Bad Girl and Loverboy

by Michele Jaffe

  Ha!

  He laughed out loud at the thought, then slapped a hand across his mouth, remembering Rosalind sleeping behind him. She had not been any fun that night, and he’d had to cut short their activities and give her a double dose of pills because she was so squirmy.

  He knee-walked across the room to watch her while she slept now. She looked nice like that, with her eyes closed and her mouth covered with tape. Sometimes she made a little snoring noise, which reminded him of his mom. It was funny, his mom used to say she slept in the guest room because she couldn’t stand his father’s snoring, but she snored too.

  One difference between his mom and Ros was that Rosalind didn’t wear any jewelry, while his mom loved it. She always was wearing something gold or shiny. Whenever he thought of her, he thought of her earrings.

  He remembered one time, sitting on the back porch of the house, off the kitchen, holding his puppy in his lap. He didn’t hear the door open but then the automatic hinges on it sent it banging back, knock knock, and he turned around and she was standing there.

  It was before sunset and the light made her hair look gold, made her look like a model, the perfect image of the perfect mom. She smiled a perfect mom smile and sat down next to him, her arms open.

  “Come here, angel,” she said, gathering him onto her lap. He remembered letting his fingertips touch the gold hoops dangling in her ears. He liked it when she wore them but it made him nervous too, because mostly they were for when she was going out. He kept his gaze on her earrings or her lips, not her eyes. He didn’t like eyes.

  “Is it time to play now?” he asked, wanting her to deny that she was leaving. Almost every day at that time they played a game. Sometimes it was Mother May I. Sometimes it was Simon Says. And sometimes it was Hide-and-Seek. Hide-and-Seek was the boy’s favorite. He was very good at it. One time she didn’t find him for hours. She had been so scared she called the police, and when he came out she was shaking all over and her lips were red from her biting them and she smelled sweaty and she cried because she was so happy to see him. That was when it became his favorite. Because it showed how much she loved him.

  He felt her pause. He stared at the earrings, hooking his finger through one of them. “You’re going away, aren’t you?”

  “Honey, you’re hurting me,” she said, unwrapping his fingers and holding his hands in one of hers. With the other hand, she tipped his face up so he’d have to look at her eyes. He squinted. “I’m going away for a little while. I’ll be back sooner than you think. You take good care and I’ll come back for you. Then we can play.”

  “Promise, Mommy?”

  “Of course. Would I leave my loverboy?”

  He shook his head and she had kissed him and hugged him so tight the puppy squealed.

  It had squealed a lot more, six weeks later, when he wrung its neck. He had to do it because the puppy looked so sad all the time now that his mom wasn’t there. He was careful when he did it not to get any blood or pee on his clothes. He didn’t want his father to say he had disgraced the family by going out with his pants all messed. Didn’t want his father to yell that he was a disgusting little shit and threaten to slap him silly. It was his fault his mother didn’t come back, he knew. She had found another boy to love. A good boy who didn’t sometimes miss dinner because he was taking apart the radio and who would PAY ATTENTION and look you in the eye when you told him to. She went away because of him. Because he was not good enough. Because he had not taken good enough care.

  That would never happen again, he swore.

  Using tweezers, he lifted the piece of paper from between Rosalind’s fingers where she had been clutching it when she went unconscious, and slid it into an envelope. Carefully.

  From then on, everyone would stay until he was done playing.

  CHAPTER 7

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Imogen kept her sunglasses on as she threaded her way through the airport terminal, counting on them to narrow her field of sensation. She held her carry-on bag close to her to keep the jar she’d put Rex into that morning steady. She didn’t know what airplanes did to goldfish, but he wasn’t looking that good.

  Her head was swimming with tastes, plasticky sweetness from the clinking of the slot machines paying out, spice from the sheer wash of colors and light, an undertone of lime, still, although now she wasn’t sure if it was her own disappointment or that of others she was sensing. There were people everywhere but none of them were really at home, and for a woman who had spent her life feeling out of place, the strange magnetism of Vegas—where no one and everyone belonged at once—was potent.

