She wrenched her arm from Jay’s, shoved Loweman aside, flung open the door, and ran out. The door to the adjoining room opened and one of the surveillance men stepped over the threshold just as Dianne charged past.
“Al, get a couple of men and take my wife home,” Jay said to the man in the corridor. “No matter what she says, stay with her. I’ll be in touch.”
Jay felt sick to his stomach. Dianne seemed to be falling to pieces before his very eyes. Dianne, his hard-as-nails wife who liked her sex rough, who had always criticized weakness of any form in others, who could have cared less what he did or where he went as long as she was free to do whatever she wanted. She had to know what he was going through. Not only was he trying to protect those he loved, but also the future of the club—her legacy. Was she so selfish, so self-absorbed that nothing or no one but Dianne Ellen King mattered? He wondered again if she were on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Jay straightened his shirt, absently ran fingers through his hair, and strode into the room. He crossed to the bar, undoing the top three buttons of his shirt. He took a beer from the refrigerator, opened it, swallowed deeply, then said to the watchful group before him, “Talk to me, damnit.”
Everyone began to talk at once. Jay pointed at his chief executive. “Howard?”
Howard Cummings straightened. “On the way in this morning I got a call on my car phone. He started right in, calm and cool like, no introduction—nothing. He said, ‘Look in the main mechanical room. There’s something there I think you’ll get a bang out of.”
“Go on.”
“That’s it. I called LeBarre, told him to check it out.”
Jay turned to LeBarre.
LeBarre bobbed his head excitedly. “Bolin and I found what looked like an ordinary toolbox down there. It was wedged real tight between two heating units. Don’t know how he got it in there. There was a red bow tied to the handle.”
Cummings said, “When LeBarre apprised me of the situation, I felt I had no choice but to contact the authorities.”
Jay looked back at LeBarre.
“In light of the situation, sir, I felt I had to tell him about the threats directed at you and the missus.”
Jay nodded. What difference did it make now?
The phone on the bar rang. Cummings answered. He spoke a few words, cupped a hand over the receiver, and turned to Jay. “It’s security. He says the bomb squad, FBI, and ATF have arrived. They want to know if you’re coming down?”
“Tell them I’ll be right there.”
Cummings passed along the message, then hung up. “The thing was definitely planted. Now, whether it’s volatile or not remains to be seen.”
“How big is it? If it goes, how much damage can we expect?”
“That’s not for any of us to say,” Cummings said. “The experts down there will fill us in.”
Andy Bolin, the chief of maintenance, a thin man with a sunken chest, stepped forward. “I can say this, Mr. King, if that thing goes off down there where it is, even if it doesn’t do much structural damage, smoke and fumes are going to go straight up that central shaft into just about every room in this building. The hotel rooms in particular. People trying to get out won’t be able to see a hand in front of their face. It’ll be—well, it could be pretty bad.”
Jay didn’t have to be told how bad it could be. Bolin’s nightmare scenario could happen anywhere, at any time. A vision of the blazing Las Vegas MGM Grand with billows of black, choking smoke pouring out of the superstructure, flashed in his mind. As many as eighty lives had been taken in that catastrophe. Most had died from smoke inhalation and some had fallen to their death trying to escape the smoke and flames.
Sheer pandemonium.
The threat of a bomb in the hotel couldn’t have happened at a worse time and the bastard knew it. Today was the kick-off day for Hot August Nights. Guests had been checking in since last night. King’s Club was booked solid. Lodging at every hotel and motel in a sixty-mile radius for this special-event week had been booked in advance a year ago. King’s Club had 750 rooms. If an evacuation were called and the hotel shut down for more than eight hours, securing accommodations for its displaced guests would be imperative. Where the hell would they all go?
“It could prove to be nothing more than a ruse,” Cummings said. “Like that bomb scare a few years back at the Nugget.”
Recalling that incident didn’t make Jay feel any better. Not only had the Nugget been forced to close down for nearly twenty-four hours in one of the busiest months of the year, but 6,000 residents, hotel guests, and casino customers for a seven-block radius around the Nugget had been evacuated. It had turned out to be a hoax.
It was a different story in 1980 for Harvey’s Resort Hotel in Lake Tahoe when an extortionist’s half-ton bomb blasted an enormous hole in the side of the eleven-story building and closed down the resort for nine months.
“And it could be another Harvey’s,” Jay said. He looked to the foyer where Kasey stood. Their eyes met and held. She knew what he was going through. The compassion and concern on her face made Jay’s insides twist. Why couldn’t Dianne be more like Kasey? he wondered.
“Did he ask for money? Did he say he’d call again?”
Cummings took a moment to reflect. “Come to think of it, no, he didn’t. Just that business about maybe I’d get a bang out of it.”
“Start the evacuation,” Jay said.
“What?” Mark Epson blurted out.
“Make sure it’s done right. No mention of a bomb until everyone’s out. I don’t want anyone to panic and get hurt.”
“No, Jay, not yet,” Yanick joined in. “Jesus, what’s the hurry? It’ll cost the club a small fortune in lost revenue. Why not wait until the bomb squad or the Feds give the order. Hell, it could be a big fat nothing. Everything back to business without a hitch and no one the wiser.”
