Stripped (45 page)

“Anything.”

“Do you remember a lifeguard at the Sheherezade back in 1967 named Mickey?”

There was a long pause on the phone, and Moose began to backtrack. “There were a lot of college kids around back then.”

“That’s not an answer, Moose. Did you know him?”

“Why? What’s this about?”

“It’s just a loose end we’re trying to clear up.”

He could hear Moose breathing. “Well, I don’t think he makes a big secret of it. He put himself through law school working at the Sheherezade. A lot of the big shots did.”

Stride began to feel uneasy. He wondered if he had made a mistake that would get him and Serena killed. “So you’ve stayed in touch with him?”

“Of course. Mickey Durand is the best damn friend the entertainment industry has ever had in this state. God and the voters willing, he’ll be reelected as governor next month.”

Beatrice Erdspring punched the volume button on the television remote control repeatedly, but it didn’t make any difference in the sound. The newscasters kept whispering, and she couldn’t hear a thing.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she grumbled, pulling the cream-colored blanket up over her nightgown.

She tried several channels, but it was all the same, so she went back to the local CBS station, where that nice Hispanic man with the black hair read the news. Raul was his name. He looked strong and trustworthy, and he had an attractive mustache. Her husband, Emmett, had always worn a mustache.

It wasn’t like Raul to whisper, but even when Beatrice craned her neck and cupped a hand behind her ear, she could barely make out a word.

“Speak up, Raul,” she said to the television.

Beatrice was frustrated, because she recognized the attractive woman in the old photograph on the screen, and she wanted to hear what they were saying about her.

“Can you hear that, Rowena?” Beatrice called to her roommate. “I think the television is broken again. Or maybe the remote control needs batteries.”

Rowena was in the other bed in the one-room studio they shared in the assisted living facility in Boulder City. Beatrice looked over and saw that Rowena was sleeping again. She slept most of the time. Beatrice had gone through three roommates in the past year, and she was afraid that Rowena would be gone soon, too. It was too bad, because when she was awake, Rowena was a stitch. She had raised six children on a dairy farm in Iowa, and the stories she told could keep you laughing for hours.

Like the one about her eight-year-old daughter trying to “milk” a bull. Well, wasn’t that a surprise for both of them!

Beatrice stared at the television again and sighed. Raul had moved on to another story.

She looked out the window at the main street of Boulder City. Cars whizzed by, heading off to Lake Mead or Hoover Dam. Flora had taken the residents on an outing to Lake Mead the previous month, and although the wind had mussed her hair, it had been lovely to see the water again. Not that Lake Mead was as pretty as Lake Tahoe, where she had lived for so many years, but it was good to be outside again. She enjoyed the heat, although she did miss the chill of those winter nights long ago, when she and Emmett would snuggle under the quilt together. She couldn’t handle the cold anymore, though. That was why she had retired in the southern part of the state.

Flora came running into the room, her hands over her ears. She made a beeline for the television, clicked it off at the switch, and then put a hand over her heart, breathing heavily. She wagged a finger and said something that Beatrice couldn’t hear.

“You’re mumbling again, Flora,” Beatrice told her. “Speak up, will you?”

Flora came up to the side of the bed and looked like she was shouting, but the words were far away. “Bea, honey, you forgot to put in your hearing aids.”

“Oh, dear.”

Flora rustled in the nightstand drawer by Beatrice’s bed and came out triumphantly with two beige plugs that Beatricefitted in her ears each morning. She helped Beatrice insert them and then stood back, laughing. Flora was a three-hundred-pound Filipino woman, and her body jiggled all over when she laughed.

“Is that better, honey?”

“You don’t need to shout, Flora,” Beatrice said, which made Flora laugh again.

“Do you want the television back on?” Flora asked.

Beatrice shook her head. “No, I missed the story I wanted to see.”

“Wha t story was that?”

“Well, I missed it, so I don’t know! But they were showing a photograph of a lovely girl I knew back when I was a nurse.”

“That’s nice,” Flora said. She was bustling around the room, straightening up, and had stopped paying attention. “Did you see they caught that terrible man? The one who killed all those people? Shot him off the top of a building. Bang, bang.”

