Lucky Bastard (12 page)

“Maybe she’s honoring Slim’s memory?” Miss P offered.

I paused, pondering that imponderable. “Possible, but the high road isn’t her usual route.” I turned to Jeremy. “Can you find out where the Stoneman lives, the places he hangs out in when he has free time, and anything else you deem pertinent? We need to find him ASAP. It also wouldn’t hurt to get a snapshot of his finances.” I pushed up out of my chair. The others rose out of habit. “When you are ready to go round him up, call me; I’d like to ride along.”

He nodded, but his eyes had lost focus as if he were already three steps ahead of me in the thinking game. Apparently not hard to do these days. Being blindsided by life was getting really tiresome.

“Oh, and Brandy? Has she caught up with Cole Weston yet?”

“He staggered in not too long ago, muddy and dead on his feet. He’s asleep in his room. If he sleeps as soundly as most young men I know, she won’t be able to get his attention with the light over the door. And he certainly won’t hear the phone or a knock, so she’s waiting until he appears. Do you want her to get security to let her in his room?” Miss P looked like she knew the answer.

“No. Barging in there half-cocked would open the hotel to serious liability.”

“They’re supposed to meet up at five.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s almost five now. When they appear, give me a heads-up and I’ll meet them in the Burger Palais. The food’s on me.”

“You got it. And I’ll get on that sign as you asked. Where will you be in the interim?”

“Whomping rats.”

***

By the time I hiked up the steps to Delilah’s, a thumper of a headache pounded behind my right eye. Great. A migraine, a putrid pit in my stomach, two dead bodies, one of them a good friend of my father’s, another a former friend’s wife, a Poker Room manger playing games, and that former friend hell-bent on proving my all-men-are-pigs theory was actually true and not the result of rampant cynicism. Could today get any better?

Pulling my phone from my hip, I flipped it open and hit Jerry’s direct dial. He answered on the first ring. “Jer, where’s Watalsky? Did you tell him I want to see him?”

“I put the bug in his ear, but he said he had plans. I didn’t think it was critical.”

“He’s peggin’ my interest meter.”

“I’ll try to roust him—he was here until after dawn. Left with a pile.”

“Any idea who he took it off of?”

“DeLuca. And he wasn’t happy about it.”

“DeLuca. He’s next on my list. Do you have a bead on him?”

“Girl, he won’t be here at this hour.”

“Keep an eye out for him. Let me know the minute he hits the property, okay?”

***

The sight of Dane sitting at the bar, his back hunched, two empty Buds in front of him and draining a third as I approached, did nothing to brighten my less than sunny disposition.

Thankfully, business was light at this hour. The only other patron sat at the far end of the bar mechanically punching buttons on a video poker machine embedded in the bar top. I thought I remembered seeing the guy here yesterday, and the day before that. I wondered if he ever went home…or if he had one to go to. But, in my line of work, it was best not to dwell on those kinds of questions, so I didn’t. I was only one problem-solver swimming in a sea of problems—drowning wasn’t a possibility; it was an inevitability. So, it was best to pace myself, delay the inevitable.

“Drinking’s really going to help,” I snarled as I slid onto a stool next to Dane.

He set the third empty next to the others, carefully aligning them before he spoke. “You’d be surprised.”

The water cascading down the sandstone wall behind the bar, the flowering bougainvillea trailing from trellises, the soft music, warm colors and muted lights were supposed to be welcoming and soothing. I wasn’t buying any of it. Apparently I must’ve looked ready to chew through a tanned hide or something because Sean, our head bartender, kept his distance as he lifted a bottle and an eyebrow at me. I shook my head—just the thought of a Wild Turkey fireball in my empty stomach convulsed me with anticipatory pain. “Club soda with lime, please.” If he tried to hide his smirk, he didn’t try very hard.

Sean put a tall glass filled with clear liquid and bubbles in front of me. Bubbles really weren’t my thing—unless they were rising through a golden liquid from a very specific region of France. However, I’d been trying to cultivate a taste for water—part of my anemic effort to improve my health—so Champagne had been downgraded from an everyday thing to a special occasion thing. And bubbles were an attempt to make a tasteless beverage palatable. Why did everything that was good for you have to be so unappealing?

