Wanna Get Lucky?

by Deborah Coonts

  The salesgirls, the crowd, Teddie, me, we all waited. But nobody appeared.

  Teddie disappeared around the curtain, then reappeared with a very reluctant and blushing Miss Patterson in tow. He released her hand and stepped back.

  For a moment there was silence, then all of us erupted in loud cheering—even the crowd outside.

  Miss Patterson was a vision in a silky peach shirt and loosely fitted white slacks. She had a beautiful figure, curvy in all the right places. Why in the world had she hidden it under those old sacks? Why indeed? Only those not guilty of the same sin could question and criticize, so I kept my mouth shut, but added a few wolf whistles of my own to her applause.

  Miss Patterson couldn’t keep the grin off her face as she modeled all the outfits she had chosen. At the end of the show, we decided there were five absolute must-haves—two shirt-and-pant ensembles and one very flirty little black dress.

  She didn’t need much time to find shoes to match.

  We congregated at the cash register, and Miss Patterson swallowed hard as the salesgirl presented her with the bill—seven hundred dollars. Her eyebrows shot upward. “That’s all?” she asked. She looked first at me, then at Teddie.

  We both shrugged and kept our expressions bland.

  “Wow. That’s one heck of discount you get, Mr. Kowalski,” she said as she proffered her credit card.

  I noticed a sign on the counter that read, “Return policy: All items may be returned for full refund within ten days EXCEPT for any lingerie that has touched your choochilala.”

  “Is ‘choochilala’ a word?” I asked.

  The salesgirl shook her head. “I made it up, but everybody knows what it means.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  Miss Patterson walked with the saleslady to the front door. Teddie and I followed, his arm hooked through mine. Just before the doors opened and the hoards descended, he whispered in my ear. “You’re pretty sneaky. I don’t get that big of a discount.”

  I just smiled and extracted my arm from his as the crowd surrounded him, all asking for his autograph.

  I had made it out into the mall when Dane appeared at my elbow. God, he was worse than a bad penny.

  “Do you know what time it is? Are you actually going to work today?” he asked.

  I glanced at my watch. Four o’clock! Shoot! I needed to get a move on.

  “Like the hair, by the way,” he added.

  That was a long way from “You look fabulous” and “You blow me away,” but he got points for noticing—even though he played for the opposition. “Why are you always where I am? Is there something you need?”

  “I work here. And, no, not really.” He nodded toward Teddie. “You’re an interesting lady, Ms. O’Toole. First you let a porn star kiss you and then a gay guy who wears women’s clothes for a living. When are you going to let a real man in on the action?”

  I put my hands on my hips and looked at him. “That is the sleaziest line I’ve heard since I talked to you yesterday. Did you take a course in creepiness?”

  That wiped the grin off his face.

  “Do you ever get anywhere with a line like that?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I nodded toward Teddie. “And what makes you think he’s gay?”

  Chapter

  ELEVEN

  Willie was close—I could feel it.

  I needed one more piece of information, then I’d be sure.

  I screeched to a stop in front of the valet stand at Carne, jumped out of the car and tossed the keys to a startled kid in black pants and a vest. I assumed he was there to look after the cars—I didn’t stop to find out. The Ferrari had covered the distance in record time, but I was still late.

  Detective Romeo stood by the front door, looking studiedly patient. I’d called him as I’d left—I was back in possession of my phone, which Teddie had given to Miss Patterson and she had given to me.

  And I had just started to like being unavailable.

  “Wow, you look . . . different,” Romeo said as I joined him by the entrance.

  “High praise, indeed.” I smiled at him. “We’re going to have to work on your delivery—smooth up those rough edges—if you want to make any time with the ladies in Vegas.”

  “Is that another service you provide?” His face colored a little.

  “For a small fee you can get Lucky O’Toole’s Lessons in Love.”

  “Was that a bestseller?”

