Temptation Town

by Mike Dennis

  TEMPTATION

  TOWN

  by

  MIKE DENNIS

  THE JACK BARNETT / LAS VEGAS SERIES

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Mike Dennis.

  Published by Mike Dennis

  Copyright 2011 by Mike Dennis

  Cover designed by Jeroen ten Berge

  Edited by Harry Dewulf

  Bought by Maraya21

  kickass.so / 1337x.org / h33t.to / thepiratebay.se

  Yesterday could never really be discarded.

  It was always a part of now. There was just no way to get rid of it.

  No way to push it aside, or throw it in an ash can,

  or dig a hole and bury it.

  For all buried memories were nothing more than

  slow-motion boomerangs,

  taking their own sweet time to come back.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  About the Author

  Links to other Mike Dennis books

  Preview of Hard Cash

  1

  NOBODY is actually from Las Vegas. It's one of those towns that eats its own. Needs a constant supply of fresh blood, like a vampire.

  Fresh blood to keep coming with outlandish ideas that won't work anywhere else. Fresh blood to keep bringing money in to dump on the tables, or pour down the slots, or drop it on somebody else's questionable deals.

  Las Vegas. A grifter's heaven for sure, because there's always a new mark somewhere. They flow through McCarran Airport and the Greyhound terminal every day by the thousands, looking to throw money at someone or something, or even just the promise of something. You can find them up in the ritzy suites at the Venetian, in the desperate two-bit motels on the edge of downtown, and everywhere in between.

  Even people born and raised here aren't from here. Not really. First of all, there aren't that many of them to begin with. Then, their parents quite likely came from somewhere else. In most cases, the kids leave as soon as they're old enough, looking to connect with more sensible locations. Most of those who defy the odds and stay eventually wish they hadn't, because what the city needs can't be produced locally.

  Halt the flow of fresh blood into Las Vegas and you might as well halt the flow of water. The whole place would dry right up.

  ≈≈≈

  Take me, for instance. I moved up here from LA about eight months ago, back in May of '01. An old buddy of mine was a pit boss at the Desert Inn and told me he could get me on there in some kind of job.

  Moving seemed like the right thing to do because things were starting to close in on me in the City of Angels. I'd lost my private investigator's license for pushing a guy around and doing some other stuff while trying to collect a debt for a client. Problem was, the guy had big juice, so before I knew it, my license was gone. He was threatening criminal action against me, too, so late one night, I packed up and headed out while I still could.

  Not long after I got to Las Vegas, they announced they were going to blow the Desert Inn up. Then, September 11th blew a hole in the country. So I stayed on, scuffling around in the poker rooms for awhile until I could find something.

  Well, it wasn't long until something found me.

  It started late one winter night downtown at Binion's, two or three months after they imploded the DI. I was sitting at a low-limit seven-card stud table. A hand tapped my shoulder twice. It belonged to the swing shift supervisor.

  "Jack," he said in a low tone. "Someone here to see you." He gestured toward the cardroom entrance.

  Glancing that way, I saw an older guy in a camel hair topcoat over a suit and tie, way too well-dressed for Binion's. I had no idea who he was, but I knew he couldn't be LAPD. They never looked that good.

  I peeked at my holecards and at the upcards of the other players. I had no shot in this hand. As I tossed my cards in toward the dealer, I rose from the table and made my way to the entrance, eyeing him all the way and thinking about what he could possibly want.

  I found my best smile as he held out a hand. "Jack Barnett?" he said.

  "With two t's," I replied, feeling his strong grip. This close, he appeared to be very fit beneath his sharp topcoat.

  "Jack, I'm Robert Lansdorf. Could I speak with you a moment?"

  I looked back at the game. They'd started a new hand. I didn't like to miss hands.

  "Well … what's this about, Mr Lansdorf?"

  He was the kind of guy you would call "Mister", maybe twenty years older than I was, around fifty-five or so, and not quite what you would call handsome. His hair was dove-gray and well-styled. He looked like he might've had a Mercedes out in the valet parking. Maybe with a chauffeur leaning against it, smoking a cigarette, freezing his ass off in the January night, waiting for him to return.

  He modulated his voice downward to a near-whisper. "I want to hire your services as a private investigator."

  A quick shot of surprise lifted my eyebrows for a second. How did this guy know I was a PI?

  I shook my head. "Can't help you, Mr Lansdorf. I'm out of that business."

  A cocktail waitress slinked between us with an "excuse me" and a trayful of drinks, while somewhere in the distance, a slot machine rang and rang, announcing a big payoff.

  "Please." He motioned for me to walk with him a few steps out of the poker room. When we got away from everyone, he said, "I know about your troubles in Los Angeles. That's why I've come here to see you."

  Process server, I thought. I stiffened.

  He caught it. As he patted my shoulder, he said, "No, no, don't worry, I'm not here to bring you trouble."

