Stephanie Caffrey - Raven McShane 01 - Diva Las Vegas

by Stephanie Caffrey

  “Uh,” I coughed. “I’m guessing you’re Mr. d’Angelo,” I said lamely. Linda must have pointed me out to him.

  “You must be a detective,” the man quipped sarcastically. His eyes became lighter, even more amused than before.

  “Actually, I am.” I needed another slug of beer to clear my throat. His eyes shot up in surprise, and he looked me over without a hint of self-consciousness. “Well, if this is about that red light I ran in 2003, I confess. Take me away, officer!” He thought he was pretty funny.

  “No, I’m a private investigator.” I gave a polite chuckle. “Raven McShane’s the name.” I offered my hand, and he shook it.

  “Phew!” he exclaimed in mock relief. “Call me Phil. How can I help you? Does my ex-wife think I’m making more money than I claim?”

  “Not quite. I’m actually here about casino business.” I looked around, trying to appear casual. The guy behind the bar was pretending not to listen. “I guess I shouldn’t beat around the bush,” I said softly. “What I’m really interested in is Cody Masterson’s past brush with the law.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Phil asked.

  “Well, obviously he was found not guilty, but a lot of people were surprised by that verdict.”

  “I’m surprised every morning when I wake up alive,” Phil said, shrugging. He narrowed his eyes and sized me up. “Look, I don’t know what your angle is, but I think I see what you’re getting at,” he said, standing up. “You want me to betray my boss, and I’m not going to.”

  “Fair enough.” After a few brief questions, he had guessed my angle and wanted nothing to do with me. “Loyalty is a rare thing these days,” I said.

  Phil thought for a second. “Yes it is, but the Hannitys have always treated me right, and I don’t see any reason to help you out,” he explained. “No offense.”

  “No, I understand. Thanks for stopping by.”

  “Enjoy your burger,” he said curtly as he stood up. He took a last look down my shirt. “By the way,” he said, “you’d probably make more money as a cocktail waitress than a two-bit private eye or whatever you are.” He turned and walked away. Rachel was right. This guy was an asshole.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was trying to think of a Plan B when someone brushed me on the shoulder. I thought maybe d’Angelo had returned to take another swipe at me, but it wasn’t Phil. This man was paler and much thicker through the neck. He was younger than Phil, probably forty, although his hair was nearly all white. His face was pink and pockmarked, and he wore a nametag that read “E. Holman” above the word “SECURITY.” He was looking at me as though he knew me. I offered a generic smile, but he didn’t smile back. I soon sensed another presence looming behind me, a presence that wore a particularly objectionable brand of cologne. The presence gave me an unfriendly tap on my right shoulder.

  “We’d like you to come with us,” said the surprisingly soft, husky voice behind me. I was still facing the white-haired man on my right and had to crane my neck to face the voice. The speaker was a much taller man of athletic build with dark brown hair and a mustache. He wore a black dress shirt underneath a gray sport coat. No nametag. He looked a little like the man who used to be on the Brawny paper towel packages, but he didn’t seem to share the Brawny man’s warm and fuzzy outlook on life.

  “Um,” I stuttered, standing up fully. “No thanks. Just finishing my beer.” I pointed lamely to my half-finished mug.

  “It won’t take long. Please, miss,” Holman said, gesturing with his hand. He was polite but insistent.

  The Brawny man’s hand came down on my shoulder, and I found myself being scooted away from my seat.

  “Okay. But I’m meeting my boyfriend in a few minutes,” I lied, “so I don’t have long.”

  The white-haired Holman grunted. Instead of walking me back through the casino, the two led me through a small door next to the bar that I hadn’t noticed before. I was beginning to get a twinge of nervousness, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. I figured either Phil d’Angelo wanted to see me in the privacy of his office, or these guys had me confused with some two-bit card counter. Or they thought I was a hooker.