Flora fussed at the bedside. She nudged Beatrice forward, then grabbed and fluffed her two pillows with a meaty brown fist. “It’s romantic, though. He killed all those people to get revenge for his mother. His mother! My boys, it’s hard enoiigh getting them to show up for my birthday party.”

“Who was his mother?” Beatrice asked.

“What? Oh, one of those showgirls from the 1960s. She had to give up her baby. Isn’t that tragic? Can you imagine? I would go crazy giving up one of my babies. I’d be happy if they were living here when they were fifty. Of course, the way my boys are going, they might well be!”

Beatrice frowned. “Are you talking about Amira Luz?”

But Flora was already on her way out of the room and didn’t look back. Beatrice was alone again, except for Rowena, who was snoring. She remembered now—that was why she had taken her hearing aids out. Rowena snored like a 727 on takeoff.

Beatrice thought about Amira Luz and smiled. It was so funny to see this beautiful, pregnant woman on the balcony of the suite, trying to do these strange, erotic dance moves while her bulging stomach got in the way.

Flora must have been talking about Amira. Why else would her picture be on television after all these years?

It didn’t make sense, though. Flora must have got it wrong.

Beatrice turned on the television again and quickly lowered the volume with the remote. She waved at Raul, then began switching channels to see if someone else would have the story. Amira? No. They had made a mistake.

The invitation came, just as Stride expected. The following night at ten o’clock, they found themselves back in the bone white foyer of Boni’s penthouse suite in the Charlcombe Towers. Boni himself let them in through the double doors and guided them into the mammoth cowboy room. The light was low, just a few pale lamps and the glow from the tower outside.

Boni wore a dark suit again. Stride caught the aroma of cigars and cologne. He still had an easy, charming smile, and Stride wondered if he was like the Cheshire cat, who could disappear and leave only the smile behind to fool people. He used a two-handed grip to shake both their hands.

“You saved our lives, Detectives. Me and Claire. I felt I owed you a celebratory drink.”

“That’s why we’re here?” Stride asked, suspicion in his voice.

“Of course. You will drink with me, won’t you? You’re certainly not on duty now.”

Message received and understood
, Stride thought. This was all off the record.

“Ms. Dial, I know you’d prefer mineral water or juice, of course. Detective Stride, what about you? Brandy?”

Stride nodded.

“I have an excellent brandy I think you’ll like,” Boni told Stride. He retired to the bar to pour a glass, as well as three fingers of whiskey for himself.

Stride took a sip. It seemed to melt on his tongue.

“Good, huh?” Boni asked.

“Outstanding.”

“Where’s Claire?” Serena asked.

“I thought she needed a break,” Boni said. “These last few days have been stressful for her. I flew her down to St. Thomas. She’ll be back soon.”

“I’d like to talk with her,” Serena said.

“Of course. I’ll give you the number for the resort before you go. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”

Stride took another sip of brandy. He wondered how this game was played. Who would start? How would they dance? What it really came down to was who would say the name first. It was foolish to pretend they didn’t all know what this was about.

As it turned out, Boni moved the first pawn.

“There’s someone here who would like to meet you,” he told them. “I bet you’d like to meet him, too.”

Stride heard a swish of movement behind them, and when he turned, he saw the silver-haired governor of Nevada joining them from one of the interior rooms of the suite.

“Mickey,” Boni called. “Come on in here. Meet those detectives who saved my neck.”

Mike Durand was tall and imposing. He was heavily suntanned, but his aging skin was tight and unblemished. A face-lift, probably, with laser surgery to burn off the blotches of sixty-five years. Capped teeth, too, that gave him a huge alabaster smile. He was dressed in a black tuxedo that practically glowed, and he already had a whiskey in his hand, twice the size of Boni’s. Stride also noticed something that he hadn’t spotted before when he saw the man on television or in photographs. Durand had the meanest, most cutthroat eyes he had ever seen, worse than any hardened criminal’s. He could smile as he slit your throat. A perfect politician.

Durand extended his hand. Stride and Serena didn’t smile back or try to shake hands, and Stride could see a barely contained fury in the governor’s face.

