Diva Las Vegas (Book 1 in Raven McShane Series) (17 page)

“Makes sense,” Carlos said after Paul left.

“What does?”

“This day and age, you
ain’t
gonna just walk up to some random person on a jury and ask if they’ll take some money,” he continued.

“True.”

“That’s a felony, right?  To take a bribe, you’d either need a lot of money or have some other reason to do it.  A personal reason, like sex.  Twenty-five G’s
ain’t
enough by itself,” he said.  “Not for me, anyway.”

“How much would it take?”

“A million, maybe two.  Depending on the case.  And no sex predators or serial killers, you know, just something where a guy maybe made a big mistake one time.”

I chuckled.  “It’s good to have principles.”  Most men probably had a price, I figured, but few would admit it.  “So you think Cody picked Gonsalves as an easy target?”

“Did you hear the way he was talking about him?  It sounded like he would have done whatever Cody wanted for free.  Just to be able to hang out with those guys.  That kid is in
into
your friend Cody in a big way.”

“Kid?  He’s
your
age!”  I wasn’t sure, but I figured Carlos had to be about twenty-four.

“Whatever.”

“So Cody seduces him, which wasn’t hard, and then provides him enough cash so he can enjoy the finer things in life even though he folds clothes for a living.”  The kid’s story made a lot of sense.

“Wonder how Cody comes up with the four grand a month,” Carlos said.  “I’m gonna guess his wife doesn’t write the checks to pay off her husband’s boyfriend.”

I laughed.  “You should get your own PI’s license.”

“No way.  Money’s no good,” he said.  I took the comment as an unsubtle reminder that I owed him money.  I downed the last bitter drops of my espresso.

“I told you about the guy in San Diego, right?”

“The old dude with the hot girl working for him?”

“That’s the guy.”  Carlos had a knack for remembering the key details.  “He thought there was some kind of financial stuff going on at the casino.  The numbers weren’t quite adding up the way he thought they should, and after he left they started sending him a pension he wasn’t expecting.”

“Um hmm.”

“Just thinking out loud,” I said.

Carlos nodded.  “Could be a nice pot of money that Cody’s been dipping into himself,” he said.  “If it’s worth paying off a guy to keep quiet about . . .”

“It’s worth killing for.” We both stared out at the endless expanse of the mall— white marble and glass as far as the eye could see.

“Well, we know Cody’s getting a lot of money from somewhere, and it’s been going on for years,” Carlos said.  “Think about it—he’s paid Gonsalves two hundred grand since the trial.  And we know the old dude thought someone was ripping off a lot of money from the casino,” he continued.

“It adds up.  Plus, he’s got to fund his little bachelor pad somehow.  Brand new homes with pools aren’t cheap.”

We sat there at the tiny table in silence.

“This case is frustrating,” I finally said.  It was the understatement of the year.

Carlos was thinking about something.  He asked, “would you bribe someone on a jury even if you were innocent?”

I thought about that for a second.  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“
I
would,” he said, answering his own question.  “I mean, I might.  If it looked bad.  System
ain’t
perfect.  It’s just something to think about.  Messing with the jury doesn’t mean you’re guilty.”

“Thanks, professor,” I said.  “It doesn’t look good, though, does it?”

“Nope.”

“Either way, it means he has to talk to me.”

Carlos nodded.  “Gonsalves is a bargaining chip,” he said.  “A big one.”

I smiled.  We were on the same wavelength.  “Nothing like having evidence of a felony to get a man to talk.  Can I borrow you this afternoon, too?”  I asked.  Carlos hesitated.

“My girlfriend’s watching my kid.  She’s got to go to work.”

“You have a kid?”

“You’re a detective?”  He sighed and shot a feigned exasperated look up at the ceiling.  At least I think it was feigned.

I felt idiotic, but that was nothing new.  “I think we need to go talk to Cody right away, before he finds out from somebody else how much we know.  It didn’t take much to get Paul to talk with us, so who knows what he’ll tell Cody.”

Carlos sat still, as though posing for an ice sculpture.

