by Mike Dennis
He let out a sigh, then picked up his phone, punching one number. "Charlene, will you bring Sandra's sales files in here, please?"
Momentarily, the woman who greeted me entered with a small armful of files. She carefully handed them to Aziz, as though they contained nuclear secrets, then left the room, all without looking at me. Aziz looked at the tabs, rearranged one or two of them, then set them gently on his desk. He opened the first one. From it, he pulled out the top sheet of paper.
"This sheet gives the name of the buyer and the price that he paid for the unit, as well as the number of the unit, its square footage, location within the building, and so on. The rest of the file concerns the financing, the terms, Sandra's notes, and other things. I cannot let you see that data."
"I understand," I said. "I only want the names."
He pulled the top sheet out of each of the files. There were six in all. The cheapest one went for six hundred large. The most expensive, two point eight mil. I tried to calculate the commissions on these, but the room started to spin. Instead, I contented myself with writing down the names and numbers, borrowing one of Aziz's pens from a pen caddy on his desk.
It was all routine until I came to the sixth and final deal. It was for one million, seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, for a twenty-ninth floor, three-bedroom unit, sold to the Hector Olivera Trust, Miami, back in December of 2002.
"This one," I said, holding up the paper. "Are you familiar with this deal? Olivera?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. Mr Olivera is a wealthy client from Miami."
"Yes, yes, I see that. Do you know anything about him?"
"Mr Olivera? He came to this country as a boy, braving the open sea on a flimsy raft. Surely, you don't suspect him of —"
"No, of course not. But he might be able to help with some information. What can you tell me about him?"
"I'm afraid, Mr Barnett, that falls under the private data that I cannot share with you." He leaned forward with a slight smile, trying to pacify me. At that point, I half expected him to show me a rug, one which carried a very special price, just for me.
I said, "Was he buying this unit on spec?"
"We do not ask the motives of our clients, Mr Barnett." His hand gestures showed that he was sure I understood.
I realized I'd gone as far as I was going to go with Aziz. His jaws were slamming shut and locking down before my eyes. The meeting was effectively over.
7
My next urge was to brace Ryan Farrow for what he knew about the connection between Sandra Blake and Hector Olivera. He had dated Sandra for a year, including the period in which she had all those late-night phone calls from Miami. It stood to reason that Farrow must have known at least something about the deal Olivera and Sandra were involved in. Being a mortgage banker, he might've been in on it himself. I figured if I could learn whatever the bond was between these three, it would help untangle the Miami connection, and that would be a big step toward wiping away all the haze that fogged my vision.
It was only closing in on noon, though, and Farrow was most likely at work. For people like him who work regular jobs, I knew that those hours between noon and five were the longest five hours in the world, not the best time for the type of conversation I wanted to have.
Whenever you have serious shit to discuss with somebody, especially somebody you've roughed up before, you can't do it where they work. In there, they think they're all-powerful. They sit behind a big desk, a power symbol in itself. They have people and telephones and other gadgets at their disposal. They're not inclined to tell you anything at all, much less what you want to know. No, this meeting would have to be in his home, away from the seat of power, where all he'd have would be the seat of his pants. Where he knew the threat of my fists would be an undercurrent to everything I said. I could wait, I had the time. So I figured he could also wait until this evening to once again enjoy the pleasure of my company.
Instead, I went home and headed straight for my laptop. On the official Las Vegas city government website, I tracked down the Planning and Development Department page, where I navigated to their interactive city map. This map broke the whole city down into surveyed lots, giving their exact location, the owner, when it was purchased, for how much, and all kinds of good shit. Zooming in on the downtown area, I was eventually able to locate the parcels of land owned by Blake Enterprises.
There were four of them, bunched together into a somewhat-rectangular shape just west of downtown, near the freeway. They totaled a little over fifty-five acres, and they were acquired separately, on different dates, over the past two years.
