Temptation Town (6 page)
Authors: Mike Dennis
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #mystery, #Thriller & Suspense, #crime, #Noir, #Maraya21
Of
course, I hope she didn't tell him who killed Bobby and Clyde, but if she did,
I'm sure Beck will find me soon enough. And I'll be waiting for him.
As for
Emily, who knows? I can only hope she stays safe. If she does, maybe Beck will
give up the chase and one day, she can be reunited with her family.
I'm going to call Lansdorf in the morning. I don't
really know what I'm going to say, though, except I know I'm not taking the twenty-five
hundred he owes me.
How do you tell a man you watched his daughter
disappear?
How do you tell him another girl had to die so his
daughter could live?
It's not right, it's just not right. And usually
there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it.
But every so often, there is.
Once inside Binion's, I headed for the front desk.
"Can you mail this for me, please?" I
asked.
The desk clerk nodded and I handed her the padded
envelope containing the videotape, addressed to
Las Vegas Weekly.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
After thirty years as a professional
musician (piano), Mike Dennis left Key West and moved to Las Vegas to
become a professional poker player. He turned to writing when his first novel,
The
Take
, was picked up by a publisher in 2009.
His next book,
Setup On Front Street,
was the first in a series of Key West noir
novels. The series is called Key West Nocturnes, and it will lift the veil on
that town, revealing it as a true noir city, on a par with Los Angeles, New Orleans,
or Miami.
The
Ghosts Of Havana
, a tale of old vendettas that will not die,
is the second book in that series. The third novel,
Man-Slaughter
, is now available, and the fourth,
The Guns Of Miami
, will be coming in
2013.
Temptation
Town
is Mike's first novelette, and the first in the
Jack Barnett / Las Vegas series, centering around a reluctant ex-private
investigator. Drawn on Mike's years in Las Vegas, the tale takes the reader to
areas of Sin City that never appear in tourist guidebooks.
The second entry in the series,
Hard Cash
, is now available, while a
full Barnett novel,
The Downtown Deal
,
is also currently available.
Mike also has published short stories for
Kindle, including
Between The Devil And
The Deep Blue Eyes
and
The Session.
Also, a collection of short stories,
Bloodstains On The Wall
is available
.
In
addition, his stories have been published in A Twist Of Noir, Mysterical e,
Powder Burn Flash, Slow Trains, and
The Wizards Of Words 2009 Anthology
.
Mike has an experimental rockabilly novel,
Cadillac's Comin'
, a hard tale of the
chaotic early days of rock & roll. It's now available.
In late 2010, Mike moved back to Key West,
where he enjoys year-round island living with his wife Yleana, whom he married
on a warm night in December of 2012, on the rooftop of an apartment building in
Havana, Cuba.
Contact Mike Dennis /
[email protected]
Please send me your email
address so I can notify you when my next book comes out. Note:
I DO NOT SPAM!
You will receive only
ONE
email each time a new book is about
to be published.
Visit Mike's website
http://mikedennisnoir.com
Please leave a review.
OTHER BOOKS
BY MIKE DENNIS
The Key West Nocturnes Series
THE GUNS OF MIAMI
(coming soon)
Available in digital and paperback
The Jack Barnett/Las Vegas Series
Available in digital and paperback
Three
stories from the dark side
Available in digital and paperback
A novel of
human desperation
Available in digital and paperback
A rock
& roll novel
Available in digital and paperback
A Las Vegas
noir short story
Available in digital only
A short
story of broken dreams
Available in digital only
HERE IS AN EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW OF
HARD CASH
The second
installment in the
Jack Barnett/Las
Vegas series
by Mike Dennis
A NOVELETTE
NOW AVAILABLE
HARD CASH
© Mike Dennis, 2011
I
THERE’S
this place in Las Vegas they call the Neon Boneyard. It's where a lot of the
old casino and hotel/motel signs are stored. They call it a museum, kind of
like the city's version of the Guggenheim, but the place is really nothing more
than a big walled-in outdoor lot in a pretty creepy neighborhood on the north
rim of downtown.
You go there and you'll see those old neon giants
sitting on the ground, unlit, ghostly shadows of their glorious selves back
when they towered majestically over bustling boulevards.
I took a guided tour of the Boneyard one cold
February afternoon, and somewhere near the end of the tour guide's spiel, I
split myself off from the rest of the group to explore on my own. I wandered to
a remote corner of the lot where I stood alone under the chill blue sky,
without the chattering guide. Dwarfed among the enormous signs, I could feel the
spooky silence. Like they were awaiting resurrection.
I wanted to soak up a little local culture. I've
been living in Las Vegas ever since I moved up from LA almost two years ago,
back in the spring of 2001. All I really knew about this city was what I'd
heard, so I thought I'd get out and see some history, or what passes for
history around here.
A town like this, you don't have to dig too deep
to uncover the past.
≈≈≈
Following the tour, I
stepped out of the Boneyard lot onto the sidewalk. As I climbed into my car
half a block away, I heard a sudden, violent thump to my immediate left. I spun
around to see a man tumble hard to the pavement not fifteen feet away. The tan
cargo van that hit him squealed wide around the corner, weaving across both
lanes of Wilson Avenue, and sped toward Maryland Parkway, where it would
eventually melt into northside traffic. I caught printing on the side and back
of the van, but I couldn't grab the plate number.
