Lucky Stiff (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Book 2)

by Deborah Coonts

  “Do you remember a guy named Joseph Ferenti?” I asked.

  “Jabbin’ JoJo Ferenti?” A cloud crossed my father’s face. “Why?”

  “Looking for connections.”

  “Connections? You don’t want to dig too hard on that one. The wounds are deep; the scabs thin.” The Big Boss stretched his mouth into a thin, stern line.

  “A certain oddsmaker was Jabbin’ JoJo Ferenti’s daughter.”

  He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. “That answers a few questions.”

  “Answers? Really? All she’s done for me is raise questions.”

  “It’s over now,” he announced, resignation flattening his voice.

  And maybe a hint of relief? Or was I imagining that? “What’s over?”

  “A string of bad luck.” His eyes flashed as if he had spoken out of turn, then he shook his head. “None of us could ever prove anything, but everyone involved in JoJo’s take-down has died of unnatural causes. We always thought the kid had a hand in it. I heard some guys looked for her, but she had disappeared. All the old guys are gone now, anyway.”

  “The kid did it?” My eybrows almost shot off my face. “You think she killed her mother? One bullet to the head, execution style? Pretty coldhearted for a kid of twelve.”

  “Sociopaths are born, honey. Age is irrelevant.” My father sipped his drink as he stared in the distance. “She got them all.”

  “All but one.”

  A flicker of understanding lit in the Big Boss’s eyes. “Daniel. Do you think he killed her?”

  It was my turn to stare into the distance. “I don’t know. Everything is pointing toward his wife rather than him. Numbers had set up an elaborate scheme to discredit Daniel, ruin his life, so he’d lose everything. She used Glinda to put some of it in place.”

  “He was the big fish,” my father explained. “If Ferenti’s kid was that hell-bent on revenge, then a shot to the head would be too good for Daniel. She’d want to watch him dangle on the line while she bled the life out of him.” When my father’s eyes met mine, they were serious black dots in a hard face. “If Daniel killed her, good for him.”

  I didn’t want to think of our district attorney being capable of murder. Of course, I guess we all have it in us if the price is right.

  “Tell me about Mr. Ferenti.”

  “JoJo got caught up in an extermination. Back then, the Mob was on the way out, their influence all but gone. Everyone knew that for Las Vegas to become what it is today, the Mob had to go. Fortunes were involved; the future of the city depended on cleaning house.” My father threw down the last of his drink. He looked like he wanted a third, but thought better of it. “JoJo was a bit player. He did some stupid stuff, cultivated the wrong friends. Daniel made sure the book was thrown at him when a slap on the wrist would have been appropriate.”

  I saw the faraway look in my father’s eyes, so I waited while he worked through his memories.

  “I can’t really describe what it was like then—sorta like McCarthyism Vegas-style.” He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt as if it suddenly had become a noose, tightening until he couldn’t breathe. “Hell, I wasn’t part of the Family, but even I was scared to death the Feds would come after me for doing business with them.”

  “I don’t guess the Feds worried about throwing out some of the wheat with the chaff.”

  “A small sacrifice in their eyes. But when they threw the book at JoJo . . .” A brief flash of anger colored the Big Boss’s cheeks. “I thought Daniel had signed his own death warrant. Everybody loved JoJo. He wasn’t the brightest guy, but people sorta adopted him, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Were you there at Mr. Ferenti’s trial?”

  “You don’t abandon friends just because they’ve gotten their ass in a crack.”

  Of course he was there.

  The Big Boss stared into space before continuing. “Every day, his girl, Mary, I think her name was, and their kid sat in the front row. Cute kid, strawberry blonde pigtails, big, scared eyes.”

  “Every day?”

  His brows crinkled. “Every day but one.”

  “What happened that day?”

  “I’m trying to remember. It was a lifetime ago.” My father looked at me and I could see the hurt in his eyes. “ Jo Jo’s daughter was sick... real sick. I think she was in the hospital.” My father shook his head in frustration. “I haven’t thought about this in a long time.”