  I started thinking that any guy in a camel hair topcoat who tells me he's not here to bring trouble is probably the definition of trouble. The very last thing I needed right then was somebody from LA who knows who I am, knows I was a PI. The way I figured it, I had to bury that part of my past, bury it deep, if I wanted to stay out of jail.

  Then he added, "The fact you've lost your license is the very reason I want to hire you."

  "It is?"

  "Indeed it is. Now, does five thousand dollars get your attention?"

  Five grand! Jesus! I hoped he didn't see my eyes widen.

  "You got it," I replied.

  "Good. Let's go have a cup of coffee."

  2

  DOWN in the coffee shop, we took a corner booth, away from probing eyes. As he removed his topcoat, I noticed his suit. It was dark and expensive.

  Back when I had my license and things were going good for me, I liked fine clothes, and I can tell when someone is well-tailored.

  The waitress brought our order. He sipped at his coffee. I could tell he wasn't sure if he liked it.

  "First of all, Jack," he said, "let me tell you a little about myself. I live in Los Angeles, but like you, I'm originally from New York. My father started what became a chain of department stores there and had a lot of success. He later expanded to California, but while still in New York, he did a lot of business with your grandfather."

  That one hit me from my blind side. My jaw dropped just a little as he continued. "That's right, Jack. My father did business with Mike Barnett, one of the greatest-ever private investigators of New York. Had his heyday in the forties and fifties. Always worked
alone. As honest and reliable as any man who ever wore shoe leather."

  I'd always tried to pattern myself after my granddad, early on, anyway. Even though he died before I really got to know him, he was a legend around our house when I was growing up. My parents kept all these scrapbooks filled with yellowing accounts of his exploits, saving New York from one criminal conspiracy or another, or so I thought at the time. He was the reason I went into that line of work.

  Unfortunately, I had a much shorter fuse than he did. I didn't mind using a little force if I thought it would get the job done. He wouldn't have liked it.

  Lansdorf added a touch more cream to his coffee and stirred it.

  "Anyway, Jack, I read about your troubles in the paper back in LA. Your name caught my eye, so I checked up and found out you were in fact the grandson of Mike Barnett."

  "And you want to do a TV special on my family history?"

  He sipped his coffee again, looking for improvement. Bingo.

  "Hardly." He reached over into the inside pocket of his topcoat, then pulled out a rolled-up magazine. As he unfurled it on the table, he said, "Are you familiar with this?"

  It was a copy of Las Vegas Weekly. You know, the kind of tabloid-sized publication covering the local scene with irreverent writing and plenty of attitude. Every big city has one of these.

  "Yes, I'm familiar with it," I replied. "Not this latest issue, but I know the magazine. I like it." I picked up on the greasy aroma of french fries as the waitress brought a couple of meals to a nearby booth.

  He opened the magazine to a marked page in the back, splashed with lots of ads for escort services and the like.

  "You see this?" He pointed to an ad with a picture of a gorgeous young girl, seated with her legs spread out from a skimpy thong. The headline read, "Blonde Massage / We Come To You", with a phone number underneath.

  He brought his lips together hard, then said, "That's my daughter."

  I looked at her. Her eyes brimmed with promise, while her mouth formed a dark, pouty slit. Tousled blonde hair fell across her forehead and down her back. What there was of a top strained to contain full breasts. She didn't get that look by hanging around her family's department stores.

  I glimpsed Lansdorf. His eyes were momentarily downcast from the embarrassment of the ad.

  "What do want me to do?" I asked.

  "Find her and —"

  "Whoa, now. I probably won't be able to bring her home, Mr Lansdorf. She doesn't look like she'd be too interested."

  "I don't want you to bring her home. My wife won't have her in the house. And she probably wouldn't come anyway." He fidgeted in his seat and paused for a breath. "I— I just want to know where she is and I want to know that she's all right. If she needs anything. That's all. Just to know she's all right." Desperation crept into his voice.

  I sat silent for a moment. I could tell he needed it. Looking back at the ad, something in the girl's face — in her eyes — grabbed my attention. It held me for a few seconds. I don't know, maybe … maybe it was nothing.

  I turned back to Lansdorf and said, "What more can you tell me about her? And start with her name."

  He drank some more coffee.

  "Emily. Emily Jean Lansdorf. She left home three — almost four years ago now. She came here and started waitressing, then soon moved into the strip joints. She took up with a string of men — I never knew any of them. We lost touch with her altogether around eight months ago."

  "Do you have any idea where she lives?"

  "No, but she used to have an apartment over off Maryland Parkway. It's her last address I know of. Here, let me give it to you." He pulled out a pen and scribbled it on a paper napkin. I slipped it into my pants pocket.

  "Do you know any of her known associates? Friends? Lovers?"

  "No." His head bowed a little. "I'm afraid not."

  "How old is she?"

  "She turned twenty-three back in September."

  The waitress refilled his coffee cup. He pushed it aside.

  I said, "One more thing. Why me? Why not a licensed PI? He could find her just as easily as I could. Maybe easier."

