“Was he alone?” Stride asked.
Elonda nodded. “Yeah. Headed my way like a fucking laser beam.”
“He say anything to you about himself? Tell you who he was?”
“Oh, sure, baby, we had a fine conversation. People meet me, they want to talk.” Elonda snorted. Then she added, “He said he was from Iowa.”
Stride shook his head. “He wasn’t. His ID says Vancouver.”
“Fucker lied to me? Well, God’ll get you for lying.” She grinned at Stride.
“Was there anybody else on the street?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
Stride glanced at the area surrounding the magic shop. The street was open and wide-you could see for blocks. He didn’t think the killer appeared out of nowhere like one of the magic tricks in the window.
“You told me you heard the killer walk up to you. Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know, man. There wasn’t a soul.” She chewed a fingernail and idly scratched an itch between her legs. “Wait, wait, hang on. There was somebody at the bus stop down there.”
Stride tapped his pen against his front teeth and squinted as he studied the bus stop, which was near the base of the Oasis driveway about thirty yards away. No shelter, just a street sign and a notch in the pavement for the bus to pull off the street.
“What did he look like?” Stride asked.
Elonda shrugged. “As long as he wasn’t a cop, I didn’t care.”
“Tall? Short?”
“Fuck, I don’t know.”
Stride ran a hand back through his unkempt salt-and-pepper hair. It was wavy, with a mind of its own, and more salt and less pepper every day. He bit his lip, imagining the street empty, not a riot of police activity, just Elonda and the horny Canadian.
And a man waiting for a bus.
“Did you hear a bus?” he asked. “You would have noticed if one went by right behind you.”
Elonda thought back. “No. No bus.”
“How long were you in the doorway before the murder?”
“ ’Bout forty-five seconds,” Elonda said.
“You sound pretty sure.”
“I count,” she said, and gave him a broad wink.
Stride got the picture. No bus, and less than a minute before the shooting. He waved at one of the uniformed officers on the scene, a burly kid with a blond buzz cut and a stubble goatee.
“Go down to that bus stop,” Stride told him. “Then time yourself walking back here. Don’t hurry. You’re just a pedestrian on the street, okay?”
The cop nodded. It didn’t take him long. When he arrived back in front of the magic shop, he clicked his sports watch and announced, “Thirty-two seconds.”
Stride squatted down in front of Elonda again. “I’m going to need you to think real hard about that man at the bus stop.”
“That was the guy, huh?” Elonda said. “Shit. I’m telling you, I don’t remember him.”
“Let’s try something,” Stride began.
He stopped when he heard a car horn blare sharply behind him, then heard the expensive purr of a sports car pulling up nearby, just outside the crime scene tape. A door opened, and Stride saw the cop with the goatee, who was still hovering nearby, mutter something foul under his breath. Stride glanced back in time to see a yellow Maserati Spyder peel off toward the Strip.
“Who’s the tough-ass chick?” Elonda asked, looking over Stride’s shoulder.
The Spyder had dropped off a woman who now stood with her arms folded over a large chest and one leg bent, with her foot on the curb. Her hair was short and spiky, dirty blond with black streaks. She was tall, probably only three inches short of Stride’s own six-foot-one, and she looked strong and full-figured, with arms that filled out the sleeves of her tight white T-shirt. Her right arm sported a wolf’s head tattoo. A gold police shield hung from the belt loop of her blue jeans.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stride told Elonda. “Right now, I want you to close your eyes. Just relax and think back to when you first spotted your customer.”
“You trying to hypnotize me?” Elonda asked. “Can you make me stop biting my nails?”
Stride smiled. “No, I just want you to remember. Picture it in your head, okay? You just saw your mark. You’re crossing the street. Is the other man already waiting at the bus stop?”
Elonda started humming. Her head bobbed back and forth, following a rhythm. Then, abruptly, her eyes snapped open. “No, he wasn’t there! Hey, this is cool.”
“Close your eyes again. Keep replaying it.”
“Yeah, now the guy’s behind him at the bus stop. I see him. Where the fuck did he come from?”
“What’s he doing?”
