Mitch was next. Even in shadow, he came over gorgeous, confused, and rumpled. He’d come to Vegas to discuss a film project with Evan Black and to see his friend Charlie Greene.
His friend Charlie Greene gnashed her teeth and her boss squirmed next to her. “Stop that, jeeze.”
“Have you ever been to the place pictured on the screen just now?”
“Groom Lake? Just over the Internet, but once I—”
“That was not the question, Mr. Hilsten.”
The question was repeated until the answer made no mention of Groom Lake, only “the place.”
Made sense if Groom Lake did not exist. One up for Charlie’s government and Mr. Undisclosed, who didn’t work for it, just cooperated with it when it was advantageous.
Richard came to Vegas for a vacation and didn’t give a fuck about “the place.” He had an important business to run and had to get back to L.A.
Bradone came to Vegas for a vacation and went out to “the place” to look at the stars. She was a student of astrology.
“Did you have anything at all to do with the robbery of the Hilton casino?”
“I didn’t know about it until the next day.”
“You had other things on your mind that night,” the questioner led. He might as well have said, “Ve haff veys…”
“I have other things on my mind every night.” All in black, legs crossed, one heel hooked over the middle rung, voice dripping controlled rage, Bradone McKinley made the most impressive backlighted shadow yet.
Caryl Thompson was next. No amount of screwy lighting could hide her identity. The shape, the breath within the diction, the tragic yet lovely droop to the shoulders …
Give it a rest, Charlie. She’ll get old too.
But the questioner’s voice softened some. “Were you ever at the place shown on this film?”
“No,” the well-stacked pilot answered.
Caryl Thompson wasn’t asked about her brother’s death or her flights over restricted areas for Evan Black. When asked what she did for a living, she said she worked as a beverage server at the Barbary Coast. Which was true, according to Evan, her day job was what paid the rent. Where was Evan Black?
Conspiracy may be maniacal, but truth could be slippery too.
By the time the lights went out on Caryl, Charlie was all too aware that neither Richard nor Mitch had returned to her side.
And figures too dark to see lifted Charlie by the arms, propelling her to the front of the room.
CHAPTER 36
CHARLIE HAD COME to Las Vegas on vacation, to play blackjack and to meet with clients Georgette Millrose and Evan Black. She had gone out to the place to see the stars with Bradone McKinley, whom she had met playing blackjack.
“And what did you see there?” Mr. Undisclosed was invisible from here too, but she directed her answers to a pinpoint of light at the back of the room.
“Lots of stars and orange stage smoke?”
“And the night of the robbery at the Las Vegas Hilton, where were you?”
Charlie’d so hoped he wouldn’t ask this one. Actually, there were a number of things she hoped he wouldn’t ask. And why hadn’t he asked the well-stacked pilot/beverage server, Caryl Thompson, that question in the same way?
“I was returning from a burning airplane, in a van driven by—”
“Back to where?”
Shouldn’t the question have been from where? “To the Hilton, I—”
“And what happened when you left this van?”
Charlie described the lights going out behind her and then the elevator stopping on the way to her room and then the lights in her room going out when she was in the shower. Funny how total intimidation can make you so eager to please.
The lights went out in this room and she was lifted back to her floor cushion. Still no sign of Richard and Mitch.
Toby Johnson took the stool next and now Detective Battista asked the questions. Even in shadow, Toby’s jauntiness was gone. He leaned to one side, swaying slightly, spoke through a swollen mouth. His injuries had been added to.
He lived in Vegas and worked for producer Evan Black.
“Who else do you work for, Toby?”
“Sometimes I drive a limo for my uncle Elmo.”
“Who else, Toby?”
“Sometimes I do magic.”
“Who do you do magic for, Toby?”
Long pause here. An arm came out of the dark to prop him up on one side, another from the other to keep him from falling off the stool on that side, neither very gently. “I want a lawyer.”
“Who do you do magic for, Toby?”
