“We’re not finding him on any of the feeds.”
“Okay. Check with the front desk. Find out if Senator Justice Lake is registered in the hotel. If so, we need to check his room. Better yet, we need to find him. STAT. Break the rules, do what you need to do. I’ll shoulder the consequences. Just find him!” I tried not to shout—I didn’t want the closest bystanders to hear, but damn! Senator Lake!
Granted, Lake was a worm, and a particular thorn in Ponder’s foot—they were on opposing teams in the NFL in Vegas battle, but Ponder had won. And knifing Lake wasn’t even close to an ideal solution to the bad blood between them—a good one maybe, but not ideal. I’d met Lake once. He was the kind of guy who put the justifiable in justifiable homicide. But I couldn’t see the point in testing that theory if one had already won.
“Where am I?” Ponder whispered, his voice hoarse.
“The Babylon,” I answered. “Mr. Ponder,” I let a hint of demand into my voice. “We need to find Senator Lake. Where is he?”
Flashes popped as the crowd pressed in, eager to record every word.
“Lake?” he spat the word. “You find him; I’ll kill him.”
Bethany moved in close. Leaning in, she whispered, “I know where you can find him.”
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT?” I whirled on her. “How would you know?” I didn’t mean it quite the way it came out. Fear was doing the talking—how could my kid cousin be caught up in a murder or assault, or something bad with a whole lot of blood?
“See those welts?” She pointed to red marks peppering the right side of Ponder’s face and his neck and torso where his shirt gaped open. “I know what caused them.”
In a blinding bolt of clarity, I did too.
“Ponder was at War Vegas tonight?”
Bethany nodded, her eyes dark in a pale face.
I snagged my phone from its place on my hip and dialed.
Romeo picked up before it even rang on my end. “Almost there. Shit, you’d think there was a demonstrators’ convention in town from the number of folks out here with banners and placards.”
“If you don’t have a cause, a bullhorn, and a closed mind these days, you can’t get any press. I need you to change routes.” I gave him the lowdown on our theory, keeping my voice low and my hand cupped over my mouth—last thing we needed was a bunch of interested spectators going along for the gruesome ride.
“You think somebody shot Senator Lake and his body is somewhere at War Vegas?” Romeo didn’t sound surprised. In fact, he sounded world-weary and stretched so thin he twanged. Tires squealed in the background.
I could picture him wheeling his lumbering Metro-issued vehicle through a tight U-Turn, the shocks sagging, the whole thing leaning against centrifugal force. “Nobody here can find Ponder on any of the video feeds which means he likely wasn’t in the hotel when he got all that blood all over him.”
“Okay, I’m en route. I’ll send a couple of officers to hang on to Ponder until I can get there.”
Somebody else could come arrest him or take him in for questioning, I felt sure. But I didn’t want anyone handling Ponder and my hotel other than Romeo and his kid-glove treatment, so I didn’t suggest it. “I’ll stash Ponder in my office. The doc should give him a once-over—he’s higher than a three-year-old on a Tonka truck overload.”
“That bad?”
“A kite on a very long string.”
“You never run out of those things, do you?”
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
MR. PONDER SLUMPED in a chair by the window in the front vestibule of my office. When I’d designed the windows overlooking the lobby below, privacy of a potential murder suspect hadn’t been front and center. His back to the glass—we’d drawn the shades to keep zoom lenses and grainy news footage at bay.
Breathing a bit easier now, he kept his head bowed.
“Asshole!” A voice sang out from the corner.
I laughed; I couldn’t help myself. Leave it to my foul-mouthed Macaw, Newton, to correctly sum up a situation in one word.
“Can’t you train that bird any better?” Jerry and his man had half-carried Ponder to the mezzanine.
With a hand to my chest, I feigned insult. “Please. He nailed it.”
“You got the EMTs coming?” Jerry asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Of course. Our job is to keep him alive until they get through the crazies out front.” The NFL, once America’s pastime—or was that baseball? Anyway, one of our defining sports had become polarizing. Factions squared off over a neutral zone patrolled by the police, everyone shouting obscenities across the divide. Kneel or don’t kneel? Offense so easily taken where none was meant.
