by Wesley Lewis
Jennifer stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her friend. “You’re safe now. Forget about the rest of it—you’re safe.”
Ashley nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes.
Jennifer stepped back and picked up the red spandex dress. “Now put this on. I promise you that Tom is going to die when he sees you in it.”
A stricken look crossed Ashley’s face. “Tom is still with the Russians!”
“It’s okay.”
“But once he gives them whatever money they’re after—”
“He doesn’t have the money.”
“What?” shrieked Ashley.
“You’re just going to have to trust me. There’s a plan.”
“What plan? They’re going to kill him!”
“Did Tom ever tell you how he earned a living before he came to work at New Wave?”
“Yeah, he made vid—”
Ashley’s answer was cut short by a chorus of muffled screams from upstairs. Then she let out her own blood-curdling scream as Tom’s body fell past the large picture window to her left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As a security professional, Crocker prided himself on his coolness under pressure and his ability to react and adapt. However, the unexpected sound of Jennifer’s voice put those qualities to the test.
Out on the observation deck, Tom and the three goons were waiting in silence when Crocker heard the faux New Jersey accent break through on Vegas’s phone.
“Okay, well, I’m ’bout to get on a crowded elevator, so I betta let ya go.”
Seeing no sign that the goons had heard Jennifer’s muffled voice coming from Tom’s pocket, Crocker dropped onto the bench and switched his phone to the hand with the radio microphone hidden in the sleeve.
He ignored the muted phone and pressed the talk button on the covert microphone. “SSD, this is PPO Crocker.” As he spoke, his free hand plucked the earpiece from beneath his jacket collar and held it to his ear.
“Security desk,” responded a brisk female voice. “Go ahead, Crocker.”
“Code red. Code red. Man with a gun. Tower elevator. Prepare to intercept on level one zero four. Be advised there are civilians on the elevator.”
“Copy. Stand by. All SSOs and PPOs on level one zero four, proceed immediately to elevators. Prepare to intercept armed intruder. Civilians present. Use extreme caution.”
“Crocker,” said a deep male voice, “this is Tower Security Chief Feltoon. We need a description.”
Crocker thought about the men’s room. Three guns and three goons—who’s missing?
He mashed the talk button. “Large white male. Yellow shirt.”
“Copy,” replied Feltoon. “Be advised the suspect is a large white male wearing a yellow shirt.”
The radio was silent. Crocker glanced out at the observation deck, where Tom and his three new friends waited in awkward silence.
Crocker reminded himself to breathe. He forced himself to wait another thirty seconds, then radioed, “SSD, this is Crocker. What’s the status of that intruder?”
“Stand by,” came the woman’s quick reply.
Crocker felt beads of sweat streaming down his forehead. He wished he could take off his suit jacket, but doing so would reveal a holstered firearm, a two-way radio, a can of pepper spray, and a set of handcuffs.
The radio hummed to life, and Feltoon said, “All security officers, be advised the intruder is in custody. The code red is canceled.”
“Is everybody safe?” blurted Crocker, forgetting radio protocol.
“Affirmative,” answered Feltoon. “I dropped the guy with fifty thousand volts. One of my officers got a black eye getting the cuffs on him, but aside from that, everyone is fine.”
Crocker’s heart was still racing. “Copy that. Crocker out.”
He tucked the earpiece back into his collar. Feltoon would want to debrief him as soon as the goon was secured in the hotel’s holding cell, but for now, Crocker had a rescue mission to complete. There would be time later, after getting Tom and Ashley to safety and after talking to the feds, to worry about whether this incident had effectively ended his career as a private patrol officer for Las Vegas casinos.
If all else fails, there’s always the Prickly Pear.
He turned his attention back to the four-man cold war on the observation deck.
After about a minute, Boris walked over to Tom and asked, “You’re satisfied?”
“We’ll give her a few more minutes,” replied Tom.
Boris scowled but did not reply. He wandered back to his two comrades.
A couple of minutes later, Ashley’s obese escort whispered something in Boris’s ear.
Boris nodded and walked back to Tom. “We wait long enough. You give us the bag.”
“Just a little longer,” said Tom. The self-assured cockiness was gone from his voice.
“No!” shouted Boris. He grabbed Tom by the collar. “You’re stalling.”
Crocker jumped to his feet and ran to the glass doors.
Out on the deck, Tom stepped forward and raised his knee on a high-speed collision course with Boris’s groin.
The knee made contact with such force that Crocker reflexively flinched and covered his own crotch as he passed through the doors.
Boris released Tom, teetered backward, and fell to the ground, howling in pain as he held his crushed manhood. Tom turned to run. The goon in black lunged after him.
Tom had a good head start, but one of the coin-operated telescopes stood in his way, and the momentary loss of momentum as he sidestepped it allowed the thug to reach him and grab the loop atop the cheap canvas backpack.
