Diva Las Vegas (Book 1 in Raven McShane Series)

by Caroline Dries

  “Well, that’s not him,” I said. It was not among my most insightful observations.

  “Maybe that’s who was moving around in there yesterday. Maybe he’s renting the place out or something.”

  “I’m not gonna call first this time,” I said. “Keep your eyes open, okay?”

  I left the car parked a half block back and walked up to the house. I harbored the vague hope that if I spotted the girl through the large front window she would be forced out of embarrassment to answer the door. No such luck. I rang the bell, but again there was no answer, and I didn’t detect any movement inside. What the hell was going on?

  I waited a full minute but decided it would be impolite, not to mention awkward, to linger on the front porch any longer. I walked back to the Audi and slumped in the driver’s seat.

  “Welcome to detective work,” Mike said. “A lot of sitting around doing nothing.”

  I was beginning to feel silly for dragging Mike along with me, although after last night I didn’t regret it for a second. “So what’s your professional advice? Sit here and wait?”

  He sighed and began fiddling with the radio. “Let’s give it a few minutes.”

  Ten minutes turned into twenty. Mike was still messing with the radio, which was more than a little annoying. He hadn’t settled on a station yet when Mel’s garage opened and a huge black Lincoln began backing up slowly out of the driveway. The car turned in our direction and began barreling down Fairway Road towards us.

  “Get down,” Mike said.

  We both slunk down in our seats. I cursed myself for leaving the top down, but I think we managed to stay out of sight.

  In the rearview mirror I saw the car wind its way north on Fairway Road and veer left when that road met up with the main country club drive. I started up the Audi and did a quick U-turn, hoping I could follow the Lincoln without being too obvious about it. By the time we came upon the end of the club drive, however, I had lost sight of the car.

  “You see where it went?” I asked.

  “No, but this road veers pretty sharply north. If he was going some other direction, he’d probably have turned off before now.”

  I bore north on Torrey Pines Road, and sure enough, at the next intersection I caught a glimpse of the Lincoln, easy to pick out amid the endless parade of smaller BMWs and Porsches that darted around La Jolla’s streets. I kept following, keeping about a block’s distance between us, and we veered onto La Jolla Parkway into the heart of what was now the noon rush. After crawling along for a few blocks, the Lincoln headed for the I-5 expressway, and I followed it north at a safe distance, hoping the mass of cars on the freeway would give me some cover.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t follow it all the way to San Francisco.”

  I soon began wondering how long I would follow the car and chided myself once again for failing to come up with any semblance of a plan ahead of time. Luckily, within ten minutes the Lincoln pulled into the right lane and exited in the town of Del Mar. There were two cars between us and the Lincoln, and the Lincoln turned left at the first road. The stoplight turned red and prevented me from following immediately, but I was able to see the car take another left at the next street up. When the light changed and I caught up, it all started to make sense. The Lincoln was three cars ahead of us in line to enter the Del Mar racetrack.

  “He’s playing the ponies,” I said.

  “A lifelong casino man, right? Makes sense. Where else you gonna find any betting action around here?”

  I paid the five dollar parking fee and was careful not to trail the Lincoln too obviously, although I ended up being forced to park closer than I would have liked. The blond girl soon emerged from the driver’s seat, but the passenger door opened only a crack. The girl had changed her clothes and now sported a pale yellow sun dress and fashionable oversized sunglasses. She was tall and rail-thin, with no hint of any curves beneath the dress. She was an undeniable stunner—a runway model type. I could picture her in a glossy Chanel ad splayed out on the bow of a yacht in Monaco.

  The woman walked around the front of the car and pulled open the passenger door, lending her arm to help the passenger inside get out. The man who emerged was short and hunched, and he relied on his cane to stand up straight. He looked to be about eighty, with a pink face topped by an unforgivable comb-over of his wispy white hair. His frail body seemed out of place in his pressed khakis and blue blazer. His clothes made him appear distinguished and pitiful at the same time, the way a senator looks after serving one term too many.