Closed minds, open mouths. A sign of the times.
I wanted my magic back…and maybe some civility and appreciation for differences and the learning possibilities inherent in them. Yeah, I’m a dreamer.
But Vegas, the land of misfit humans, was good at that melting-pot thing. Maybe we could lead the nation into a kinder and gentler world. The thought, so out there, struck me as a real possibility. New York City knew how to break down fences as well.
“I’d say Narcan as a precaution.” Jerry was one step ahead of me on the same trail. Ponder looked like just another opioid overdose. We’d seen so many lately I could recognize them at a hundred yards.
We had two kits stashed in the kitchenette—somehow that seemed like a good place for an antidote to narcotic poisoning. I handed the kit to Jerry and he did the administering—blood wasn’t my thing, and Mr. Ponder had bathed in the stuff.
Almost immediately, Mr. Ponder’s breathing eased. If only something could bestow the same effect on me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about who had donated all that blood. Where was he? Yes, I had everyone beating the bushes and if the victim was in my hotel, we’d find him, but I needed to do something. Nothing worse than being at the starting line, engines revving, waiting…
Pretty soon my head would explode, or I would.
My assistant, Miss P, all polished perfection in her Dolce, cascades of gold chains, and spiked golden hair with matching attitude, rushed through the door only a few minutes behind us.
I skewered her with the spear of my frustration. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping the former NFL greats, and the current ones, from misbehaving by offering them supervised VIP treatment?” That sounded a lot like handling teenagers, probably for good reason—though young humans were not my forte, nor in my job description, thank God.
Although, Christophe, my fiancé Jean-Charles, five-year-old son, and I seemed to be getting along. Probably a reason for that, too—maturity wasn’t my strong suit.
Miss P raised an eyebrow—something she’d learned from me, which didn’t necessarily mean it was an appropriate response. “Brandy’s handling it.” Brandy, young, beautiful, and Detective Romeo’s main squeeze was the youngest member of our Customer Service Inner Circle.
Miss P, ever the hostess no matter how unseemly the gathering, poured Champagne for Jerry and herself, Wild Turkey 101 for me.
Mr. Ponder got water. He didn’t seem to care. Instead, he’d crinkle his brows and glance around, taking us all in, each time as if seeing us for the first time. Sweat ran in rivulets down the sides of his face. Periodically, he’d hike a sleeve and scratch at his skin—it was almost raw. One leg bounced, powered by nervous energy; yet, he remained curiously removed from the blood.
To have words with Jerry, I turned my back on the room and stepped closer. “Where were you?”
Circles of sweat darkened his shirt under each arm. With his fingers, he touched at the sweat dripping down his face, then he studied his fingers as if expecting blood, and then he wiped them on his khakis. “We’d gotten a call. Disturbance in the Bungalows.” The Bungalows in the Kasbah was our private enclave reserved for only the most worthy patrons which, by casino definition, were the ones keeping the most money in play on a very regular
basis.
“And?”
“False alarm.”
“Who made the call?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Fox took it. Haven’t had a chance to dig out the details.” His hand shook as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped the sweat.
“You okay?” I squeezed his arm and he flinched.
“Sure.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Ran to the Kasbah. Then to the lobby when I heard your call. No time to catch my breath.”
“Still smoking?”
“This job eats a hole in you.” A hackneyed excuse.
“If you’re looking for an easy way out, lung cancer isn’t it.”
The door burst open, interrupting his glare.
My father, his face pinched in pain and worry, his beard a dark shadow on unusually pale skin, strode through. While he lacked his normal bravado, he radiated enough pissed-off to attract everyone’s attention.
Great. Who invited drama to this party?
“Lucky! What the hell? Why do you want to find Senator Lake, that asshole?” His eyes bugged when he got a look at Mr. Ponder. “Nolan? Shit! Who shot you?”
