Royal Flush (3 page)

I had little doubt that I was one of the least distinguished graduates in the history of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Whenever our alumni publications arrived in the mail I would force myself to glance at them, and of course every graduate who did anything even remotely interesting made sure to alert the magazine that they'd popped out another kid or finished a residency in gastroenterology. The only graduates lower on the social ladder than strippers were the couple of guys who'd gone into politics, but even they felt the need to let everyone know they were representing such-and-such district in the state legislature. I sometimes fantasized about sending in a blurb for myself: "Raven McShane (Arts '04) recently performed her five-thousandth lap dance and has been featured on the covers of
Hot Rod
and
Guns & Ammo
magazines. In 2011, she dated celebrity chef Bruno Massarone, but ended the relationship after he bought her a smoked ham as an anniversary gift."

As we pulled into the UNLV parking lot, it occurred to me that it had been more than ten years since my graduation, a fact I had a hard time getting used to. I paid an outrageous fee to park the car, then we hoofed it three blocks to get to the library. They'd rebuilt it since my college days, and now instead of a drab old brick building it was a half shell of glass and steel, giving it an edgy, industrial look. Mike and I found the reference desk just off to the side of the checkout area. It was manned, if that's the right word, by a kid who looked to be no older than fifteen, pimples and all.

The kid fixed me with a skeptical look. "How can I, uh, help you?"

I told him what I was looking for, and he trudged off to speak to one of the grown-ups who were waiting in the wings. A middle-aged woman with jet-black hair nodded solemnly and then crouched down to a shelf that happened to be only a few steps away from her. She pulled out a massive tome the size of an atlas and showed it to the kid, who pretended to be interested. Satisfied, she hefted the book over to the desk and placed it on the table with a dramatic thud.

"This should do the trick," she said. Her expression was quizzical, and I didn't blame her. Why in the hell was a thirty-something woman sporting a too-tight pink T-shirt and aftermarket breasts asking about obscure British royalty?

"Thanks," I said, eyeing the book skeptically. "It turns out I have royal blood in me, so I want to check and see how I'm related to Prince Harry. Hopefully not too closely!" I giggled, for effect.

She smiled politely and pushed the book over to me.
Sure you are, honey,
she was thinking. "There are tables right over there, but the book can't leave this area, all right?"

I nodded and grabbed the giant thing, and Mike and I found a sleek table in the corner with the most natural light.

The book's title was ambitious:
Theakston's Cyclopaedia of the British Monarchy, the Nobility, and the Descendants of Her Royal Highness Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India
. I checked inside the cover.

"Published in 1971," I muttered, my heart sinking. "That's not going to help too much."

Mike took the book and thumbed to the back. "But there are updates. Look here, this one's from last year." He pulled out a map-like insert that had been hiding in a pocket inside the back cover. Unfolded, it took up half the table.

"Talk about fine print!" I whispered. You almost needed a magnifying glass to make heads or tails of it, but it looked to be exactly what we were looking for.

While Mike studied the giant family tree, I paged through the book's index. There were a few dozen entries under the name "Kent," but there were no Henry Johns. He hadn't even been born at the time the book was published, of course, but I was hoping there might be a father or grandfather in there with the same name. I opened the book to the first Kent entry, but that line of Kents petered out in the 1920s. The second Kent entry dealt with a man named William Edward Kent (1849-1924), who appeared to be Queen Victoria's first cousin. A son of the same name (1882-1949) appeared next, and he had brothers named Alexander and Charles. Tracing their lines downward, I found the next generation of Kents, all of whom lived in someplace called Kingston-upon-Hull.

"Where the hell is Kingston-upon-Hull?" I asked.

Mike shrugged. "On the Hull River, of course," he said distractedly.

"And where is that?"

"Hell if I know. England?"

I elbowed him in the gut, which was kind of like elbowing a piece of granite. He muttered something inaudible and then pointed to the chart he was poring over.

"Here are some Kents. John, James, Richard, Nigel. They're all alive today and live in the same place, Kingston-upon-Hull."

"No Henry John?" I asked.

