“You gave me two tapes. What’s on the other one?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the small shape taking form in his hands.
“A very enlightening conversation I had with Irv Gittings.”
“Gittings?” The Big Boss kept his voice flat, which I figured cost him dearly. When I’d taken up with the competition years ago, The Big Boss had been practically apoplectic. “Where’d you see that ass?”
“In his office. I went to see him.” I watched as The Big Boss focused on his creation. “He’d been sending me a bunch of e-mails. He offered me an obscene amount of money to come work for him.”
“Damn,” The Big Boss muttered as he dropped the small shape. He bent over and snatched it from the floor.
“He wants me to run the Babylon for him.”
The Big Boss’s eyes locked onto mine, the small figure in his hand forgotten.
“He’s going to make a tender offer for the Babylon. He says he has the money lined up and you over a barrel.”
“That son of a bitch!” The Big Boss’s voice had murder in it. Jamming the folded bill into his pocket, he leapt to his feet. He stood very still in front of the window, hands clasped behind his back.
I thought he was being fairly charitable in his assessment of Irv Gittings’s character. Maybe he was protecting my delicate sensibilities.
“Who do you know on the Gaming Control Board?”
“Bentley Beckwith is the head of the thing now. We go way back. Why?” The Big Boss swiveled his head around to look at me.
“Some of the funds for the tender offer came from money Irv said he had been setting aside from operations.”
“The Athena has been running underwater for the last two years.”
“My point exactly.”
“You think he’s been skimming?” The Big Boss turned to face me. The fire of the setting sun behind him outlined him in shadow, hiding his features.
I didn’t need to see his face to know what was lurking there. “Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“The Control Board won’t like that.”
“I thought so, too. Wouldn’t hurt to mention the possibility to Beckwith.”
“Nothing like a woman scorned, eh?”
I deserved that. The Big Boss had taken my sleeping with Ol’ Irv as a personal affront. Actually, I didn’t give a damn what happened to Irv Gittings—he’d get what was coming to him eventually.
“I’ll make the call,” The Big Boss said. “Bentley will be all ears.” He paused, then said with the old fire in his voice, “There’s a board of directors meeting on Friday. It’s time we went on the offensive, don’t you think?”
“Offensive is my middle name.” I smiled at the double meaning—both sometimes appropriate—and rose to go. Miss Patterson would be on pins and needles. “Listen to the tapes, then we’ll strategize.”
“That sounds like a plan. How about breakfast? Say, nine thirty at Nebuchadnezzar’s?” The Big Boss took my elbow as he walked me to the elevator.
“I’ll meet you there.” My hand on the button, I paused. “Do me a favor, will you?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t call the police asking about Willie. Don’t send a lawyer down there or take a hit out on him. Don’t take any calls from the media, and, whatever you do, don’t tell Dane about those tapes. You and I are the only ones around here who know of their existence. Let’s keep it that way.”
“That’s four favors, actually,” The Big Boss said with a smile.
I gave him a withering look.
He put up his hands. “You have my word.”
BEFORE I could put the day officially to bed, I had one more call to make.
Fredericka “Flash” Gordon was the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s top investigative journalist and my ace in the hole. We’d met at UNLV where Flash was known as Freddie. The moniker “Flash” had been hung on her after an incident with a bus full of professional basketball players—but I’d been sworn to secrecy.
I grabbed my Nextel and dialed a number I knew by heart.
“Hey, girl,” she said. “What’s up? You going to tell me about the new man in your life?”
“Which one?” I asked.
“You lying or bragging?”
“You’re the ace reporter—you find out.” I shifted the phone to my other ear as I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the mezzanine. My watch read ten till nine. “I need a favor.”
“Does this have anything to do with the swan dive out of the helicopter?” All business, Flash’s voice had lost its playful tone.
“It has everything to with that.” The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and two couples got on. “Hang on a minute, will you?”
“Sure.”
I waited until I stepped out into the empty mezzanine before continuing. “Listen, I can’t give you any details right now, but this story is going to be huge when it breaks.”
“I’m all ears.”
I could picture Flash grabbing her ever-present notebook and pen, yanking off the cap of the pen with her teeth, then scribbling notes in her own shorthand that nobody else could read.
“If you get wind of anything that has to do with this case—and I mean anything—I need you to sit on it.” I strode down the hall toward my office.
“How long?”
“Forty-eight hours. Then I’ll give you the whole story, start to finish.”
“I’ll have the exclusive?”
“Of course. That goes without saying.” I could almost hear the wheels turning.
She whistled low. “Man, this story is threatening to pop, you know? It’s big. I don’t run this newspaper—I can’t promise anything. And if the television heads break it, we have to go with whatever we can find.”
“I’m just asking you to give it your best shot.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“You won’t regret it.”
“Lucky, I never have.”
Chapter
THIRTEEN
I can’t believe it!” Miss Patterson announced as I walked through the door. “You’re three minutes early.”
“Alert the media,” I said, racing through her office to mine. “Give me a minute, will you?”
“You’ve got three, why not use them all?”
