“That’s right,” Amanda said, feeling a tiny glimmer of hope after hours of frustration. “Have you seen him?”
“Well, I think so, yes, although it was a number of weeks ago. I don’t see what help I can be.”
“You’d be surprised. Please tell me about it.”
“Oh, of course. Let’s sit down.”
They sat at the corner of a long reference table near the bookshelves. Monica peeled off her gloves. “I always wear these, you know, when dealing with fiche. The film is so delicate and so old.” She tapped her finger on the sketch that Amanda placed between them. “This man, he was so rough at handling the fiche. I had to ask him to be careful.”
“You’re sure this is the man?”
“Oh, yes. Those eyes are quite unforgettable.”
“No offense, but can I ask why you didn’t call me earlier?”
“I’m so sorry. We’ve been away. A Caribbean cruise. I just got back to the library today.”
’Tell me what you remember about the man,” Amanda said.
“Well, again, this was quite a while ago. Midsummer, I think. July? Maybe August. He came in on successive days, three or four days in a row, looking up all sorts of material related to Las Vegas in the 1960s. I pulled fiche, magazines, books. He wanted it all.”
“Did he tell you specifically what he was looking for?”
“Well, he had me run a Lexis search on one of the old casinos. The Sheherezade, I think. Yes, that’s right, because he was also reading about Boni Fisso, and as you can imagine, we have quite a lot of material about him.”
“Did he say why he wanted this information?”
“Oh, no. He really didn’t say much at all. Not a very talkative type. We get lots of requests for archival information, so it wasn’t at all unusual.”
“Did he ask you to research any other individuals? People besides Boni Fisso?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Monica, I really need your help here. We need to find this man right away. I’m going to ask you to think back, think real hard, and remember anything distinctive about him. What he wore, what he said, what he carried, what he did. Anything that might give us a clue about who he is and where we can find him.”
Monica sat up very straight in her chair, and her neck looked elongated. The librarian’s tongue slipped out to wet her lips. Amanda was reminded of a giraffe at the zoo, reaching to get a leaf from a distant tree branch.
“He had a blue backpack with him,” she said. “That was where he carried his materials. I really don’t remember how he was dressed. Jeans, maybe? Otherwise, there wasn’t anything special about him. I’m very sorry.”
Amanda was disappointed. “How about a car? Did you see him come or go, or see what direction he might have headed?”
Monica shook her head.
“Have you seen him since then?”
“No, he never came back, not when I was here.”
Amanda stood up. “I appreciate your time, Monica. Thanks very much for calling me. If you remember anything else, please let me know.”
“Of course I will.”
As Amanda turned to leave, she heard Monica giggling. She reversed her course. “What is it?”
Monica blushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s very silly. I was just thinking, if you want to catch this man, you should stake out doughnut shops.” She laughed again.
Amanda looked at her, wondering if this was a stupid police joke. “Why?”
“Well, I remember now, the man was obsessed with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I caught him eating a doughnut at the fiche machine, and I had to tell him that he couldn’t eat in the library. I told him I couldn’t resist those things either, and he said they were addictive.”
Amanda felt her heart race. “Thanks again, Monica.”
Son of a bitch, she thought Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Claire sat with one leg tucked beneath her and the other leg dangling from Serena’s sofa. She cradled a warm mug of coffee in both hands. Her hair was loose and uncombed, and she wore a roomy, extralong T-shirt that stretched to the middle of her thighs. She had bare feet, with nails painted red.
She glanced at the wall clock that tick-tocked behind them, counting away the minutes. “It’s late,” she murmured. “Past eleven. Where’s your lover?”
Serena looked up from the computer on her lap, although she could barely concentrate on the screen. Her eyes were tired.
“He’s still out trying to find Blake,” Serena said.
“You resent it, don’t you? Being here with me.”
“No, I don’t resent being with you. Sitting around just isn’t my style. I want to be where the action is.”
“That’s right,” Claire said with a grin. “You’re tough, aren’t you?”
“That’s me.”
In fact, it had driven her crazy, being shut up in the town home all day. She had made calls, hunted down leads on the Internet, and gone back through her notes to find something she had missed, but none of it was the same as being on the street. She felt isolated, cut off from the investigation.
“He’s attractive, your man. I see what you see in him.”
“Thanks.”
“He loves you. It’s there when he looks at you.”
Serena remembered that Jonny had said the same thing about Claire the previous night. “I love him,” she said.
“I’ve been with men, too, you know,” Claire said.
“Meaning?”
“It’s not like I don’t understand the attraction.”
Claire unfurled her legs and climbed off the sofa. She padded to the white wall and examined the desert photographs hung there. “Did you take these?”
She looked back, and Serena nodded.
“They’re striking. You have an eye for the land. That’s what they can’t teach, you know. The eye. A lot of people understand the mechanics, but they can’t see the picture.”
“You’re pretty calm about it,” Serena told her.
“About what?”
