Vegas, Lies, and Murder

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘No way,’ Elvis said. ‘Dana definitely didn’t do drugs.’

  ‘But she may have been doing them without you knowing,’ Mum said softly. ‘We don’t always know everything about everyone.’

  Elvis shook his head vehemently. ‘I’m certain she wouldn’t do drugs, let alone steal them.’

  ‘Well, if Dana didn’t take the drugs, I’ve got another hunch that might fit,’ I said. ‘The CCTV cameras in the private VIP rooms are hidden, unlike in the rest of the club.’

  ‘So, the customers don’t think they’re being taped in the private rooms,’ Brad said. ‘Which means anything goes.’

  ‘Exactly. If the local district attorney was in there that night with Ivan and Dana, I’m guessing he did something on camera that might be blackmail worthy, and Dana stole a copy of the video evidence from Ivan’s office.’ I did a mental head slap. ‘Of course! That’s why you couldn’t get any more CCTV footage from earlier on the night Dana disappeared.’ I glanced at Hacker. ‘It wasn’t backed up onto discs or deleted, like you thought. I think Dana took it.’

  ‘It would be easy to hide a disc or memory stick in her bikini,’ Hacker said.

  ‘That seems plausible,’ Brad said.

  ‘I asked a few of the dancers if Paul Winger ever tried it on for extras,’ Tia said. ‘And they said he did, so he might also have been filmed doing something kinky with one of the girls or propositioning them.’

  Elvis bit his lip with a puzzled frown.

  ‘Did you get anything?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘Only a trapped nerve.’ She rubbed her back again.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked Suzy.

  ‘I got a couple of foot rubs.’

  ‘Foot rubs?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes. Some of the men like being ordered to do things. They like a woman to take control.’

  ‘Right. Well, did you get anything interesting about the case we’re supposed to be working on?’

  She sat up and plastered a superior smile on her face. ‘Actually, I did. Apple told me Paul Winger was always doing cocaine in the private VIP rooms.’ She examined her nails. ‘Oh, damn! I’ve chipped one! I paid good money for this manicure.’

  I ignored her nail crisis, a scenario building in my head. ‘OK. Let’s assume Dana saw Paul Winger doing coke or something with one of the dancers and knew it was all on tape, so she stole a copy of it from Ivan’s office.’

  ‘That must be worth a few quid in blackmail money,’ Mum said.

  ‘No.’ Elvis stood up and paced the room. ‘There’s no way Dana would blackmail anyone. I don’t have “Suspicious Minds” about that.’

  I nodded. From what I’d heard about Dana, it didn’t seem likely. ‘I’m thinking that Dana didn’t steal the CCTV footage for a bad motive. What if she stole it with an altruistic motive?’

  ‘Huh?’ Elvis asked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, maybe she wasn’t going to blackmail Winger,’ I said. ‘Maybe she was going to take the evidence to the police.’

  ‘No wonder Ivan’s guys were after her,’ Dad said. ‘If Ivan’s got secret cameras in there, he won’t want his customers finding out from the police because he’d want to be the one to blackmail them.’

  ‘So, where is she, then?’ Elvis asked. ‘Why didn’t she go to the police with it and then come back home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I chewed on my lip.

  ‘Paul Winger’s campaign to get voted into office was that he was going to clean up Las Vegas and clamp down on crime, in particular drugs and prostitution,’ Elvis said. ‘He’s always making lots of statements in the media about it. He portrays himself on TV as this family man with good old-fashioned values.’

  ‘And yet he frequents lap-dancing clubs, propositions the girls, and takes drugs,’ Mum said. ‘What a hypocrite.’

  ‘He’s dirrrty with at least three Rs,’ I said. ‘The other question is, does Paul Winger know he’s been secretly filmed? If he does, he’s not going to want it to get out, either. If he’s doing hard drugs or trying it on with exotic dancers, he’s not exactly the upstanding, respectable member of society and law enforcement that he’s making himself out to be. And he’d probably go to any lengths to make sure he got back any incriminating evidence that Dana might’ve taken.’

  ‘I bet Winger doesn’t know about the hidden cameras,’ Brad said. ‘Ivan was probably going to use the tape himself to blackmail Winger at some point.’