Jutting out into the center of Blake's rectangle, like a dagger into its heart, was an odd little strip of land, long and narrow, a shade more than five acres. According to the city's records, this piece of land was owned by none other than Olivera-Nevada Holdings, Incorporated, of Miami, Florida. The lot was purchased about eight months ago, back in February. It was clear this was the key piece Blake needed to complete the jigsawed package he was trying to cobble together.
I pulled up the aerial view of this part of town. There were no large buildings on it, no dramatic construction, nothing significant. From the air, it looked like just a few low-rise, aging structures well past their sell-by date, plus a shitload of empty space. Empty space smack in the center of the fastest-growing city in the United States, waiting to be put to use.
I put on my jacket. Outside, I noticed the wind had picked up, making it feel much colder as I headed for my car. I needed to see Ronnie Wills.
≈≈≈
Ronnie was a cab driver. I knew him from his occasional drop-ins at my poker game down at Binion's. He'd been driving around this town for decades, stretching all the way back to the days of what some people fondly refer to as "old Vegas". During his tenure, he'd learned just about everything there is to know about Las Vegas, its past, its present, and a pretty good idea of its future. He always said that driving a cab was the surest pathway to any kind of information you ever wanted.
He lived on the second floor of a rundown courtyard apartment complex over on First Street, not because he liked the neighborhood, but because it was two blocks from the cab yard and he didn't own a car. However, one look at this area and you realize this is where despair goes to die. Low-rent duplexes and apartments, as well as trash-strewn vacant lots, are the signature sights. Whoever wrote the song Lonely Street must've been raised in this part of town.
I'd've called Ronnie first, but he didn't have a phone, either, or a TV, for that matter. When I got up to his apartment, which was down at the end of the windswept second-floor landing, I knew I'd have to knock loudly, because he probably had his headphones on watching a movie. He's a big, big movie buff with thousands of DVDs crammed into every corner of his apartment. To my surprise, however, he answered the door on the first knock. And with no headphones.
"Hey, Jack," he said. "Come on in." He made a quick hand gesture, then rushed back inside. As I entered, he was back in his seat, the only chair in the tiny apartment, fiddling with his portable DVD player. His headphones rested on the chair's arm. I made my way inside, carefully stepping over the stacks of DVDs neatly arranged all over the floor.
Gray hair ran down the sides of his head past his ears, stopping just short of his shoulders. A close-cropped full beard was also gray, but betrayed its light brown origins in select spots. He needed to lose thirty pounds, but I knew he never would. In his early sixties, he was beyond the point of attending to such details.
Without looking up at me, he said, "This damn thing just went out on me. I don't know what the hell happened." He kept twisting the cord, while shaking the unit, hoping to resuscitate it.
"How much did it cost you?"
"Four hundred bucks, man! That's a lot of money for me!"
"How long have you had it?"
"Not even three years!" he said. "Can you believe it? And it's already on the way out. Man, this pisses me off! These companies try to stick it to you for s
omething that won't even last three years."
I didn't want to insert the point that, during those three years, he'd probably been using it eight to ten hours a day, seven days a week.
He went on: "I was right in the middle of watching this great movie. Double Indemnity. You know the one? With Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck? I was right at the part where he's hitting on her pretty heavy, and she wants to cool him off, so she says, 'There's a speed limit in this state,' and he goes, 'How fast was I going, officer?' and all this great, crackling dialogue." He finally sighed, and set the small machine down on the floor. Then he got up and said, "Want a beer?"
"Sure."
He hustled over to the tiny kitchenette and pulled a couple of cold ones out of the fridge. He popped the tops, then handed me one. We clicked our cans together and each took a good, long swallow.
"So what's up, Jack? What brings you over here to Shangri-La?" He sat back down, using his sleeve to wipe beer foam out of his mustache and beard.
I pulled the footstool over around to my side of his chair, then sat on it. "Ronnie, there's a big piece of nearly-empty land just west of downtown by I-15. You know the one I'm talking about?"
"West of downtown?"
