What Happens in Vegas

by Halliday, Gemma

  “Am I that bad?”

  “No, you’re that good. I think one rehearsal ought to do it. Can you come by the Cat this afternoon? Say three-thirty?”

  I told her I would and we clicked off. I was now on Sunset Blvd. and heading west into the setting sun. I flipped down my shades.

  Cool as cool gets.

  * * *

  The euphoria from the prescription drugs was wearing off.

  And with its passing came the all-pervasive pain in my knees and back, and it came back with a vengeance.

  I hate when that happens.

  I need more Vicodin. Bad.

  Ignoring the pain as best as I could, I parked in front of Dana’s oversized house, ignored the faux dog, and knocked on her heavy front door.

  A moment later, she appeared, and she didn’t look good. Eyes bloodshot and vacant. Hair awry and forgotten. Dried tears crusting in the corner of her eyes and down her cheeks. She looked at me blankly for a moment or two, then turned and retreated back into her home. She left the door open and I followed her in, shutting it behind me. The house was dark and dead, shades drawn, lights off. Despite my lingering high, I felt miserable just being here.

  As I followed her, I saw that my hands were shaking badly. I hadn’t had the shakes in decades, not even with the drinking.

  It’s happening again.

  King, you need help.

  Ya think?

  In the main living room, Dana fell into a wide, overstuffed chair, and reached immediately for a cut crystal tumbler that was filled with amber liquid. I was willing to bet the amber liquid wasn’t lemonade.

  She hadn’t spoken, and I didn’t bother asking her how she was doing. I knew how she was doing: not good at all.

  “Your daughter didn’t date much,” I said simply.

  She rolled her head my direction. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “None of the guys were good enough, I guess.”

  “For you or her?” I asked.

  “Both. I watched over her carefully, vigilantly. We weren’t going to settle for just anyone.”

  “Her last boyfriend was a guy named Jason.”

  “Yes.”

  “No one since?” I asked.

  “No one that I know of.”

  “Did she date anyone before Jason?”

  “No.”

  “Not even casually?”

  “I wouldn’t allow it.”

  Hell, maybe Miranda had run away. I chewed my lip, a bad habit, and looked at the woman sitting across from me. She was obviously on some type of sedative to help deal with her daughter’s disappearance.

  “Did she date in high school?”

  “Yes, one boy.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “They broke up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were just kids; it wasn’t meant to last.”

  “Did you facilitate the break-up?”

  “No. Actually, the boy played a trick on her.”

  I sat up a little straighter.

  “A trick?” I said.

  She turned her head slowly toward me again and blinked long and dramatically, and for the first time today she seemed to really look at me.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but why the hell are you asking questions about my daughter’s boyfriend from fucking high school?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but she didn’t let me answer, and suddenly, now given an outlet, all of her anger and frustration and fear was directed onto me.

  “I demand to know what the fuck you’ve been up to, Mr. Aaron fucking King!”

  Ah, yes. When a client asks for a full accounting—or, in this case, demands—by law I have to give them one. In this situation, I would have preferred to wait, but she was calling me out, so to speak, and so I caught her up to date on the investigation.

  Dana did not know about the Trader Joe’s employee, or the bum, or the van driven by the man with pockmarks, and when I was done she lost it. Just lost it.

  Tears sprung fully formed from her eyes, spilling down over sharp cheekbones. She dropped the tumbler in her lap, spilling the booze everywhere. I was by her side instantly, plucking the glass up, and wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders while she sobbed into my chest.

  Aaron fucking King to the rescue.

  When she was done, when she had gained some semblance of control over herself, I slipped off the chair’s arm and sat on the ornate glass coffee table directly across from her. I took both her hands in mine. They were shaking nearly as bad as my own.

  “I didn’t think I had tears enough to cry,” she said.

  Tears enough to cry. Sounded like a sad, sad song.

  Not everything is a song, King.

  Oh, yeah?

  “So she was kidnapped by some son-of-a-bitch in a van,” she said.

  I sucked in some air. “I think so, yes. The police are looking for the van now.”

  “But it could be anywhere, she could be anywhere, dead in the desert, tortured and raped and burned alive for all I know.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “But it’s a very real possibility.”

  I didn’t want to lie to her, and so I squeezed her hands and said nothing.

  “Help me find her, King. Please. I’ll give you anything you want. Please help me find my baby. Please, oh God, please....”

  I patted her hand and made sympathetic noises, and after awhile I said, “Tell me about the boy in high school.”

  “But I don’t understand—”

  “Neither do I, but I have nothing else to go on, Dana. And since I don’t have enough time or manpower to cruise the city streets looking for the white van, I’m going to do what I have been trained to do, which is to turn over every rock and stone until your daughter shows up.”

  “And one of those stones is her high school boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Exactly. Now please tell me the trick he played on her, the reason she broke up with him.”

  “Her boyfriend was a twin.”

