Green Eyes in Las Vegas (7 page)

Half-way down the Strip, Stone’s phone went off, and he looked at it and growled something indecipherable.

“I have to take off,” he said. “It’s an emergency. You’re going to be ok?”

I smiled and tried to look happier than I felt. “Of course! You go ahead. You didn’t need to come with me to The Tremonte, either.”

He said goodbye, looking like he didn’t believe me, and the truth was that the night was making me nervous. It was still too early for the crowds to go home, but as soon as I took a few steps into the side-street I’ve always used as a shortcut, I felt the shadows pressing in. There were enough streetlights to make the place seem well-lit, but I looked over my shoulder every five seconds until I got to my condo. Once I was safely inside the lobby, I decided that for
the time being, I’d be taking the longer East Flamingo Road walk instead.

There were no new envelopes under my door, and a quick check revealed that
, thankfully, there were no strangers lurking inside either. I made myself a cup of decaf, but I was still too jittery from my walk back home to finish it.

I slept fitfully that night. It was hard to believe that I’d run into Green Eyes again, and once again, he’d disappeared into thin air. I was glad there were no more creepy photos of me,
but my thoughts kept returning to the way Green Eyes had walked away from me.

I woke up early the next morning, and the condo was
still devoid of any new mysterious white envelopes. I had a glimmer of hope that maybe whoever had taken my photographs had mixed me up with someone else, or maybe they’d just gotten tired of stalking me. For whatever reason, maybe I was off the hook.

After breakfast, I gave Stacey a call. “Did you run those license-plate numbers?” I asked.

“Yes, do you have a pen and paper handy? Ok, here we go. There are six red Ferraris in Nevada that have license plates starting with those three numbers. Three belong to luxury car rental services. Two were garaged that day, and one was rented by a guy – Donald Hughes – who drove out to the desert with three of his friends. The friends all say they were riding around in the wee hours of the morning, and GPS navigation on the car matches up. One of the cars belongs to a resident who was in Toronto on holiday. The other two cars belong to Nevada residents, both of whom were at home at that time. We’re pretty sure they’re not lying, but there’s no way to prove one hundred percent that they’re not. The first car’s registered to a Collette Hill, and the second’s registered to a Jack Weber.”

“Somebody could’ve broken into one of the car rental garages and taken a car out for a joyride.”

“Not likely. Alarms would go off, and the rental agencies would know. I’m sorry – maybe you got the numbers mixed up?”

I sighed. “Maybe I did. Oh well, it was worth a shot.”

Once again, I felt like I’d come close to learning Green Eyes’ identity, and once again, he’d slipped away.

My next call was to Crystal’s sister, Carol. When she answered her phone, I introduced myself, and she said, “Yes, that boyfriend of hers, Max, said you’d be calling.”

There was an awkward silence and then I said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She sighed. “It’s ok. I asked the cops if I needed to come down to Las Vegas, but they said it’s ok. Which was good, because it costs money to get one of those last minute flights out. And now Max wants to have the funeral out in LA – I mean, can you believe it? I’m her flesh and blood, and that guy’s just known her – what – two years, maybe three?”

I made a sympathetic noise, and tried to think of what to say next. I needn’t have bothered, because she started again, “And now Bob’s going to have to take time off work and we’re going to have fly down for the funeral – I don’t know
how
I’m going to fly with three young kids with me.”

“How old are your kids?”

“Nine, four and two. Do you have kids?”

“No.”

“Yeah, neither did Crystal. These people without kids just don’t realize how hard it is to have them. You’ve got to rearrange your whole life for them, you can’t just up and fly over to a different state. Poor Crystal, may God rest her soul.”

“Were you close?” I managed to ask.

“Close?” She made a low, derisive noise. “We were like
this
, growing up. But then she became beautiful and popular and decided Nebraska wasn’t good enough for her anymore. She flew over to LA and decided to try to be an actress. An actress!” She made that strange, derisive noise again. “’Course, some people get all the luck, get to follow their dreams. Crystal was an extra in a few movies.” I thought I detected a hint of pride in her voice. “Might even have worked out for her. Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve left Nebraska too, ’stead of staying on and not having a career and such. But Crystal took a risk and look where it got her.”

She
went quiet for a few seconds, and I took this opportunity to ask, “Did Crystal have any enemies that you knew of? Anyone who might want to hurt her?”

“Lord, no,” she said, and then she went on to tell me how friendly Crystal was and how everyone loved her and how popular she’d been in high school. And then she told me how much her kids loved Aunt Crystal, even though she rarely came to visit, now that she was so busy in Hollywood and too cool for Nebraska. Not that she begrudged Crystal any success of course, it’s just that she missed her little sister and now the Lord had seen fit to take her.

She went on and on for some time, and I interjected questions whenever she paused to take a breath. After a while, I’d managed to ask her everything I needed to. But I learnt nothing – Carol had only seen Crystal a handful of times since she’d moved down to LA, and knew basically nothing about Crystal’s life. In the end, all I had was a higher phone bill.

After I’d managed to extricate myself from that call, I rang Crystal’s friend Minnie. I introduced myself once again and explained that I was looking into Crystal’s death.

“Damn right,” Minnie said. “It didn’t make any sense to me at the time.”

I agreed. “Can I come over to talk to you about Crystal?”

“Sure. Come over to the movie set at The Tremonte. I’ll have a few minutes free at some point. And you can talk to some of the other girls on the set, too.”

I thanked her, hung up and slid into the same black slacks and green top I’d worn the day before. They smelled clean enough to me, but I dabbed some perfume on, just in case. I was about to step out when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Stone waiting outside.

He looked at me and raised one eyebrow. “Heading out?”

