Royal Flush (8 page)

Carlos was standing there as if he was glued to the floor, so I dragged him by the bicep, which required two hands, and we made our way back downstairs and through the
ding-ding-ding
of the casino toward the lobby, where a large store called Grand was still open. Casino hotel stores all carried an amusing array of products—everything from booze and wine to Preparation-H and Zantac, the kinds of things almost every Vegas visitor needed at some point on their trip. One thing they all had in common was an array of cheesy Vegas-themed clothing, and I dragged Carlos in the direction of the clothing racks in the back of the store.

"Everything with a collar here is lame," he muttered, thumbing idly through some golf shirts with the MGM Grand logo on them.

"Just pick one," I said. "Nobody's going to be looking at
you
anyway."

He smiled. "That's what
you
think."

I found two shirts and held them up in front of Carlos. One was a Tommy Bahama-style button-down shirt with a logo from
KÀ
, the long-running Asian-themed Cirque du Soleil show playing at the MGM. The other was a pink golf shirt with MGM's lion logo on the breast.

Carlos shrugged apathetically.

"Large?" I asked.

"Whatever."

I grabbed his muscle again. "For a guy with such big muscles, you sure act like a spoiled little kid sometimes."

He looked me up and down, a tiny smile breaking out on his face. "I'm supposed to take advice from someone dressed like Elvira?"

"Is it that bad?" I asked, suddenly worried.

"Let's just go," he muttered, grabbing the golf shirt.

I put the shirt on my credit card, and Carlos went to the bathroom to change.

When he emerged, I had to stifle a giggle.

"That is totally you," I said. "Pink must be your color."

He shrugged off my sarcasm. "I actually like it," he said. "So let's get in there and get this over with."

I guessed the reason he wasn't protesting more was that the shirt was about two sizes too small for his buff torso, and Carlos obviously counted bulging out of shirts among his many hobbies.

By the time we got back upstairs to the club, there were only a few people in front of us waiting to get in. Not being a regular clubber, I was amused by the fact that admission for men was ten dollars more than for women. When we entered, we found ourselves in a large, chic room filled with swanky-looking lounge areas, where well-dressed groups of people were hanging out and mingling. An Asian theme permeated the atmosphere, with deep reds and blacks covering the walls and an abundant use of expensive-looking bamboo.

"Let's do a walk-through," I said.

"With pleasure," Carlos said, eyeing one of the waif-like waitresses passing by. "By the way, who are we looking for?"

I gave Carlos the short version as we wandered around the lounge area. The lounge tables were lit with attractive little candles, which seemed to flicker in concert with the loud music thumping in from the rest of the club.

"Drinks?" said a little voice from behind us.

When I turned around, the waitress couldn't hide a grimace as she glanced down at my top.

"Not right now," I said.

Carlos piped in. "Jack and Coke, please."

She wrote
"JC"
down on her pad and flitted away.

"Jack and Coke? That's what college kids drink."

Carlos shrugged. "I like it."

"But why mix expensive bourbon with soda? It doesn't make sense."

"It's not bourbon, bourbon comes from Kentucky. Jack is from Tennessee. So keep your snobby opinions to yourself." Carlos was enjoying himself a little too much. But he had a point—I had to admit.

There was no sign of Jojia anywhere in the lounge, so we stood in the corner like idiots and waited for Carlos' drink.

"Seventeen," the waitress said. Carlos didn't bat an eyelash at the price, and he didn't move a muscle, either. After a few awkward seconds, I realized he was waiting for me to whip out my credit card. I sighed and went along with the program, although I refused to leave more than a dollar as a tip.

"Let's head in," I said.

We found ourselves in one of the largest rooms I'd ever been in, a two-story cathedral of metal girders and spotlights. In the middle were a few hundred people jumping up and down to the pulsing music coming from a stage on the far side. The stage had about ten giant TVs perched above it, all proclaiming the name of the DJ, a guy calling himself Wolfhound.

"You ever hear of Wolfhound?" I asked Carlos in an almost-yell, trying to cut through the music. He was about a decade younger than I was, so he had a better chance of knowing what the cool kids were up to.

