09 To the Nines (17 page)

Wayne leaned across Lula. “It's not Tom Jones. I thought you knew that. It's a Tom Jones impersonator. They're having a convention here, too.”

“What?” Lula yelled. “I gave my underpants to an impostor?”

“He's pretty good, though,” Gus said. “He's got a lot of the moves down pretty good.”

“I want my underpants back,” Lula shouted to the stage. “I don't go giving away perfectly good underpants to impostors. You got my underpants under false pretenses. And you can't even sing! I bet these two Elvis impersonators could sing better than you.”

The guy on the stage stopped singing, shaded his eyes against the lights with his hand, and squinted over at us. “Elvis impersonators? I've got some goddamn Elvis impersonators at my show?”

“Uh oh,” Wayne said. “Elvis impersonators and Tom Jones impersonators don't get along.”

A low rumble went through the crowd. Elvis impersonators, they were grumbling. The nerve!

“Get them,” someone shouted. “Get the dirty lousy Elvis impersonators.”

Someone reached for little Wayne, and Lula stepped in. “Hold on here,” she said. “We came with these guys. They're good guys. They got us in here.”

“Get the Elvis impersonators and their bitches,” someone yelled. “The Elvis impersonators have bitches!”

The room was packed, and we were getting jostled and shoved. A Cher impersonator with a beard and mustache reached for Connie. Connie cold-cocked him and he went to the floor like a sack of sand. After that it was bedlam.

Lula took to the stage to wrestle Tom Jones for her underpants, and Connie and I scrambled after Lula to help with the thong retrieval. We were getting pelted with beer nuts and wasabi peas, and I could see casino security at the door, trying to make its way through the crowd. Lula ripped the thong out of Tom Jones's hands and we all ran backstage.

“Which way out?” I asked a greasy-haired guy in the wings.

The greasy-haired guy pointed to a door and we all crashed through it, ran down a hall, through another door, and found ourselves back on the casino floor.

Connie smoothed out her skirt and felt to see if she had any beer nuts stuck in her hair. “That was fun,” she said. “I'm going to go play craps now.”

“Yeah,” Lula said, stuffing her thong into her purse. “I'm hitting the slots. I'm gonna start there.”

“Wait a minute,” I said to Lula. “Where'd you get the thong?”

“I had it in my purse,” Lula said. “I read somewhere that you should carry emergency undies when you travel.” Lula squinted at my hair. “You got something green slimed in your hair,” she said. “It looks like someone got you with one of those fancy drinks.”

Great. “I'm going back to the room,” I said. “I'm going to wash my hair and go to bed. I've had enough excitement for one day.”

“What about the slots?” Lula wanted to know.

“Tomorrow.” Maybe.

At seven in the morning Lula and Connie still hadn't returned to the room. I pulled on jeans and a Lakewood Blue Claws T-shirt that had the message Got Crabs? printed on the front. I covered my hair with a baseball cap and went downstairs to look for Lula. I found her in the cafe eating breakfast with Connie. Lula had about two dozen scrambled eggs and five pounds of sausage links on her plate. Connie had coffee.

Lula looked wired and not much different from everyday Lula. Connie looked like she'd died and come back from the dead. Connie's black hair was completely frazzled, sticking out at odd places. Her mascara had smudged, making the bags under her eyes more pronounced. Most shocking of all. . . she was without lipstick. I'd never seen Connie without lipstick.

I took a seat and I snitched a sausage link from Lula.

“What time is it?” Connie asked.

“Seven-thirty,” I told her.

“Day or night?”

“Day.”

The cafe was located on the perimeter of the casino floor. That's the way it always is in a casino. Everything opens to the floor. The casino was business as usual, but the attendance was light. The tables were populated mostly by bedraggled men in shirtsleeves. Leftovers from the night. The slots had a more alert crowd. Early risers, getting a jump on the day. I wasn't much of a gambler. But I liked the flash and color of the casino. I liked the neon lights, the bells and whistles, and the ka-ching of money being won and lost.

“Las Vegas never closes,” Lula said. “Can you believe it? And I haven't been out of the hotel yet, but there's supposed to be an Eiffel Tower out there and the Brooklyn Bridge and all kinds of shit.”

“What did you do all night?”

“I started with the slots,” Lula said, “but I wasn't having any luck there, so I went over to the blackjack tables. I did pretty good and then I did really bad. And here I am . . . broke. Good thing Vinnie's buying me breakfast.”