  “Very small print run—not worth the cover price.” I opened the mirrored glass door and motioned him inside. “What I know about love, you could put in your eye and not impair your vision.”

  He looked like he didn’t believe me.

  I nodded. “Sad, but true.”

  Carne was your typical high-end restaurant, specializing in a myriad of animal parts cooked to your liking. With dark paneled walls, high, overstuffed leather booths, brass accents and subdued lighting, it was both a place to be seen and a place to hide, depending on your mood.

  No one manned the hostess station, so I stepped inside the main dining room. Waiters, clad in black with long white aprons, carefully wiped down stemware and flatware, then meticulously arranged each piece in its place on a white-clothed table.

  Along the right-hand wall and extending the full length of the restaurant was an open kitchen with a huge charcoal grill. The chefs were busy chopping and arranging, preparing for the dinner rush.

  I caught the eye of one of the waiters. “Where’s the bar?”

  “Right through there.” He pointed to an opening along the wall to my left, which divided the building into the main room—the restaurant—and a side portion, obviously the bar. “We don’t open until five.”

  I ignored him and headed for the bar.

  Romeo dogged my heels. “What are we looking for?”

  “A connection.”

  In contrast to the restaurant, the bar was an open and inviting space populated by a dozen high-topped tables, each with three chairs—which I thought odd; I couldn’t imagine a scenario where three chairs would be appropriate, but apparently, there were a lot of things I couldn’t imagine. A row of stools lined the bar, completing the seating opportunities. Lotsa room to mix and mingle—and trade spouses. A shiver of revulsion darted through me.

  The place was as empty as a graveyard after dark.

  I leaned across the bar and shouted, “Hey! Anybody back there?”

  A tall blonde woman appeared around the corner, drying her hands with a bar towel. “We don’t open until five.”

  The clock above her head read five minutes until five.

  If I owned this place . . . I took a deep breath and smiled. “I know. And I can see you’re busy, sorry. Would you mind answering a question or two? It won’t take a minute.”

  The woman adopted a wary attitude. “What kind of question?”

  I pulled the pictures of Felicia, Willie and Dane out of my bag and spread them on the counter. “Do you remember seeing any of these people in here before?”

  The bartender glanced at the photos, then back at me. “I might.”

  I knew what she wanted—good thing I had taken time to hit the ATM on my way out of the hotel. I reached for my wallet, but Romeo’s hand on my arm stopped me.

  He extracted his badge from his coat pocket and flashed it at the woman. “Does this help you remember?”

  She shrugged. “No offense. Just working all the angles.” She bent over the photos.

  “Playing it straight usually gets you further,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut.

  She gave me the once-over, then returned to the photos.

  Romeo shot me a warning look.

  I know. I know. Don’t piss them off until after they give you what you want. I never was very good at playing games.

  I shifted from foot to foot while blondie took her time with the photos.

  Finally she looked up. “I don’t know about handsome there and the woman. I may have see
n them in here. But this guy—” She tapped Willie’s photo. “He’s a regular.”

  My luck was holding! “Did he usually come in alone or with anybody else?” I tried to adopt an attitude of casual indifference—whatever that was.

  “I saw him a lot with this greasy guy with a wandering hand. Always touching what he shouldn’t, like I’m some kinda chattel, you know?”

  I nodded, wondering, among other things, where she came across that word. “You wouldn’t happen to know his name?”

  “Phil something.” A smile tickled her lips. “Give me a minute. I’ll get it for you. The dick was in here last Friday—alone.”

  “You remember back to last Friday?” I wasn’t sure if she was stringing us along or not. “I’d think all the nights would run together.”

  “Oh I remember, all right. I don’t normally work on Fridays, but my rent was due, and I was a little short. I was lookin’ good until your jerk left me a five-dollar tip on a two-hundred-dollar tab.”

  I shrugged in understanding. Vegas had more than its share of pretenders.

  “Hold on a sec.” She disappeared into the back.