  “That must be Mel Block,” I said. “Rachel said he’d be about eighty.”

  Mel walked slowly but steadily. We followed at a safe distance. I had never been to Del Mar in person, although I once dated a man who’d lost thousands betting on its races at Caesars Palace. It wasn’t enough for him to lose, though. He had to review each race and study the racing form to figure out where he’d gone wrong, and then he’d come up with a grandiose excuse for why the race’s outcome was a fluke. All of which he insisted on explaining to me. Sadly, he was one of my better boyfriends.

  We made our way toward the entrance. “I don’t suppose you’re much of a gambler,” I said.

  “Got nothing against it,” Mike said. “The Mormons are crystal clear on drinking and things like that, but gambling isn’t quite as bad. There’s even a casino town on the state border whose main business comes from Mormons crossing over from Utah.”

  I chuckled. “Sounds like a happening place.”

  Del Mar was built in a kind of laid-back Mediterranean style. Many in the early-afternoon crowd were dressed like Mel and his companion—a lot of men in blazers and women in hats and sun dresses. Luckily there were also plenty of people who, like us, had dressed for comfort.

  Mel and his friend went up an escalator to a reserved deck. I soon learned that “reserved” only meant shelling out an extra fifteen bucks, and that seemed a bargain once we got inside and looked around. The deck had a private bar that resembled a lounge you’d find at an old-school L.A. hotel. There were two private betting windows for people didn’t want to fight the crowds downstairs, and a bunch of tables was grouped near the railing overlooking the track. Potted ferns were everywhere.

  The blonde stopped at the bar while the man I assumed was Mel found a seat at a small table next to the railing. We grabbed a seat at the table behind him. The horses below were still parading about on the paddock, and it looked like the races wouldn’t start for at least another fifteen minutes. No time like the present.

  “Mr. Block?” I asked softly, hoping I wouldn’t startle him too much.

  “Who’s asking?” He craned his head around to face me. He had a pack-a-day voice, low and scratchy, but it was surprisingly vibrant.

  “My name’s Raven McShane,” I said. “I’m working with Rachel Hannity on a project and she thought we should get in touch.”

  He looked me over, raised an eyebrow, and said nothing. Then he chuckled softly.

  “You from Vegas?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you the one who’s been calling me from the 702 area code?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I’ve called a few times but there was no answer.”

  “A few times? I think it’s been twenty.”

  I shrugged.

  “So you had to follow me to the race track?” He turned around fully to face me. “This must be some project.”

  “Well, it’s pretty important. Rachel thought you could help me get a handle on some things and . . .” I stopped in mid-sentence. “So how come you didn’t answer your phone?” I was more than a little curious. And ticked.

  He shook his head back and forth, his face more serious. “It’s kind of personal. If you really want to know, I owe a lot of people money back there, and they only managed to track me down here a few months ago. Since then there have been any number of bill collectors and lawyers calling me, and I’ve been playing hard to get, you might say. Sorry for the inconvenien
ce.” He looked at Mike for the first time. “Your friend?”

  Mike introduced himself.

  Just then the young woman returned with a glass of white wine for herself and what looked like a martini on the rocks for Mel. He flashed us a mischievous look that suggested we would be better off if we didn’t make any editorial comments about his supermodel companion or his pre-noon cocktail. He attempted to introduce us to his young friend.

  “Nicole, this is . . .” he stopped, obviously forgetting our names.

  Mike shot out of his seat like a Marine corporal coming to attention for a four-star general. “Mike Caffrey,” he said, taking her hand. “Nice to meet you. This is Raven McShane.”

  Nicole’s greeting was pleasant but wary. She’d probably learned to be cagey at the Chanel modeling school. But she smiled faintly at Mike, and I immediately began to like her a lot less.

