The Downtown Deal (6 page)

As I
poured myself a second cup, I entered the numbers of Martine, Farrow,
Silverstone Towers, the Olivera Group, and the private Miami number into my
cell phone, then went to my computer to do a reverse white pages search on the
remaining numbers. I drew a blank.

I then
googled "Silverstone Towers". Its website featured an image of an
impressive building, soaring above the cityscape, in all its high-priced glory,
existing only in the fevered dreams of the developers, or in other words, in an
architectural rendering and a plastic model. It certainly looked like it would
be nice if it ever actually came into being, while the advertised unit prices
assured would-be buyers the condos would be very nice indeed.

Sandra
Blake's photo appeared about halfway down the page. She was listed as
"Assistant Sales Manager".

Standing
next to the plastic model in another, larger photograph was a smiling Khalil
Aziz, the company CEO. He had the look of a rug merchant, even in his
two-thousand-dollar business suit. Wiry black hair carpeted his flat, wide
head. Knowing dark eyes smiled for the camera, but their true intent appeared
to be well-hidden. A thick, black mustache overlaid his upper lip, contrasting
with shiny, symmetrical white teeth. His accompanying statement promised
"luxury living at its finest". I noticed their sales office was
located less than ten minutes from my apartment.

I took
a shower. As I stepped into my dim, claustrophobic stall and felt the puny flow
of water on my skin, I imagined what it must be like in Silverstone: marble
showers big enough for two, or three even, with high-powered jets shooting
water at you from all angles, a wide display rack of cleansing products at your
disposal, and when you're all done, a thick white robe to slip over you so you
can swagger around in it.

≈≈≈

After a short drive, I
arrived at the Silverstone sales office, located in a corner building at a
minor intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard just south of downtown. It's in what
they ironically call the "historic district", meaning ethnic
neighborhood restaurants, cheap motels promising HBO, and older strip joints,
the oldest of these structures dating back only to the fifties. The sales
office interior was pretty much what you'd expect: lots of glitzy distractions,
glassed-in offices spread along one side, and a large, tasteful plastic model,
the one in the website photo, occupying nearly the entire surface of a big,
square table. This display carved out a large portion of the center of the
entire office premises. According to the model, the building looked like it
would be forty or fifty stories high. Plastic vegetation, cars, and figures of
people were meticulously arranged all around it to complete the visual impact.
This was apparently to be a major step in the recently-talked-about drive to
"Manhattanize" Las Vegas, growing it upward instead of outward.

A well-groomed,
slender woman of about thirty in a demure gray business suit approached me with
a smile the moment I passed through the doorway. Perhaps another
"Assistant Sales Manager".

"I'd
like to see Mr Aziz," I said.

"Oh,
is he expecting you?" She rapidly assumed the mantle of gatekeeper to
Aziz's personal space.

"No,
not really." I ran my ID rapidly before her eyes. "I'm a private
investigator. I'm looking into the death of Sandra Blake."

"A
private investigator?" Her face, small and tight to begin with, crinkled
up a little further at not being given sufficient time to read my ID. "I
don't think Mr Aziz is available right now."

"Well,
that's too bad, because I'm trying to find out who killed Mrs Blake and I'm
sure Mr Aziz can provide some information that would help. I'm also sure he
would appreciate the opportunity to provide it at this time." Meaning, I
can always nail him in the parking lot after work and tell him you wouldn't
give me the time of day at this critical moment in the investigation of the
tragic death of a valued employee.

 
Her jaw tightened. "Just a moment,
please."

She
hustled into one of the glassed-in offices and picked up the phone, punching up
a couple of numbers. Moments later, she emerged.

"This
way, please."

She
led me to the rear area, her heels clicking on the shiny marble floor, into a
large corner office with a view of the street. I recognized Aziz from his
photo, sitting behind a granite-top desk. He stood to greet me, revealing a
chunky, close-to-the-ground build.

"Mr
Aziz," I said, "my name's Jack Barnett. I'm a private
investigator." We exchanged a hearty handshake. It was almost like he was
glad to see me.

"Barnett,
did you say?"

"With
two T's." He returned to his high-backed swivel chair, while pointing at
one of two fancy seats in front of his desk. I took it.

"I
understand you're investigating Sandra's death?"

"I
am." It occurred to me Aziz might not want to talk to me. That's often the
case in what used to be my line of work, but when that happens, you have to
know how to apply very subtle pressure to get them to talk to you.

He
said, "What a horrible tragedy! I cannot tell you. We are all shocked
here. We can't believe it. Who would do such a thing?"

"Well,"
I said, "I hope to find out. Have the police been here yet?"

He
shook his head. "No, but I am sure they will come before long."

"I'm
sure they will. But for now, I would appreciate it if you could give me just a
little bit of background information on Sandra."

"Background
information?"

"Yes.
Basic stuff. For instance, can you tell me what kind of employee Sandra was?
Was she efficient, likable, dynamic, what?"

"All
of the above." He made a grand gesture with both hands. "She was one
of our most important people here at Silverstone."

"Did
she do any actual selling?"

"Oh,
yes. She sold several units."

"Were
there any problems with any of these? Now, please think carefully before
answering, Mr Aziz. And also, I want to emphasize that I am required to keep
whatever you say confidential."

He
thought about it, his hands folded in prayer position, with stubby index fingers
tapping his lips. "No … no, there were no real problems. None that I can
think of."

"Is
it possible she may have made enemies here? Jealous colleagues? Customers who
may not have liked her? Someone who may have had some kind of motive to kill
her?"

"Absolutely
not." As he said "not", he gave his desk a light tap with his
fist, for emphasis. "Everyone here liked her very much. Our customers
loved her. She was the kind of girl you liked from the moment you saw
her." Satisfied with his own answer, he clasped his hands across his
stomach.

