Ambersley (Lords of London) (53 page)

Yeah, like King Kong gnawing on his skull wasn’t enough.

His fingers drummed against his thighs as he waited for his quarry to finish his performance. Cosmo tried to make you think his brain power had receded like his hairline, mumbled his way out of messes with his folksy charm, and all the while he juggled his numerous little dealings with the same precise arcs as those flaming torches he now wielded onstage.

Well, this was bound to be Cosmo Fortune’s last show for a while.
Quite
a while.

The magician’s deft fingers conjured a dove from within the folds of his black cape. Capes had gone out with Liberace, Elvis,
Houdini,
for God’s sake. Amid sparse applause, the dove fluttered upward until it disappeared in the bright stage lights.

Careful, bird. Don’t be giving your boss any ideas.

Mickey glanced at his watch. Time was quickly becoming his enemy. Well, at least enemies were more predictable than friends in this game. He’d tried to befriend Cosmo, and look how that had turned out. Dangerous to have friends when you played every hand against the other.

He’d been doing that ever since he arrived in Vegas. His lifestyle didn’t allow for friendships. Not anymore.

Beyond the footlights, the half-filled auditorium resounded with sketchy applause and a few hoots as Cosmo Fortune took a bow. His assistant, scantily clad in a blue satin tutu, hauled a white rabbit roughly the size of a cocker spaniel off the draped table, handed the animal to Cosmo and all three took another bow. Finally, the curtain dropped.

Mickey marched forward to take the trickster’s pudgy arm. A strong smell of Axe aftershave wafted up from the magician and made Mickey’s headache bare its teeth again. He blinked against the flash of pain, imprinting the image of Cosmo’s mad-doctor hair and silver goatee, which always made the guy look like a cross between an aging Wolfman and a munchkin.

Cosmo’s impish golden eyes lit in recognition. “Mickey, my boy! Here, take Edgar—”

“
Keep that damned carnivore away from me.”

Cosmo blinked. “It was an accident he bit you that time.”

“
Like I’m going to believe anything you say,” Mickey said under his breath as the assistant came to lift the rabbit against her globe-shaped breasts. “We need to talk, old man.”

“
Sure, sure.” Cosmo tried to pull away, but Mickey knew better than to loosen his grip. With a shrug, his captive relaxed and grinned as if this were all an elaborate game. “Let’s go see Iris. We’ll break her loose from that fancy party she’s attending. I tell you, you’re just the man for her.”

“
I’ve met Iris and she ignored me.” Damn his matchmaking eyes. “Let’s go.”

“
Oh, I can’t go without Edgar.”

Mickey gritted his teeth. The old guy could slide off a topic faster than a drunk off a barstool. Maybe a little psychology was in order. “You know, perhaps I should meet your daughter again. Let’s go find her. We can talk on the way.”

“
Delightful!” Cosmo smiled, crooked as a coyote. His free hand riffled his hair and improved munchkin to Einstein.

Mickey released his hold, and the magician whipped off his cape and traded it to the lovely assistant for that damn rabbit. Its round red eyes watched Mickey while its nose and whiskers twitched in disdain. The silver collar with glittering fake rubies only made him look more like a rich brat.

So, you fur-coated hasenpfeffer, you think I’m no smarter than Elmer Fudd, eh?
Mickey’s lip curled at the thought of dumping the creature on the freeway, or leaving it in the desert to fend for itself. The overfed animal would probably die if it missed a meal.

The assistant nuzzled the rabbit’s face. “Don’t keep Cosmo out too late, Edgar.” She eyed Mickey with open distrust. “You neither.” With a wink to her boss, she turned on her heel and shook her hips down the hall.

“
She gave up a successful dancing career to work with me,” Cosmo said as Mickey ushered him to the door.

Mickey looked back over his shoulder at the woman. With that figure, she’d probably left a lucrative
exotic
dancing career, and what she saw in the aging Casanova eluded him.

They stepped from the backstage entrance to the tiny service lot and Cosmo pointed to a beat-up Cadillac in champagne pink. “I’m parked over there.”

“
Great, but we’re taking my car.” Mickey nudged him toward a dark nondescript Prelude. What he intended to do didn’t need extra advertising.

“
I don’t know why you don’t like Edgar.” Cosmo folded himself and the rabbit into the passenger seat.

Mickey closed the door on them and scanned the lot as he walked around the car. “No witnesses,” he muttered to himself. He climbed into his seat and drove along a mile of service roads to get to Las Vegas Boulevard. Once he was headed toward McCarran Airport, he allowed himself a smile. “You know why they sent me, right?”

“
I can imagine.” The old man didn’t sound afraid at all. His pasty hand stroked the rabbit’s white back.

“
Where are they?” Mickey slowed as he approached a stoplight. Beyond the intersection, the metal skeleton of a new hotel under construction rose from the desert, its moonlit silhouette clawing the sky like some black specter. “You shouldn’t mess with these guys. I thought I made that clear.”

“
Why should I give over the goods before I’ve gotten my payment?”

“
At this point, you should hand them over before I have to wrest them from your dead fingers.”

“
You wouldn’t kill me, my boy.” But for the first time, Cosmo didn’t sound quite so blissfully sure of himself. “Didn’t they send you with my money?”

“
They sent me with a gun, Cosmo.”

“
But I always thought you liked me, my boy.”

