The Retro Look (2 page)

They exchanged brief smiles and went in opposite directions.

As Diana entered her suite, she glanced at her watch. She had more than two hours before Jeffrey wanted her. She stripped and headed for the bathroom. The hotel supplied a better body brush than the one she had brought. She gave herself a nice scrub, toweled off a little, and came out of the shower.

She went to the closet and looked at her cocktail dress for a moment. Would Jeffrey want a different look? No, he had seemed pleased.

Someone rapped on the door to the suite. Whoever it was lacked patience, because a second knock followed immediately.

Diana knew who treated doors that way. She went back to the bathroom for a robe and slipped it on. She walked to the door and pulled it open. In the hall she saw more or less what she had expected to see.

A tired, gray-haired man in his fifties stood there. He wore a tuxedo, but on him it hung like the cheap suits he had worn while locking in his pension. The moment for Diana to look surprised came and went before she could seize it, and the omission cost her. The ex-cop gave her the same knowing look that she and the other hooker had just exchanged.

It was all so cozy.

“Security,” said the man, unnecessarily. “Name is Bergsten. What’s yours?”

She told him. Making him work for the information would be pointless.

“What are your local cops going to tell me? Might as well get it out of the way.”

“Nothing. No arrests, no convictions.”

“Okay, good. You’re discreet, and you know when to cooperate.”

“That depends.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” said Bergsten.

“Downstairs, playing.”

She could tell that he already knew.

“How long have you been up here?”

“A while. He’s been winning.”

“Makes us think he’s a card counter.”

“You could call it that, or you could call it knowing how to play the game. If you don’t like people who can defend themselves, don’t expect me to sympathize.”

“You could get him thrown out with that attitude.”

She studied him. His heart wasn’t in his threats.

“What is it you really want?”

“We have video of you talking with Tina, the cocktail waitress.”

“She was apologizing for spilling a drink on me.”

“Really?”

“You want to sniff my dress? You can probably smell the gin.”

“I believe she spilled a drink on you. I’m not sure it was an accident.”

“You checked me out. You know I’m new here. Does it make sense that she just picked me at random and said, hey, let’s rip off a casino?”

“Funny you should mention that.”

“Oh, please. What else does casino security care about?”

“You talked with Tina. And you were seen coming out of Harold Lax’s room.”

“Who’s Harold Lax?”

“Don’t play games. One floor up. You know who I mean.”

“I didn’t know his name. Not required in my business. I guess that other hooker is in your pocket.”

“She knows how to get along.”

“Good for her.”

“When are you supposed to meet your boyfriend?”

“Midnight.”

“So you have some time.”

“To do what?”

“Go up and get the story out of Lax. How is he doing it?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To keep your boyfriend in the dark about what you do when he’s playing blackjack.”

“Get real. He knows I work for other guys.”

“Not when you’re on his clock.”

Bergsten handed her a card.

“Call me. Soon.”

He knew enough to leave without demanding a formal surrender. Diana swapped the bathrobe for her cocktail dress. Lax might need help remembering her.

It was just one flight of stairs, but in her heels she decided to take the elevator. She stopped at Lax’s door and wondered what she was going to say. At the moment she had no idea. She would have to rely on her tendency to blurt. It had saved her more than once.

No one answered. Diana knocked again, trying to sound like a tired ex-cop. The result was the same. She tried the knob, but the door was locked.

She looked at her watch. Her deadline was approaching, when Bergsten might make good on his threat to tell Jeffrey.

Okay
, she thought.
I can’t find Lax, but there’s somebody I can talk to.

She took the elevator down to the casino. Cautiously she looked at the blackjack table. Jeffrey didn’t see her. His game still held his attention.

The athletic blonde cocktail waitress was still on shift. The relaxed tempo of the early evening had vanished. Tina was coping with the rush, but she looked too harried to talk. Diana approached the bar and caught the bartender’s attention.

“Listen,” she said, “I talked to her a little earlier. I want to ask her about working here, get the real story, you know. When does she get a break?”

The bartender was too trusting. He wouldn’t have told a man anything, but to her he opened right up.

“Any minute. She’ll give you an earful.”

It was three minutes to ten.

“Where should I wait?”

“Parking garage is the best. She’ll be going through to sneak a smoke. Right through there.”

The young woman didn’t seem pleased to see Diana.

“I said I was sorry about the dress.”

“I’m not here about the dress. I’m here about that man who was at the blackjack table and watching the whole thing.”

The blonde tensed. She knew him.

“Harold Lax,” said Diana.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I think you do. I think you’re one of his, I don’t know, models.”

Tina looked puzzled, and Diana didn’t think it was an act.

“You’re crazy,” said Tina.

She started to brush past Diana, who gripped the woman’s left wrist.

“Get your hands off me.”

Diana held the woman as she tried to pull away. Tina tried to pivot and punch with her right fist, but she didn’t know how. Diana pulled hard on Tina’s wrist and then pushed. Tina lost her balance, and her fist flailed without making contact. Diana spun the woman around and shoved her toward the grimy wall of the garage. Tina caught herself before her face hit, but Diana pressed her against the wall with her shoulder.

“Stop fighting me,” Diana said. “We’re going to talk.”

The woman whimpered. Diana looked up and saw Tina squeezing her eyes shut. Tears glistened on her cheeks.

“Shit,” said Diana.