Connie had her head down on the table. “I lost all my money. I drank too much. And I lost my shoes.”

We all looked under the table. Sure enough, Connie didn't have any shoes.

“I left them someplace,” Connie said. “I don't know where.”

“That's not even the best part,” Lula said to me. “Ask Connie about the photograph.”

Connie pulled a cardboard framed photo out of her big leather shoulder bag. It was a picture of Connie and a short guy in a powder blue tuxedo. The short guy had sideburns and an Elvis hairdo. Connie was holding a bouquet of flowers. “I think I might have gotten married to an Elvis impersonator,” Connie said, dragging herself to her feet. “I'm going to bed. Wake me up when you get Singh and I'll do the paperwork for the locals.”

Lula watched Connie stagger away. “I wouldn't hardly recognize her without lipstick,” Lula said. “She sat down and I didn't know who she was at first.”

“We have to snatch Singh today,” I said to Lula. “Are you going to be up for it?”

“Damn straight I'm up for it. I'm just getting started. I'm like that Energizer Rabbit dude. How we gonna get this guy?”

“Singh applied for a job at a small casino downtown. My contacts name is Louis Califonte. He's the casino manager. Cone said I should call Califonte at nine o'clock. I'm hoping we can get Singh to come into the casino. It'll be easier to apprehend him there.”

“Get Singh to come in tonight so I can have the day to go shopping. I gotta see the talking statues at Caesars. And we gotta stay to see the fountains at the Bellagio. It wouldn't be right if we left before we saw the fountains.”

Shopping would be fun, but there were other things on my mind. Photos of dead people. Carl Rosen missing. Red roses and white carnations. Plus I've never made an out-of-state apprehension and I was counting on Tank's help.

I ate a second sausage and I punched Ranger's number into my phone.

“Have you heard from Tank?” I asked Ranger.

“Tank's here. By the time he got security straight he couldn't get a flight out. The earliest flight we could get him on is today's four o'clock.”

“Probably we don't need him. Connie has me on a seven-thirty out of Vegas. I don't expect problems. Connie will get me the paperwork necessary to bring Singh back restrained and she'll make the arrangements with the local police.” Now if I just felt half as confident as I sounded, I'd be in good shape. “Unfortunately the hardwares packed in Lula's suitcase. And the airlines lost both her bags.”

“I'll have everything you need delivered to your room by noon.”

“Did Tank tell you about the photos?”

“Yeah. And I heard from Morelli, too. He's not happy.”

“Did Carl Rosen ever show up?”

“You don't want to know about Rosen, babe.”

I blew out a sigh and disconnected. Even at seven in the morning, smoke hung in the air on the casino floor. I squinted into the haze and wondered if they were matching the new photos to Rosen. I called Morelli at home. When he didn't pick up I realized it was ten on the East Coast and I tried his cell.

“Yeah,” Morelli answered. Halfway through the morning and sounding pissed off.

“Guess who?”

Silence.

I grimaced at Lula.

“He should chill,” Lula said, shoveling eggs. “We're working hard here. We got a job to do.”

“I heard that,” Morelli said. “Tell Lula I've got an outstanding arrest from when she was on the street.”

“Tell me about the photos and Carl Rosen.”

“They're working on the photos now, but at first glance they look like a match. We found Rosen late last night. Someone dumped him at the corner of Laurel Drive and River Road. He had a white carnation stuffed down his pants and you've seen the photos, so I don't have to describe his head.”

“Any suspects?”

“A few. No arrests, if that's what you're asking.”

I wasn't looking forward to returning to Trenton. It felt safer in Vegas. Far away from Carl Rosen and the carnation freak. I could easily stay here and sit by the pool and do a little shopping and tell Vinnie the apprehension was more complicated than expected.

“Connie tells me you have a flight out at seven-thirty tonight,” Morelli said. “Do you already have Singh in custody?”

“No. If I have problems today, Connie will change the flight.”

There was a moments pause. “Are you expecting problems?”

“I'm hoping for problems. If there are problems I might get to stay another day. Maybe another week. It feels safer here than it does in Trenton.”

I disconnected and waited while Lula ate the last sausage.

“From the conversation I just heard between you and Ranger, I'm guessing they didn't deliver my bags yet,” Lula said. “So I'm going shopping. I gotta get some clothes. All that dumb-ass airline gave me was a toothbrush.”

