Lucky Flash: A Lucky O'Toole Novella (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series) (11 page)

Romeo shifted, pulling his notepad out of his pocket.
 
He’d been holding Brandy’s hand, which put a smile on my heart.
 
She sidled into him as he scanned his notes.
 
“Pismo says he pinched it from a guy named Livermore.”

Livermore.
 
Miss P’s eyes narrowed as her gaze caught mine.
 
She turned to her computer and started hitting keys.
 
“The diamond ring went out for cleaning and reappraisal last week.
 
It was only out for two days.”
 
She looked at me, her cheaters slipping to the end of her nose, her eyes pinpoints above them.
 
“The insurance agent who requested the reappraisal was a man named Pressman.”
 
She squinted as she read further; then her face cleared, and she looked up.

I held up my hand.
 
“Let me guess.
 
Livermore showed up as an associate of Mr. Pressman’s.”
 
Livermore, a sleazy PI when our paths had last crossed, apparently was branching out.
 
I motioned to Jeremy.
 
“Let’s go pay Mr. Livermore a visit.
 
You know the way.”

Romeo rose to follow us.

I put a hand out to stop him.
 
“You know the drill.
 
Give us ten minutes or so before you rush in with lights and sirens.
 
Our hands aren’t tied by procedural constraints.”

“Got it.”
 
He gave Brandy a sweet kiss and then followed us out.

I made a detour thorough my new office to grab my Glock from my desk drawer.
 
First time I visited Mr. Livermore, I’d been shot at.
 
This time, I intended to do the shooting.

CHAPTER SEVEN

F
LASH

Livermore.
 
Where had I heard that name?
 

“The PI?”
 
Dane asked, filling in that blank.
 

The tumblers fell into place; my brain lock opened.
 
Lucky had tangled with the dude.
 
Shots had been fired.
 
Lucky on the receiving end.
 
I’d wager a year’s salary she aimed to even the score.
 
I backhanded Dane in the stomach.
 
“We gotta go.”

“Your wish is my—”

“Yeah, right.
 
Cut the bullshit.
 
Let’s boogie.”

I sacrificed my dignity once again as I climbed into Dane’s jacked-up F-250 with a shotgun hanging in the rear window.
 
“Does every guy in Texas lust for a pickup?”

He cranked the thing, which started with a low growl, settling into a respectable diesel grumble.
 
Bug guts from his long drive across Texas and the desert still smeared the windscreen.
 
I thought I smelled wet dog, but I could’ve been
 
mistaken.
 
The dealership probably had wet-dog air freshener to add authenticity and play to the rednecks.
 
“The Dallas pansy-asses all drive Lexuses,” he said.

“Good to know.
 
Stay away from men driving Lexes,” I said, my high school Latin coming in handy as I scooted back in the seat, my feet barely touching the floorboard.
 
“You know where you’re going?”

“Unfortunately.”

“This ought to be fun.”

As promised, Livermore’s house hunkered in a beaten-down neighborhood in the Naked City, so named because show girls back in the day who populated the long-gone apartment houses had a penchant for soaking up the sun
au naturel
on the decks atop their buildings.
 
Sidewalks of uneven slabs of concrete, trees thinned through time and inattention, houses with bars on the windows and locked gates securing the doors, Naked City was not a place that inspired confidence.
 
Livermore’s house was one of the nicer ones.
 
The roof looked new, a fresh coat of paint brightened the clapboards, with clean windows behind new bars. It looked like Mr. Livermore had recently come into some money.

The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock’s Hummer parked at the curb added a touch of class.
 

“Showtime, Cowboy.”
 

Dane swallowed hard.

“From the look on your face I take it this will be a homecoming of sorts for you.
 
Should be interesting.”

He shot me a look as he grabbed the shotgun from its rest.

“That’s really going to help.”

“I played by your rules last time; now it’s my turn.”

Shoulder to shoulder we stalked up the path.
 
As I raised my hand to knock, the door flew open and a human missile launched himself at us.
 
He hit me square in the stomach.
 
I fell backwards, the air rushing out of me.
 
If I hadn’t been so angry, I might’ve just lay there basking in a rare sympathy-garnering moment.
 
Instead, as the guy scrambled off of me and regained his footing, I stuck out a foot and tripped him.
 
Dane whacked the guy with the butt-end of his shotgun, one tap to the temple, and he fell like a rag doll with all the stuffing gone.

Nelson Livermore.

After the last case Lucky and I worked involving Jean-Charles and several murders, I’d spent hours in a small room grilling Mr. Livermore.
 
This time, when he barreled into me, I didn’t need to see his face.
 
His cheap cologne made identification easy the olfactory way.
 
Dane tugged me to my feet as Lucky skidded to a stop in the doorway with Jeremy on her heels, both of them with guns drawn.

Lucky took in everyone at a glance.
 
“Well,” she addressed Dane.
 
“Somehow finding you here doesn’t surprise me.”

Dane threw a pleading look for help over Lucky’s shoulder to Jeremy, who ignored it.
 
At a loss, he grabbed Livermore, who writhed at our feet, and jerked him to his feet.

A thin, rat-faced man with a bad comb-over, he eyed us all, looking a bit put out.
 
“Why did you hit me?” he asked Dane.

“Why did you run?”

Holding the side of his head, he angled it gingerly toward Lucky and Jeremy.
 
“Those two burst through the back with guns drawn.
 
While I don’t have much, I do have a strong sense of self-preservation.
 
Running seemed like a good thing at the time.”

Speaking of self-preservation, mine kicked in.
 
Lucky had taught me the best defense is a quick offense, so I jumped in before she could take a bite out of my ass.
 
“Dane showed up at my house this afternoon.
 
He was there when I woke up.
 