  “Sorry,” Mel said, “I’m getting old. Nicole is my in-home assistant and caregiver. Honey,” he smiled indulgently, “these folks have some business to talk over with me. Would you mind taking a look at the horses in the first race?”

  “Of course,” she said, knowing she was being dismissed.

  “She’s actually got a great eye for winners,” Mel said. All three of us admired Nicole as she walked away. I wondered if it hurt to sit down when your ass was that small.

  “I don’t want to take up too much of your time on a nice day like this,” I started. The old man’s eyes glistened with interest, but he kept quiet. “Anyway, I managed to get myself banned from the casino, so you’re the only person I have left to talk to.”

  “Banned?” he squawked incredulously. “Who banned you?”

  “A guy named Holman and another guy with a mustache. He didn’t say much.”

  “Hmm,” he grunted. “Holman’s head of security, works for Phil d’Angelo.”

  I nodded.

  “He’s also a schmuck,” Mel mumbled.

  “Among other things.”

  Mel shrugged. “And what makes you think I would just start singing like a canary? Or that I even have any dirt to dish?” His gaze was directed down at the track, where Nicole had begun dutifully inspecting the horses as they pranced by. Mike was watching her too, I noticed. I elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “She’s too young for you,” I hissed under my breath.

  Mike put up his hands in a protest of innocence. Mel seemed amused by the whole thing.

  I turned back to Mel. “I don’t know if you know anything,” I said. “But we did drive all the way down here just to talk to you.” He turned to face me, and I leaned towards him to give a better view of my cleavage. Shameless, but effective. Nicole might have a great pair of legs, but she didn’t have a rack built by the finest plastic surgeon in L.A. “What I’m really interested in is anything you might know about the murder of George Hannity.”

  He looked up from my chest. “Jesus, you don’t mess around.”

  I smiled back at him.

  “Look, I heard the same rumors other people heard, and I’m certainly not buddy-buddy with the crowd running the place now. Did you know they got rid of me?” He pulled a short cigar out of his coat pocket. “I’d offer you one, but I wasn’t expecting cigar-smoking company today.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I like them much bigger than that, anyway. So why did they get rid of you?”

  He seemed amused by the question. “No hard feelings on my part, actually. That was three years ago and they were the new guard. I should have retired long ago anyway. But those are people you don’t want to be messing with, let me just put it that way. They have a good thing going, and they’re not going to take kindly to some stranger poking around.” He took a big loud slurp of his martini and then lit his cigar with a match. “Even if that stranger is a stunning beauty like yourself,” he added. There was a friendly yet devilish twinkle in his eyes.

  I pretended to ignore the compliment, but I made sure to store it in my compliment bank for future reference and re-examination. “So you didn’t hear any gossip one way or the other whether Cody actually killed George?”

  “Nope. After Cody got off, I don’t think anyone who actually knew anything was in the mood to stir up that pot.”

  “Including you?” I asked.

  He chuckled, letting loose a big puff of cigar smoke. He pointed his cigar at Mike. “Does this guy talk, or do I have to pull a string?”

  “I’m her boss,” Mike deadpanned. “Just here to make sure she doesn’t screw things up.”

  Mel shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything about the murder,” he said, “but—”.

  I raised my eyebrows expectantly.

  “I shouldn’t really be telling you this,” he said, sighing. He slumped a bit in his chair, and he turned to look down on Nicole and the sun-drenched racetrack below. “I’m dying,” he said simply, catching me completely off-guard. “I don’t know exactly when, but this is probably my last summer.”

  I wasn’t good at sympathetic utterances, so I just sat there in silence. Several seconds passed before he spoke again.

  “Anyway, I didn’t know exactly what was going on,” he explained, “but I had a hunch before I left that some people were taking some liberties with the books. Not nickel-and-dime stuff either. By the time I left I was pretty sure that the casino was making more money than it was reporting to the owners.”

  “Or the IRS,” Mike said.

