Royal Flush (27 page)

And then, just as I began to hear his heavy breath huffing behind me, I saw it, the most beautiful site in the world: a porta-potty service truck. In front of me stood six portable toilet units aligned next to a construction site, and the truck had a giant gray hose attached to one of them, its pump whirring at a high pitch, causing the thick hose to jerk up and down and writhe around like an electrocuted python. I raced to find the driver, who was insulated inside the truck's cabin for reasons that soon became obvious.

"Help!" I screamed, banging on the door. My lungs wanted to gasp for breath, but my nose overruled them. The stench was too awful.

I had startled him. He was a middle-aged white guy with wispy long hair matted against his forehead and thick, eighties-style eyeglasses. In his surprise, he looked a bit crazed, and then he looked behind me and saw the big bloody man chasing me. He seemed to appraise the situation in a heartbeat and then took decisive action.

Unfortunately, my bespectacled knight in stinking armor proved to be a coward. Instead of letting me in, he decided to step on the gas and drive away. The problem was that his hose was still connected to the porta-potty, and so when he gunned it, the whole operation came along too. Without giving it a second thought, I grabbed onto the thick hose and held on for dear life, trying to keep my knuckles from scraping against the pavement as I bodysurfed on the hose whipping around behind the truck. Even in motion, the pump was still on, and I could feel the gurgling movement within the hose, which despite my attempt to tame it was still wriggling around as the pump continued its awful work. We were moving now, probably fifteen miles per hour, and it was becoming increasingly hard to hold on. The hose was moving sideways now, and I was in danger of being thrown up against the side of a building or running over a curb. But the driver didn't care, probably didn't even know a crazy stripper had decided to go skiing from the back of his crap truck.

Straddling the hose like a bull rider, I turned to look behind me. My attacker was now a block in the distance, running after us but steadily losing ground. The porta-potty itself was still bouncing along behind me, skidding on the pavement and bumping up and down, somehow staying upright, probably thanks to the odorous, mucky ballast that weighed it down. It seemed as if the driver was going to keep driving until he lost us, but I knew that would be impossible once he got out of the industrial park. Even in Vegas, you can't tow a portable shithouse with a shit hose.

At last he came upon an intersection and slowed. I used the opportunity to relax my grip and roll over onto my back. It was a rough tumble, and I rolled over a few times until I skidded onto the curb, only narrowly missing the porta-potty as it got dragged past me, its stench trailing in its wake. My pursuer was still giving chase, but his pace had slowed, and I think he understood the game was over. Once I got onto the main street, there would be plenty of traffic, and he wouldn't dare try anything. For good measure, as I limped away as fast as I could, I cupped my hand and pretended to be punching keys on an invisible cell phone—the real one was back in what used to be my car—and then I held it up to my head and pretended to talk feverishly, as though I had dialed 9-1-1. I wasn't sure if he bought it or not, but it added an exclamation point to the fact that his chase was over. For now.

Once I walked out onto East Tropicana Avenue, I waved at the porta-potty driver, who gave me a confused shrug and then checked his rearview mirror for the nineteenth time, still obsessing about the bloody-faced man who had been chasing us. I didn't feel like explaining. And although I wanted to stick around to see what the hell he would do with his potty train, I started walking back in the direction of the Strip, hoping to spot a cab or a police officer along the way.

No luck. Block after block I walked, the sun getting oppressive now, but no sign of cop or conveyance. But hope came, finally, in the form of a ramshackle Seven-Eleven, which I hoped would have one of those old-fashioned things in it called a pay phone.

It didn't. But when I explained to the clerk that I needed to call the police, he did so himself and a squad arrived in less than three minutes.

I explained what happened as quickly as I could, but that effort backfired. By leaving out some of the details, such as being towed by a truck full of human waste, I had left gaping holes in my story that made it even more confusing.

"Can we go for a ride?" I asked. "I'll show you."

Officer Listecki, a middle-aged but buff bulldog of a man, shot a skeptical look at his partner, a very tall young woman with red hair and fair skin.