"Right. Behind the Plaza Hotel, back there where I-15 and US 95 meet up. It's about sixty or seventy acres." He tilted his head a little, trying to get his bearings. I added, "Just a ways across the railroad tracks."
I saw the light bulb click on. "Oh-h-h, yeah." He took another big swig of beer. "Yeah, I know that area. Back by the freeways. Not much there right now, right?"
"That's right."
"Yeah, that's where they're talking about building a new stadium."
"New stadium?" I jolted myself upright.
"Yeah. You know, for Major League Baseball."
"No," I said. "I didn't know."
"Well, it's not really in the papers or anything, but I've been hearing little tidbits about it for a few months now. They're trying to get a big league baseball team to relocate here, but they've gotta have plans for a new stadium in place before the team'll even talk to 'em about it."
"Major League Baseball? In Las Vegas?"
"Oh, man, they want to come here in the worst way. This place'd be a gold mine for 'em, don't you know. We're sure big enough, and I say it's about time!"
"So, in other words, if they can get it together to put a stadium over there by downtown, then they'll get a team?"
"That's the way I hear it. All these teams nowadays, you know, they're always wanting new stadiums, with all the skyboxes and fancy shit. And they've been getting 'em too, for the most part. Now, you take the team that's talking about coming here, they've been having a hard time getting a new stadium back home, so they're looking at Las Vegas."
"Which team is it?"
"The Florida Marlins."
≈≈≈
I left Ronnie's in a hurry. Before I was at my car, I punched up Frank Madden's number. He picked it up just as I got into the driver's seat, out of the intensifying wind.
"Frank, Jack Barnett. I think I may have something for you in the Sandra Blake case."
"I'm all ears, Jack?"
"Can you get away for lunch?"
"I think I can."
I said, "Good. Then meet me at Magnolia's. You know it. The coffee shop in the Four Queens."
"I'll see you there in twenty minutes."
As I drove the short distance to the Four Queens, I thought about what I would tell him. I considered holding back certain things, like the Olivera connection, but decided to let it all out. After all, Blake was only paying me to find the killer, and I had explained to him up front that I would have to eventually turn over what I knew to the cops, since they were the ones that were paid to make the arrest.
I got to Magnolia's before Frank did, so I ordered a bottle of beer. By the time the waitress brought it, he was taking a seat opposite me in the booth.
I never asked him his age in the year or so I'd known him, but I guessed he was somewhere in his forties. I knew he'd been on the force for at least twenty years, because he'd told me about cases he worked back in the early eighties. He was a big man, with fine, brown hair that lay flat across the top of his head, while quick eyes dominated his reddened, expressive face. He glanced at the menu, not long enough to absorb any content, then ordered a fish sandwich and a Coke. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich.
Frank looked directly at me and said, "Okay, what's up?"
"Early yesterday morning, I went out to Sandra Blake's house. Two guys had already beat me to it. The Farrow brothers. You know them?"
"No." He was displeased. "Who were they, and what the hell were they doing there?" He pulled a small notebook out of his breast pocket and began to jot things down in it.
"Ryan and Colby Farrow. They're mortgage bankers. I think that means they're, like, middlemen between borrowers and lenders of money for high-end commercial real estate projects, although in fact, they represent lenders, trying to find places to put their money." I took a quick pull at my beer. "So, it turns out Ryan Farrow was ver-ry lovey-dovey with Sandra Blake. Had been for about a year. They were there to remove his clothes from her closet."
"So that's who those clothes belonged to. We saw them there, but we couldn't put a name on them."
"Now, it so happens there's some bad blood flowing between the Farrows and John Brendan Blake. I don't know, business shenanigans, or whatever. But, according to Blake, there's no love lost. I don't know if that makes Ryan Farrow a suspect, but that's for you to figure out."
He didn't look up from his writing. "What else?"
"You know, of course, that Sandra Blake worked for Silverstone Towers condominiums."
"Right."
