I picked up my chair, embarrassed by my petulance. I left the room, avoiding eye contact with…well, everyone. I walked slowly down the long hall to my bedroom at the back of the house.
Poor Monty. I felt bad for him, but if this were truly going to be his livelihood, he’d see worse. In Vegas, he’d see a lot worse.
I pulled off my jacket, taking my odds sheets out and throwing them on the dresser. If I rushed, I could probably make it to a casino in time to make book on the later games, but I was too drained to contemplate it.
And to not contemplate placing a bet…well, I was pretty damned beat.
I toed off my shoes and was about to pull my shirt over my head when there was a knock on my door. “I’m fine, Ben,” I called. “I just need some sleep.”
I heard the door open and turned to reassure Ben, but it was Jack at the door.
“Got a sec?” he asked as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.
“Sure,” I answered, though it appeared I didn’t have much of a choice.
He looked around the room. It hadn’t changed much since he’d last been in here. Right down to the odds sheets scattered all over any smooth surface.
But the last time he’d been in here sure wasn’t this awkward between us.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“That was…that was…” He pointed to the door, but he meant the scene that had just played out in the dining room.
“Lorelei trying to help in her poor, misguided way,” I finished his sentence for him.
“Was it? Misguided?”
I sighed, sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you, Jack.”
“But I – ” He was cut off by his phone ringing. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket, looked at the caller ID. “Sorry, I have to take this.”
I waved for him to go ahead. All I wanted to do was peel off my clothes and climb under my covers. It wasn’t like Jack hadn’t seen me in panties before. Less. But I stayed clothed. Stayed perched on the edge of the bed and waited for Jack to leave the room for privacy to take his call.
“Hey Frank,” he said, making no movement to leave. “What’s up? Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.” There were pauses between each of his responses, and I wondered if this was about Paulie’s murder.
It could have been about any one of their cases. Hell, it could have been about what to eat for lunch.
“Give it to me again,” Jack said. Pause. “Okay, I got it.” Pause. “Right, in about an hour.” He closed his phone, put it back in his pocket.
“You still have the same number in case I need to talk to you…about Paulie?” he asked me.
It looked like I was going to be spared his rehashing of the intervention. Thank you, Frank Botz.
I pulled my iPhone out of the left-side pocket of my cargo pants. I nodded and placed the phone on my bedside table. “Yep, same number.”
He watched my movements, his eyes staying focused on the phone for a moment before coming back to rest on me. “Did you speak with Paulie via phone last night?” he asked. All concern over my disastrous intervention was gone from his face.
“If you want me to answer that, you’ll have to take me back in,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, but I had spoken with Paulie last night, before and after meeting with Raymond Joseph. It hadn’t been on my iPhone, but I still didn’t want anything to tie me to CIU and Raymond.
Or to tie him to me and therefore Paulie and ultimately Vince Santini. The kid did not deserve to get dragged into any of this.
“A simple yes or no. You won’t give me that?” Jack tried.
“Not unless you charge me with something and take me in. And then only after I speak with my attorney.”
“Do you even have an attorney?”
I shrugged. “Jimmy knows a guy.”
Jack snorted. “I just bet he does.”
He circled around the room, stalking me. He’d done it before in this room. But then it had been foreplay.
“So, you won’t answer the question.”
“No.”
“Is that because you won’t lie to me?”
“Maybe that. Or maybe I don’t want to end up right in the middle of a murder I had nothing to do with.”
“Or maybe you could give us a close approximation on Paulie’s murder based on the time you spoke to him.”
“Look at his phone records for that.”
“We did,” he said as he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
His face never left mine as a phone started to ring. Neither of us looked at my iPhone on the bedside table. That’s not where the ring came from. He raised one brow. “You going to answer that?” He motioned to the ringing phone coming from the right-side pocket of my cargo pants.
I let the phone keep ringing, not moving an inch, until Jack shut his phone and put it back into his jacket. The ringing in my pants pocket ceased.
“It’s time for you to leave, Jack.”
“Five thousand on UCLA,” I said, digging my roll of cash out of my jacket pocket.
The cashier at The Bellagio didn’t bat an eye.
