AS HER final act on this earth, Lyda Sue Stalnaker plummeted out of a Las Vegas helicopter and landed smack in the middle of the pirates’ lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel, disrupting the 8:30 p.m. pirate show.
The video ran as the lead-in for the 11:00 p.m. news. I caught it on a television in the sports bar. Actually, it was amazing I caught it at all. My name is Lucky O’Toole, and I am the chief problem solver at the Babylon, the newest, most over-the-top mega-casino/resort on the Las Vegas Strip. I’d been fighting my way through the crowds packing the casino on my way to Stairwell Fifteen to deal with a naked man asleep under the stairs, when I caught the television feed out of the corner of my eye.
A grainy video of a helicopter with the Babylon’s script logo painted on the side appeared on the screen with a small headshot of Lyda Sue in the corner—it was Lyda Sue’s sweet smile that actually captured my attention. I leaned over the backs of two guys playing video poker at the bar, a sinking feeling in my stomach. In Vegas, nobody gets their picture on the news unless they’ve committed some grisly crime or have been a victim of one themselves.
Of course, I couldn’t hear what the talking heads on the television were saying. The clamor of excited voices from the casino combined with the pinging from the video machines and the piped-in music to create a cacophony of excitement that made it not only impossible to talk, but to think as well.
Eyes wide, I watched as the station ran the video again—this time the full version as part of their newscast.
Hovering above the lagoon as the show began, the copter began to buck and roll. A body tumbled out, backward or forward—it was hard to tell. Thankfully, the final impact with the water was hidden behind the pirate ship advancing toward the British with cannons belching fire and smoke. The picture tilted, then went dark—a head shot of Lyda Sue taking its place.
“Ms. O’Toole?” My Nextel push-to-talk vibrated at my hip. “Are you coming?”
I grabbed the device and pushed the direct-connect button to shout. “What?”
I pressed the thing to my ear as I tried to hear.
“Ma’am, this is Sergio at the front desk. The doctor’s with our naked guy. He’s fine—apparently sleeping off a bender. But we got another problem—some guy in Security by the name of Dane is insisting we call the paramedics just to be on the safe side.”
I stared at Lyda Sue’s picture on the television, my mind unable to process what I saw. The video switched to the police and a body covered with a white cloth, one delicate hand dangling from the stretcher as they loaded it into the back of an ambulance. Nobody was in a hurry.
“Ma’am, are you there?”
The question snapped me back. “Sorry. Naked guy in the stairwell, right. Do not call the paramedics unless the doctor wants them. We don’t need to cause a scene and have this guy splashed across the pages of the Review-Journal in the morning—I’m sure he’d love that.” Trying to steady my nerves, I took a deep breath. Instantly, I regretted it. Smoke-filled air assaulted my lungs, bringing tears to my eyes. “I’ll be right there, and I’ll deal with Dane.” I choked the words out as I struggled to catch my breath.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I reclipped the Nextel at my waist.
I fought to not only clear my lungs, but to clear my thoughts as well—a Herculean task as hundreds of questions pinged around inside my head.
Lyda Sue, dead? I’d seen her just last night, holding forth on the end stool at Delilah’s Bar. We’d talked for a minute or two; her world had seemed stable enough. Twenty-four hours later, she took a header out of our helicopter, landing smack in the middle of the 8:30 p.m. pirate show. What had I missed?
Damn. Lyda Sue was dead. Double damn. She fell out of our helicopter. The Babylon would be big news. My job was to keep the Babylon out of the news. Or to take the fallout when I failed. The Big Boss was not going to be pleased.
Tonight was shaping up to be a doozie.
I muscled between the two guys intent on their video poker monitors and leaned across the bar so the bartender could hear me. “Get the news off that television. Find a sports feed or something.”
The real world had no place in this fantasyland.
My mind clicked into gear. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that pilot. He should have called me right away. Lyda Sue hit the lagoon at 8:30. Damage control was tough enough without giving the newshounds and gossip mongers two and a half hours head start. I had a feeling that nothing short of an overnight nuclear test at Yucca Flats would keep us out of the morning headlines now.
Nevertheless, I grabbed the Nextel, and started in. “Jerry?”
“Yo,” our Head of Security answered in his laid-back manner.