  Money and revenge—universal motivators.

  She reappeared with a sheet of paper in her hand. “I was right. Phil Stewart—that’s your guy.”

  I slapped my hands on the counter. “Great! Thanks.” I turned to go, then stopped. I pulled five twenties out of my wallet and gave them to her.

  “Whoa. Thanks.” She seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t know what he’s done, but get that creep, okay?”

  “My pleasure.”

  “NICE wheels,” Romeo said as he slipped into the Ferrari’s passenger seat.

  “Thanks.” The kid was more comfortable complimenting cars than women. Typical.

  “Clearly I picked the wrong profession.” Romeo traced the stitching in the leather seats. “Of course, nobody goes into police work looking to get rich.”

  “Some do,” I countered as I fired the engine and steered the car out on Charleston. “Vegas has a history of cops on the take. It can be quite lucrative, so I’m told.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Romeo said, unable to take his eyes off the car.

  “You stay on the force long enough, you’ll learn.” I gunned the engine and the car leapt forward—nothing like almost five hundred horses under the hood. If I didn’t know half the cops in this town, I would’ve lost my license years ago.

  Romeo wasn’t paying attention. He had a stupid grin on his face as he watched me work through the gears with the paddle shifters. Put a guy in a fast car and his IQ plummets.

  “That’s cool. No clutch, huh?”

  “Romeo, we can discuss the merits of clutchless manual transmissions some other time. Pay attention—we have work to do.”

  “Right.” He pushed himself up in the seat. “Okay.” He looked at me, his brow furrowed as though he was trying to force brain cells back online. “Did that bartender give you the connection you were looking for?”

  “Partly—but not completely.” I let the speed bleed off as I approached the intersection of Charleston and Durango. The light was green. I threw the car to the right and accelerated through the turn—just like they’d taught me to do at the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

  Romeo braced himself, but the smile never left his face. “You know, I’m completely at sea here. I don’t know what we’re looking for or what connections we’re trying to make.”

  “Do one thing for me, then I’ll connect all the dots.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to call whoever it is at Metro that can put a name and an address together. I want to know if Phil Stewart lives in Spanish Trail and, if so, is this his house number.”

  I gave him the piece of paper on which Jeep had written the location for the upcoming Trendmakers’ party.

  Romeo pulled out his phone and went to work while I enjoyed the ride, the beautiful day, and the fact that soon I would have my hands around Willie the Weasel’s neck—I was sure of it.

  This time I made a more sedate left turn onto Tropicana—Romeo was still on the phone—I passed the first entrance then turned into the second—the east entrance—of Spanish Trail.

  Willie was there. I could feel it.

  I whistled a jaunty tune as I motored past the elaborate entrance fountain and came to a halt next to the guard shack at the east gate.

  I cast a beatific smile on Romeo when he announced, “You were right!”

  I had known it all along—not actually, mind you, but, well, I just knew. Maybe my bum meter now had a GPS finder feature, or something. God, that would be interesting—not only would I attract the bums, but I could track them down as well! If the customer relations business ever went bad, I had another line of work to pursue—bum vigilante. Of course, there were probably a few legal hurdles to get over.

  A heavyset woman in a Spanish Trail security uniform, gun holstered at her hip, sauntered over to the car, clipboard in hand. “Who’re you?”

  “Lucky O’Toole. This is Detective Romeo. We’re here on police business.”

  “Uh-huh.” The guard bent down and looked at us both, then scanned her clipboard. “You’re not on the list.”

  “I know we’re not on the list. We—”

  “I can’t let nobody in who’s not on the list.”

  I motioned to Romeo to do his magic. Again he flashed his badge. This time the woman took it and disappeared inside the guard’s station. I saw her watching us warily as she talked on the phone.

  She reappeared a few minutes later. “I thought you were lyin’,” she said as she handed the badge back to Romeo. She stepped back and pressed a button to open the gate. “You police sure have nice rides these days. Next time you guys want money from the voters, you can count me out.”