  “First trip?” the cabdriver asked as he squealed away from the terminal curb. Imogen, watching the skyline—pyramid, Eiffel Tower, New York City, Italian campanile—rise in front of her, nodded once, carefully adjusted Rex’s jar against the backseat, and forced her eyes back down to the computer printout in her lap.

  She checked one more time to be sure, although she had been sure since she first spotted the name on the third page. The sheaf of paper had been waiting for her at the Minneapolis airport, along with the ticket on the charter flight Elgin had shoehorned her onto. She’d been sandwiched between a sleeping man in a business suit on her left and Ralph—“You’ve probably heard of me? The Samoan Elvis?”—on the right, whose card was poking her thigh through her pants pocket in case she needed anything. “Anything at all, little lady,” said with a wink-smile, more fatherly than flirtatious. “When Elvis is in the building, the sky’s the limit.”

  Imogen had felt sorry for Ralph, for his retouched sideburns and chipped chrome glasses and the sour-cherry taste—loneliness—that the shiny patches on the creases of his light blue leisure suit evoked, but she had not had time to talk to him. Elgin’s parting words to her on the phone that morning—“I’m trusting you. I hope I’m not making a mistake. Don’t you dare screw this up, Page”—kept repeating in her head. Her case, her team, her sole responsibility if it failed. She was not going to let that happen.

  She was suddenly aware that her cabdriver was talking to her again. “Mind if I ask, what’s your game?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What do you play? I like to guess what people play, sort of a hobby of mine. You’d be surprised how often I get it right. You, for instance. You’re a roulette player, right?”

  “No. I don’t play.”

  The cabdriver’s tongue clicked a rebuke. “This is Vegas. You heard of Shakespeare? It’s like he said: ‘All the world’s a game and the men are but petty players.’ ”

  Imogen decided not to correct him. Said, “Oh,” and returned her eyes to the printout on her lap.

  “Yep. And do you know what it means?”

  She sighed and gave up working. Stared instead at the fraying collar of his rust-colored Members Only jacket. Did that brand still exist? “I can’t imagine.”

  “Life is just one big game. If you’re not playing, you’re getting played. You ever heard the saying there are three things you can’t get back once you’ve lost them—money, time, and a good woman? That’s it, man. Every decision’s a gamble. Of course, you probably don’t care much about a good woman.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Imogen’s attention moved to the dashboard. It was covered with toys—a hula girl, Elvis, three different dogs, a dinosaur, a Smurf, a miniature Barbie in an astronaut suit—all glued or suction-cupped on, half of them nodding or swaying in time to the motion of the car. Looking at them made her nauseous, and her eyes fixed on a card the driver had paper-clipped to the notepad next to the steering wheel. Don’t like my driving? Call 1-800-Jerkoff. She found herself wondering if it was a real phone number as they screeched up to the hotel.

  “Don’t forget what I told you,” the cabby admonished.

  “I’ll keep it all in mind. Thank you.”

  “You bet. And don’t forget the receipt. You’ll want it later.”

  Imogen gathered her change and her luggage from the trunk
of the cab, too focused on keeping Rex upright to pay attention to the man in the beige short-sleeved button-down with the thin brown stripes, the khakis that were missing a belt loop, the shoes, just enough worn in, who was watching her. Too busy bracing for what was about to happen to see him smile despite himself as she pushed through the revolving glass doors of the hotel. Too far away to hear him whisper, “On your marks, get set, go!”

  CHAPTER 8

  Sitting in the chenille-upholstered chair that faced the Bellagio security chief’s desk, Imogen had a lot of time to consider the fact that Lex didn’t have the kind of pull he thought he did. When she had illegally called him from her cell phone in the airplane bathroom—Elgin encouraged his personnel to do this because the phone company had trouble keeping track of calls made that way and they often ended up being free—Lex had promised to have everything on the ground in place for her. But so far, while she’d been offered water, tea, coffee, cookies, a free gym pass, and a limited-edition engraved pen, she had not been offered access to Rosalind Carnow’s suite, unlimited assistance, or any of the information she’d requested.

