by Paula Hiatt
There was an awkward pause, a moment of silent combat between the two smiling women. Ryoki’s eyes slid to Angelica before he sighed inaudibly and turned to Kate. Angelica, seeing herself outmaneuvered, bristled but kept her tone even and polite, “Maybe we’ll meet again soon. Like I said, you never know what might happen.”
Ryoki supposed he answered, but would never remember what he might have said. Perhaps he was too drunk, or just too dumbfounded. He took no further notice of Angelica. Kate the smooth, correct hostess, showed her out. When the door clicked shut, she paused an instant before turning to face him.
“Well,” he said quietly.
“Well, what?”
“Is her friend really waiting for her in the bar?” He was giving her a chance to explain, to offer some trifling reason for this galling invasion of his privacy.
“Yes, but she won’t make it that far. I harangued security until they promised to meet her at the elevators. It took me a while. They were all up in arms about some virus that had just attacked their security system. But eventually things started coming back online and they promised.”
Ryoki stood staring, his confusion resolving into cold fury. “You sent security after some poor woman because she was with me?” he said, nearly undone by the mental image of Kate brandishing a torch and leading a pitchfork-wielding mob through the casino. “Kate, you’ve made me ridiculous and you treated that woman like a prostitute.” His voice rose, clipped and hard. “What possessed you to do such an absurd, invasive thing?”
Kate did not speak at first, her placid expression slowly turning to shock, then anger as her face set and her mouth hardened into a straight line.
“There was no kind of pubic scene. I went by myself looking for you, and the attendant said he’d seen you leave with that, that spider—”
His eyes narrowed. “You were jealous, so you sicced security on some poor woman.”
“Again with the ‘poor woman.’ Why not call her ‘girl’ and throw in ‘defenseless’ while you’re at it? I left to alert security specifically about her, never dreaming you’d run off with her the minute my back was turned. How much have you had to drink anyway?”
“What, upset she’s going to get some and you aren’t?”
It was a nasty thing to say and Kate looked away in disgust. When she faced him again she looked grand and fierce, her eyes glittering in the soft light.
“You’d be defenseless against her.”
He laughed, harsh and grating, stepping up close, trapping her against the wall, breathing used scotch into her face. “Take a good look, Kate. I can handle one little girl.”
“Nothing worse than a stupid drunk,” she mumbled to herself, shoving him back with two hands. “I noticed her because she was looking at you. There was definitely something off about that ‘little girl,’ something odd in the way she was checking her skirt, like she was worried she was showing too much leg. That’s the last thing girls like that worry about. And when she shifted on her stool I couldn’t help but see a knife holster strapped to the inside of her thigh. She looked up and we locked eyes. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck, and I knew she meant harm, absolutely and without doubt.” She shuddered, her eyes speaking her sincerity. She believed what she said, all the way through.
“Maybe you think you saw something,” he said, refusing to believe it, “but you couldn’t have had more than a brief glimpse from that distance.”
“She meant harm,” Kate repeated, shaking her head as if ridding herself of a nasty dream.
Ryoki stared. How had he not noticed Kate was crazy, crazy pure and simple? Because she was pretty enough and smart enough to hide it for a time, but lift the veil and there she was, insane and a public embarrassment. Ryoki wanted to be rid of her.
“I’m going downstairs,” he said. “When I get back I want you gone. By that I mean back to Salt Lake or wherever your keeper is.”
Kate didn’t move.
“‘Downstairs?’ What do you mean? A minute ago you were in for the night.”
“I’m going to find that girl and get what I want. Now, get out!”
“No, you won’t. You’d be too embarrassed to go back after I sent her away.”
She was right, of course. This was one of the few times in his life he did not feel like having sex.
“You underestimate the strength of her allure,” he said.
Kate stood speechless for ten seconds before she pulled a nearby chair in front of the door and sat down. “Tomorrow you’re welcome to sleep your way through the entire city, but not tonight. Not with her.”
“Get out, Kate.”
A grown man would have stepped back at the raw menace in his voice, but Kate did not flinch. “Tomorrow I will be gone. You never have to see me again. Tonight I will stay here.” She looked off to the side, her jaw set.