“About almost getting killed.”
Claire shrugged. “I wasn’t calm last night. But I feel safe with you.”
“I could take you to Boni’s place. It’s like a fortress there.”
“That’s not safe. That’s a prison.”
“He wants to make up with you,” Serena said. “He was glad you called him.”
“Oh, are you a family therapist now?”
“No, but I know what it’s like to be an adult without parents. There are a lot of times when I wish things were different.”
Claire continued to stare at the photographs on the wall, but Serena thought she had touched a sensitive spot. “I wish things were different, too, Serena. But they’re not.”
“He says he doesn’t care that you’re gay.”
“Catholics never care if you’re gay, as long as you’re celibate,” Claire said.
Serena watched Claire smile and realized it was false. She thought Claire might cry.
“It has nothing to do with your being gay, does it?” Serena asked. “The split between you and Boni.”
“No.”
“What is it, then?”
Claire shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I don’t want to go back there.”
She could hear it in Claire’s tone. The secret was profoundly horrible, whatever it was. “I’ve got monsters like that, too.”
“I know you do. That’s why we click. We both have pasts we’re trying to run from.”
“Did you get therapy?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Claire sighed. “Please, Serena. Let’s drop it. I couldn’t talk about it then. I can’t talk about it now. Not to anyone. Not when my father’s name is Boni Fisso.”
Serena let the silence stretch out while Claire stared blankly at the photographs. She could see raw pain in her face.
“Boni says you’ve got millions in the bank,” Serena said.
“I was just curious.”
“When I left, I wanted to be independent. I am. Boni didn’t give me a stake. I built it myself. So yes, I’ve got a lot of money. I’m Boni’s daughter; genes count for something. Plus all that time I spent in business school.”
“But you’re happy living in a small apartment? Singing your songs?”
“I’ve learned a lot being on my own,” Claire said. “I’m free, and no one owns me. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t have any ambition. There’s a part of me that still longs to be in charge of the hotels and run them my way.”
“You still could be.”
Claire shook her head. “Not if it means going back to my father.”
“How would you run them?” Serena asked. “If you had the keys to the kingdom.”
“Me? I’m tired of all the bigness. Big shows. Big names. I think people want intimacy. They don’t want to get lost in a crowd. They want to see singers, not shows. Talent, not names. And glamour, like in the old days. The huge resorts have glitz but not much character.”
“You could start your own place.”
Claire was wistful. “Maybe someday. It would be nice to show Boni that I can do it without him. And that you don’t have to sell your soul to the devil to be successful.”
Serena heard bitterness creep back into her voice. “You want to tell me what he did to you?”
“It wasn’t him,” Claire said. “It was someone else. But Boni let it happen. The business came first, like it always does.” She looked as if she were about to say more, but she clapped her arms around her body and shivered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
“It’s in the past. I don’t worry about it. I like to sing and drink and talk about life and make passionate love.”
“I like two out of the four,” Serena said, laughing.
“Which two?”
“Well, we know I don’t drink.”
Claire laughed, too. She came over to where Serena was sitting and knelt by the side of the easy chair. She leaned forward, her bare arms on the cushion. “I’m going to bed,” she said.
“Okay.”
“How about you?”
Serena didn’t want to look into Claire’s eyes, but there seemed to be no other place in the room to stare. The blue eyes teased her. “Is that an invitation?” Serena asked. As if it were a joke.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think Jonny would be too happy to come home and find us in bed together.”
“You might be surprised.”
“I’m sorry, Claire. If things were different, you know? But they’re not.”
“I understand.”
Claire used one fingertip to glide along Serena’s forearm with a silky touch. Serena was so on edge that she almost jumped.
“Are you going to catch Blake tonight?” Claire asked.
“If not tonight, then soon. Half the police in the city are looking for him. The valley isn’t so big. We’ll get him.”
Serena wanted to believe it.
“Don’t kill him,” Claire murmured.
She spoke so softly that Serena wasn’t sure she had heard her right. “What?”
“Don’t kill him, I said.”
“Why not?” Serena asked. “Why do you care?”
Claire looked down. Some of her blond hair fell across her face. “You really don’t know, do you? It’s so obvious to me.”
“What is?”
“Look at me,” she said, looking up, holding Serena’s stare again.
Serena did. “So?”
“Blake is my brother.”
“What?”
“I knew it as soon as I saw him,” Claire said. “I can’t believe you don’t see it Those eyes. There may be a lot of Amira in him, but that’s not all. It’s more than that. It’s Boni, too. Boni’s his father.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
T en minutes to midnight, Amanda thought.
She could have been home with Bobby. Making love to him the way she liked best, on their sides, face to face, rubbing together. Warm and safe under the blankets. Or they could have been in the Spyder right now, on the desert highway to California, leaving Las Vegas behind forever at a hundred miles an hour through the black night of Deatii Valley. A new life.
But no.