“Bob, if the man who planted that box downstairs is the man I think he is, we have to take him seriously. I know what he’s capable of. Evacuate.”
*
Lucas Cage stood at a window on the second floor of the casino across from King’s Club and watched a steady flow of people with little more than the clothes on their backs file out onto the street. Police were in the process of cordoning off the building with an endless stretch of yellow crime-scene tape.
He sprayed a quick shot of antihistamine into each nostril, sniffed twice, then chuckled low in his throat.
“Have a good day, Mr. King,” he whispered to his own reflection in the window, fogging the glass with his breath. With his finger he made a bull’s eye in the misty pane.
In less than an hour. King’s Club and the surrounding area resembled condemned property. Deserted. Eerie. Yet, unseen by the curious and the press, like a teeming ant colony deep in the bowels of the earth, a group of experts congregated around a metal toolbox adorned with a bright red bow.
First on the scene was the Bomb Squad with a bomb-sniffing dog. Next came x-ray, neutron radiographic, cryogenic, and fiber optic equipment.
A diner a safe distance down the street became a command post for agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the top executives of the King’s Club. Contact by phone between the two sites became constant.
Eight hours after the suspicious object had been sighted, the experts were still uncertain as to its contents and its volatility. Word had it the box contained sticks resembling dynamite and other objects whose size and shape were consistent with explosive devices. Another three hours and the decision to make an attempt to remove the toolbox from the premises was made. Tension mounted. All eyes at the command post remained glued to the twelve-story building.
They were bringing it up and out.
Through radio contact from the bomb site to the diner, a minute-by-minute communique kept Jay and the others informed of the Bomb Squad’s laborious progress. The moments of long silence strained everyone’s nerves. Whether radio traffic was on line or off, all listened for, anticipa
ted even, the big boom. Jay stood at the window of the diner staring down the street at his small, yet treasured empire, praying that he would not be witness to its sudden, explosive demise.
An hour later, at 11:55 P.M., twelve hours after the bomb had been discovered, news reached the diner that the box had been safely removed from the basement to a special transport vessel waiting outside. It would be taken by truck to a remote area east of Sparks and detonated.
There was no cheering, no applause, no indication whatsoever of joy at the news, only the collective sound of a long, drawn-out sigh.
At 1:30 A.M., the authorities gave the all-clear to reopen the doors of the club. In the thirteen hours since the order to evacuate, nearly all the guests that had not left town had been placed elsewhere and were not likely to return until the following day—if they returned at all.
A handful of people, presumably those who had been gambling and drinking in nearby casinos, began to straggle back once the police cordon was finally lifted. Jay, Kasey, Brad, and the employees who had waited it out, security and maintenance mostly, spent the next several hours processing the returning guests and unlocking rooms that had been secured to discourage looters.
With only a skeleton crew, the casino, bars, and restaurants remained closed, not to open again until the arrival of the day shift employees. At 4:30, Brad walked Kasey to her room and only halfheartedly made a pass, issued more from habit than ardor. Jay had gone home to be with Dianne.
Kasey fell asleep instantly and didn’t awaken until midafternoon.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
For the next five days, the club struggled to return to normal. Although the exact contents of the metal box was not disclosed to the general public for reasons of security, the bomb experts had indeed found explosive properties inside. The toolbox contained five highway flares, a bundle of cord, and some wire. The explosives—the “bang” in the box— turned out to be an assortment of fireworks that if detonated at close range could do little more than blow off a finger or put out an eye.
The bomb incident had made national news and for days the local newspaper’s main coverage focused heavily on it. In addition to the bomb scare, the media recounted the club’s other recent problems. The two homicides; the rash of room burglaries; the fire in the storage room; the computer, switchboard, and elevator failures, and anything else they could dredge up. It was no surprise when words such as hex and jinx became synonymous with the hotel name. Also no surprise were the cancellations that poured in steadily.
Business, therefore, dropped, with a noted decline in every facet of the club. The bustling crowds were gone. Peak hours—postbomb—were now as quiet as a morning shift during the dead of winter. The weekend following the “incident,” much of the hotel staff was kept busy packing and shipping the personal property of registered guests who had had flights to catch before the club reopened or, out of fear or indignation, had refused to reenter the club. The casino staff had the arduous task of paying off winning players of keno and slot machines who were forced to leave before cashing out. Although the advanced slot machines were equipped with a memory chip and a credit meter, thus enabling them to track a player’s credits, individual names had to be matched to machines. Full operation for much of the club was days away, perhaps even weeks.
Jay, Kasey, Brad, and the top executives spent those five days in endless meetings with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Kasey watched Brad, wondering about his involvement, wondering why she held back going to Jay with her suspicions.
Kasey saw Jay for brief, intermittent periods, and never alone. The FBI sent the toolbox to a forensic lab in Washington, D.C. in the hopes of gleaning a clue to the person or persons responsible. The investigation at the club proceeded. Agents continued to comb the crime scene, field calls, and interview hundreds of potential witnesses and employees.
