Vegas, Lies, and Murder

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘What’s it?’ Elvis asked. ‘Where are they going to do this job?’

  ‘I’m not sure. They mentioned the word Rhino. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Elvis pursed his lips together, then an idea clicked behind his eyes. He sat forward. ‘Peppermint Rhino! It’s another top gentleman’s club in Vegas. It’s Ivan’s biggest rival.’

  I swallowed another mouthful of appletini, and it was gone. Why did they have to make them so small? I was so wired I needed a bucket of the stuff.

  ‘They have Peppermint Rhinos in the UK, too,’ Dad said.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Er… I was on a police job there years ago. Surveillance,’ he said sheepishly. ‘But you’re a much better dancer than any of those girls.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Mum sipped her drink and stared at Dad over the rim.

  ‘Why would Ivan raid the Peppermint Rhino?’ Hacker said. ‘They’re probably taking in a similar amount of money to Polesque. Why would it be worth the risk?’

  I chewed on my lip, thinking. I couldn’t come up with a plausible reason. Hacker was right. A night’s takings from another club weren’t exactly in the big league. What would be the point? There had to be something much bigger at stake.

  I called the waiter over to order more drinks. Maybe the alcohol would loosen my brain cells into action.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Brad said.

  ‘Maybe they’ve got a big shipment of drugs in Peppermint Rhino,’ Suzy said, chewing on a cherry from her drink. ‘And Ivan wants to steal it.’

  ‘That could work,’ Dad said. ‘The job I was doing with surveillance followed allegations of drug taking at the Rhino club in England. Maybe the same thing’s going on here.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I sipped my drink, turning that over in my head. ‘Or maybe, if Peppermint Rhino is Ivan’s biggest rival, he wants to plant some drugs in there and tip the police off. That way, he can eliminate the competition.’ I paused, thinking about Winger’s conversation with Ivan. ‘Winger said the police weren’t going to be watching “it” on Saturday night because of the fight, so it sounds like maybe the police are already doing some kind of undercover surveillance on Peppermint Rhino. I bet Winger is in cahoots with Ivan to get the other club closed down, and Ivan is giving Winger and the police the opportunity to do that by planting drugs on the premises.’

  ‘But why hasn’t there still been any word from Dana?’ Elvis said, his lips quivering with a worried wobble. ‘If she took video evidence of Paul and Ivan planning a raid on Peppermint Rhino, why didn’t she go to the police with it? Why didn’t she come to me?’

  ‘From what Ivan and Paul said, it sounds like there are other dirty police officers in the Las Vegas Police Department, so she wouldn’t have known who to trust. I’m thinking she was going to go to the FBI with it instead.’ I turned to Hacker. ‘Have you managed to look at the hotel records to see if Dana checked in anywhere?’

  He sighed and shook his head. ‘I couldn’t find any trace of her.’

  ‘She could’ve used a fake name,’ Mum said.

  ‘Most of the hotels want to see credit cards when guests check in,’ Elvis said. ‘Dana wasn’t the type of person to have any fake cards, so unless someone else helped her, it’s pretty doubtful.’

  ‘It’s possible she went straight to the FBI, and they’re hiding her,’ I said. ‘Maybe they’ve put her in some kind of witness protection, and that’s why she can’t get in touch with you. They might have already been looking into Winger’s or Ivan’s dodgy dealings and approached her because they needed an informant.’

  Suzy put her arm around Elvis and rubbed his back in a soothing gesture.

  ‘I hope so,’ Elvis said, eyes glistening with tears. ‘I hope Ivan’s thugs haven’t found her yet.’

  ‘I’m sure they haven’t,’ Suzy said.

  ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ I said, looking at Dad. I remembered some information he’d given me when I was investigating a previous case for Hi-Tec, involving Tia and Umberto. ‘You were out here in the States years ago doing an exchange with the FBI in their witness protection unit, weren’t you? You must have some contacts we can trust absolutely. Why don’t you see if they can find out whether Dana went to the FBI and if they know where she is?’

  Dad scratched his head. ‘I can try. It’s been years, though. The agent I was very close with may have retired by now.’

  ‘Do it,’ Elvis said in between gulps.