“Checking his watch. Looking up and down the street. Real cool.”
“What’s he wearing?” Stride asked. He thought about a way to trigger her memory and added, “When he checks his watch, can you see his bare arm?”
Elonda pursed her lips, as if she were puckering for a kiss. Her brow furrowed. “A coat!” she said happily. “He’s got a windbreaker-tan, I think. And tan pants, too, khakis maybe.”
“You’re doing great. Is he a big guy?”
“He ain’t so tall. Not real big either. But he looks, I don’t know, tough. Mean dude.”
“How about hair color?”
“Dark,” Elonda said. “Cut short. A beard, too. He’s got a beard.”
“Elonda, you’re beautiful,” Stride said, and he watched the girl beam with pride. He spent another ten minutes playing out the rest of the scene, but the closer she got to the murder, the more her mind blacked it out. When he was done, he called over the goateed cop and told him in a whispered voice what to do.
“Harrah’s?” the cop asked in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. Sawhill will flip if I put this in for reimbursement.”
Stride shoved a hand into his pocket and fished two twenties out of his wallet. “Here, take this, and get yourself something, too. You’re looking too thin.”
The cop rubbed his oversized neck and smiled. “Whatever you say.”
“But hands off the girl,” Stride added.
When Elonda was safely in the back of a patrol car, Stride sought out his new partner.
It was odd, working the street again, a detective on the case. He had been the lieutenant in Duluth, a big fish in a small pond, and now he was just another investigator on the Metro Homicide Detail in Las Vegas. The closest thing he had ever had to a partner back home was Maggie Bei, the senior sergeant in his detective division. Stride and Maggie had worked together for more than a decade, and the tiny Chinese cop with the sharp, sarcastic tongue had become his best friend. Now Maggie was still in Minnesota, married and off the force, a baby on the way. Stride was in Sin City, the last place he could have imagined being.
Thanks to Serena.
He had met Serena Dial over the summer, while the two of them investigated a Las Vegas murder that had its roots in a teenage girl’s disappearance in Minnesota years earlier. The investigation had upended his life in Duluth and destroyed his second marriage, which he knew had been misguided from the start. Maggie rarely missed an opportunity to remind him that she had seen divorce coming for him like a train wreck, and he had ignored her warnings.
But old things ended, and new things began. Meeting Serena had changed everything. She was beautiful, smart, and funny, despite the sharp edges that came with a troubled past. He fell for her fast and hard. When the investigation was over, he had followed Serena here, to this wild world, and wound up back on the street.
Now he had a real partner again, who looked like she didn’t relish the task of playing second fiddle to a Vegas newcomer.
“Amanda Gillen,” she announced brusquely as he approached her, as if she expected him to challenge her. Her voice was husky. Or maybe she was just half asleep, as Stride was, after the phone call had dragged him out of bed, and out of Serena’s arms, in the middle of the night. His first murder case in Vegas. A body on
the street on Flamingo.
“I’m Stride,” he told her.
Amanda nodded and began nervously tapping her foot on the street. Her lower lip jutted out, and she glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot. Her face was taut and unhappy.
“Look, I give everybody one free joke before I get pissed off, so do you want to make it now, or do you want to save it for a rainy day?”
Stride cocked his head. “What?”
“You know,” she said sourly.
“You lost me, Amanda.”
Her eyes narrowed as she watched the puzzlement on his face. The wrinkles in her forehead went away, and her jaw unclenched. She gave him an odd, sparkling smile that was suddenly friendly and not at all closed off. “All right, maybe you don’t know. Forget it. No big deal. It’s two in the morning, and I’m crabby.”
“You and me both.”
‘That was nice with the hooker. The way you got her to talk. You’re good.”
“Thanks,” Stride said. He added, “I like your boyfriend’s car.”
Amanda smirked. “Oh, the Spyder. It’s mine, actually. We were out dancing when I got paged. I told him if he puts a dent in it, I put a dent in his dick.”
“Yeah, that’s an incentive,” Stride said. “You win it at the slots?”
“Something like that.”
