“I should be ashamed of myself,” she said. “When am I supposed to get out of here?”

“Tomorrow, if everything goes right. I changed our flight.”

“I wonder if my head will explode at high altitude.”

“Just in case, I booked a seat ten rows behind yours. That way I can see it happen without it ruining my jacket.”

“Your lucky jacket. Is that why we survived?”

“Absolutely. Did you see what happened?”

“I suppose I did, but I don’t remember.” She closed her eyes and slowly opened them again. “I don’t remember anything. Last thing I recall, we were driving into Henderson to talk to the name on the insurance document. And next thing, I was looking up at some really ugly man who was being very sweet and my arm really, really hurt.”

“I think someone tried to kill us.”

“Really? Who?”

“I don’t know. Some guy in a white Camaro slammed me off the road. The cops think I was speeding and it was simply an accident.”

“Were you?”

“Only after I spotted the Camaro coming after me.”

“Do you think you only imagined it?”

“Maybe, but imagined or not, I’m through driving in this town, I’ll tell you that. Last I saw, the car was slowly burning.”

“I hope we still have the briefcase. I’d hate to have wasted the trip.”

“The cop said the briefcase and the luggage are waiting for me in the hospital office.”

“Did we meet the guy in Henderson?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting?”

“Not really. Hailey’s uncle. Do you need anything?”

“A toothbrush would be nice,” she said. “I’d like to brush my teeth before I fall asleep again.”

“Consider it done.”

I stood, leaned over to kiss her on the forehead, and went off to find our luggage.

It was stacked behind the desk of an admittance clerk in one of the small cubicles they had off the lobby. An older woman smiled at me when I demanded my luggage and sweetly asked for my identification and insurance information. Very clever. They were holding our luggage hostage to our Blue Cross number. I thought of complaining, just for the sport of it, but the old lady with the sweet smile had the eyes of an IRS agent, and so, meekly, I took out my insurance card.

Ransom paid, I lugged our two suitcases and my briefcase into the lobby. I looked around furtively and then checked the briefcase to make sure everything was there. At first glance it all appeared to be in order. The photographs, the letters, the insurance file, the maroon medical file, the envelope in which I had stashed the cash, all there, all seemingly undisturbed. I let out a sigh of relief as I checked the details, one by one, the insurance file first. Guy’s policy was still there, but… but Hailey’s now was missing. Damn it. Damn damn it. Quickly I pulled out the maroon folder. Where there should have been a medical file detailing the treatment of Juan Gonzalez, there was nothing, nothing. And then I noticed that the money envelope was sickeningly thin. Thirty thousand dollars, where was my damn thirty thousand dollars? I ripped open the envelope and found not the sweet hundred-dollar bills but instead a single scrap of paper with a note scrawled in a rough, barely legible hand.

Feeling like a little lamb?

They braise a nice shank at the Bellagio.

Nine o’clock reservation in your name.

Jacket required. Bring your wallet.

It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. I knew who had written it, the same man who’d set up the accident, I now was certain, the same man who had in all likelihood killed Hailey Prouix.

Phil Frigging Skink.

27

“WHERE THE fuck is my money, you scabrous piece of shit?”

Skink was already sitting at a table, beside a thick gray curtain, beneath a painting of a naked woman with her hand demurely covering her crotch. The joint was papered with maroon velvet, the corners were graced with great metal urns filled with ivy and denuded branches in arresting arrays. The chairs, upholstered also in velvet, had large brass rings hanging from their backs. It felt, the Prime Steakhouse on the lower level of the Bellagio, Roman and gangsterish at the same time, a place where Tiberius Caesar and Sam Giancana could dine together on great chunks of charred oxen and laugh about conquered provinces and rigged elections. A place where grasping lieutenants who had skimmed the empire’s profits could be taken care of with a single blow from a pepper mill the size of a baseball bat.

Sitting before Skink on the peach-colored tablecloth was a huge crystal shell filled with ice, covered with an array of plump fresh oysters. Skink eyed me calmly as he sucked out the insides of a nacreous shell. The maître d’ had brought me through the fabulously decadent dining room to the table and was standing aside as I ignored the proffered seat and confronted the slurping Skink to no great effect. It was disconcerting that Skink seemed to be enjoying himself immensely despite my rage. It was doubly disconcerting that he was wearing the same gold lamé lucky jacket as I was.

“You’re a bit late, Vic, so I hope you don’t mind I started without you.”

“I want my money and my documents, and I want them now.”

“We look like a backup singing group here, don’t we, Vic? You and I in the same jacket, like a couple of Pips. Or maybe like two homosexual types with the same taste in clothes. I wonder if everyone here thinks we’re a couple of poofs having ourselves a lover’s spat.”

“Hand it over.”

“Calm down,” he said. “Sit. Eat first, talk later. That’s a plan, innit? Let’s keep things all clean and private.”

He glanced to the side and I did, too, glanced at the maître d’, still holding my chair. I felt a stern French disapproval of my table manners, which was interesting, because the maître d’ was neither stern nor French. She instead was a lovely American with long, straight hair who calmly waited for my diatribe to conclude. There was no shock in her face – her restaurant served meat in the bowels of a casino, there wasn’t much I expect she hadn’t seen – still, her presence there settled me enough that I finally dropped down into the chair and accepted the great burgundy menu.

“You like shrimp, Vic?” asked Skink. “Who don’t, right? Bring him an order of the grilled prawns to start with while he reads the bill of fare, will you, sweetheart?”

The maître d’ smiled, nodded, swayed away.

“Lovely girl, that. Wouldn’t mind ordering her right off the menu.”

“There’s enough to buy in this town, if that’s what you need to do.”

“I don’t need to do a thing,” he said. “Just like I don’t need to pick up my skim milk in the 7-Eleven. It’s the convenience, is all.”

“I want my money and I want my documents.”

He picked up another oyster and slurped. “There’s the root of the problem, innit? None of thems is yours. You pocketed it all from a dead girl’s bank deposit box, didn’t you?”

“Jonah Peale promised you’d leave me alone?”

“He told me to go on vacation, and here I am. But even so, I’m nobody’s boy. I’m what they call an independent contractor. Key word being ‘independent.’ I do whatever I want, work for whoever I damn please.”

“For whom exactly do you work? Lawrence Cutlip? Is that why you took the insurance policy? The receptionist at Desert Winds said Cutlip was having a busy day. I’d bet you were the other visitor. I’d bet you showed up there before I did. I’d bet you were squatting there behind the mesquite tree, eavesdropping on our meeting.”

Skink smiled as he sucked down another oyster.

“And Guy’s father-in-law, Jonah Peale? That’s who you took the Juan Gonzalez file for, isn’t it?”

“It would be a violation of my ethical duties to be disclosing the names of my clients.”

“It’s so nice to see you concerned about your ethical duties.”