“Just to
The Tremonte. What’re you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.” He stepped inside and looked around. “Any new envelopes?”

“No – maybe the guy forgot about me.”

“I’d like to think that. But he’s just stopped following you. He won’t follow you into a casino or anywhere with security cams.”

I looked at Stone thoughtfully. “You don’t think this guy’s dangerous, do you? I think it’s just someone trying to mess with me.”

My mind went back to Green Eyes, and the way he’d looked amused to see me. I really didn’t want to believe that he was behind the photos.

“You might be right,” Stone said. “Someone really dangerous would send proper threats, not just a day’s worth of photos.”

We looked at each other
silently. Neither of us was convinced that the photos were a joke, but there was nothing to do about it, other than wait for the next message or set of photos.

Stone walked me to my car, and said, “I’ll stop by your place at seven, and we can go to the ex-mayor’s party together. Do you want one of my guys to stick with you today?”

I shook my head. “I’m just running errands along the Strip. I should be fine.”

***

Minnie was a gorgeous blonde who looked like she could’ve been an actress herself. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, and she worked quickly with her makeup brushes, applying a full face of makeup to an olive-skinned girl who looked about sixteen.

A
couple of meters from where she worked, a scene was being shot, over and over again under bright, harsh lights – two guys stood beside a blackjack table arguing with a woman about something. Every time the action started, the whole set went quiet, and after the director yelled “Cut!” a low buzz of chatter erupted, while the director waved his arms around and tried to explain something. Tourists stood around the roped-off border of the set, gawking at the actors for a few seconds, before getting distracted by something else and moving on.

When Minnie was done with the makeup application, we headed over to a quieter section of the set, away from the action.

“We all loved Crystal,” Minnie told me. “Hollywood’s a tough place, but Crystal knew how to get along with everyone.”

“How’d she get her role in Casino Kings?”

Minnie smiled and told me the same thing Samantha had said – that the actress scheduled to play the part had fallen ill, and Crystal was her replacement. “She got along well with the director,” Minnie said. “He thought this’d be a great role for her.”

“What about any enemies?” Minnie shook her head no, and I said, “Did she have a stalker or anyone following her around?”

Minnie looked puzzled and shook her head again. “But maybe someone else will know something,” she said. “The cast members all know each other and they hang out sometimes.”

She dragged me around the set, introducing me to the cast and
grips whenever they weren’t in a scene, and running off occasionally to do makeup touch-ups or applications. I explained to everyone I was introduced to that I was looking into Crystal’s death, and asked if they knew if she had any enemies, or had they seen anyone following her around?

Everyone I was introduced to either didn’t know Crystal, or they told me that Crystal was a lovely person with no enemies. No, they hadn’t noticed anyone following her around.

After about an hour and a half of chatting with people and not finding out anything new, I met Lucy, an actress who played a minor love interest in the movie.

“Yeah, I knew Crystal,” she said, after Minnie introduced me and explained what I was doing. “She was cool. We hung out at the Indie Movie Convention together, and I was looking forward to working with her.”

“Did Crystal have any enemies? Did you notice anyone following her around or taking her photos?”

Lucy looked at me thoughtfully. “You know, now that you mention it… There was this one guy at the Movie Convention who took a lot of photos of her from a distance. I thought he seemed a bit creepy.”

I nodded, excited to have finally found something. “Can you describe the guy to me?”

“Sure. Medium height, dark brown hair, average looking.”

“Hmm.” That was a big help. “Where was the convention held?”

“The MontePatria Casino.”

I nodded. Lucy’s description wasn’t much to go on, but if I could get in touch with someone in the security team at The MontePatria, video footage might pull up something.

I handed Lucy my card and told her to call me if she thought of anything else.

I’d talked to everyone but the director and the chief cameraman by now, so I waited till they took a break, and then introduced myself.

“I’m Sam Rampell,” the
director said, “And this is Tony Gruen.”

Sam Rampell was tall and muscular, with wavy grey hair cut stylishly. I’d guess he was around fifty, and spent two hours a day in the gym. He had twinkling brown eyes, and I could feel the force of his charisma. In contrast, Tony was tall and skinny, and smiled at me shyly.

“I’d love to stay and chat,” Sam went on, “But I’ve got an appointment in five minutes. Why don’t you stop by again later this afternoon? Here’s my card. And not everyone’s on set right now,” he added. “Why don’t you get a list of everyone from Tony?”

It was a good idea, and Tony found me a printout with a list of names and contact phone numbers. I chatted with Tony for a bit, said goodbye to Minnie, and headed to the quiet café opposite the gift shop.

It was almost lunch-time, but I wasn’t really hungry. I did, however, need a minute to think, so I ordered myself a cappuccino and a chocolate-chip muffin, and ran my eyes over the list of movie employees that Tony had given me.

Most of the people who hadn’t been on the set today were either actors who weren’t needed in the scenes shot in Vegas, or extras who hadn’t been needed today. The movie had two
co-producers, Ben McAllister, and Jack Weber; neither of them had been on the set today. Next to the column for contact phone number, there was also a column for “address in Vegas.” Most people were staying at The MontePatria, Tremonte or other hotels nearby, but Jack was a local who lived in a gated community in Henderson.

I finished my muffin and coffee, and gave Stone a call. “I’m trying to get access to someone who works security at MontePatria,” I said, and explained the situation. Stone said he was onto it, and hung up.

Most people leave Vegas after a few days. There are so few of us locals that we all know each other – Stone had especially good contacts in security, but if he couldn’t find someone, I was sure I could find an old high-school classmate, or son of a family friend, who worked over there and could get me through. If nothing else, Nanna would find the son or daughter of one her Old People’s Gang friends and put me in touch with them.