After Jack had left, I’d thrown my shoes and jacket back on and headed to the casino, deciding to place that bet after all.
Okay, needing to place a bet. Happy, Monty?
I took my bet slip, found a chair and settled into the deep leather, waiting for the feeling to wash over me, to take everything else away.
The Hummer. Jimmy called it a cock squeeze. It was the feeling that I got when I placed a bet, that exhilaration, the fear, the complete focus on the game and nothing else.
Nothing else. Usually.
The Hummer took longer to blot out the world as I thought of Paulie being killed. And Jack. And how to keep Raymond out of this, whatever “this” turned out to be.
UCLA and Stanford were tipping off, and yet the smooth ease of knowing I had money on the game did not come over me. I felt the weight of my cell phone in my pants pocket. Not my iPhone, the other one. JoJo’s phone.
UCLA dunked in an easy bucket, but instead of being glued to the game, I got up and walked across the book area to a small alcove used for phone calls. The room years ago would have been banked with pay phones, but now was just used for people with cell phones who needed a bit of solitude to hear. You also weren’t supposed to have cell phones out in the sports book area – they didn’t want you calling around for better lines – but they’ve eased up on that a little bit lately. Probably trying to compete with online betting.
I pulled JoJo’s phone out and dialed Raymond’s number. He answered on the third ring. “What?” he said curtly.
“Can you talk?”
There was a moment of silence, then a muffle, then the sound of a door closing. “Yeah.”
“This phone, the one I called you on. The one you gave me the number for…”
“Yeah?” he answered.
“Is it your main phone? Do lots of people have the number for it?”
“No. I got one of them pay-as-you-go kind, when we started…when we…decided to stay in touch. You’re the only one with the number.”
Smart kid. But then that’s why I’d chosen him. “Lose it. Now,” I said. “Dump it in the trash somewhere public, but not on campus. Then get a new one.”
“Shit. What’s going on? Christ, JoJo, if they find out – ”
“Nobody’s found anything out. This doesn’t have anything to do with you. But I want to make sure it stays that way.”
“Are you tossing your phone?”
The damage had already been done with Jack, but I didn’t like the idea of this number – one associated with me, Vince, Paulie and Raymond – being out there.
“Yes. But I’ll wait until you get a new one and call me with the number. Use a payphone to make that call.”
“You know what? Fuck this. Toss your phone, I ain’t gonna call you anymore. I’m out. Done.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? You’re just going to let me go?”
“You don’t owe me anything, Raymond. Me or the man who funded this little venture. Nobody’s going to bother you if you say you’re out.” I prayed I spoke for Vince when I said this. “It’s not about letting you go. You were always free to make the choices you did.”
He snorted on the other end of the line. No, he wouldn’t want to believe that.
“But, Raymond, I won’t toss my phone until Wednesday. So if you want to call me back with a new number, you have a couple of days. After that, you’ll have no way of getting in touch with me.”
Raymond didn’t know my real name, only JoJo. He didn’t know where I lived, though I supposed he guessed it would be somewhere I could place a large bet. But really that could be anywhere these days with backroom bookie joints and online betting. He didn’t know I barely knew how to Google my own name let alone place bets online. And Lorelei had strict instructions not to give me credit cards or open any online accounts for me. Instructions given to her by me when she first moved in.
“You might as well toss your phone now, I won’t be calling with no new number,” he said.
“If that’s the case, take care of yourself. Have a good rest of the season.”
I don’t think he even heard the last part because he hung up on me.
I left the alcove and went back to the book room, slumping deep into the chair I’d vacated to make my call. I probably should toss the phone right now, but did it really matter? Jack had gotten this number by tracing Paulie’s calls, trying to see who he’d spoken to the last night of his life. There’d be no reason to trace the calls from this number unless I was a serious suspect, and I just didn’t believe that Jack would think that.
UCLA was up by three points early in the first quarter. That was good, but I needed them to win by fifteen to collect. I ordered a coffee from Brandi, one of the cocktail waitresses who knew just how I took it, pulled out a five for her tip, and waited for the Hummer to hit me.
