Skin Game

by J. D. Allen

  Copyright Information

  Skin Game: A Sin City Investigation © 2019 by J. D. Allen.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2019

  E-book ISBN: 9780738755892

  Book design by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Shira Atakpu

  Editing by Nicole Nugent

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Allen, J. D., author.

  Title: Skin game : a Sin City investigation / J.D. Allen.

  Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minn. : Midnight Ink, [2019] |

  Series: A Sin City investigation ; #2.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018041423 (print) | LCCN 2018042602 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780738755892 (ebook) | ISBN 9780738754048 (alk. paper)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3601.L4188 (ebook) | LCC PS3601.L4188 S57 2019 (print)

  | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041423

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  To Dad.

  I love and miss you every day. Thanks for the love of story and the gift of words and the strength and courage to use both.

  1

  Days like this one made being a PI suck. Jim Bean dragged a dirty sleeve across his brow as he bent over and dipped a tattered brush into a paint bucket for the three millionth time. He peered through a jagged hole in the wooden privacy fence surrounding the target’s dilapidated house as he straightened. This guy had been a rotten pain in his ass for days. More like a pain in his sore back. He stretched. Vertebrae popped in complaint.

  Bribing the body shop owner to let him paint the dumpster had been a stroke of pure genius. What he hadn’t thought through was the actual work of painting the stinking thing in the sweltering Vegas heat.

  As if it was his goal in life to paint the perfect dumpster, he coated it in navy blue, then forest green, and now it was about to be finished out in a very nice Boy Scout beige.

  The ruse had served well as cover but was killing his left wrist and lower back. It was better than the alternative, which had been to hang around this alley sitting on his ass in a car. Too obvious. Besides alerting the target to his presence, the act of spying on someone’s back yard in this neighborhood might not have been so good for Jim’s long-term health. People got dead around here fairly often. He didn’t want to be added to any police statistics this week.

  Given that his wrist felt like it had been used to paint the outside of the MGM hotel instead of a six-foot-by-four-foot dumpster, he really hoped that Edmond Carver made a mistake soon. Thus far, Jim had evidence that this outstanding citizen was most certainly dealing drugs, had a taste for ugly prostitutes, and ordered lots of cheap pizza—information Jim might be able to sell to a prosecutor at some point in the span of Edmond’s burgeoning criminal career. However, none of that was the evidence Jim was currently being paid to gather. Standing out there sweating was getting old, but it was a job he had to do. He needed to replenish his cash flow.

  “It’s all about the money,” Jim muttered as he slathered on a little more paint. Let the cops take Edmond down for pushing. All he needed was to catch the creep holding something heavy or shooting hoops with one of the other losers on the block—anything that might prove he hadn’t slipped a disc tripping behind a blackjack table. Bye-bye workmen’s comp claim.

  A car pulled past his position and parked not far from the dumpster. Interesting. No need to run through the list of cars he’d mentally cataloged over the last couple of days. No way this screaming-yellow compact was on that list. In this kind of neighborhood, he saw cheap auction rejects or pimped-up land yachts. This brand-new compact did not belong to one of the local residents.

  A well-made woman unfolded herself out of the small door, tripping on her heels and grumbling as she did. She was checking a slip of paper as she stretched to retrieve something from the passenger seat. Jim couldn’t help noticing the nice curve to her ass, but more interesting was why a chick dressed like she belonged in a fancy office was making her way to the gate of Edmond Carver’s house.

  He missed getting a good look at her face as she stepped out and turned. Probably shouldn’t have been watching her ass so closely. Rookie mistake. Jim Bean was no damn rookie. His intuition twitched, making his stomach tighten.

  He checked his back. No one.

  Edmond stuck his crooked nose out the door. She managed to talk him out onto the concrete porch. Then, like a mother scolding an unruly child, she kept advancing on him, causing him to back his way along a rusted porch rail. He looked like he was about to run from her. They moved out of the line of sight afforded by the busted fence. If Jim wanted to see more, he’d have to be a little more obvious. Dammit.

  Maybe this Edmond character wasn’t as dumb as he looked and had hired himself a lawyer. Jim checked his back again, the alley to the east. He was still alone. No one paid attention to a guy in dirty painter’s overalls and cap. He stepped over so he could get a glimpse of the pair. He edged closer and pressed his ear to the wood fence. The new position gave him a fresh nose full of stink.

  He could only see her back. She was really working it, using her body, inching right up in Edmond’s face. The drug dealer kept backing away and shaking his head. His hands were up, showing her his palms. “I ain’t done nothing, lady.” Jim finally was able to make out Edmond’s argument as his back hit the wall at the end of the cracking concrete porch. “You’ll have to look somewheres else.”

