Lucky Charm in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “Anyway,” Tariq said, smiling at Ian and me. “I am here now. If your friend Stone is in trouble, I am going to try to help him.”

  I could see why Stone trusted Tariq with his life. The man was a fan of understatements, and just like Stone, there was something solid and dependable about him.

  “You can stay in my apartment,” Ian said quickly. “Eli will never think that you're staying with me—he didn't even know that Stone and I were friends.”

  Tariq said, “Will you be sending a message to Stone?”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance.

  “I have a way to get in touch with him,” I said slowly. “I'll do that.”

  Tariq nodded seriously. He could see I didn't want to admit all the details to him, not just yet. Nanna had once told me that walls have ears, and I believed in that adage now. After Stone had gone underground, I’d become extra cautious.

  “You can head over to my apartment now,” Ian said. “Unless you'd like to join us for brunch?”

  Tariq shook his head no. “I ate on the drive over here. My car is parked downstairs. I only have a small duffel bag. I will get it now, and head over to your place. I assume it is better for me to stay indoors.”

  “I think so,” I said slowly. “We need to make sure that Eli and his men don't find out that you're in Vegas—let alone that you're staying here with us.”

  Chapter 3

  After Ian handed Tariq the key to his apartment, Tariq disappeared to get his bag and settle in at Ian’s place, and I sent Stone a text to let him know the news.

  I found a box of chocolate chip cookies in one of my kitchen cabinets; packet cookies tasted nothing like a good home-made cookie, but they would have to do in a pinch. They were thinner than homemade cookies, but they had a lovely crunch and just the right amount of dark chocolate chips. Ian and I chewed on them nervously.

  “He's different from what I expected,” Ian said. “He doesn't seem like a spy, or an Afghan.”

  I shrugged. “That's exactly what I thought. But I hope…” I took a deep breath, and forced myself to finish the sentence. “I hope everything works out. I hope Eli never finds out that Tariq is already here, and I hope Stone and he manage to get their work done.”

  Ian nodded and agreed, but as I thought about Eli and his men, my heart had started thudding loudly, and it still rang in my ears. We chewed our cookies anxiously, and then there was a knock on my door.

  Ian turned to me. “That must be Andrew. I told him to come by around this time today to have a chat.”

  “I don't really feel like taking on a case now. I'm too nervous about this whole Tariq situation.”

  “It will be good to keep yourself busy. There's no point stressing about Stone and Tariq and Eli.”

  “I suppose you're right, but investigating for a man who thinks he's fallen in love after one date?”

  “I know it’s never worked out for me,” Ian said sadly, “but Andrew is different. You’ll understand when you meet him.”

  I opened the door just as Andrew had lifted his hand to knock again.

  “I hope I'm not bothering you at a bad time,” he said apologetically.

  “Not at all. Come in.”

  Andrew looked to be just under six feet tall. He was lanky, with dark hair that he'd brushed firmly into place, and the side part made him look old-fashioned. He had thick-rimmed glasses, and his skin was pale, as though he didn't get enough sunlight. When I introduced myself and shook his hand, his palm was clammy and sweaty.

  “Ian told me that you want to investigate a murder,” I said, indicating for Andrew to sit down. “But he hasn't told me the details. Why don't I make us some coffee, and then you can tell me what's going on.”

  Andrew waited patiently while I took my time making the coffee. I used the distraction to watch him closely. He and Ian chatted about Vegas, and its various attractions, but Andrew said that he was no longer in the mood to vacation.

  “I thought this would be the start of me actually relaxing and having some fun,” he told Ian. “I thought I'd gotten lucky the very first night. Maybe I did. But I guess I'm just not the kind of person luck sticks to.”

  Ian said, “I'm not sure luck is a fixed thing. It comes and goes, and you can attract it into your life. It’s mostly based on how you're feeling and what kind of work you're doing.”

  The two fell silent as I approached them again, handing out mugs of steaming coffee.

  “Why don't you start at the beginning?” I told Andrew. He seemed like a timid, nervous young man, and Ian was right—he didn't look the type to fall brashly in love with a cocktail waitress. On the other hand, also looked like he had very little experience with women, and maybe he wasn't experienced enough to identify what love was.

  Andrew took a deep breath. “It's like this. I work as an accountant in upstate New York, and the first time I ever met Ian, I told him how I've never been the kind of person to have much fun. I've been working ever since I graduated high school, and I had to pay my way through college. After college, I got a job in an accounting firm, and I've been working hard ever since.”

  “And you never dated much,” I suggested.

  Andrew looked at me in surprise. “How did you know? I don't have time for women.”

  I nodded in understanding. “How did you end up in Vegas?”

  “A friend of mine was going to have his bachelor party here. I booked my flights and the stay at the Treasury. But then his wedding got called off, and I thought—I've never been to Vegas and I've already paid for my flights and accommodation, so I might as well come here by myself. So I did.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Four days ago. The first night, I thought it might've been a mistake to come here. I was sitting at the bar, thinking about going straight back home. But then I met Ian, and we chatted a bit, and I thought, maybe Vegas wasn't as unfriendly and dangerous a place as everyone says it is.”

