Ghosts

by Matt Rogers

  Ward sighed, bowed his head. Working out whether to elaborate or not. Then he decided.

  He said, ‘Then consider yourself lucky.’

  She paused. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Have a nice day, ma’am.’

  He started to stand up.

  She reached out and put a hand on his forearm, gently keeping him in place. Alan Ward was in good shape. He had muscle there, tanned by the Nevada sun. He was young and baby-faced, still new to the force. The job stress hadn’t worn him down yet. She knew that was the only reason he didn’t walk away.

  Naivety.

  She said, ‘Tell me.’

  He didn’t answer.

  She said, ‘Was I in danger?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s all rumours.’

  ‘Do you work with him?’

  Ward shook his head. ’He retired. He’s not around anymore.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘No one knows.’

  She paused. ‘That’s cryptic.’

  ‘It was supposed to be. I’m not supposed to be talking to you.’

  ‘Hey,’ she said, her hand still on his arm. ‘Look at me.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I mean it. That was the right thing to do. I’d want to know if … he would have been a problem. You didn’t have to tell me but you did. Can we forget the cop-civilian thing? I’m saying thank you. From me.’

  He said, ‘It’s okay.’

  She inched her hand off his skin.

  He didn’t walk away.

  She said, ‘What are the rumours?’

  He was quiet.

  She said, ‘Alan. Please.’

  Still quiet.

  She said, ‘Forget the drink thing. I’m not flirting with you. I just want to know.’

  He said, ‘If I tell you what I know, you can’t tell a soul.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘It’s always obvious,’ he said. ‘But not everyone keeps their word.’

  ‘I keep my word.’

  She looked into his eyes.

  She didn’t blink.

  She thought, Should have walked away, Alan. You’re in too deep now.

  She said, ‘If I almost got caught up in something bad, I have the right to know. So I can be wary of it in future.’

  He said, ‘There’s a notorious pimp in this town. His name’s Armando Gates.’

  Her heart thudded.

  She didn’t have to fake it.

  Ward said, ‘The FBI raided his home two years ago, and nothing came of it. There was talk of a cover-up, but it dissipated. Since then he’s been repeatedly reported to our department by the families of alleged victims. Vice detectives passed the complaints up to Keith, and Keith shut each of them down as they came in. That’s when the rumours started going around. Keith’s been seen having a drink with Gates, Keith’s been coming into work hungover, Keith’s off the rails. The more the rumours spread, the harder he tried to turn the force cultish. Punished naysayers for unrelated things, tried to instil a climate of fear. The department was deep in the middle of it when I came on board. I had no idea why everyone was so jumpy all the time. Then junior officers at their wits’ end started leaking more details to me, explaining what I just told you. A couple of months after I showed up, Keith retired and went to work for Armando Gates.’

  Alexis’ shock wasn’t forced. ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘He stuck to his guns — I’ll give him that. Never wavered once. Never even doubted himself, despite how bad it looked. He claimed that despite the endless complaints made against Armando Gates, the man had never been indicted. Keith, in his retirement from active service, was going into “Close Personal Protection” civilian work, and Gates was simply a client in need of protection. Gates had never been charged for any of the complaints made against him, so what was the problem? In the eyes of the law, Gates was an innocent man. So that was that. None of us on the force heard from Keith Ray again.’

  She sat there, silent.

  ‘That’s all I’m going to say,’ he said. ‘You fill in the blanks. But you dodged a bullet.’

  Alan Ward walked away.

  Alexis pulled her phone out of the centre console and dialled Slater.

  He answered before the first ring.

  She said, ‘Gates and Ray are in bed together.’

  He said, ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘A junior officer just confessed to me Ray went to work for Gates after he retired from the force. As his personal bodyguard.’

  Slater soaked it in. ‘How’d you get that out of a junior officer?’

  ‘I asked.’

  Slater said, ‘Well done.’

  She said, ‘Start the war.’