  His head slowly raised back up so his eyes were level with mine. They were steely now, like his voice.

  "I want someone who isn't afraid to cross the line when necessary. And if she's in any kind of danger, then it will be necessary." He leaned toward me just a little, adding, "You know, Jack, you might think that running a bunch of retail stores is a namby-pamby kind of job. But over the years, there have been a few occasions when I've had to do things that were, shall we say, questionable. And each time I made that choice, I did so because I knew in my soul … that it was the right thing to do." His eyes penetrated mine even more deeply as he said, "Not the easiest thing, nor the most legal thing necessarily, but the right thing. You understand?"

  I didn't have to answer. He knew I got it.

  "I'll find her," I said. "And if possible, I'll make sure she's safe."

  He pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Here's half now," he said, sliding it across the table at me. "The other half will be waiting for you when you deliver your report to me. I want the truth, you understand? No matter what."

  I put my palm over the envelope. "You'll get it, Mr Lansdorf. I can't promise you'll like it, but you'll get it."

  We shook hands and rose from the booth.

  ≈≈≈

  I cashed out of the poker game and headed home. As I motored out of Binion's garage, I started thinking about Lansdorf, wondering what it must be like to be him. To have a gorgeous daughter who no doubt had all the advantages growing up, only to piss her life away in the sex trade of Las Vegas. What the fuck was she thinking? He's probably wracked his brain a thousand times trying to figure out where he went wrong as a father.

  "I guess that's how it is with fathers and daughters," I said aloud over the car radio, wending my way through the downtown streets. "Daddy blames himself when his little girl goes wild. Like there was something he could've done differently."

  Let me tell you, I've been around enough of the daddies and enough of the wild childs to know that girls like Emily, they're not usually thrown off course by the actions of their fathers. They've got something inside them, way deep inside them, rotting away in their DNA, tugging them in that downhill direction. And all the private schools and credit cards and BMWs in all the world can't save them.

  I can also speak from hard experience. I think that was what twanged inside me when I saw Emily's picture in that ad. It took me back to Redondo Beach.

  Back to Lyla.

  Back, shit. She's still with me. Her memory's all over me. Like a stain that won't scrub clean, an open sore that never heals. Stings every time I touch it.

  Lyla wasn't a daughter, of course, because I have no kids, but she was someone who … Never mind. I don't want to think about it right now.

  But she was like Emily and all the other girls who end up where Emily's heading. They're like alcoholics in that respect, being swept to their doom in the swift current of that whiskey river. Before they drown, they've got to dig down within themselves and find something they think is worth saving. And they've got to do it all alone.

  I thought about it some more, then, as I arrived home, I put it aside and quickly crawled into bed.

  3

  A cold front moved into the Las Vegas Valley overnight, dropping temperatures to near freezing. Stumbling out of bed in the morning, I shivered my way to the thermostat on the wall where I cranked up the heat full blast. Twenty minutes later, with steamy coffee in front of me, it was bearable.

  As I stirred my coffee, I hit my laptop for a reverse phone number search on the white pages websites. As I expected, no luck. The name and address behind the number in Las Vegas Weekly were "unavailable".

  Back in the bedroom, I grabbed my California PI credentials off the dresser. A few years ago, I'd put in for a duplicate, saying I'd lost the original. When they lifted my license, I
gave them the dupe.

  I opened the top dresser drawer and eyed my Springfield .357 SIG, matted black in its leather holster. On an impulse, I reached for it, then thought better of it. I didn't have a license to carry in Nevada. Since this was just prelim work right now, I didn't see any sense in risking a major pinch if I didn't really need the weapon. I closed the drawer.

  Out the door into the cold, windy day I went, holding a paper napkin with an address on it.

  The drive out Maryland Parkway wasn't too bad. The sun had risen high enough so it didn't irritate my eyes through the driver's side window. Traffic flowed smoothly, very rare for this street. I caught a lot of green lights and pretty soon I was turning off onto Sierra Vista Drive.

  Despite its exotic name, Sierra Vista only sounds pretty. It's a street that runs perpendicular behind the east side of the Las Vegas Strip, densely lined with B-grade apartment complexes. For the most part, these places house a lot of the hourly wage earners in the big hotels just a couple of blocks away. The street is known in some circles as Cocaine Alley.

  I rolled into the parking lot of the address Lansdorf gave me, an unpleasant-looking spot called the Arrowhead Apartments. I found the office and went in. The wind almost blew the door out of my grip. I had to use both hands to shut it.

  A woman's voice came at me from behind a plain wooden desk.

  "Wind sure picked up, didn't it?"

  I straightened myself out, admitting it had indeed picked up. Her name badge read "Jane Sandemore, Resident Manager".

  Beneath straight brown hair, she looked me over with dark eyes. It looked like she was surprised to see me, but then I saw her brows were naturally arched too high on her forehead, giving her a look of permanent astonishment. I guessed her to be in her late forties, though she appeared older.