“You won’t.” He gave me a complicit smile. “You want to see how this whole thing turns out almost as much as I do.”
Damn, I hated it when someone read me right. “Who has your ass in a crack? The Ponders or Senator Lake?”
“An interesting ménage, don’t you think?” He stepped to the bar to pour himself another drink, leaving me to dangle on that hook. “I’m really not sure exactly what is going on between those three, but it’s some weird shit.”
“And how did you end up in the middle?”
“Mr. Ponder’s money gal. Long story, her marriage is on a fast track to nowhere. Her husband’s an idiot who can’t keep it zipped. She and I, we’re friends.”
The tumblers fell into place. “Is she here in the hotel?”
A side-eye from Boudreaux.
Easy to read—how much truth did he have to feed me to keep me on the hook, or something to that effect.
“Just arrived.”
So he knew. Had she called him or had someone else put the bug in his ear? And I was also wondering why he felt the need to exonerate her in some fashion. “Is this money gal brunette, pretty with a haughty disdain to match?” The gal in the lobby looking for someone or something, holding the phone with the Marauder’s logo on the back.
“Yeah, but once she gets to know you, she’s cool.”
“You guys working together?” I didn’t tell him I’d scored her a room and she owed me.
“More like me working her.”
Men! When it came to women, even dogs had a leg up in figuring them out. The woman had fifty IQ points and light years of evolution on the footballer, but he still thought he was running the offense.
“What’s your angle?”
“She’s in tight with Ponder.” He kept his voice flat, his insinuation cloaked. He took a sip of his drink. It looked like straight cola. His grimace confirmed it. Painted by the odd flickering light, he stood at the window and stared up at the party. The tissue in his nose fell to the ground. He hardly noticed it. “Something’s going down.”
“What?”
He looked at me like I needed an infusion of IQ points.
“I know. You don’t know. But any ideas?”
“Got something to do with Lake. I’ve been trying to find him, but he’s gone radio silent.”
He didn’t know Lake was dead—or he wanted me to think he didn’t know.
“Tell me about that bruise on your cheek.” The angry red rectangle was starting to purple-up. “Where’d you get it?”
He touched the spot. “Some dude went all postal.”
“Why?”
“Said I was hitting on his wife.” Boudreaux stumbled a bit over the words.
“Were you?”
He flashed the leer I knew he was capable of. “Maybe.”
I stifled the urge to wipe it off his face. His emotions, his personality, could turn on a dime. “What beef would the Ponders have with Lake? They won.”
“So maybe it’s all nothing.”
Enough of nothing to kill a State Senator. “NFL seems to think it’s something if they’re giving you a long leash.”
“You know how Jerry Jones started the war with the front office over the Elliott suspension? Well, the Commissioner is fighting back.”
“If he can’t fight fair…”
“Fight dirty.” Boudreaux’s smile told me why he’d been chosen as the front man.
“So, the front office thinks the Ponders are mounting a mutiny?”
“They force-fed the move to Vegas to everyone involved. Probably broke some kneecaps in keeping with the venue. NFL just wants to make sure nothing dirty went down and it’s a clean deal.”
He was pretty naïve for a bad guy, but I didn’t feel the need to educate him. Right now, I appreciated folks who didn’t see the whole world painted with the gray of cynicism. “So, if you take Ponder down, then you get to stay with the team?”
“Something like that, but you didn’t hear it from me. And if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it. Nothing’s in writing. NFL won’t claim me either if you’re thinking of checking.”
Like I said, convenient. “Tell me about the Ponders and the Privé thing?” When he turned to look at me, I showed him the G-string.
That got a little snort and a head shake. “Yeah, well, the Mrs. is involved anyway. But the Boss, not so much. He indulges her, which would be way beyond my tolerance…way beyond. Not really a party someone like Nolan Ponder who spends his time courting buttoned-up suits would want to be affiliated with.”
“You think money would run if some of them knew?”
“That’s what my source says.”
“The money gal?”
“Yeah.”
“She got a name?” I hadn’t asked her. Something about her made me think asking questions would shut her up. With feigned indifference, maybe I could gain her trust.
“Goes by Brinda. She’ll confirm everything I’ve told you. Not about me staying on the team, of course, but all the rest. You coming to the party?” Boudreaux kept his voice flat, his reason for asking hidden.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t peg you as the type.”
That was the second person this evening alone who’d said the same thing, piquing my interest. I should run, leave the party to the pros, but when those particular smarts were passed out, I was behind the door. Kept life interesting—at least that’s how I justified it. “You’ll be there?”
“Here. Yes. I’m hosting, but it’s not my scene.” He gave me a look I couldn’t read. “You know what you’re getting into?”
His paternal tone made me bristle. “I can handle myself.”
He winced as he touched his nose. “I got that.”
His expression turned hard, and a tick worked in his cheek as he stared up at the partiers writhing to music we could feel but not hear.
“What’s your relationship to Senator Lake?”
“The Coach?”
His pursed lips took a downturn. “Coach?”
“Yeah, high school. Ely.”
“Was your number eighty-eight by chance?”