 “One hour, maybe two,” I said.  “Two hundred bucks.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Two fifty.”

“Kid goes through fifteen diapers a day.  They’re expensive,” he said.

I had the distinct sense he was working me over.  “Okay, let’s go.  Three hundred is all I can do.”  I got up and left, hoping Carlos was coming with.  He was.

We stepped outside into what had become an even hotter and brighter day.  Directly across the street, the bronze panels of the Wynn resort complex glowed rust orange in the sunlight, as if burning from within.  It was the beginning of the lunch hour, and the sidewalks flowed with bustling conventioneers wearing corporate polo shirts with large name tags dangling from straps around their necks.  They moved in packs of threes and fours, all on the prowl for the best meal their expense accounts could buy.

We stood on the corner next to the mall in a large open plaza dotted with carts selling sunglasses and t-shirts.  Salesmen were hawking timeshares to anyone naïve enough to stop and listen.  In the corner, next to the street, were a dozen or so display boxes stuffed with flyers and color pamphlets advertising women you could hire as escorts.  I got out my phone and dialed the number Cody had written on the back of his business card.  There was no answer, and the voicemail of someone named Phil Ebert kicked in. 
Shit
, I muttered.  I hadn’t thought to check the phone number, but I should have.  Writing down a bogus number was exactly the kind of thing a half-stoned guy might do when trying to rid himself of a stranger asking a lot of questions.

I was pissed.  “Let’s find some cover,” I said.

Carlos and I found a small rectangle of shade under the wide awning of a tourist information stand.  I paced in and out of the sun for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do.  Carlos lost interest and wandered off.  I decided to take a chance and call Cody’s work line.  A woman answered, sounding friendly.  Mr. Masterson was in the office, she said, but he was in a meeting.  I could make an appointment if I wanted.  I said no.  The casino had about a thousand security cameras, and I’d be pretty noticeable.  I figured I’d get beat up long before I even got close to Cody’s office.  I thanked her and hung up.

There wasn’t much at this point that I was certain of.  But I knew three things.  First, I needed to talk to Cody Masterson.  Second, the Outpost casino was only two blocks away.  Third, I had just rented Carlos for the afternoon.  A crude plan began forming in my mind.

I found Carlos busying himself with a glossy color pamphlet proudly advertising “Nevada’s Nastiest Women.”  There was a large XXX on the cover.  The XXX was stamped diagonally across a color spread showing a dark-haired woman wearing leather and wielding some kind of
billy
club menacingly at a blonde woman in white.  The blonde was supposed to look like an innocent, but she looked just as trashy as the brunette.

“Carlos.”

“No way,” he said.  He didn’t look up from the magazine.

“What?”

“I am just along for the ride, man,” he said.  “Nothing else.”  He was reading my mind.

“How would you like a quick makeover?”  I asked.  That wasn’t what he was expecting.  I explained the gist of my half-baked idea, and he surprised me, first by listening patiently and then by going along with it.  We headed back inside the mall and made our way to the Macy’s men’s department.

On the way to Macy’s we passed Saks Fifth Avenue.  Carlos nudged me encouragingly as we passed.

“No,” I said.  Carlos pretended to pout.

At Macy’s I bought Carlos a long sleeved white oxford shirt.  That would cover up his tattoos, at least.  I also got him a pair of navy slacks and a black leather belt.  He had jet black basketball shoes on, and I figured they would do.  Carlos looked good.  He shoved his other clothes into the Macy’s bag and handed his Sox cap to me for safe-keeping.  He spent about five minutes fiddling with his hair in the mirror.

We walked the two blocks up to the Outpost and found the employee entrance on the north side of the building.  There didn’t appear to be any key card required, and no security was visible inside.  The hallway behind the entrance made an L, and I guessed there was a reception or security desk involved somewhere along the way.

“Tell anyone who asks that you’re there to see Mr. Masterson,” I said.  “It’s urgent and involves a close friend of his, Mr. Gonsalves.  That should be enough to get him to see you.  When you get in, tell him I’m outside and we need to talk immediately or I’ll go to the cops about what Gonsalves told us.  Got it?”

