Private Vegas (27 page)

He assumed a studious expression. He walked, listened, interjected a patriotic comment every now and then, but he was also watching the women who were everywhere, shopping and smiling and showing themselves off.

He caught the eye of a lovely, plump woman who was dallying in the doorway of Nordstrom, and she returned his look, boldly. She was with a friend. Blondes, both of them. Out here, they were almost always blond.

Gozan had spent a long week with Khezzy at Shutters, keeping a low profile, as they’d had to do. But now he was hungry for the touch of a woman. He’d heard an American expression that he found hilarious:
chubby chaser
. He wanted to say it to Khezzy right now, because it made both of them laugh.

Gozan interrupted the top man of the Ra Galiz unit, said, quietly, “I think this is a good time for us to part company, Balar. Good to see you again.” He shook the man’s hand. “We’ll be in touch. Khezzy. Come have lunch with me.”

Khezir gladly fell into step with his uncle, who said, “There is a time to discuss politics and a time to be chubby chasers.”

Khezzy started laughing and he kept at it until tears came into his eyes. Gozan turned back before the crowd swallowed them up, called to the men in black, “See you. Have a nice day.”

Then he forgot them. He and Khezir backtracked toward Nordstrom. Gozan hoped he could find that fleshy woman now. The way she had looked at him was promising.

VAL KENNEY WAS enjoying the first massage of her life in the spa at the Black Diamond Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Not only was this her first massage, her first spa, her first hotel of this magnitude and splendor, but she had never been to Las Vegas before. And what she’d seen of this town in the past four hours had been dazzling.

Too bad there was no one to tell.

Katrina’s strong hands rubbed oil into Val’s shoulders, and she moaned. This was sooo good, and she was so grateful to Jack for letting her run with her idea.

As of four hours ago, she was no longer Val Kenney of Private Investigations, former scholarship student at Boston and Miami Universities and part-time worker at the Miami PD, typing up files, approving expenses, and keeping the schedule logs.

Mo-bot had given her a different background, one that she was memorizing even now.

Her new name was Valerie Fernandez. Her father was a Cuban-born doctor and her mother was black, a Miami native who taught eighth grade until she died, a year ago.

Valerie Fernandez lived in Los Angeles now, a professional events planner who had created stupendous bachelorette parties for several celebrities and gala affairs for corporate clients.

As her story would go, she was twenty-five, never married, in perfect health. All true.

She would say that both her parents were dead, and that was also true.

In fact, in her real life, before her mother died, she had encouraged Val to interview with Private for a job she had wanted since Jack Morgan gave a guest lecture at her school. Val was pretty sure that if her mom could see her now—an undercover investigator, under the cover of a perfumed sheet, getting a three-hundred-dollar massage—she’d be laughing hard.

Katrina wrapped the sheet entirely around Val, tucking her in so that she was a cocoon of happiness. She rubbed Val’s scalp and gently pulled her hair out to the ends. She said, “Miss Fernandez, please just lie still and rest. I’ll be back in a few minutes to take you to your mud treatment, okay?”

Val said okay.

She listened to the soft music and went over her new life story in her mind. And she also thought about the $3,480 in wonderful clothes she’d charged to her expense account. Later, she would put on the sexy black jumpsuit and the crystal beads and go to the casino. She’d watch the poker players, maybe feed the slots, but all for research, and she would be in bed by midnight. And when she woke up in her amazing room tomorrow, she’d be rested and ready for her class in how to land a rich husband with Lester Olsen.

Oh, man, she could hardly wait.

Too bad there was no one she could tell.

KHEZIR MAZUL WOKE up in the darkened room and for a long moment did not know where he was. Then he remembered checking in to the Armstrong Hotel, a small, half-star place where they could be under the radar for now.

He sat up, saw the tossed bedding, the video game paused on the TV, and the fat girl in bed beside him, still trussed like the pig she was.

He reached over to the night table, grabbed the water glass that still held an inch of flat champagne, and tossed down the dregs. He looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. He fell back in the bed, covered himself with the blankets, and went to sleep.

The next thing he knew, Gozan was shaking his arm, saying, “What did you do to her, Khezzy?”

What did he
do?

What he always did. He put something in her drink. He played with her for a while, then he passed out. Khezir said to his uncle, “What’s wrong?”

Gozan had turned on the bedside lamp. He was wearing an undershirt and nothing else, and his hair was flying everywhere. The skin under his eyes sagged. He looked tired and old, and Khezir had never seen him look so afraid. Not once in his life.

Gozan bent over the girl on the bed, slapped her cheeks lightly, and cooed, “Wake up, please. Wake up.”

He pinched her nostrils closed, waited. She sputtered, and then coughed, thrashed her head from side to side, said, “I’m…Don’t forget…to take out…the dog.”

