Private Vegas (29 page)

Val saw that the women sitting around her were smiling, almost purring,
Uh-huh, uh-huh
, as Lester Olsen stirred their fantasies of wealth beyond imagining.

Val wanted to make sure her mic was still in place and that her machine was still recording, but she forced herself to keep her hands still and look eager as Olsen said, “Say good-bye to Target and Payless. You have to dress well, and go where the wealthy men are.” Olsen smiled at Leila, Angie, Krista, and Val. “Rent a studio in the champagne-and-caviar section of town, or simply shop there. Be seen. Splurge on good seats at sporting events or gate-crash after the ticket takers are gone and have a drink with the guests in the hospitality tent.”

Val saw an opportunity to steer the conversation where she wanted it to go.

She said, “Mr. Olsen—”

“Lester, please.”

“Lester. You’d still have to be pretty lucky to meet your future husband in the produce aisle. And, actually, wouldn’t a wealthy man be more inclined to date someone who was introduced to him by a friend?”

“Well, that’s right, Valerie,” Olsen said. “And I was just about to make this very point. When you volunteer at a sports match or a political event, you should make friends with women who travel in those circles, women who may know a lonely millionaire looking for love. Seek out the rich old ladies. Flatter them. Befriend them. They love to make matches,” he said with a wink. “Even with their married men friends.”

He told stories of a former pupil who got a sales job at a Mercedes dealership, and another who met her mega-millionaire at his wife’s funeral.

Val took notes, and after homework had been assigned and the other women were leaving, Val said she had some questions, if Lester had a moment to spare.

“You bet,” Olsen said. “In fact, Valerie, I was just thinking that you might be interested in a private service I offer to very few students. Hey. Want to talk about this over dinner?”

ALIZÉ WAS ON the fifty-sixth floor of the Palms Casino Resort, and their table was right up by the wall of steeply slanted windows. It was like being in the control tower of an airport—or, no, like being in the cockpit of an airliner, looking out onto untold miles of neon lights stretching out to the horizon.

Val had to admit to herself it was the most romantic restaurant she’d ever seen or imagined. Was it possible to get drunk on a glorious view? Delicious food? Amusing company?

Yes. Although she’d also had a good deal of wine.

Lester Olsen was looking at her with a sweet expression, and if she hadn’t suspected him of professional predation and exceptional scam artistry, she might have felt attracted to him. How could she not? He had said, “Do you know how beautiful you are? How smart? What poise you have, Valerie? And yet, your vulnerability and your willingness to trust is very appealing. You are a prize. A treasure. I see a tremendous future for you.”

She was getting high on his attention alone.

She thanked him, finished all but the last bite of the phyllo-wrapped pear and Roquefort appetizer, and allowed her wineglass to be refilled. Lester put down his wineglass and got to the heart of his pitch.

“Valerie, you were right when you said today that searching for wealthy men by yourself is hit or miss. What would you say if I told you I could make the kind of introduction that would lead you to the altar with a man who will give you the life you deserve? And this promise is guaranteed.”

The guaranteed life you deserve. Exactly what Mo-bot had highlighted in the ad she’d uncovered.

“How do you guarantee love for life?” Val asked.

“Money back for the life of the customer,” Olsen said, smiling. “That’s the only kind of guarantee that’s worth anything.”

“So true,” said Val. This was it. The pitch she’d been hoping for. She wondered if her pounding heart would overwhelm her microphone, smother the transmission to the recorder. She touched the mic through her clothes, tapped it with her middle finger.

“So, this isn’t a free service, right, Lester?”

Lester laughed from his gut, a real warm, hearty laugh. “You’re good, Val. Yes, there’s money involved, but to begin with, let’s go window-shopping for a man worthy of you. And that won’t cost you a dime.”

Val sat back as the waiter deftly placed her pan-seared breast of duck and cauliflower puree in front of her. Another waiter filled her wineglass yet again.

She smiled across the candlelit table at Lester Olsen.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to shop,” she said.

I WAS IN my office on a conference call with Jorge Suarez and Andrew Boone, operations heads of Private’s Lisbon and London offices, respectively, when the GPS tracking device I’d stuck under Tommy’s car alerted my phone. I checked his car’s route on my screen and saw that Tommy’s car had stopped in Inglewood, a very rough part of town and far from my brother’s usual haunts.

When I signed off from the meeting, Tom’s car was still in Inglewood and I had no plans for the evening.

Emilio Cruz was in the underground lot unlocking his car when I got there.

I said to him, “Tom’s up to something, ’Milio. He’s been parked on West Boulevard near Fifty-Eighth for an hour and that’s not his beat, you know? You busy? Want to take a ride?”

“Are you buying dinner too?”

I grinned at him. “Of course.”

Cruz had no love for Tommy and had come to hate him even more since Tom had begun dogging Rick’s trial for no good reason.

