Bubble Screen (Burnside Series Book 3)

by David Chill

  "What are you doing?" Gail asked.

  "A little trick to get inside without tearing my clothing to shreds."

  I approached the fence and flung the floor mat directly on top of the gate so it landed on the barbed wire. Grabbing the metal fencing, I climbed eight feet in three steps. I swung my right leg over the barbed wire so that I was sitting directly on the floor mat. I moved my grip of the fencing to the other side and swung my left leg over the barbed wiring and dropped easily to the ground.

  Once inside the complex, I jogged over to the trash bins. The cardboard boxes were still there, stacked on top of one another. I pulled one down and looked inside. Sure enough, there it was. A brand new set-top receiver with the name Eagle Cable screaming across the front panel, complete with a logo featuring a picture of a nasty looking bird. Blue protective tape was still wrapped around the perimeter of the receiver, indicating it was brand new. I pulled a few more cartons down and they revealed the same thing. Stepping back, I took a photo of the overloaded trash bin with my iPhone and headed back to the fence. I made it back over cleanly, and grabbed the floor mat before landing on the ground. Safe, smooth and efficient.

  And then a pair of high beams blasted the area with the brightest of lights, blinding me instantly.

  "Keep your hands where I can see them!" a scratchy voice yelled out.

  Well I couldn't see a thing, but I lifted my hands to face level, and put one hand in front of my eyes to shield them from the bright light. The advantage of having my hands up also allowed me to strike quickly if an opportunity presented itself. The disadvantage of being in this position was the fact that I had no idea where the other person was, or whether they were armed.

  "Would you mind turning your brights down?" I squinted.

  "Shut up! I'll do the talkin' here. Get down on your knees."

  "No."

  "No!? No?! Are you kidding me?! Get down on your knees!"

  "I don't know that you have a weapon. Other than some very bright headlights."

  "How about I put a bullet through your leg and show you?!"

  "That'd be a mistake." I said.

  "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

  "I'm working for Malco."

  "Jumping the fence?! The hell you are!"

  "The Larsons sent me here," I said.

  A deathly silence permeated the cool night air. The lights suddenly dimmed and I struggled to make out who was in front of me. The parking lights remained on so I could see a little, but I needed a few seconds for the colored glare in my eyes to disappear and allow me to focus. A large figure moved closer to me. He was big and wore a green windbreaker. In his hands was a long object that was probably a rifle, aimed straight ahead. He held it with two hands, but as he moved closer to me, he pointed the muzzle upwards to the sky. He stopped about 10 feet from me and stared at me without speaking.

  "So why are you here?" I finally asked. "And why the gun?"

  "Doing a patrol. I work for the security service," he said, and pointed to his white car which had "Sentry Security Systems" painted in dark green lettering, with the word "Security" in italics. A picture of a large dog marked the side of the car.

  "You always point a gun before asking questions?"

  "You always scale barbed wire fences?"

  I paused. No good answer for that one. "All right then," I said.

  "Sheesh," he said. "You mind telling me what you're doing here? Now that we cleared up who I am, maybe you'll tell me something about who you are."

  I sighed. "Like I said. The Larsons hired me. I'm a private investigator. Looking into some employee theft here at the warehouse."

  "Why didn't you just wait until normal business hours?" the guard asked.

  "If we did, the merchandise over there would be gone by morning. This is an inside job. They drop the product in the trash bins so it's exposed. Whoever hauls the trash off is part of the ring."

  "Okay," he said. "Let me get this straight. If I wait here tonight ..."

  "... Someone is going to come by later, get inside the gate and leave with about 50 set-top boxes. Retail value, maybe $20,000."

  The guard shook his head. "I'm calling this in. What's your name?"

  "Burnside," I said and handed him my card. "You know, you really shouldn't point a gun at someone unless you're ready to use it."

  He put the card in his pocket without looking at it. "You understand why someone hopping over a barbed wire fence at night might look suspicious."