  23

  King heard Slater say ‘You’re sure?’ and then ‘How’d you get that out of a junior officer?’

  He didn’t need to hear the rest. He knew they were on. He put the BMW into gear.

  This car was theirs, not rented like the Bentley. It was an older model, but impressive enough to fit their cover. Gates would see them arrive, so it wouldn’t be prudent to show up in a rustbucket.

  He veered round the outskirts of the mall and aimed for the same laneway.

  Slater hung up the phone and stared out the windshield.

  ‘We’re on,’ he said. ‘But I take it you already figured that out.’

  King said, ‘This first part will be tense.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  Slater seemed genuinely stressed, and King couldn’t tell whether it was part of the act or not. King had a lump of tension in his throat, and he didn’t blame himself — if they were simply going in there to raze the club to the ground, they’d be more certain. They’d be in a war state of mind. But Elsa was still unaccounted for, and the labyrinth of Gates and Ray and Kerr was still unsolved, so the best choice of action was to turn at least two of the parties on each other. That’d draw all the hired gangsters and thugs and killers out of the woodwork, which would make it easier to clean up the whole mess in one fell swoop.

  Until then…

  King pulled into the laneway. In daylight it was even grimier. Trash everywhere, dumpsters overflowing with everything the restaurants in the mall discarded on a daily basis. The care applied to cleanliness in the massive establishments on the Strip was non-existent here.

  ‘Remember,’ King said, ‘we’re outraged.’

  ‘We sure are,’ Slater said.

  He was sweating.

  King screeched the BMW to a halt only feet from the back door to Wan’s. It was a furious arrival, completely lacking in subtlety. King threw the driver’s door open and shot out of the car in full view of the CCTV camera skewered into the bricks above the door. He went up the steps and pounded a fist on the wood, shaking the whole thing in its frame. He kept up the noisy banging as Slater got out of the passenger seat and strode up behind him.

  They were dressed in their worn, ruffled clothes from the night before. The suits were creased and their shirts hung open. To make it look like they’d been up all night, stressed out of their minds.

  The door flew open in their faces. Gates was there, deep bags under his wide eyes, the same Glock in his raised hand. He was flanked by two men, these ones lacking face tats. But they were still mean and big and glowing with unreleased anger. They were both white. They didn’t look any less dangerous than the Calle 18 killers from the night before. They had their own pistols — a HK and a SIG Sauer. Heavy duty gear.

  A small arsenal, aimed at King and Slater’s faces.

  King started, ‘Whoa! What’s this—?’

  He couldn’t finish the sentence before one of the big henchmen grabbed him by the shirt and tore all the buttons away hauling him inside.

  King made himself lose his footing. He couldn’t afford to look competent. He sprawled on the tiles and put his hands out to show he was unarmed, but it didn’t stop a couple of kicks raining down on his upper back. They hurt. The guy had put some
weight into them.

  King rolled onto his back, panting for breath, and saw Gates and the other thug step outside to snatch Slater. Slater feigned uselessness too, and let them throw him into the corridor where he came down alongside King.

  King thought, Go with it.

  Please, for the love of God, go with it.

  We have too much riding on this.

  Slater went with it.

  Gates stomped on Slater’s stomach, and Slater spluttered and moaned in pain. King knew it was falsified — Slater was more familiar with pain than anyone on earth. But King followed suit, crying out when the two thugs stomped down on his arms and chest.

  Gates slammed the door shut and yelled, ‘Get them up!’

  King let them manhandle him. It wasn’t easy — he had to pretend he couldn’t do anything with his two hundred and twenty pound frame. He hunched his shoulders and made himself appear smaller as one of the henchmen led him down the corridor with a tight grip on the back of his collar. Halfway down, the guy came round from behind with an open-handed slap against King’s cheek. It blinded him momentarily, and his instincts screamed at him to fight back.

  He didn’t.

  The thug shoved him into the back room that acted as Gates’ office and pushed him down into one of the chairs. The guy trained his gun on King’s face.

