I'm sorry about that,” Cornell said. His voice was quiet, steady, but there was something in it. Something that, even along the phone line, even as Ridgeway sat on the other side of the city, would have killed his bravura. “You told me Soto didn't have any brothers or sisters.”

“Yeah, that's right.”

“So he's got no nieces or nephews?”

“No.”

“No children he doesn't know about?”

“I think he would have mentioned if he'd had kids running around.”

“Maybe he didn't like you enough to say.”

“He liked me.”

“What about now?” Cornell said. “Do you think he likes you now that you've fucked him over for a retirement fund?” Silence on the line. Cornell looked around the house, eyes over everything, then out through the rear doors. “Does he like kids?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does he have a taste for them?”

“What?”

“Does he?”

“Are you insane? No.”

“How would you know if he did?”

“I'd know, okay? Carlos is a straight arrow, as honest as—”

“You sound like you still care for him.” Cornell didn't say anything else. He left the knives and returned to the rear doors of the house. “Do you want him to succeed, Mr. Ridgeway? Is that it? Do you want him to find his way to my door? Because, I assure you, before he does that, I'll be burying you in the desert and your family will be next to you.”

Ridgeway cleared his throat. He suddenly sounded nervous, penitent. “Look, I got you everything I had on Carlos, okay? That's it. That's all there is in the system.”

Cornell didn't respond.

“Cornell?”

“Did you look into that other thing for me?”

“Yeah.” Ridgeway dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nothing.”

“No reports of any sightings?”

“No.”

“You need to work a bit harder, Mr. Ridgeway.”

“I'm trying—okay?”

Cornell once again chose silence.

Ridgeway carried on, filling the dead air, keeping his voice low. “Listen, I know you've got plenty of friends in this town. I know that. But just remember something, okay? Soto, he was a good cop, and the assistant sheriff, he's not . . .” He paused. “The AS, he's a straight arrow too. He hasn't got the same arrangement we've got, so he still likes Soto and still rates him. Hell, the AS actively tried to stop him leaving when he got that job at the Bellagio. So, sure, snoop around his house, follow him everywhere, do whatever you have to do to protect whatever it is you have, but if you try to do anything to Soto, you're taking a risk. If he goes missing, if you do something, I promise you they'll notice and—”

Cornell hung up.

Pocketing the phone, he stood at the glass and looked out at the pool. The breeze had died and the inflatable chair had stopped its journey across the surface of the water.

And so too, next to it, had the rubber ring.

•   •   •

Carlos Soto got home just after eight. He flicked the lights on immediately inside the door and then carried a grocery bag through to the kitchen, dumping it on the counter. The worst thing about coming home to an empty house was the silence. He turned the TV on, lowering the volume, and then went to the maple cabinets that housed his
music system, and hit Play. He didn't care what album he'd left in there, just as long as it played loud.

After unpacking the groceries, he sat at the island in the kitchen frying some steak and checking his messages. Most of them were from the foreign-marketing director, whose job it was to get whales in from Asia, showering them with complimentaries in exchange for a night spent making six-figure bets in the baccarat lounge. They'd brought in a guy from Macau who ended up getting rushed to the ER at four in the morning after losing eight hundred grand and drowning his sorrows in a mountain of coke. Now they were having an argument about what to do: the marketing director wanted Soto to use whatever juice he still had with Las Vegas Metro to get the possession charges dropped; Soto thought the guy should take his punishment. Chances were, with the amount of green he had in the bank, he'd probably be flying home with a slapped wrist and a fine, anyway. That's what Vegas was built on: the people who had money—and then everyone else.

But halfway down his inbox, another message caught his eye.

Ellie.

She was a waitress at Texico Mexas, a restaurant on Peco that he went to a couple of times a week. The food was mediocre, but Carlos liked her, had done right from the moment he first saw her, so he kept going back. She was sweet and a little shy, and when she smiled at him he forgot—just for a minute—about how much he hated coming home. He forgot about lying alone in bed, about nights spent at his laptop trying to put into words everything he felt, about sitting in the tub and wondering if this was it for him: a single man at forty who'd never met the love of his life and would never get to see kids of his own running across his yard, never get to shoot hoops with a son out front, or sit his daughter down on his lap and squeeze her tight when she found a movie too frightening.

So he'd asked Ellie if she wanted to go on a date. At first she'd said no, probably not ready to get involved so soon after her divorce. But he'd tried again, slowly but steadily, over a couple of months, and eventually she'd laughed at how persistent he was, and had agreed to have dinner with him. Carlos smiled as he read her text: she was telling him it was fine to pick her up at 7 p.m. on Wednesday—and that she was looking forward to it.

Carlos put the phone down, slid the steak out of the frying pan on to a plate, added some creamed spinach, then grabbed a knife from the rack and took it through to the TV
.

Then he stopped.

Turned back to face the knife rack.

The santoru was at an angle.

He placed the plate back down on the breakfast bar and looked around the room. Nothing else seemed out of place. Moving upstairs, he checked each of the bedrooms and then came back down again, into the kitchen. He walked to the knife rack and pushed the santoru back into place. It held true and straight, just like it always did. The magnet was strong enough for the knives never to move, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd used the santoru for any cooking. And yet it had shifted.

Carlos turned and headed for the rear doors.

He flicked on the lights in the yard.

Outside, everything was still, tiny circular globes tracing the circumference of the pool. His inflatable chair, the one he sunbathed on, was still on the surface of the water.

But then he saw he'd left the rubber ring out.

“Shit.”

He rushed over to his cellphone and scrolled through his address book until he got to Ellie's number. There were two listed for her. Her cellphone and her landline.

Except, in reality, he didn't know her landline.

And this number didn't belong to Ellie.

It was the number for a motel in Henderson, about sixteen miles east, out near the 515. Listing it under Ellie was an insurance policy, in case he ever misplaced his phone.

Someone answered. “Hello?”