  "Yeah. But still."

  The guard nodded. "Don't try this stunt again."

  I nodded in agreement. "I sure won't, officer."

  Unaware that my comment had its base in sarcasm, the guard told me to leave the premises and walked back to his patrol car. I walked over to the 4Runner, hopped in and drove quickly out of the area. I glanced over at Gail. She was looking straight back at me.

  "That seemed a little scary," she said.

  "Not really. There wasn't any real danger. If he was part of the ring it might have been another story."

  "Were you afraid? When you knew he had a gun pointed at you?"

  "Too much was going on to be afraid. I had to try and talk my way into getting him to lower the gun or find a way take it away from him."

  "I thought of getting out of the car and helping out."

  "No," I said, shaking my head emphatically. "Bad move."

  "You know I used to work campus security. I have training in this area."

  "That could have made things worse. A competent security guard can usually deal with one person okay. Two people and it might have rattled him. And when someone's holding a gun, anything can happen."

  The two of us were quiet for a few minutes. The darkened streets on the outskirts of town began to give way to more and more light. When we reached the Strip, the boulevard was lit up so brightly it felt as if it were practically daytime.

  We checked in at Caesar's Palace and to our delight, the room was spacious and up high enough to afford a gorgeous view of the Strip. It was dark out by now, but the array of flashing neon lights turned the view into a spectacular wall of color. We briefly debated whether to have dinner at Spago or The Palm or a few other amazing choices. I knew I owed Gail something special for going above and beyond tonight. Lobsters at The Palm were certainly special. Gail decided she wanted to relax a bit, which turned out to be a good thing. The earliest reservation I could get was 10:00 pm. We used the time wisely.

  The Palm was located just inside the Forum Shops, which required a long walk through Caesar's plush casino floor. The hostess at the restaurant seated us at a quiet booth near the back, lined with dark wood. Painted caricatures of celebrities were featured on the walls, reminding me of the one time I visited The Palm in L.A. That was a thank you dinner from a wealthy client who wanted to show appreciation for my helping them out in a missing persons case. Gail ordered a very large lobster, I ordered a rib eye steak, we traded tastes and our meal was wonderful. Thank goodness for expense accounts.

  Afterward, we wandered around the Forum Shops and then into the casino for a while, observing but not partaking. Gambling was not a hobby of mine. I decided I would rather be lucky at love. It was after midnight by the time we got back to our room, and I wound up getting a great night's sleep on a heavenly bed. My nocturnal slumber was, made all the more restful by the absence of Ms. Linzmeier's early morning aerobics. We woke up after 9:00am, and after a brief debate, decided against a morning dip in the pool. In our haste, I had neglected to bring along swim trunks and eschewing proper decorum was not something Gail wanted to tempt, even in Las Vegas. We were almost ready to go downstairs for coffee when someone banged on the door. Heavily. I glanced through the peep hole before opening.

  There is something intimidating about having a uniformed police officer wanting to see you. Having been on the other side of the knock, I've watched what it does to people. It jerks them into full blown alert mode and makes them focus in ways they normally don't need to. Because unt
il the officer speaks, the great unknown exists, a chasm that is wide and fraught with potential peril. In this case, the man in uniform was standing next to a nondescript middle aged man wearing a nondescript jacket and tie.

  "Mr. Burnside?' the suited man asked, holding up a gold shield.

  "That's me."

  "We'd like you to come with us."

  "For what purpose?"

  "To discuss the shooting death of a one Henry Simon."

  "Who's Henry Simon?" I asked.

  "Henry Simon works patrol for a private security company called Sentry. Or used to, I should say. We found his body this morning outside the Malco facility. We also found your business card in his pocket."

  Chapter 8

  The interrogation room was similar to a thousand other interrogation rooms. Brightly lit, starkly furnished and relatively clean. Light green walls and light gray flooring. Old, yet not in need of painting or new linoleum. But it was different for me in one respect. I was usually one of the guys asking the questions.