“
Yeah, well, given a choice, I like myself a whole lot better.” Mickey disobeyed all the traffic barrels and drove through a tight opening in a cement barricade onto the hotel construction site. A flick of his wrist dimmed the headlights, and the car eased forward, guided by an amber glow. He wove through heavy machinery before drawing to a stop near a large crane and a row of giant concrete tubes.

Hopefully, Cosmo’s silence meant he understood the severity of his situation. “Well?” Mickey cut the engine.

“
Killing me will do you no good. I don’t have them on me.”

From his inside breast pocket Mickey withdrew a pair of leather driving gloves and took his time pulling them over his calm fingers. Unnerving his prey—this he knew how to do. “But you’ll tell me where you’ve stashed them.”

“
You can’t force me.” The first trace of fear glimmered in the magician’s eyes, and he clutched the rabbit to his chest.

Mickey cocked a brow. “Come on, Cosmo. Like it wouldn’t be a bonus for me to shoot the rabbit first?”

As if he understood, Edgar tried to burrow into Cosmo’s tuxedo jacket.

“
I don’t need to force you,” Mickey continued smoothly. “You’ll talk, because tonight, old man, you’re going to do a final disappearing act. And if you don’t tell me where those jewels are before you do, I’m going to pay a visit to your daughter Iris.” Mickey withdrew a gun from his shoulder holster and checked the empty chamber. “And when I’m done with her, I’ll visit your other two daughters.”

Cosmo’s chin fell limp. “How did you know?”

“
Oh, come on. You were the one who taught me to study my adversary when I joined this little operation. Now I make it a point to learn everything about
anyone
I do business with. You’re nothing but a common grifter, Cosmo. You’re in way over your head with these guys.”

“
I know,” Cosmo whispered.

Mickey drew a breath and eased his shoulders back. Ahh, the headache had disappeared. “Then what’s it going to be, my friend? Remember, you won’t be here to protect those little girls of yours. The best thing you can do is tell me where to find the jewels so I have no reason to visit any of them.”

The magician huddled in his seat and clung to the rabbit like it was a talisman against evil, but Mickey saw the telltale glistening of sweat in the older man’s thinning hair.
Come on, give it over.
Any moment, Cosmo would break and tell him what he wanted to know. And maybe, just maybe, no one would get hurt.

Mickey stole another quick glance at his watch. In less than an hour he needed to contact his employers, a group of men who didn’t understand failure. They certainly never forgave it.

With a little exhalation of breath, he looked over at Cosmo, prepared to strong-arm him more if necessary.

But the magician suddenly shoved the rabbit at Mickey’s face. “Take Edgar—I’ve gotta whiz!”

Mickey tried to get the rabbit off his chest and arms, but the animal held on with the tenacity of a bobcat. The oversized back feet kicked at him, digging in with long claws, and to his chagrin, he dropped his gun. He bent to the floorboard to retrieve it, and the damn rabbit bit him in the thigh. “Sonofabitch!”

By the time Mickey found the gun and locked the rabbit in the car, his headache had returned with a vengeance.

And Cosmo Fortune had disappeared.

~

The problem with wearing her hair up at these functions was that she never could guarantee the style would stay intact. Iris glanced around the crowded hotel ballroom. No one was watching her except some guy near the door who’d obviously crashed the black-tie affair. With his leather jacket and beat-up jeans, it wouldn’t take long for security to escort him out.

Pity, he was vaguely familiar and kind of sexy, in that tall, dark and dangerous sort of way. Not that he was her type. No, she wasn’t about to make the same mistake her mother had when she fell in love and married a Vegas magician.

Iris touched the back of her head, her smile firmly in place as she re-anchored three loose bobby pins.

Wending his way through the crowded party, David approached with two glasses of white wine and handed her one. “Do you need to go to the powder room to fix your hair?”

“
I can’t tell. Do I?” She turned her head and awaited his judgment. David liked things perfect and orderly, just like she did. He led a normal, trustworthy and uncomplicated life, and that’s why she’d accepted his marriage proposal two weeks before. She tightened her left fingers, to reassure herself that she hadn’t forgotten to put on the engagement ring.

“
Actually, it looks fine,” he said. When Iris faced him, he raised his glass. “To the most beautiful woman in the room.”

David really was sweet, and he openly adored her. Handsome in a blond news-anchor sort of way, he looked polished and well combed with just the right hint of tan. He’d made a success as junior partner at the law firm and made friends with his easy-going charm—important attributes to launching his political career. The man was practically perfect.

She rose on her toes to kiss him, but David stepped back. “You’ll ruin your lipstick.”

“
Right.” She smiled up at him, and he bussed her on the cheek. Much better for both of them.

She clinked her glass with his, and they sipped in unison. She pursed her lips at the white wine.

“
Is the Chardonnay all right? I know you’d prefer red.” His tone was apologetic, which only made her feel worse. She never wanted to say or do anything to drive him away. She needed—craved—David’s normalcy. A life with someone like him would make up for all the years when she hadn’t been able to count on her father.

“
No, this is just what I wanted.” She sipped again with better control. She’d asked for white wine to protect her expensive ivory dress.

David waved to three men she didn’t know. “Smart choice. Red wine and that dress could be a disaster.”

Another trait they shared—smart choices. David was perfect for her in so many ways. She sipped her wine with a smile to assure him she was content.

After all, the illusion was as close as some people got to the real thing.

“
Excuse me a minute.” He leaned close to her ear. “Those gentlemen all contributed to my campaign fund. Give me three minutes with them, then join us.” He left before she could answer.