Royal Flush

by Stephanie Caffrey

  "Huh?"

  "I mean, if he's really trying to set a trap, we have to give him a reason to think the trap would actually work. You know, somewhere he would agree to, a place that would make him think maybe they could get me on the way to or from my car, even if the venue itself was public."

  "Got it," he said. "So you're using yourself as bait. How much did this girl pay you?"

  "Enough," I said. "But it's not about the money, Carlos. There's something really weird going on, and I won't be able to sleep until I get to the bottom of it."

  He sighed. "So you're not going to his apartment, obviously. But maybe somewhere like a restaurant or whatever, where they'd know where you'd park, or how you'd get there. Give them an opening, that's what you're saying?"

  "Right. The main point is that they won't know that my muscular, gun-toting gangster friend will be right there with me."

  "All right," he said. "You name the time and place. I'm free until eleven, then I work."

  This was normally the part where Carlos would start whining about how busy he was, and how whatever I paid him wasn't going to be enough, so I was taken aback by the fact that he had agreed to help me so readily. It made me nervous that he was actually concerned about me, which meant I should probably be more concerned about my own safety than I was.

  "Is this crazy?" I asked.

  "Why?"

  I sighed and stared plaintively out the window at one of the countless tour helicopters that whizzed by my apartment from dawn until dusk. "I mean, Melanie is already dead. Finding out if this guy killed her isn't going to bring her back. Am I stupid for risking my own safety just to answer a question?"

  "Yes," he said simply. "But that's not the only issue. The issue is that you've already stirred up trouble, and they're obviously out to get you now. So you've got to face this thing whether you want to or not."

  "Good point. I'll let you know what Kent says and where to meet up."

  When I hung up, I realized Carlos was dead-on right, unfortunately. By sticking my nose as far into things as I had, there was no longer a way to extract myself, no way to say, Oh, sorry for butting in, I'll just pretend I didn't see what you're doing over there.

  The question now was how to approach Kent. As far as he knew, I believed his story that he was actually English royalty. And he had no idea that I knew he and Jojia were tight, which placed him in the middle of an identity theft ring. So he'd have no reason to think I would be suspicious at all about meeting up with him again. After all, I'd given him my card and told him to call me if he thought of anything else.

  In poker they call it asymmetry of information: when one guy knows more than the other guy, he often has an advantage, and sometimes a dramatic one. But there's a downside, too. Since the guy on the other side often doesn't even know he's at a disadvantage, he can act cocky, rash, and even stupid, and that approach can be dangerous because it's so unpredictable. This was what bothered me about Kent. Since he believed I wasn't going to be on guard, he might just come out with guns blazing. I didn't know what kind of defense Carlos and I could put up if Kent and Charles simply took a drive-by shot at me on the street. And that had me worried.

  Instead of doing my usual procrastination routine, I dialed up Kent at the number he'd called me from. He picked up on the third ring. As I'd half-predicted, he wanted me to come meet him at his apartment, on the theory that he was busy studying for an exam. I declined the invitation as casually as I could, not wanting him to sense any concern on my part. And then the idea struck me. It was an idea so inspired that it made me picture Archimedes screaming eureka! as he leapt from his bathtub, having discovered an ingenious way to measure the volume of an irregularly-shaped object.

  I did my best to curb my enthusiasm and make the idea sound like an off-the-cuff whimsy. "What about if we meet up at a strip club? I know one of the dancers at Cougar's, and she gave me a ton of coupons to get in for free. I was going to head over there later for dinner, actually. They have great tiramisu."

  It wasn't a crazy proposal. If there was any overarching truism about men, it was that there was no excuse compelling enough to justify declining an invitation to watch beautiful women wriggle around naked. And since Kent had no idea I was a stripper, I couldn't envision any universe in which he'd decline the invite.

  "Where's that located?" he asked.

  I could sense the wheels turning in his head as I told him where it was. I couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if he might be kibitzing with someone else in the room with him.