  She took a sip of cappuccino out of the fancy porcelain cup, and reminded herself for the third time that strangling members of the Bellagio security staff with a phone cord would not fall under the FBI guidelines of interagency cooperation Lex liked to recite.

  She had thought only thirteen-year-olds wore Drakkar Noir cologne, but the young security officer sitting across from her seemed to have bathed in it. His blond hair was cut very short, and he had a small piece of toilet paper under his chin that he’d forgotten to remove from when he nicked himself shaving too fast that morning. Imogen guessed that Burt Weiss, Eureka, CA, had been given the assignment of rushing in on short notice to deal with her because he was the lowest man on the Bellagio security totem pole. It was not his fault that he was standing between her and what she wanted, she knew, but it might soon be his problem. She gripped the handle of the fancy cup harder as Burt smiled apologetically at her over the telephone receiver and explained, “His wife is just getting him out of the shower.” He returned his attention to the phone. “Hello, Mr. Strand? It’s Burt, sir. Yes, I’m covering for Grouse. Sorry to call you so early but Miss”—he looked down at the business card in his hand—“Imogen Page is here to see you.” He lowered his voice as if they were not sealed in an office, as if the information were an infectious virus. “From the FBI.”

  The man on the other end of the phone did not lower his voice as he made clear what he thought of the FBI. Imogen imagined he was a retired cop, and she was accustomed to how most cops felt about the feds, but she did not really care. Their dislike could not keep them from cooperating, and the barest minimum of cooperation was all she needed.

  “Please explain to him that I need access to the room right away.”

  Burt put up his hand and, nodding, keeping his eyes on Imogen, said, “Yes, I understand. Yes, I’ll do that. Yes, sir.”

  Imogen heard the line click before he’d finished saying good-bye, but Burt’s face was relieved as he replaced the phone in the cradle. “Everything is all set. Detective Eastly should be here in less than ten minutes for your briefing.”

  Imogen frowned. “Detective Eastly?”

  “J. D. Eastly, with the Las Vegas police?” Burt said. His tone practically shimmered with admiration. “He’s on the major-incident squad and he’s baby-sitting Violent Crimes while the big boss is out of town. Of course you’ve heard of him—John Dillinger Eastly, you know, the baseball player? All-star and everything. He quit to become a cop, but he does all those fund-raisers for Little League. On TV? Where he says, ‘Stay focused, don’t lose your cool, and keep your eye on the ball,’ and then he hits a ball toward the camera and you see that written on it is ‘only full-on losers do drugs.’ Something like that anyway. Maybe more catchy, what the advertising people make up.”

  “I imagine it would be catchy.”

  “Anyway, he’s the one who is coming to brief you.”

  “I don’t need a briefing. And actually, I’d rather have a few minutes up there by myself.”

  “Detective Eastly is very good at this sort of thing, ma’am. You really ought to wait for him. You’ll enjoy meeting him.”

  I bet, Imogen thought. There was no question in her mind that J. D. Eastly was going to protest against letting her have the case. In her experience, local cops either welcomed FBI assistance with open arms because they were overworked and delighted to have the help, or shunned them like a fungus as interlopers, but either way, they did not rush over to give them briefings.

  Imogen peered at Rex in his jar—did fish sleep? Could she have killed him already? No, his fin was moving, thank God—then pulled the latest collage out of her bag and tapped it against the desk, looking at it idly as she tried to figure out what to do next. She was tempted to handcuff Burt to his chair and go up to Rosalind Carnow’s suite on her own, but she had a feeling this was not the approach that would earn her the willing cooperation of the Bellagio security force or the Vegas police. Not that their willing cooperation was exactly necessary, but—

  Imogen’s hands stopped moving. She had spent hours studying the collage, particularly trying to figure out the meaning of the images in the upper center, but she had always looked at it right-side up. Now she was holding it upside down, and now suddenly the message came into focus. Unmistakable, gut-wrenching focus.