“You’re being stupid.”
“Maybe.”
“I told you I can defend myself.”
“You couldn’t defend yourself against your wife.” Kate stopped, closed her eyes and dropped her gaze. She knew she’d gone too far, but she did not leave her seat. Ryoki glared. It would be so easy to pick up her fragile little body and fling it out the door, to hear the satisfying smack as it slammed into the opposite wall—
The thought disgraced him and he stormed into his bedroom and through to the bathroom, slamming both doors. He began unbuttoning his shirt, losing patience midway and savagely yanked it open, popping two buttons. Balling up his shirt, he threw it at the bathroom door, then picked up the vanity lamp and smashed it against the marble tiles.
He wished he’d never been tainted by women, wished he’d been born in a monastery and never allowed out. Crazy Kate was bad enough, but now here was his ex-wife reaching out halfway across the world to humiliate him again. He would never be free of her, no matter how far he ran or how hard he worked.
He paused. No sound from the outer room. Kate must have heard the lamp. Maybe she’d run. Ryoki no longer cared. He would take a bath and forget he’d ever heard of her. He let the water run full-blast in the huge Jacuzzi tub while he stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as he could stand it. He stood for a few minutes leaning his hands against the glass enclosure, letting the water sluice over him before picking up the soap and washcloth and scrubbing his flesh raw.
He thought of the reporter who had taken up the story of his wife’s infidelity, publishing a lurid account of star-crossed lovers torn apart by the ruthlessly acquisitive industrialist. The writer had been so clever, so subtle, a scrupulous teller of facts, sifting through a selection of truths and half-truths, no doubt vetted with a clever libel attorney, carefully choosing, arranging, highlighting, shading, casting his wife as the embattled heroine, her lover as the underdog hero, and assigning Ryoki the leftover role of villain. The reporter had actually won an award for her “sensitive” and “groundbreaking” portrayal of a woman in distress, and launched her own career from Ryoki’s carcass. His wife never showed any sign of contrition, nor gave any indication that she recognized her complicity after the story was published. On the contrary, she continued to live her role as the tormented wife even in front of her own siblings, who, in fact, remained more skeptical than the public at large.
He scrubbed his skin harder, to be clean, to be clear, to wash away all the ugliness of his life. It was so unfair. He had worked so hard.
He emerged from the shower, throwing down a towel to avoid stray glass, carelessly sloshing water onto the floor as he stepped into the huge tub, now nearly overflowing with blistering-hot water. Steam hung heavy in the room, sheltering him, creating a world apart, a private island, serenely alone.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in the tub. At some point he must have drifted off because when he woke with a start, the water had cooled around him and the vanity clock read 2:47 a.m. He stood up, kicked open the drain and stepped out of the tub, nearly slipping in the water he’d sloshed. He dropped another towel on the floor and rubbed it aroun
d with his foot, mopping up water and a few bits of glass which he shoved in the corner where most of the lamp lay in pieces. There was no more steam, no more private island, just a sobering man with a headache standing alone and shivering on a wet, glass-strewn floor. He pulled a thick hotel robe from the bathroom closet and wrapped himself in it as tightly as he could.
He looked out the bathroom window at the hypnotic lights of the Strip, relentlessly flashing for the benefit of the few desultory pedestrians braving the desert chill and misty rain. Inside the casino he knew there would be gamblers mindlessly placing bets and pumping their paychecks into blinking machines, insensible of minutes or hours. “Mesmerized”—that was Kate’s word. There was a reason casinos didn’t have clocks or windows.
He walked out of the bathroom directly into his bedroom, dressing quickly in shorts and a T-shirt. The silence lay so heavy he assumed Kate had surely left, but a prickling feeling made him check, just to be sure. He opened his bedroom door and stopped in the doorway. There she was, exactly where he’d left her, the warrior dormant, head askew as she kept guard in the straight-backed chair. Ryoki quietly walked over and touched her arm to see if she was really asleep, and felt the chill on her skin. His anger spent, he had nothing left but a deep-seated weariness and shame at having lost control. What harm had she really done? Probably saved him from tumbling with a prostitute.
