Stephanie Caffrey - Raven McShane 01 - Diva Las Vegas

by Stephanie Caffrey

  “I’m just like everybody else. Do you know anyone who follows every single tenet of their religion, every day, all the time?”

  I thought about it for a second. “I guess not.”

  Mike’s drink arrived, and we clinked glasses. He took a big sip out of his straw.

  “Yours was better,” he said.

  “No shit.”

  About halfway through my second chimichanga I realized Mike was getting pretty drunk. I could tell because he was talking without being asked a question. He’d only finished about a quarter of his drink, but his liver was obviously out of practice.

  “Drink up,” I said. “They’re going to think you didn’t like it.”

  He took a big slurp. I liked men who responded to gentle nagging.

  While we ate, Mike managed to drink about three-fourths of his margarita. I paid the check and slurped down the watery green dregs of his drink, which was such a weak concoction that it was clearly designed with children or the elderly in mind. We left the restaurant and began walking slowly up the street.

  “What now?” he asked.

  I had no idea. It was only a little after seven, and I had a nice buzz going. And Mr. Titanium Thighs was feeling good. “When was the last time you had a beer?”

  He giggled a little. It was an unseemly sound for a six-one guy like him, but it was kind of cute. “Is alcohol your answer for everything?”

  “No. Sometimes hard drugs are required. But if you want me to drink a beer alone, I understand.”

  “Okay, okay. One beer. How about this place?” The bar on our right was very touristy, but it looked as good as any, and we could sit outside. Mike found a seat next to the sidewalk, and I went inside to the bar.

  Knowing that you’re one hundred percent definitely going to hell can be very liberating sometimes, and this was one of those times. Mike had said “one” beer, so I wanted to make it worth our while. I’m not exactly sure why I was getting him drunk, but it was a blast to see him relaxing and opening up. The bartender assured me that the “imperial” amber ale they had on tap was their strongest beer, and I ordered us a couple of them in the twenty-five ounce size. The glasses were roughly a foot tall.

  I hefted the two glasses onto the table like some Bavarian Fraulein, somehow managing to keep most of the liquid from spilling.

  “What the hell is this?” Mike asked, his eyes bugging out.

  “I’m trying to get you drunk,” I said matter-of-factly.

  He shook his head in quiet resignation. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was having fun.

  We sat for a while in silence, watching tourists walk by in the dimming daylight. The gas street lamps fired up and came slowly to life. A cop on a chestnut horse trotted towards us. Just before passing by, the horse paused, looked directly at me, and unleashed an avalanche of poop right on the curb. God’s judgment, no doubt.

  I stole a furtive glance at Mike. He’d knocked off half of his beer and hadn’t thrown up yet. A good sign. He was staring at the poop.

  “You don’t have to finish your beer just to impress me,” I said.

  “Good,” he muttered.

  I changed the subject. “There’s a pool on the roof of our hotel, you know.”

  Mike looked across the table at me. His eyelids were a little droopy, but he seemed okay. He took a long look at his half a beer and gave it thoughtful consideration. “I could go for a swim,” he said.

  We stood. He stumbled just a bit and reached out to the table for support. I took his arm and led him out to the sidewalk. We walked together, in silence, back to the hotel.

  “Meet you at the elevator in five minutes,” I said.

  Mike nodded somberly.

  I freshened up and changed into my black bikini. I found a comfy white hotel robe in the closet and went out to the elevator. I had half-expected Mike to pass out facedown on his bed, but there he was. He didn’t have a robe on. Just his t-shirt and black swimming trunks.

  “Good planning,” I said, eyeing his shorts. His ripped thighs bulged out beneath them.

  “I swim at the downtown Y almost every morning. I figured you’d spring for a hotel with a pool.”

  On this Monday night the pool area on the roof was deserted. Dim accent lighting highlighted a narrow lap pool that lay near the roof’s edge, and an elevated hot tub stood off to the side, partially obscured by a few shrubs. We stood there surveying the scene. I took off my robe and threw it on a lounge chair. Mike looked at me and gulped.

  “Holy…” His gaze was appreciative, if not outright lustful. It was a look I had a lot of experience with, except that Mike’s leer didn’t quite fit his face.

  I smiled. “Hot tub?” I nodded at the tub in the corner of the pool.

  He followed behind me. My thong didn’t leave much to the imagination, and I assumed he was helping himself to a good look. I bent over and pressed the button to get the bubbles going before I climbed into the tub. I watched Mike take off his shirt, revealing a muscular, lean torso and rippling arms, and for that brief moment I felt a little bit of the thrill that men must get when they come to Cougar’s.

  We sat quietly in the Jacuzzi for a few minutes. The sounds of the pump motor running and bubbles fizzing drowned out everything else. I wasn’t sure what would happen next. Part of me wanted Mike to surprise me by taking the initiative and getting physical. But part of me knew we were just friends—and barely that—and it might be better to let things develop more slowly.

  The drunken part of me won out. I nuzzled closer to Mike and tilted my head to lean on his shoulder, opening the door to him placing his arm around me. It didn’t happen.