  “It's not,” I said warmly. “I've been living here my whole life, and it's like any other place—there are good bits and bad bits. And if you're a local, you can go to the Strip whenever you want. Prices in Vegas are cheap, and there's lots of fun things to do, and most of the people here are lovely good folk.”

  “I guess so,” Andrew said slowly. “I've never been a people person myself. I'm a numbers guy—numbers are logical in a way people aren't.”

  “And what did you do after your chat with Ian?”

  “I headed over to the slot machines. And then I met a cocktail waitress, Charlene—she told me she'd go out with me if I won the jackpot at one of those special slot machines. She was my lucky charm—as soon as I put my first token into the machine, I won that jackpot.”

  A cocktail waitress who told a gambler she’d date him if he won a lot of money? That didn’t sound to me like a girl looking for real love. “How much was the jackpot?”

  “A bit over five hundred thousand.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “A lot of money.”

  “I guess. But I was more interested in Charlene—even if I hadn't won that jackpot, I think I'd have convinced her to go out with me.”

  “Have you been in serious relationships before this?”

  Andrew shook his head. “I didn't have time for girls in college, and once I started working—I dated a few women. But everything seemed to end around the three-month mark. Either the women would move on, or they’d start dropping hints about how they want to get married. I wasn't ready to get married then. Of course, things were different with Charlene. I would have married her the next day if she wanted—I could just tell that this was something special.”

  “And did you go out on that date with Charlene?”

  “Yes, her shift ended at five in the morning, and I stayed up to wait for her. Of course, I had to talk to the casino people about cashing in my jackpot, and that took time. They comped my stay, and upgraded me to the penthouse. Isn't that nice of them?”

  I smiled politely and Ian said, “They
do that for all the big winners.”

  Andrew nodded. “I can see how it makes sense from a financial perspective. But still, it's a wonderful gesture, and it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

  “So you know logically that it’s all about the money, but it still makes you feel happy?”

  Andrew’s voice grew sheepish. “I guess it's silly.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “We can't control our emotions.”

  “Like the way I fell in love with Charlene.”

  I forced myself not to roll my eyes. Maybe Andrew really had fallen in love with this girl, but so far, I wasn't sure that the feeling had been reciprocal. “Tell me about your date.”

  “Like I said, her shift ended at five. She took off to get changed, and then we went to the Paris Cat.”

  “I see.” The Paris Cat was a twenty-four-hour jazz bar that served breakfast, dinner, lunch, drinks, and everything in between. Live musicians performed throughout the day, and the views from the window side tables were breathtaking. It was a posh place, and the prices reflected that. “Who picked the place?”

  “I asked Charlene for recommendations—she said the Paris Cat would be open, and she wanted some breakfast. She said we could also go to one of the buffets downstairs, but if we wanted to talk, the Paris Cat would be nice and quiet.”

  “And you decided to skip the buffets and head to the Paris Cat.”

  “I wanted to have a chance to talk to her.”

  “Of course. What did you talk about?”

  “I asked her about her job, and what she wanted to do. And she asked me about mine—she was a great listener. She said she grew up in Minnesota, and moved to Vegas three years ago, as soon as she graduated high school. She says she likes working as a waitress, but what she really wants to do is be a kindergarten teacher. She said she loves kids, and thinks they're adorable.”

  “Do you like kids?”

  Andrew shrugged. “I've never thought about kids.”

  “And what else did you talk about?”

  “I told her about my job, and how in my free time I like to renovate houses and rent them out to grow my investment portfolio. She asked me for investment advice, and the kind of things I do, so we talked a bit about that. And then I asked her about her family, and she asked me about mine.”

  “Right, and how did the date end?”

  “Well, I told her I was only in Vegas for a week but now that I'd met her, I was thinking of extending it for another week. And maybe we could go out again for dinner or something. And she said she would love dinner—and the funny thing was, she was actually planning to visit upstate New York in a month’s time to visit an old friend of hers.”

  “What a coincidence. So you made a date for the dinner?”

  “The next day was her night off, so we decided to have dinner at nine and I told her I'd look into where I could take her. And then we said goodbye.”

  “You didn't invite her up to your penthouse suite?”

  Andrew blushed like a schoolboy. “No. I would have liked to, but I'm not very good with women, and I was worried she'd say no.”

  I cynically thought that Charlene would almost certainly have said yes to whatever Andrew had proposed. But maybe I was being too harsh—maybe Charlene would have gone out with Andrew regardless of whether or not he'd won that jackpot.

  “So you said goodbye, and you gave her a goodbye kiss?”

  Andrew shook his head. “I was—I was a bit nervous. And she didn't move to kiss me, so I just told her I'd see her the next day. I offered to pick her up at her apartment, but she said to text her the name of the restaurant, and she'd go straight there.”

  “And did you text her?”

  “Yes. I decided on Bistro Guillaume. I texted her at five in the afternoon, and she texted back that she was looking forward to it. But then when I showed up at nine, she didn't turn up at all. I waited for two hours, and the bistro even gave me a free glass of wine. When she didn't show up, I called her, but nobody answered her cell phone. I knew she wouldn't have stood me up, so I kept calling her all night. And all through the next day—I kept calling every two or three hours. The next day, at around midday, a man answered, and he told me he was with the police. That Charlene's body had been found, and it was her cell phone. They told me to go into the station, and I did.”