No more pretenses.

“I don’t think they’re going to keep this quiet,” Durand told Boni, as if they were alone in the room. “I thought you said you had this under control.”

Stride watched Boni and realized to his surprise that the old man hated Mickey Durand. There was undisguised contempt in his stare, as if Mickey were a parasite that fed off him, but one that had wrapped itself around his entrails until he couldn’t tell anymore where one organism ended and the other began. Kill one, kill them both.

“They’re police, Mickey,” Boni replied calmly. “Police don’t stop until they know the truth. So you and I, we’re going to tell them the truth. Then we can all put this behind us.”

“They’ll talk. Hell, they could be wired.”

Boni shook his head. “Ihave scanners in the foyer. They aren’t wired. As for talking, don’t worry. I think we can come to an arrangement that keeps us all happy.” He took a slug of whiskey and nodded at Stride. “You already know about Mickey. I know you talked to Moose. What else do you want to know?”

Stride looked at Durand. “Amira,” he said. “Why did you do it? We both know Boni put you up to it. What did he have on you back then?”

Durand didn’t answer. Boni interrupted smoothly. “I saved Mickey’s mother from some problems she was having with the district attorney. She was one of my casino employees. She murdered her sister when she found her in bed with her husband, and I got the charges dropped. So there were debts to be paid, you see. I was already putting Mickey through law school. I saw the kind of potential he had.”

Durand shrugged. “He really didn’t have to convince me, you know. Have you seen what Amira looked like? I would have volunteered.”

“Were you supposed to kill her?” Serena asked.

“No,” Boni said sharply, with another glance at Durand that suggested how much he loathed the relationship between them. “It was just supposed to be a lesson in loyalty.”

“She was afighter,”Durand said. “It was an accident.”

“An accident?” Serena retorted cynically. “Crushing her skull?”

“These days I guess we would call it rough sex,” Durand said, laughing.

“These days we call it rape and murder,” Serena told him coldly.

Stride saw that Boni wasn’t laughing. “I’m amazed you didn’t kill him for what he did.”

Boni took a moment to rein in his temper. “I’m a businessman, Detective. Sometimes you make difficult choices for the greater gain. Amira was already dead to me, and Mickey was a prime investment.” He added, with a glance at Durand, “But don’t think it didn’t occur to me.”

“We’re blood brothers,” Durand said, seemingly unconcerned with the powder keg that stood near him. “Both climbing the heights of power. It’s been a hell of aride. Congressional aide, state assembly, speaker, then governor. Who knows, maybe the Senate in two years. I love DC. And they’re making noises about tighter gaming regulations, all those fucking preachers.”

“What about Claire?” Serena asked. “Was raping her an accident, too?”

For the first time, Stride saw nervousness in Durand’s cold eyes. “That was miscommunication,” he murmured. “We had both been drinking. Boni knows I would never deliberately hurt her.”

Stride didn’t think Boni knew that at all. He wondered how far it went, being a businessman. Making difficult choices for the greater gain. Durand was a psychotic, and Boni had the keys to the cage. Stride saw Boni struggling with it, as he must have struggled his whole life. Tolerating the intolerable. He didn’t think Boni had lied to Claire. He had loved Amira, and this man had killed her. Had raped his daughter. All for power.

“You know the truth now” Boni told them, his voice tight. “It’s time to walk away.”

Silence lingered in the room. One of the lightbulbs in a lamp on the nearest desk flickered. Somewhere outside, in the darkness over the valley, Stride saw the blinking of a plane climbing from the city.

“What if we don’t?” Stride asked.

Boni sighed. “Let’s not go there.”

“Hypothetically,” Serena said.

“You can’t prove anything,” Boni reminded them. “You have no evidence. Your superiors won’t investigate. The two of you are smart enough to know how power works in this city. Sometimes you’re the fly, and sometimes you’re the swatter’

“We might go to the press,” Stride suggested.

Boni shrugged. “Don’t make me spell it out for you. You’d be discredited. Your lives would be ruined. I really don’t want to do that. I mean that sincerely, Detective. I respect you both, but things would come out.”