Loe raamatut: «Sleepless in Las Vegas»

CHAPTER ONE

THE PHONE RANG, giving Val LeRoy a start. If it rang more than once or twice a day at Diamond Investigations, maybe she’d get used to its high-pitched jangle.

She swallowed the last bite of her lunchtime tuna-with-chutney sandwich while checking the caller ID. No name, but a 219 area code. She had been trying to memorize different area codes—after all, a phone was a private investigator’s most powerful tool. She wasn’t a P.I. yet, but when the day came, she wanted to be a knowledge bank in stilettos.

This incoming call was from...Michigan? No, Indiana. As she reached for the receiver, she noticed a glob of papaya chutney on her fingers.

Another jangling ring.

She didn’t want to sticky up the phone with her gooey fingers, but Jayne Diamond, her boss, insisted Val always answer using the handset, never putting the phone on speaker, to maintain the confidentiality of conversations. Rules, rules, rules. That woman had more than a reform school. Val had to remind herself constantly that being mentored by one of the best investigators in Las Vegas was worth all the restrictions.

Keeping in mind the confidentiality of the call, she glanced through the picture window next to the agency’s front door, which offered a view of their business parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Their office was a renovated corner bungalow on a street with other similar bungalows. Not a high-traffic area. Although they sometimes had walk-ins, nobody was headed toward the agency on foot, and the only car in the lot was Jayne’s shiny Mazda Miata.

She glanced at Jayne’s office door. Closed.

Val rapped the speaker button with her knuckle.

“Diamond Investigations,” she answered softly, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk.

“Uh, are you a private investigator?” The man’s voice was low, hesitant.

“Yes.” Technically an apprentice, but Jayne didn’t want her saying that to potential clients. So Val could answer yes to such a question, but the truth was she’d done little else other than screen calls these first few months of her internship.

“I...think my wife’s...having an affair.”

Have mercy, a brokenhearted tale was on its way. She wiped her fingers with the tissue. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name, sir?”

“George. My wife’s name is...Sandy.” He cleared his throat. “She started acting different about four months ago...in April, around our anniversary...doing things like walking into the other room to answer her cell, losing weight, buying new clothes. I suppose I coulda justified some of that, but when she started working later and later...”

Val watched a bright orange angelfish dart around rocks in the aquarium against the far wall, guessing what was coming next—Sandy was traveling to Las Vegas for A, a business trip; B, to visit family; C, to see old friends....

“Anyhoo...” He blew out a puff of breath. “Sandy is flying to Las Vegas later next week—on Friday, August sixteen—for a reunion...some kind of hookup with her cheerleader buddies from high school...”

Or another kind of hookup.

“And...” His voice grew thin. “I was wondering if...”

A P.I. could follow Sandy while she’s in Sin City.

“You could follow her?”

“We offer such services,” she affirmed. Val couldn’t wait for the day when she could just say yes and take on a case. But for now, she only passed on callers’ information to Jayne, who would make the final decision.

“I know the hotel my wife will be at...she mentioned renting a Dodge Charger...”

Ever since meeting her best pal, Cammie, a real-life P.I., a year ago, and hearing her stories about sitting on stakeouts, digging through trash to find evidence, interviewing witnesses to crimes, Val wanted nothing more than to be a private eye, too. But first, she needed to earn a Nevada license, which required logging ten thousand hours of investigative experience. After that, the plan had been for Val to become a student Watson to Cammie’s Sherlock in their own kick-ass, all-girl Las Vegas agency.

Val had to make adjustments to the plan when Cammie found true love and moved to Denver, but she hadn’t given up.

Jayne’s door creaked open, followed by the tap-tap of her sensible heels across the hardwood floor.

Which stopped abruptly at Val’s desk.

“...I could describe what clothes she’ll be bringing, jewelry, too, although...” George sniffed loudly. “I guess she might not be wearing her wedding ring...”

Val looked up at her boss, a trim sixtysomething with cut-glass cheekbones and gray-blue eyes that always seemed to carry within them a withering understanding of the human condition.

Jayne shot one of those withering looks at the phone, back to Val.

Who shrugged apologetically. She could almost hear another “you can’t always do things your way” lecture.