“If anyone wants to know what a lying creep looks like,” I said, glancing at Dane as I took a tentative sip of the soda water, grimaced, then placed the glass back on the bar and pushed it away. Bubbles didn’t help. “I’ll just send them your picture.”

If my verbal arrow hit his soft underbelly, I couldn’t tell. I hoped it had, but felt bad if it did. What can I say? Conflicted is my natural state. Apparently I am incapable of feeling a pure, unadulterated emotion without wallowing in ambivalence.

“I take it you looked at the security tapes.” Dane motioned for another beer.

“Convicting. And that’s ignoring the serious issues you have with the truth for a moment. Those tapes alone are more than adequate for a grand jury. The two of you leaving the Poker Room, heading toward the dealership, where she was found dead—you were the last person to see your wife alive.”

“Only if I killed her.” He glanced at me then focused on lining up the fourth beer with the others. He didn’t take a sip.

“How much money were you guys wrangling over in the divorce?”

He glanced at me. “Enough.”

“And those scratches on your face.”

With a haunted look in his eye, he raised a hand to gently probe the angry red gashes on his right cheek. One of them was deep enough to have drawn blood.

“Did Sylvie give you those?”

“She was pissed when I showed up in the Poker Room.”

“Why?”

He gave a snort. “With Sylvie, the rising of the sun each day could piss her off. I know it looks bad.”

“Bad!” At a loss, I stared at him. Clearly his reality wasn’t mine and words weren’t bridging the gap. I grabbed his arm, swiveling him around so he at least half faced me and had to meet my eyes. “Cowboy, let me give it to you straight: You are so far up shit creek even a Mercury outboard wouldn’t help.”

“But you can.” This time, when his eyes met mine, they held.

“Dane, I’m a customer relations person. If you’ve got a pesky rash, an ill-advised marriage to be annulled, your bathroom is too small, your bed too hard, your dinner unacceptable, your show tickets for the wrong show, your wife needing to be rubbed the right way, I can fix that. But you’re looking at twenty to life with no parole. What you need is a pit bull with a Bar card and a healthy dose of divine intervention.”

“Or someone who can uncover the truth.”

“A concept you seem curiously divorced from.” Throwing caution to the wind, I grabbed the full bottle in front of him and drained half of it before coming up for air. Beer, not my beverage of choice—a bit low on octane—but it was a darn sight more bracing than water with bubbles. “I can’t help you,” I said as I slammed the bottle on the counter. I resisted wiping my mouth with the back of my hand as being a wee bit tacky.

“Can’t or won’t?”

Unwilling to answer, I shrugged and refused to meet his gaze. Conflicting emotions waged a battle in my churning belly. Of course, the beer hadn’t helped. And it also wasn’t helping me fight my Pavlovian response to other people’s problems.

Dane reached for the bottle still clutched in my hand. I relinquished my hold and he drained the remaining beer in one swallow. “I’ve lost your trust,” he said as he again carefully aligned the bottle with the others as if keeping score.

“One of the many downsides to lying.”

“If I promise to be square with you, will you at least listen before deciding whether you will help or not?” He gave an almost imperceptible nod to Sean who popped the top on a fresh longneck, then slid it down the bar where it stopped, still upright, in front of Dane—a skill I marveled at.

“Cowboy, I would like nothing more than to hear the truth. But how do I know when you’re giving me the straight skinny and when you’re shining me on?” I asked even though I knew he had no answer. Trust, once lost, can be regained but never fully restored. And, picking the right horse in this race would be critical. If I picked poorly, I’d be in desperate need of a get-out-of-jail-free card.

With a weak grin, he crossed his heart. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “From here on out, no matter what, no more lying.”

“You know what this is like?” I focused on the television hanging in the corner while I fought a losing battle with myself. Even with the sound muted, I could tell the talking heads were discussing our murder. In Vegas, while good news traveled fast, bad news traveled at the speed of light. The one bright spot appeared to be that Shady Slim Grady’s demise was still under wraps. “This is like one of those word problems in freshman algebra: If a liar tells you he’s not lying, is he?” My resolve weakening, I gave Dane a tepid smile. “I never got that answer right.”

Sensing my weakness, he went for the kill. “Help me? Only you can fix this.”