  The vocabulary on this one. Jim huffed and tucked his paintbrush into the little bucket he’d been using. There was only so much this guy was going to take from the woman before he pushed back, and that might be Jim’s best opportunity to get his money shot. Can’t beat up an attorney, or whatever she was, if you have a slipped disc. He turned on the video camera disguised in an empty can of paint sitting on the far corner of the dumpster as she moved in even closer.

  She poked his chest. “Where is she?”

  “Lady, I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

 
; “You know. You were the last one to leave her a message at work.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to move around her, but the woman stepped in his path. Jim smiled.

  “I have cash.” She started rummaging through her bag.

  He’d give it to the woman—she was no wuss. He watched her butt move as she talked with her hands.

  “You don’t get it. I have to keep my mouth shut or else my ass will be missing too.”

  “So you do know something?”

  “No. I don’t know shit about shit.” This time he did push past her.

  She swung him around by grabbing his arm. Jim still couldn’t see her face. “I’ll go back to the police station. I’ll tell them your name and number were on her desk, that you were working on something with her.”

  “I don’t need no trouble with the cops, neither.”

  “Fifty.” She counted out the cash. “Tell me and I go away. What was my sister up to? Where is she now?”

  He held up his hands again.

  “She’s been gone a week. I don’t have it on me, but I’ll get more cash. A hundred.”

  Edmond eyed the bills. She was waving cash out in front of a creep. Something like teasing a bull with a red cape in this slum. This chick was gonna get herself rolled. Action!

  Jim didn’t need to hear any more. She was going to push Edmond over the edge. He grabbed his remote monitor and sank to sit on his heels on the far side of the dumpster, out of sight. Soon he’d be able to get away from the disgusting thing and have a cigar to celebrate a lucrative job with a big bonus. He watched the feed from the camera on the small monitor. For the love of poker, he needed Edmond to do something, anything resembling exertion or exercise.

  “Give me the bonus money, baby,” he whispered. “Go ahead, asshole, grab one of those metal porch chairs and wield it at the woman like you’re on daytime TV. Grab her purse and run.” Not that he really wanted her to be hit with it or anything, but whatever happened here was out of his control. Those chairs must weigh thirty pounds each. Edmond waving one around would garner Jim that fat bonus from the casino trying to get out of paying the scum a compensation claim.

  Sadly, Edmond did none of that. Instead he silently shook his head and shrugged. His expression was strangely apologetic. The woman let her head fall forward. Her shoulders drooped. It was a touching thing to see her make her final plea. It was like watching a low-budget silent film, maybe even entertaining if it wasn’t for the fact he was also watching his payday slip away. Jim could only imagine her tears. He hated crying women. Apparently, Edmond Carver did too. He caved. Told her something. She wrote it down and gave him the cash.

  Fuck, he didn’t want to put a fourth coat on that dumpster. All he had left was pink paint and he suspected the shop owner would disapprove.

  She turned to leave in a flurry of swirling hair. As she stepped off the end of the dilapidated porch, she looked directly into the camera. Shock jolted through Jim Bean, numbing his fingers. The monitor slipped from his grip. She was still on the screen, wide green eyes boring into him from the past as the expensive piece of equipment hit the crumbling pavement, cracking the glass.

  Erica fucking Floyd.

  2

  First a drug dealer’s house and now the Peppermint Pony? Jim watched Erica enter one of the trashiest strip clubs in town. It had been a feat to gather his wits and his equipment in time to follow her from Edmond’s. What was Erica Floyd up to and why was she here looking for her sister? Last he’d heard Erica was working for some investment firm in Boston. And her little sister, Chris, was still in school. Not that he was keeping up with the traitorous bitch. His job was to know things, so he knew things.

  She drove in and parked right up front. No way this was a mistake. From the parking lot, it was clear this was a seedy place. The large building sat a few miles from the Strip in an area that may have once been a thriving business park. Now it was run-down and most of the buildings were crumbling ghosts with empty parking lots. Weeds were all that thrived around here these days. Weeds and the Peppermint Pony.

  Jim pulled open the blacked-out glass door. She was at the counter and glanced at him as he entered. He was still in the ridiculous painter clothes and he pulled the stained hat down and found something interesting to stare at on the floor so Erica couldn’t get a look at his face. Fortunately, the entryway was narrow, musty, and dark.

  Glenda was working. She was a wrinkled, craggy old woman whose head was covered by an orange-and-gray camouflage bandana. She sat behind a display counter with cigarettes and T-shirts for sale. Frowning, the woman was leaned back against the wall behind an outdated cash register with her arms crossed. She regarded Erica rather suspiciously.

