Private Vegas (32 page)

Folded towels were on a rack in the bathroom, but if there had been any used towels, they were gone. Porcelain glistened under the fingerprint powder, and even the stopper had been removed from the sink.

I stood in the doorway between the two rooms and saw that 405 was a mirror image of 403. Stripped beds, fingerprint powder, no obvious trace of blood.

Professionals had made all the evidence disappear.

Warren said, “Here’s the sum total of what we’ve got, Jack. Fogarty’s five-second look at distinctive arm tattoos on a man with big hair and a big nose. He also saw the backs of two plus-size blondes. That’s all, but I know it was them. Remari, that pervert. And the other one. Mazul with those tattoos.”

I commiserated with the captain, and then went out to the balcony. It was sparsely furnished with a glass table and two homely lounge chairs. The view was equally spare: a deserted service road running parallel to the distant freeway. Directly below the balcony was a foundation planting of haphazardly trimmed hedges.

The smog was eye-watering. I was about to go back inside when I caught a glimpse of something forty feet down in the shrubbery, an object that didn’t belong. I called Warren and pointed until he saw the cell phone too.

He gripped the railing, exhaled hard.

“Is it too much to hope that that phone belongs to one of those pukes from Sumar?” he asked.

“Are you feeling lucky?” I said.

VAL KENNEY WAS fifteen minutes late for her 6:00 p.m. appointment with Lester Olsen, and she was worried about that. Would Olsen wait for her or not? And by the way, she was still kind of lost.

She called Mo-bot, who told her to take a sharp left on West Spring Mountain Road, go one block, then take another left into the strip-mall parking lot. Val did that but couldn’t find an empty spot. She swore, apologized to Mo, then drove around the block and parked on the street.

“I’m good now, Mo.”

“Good. Take a breath. Never let ’em see you sweat.”

Val laughed, took a moment to touch up her lipstick. Then, gripping her handbag, she doubled back to the strip mall, walked along the row of shops until she saw the discreet, inset doorway between a pizzeria and a tanning salon, the inscription
Love for Life
etched in the glass.

Val pressed the buzzer, and a smiling Lester Olsen opened the door wide and welcomed her into his office. He looked boyish in a pink polo shirt, jeans, running shoes. She smelled peppermint on his breath.

“I’m sorry. I made a wrong turn,” Val said. “It took forever to turn around.”

“Forgive the mess,” Lester said, ushering her through a minimal reception area into a room at the back. “This is my work space and I don’t usually have people here, but we have work to do, don’t we? Sit there, Val.”

Lester showed her to a chair across from his desk, asked, “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

Val said, “Thanks, no. I’m good.”

Lester went around to his desk chair, saying, “Are you ready, Val? This might be the turning point of your life. Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

“I cannot wait,” she said.

“Me neither,” Olsen said, grinning, reaching out and touching her wrist. “I’ve picked out five superb candidates from my prospect files, all very wealthy men who have been waiting half their lives to meet a woman like you.”

He bent to his computer, clicked around, said, “They’re all older than men you might ordinarily date. They’re in their seventies, got a couple in their eighties. All five have more money than you could even believe.”

“So you haven’t told me how this works, Lester. If one of these candidates and I get married—he pays your fee?”

“Something like that,” said Olsen. “Now, let’s get in the right mood. Imagine that our very rich, very old dude cannot believe his luck and wants to marry you right away, because he really doesn’t have much time left. He has heart problems. And he’s lonely in his gigantic, double-wide, California king.”

“You
are
funny, Lester.”

He was not only funny but articulate and convincing. He had all the traits of a sociopathic con man.

Olsen grinned and said, “If we do this right, it’s going to be fun. So, before we leave my office, we select your future husband. Then you follow my instructions on how to land him, treat him, keep him. I’ll be your personal coach. Your silent partner. When he dies, you will become a very wealthy widow, and you and I will split your inheritance. How does that sound?”

“My God. I—don’t know.”

Olsen had laid out his plan, but where was the crime? Marrying a man for money and waiting for him to die wasn’t illegal, and it didn’t connect Olsen to Tule Archer’s threats to her husband.

She said, “I never thought of this…I mean, it sounds intriguing, but also so…cold-blooded.”

“Oh, I get you. Val, look at it this way. You’re giving someone a very happy ending, someone who isn’t going to need the money after he dies. But you can say no, and I hope you don’t feel that I wasted your time.”

Val lowered her eyes, pretended to think it over. She’d observed enough police interrogations to know when to take the lead and when to just listen.

Olsen turned his laptop around so that she could see it.

“Let’s meet the contenders,” he said.