I had no idea.”

“And bringing him into this mess seemed like a good idea because?”

“Because I wasn’t going to visit Busta’ Blue unarmed and without my own muscle.
 
You think I’m crazy?”

“Yes, but not that crazy.”
 
She gave Livermore a long look.
 
“We got men coming out the wazoo, none of them worth a plug nickel.”

As if on cue, Romeo’s unmarked screamed around the corner, a rotating red light struck to the roof as the siren wailed.
 
He skidded in behind Jeremy’s Hummer and killed the cavalry call.
 
Blissful silence.
 
The neighborhood remained curiously quiet.
 
Sirens were so common in this neighborhood that nobody bothered to react anymore.

Romeo strolled up looking nonplussed.
 
“Shoot anybody?” he asked Lucky.

“Not yet.”
 
She pulled the slide back on her Glock to clear the gun and then tucked it back in her purse.
 

“You’re Livermore, right?” he asked the man brushing down his jacket and looking a bit incensed but knowing the odds didn’t favor fighting back.
 

He stood up straighter.
 
“I am.”

“We are all here looking for enlightenment.
 
Care to indulge us?”

Considering he’d been chased by two people bursting into his kitchen guns drawn, then clocked with the butt of a shotgun, Livermore looked remarkably unfazed.
 
“If you could provide some context, detective, I’d be grateful.”

Romeo gave Lucky a look—those two could communicate sentences in a glance.
 
“Let’s start with your interest in Liberace’s ring.”

“The one in the Babylon?”

“And its copies.”

If Livermore was surprised we knew, he hid it well.
 
“I’ve been hired by the insurance company to investigate several cases of suspected insurance fraud.”
 
He named the company.
 

Lucky nodded once to Romeo.
 
“So how’d the company get wind of the fraud?”

“A robbery in St. Louis.
 
A big collector.
 
Legitimate.
 
The cops found his collection intact and arrested the would-be thieves.
 
Of course, being a legitimate collector and having serious money invested, the guy had everything re-authenticated.”

“Let me guess,” Lucky said.
 
“He’d just insured his collection.”

Livermore nodded.
 
“And the company had requested several of the items be authenticated prior to the theft.”

“By whom?”

“An outfit named Memorabilia Rarities.
 
They said everything was copacetic.”

“Did he choose another authentication place after his collection was returned?”

“Yes.
 
He had a personal relationship with another group in Los Angeles.”

“And some of the items came back as fakes?”
 
Lucky asked, but I could tell she was three steps ahead.

Livermore nodded.
 
“We’re trying to get a line on black-market sales to see if any of the stolen pieces had found new owners, but the information is quite difficult to come by.”

A bit of an understatement, I felt sure.
 
I could see Lucky thought the same.

“So the authenticators the insurance company requested?” Lucky pressed.
 
“Memorabilia Rarities?
 
I’d be willing to bet they’re a Vegas outfit.”

“You’d win that bet.”
 
Livermore nodded.
 
“I was just in the process of figuring out how to approach them.”

Lucky rubbed her hands together as she looked around the group.
 
I knew that look in her eye—it meant action of the most fun kind.
 
“I think it’s time we had some music memorabilia authenticated, don’t you?”
 
She stuck out her hand.
 
“Flash, let me see those photos you took of Dig Me O’Dell’s collection.”
 
She handed my phone to Livermore.
 
“Recognize any of these?”

Livermore pulled a list out of his pocket.
 
“Some of these items have gone up for sale recently.
 
Three I know for sure.”

“And O’Dell had acquired them from the rightful owners?”

“Apparently so.
 
The sales were through reputable firms, and none have been reported as fakes.”

“But the ring was stolen.
 
I wonder who he bought the stolen ring from.”
 
Lucky tapped her fingers on her thigh.
 
“I think I need to pay Mr. O’Dell a visit.”
 
She looked around the group.
 
“What else do we know?
 
What about the insurance company?
 
I assume they hired you?” She continued questioning Livermore.

“Yes.”

“Did they give you any names of agents handling the accounts?”

“All of them are handled by a local man named Otis Pressman.”

“And we come full circle,” Lucky said, but didn’t provide any context.

“What do you mean full circle?”

“His name came up before.
 
He requested the recent re-appraisal of Liberace’s ring.
 
It was out of our care for two days.”

“What do you know about him?” Romeo asked Livermore.
 
“Have you paid him a visit?”

“Not yet.
 
I didn’t want to put him onto the fact someone might be overly interested in his activities.
 
I figured I’d try to get to him through the back door.”

“He’s the link,” Jeremy agreed.
 
“We don’t want to flush him just yet.”

“He and Dig Me O’Dell hold the keys right now,” Lucky said as she took charge.
 
“Okay,” she pointed to Jeremy.
 
“You and Flash, I have a plan for you.
 
I’d do it myself, but I’m a little high-profile to pull this off.”

“Down and dirty we can do,” I assured her and gave Jeremy a wink, which he fielded with good humor.
 
I knew he was spoken for.
 
So did he.
 
But a bit of harmless banter was always good fun.
 
“What’s the plan?”

“I have something I’d like you to insure.”
 
Next she turned her eyes on Romeo.
 
“I’m assuming you have Johnny Pismo on a short leash?”

“Got a tail on him.”

“Were you able to get a list of the items on the scavenger hunt?”

“After we left you, he changed his story.
 
He said he didn’t have one.”

“Curious.”
 
Lucky looked at me.
 
“Didn’t he tell us he had one?”

“Someplace where no one would find it,” I confirmed.

“That strikes me as a bunch of bullshit.
 
He’s been trying to send us down the wrong path with that whole load.
 
I’d be willing to bet there is no scavenger hunt.”
 
She cocked an eyebrow at me.