  If the Outpost’s public face was somewhat tarnished and trashy, behind closed doors the place looked like a fleabag motel that hadn’t seen any maintenance since the Carter Administration. The hallway they led me down was dimly lit by unattractive rectangular wall sconces, but even the dim lighting couldn’t hide the stained linoleum floor that creaked under our weight. They ushered me into a small room furnished only by a small square table and two plastic chairs that looked like they were lifted from a Soviet dentist’s office. It smelled like an old Catholic school gym. A fluorescent light buzzed and flickered overhead.

  The three of us stood in the small room in awkwardly close proximity. I could smell the cheap cologne wafting off of the Brawny man to my right, and Holman stood directly in front of me underneath the light, which cast an eerie halo over his features. He offered a pained smile and held up his hands as if to say everything was all right.

  “Our boss sent us down here to make sure you understood how things stand. He wasn’t sure he conveyed his message clearly enough.”

  “No, I got it,” I said. “Just a little personal matter between me and him.”

  “That’s where we might have a little disagreement,” Holman said, enunciating his words carefully. “You see, our boss explained what it is you wanted to talk about, and that’s something that could affect all of us.” He let the vague but pregnant statement hang in the air. At this point the big man put his hand on my shoulder and pressed me down into the seat. The two goons loomed menacingly over me.

  “I see,” was all I could muster. I could feel my stomach doing cartwheels, and my mind raced to catch up with the situation. I hadn’t considered the possibility that d’Angelo would share our little visit with his staff. Nor had I considered the possibility that the staff wouldn’t be too keen on me upsetting the applecart. Apparently an entire business could have a vested interest in keeping a murderer out of jail.

  “So you appreciate our position, then?” Holman asked softly. He wore a muffled smirk that would have produced a more violent response from me if I hadn’t been outnumbered.

  “I guess I do,” I said meekly, even though he hadn’t explained what their so-called position was. It didn’t take a degree in communications to get his meaning, though. “I will definitely keep that in mind,” I added, beginning to stand up. This time Holman touched me gently on the shoulder before I was fully upright.

  “Just so there is no confusion,” he said, “you are not to enter this property ever again.” His tone reeked of contempt.

  “Not a problem,” I said, trying my best to appear cool. “I’ll just show myself out.” Both of them nodded, but Holman’s hand was still on my shoulder. He eased up for a second, but then he began digging his fingers into the tendons at the base of my neck. I could feel his stubby fingernails and the hardened calluses on the tips of his fingers as he pressed into my bare skin. It hurt like a bitch.

  I squirmed out of his grasp and stood up. They were loving this, both of them standing there grinning like high school jocks. Big on intimidation, short on brains. I had an idea. I got close to Holman. Real close. My chest was pressing against the front of his shirt, as though we were dancing to a slow tune. I tried to put a sorrowful, apologetic look on my face. I made my lips pouty and looked up into his eyes. He looked confused, but interested. But mostly he looked idiotic.

  “I’m sorry,” I pouted. I brought my left hand up and slowly ran my finger across his chest. I slid two fingers between the buttons on the front of Holman’s cheap dress shirt, and then I executed my rudimentary plan. When you’re an exotic dancer for ten years, you develop certain muscles below the waist that have no business being on any honest woman’s body. I could climb a dancing pole without using my hands. In a pinch, I could crack a walnut between my thighs. And with a little practice, I
could probably kick a field goal from fifty yards. Maybe it wasn’t a fair fight, but I did what any other woman would do. I grasped Holman’s shirt tightly, for support, and with all my force I whipped my right knee up between his legs. It was a full Rockette kick, except that his scrotum got in the way. Oops.

  He shrieked in pain for a second and then began wailing a silent scream that only dogs could hear. As he slumped over the table in agony I pushed past them and got the hell out of there. I retraced my steps down the hallway and emerged next to the bar and did a quick glance down at my shirt. I was wearing a thin gray t-shirt that was now half-soaked with sweat. I held my arms against my sides to hide the sweat and waddled like a penguin trying to escape a polar bear towards the valet stand. I figured I was safe as long as I was out in the open. Cameras were watching everything, and there were at least fifty people lingering around.