"Nope. Seems your guy is a fraud."

I nodded. "I wasn't expecting any other result, really. But there could be others, I suppose."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, this is a big chart and everything, but it can't possibly list every single distant relative of the royal family."

Mike shrugged. "It seems pretty comprehensive to me. And this is only from a year ago, so it's up-to-date."

I frowned. "But still. It can't be this easy, can it?"

"I think you're trying too hard. You probably got a nice retainer and found an interesting case, and now you're trying to milk it."

I cocked my head sideways. "Wrong. I just think the mission is a little bigger than just pointing to a book and telling her 'Sorry, he's not in there.'"

"Maybe, but 'Sorry, he's not in there' would be a good start," he said.

Mike was being supervisor-Mike now instead of quasi-friend-Mike or blue-eyed-sexy Mike. Supervisor-Mike wasn't my favorite Mike, I had to admit.

I thought about it for a second. "I mean, she doesn't care about the royalty business all that much. I think what she really wants to know is,
who is this guy
? And that requires more than just going to the library and looking in some musty old book."

"If you say so," he said, unconvinced.

"
Mike
," I whispered loudly, "she gave me
ten
grand
."

His eyes got big. Insurance companies usually paid a fraction of that. I figured Mike was so used to doing everything on the cheap that he had a hard time getting his mind around the fact that some people wanted the works.

"And if he's not legit," I added, "she'd probably want to know what kind of trouble he's in that he's trying to scam her out of money. That's the kind of thing we can find out."

He turned to face me. "A fair point. So what do you suggest?"

I considered it for a minute. "Let's do a dossier on this guy. This Henry John Kent of ours."

"A
dossier
? Where'd you get that?"

"It just sprang into my head. Remember when I worked with Philippe LaGarde? He showed me some impressive dossiers they had done on people. High roller types who lost lots of money.
Whales,
he called them. It was all very professional-looking."

Mike smiled. "Not a bad idea, actually. You're going to chew up that ten grand just following the guy around, though."

I batted my eyes coquettishly. "I could always outsource the legwork. I know a guy who will work for cheap."

Mike looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be exasperated. Or maybe he wasn't pretending. The last time he'd helped with one of my cases, he ended up getting shot.

"We'll work it out," he said simply. "So, what are you thinking? Surveillance, of course. Anything electronic? Wiretaps?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Um, my office chair is held together with duct tape. I don't exactly have access to a lot of high-end technology."

Mike smiled. "Okay, we can do it the old-fashioned way. Just gotta figure out what makes this guy tick, right? A little surveillance, maybe a little smash and grab."

I nodded. "He goes to school right here, but I can't think of any way to find him. I have no idea what he looks like. His address is the only thing I've got."

"No biggie," Mike said. "Here at school, he'd probably be on his best behavior. If we want to find out what he's really up to, it'll require watching his extracurricular activities. And by the way, why is he going to school in Vegas? Why not Oxford or something like that?"

"I don't think the hotel management program there is up to his standards," I said.

"Got it. So he's royalty, but he's studying to manage a Marriott?"

I smiled. "That's what
I
wondered, but my client says he's got designs on creating an upscale resort out of his family estate. Assuming he wins his lawsuit, of course."

"I guess it all adds up," Mike said, with eminent skepticism.

I stood up and closed the book. Mike went and made a few copies of the Kent section of the book insert, so at least I'd have something to show Melanie for our efforts. I had nothing else on my calendar for the day, and it wasn't even lunchtime, so I told Mike I'd handle the surveillance on Henry John Kent. At least, until I got bored.

Henry John Kent lived just off of Tropicana Avenue, near the UNLV campus, in a rented space that was nominally a motel but looked more like a flophouse. The sign at the All-Star Motel said rooms were available weekly or monthly, and instructed passers-by to ask about long-term leases. It was a gray, two-story structure built out of thinly disguised concrete blocks, with row after row of decrepit balconies populated by rusting lawn furniture and bikes, a few satellite dishes, and a couple of well-worn gas grills. I double-checked the address Melanie had given me, because it certainly didn't look like royal digs. Hell, I doubted the place even met the standards of today's college students, who (despite being broke) had become used to housing that would have been considered luxury accommodations in my day.