Stride watched her swallow hard, and a flush rose in her cheeks. She had a long face that tapered to a slightly protruding chin. Her lips were puffy and pale pink. She had thin black eyebrows and she had taken the time to apply her makeup with considerable care. Her Saturday night look, Stride guessed. Despite the wrestler-chick bravado, she looked pretty when she smiled and vulnerable when she was nervous. Stride figured she was about thirty.
“Got an ID on the vie yet?” Amanda asked.
Stride nodded. “Canadian driver’s license. Probably a tourist whose luck ran out. Name is Michael Johnson Lane.”
Amanda did a double take. “MJ Lane?”
“That’s right.”
She whistled and shook her head. “Oh, shit.”
“You know him?”
“Check your spam folder once in a while, Stride,” Amanda told him. “His bare ass is probably in half of the messages. Not to mention every issue of Us magazine.”
“My subscription lapsed,” Stride said.
Amanda studied his face long enough to realize he was joking, and a smile curled onto her full lips. “Well, you’re in Las Vegas now,” she retorted. “People, Us, and the Enquirer are more important reading than a DEA circular around here.”
Amanda walked over to the body. She wore ridiculously high heels, and Stride realized she was several inches shorter than he first thought. He noticed one of the ME staff look at her nervously and back up to give her space. Amanda didn’t pay any attention. She bent from the waist until her hands were flat on the sidewalk, and she turned her head sideways to stare at the corpse’s dead eyes. Stride found himself noticing her attractive, muscular ass and firm legs as her jeans pulled tight. He looked quickly away as she got up and announced, “Yeah, that’s MJ.”
“All right So who is MJ Lane?”
“Trust fund baby,” Amanda said. “His dad’s Walker Lane. You know, the billionaire producer in Vancouver.”
“Other than Daddy’s money, what’s his claim to fame?”
“He hangs with the right crowd. Hollywood connections. He was low profile until he filmed a very nasty rendezvous with a young soap actress last year. Somebody stole it, and it wound up all over the Internet. Bondage, anal sex, real kinky stuff.”
“A star is born.”
“Absolutely. Him getting popped is big news. You’re going to get your picture in all the tabloids.”
“I’ll whiten my teeth,” Stride said.
“So what do you think? Does it look like someone was stalking MJ?”
“It feels like an assassination,” Stride said. “A pro.”
“But he didn’t kill the girl,” Amanda pointed out. “A pro would take out the witness.”
“Yeah, true. He left the shell casing, too. A.357.”
“So maybe not a pro.”
“Maybe not,” Stride agreed. “But he planned it well. Cool, in and out fast. The question is, was the guy specifically after Lane, or do we have some kind of moral crusader out to clean up the city’s prostitution problem?”
“Or both,” Amanda said. “MJ’s not the first celeb to get his ice cream cone licked around here. The perp could have been staking out the casino, looking to make a big splash, get some headlines with the hit.”
Stride nodded. “Except from what you say about MJ, there could be plenty of reasons for someone to want him dead.”
THREE
Pete, one of the valets at the Oasis, remembered MJ Lane.
“He came in around ten o’clock,” Pete told Stride and Amanda when they quizzed him at the casino’s porte cochere. Pete was young and as white as a tube of toothpaste, with brown hair slicked down to lie flat on his head. He wore black pants and sneakers, and a snug waist-length jacket in burgundy.
“Alone?” Stride asked him.
“ Mr. Lane? Not hardly. He had Karyn on his arm. Karyn Westermark. You know, the soap actress?” He fanned himself as if the cool night air had turned warm. “You saw the video on the Net? That was her. Hot stuff. Man, she’s better than a porn star.”
“How’d they get here?” Amanda asked. “Cab? Limo?”
Without answering, Pete broke off to attend to a gray Lexus sedan, opening the passenger door and then running around to the opposite side to take the car keys and hand the driver a parking stub. He returned, apologizing and pocketing a fifty-dollar tip. He cast a nervous eye as two more cars pulled into the driveway. Two in the morning at the Oasis on Saturday night was prime time.
“How’d MJ get here tonight?” Amanda repeated.