I rushed to him. Blood streamed from his right
ear, and he struggled for breath. When I pulled out my cell phone to call 911,
he clutched my forearm as best he could, gasping for words. With thinning black
hair, he appeared to be middle-aged, of slender build, maybe Hispanic.
By the time I finished the call, he had reached
into the inside pocket of his jacket, unsteadily digging out a thick white
envelope. Quaking, he handed it to me. I saw writing, but I didn't stop to
look. Desperate brown eyes begged me to listen as he tried to speak. I cradled
his head. In the background, I heard a couple of cars passing by. No one
stopped.
"G-g-give … to … " He hacked and moaned
in pain.
"Give this to who? To who?" Without
thinking, I stuffed the envelope inside my shirt. I looked around. No
pedestrians anywhere on this back street.
His eyes rolled upward into his head and blood kept
pouring out of his ear, flowing across the cold asphalt toward the gutter.
"Who? Who?" I shouted.
His labored breath tried to form words. "Bla
… Bl …" He exhaled once, and I knew he was gone.
I departed the scene ASAP. Once the cops got here
and caught sight of a corpse, I wanted to be far, far away.
Because I'm Jack Barnett, thirty-six, former private
investigator from Los Angeles, and the authorities there revoked my PI license
back in the spring of '01. I won't go into it here, but I'll just say I went a
little too far on this one job, and my hot temper got me into deep shit once
again. Turned out to be a pretty serious affair, so I felt I'd better split
town right way. Once I got to Las Vegas, I kept a low profile, realizing
California might well have a warrant out for me. So the last thing I need right
now is some cop taking my data and running it through the system.
Also, there was the matter of the envelope.
I hustled back to my car and fired it up. I drove
away, my eyes shifting between the road and the rear view mirror. No one,
except for the dead man, was on the street. I felt the envelope bulging inside
my shirt, and from the minute I first touched it, I had a pretty good idea of
what was inside. Patting it a couple of times, I headed directly home, without
exceeding the speed limit.
Once in the relative safety of my apartment, I
relaxed and poured myself a straight-up Dalmore. I took a quick sip.
Now, I have to say right here single-malt Scotch
is the only luxury I allow myself. My income has dropped off the cliff since
moving to Las Vegas, so I'm forced to live in a sparsely furnished, one-bedroom
apartment near downtown, but I make sure I have the good shit to drink.
After the second smooth sip, I sat on the sofa and
pulled the envelope out of my shirt. It was larger than your average
letter-type envelope and made of heavy paper stock. Two layers of mailing tape
across the seal kept its dense contents from bursting it open. Handwriting on
the outside: the initials "JBB". Printed in the upper left-hand
corner were the words "Blake Enterprises" overlaying a slick-looking
corporate logo.
I tore it open. A bundle of loose cash spilled out
onto my lap. Hundred-dollar bills, every one of them. Reflexively, I stole a
quick look around my empty apartment. There was nothing else in the envelope,
nothing to indicate what the money was for, or where it came from. Just the
initials on the outside.
I began counting. Ninety-five thousand dollars and
two Scotches later, my mind lurched forward, assessing questions about the dead
man in the street, the money, and the initials on the envelope.
You can bet your sweet ass I wanted to keep the
money. I mean, come on, the guy gave it to me, and I was under no obligation
whatever to pass it on to someone else. In addition, if he was run down
deliberately, the driver of the van didn't stop to get it himself, which means
he didn't know the guy was carrying that kind of cash. That meant he wouldn't
come after me for it, even if he knew who I was, which he didn't.
It all added up to ninety-five thousand in found
money. And make no mistake, I could use it. I'd been scraping along on whatever
I could squeeze out of the low-limit poker games downtown at Binion's, and
something like this would give me a lot of breathing room.
But, as the sun disappeared into night, the
questions stayed with me, like bad shrimp. Time for a few answers.
I went to my computer and googled Blake
Enterprises. Their website revealed they were a real estate outfit, operating
all over Nevada and elsewhere, with a headquarters address in the big Bank of
America building downtown. It looked as though they did mostly large commercial
projects, and their top dog was a guy named John Brendan Blake.
His photo, a head shot, showed him to be about
forty, with the faintest trace of gray attacking his full head of hair. His
eyes appeared to be bluish-green, while high cheekbones defined his face. He
was handsome, all right, but in the photo he tried for a smile that couldn't
quite get there. According to the website, he started the company from nothing.
I made a note of the address and phone number and
looked back at the money splayed all over my couch. God damn, I really could
have used it, but I'm cursed with what I call the honest bone. Some would call
it a blessing, but I know different.
Early on in my adulthood, I became a big believer
in karma. Our lives are linked, a succession of lives, really. Call it
reincarnation if you want, but I'm pretty sure that each of our lives is one
long test, to see if we can handle what we are given and to make sure we act
accordingly when something is right or wrong. If we consistently do the right
thing in one life, we get an easier go of it next time around, like a reward.