  I pushed my unfinished drink toward him. He looked like he could use it.

  “JoJo flipped out when the judge wouldn’t grant a recess. They drug the poor bastard from the courtroom in cuffs and shackles.”

  “Why?”

  He took a sip of his drink, a dreamy, lost look in his eyes. Then he slapped the table. “I remember. The kid had had an allergic reaction—anaphylactic shock, I think they called it.”

  “Really? What to?”

  “Bees. She was stung by a bee and damned near died.”

  I don’t know how many seconds passed as I stared at my father. Bees. My mind reached for a connection... there was something there... and I couldn’t quite put it together.

  “Lucky, are you with me? What’s wrong?” my father asked, his voice barely penetrating my haze of confusion.

  My phone rang, scaring me back to the present.

  “Shit.” I grabbed the thing, flipped it open, and said, “What?”

  Static filled the air before a voice I didn’t recognize filtered over the open connection. “Is this the Customer Relations Department at the Babylon in Las Vegas?” It was a woman’s voice, an interesting accent I couldn’t quite place.

  “I apologize for my rudeness.” I’d completely forgotten I’d asked for the phones to be forwarded to my cell. “This is Lucky O’Toole, Head of Customer Relations for the Babylon, I am embarrassed to say. What may I do for you?”

  “This is Reza Pashiri. And you are the woman I was looking for.”

  My emotions tumbled. The young woman who’d been caught in a lip-lock with Teddie—I had no idea what to say, how to act. So, I took the high road—I bailed. “Yes, Ms. Pashiri, what can I do for you?”

  “First I’d like to thank you for sharing Theodore with us—he’s amazing.”

  “Amazing is one adjective that fits.” I didn’t want to elaborate as to the others.

  She giggled as if she found me funny.

  Ah, the voice on the phone last night—I recognized the giggle. Teddie had some explaining to do.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late in the game, but I have a favor to ask.” The young woman continued, her voice warm, melodious... irritating.

  “I’ll do what I can.” Even I couldn’t find a hint of warmth in my voice. I didn’t care.

  “I know my band and I weren’t scheduled to come to Vegas until tomorrow, but we’ve finished our business here and everyone’s ready to blow town. Can you arrange it? Are our accommodations available?”

  “Bungalow One is ready for you, but I’ll need to rework your transportation. When and where would you like to be met?” Was there any worse humiliation than having to be a step-and-fetch-it for this particular woman? I doubted it. A dozen years younger, beautiful, thin, and she connected with my man through music—a connection I didn’t share. Life was trying to teach me something, but damned if I could figure out what it was.

  We worked out the details. I confirmed them with the air charter service, then reconfirmed them with Ms. Pashiri. The upshot of it all was I would personally meet them at McCarran Executive Terminal at ten thirty.

  Right now I was late for an appointment with the hamburger man.

  * * *

  AFTER a hasty good-bye to my father, I charged in the direction of the Bazaar and Jean-Charles’s little burger stand. Oblivious, my mind elsewhere, I worked my phone as I dodged the crowds gathering in the lobby and the casino.

  First Romeo.

  He answe
red on the first ring. “Hey.”

  I could hear laughter in the background, and music. I hoped he was still with Brandy, but as her personal life was none of my business, I didn’t ask. “Has the toxicology report come back?”

  “Why?” His voice turned serious, I had his attention.

  “If they haven’t done so already, ask them to run a tox screen for bee venom.”

  “Bee venom?”

  “Yeah, and if the test comes back positive, I want to know the levels as well.” I slapped my phone closed without waiting for his reply.

  The noose was tightening.

  * * *

  AS I stood, mouth open, in the middle of what had been a fairly pedestrian Italian joint, I realized Jean-Charles Bouclet couldn’t be the Devil incarnate, as I had believed him to be. Divine intervention was the only explanation for the transformation that surrounded me. Gone were the tacky red and green crown moldings, the Italian signs on the walls, and the baskets filled with silk flowers.