“I had that ring made special for her...” George stifled a sob.

Jayne mouthed a silent “no” while plucking a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of her linen blazer, the same bloodless color as her short, bobbed hair. The blazer used to fit her better before she started losing weight recently.

Jayne jotted something on a notepad on the desk and held it up for Val to read: no infidelity cases.

Val nodded, waiting for George to calm down.

“Unfortunately,” she said gently, “we’re currently not accepting infidelity cases.”

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which the hum of the aquarium pump filled the room, Val added, “Let me give you the number of another P.I. who might be able to help you.”

After looking up the information on her computer, she gave him the number and ended the call.

Then she rolled her gaze up to Jayne’s.

“You cannot always do things your way,” the older woman began, arching a pale eyebrow. “Although I admire your strength of will and creativity—” she glanced at Val’s purple-streaked black hair, which today she’d knotted into a loose chignon “—you have a habit of forgetting that investigations are not always about autonomy. Often you must work closely with people. Even if you disagree with them or believe you have a more advantageous idea, it would behoove you to treat others’ suggestions with respect.”

Sometimes she wondered why Jayne always made it sound as though Val were interacting unbehoovingly with some nameless third party and not Jayne herself. But then, her boss had a way of distancing herself, as though she was always observing the world rather than living in it.

“Yes, indeed,” Val agreed, “I knew better than to put that call on speaker. Although, if you don’t mind my adding a side note, nobody was in the room with me, so it wasn’t like I was broadcasting the poor man’s broken heart to strangers.”

A look that might pass for amusement flittered across the older woman’s face. “Sometimes I wonder if we should post my rules alongside your side notes.”

The older woman reminded Val of the English actress Helen Mirren—formidable, sophisticated, articulate. But whereas the actress had played her share of industrial-strength women in the movies, Jayne was the real deal. In a Las Vegas Sun interview three months ago, a reporter had referred to her as “one of the best sleuths in Sin City,” and that “a new P.I. earning Jayne’s Diamond Grade designation is like a restaurant earning a Michelin star rating.”

After reading that Sun article, there was only one P.I. Val wanted to be her mentor—Jayne Diamond.

Who now stood in front of her, lips pursed in thought. “What else is on your mind?”

“Well, these landline phones are—” older than dirt “—quite antiquated. Plus, cradling a jumbo-size receiver under my chin while taking notes, looking up information on the computer and talking is like juggling pancakes—hard to keep a grip on everything. It would make so much more sense if we used cell phones.”

“Cell phones have speakers, too. The point is not landline versus mobile, it is about confidentiality.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Jayne.”

“Yes, Jayne.”

“Also...” She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “I’ve reached the conclusion that Diamond Investigations needs to reduce the number of cases it accepts. Starting today, we no longer accept infidelity cases, except if they are part of an investigation that we are already conducting for a law firm.”

“But...I thought infidelity investigations were steady business for a P.I. agency. Although, of course, we don’t accept honey traps.”

When she realized she wanted to be a private eye, Val started religiously watching the reality TV show Honey Catchers to learn about the business. It featured hot-looking private eyes, male and female, whom people hired to set “honey traps” to test their lovers’ fidelity. The P.I., dressed in some sexy outfit rigged with a covert camera, would “accidentally” run into the lover, usually at a bar, and strike up a conversation. Eventually, the P.I. asked for a phone number, a date or even got a little frisky on the spot.

Afterward, the P.I. would show the video to the client. Honey Catchers never showed lovers turning down phone numbers or sexual advances. Which made for a lot of high drama at the end of the shows as the cheated upon confronted the cheater.

“Infidelity investigations can be lucrative, certainly, but we have never conducted honey traps.”

“I know...it’s just that I don’t see the harm in accepting those cases as long as we keep them legal...” Something in Jayne’s face—exhaustion? Distress?—gave Val pause. “We don’t need to do a mentoring session right now if you’re tired.”

Jayne eased into one of the high-back wooden guest chairs that faced Val’s desk. Through the window blinds, hazy sunlight striped the side of her face, highlighting fine lines around her mouth and eyes. “These moments always count, dear.”

She couldn’t think of a single time that Jayne had uttered an endearment, for Val or anyone else.