  My heart was still pounding. I couldn’t believe I had just been back-roomed. That was something they did in the days of the Rat Pack and Bugsy Siegel, not in the twenty-first century Disney version of Las Vegas that I lived in. Thankfully, my car arrived quickly. The inbred valet flashed a lascivious and mirthless smile at me while I got into the car. Did this lowlife think he was getting a tip? I thought he could use a knee to the groin, too, but I just flipped him off and gunned the engine.

  Somehow I made it back to my apartment without incident. The familiarity of my condo was reassuring, and I checked myself in the mirror. My neck was red where Holman had dug his claws into me, and my knee had a nasty bruise forming. I must have bashed it against a chair when I bolted out of that back room.

  It wasn’t even six o’clock, but I didn’t feel like working or doing much of anything else. I decided to give myself the evening off and clunked out on the couch halfway through an old Steve Martin movie.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Friday morning I woke up on the couch with a throbbing headache. Remarkably, I’d slept right through the night without any nightmares about the assholes at the Outpost. I’d left the TV on, and was now treated to a children’s cartoon featuring a pair of disturbingly well-endowed female superheroes. Their chirpy voices stabbed like daggers in my head. It was definitely a three-Advil morning.

  I forced myself out of bed and plopped down at my computer, where I found an email from an Indiana woman named Barbara Finley. She wanted to hire me to keep tabs on her husband while he was in town for a bachelor party. He’d said he was going to Florida on a golf trip, but she had learned otherwise. I emailed her back with a copy of my standard retainer agreement. Most people seemed put off by the high rates I charged, so I didn’t expect to hear back from her.

  After getting myself together, I realized I needed to talk to Rachel again. Getting banned from the Outpost was more than a minor setback. It was obvious that Phil d’Angelo wasn’t going to play nice, and it seemed likely that he’d already turned the entire casino staff against me. I would need a whole different approach to the case or Rachel would have to find someone else.

  I left a message on Rachel’s cell phone asking if she had any other ideas as to Outpost people I could talk to. I plopped back on the couch, hoping my headache would go away. After a half-hour of mindless television and about three quarts of water, it went from a throbbing pain to a dull ache. I considered that a minor victory.

  After lunch I decided to give Mike a call—he’d find the story about the Outpost amusing, at the very least. I reached him on his cell. He had a pleasant sounding laugh, but I was determined to take offense anyway.

  “I didn’t find it that funny. A little dramatic of them, don’t you think?”

  “What, the treatment?”

  “If that’s what you call it.”

  “You haven’t been doing this very long. Even the big corporate hotels have back rooms. They can legally detain you if they think a crime’s been committed,” he explained.

  “And if they don’t think any crime has been committed?” I pressed.

  “They just say ‘oops.’”

  “Somehow I don’t think the Bellagio has goons hauling people to back rooms and digging into people’s flesh,” I said.

  “You never know. I’ve heard some scary things about people who take out six figure markers and try to skip out when they lose.”

  I wasn’t really buying it. I told Mike I was going to hole up indoors for the rest of the day, and I spent the afternoon surfing the web for information about Cody Masterson and feeling like the world’s worst private investigator.

  Around five o’clock my agent called to remind me I had a three-hour engagement the next morning at a tire convention. Conventions were annoying, but they were easy gigs. Wander around, hand out a few hundred pamphlets for shock absorbers or dental tape, laugh at a few dozen bad jokes, and pocket a check for $1,500. Conventions were hugely preferable to stuffy VIP cocktail parties, where I was expected to mingle and feign interest in the latest developments in laser orthodontics (this week) or wheelchair equipment (next month). And convention work gave me a cover job whenever my family started nosing around about how I made my money.