I drank again from the cold beer. It tasted good. "She sold one of those condos to a guy named Hector Olivera out of Miami. It so happens Olivera's a big land developer back there, just like Blake is here."
"So what?"
"So this. Blake has been quietly putting together pieces of vacant, or blighted, land in an underdeveloped part of downtown, with the purpose in mind of making it available for a new Major League Baseball stadium."
Stunned, Madden finally stopped writing. With widening eyes, he whistled softly in disbelief. "Baseball stadium? Is this for real?"
"It's for real, Frank. And Blake's got the whole thing almost together. There's only one missing piece. A little shitpot ribbon of empty land running straight into the center of it, which he needs in order to put the final package together. And guess who owns it."
"Who?"
"Hector Olivera."
He wrote frantically, getting it all down, then he said, "You say this Olivera bought a condo from Sandra Blake? Is there any other connection to her? Maybe personal? Like was he screwing her during his trips here?"
"I can't say right now. I don't know. But I talked to him on the phone last night."
"He's in Miami now?"
I said, "He was last night. Here's his number." After reciting Olivera's business number from my cell phone directory, I finished off my beer, signaling for another. "He seemed genuinely surprised that Sandra had been murdered, and he let it slip that she was helping him on a real estate deal he was working on here in town. Right as soon as he said that, he clammed up. I don't think he was referring to his condo purchase. I think it may have had something to do with that downtown land."
Just then, our food arrived, along with my second beer. As we dug in, I said, "Tonight, I'm going to see Ryan Farrow. I think he might be able to fill in some of the blanks. I'll let you know what I find out."
"You do that. I'd go see him right now, but we're caught up in that drive-by that happened yesterday morning." I thought he was through talking, but his teeth slowly clenched and he added, "Two street punks dead and a seven-year-old girl shot while playing hopscotch on the sidewalk." He twisted his napkin hard between big fists. He looked like he wanted to upend the table.
I washed down a bite
of my sandwich with some more beer to let Madden simmer down. Then: "So, how'd you make out with Manny the Mexican last night? Was that tell worthwhile?"
His whole body loosened up and a wide grin washed over his Irish face, while his pale blue eyes twinkled. "I busted him on the first hand I played. Five hundred smackolas on that one hand. Made nine for the night."
8
The wind hadn't died down any by the time I left the Four Queens. My jacket wasn't much of a shield against it, while the darkening afternoon skies promised a cold night ahead. I drove home and watched a little TV, then finally got around to changing the bare light bulb in my bedroom.
A few minutes before six, I went out again, heading for Ryan Farrow's home in Summerlin, a kind of semi-upscale suburban area northwest of the center of Las Vegas. Since I wasn't anticipating any trouble from Farrow, I left my .357 SIG behind in my dresser drawer. I didn't have a license to carry in Nevada, so I didn't want to open myself up to any unnecessary hassles.
The autumn wind was strong, dancing furiously across the streets of the twilit city. Unusually light traffic made the crosstown trip a lot easier. As I swung onto the 95 freeway, I unwound and turned on my car radio.
I found a jazz station, or at least, that's what it sounded like. I'm not really big on jazz, but this sweaty alto sax came oozing out of the speakers, talking directly to me. It stole my complete attention, though I didn't even know the song. Before I knew it, I was exiting the freeway onto the empty streets of Summerlin.
I had snapped myself out of the musical trance by the time I arrived at Farrow's home. The sun had gone down, and it took the temperature with it. When I got out of the car, I had to zip up my jacket. Heavy cloud cover made it a starless, moonless night.
The house was big and dark, set back from the street behind a circular driveway. A BMW sedan loomed in front of the garage. I recognized it as the one I put Farrow and his brother into at Sandra Blake's house. I parked on the street, then approached the house on foot. As I moved silently across the lush, landscaped yard, the enchanting scent of night-blooming jasmine found its way into my nostrils and my head. I recognized it from my years in Los Angeles and was surprised to find it here in Nevada. The seductive fragrance held me still for a sweet moment.