Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio (12 page)

"Staying
in the hotel?" Brownlee asked.

"Yes.
Never see my room until about one in the morning, if you call that
staying."

"Well,
good luck on sixteen," Brownlee said as the wheel slowed and the round
metal ball bounced in and out of numbered slots heading for a berth somewhere
in the twenties. By the time it had landed, Mr. Smith had walked away and
Brownlee had taken his money for the house.

Callie
and I left the table amazed at the cavalier expenditure of ten grand.

"Did
you see how the guy turned and walked away before he knew for sure whether he'd
won or lost? It was like he didn't care either way. It was like he'd just come
to give his money away," I said in amazement.

"The
game he's playing isn't happening at that table," Callie said quietly, as
if reading the man's mind.

"What
do you mean?" I asked, but Callie had momentarily disconnected from this
world to connect to something else—a place that undoubtedly provided her with
more answers than I could.

"You
play the slots for a minute. I've got to go check something out," I said,
handing her Elmo's leash and putting her in charge of my hound. I walked to the
front desk and told Ms. Loomis that I was curious about the bird ring I'd seen
the dealers wearing.

She
looked up slowly and smiled at me. "It's a medieval totem, popular in
Italy during the Roman period," she said, in the tone of a docent wanting
me to feel as if my question had been answered when, in fact, it had not.
"The bird motif is very popular in the hotel. You can see it in the gargoyles
above some of the pillars, and of course, the
Boy Review
is famous for
its winged finale. It's the longest running show in Las Vegas."

"So
how many years do you have to work here to get a ring?"

"I
have no idea. I don't manage the casino," she said.

I
returned to Callie, who was holding her own at the slots with Elmo standing
guard. "Ms. Loomis tells me that the bird ring is a Roman totem. Of
course, this is the same woman who didn't know a ninety-pound basset hound was
being hidden in her office, so take it with a grain of salt," I said.

The
dealers had changed shifts and the new man behind the betting line had no ring
on.

My
cell phone rang. It was Barrett Silvers. After a few moments I hung up and gave
Callie a quizzical look.

"Barrett
Silvers is coming to the hotel later in the week and wants to meet with me. She
says she has a director with her who wants to talk about my theatrical. I'll
believe it when I see it," I said, dismissing the call.

"She's
coming all the way to Las Vegas to bring you a director like a cat dragging a
mouse to its master?" Callie stared at me, apparently suspicious of
Barrett's motive.

"A
very big mouse! And it's only a forty-five-minute flight." I shrugged,
trying to be nonchalant about the call. "I'm sure she does it for writers
all the time," I said, thinking that was likely only if she were trying to
sleep with them.

We
made a tour of the shops that lined the concourse under the Addizione VIII
arch, with Elmo complaining the entire way.

Callie
admired each designer's offering and tried on several fall outfits, modeling
them for me. I told her she looked fabulous in every one of them, and she did.
She settled on white slacks with cuffs held up by little gold buckles and a
matching white V-neck shirt with a gold crest on it.

"You
look so good in it I want to take it off you," I said softly.

She
danced over and kissed me on the lips in front of the clerk, who asked if I was
buying. I smiled and said, "I think the person who gets kissed buys."

We
went upstairs to our room. I had Elmo on his lead, and I carried the shopping
bags full of pants, shirts, and shoes. Callie put the keycard in the lock and
popped the door open, entering ahead of me. Elmo followed right beside her.

"Come
on, let's go to the sauna," I said, dumping everything onto the
overstuffed armchair. "You could use a little relaxation after a hard day
of Barbie-dolling it."

"That
is a rude, dismissive chauvinistic remark," she said, giving me a sensual
kiss. "Besides, gyms can give you horrible diseases from other people's
sweat," she added, unaware of the irony that we were both wearing sweats.
Well, I was wearing sweats—she was wearing designer apres ski pants that were
sweats for people who don't sweat.

"Rose
uses the hotel gym and sauna about this time every day and we might see her
there."

"How
did you find that out?" Callie stared at me.

"I'm
psychic," I said and then added when she gave me a raised eyebrow that
while she was trying on clothes this afternoon, I was talking to the young
clerk who did stagecraft work for the
Boy Review.
She knew Rose's
schedule because they used to go to the sauna together sometimes after
rehearsal.

Minutes
later, we exited the elevator at the penthouse level and entered the gym and
sauna. Callie wasn't a workout person. It wasn't that her muscles weren't
strong and that she wasn't well built, she just didn't believe in the process.
"Tell your mind what you want your body to look like and it will do it for
you. You don't need a lot of clanking metal with seats that other people have
sat on," she said.

"You
wipe the seats off," I said.

"You
wipe them off. I'm not sitting on
them at all."

I
glanced up to see Rose Ross wrapped in a towel and headed for the steam room. I
alerted Callie. She jumped into action, apparently forgetting what vermin might
thrive in moist heat, and demanded that we strip and follow her. We were
wrapped in large white towels and inside the cedar-lined hot box before you
could say Legionnaires'.

Rose
seemed nervous but relieved to see us, and I hoped she was anxious to talk.
Callie set the stage, explaining that she was psychic and that she could sense
things about people and that she knew Rose was afraid. I assured Rose that
whatever she told us would be in confidence.

"People
on the ghoul pool list do die. I don't know if they were chosen to be on the
list because they were sick like people say or if they were put on the list and
then that caused them to die," she said.

"But
they draw the names randomly, don't they?" I asked.

"They
say they do, but someone always holds up the bowl containing the names to be
drawn. I mean, a lot of people touch the bowl, and this whole town is one big
magic trick. Something is happening underground but no one talks about it, and
you can't figure out who knows and who it's safe to talk to. I know, it sounds
ridiculous but..."

"You've
got to stay in contact with us," Callie said.