He looked at me skeptically.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”  I asked.

“They could kill me and bury me in the desert.”

“Bah,” I chortled.  “The chances of that are less than fifty-fifty.”

Carlos grunted and went inside.  I moved about fifty feet away from the door and made sure to turn my back to the security cameras watching over the parking lot.  I felt awkward standing alone in the parking lot, so I dug out my phone and played hearts against the computer.

After a few minutes of this I briefly considered the possibility that I was losing my mind.  My back was turned when I heard the door shut and I spun around to see Cody Masterson emerge accompanied by the newly preppified version of Carlos.  Neither looked excited to be reuniting with me.

“You could have called me,” Cody said.  He was dressed in a navy pinstripe suit and crisp white shirt with a ruby red pocket square.  Without a tie, it was an unusual look but one he was able to pull off.  “What’s so urgent?”

“You told him about Paul Gonsalves?”  I asked Carlos.

“I told him.”

Cody stood there, defiant.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Why are you talking to my friends?”  His tone was not friendly.

“I’m an investigator.  I talk to people,” I explained simply.  “And you gave me a bogus phone number.  Why don’t you buy us lunch?”  I suggested.  “We should sit down somewhere and clear this up.”

“I’m busy, and I don’t have to talk to you,” he said.

“No you’re not, and yes you do,” I replied.  “I hate to be a bitch, but you’re the president of a large casino.  If you didn’t need to talk to me, you wouldn’t be standing out here on the hot pavement right now.  Let’s get past all this and you can try to talk me out of getting the cops involved.  Maybe you can even convince me you’re not a murderer,” I added.

“You know I’m not,” he snipped.

“I’m less certain now than ever,” I said.  I motioned with my hand at the expanse of the Strip in front of us.  “Lunch.  You pick the place.”

Several seconds passed as Cody grudgingly weighed his options.  Finally, he turned slightly, grimaced, and began walking south.  “Okay,” he said.  “Capital Grille.”

We walked in silence the two blocks to the Capital Grille, the upscale steakhouse chain, which was on the opposite side of the mall where we’d just had coffee with Paul Gonsalves.  I was underdressed in my tank top and shorts, but they were used to that.  It was Vegas.  They might have made a fuss at dinner, but lunch on a Tuesday was different.  The restaurant was only half-full, and I asked for a table in a deserted corner mostly hidden by the bar.  It was the kind of lunch you didn’t want being overheard.

The maitre d’ showed us our table.  I was used to drawing attention from people (a healthy mixture of appreciative leers and disapproving scowls), but Cody was clearly the star of our little traveling troupe.  As we walked to our seats a number of people in the lunchtime crowd—women and men alike—stole furtive and not-so-furtive glances at him.  It was like I wasn’t even there.  Either Cody was used to it or he didn’t notice.  I guessed he was used to it.  We sat down in silence and ordered Diet Cokes when the waiter arrived.  None of us were in the mood for small talk.  The drinks came quickly, and we ordered lunch right away.  Carlos and I ordered cheeseburgers and Cody got a lobster salad.  I decided to begin the same way I had with Gonsalves.

“I have no interest in having you go to prison,” I started.  Cody’s expression was stoic.  I couldn’t help imagining what would happen to a pretty boy like him behind bars.  “And I don’t care about how you arranged for your not guilty verdict, except for the fact that it is a useful thing to know.”

He perked up at my innuendo.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”  he asked.

“It means, now that I know about it, you’ve got to tell me the truth about everything else.  And it means that you have to help me find out what I need to know.”

“Or else?”

“Exactly.  ‘Or else’ is the name of the game I want to play now.”  I leaned in and lowered my voice, hoping I could sell him on a lie.  “So here’s the ‘or else.’  I’ve already sent a sworn affidavit to my lawyer describing you and your friend on the jury. And there are . . . pictures.  If you want that kind of thing making its way to the cops, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to try you again for murder.  Hell, forget the murder.  They could put you away for twenty years just for jury tampering.”