  "Got it," he said. "That will work. Should I meet you outside, so I can get the coupon?"

  "Perfect," I said. "I'll see you at eight."

  So much for studying for an exam, I thought. I couldn't resist congratulating myself at my last-minute bout of brilliance. The poor guy thought we were meeting on neutral turf, but in reality I would have a distinct home court advantage. The entrance to Cougar's was well-lit and, at eight o'clock, there would be lots of people lingering around—some smoking, some waiting in line—not to mention two muscular bouncers checking IDs. And, on the inside, the security was intense, with as many as ten ultra-intimidating guards, at least two of whom would be armed. And then there was Carlos, who would be my personal bodyguard. In short, it was a perfect venue.

  When I texted Carlos to meet me there, he responded with, Why didn't I think of that? and confirmed he'd be inside lurking around. I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on dozens of long-ignored emails, and I responded to a voicemail from a woman named Lindsay who suspected her girlfriend was cheating on her with a man. That should be an interesting case, I thought. Not only was it a betrayal of their own relationship, it was an affront to lesbianism itself, and it was this latter point that seemed to have aroused the ire of my jilted new client. Snooping into people's personal lives wasn't my favorite way to make a buck, but it was the only ticket out of the strip club.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Around 6:30 I walked down to the mall, where I bought myself a refurbished black iPhone, which I hoped to sneak into Kent's pocket after I swiped his phone. I couldn't be sure the model was exactly the same, but I hoped it would be close enough that he wouldn't give it a second look. By 7:15 I set out on what I hoped would be a leisurely stroll down to Cougar's, but as I got closer to the club my stomach began churning itself into a frenzy, cooking up an unsettling mixture of butterflies and acid reflux. I was more than a little nervous about the fact that Kent had said we should meet out front. It made sense, given that I had boasted about having coupons to get us in for free. Even so, I figured that if he and his pals were going to hit me, it would be there, rather than inside the club.

  By 7:45 I had completely chickened out. Well, not completely. Instead of meeting Kent out front, as planned, I had resolved that I would call an audible and wait for him on the inside. I texted him and told him I left the coupon with one of the bouncers because I'd unexpectedly gotten there early. I wasn't sure how he'd take it, but it seemed like a prudent move.

  Carlos was already inside waiting for me. We talked for a moment, and then we visited all the bouncers, waitresses, and dancers and told them to pretend they didn't know me. If Kent sensed that I was on my home turf, he might call everything off before I learned anything useful. I didn't want to explain why I wanted people to pretend not to know me, but enough weird stuff happened in that place that no one pressed us for an explanation.

  Eight o'clock came and went, so I sent Carlos to the door to investigate.

  "No sign of him," he said on returning. We were nestled in a little cubby of a booth, both sunk deep into an ultra-soft purple velvet couch. Bruno, one of the aptly named strongmen the club employed, came over to pay a visit. He hadn't gotten the memo, apparently.

  "What are you guys doing out here?" he asked.

  I smiled nervously. "Never mind. It's not what you think. Just pretend you don't know us, okay?"

  He shrugged. "Whatever you say, Raven." Then he turned his gaze
to Carlos and contorted his blood-moon face into a nasty, old-school stink eye, and made a threatening motion with his hand. Bruno was not Italian-American, he was Italian-Italian, and he believed strongly in the powers of otherworldly curses and spells.

  "If anything happens to her," he whispered, his voice ominously quiet.

  "Relax," Carlos said.

  Bruno shook his head and walked away. I began daydreaming about which of these two testosterone bombs would win in an all-out fight to the death over yours truly. It was a pleasant way to kill the time, until Carlos shook my arm.

  "Raven," he hissed. "Snap out of it. I'm the one he put a curse on, not you."

  "Sorry," I winced. "The irony is, I'm the one putting you into danger, not the other way around."

  He slumped down deeper into the plush sofa. "Irony? Is that what you call it?"

  "Shhh," I whispered. "That's him." The lighting was dim, and we were a good fifty feet from the front entrance, but Kent's spindly English body, with its oversized candy apple head, was hard to miss.

