The Downtown Deal (26 page)

A cocktail
waitress slinked between us with an "excuse me" and a trayful of
drinks, while somewhere in the distance, a slot machine rang and rang,
announcing a big payoff.

"Please."
He motioned for me to walk with him a few steps out of the poker room. When we
got away from everyone, he said, "I know about your troubles in Los
Angeles. That's why I've come here to see you."

Process server,
I thought. I stiffened.

He caught it. As
he patted my shoulder, he said,
 
"No, no, don't worry, I'm not here to bring you trouble."

I started
thinking that any guy in a camel hair topcoat who tells me he's not here to bring
trouble is probably the definition of trouble. The very last thing I needed
right then was somebody from LA who knows who I am, knows I was a PI. The way I
figured it, I had to bury that part of my past, bury it deep, if I wanted to
stay out of jail.

Then he added,
"The fact you've lost your license is the very reason I want to hire
you."

"It
is?"

"Indeed it
is. Now, does five thousand dollars get your attention?"

Five grand!
Jesus! I hoped he didn't see my eyes widen.

"You got
it," I replied.

"Good. Let's
go have a cup of coffee."

II

D
own in the coffee shop, we took a corner booth, away from
probing eyes. As he removed his topcoat, I noticed his suit. It was dark and
expensive.

Back when I had
my license and things were going good for me, I liked fine clothes, and I can
tell when someone is well-tailored.

The waitress
brought our order. He sipped at his coffee. I could tell he wasn't sure if he
liked it.

"First of
all, Jack," he said, "let me tell you a little about myself. I live
in Los Angeles, but like you, I'm originally from New York. My father started
what became a chain of department stores there and had a lot of success. He
later expanded to California, but while still in New York, he did a lot of
business with your grandfather."

That one hit me
from my blind side. My jaw dropped just a little as he continued. "That's
right, Jack. My father did business with Mike Barnett, one of the greatest-ever
private investigators of New York. Had his heyday in the forties and fifties.
Always worked alone. As honest and reliable as any man who ever wore shoe
leather."

I'd always tried
to pattern myself after my granddad, early on, anyway. Even though he died
before I really got to know him, he was a legend around our house when I was
growing up. My parents kept all these scrapbooks filled with yellowing accounts
of his exploits, saving New York from one criminal conspiracy or another, or so
I thought at the time. He was the reason I went into that line of work.

Unfortunately, I
had a much shorter fuse than he did. I didn't mind using a little force if I
thought it would get the job done. He wouldn't have liked it.

Lansdorf added a
touch more cream to his coffee and stirred it.

"Anyway,
Jack, I read about your troubles in the paper back in LA. Your name caught my
eye, so I checked up and found out you were in fact the grandson of Mike
Barnett."

"And you
want to do a TV special on my family history?"

He sipped his
coffee again, looking for improvement. Bingo.

"Hardly."
He reached over into the inside pocket of his topcoat, then pulled out a
rolled-up magazine. As he unfurled it on the table, he said, "Are you
familiar with this?"

It was a copy of
Las Vegas Weekly
. You know, the kind of tabloid-sized publication
covering the local scene with irreverent writing and plenty of attitude. Every
big city has one of these.

"Yes, I'm
familiar with it," I replied. "Not this latest issue, but I know the
magazine. I like it." I picked up on the greasy aroma of french fries as
the waitress brought a couple of meals to a nearby booth.

He opened the
magazine to a marked page in the back, splashed with lots of ads for escort
services and the like.

"You see
this?" He pointed to an ad with a picture of a gorgeous young girl, seated
with her legs spread out from a skimpy thong. The headline read, "Blonde
Massage / We Come To You", with a phone number underneath.

He brought his
lips together hard, then said, "That's my daughter."

I looked at her.
Her eyes brimmed with promise, while her mouth formed a dark, pouty slit.
Tousled blonde hair fell across her forehead and down her back. What there was
of a top strained to contain full breasts. She didn't get that look by hanging
around her family's department stores.

I glimpsed
Lansdorf. His eyes were momentarily downcast from the embarrassment of the ad.

"What do
want me to do?" I asked.

"Find her
and —"

"Whoa, now.
I probably won't be able to bring her home, Mr Lansdorf. She doesn't look like
she'd be too interested."

"I don't
want you to bring her home. My wife won't have her in the house. And she
probably wouldn't come anyway." He fidgeted in his seat and paused for a
breath. "I — I just want to know where she is and I want to know
that she's all right. If she needs anything. That's all. Just to know she's all
right." Desperation crept into his voice.

I sat silent for
a moment. I could tell he needed it. Looking back at the ad, something in the
girl's face — in her eyes — grabbed my attention. It held me for a
few seconds. I don't know, maybe … maybe it was nothing.

I turned back to
Lansdorf and said, "What more can you tell me about her? And start with
her name."