“Legal,” Jayne repeated. She reflected on that for a moment. “Some agencies seem to believe that inducing the behavior a P.I. should be attempting to objectively document is acceptable. It is not. If a law enforcement officer behaved in such a manner, it would be called entrapment.”

“On some reality cop shows, I’ve seen female cops dress like hookers and lure men, who are then arrested for soliciting prostitution.”

“But those men, when they withdraw their billfolds to pay, exhibit prior predispositions. Honey traps are not telling of the subject’s predisposition. A lawyer could easily attack such frivolous evidence in court.”

As Jayne pushed a wisp of hair off her forehead, Val noticed her hand shook slightly. But she knew not to ask questions because Jayne didn’t like to talk about herself.

Val had learned that well in June, the first time she walked into Diamond Investigations. She had barely shut the door before Jayne made it clear that Val had already broken a rule—clearly stated on the agency website—that people seeking internships were to mail their résumés, not show up in person. Besides, she had curtly added, she was on her way out.

When she swung her purse over her shoulder, the bag knocked a figurine off a side table. Val dived, catching it before it smashed into pieces on the floor.

As she’d stared at the miniature crystal figure—two birds perched side by side on a watering bowl—she swore she felt something faint, like a light passing through her. Although maybe what she experienced had more to do with the tender, yet sad, look on her future boss’s face. For a moment, she and Jayne had shared concern and relief that the crystal birds hadn’t hit the floor and shattered.

After Jayne gently placed the figurine on the top shelf of the bookcase—where it remained to this day—she asked Val why she wanted to be a private investigator. She had answered that she worked well alone, liked solving puzzles and wanted to help people.

Jayne had actually laughed. “If you can accept that this business is often driven by greed, revenge and self-preservation,” she said, “you will be better off. Shall we start your internship next Monday?”

And here they were, two months later, having yet another of their question-and-answer sessions.

Jayne stood, picked up her purse. “I will be gone the remainder of the afternoon.” After a moment of deliberation, she added, “I have changed my mind. For the time being, we are not accepting any new cases until I finalize some...cases I’m working on. Are you still commuting by bus?”

“Yes.” Ever since the brakes and fuel pump went south on Val’s fifteen-year-old Toyota, she had been relying on mass transit. “Mornings are okay, but after five those buses are slower than a bread wagon with biscuit wheels.”

Jayne blinked. “I have never heard that expression.”

“Means they’re slow.”

That pained smile again. “Feel free to close at four. See you tomorrow.”

She watched the older woman leave, not believing that line about finalizing other cases. When Val first started here, the agency carried ten to twelve cases, easy. Currently there were three open cases, two of which were on hold while lawyers decided whether to go to trial. The third involved pulling court records, which took an hour or two. If anything, the agency needed more cases.

No, Jayne was hiding something. From the recent tiredness in her face and the weight loss, Val wondered what her boss was going through. A death in the family? A financial setback?

She glanced at the crystal figurine. This small object had always seemed too fragile in an office furnished with a heavy wooden desk, bookcases, a grandfather clock and scuffed hardwood floors. The birds obviously held deep meaning. Shame Jayne didn’t take it home with her, both for its safekeeping and her own comfort.

Val looked at the picture of her nanny on the corner of the desk. Her grandmother—smiling, her white hair freshly curled, wearing her favorite blue dress—stood in front of her tiny antiques shop, Back in Time Antiques, on Chartres Street in the French Quarter. When Val was growing up, she had commuted with Nanny to the shop from their house in the Ninth Ward, the only home Val had ever known before Katrina.

She had brought the photo to work maybe for the same reason Jayne kept the figurine here. Some objects carried too many memories to keep at home, where your mind could easily wander to the past, to what was lost and never found again.

* * *

THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK chimed four o’clock. As the last metallic note faded, the front door opened and a woman walked in, her perfume smelling faintly like strawberries.

She wore a red halter dress, cut too low, and matching lipstick. Her chestnut hair hung sleek with straight-cut bangs that hovered over almond-shaped eyes. Most walk-ins looked embarrassed, nervous or dubious, but this woman looked determined or surprised, which could just be the unfavorable effect of those overarched Cruella eyebrows.

