Lucky Flash: A Lucky O'Toole Novella (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series) (4 page)

Last I saw of Busta’ Blue, he was hightailing it around the corner, the tiger in loping pursuit.
 

Flash ran and pounced on one of the prone men.
 
One step behind her, I took the shooter.
 
The smell of urine was strong.
 
I’d probably piss myself too if a tiger jumped on me, so I tried not to judge.
 
A cursory pat down revealed he was unarmed except for his handgun, which I kicked out of reach.
 
Unbuckling his belt, I then pulled it free.
 
“Cross you wrists.”
 

Eyes white with fear found mine, and he did as I asked.
 
“Where’s the tiger?” he whispered.

“Waiting for me to give the word to eat you alive.”

The guy actually bought that line.
 
“What’re you tying me up for?”

“Not what.
 
Who?”

“The cops, I know,” he said, showing he had a few brain cells.
 
“But what’d I do?”

“Discharged a gun in the city.
 
Hell, I don’t know.
 
Picked the wrong guy to hang with?
 
Guilty by association.
 
I’m sure that’s a crime somewhere.”
 
Not in Vegas, though.
 
If it was, half the city would be in the slammer, including me, but I didn’t say that.
 
I secured his hands behind him with the belt.
 
It wouldn’t hold him for long, but hopefully long enough—especially with the tiger threat.
 
As an afterthought, I tied his shoelaces together.
 
“One thing I do know:
 
you and your friend are not my problem.
 
Metro can deal with you two, so save your whining for them.”
 
Metro is the local nickname for our fearless protectors, the Metropolitan Police Department, many of whom I held in rather low esteem.
 
Through the years they’d worked hard to be held so low, so who was I to refuse to grant their wish?
 

With her guy flipped onto his stomach, his arms wrenched behind him and a knee firmly in his back, Flash had been watching me as I secured Busta’ Blue’s buddy.
 
When I’d finished, she used the same technique on her guy.
 

Now certain the two men wouldn’t go anywhere anytime soon, I pushed to my feet, then grabbed my phone from its holster at my hip.
 
As I hit the Emergency button that would auto-dial 911, I growled at Flash, “Get that ass Johnny Pismo out of that damn tree, and keep him out of my reach for now.
 
I’m not feeling too charitable at the moment.”

Flash grinned—she knew I was 90 percent bark, 10 percent bullshit.

 
After a few moments of heated conversation, I managed to convince the dispatcher at the Metropolitan Police Department that this wasn’t a crank call, that there was indeed a tiger in hot pursuit of a rap star, both of them headed toward the Strip.
 
It defied logic that she seemed so unconvinced that something this absurd could happen in a city where the absurd was commonplace, but then, again, we are talking about Metro—the place where the lower your I.Q. the larger your weapon was not only a rule, it was a mandate.

When I finished my call, I joined Flash underneath Johnny Pismo’s tree.

“Come on, Johnny honey,” Flash cajoled.
 
“I swear they’re gone.”

“Last time you sweet-talked me I ended up naked, smeared with honey, and dumped on the Strip without a shred of clothing.”

I looked at Flash with a raised eyebrow.

She shrugged.
 
“But I rolled you in birdseed covering your…shortcomings, so I left you with some dignity intact.”

“Not after the pigeons found me.” He didn’t sound angry, which wasn’t a surprise.
 
Johnny Pismo’s career path had taught him if not to enjoy public humiliation, at least to tolerate it.
 

“Pigeons?”
 
Flash’s voiced cracked a bit.
 
I couldn’t tell whether from laughter or pain.
 
I didn’t dare look at her.

Johnny Pismo’s feet appeared, then his legs, followed by the rest of him as he chatted.
 
“Actually, the pigeon’s weren’t so bad.”
 
He wrapped his legs around the trunk of the tree and shinnied down.
 
Landing on both feet, he brushed himself down as he turned and locked eyes with Flash.
 
“But the crows?
 
Damn, those buggers are nuthin’ but feathered flesh-eaters.”

Open-mouthed, I stared at both of them.
 