  The moldings, now returned to their original bare wood, lustered with a light coat of natural finish. The brick walls with the original drippy mortar were adorned only with burnished brass sconces, shining a soft, diffused light. Green leather banquet seating lined one wall, dotted with two-tops at appropriate intervals. Four-tops, with red-and-white checkered tablecloths filled the rest of the space. Irregularly milled wood, stained a warm brown, replaced the former black-and-white linoleum. A wall of glass had replaced the opaque wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the restaurant. Soft French bistro music playing in the background completed the overall atmosphere of cultured casualness.

  The place lacked only one thing—a crowd.

  Empty as a bank after Bonnie and Clyde had blown through town, this was clearly not the location for the tasting party. But, if it wasn’t here, where would it be? What had I screwed up? Time? Location? Day? Probably all three.

  “Ah, Lucky!” Jean-Charles emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel that hung from his waist. Attired today in a pristine, white chef’s coat over creased blue jeans, casual shoes, and an irritated frown, Jean-Charles still looked as yummy as a souffle. A nice piece of eye candy who could cook? The stuff female fantasies are made of.

  He frowned at me. “You are late. That is very rude.”

  But that personality was a deal-breaker.

  “With my life, tardiness is unavoidable.” I crossed my arms and leveled a serious gaze on him. “You said a party, but we are the only ones here.”

  “Two is a party.” His eyes were the perfect color of blue, not too dark, but not too pale. When he smiled, as he did now, the smile made his eyes shimmer.

  “Yes. I mean, no.” I would not let his Gallic charms fluster me. “I didn’t agree to a party of two. That is a date.”

  He shrugged as only the French can do. “My English is not so good. Party? Date? It’s not important.”

  Oh yes, it was important—very, very important. Do they take little French boys aside and give them charm pills or something? Whatever it was, it put the rest of us at a distinct disadvantage.

  “You are here,” he said. “While I am cooking you will drink a wine I picked especially for you.” He took my hand and pulled me with him into the kitchen.

  I sat on the stool he indicated in front of a small round table, pulled close to the grill. “Look, I want to get something straight,” I said, needing to clear the air. My thoughts were still muddled, my emotions raw, I didn’t need our resident French stud making things worse.

  He poured wine the color of blood into a large rounded wine glass from a crystal decanter that had been set out to breathe, then extended the glass to me.

  Not wanting to be rude, I took it.

  “Yes?” he asked, as he poured himself a glass.

  “What am I doing here?” I took a sip of wine and thankfully stopped myself before I groaned in delight. A fine French Bordeaux—nectar of the gods.

  “We must work together. We are friends, no?”

  No.

  “We will be.” Again, he gave me one of those shrugs, then a knowing look. “Thanks to your Big Boss, we are, how do you say, like partners. You are a formidable woman—perhaps the first woman who has spoken so harshly to me since I was but a boy and my beloved mere scolded me.”

  “So I’m here because you like to be manhandled?” I hid a grin behind my glass. “Or I remind you of your mother?”

  “I am intrigued, that is all.” Jean-Charles pulled trays of small beef patties and other ingredients from the walk-in as he talked. The charcoal in the massive grill glowed white-hot. He tossed fat slabs of hand-cut bacon on the griddle. “And we must work together. This restaurant your Big Boss has promised, my career rides on its success.”

  “It’s pretty important to mine as well.”

  He grabbed the end of the cloth hanging from his waist and used it to protect his hand as he grabbed various skillet handles, jostling the contents of the pans as they sizzled over gas flames. “Yes, but if it fails, you... how do you say it? Eat bird?”

  “Crow.”

  “Ah yes! Crow!” He gestured toward me with the spatula. “I have never discovered a good way to make crow pleasing to the palate, by the way.” He flipped the bacon then the tiny burgers, which he had placed over the open coals.

  That probably meant crow wouldn’t appear on the menu, which I took to be a good thing.

  “So you eat crow,” Jean-Charles continued. “Then you find another chef and try again. But me, I am left in disgrace—out in the cold.” He made it sound like we’d give him a one-way ticket to Siberia.