  "Let's go over this again. You just happened to run into the security patrol as you were inspecting the premises," said the crew cut detective, looking at me as he placed one shoe on a chair in front of me and rested his square jaw on his fist. "For your client, this Carson family."

  "Larson." I corrected him. "It's the Larson family."

  "Yeah, whatever. And you hopped over the fence to do an inspection after dark on a Saturday night."

  "Soonest I could get here."

  "Oh right. Can't imagine why he'd point his gun at an upstanding citizen who just scaled a barbed-wire fence."

  "It was the only way I could access the premises and find out what was going on."

  "Yeah, yeah. And then you told him about a theft ring using a garbage truck."

  "That's the theory."

  The detective rubbed his big face with his big hand. His close cropped blond hair, what little of it there was, stood straight up. He was about my age, mid-40s, with some deep lines already formed in his face. He had tired blue eyes, and he wore a pale yellow short-sleeve shirt with no tie.

  "All right. Where'd you go then?"

  "Back to the hotel for dinner."

  "With your girlfriend. And you were there the rest of the night."

  "That's what happened. Any chance I could get to speak with Detective Chandler?"

  "Like I told you, he's busy. Maybe we can bring the mayor in to speak with you. How's about that? Or maybe we dig up Steve Wynn for you? Too bad Elton John's not around."

  "I'm just politely asking."

  "Yeah," he sniffed. "You know we have video of this whole thing, so we'll figure out if you're lying. Better off telling me now. Save you a lot of grief later."

  "I'd be surprised if the video told you anything," I said, shaking my head. "The thieves have been spray painting the lenses."

  The detective's eyes widened. "You heard about that, huh?"

  "The Larsons told me."

  "The Larsons. Uh-huh. Did they also tell you they installed a second video camera that gets activated when the first camera gets tampered with?"

  "I'm the one who suggested it. But I didn't think they'd install it so quick."

  "Yeah, sure. You suggested it. Anyway, we have the video, so give some thought on getting your story straight, hotshot," he said, and departed the room, leaving me alone in the room with nothing but the lackluster walls to look at. I used the time effectively by closing my eyes and emptying my mind of thoughts. A half-hour probably went by, and I managed to enter into twilight sleep mode, not really awake, not really out. Then the door opened and the detective returned.

  "Anything else you want to tell me, hotshot?"

  "Nothing springs to mind," I said.

  "Okay. We went over the video and your story seems to check out."

  "That's reassuring. Did you get anything on the shooting?"

  "Nope. The camera used a wide-angle lens so we don't have any detail. But whoever pulled the trigger caught the security guard by surprise."

  "How's that?"

  "He took two in the back of the head. But the camera was too far away to make out much more than that."

  "Did you find out who was tampering with the first camera?"

  "No, the knucklehead who set it up pointed the lens in the other direction."

  I sighed. "Don't tell me you think I had something to do with this."

  "No, we called the Larson family and they said they hired you. And we doubled back with the hotel. We figure this thing went down just before midnight and that's right around the time you paid your bill at The Palm. You got expensive tastes."

  "You know how big my steak was too?"

  "We could find out if we wanted to. Hotels around here are pretty cooperative with us. Didn't take long to pinpoint you at Caesar's did it?"

  "No, it sure didn't."

  "We need the hotels and the hotels need us. We look the other way when some of the girls make money there, because the hotels give us intel on the people staying with them. You'd be surprised at how many dopes on the lam will use their own names and credit cards when they go to Vegas."

  "Crooks aren't known for their brains."

  "Right. Okay, you're free to go, hotshot. And take your girlfriend with you. She's been in my face demanding something called habeas corpus. Cute broad, but you can have her."

  "You know she's a lawyer."

  "She, ah, mentioned that about six times."

  The detective walked me out to the lobby and pleasantly gestured to the front door. Gail was standing there, arms crossed, looking unhappy.