Words deserted me.
 
Flash clearly suffered from the same affliction.
 
Sirens sounded in the distance, faint at first, then growing louder.
 
A cruiser squealed into the alley followed by an unmarked, high-beams on, the light bar on top of the cruiser strobing like flares igniting.
 
I winced and squinted against the light.
 
The cars screeched to a halt.
 
With my pupils still pinpointed by the bright lights, I heard but didn’t see the doors open and boots hit the ground.

“Hold it right there,” someone barked.

Still blinking furiously, my eyes tearing a bit, I rolled my eyes—we hadn’t moved.
 

“Stand down, officer.”
 
A calm voice that made me smile—Detective Romeo.
 
He and I went way back, and he was perhaps the only member of the force that I would invite to dinner in my home.
 
A trusted friend and ally against the silly, the stupid, and the lethal.
 

“Lucky, are you okay?”

His worried face appeared through my tears.
 
Still looking all of twelve, except for the worry lines bracketing his mouth and the dark circles offsetting the bright blue of his eyes, he stared at me intently, his concern evident.
 

“Christ almighty, Romeo.
 
Your lights are making me feel like I’m having a near-death experience.”
 

As I talked with Romeo, Flash drug Pismo off to the side.
 
I’d let her have her fun.

That got a relieved snort out of him.
 
He turned to his men.
 
“Lower the wattage, guys.”
 
It took them a moment, but they did as he asked, leaving light to see by but not enough to coerce a confession during an interrogation.
 
“Now, get these two in the cruiser.”
 
He turned his attention back to me.
 
“So what’s this about a tiger?”

I filled him in.
 
Embellishing the good parts, I had him in tears as I ended with a flourish describing Busta’ Blue’s ignominious departure.

“You and me keep learning the same lesson over and over.”
 
He swiped at his eyes with the back of a hand.

“Bullies—nothing but big sissies if you push back.”

“Or have a tiger,” the young detective added as he sobered just a bit.
 
“So where is this… what’s his name?”

“Johnny Pismo.”

“Right.”
 
Romeo took his notepad out of the inside pocket of his ubiquitous crumpled overcoat, pulled the pencil from the spring binding, then flipped it open and started scratching a few notes.
 
“Where’d he get that name?
 
From that Brazilian liquor?”

That stopped me for a second.
 
“No, that’s Pisco.
 
Pismo’s a beach in California.”

Romeo shrugged, clearly unconcerned about his poor grasp of useless details.
 
“Whatever.
 
Let’s get this over with; sleep’s a wasting.”
 

We joined Flash, who had Johnny Pismo up against a fence.
 
A lapel in each hand, her face inches from his, she was giving him the what-for.
   

Romeo stepped in to break it up.
 
“Down, girl.
 
I’ll take it from here.”

Flash whirled with a scowl, her hand still fisted in Johnny Pismo’s jacket.
 
Her face brightened when she recognized Romeo.
 
She let go of her handfuls of cloth and stepped back, making a sweeping gesture toward Johnny Pismo, like a matador taunting a bull with a red cape.
 
“Sure, detective.
 
He’s all yours.
 
For the record, he likes it rough.”

Wide-eyed, Romeo stared at her for several blinks, then turned his peepers my direction.
 

“Don’t let her scare you; she respects the uniform.”

Romeo glanced down at his civvies.

“You know what I mean.”

Released from Flash’s grasp, Johnny Pismo stood a bit taller as he brushed at the wrinkles in his lapels with little effect.
 
The tattered cloth, thin with age, held every crease.
 
“You guys got a smoke?”

“Haven’t you learned?” Flash asked.
 
“Three packs a day.
 
That stuff will kill you.”

I thought Busta’ Blue posed the more immediate threat to Johnny Pismo’s longevity, but I didn’t want to get into that conversation.
 

A bit twitchy and reeking of fear, Pismo put on a brave face as he glanced from the detective to me, ignoring Flash.
 
He glanced over Romeo’s shoulder and seemed to relax at the sight of Busta’ Blue’s muscle corralled in the back of the squad car and guarded by several officers.
 
