***
Placing my hands in two Baggies, I spread the notes Bart Griffin had given me on my kitchen counter, looking at them closely in the light. To my untrained eye, the printing looked the same. Dimitri’s signature could’ve been computer generated, but Romeo and his techs would tell me for sure. Pulling off one Baggie, I used the covered hand to stuff the papers inside the plastic bag.
With the papers carefully secured, I reached for my phone, flipping it open.
Jeremy answered on the first ring. “How’s it going in the land of heat and running water?” he asked.
“I take it you won’t be calling a nice corner in the storm drain system ‘home’ anytime soon?”
“They have rodents down here so large they’d take a saddle. I’m charging you double for this.”
“I’ll gladly pay it. How’s Carl? Has he let you talk to him?”
“He’s still as wary as a dingo, and about as mean, but he’s starting to warm up. He brought me a hot dog a little while ago.”
“Where have you holed up?” I tried to picture what it would be like in the drains after midnight.
“Right now, I’ve moved closer to the entrance—you said you’d call around midnight and I don’t get reception when I’m in deeper. When we’re done, I’ll move back inside. Most of the time I stay close to the cutoff for Carl’s place so I can see anybody coming.”
“The ante has been upped,” I said, then filled him in on the séance and Zewicki’s weird pronouncement. “Watch your back. I don’t know who’s coming for Carl or when, but no doubt someone will.”
“Righto.”
“Have you seen any activity?”
“No, people pretty much leave Carl alone.”
“Let me know when Carl starts talking to you, okay?” With Carl, gaining his trust was key—and it took time.
“Righto.”
“Jeremy, you are armed, aren’t you?”
“Lucky, I’ve handled so much worse than this. You don’t want to know.”
He was right. I didn’t.
***
As I closed my phone, I noticed the blinking light indicating a message waited. Having been out of cell coverage since I’d left the Fifteen heading up toward Alamo, I wasn’t surprised. I dialed my voice mail and was rewarded with a mellifluous French accent and the warm tones of a voice that had wedged itself in my heart.
“I owe you a lunch. Tomorrow at one? If you can’t make it, let me know. I will count the hours. Be safe. Sweet dreams.”
I replayed the message five or six times, then permanently saved it.
***
Sun streamed through the window. Morning. Hadn’t I just slipped between the sheets? Rolling over I pried my eyes open—yup, morning. And by the looks of it, it was no longer early. The display on my phone said nine-thirty. Wow. What had happened to the nightmares? My temple no longer throbbed and, from the feel of it, the bump was much smaller. Like the sting after a slap, the hint of a headache teased me. A reminder, a warning, that didn’t have the desired effect. If they wanted a fight, they were going to get it.
Ignoring the siren call of caffeine, I hit the shower. Choosing the black lace lingerie today, I picked a nice pair of Dan Buchman pants in light brown, a dark brown V-neck cashmere sweater—the V so deep the lace peeked through—a pair of canvas Chanel flats, cascades of David Yurman gold, and my diamonds.
Affixing one diamond to my ear as I strode through the bedroom on my way to greet the day, I caught Teddie’s sax out of the corner of my eye. Picking it up I put my lips where his had been and blew—managing a fingernails-on-chalkboard squeak.
Suddenly, I felt so sad. When he had held me, how had he seen only an interesting roll in the hay and I’d seen something more? We had sacrificed our friendship for a few months of hot sex—not a good trade at all.
Deep inside, I guess I had known the end from the beginning.
I wanted to be in love. I wanted someone to call my own. I wanted hot sex.
Teddie had been a choice.
I had a feeling Jean-Charles might be an inevitability.
***
Sax in hand, I hit the Up button on the elevator. When it opened I inserted the special keycard and rode up one level. Stepping into Teddie’s great room, I wasn’t assaulted by memories, but I felt them lingering in the corners. His baby grand sat still and silent, awaiting the deft touch of its owner. The rooms were quiet, empty, with no life… no magic.
I laid the sax on Teddie’s couch, placing the keycard next to it.
After one last glance around, I whispered, “Good-bye, Teddie, my love.”
When the elevator doors closed behind me, my heart was free.
***
Miss P had beaten me to work on her birthday—it was not a proud moment.
“Happy Birthday,” I said to her as I staggered through the office door.
“What happened to you?” she asked, her eyes wide as she took in the bump on my head that was now turning a nice shade of purple.
“Hit my head. Nothing serious.”
She stared at me. Unwilling to meet her gaze, I looked over her shoulder.
“Really,” I implored. “I’d forgotten how dark the desert could be.” Still unable to look her in the eye—she knew I was lying, I wasn’t about to give her proof—I let my nose lead me to the coffee pot.
Pummeled by the emotional punches I’d absorbed recently, my efficiency was suffering and my mind wandered. I needed a vacation. Or even a weekend. Or a cup of coffee… simple problems, simple solutions. After deciding now was not the time to let my energy flag, I poured myself a cup of the witch’s brew.