“What kind of pictures?”  he asked.

“They involve a recent pool party in a deserted subdivision on the east side.  Use your imagination.”

“Fuck you,” he said a little too loudly.  A fat woman in a bright printed top looked over at us and frowned disapprovingly.  Cody’s face was reddening.  He gestured at Carlos.  “Does this guy ever talk?”

“He’s the strong, silent type,” I said.  Carlos narrowed his eyes and looked away.  “Look, you don’t have to like me.  You do have to help me, though, and I need some answers.”

“Or else,” he repeated sarcastically, rolling his eyes for effect.

“Now you’re catching on,” I said.  “For starters, I’ll need to know who you were with on the night of the murder.”

“Why?”

“Because I still think there’s a reasonable chance you’re guilty.”

He sighed.  He asked me for a pen and wrote down a name in all caps on the napkin: Oliver
Radbourne
.

“Is Oliver a real person?” I asked.

Cody was not amused.  “You might have to take my word for it.  Oliver has no clue about the whole thing.  He was in town from London for a few days and I doubt he even heard about the murder or the trial afterwards.”

“So it’s basically a piece of worthless information,” I said.  “I track down this guy six thousand miles away and ask where he was five years ago on such and such a night, he’ll have no idea.”

“Probably.  But if you mention my name, he’d be able to work out the dates and times, though.  I haven’t seen him since then.”

“Sounds like you boys really hit it off,” Carlos muttered.

Cody shot him a death stare while I stifled a laugh.  I took the napkin and filed it away in the back pocket of my shorts.  I’d probably throw it out later.

“You don’t seem overly eager to help me prove your innocence,” I said, stating the obvious.

“It’s not that simple,” he added.

“Why not?”

He looked me directly in the eye and lowered his voice.  “Are you some kind of idiot?  Do you think I like walking around having everyone think I’m a killer?  Don’t you think I would have cleared my name already if it was that easy?  I don’t need you, or anyone, swooping in here to help me.”

I liked the stoned Cody much more than this guy.  It was clear he wasn’t finished with his little hissy fit, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Of course I want to prove to everyone that I’m not a murderer,” he continued.

A light bulb went off in my head, and I couldn’t help interrupting.  “But if you disclosed your true alibi—Oliver Twist, or whatever his name was—your lovely wife would have amazingly excellent grounds for divorcing you and leaving you without a dime.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

“Which is why,” I continued, “when the opportunity presented itself, you decided to try your hand at buying off the jury rather than asserting your actual alibi, which is pretty flimsy to begin with.  You got to have it both ways.  A verdict in your favor while holding on to the rich wife and casino.”

He started shaking his head.  “It’s not that simple,” he repeated.  He sipped nervously from his soda.  “You’re forgetting something.  The fact is, it’s very convenient to have people think I’m guilty.”  Our food arrived, and we sat in silence while the waiter and an assistant arranged our plates in front of us.  The waiter sensed we were in the middle of something and flashed a thin, efficient smile before disappearing.

“Convenient?”  I prodded.

“Well
somebody
killed George Hannity,” he said, digging into his salad.  I thought about that for a minute while chewing my burger, which was medium rare and very good.  Cody had a point.  Assuming he was innocent, the situation had worked out pretty well for whoever the real killer was.  Because everyone assumed Cody was actually guilty, the cops and DA’s office never bothered to continue searching for George Hannity’s murderer.  The heat was off.

“It’s convenient,” I repeated, “and if that situation were suddenly stirred up by a nosey investigator, someone would be bound to get really pissed off.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he said.  He didn’t look quite as angry as before.  I hoped that getting some of these things off his chest was making things better.

“And that’s where my interest goes beyond the purely financial,” I said.  “As I’ve already told you, someone is trying to get rid of me.  They broke into my apartment and almost killed me.  And I’ve had to move in with my uncle in Henderson,” I lied.  No sense letting anyone know where I was actually sleeping these days.  “I don’t think they’re going to stop unless I get to them first.”