She’d meant well, of that he was certain, but she’d be gone tomorrow, and that was all for the best. She was going to get a crick in her neck if she stayed in that chair, though. No need to make her suffer anymore. Ryoki gently picked her up and carried her to his bed, removed her shoes and covered her carefully. She didn’t wake, just snuggled under the covers, finally comfortable. He picked up a pillow and an extra blanket and headed to the couch in the outer room where he slept like the dead for the rest of the night.
Chapter Nine
At 8:32 a.m. he was awakened by an insistent pounding on his door that beat an irritating counterpoint to the pounding behind his eyes. He started to pull the pillow over his head, to wait the intruder out, until he remembered the unfortunate incident with the maid in San Francisco. Blearily he dragged himself off the couch and opened the door without checking the peephole, intending to send the maid away. Instead he encountered a big, ruddy-faced man with cool blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair so disordered it looked as though he habitually stirred it with his fingers. He held up a badge.
“Mr. Tanaka, I’m Daniel Gordon, Las Vegas P.D. May I come in?”
Ryoki stepped back in surprise and let the man enter.
“Nice room,” Gordon said casually, pulling a small pad from his pocket. “Hey, listen, we’re looking for a Ms. Kathryn Porter. She’s registered under your reservation and with your credit card. Do you know how we might reach her?” He sounded folksy and good-neighborish, but his piercing eyes swept the room, hitching on the couch with its wadded pillow and blanket. He carelessly fished his pockets for a pen, and Ryoki glimpsed the holstered gun under his jacket.
“She’s my assistant,” he replied blandly, certain she’d left. He’d heard no tell tale noise from the bathroom, could see his empty bed through the doorway. “Have you checked her room?” he added dryly.
Gordon didn’t speak right away, just looked at Ryoki with his appraising blue gaze. “First place we tried, as a matter of fact. Wanted to make sure she was all right. Bed doesn’t appear to have been slept in, but she hasn’t checked out. Do you happen to have her cell number?”
Ryoki waved his arm dismissively. “If this is about last night, I wouldn’t take it too seriously,” he said, walking to his computer bag and pulling out a bottle of aspirin. He shook out three tablets, though he wanted to take the whole bottle.
Gordon flipped the pages in his little green notepad. “I believe Ms. Porter was with you in the high roller room last night, but the door attendant noticed you left in the company of a woman identified as Angelica Ruiz. Is that accurate?”
Ryoki washed down the aspirin with a bottle of water from the bar, his head splitting into fourths. In his mind Angelawhatever had already shriveled to a mosquito. Hard to think past the throbbing. “I was in—uh, Angela—”
“Angelica,” Gordon corrected.
“I was in her company for a very short time. Didn’t get her last name.”
Gordon paused before he spoke, as though weighing an idea. “Since we can’t locate Ms. Porter just now, maybe you can help us. Last night, did you happen to notice the man with Ruiz?”
Ryoki nodded, taking another swig of water.
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Gordon pressed. “Ms. Porter doesn’t describe him in her report, and there was a suspicious crash in the security system last night. A pre-set virus ate through security recordings in several areas, including that one. Computers’ll be the end of us.” Gordon chuckled, but it was less folksy this time. “We haven’t been able to reach the dealers for that table, and the door attendant couldn’t tell us much, seems to have a better memory for the ladies. But if we could get a description of her partner, we might get him before he gets too far.”
Ryoki was fuzzy on exactly who this her referred to, but an uneasy truth had begun driving through his aching, sluggish brain. “Las Vegas P.D., did you say?”
“Yes sir, that’s right. L.V.P.D.” Gordon again reached for his badge, but Ryoki waved it away. Hotels don’t call the police over hysterical crackpots. Ryoki cleared his throat.
“Yes, I’d recognize him,” he said, looking Gordon in the eye. “He had a distinctive hooked nose.” He reached for the aspirin bottle again and swallowed one more.
“Sounds like you’re the man we want to see. Could you come downstairs with me for a few minutes? Hate to do this to you, son, know it’s a long shot. But we need to know whether the man you saw was the vic or the accomplice. Always believed she had help. Can’t afford to let this trail cool down.”