  She pushed back her chair and started gathering her bags. “Burt, I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer.”

  Burt, startled, looked up from the Word Hide-’n’-Seek book he had been working on. “I’m sure Detective Eastly is—”

  “Take me up there now.” When he did not move, Imogen leaned across the desk toward him. “Burt, are you standing in the way of my doing my job?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s just that Detective Eastly said he did not want the feds”—dicking around was the phrase she’d heard his boss use on the phone, but apparently Burt didn’t think that was exactly appropriate for a girl fed—“confused by the crime scene.”

  Imogen almost laughed. “I think I can handle it. I do not mean to be a pain but I really need to get in there. Now. I can call Washington and have them explain it to you if I have to, but I think we would both rather it didn’t come to that.” She didn’t know where that bit of television-cop dialogue had come from, but she hoped the words sounded menacing enough that Burt would not think to ask whom she was going to call or what they could possibly do to him. Lex, for example, would have laughed in her face for an hour if she’d phoned to say she was having trouble getting past a hotel security guard.

  She must have made it seem good, because Burt relented almost instantly. That was bad for him as far as getting in good with J. D. Eastly went, but lucky in another way, because without realizing it, Imogen had already slipped her handcuffs out of her bag and was getting ready to use them.

  As soon as she was alone in Rosalind Carnow’s bedroom, everything extraneous—Burt and what she had just seen in the collage and the events that led to her being in Vegas—disappeared from Imogen’s mind. It was a beautiful room, off the main space of the suite, with a set of French doors that opened onto the terrace. Imogen turned her head around slowly, orienting herself among the soft camel-colored furnishings, then slipped on her sunglasses and began to work.

  She started with the drawers. Two of them were empty, and two others contained silk underwear and nightgowns so beautiful that they could only have been packed for a weekend with a lover. Imogen lifted a brand-new claret-colored peignoir from the tissue paper wrapped around it. Her mother had worn nightgowns like that to bed every night, but hers were usually—

  What was she doing thinking about her mother?

  Imogen dropped the robe and shut the drawer quickly.

  Concentrate. The regular ticking of a clock somewhere in the room gave everything a minty undertone as Imogen moved past a marble table toward the armoire. She pulled open the doors.r />
  Her mouth was suddenly flooded with the taste of licorice.

  Danger.

  Nine years of sharing a recess schoolyard with Albert DeKlerk made her response automatic. Her fists were up as she spun, kicking first. Her boot made a good thud as it connected with her attacker’s midsection, and she was aiming for his eyes when he grabbed her ankle and twisted.

  Imogen fell sidewise, upturning the marble table, and her attacker was on top of her, pinning her hands with his wrists, her legs with his thighs. She could not move.

  She said, “You are under arrest.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Benton would have bet that nothing could make him laugh that morning, but he had not wagered on Imogen Page.

  “I am under arrest?” he asked, looking down at the woman squirming beneath him. He flicked off her sunglasses.

  “Yes.” She squinted up at him. “Let me go.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Then you will be in even more trouble. I am a government agent, and if you don’t release me right now I am going to have you taken in for assault and battery, in addition to resisting arrest.”

  “Oh,” Benton said, shifting slightly.

  That was all the woman needed. Her knee rammed upward into whatever she could find and he sprang away from her.

  “Argh,” Benton said, holding his knees to his chest. “Oh, man.” He opened his eyes and saw that he was looking down the barrel of a gun. It was being held perfectly steady in the hands of the woman looming over him.

  She said, “Stay down or I’ll shoot your balls off,” and he thought he might fall in love with her.

  He rubbed his thigh with his palm and said, “I hope your aim with firearms is better than your aim with your knee. You missed your objective by three inches.”