  Dad nodded. ‘He might not even be based in the same unit. It might take me a while to get hold of him. I’ll make some calls when we’re finished here and let you know.’

  ‘And maybe when we track down your agent friend, it will be the right time to pass on to them everything we’ve learned so far,’ Brad said. ‘This isn’t our patch of the world, and we don’t have any backup here. If Ivan is planning some kind of raid on Peppermint Rhino, we should let the FBI deal with that, too, and walk away from this.’ He looked at Elvis. ‘Now that we’re sure Dana wasn’t involved in any theft for her own benefit, we need to let the local authorities handle things.’

  ‘I agree,’ Hacker said.

  ‘I guess so,’ Elvis said. ‘Then hopefully they can get Ivan doing the “Jailhouse Rock”, and I can get my sister back safe and sound.’

  I glanced at Tia. ‘Did you find out anything interesting? You were in the VIP room with Paul Winger.’

  ‘Only that he’s a sleazy perv who likes to try it on,’ Tia said. ‘But when he knew “no” meant “no”, he didn’t try to force me into anything.’

  ‘What about you two?’ I asked Mum and Suzy, who both shook their heads.

  ‘So, what’s the plan, then?’ Mum asked. ‘If this is going down on Saturday, that’s only two nights away.’

  ‘Going down?’ I smirked.

  ‘Yeah, isn’t that police speak? I’ve learned all the lingo from DVDs, you know.’

  ‘Actually.’ Tia glanced at her watch. ‘It’s five a.m., so technically it’s Friday now, which means the raid is happening tomorrow. What are we going to do about it if we can’t get hold of your agent friend?’

  ‘I think in either case, we need to go to Peppermint Rhino tomorrow and check it out while you’re all at Polesque,’ Brad said. ‘You might be able to find out more details about exactly when Ivan’s planning to hit the club, and we can pass it on to the FBI.’

  ‘Hmmm, I thought you’d say that,’ I said, eyebrow quirked.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Dad said, looking an eensy bit too excited at the prospect of going to Peppermint Rhino.

  ‘God, I never want to see another jiggling butt cheek in my life,’ Hacker groaned then glanced at Tia. ‘Except for yours, of course.’

  Tia giggled and snorted.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Brad said. ‘Think of all those guys’ laps they’ve been gyrating on before they get to you.’

  Yuck. I thought of Coco’s nipple tassels. Surely, they should come with a health-and-safety warning—especially if a customer put them in his mouth. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘What about us?’ Suzy asked, still rubbing Elvis’s back.

  ‘Just more of the same,’ I said. ‘Keep your ears and eyes open. My guess is that if Ivan’s planting drugs in Peppermint Rhino, he’ll wait until it’s closed for the night and strike then.’

  ‘Okeydokey.’ Tia gave a huge yawn. ‘I need to hit the sack.’

  ‘Me too.’ Brad gave me smouldering look.

  ‘Yep. Me too.’ I faked a yawn and stood up, grabbing his hand.

  We made a hasty exit and stepped out of the frigid air-con into the early-morning desert warmth. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder as we walked down the Strip, stepping over the hundreds of cards for prostitutes littering the floor with their bits and bobs staring up at me. Nice.

  When we got past Bally’s hotel, I spotted a couple heading in our direction, holding hands. She wore a short white minidress and a veil, swept back over her hair and wonky. He w
ore white-linen trousers and a white shirt, open at the collar, with a red rose tucked in the pocket. Her eye makeup was smudged, and she stumbled against him drunkenly in her high heels. He whispered something in her ear, and she laughed. Their shiny new wedding rings sparkled on their hands.

  A twinge of regret and jealousy punched me in the stomach. They had obviously got married earlier in the day and were having a fabulous time on their wedding night.

  ‘That should be us.’ I pouted.

  Brad stopped and faced me as I stared at them walking past. He put his forefinger underneath my chin and turned my face up to meet him. ‘It will be us. Soon.’ He kissed me.

  My heart melted. When he pulled back, he brought me in close, resting his chin on the top of my head. I leaned into his chest, a sigh escaping, savouring the feel of his body against mine.