  "Seems like he's alone," Carlos whispered.

  I jabbed him in the arm. "Why the hell are we whispering?" The music wasn't pumping at full throttle, but it was loud, and we were surrounded by lots of other people making noise. If I could barely hear Carlos sitting right next to me, there was no way that Kent could hear us halfway across the room.

  I excused myself from Carlos before Kent saw us together and eased my way through the growing crowd of people to catch his arm. He spun around, seeming a little on edge.

  "Cheers," he said, a little stiffly.

  "Did you get the coupon?"

  He nodded. "That guy outside gave it to me. He's got biceps bigger than a watermelon."

  I nodded, not wanting to let on that I knew Steve. Steve and I had dated for a solid month, which was a long time for me, but unfortunately his brainpower didn't quite match his physical prowess.

  We found our way to an empty booth off to the left side of the main stage, where a little nymph whose name I didn't know was writhing around the center pole, to raucous appreciation. Kent allowed himself a peek, but his gaze didn't linger. Liz, one of the waitresses, scurried over, doing her best to avoid looking at me.

  "Gin martini," I said. Liz would know that I preferred Bombay Sapphire, but she asked anyway, just to keep up the appearance that I was a stranger. She was good. Kent got himself a Red Bull and vodka. I stared at him funny, but he just stared back at me, expressionless.

  "That's gonna keep you up all night," I murmured, a little put off by his attitude, which I placed somewhere between annoyed and nervous. There was an edge to Kent that I hadn't picked up on in our previous meeting.

  He shrugged. "I'm a night owl," he said. His gaze scanned the room again, resting on the soft curves of my sometime-friend Alexandra, one of the few thirty-somethings left in the club. She was going table to table, offering roses for men to buy at exorbitant prices. Although I couldn't hear her, I knew she was dropping unsubtle hints about lap dances, which would set the men back about fifty bucks if they tipped halfway decently.

  "So, you go to places like this a lot?" I asked.

  He cocked his head and fixed me with a perplexed look. "Only when I get invited by a beautiful woman," he said. "Why, do you hang out at strip clubs very often?"

  I smiled, relaxing a touch. "More than you'd think. As I said, my friend works here sometimes, and she gives me coupons for free food and drinks. The food's actually much better than you'd expect."

  He scratched his chin, examining me. "You look as if you could work at a place like this. I mean that as a compliment, of course."

  Why was he kissing up to me? I had to admit that the compliments sounded even more authentic in his English accent. But he was hitting a little too close to home, so I decided to change the subject.

  "So what is it that you wanted to show me?" I asked, trying not to sound too businesslike.

  He smiled nervously. "Well it's not exactly something to show you, but rather something I thought we could talk about. Something, well, long-term."

  "Long-term?" I was confused. The whole point of having to meet in person was that he supposedly had things I needed to see, but now that seemed like nothing but a ruse.

  "Yes, well—" he was interrupted by the arrival of our drinks. We clinked glasses and exchanged a long, awkward glance. His eyes had a dreamy kind of cast to them, and I could see how a girl could get caught up with him, even against her better judgment. I broke off our gaze and dipped my face into my martini like a thirsty horse in a desert stream.

  "I don't think I've ever toasted a man drinking a Red Bull and vodka," I said. For some reason his drink bothered me, but then again I was one of the world's great snobs when it came to alcoholic beverages.

  He took a healthy chug and wiped his mouth with his hand, and then twisted his body around to flag down the waitress again.

  Liz double-timed it over when she saw his gesture. "Everything okay?" she asked.

  "I'll have what she's having," Kent said. "Make it a double, eh?"

  The waitress smiled and nodded, unfazed by his order. She had seen everything.

  "Impressive," I said. "I guilted you into it, huh?"

  "Twisting my arm, really," he said, sarcastically, slurping down the rest of his first drink. "I was going to get some studying done tonight, but I can see that's not going to happen. Why fight it? After all, my great-great-great-grand-aunt is right on the bottle!" He was referring, of course, to the not-very-flattering portrait of Queen Victoria that graced the famous gin's label.