  “So they were stealing?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell anyone this before?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment, holding his cigar up to his face to inspect the evenness of the burn. “That’s a fair question. For one, I didn’t have much proof. I just noticed people were living a little higher on the hog than their salaries justified. A lot of closed-door meetings. And two, I’m just plain greedy. Do you know that even though they basically threw me out on my ass, they pay me twenty-thousand dollars a month in a pension? Out of the blue. I didn’t have any pension coming to me at all. I thought it was a mistake at first, but when I asked about it they told me to enjoy retirement and remember my friends at the casino.”

  “So you think it’s hush money?” I asked.

  “Basically. I know where a lot of bodies are buried, and I put in twenty-six years in that place. They weren’t going to take any chances on my loyalty, let’s put it that way. I had a few million saved up already, but with the pension I began developing some expensive habits,” he said, gesturing at the racetrack below. I couldn’t tell whether he meant the horses or Nicole.

  “Who did you talk to about the pension?” I asked.

  “Whom.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Phil d’Angelo—he’s in charge of all the numbers, the books, that sort of thing.”

  Nicole waved at us from the track below.

  Mel smiled indulgently. He felt the need to unburden himself. “Since my wife passed four years ago, Nicole’s been the highlight of my life. For eight hundred a week, she cooks, cleans and takes me places three days a week. There’s no simpler pleasure I know these days than to park myself in a chair in the backyard and watch her mow the lawn. Nothing but a red bikini top and jean shorts. Back and forth she goes, back and forth.” He chuckled. “She’s usually lost in whatever music she’s got on her headphones. But she knows I’m watching and I think she secretly kind of likes the attention.” He looked at Mike conspiratorially. “Those legs of hers,” he said wistfully. “They’re about all that’s getting me out of bed these days.”

  Mike nodded gravely, and I let the horny old man think about Nicole’s legs for a few more seconds. “About the management,” I said, “do you think Cody was involved in cooking the books?”

  “Could be,” he said, taking another long puff of his cigar. “Honestly, I didn’t know him that well. When he came in to work there it was more as a hobby, I think. You know, he was basically a trophy house husband whose wife owned part of the place. He was just a stage dancer, you know, and I think he wanted to
look and act like he was a businessman or something. Phil D’Angelo really runs things over there.”

  “I can relate to that,” I blurted out. Cody and I had something in common: we both wanted to find something more productive to do than taking our clothes off for money.

  Mel drained the rest of his martini as if it were his last, and he turned to face me directly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if my hunch about embezzlement was part of the reason George Hannity was killed, if that’s what you’re getting at. He was a tough owner and a straight shooter. Not everyone was thrilled to have him lurking around.”

  “And if he found out anyone was ripping him off, the gravy train would end?”

  “Could be. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was murdered in that town to protect the skim.” He chuckled knowingly.

  “That stuff was before my time,” I said. “Or I thought it was, anyway.”

  “In the good old days,” Mel said, “the casinos were run by the mob and financed by union pension funds. Anyone who threatened the skim would be shot, execution style. Don’t think everyone’s a boy scout all of a sudden.”

  He didn’t need to tell me that. After all, I’d been backroomed like a common card counter just last week. “You’ve been very helpful.” I elbowed Mike and stood up. “Thank you for talking with us.”

  “Did I have a choice?” he asked, grinning broadly and grabbing my arm with a little affection. “Sorry you had to come all the way out here to find me,” he added. “But I’m very glad I got to see you in person.”

  “And if anyone asks,” I said reassuringly, “I didn’t hear anything about the casino from you.”

  He winked. “At this point, you can give them all the finger for me.” Nicole returned with another martini for Mel, although this one clearly had more ice than gin in it. Smart woman. I handed Mel a business card in case he thought of anything else later, and we left the two of them to enjoy the races in peace.

  Chapter 10

  Mike and I took the escalator down to join the rest of the unwashed masses in the cheap seats. “Nicole seemed to like you,” I said.