  "Finally," she said in an exasperated voice. "I thought I was going to need a court order to get them to release you."

  "This is how cops work. Get used to it if you want to work for the prosecution."

  "They're not all like you, that's for sure," she said, slipping her arm through mine.

  "I don't fit the mold," I admitted. "Maybe that's why I'm not on the force anymore."

  We walked out of the Police Station and stopped in our tracks. When the cops want to question you about something, they are more than happy to provide transportation, complete with an armed escort. After they're finished, it's up to you to get back. No car service was provided by Las Vegas' finest.

  We called for a taxi, and in the car I checked my phone for messages. One that caught my eye just came in a few minutes ago, and had a 702 area code. Meaning it was a Las Vegas number. I tapped it and held the phone up to my ear, and the next voice I heard was that of Kyle Otto.

  "Hey Burnsy, listen, I hope you're still in town. One of my pals told me they just saw Megawatt over at The Cosmopolitan. Thought you might be interested."

  Absolutely interested. Turning to Gail, I asked if she'd like to spend some more time in Vegas.

  "With all the excitement you've shown me so far? A girl would be foolish to pass up such an opportunity."

  "I'm glad you've maintained your spirit of adventure."

  The Cosmopolitan was just down the street from Caesar's Palace. It was one of the newer hotels on the Strip, and walking inside was like walking into a palace. From the floor to the ceiling, everything glittered at the Cosmo. A three story chandelier with sparking glass beads hung down like drapes dripping with diamonds. Mosaic tiles with silver insets glimmered from the floors. And the huge, floor-to-ceiling columns of black glass and steel in the lobby were an impressive display of ostentatious art. Even the familiar ding-ding-ding sounds of the slot machines was more muted and upscale. It was a Sunday afternoon, but with no windows and no clocks, it could have been any time of the day or night.

  We walked around the casino floor but didn't come across anyone who looked familiar. Moving along to the Sports Book upstairs might provide more luck. And amidst the extra large TV screens showing five different football games, a clump of about a dozen men and women caught my eye. It didn't take a lot to find them. The loud, raucous cheering prompted by one of the games was one clue. The other was
the center of attention who happened to be African-American, and was standing more than half a foot taller than any of his companions, and was possibly half a foot wider, too. Beneath a tight black t-shirt and slacks, everything about his physique looked like it had been chiseled from granite.

  "Marcellus?" I asked, approaching the group.

  He turned and looked me over. "I know you?"

  "Name's Burnside. We talked the other day."

  Marcellus leaned back for a moment and then smiled. "Yeah, Burnside," he said, and shook my hand hard. His grip could crush a rock without much effort. I withdrew my hand as quickly as I could.

  He looked at Gail. I introduced them and he gave her a much softer -- and longer -- handshake, as he revealed an even brighter smile. I got the distinct feeling that if Gail and I ever lived in the same city, this was a scenario I'd have to get used to. As his eyes took a long walk all over her, I cleared my throat. Marcellus turned back to me.

  "You came all the way to Vegas just to meet me?" he asked incredulously.

  "Just happened to be in the neighborhood," I smiled wryly. "But I'm a private investigator. I'm good at finding people."

  "I guess you are," he said, continuing to smile. The name Megawatt was fitting. When he grinned, his face lit up like a roman candle.

  A couple of men approached us. Both were considerably under six feet tall. One was a light-skinned black man, slender and in his late 30s. The other was a chunky, muscular guy closer to Marcellus' age, although nowhere near as buff. The slender one spoke. "Everything okay here, M?"

  "It's cool, it's cool. This is another Trojan from L.A. Name's Burnside."

  We shook hands, and the slender one perused my face carefully. "I think I've heard that name before," he mused.

  "I get that a lot."

  "You in town for business or pleasure?"

  I pondered the question for a moment. There was something in the man's expression that set off signals in my brain. "A little of both," I finally said.