I
accepted Aziz's answer. Liking her was my reaction, too, when I first saw the
photo Blake had handed me.

"Can
you tell me who she sold the units to?"

"Well
now, Mr Barnett, that's not exactly …"

"It's
exactly public information. I can go downtown and look it up, or you can save
me the trouble and give me the names right now. I'm not being nosy here. I
don't really care about the details of your business. I'm only trying to find
her killer. And time is important."

He let
out a sigh, then picked up his phone, punching one number. "Charlene, will
you bring Sandra's sales files in here, please?"

Momentarily,
the woman who greeted me entered with a small armful of files. She carefully
handed them to Aziz, as though they contained nuclear secrets, then left the
room, all without looking at me. Aziz looked at the tabs, rearranged one or two
of them, then set them gently on his desk. He opened the first one. From it, he
pulled out the top sheet of paper.

"This
sheet gives the name of the buyer and the price that he paid for the unit, as
well as the number of the unit, its square footage, location within the
building, and so on. The rest of the file concerns the financing, the terms,
Sandra's notes, and other things. I cannot let you see that data."

"I
understand," I said. "I only want the names."

He
pulled the top sheet out of each of the files. There were six in all. The
cheapest one went for six hundred large. The most expensive, two point eight
mil. I tried to calculate the commissions on these, but the room started to
spin. Instead, I contented myself with writing down the names and numbers,
borrowing one of Aziz's pens from a pen caddy on his desk.

It was
all routine until I came to the sixth and final deal. It was for one million,
seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, for a twenty-ninth floor, three-bedroom
unit, sold to the Hector Olivera Trust, Miami, back in December of 2002.

"This
one," I said, holding up the paper. "Are you familiar with this deal?
Olivera?"

"Oh,
yes, indeed. Mr Olivera is a wealthy client from Miami."

"Yes,
yes, I see that. Do you know anything about him?"

"Mr
Olivera? He came to this country as a boy, braving the open sea on a flimsy
raft. Surely, you don't suspect him of —"

"No,
of course not. But he might be able to help with some information. What can you
tell me about him?"

"I'm
afraid, Mr Barnett, that falls under the private data that I cannot share with
you." He leaned forward with a slight smile, trying to pacify me. At that
point, I half expected him to show me a rug, one which carried a very special
price, just for me.

I
said, "Was he buying this unit on spec?"

"We
do not ask the motives of our clients, Mr Barnett." His hand gestures
showed that he was sure I understood.

I
realized I'd gone as far as I was going to go with Aziz. His jaws were slamming
shut and locking down before my eyes. The meeting was effectively over.

M
y next urge was to brace Ryan Farrow for what he knew about the
connection between Sandra Blake and Hector Olivera. He had dated Sandra for a
year, including the period in which she had all those late-night phone calls
from Miami. It stood to reason that Farrow must have known at least something
about the deal Olivera and Sandra were involved in. Being a mortgage banker, he
might've been in on it himself. I figured if I could learn whatever the bond
was between these three, it would help untangle the Miami connection, and that
would be a big step toward wiping away all the haze that fogged my vision.

It was
only closing in on noon, though, and Farrow was most likely at work. For people
like him who work regular jobs, I knew that those hours between noon and five
were the longest five hours in the world, not the best time for the type of
conversation I wanted to have.

Whenever
you have serious shit to discuss with somebody, especially somebody you've
roughed up before, you can't do it where they work. In there, they think
they're all-powerful. They sit behind a big desk, a power symbol in itself.
They have people and telephones and other gadgets at their disposal. They're
not inclined to tell you anything at all, much less what you want to know. No,
this meeting would have to be in his home, away from the seat of power, where
all he'd have would be the seat of his pants. Where he knew the threat of my
fists would be an undercurrent to everything I said. I could wait, I had the
time. So I figured he could also wait until this evening to once again enjoy
the pleasure of my company.

Instead,
I went home and headed straight for my laptop. On the official Las Vegas city
government website, I tracked down the Planning and Development Department
page, where I navigated to their interactive city map. This map broke the whole
city down into surveyed lots, giving their exact location, the owner, when it
was purchased, for how much, and all kinds of good shit. Zooming in on the
downtown area, I was eventually able to locate the parcels of land owned by
Blake Enterprises.

There
were four of them, bunched together into a somewhat-rectangular shape just west
of downtown, near the freeway. They totaled a little over fifty-five acres, and
they were acquired separately, on different dates, over the past two years.

Jutting
out into the center of Blake's rectangle, like a dagger into its heart, was an
odd little strip of land, long and narrow, a shade more than five acres.
According to the city's records, this piece of land was owned by none other
than Olivera-Nevada Holdings, Incorporated, of Miami, Florida. The lot was
purchased about eight months ago, back in February. It was clear this was the
key piece Blake needed to complete the jigsawed package he was trying to cobble
together.

I
pulled up the aerial view of this part of town. There were no large buildings
on it, no dramatic construction, nothing significant. From the air, it looked
like just a few low-rise, aging structures well past their sell-by date, plus a
shitload of empty space. Empty space smack in the center of the fastest-growing
city in the United States, waiting to be put to use.

I put
on my jacket. Outside, I noticed the wind had picked up, making it feel much
colder as I headed for my car. I needed to see Ronnie Wills.

≈≈≈

Ronnie was a cab
driver. I knew him from his occasional drop-ins at my poker game down at
Binion's. He'd been driving around this town for decades, stretching all the
way back to the days of what some people fondly refer to as "old
Vegas". During his tenure, he'd learned just about everything there is to
know about Las Vegas, its past, its present, and a pretty good idea of its future.
He always said that driving a cab was the surest pathway to any kind of
information you ever wanted.