  I inhaled sharply. There it was again. Twins.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “They were dating for nearly their entire senior year when the boy decided to do something stupid. Very, very stupid.”

  “What?”

  She looked away. “He let his twin brother rape Miranda.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following—”

  “The sons-of-bitches played a trick on her, King. One twin stepped out of the room—her boyfriend—and the other stepped in—his brother, dressed identically from head to foot, to fool her. Granted, it was late at night and everyone had been drinking, but Miranda knew something was wrong the moment he forced himself on her. She tried to stop him, but couldn’t. I told him that if I ever saw him or his fucking perverted brother again, I would kill them both.”

  I didn’t doubt it.

  “Do you have a picture of Flip?” I asked.

  “He’s in her high school yearbook somewhere.”

  “Would you mind?”

  She didn’t, or at least not very much. She left the room and came back a few minutes later lugging a bright green high school yearbook. She sat next to me on the glass coffee table, flipped open the book. A moment later, she found the right page. Her partially painted fingernail, which was worried down to a mere nub, pointed to a handsome young man with a thick neck and spiky blond hair. His identical twin brother was next to him. Flip and Bryan Barowski. Both had fairly clear complexions.

  Which meant neither matched the description of our pock-marked driver.

  Strike one and two.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Clarke and I were at the Hollywood YMCA. He was doing bench presses on a shining new machine, and I was doing shoulder raises on an older machine that wasn’t so shiny.

  “They say that you get more definition if you use free weights,” I said when we both finished our respective sets. “So why are we not using free weights?”

  Clar
ke’s face was still slightly purple with the strain of his recent pressing. A pulsating, lightning bolt-like vein slashed down across his forehead, Harry Potter-like. Clarke was tired of all my Harry Potter jokes. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t, since I was a closet Harry Potter fan.

  “Because we’re not thirty anymore,” he said, “and we don’t care about definition.”

  “We don’t?”

  Clarke leaned back and cranked out ten more reps. When finished, he sat forward again. Good thing, because the lightning bolt-like vein looked like it was about to burst.

  “No,” he said. “And if you say anything about the throbbing, lightning bolt-like vein on my forehead I’m going to go fucking ape-shit on you, King. Fucking ape-shit. I see you looking at it now.”

  I ignored him, or pretended to. “If we’re not here for definition, Harry, then what the hell are we doing in the gym?”

  “My name isn’t fucking Harry, and we’re here to prolong our lives.”

  “And why would we want to do that?”

  “Because it’s better than the alternative,” he said. He looked over at me, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. He shook his head and grinned. “You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know.”

  “I know.”

  And he kept on looking at me. “Sitting here, in this light, you look exactly like him.”

  “That’s because I am him, Clarke.”

  We were alone in the small weight room. Just around the corner next to us was the entrance to the women’s locker room. Woohoo! Sometimes, when the door opened wide enough, you could catch a glimpse inside. And each time it did, Clarke and I automatically leaned a little to the side to get a better view. Just two harmless, although slightly perverted, old men. But, alas, it was the middle of the day and the Y was quiet, with only a handful of women coming and going.

  “I know that,” he said, “but with all the plastic surgery it’s easy to forget....” his voice trailed off as he studied me some more. I hate being studied. “Upon first glance, you look nothing like him. You added a dimple to your chin and did something with your eyes and lips. Your disguise is perfect. You sound perfect. But sometimes, when you smile—”

  “Let’s drop it,” I said, cutting in.

  “—you look exactly fucking like him,” he said, finishing anyway.

  A young gal stepped out of the women’s locker room and crossed between us, hair wet and dressed in a business suit. She left behind a vapor trail of fine shampoo, soap and womanliness. We both casually watched her go.

  “We’re pigs, you know,” said Clarke.

  “No, we’re old men. We’re allowed to look at the ladies. It’s a privileged we’ve earned. They know we’re harmless. Hell, I think they even like it.”

  “Like it or not, I saw her glance your way as she passed.”

  “Maybe she likes old men with chin dimples,” I said.

  “Except you don’t really look like an old man. I’m mean you’re older, but, but you still look like a movie star.”

  “I am a movie star.”

  “You were a movie star.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Either way, you still kind of look like one. People think they know you from somewhere and it drives them fucking crazy.”

  “Not to mention I happen to be cute,” I said.

  “Let’s change the subject,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Clarke cranked out another ten reps from the bench machine. I probably should have done another set from the shoulder press, but my shoulder was aching a little. For all the compliments, I was still seventy-four, and these old shoulders weren’t getting any younger.

  When Clarke was finished, with his lightning vein throbbing, he said, “So how’s the case coming along?”

  I caught him up to speed, ending with Flip and his twin brother tricking Miranda into sex in high school.

  “You’re reaching,” said Clarke when I had finished.

  “I have nothing else to reach for,” I said.

  “He was just a high school sweetheart.”

  “Not exactly a sweetheart,” I said. “He was willing to give her to his brother for a night.”

  “So he’s charitable,” said Clarke. “Either way, I don’t see how it relates to the case.”