  After dinner I managed to get to Cougar’s to dance for a few hours. I borrowed some cream from one of the girls to cover up Holman’s fingernail marks on my shoulder, but my heart wasn’t in the performance. With my convention starting at ten the next morning, I decided to attend to my three regulars who were partying Friday night and called it an evening by midnight.

  The convention at the Bellagio was uneventful except for the ice cream cone that got spilled on my shoulder. The ice cream was chocolate, and my Yves St. Laurent suit was vanilla. Luckily the vendor who spilled it was horrified and cut me a check on the spot for my dry cleaning bill. I felt ridiculous for about an hour, but it proved to be a great conversation starter for the men at the convention.

  Rachel called me back around 2:00 on Saturday. I got straight to the point.

  “It was bound to happen eventually,” she said nonchalantly. “Even a ratty little place like the Outpost keeps a close watch on who comes and goes. Even if Phil was going to talk, they wouldn’t like you nosing around there too much.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “But that kind of cramps my style. If I can’t get back in there to talk to anybody, it’ll be hard to dig much deeper.”

  She paused. “That’s true. Even if no one who works there now will talk to you, that doesn’t mean we’re screwed. Let me think about it and get back to you, okay?”

  Rachel left me a message while I was in the shower, asking me to get in touch with a man named Mel Block, who she said was the Outpost’s general manager before Phil d’Angelo took over. The Mastersons had wanted new blood after George died, and Mel had seemed more than happy to retire to San Diego. Rachel said Mel was one of the few people at the casino who’d been nice to her, but they had lost track of each other in the last few years.

  I tried the number Rachel had given me for Mel Block, but there was neither an answer nor an answering machine. I tried calling again twice more that afternoon with the same result. I made an early stir-fry dinner and headed over to Cougar’s. Saturday nights were the most profitable of the week (Friday was second.), and I expected four or five regulars to pay me a visit. I found six, plus a cute young German poker player who I’d danced for the night before. A regular in the making, I hoped.

  I woke Sunday just before noon. My first thought was that I really had no leads to go on, even after almost a week working on the case. It was not just frustrating, it was embarrassing. I called Mel Block’s number in San Diego again with no luck. After putzing around my apartment for an hour, I found myself on my balcony with a stack of Shape and Cosmopolitan magazines that had been building up since May. A can of cheddar Pringles somehow found its way into my lap.

  My phone rang around two o’clock.

  “Raven, this is Sean Whelan with LVPD. Returning your call from the other day.”

  I was silent for what felt like a full minute, my brain full of static. “Hi Li
eutenant, thanks for getting back to me.” I had completely forgotten that I’d phoned him on Tuesday.

  “Sorry it’s taken so long. Rough week. Actually I thought I’d get your machine,” he said. “Working on a Sunday, huh?” He was trying to be friendly, but it came off as hollow.

  “Nope, I’m not really working. It’s my cell number. I was just wondering if I could talk with you for a few minutes about the Masterson murder case. You were in charge of the investigation, right?”

  “Wow, that’s an oldie but goodie. Yeah, I was the lead detective on that one. Your message was kind of cryptic. What exactly can I help you with?”

  Whelan’s call had caught me off-guard, and I wasn’t prepared with anything useful to ask him. “I wonder if I could come to your office or something,” I suggested. “Are you in tomorrow?”

  “We can’t do this on the phone? I’m a little busy.” He suddenly sounded snippy.

  “Sure, just give me—”

  “Sorry,” he interrupted. “Like I said, rough week. My wife left me, actually. Took the kids to her mom’s place up in Oregon. Kind of sudden. I’ve been out the last two days, and I’m just trying to catch up.”

  “God, that’s awful,” I said, not knowing how else to respond. We were both silent for a minute. My mind went into overdrive. “Lieutenant, I’m going out on a limb here, but your name is Irish, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m a thoroughbred, actually. Why?”

  “Well, I’m half Irish myself. It sounds like you could use a pint of Guinness. Or two. We can talk about Cody Masterson, and I’ll buy you a couple.”