  “I’d like to speak with the manager, please.” Erica’s voice hadn’t changed over the years. Its jazzlike tenor made the hairs on the back of his neck twitch. He scratched at it to stop the urge to grab her and … strangle her.

  “The manager, huh?” Glenda looked to her left, into the darkened club. “He’d be back by the Far Bar, most likely.”

  “Oh.” Erica looked very unsure as to what to do next. “Thank you.”

  “Ten bucks,” Glenda barked before Erica could pass her by.

  “I’m not here for the, um … entertainment.” She stiffened. “I need to ask the manager a few questions.”

  “You go past me, it’s ten bucks.” Glenda’s overly red lips thinned. “I don’t care what you’re here for.”

  Erica stomped past after tossing a bill on the scratched-up counter. Jim removed the hat and gave Glenda a wink and a twenty as he eased into the club. It paid to be nice to people who saw things. Glenda saw a lot of things.

  As expected, Banks was lurking right inside in his usual spot, leaning against the half wall separating the hall to the restrooms and the main room. The goon was huge, but he wore his suit and spiked hair like the best of the pit bosses in the big casinos. On the rare occasions he smiled, you could go blind from the glare off the gold.

  Erica found her way to the Far Bar. Wasn’t hard. A glaring neon sign marked its obvious location. The unimaginative name in blocky text cast a red glow on her hair as she waltzed to the bar.

  Before deciding where to land himself, Jim scanned the room. It was midafternoon and slow. Two tables up close to the action by the main floor were occupied. A group of college-age boys were getting lap dances off toward the adjacent wall. Over there, it was dark and a little more private for those on the shy side. Jim would’ve liked to sit there, cloaked by the dark, but it was too far from Erica.

  He moved as close to Erica and the conversation she was having as he could. One of the dance stages came pretty near the Far Bar, where Erica had hesitantly slid onto a bar stool. She sat stiff and spoke to the scruffy bartender. Jim eased into a table not far from the brass pole. Checked his exit routes. Banks seemed the only threat, but Jim counted him as two.

  A couple of old guys were shouting over the music, holding a conversation with the stripper as she dangled from the brass. Regulars. The trio should be enough distraction to keep him from being noticed.

  Then again, Erica was within seven feet of him in the lobby and she didn’t have the slightest clue. No way she even knew he was living in Vegas now. More interesting might be how she’d react if he did walk right up to her. He rubbed his unshaven chin. He was older, grungier, and living a new life as private investigator Jim Bean. Would she recognize the young man she’d known as Korey Anders in his paint-smeared face? His jaw popped as he clenched his teeth tightly at the sound of his given name echoing in his head. Korey was dead to him. Erased. Replaced.

  Time had been good to Erica. Her hair was a little shorter, but her athletic build was still evident even through the stuffy business attire. Maybe she carried a few more pounds than she had in college, but who didn’t?

  He pulled his f
lask from his boot and took a good long shot of Scotch. Banks frowned at him from the side but didn’t make any indication that said he gave a rat’s ass about what Bean was up to. Nope. He seemed as intrigued by Erica Floyd’s presence in his bar as Jim was. If Erica’s sister had been here for some reason … The hairs on Jim’s neck stood up again. Trouble was brewing. Jim suspected Hurricane Erica was about to slam into him in Vegas just as she had done in Columbus eight years ago.

  He fought back the consuming anger it had taken him years and court-mandated classes to get past. But memories rolled right at him like a storm. He had no way to stop ’em. All he could do was take cover. He took another shot and tucked the silver flask back into his boot. That wouldn’t work either. He couldn’t drink away the repercussions of that late-August night back in Ohio. But he had tried.

  The loud techno music the girls were gyrating to couldn’t begin to drown out the memory of the sound of his door being pounded on in the middle of the night.

  Jim shook his head. He didn’t want to relive it again. But sometimes it happened, replayed over and over, a jukebox with only one song. Push all the buttons you want, buddy. Patsy Cline and heartbreak is all you get. Seeing her standing there, arguing with the bartender, brought it all back.

  He closed his eyes and memories pummeled him. Police pushing past him. Being slammed onto the cold tile floor. Arms being wrenched behind his back, shoulder tendons straining. Guns aimed at his head. Shouting …

  He’d been half asleep and in his boxers but not dumb. He relaxed as the police pinned him down on his kitchen floor. So unreal, he could have sworn he’d been watching it happen to someone else. He’d even considered it a prank until he felt the bite of the cuffs and the roughness of the officers yanking on his arms.

  Arrested? Him? A criminology master’s student. A candidate for the next FBI class. They had the wrong man.

  Once the questioning started they would realize it. Right?

  But that wasn’t how it had played out, was it?