"Yeah, he's big. I think he's here probably three times a month."

"Hmm. Well, let's move around and see if we can find her. Then I'll come up with a plan."

We started with the oversized couches that encircled the dance floor, most of which were filled with people who looked like they'd had too much to drink. No sign of Jojia anywhere, which meant we had to hit the dance floor.

"Care to dance?" I asked.

Carlos looked at the crowd skeptically. "That ain't dancing." The crowd was mostly gyrating to the heavy bass.

"What, you prefer to waltz?"

"Beats the hell out of whatever
this
is," he said.

I dragged his arm again and pulled him behind me out into the crowd. Carlos and I half-danced while we looked around for Jojia. With the multi-colored spotlights shining down on us, and with the strobe effects from behind the stage, it was hard to get a really good look at anyone. Still, after fifteen minutes of squinting and craning my neck, I was beginning to think she wasn't there.

"Let's take a break," I said. We found ourselves a spot on a half-occupied couch off to the side of the dance floor.

"So why are we looking for this chick exactly?" he asked.

"I find her interesting."

Carlos smiled. "Good enough for me."

"She's tight with Kent, the guy I'm checking on. I don't want to get too close to him, but this Jojia could provide us some good information. I'm dying to know what he's told her about himself."

"You mean whether he's some kind of fancy prince over in England," Carlos added.

I nodded, pulling out my cell phone. I pulled up Jojia's Facebook page again, and sure enough, her page showed a photo of her taken only forty-five minutes earlier. She was standing in a friendly pose next to a tall, black man who was wearing a white satin shirt. Both held flutes of champagne. The photo was tagged as being taken at Hakkasan.

"She's here," I said, showing Carlos the picture on my phone. "Or at least she was forty-five minutes ago."

"She's not sipping that stuff down here," Carlos shouted. "It looks quiet where she is."

"I know," I said, looking around. "But it's not in the lounge we checked, either. The color scheme is different. There must be somewhere else in the club."

Carlos pointed. "Look up."

I hadn't noticed it, but there was an entire mezzanine level above the dance floor.

"How do we get up there?" I asked.

Carlos shrugged.

I flagged down a waitress and pointed up, trying to communicate using hand signals over the noise of the music. The waitress pointed me to a staircase in the far corner, and Carlos and I headed in that direction.

When we got upstairs, a VIP host greeted us.

"Do you have reservations?" she asked, pretending not to recoil in horror at our appearance.

"No," I said. "We're meeting Jojia Takada here."

She looked at me skeptically but then waved us in without further comment.

"Well that was easy," I muttered.

Carlos shook his head. "They don't really care if you have reservations or not. The drinks up here cost even more. Probably five-hundred bucks for a thirty-dollar bottle of booze. So they're happy if you're sitting here and not dancing around down there."

"You sound like you know what you're talking about," I remarked.

He shrugged. "I was young once."

I laughed. "Let's go on the prowl."

The VIP rooms were semi-private, meaning they were partly enclosed by walls but still open to prying eyes, probably a calculated effort to appeal subconsciously to people who worked in cubicles. Laughter spewed out of the first one we walked past.

I peaked in. She wasn't in there.

"There," Carlos whispered, cocking his head to our left. I turned and saw a tall black man in a white shirt leaning against the railing across from us, looking down on the hundreds of dancers below us.

"That's the guy in the photo, you're right," I said. I squinted, trying to see if Jojia was anywhere to be seen. I couldn't quite tell. The distance to the other side of the mezzanine was probably fifty yards, and the multi-colored spotlights above us were flashing on and off in every direction.

I nudged Carlos along, and we headed over to the other side of the mezzanine. As we got closer, I didn't have much of a plan, but I had a sense that Jojia was so friendly we'd hit it off in no time and become BFFs. The black man leaning against the railing was making no effort to hide his appreciation for my ridiculous outfit, or at least what was
underneath
said outfit.

"How
you
doing?" he asked, completely ignoring Carlos. I could almost feel Carlos' left pectoral muscle flex in protest.

I smiled at him shyly. He was very good looking, with dark eyes and a sculpted face. His gray sport coat stood in contrast to Carlos's ridiculous getup. "You here with Jojia?" I asked.