  “It doesn’t,” I said, “except for one thing.”

  “She still kept the letters,” said Clarke, nodding.

  “That,” I said, “and that he’s dead.”

  Clarke raised his eyebrows. “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I did. After leaving Dana’s home, I went back to my crime fighting headquarters, or my apartment, and did some research. I ran Flip Barowski’s name through one of my industry data bases, privy only to police and private eyes, and, surprise of all surprises, only one Flip Barowski came up. And the one who came up, came up dead. And not just dead, but murdered. A single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Execution style. Two weeks ago to this day. Four days before Miranda’s disappearance.

  “Could be a coincidence,” Clarke said.

  “Could be,” I said.

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t. But, then again, I’ve been wrong before.”

  Chapter Forty

  I’d performed for presidents and royalty, in packed stadiums and concert venues around the world, and yet when I stepped into the Pussycat for rehearsal that afternoon there were butterflies in my stomach unlike any I had ever experienced. I wanted to puke, go home, and drink myself into oblivion. Exactly in that order.

  It was only three-thirty in the afternoon, and the bar was mostly empty, although there was a young couple sitting discretely together, their knees touching, each drinking from their own bottles of beer. I figured them to be tourists, judging by their distinct lack of tans.

  The handsome bartender smiled brightly at me when he saw me. “Hey, it’s Mr. Johnny Cash,” he said, and reached his hand over the counter and shook mine. “Welcome back.”

  If only he knew.

  “Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” I said. “Thanks again.”

  “Hey, man, all you needed was a nudge. Trust me, you did all the rest.”

  A female customer came in behind me and sat at the bar. The young bartender nodded to her, winked at me, and went back to work. I continued on through the nightclub and headed toward the stage near the back, where Becky was sitting at her piano and flipping through a songbook.

  “Hi there, pretty mama,” I said, after stepping up onto stage.

  She looked up and smiled and hopped to her feet. She moved quickly around the piano and gave me a world-class hugs. I love world-class hugs, especially from pretty young pianists. She kissed me lightly on the cheek, Hollywood style. Her lips felt nice, and her touch felt nicer. There’s an inherent camaraderie among musicians, young or old, and it was something I had missed for far too long.

  Well, not anymore, dammit.

  “You look like hell, King,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” I said.

  She grinned easily. She was beautiful in a sort of asexual, sisterly sort of way. Sorry, guys. I mean she seemed to have all the goods, pretty face, long blond hair, and a petite frame. But she wasn’t sexy. Perhaps she was too petite. Perhaps she dressed too conservatively. Perhaps I shouldn’t give a damn since I was fifty years her senior.

  “Don’t take it personally, King. I’m just f-ing with you.”

  She took my hand and led me to the piano bench and sat me down next to her. Our legs touched and, asexual or not, a shiver of pleasure coursed through me.

  Focus, King. And quit acting like a schoolboy.

  “I got your email,” she said, “And I like your taste in music.”

  “Do you know the songs?”

  “Like the back of my hand,” she said. “And you’re obviously quite fond of Tom Jones.”

  “One of the greatest performers I’ve
ever seen.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I like him, too,” she said. “You also have a lot of Neil Diamond in there.”

  “Neil was an old friend.” Shit. The moment the words came out, I realized my mistake. Easy on the name-dropping, big guy. “Well, friends might be too strong of a word. We chatted a few times back in the day. Now we’re just Facebook friends, although he won’t stop sending me all those damn Farmville requests.”

  I could feel her eyes on me, scanning every square inch of my face, no doubt racking her brain for some memory of me. If my plastic surgery held up, there wouldn’t be any memory to trigger. Finally, she said, “You’re funny, King. You ready to work through the set today?”

  My stomach did a double flip.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.

  “Relax. I have a feeling you aren’t going to need a lot of practice.”

  “We’ll see.”

  And so I sat there by her side, our legs touching, and sang a set of fourteen songs, and when we were done, with my voice nearly hoarse and my spirit hovering somewhere near the ceiling, I looked around and saw that we had attracted a small crowd at the base of the stage.

  “It’s only rehearsal,” she said, patting my hand, “and already they love you.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  I pulled out of my gated apartment complex and immediately picked up a tail. No, not that kind of tail. A green Intrepid pulled away from the street and followed me down the hill, and proceeded to follow me all the way to Larchmont Street, about six miles away. Coincidence? I think not.

  I pulled into a spot in front of Chevalier’s Bookstore, and the green Intrepid pulled into a spot about five rows down and across the street. The driver was male. He wore sunglasses and had short brown hair and that’s all I knew.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called a PI research service of mine. I punched my way through the phone system and soon got a live operator. I gave him my pin and password, then gave him the Intrepid’s license plate number. Five minutes later, I had a name. Or, rather, a business name.

  The vehicle was owned by the Keys Agency. I knew of the Keys Agency. They were a rival private investigation agency here in L.A. I thought about that a little and then stepped out of my car.