"That
could be hard," she said as the door opened and two older women emerged
through the fog. Rose exited without even telling us goodbye, obviously
frightened and suspicious of everyone.

We
toweled off quickly and pulled on our sweats, heading back to our room.

As
we passed the casino, I tugged at Callie's sleeve, indicating we should just go
by the roulette wheel one more time. The mystery of the ring had me baffled.
There never seemed to be more than one dealer wearing a bird ring at any given
time.

We
had no sooner stepped up to the table than a man approached and put down ten
thousand dollars in cash. Dealer Brownlee brightened. "Mr. Emerson, how
are you this fine day? Staying at the hotel?"

"Your
front desk is pretty busy. I'll be lucky if they check me in by midnight. Put
it all on fourteen," he said and the dealer froze for just an instant, as
if Mr. Emerson had chosen the wrong number, but he dutifully placed the bet
nonetheless. The wheel spun, and we all waited to see if the ball landed in the
fourteen slot. The wheel slowed, the ball landed, and jumped, and jumped again.
It just missed fourteen. We looked to the man for a reaction, but he had left
the table, disappearing into the crowd.

"Lotta
money," I remarked.

"They're
not betting, they're buying," Callie murmured. I stared at her, not
understanding what she was saying. "I dreamed that sentence last night. I
just remembered. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, I have to
remember this."

"Okay,
so what are they buying?"

"Sex,"
Callie said and her voice was far away.

Callie
was jarred back into reality by her cell phone ringing. She answered, spoke for
a few seconds, and then hung up. "Mom and Dad will be in early in the
morning. Their plane was delayed."

"Great,"
I said and Callie looked at me, I presumed, for signs of sarcasm. "Great
that they're still coming," I said and monitored my tone for
believability.

Callie
was in high spirits because her parents were finally here in the hotel and in
the room right next to ours. The moment she heard their key in the lock, she
dashed next door to greet them, returning fifteen minutes later to suggest I
wait to say hello until they'd had time to get some rest. Their flight had
indeed been delayed, their room wasn't ready, then they were put on the third
floor by mistake and finally moved up to the twelfth floor, so they were pretty
worn out and ready for a rest. Callie was disappointed to learn they were only
going to be here for twenty-four hours—her dad had a meeting back in Tulsa.
That meant one full day with them and I got Callie back. I would meet them at
breakfast and some afternoon socializing and then it would be pretty much over.
So I was in good spirits myself.

Callie's
upbeat mood made her playful and amorous, a state I breathlessly awaited but
not exactly at this moment. I was sound-shy when it came to sex. It had to do
with the insanity of my upbringing.

By
the time I'd reached puberty, it was stamped into my DNA that my Midwestern
parents would not approve of my having sex in the abstract, much less approve
of my having sex in the specific, and they would definitely not approve of my
having sex with a person of the same sex, because sex should be preceded by a
wedding and followed by a honeymoon, the purpose of which was the procreation
of people who looked and sounded like my parents. That last thought served as a
mental prophylactic.

My
parents, Ben and Lu, had evolved over the last twenty years, and I was over
forty, for God's sake, so why was I nervous? Nonetheless, Ben and Lu's heads
loomed as large as the Wizard of Oz, bobbing over my bed if ever I lay with my
lover in any room adjacent to theirs. Therefore, the idea that Callie's parents
had checked into the hotel and were now in the adjacent room, with only the
thin-as-a-cardboard-box wall between us, was just one step removed from having
my own parents present.

"What's
with you?" Callie said, snuggling up to me. "Come here."

"Shh,"
I whispered.

"Why?"
She giggled at me.

"We're
right up against their wall."

"Whose
wall?"

"Your
parents'."

"So
what? They know you and I are together." She rubbed her hand across the
soft hair between my legs.

"Okay,
fine. I just don't want them to
hear
that we're together."

"Are
you ashamed of us?"

"No,
not at all. Of course not! I mean, I don't want to hear them either. I just
think lovemaking is private, that's all."

"So,
are you going to have a very quiet orgasm?" she said, leaning over me and
putting her tongue where her hand had been. I bolted upright in bed, banging my
head against the headboard, which in turn banged against the wall, and
I
yelped
like a teenager, drawing back from her touch. She laughed. "Well, I'm sure
they'll wonder what
that
was about."

"Sorry,"
I said and took a deep breath.

Suddenly
the TV came on as if possessed. On the screen was a still shot, like the
opening frame of a video on pause. It was a shot of our hotel room, Callie and
me in bed together, in such an intertwined position that it was hard to see
whose legs belonged to whom. The text beneath the image said: Check out now or
this tape will be broadcast throughout the hotel.

"That's
us on TV!" Callie shrieked.

I
picked up the phone and rang the front desk, getting Ms. Loomis upon request. I
told her frantically what we were looking at on our TV screen. She offered to
send someone up to investigate as, mercifully, the image disappeared and the
closed circuit network of the hotel took over, describing where to dine and
what to see. I told Ms. Loomis the image had just disappeared, and she assured
me that she would immediately contact the hotel audio/video department and find
out who was on duty and what had occurred. I hung up, knowing whoever had done
it was long gone, and I squirmed over the existence of such a shot, our not
knowing if it was an idle threat or if it would indeed be broadcast in every
room including 1252, where Callie's parents were staying.

I
stared up at the ceiling, analyzing the location of the camera from the angle
of the video. The camera would have to be up high, shooting down in a wide
angle onto the bed. I jumped up and pulled the chair over to stand on it so I
could examine the walls, running my hands across the smooth paint looking for
pinholes of light or slits in the crown molding, any place a camera lens might
hide, as Elmo rolled his eyes over my repeated gymnastics. I found nothing, and
whoever put the camera in our room could just as easily have removed it, for
all I knew.