He snorted. “No. That was Fox’s number.”
“Fox?” I tried to keep my voice even, my interest casual, but my heart pounded at the gift straight out of left field, not to confuse the issue with mixed sports analogies.
“Yeah, we were friends back then. Both of us considered top prospects to take it at least to the college level and most likely beyond.”
“What happened to Fox?”
“He got several concussions. Came back too quickly.” Pain from the memories hunched his shoulders and tightened his voice. “Forced it. We all did. You only get one shot. There’re so many hotshots, you can’t even have a whiff of something wrong with you.”
“How do you force coming back from a concussion?”
He turned away from the window, moving to refresh his soda. “You want more?” Anticipating my response, he took my glass.
With my Pavlovian hotelier instincts, I couldn’t resist casting a critical eye around the place. Everything looked in order—housekeeping was doing their job. On the second pass, I spied something sticking out from under one of the legs of the chair closest to me. Semi-circular, it looked like a chip. After a quick glance over my shoulder to see that Boudreaux was occupied, I bent to retrieve it. I was right—a chip, indeed. Emblazoned with the Babylon logo and denominated in five hundred dollars. Boudreaux’s voice sounded behind me.
“Knowing your tastes, I brought you the bottle.”
I stuffed the chip into my pocket and rearranged myself back to casual.
He loomed from behind me, then bent to fill my glass. If he noticed my chip stealing, he didn’t show it. “It was a different time, not so much attention on CTE and all of that. But still, we were kids so folks paid more attention. Fox’s parents were concerned and got involved. They wanted to make sure he showed no signs of anything ongoing.”
Boudreaux leveled his gaze, capturing mine. “No. Coach saw to that.”
“Coach? Like Lake?”
“Yeah. He gave him some drugs to mask the symptoms, but they made you a little wonky. Not hit-in-the-head wonky, just not quite yourself.”
“Fox played?”
“Broke his back. He’s lucky to be walking. Everyone was amazed he recovered completely, but he could never play again. His spine is unstable. One hit could turn him into a paraplegic.”
“And Lake?”
“Fox blamed him, which was stupid. Things went south when Coach shepherded me all the way through college to the NFL.”
“Fox now works for the man he blamed for derailing his career.”
Boudreaux slugged his soda, then filled his glass with high-octane bubbles. “Fox works for Ponder. He’s got nothing to do with Lake that I know of, but I don’t count either of them as a friend.”
I was so confused, but Boudreaux wasn’t the one to untangle that knot. “Anything about you and Lake that you wouldn’t want anyone to know?”
He gave me a veiled look, then pursed his lips and shook his head. His gaze drifted from mine. “Man, he’s the guy who got me here.”
“Tell me about that if you don’t mind?”
“Nobody recruits from a high school in Ely, Nevada. Hell, back in my time we didn’t have enough kids to fill out both sides of the ball. Most of us had to play offense and defense. Coach made sure I got some college looks.”
“I get that. Anybody besides Fox have an old score to settle with the coach?”
“Why?”
I had his attention now. “He’s dead.”
Boudreaux reared back like he’d taken another blow, this one bloodless but emotionally lethal. “Who?” That one word held murder in it.
“Somebody with a grudge strong enough to drive them to do something horrible.”
“Tell me.” His voice was low, the words riding on a threat.
“You don’t want to know.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders, picking me up until my toes barely touched the floor. Despite my heart hammering and my mouth suddenly going dry, I didn’t cave. “It won’t help.”
With a shake of his head, he set me back down. Nobody I’d ever met could pick up my bulk in a straight-arm lift. Beau Boudreaux deserved a wide berth. I’d underestimated him, preferring comfort in the dumb-jock cliché.
Beau Boudreaux was anything but.
The effort to contain himself showed only in the tic working in his left cheek and the darkening of the bruise to a blood red.
“What’d that guy hit you with?”
“Cold cocked me with the butt of a rifle.”
That piqued my interest. Even though Nevada was an open-carry state, very few wandered around flaunting their rifles. “You know him?”
“Never seen either of them in my life.”
“WHAT WERE YOU DOING HERE?” Still shaking from my encounter with Boudreaux, I stared down Sergio as I joined him and Ralph outside the door of the Secret Suite. I considered locking Boudreaux inside, but he’d be more fun to follow. I considered firing Sergio, but he’d be more fun to kill. I gave my future former front desk manager the slitty-eye. “We have a lobby full of folks ready to stampede if they don’t get their rooms soon and you’re here? Why?”
His pout disappeared as some other emotion tugged his lips into a thin line. Fear?
“Weigh your answer carefully.”
“What did you find in there?” Ralph asked me. “You look a little pale under the pissed-off. You good?”
“Trying not to think about it.” I’d flapped a red cape in front of an angry bull—anything could happen, and I had no doubt it would. I also had no doubt it would be my fault and I’d have to live with it.
I shivered. All the blood. The anger. The viciousness. Did Ponder really do that? Seemed out of character for a guy who had everything. But appearances were nothing more than clever disguises. But why? The buzz saw of that tiny little word sliced through my focus.