Brandi brought the coffee, we thanked each other, and I took a deep gulp, hoping the stuff would wake me up. Stanford hit a three-point shot to tie it up, and the need for caffeine evaporated as the Hummer washed over me. The anxiety, the hope, the dread, the…aliveness. This was all I needed, all I wanted.
“Who’d you take,” a deep, silky voice said over my shoulder.
I turned around to see Vince Santini sitting behind me. He was in an expensive and tasteful suit as usual. His black hair was combed back, his olive-toned face freshly shaven. Handsome. Elegant.
“UCLA,” I said. He checked the board where each game was posted to see the point spread, then looked at the game where Stanford just went ahead.
“There’s a lot of game left to be played,” he said as he left his chair, moved to my row of chairs and sat down beside me.
Vince typically had a book with him, usually a biography of some famous world leader, but today he was empty handed. In fact, I was pretty sure it was the first time I’d ever seen him empty handed.
Had he come to see me specifically?
“I heard they pulled you in, too,” he said. Yep, guess so.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, but I hate to see any of my clients bothered by this mess. This should be handled in-house.”
I didn’t want to ask about how Vince intended to handle Paulie’s killer. I only existed in the fringe of their world. And happily so.
“They called you in too?” I asked.
He nodded. “Last night. Not long after they found the body. I’m assuming I’m who they came to first.”
That made sense. I wanted to ask if it was Jack or Frank Botz, but I didn’t. It could have been any number of policemen at that point. Maybe the case hadn’t come to Frank and Jack until this morning.
“It was that detective of yours,” he answered my unasked question. “And his partner. The one with the bad ties.”
I kind of liked Frank’s ties, but could see how they would bug classically dressed Vince.
“He’s not mine,” I said. “Not anymore.” Vince didn’t say anything to that.
“Did they tell you anything?” I asked, knowing that Jack wouldn’t let Vince know anything that he didn’t want to.
“No. Nothing of any help. But then, I suppose I’m a suspect.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He gave a snort – a small, elegant snort, if that’s possible. “Right. I gave them my alibi. I assume they’ll check it out. I’d like to stay involved, see what suspects – what real suspects – they come up with, but I can’t imagine them keeping me in the loop.”
No, neither could I. No way would Jack lead Vince to Paulie’s killer. He’d just have another homicide on his hands.
You didn’t mess with Vince’s people. And honestly, I was okay with that.
He turned to look at me. “So, no pillow talk about who might have done this with Detective Schiller?”
I gave him a small smile. “Nope. No chance of that.”
He nodded, turned back to the front. We sat in silence for a while, and I thought about how long Paulie and Vince had been together. I knew they predated me by quite a bit, so probably nearly twenty years. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said quietly.
Vince looked at me. It wasn’t the Jack Schiller-eyebrow raise, but the skepticism was just as obvious.
Yeah, Paulie had beaten the shit out of me years ago, and I’d always held it against him. But that was business, and I’d never held it against Vince. Odd, but there it was. I put my hand on Vince’s arm and gave a small squeeze. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting, Vince,” I said with all honesty.
His look turned from skeptical to accepting. He let out a deep sigh. He put his hand over mine and kept it there. He looked tired, and Vince never looked tired, even with the hours he must keep to loan money to Vegas’ most degenerate gamblers.
He took his hand off mine and pointed toward the screen where UCLA had not only caught up, but gone a few points ahead. “They’re looking good.”
I brought my hand away from his arm. “It’s still early,” I said.
He turned to me again. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “And that our friend in the Midwest is set.”
“I saw him last night, and he’s been paid in full.” Vince nodded. “But,” I continued, “I don’t know if I’d say he’s set…he says he’s out.
“He’s told you that before.”
“I know.”
“Do you believe him?”
I thought of Raymond’s vehemence last night in Dubuque. Then about the phone conversation I’d just had with him. And then I looked around me, saw the people hooked on every play made on the screens. The rows of people betting on horse races taking place half a continent away.
“No,” I said. “He’ll call again.”
Vince nodded. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, then got up and walked away.
I nestled deeper into the chair, watched UCLA dominate and waited for another Hummer that never came.