  ‘Probably.’ Suzy stood and walked up to Elvis, putting her arm around his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find Dana.’

  Elvis looked at her with a stunned expression. She rubbed his back gently. Oh, yeah—she so fancied him.

  ‘So, if Dana was going to take it to the police, did she actually make it to the police station?’ Dad asked. ‘If the district attorney is bent, then maybe Ivan’s got other police officers in his pocket who are also bent.’

  Hacker left the room to get his laptop and returned a few minutes later. ‘They must have CCTV cameras in front of and inside the police station. I’ll check through it to see if there are any sightings of Dana from that night onwards.’ He began tapping away.

  My stomach rumbled. ‘I’m starving. All that work has given me an appetite.’

  ‘Oooh, me too,’ Tia said. ‘I bet I burned off about a thousand calories with all that dancing.’

  ‘I don’t fancy ordering room service in this place.’ Mum pulled a face.

  ‘Have they even got room service?’ Suzy sniffed with distaste.

  ‘There are some delivery menus on the dressing table.’ I pointed at them. ‘Let’s order something. I need brain food.’

  We settled on pizza, and Mum wrote down the order to ring in.

  ‘I want the chicken supreme with no chicken,’ Suzy said.

  I snatched the menu out of her hand, scanning it for what was left of the chicken supreme if it didn’t include chicken. ‘So, really, you just want one with mushrooms, peppers, onions, and olives? That’s the same as a vegetarian. Why don’t you just order one of those instead?’

  ‘Because I want the chicken one with no chicken, not the vegetarian.’

  ‘But if you take chicken off the chicken supreme, all it’s got left is the same ingredients as the vegetarian. Why do you always have to have a faffy order and confuse everyone?’

  ‘I’m not confused,’ Suzy said. ‘I don’t see how it can be more simple. Chicken pizza with no chicken. It’s easy to follow.’

  Mum frowned. ‘So, you want one with olives, onions, peppers, and mushrooms?’

  ‘No, I want the chicken supreme with no chicken!’

  I sat on my hands to keep from strangling her. By the time we’d polished off two meat feasts, two Hawaiians, and four vegetarians—not chicken supremes with no chicken!—Hacker had run through the footage from the police station, from the night Dana had vanished up until the present. There was no sign of her.

  Alarm bells started clanging in my head. If she hadn’t bought a plane ticket, hadn’t hired a car, hadn’t gone to report what she’d seen going on in the club—whatever that was—and Ivan’s thugs hadn’t managed to find her, either, what the hell had happened to her? I turned that over in my mind while my stomach gurgled with appreciation. Then I had a brain wave.

  ‘She might be in hiding somewhere we haven’t thought about,’ I said. ‘Maybe she thinks if she goes to the police at the moment, Ivan or Paul will have some guys waiting for her, so she’s lying low for a while.’

  ‘But where?’ Elvis said. ‘She doesn’t have any friends here, and we asked all the girls at the club. I suppose they could be lying and hiding her, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t want to get in trouble with the “Big Boss Man” Ivan and risk losing their jobs, not to mention getting shot.’

  ‘Ooh, I loved that song!’ Mum said.

  ‘What song?’ I frowned.

  ‘“Big Boss Man”. It was one of my all-time favourite Elvis tracks.’

  ‘Good. I’m gla
d about that,’ I said. ‘Anyway, what are we surrounded by in Vegas?’

  Brad caught my eye. ‘Hotels.’

  ‘Exactly! She could be holed up in one of the hotels somewhere. Can you get onto their databases and see if she’s checked in to one of them?’ I asked Hacker.

  ‘Sure. It’s going to take some time, though. There are hundreds. I’ll start by checking her credit-card account again. Most hotels want a credit-card swipe before they’ll book a room.’

  Tia glanced at her watch. ‘I’m pooped. I need to get some sleep. It’s five in the morning.’

  Mum yawned. ‘Me too.’

  ‘OK. Let’s all try to get a good night’s sleep, then Hacker can start checking out those things tomorrow,’ Brad said. ‘We should all meet up for breakfast.’

  ‘What time?’ Suzy said. ‘I need at least eight hours of sleep. And I’ve forgotten my eye mask, which doesn’t help. The blinds in these rooms are so thin. As soon as the sun rises, it wakes me up.’