Tom stumbled, and Crocker thought for sure he would fall backward into the gangster’s arms. But instead of falling, Tom pointed his arms behind him like a downhill skier and let the straps slide off his shoulders. The man in black tumbled backward holding an empty shell of a backpack.
Tom kept running, a sleek red, white, and blue pack on his back. Vegas’s sewing skills had paid off.
Ahead of him, the semicircular observation deck came to an abrupt end. He veered left and vaulted over the inner guardrail, landing in the narrow no man’s land between it and the outer guardrail.
The man in black tossed the fake backpack to the side and climbed to his feet. The other two thugs joined him. They walked slowly toward Tom, who, standing between two rows of iron bars, looked like a caged animal.
Tom glanced back at the approaching gangsters, then scurried up the outer guardrail.
Crocker noticed that the handful of tourists milling about the observation deck had stopped to watch the scene unfold.
Tom slid down onto the ledge overlooking the nine-hundred-foot drop.
“Durak,” muttered Boris. The other two goons laughed.
The three gangsters lined up along the inner fence. Tom clung to the bars of the outer fence and stared back at their grinning faces. There was no place left to run.
Crocker, along with a handful of tourists, moved in for a closer look.
Boris’s grin faded.
You’re catching on, aren’t you? thought Crocker with a smile of his own.
Tom’s plan to hang around after the conference and try to win a little money at the skydiving tournament might have crashed and burned, but his plan to pull one over on Dudka’s goons was right on track. He turned toward the ledge, took two quick steps, and leapt into the black abyss.
The tourists’ cries of surprise and horror drowned out Boris’s tirade of what Crocker assumed could only be Russian profanity.
As the shrieks and hollers faded, there was a sound like a clap of thunder. Tom’s parachute had opened.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Every head on l
evel 107 turned as the sultry duo entered the lounge. Jennifer ignored the men’s leering stares and the women’s contemptuous glares and glanced back at the raven-haired beauty in the painted-on red dress, who bore only the slightest resemblance to New Wave Commercial’s blond-haired wunderkind.
Ashley offered a weak but reassuring smile, and Jennifer noted with some relief that the young woman’s makeup remained free of streaks. Seeing Tom fall past the chapel window had unleashed a torrent of emotion in the recently freed hostage, and despite Jennifer’s repeated assurance that Tom’s fall was part of the plan, it had taken several minutes to get the floodgates to close.
The swanky lounge was a circular loft centered above the tower’s signature attraction, a rotating five-star restaurant. Jennifer paused near the bar and surveyed the room. Somewhere on the other side of the lounge, a live band played soft jazz.
Her gaze fell on one of the tables near the loft’s outer rim, and for a fleeting moment she saw Bryan waiting there for her. It was the table they’d shared a year before, when he was still alive and still married and still the forbidden object of her desires.
There he’d confided that his marriage was ending, and she’d sat across from him, thinking, Maybe next year things will be different.
She blinked away the ghosts and surveyed the bar once more. The table she’d once shared with Bryan was empty, but two tables to the left, a waving arm beckoned. She returned Vegas’s wave and led Ashley to the table.
Vegas bounded from her chair, almost bouncing out of her tiny leopard-print dress, and greeted Jennifer with a bear hug. “You made it!”
Jennifer couldn’t help but smile at the young woman’s exuberance.
Vegas released her embrace. “Any word from Matt?”
“Not yet.” Jennifer set the diaper bag on the table. “But he still has a few minutes.”
“I wish you could have been here when Tom jumped. Everybody screamed, and then this one lady down in the restaurant started hollering for someone to call 911, and then some guy up here in the bar yelled back, ‘You’d better tell them to bring a snow shovel and some Hefty bags.’”
Jennifer winced and looked at Ashley, expecting tears. Much to Jennifer’s relief, the floodgates held.
“Come to think of it,” continued Vegas, “I suppose that’s kind of morbid, considering most of these people really thought he’d died. But I couldn’t stop laughing.”
“Ashley,” said Jennifer, “I want you to meet Vegas. She helped us put this together.”
Before Ashley could reply, Vegas stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m really glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks,” said Ashley, casting a bemused glance at Jennifer. “I appreciate your help.”
Vegas let her go. “Forget it. Scarlett and I were happy to help.”
“Where is Scarlett?” asked Jennifer.
“She went to offload a few of these mango martinis.” Vegas nodded toward the empty glasses on the table. “Of course, knowing her, she probably got sidetracked soliciting some—”
“I wasn’t soliciting anything,” protested Scarlett from behind them. “I was waiting in line to use the little girls’ room.”
Jennifer turned to find the less amiable half of the Prickly Pear pair wearing a slinky white dress that blended seamlessly with her fair skin and made her dark red hair seem all the more brilliant.
“Ashley,” said Jennifer, “this is Scarlett, another member of our ragtag band.”