  ‘We’ll find Dana and sort this out and then get Elvis to marry us before we have to go home. Believe me, I’m not leaving Vegas until we do. That’s a promise.’

  Chapter 17

  I was pulled from sleep too early the next morning by banging coming from our bedroom door. I groaned and pulled the pillow over my head, trying to ignore it, but the banger was very persistent.

  Brad shot out of bed and rushed to the door. I turned over, hoping to get back into a lovely dream I’d been having about Brad and me in the Chapel of Love, finally getting hitched. Elvis had just sung ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, which probably wasn’t a good omen, and I was about to read out the vows I’d written. I snuggled into the pillow, trying to do speed vows and get to the ‘I do’ part quickly before anything else interrupted me.

  ‘They’ve found Dana!’ Elvis’s words made my eyelids fly open.

  I sat up, pressing the sheet over me to cover my nakedness. Elvis stood there, tears streaming down his cheeks. Oh, shit. Whatever he was going to tell us couldn’t be good.

  He flopped onto the sofa, staring at the floor, glassy-eyed. ‘Someone from the police just phoned me to…’ He shook his head. ‘They… um… they found a woman’s body behind a dumpster at an industrial unit outside of town. She had…’

  Brad put a hand on Elvis’s shoulder. ‘Take your time. Take some deep breaths.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Elvis wailed, throwing his head in his hands. ‘She had… she was… she, um…’

  Brad glanced at me, and I met his worried gaze with my own.

  ‘She had Dana’s ATM and credit cards in her trouser pocket.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘They… they showed me a photo of her that they’d taken on the… on those horrible metal tables in the morgue.’ He shuddered. ‘So I could ID her. I didn’t want to go and see her… her body.’ Elvis took an almighty sniff. ‘Didn’t want to see her like that. D-dead. I want to remember her the way she was.’

  Brad squeezed Elvis’s shoulder and sat down on the sofa next to him. ‘And it was her?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Elvis nodded vacantly. ‘No doubt about it. It’s definitely Dana. Lovely, sweet Dana, who never hurt anybody in her life.’

  I let out a sad, heavy sigh. ‘What happened to her? How did she die?’

  ‘She was…’ He closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face. ‘They said she took a drug overdose. She had a needle stuck in her arm and some heroin nearby on the floor.’

  I wrapped the sheet around me and walked towards him. I put a hand on his arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘She would never do drugs,’ Elvis insisted. ‘Never. She was murdered, and they made it look like an overdose.’

  ‘Looks like Ivan found her after all,’ I said angrily.

  ‘But how?’ Elvis wailed. ‘How did they find her when we couldn’t?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she ran into one of Winger’s dirty cops after all. Or maybe she did go to one of the dancers for help, and they told Ivan.’

  ‘Why didn’t she come to me and tell me what was going on? I could’ve helped her.’

  ‘She was trying to protect you, I expect,’ I said.

  ‘Those bastards.’ Brad’s eyes flashed with a dark, thunderous rage.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing, and she didn’t deserve it,’ I said.

  ‘What did the police say?’ Brad asked.

  ‘Something about there being a routine postmortem to make sure, but they were certain she’d just taken an overdose. It didn’t sound like they were interested in finding out any more. Why would they care about a stripper who’s apparently a druggie?’

  ‘And with Ivan tied to the DA and maybe some dodgy police officers, they won’t be looking too closely, will they?’ I said.

  Elvis shot off the sofa and paced up and down, alternately wringing his shaking hands and wiping his eyes. ‘I want to get them. I want to go over there and shoot Ivan myself!’

  The thought of Elvis with a gun in his high-strung hands was not good. He’d probably end up shooting his own foot off.

  ‘I can totally relate to that,’ Brad said. ‘I want to do the same thing, but it’s not going to do any good right now. We’ll get them one way or another. You have my word on that. But we need to make sure we do it right.’ His voice was hard with an edge of steel.

  Elvis stopped pacing and closed his eyes. ‘You’re right. As Elvis said, “Fools Rush In”. So what can we do, then?’