  As he cooked, mouth-watering smells filled the kitchen, making my stomach dance in anticipation.

  “So I’m here for you to butter up.” I gazed in rapture at the plate of tiny tasting burgers he set in front of me. “And you want to let me know in that subtle, charming French manner that you have no intention of letting some demanding female stand in your way?”

  After wiping his hands on his towel, he pointed to the various delicacies in front of me. “That one is American Kobe beef, grilled Vidalia onions, thick smoke-cured bacon, and fresh guacamole on an onion kaiser roll. The second is my version of a turkey burger, with a few surprises. You tell me what secret ingredient is in the third.”

  He watched as I took a bite of the Kobe burger. Apparently satisfied at my groan of pleasure, he turned back to the stove. “We are on the same team, no?”

  “We have the same goal, but we manage two different sides of the operation. I hold the purse strings, you control the quality—conflict is inevitable.” Moist and full of flavor, the turkey burger melted in my mouth.

  A smile lit his eyes as he spread his arms wide. “So this is why you are here.”

  “Looking for common ground, are you?” I polished off the turkey burger and stuffed a couple of hot fries into my mouth, after dipping them in ketchup. Grabbing more fries, I used them to point to the tub of ketchup. “That’s not homemade. That’s Heinz.”

  His back to me, he said, “Very good. Nobody does it better than Heinz, so why try?”

  Who would’ve thought our common ground would be built on a shared opinion of American tomato sauce?

  This time he set two plates on the table, one in front of me, the other in front of the stool across from me. He poured himself another glass of wine as he took a seat. “You haven’t tried the third. Tell me what’s in it.”

  Under the gun, I took a tentative taste. Chewing slowly, I focused on the individual flavors caressing my taste buds. “Kobe beef, but this time perhaps the Japanese version.”

  “Good.”

  “Fennel, coriander? Something with a hint of anise?”

  “Anise seed. Good, continue.”

  “A touch of fresh basil, and finished with a thin layer of paté on the top. Wait . . .” I held up my hand, then wrinkled my nose. “And truffles... white truffles.”

  “Bravo.” He raised his glass in salute. “But why did you
make that face?”

  “I’m not a big fan of truffles. They taste like dirt after a rain, or like the moldy stuff you pull out of the back of the refrigerator.”

  He shot me the perfect look of French disdain. “You have a palate, but not a very cultured one.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “I will have to educate you.” Jean-Charles tilted his head, his face inscrutable.

  “My palate, you mean?”

  “But of course,” he said, though his eyes said something else.

  I was not going to open that door, not tonight. Bantering with him was bad enough—I refused to cross the line into flirting with him.

  “Here, try this.” He held out a small burger from his plate. “You will like.”

  I took a small bite, then he popped the rest into his mouth. “Mmmm, crabmeat with a bit of Old Bay. All it needs is a genuine French remoulade and thick onion rings.”

  “You have read my mind.”

  “What about milkshakes?”

  “Thick with various liqueurs for adults, the basics for the kids.”

  “And desserts?”

  Pressing a hand to his chest in mock dismay, he gave me a wounded look. “I am French! Your words cut me.”

  I took a bite of another little burger he held out for me. Delicious, I couldn’t place it. “That one I don’t know.”

  Again Jean-Charles finished it off, which I found intimate in an uncomfortable way. “That is a veggie burger, for those who don’t eat meat.”

  “Amazing.” I tipped my glass to him. “To the chef.”

  He dipped his head in acknowledgment, then he squeezed my hand. Holding it, he asked, “So we can work together.”

  I eased my hand from his. “Of course, but I will hold your feet to the fire. You will have to justify every expense, but your budget will be quite generous.”

  Common ground established, I settled back with a full glass of wine and listened to our new French charmer talk of his plans and his dreams. His eyes dancing, he regaled me with stories of his youth in France, his various positions as he worked his way up the culinary food chain. Particularly hilarious was a stint as the head chef at a European hotel in Moscow.