  "I can't argue with that logic," I said. Kent was beginning to loosen up, either from the vodka or from all the topless women parading around in front of him. The edge was still there, but it had receded into the background. When he smiled, the candlelight from our table made his eyes twinkle. I tried to shake myself out of it. Don't fall for him, I started telling myself. The trouble with getting older was that I had become more desperate, and I often found myself creating the wildest fantasies based on mere scraps and shreds of human interactions I had. In my mind, I had already married my mechanic, the valet in my building, several of my customers, and a guy who had helped me select new tires for my Audi last spring. Not to mention Alex Trebek, the sexiest Canadian alive. In one of my fantasies, he and I shared a place in Hawaii, where we lay in a giant hammock together, testing each other's knowledge of geography and famous poets. So you can see how sitting across a candlelit table from a cute Englishman unleashed the under-stimulated hormones in my body. My brain was fine with being a single, soon-to-be-middle-aged woman, but somewhere in my consciousness lurked a nagging old aunt, and she wanted me to get married and have lots of babies.

  "So Raven," Kent began again, snapping me out of my daydream. "As I was saying, what I mean by long-term is, well, a long-term investment."

  Talk about a buzz kill. Did he think I was going to invest in his lawsuit too? "What kind of investment are we talking about?" I asked, trying not to sound too skeptical. I had to remind myself that he was a scam artist who believed I thought he was British royalty.

  "My estate, of course," he said, getting more serious. "Melanie probably explained something about it to you, but—"

  "Sorry," I said. "I'm flat broke. I hate to cut you off, but I can barely make my mortgage payments. Being a private investigator isn't very lucrative."

  Kent's face seemed to cringe ever so slightly, but he made a brave show of it. "No worries," he said. "But do you think you can get any, you know, financing? Even if you don't have any yourself, this is a great opportunity. There aren't many estates back in the old country like mine. If I can just get enough together to secure the title, it will be a windfall for all of my investors."

  He wasn't getting it, probably because I was going overboard trying to be polite and friendly. I wanted to tell him to shove it, but I had to play along.

  I pretended to consider it for a few seconds. "I do have some relatives with money," I
mused. "I could run it past them, I suppose."

  He perked up at the possibility. "Better yet, just make the introduction. I'll make the pitch. You see, some people can't resist an accent like mine." He proceeded to explain in great detail what a great investment his estate would be, and how it would take the world of "palace tourism" by storm. As he spoke, he seemed unable to resist contorting his face into a self-satisfied smirk, which now made it my turn to cringe. His was the kind of expression that killed off all the charming glimmer in his eyes and revealed his true nature as an avaricious cad. But as he spoke, I was beginning to wonder whether he had no other intentions toward me except to bilk me out of some money. Based on our conversation so far, it seemed increasingly likely that neither he nor anyone else intended to abduct me or cause me harm, at least at the moment, and that I might have been just a little bit paranoid in arranging all the security to protect me. But even if he wasn't going to hurt me, I still wanted to swipe his cell phone. I still wanted to unveil the private communications he must have had with Melanie, which could tell me once and for all if she had been killed.

  I nodded along with his self-congratulatory monologue, trying to disguise my lack of interest, my growing disgust, and the fact that my mind was spinning with schemes and plans to try to wrest his cell phone away from him. When his double martini arrived, he slurped greedily at it and looked me in the eye again to toast.

  "Cheers," he said, not meaning it. I returned the phony expression and took a sip of my own drink. Liz, who was still standing at our table, eyed my half-empty glass suggestively. I nodded, and she scurried off to bring me another. She probably figured I was on a hot date with a younger man, and she was trying to do her best to make things perfect.

  Kent tried to renew his monologue about the English countryside, but I didn't think I could take any more of it. My brain began running on overdrive, trying to come up with a way to extract myself from the conversation and steal his cell phone.