He gave me a knowing nod, as though he was a member of some kind of private club, and I'd just said the secret password.

"But why don't you and I go chat for a little bit?" he asked. He had a syrupy sweet low voice, which made it hard to say no.

Carlos butted in before I had the chance. "He's half your age, you know," he whispered in my ear.

"I didn't catch your name," I said. "I'm Raven. This is my little brother, Carlos." I pinched Carlos's cheek for effect.

The man smiled at me, clearly enjoying the role of the alpha dog. "I'm Charles," he said. "I hope you'll stay."

I nodded. "We're just cruising around, you know. Hitting all the spots." I signaled to Carlos that we should move on. "We'll be back, don't worry."

Carlos and I took an oh-so-casual peek into the booth closest to where Charles had been hanging out. Sure enough, Jojia was sitting at the table, surrounded by a half-dozen others. She was wearing a cute black dress and had her hair up in some kind of narrow arrangement. In front of her lay a bottle of water and a little baggie that looked as if it had pills in it.

We breezed by the booth and turned around a corner to talk in private.

"What the hell was that?" Carlos asked. "Your little brother? Come on."

I shrugged. "The bigger question is, were those pills in there?"

"I saw them," he said. "I'm guessing your friend Charles is standing guard out there in case the cocktail waitress swings by at the wrong time."

"What do you think they are?"

"Probably ecstasy, or something like it. Club drugs, you know."

I frowned. "No, I don't know. This isn't my scene, remember?"

He made a point of looking me up and down. "No kidding."

I brushed Carlos off. Making fun of my outfit was too easy, and I wasn't about to get upset about it. I thought for a minute, not sure I wanted to get involved with Jojia if she was using drugs. I had been planning on having a casual chat with her, but now it looked as if she was up to no good. And she even had a lookout working for her.

"Maybe that's why she's so popular," I wondered aloud. "If she's supplying half the county with free club drugs, it's no wonder that she has five thousand friends."

"Why do you care that she's popular?" Carlos asked.

"I guess I shouldn't care. It's just something that's been bugging me. Makes me think back to high school."

"And this has something to do with the case you're working?"

Carlos had a point. "Not
exactly
," I said. "But I couldn't find much more about Kent, and so this girl is the next best thing. I figure he's working the same angle on her, and possibly others too."

"She seems to be working an angle of her own," Carlos said.

I peeked around the corner to look back at Jojia's booth. The lookout had gone, so the coast was clear.

"Let's go back that way and do a slow walk-by. Don't be obvious, though," I said.

He sighed. "Got it, boss."

The two of us turned back toward the VIP booth and slowly sauntered by, pretending to be enjoying each other's company. When we passed the booth I peeked inside.

"Empty," Carlos said, stating the obvious.

"Look over there." I was pointing at the steps leading down into the dance pit, where a gaggle of glitterati was making its way down to the floor. They were all following Charles. Jojia, the queen bee, was in the center.

"You want to dance with her?" I asked.

Carlos shrugged. "She's pretty."

"That's not really the point," I said.

"Then why don't
you
dance with her?" he asked.

"Because I feel ridiculous, especially next to
her
." Compared to Jojia's tiny frame, I looked like a school bus, with extra-large headlights.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"I don't know yet. But see if you can figure out the drug situation. That would be a good start."

"Got it. I'm going to need some drinks, though. I'm a terrible dancer," he said. It was a bold admission from someone as cocky as Carlos was.

"Just try to keep the tab under two hundred bucks, will you?" I was only half-joking.

He smiled and headed downstairs to enter the fray. The DJ had just whipped up the crowd into a frenzy, and the strobe effect of all the multi-colored lights was in full force, apparently trying to induce seizures in as many dancers as possible. I watched Carlos go find himself a drink, which he chugged, and then I took the steps downstairs one by one, slowly absorbing the bacchanal scene in front of me. Just when I thought the music had gotten as loud as it could, the bass started thumping even more urgently, and then a shower of confetti exploded from up above, covering us all with the tiny little pieces of paper. If this kind of excess happened on a Thursday night, I wondered what it was like on the weekend.