Nobody Dies in a Casino (15 page)

“I read about that building.” Bradone allowed a chuckle. “Cost something like a hundred million to build and eight million a year just for maintenance and security.”

“It's actually a group of buildings inside a concrete fortress with security sensors, razor wire, and those famous ‘armed response personnel,'” Evan told her.

“I've heard of those ARP guys,” Richard said. “There's private companies that hire them out to government installations just like commercial security services do to businesses. Only these ARPs are ex–military security instead of ex-cops.”

“There's a lot of ex-ARPs on the market now too,” Evan added—not to be outdone by the older man. Men compete on everything. “Especially in Vegas, with all the loose cash. There's lots to secure and not enough mob presence to see that it's done quietly and neatly. And they're becoming more political, patriotic. Organizing and going out in groups to take care of people who do antigovernment things. They're like the reverse of the antigovernment militia movement but better armed and trained and with friends in high places. How does that tickle your little conspiracy phobia, Charlie?”

“Seems like you might be asking yourself that question, since you're continually baiting the keepers of the secrets out at Groom Lake. Maybe they'll come after you.”

“Maybe they already have.”

“A picture of the DAF was on the desk when I found the dead men. But it disappeared before we left.”

“Maybe that's what whoever searched the house was looking for.” Evan snapped his fingers. “We've got a real detailed plan of that state-of-the-art security system.”

“Where'd you get something like that?” Richard wanted to know.

“Off the state-of-the-art Internet.”

Charlie actually finished almost all of her baked potato and the men had seconds. They retired to the ploopy couch to argue over how a great project really gets funded and why agents and bankers and brokers are important to the process. Their speech was slurred. They ordered coffee and brandy and didn't seem to notice when Bradone lured Charlie out onto the roof patio.

Charlie wanted to stop and enjoy the amazing light show that was Vegas, the shadow mountains ringing the horizon, and the steam rising off the Jacuzzi next to the pool. But Bradone tugged her through the glass doors of an elegant bedroom and tossed a couple of pieces of cloth at her. “I bought this for my niece, but you can have it.” She was already pulling off her own slacks and blouse.

“But I haven't shaved my you-know. I mean—”

“Hell, I don't care. And those guys will be passed out by the time we get wet. Brent and Reed are gay and not easily impressed. Now hurry, dessert is in the Jacuzzi.”

Yes, Charlie had a thought or two about whether or not lovely Bradone was bi. And what this dessert might be. But she put on the bikini and ignored the pubics—it had been that bad a day. Now that Sleem and his bald buddy were dead, all she had to worry about were the ARPs from Groom.

“Finally, I have you all to myself.” Bradone laughed low. “You've been so busy finding dead bodies and Richard's been so … very attentive.”

“I was a little surprised”—
stunned
was more like it, but Charlie too was choosing her words carefully—“at your interest in him.”

“Yes, well, he's something of a novelty. I've always liked novelty.”

“Nothing stays a novelty for long.”

“No, nothing does.”

Dessert was a chocolate mint and coffee. And if the guys weren't asleep already, they were certainly quiet in there.

The water bubbled warm against her mostly nakedness. The air blew chill against her face. The rich coffee went down hot. Charlie sighed. “Here I am, a mother, and I can see all these people murdered and feel this good afterwards. Do you suppose Hollywood has hardened me?”

“There's a lot to be said for the survivor syndrome.”

“Don't forget good old guilt. I seem to get nourishment from it.” Charlie could feel tight muscles relaxing. Even her bones seemed to be readjusting more comfortably in their ligaments and sinews, or whatever kept her together.

“You're not worried that the police think you killed those three men today?” An edge of concern crept into the modulated voice.

“I don't know. But I have had a connection with six murders in five days, and the cops don't think three of them are murders even. Well, maybe the hit-and-run. Driving me nuts.”

“Six?” Now Bradone McKinley sounded incredulous but listened without interrupting as Charlie described once again the deaths of Patrick the pilot, Timothy the bicycle cop, and Ben Hanley who drank from Charlie's glass. She went on to describe what little she knew or suspected of Art Sleem, Tooney, and the bald thug, whose murders in Evan Black's great room nobody denied.