“I want our pilot in my office right now—handcuff him and drag him there if you have to. Next, get over to Channel Eight. I want all copies of a tape Marty ran on the eleven o’clock news of a woman falling out of our helicopter. If he refuses, remind him of that awkward little situation at the opening gala—he’ll know what you’re talking about. Bring the tapes to me when you get them.”
“I’m on it.”
“Oh, and Jer? I almost forgot. What’s the status on the mega-millions winner? Did she actually hit it?”
“We’re working on it. I’ll have an answer for you in the next half hour—our plate’s sorta full.”
“Welcome to the club. Thanks.”
I disconnected, then scrolled through the stored numbers looking for Dane’s as I turned to head toward Stairwell Fifteen. Paramedics! Was the guy nuts?
As fate would have it, his number didn’t matter. Two steps with my head down focusing on my phone and I ran smack into the rather solid chest of the man I was looking for—Paxton Dane, the new hire in Security.
At a couple of inches taller than my six feet, Dane was the poster boy for the testosterone-laden, ex-military, jet-jockey set. Square jaw, soft brown hair, green eyes, great ass, and an attitude—which I didn’t need right now.
“Did I just hear you tell Jerry to threaten to blackmail the manager of the television station?” His voice held the soft traces of old Texas, yet the sexy timbre of a man confident of his appeal.
“I never threaten. I offered him a deal.” I had neither the time nor the patience to educate Dane tonight, but it seemed that was in the cards.
“A rather fine distinction.”
“Dane, you’ll find those black-and-white lines painted so brightly in the rest of the world blur to a nice shade of gray in Vegas.” I put a hand on his chest and pushed him away, since his nearness seemed to affect what rational thought I had left at this time of night. “I was already up to my ass in alligators, and the suicide dive just upped the ante. I really do have to go.”
I pushed away the images of Lyda Sue’s final moments. If I kept them at a distance, maybe, just maybe, I could make it through the night. If I spoke of her cavalierly, maybe I could hold back my emotions.
“What makes you think she was a suicide?” The soft traces of old Texas disappeared. Dane’s voice was hard, flat, and held an edge like tempered steel.
The question and his tone stopped me cold. What did he know that I didn’t? “You got any reason to think otherwise?”
Murder, now that would be a real problem.
He waved my question away, arranging his features in an expressionless mask. “I need to talk to you about one of our whales. Apparently, the guy had a mishap in one of the Ferraris. If you want me to handle it, I can, but you’ll have to make the call as to what the hotel is willing to do. The whale in question is…” He consulted a folded sheet of paper he had extracted out of his back pocket and gave a low whistle. “A Mr. Fujikara and he seems to be quite a whale—he keeps several million in play during his monthly visits.”
“I know Mr. Fujikara well.”
Dane glanced up, one eyebrow raised, but he didn’t ask the question I saw lurking there, and I felt no need to explain.
“We also have a Pascarelli. Apparently, he wants a hug from you,” Dane continued, not missing a beat as he absently rubbed his chest where my hand had been. “And the naked guy…”
“He’s all mine as well,” I interjected to speed up the conversation. With major problems to solve, I had little time and even less patience. “And, Dane, for the record, never call the paramedics unless it’s an all-out emergency or the doctor wants them. Casinos are closed worlds here—we protect our own—and we zealously guard the privacy of our guests. Remember that. Outsiders are allowed in to help with problems only, and I repeat, only when the problem gets out of hand.”
Dane’s eyes narrowed—his only response. A tic worked in his cheek.
I rolled my head and rubbed the back of my neck. “I need to take Mr. Fujikara as well; this is a game we play. For his millions, he likes some personal attention—apparently I’m the anointed one. You can help me with one thing, though. We had a lady hit the mega-million, but we need to make sure she played the six quarters. Jerry’s shut down the machine and is reviewing the tapes. While we’re in the process, why don’t you offer the Sodom and Gomorrah Suite to the winner and her friends for the night? Make double sure that she understands her winnings have not been confirmed. I’ll follow up with her when I get the results of the diagnostics from Jerry.”
“And who will authorize the comped suite?”
“I thought I just did.” My words sounded harsher than I intended. “Sorry. If Sergio wants confirmation, have him call me.”
“Right. Oh, and The Big Boss wants fifteen minutes of your time. He’s in his apartment.”
“He’ll have to get in line.”
“He told me now,” Dane said, as he rubbed his eyes.