“My uncle Merlin.”
“He is Merlin.” Bradone’s voice cut from behind Charlie.
Charlie listened for a scuffle again or, worse yet, a scream. She couldn’t detect anything.
“What do you do for your uncle Louie, Toby?”
Toby Johnson didn’t answer, even with more jostling.
“When Metro’s Officer Timothy Graden tried to visit Evan Black to investigate the death of Black’s personal pilot, you intercepted him with your uncle Elmo’s limousine. And dumped the body on Highway One sixty, where your uncle Elmo’s limo regularly delivers johns to the establishments out that way.”
“Art Sleem stole the limo to kill Graden and cover his taking out Pat. He wanted me to get the blame.”
“So you took out Sleem and Boyles.”
“I want a lawyer” was all Toby would say.
“You’re not in court. Elmo Johnson’s limo service is licensed under the name of Tobias Johnson.”
“I lent him the money is all.”
“On a gofer’s salary? And you don’t have an uncle Merlin. You are Merlin, like the lady said. And every lease and rental place for hundreds of miles is out of white Cherokees.”
“We got you on fraud and murder, got you locked tight. Want to deal and squeal? We want the guys you took your orders from, pimp.” This was Mr. Undisclosed again, who cooperated with the government. Maybe he was a temp.
Charlie figured Toby got some of his orders from his “uncle” Evan. And did that same limo run over Patrick Thompson? Was Toby driving then? Sleem wasn’t. But Vegas was full of limos. Toby had access to Evan’s house, could have killed Art Sleem and Boyles. Because they tried to pin Officer Graden’s murder on him. Or because Evan told him to. Or his uncle Louie did.
Before Toby could say whether or not he wanted to deal, Mel Goodall replaced him. Charlie couldn’t tell if Mel had been roughed up or not.
Somewhere at the back of her exhaustion—this looked to be her second full night without sleep—Charlie wondered what Evan Black’s role could be in this staged performance. It seemed too pedestrian for him. Maybe with Mel up there, she’d find out.
Mel lived in Vegas in this house and worked for Evan Black. He’d been to “the place” quite a few times. He had shot that footage from Merlin’s Ridge even though he knew it was against Section 18 of U.S. CODE 795/797 and Executive Order 10104, which made it illegal to photograph the installation. And he’d done so for producer Evan Black.
Matthew Tooney had come to the house looking for proof that Evan was behind the Hilton casino heist after he’d seen the money that Charlie tried to give him. He figured Art Sleem was paying off Evan Black for the heist through his agent.
“It was paying off a wager, wasn’t it? A wager that Evan Black could not pull off the casino robbery, and there were even odds on which casino the attempt would be made on.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to the casino money?”
“Left it in black garbage bags at the back of the hotel.”
Was all this being displayed for someone other than Charlie? Were there others who were supposed to tell the “truth” to the press?
Mel and Toby came home after the weird funeral service for Patrick Thompson while Caryl, Evan, and Patrick’s parents distributed his ashes over Nellis, to find Tooney dead on the floor of the great room and Sl
eem and Boyles ransacking the house.
“And what were they looking for?”
“The real money.”
“The money coming in from high rollers all over town who bet that Black couldn’t pull off the heist. The money that would have paid for his next project.”
“Yeah.”
“So who shot Sleem and Boyles?” Charlie spoke up and then slapped a hand over her mouth. Dumb, that was dumb, Charlie.
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do, Mr. Goodall. And I think you know who paid them to find that money too. It wasn’t Toby Johnson, was it? Where is Evan Black?”
“You don’t know?” Genuine surprise on Mel’s part.
“He’s taken the ‘real’ money and left you holding the bag, hasn’t he?”
“Evan wouldn’t do that.” Uncertainty, just a hint, but it was there, somewhere in the inflection.
“Where is he, Mel?”
“I don’t believe he’s gone. You’re lying.” Mel was apparently not as intimidated as Charlie.