“I promise, I’ll be right there. Okay?” I deposited my bag on the couch, then kicked off my shoes, flipping open my phone as I did so.
I flopped into a chair, my legs splayed in front of me, as I dialed.
Teddie answered on the first ring. “I’m thinking a good, rousing musical,” he said without preliminaries, “where pretty people sing and dance, fall in love, and live happily ever after—all to a score written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. What do you think?”
Instantly, everything I was going to say flew out of my head. Just the sound of his voice knocked me off balance and sent an arrow of delight arcing through me. “Which one? I can think of a lot of musicals that fit that bill.”
“Here’s one possibility.” In a rousing tenor, Teddie sang, “Ok . . . lahoma . . .”
Enjoying the entertainment, I let him work through a couple of stanzas, before I stopped him. “You sound just like Gordon MacRae. But I’m not in the mood for Oklahoma! It’s too cornpone.”
“Cornpone?” Teddie laughed—he had such a great laugh. “That’s a first. Okay, how about this one?” He cleared his throat, then sang in his famous falsetto, “There were bells, on the hill, but I never heard them ringing. . . .”
This time I cut him off with a snort. “No. The Music Man isn’t right either. Too depressing.”
“The guy gets the girl—what’s depressing about that?”
“He’s a con man. He doesn’t deserve her.”
“Boy, you’re picky.”
“Not picky, shallow. Pretty people, singing and dancing, happily ever after—I am so there. Robert Preston is a hunk, though. You’re getting closer.”
“Robert Preston? So you’re the older ma
n type. Here’s one you’ll like.” Doing a perfect Rossano Brazzi impersonation, he sang, “Some enchanted evening . . .”
“South Pacific. Perfect! You’ve got the men down, but your Shirley Jones needs work.”
“I know. Her soprano is a bit too . . . soprano. I have to reach for it.”
“I don’t really think that’s a bad thing.” The only males who could sing a good soprano were either not my type or they were under the age of twelve—which weren’t my type either.
“You have a point. There are aspects to being a heterosexual male I particularly enjoy. If not being able to do a good Shirley Jones impersonation is the price I have to pay, so be it.”
“That’s what I love about you—you’re so well-adjusted.”
“I’ll have you know, you are the only person besides my mother who uses the term ‘well-adjusted’ when describing a man who makes his living dressed in ball gowns impersonating females.”
“Okay, if well-adjusted is too big a stretch, let’s just say you’re comfortable in your own skin.”
“I think I like well-adjusted better.”
“They both fit. You’re an entertainer.”
“Precisely!”
“All that being said, I still have a problem with the fact that you look better in my clothes than I do.”
He paused, then said, his voice low and warm, “Not from where I’m sitting.”
I could almost feel the caress in his words. I closed my eyes and remembered the feel of him next to me, his lips on mine. “Teddie, you make me feel . . . good. Nervous, but good.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Are you coming home?”
My hand shook as I pushed the hair out of my face. All of a sudden I was tired, so tired. And all I wanted was to be home, safe in Teddie’s arms. “I’ll be there in an hour. Will that be too late?”
“You’re the one who has to work tomorrow. I’m off this week. Remember? They’ve put some raunchy sex show in my theatre for the ElectroniCon crowd. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Then don’t. And say, would you mind ordering some food? I’m famished.” That half a sandwich I ate while Miss Patterson tried on clothes was too little, too long ago.
“Sure. What ethnicity?”
“Surprise me.”
“So, we’re at S already?” Teddie asked. “S is for surprise.”
“To be honest, I don’t know where we are.” I glanced through the open doorway. Miss Patterson paced nervously back and forth. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“If R is for ready, then you’re going backward,” I said as I disconnected.
Teddie would be ready for what? I thought as I shut my phone and tossed it into my bag.
What was it about Teddie that made me feel centered and yet off balance at the same time? And what was it about him that made me like feeling that way?
“OKAY!” I clapped my hands, then rubbed them together, startling Miss Patterson as I walked back into her office. “Lucky O’Toole, magic makeover touch-up artist at your service.” I bowed low. “Your wish is my command.”
She managed a tight smile.
“I can see we’re in need of a little loosening up. I have just the thing.” I motioned for her to stay where she was. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”
I ducked behind the partition, opened the fridge, and grabbed the bottle of bubbly I had been saving. The cork popped with a loud boom and flew across the office. Champagne erupted out of the bottle, leaving a trail, as I grabbed two glasses and returned to a startled Miss Patterson.
“You’ve been saving that.”
“Yes.” I set the glasses down on her desk—they were old jelly jars with scenes from The Flintstones on them. “For a day worth celebrating.”
She watched as I filled them.
“These are the best I could do,” I said. “It doesn’t matter—even from a jelly jar Dom Perignon is the nectar of the gods.” I raised mine in a toast. “To good friends, good luck, a life filled with joy, a future filled with promise, and some really great sex thrown in for good measure.”
We clinked glasses and went to work on the champagne. Miss Patterson drained her glass, held it out for a refill, then dove into the second glassful.
“Easy. Those bubbles have a bite.”
She nodded, then set her glass down on her desk and plopped back in her chair. “I’m a wreck.”