My body sighed in anticipation. I chose not to be bothered by that. Is being addicted to a legal stimulant any better than being addicted to an illicit one… besides avoiding possible jail time? After guzzling half the mug, I refilled it before even stepping away from the pot. Too tired to play my own silly game, I assured myself, if it was legal it was fine, and quit thinking about it.
Apparently Miss P decided to let me and my little white lie off the hook as she joined me in trying to get up to speed on a day that was already spinning—which was like trying to jump onto a spinning carrousel and find a handhold before it threw you off. As I fielded phone calls, made a few of my own, and signed my name too many times to count, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my life was like a giant game of Whack-A-Mole.
“Teddie has left two voice messages. He needs to talk to you. He says it’s important. He wants you to call—no matter the time.”
“Well that’s good, since I have no idea where he actually is.” I snapped the pencil I had been writing with clean in two. I tossed the two ends into the trash. “What could he possibly tell me that’s so important? He wants me to send him more underwear? Christ. He left. He needs to leave me alone.”
Miss P looked at me a moment. “Still some lingering feelings?”
“Of course. We had some good times together. I thought I was in love.”
“Weren’t you?” she asked quietly.
“I was in love with the idea of being in love.”
“I see.”
She was baiting me, that much was clear, but I was in no mood for games. “He taught me to open my heart. Will you accept that? And I’m grateful to him for it….I think. Bloody painful as it is, I guess it’s better than refusing to feel, but I’m not a complete convert yet.” I refilled my coffee from the pot in the kitchenette. “Can we please do some work?”
***
Once again under way, the morning raced by. Jeremy checked in to tell me that he was going home for some shut-eye—a friend of his was pulling the next shift—and that Carl was starting to warm up to him —thanks in part to the Krispy Kremes Miss P had dropped by at my request. And then Jerry called, reporting on the people I had asked him to keep track of. Those who had gone to Rachel for the UFO viewing had returned—except Jenkins. Jerry and his security team hadn’t been able to locate him—a fact I passed on to Rom
eo when he came to fetch the notes Bart Griffin had given me the night before.
When The Big Boss knocked on my inner office door which, in a fit of wishful thinking I had pulled closed so I could work unmolested—I was pouring over the preparations for the Houdini Séance. With Dimitiri’s whereabouts still unknown, I had to assume I was short one Masked Houdini.
“Am I interrupting?” The Big Boss asked just to be polite.
I waved him in as I shouted to Miss P, “Call Marik Kovalenko, ask him if I can stop by in an hour.”
“Will do,” she shouted in reply.
After he shut the door, my father took one of the chairs across the desk from me. Stepping around the desk, I propped one cheek on the corner so I faced him. From the serious look on his face, I knew he came on business, so I waited for him to get down to it.
“Do you have time to meet with the architects?” he said, in a transparent effort to beat around the bush. “They want to go over your last changes to the restaurant space at the Athena.”
“When?”
“Five o-clock. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours unless you’re particularly difficult.” My father shot me a grin.
Where the architects were concerned, difficult was my middle name.
“Where?”
“Maybe the meeting will go more smoothly if we stake out a corner of Delilah’s and ply them with liquor?”
“You got it.” I said, liking his thinking. The architects were almost as uptight as bankers and tax lawyers. “However, I don’t think you came all the way down here to ask me to join you in a meeting.”
“Your mother wanted me to come talk to you. She’s worried. This thing with Chef Bouclet… so quick on the heels of the Teddie implosion. Now you want to sell your place… I told her you know what you’re doing, but she insisted.”
“Putting you directly in the line of fire,” I teased. Running my fingers through my hair, I took a moment, trying to figure out how to explain the unexplainable. “All of this has been building for a while. Jean-Charles and I have been working together for the last six weeks or more on a daily basis, certainly time to get to know each other. The attraction has been there all along, but with Teddie in the picture, I wouldn’t do anything. Teddie’s been pulling away for some time—I just didn’t want to see it.”
“Understandable.”
“And don’t think I’m diving in without checking the depth of the water. I’m fully aware of all of the pitfalls of dating someone I work with—the volatile Frenchman being an exceptional case of judgment gone awry. I just can’t seem to resist the train wreck I see coming.”
“A family trait,” my father admitted.
Why did everything in life come with a hitch?
***
Miracle worker that she was, Miss P had wrangled an almost immediate audience with the great Marik Kovalenko. Maybe he had the answer to the whole weird phrases Dimitri ask Bart Griffin to publicize each night. After all, if anyone knew Houdini’s secrets it was Marik.
He waited by the rear door, arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb, soaking up the late morning sun, when I pulled up. Dark, brooding, and dangerous, at least with the light on his face I could be fairly sure he wasn’t a vampire.
“I’d be willing to sleep with you to get to drive that car,” he said, as I unfolded myself from the Ferrari.
“How could a girl refuse?” I said with a grin.
“Do you want to come inside?”
“After your opening salvo, I’m not sure I can trust myself,’ I said with a smile as I slipped past him. “But I’ll risk it, if you will.”
When we were once again settled on the couch upstairs and I had his attention, I said, “I went to visit Bart Griffin last night. He said all of this Dimitri stuff began with Houdini. I know early in his career Houdini and his wife did a mind-reading act. I know you told me that the whole act hinged on code words for number, then changing the numbers into letters of the alphabet. What code did they use?”