I lucked out and found the last spot in the parking lot, then made a casual stroll around the place. The inn had about a hundred units, and Kent's was number seventy-nine, on the second floor. The only thing his place had going for it was an absence of junk on the balcony. Circling back to my car, I immediately regretted not having Mike do the surveillance. I'd brought a magazine with me, but even the fall fashion issue of
InStyle
wasn't going to make the stakeout that much more tolerable. My Audi TT was cramped, and if I wanted a view of Kent's apartment I needed to crane my neck to look in my rearview mirror.

After twenty minutes of drudgery, punctuated only by a couple of choice fashion tips from my magazine, I gave up on the idea of sitting in my car all day. Melanie had resources, and she could afford to get me a more comfortable setup. Plus, I had to pee. I climbed out of the car and, with a little bit of trepidation, approached the door marked
Office
and pulled it open. A little bell rang as I walked in, then nothing happened.

It was almost noon, so I figured the receptionist could be on break. There were no little bells on the desk to ring, so after a minute or two of surveying the disgusting wallpaper and inhaling secondhand smoke that was probably a remnant from the 1980s, I yelped out a little "Hello!"

It was a pathetic attempt, really, so I didn't bother waiting for a response. "
Hello
!" I yelled out again. My second effort produced the unmistakable sound of glass smashing on the floor, and then an "Aww, shit" from whoever had just committed the deed.

"Coming!" the voice said, annoyed.

I wasn't expecting much, but the guy who shuffled through the door was even more of a mess than I'd expected. He was only in his thirties, but had the puffy and glazed-over appearance of one of the original members of the band KISS. He was fumbling with his cigarette lighter and uttering more choice words under his breath. First things first, I supposed.

Once he got the cigarette lit and took a deep drag, he finally addressed me. "Sorry, man, you woke me up."

I wasn't sure how to respond, either to the "man" appellation or to the fact that he seemed a little ticked that I'd had the nerve to come into the office during business hours. I decided to let it slide.

"Can I get a room?" I asked.

He seemed a little surprised by the question. "Uhh, yeah. Just let me check a minute. Okay. You want an hour, a day, a week, or what?" He winked his left eye at me.

"Let's just start with a day," I said. "Cash okay?" I had no intentions of giving this slimeball my credit card information.

"You bet."

"You have anything around room sixty-two? Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, something like that?" These were the rooms directly across the parking lot from Kent's apartment.

He shrugged, looked behind him on a board covered by hanging keys, and reached for number sixty-four. I handed over the thirty-nine bucks, which seemed expensive, took the key, and got the hell out of there.

"Check out's 11 a.m.," he mumbled.

I hoped to be long gone by eleven. Best-case scenario, I could see Kent leaving his apartment and follow him around for a while, getting a sense for what he was up to. It could be something as boring as going to the Laundromat, or something a lot more telling. There was no way to know in advance.

I found my room and opened the door, unable to remember the last time I'd used an old-fashioned metal key to open a hotel room. The room itself wasn't as bad as I'd feared. The bed looked old. The pinkish sheets were frayed, and the bathroom had tiled floors straight out of 1964, but all in all it could have been worse. I peeked out the curtain and located Kent's apartment across the parking lot. It was a straight shot across, so I left the curtain open a crack and arranged a chair so I could face it. And then I settled in for what I hoped would not be a long wait.

Boy, was I wrong. One-thirty came and went, and with it the last vestiges of my ability to ignore the ravenous hunger that was roiling inside me. Murphy's Law said that if I left to pick up lunch, that would be the time Kent would appear, so I decided to order Chinese food, or at least what we Americans called Chinese food. A Chinese friend of mine, who danced under the name Princess Asia, always laughed at our ideas of their cuisine, most of which was cooked by Koreans, not Chinese, and had little relation to the food the Chinese people actually ate. I didn't care, though. Crab Rangoon and egg rolls were exactly what I needed to fill the pit in my stomach.