“I thought you gambled all your money away.”

“Yeah, but if I shop here in the hotel it goes on our room bill and Vinnie pays. It's only right he pays anyway, on account of this is a business disaster.”

I returned to the room and took a shower while Lula went shopping. We were all packed together to save some money The room had an Egyptian motif and two queen-size beds.

Connie was sound asleep with a pillow over her face. She didn't seem to be bothered by my presence, so I ordered room service coffee and a bakery basket and put a call in to Lou Califonte.

Lou suggested he call Singh and ask him to come in to discuss a job. I was expecting a handcuff delivery sometime this morning, so I asked that Singh be given an early afternoon appointment. Califonte said he'd call back as soon as everything was in place.

I could see the mountains from my room. They were shimmering in the morning heat, smokey blue, lost behind haze. The valley floor leading to the mountains was flat desert broken by roads and strip malls and the backside of the Strip. I could see the billboard and neon sign for the Rio Hotel and Casino.

There was no place else on earth like Vegas. Even Disney couldn't compete with this. I'd been to Vegas twice before. Several years ago and then last year for the PBUS conference. I was always shocked at how fast Vegas grew. Trailer parks, McMansions, artificial lakes and fountains, bigger and more spectacular hotels and malls. They erupted overnight. It was magic. Good old-fashioned American capitalist magic.

It was close to nine when Lula came bustling in. “Just give me a minute to jump in the shower and get dressed and I'm ready to roll,” Lula said. “This here's a shopping paradise. They got stuff here that I didn't even know existed. Everything's spandex and sequins. It's a retired ho's dream come true.”

By ten we were in a rental Taurus, heading out of town. Lula was reading the map, directing me to the address Singh had given Califonte on his job application. I wasn't making the bust at Singh's house, but I wanted to see it anyway. I wanted to make sure nothing weird was going on.

Much of the sprawl in Vegas is given up to high-end gated golf course communities. We were deep into the sprawl, but we were on the wrong side of the tracks. We were driving past block after block of small dusty Southwest houses, not a ghetto situation of graffiti and uncollected trash, more an area of neglect by necessity. Screen doors were askew, yards were hardscrabble weed and desert dirt, cars had seen a lot of hot, dry miles.

Connie had checked on Singh's address before we left and found he was living with a woman named Susan Lu, a cocktail waitress at Caesars. So here was the Susan in Singh's life. I was guessing Singh met Lu on his business trip, communicated with her by email, and decided to move in.

The house was typical of the neighborhood. It was a modest single-story stucco bungalow. A Joshua tree grew in the front yard. The small backyard was fenced. I didn't see Boo, but then most of the yard wasn't visible from the street.

“Sure would be tempting to knock on his door and drag his boney ass out here,” Lula said. “Then we could lock him in the trunk and go shopping.”

“We aren't that good,” I said to Lula. “We don't even have handcuffs. I'm not taking a chance on screwing this up.”

My cell phone rang. It was Lou Califonte. He was calling to tell me that he hadn't been able to get in touch with Singh. He'd spoken to Susan Lu and Lu told him Singh went out early this morning and hadn't yet returned. Lu expected Singh back by lunchtime. Califonte set up a tentative meeting for two o'clock.

“Don't you hate that?” Lula said. “Right in the middle of our time here. How are we supposed to have any fun like that? I hear Siegfried and Roy got their tigers on display. How many chances you think we're gonna get to see Siegfried's tiger?”

“Just help me get Singh back to the hotel room and you can go off for a couple hours. We don't have to leave for the airport until six-thirty.”

“Yeah, it's not like I gotta check luggage.”

We returned to the room a little after one. Connie was still asleep with the pillow over her face. There was a small sealed cardboard box on the coffee table. The delivery from Ranger. And there was a small floral arrangement next to it. Red roses and white carnations. The card with the flowers read: You're one step behind me again. Singh's been eliminated. The game continues.

I was totally dumbstruck.

“Hey,” Lula said. “Are you okay?”

I took a step back, bumped into a chair, and sat down hard. I went lightheaded for a moment. I hadn't been expecting this. I'd been caught totally off guard. The killer knew I was in Vegas. Even worse, he had to be here, too. I was pretty sure he was telling me he'd killed Singh and, according to Susan Lu, Singh was alive this morning.