“I said, he’ll have to wait.” Now that I took a closer look, Danes eyes were bloodshot. The guy looked totally wrung out. I put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Dane shrugged my question off, then shrugged out of my grasp. “You leave The Big Boss hanging, it’s your funeral.”
“It’ll take more than that to put me six feet under.”
My relationship with The Big Boss was none of Dane’s business. I turned and took off through the casino with more questions than answers bouncing around in my skull: Why the swan dive, why did The Big Boss send Dane to bring me to heel, and why did Dane sidestep my question?
Murder! What made him think Lyda Sue was murdered?
The casino at the Babylon is much like any other. An intimate labyrinth, subtly decorated, windowless and, tonight, jam-packed with people all paying and praying for whatever it was they hoped to get in Vegas. A thin layer of smoke hovered over the crowd, as the slot machines sang their come-on songs and occasional shouts arose from the tables. Cocktail waitresses wearing painted-on smiles and little else darted in and out delivering fresh libations and collecting the empties. Young women paraded around in tight-fitting clothes they wouldn’t be caught dead in back home. Pierced and tattooed young men, their jeans hanging precariously across their butts, followed the young women. How the boys kept their jeans from falling straight to the floor was an enduring mystery.
The nightly line of the young and the beautiful snaked from the entrance to Pandora’s Box, our popular nightclub and body exchange. Pulses of dance music escaped each time Ralph, our bouncer, opened the door to let one of the hip and trendy in or out. The entrance to the adjacent theatre was empty; the 10:30 show was well underway.
I knew where to find Mr. Pascarelli—thankfully he was on my way to Stairwell Fifteen. Like all serious gamblers, Mr. Pascarelli was a creature of habit and superstition. Dressed in the same shirt, a now-threadbare Hawaiian number his wife, Mildred, “God rest her soul,” had given him decades ago when I guessed he weighed forty pounds more than he did now, he always started his night of play at the third slot machine from the end of the third row.
A gnome-like eighty, Mr. Pascarelli was cute as a bug, bald as Michael Jordan, a night owl and, I suspected, a bit lonely. Three was his lucky number, and I was his good-luck charm.
Lucky me.
Truth be told, giving Mr. Pascarelli his hug was usually the high-point of my night, a fact that—had I time to think about it—would probably have concerned me.
“There you are, my dear!” He waved his glass at me. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Worry? Don’t be silly, but this one will have to be a quickie.” I gave him a squeeze, careful to not crush him too tightly.
He laughed at the innuendo. “Hard night?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Little Lyda taking a header out of the helicopter?”
“Bad news travels fast. You knew Lyda Sue?”
“Sure. When she wasn’t busy, she used to pull up a stool and talk to me for a while. Sweet kid, from somewhere in Texas, I think.” He shook his head and crinkled his brow. “She’d been sorta jumpy lately.”
“Did she say why?”
“If she did, I don’t remember.”
“Do me a favor—try. When she sailed out of that helicopter, she landed right in my lap. I could use some help on this.”
He nodded, his eyes serious.
I patted Mr. Pascarelli’s shoulder. “Go easy on us tonight, okay?”
“Sure, honey,” he said with a wink.
Mr. Pascarelli was the only man on the planet who could call me “honey,” wink at me, and live to tell about it.
I dove into the crowd and wove my way on toward Stairwell Fifteen. I threw my weight against the stairwell door and came face to face with the normally unflappable Sergio Fabiano, our night-shift front-desk manager. Dark hair, olive skin, a face a photographer would love and a body to match, Sergio was the Babylon’s resident Greek god. Women were drawn to him like sharks to an injured seal. Thankfully, the women were nowhere in sight. Neither was Security. Apparently, Dane had done as I asked and called off his posse.
“Thank heavens!” A scowl creased Sergio’s otherwise flawless face, but his dark eyes danced with merriment. He gestured disdainfully toward the space under the first flight of stairs.
“Good God!” The words escaped before I could stop them.
“But not a merciful God,” announced Sergio.
Our naked guest must have weighed four hundred pounds, with pasty white skin and more hair sprouting on his body than his head. Thankfully, he was curled in the fetal position. And he was still out cold. But, judging from the way his ass was twitching, his dreams were good ones.
“We don’t know who he is?” I managed to choke out. I kept repeating, I will not laugh at this over and over in my head until I felt confident I would do as I told myself.
Sergio shook his head, his jaw clamped tight, his lips compressed together. He didn’t laugh, not even a smile, or a smirk. Amazing.