“She’s fine,” said Khezir. “She’s a sleepyhead. Where’s my knife?”

“What do you want with your knife?”

“Cut the wrist ties, of course. Uncle, are you drunk? What is wrong with you?”

“Your knife is in my bathroom. On the floor.”

“You took my knife?” Khezir asked. “No, I did not take your knife. Would I ever take your knife? You left it in there.”

“That’s crazy,” Khezir said.

He got out of the bed, stepped into his shorts, and walked into Gozan’s bathroom, where he found the woman on the floor, blood soaking into the cream-colored bath mat and staining her yellow hair.

He stared at her. Her name was Margot or Margaret or something, the peachy woman his uncle had talked into coming back with them. Her neck was cut. He liked to do that, but lightly, sex play. Not like this, her head almost separated from her body. Yes, he had cut off heads, but not in
play
.

His knife, the one with the black stone handle and the serrated blade, was next to her.

“I didn’t do this,” Khezir said, looking at his uncle.

Gozan said, “Well, I didn’t do it. I don’t even know if I fucked her. I think I showered. My hair is wet in the back.”

Khezir stared. He had bought the bottles himself at the liquor store. He had opened the bottles and poured the drinks into the glasses. He had put in the pills himself.

Had his uncle drunk from the wrong glass? Had
he?

“The door is locked,” Khezir said. “One of us did it, but it doesn’t matter. You call them. I’ll shower and dress. Don’t worry, Uncle.”

Gozan found his mobile phone and forced himself to make the call.

“Balar,” he said. “We have a problem. It was a mistake, but someone is dead.”

GOZAN WENT TO the door of their shabby room at the Armstrong Hotel and looked through the peephole. He opened the door for Balar Aram and his crew, who came in, moved through the suite like smoke, looked right through Gozan.

Gozan called out, “Balar, she’s in there.”

Balar went into the master bathroom, saw the dead woman lying nearly decapitated on a lake of blood on the floor. Balar’s eyes passed over the corpse. Then he went into the adjoining room, where the other girl was lying on the bed, her arms tied behind her back. Passed out cold.

Balar pulled the window drapes closed.

He said to Gozan in Sumarin, “This is not a holiday, stupid. This is work. And now you and your demented nephew have gone too far. Yes, Kheziralar. I mean you.”

Gozan said, “I told you that this was a mistake.”

Balar entered the smaller, second bath, yanked the shower curtain from the rod, spread it on the floor. He told Khezir to help him move the girl from his bed to the bathroom floor, and when she was lying on the plastic curtain, Balar took a gun from his inside jacket pocket. He screwed the suppressor onto the muzzle and shot her once in the head, twice in the chest.

Fffut, ffut, ffut.

Gozan felt his own blood leave him. It was as if the lights were flickering. He wasn’t a crazy man. He wasn’t evil. He didn’t want these women to die.

Balar was saying, “Gozan, put on your shoes.”

Gozan got into the small elevator with Balar, stood next to him, smelled what the man had eaten for dinner, and tried not to panic or get sick. He kept his eyes on the café menu on the panel above the buttons and asked no questions, because he knew none would be answered.

The car bumped to a stop. Gozan and Balar got out and walked toward the reception desk, where a stout middle-aged woman in a hotel uniform put down the phone and smiled.

“Good evening, gentlemen. How may I help you?”

The woman’s name tag read
L. Bird.

Balar said, “Miss Bird, my name is Colonel Balar Aram. I am from the Sumar mission to the United States.” He spoke quickly and with a heavy accent.

“Oh,” said the desk clerk. She looked at the ID the man presented.

Balar said, “Your guests Mr. Remari and Mr. Mazul are of the royal family of Sumar, and their lives are in imminent danger. I must take them out by the service elevator. Do you understand? No one can use the elevator until we are gone. You have the credit card imprint?”

“For Mr. Remari? Yes, absolutely.”

“Consider this express checkout.”

“Absolutely,” the woman said again. She gave Balar the key to the service elevator and directions to the alley behind the hotel, and he gave the woman a hundred dollars.

Gozan sat with Khezir in the rear of the SUV as the Black Guard cleaned the room, removed the bodies through the back door, then returned to the reception area, where they destroyed the computer at the front desk and ripped out the surveillance camera. He could hear the muzzle fire through the glass when they shot the clerk.

Khezir said, “I hear sirens. Do you hear them?”

It was about two o’clock in the morning. Gozan wasn’t sure he and Khezzy were going to see the sun come up. Since its socialist revolution in the 1950s, Sumar had been a secular state. But if Gozan had believed in a God, now would have been the time to pray.

Instead, he just said to his nephew, “Don’t worry, Khezzy. Balar is taking care of us. We will be okay.”