“Nobody,” I managed before being drowned in the shriek of Sky Ponder, the current Mrs., who rode in on my father’s wake.
Ponder flinched. Hell, we all did.
One step too slow, I almost caught her, but before Jerry, who was slower still, and I could stop her, she flung herself across the room toward her husband. We needn’t have worried that she’d deposit her trace on him as well—she stopped at the sight of him, leaving a foot between them. “Oh, Nolan!”
Jerry took one arm, and I took the other, making her a human wishbone. “Give me an excuse, Sky. We’ll make a wish.”
Tiny and emaciated in the current style, Sky was no match for my bulk, even though she tugged and twisted and clawed at my grip on her arm. So much for my threats. “Sky, pull yourself together. This isn’t helping.” A bad tack, I know. Telling a crazed person to pull herself together usually backfired and this time was no exception, but I was all out of clever.
She turned on me, talons at the ready and going for my eyes. Cocking my elbow, I waited for a clear shot. One blow to her jaw…or maybe her nose—putting a kink in its surgical perfection would be striking a blow for us unaltered heathens.
Just as I coiled, lining up on a target, Jerry grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. He picked her up, saving me from myself. Stellar character that I am, I graced him with a glare.
What was it with me tonight? I was itching for a fight and couldn’t figure out what was spurring me on.
Of course, being railroaded into plans to meet my fiancé’s mother might have something to do with it. Shouldn’t I be the leading lady of my own life? Right now it seemed everybody else got the plum parts and I had only a minor speaking role.
With her feet dangling, Sky Ponder flailed backward at Jerry, but only landed one glancing blow, losing a shoe—a Lou-bou, of course. I kicked it aside. How did such a classless woman come by classy taste? Imitation, according to my mother, but that would mean the woman had a modicum of intellect, which was impossible to detect.
I could’ve told her fixing up the outside never upgraded the inside—that took way more work. Not that she would understand or care.
Jerry plopped Mrs. Ponder unceremoniously in a chair, catching her as the chair threatened to tip over backward. “Be still or you’ll be spending the rest of the night in the drunk tank in the basement.” Beads of sweat glistened on his bald pate. Far from his normal pillar of strength, he looked a little wobbly, his gaze darting around the room. From her chair, Mrs. Ponder lashed out. Her remaining shoe connected with Jerry’s shin in a bone-bruising thunk. He didn’t even flinch.
“Sky! I’ll have you arrested.” I barked the words like a rabid dog, thankfully without the frothing mouth. “Now, sit and shut up.”
That seemed to do it. She squirmed in her chair like an overactive child but she stayed put.
Threats—a major arrow in my quiver of control—were having only limited success.
“Arrested for what?” Cowed, she still could throw some attitude.
“Being supremely irritating.”
Miss P hid her smirk at Sky’s acceptance of my bullshit.
I watched Jerry. Something about him looked off. His breathing was shallow, his face haggard as he leaned against the wall behind Mrs. Ponder. Maybe he was tired, as he’d said—he sure looked it.
My father loomed over Nolan Ponder. “Are you hurt?” He looked around the room, then glared at me. “Why haven’t you helped him?”
“We’ve done all we can. EMTs are on their way. The doc, too, though he’s handling high volume tonight.”
“He’s not hurt?” Some of his bluster leaked away.
I shook my head. “High as a kite, but the blood is somebody else’s.”
He whirled on Ponder, who was still taking all of this rather casually, even as stoned as he was. “What the hell have you done?”
“Don’t answer that,” I ordered Mr. Ponder. Apparently, I was the only one thinking down the road to incarcerations and courtrooms.
But, to be honest, I was half-inclined to throttle the truth out of him. I had no idea how to balance his interests with the blood donor’s. Romeo hadn’t called, so I assumed he hadn’t found a victim—not that he’d had much time.
Amazingly, Ponder clamped his mouth shut, leaving me in my precarious ethical dilemma.