I keyed my Nextel. “Security, any missing-person reports for tonight?”
“Excuse me?” The unmistakable voice of Paxton Dane. Did the guy ever stop? Like the Energizer bunny, he just kept going and going, handling everything, everywhere.
“Dane, have you guys had any calls from anyone looking for someone who matches the description of our guy in Stairwell Fifteen?”
“Already checked that. And, to answer your question, no.”
“Okay, then send four…” I looked at the inert shape again. “Make that five of your strongest guys to Stairwell Fifteen, ground floor.”
“On their way—again.”
Taking the high road, I ignored the jab. “And, Dane, remember, a bit of discretion here. This man is most likely one of our guests. We wouldn’t want to see him on the news, okay?”
“You mean one appearance on the nightly news is enough?”
Did the guy take a class on how to be a jerk or was it something that just came naturally?
“Dane…” I started in on him, then realized I was talking to dead air.
Sergio looked at me, his eyes round black saucers.
I snapped my phone shut. “Sergio, take care of this guy,” I said as I reclipped my phone, glad that Dane had retreated. I was too wrung out to do the whole verbal thrust-and-parry thing. “You know, the usual routine.”
“Right,” Sergio began. “First, get a robe that’ll fit him—preferably one with another hotel’s logo on it.” He paused to flash me a grin, then continued as if he’d memorized it all from the employee handbook and hadn’t actually learned it from me. “When Security gets here, have them carry him through the back corridors to the worst room open tonight. Take all the bedsheets, the towels and the robes—anything he can put around himself when he wakes up, so he can’t sneak out on us.”
“You’ve got it. But you might see if Security can spare someone to stand outside the door, just in case our friend—” I pointed to the guy on the floor, now snoring loudly. “—has an accomplice to bring him some clothes.”
Sergio nodded.
“And the doc is going to check on him?” I asked.
“Every half hour.”
“Good work.” Another problem down, how many more to go? I’d lost count. “Sergio, another thing…”
Again those black eyes focused on me.
“I need you to alert your staff at the front desk, the bell staff, and the valets. If anyone comes around asking questions about a girl falling out of our helicopter, they are to be directed to my office. That includes the police. Our staff is not to answer any questions or to give any information. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Sergio’s eyes grew a fraction wider, but he kept his composure.
“And if anyone is poking around, let me know, okay? Just because you send them to my office doesn’t mean they will actually do as you suggest.”
I gave one last look around. I couldn’t think of anything else. Satisfied Sergio could handle the problem from here, I turned to go—
After all, it’s not as if this was our first naked drunk sleeping in a stairwell.
The elevators lurked just inside the foyer of the Babylon, separating the casino from the hotel. The foyer was the Babylon’s showpiece. Designed to draw all passersby inside, the grand ceiling was covered with millions of dollars’ worth of Chihuly blown glass. The Bellagio had glass flowers, we had butterflies and hummingbirds—thousands of them. Personally, they made me feel like we all were in a remake of the film The Birds, but obviously no one shared my opinion. As usual, a crowd clustered under them, oohing and ahhing.
Numerous walking bridges arched over a lazy river, our interpretation of the Euphrates, which snaked throughout the ground level. Tropical plants and trees grew along its banks, lending shade for the colorful fish, swans and ducks that swam in the clear blue water. Somehow, I doubted whether the birthplace of civilization ever had a river quite like our Euphrates, but The Big Boss wanted it, so there it was.
Off to one side of the lobby, behind a wall of twenty-five-foot windows, an indoor ski slope with real, man-made snow descended from high above. Again, I wasn’t sure whether the original Babylonians had ever strapped on a pair of K2s and flown down a snow-covered hillside, but in keeping with the relatively recent adage “If you build it, they will come,” The Big Boss had built it and, indeed, they came. Another crowd gathered there, watching the folks who had paid an exorbitant sum to ski indoors on the desert slide down the hill.
The other side of the lobby boasted the entrance to the Bazaar. There one could slide behind the wheel of a Ferrari, buy a six-hundred-thousand-dollar pink diamond ring, a two-thousand-dollar pair of Versace jeans, or load up on five-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choos. A constant line of customers with fat wallets trailed through there like ants bearing gifts for the queen.
The Big Boss was an expert at separating tourists from their money.
Ah yes, The Big Boss—he was next on the list.
