Vegas Vengeance (5 page)

“Used to it? Are you a dancer in Vegas or something?”

For her age, she had an incongruously husky laugh. “Me? In Vegas? That's a good one. No, I live in a camp across the ridge. There are about thirty of us. Like a commune. We're nudists.”

“A nudist camp.”

“Yeah, but it's a lot more than that. We're really like a family. A real commune. We've got a cook house, a gigantic garden, a workshop, a school for the kids. That's how I got to know Jason. He came and taught the earth sciences. Biology, geology, botany. Even taught a basic business class once—the adults loved that. I've always been heavy into meditation, and he told me what a great place this cabin was to sit in. Meditate, I mean. And he was right. Really good vibes up here. Clears the mind and opens it right up to all the wavelengths most people forget they can listen to.” She released his hand and looked at him with sly blue eyes. “So that leaves you. Why are you up here?”

“Like I said: looking for Jason.”

Nonchalantly she opened a wooden chest and pawed through a mound of clothes until she found a shirt. She put the shirt on, but didn't bother to button it. “Looking for Jason, huh?”

“Yes.”

She cocked her head slightly. “Why are you lying to me? It's not necessary.”

“But I'm not lying, Wendy.”

“No? But you know Jason is dead.”

“Do I?”

“Your mind tells me you do.”

“So now you're a mind reader, too.”

“With some people, I am.” She nodded as if the knowledge still impressed even her. “Some people block me out entirely. But not you. I picked up the vibes from you the moment you walked in.”

Hawker wondered why he was beginning to feel so uncomfortable. To cover his uneasiness, he pulled out a wooden chair and sat down. “And what do my vibes tell you, Wendy?”

She could have taken his tone as the lightest sarcasm, but she didn't. The blond girl thought hard for a moment. “I sense a lot of goodness in you. I felt immediate trust for you—if I hadn't, I'd have gotten the hell out the moment you came in. I always follow my instincts, James.”

“Well, I'm flattered, Wendy—”

She held up her hands, cutting him off. “Don't talk. You asked me what kind of vibes I picked up, and I want to tell you as clearly as I can.” She rolled her head back, loosening her neck muscles. “That's the first thing I felt: that goodness in you. But then I began to get a lot of dark stuff. Evil. It kind of scared me at first. That's when I asked if you were a friend of Jason's. If you had said yes, I would have left. I'd have known you were lying. But then I began to realize that none of that dark stuff, that evil, was directed at me.” She looked at Hawker innocently. “It's kind of confusing, huh?”

“Yeah,” James Hawker said. “It is.”

“You've killed people, haven't you? A lot of people.”

Confronted with her total openness, Hawker couldn't lie. “Yes, Wendy, I have.”

“Like in a war or something?”

“Yes. A war. In a way.”

“And they were bad people? Evil people?”

“I hope so, Wendy. Sometimes I worry I've made mistakes, but I don't think I have.”

She nodded as if accepting that. “And now you've come to find the men who murdered Jason. And when you find them, you plan to kill them?”

“Not if I can help it. I don't really know.”

She stood abruptly and bent over Hawker. She kissed him very tenderly on the lips. Then she opened the door to leave. “I hope you don't find them, James Hawker. I hope you don't find them, because I picked up something else in the vibes. Something bad. Something very bad.”

Hawker was still thinking about the extraordinary softness of her lips. “And what's that, Wendy?”

“It's death, James. Your death. I sense that you are to die soon. Maybe not this week; maybe not even this year. But soon. Too soon.”

As she stepped onto the porch and trotted into the yard, she called over her shoulder, “I live just over that ridge, James. I hope you'll come and see me. Any time, day or night, it doesn't matter. You'll be welcome.…”

Hawker sat unmoving for several minutes. He had met the hippie types before: the whole cast of pot smokers, meditators, bead weavers, free livers, pseudo-intellectuals and the general run of drug-damaged do-nothings all of those things implied.

But still, Wendy Nierson didn't seem to fit neatly into those categories. Her openness, her honesty, in fact, seemed to put her above the narrow cubbyholing of human types.