"Whaddya think?" he asked.

She shrugged, unimpressed. "I don't want to blow our morning on
this
," she said, as though chasing a would-be murderer was a waste of her time.

"We'll give you a ride," Listecki said. "Just point us where to go."

When we turned off of Tropicana, I pointed. "There!"

"What?"

"See that porta-potty?"

"Yeah, what about it?" The female officer was still hostile, for some reason.

"It's not supposed to be there," I said.

"Well,
obviously,
" she said. "It's in the middle of the freakin' street."

"I mean, it's supposed to be about five blocks back. I went to the guy emptying the tanks for help, but he drove off."

Listecki slowed the car down and looked back at me. "He drove off
with
the thing still attached to it?"

I nodded. "He must have detached it just now and driven away. It was only about fifteen minutes ago. Anyway, the point is, we have to keep going. I'll show you the crash."

I directed them toward the site, and all that remained was about half of my crumpled Audi. There was no sign of a dark gray truck, much less a bloodied guy roaming around with a murderous look on his face.

"So you're saying he did this on purpose? He followed you around, waited till you were in a deserted area, and then rammed you." Her tone was distinctly of the stop-wasting-my-time variety.

"That's what I think," I said. "I saw him yesterday at Nordstrom, and I know I've seen him somewhere else before."

Listecki spoke up. "And you offended him so much in these few encounters that he—"

I interrupted. "There's more to it than that. I'm a private investigator, working a murder case. Obviously, I think there's some connection there."

This was too much for Officer Bitchy Face, who snorted. "I think what happened is, you're drunk, you crashed up your little car here, and you're trying to collect some insurance on it."

"Give me a breathalyzer," I insisted.

Listecki put his hands up. "Let's cool it a minute. I assume you don't have any ID on you? That would be too easy."

I nodded toward the car. "It's in there. Maybe I can fish it out, though."

The three of us climbed out and they watched me try to get inside. It was all but hopeless. And then I remembered the hole in the roof. I climbed up and took a look. It had been narrowed by the last crash, but it was still a manageable space, so I jimmied myself in. The airbags had completely deflated, so I was able to contort myself into the passenger floor space to pick up my handbag, and even my phone.

Getting back out proved harder, but Listecki climbed up and offered me a hand while his underling stood diffidently by, not lifting a finger.

"Thanks," I said. When we got back down I pulled out a business card and my ID.

"It checks out," he said. "She's a private dick. Disreputable, yes, but crazy, no."

The female officer—Jackson was her name—grunted in defeat, unwilling to concede the point but equally unable to put up any more of a fight.

I gave a description of the man to Listecki, and they patrolled around the area for a good ten minutes with me in the back seat. After we spotted no sign of the guy or his truck, they dropped me off at home and promised they'd write a report and continue the investigation.

"You really live here?" Jackson asked, eyeing my building's lavish lobby and drop-off area. "On a PI's salary?"

I shrugged. "I'm really quite in demand," I lied.

Listecki let out a little chuckle, and then he jumped out to open the door for me from the outside.

"May I keep your card?" he asked.

I winked at him and limped off into the building.

I stopped by my building's security desk and informed the guard that I was
not
expecting any visitors and asked him to be on the lookout for anyone who didn't look right. He gave me the once-over, probably wondering, like Sergeant Jackson, how the hell a disheveled, dusty, and probably smelly bimbo like me could afford to live in such a nice place. But he nodded gruffly and said they would keep watch. I wasn't so sure.

Back in the safety of my own condo, I lay down on my bed and decompressed. I had been getting into too many dangerous situations lately, and being only a second or two from getting rammed by a truck was not sitting well with me. And who the hell was the guy driving the truck? Had Kent and his friends hired someone else to do what they couldn't do themselves?