I shouldered my way through the crowd, ignoring the man yelling at one of the bellmen—a front-desk clerk was already interceding. Paxton Dane was giving a woman a hug—probably the mega-millions lady. He caught my eye over the lady’s shoulder and gave me a discreet thumbs-up. For this brief moment in time, we appeared to have things under control, which, of course, was an illusion. Life in Vegas was never under control; it walked, trotted or galloped, as it chose, and we merely hung on for the ride.
Tomorrow, the Trendmakers would arrive for their annual week of spouse swapping, the stars of the adult movie industry would descend on us for their annual awards ceremony, ElectroniCon started Tuesday, and I would have to deal with the fallout from Lyda Sue’s dramatic exit, which would surely hit not only the morning papers but the Internet as well.
Whoever thought up the tagline “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” got it backward—Vegas was always news. Heck, the video of Lyda Sue’s final dive was probably playing on YouTube by now.
I was a fool to think I could corral this one.
I rounded the corner, pushed the up button, and pondered the reflection that stared back at me from the mirrored surface of the elevator doors. I looked like a hundred miles of bad road. Barely over thirty, and I could pass for my mother’s sister. Haggard was the word that leapt to mind. Thankfully, the doors slid open and I was no longer nose to nose with myself. Why people want mirrors everywhere is beyond me.
I stepped inside the empty car, inserted my security card in the slot, and pressed the button marked “private.” Self-consciously I patted my bottle-blonde hair, my one concession to the land of the beautiful people. Attractive enough, I guess, I’d never be considered beautiful or buxom—at least not without serious surgical intervention—but I damn well could be tall and blonde. Self-consciously I smoothed my dress, pinched my cheeks to get some color into them, then wiped at the black smudges I had seen under my eyes. I threw back my shoulders and adopted what I thought was an air of confidence.
“Who you trying to fool?” The voice emanating from the ceiling startled me.
I looked up at the “eye in the sky,” the small video camera hidden discretely in a plastic bubble partially recessed into the ceiling of the elevator car. Security monitored the video feeds from thousands of similar devices located all over the property. The voice belonged to Vivienne Rainwater, one of our Security team.
“You know what they say, image is everything.” I forced a smile for the camera. “I’ll be unavailable for a few.”
“You go, girl.”
“Over the line, Viv.”
“I thought there weren’t any lines in Vegas, just shades of gray.”
“And you shouldn’t listen to conversations you’re not invited into.”
“You’d be amazed at what you see and hear up here.”
Not long ago, I had sat where Vivienne now sits, and received a quick lesson into my fellow man, one I assumed Vivienne was now learning. “Titillated? Maybe. Amused? Possibly. But amazed? No. Now, go away and spy on someone else.”
The elevator whirred seamlessly to a stop at the fifty-second floor and the doors slid open. Every time I made this ride, I thought of Dorothy leaving Kansas in a tornado and waking up in Oz. Thirty seconds and I was transported from the semi-controlled chaos of the lobby to the quiet, serene living room of The Big Boss’s penthouse.
The muted lights cast a warm glow on leather-finished walls. The rich sheen of the hardwood floors framed hand-knotted silk rugs from the Middle East. Each was tastefully arranged and supported a cluster of understated furniture made from the hides of exotic beasts and woods from faraway lands. Lesser works from some of the great Masters graced the walls—sketches by Picasso and smaller works by Van Gogh and Monet. I couldn’t identify the others—apparently my high school art history teacher had overlooked them—but I was sure they were all very expensive and “important.” The whole effect made a three-thousand-square-foot box of a room cozy.
The Big Boss stood silhouetted against the wall of twenty-foot windows backlit by the lights of the Strip below. He warmed his hands in front of a gas fire dancing merrily in a freestanding fireplace. He explained to me once that he kept the air-conditioning on full blast so he could have his fire. Something about the ambiance.
The Big Boss, Albert Rothstein, was a Vegas legend. He had started as a valet at the Flamingo, caught the Mob’s attention—he never would tell me exactly how—and then worked his way to the top of the heap. A short man with a full head of once black, now salt-and-pepper hair, he kept himself trim with thrice-weekly personal training sessions. His smile could light up a room and his manner made you feel like you were the most important person in his world. He had a penchant for stiff whiskey, tall blondes, and big stakes. When I was fifteen, I’d filled out an employment application, stating my age as eighteen. The Big Boss hired me on the spot, even though he had known I was lying.