“Look, this is all a big mistake.”

Romeo sighed and readied his pencil over a new page in his notebook.
 
“It always is.
 
So start at the beginning, and if you leave out any pertinent facts, I’ll bust your ass.”

I crossed my arms and smiled—my young detective had added a gravelly growl to his repertoire.
 
Nice.

That knocked a bit of the jaunty out of Johnny Pismo.
 
“Look, I didn’t steal it.
 
I just borrowed it.”

I’d seen bad acts before, but Johnny Pismo’s truly sucked.
 

“I’m going to give it back.
 
Really.”

“Of course you are.”
 
Romeo sighed and gave me a tired look of disgust.
 
“If I had a dime for every two-bit has-been who tried to entertain me with me that song and dance, I’d be a rich man.
 
Just give whatever it is to me.”

Johnny Pismo glanced around weighing his options from the looks of it.
 
“Okay, but I gotta have it back.
 
It’s important.”
 
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a huge ring festooned with an impressive square-cut diamond.

“Liberace’s ring?
 
And a good fake, too.” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
 
I knew that ring pretty well, had held it one several occasions.
 

“Why do you think it’s a fake?” Romeo asked.
 

Flash pulled out her pad and started scribbling.

“The real one belongs to the Big Boss.”
 
As I said it, some of the tumblers in my head fell into place.
 
So this is what the Big Boss wanted with Johnny Pismo.
 
“It’s one of the centerpieces of the music collection in the museum at the Babylon.”

Johnny Pismo nodded.
 
“This one used to belong to Liberace.”

Flash whistled.
 
“Serious?”

Johnny nodded.
 
“Stole it myself.”

“From the Babylon?”
 
I asked, still not connecting the dots.

“No, from Busta’ Blue.
 
That’s why he’s pissed.
 
He’s a big fan of Liberace.”

“Liberace.”
 
I allowed myself a moment.
 
The face of Vegas when I was young and impressionable, I’d met him numerous times, even going to his house with my mother.
 
Nobody new could hold a candle.
 
I focused on the bauble.
 
“That’s got to be a fake.”
 
The security at the Babylon, while not impenetrable, was damn solid.
 
I couldn’t imagine one of these bozos pinching the ring without sounding all kinds of alarms.

“This one is the real one,” Johnny Pismo gave me a knowing look.
 
“You got the fake one in your case.”

My disbelief must’ve been written across my face.

“Look,” Pismo continued, warming to the story, “the Big Boss put you on my tail, right?”

So now I knew why the Big Boss sent me after the half-wit—it wasn’t Pismo he was after.
 
It was the ring.
 
He should’ve given me a heads-up.
 
I’d try to remember that when I gave my boss a piece of my mind, assuming I had any left after all this.
 
“So you tell the Big Boss your story about the ring, that Busta’ Blue has the real one and the Babylon has been insuring a fake.
 
He doesn’t believe you.
 
And you decide to prove it by stealing Busta’s?”

Johnny nodded. “And a good plan, too.
 
Well, until Busta’ Blue came home unexpected.
 
But I knew the Big Boss would keep an eye on me, just in case.
 
I’m sure he probably will get the ring in his case checked, maybe might have put that into gear, but things with me sorta escalated pretty quick.
 
I just talked to the Big Boss a few hours ago.”
 
He glanced at Flash.
 
“I didn’t know I’d end up with the second-string though.”

“Delegation, it’s what I do.
 
And you were darn lucky to have her chasing you all over town.
 
Had it been me, I would’ve wrung your sorry neck and been done with it.”
 
I held out my hand, and, swallowing hard, Johnny Pismo dropped the ring into my palm.
 
I hefted it a couple of times.
 
It felt real.
 
But you could say that about most of Vegas; that was the sleight of hand.
 
“Liberace,” I sighed his name.
 
I longed for the old days, when the Mob kept the peace, everyone knew the rules, and the entertainers were exactly that, without fancy mixing and huge productions, and near-naked backup performers to compensate for the headliners who were long on charisma and short on everything else.