VAL LEANED ACROSS the desk and peered at the file Olsen had opened on his laptop.

Olsen said, “Bachelor number one is Morris Furman.”

Photo came up of an old guy of about ninety sitting in a unique handmade chair on a huge porch. He had a serious-looking drink in his claw-like hand. A TV on a cart near the railing showed what seemed to be a horse race. His hair was thin, his glasses were thick, and he had wall-to-wall liver spots on his arms.

“Attractive guy, right?”

Olsen looked up at her and winked. “Now, listen, Val. Morris used to be head of an insurance company. A nice clean business. He has a hundred million in U.S. markets, and then he’s got another bundle in real estate. He lost his wife twenty years ago, and his children are in their sixties. Has a pacemaker. His third, I think. Morris is what I call a catch and a half.”

“You know him?” Val asked.

“Sure, I know him. He’s my grandfather.”

“He is?” Val looked up from the computer.

Olsen was laughing.

“Just joking, Val. I know him because he comes to the casinos when he’s in town. Lives in Butte, Montana. He would fly you out to meet him in half a heartbeat. Which could be his last one. Or perhaps you could
cause
his last heartbeat. Just don’t have sex with him until after the wedding, okay?”

Val said, “You can count on
that
.”

“That’s fine, Val. But, all kidding aside, you understand you don’t want to marry a young tycoon who wraps you up in a prenup, then divorces you. How long do you want your husband to live?”

Val did her best to figure out how to handle this moment. Pay out the line, or set the hook? Her hands were sweating. Her skin was damp at her hairline.

“Actually, I would like some water now.”

Lester got up, went to the small fridge near the credenza, brought back a bottle of Artesian Springs. Then he sat down, and as he was navigating around his computer, Val said, “But even if the dude is old…well, there’s no guarantee that he’s going to die soon.”

“Uh, well, think about it. The money-back guarantee depends on you. Maybe you’ll have to give your antique husband a little push for that multimillion-dollar payoff, see? I can only do so much.”

A little push. Tule Archer was trying to frighten Hal into a heart attack by telling him that she was killing him in her dreams. He’d responded by killing
her
in real life.

Reflexively, Val touched the microphone that was attached like a rosebud to the center of her bra and tapped it with her middle finger. And Olsen, seeing that, got to his feet fast.

He was standing right over her, boxing her in. His expression was suddenly cold and menacing.

Oh my God. What had she done?

LESTER OLSEN HAD lost his boyishness and his humor, and the man that remained was scaring her half to death.

“What just happened, Val?”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong, Lester?”

“I’m a poker player, Val. One of the best. You know what a tell is? It’s when someone gives himself away with an unconscious movement. Like what you just did when you touched yourself. That was a classic tell.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you know what? I don’t think this is for me—”

Val pushed her chair back, but she was up against the wall and there was nowhere to go.

“You did that at dinner the other night,” Olsen said, tapping the middle of his own chest with his third finger, “and I ignored it. See how you put your water bottle between us? Another tell. I shouldn’t have second-guessed myself. I bet you’re wearing a wire.”

He put his crippled hands at either side of the V-neck of her blouse.

“If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize.”

Fabric tore. Val gasped and tried to cover herself, but Olsen forced her hands aside and plucked the mic off her bra. Then, in one smooth movement, he reached around, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a gun. He put the mic on his desk and shattered it with the butt of his gun.

Val’s mind spun. She reached for a plausible explanation, then launched it. “Lester. Let me explain. I’m a reporter. I’m doing a story on how to land a wealthy man. That’s all. The story is going to be good for you.”

“Who are you working for?”

“San Francisco Chronicle.”

“Who’s the publisher?”

Val sputtered nonsense, then tried to get out of the chair as Olsen swung his hand and slammed the side of the gun into her jaw. Val fell back into the seat, put her hands to her face, and stifled a cry of pain.

“Who’s on the other end of the mic?”

“FBI. My people have been listening. They’ll be in here any second now. I suggest you back away from me and figure out how you’re going to explain what you’ve just done.”

“Shut up, Val, and don’t bother lying to me. You’re an amateur and I can spot your lies before they hatch.”

He lifted her purse from where it hung at the back of her chair and emptied it onto the desk with one hand. He turned off the recorder and the phone, put both in his pocket.

“Stand up,” he said.

Val gripped the arms of the chair. She said, “Nothing has happened, Lester. I was taping into my
purse
. Let me go and I’ll say I walked into a wall and I’ll forget I ever met you.”

“Stand up. Put your hands behind your back,” he said. “Or I’ll kill you right here and right now.”