She sat alone in a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop a few blocks from downtown. Her coffee was getting cold, and she looked up every now and then, hypnotized, as rows of glistening doughnuts streamed along the conveyor belt, getting drenched in icing. There was a steady stream of late-night patrons in and out She was one of just a handful of people who waited inside, her back to the door, a newspaper in her hands, a half-eaten doughnut on a napkin in front of her. She had nursed it for an hour.
All right, it was actually her fourth.
The reality was that adrenaline was pumping through her veins, along with me sugar. It had taken her several hours to find this place, going from shop to shop in the city, before the little Asian man behind the counter here took the sketch and nodded vigorously.
“Yeah, sure, he come here. Day, night, couple times a day like. Always the same. Half a dozen original and Sprite.”
“You’re sure?” Amanda asked. “This guy changes his appearance a lot.”
“Oh yeah, he look different. Sometimes blond, sometimes beard, sometimes no beard, sometimes old, sometimes young. Order always the same, though. Half dozen original and Sprite. That him.”
“You didn’t think it was odd, him looking different all the time?”
The Asian man shrugged. “This Vegas.”
That was enough for Amanda.
She was waiting for Blake. The manager said he hadn’t been in yet tonight, so there was a good chance he’d arrive for a late-night fix. She sat so he couldn’t see her face, and she had a baseball cap on her head, with its brim pulled down. She didn’t know if he knew her face, but she had to assume he did. She wanted him in the store, in a confined space, not out on the street where he could run.
It was the most dangerous thing she had ever done, and she tried not to think about that. She radioed in that she was taking a break for an hour and then switched off her walkietalkie. She was all alone.
She knew she should have called for backup. That was procedure. They could have surrounded the place and mounted a stakeout, but Amanda wasn’t sure they’d let her inside the store, and that was where she wanted to be. She also thought Blake was savvy enough to spot a stakeout from six blocks away, and he would disappear and never come back to the store again. They only had one chance to get it right. Her, by herself
She could have called Stride, but he’d want to follow procedure. Never in a million years would he expose her to that danger alone. Or he’d want to be there with her, and she knew that Blake would spot him.
A part of her wanted to prove herself. Bring Blake in herself and then extend her middle finger as she walked out the door.
She put down her newspaper and picked up her coffee. Cold. She thought about getting a warmer-up, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. The Asian manager buzzed behind the counter, busily attending to the doughnuts. She had told him to be cool, not to betray any reaction, not to look at her when Blake came in. She hoped he could do it. She hadn’t told him that the man in the sketch was wanted for multiple homicides.
Almost midnight.
The bell on the door signaled another customer. She took a bite of doughnut and picked up her paper. She didn’t glance at whoever passed by, just listened to heavy footsteps and knew it was a man. Whoever it was beat a steady path to the counter.
Amanda heard the Asian manager. “Hey, boss.” Then he added, “Same as usual, huh? Half dozen original and Sprite?”
Mistake. She hoped Blake didn’t recognize the tip-off.
Amanda put down the paper and reached for her coffee at the same time, with the barest gla
nce at the counter. The man wasn’t looking at her. She saw blond hair. The height wasright, and so was the lean and strong physique.
She watched the manager use a straw to pick hot doughnuts off the assembly line and put them in a box. He didn’t look at her. He filled the box, then opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic bottle of soda.
“Here you go, boss.”
“Thanks,” the man said.
Was that the voice she had heard through the static on Stride’s cell phone?
He was paying now. She had to be ready when he turned around, with her gun already in her hand, pointed, set to fire. He’s lightning fast, Stride had told her. She thought about Sawhill: If you’ve got the shot, take the shot, and make the shot
Amanda reached behind her, taking the butt of her Glock in her grip, wishing there were no sweat on her palm. She silently extracted it and kept it in her lap under the table.
Her eyes never left Blake. If it was Blake.
“You got eleven cents?”
“No.”
“Okay, boss.”
The little Asian man counted out change. He extended a palm to the man at the counter.
Time began to freeze.
The man reached for his change, but then he slid his arm past the register, took the Asian man by the throat, and in an instant yanked him up bodily by the neck and catapulted him over the counter. Coins sprinkled across the floor. Amanda’s mouth fell open in shock. She bolted back in her seat, the chair tumbling behind her. She sprang up, swinging her gun.
“Police! Don’t move!”
She took aim, but Blake already had the Asian man suspended in front of him. Blake’s pistol was at the man’s head. The manager’s eyes bulged with fright, and he wet himself, urine dripping from his pant leg as Blake held him in the air.
Amanda and Blake stared at each other. He had a beard again. Fuller cheekbones. Glasses. But it was him. His lips curled into a smile.
“Very nice, Detective,” he said. “I wondered if my doughnut addiction would get me into trouble eventually. But they are so good, aren’t they?”
“Put the gun down, and let him go. The building is surrounded, Blake. You’re not going anywhere. Let’s end this thing without more violence, okay?”
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