“And he shot Sleem and Boyles, didn’t he?”
“He never killed anybody in his life.” Disdain now, and the hint of triumph this time. Mel knew his questioners didn’t have all the right answers. He’d probably watched Toby kill Sleem and Boyles.
But instead of pressing the point to get at the real truth, they turned out the lights and Louie Deloese sat next on the stool.
Charlie decided that they already knew the truth, or that they didn’t want to know the truth, or that they wanted to conceal the truth.
Loopy Louie wanted a lawyer too and he was about as loopy as a brain surgeon. His little body exuded fury. He would say nothing.
“Your nephew has confessed, Louie. Give it up.”
* * *
“They’re not convinced,” Battista said, standing directly behind Charlie. “I’m not sure I am either.”
“Then let’s convince them,” the mysterious Mr. Undisclosed said. “And convince you too.”
CHAPTER 37
“BOY, DO THEY do their homework, or what?” Charlie had described the photos old Grizzlehead showed her. She and Bradone were now locked in a closet. “Was that dark-haired guy in a bathing suit—the one with the pecs—your houseboy?”
“Charlie, how could you lie like that about what happened at Merlin’s Ridge?” Now Bradone was the one doing the whining. “About the orange spaceship?”
“I was hoping to get out of here with my skin. Don’t you see? Those stills were meant to warn us that people close to us would be in danger if we don’t cooperate and believe what they want us to. I’m supposed to reveal to the press what they want me to.”
Funny, they hadn’t shown a picture of Mitch, whom the press kept insisting was her boyfriend. Was that because he was here? Or because they knew her innermost thoughts? If Charlie lived, she’d never cheat on her taxes again.
“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” Did they have everybody secluded off in closets? How many closets could this place have? “Maybe they’re going to set the house afire and burn all evidence of what went on here. Mainly us.”
“Just what was it that went on here?”
“Some fairly high-level secrets were either revealed or concealed here tonight.” Grizzlehead might be private security with a tacit license to get done what needs to be done, but Battista was an officer of the law in this city. Charlie couldn’t believe he’d stick his neck out that far.
They bumped into and away from each other, trying to slip past the shelves of thick towels at their backs, feeling over the doors in front of them.
“Now you sound like Evan Black. This is bigger than a conspiracy, Charlie.”
“Where is Evan?” What’s bigger than a conspiracy—other than World War Three or E coli from Mars?
“Off to Brazil or somewhere he can’t be extradited. And carrying off with him the cash prize of a lifetime.”
“I don’t pretend to understand Evan Black, Bradone, but I can’t imagine him leaving his work. I can see him blowing up the World Trade Center to get footage, but not cutting himself off from the industry. His identity is his work. Money just rewards it, shows him he’s good.”
“This is a linen closet,” Bradone said suddenly.
“I know.”
“Who has locks on a linen closet?”
“Oh.” Charlie, instead of feeling for hinges or bolts she could pull out, pushed at the center of the doors instead, and it moved outward like those she had at home in Long Beach would if she’d ever thought to shut herself in her own closet.
“We are not dealing with great minds here.” Bradone grunted, pushing her side open too. There was a little light out in the hall. Enough to see that the doors had not moved far. Something was stacked up in front of them.
Bodies. Still warm.
Charlie ran her hands over the wall, searching for a light switch. “Though I don’t think they are either—working with great minds, I mean.” She and Bradone hadn’t even tried the doors, they’d been so intimidated. And exhausted. Charlie’s ears rang with it.
“It’s Richard … and Mitch. They’re breathing but zonked. What are you doing?”
“Looking for a light switch.”
“Charlie, there’s all this starlight.”
Charlie’d had it with Bradone and her stars. But when she reached the wall switches, they didn’t work. The juice had been cut off to the house. She whirled to explain to the stargazer exactly where she could stick her stars, to see they were on the top balcony and the ghostly light of night shone on the lake outside through the window wall on the back of the house.