  King’s cheek stung from the slap, and his shoulder throbbed from the stomp.

  But he wasn’t injured.

  Not even close.

  Gates and the other man hauled Slater in and threw him into the other chair. Then the three of them stood in a menacing line. Two guns trained on King, one on Slater.

  Gates said, ‘You’ve got some fucking nerve coming back here.’

  ‘Do we?!’ King shouted.

  Mock outrage.

  It made Gates hesitate.

  Panting hard, Slater said, ‘What is this? Huh? Why are you doing this to us?’

  Gates walked right up to him and put the barrel against his forehead. ‘You shut the fuck up.’

  Slater shut up.

  King said, ‘There’s been a misunderstanding here, man.’

  ‘You killed four of my guys!’ Gates screamed, a vein throbbing on his temple. ‘Four! And then you have the nerve to come back. What, you thought you could finish the job? Think again.’

  ‘We’re not armed!’ King yelled. ‘For God’s sakes, what do you think we were planning? To do it with our bare hands?’

  That stopped Gates in his tracks.

  King flooded his eyes with as much confusion as he could muster, and beside him he sensed Slater doing the same.

  Gates backed off, the Glock still raised.

  But he wasn’t livid anymore.

  He said, ‘What exactly is going on here?’

  24

  Now, King thought.

  He put scorn in his eyes.

  ‘You’re lucky we even came back,’ he hissed. ‘I had to convince my buddy here not to flee the goddamn county. Now are you going to explain yourself?’

  ‘Explain myself?!’ Gates said, enraged.

  ‘That’s what we came back for,’ Slater said. ‘An explanation.’

  The Glock Gates was aiming wavered, ever so slightly. He paused, thinking.

  King let a shocked expression cross his face, as if he were only now digesting Gates’ words. He said, ‘Hold on, you think we killed your guys?!’

  ‘Who else would it have been?’ Gates said, bloodshot eyes boring into them.

  Slater said, ‘We’d love to know, too. And while you’re at it, tell us how you got us involved in this mess in the first place.’

  Gates’ gaze flared from man to man. He didn’t see the slightest chink in the armour of their story, because they sure as hell weren’t letting one slip through.

  He said, ‘Tell me what you saw, and be quick about it. If you know what’s good for you.’

  King loosened his tongue, and started talking fast. ‘We had second thoughts about Melanie, and we’re sorry about that, but it’s just what happened. We got cold feet and freaked out and didn’t want to incriminate ourselves so we asked her to get out of the car. She wasn’t too happy about it but she did it anyway, and then your guys got mad — like really, really mad. They drove us into this deserted lot and pulled us out of the car and we thought we were going to die … I swear to God I thought I was done for. But I knew you were a reasonable guy, so I guess I was optimistic, and then cops showed up.’

  Gates froze. ‘Cops?’

  ‘They were in undercover cars,’ King said. ‘But they were cops. A couple of them were in uniform. There were two of them in each car and they got out and started talking to your guys like they knew them? Like, it was all really calm, and everything seemed to be taken down a notch, and then … I don’t know, man, this is crazy…’

  ‘Say it,’ Gates hissed.

  Slater picked up where King left off. ‘They just pulled out their guns and shot your guys, man. Just unloaded on them. They couldn’t even put up a fight. And they didn’t see me and my buddy here, not until after they’d killed them all. We were on our knees in the shadows, getting yelled at by your guys, and then the cops pulled up and spoke to them, and then suddenly all of them were dead. That’s when the cops saw us. They asked us if we knew some guy called Keith, and I said, “Who the hell is that?” because it’s the truth. They thought it over, and, man, we thought we were dead all over again. Then maybe they figured they’d killed enough people so they told us to go home and keep our mouths shut if we knew what was good for us.’

  Slater fell quiet, as if realising he was saying too much.

  King didn’t speak.

  They both looked at the floor.

  Seconds later, when the silence in the cramped office became overwhelming, they looked up.

  Gates was statuesque.