“So what's the connection?”

“The only one I can see,” Charlie said helplessly, “is me.”

“Why not Evan? He would seem to have more of a connection.”

“Not with Ben Hanley from Kenosha, Wisconsin, he doesn't. Bradone, would you believe I feel worse about that death than all the others combined?”

*   *   *

Subdued lighting aimed downward highlighted curving stone pathways among shrubs in pots, flowering plants, small fountains and statuary, concrete gargoyles, and the bottom of the kidney-shaped swimming pool in the penthouse garden. The hot tub sat on a raised platform, so that even the mostly submerged could view the dazzling display of Las Vegas at night, the city streetlights blazing in lines radiating in all directions, the airliners blinking overhead.

All around, the mountain ranges hunkering on the horizon, forming a circular frame to keep reality at bay.

Steam made Bradone McKinley and the arm she raised toward the heavens appear to waver and warp as she pointed out the constellations either by direction or by distinguishing stars that managed to stab through the light refraction from the gaudiest city in the world.

Charlie had begun to tense up again with all the talk about dead bodies, and the astrologer's soothing, melodic voice calmed her. She caught herself yawning as Bradone carried on about planets and houses and moons rising.

“Charlie, what if even one of those planets has some lifeform? What if that life-form is even now on its way here? Or already here?”

“What if that life-form has its own system of astrology? What if it reads some significance in the position of our solar system, Earth even?”

The older woman lowered her arm and her head suddenly to ask Charlie the date and time and place of her birth. Charlie answered the best she could remember from what Edwina had told her and then Bradone grew far too quiet for far too long.

“So what's the prognosis, stargazer? Is the body count over for the week? Am I going to salvage some vacation here or what?”

“We should meet for breakfast,” Bradone said instead of answering. “Somewhere away from here and Richard and the police. There are so many things I want to ask you, Charlie. About Mitch Hilsten and Georgette Millrose. About Evan and that strange film we saw at his house last night.”

Charlie noticed she didn't mention learning more about Richard Morse. “Bradone?”

“Look, I'm going to run your chart tonight.” She steamed all over when she stood and reached for a towel. She didn't look real. “I'll pick you up at your door, call you first, think of a place we could go.”

“Bradone, talk to me.”

Bradone stood on the tub deck with the towel wrapped around her, head cocked to one side, the edges of her hairdo dripping, honest-to-God shooting stars zipping above her. It was creepy. “You're really very perceptive, aren't you, Charlie Greene?”

“No, I'm really very scared.” And I don't even believe in astrology. The gambling blimp's tacky advertising board flashed
PLAY KENO
! over the stargazer's left shoulder. “Are the murders over with for what's left of the ruins of my vacation or not?”

For the first time since they'd met, Charlie heard uncertainty in the woman's tone. “Somehow, I don't think so.”

CHAPTER
18

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, a limo drove Charlie and Bradone to a secluded restaurant on the edge of a golf course, far from the glitz of the Strip and Fremont. They sat at an outside table in the sun, grape-arbor decor separating the tables from one another but opening onto the view of bright green greens and distant golfers.

Bradone pulled a cell phone and a paper notebook like Matt Tooney's from her purse. Dressed to kill in a wide-brimmed straw hat and country-club dress, Bradone looked great in black too. But that choice in color didn't make Charlie feel any easier.

“What did the charts and planets and stuff have to say?”

“May I suggest the creamed eggs on croissant?”

“You said if I came here, we'd talk. You're not talking.”

“Let's do talk. But not about dead bodies until we've had some coffee and food.” Sun drilled through the holes in the straw brim of her hat to pinprick her face and throat. “Have you heard from your mother since last we talked?”

“Well, no, but that's not the problem right now, is it?” And Jesus, why are you in black and hardly any makeup?

Was the shading on her lids charcoal color instead of blue because she'd been up all night running charts about Charlie's future and didn't like what the stars were saying?

Don't forget you don't believe in astrology.

