Wanna Get Lucky? (12 page)

“Let me fill you in on what you missed by skipping out on the security briefing this morning. This is the week that the entire porn industry descends on Vegas for their annual awards banquet—sort of the Oscars of adult film. The banquet alone seats thirty-five hundred. Add a couple thousand more fans who couldn’t score a ticket to the main event. On top of that, ElectroniCon starts tomorrow.” I took the stairs two at a time.

“ElectroniCon?” Dane matched my pace.

“The high-tech industry’s annual gathering. Picture a hundred thousand geeks gone wild.”

“Whoa.”

“That’s just the beginning. In addition to the awards banquet, there is a trade show. Every manufacturer, distributor, and purveyor of dildos, sex toys, vibrators and herbal sexual enhancements will be here. The film stars hawk the products. The geeks come to gawk.” We hit the door to the mezzanine. “If that wasn’t enough, this is the week the Trendmakers hold their annual confab of spouse swapping. All the regular shows in town go dark; X-rated shows replace them.”

Dane and I paused at the railing. Below us teemed the controlled chaos in the lobby.

I bent over to catch my breath, then straightened. “This”—I swept my arm toward the crowd below—“is only the beginning.”

“Damn.”

I was glad to see Dane struggling to catch his breath as well. “Don’t expect to get much sleep, but now I gotta go. I’m already a
couple of minutes late for an appointment and I’ve left Miss Patterson holding the bag too long already. If she quits on me, I’m screwed.”

“Thanks for lunch—both of them. It’s been a most enlightening day.”

“Sure. Keep looking for Willie, would you?”

“Your wish is my command.” Dane started to go, then paused. “Say, you wouldn’t want me to see if I can score a couple of tickets for us to the porno awards, would you? As I recall, I owe you a dinner.”

“A dinner of
my
choice, I believe. And, you’re too late. I’m sitting at the head table with Subway Jones, the porn industry’s biggest star.” I held up my hand, silencing him as he opened his mouth to speak. “I didn’t make that up, and no, I can’t attest to the truth of the statement—at least not from personal experience.”

“I
know
you’re shittin’ me now.”

“Trust me,” I said. “The dinner is the highlight of the whole week. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“How’d you get so lucky?”

“I wish I could say it was my innate beauty and captivating charm, but the hotel buys a lot of adult films for the in-house movie channels. It’s my job to vet them all—wouldn’t want to offend anyone’s sensibilities now, would we?”

“So you
do
watch those movies.” Dane’s eyes lit with mischief.

“Actually, I take Smokin’ Joe’s advice. There are just so many hours in the day.” I started down the hall toward my office.

“Wait.” Dane stopped me. “I know I’m going regret asking this, but
Subway
?”

“Subway.” I held my hands up in front of me, palms facing, twelve inches apart. “Because it’s a foot long.”

I left Dane standing there with his mouth open.

A
m I interrupting?”

The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock sprang to his feet from his perch on the corner of Miss Patter-son’s desk, guilt written across his reddening features.

Miss Patterson busied herself rearranging the papers on her desk. She didn’t meet my eyes immediately, but when she did, I caught a reddening in her face as well. Without a word she handed me my Nextel.

“Ah, my ball and chain. Thanks.” Stifling a smile, I glanced at the offending device—twenty-seven messages. I tried to scowl at Miss Patterson as I handed the damn thing back to her.

Miss Patterson gave me a goofy grin, which ruined any chance I had at mustering that scowl. Had a guy ever put that look on my
face? Maybe, but white knights and good guys were the stuff of grade-school crushes, and that had been a long time ago.

I pointed to Jeremy, then cocked my head toward my office. “You, in there.”

He bolted in ahead of me and immediately retreated to a chair opposite my desk.

I shut the door behind me, then settled into my chair. The desk between us, I leveled my gaze on the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock. This time I mustered that scowl.

Shaggy brown hair, baleful golden brown eyes, chiseled features and a lopsided grin, his name fit—under any definition of the term, Jeremy was definitely beautiful. Not many women were cold to his outward charms, but, if they were, when he opened his mouth they were toast. Handsome men with Australian accents had a magnetism that American women—present company excluded, of course—seemed unable to resist.

He flashed that grin at me, then said in his delicious accent, “You summoned me?”

“I’m not sure I’d put it quite that way.” Although I had to admit, the thought of having the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock at my beck and call did have some appeal. “Before we get down to business, a word to the wise. Miss Patterson may work for me, but she is also my friend. Break her heart with all that Aussie surfer-boy charm, and I’m all over you. Got it?”

Jeremy opened his arms wide, his face falling into a mask of innocence. “Hey, I like her. She’s got moxie, and some smarts, too. That’s more than I can say about all the bubble-brains who parade around here hoping to catch big money with their plastic tits.”

I crossed my arms, leaned back in my chair and took in all of the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock. Miss Patterson might have a great bullshit meter, but I’d learned, when it comes to personal stuff, those meters can give you false readings. She was my friend; I had her back.

He squirmed under my perusal. “She’s fair dinkum, and certainly no dog.”

Even though I had only the vaguest idea of what he just said, he wasn’t registering on my meter. He could live another day.

“A real nice lady, you know?” he said, each word pregnant with sincerity.

“
I
know. I’m just making sure
you
know.”