“We can fix that. Bring your glass and all the stuff we got at Samson’s and follow me.” The blind leading the blind, we paraded into my office, me in the lead, Miss Patterson trailing. I placed a chair in front of the mirror, leaving room for me to work. “Sit.”
I knelt in front of her and opened her bag of goodies.
“I’ve wanted to go out with Jeremy for so long,” she confessed. “And, now that it’s here, I’m beside myself.”
I arranged all of the cosmetics on the floor at her feet, then, sitting back on my heels I gave her the once-over.
“That’s the thing about dreams,” I said, taking a deep breath, “they’re safe until they come true.” I ought to know. I was taking the short course in that theory myself.
I brushed her hair into place, then squirted a dab of goo into my palm and rubbed my hands together. Running my hands lightly over her hair, I added a bit of shine to her already perfect ’do.
Very carefully, I added some thickness to her lashes. I sat on my heels, surveying my handiwork. Yes, she was coming together nicely, but the eyes needed more pop.
“Jeremy’s one lucky guy—you’re pretty damned terrific.” I handed her a tissue. “Let’s get a little of that shine off your face, touch up your powder and blush, then we’ll go to work on your clothes.”
“Okay, I’m not too hard on the eyes—which is a new experience—thanks to you. Every time I walk by a mirror I wonder who that is looking back at me.”
“I know the feeling.”
“But none of that changes the fact I’m a good bit older than Jeremy.”
“It’s very trendy being a cougar.”
“I never thought of myself as a feline before. An old shoe, yes, but a predatory cat? No.”
“A whole new you.”
“The outside may have changed, but inside I’m still the same old me.”
“The one Jeremy was attracted to in the first place. Now, come with me. We need to choose what you’ll wear into battle.”
Like brightly colored rugs at a bazaar, each of her purchases hung side by side across one wall of my office—a couture rainbow of subtle color and elegance.
“Where is he taking you?”
“To Picasso’s at the Bellagio.”
I whistled low. “A classy place, for a classy lady. How do you feel about the little black dress and my ‘knock me down and fuck me’ Jimmy Choos?”
“You’d lend me your Jimmy Choos?”
“Of course. We’re the same size, right?”
“Close enough. I can tighten the straps a bit.”
I grabbed the shoes from the closet and the black dress and handed them both to her. “I hope you’re better at walking in those shoes than I am.”
Miss Patterson stepped into her office and ducked around the partition to change. When she reappeared, I was momentarily speechless.
The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock didn’t stand a chance.
The simple black dress hugged Miss Patterson’s curves in all the right places, stopping just short of her knees. The silver Jimmy Choos sparkled on her feet accentuating her dainty ankles. Her new blonde hairdo shone like a sleek cap of gold, highlighting those big blue eyes and rosy cheeks. Painted a lush shade of pink, her lips looked full and inviting.
Something was missing, though—something subtle.
I unscrewed the square-cut diamond earrings I wore everyday. “Here, wear these. They are the pièce de résistance—the cherry on top, so to speak.”
Miss Patterson hesitated. “Weren’t those a gift from your mother?
”
I nodded. “And now the gift of their use from me to a good friend. They’ll bring you luck, not that you’ll need any.”
Clearly unused to the large stones and their screw backs, she fumbled with them.
“Here, let me.” When I finished, I stepped back.
She twirled in front of me. And she didn’t even bobble on those heels. Amazing.
“So, tell me about Theodore.” She stood in front of me, hands on hips, her smile lighting her eyes.
“Not much to tell.” Busying myself gathering her other outfits hanging on the wall, I avoided eye contact.
“Liar.”
“I really don’t know what to say.” I hung each of the outfits carefully in the closet, then stepped around my desk and sagged into my chair. Today had been a day of highs and lows—a real roller coaster ride. And right now, I found myself suffering from a severe shortage of adrenaline.
“I’ve been wondering one thing,” Miss Patterson mused aloud. “How’d a good-looking guy like Teddie end up doing female impersonations?”
“The Hasty Pudding Show at Harvard. It’s all in drag. A star was born.” I motioned to the chair across from me. “You can sit, you know. That dress is gabardine, it won’t wrinkle.”
Carefully, she perched on the edge of the chair. “Teddie went to Harvard?”
“Grad school. He got his MBA there, after he studied at Julliard. His father had his heart set on his son taking his rightful place in the family investment banking firm on Wall Street.”
“I guess Theodore had other plans.” Miss Patterson smiled. “The guy’s got gumption. Hard not to like that.”
“Apparently, his father didn’t take the news very well. I don’t guess an investment type from New York would know how to handle a son who channels Cher five nights a week to a sold-out house. His father’s a bit of an empty suit—I have a feeling he can be a real ass when he wants to. His mother’s a peach, though—Harvard MBA, runs her family’s business.”
I steepled my fingers, put them to my lips, and looked at Miss Patterson. “When Teddie bought the penthouse at the Presidio, he talked me into buying the apartment below his. He said it was a really great investment. The rest is history.”
Wanna Get Lucky? Page 20