“He drove himself,” Pete told them. “He’s got a condo in town, over in the Charlcombe Towers just off the Strip.”
“Why didn’t he ask for his car when he was leaving?” Stride asked.
“I figured he was just going for a walk. You know?”
Stride cocked an eyebrow and leaned in close to Pete’s face. “Why’d he need a ‘walk’ if he had Karyn with him?”
“Karyn left an hour before MJ did,” Pete explained. “I got a cab for her.”
“Did she look upset?” Amanda asked.
Pete shook his head. “She looked bored. She told the cabbie to take her to Ra, over at the Luxor. She was just hunting for another party.”
“Did MJ say anything when he left?” Stride asked.
“No, he looked pretty bombed. He headed straight down the sidewalk. I knew where he was going.”
“Did MJ ‘walk’ a lot?” Amanda asked.
The valet blanched. “Not very often. A guy like him, he doesn’t need to pay for it. But sometimes you want a little on the street, so you don’t have to wake up next to her, okay?”
“Tell that to your girlfriend,” Stride said. “Did anyone follow him out the door?”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t know. Cars were coming and going. I only noticed MJ because he’s a regular.”
A car horn blared noisily, and the valet waved and began dancing on both feet, anxious for his next tip. “Anything else?” Pete asked impatiently.
“Who’s head of security here?”
“Gerard Plante. Inside and straight back.”
“Thanks. We’ll send a team over to check out MJ’s car,” Stride added. “Make sure no one gets near it before we do. You included.”
“Sure.”
Stride clapped a hand like a vise on the boy’s shoulder. “If I read in Us magazine about ribbed Trojans in MJ’s glove compartment, I’m going to make sure the IRS comes knocking on your door about those fifty-buck tips. Got it?”
Pete’s eyes widened, and he licked his upper lip, trying to figure out if Stride was serious. Then he gulped and ran for the next car.
“Us
magazine,” Amanda said. “Nice.”
“I thought you’d like that.”
Stride led Amanda through the revolving doors into the sea of noise and smoke inside the casino. The stale smell of cigarettes curled into his lungs like an old friend, and just like that, the craving was back. Funny how it never left. He hadn’t smoked in more than a year, but he felt himself rubbing his thumb and finger together, as if there were a lit Camel between them. He took a deep breath, sucking it in and expelling it, and wondering if Vegas had been dropped down in the desert by some sarcastic angel who wanted to test the willpower of ex-sinners.
He found himself getting aroused, too. It was autoerotica, part of a mind-control game the casinos played. He couldn’t pretend he was immune. He responded to the beating pulse in the city’s bloodstream. Not greed, like most people thought. Hunger. For money, for flesh, for food, alcohol, and smoke-naked hunger, oozing, obsessive, and overwhelming. The casinos programmed it that way. Maybe the little black half-moons in the ceiling weren’t cameras after all, spying on every finger on a slot button or flip of a card. Maybe they were all spraying some odorless drug that unleashed the mania, which lasted until your money was all gone and you slunk back home.
The Oasis was among the most explicit of the Vegas casinos in using sex to sell its machines and tables and to cultivate an image as the hip spot for rubbing shoulders with celebrities. Looking around the casino, Stride saw posters everywhere of impossibly gorgeous bikini-clad women, leering at him as they hyped slot tournaments, poker rooms, and crab leg buffets. It seemed to be working. The casino itself was relatively small, not a sprawling octopus like Caesars, but every machine was taken, and every seat at the blackjack tables was filled, with crowds pressing in to watch the action. It was a young crowd, dripping with women just as stunning as those in the posters.
Stride remembered what Serena’s partner, Cordy, said about nights in Las Vegas. The time when breasts came out to play.
He had a hard-on. It pissed him off.
“Come on,” he growled. Amanda had a look of cool wonder. The drug was working on her, too.
They weaved their way through the rows of slot machines and found the security desk at the back of the casino, an imposing oak monolith staffed by the only woman in the casino who was ugly and severe. Talking above the thump of rock music blaring from the overhead speakers, Stride asked for Gerard Plante. He held up his shield. She told him to wait.
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