  King hadn’t thought his eyes could get any wider.

  They were now.

  Gates said, ‘Repeat one thing for me. What exactly did they ask you? Some guy called who?’

  ‘Keith,’ Slater said, his voice quivering. ‘You know a Keith?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gates said. ‘I know a fucking Keith.’

  He hissed, ‘Make sure they don’t go anywhere,’ to his two henchmen, then stormed out of the room.

  Deathly quiet.

  King looked at Slater.

  Slater looked at King.

  King thought, Problem.

  They’d figured Gates would be preoccupied with the revelation and would let them go. If they were now hostages…

  Well, some heads might have to be smashed together after all.

  25

  The valet at Caesar’s handed Violetta’s keys over.

  She’d rented a Rolls Royce for the occasion. It sure fit her cover. She thanked the man, maintaining the accent, and trotted for the driver’s door. Her work here was done.

  The burner phone in her clutch started ringing.

  She stopped in her tracks, thinking, Damn, that was quick.

  There was only one person it could be. She’d had business cards printed weeks earlier for a multitude of burner phones, and she’d only given one card out for the phone in her clutch. She pulled it out, swiped to answer the blocked number, and lifted it to her ear.

  She refused to speak first.

  A cool female voice said, ‘Where’s your security, darling?’

  There was the faintest hint of a voice scrambler behind the scenes, so that Gloria Kerr had plausible deniability if the call was recorded and used as blackmail.

  Violetta didn’t look over her shoulder. She got behind the wheel, well aware there were eyes on her, but maintaining all the poise of an organised crime matriarch.

  She said, ‘I do not need security, my dear. I am my own security.’

  ‘That’s not smart,’ the voice said. ‘I could have you shot dead in your car seat. Look at you sitting there, all exposed.’

  Violetta laughed. Like she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘Then my
demands must not have been accurately conveyed.’

  ‘They were conveyed just fine,’ the voice said. ‘Only I’m finding it hard to believe them.’

  ‘It is on you,’ Violetta said. ‘You are the one who will deal with the consequences.’

  She leant forward, peering up and out of the windshield, making her profile larger.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ she said. ‘Shoot.’

  Gloria Kerr said, ‘What is it you want exactly?’

  ‘I already told your man,’ Violetta said. ‘I do not like to repeat myself.’

  ‘You want a meeting with me? Is that it?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Are you just going to threaten me in this meeting?’

  ‘No,’ Violetta said. ‘I am interested in doing business.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Violetta purred. ‘If that is the case, then I will take Vegas. You are a public figure. It will ruin you. You cannot match what I can bring down on this city.’

  Silence.

  Violetta said, ‘Or we can talk. We can negotiate in advance. We can be partners.’

  ‘The industry is mine. We’re not going to be partners.’

  ‘I am flexible,’ Violetta said. ‘If we go that way. I am not flexible if we go the other way. So are you open to a discussion?’

  ‘I have a lunch meeting,’ Kerr said. ‘Get to my offices before then and we’ll talk. If you even think about trying to blackmail me I’ll bury you and everyone you’ve brought with you. I own the cops.’

  ‘Darling,’ Violetta said. ‘If I wanted to blackmail you, I would have blackmailed you. And you never would have known I existed.’

  Silence.

  Violetta thought, Twist the knife.

  It was her best shot at putting Kerr on the back foot. If she was reeling, she was more likely to surrender important information.

  ‘Just remember,’ Violetta said, ‘you cannot pretend to be a shark in these waters. You must be the shark.’

  Silence.

  Violetta said, ‘See you soon.’

  She hung up and drove out of the valet zone, onto Las Vegas Boulevard. No shot came through the windshield. No blood sprayed from her chest or her face. Tourists shuffled up and down the Strip under the glare of the sun, some overweight and sweating freely, others thinner. The Rolls purred into gridlock traffic and Violetta swiped to a different app on her phone, bringing up the address for the offices of the Clark County District Attorney.