Hawker thought about her for a while longer, then stood. He had work to do. He had come to search Jason Stratton's cabin, not waste time wondering about one woman's surprising display of extrasensory perception.

So he did just that: searched the cabin.

There was surprisingly little dust about for a place supposedly vacant for several weeks. But that could have been because Wendy had been using it, keeping it clean.

Stratton seemed to have few material belongings. The books on the shelves over the bed were mostly nonfiction. Academic works on biology, geology, the arts.

He had made a table out of planking and cement blocks. On the table were a microscope, a few jars of chemicals, then a long row of jars. In the jars, soaking in formaldehyde, were various species of spiders, insects and snakes.

Hawker looked closely at the jars of chemicals. Because they were not labeled, he found some envelopes and took samples of each.

Also on the table was a display case of rocks. Many were quite beautiful: raw crystals of red, blue, green and clear white. Another looked like salt crystals immersed in shiny black tar. Some were labeled with their scientific names. Others weren't. Outside the display case were mounds of other rocks, beside which were a geologist's hammer and a stone polishing machine.

He put samples of the rocks in separate envelopes.

Hawker knew that almost everyone had a secret hiding place: a place to stash money, private papers, diaries.

He spent half an hour looking for Stratton's before he found it: inside the wall behind a broken board.

There was $732 in cash, a life insurance policy and a notebook.

Hawker put it all in a manila envelope, then climbed back into the Jaguar and took his time driving back to Las Vegas, enjoying the scenery he had missed on the trip out.

six

Half an hour late, Barbara Blaine parted the crowd in the elegant Mirage dining room as with a wave of her hand.

She singled out Hawker sitting in a far corner and allowed the maitre d' to escort her to the table.

Hawker had expected a gaudier woman. A woman who, because of her unusual social position, cultivated a go-to-hell look through loud clothes, heavy makeup, bright colors and an avante garde hairstyle.

He was pleasantly surprised.

Everything about Barbara Blaine was subtle, understated. She was one of the long, lithe ones. A hint of Mediterranean in the glossy black hair, the hollow cheeks and the penetrating brown eyes. A suggestion of the athlete in the fluidness of her walk. The implication of the successful business-person in the assertive movements, the no-nonsense gaze above the winning smile.

Her evening gown was held by a single shoulder strap, the gown a silver satin creation that flowed down over the svelte swell of breasts, the flexing convexity of buttocks, the sleek brown legs. She carried the small pearl handbag as naturally as, Hawker was sure, she would carry an expensive briefcase.

He found himself standing at her approach. Her handshake was dry, firm and brief. A chairman-of-the-board handshake.

“I'm late,” she said. It was not an apology. It was a statement.

“I thought no one looked at clocks in Las Vegas,” Hawker said as they took their seats.

“Oh, there are still a few of us who haven't fallen under the spell of complete and unremitting debauchery.” She gave him a careful look as she opened the velvet menu proffered by the maitre d'.

“I'm nursing a beer, Barbara. Drink?”

“I shouldn't, but I will. It's been one of those damn crazy days.” She gave her order to the waiter rather than Hawker. “Billy, I want the biggest, driest, coldest martini that rummy bartender of yours can build. Let me work on it for about twenty minutes, then bring me an artichoke salad—double portion—and a pot of coffee. Sweet 'n Low but no cream.”

“Right away, Miss Blaine.”

Her order was given so succinctly that the waiter got halfway to the kitchen before remembering he had failed to get Hawker's dinner order.

Hawker ordered the onion soup, prime rib au jus, baron cut, a dish of cold asparagus with mayonnaise and a double order of garlic toast.

When he had finished, he folded the menu and turned his attention to the woman across the table from him.

“It was nice of you to agree to this meeting,” he said.

“Nothing nice about it,” she countered. “Kevin Smith says you might be able to help us. I have no intention of selling the Doll House, and I don't care to spend the next year living in fear for the lives of my friends. If you can help us, I will cooperate in any way I can.”

“You play the part of the steely businesswoman very nicely.”