Without a word, she sat in one of the guest chairs and crossed her slim legs. Val took note of strappy Badgley Mischka sandals, which she guessed were the real deal based on the monster-size bling on the woman’s ring finger.

“My name Marta,” she said, rolling the r in her name. “My fiancé, I think he cheats. I want you to find out.”

Val tried to place the thick accent. Romanian? “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re currently not accepting any new cases.”

Under a veil of thick black lashes, a pair of hazel eyes coolly assessed Val. After a beat, she reached into her purse and extracted a wad of bills bound with a rubber band.

“I pay thousand dollars.” Which sounded like I pay zouzand dolarz. She set it on the edge of the desk.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Tonight,” Marta interrupted, “I know where he goes. I give address, you see if he cheats.”

This woman did not want to take no for an answer.

Val recalled the name of the P.I. she’d looked up earlier. “Bert Warner, just a few blocks away, handles infidelity cases. I can get you his number—”

“No man investigator. Want you to dress up, see if he flirts with you.”

“Sorry, that’s a honey trap, and we never do those.” She was being good reciting the party line, but dang, this kind of work could be profitable.

“Honey trap,” Marta repeated slowly, then smiled, as though liking how the word tasted. She pulled out another wad of bills and set it on the desk. “Two thousand.”

This is how it would be someday when Val ran her own agency. A client would walk in, discuss their problem and Val could say yes, I’ll take your case. And she’d do one helluva good job, too.

She stared at the two grand, cash.

What was so wrong with honey traps anyway? Jayne talked about lawyers attacking the evidence, but wasn’t that what lawyers did in courtrooms for any type of case? Didn’t mean honey trapping was illegal. Cops did it, other P.I.s did it.

Jayne was also an older woman. Obviously she couldn’t conduct a honey trap herself. But Val was young, could pull it off. She had learned a lot watching all those hours of Honey Catchers.

No. She had to stop thinking this way. She had to abide by agency policy. Rules were rules. Even if she disagreed with some of them.

She stared at the wads of bills. Two grand, cash.

Enough to cover a new fuel pump, brakes, with plenty left over to toss into the kitty for the day when she moved out of her cousin’s place into her own.

Marta leaned forward, emotion shining in her eyes. “I come to United States from Russia. I clean houses, make better my English. Now I work in dress store, want to have own business someday. Did not want to fall in love, but...” She shrugged. “He ask me to marry. I say yes, then I hear about other women...” Her chin trembled.

Val nudged the tissue box toward her. “Maybe,” she said gently, “you should talk to him. Tell him what others have told you.”

Marta took a tissue, dabbed the corner of her eye. “Da. Yes. I do. He say no, people lie.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “I must know. Please. Help me.”

Boy, oh, boy, could Val relate to starting over. After Katrina, starting over became the story of her life. After a short stay in the Superdome, Val had relocated to Houston, where FEMA paid her rent for a studio apartment while she looked for work. Maybe if she had felt connected to the city, or at least known somebody, it might have worked out. But there were days she hadn’t even been able to get out of bed, much less tackle job hunting. When she moved to Las Vegas, at least she had family, but it was still tough learning her way around a new city, finding a job, making friends.

If she had also been forced to learn a new culture and language, she would have lost her marbles.

“I’m sorry. It must have been very difficult.”

“I don’t want person...persons...to know I hire private eye.” Marta leaned forward and whispered, “Only you and me to know.”

Val blew out a pent-up breath. It’d be sweet to drive her air-conditioned car again. No more walking in summer triple-digit heat, fighting for seats on crowded buses. She stared at the money. The beauty of cash was nobody could trace it, and this being a one-time gig...she felt a stab of guilt at what she was thinking, but...Jayne would never know.

Besides, one day Val would own her own agency, and maybe she would accept the occasional honey-trap case. This was her chance to gain experience, something she’d never get while interning with Jayne.

“Just you and me to ever know,” Marta repeated.

Val glanced at the photo of Nanny. By the time she was fifteen, she and her grandmother had swapped their parent-child roles. Val grew accustomed to making decisions for the two of them, often on the fly. Sometimes it was like walking into mist—she might not be sure what her next step would be, but she would learn. Over time, when faced with a choice, she discovered she gained more by forging ahead than standing, undecided, at the crossroads.