  Romeo shot me a smile as I accelerated away. “Hanging out with you could give the police a bad name.”

  SPANISH Trail occupied the top of the list of Vegas’ most wonderful residential oases. Stucco and tile homes surrounded a twenty-seven-hole golf course with double-wide fairways and numerous signature water features. Grass and water—the symbols of wealth in the desert—and Spanish Trail had them in spades. Rumor had it that the temperature actually fell ten degrees once inside the gates, as if even the weather gods bowed to the show of money and power.

  The first gated community in Vegas—most of the original power brokers had lived here at one time or another. To establish the appropriate hierarchy, the architects designed a series of gated communities within the gated community. The more money you had, the greater the number of gates protecting you from the riffraff.

  Phil Stewart apparently had money.

  We’d made it through the first obstacle and now found ourselves facing the second. This was like some kind of quest or something, where only the clever would pass—which, apparently, did not include me at the moment. Out of patience and out of ideas, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel while I scrutinized the keypad, then glared at the closed gate blocking our entrance.

  “Try five seven four two,” Romeo said.

  “What?”

  “Five seven four two. It’s written right here.” He pointed to the piece of paper I had given him.

  “Jeez.” I poked at the numbers. “Nuance apparently flies right by me.”

  The gate moaned, then began its slow journey.

  A Mediterranean-style McMansion, Phil Stewart’s abode covered two lots at the end of a cul-de-sac. From glimpses through the shrubbery I surmised it backed up to the golf course and had a wonderful view all the way to Mount Charleston to the north and the Spring Mountains to the west—a very pricey backdrop.

  Romeo and I decided to attack on foot. I parked the car two houses down.

  “We don’t have a search warrant,” Romeo announced as he tried to keep up. He had to take two steps for my one.

  “Amazingly enough, I did manage to capture that nuance.” So he had a habit of stating the obvi
ous—I could identify.

  “I have the tape recorder you told me to bring.” He pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to me. It was identical to the one I brought. “I don’t know how I’m going to take his statement and all that—if he’s even here.” Romeo shot me a look.

  “Oh, he’s here. Trust me.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Romeo clicked the button on the tape recorder to on, pressed the record button, made sure the tape was turning and the red light was on, then deposited the thing in his shirt pocket and pulled his jacket over to cover it.

  I did the same but put my recorder in my pants pocket. “Here’s how we’re going to play it. I’ll take the lead—”

  “I figured that much out already,” Romeo groused.

  “You’re not going to take his statement,” I continued. “In fact you will not ask him anything.”

  “I won’t?”

  “Think, Romeo. I’ll do the talking. I’ll ask the questions and get the confession out of him. I’m not the police—I’m a private citizen. There are no rules on me questioning him and . . .” I held up my finger for emphasis. “And this is the most important part—I tape my own conversation with him and the tape can be used against him in a court of law.”

  “Right. I knew that.” He cast me a sheepish grin. “I’ve never done this before, you know.”

  “You’re doing fine. Keep your badge in your pocket, follow my lead, and we’ll be cool.”

  We hiked up the curved driveway to the front of the house. We stopped before the huge copper door, which was decorated with etchings of naked women frolicking about. Just the kind of place where Willie the Weasel would hole up. I could picture him by the pool, a cool beverage in one hand, bikini-clad women slathering his body in oil. Oh yeah, he’d burrow in here like a tick on a dog.

  My eyes got all slitty.

  “I’ve seen that look before.” Romeo took a step back.

  I smiled a tight smile. “Let me handle this. I haven’t met a man yet who wouldn’t at least open the door to a woman in a Ferrari.”

  “The car’s down the street.”

  “Right.” I shrugged. “I can talk my way in. Just watch.” I pressed the bell. It played some tune—something about “let’s get it on”—as it echoed inside Phil Stewart’s party palace.