“Of course I know. I know everything. How do you think I got rated the best private investigator in all of Las Vegas by the
Review-Journal
last year?”

“It certainly wasn’t your emphasis on keeping a low profile.”

“You can’t get business if nobody knows who you are.” Apparently satisfied I wasn’t going to skin him alive, Jeremy settled back into the chair. Crossing one foot over the other knee, he held his leg in place with both hands while his foot bounced with nervous energy.

“A valid point. And, speaking of business—” I sifted through the pile of papers in front of me and found the pictures I had requested. I extended one set to him. “Here are photos of three of our employees—Felicia Reilly, Willie the Weasel, and Paxton Dane. I want you to input them into your magic machine, then tell me if any of these folks show up, where they appear, and where they go.”

“So, you actually believe my—let me see, what did you call it?” He flashed that damn grin again. “I remember. I believe you called it my ‘hocus-pocus machine.’ So now you think it works?”

“I’m willing to suspend disbelief. And it’s not so much that it doesn’t work, it’s that it seems so . . . personally violating.”

He laughed. Unfortunately, he had a deep, throaty, wonderfully male laugh. A laugh that seemed to imply we were both in on a secret.

I shifted in my chair. Okay, I lied. I’m not immune to the whole Aussie thing. I chanted,
All men are pigs
, over and over in my head. It didn’t work this time either.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Jeremy continued. “The NSA is using the same software. They actually take pictures of all of us through cameras strategically located in most of the major cities, then compare us to an international database of known bad guys.”

“Jesus, George Orwell was right. And, come to think of it, so was I.”

“Huh?”

“Big Brother really is watching.” I found that little bit of reality totally depressing. “Talk about personal violation!”

“You have no idea.” Jeremy nodded, his eyes big—their gold flecks catching the light, momentarily distracting me. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t get me started on cell phones used as listening and tracking devices. And then there are satellites. Did you know they can read your license plate using those things?”

I held up my hands. “You mean they can see our faces, our . . . everything?”

The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock nodded, a serious look on his face, but a twinkle in those gold-flecked eyes. “Takes voyeurism to a whole new level, doesn’t it?”

Why I ever leave the house in the morning, I don’t know
. “Are they allowed to do that?”

“Are
we
?”

I shrugged. “You have a point.”

Jeremy nodded. “Anyway, we all have a unique set of facial measure ments. The machine compares them, that’s all.”

“Like fingerprints.”

“Exactly, but now Big Brother doesn’t have to stop everyone on the street and ask them to roll ink on their fingers. In fact, we don’t have to ask them for permission at all.”

“People on the streets or everyone in a casino.”

“Precisely.” Jeremy nodded. “Scary.”

“But helpful.”

“I’ll go along, but only if they take pictures of everybody else.” Call me morally corrupt, but I wasn’t above letting the end justify the means—as long as I was the one pulling the strings.

“I do this for all of the casinos. The images come right from their security videos. It actually works quite well. We’ve caught a fair number of cheats and card counters. No terrorists, yet.” He actually
sounded disappointed about the terrorist part. “But, if it makes you feel better, I’ll make a note—no pictures of Lucky O’Toole.”

“Please do.”

“You got it.” Jeremy flashed that grin again as he took the pictures and stood.

Damn, he even had dimples. What was it with me lately? A handsome guy flashes me a grin, and I melt into a puddle. And a handsome guy who was off limits at that—I would never pull the rug out from under Miss Patterson. I must be hormonal.

“The normal fee?”

“There’s a bonus in it if you start right away.”

“That important?” He looked like he was going to perch on the corner of my desk, then thought better of it. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain helicopter, would it?”

“This has everything to do with that frigging helicopter.”

“Right. I’ll fossick through all the feeds myself. I’ll let you know when I have something.” Jeremy hurried out. He didn’t linger in the outer office.

The man sure had a way with words.

For a fleeting moment I felt bad siccing Jeremy on Paxton Dane. Although Dane was charming, and I wanted him to be one of us good guys, he’d lied once—that I knew of. Lies were sorta like cockroaches: where you saw one, there were probably a thousand lurking out of sight. What was that old adage my mother pounded me with?
Fall for it once, shame on you
.
Fall for it twice, shame on me
. I took another set of the three pictures, folded them and stuffed them in my pocket.

I was just rising to leave when Miss Patterson peeked around the doorway. “Could I have a minute? I won’t take long. I know you have the Hollywood crowd in about a half hour.”

I sank back into my chair and motioned for her to take a seat.

Like a bird at a feeder, Miss Patterson perched on the edge of the chair, which probably still held the warmth from the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock’s butt. I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to block the images that thought conjured up.

“Do you have a headache? There’s some aspirin in the cabinet. I could get you some.”

I sneaked one eye open. No mental images of Jeremy’s butt. I eased open the other eye. Miss Patterson, her feet and knees demurely touching, her hands resting in her lap, was the very picture of propriety. Concern clouded her eyes.

“Aspirin wouldn’t put a dent in the kind of headaches I’m dealing with.”

“Oh, am I going to have to lock up all the weapons again?”

I couldn’t even muster a smile.

She started to rise. “I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

“Sit. Sit.” I rubbed my temples and took a deep breath. “You know how I get after a trip to Mother’s.”