“Charlie, remember when I told you I had a secret about Richard? At the big pool on the recreation deck?”

“Not really, but what were you doing down there anyway when you had your own pool at the penthouse?”

“It was important to Richard. Men need to feel less vulnerable now and then. You know that.”

The arrival of coffee and orange juice helped settle Charlie's nervousness. Bradone McKinley's voice was not so soothing and melodic this morning.

“What I found funny about your mention of wild-yam cream and your mother's menopausal problems was this.” Bradone drew a small white jar out of her black straw purse. It looked a lot like the one Ben Hanley's sister-in-law, Betty, had shown Charlie at dinner at the Baronshire. “Read the label.”

WATER-DEIONIZED, WILD YAM EXTRACT, GLYCERYL STEARATE, PEG
-100
STEARATE, ALOE VERA GEL, GLYCERINE, STEARIC ACID, SAFFLOWER OIL, PROGESTERONE, JOJOBA OIL, CHAMOMILE EXTRACT, BURDOCK ROOT EXTRACT, SIBERIAN GINSENG
,
PROPYLPARABEN
.

“Bradone, people are dying like flies all around me. I could be next.”

“I swiped this from Richard's shaving kit. Read the directions.”

Apply to soft skin regions such as neck, chest, buttocks, inner thighs, inner arms after showering for symptoms of advancing maturity such as incontinence, impotence, memory lapse, stiff joints, and insomnia.

Despite her growing anxiety, Charlie couldn't stop the smile spreading across her face. “You mean my boss rubs sweet potatoes on himself? How come he made so much fun of my mom?”

“Because he'd never read the ingredients on
his
snake oil. Just the name.”

The stuff was called Bubba's Youth Enhancer for Men.

“Tell me about Mitch Hilsten,” Bradone demanded when a muffin and fruit plate arrived for her, creamed hard-boiled eggs over a croissant with pineapple hunks for Charlie.

“He's divorced with two grown daughters—”

“Everybody knows that. I mean, what's he like in bed?”

“Like, does he snore or what?”

“Richard says you're smitten with your secretary, who's gay.”

“How's Richard in bed?”

“Not bad for his age.”

“Must be the sweet potatoes.”

Bradone tried again. “Is Mitch Hilsten as owly and pouty and reclusive as he appears in interviews?”

“Actually, he's very sensitive and thoughtful and pretty cheerful. He just doesn't like the press.”

“That's not smart.”

“Seems to be working for him.” Mitch's career was sky-rocketing after a scary decline. He'd always been a household word with the public but was too good-looking for Hollywood's recent infatuation with scuzzy everyman heroes.

“Does he have a lot of moles or anything?”

“Not really. His teeth are capped. Did you know his smile was insured through Lloyd's of London when Lloyd's was the place to be insured? One time, I was in the Utah dessert with him and that smile nearly blinded me.”

“Charlie, can't you throw me a crumb?”

Charlie pretended to consider the request while enjoying her food instead. “Okay,” she relented. “Mitch has the most wonderful—” She caught the waiter's eye and raised her cup. “The most beautiful—”

“What? The most beautiful what?”

Charlie shook more pepper onto her creamed eggs and picked out a big hunk of hard-boiled egg to savor. “Back.”

“Back of what?”

“Back of his back.”

“You slept with Mitch Hilsten and you looked at his back?”

Once. One night. And I'll never live it down. “Look, he's threatening to be here tomorrow. You can see for yourself.”

“His back?”

“It's very nice.” Charlie wondered how much Bradone was paying for that limo and driver waiting out front.

“Okay, you win round one.” The astrologer put her hands up, palms outward. “How about Georgette Millrose?”

“She fired me and signed on with Jethro Larue. It happens. She got tired of being midlist. I don't know an author who isn't tired of it. Maybe Jethro knows something I don't.”

Bradone's phone mewled faintly and she opened her notebook as she picked it up. She listened carefully to somebody named Harry, turning pages in her notebook that were scrawled with diagrams and iconlike sketches. She studied one at the very back that had a plastic-coated table of figures and signs and dates.