  ‘Put a sock over your head, then,’ I said.

  Suzy shot me daggers. ‘I don’t have any socks with me.’

  ‘A plastic bag?’ I could hope, couldn’t I?

  ‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ she snapped.

  ‘I thought it was.’

  When the others had all left, Brad went into the bathroom to have a shower. He asked me to join him, but I was so tired I couldn’t even move off the bed. As the water ran in the en suite, I closed my eyes and drifted off to la-la land.

  So much for my wedding night.

  Chapter 14

  At midday, we all reconvened at the MGM Grand all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. I wandered up and down the chilled and hot counters in awe. I’d died and gone to food heaven. I didn’t know where to start. There were all-day breakfast dishes, a carvery with every kind of roasted meat imaginable, salads galore, seafood. And the dessert table looked mind-blowingly yumalicious. My first round consisted of patatas bravas, roast beef, scrambled eggs, pancakes with lashings of maple syrup, crispy bacon, and garlic mushrooms. What? At least I had two vegetables on there. OK, maybe it was slightly piggish, but I hadn’t even started yet. I thought I had at least another three rounds in me. I took my piled-high plate back to the table and dug in.

  Elvis wasn’t eating. He had patchy stubble on his cheeks and red eyes and was downing cup after cup of strong black coffee.

  ‘You need to eat something,’ Suzy said to him. ‘Why don’t I get you a plate of fruit, at least, or a Danish?’

  He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I can’t face food. I’m too worried.’

  ‘Well, I’ve checked out Dana’s bank accounts again, and she hasn’t used her credit or debit card since she disappeared, so I don’t think she will have checked into a hotel, but I’m still looking just in case.’ Hacker balanced his laptop on the seat next to him as he ate his scrambled tofu. Ew, tofu for breakfast? That was so wrong. What was it made of, anyway? It looked all sloppy.

  ‘What’s the plan for the club tonight then?’ Tia asked, scoffing a chocolate chip brownie, which looked all gooey and delish. I put it on my round-two list.

  ‘I’m hoping Paul Winger comes in and uses one of the VIP rooms,’ I said. ‘Cooper said he comes in most nights.’

  ‘Then we can catch him in the act of taking drugs or getting handy with the dancers?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Hopefully,’ Brad said. ‘But all that will do is prove our theory.’

  ‘We could film him, too.’ Suzy nibbled on a sensible carrot stick. ‘Then maybe we can use it for leverage to find out what’s happened to Dana. We can threaten him with it. Don’t you have some of those little spy cameras we can tuck into our bikinis?’

  ‘Not with me,’ said Hacker. ‘All my equipment is back at the office at home.’

  ‘I doubt Winger even knows he was filmed in the first place,’ Dad said, swilling on a cup of tea. ‘Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be going to the club. Which means it’s unlikely he was involved in whatever happened to Dana after she left Polesque.’

  Something was niggling me about the video Dana must’ve stolen, but I couldn’t work out what. My attention was distracted by a group of ten George Clooney look-alikes who’d just come in. Some were better than others. One of them was Chinese, which didn’t help the likeness.

  ‘We’ll go back again tonight, posing as Snoop Dogg and his entourage,’ Brad said. ‘You girls will just have to keep your ears and eyes open and see what you can come up with.’

  ‘I want to come, too,’ Elvis said. ‘I feel useless sitting in my house waiting for you guys.’

  ‘Ivan will recognise you,’ Suzy said, worry oozing from her voice. ‘They’ve already shot you once. You don’t want it to happen again.’

  Elvis waved a hand around. ‘But I can’t just do nothing while you guys are doing so much to help. I’m “Indescribably Blue” and worried about my sister.’

  I actually thought Suzy was right. ‘You can’t take any chances on them spotting you,’ I said. ‘I know you want to feel like you’re doing something useful, but you might blow our cover, and that’s not going to help Dana at all.’

  ‘I agree,’ Brad said.

  Elvis scratched at his neck nervously but agreed with the consensus.

  After round four, I’d finally had enough food. Brad and I left Hacker still on his laptop with Tia. Mum and Dad went to get a massage. Suzy dragged Elvis off to visit the Hoover Dam to take his mind off Dana.