She picked up a pen, shoving aside her niggling conscience. “I need to get some information, like where he’s going tonight, the type of car he drives...”

* * *

AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, Drake Morgan stepped from the air-conditioned strip club, Topaz, into the outdoor sauna called summer. In his thirty-two years born and raised in Las Vegas, he’d never grown accustomed to these mind-frying temps. But then, there was a lot he’d never been able to accept.

Like why his brother Brax—the manager of Topaz—kept associating with known criminals. Drake had checked the corporate papers for Topaz and discovered the club was owned by a corporation named Dusha, the same corporate entity that owned Braxton’s luxury condo. Drake ran the word Dusha through an online translator and learned it meant “soul” in Russian.

Yeah, real soulful. His brother was tight with the Russian mob.

Tugging off his suit jacket, he looked past the stream of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard at Dino’s Lounge, a watering hole his dad had frequented. Back before lines got drawn and doors were closed, Drake and Braxton would join him there to watch a game, shoot some pool. He and his brother had been tight then. Thick as thieves, their dad would say.

Today, the third anniversary of their old man’s death, Drake had thought a lot about things his father used to say. Sometimes he had to dig deep in his memories, because his dad hadn’t been comfortable expressing himself. Oh, he liked to kid around, jaw about some news item or what sports figure had hit a milestone, but when it came to divulging how he felt about something, or even saying a simple “I love you,” he had struggled with the words.

On his deathbed, he had asked for three promises from Drake. The first was for Drake to stop gambling. He had, that very day. The second was for Drake to learn how to swim—he had carried the name “Aqua Man” since high school after jumping into a pool to save a bikini-clad damsel in distress. She’d gotten out fine on her own. Took two lifeguards to haul Drake out of the water.

Just like his dad to throw humor into life’s darker situations. Aqua Man took a few swimming lessons.

The third promise was to take care of his grandmother, his mother and especially his brother. His mom and Grams were easy, his brother was a pain in the ass. Drake had asked Brax to dump his gangster chums and build his own business, but he’d refused. Seemed to think being under the thumb of that no-good scum Yuri Glazkov was the path to success.

Yuri, what a slick bastard. Brax had done things for him that should have put him behind bars, but Yuri’s high-profile lawyers made sure the charges against Braxton didn’t stick. It sickened Drake that his brother thought he was better than the law.

If he had his way, he’d do what their mother had done—close the door on Brax—but he had made that promise to their father.

So here he was tonight, hunting down his brother to check up on him, try to talk sense to him again about living his own, law-abiding life.

Drake had another reason, a personal one, to quiz his brother. Yuri, recently back in Vegas after an extended stay in Russia, was up to something. Drake could smell it. He wanted facts about the thug’s life, the kind his brother could supply, because he had a score to settle.

But so far, all Drake had gotten was the runaround from his brother’s employees at the strip club.

Have no idea where Brax is at, man.

Mr. Morgan is unavailable. If you would like to leave your name and number, I’ll be sure he gets the message.

Yuri? Never heard of ’im.

Tossing his jacket over his shoulder, Drake glanced across the street at the green neon sign. Last Neighborhood Bar in Las Vegas. Lots of businesses had closed during the recession, but Dino’s Lounge had stayed open, just as it had for five decades.

He decided to walk over, leave his pickup parked in its secluded spot. Later, he would head back to Topaz, and if he didn’t find his brother’s car in the lot, he’d do the question routine again. Try different employees, see if one of them might get hit with a pang of conscience and tell the truth. He’d help that pang along with a bill or two.

Because in a town like Vegas, everything had a price. Especially an honest answer.

* * *

VAL SAT IN the rental car, a Honda Civic, in the Topaz lot, watching the guy standing outside the strip club. He fit the description Marta had given her earlier: a little over six foot. Buzz cut. Wearing a suit. Before he removed the jacket, the gray two-button number had looked like something Don Draper might have worn on that TV series Mad Men. From the way this guy walked—carrying himself like he owned his space and some of everybody else’s, too—he had more than his share of mettle.