  Andrew stopped talking, and was silent. The three of us sipped our coffees, and then Andrew finally said, “I couldn't believe it. I mean—she was supposed to be my lucky charm. I never expected such a terrible thing to happen to her. I feel like I'm partly responsible for it.”

  “How could you be responsible?”

  Andrew tilted his head morosely. “The police kept telling me that I would have had nothing to do with it, that I'd just met her. But I feel like our lives were meant to be interwoven. Like it was fate, except something had gone astray.”

  I lifted one eyebrow. “Do you believe in fate?”

  Andrew quickly shook his head. “No, like I said, I'm a logical person. But this whole trip—it's been the complete opposite of what my life is usually like. I won that jackpot because of her. I was going to have a wonderful life with her in it—and now she's not here.”

  “What did the police tell you?”

  Andrew ran a hand through his hair. “They said they couldn’t tell me about an open case, and they thanked me for my help. But I kept thinking, there must be something else I can do. So when I met Ian last night, and he told me that he works with you, I decided that I've gotta hire you guys to look into it. I need to find out what happened to Charlene. It’s the only thing I can do for someone who was meant to be my lucky charm forever.”

  “But the police are already looking into it, and they’ve got resources we don’t.”

  “Cops everywhere are the same,” Andrew said, leaning forward, his eyes growing agitated. “They told me Charlene’s death was a random act of violence, but I know the statistics! Other than gang violence, most murders are done by people who know the killer. But the cops are already looking to weasel their way out of doing their jobs properly! I need to hire someone who’ll do investigate properly, not look for an excuse to stop the investigation. And I know—if Charlene was meant to be my lucky charm, then meeting Ian that first night was just as lucky. I need to hire you guys, and I need to do right by Charlene.”

  I looked at Andrew in assessment while I took a long sip of my coffee. Andrew sighed deeply and looked off to one side, clearly thinking about Charlene. I could feel Ian staring at me, itching to ask whether I would take the case or not.

  I didn’t like working on murder cases, and I especially didn't like this one because it was an open investigation, and the police would resent our “interfering.” But I actually liked Andrew.

  Ian was right: there was something about the guy. He wasn’t the sort of person who would normally believe in love at first sight, and he wasn't the kind of person I would imagine trying to hire a PI unless he believed that the probabilities and statistics called for it.

  “Okay,” I said. “We'll look into what happened. But I can't promise you anything—the police are still looking into things, and I'm sure they'll have better luck than us.”

  Andrew gazed at me with sad eyes. “Everyone says the police here are swamped, and that they move slowly on things like this. I don't think they’ll investigate properly. Did you know ninety percent of murder cases remain unsolved? I can't let Charlene's death be one of those.”

  There was a hint of truth in Andrew's words. The LVMPD were inundated with all kinds of crime, and they often couldn't be as thorough in their investigations as you’d think they would be. The police in real life were nothing like the police in procedurals like Law and Order; in real life, they were bogged down by petty crime, bureaucracy, and all kinds of unexpected delays and political influence.

  “I'll grab my PI contract,” I told Andrew. “Once we've sorted out the details, I'd like to get straight to work. Starting sooner’s always an a
dvantage in these types of investigations. You’ll need to tell us everything you've learned so far about Charlene.”

  Once the contract was signed, and Andrew had paid us a cash advance for the work we’d do, I settled down with my notebook, my pen poised. “Tell me everything you can remember about Charlene,” I said. “Every detail, no matter how trivial.”

  Andrew took my question as an invitation to wax poetic about Charlene's beauty. He'd never seen anyone as gorgeous as her, or as witty, or as funny. I didn't quite believe him, but I kept my silence and nodded my way through his monologue. When he seemed to be done, I asked, “Do you know where Charlene lived?”

  Andrew shook his head. “But she worked at the Treasury. I'm sure someone there would know.”

  I nodded. Andrew was right—all I had to do was ask one of her co-workers, or at the worst, her supervisor, and I'd be able to find out her address. “What about any family or close friends here?”

  “I went to her funeral service and met her brother there. His name’s Brad, but he didn't want to talk to me. He seemed really broken up about Charlene's death, and I don't know if he’ll agree to talk to you.”

  “Do you have a phone number for him?”

  “No. All I know is his name. Brad Nelson.”

  I wrote the name down thoughtfully. “With any luck, I'll be able to connect the dots and find out enough to go and talk to him. Did you talk to anyone else at the service?”

  “Brad was there with a man named Chris, who he introduced as his partner.”

  “Chris what?”

  “I don't know the last name.”

  “Right. Did you talk to any of Charlene’s friends?”

  “No. There were a lot of young ladies at the service, I'd guess they were her co-workers at the Treasury. And Charlene mentioned she was living with two roommates, but I never met them.”

  “That's okay, you’ve given us enough to start work. Is there anything else at all that you can tell us about Charlene?”

  “Only that she must've been an angel,” Andrew said, before launching off into another speech about how wonderful Charlene was.