Clasping his hands and looping them around one knee, Marik leaned back. “They had their own code. For a long time they kept it a secret, even after they ahd quit the act—Harry wanted it that way. Before he died, he whispered a special word to his wife. He promised to try to make contact from the Great Beyond using the code only the two of them knew to spell the word.”
“That way she would be sure it was him,” I said, musing out loud.
“Right.”
“He died on Halloween and his wife held séances on the anniversary of his death for ten years hoping he would make contact.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No, and his wife finally said ten years was long enough to wait for any man.”
“My kind of gal,” I said. “What about their code?”
“Harry’s wife finally let it be known.” Marik dropped his knee and rose to his feet. “I have it around here somewhere. Give me a minute?”
I nodded and he disappeared through a doorway next to the bar—presumably leading to his office.
A few minutes later, he returned, a piece of paper in his hand. “What were the words Bart Griffin has been reading on the air?” he asked as he again sat beside me. “They were actually phrases, right?”
“Yes, the first one was Pray Be Quick.”
He scanned the paper, making notes.
“What are you doing,” I asked.
“Harry and Bess, his wife, had ten words—one for each number, one through ten.” He extended the paper to me and I scanned it quickly.
“So the real question is whether our words appear in the Houdini’s list?”
“Right.” We put our heads together as we looked at the list.
“ ‘Pray’ is the first word,” Marik said. “So let’s assume it corresponds to the number one.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“The code was not only words translating to numbers, then numbers to letters—it was also in the way the words were spoken. If the words were spoken with no pauses in between, in a normal conversational cadence, then corresponding letters would run together forming a word. But if there was a pause between, then the numbers stood on their own.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay,” Marik said as he moved closer and we both bent over the list. “Say you wanted to spell the word dad. That would be the fourth letter, the first letter, then the fourth letter again. Look at the list. Spell it using the words in the code.”
“Now. Pray. Now.” I matched the numbers corresponding to the letters, 4 then 1 then 4, to the words on the Houdini’s list.
“Good, now spell mom. ”
With only ten words and M being the thirteenth letter, I was stumped.
“See,” Marik explained. “That’s where the Houdini’s would use a pause between the words indicating they should be stand alone. So for the thirteenth letter they would have used the word for one—pray. Then waited a beat and used the word for three—say.”
“Clever.” I said, warming to the puzzle. “Since we don’t know the pauses in Bart Griffin’s broadcast, let’s just play with it and see if it spells anything.”
“Okay.” Marik bent his head over the words. “First was ‘Pray Be Quick.’ That’s one and ten in the Houdini code.”
“So it’s either an a and a j or it’s eleven and a k.”
“Not necessarily. ‘Be Quick’ is also a phrase in their code, the only phrase, I might add and it could mean zero.”
“That would put us back at ten…so a j. Why don’t we go with that and see where it gets us?”
“Give me the next one,” Marik said.
“ ‘Pray. Tell.’ ”
He made a quick calculation. “That would be fifteen.
“The last was ‘Answer. Tell.’ ”
Head bent, he looked over his notes for a few seconds. “Twenty-five,” he muttered under his breath as he calculated. “All the words are here.”
“What does it spell,” I asked, unable to
wait any longer.
“Joy.”
“Joy?”
He nodded.
“What the heck does that mean? And how can anyone find joy in all this mess?”
“I don’t know,” the magician said. “Let me think about it.”
“You think, but time is getting short.” I took a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Okay.”
“Will you conduct the Houdini Séance tomorrow night? I know it’s asking a lot,” I said, racing on, trying to get my pleading in before he shut me down. “But with Dimitri out of pocket, I have no idea if I have a magician or not. And someone such as yourself would make the whole thing really spectacular. I can afford to pay you—probably not anywhere near what you’re used to getting.” I stopped and looked at him. “Please?”
“Tomorrow night? ”
“You can do anything you want. One of your old illusions, an escape, whatever… just don’t die on me.”
He shot me a grin. “I’ll try not to—I haven’t died in a trick yet.”
“So you’ll do it?” I pretended to act calm, as if I was not teetering on the edge of desperation—I don’t think I pulled it off. Not that I could have—lately I’d been an open book.
“Yes. I’ll do it,” Marik said. The idea obviously intrigued him. I had no idea why.
Dumbfounded, I could only stare at him for a moment. “Really?” I asked when comprehension dawned. “No ‘unreasonable demand’? No, ‘I have her over the barrel so I’ll take everything I can?’ No, ‘here is my chance at a pound of flesh?’ ”
“Will you accept the possibility that I want to do an old friend a favor?”
No way in hell, I thought, but nodded benignly.
An old friend a favor? My ass. That was way too easy. After holding a grudge all this time? Why did I get the feeling lately that almost everyone except me had an agenda? What could Marik be angling for?
“Thanks,” I said, fresh out of clever. “I’ll clear you with Security—you can have access to the Arena and the stage anytime you want.”
So Damn Lucky (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Book 3) Page 28