If Boudreaux could be believed, Fox had a good why.
I wondered where Fox was at the time of the murder. But Ponder was still the one covered in blood, stoned out of his mind, holding what I’d be willing to bet turned out to be the murder weapon. And, if Fox worked for Ponder, what did that mean?
Mr. Ponder had just beaten Lake at his own political game. What winner would kill the man he’d vanquished? Made no sense. If Boudreaux could be believed, his own beef was with Ponder, not Lake. Were his lying skills as finely tuned as his athletic ones? And Mrs. Ponder? What was her angle here?
With too many suspects, or potential ones, I focused on Sergio. Tonight, he’d been working the mid-shift and, even assuming he was up to his tight little ass in alligators, he hadn’t had enough time to perforate a State Senator, even on a manager’s break. “You are going to tell me what’s going on, every ugly little detail beginning with the who, moving on to the how, and ending with the why. I’m pretty sure I know most of it, but I’d like to hear it from you. And, Sergio, this is one time where the truth really will set you free…to a degree. My jury of one is still out—convince me why I shouldn’t kick your ass all the way to the border.” I played to his fears, knowing he wouldn’t call my bluff. “Tell me the truth. You know I will do all I can to help.” But stupidity is hard to overcome, greed as well. I didn’t say that, of course, but damn. Even without his confirmation, I felt sure he was guilty of at least a moral lapse. Did death make it worse? Deserving of a more harsh punishment? Or was the crime separate from the result, unforeseeable and unintended? If a moral lapse was a crime, I would’ve been shot at dawn decades ago as a habitual offender. So hard to punish someone for something I myself had flirted with.
Judgment: something we all did too much of and something I was ill-suited to.
“Come on, Sergio, give me something. You know I want to be on your side. Well, unless you are a knife-wielding madman, which I don’t think you are.”
Hand to his chest, he reared back. “Sergio? A killer? Never!” Even though way overdone, at least he was consistent. “Is somebody dead?” He took a deep breath and blew at his hair. It didn’t move, stuck as it was to his forehead. Clearly, Sergio felt a bit warm while I was chilly in the January air.
My silence told him all he needed to know and he paled.
“How much, Sergio?”
“Money? You think I sold the suite on the side? I would never!” Either his offense was real, or he was a far better actor than anyone believed.
“What then?”
He waffled, clearly caught in one of those awkward places. “Okay, I took the money from Mr. Boudreaux…”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
At least it wasn’t chump change. His go big or go home earned a smidge of respect. Clearly the corporate side of me was losing her grip.
“But, I took it to the police.”
I narrowed my eyes as if his aura would appear and tell me whether he was lying or not. It didn’t. And threatening him with jail wouldn’t do any good. Hell, the guy would figure out some way to make an orange jumpsuit into a fashion statement and incarceration into a profitable bit of unpleasantness. Visual as I was, I stopped myself from diving down that rat hole in the nick of time. “An odd way of throwing yourself on the mercy of the court.” And extraordinarily misguided—I was the one whose money he’d pilfered—well, technically not me but the Babylon. However, where one ended and the other began was impossible to tell.
Yes, I needed a life, but for the foreseeable future, this was it.
“The police...” He averted his eyes.
A cold shot of dread hit my heart. “Yes?”
“Your Detective Romeo. He told me you knew.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE’VE BOOKED Ponder on Murder One,” Romeo remarked rather casually as he slid onto the barstool next to mine.
Focused on my Wild Turkey and
trying to drown the visuals of Senator Lake’s body, I hadn’t seen him coming. Of course, I was sitting at the bar and facing the wrong way.
Romeo.
I still hadn’t figured how to play this and now he had forced my hand.
Delilah’s was our main watering hole in the middle of the casino. On a raised platform, with trellises wound with trailing bougainvillea and the waterfall, it was a nice oasis in a sea of blatant Vegas. The baby grand, a lustrous white, gleamed in the corner, but the keys were covered. Nobody played it much anymore.
Not since Teddie.
We’d often meet here when I had a late night. He’d play; I’d unwind. I wasn’t sure whether I missed him as much as I missed the feeling we’d be fine.
I’d been a fool. Once a fool, always a fool?
With the wounds scabbed over, my heart had chosen Jean-Charles, my fiancé. But could a heart that had fallen for Teddie be trusted?
Problems for another day, but they niggled at me nonetheless, a relentless itch that couldn’t be scratched.
Romeo watched me as if he knew what I was thinking, which he probably did. While I was tired of being an open book, I’d decided to own it as I turned to face the bar, ignoring Romeo’s knowing reflection.
Coward that I am, I decided to take a circuitous route with the young detective. “I’m assuming Ponder was holding the smoking knife, as it were?”
“M.E. confirmed. The knife had been wiped. Only prints on it were Ponder’s.”
“That seems suspicious.” I twirled my glass enjoying the light reflecting in the lone ice cube. As my father always said, any more ice than that bruised the bourbon. “What’s with your jaw?”
“A hook I didn’t see coming.”
Romeo and his glass jaw. “How long were you out?”
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