A surveillance camera in the basement, which photo technicians examined with a fine-toothed comb, had caught on tape a bespectacled, curly-haired blond man in maintenance attire carrying a toolbox out of the service elevator. The I.D. badge clipped on the man’s shirt belonged to a graveyard worker named Tully, who claimed it had been stolen at the end of his shift and who had a solid alibi for the time in question. One small footage of tape, a view from the suspect’s backside, showed him briefly putting something to his face. Kasey and Jay, who watched it over and over, were sure that what the man had put to his face was a nasal spray, although there was no way to prove it.
Thomas Andrews had been questioned and released. Also wanted for questioning was Lucas Cage, who failed to appear for work on his scheduled shift. His locker had been cleaned out; his uniform was missing.
The days passed quietly. Kasey received surveillance offers from other sources, but declined, determined to concentrate solely on the job at hand. Jay and Kasey waited it out, the club their private prison, the inaction nerve-racking.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
She was prettier than Lucas Cage had initially thought. There was a softness, a gentleness, an innocence he hadn’t seen in a grown woman in many years. The way his mother had been before his father had beat it out of her.
He watched Sherry Kidd from his room on the second floor as she tended the vegetable garden. A large floppy hat covered her hair and shaded her face and shoulders. She seemed to thrive on the outdoors; she took to nature like the bees behind the orchard took to honey. He could watch her for hours as she played with that big, stupid mutt or picked peaches or sat with the retard reading him poetry or trying to follow along with her own colored square while he made those worthless paper things.
On the few occasions he had tried to talk with her, she’d shied away, which only made him cherish her all the more. Patience, he told himself. Don’t push it. This one wasn’t like those floozies and whores he was used to.
This one was special.
*
Early Tuesday evening Kasey took a break from the club to visit her father. For some reason, maybe out of loyalty to her mother, Kasey found it difficult to see both her parents in the same time frame. She hadn’t been home to the ranch since before the bomb incident, so it was only natural she gravitate to her father.
It was the third of the month, social-security-check time. Dotus sometimes got carried away when he had a fist full of cash. Kasey often tried to intercept the check. Fifty percent of the time she could talk him into giving her a little of it to hold for him until the end of the month. And ninety percent of the time she ended up giving it back to him around mid-month, along with some of her own cash. Dotus’s willpower grew weaker with each passing year.
She found him at home in his basement apartment dead drunk on the floor at the side of his bed, a nearly empty bottle of sourmash whiskey clutched in his hand. He wore a pink polo shirt—the pocket fat with bookie bets—tan boxer shorts, loafers without socks, and navy twill trousers which were down around his ankles. He had wet himself.
Kasey didn’t need this. She wanted to turn around and go out the door without so much as a backward glance. Let him lie in his own booze and body waste. Let him drink himself into the ground. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing.
She went to him, pried the bottle from his hand, and shook him. “Dad? Dad, come on, try to get it together. Hear me? Wake up.” She shook him harder. “Did you spend it all? Is there anything left? Dad, answer me.”
Dotus moaned, his eyes opening to mere slits. He patted the floor around him, looking for the whiskey bottle.
She tried to get him to his feet.
“G’wan,” he muttered, jerking his arm away. “Lemme ‘lone.”
Kasey went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, using only cold water. She returned to the bedroom and again tried to lift her father.
“Damn you,” she said when he rolled onto his stomach, his arms tucked under him, making it impossible for her to get a good hold on him. “Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”
“Get ‘w
ay. Go home t’yer mommy. Your stuffy, stuffy ol’ mommy. I din’t ask for yer help. Where’s my bottle? Whad’ya do with it?” He swiveled his head around. “Kasey, darlin’, whad’ya do with my bottle? Giv’it to me, girl.”
“I threw it out.”
“Ohhh, you’re killin’ me. Don’tcha know you’re killin’ me?”
“You’re killing yourself.” She tried one last time to get him up off the floor.
A flash lit up the room. Kasey turned toward the door and was blinded by another bright flash. She held her hand to her eyes.
A figure moved toward her, gave her a firm but gentle push. “Get outta the way, honey. I’ll take it from here.”
When Kasey’s eyes focused again, she saw Sasha, the woman from upstairs, jockeying around between Dotus and her. Another flash.
A camera.
“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” the woman said. “Your daddy’s such a Dapper Dan when he ain’t pissed to the gills. I got a feeling he’ll be more than a little ashamed when he gets a gander at what he looks like when he loses control.”
Dotus groaned and rolled onto his side. She snapped another picture. This one exposed the wet front of her father’s shorts.
“That one’s a beauty,” Sasha said, going into a fit of coughing.
“That’s enough,” Kasey said. “Help me get him up.”
“No. Leave him. You go on. You look like you got more important things to do than waste your time with a fall’n down drunk. He’ll be just fine right where he is.”
We can’t leave him there.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because it ain’t dignified?” Sasha raised her eyebrows. “When he sees these pictures, sees his precious little girl down on her knees trying to lift a lush with his pants twisted ‘round his ankles, it’s gonna shake him up good. And if it don’t, then it don’t. There ain’t nothing you can do about it, lessen he’s ready to face the truth. Till then you’re just making yourself miserable. Now go on, get on with your life. I’ll take care of him.”
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