  Brad and I walked through the MGM casino, past the dumps tables, trying to find our way out of the huge hotel. The place was a labyrinth that seemed to go round and round in a permanent loop. By the time we made it outside, I felt as if I’d been in there a month.

  He took hold of my hand and entwined his fingers in mine. ‘So, we’ve got about six hours before we have to go back to the club. What do you want to do? We’ve at least got to have some quality holiday time while we’re here.’

  I thought about all the things I’d wanted to do that I’d read about in the guidebooks, but since my feet were killing me, and I had aches and pains everywhere from falling off that stupid pole, I wanted to do something that involved the least amount of walking possible. Something relaxing and romantic. ‘How about we do a gondola ride at The Venetian Hotel?’

  ‘Absolutely. Your wish is my command.’

  We walked up the Strip, past a group of hip-hop street dancers who’d drawn a large crowd, and arrived outside the impressive Venetian ten minutes later. There was a bridge over an expanse of water leading into the hotel and shops. The water went around the outside of the hotel and had been made to look like the lagoon in Venice but was a lot less dirty and smelly. There were empty gondolas moored up next to tall red-and-white-striped buoys that looked like candy canes. Another gondola had a couple sitting in it, arms around each other, floating leisurely along as the driver punted down the canal, singing a song in Italian. What do you call a gondola driver, anyway? A pilot? Gondodriver? Gondolier? That sounded like a sexually transmitted disease.

  We wandered over the bridge to the gondola station then down some steps to where Bitsy was selling tickets—I made a note of her name in case I ever needed another stripper alias. She told us they had two graceful and romantic rides available, one around the outside of the hotel to take in the Strip and one inside that leisurely floated down the Grand Canal under bridges, with a streetscape that looked like Venice.

  We decided to go for the indoor ride and headed into the hotel to find the gondola station there. They could take four guests each, but we paid extra to have the boat to ourselves. We settled into the comfy chairs. Brad slid his arm around my shoulder, and I rested my head against his.

  The water lapped at the sides of the gondola as we drifted along the Grand Canal, past the shops and cafés done out in Italian-inspired architecture. The sky painted on the ceiling was amazing, a pale-blue colour with subtle ambient lighting at the edges and dotted with fluffy clouds that actually looked as if they were floating. We were t
old it changed with the time of day, and at night, stars came out.

  Our gondola pilot—I still couldn’t bring myself to call her what sounded like an STD—began to sing what she told us was an Italian love song. I recognised it from the Cornetto adverts on TV when I was a kid. I didn’t have a clue what it was called, but it was about a Cornetto from Italy. I started singing the words in my head, which wasn’t really that romantic in the end, but hey ho. It was still a welcome break from having to think about my botched wedding and a missing Dana.

  Maybe the ride was slightly tacky, but at least it was relaxing and fun. Afterwards, we ended up hand in hand, strolling through the Italian landscape, watching a street magician in the large square before stuffing ourselves with the best gelato ever.

  Chapter 15

  By ten at night, Polesque was buzzing with people. I had plasters on my plasters, just in case my scary blister decided to pop, and I was back and forth between the main club floor, the group VIP lounge, and the private VIP rooms. I asked a girl called Delight what Paul Winger looked like so I could spot him if he came in and pay close attention. She said he was tall and skinny with sandy-coloured hair and a pointy nose.

  Tia was doing a table dance for a lone customer. Suzy was on the stage, strutting around like she owned the place, in full-on Sexy Suzy mode. Mum was doing a gyrating lap dance for the geriatric from the day before. I averted my gaze from Mum and served a group of guys who all had amazing sets of sparkling white teeth and were in town for a dentists’ convention.

  At eleven, Hacker, Brad, and Dad waltzed in. They walked straight up to me and said they wanted to go to the group VIP room for an hour and asked me to find them each a dancer. We’d prearranged that they’d check out the group room this time to see if they could learn anything interesting about any other customers or dancers.

  ‘Absolutely.’ I beamed a bright smile at them and led them to the group room. Pinhead, the lesbian bouncer, was on the door with his clipboard, signing customers and dancers in and out. ‘These guys are having an hour,’ I said, and he nodded and wrote something down. ‘I’m going to send Brandi, Heavenly, and Delight in for them.’ I would’ve sent one of the Candi-Candee-Candys, but I couldn’t be bothered trying to work out who was who.