Figuring Kate had inadvertently stumbled onto some con game, Ryoki dressed quickly, thinking there’d be no living with her when she found out. But he’d better do his bit, save the world by picking out an alleged thief’s blurry face from a collection of security stills.
Fifteen minutes later he found himself hesitantly ducking under yellow police tape as Gordon flashed his badge and nodded at the brown and khaki clad officer on watch. Ryoki felt a curious tightening in his throat as they approached the knot of police and latex-gloved technicians gathered in the hall outside a suite.
He smelled something in the entryway, not overpowering, but a coppery sweet tang in a warm room that reminded him of his first and last hunting trip, making his stomach clench and roll. He stepped back into the hall, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to hold over his nose and mouth, knowing what was coming and hoping he was wrong.
“You never get used to it,” Gordon said, wrinkling his nose and shoving both hands in his pockets.
Bright morning sunlight streamed through the open drapes and for an instant Ryoki closed his sore eyes. He opened them and closed them again, thinking he was seeing spots on the pale walls. Slowly he opened them once again, focusing on the amorphous shapes, maybe stylized flowers, finger-painted thick and thin in rusty maroon across the striped wallpaper, the gleaming mirrors hieroglyphed with ruby streaks and drips.
Gordon led Ryoki around the corner to the bed. “Is this the same man you saw with Ruiz last night?”
The body lay slashed from neck to groin, dissected like a frog, the entrails pulled out and arrayed in a formal pattern around the bed. The face was curiously clean, untouched, but the features were oddly wrenched, as if terror itself had resculpted the flesh in its own image. Ryoki looked carefully for the birthmark, examined the hook nose, the color of the hair, and decided it was definitely the same human. But this pallid thing on the bed with its gaping rictus and bulging eyes bore no relation to the lively, garrulous man pulling chips from his pile to tip the pretty server. A tech was photographing what looked like a bu
siness card placed on the pillow next to him, one edge soaked red. It read “J.K.I. R.P.R.” in elegant calligraphy. Ryoki looked at the fancy camera and wondered why somebody hadn’t simply emailed him a digital, though he wasn’t certain he’d have recognized that face in two dimensions.
“Victim’s name is Jake McLeary,” Gordon said. “Was a paper manufacturer in New Jersey. Is he the same man? The door attendant wasn’t sure. He didn’t really take a good look, though. Ran out holding his stomach.” Gordon smiled man-to-man, lacking only a fedora and a Bakelite phone to look every inch the black and white gumshoe.
Ryoki nodded, slowly lowering his handkerchief, testing his ability to breathe without vomiting. “Same man. I’m certain. Is Ms. Ruiz all right?” he added as an afterthought, backing away from the—thing that once manufactured paper in New Jersey.
Gordon looked disappointed and paused before speaking slowly and patiently. “This is her handiwork. Did you not know about Ms. Porter’s report?”
Ryoki nodded dumbly, trying to remember all Kate had said last night.
“Did you see anyone else with Ruiz, besides McLeary, anybody hovering in the background?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Roll it back slowly,” Gordon said, leading him out of the room.
Ryoki shook his head automatically as he stared straight ahead, still hoping some jerk would jump out with a stupid grin and a video camera. Ha ha, got you good.
Gordon led him down the hall, chatting in a low voice. “Things got sort of confused here last night. But early this morning senior security heard about this half-baked report that kept getting shuffled off. He had to fish it out of the trash. Heads are going to roll over this one. We picked up Ruiz before she left the building. Sharp maid spotted her freshly showered and wearing a man’s overcoat, presumably McLeary’s, fresh blood spatters on the hem. Ruiz all but confessed when we collared her, like she’s been waiting to get caught. Said she was going to write her autobiography, make sure the money went to a battered women’s shelter. Talked and talked—hysterical, like she wanted to make out insane. Didn’t give up her partner, though. Fifty-five percent sure it’s a man, maybe a brother or a boyfriend. Sure wish you’d gotten a look,” he said, rubbing his jaw, thinking aloud.