He drank some
more coffee.

"Emily.
Emily Jean Lansdorf. She left home three — almost four years ago now. She
came here and started waitressing, then soon moved into the strip joints. She
took up with a string of men — I never knew any of them. We lost touch
with her altogether around eight months ago."

"Do you
have any idea where she lives?"

"No, but
she used to have an apartment over off Maryland Parkway. It's her last address
I know of. Here, let me give it to you." He pulled out a pen and scribbled
it on a paper napkin. I slipped it into my pants pocket.

 
"Do you know any of her known
associates? Friends? Lovers?"

"No."
His head bowed a little. "I'm afraid not."

"How old is
she?"

"She turned
twenty-three back in September."

The waitress
refilled his coffee cup. He pushed it aside.

I said,
"One more thing. Why me? Why not a licensed PI? He could find her just as
easily as I could. Maybe easier."

His head slowly
raised back up so his eyes were level with mine. They were steely now, like his
voice.

"I want
someone who isn't afraid to cross the line when necessary. And if she's in any
kind of danger, then it
will
be necessary." He leaned toward me
just a little, adding, "You know, Jack, you might think that running a
bunch of retail stores is a namby-pamby kind of job. But over the years, there
have been a few occasions when I've had to do things that were, shall we say,
questionable. And each time I made that choice, I did so because I knew in my
soul … that it was the right thing to do." His eyes penetrated mine even
more deeply as he said, "Not the easiest thing, nor the most legal thing
necessarily, but the
right
thing. You understand?"

I didn't have to
answer. He knew I got it.

"I'll find
her," I said. "And if possible, I'll make sure she's safe."

He pulled an
envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Here's half
now," he said, sliding it across the table at me. "The other half
will be waiting for you when you deliver your report to me. I want the truth,
you understand? No matter what."

I put my palm
over the envelope. "You'll get it, Mr Lansdorf. I can't promise you'll
like it, but you'll get it."

We shook hands
and rose from the booth.

≈≈≈

I cashed out of the poker game
and headed home. As I motored out of Binion's garage, I started thinking about
Lansdorf, wondering what it must be like to be him. To have a gorgeous daughter
who no doubt had all the advantages growing up, only to piss her life away in
the sex trade of Las Vegas. What the fuck was she thinking? He's probably
wracked his brain a thousand times trying to figure out where he went wrong as
a father.

"I guess
that's how it is with fathers and daughters," I said aloud over the car
radio, wending my way through the downtown streets. "Daddy blames himself
when his little girl goes wild. Like there was something he could've done
differently."

Let me tell you,
I've been around enough of the daddies and enough of the wild childs to know
that girls like Emily, they're not usually thrown off course by the actions of
their fathers. They've got something inside them, way deep inside them, rotting
away in their DNA, tugging them in that downhill direction. And all the private
schools and credit cards and BMWs in all the world can't save them.

I can also speak
from hard experience. I think that was what twanged inside me when I saw
Emily's picture in that ad. It took me back to Redondo Beach.

Back to Lyla.

Back, shit.
She's still with me. Her memory's all over me. Like a stain that won't scrub
clean, an open sore that never heals. Stings every time I touch it.

Lyla wasn't a
daughter, of course, because I have no kids, but she was someone who …

Never mind. I
don't want to think about it right now.

But she was like
Emily and all the other girls who end up where Emily's heading. They're like
alcoholics in that respect, being swept to their doom in the swift current of
that whiskey river. Before they drown, they've got to dig down within themselves
and find something they think is worth saving. And they've got to do it all
alone.

I thought about
it some more, then, as I arrived home, I put it aside and quickly crawled into
bed.

Thanks once again to
Harry Dewulf for his sharp editing eye.

I want to thank the
members of the Casa Marina Group here in Key West for their insightful
critiques. Jonathan Woods, Jessica Argyle, Michael Haskins, and Sarah
Goodwin-Nguyen each saw this book from a different angle and as such, each
played his/her own role in shaping it.

Thanks also go to John
Simmons, Vince Wiggins, and Dean Erickson of Hugo's Cellar, the fabulous fine
dining restaurant in the Four Queens Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas. They filled me
in on the overwhelming significance of Château Lafitte Rothschild, 1945. It was
because of John, Vince, and Dean that I was able to place the wine at the
center of this book.

I will never get tired of
thanking Marda Burton for urging me to write fiction so many years ago when I
had never considered it. If she hadn't stayed on my case, I would never have
written my first word of fiction, nor any of the many hundreds of thousands of
words which followed it.

This book is a work of fiction
. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or
dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental. All Rights Reserved. No part of
this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Mike Dennis.

Published by Mike
Dennis

Copyright 2013 by Mike
Dennis

ISBN 13: 978-1482738414

ISBN 10: 1482738414

Cover designed by Jeroen
ten Berge

Edited by Harry
Dewulf