Manipulation at its best and most obvious. Why didn’t it put the fear of God in me? I must have a death wish.

“Against my better judgment, I’ll listen, but we take it one step at a time.” Relief washed over him, easing the tension from his features, relaxing his posture, and breaking my heart a little bit. “However, if you try to hook a ring through my nose and lead me down some path, I’ll bust your ass. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” He grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Thank you.”

“As a token of your good faith, give me Sylvie’s phone.”

“I don’t have it.” He shook his head. “Before I called you, I looked for it. That’s why my boot prints were around the…” He swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “The car.”

“Give me her number.” I boosted myself up and leaned across the bar. Sean had a bunch of pens stashed in a glass next to the register. I grabbed one, then handed it to Dane. He wrote the number on the back of a cocktail napkin, which I folded and pocketed.

Fire burned in the pit of my stomach. My body was trying to tell me something, something more than it was hungry, but I ignored it. “Sean, do you have some peanuts or something back there?”

“Peanuts, please! This is the Babylon. We have plump whole cashews and dates from the finest Persian markets. Extra-virgin olives…” The kid’s smile lit his face as he pushed a bowl of the delicacies in front of me. With blue eyes, a receding hairline, and short-cropped brown hair, which he spiked up, Sean had an easy rapport with customers and, apparently, us corporate types. He loved to tell young ladies that his last name was Finnegan and he was Black Irish. I knew the truth: His last name was really Pollack and he was from New Jersey, but far be it from me to bust his myth.

Even though I knew there was no such thing as an extra-virgin olive, I played along, appreciative of Sean’s attempt to lighten my mood. “Then those olives are the only thing extra-virgin in this town.” I pretended to grouse as I picked at the nuts Sean set in front of me. I popped a few in my mouth and said to Dane, “Okay, let’s try to figure out who’s playing whom. Why don’t we start with the poker game? Tell me everything you know.”

“I got pieces, but I don’t see how they fit together.” Resting his elbows on the bar, Dane sipped his beer as he settled in. “Sylvie called me a week ago. To be honest, I was surprised to hear from her. Our relationship, if you could call it that, was acrimonious at best and over a long time ago. After being granted an early discharge, I started the formalities, as I told you.”

“Early discharge?”

“Cost-saving program.”

I tested a few of the dates as I listened. “What made Sylvie call you now?”

“She was scared, I think. Although, with her it was hard to separate the truth from the bullshit.”

“At least you two had something in common: Lying, the bedrock of a solid marriage.” I avoided the olives as being far too healthy while I contemplated another beverage choice.

“Do you ever give it a rest?” Now it was Dane’s turn to snarl.

“Not when I’m angry.” I said matter-of-factly, then turned my attention back to the bottles behind the bar. “Sean, how about a split of Veuve Clicquot?”

After rooting in the refrigerator under the bar, he popped the cork, filled a crystal flute and set it in front of me. “Celebrating something?” he asked me with a quick glance at Dane who continued to scowl into his beer.

“The demise of good judgment.”

“Always in short supply,” he said as he wiped his hands on a bar towel. “But you’re lucky, in this town, it’s not valued.” With a nod and a raised eyebrow at Dane, he wandered to the end of the bar to check on his other guest, leaving us alone.

“What is it with bartenders?” Dane snarled when Sean was out of earshot. “They’re always spouting some profound philosophical bull they’ve overheard.”

“Wisdom gained from vicarious experience—the safest kind.” One sip of champagne and every nerve ending jumped with joy. On some level I knew that should bother me. However, caring was an insecurity I hadn’t the time nor the energy for—coping took everything I had. “What was Sylvie doing in that poker game?”

Dane didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stared into his beer. I could almost see the wheels turning—the truth shouldn’t be that hard. “I don’t know,” he finally said, “but she was as twitchy as a dog before a storm. She bought in for cash—she wouldn’t tell me who staked her—she never had that kind of green.”

“Anything you
do
know?” What I meant was did Dane know anything important that I couldn’t find from another source, but I was betting he knew that. The guy hid plenty of IQ points behind the aw-gee-shucks cowboy routine. I’d learned that the hard way—which was pretty much my MO, especially when it came to men.