“Maybe I'm not playing a part. Maybe I'm just that: steely.” The waiter brought her martini. She tasted it experimentally and nodded that it was satisfactory. She spun the swizzle stick in her fingers as she continued. “And I am a businesswoman, Mr. Hawker. Even in my business, people who see me rarely mistake me for anything else. But I must admit that you look nothing like I pictured you.”

“Oh?”

“Not at all. I guess I expected the Sam Spade type. Cheap suit frayed at the elbows. Rough complexion. Cigarette sticking out of the corner of your mouth. A bulge under your lapel where your gun is holstered. Glassy scars on your jaws and knuckles.” She peered at him closely over the candle in the center of the table. “But I guess you do have a few scars, don't you?”

“A few. I hope they make up for the other shortcomings.”

She laughed. “Oh, I'm not disappointed in you. Not yet. Kevin Smith speaks highly of your abilities.” Her gaze narrowed. “In fact, he said you were something of a legend among the major police departments in this country. He said he had never even met you before yesterday, yet he was sure you were the ideal man for the job when he realized that neither he nor the official police could handle it. I wonder why, Mr. Hawker. Why would one man be able to succeed where a whole force of trained policemen might fail?”

Hawker shrugged. “To begin with, I'm not Mr. Hawker. That was my father. I'm ‘James' or ‘Hawk' or just about anything else you care to call me. And maybe it's because I don't take coffee breaks. And I don't have a union that charges time and a half. And, of course, there are no guarantees I won't fail. Working undercover offers certain advantages, but it also makes me more vulnerable.”

“Is that right? For some reason, you don't strike me as the vulnerable type.”

“I become especially vulnerable when the people I'm after have a spy in my own camp.”

She put down her drink quickly, her face incredulous. “What? You can't mean that.”

Hawker shrugged. “Today on the telephone, I told you I planned to check out Jason Stratton's cabin this afternoon. I left a note for Captain Smith telling him the same thing. Through one of those two sources, the organization trying to force you out of your businesses was informed.”

“I didn't tell a damn soul!”

“I'm not saying you did. It was stupid of me to leave the information in a note. Anyone could have opened it, read it, then put it in a fresh envelope. It's a mistake I will never make again.”

“Or the telephone lines could have been tapped,” Barbara Blaine said thoughtfully.

Hawker nodded. “Or they could have bugged my room. I didn't have time to give it a thorough going over when I returned late this afternoon, but I will tonight.”

“But they knew where you were going? And they followed you?”

Hawker poured the rest of his Tuborg into the pilsner glass. He didn't want to go into too much detail. For one thing, he had no real proof that he could trust this woman. On the way out to Vegas, he had formed several possible scenarios to explain the extortion attempt on the Five-Cs complex. One of the scenarios was that Jason Stratton hadn't been murdered—he had disappeared voluntarily to work undercover against the Five-Cs with his accomplice, Barbara Blaine.

The scenario didn't seem to fit now. Barbara Blaine seemed too earnest; the things he had found in Stratton's cabin suggested that he had, indeed, been kidnapped or murdered.

Even so, Hawker omitted some key information from his story. He had learned very quickly that in Las Vegas, the opposition only needs one small opening to kill you.

She listened transfixed to the story of the car chase. “But what happened after they wrecked their car?” she demanded. “Did they talk? Did they say anything?”

Hawker looked at her levelly. “They were both killed.”

Her hand trembled slightly as she touched the martini glass to her lips. “They were killed? In the car wreck, you mean?”

“In the paper tomorrow you will read that the two men somehow got into a fight with each other while driving through Kyle Canyon. The police will be confused, so they will say that it is still under investigation. But they will decide the two men killed each other. The car, of course, then went out of control and wrecked.”

“You
killed them,” she whispered.

Hawker looked away noncommittally.

“But did they tell you anything first? Did you find out who hired them—”

“No. They didn't grant me an interview. They were too busy trying to convert me into a corpse so they could dump me and my car into the canyon.”

“My God,” she said. “Then I … I was right. Jason is … they really did kill him?”