I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, which meant all I wanted to do was shower and sleep. But showering and sleeping wouldn't get rid of my problem, which was that a number of people apparently wanted to kill me. Sleep could wait, but showering couldn't, not after I'd been on such intimate terms with a porta-potty. I turned the water up hotter than usual, allowing the steam to collect in luxurious clouds in my bathroom, the nearly scalding water relaxing my muscles and finally allowing me a moment to think.

Nothing was coming to me. It was all a confusing mess of people and schemes and angles. Just when I couldn't take the heat another minute, I remembered my ace in the hole, Kent's cell phone. If he was still using the same account, I could keep up with his movements and maybe even uncover exactly what was going on. Assuming the battery still had any juice, that is. I jumped out of the shower, dried myself off quickly, and ran to the kitchen, where I found his phone in the drawer. I tried to turn it on, but it was dead. Not even enough power to turn on the little battery picture.

I returned to the bathroom, where it was still a sauna. Naked and still wet, I stared at myself in the mirror. In my haste, I had done a crappy job drying myself off, and I was leaving a pool of water beneath me. I dabbed at my face with the towel, observing for the hundredth time that my black hair always seemed to look blacker when it was dripping wet, even though I knew that was impossible. And that's when an involuntary shudder took hold of my body, and I began feeling a chill, despite the actual temperature. For some reason, peering at my dripping wet face had brought a vivid image of my bloody attacker to the forefront of my mind's eye, and in an instant I finally knew where I'd seen him before. He had been
wet
the first time I met him, and now I knew I was really in trouble.

My heart was thumping in my chest, my body's defense mechanisms already two steps ahead of my slow-witted brain. I got myself dried off and dressed, trying to think of a way to diffuse the situation, to outwit the danger that seemed pointed like a crossbow at the life I had come to know. As I paced around, frenetically fidgeting and murmuring to myself, the vague wisps of a theory began forming in my mind. I tried to connect the dots. What did all of the events and people have in common? Not bloody much, that's what. But there was one thing that had bugged me the entire time, even if I hadn't explicitly recognized it until now, and I needed to find a way to confirm my suspicions. My brain was running on overdrive, causing my fists to clench and unclench involuntarily, the all-too-familiar beginnings of a tension headache creeping into my temples. I kept returning to Kent's cell phone. I had to get that thing charged up again if I wanted any chance of getting ahead of events rather than constantly playing defense. But that would require a new battery, and there was no way I was leaving my apartment again, not with that lunatic out there.

Golf. I had forgotten about the driving range, about meeting Carlos to hit a few balls. He was free. He could bring me a cell battery and get the phone going, I reasoned, but my heart sank with each ring of the phone that went unanswered. He wasn't picking up, so I left a message.
Crap.

I started down at my phone again and then pulled up Plan B.

"Mike? Are you free?"

A pause. "I had a feeling you might call," he said.

"Why?"

"It's been a few days. Normally you're more needy than this."

I sighed. "Seriously, Mike, I need help. You need to buy a cell battery and bring it over here. I want to get Kent's cell phone up and running."

"What kind is it?" he asked.

"It's an iPhone, but it's got a different charger than mine. It's a 6."

"Ok, I can do that. I think maybe getting a charger would be safer, though. I'm not sure a new battery has much charge in it, and then it would just die out again anyways."

"Good point," I said. "Whatever. I just need it soon."

"Not that I mind dropping everything and going shopping for you, but why can't you do it?"

"I'll tell you when you get here," I said, losing my patience.

"Consider it done," he said.

I spent the next forty-five minutes mauling a bag of pretzels in an all-world performance of anxiety binge eating. Mike arrived about halfway through a box of Cheez-Its.

"Here you go," he said, proudly, handing me the plastic bag.

I ripped open the box and hooked up the phone. While it began to charge up, I filled Mike in on the morning's events.

"You have a way about you, it seems," he said. His tone was light, as though he was trying to brighten my mood.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"Well, you've been at this how long? A few months? In eight years I've only gotten into danger maybe a half a dozen times. And you seem to have a talent for it, right out of the gate."

"Maybe that's why…" I trailed off, thinking better of my comeback.