More than a little peeved at being summoned through the new flunky, I started in as I strode toward him. “Lyda Sue made a helluva splash, but I’ve got everything under control: Jerry’s on his way to get the tape from the station, the front entrance staff has been alerted to direct all inquiries to me, and once I actually make it to my office, I’ll work on keeping us off the front page.”
I stopped in front of him, but The Big Boss didn’t look at me. Instead, he continued staring into the fire, then he reached into his back pocket, extracted his wallet and pulled out what I knew to be a one-hundred-dollar bill. He put his wallet back, then started working with the paper money, smoothing it, lining up the sides, meticulously folding it again and again. The silence stretched between us, then he finally said, “Bring all the copies of the video to me.”
“You don’t want Security to go over it? May I ask why?”
Now he eyed me over the top of his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. His eyes were red. He looked like hell. “For once, just do as I say.”
“Okay.” First Lyda Sue, then Dane, now The Big Boss. Had I suddenly stepped into the Twilight Zone? Nothing about this night added up. “Aren’t you interested in what the pilot has to say?”
“The pilot?” he repeated, as if stalling for time.
“The pilot’s story should be a doozie.”
His hands shook as he folded the bill over and over. “Of course, what did Willie have to say?”
Okay, now I was sure I smelled a rat. “How did you know it was Willie? We haven’t found him yet.”
The air seemed to go right out of The Big Boss. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Lucky, you can truly try a man’s soul.”
“And you’re stonewalling me.” I laid a hand on his arm. “Boss, it’s my job to solve problems, but I can’t do it unless I know what the problems are.”
“I was solving problems long before you showed up. This one’s mine. I’ll solve it myself, my own way.” He shrugged out of my grasp.
The second man tonight to do that. Clearly, I was losing my touch.
“Just bring me that tape and keep me in the loop,” he growled, looking like a pit bull ready to take a bite out of somebody’s ass.
I had no idea how to reason with a pit bull—assuming it could even be done—so I bailed. “You’re the boss. Anything else?” If I couldn’t go through him, I’d just go around him.
Again the silence stretched between us as he worked, folding and folding. Finished, he took my hand, and closed my fingers around the small shape. He didn’t let go. His eyes looked at our hands, then reluctantly met mine. “Trust me on this one.”
“Sure.” I looked at the shape in my palm. The Big Boss had folded the bill into a small elephant. I extracted my hands from his and dropped the figure into my pocket. “Look. Right now I got more fires than California in the fall and they are spreading by the minute. May I go now?”
“Give that to the first kid you see in the lobby.” His voice was tired. His eyes, distracted.
“Boss, it’s midnight. If there’re any kids around, somebody ought to call Child Services.”
“Right.” He stepped around me and headed toward the bar. “Tomorrow then.” He pulled a bottle of single malt off the shelf and raised it in my direction. I shook my head. He poured himself a drink. He raised the glass to his lips, took a long pull, and then said, “We’ve got another problem.”
That much I knew. In fact, I thought we had several.
“And what might that be?”
“Paxton Dane.”
Now that I didn’t expect.
The Big Boss turned and stared at me, apparently awaiting my response.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he seemed nervous, a little antsy even, as he shifted from foot to foot.
A cold chill went through me. Whatever was bothering him, it must be bad—real bad. I’d only seen The Big Boss this way once before, and we both darn near went down in flames.
“He was your hire. What’s the problem?” How I kept my voice even, I don’t know.
“I hired Dane so we could keep an eye on him,” The Big Boss said, his eyes drifting from mine.
For a moment I was speechless, unable to comprehend what he had just told me, then I found my voice. “Wait, let me get this straight. You put somebody you don’t trust in one of the most sensitive positions in the house? Do you think that’s wise?” I tried to keep my voice low, my tone smooth, but even I could detect a hint of panic around the edges.
“Probably not, but it was the best I could think of on the fly.” The Boss took a slug of scotch. “Jerry knows. He’s keeping tabs on Dane, and I want you to help him.”
“Why?”
“He asked too many questions and was snooping around like he was trailing after something or someone. It doesn’t seem hiring him has put him off the scent. I want to know what he’s looking for and who’s holding his reins. So, keep him close, okay?”
“Why me? I’m not in Security. I’m the customer relations person, remember?”
“I know it’s asking a lot.” He turned. His eyes locked onto mine. “But, Lucky, you’re the only one I can trust.”