  “Mike,” I whispered.

  Silence.

  “Mike?”

  He had fallen asleep, and was now lurching face-forward toward the hot water. I pulled his hair back to prevent him from drowning and then gave his ass a meaningful grab. “Mike? Let’s go to bed.”

  “Okay,” he murmured.

  I led his half-slumbering figure out of the pool, and when he got out he stood there like a dripping-wet zombie. I pointed to his towel on the ground. and he seemed to get the idea. I found my robe and put it on. And then I panicked.

  “Mike, did you bring your room key?”

  He felt in his trunks. “No.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll just give us new ones at the front desk,” I said. We’d look ridiculous, but I didn’t care because I was drunk and pretty used to looking ridiculous. Mike sleepily pulled his shirt on. and we made our way slowly to the door. It was locked.

  “What the…?” I pulled at the doors again. “We need a key to get back in. We’re stuck out here.”

  He seemed not to fully appreciate the situation. He was drunker than I thought.

  “You don’t have your phone, do you?”

  He felt his clothes. “No.”

  I looked around, frowning. “Well, it’s July, we’re in San Diego, and there’s a bunch of cabanas over there with little beds in them. It could be a lot worse. Let’s go get a big drink of water first.”

  He followed me to the drinking fountain and drank from it like a parched mule at the Rio Grande. I led him to the farthest cabana on our left. He was already half asleep when we got into bed, and I dozed off soon after, letting the familiar nighttime sounds of a big city send me off.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Ex-cooz me, ex-cooz me.” The high-pitched voice was insistent. As I grudgingly awoke from a peaceful sleep, I realized there was something off about the voice that I couldn’t place. An accent, that was it. Mexican. I opened my eyes and squinted into the light. A wide-faced, dark skinned woman was standing in front of the cabana, her arms on her hips. Her look of disapproval didn’t require any translation.

  I cinched my robe tighter and propped myself up in the cabana bed. “What time is it?”

  “No speak English,” she said. “Ex-cooz me,” she said again and pointed at the door. “No open.”

  “Okay, I get it. We were locke
d out. No key,” I explained. I made a lame motion with my hand trying to explain what had happened. Mike was still asleep, face down. I shook him by the shoulders, and he began producing a series of grunting noises. “We have to get out of here,” I said.

  “Mm hmm.” He rolled over, and I tried to pull him up. He seemed to finally get it and slowly raised himself from the bed. I smiled apologetically at the Mexican woman. She kept frowning as she looked us over. And then her eyes got big. I followed her stare to Mike’s swimming trunks, where it looked like he was trying to hide the Washington Monument. I thought I caught the faintest hint of a grin on the woman’s face as she turned away and waved her hands in the air in mock disgust.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  The doors were now open, and we took the elevator down to the lobby in silence. They gave us new keys without batting an eyelash, and on the way back upstairs I couldn’t tell if Mike was hung over, embarrassed, or both. We agreed to meet in the lobby coffee shop in forty-five minutes.

  I was halfway through my large coffee and a bagel when Mike arrived. He got himself a glass of orange juice and a cup of yogurt mixed with fruit and granola. I was about to make fun of him, but I had a flashback to his toned, athletic body. His pecs and abs made a pretty good case for avoiding alcohol and eating right. He didn’t seem too talkative, and I decided it would be better to avoid the subject of last night.

  “We should probably get up to La Jolla as soon as possible,” I said. “It might be a long day.”

  He nodded.

  “You know, you don’t have to come with me.”

  “What else am I going to do? Go shopping?” He smiled at me over his yogurt. “So,” he began tentatively.

  Here it comes, I thought. He wants to talk about last night. I was dreading this. Guys had a way of going weird on me—either they bailed out right after sleeping with me, or they got clingy and needy.

  He continued, “You have a plan other than just going up to this guy’s door and ringing the doorbell?”

  “Um, actually, no.”

  “Okay, just checking.”

  Whew—I had dodged an awkward conversation. It was almost ten when the valet brought the car around. I pressed the button to drop the top down, and we spent the ten miles drive up to La Jolla enjoying the warm sea air in our faces. We headed up the Pacific Highway and swung west on Mission Boulevard, which crossed over the coastal side of Mission Bay. The road hugged the coastline and soon turned into La Jolla Boulevard. From there I retraced our route from yesterday and found the streets leading to Mel’s home at the La Jolla Country Club.

  As we turned onto Fairway Road, I spotted a green Volkswagen pulling into Mel’s driveway a block ahead of us. I hit the brakes and began inching the car closer, trying to get a glimpse of the driver without drawing too much attention to us. I stopped a half block away and saw the car’s driver—it obviously wasn’t Mel—walk up the front steps. The girl looked about twenty and had her blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a gray sweatshirt and dark green shorts, and she had a grocery bag under her arm. She propped the bag up on her left hip while she used a key to let herself in.

  “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 sundress 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 h
im 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 who didn’t want to fight the crowds downstairs, and a bunch of tables were 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.