“You smelling what I’m smelling?” Bradone asked.
It was faint. But it was there. Smoke. “That’s not cigarettes.”
They tried to revive the men, with no success. So they dragged them down the stairs to the next-level balcony, which had egress to the outside by way of the front door on the street side. The deadweights nearly knocked them over backward.
When they reached the second balcony, Charlie dropped Mitch’s armpits and raced back up.
“What are you doing, you total idiot?”
“Looking for others left lying about—Evan, for one.”
“But he’s run off with the bet money, I tell you.”
With so little light, Charlie had to feel for doorways and closets and then determine by feel which were clothes and which had people in them. And try to remember the layout on this floor. Shoes with feet helped out a lot. Head hair was good. She didn’t have time to discern dead from alive or identity or friend or foe. Which by now was a blur of the first order anyway.
Shit. Not only had she lost her mind, she’d lost her eyeglasses. She was so used to wearing contacts, had been kept in the dark so much, now she noticed.
But she’d found six bodies alive or dead and had dragged them to the top of the stairs before the density of the smoke panicked her. She screamed down for Bradone to come and help.
There was no answer.
CHAPTER 38
WHEN SHE GOT the first body down to the second balcony, Charlie knew why Bradone hadn’t answered her call for help. The smoke was so thick, nobody could breathe.
Literally without thinking, she raced back upstairs, found the master bath by feel and panic, grabbed a towel from the rim of the Jacuzzi tub, soaked it in the stool, and wrapped it around her head. She felt her way out into the top hall, tripped over one of the bodies she’d left, and tumbled down with it to the really bad air on the floor below.
Charlie bounded back up for another, and this time just shoved it downstairs, knowing she had so little time herself. And then three more, hoping they’d land on one another for cushioning. Then the last, and she tumbled down after it, hoping she hadn’t lost count or left somebody still up there.
She crawled over all the bodies on the second balcony to slide down to the first floor. The smoke was much less here and she opted for trying to push everybody down here a
nd then pull them out onto the pool deck, because the way to the front door appeared to be what was on fire.
She envisioned countless dead and broken necks as she shoved every body she could find on the second balcony down the stairs to the great room.
And then she dragged them one at a time outside to air, telling them to breathe, please, grabbing a breath herself and holding it before racing in for the next body.
Some body was stirring on one of her trips out. She’d become an automaton by now, hero or dupe. The last time in, she couldn’t find another body but thought she could see flame.
No contacts, no glasses, no sleep, no mind—who knew what she saw? But she struggled back outside, and one of the bodies sat up.
“Charlie?”
Charlie would have sighed if she’d had breath. She’d saved Mitch Hilsten again and gotten caught in the act.
But he could see, so she convinced him to help her drag all the bodies on the patio to the boat.
He seemed to be coming to. She seemed to be going out. Next thing she knew, she was gone.
* * *
Charlie woke herself, coughing up the smoke in her burning lungs.
“You think you guys could keep it down?” Evan said from above her, and she realized she wasn’t the only one coughing. He turned from the wheel of the small cabin cruiser to look at her and the mass of huddled bodies at his feet. “Thanks, Charlie. Already owed you one, remember? I was meant to go up in flames with my house. So now I owe you two.”
Since one of the tinted lenses was gone from his eyewear and since Charlie was in her groggy state, plus had no eyewear at all, Evan Black appeared to wear two expressions at once—the tinted side obscure and blank, the naked one animated with mischief. No one else seemed to notice the ambiguity here.
“God, I hate heroes.”
Mitch put a flask in her hand. “It’s just water.”
Even with her foggy vision, Charlie could see the others, sort of, because of the light. A little of it was dawn. A lot of it was flames in the sky.
“Oh, Evan, your beautiful house.”
“That’s okay—we got the can.” Mel grinned at his boss. “Drink some of that, will ya? Then hand it to me.”
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