  ‘We need to see if we can get any evidence to give to the FBI,’ Brad said. ‘If we can prove Dana stole CCTV footage of Paul and Ivan planning to plant drugs to get Peppermint Rhino shut down, then we can hopefully tie Ivan to her murder. Wait here while I get the others.’ Brad rifled through his wardrobe and pulled out a pair of beige cargo shorts and a cream linen short-sleeved shirt, throwing them on the bed.

  I quickly grabbed some knickers and a bra. Where were my lucky knickers when I needed them? I also got some white shorts and a pink vest top and took them into the bathroom to change. When I came out, Elvis was sitting back on the sofa with a heartbreaking look of hopelessness etched on his face, and Brad was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘When Dana was a little kid, all she wanted to be was a vet. She used to bring home these stray wounded animals all the time and look after them. She had a three-legged cat, a baby bird that she fed worms to every couple of hours, a stick insect with a broken leg, a blind squirrel. But if she hadn’t been dancing at that club to save money for vet school, she’d still be alive. And if I hadn’t encouraged her to come over here, this would never have happened.’ He sobbed into his hands. ‘Dana’s not going to get her “Happy Ending” now, and it’s all my fault.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, knowing those words were utterly useless. They wouldn’t bring her back. But whatever happened, I was going to make sure we got justice for Dana.

  A few minutes later, Brad had rounded everyone up, and they were in our room. Suzy immediately launched herself on Elvis with tears in her eyes. She wrapped her hands around his neck. ‘What a terrible way to die.’

  ‘OK, Suzy, thanks for reminding him,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ She flashed me a snooty look. ‘Looking on the bright side, at least it would’ve been quick and painless.’

  I glared at her. ‘Yeah, I think we’ve got the picture.’

  ‘I’m just trying to help!’ She stepped away from Elvis and squeezed his hand. ‘How are you feeling? Do you want to talk about it?’ She got into psychiatrist mode. ‘Talking will definitely help you express the overwhelming emotions you’re experiencing right now.’

  Elvis spied the minibar fridge and sprang towards it. ‘I think booze will work better.’ He pulled out two miniature bottles of tequila and downed them one after the other, coughing and spluttering. Then he started on the vodka.

  ‘Drink won’t solve anything,’ Suzy said.

  I gave her another glare. If Elvis needed a drink to calm himself down and deal with things, then that was fair enough. If it hadn’t been ten in the morning, I might’ve knocked them back with him.

  Mum tried to take hold of Elvis’s h
ands, but he had a death grip round the vodka bottles and wasn’t giving them up. ‘My condolences. I’m very sorry about Dana.’

  Elvis nodded blankly.

  Tia had tears in her eyes. ‘It’s so awful! That poor, sweet, lovely girl.’

  ‘Did you have any luck making your calls to that agent last night, Dad?’ I asked.

  Dad shook his head. ‘My contact’s name is Special Agent Jerry Dansinger. The mobile number I had for him is no longer in service. I got the number for the witness-protection programme and called last night, but there was just a voicemail service, so I left a message. I’m waiting for a return call. Hopefully, he’ll get back to me soon.’

  ‘Do you want something to eat?’ Suzy asked Elvis.

  ‘No. I can’t eat until I get those fuckers.’

  ‘I need to eat.’ No surprise there—the bad news had filtered down to my stomach by then, and it was shouting at me. ‘Let’s order something in.’ I picked up a stack of menus and perused them. ‘Mexican, Chinese, pizza, Indian?’

  ‘How about Mexican?’ Hacker asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘Order something hot and spicy for me,’ Mum said.

  I placed the order, and we sat in stunned silence, all taking in the latest horrific news. Forty minutes later, we heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, there stood a Hispanic man holding a bag of food.

  I narrowed my eyes. It was the taxi driver again. ‘It’s you! You ripped us off in the taxi, and you pimp prostitutes!’

  Mum poked her head round the door and glared at him. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, young man!’

  He wasn’t a young man. He was at least the same age as me, but I didn’t point that out.

  His mouth fell open. ‘No speaker de Engleeesh.’ He thrust the bag in our general direction. ‘That eees thirty-one dollars.’

  Mum snatched the bag and shot him a filthy look. ‘I bet your mother is really proud of you! What a disgrace! Think of all those poor girls.’ She poked him in the chest. ‘You’re a very sad excuse for a man.’