She let Tina go and stood back. There was no threat here.

“When did it happen?”

“Six months ago.”

“Here?”

“No. Near my place. But he pushed me up against the wall just like that.”

Diana’s apology failed to reach her lips, not because she wasn’t sorry, but because she didn’t deserve to be forgiven. She had meant to scare Tina into cooperating with her. If Diana had succeeded too well, it was her fault. Not knowing that the woman had been raped didn’t make what she had done less terrible.

Tina finally pushed herself away from the wall and turned around. Cheap white paint from the wall had smudged her short black skirt. She tried to look defiant, but she couldn’t sustain the effort. Diana decided that the best thing she could do for the woman was to get her information and leave her alone.

“I think you know the guy I was talking about,” said Diana.

Tina nodded.

“Did you know about his quirk?”

“What quirk?”

“He’s an ass man.”

“Well, yeah. He told me about my great butt a few times, until I told him to keep his gutter mind to himself.”

“That’s all? You didn’t take his money to let him see more?”

“I’m no whore.”

It was looking as if Bergsten was right. Tina was in business with Lax.

“Okay,” said Diana. “Tell me how you know him, and you’re out of here.”

Tina looked down sullenly.

“Come on,” said Diana. “Whatever your scam was, it’s over now. The casino is onto you.”

“Figures. Find a way to get ahead, and it always turns to shit.”

Diana kept staring and putting the pressure on.

“We have a system. Me and Harold and Paul, the dealer.”

“How does it work?”

“I keep an eye out for bosses or anybody else who might catch us at it.”

“What else?”

“Paul gives me a signal. Not every time, because they’d catch on. Just often enough. I tip Harold off by arranging my cocktail napkins in certain ways. Shit. It should have gone on a long time.”

“Why did you spill the drink on me?”

“I figured I’d see if you cared more about the dress or staying to watch us. If you stayed, we’d know you were from the casino.”

It sounded plausible.

“Now what?” said Tina.

“Now you go back to work. Or wherever. I don’t care about the casino.”

“Then what’s this about?”

“The cops think my date and I are involved in your scam.”

“So you’re going to fuck me over.”

Diana didn’t want to do that. She owed this woman something.

“Maybe I can pin it all on Lax.”

“Why do you care about me?”

“Okay, I don’t.”

Tina started to say something, but pride wouldn’t let her beg.

They didn’t bother with goodbyes. Tina headed back to the casino. She would need to change her skirt. Diana couldn’t think of anything to do but go back to the suite and tell Jeffrey what she had been doing and hope he didn’t put her out in the hall.

But in the elevator she chose Lax’s floor instead of her own. Again no one answered her knock, but when she tried the knob, this time the door opened.

“Hello? Harold?”

Diana knew everything about hotel rooms, and this one was telling her that no one was home. She thought for a moment and decided to go in. If Lax came back and caught her, he wouldn’t call security. He had too much to hide.

Lax hadn’t tidied up at all. The towel was still draped over the chair he had used for his scenario, and the notebook still rested on the bed. Diana started flipping pages to see what else the book might tell her.

A second look at the drawings, including the ones she had skipped to indulge his haste, told her again that the woman was from the nineteen-seventies and probably European. The artist had even stippled the woman’s legs with dark hairs that had never seen a razor.

And in the last picture she was still dead.

Diana turned the page. The same hand had executed a single word in large gothic letters. Not a word, exactly. A name.

Roswitha.

Doodles and decorations surrounded the name, as if the artist had spent many hours communing with the calligraphy.

Diana shut the notebook and stood. She caught herself running to the door, and she stopped herself. It was more than twenty years too late to panic.

Cold Case Files
to the rescue. Who knew?

Her nerves kept prodding her to hurry. The elevator took a few seconds longer than she could bear to wait, and she turned and went to the stairwell instead.

That was a lucky break or a big mistake. At some point she would decide which. The first thing she saw as she started to descend the stairs was Harold Lax sprawled on the landing below. The angle of his neck told the story. Nature didn’t do things like that. Violence did. He was as dead as the woman in his drawing.

Diana pondered her calm as she stepped over the body. It didn’t bother her to look down and make sure she wasn’t going to trip herself.

Oh
, she thought.

The fall had probably broken his neck, but something else had killed him. A puckered wound marred the back of his neck. It had bled very little, and that reminded her of something.

Many of Diana’s clients were military veterans. Some of them avoided the topic, while others talked about nothing else. She knew one ex-Marine who never tired of knives and their uses. The wound on Lax’s neck reminded her of a silent sentry-killing technique the client had described in ghoulish detail. She remembered working hard to hide her queasiness from him.

The technique might be the same, but this wound had looked too small for a knife. An ice pick?

She looked up and over her shoulder, but she couldn’t find a security camera. It didn’t surprise her that a place like this would cheap out where few would notice.

Diana opened the fire door and walked down the hall. She inserted her key card in the lock, but the door swept open before she could turn the handle. Jeffrey confronted her. He didn’t look pleased.

“Where have you been? I checked all the shows.”

“Just a moment, Jeffrey.”

He started to snap at her, but her expression stopped him. He stepped aside. She went to the phone and punched in the extension that Bergsten had given her. The security chief picked up immediately.

“There’s something you need to see.”

She told him where to go.

“Jeffrey, I’m going to have to ask you to wait here.”