“Father.” I could do pissed off, too. “You know better. He’s whacked out of his mind. We’ve got enough problems right now without encouraging self-incrimination, our largest being the person who’s missing all that blood.” I think I might have yelled that last part.
“Seems Ponder could shed some light on that.” His growl matched my bite.
“He can’t remember jack,” I said, hoping a lack of information would shut down his bluster. “We’re turning over every rock we can think of, hoping he slithers out. I got this one, Father.” My father on the warpath would be more than I could handle tonight. Old-school Vegas, he was used to handling problems in his own style, which often not only flouted the law but beat it into submission.
He backed down. “This whole NFL thing has the world on tilt.”
“No shit.” I took a deep breath. There was nothing else to do but hold the lid on until the EMTs and the cops got here. “Mr. Ponder,” I asked all casual-like, “without saying more, would you happen to know where Senator Lake might be?”
“Lake?” My father tensed. “What does that snake have to do with this?” His eyes widened. “You think the blood is—”
I silenced him with a slitty-eyed look, then turned back to Ponder. “Senator Lake? Have you seen him?”
Ponder wove a little in his chair as he tried to hold eye contact. “Dark. Shot. Blood.” He shivered.
Sky pressed her perfect pageboy into place, then tucked her hands under her thighs. Everything about her set my teeth on edge. The forced concern. The histrionics. And wasn’t there a law about wearing Lilly Pulitzer outside of Florida or after midnight? Her dress was perfect for a yacht in the Med but not so much for after-hours Vegas in January. And neon orange nail polish was trying way too hard. “He’s not talking until our lawyer gets here.”
“Sky?” Ponder perked up like a puppy responding to his master’s voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
From his tone, it was hard to tell whether he was happy or not. Confusion was what came through the loudest.
“I just got in.” She gave me a measured glance, not even bothering to veil the challenge in it. “I was looking for my husband, then I saw the videos go up on YouTube. I grabbed Albert, and here we are.” Her voice, high-pitched with a perpetual whine, reminded me of a five-year-old—even though you could crush them, they lied to you anyway…just to see what would happen.
“You weren’t expected?”
She plucked at the hem of her skirt, drawin
g the attention of every male in the room to her legs—a strategy as old as time.
“Mrs. Ponder?”
“My husband, I thought I’d surprise him.”
“Damn party,” Ponder growled. “I told you not to come.”
I glanced back at him. His head hung forward, his chin on his chest.
“A party?”
Sky answered for him. “It is a big celebration moving the team to Vegas.” She shrugged a bony shoulder as her gaze skittered from mine. “Nobody wants to be left out of the biggest party of the year.”
I wanted to disagree—I’d be more than happy to be left out. “Where’d you come in from?” I asked.
She ignored me for a moment as if trying to figure out who was the Alpha dog in the room. Her gaze swept the room, then reluctantly, like a puppy looking for love, sniffed in my direction. “L.A. I have a suite at Chateau Marmont,” she said as if I surely should know that. “What happened here? What have your goons done to my husband? Why is there all that…that…blood?” She gave a shiver of revulsion worthy of an Oscar, but a tiny tear trickling down her cheek would ice it. I kept looking for it but it never came.
“Shut up and sit down, Sky.” Nolan Ponder waded into the fray; his voice weak but filled with conviction. The drugs were losing their effect.
“First, Lucky, could you have someone escort my wife to our suite?”
Now, that was an unexpected turn. So, the current Mrs. had only need-to-know status. Interesting.
Sky stomped her foot—she’d reinstalled the shoe after shaking some sand out of it. “Nolan!”
He waved her away.
She reached for his arm, but I grabbed her before she touched him. Enough of us had donated to the trace evidence on the man already.
“You call me, Nolan, if you need anything.” With a quick move, she bypassed me and pressed a cellphone into his hand.
He dropped it, and it clattered to the floor.
I retrieved it—an iPhone, its case emblazoned with the new team logo in red and gold.
He took it, stuffing it in an inside jacket pocket, then his face closed and he nodded to Jerry. “Get rid of her.”
Lucky Score Page 3