Cruz said, “I’m never too busy to watch your psycho brother, Jack. Give me the keys.”

We took a fleet car, a five-year-old Chevy Impala I’d picked up at a repo sale because it can blend in anywhere. Twenty minutes later, we were parked on West Boulevard, in front of a shabby row of one-story houses and across the street from a low-budget strip mall. A spaghetti war of tangled wires hung overhead.

Tommy’s red Ferrari was thirty yards up ahead, our side of the street. His ride was conspicuous by design, but in this scraping-the-bottom, have-not neighborhood, it was like waving a red freaking flag.

I didn’t get it.

A clump of hooded kids were standing around the Ferrari, not jacking it, which told me that Tommy had hired them to stand guard.

Cruz got out of the car without saying why. He’s an imposing guy. Muscular, and the bulge under his jacket made it clear that he was packing.

I wasn’t looking for trouble. Not this kind, and as Cruz headed toward the group of kids, I yelled, “Emilio. Come back.”

He waved to me as he kept going, signaling,
Don’t worry. It’s okay.

By then, the kids had seen Cruz coming toward them, and they shouted catcalls and showed a lot of junior-punk attitude. Cruz yelled out something in Spanish, and the kids stopped shouting. But they stood their ground.

The situation looked like it could break bad in an instant.

I opened the car door and was ready to join the party, but by the time my foot touched pavement, the body language had changed and the tension had died. Cruz handed something over to the biggest kid, then came back to our car.

We both got in, closed the doors, and Cruz said, “Well, that was twenty bucks well spent. Tommy’s in there.”

He hooked a thumb behind us, indicating the Lutheran church down the block. It was an adobe-style building with sand-colored stucco walls, a red-brick roof, and security gates on the front doors.

“Tommy’s at church? That would be a first,” I said.

Cruz said, “They got a Gamblers Anonymous meeting on Sunday nights.”

I turned in my seat, saw that the church was emptying out, people leaving in ones and twos. I saw my brother walking with another man, and they were absorbed in intense conversation, maybe arguing.

Tommy’s companion seemed familiar to me, but he was out of context and I struggled to put a name to the face. The two of them walked under a streetlight, then into the shadows, then they crossed the street and moved farther away.

Soon, I was looking at the streetlight shining on the back of the guy’s balding head as he called good night to my brother and unlocked his car.

Who was he?

I couldn’t quite grab the guy’s name, but I knew that I had to do it, that something big was at stake. As his car door slammed and his engine caught, it came to me. I remembered him and had a good idea how he was linked to Tommy.

I had to make a move.

I had to do it right now.

RICK HAD HIS butt in his hard seat behind the defense table, and Caine was sitting beside him in a chair on the aisle. Now there was a badass cop sitting right behind Rick, keeping his eyes on the back of his head, ready to leap over the bar and throw him to the floor if he got out of his chair.

The cop was assigned because of the shots Rick took at Dexter Lewis. Lucky for him that Lewis, that prick, hadn’t revoked his bail, or he would’ve spent his weekend in the Men’s Central Jail, protecting his ass and trying not to get puked on by drunks.

Today, both sides were going to give their closing arguments, and then the jury would decide if Rick would be either (a) living in his house on the canal, working with Cruz and Jack, leading the good life, or (b) spending ten years in a cell, eating slop, being strip-searched, goaded, insulted. Having a murderous thug for a cellie—or worse.

And why was he in this jam?

Because that shit, Sutter Brown Truck, had put him at the scene of a crime he hadn’t committed. He wasn’t just innocent, he was as innocent as a little baby lamb. He was a retired officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, for God’s sake. He’d seen action. He was
decorated
.

This whole pile of crap about Vicky was a frame.

And that made Rick want to lunge across the aisle and punch Dexter Lewis’s face again. If he was found guilty, he just might do it.

There was a soft whoosh of robes as the judge came through the door behind the bench. The bailiff told everyone to rise, and they did, and then everyone sat down. In that moment, Rick turned his head, looked to see who had come to the show.

Jack was behind him, four rows back, and Cruz, his partner, was standing in the rear of the room, giving him a nod. Rick snapped his head to the front so that his friends wouldn’t see him get emotional, for God’s sake.

Caine put his hand on Rick’s arm, said, “You okay?”

“Dandy.”

“Something happened last night. I’m gonna take a shot.”

“At what? A shot at what?”

Before the bailiff could bring in the jury, Caine was on his feet. He said to the judge, “Your Honor, I want to put a witness on the stand.”

“Didn’t you rest your case on Friday?” said the judge.

“Something came up over the weekend Your Honor. The defense wants to call Bradley Sutter.”

Rick couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Brad Sutter, the UPS guy? That guy hated him, and now Brown was going to testify for him? That was crazy.

Lewis stood up, said, “Your Honor, we know nothing about this witness—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Lewis. Mr. Sutter was
your
witness. You know everything about him. Or you should.”