Ashley extended a shaky hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” replied Scarlett, ignoring the hand. “Jenny, you’re paying our tab, right? Because we’ve been here for like two hours, and these drinks aren’t cheap.”
Before Jennifer could reply, a loud, sensual moan called out from the diaper bag.
“Good,” said Scarlett, “you didn’t lose my phone. Can I have it back now?”
“Hang on.” Jennifer reached for the bag as it moaned again. “That might be Crocker.”
She pulled Scarlett’s phone from the bag and answered, “Hello?”
“It’s me,” replied Crocker. “Larry just picked me up.”
“Is Tom with you?”
“Yeah, he’s lying down in the backseat. He had a pretty rough landing, but Larry got him into the car, and they got away before the cops arrived. He’ll be okay.”
“Is it safe for us to leave?”
“As safe as it’s going to get. Hotel security nabbed the three goons from the tower when they got off the elevator, but you can bet Dudka has people watching the exits.”
“Don’t worry,” replied Jennifer, eyeing Ashley’s disguise, “we’ll walk right past them.”
♦ ♦ ♦
It was impossible not to notice the four provocatively dressed beauties crossing the casino floor. They navigated the throngs of gamers and strutted past a half-dozen surly-looking men loitering near the main entrance.
The four women attracted a lot of attention but no apparent suspicion as they made their way out of the casino and into the waiting limousine.
Jennifer held her breath and watched the rear window as the car pulled out of the drive and onto the narrow side street. When it made the right turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard, she exhaled and slumped into her seat.
Across from her, Vegas squealed with delight. “We did it!”
Jennifer still couldn’t believe it. “I guess we did.”
Beside her, Ashley’s facial expression relaxed into something that was almost a smile.
Only Scarlett, who sat alone near the front of the passenger compartment, engrossed in her recently reacquired cell phone, seemed unmoved by the success of the rescue mission.
“I think this calls for a celebration,” said Vegas, reaching for the mini-fridge. She opened it and pulled out a half-size bottle of champagne. “I’m sure Larry won’t mind if we add this to the tab.” She giggled and peeled the foil from the cork.
“Fuck!” exclaimed Scarlett.
The other women froze.
After a tense silence, Jennifer found the courage to ask, “What’s wrong?”
The fiery redhead dropped the phone onto her lap. “The bastard canceled on me.”
“What?”
“I sent a text to my eleven o’clock, to let him know I’d be a little late, and he replied that he can’t make it tonight. That son of a bitch had me booked for the whole night.”
Jennifer covered her mouth to keep from laughing.
“You think this is funny?” snapped Scarlett.
“Not really.” Jennifer contained herself and wiped her eyes. “But the way you yelled, I thought we were about to be gunned down by a Russian death squad or something.”
Vegas struggled to suppress her own giggles as she offered her angry coworker a reassuring smile. “She didn’t mean anything by it. You just caught us off guard.”
“Whole night shot to hell,” muttered Scarlett.
“It’s still early. When we get back, why don’t you join the lineup with me?”
Scarlett looked mortified. “Are you kidding? The lineup?”
“It was just a suggestion.”
“Excuse me,” interjected Ashley. “What exactly do the two of you do for a living?”
There was a brief pause while everyone processed the question, then both Jennifer and Vegas erupted in laughter.
“Hang on,” said Vegas, still laughing as she twisted the cork on the champagne bottle. “Let me get you a drink first.”
For the next hour and fifteen minutes, Vegas, who became more loquacious with each glass of champagne, carried the conversation with anecdotes of life at the Prickly Pear.
For her part, Jennifer nursed a flute of bubbly and interrupted only occasionally to ask Ashl
ey if she was okay.
Aside from declining champagne in favor of bottled water and repeatedly assuring Jennifer that she was fine, Ashley spoke only once: During Vegas’s story about a customer with an odd shower fetish, she commented that she currently might consider such a perverted request if it meant getting to take a hot shower.
Scarlett, who’d apparently heard Vegas’s stories before, ignored the other passengers and entertained herself by sending and receiving text messages.
When the limousine turned left at a sign proclaiming world-famous prickly pear ranch – 2.5 miles, Vegas brought her latest anecdote to an abrupt halt. Jennifer sat up straight and placed her half-full glass of champagne in a cup holder.
“What’s going on?” asked Ashley.
“We’re almost there,” replied Jennifer. “We’re practically in Dudka’s backyard, so we need to get you and Tom loaded up and on your way as quickly as possible.”
“On our way where?”
“Tom will explain everything. For now, you just need to trust us.”
The four women rode in silence until the Prickly Pear’s well-lit sign—a neon depiction of a bikini-clad woman straddling a cactus as if it were a bucking bronc—came into full view.
“Is that it?” asked Ashley.
“That’s the Pear,” answered Vegas with a note of pride.
Ashley stared out the window as the limousine sped toward the brothel. “Shouldn’t we be slowing?”
