“Perhaps you’d care to tell me what it is you plan to discuss with Mr. Carlisle,” Zambelli said, pecking away on his phone. “That way, he’ll know what to expect and can prepare accordingly.”

“I’d prefer it be a surprise.”

“Mr. Carlisle doesn’t care for surprises.”

“I suspect he doesn’t care for personal secretaries sticking their noses in places they don’t belong, either.”

Zambelli slowly looked up at me over the top of his John Lennon glasses with the kind of smug condescension those of the upper crust reserve for any lesser life form that dares to question their superiority.

“I’m his executive assistant,” Zambelli said. “And, just so you’re aware, there are no secrets between Mr. Carlisle and myself.”

“Well, like the Buddha said, ‘There’s a first time for everything.’”

I decided I disliked Miles Zambelli. Not because he’d somehow managed to bed my ex-wife, nor because of the possibility, however remote, that he might’ve had something to do with the death of Arlo Echevarria. Even his ingrained superior smirk didn’t do it. No, what chapped my ass about Miles Zambelli as we motored south onto the Strip was the fact that he broke wind like a dairy cow, silent and deadly, while pretending all the while that it wasn’t him baking the brownies. The limo stunk like a Chicago stockyard. I could see Royale in the rearview mirror, squinting and trying not to gag. It was 110 degrees outside. I opened my window anyway.

Flanking Las Vegas Boulevard, the sidewalks outside the casinos were a milieu of protuberant bellies and cottage-cheese thighs, of sunburned Midwestern tourists sloshing margaritas out of plastic cups and snapping digital photos of themselves in front of fake Roman statues and laughing way too hard, as if to convince themselves of all the crazy fun they were having. Everybody seemed to be talking on cell phones except the homeless people, who talked to themselves. There were young guys with tattoos of skulls and dragonflies, young women with bare midriffs and pierced belly buttons, corpulent old ladies in electric scooter chairs with unfiltered cigarettes dangling from their lips, couples in matching casino souvenir T-shirts towing matching rolling luggage. There were attractive young Asian women in black pantsuits offering free tickets to come watch C-list comedians perform in exchange for interminable time-share presentations, while sad-eyed Latino laborers patrolled seemingly every street corner, handing out pornographic color flyers to every passerby, including prepubescent children walking with their parents.

To hell with the stink inside the limo. I rolled my window back up before I could catch some disease.

Zambelli took out a square of felt from his trouser pocket, unfolded it, and carefully polished his glasses.

“I have my own theories as to what may have happened to Mr. Echevarria,” he said.

“Really? Do tell.”

“I’d urge you to check out his first wife. My understanding is that she had more than enough reason to hurt him.”

“And you know this how?”

“Let’s just say I have my sources.”

Zambelli let loose another silent stink torpedo. My eyes were stinging. We were about to have a little chat about proper etiquette and how he was either going to have to stop with the ass rumblings or I was going to have to put my foot up his rectum, when we rear-ended a black Cadillac SUV with tinted windows and chrome rims.

The noise of the crash was worse than the crash itself — the screech of brakes followed a half-second later by a jolting explosion of metal-on-metal and the tinkling cascade of broken glass. The limo bucked a couple of feet into the air like a Brahma Bull, then fell back down, bouncing on its suspension.

Zambelli stared straight ahead, blinking. He looked like he was in shock but appeared otherwise unhurt. The same could be said for Royale. The steering wheel airbag had deployed. Steam spewed from the limo’s crumpled hood.

“Everybody OK?”

“I’m fine,” Zambelli said.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Royale said. “The guy stopped short.”

I undid my seatbelt and got out.

The other driver was already surveying the damage. The rear end of his SUV was stove in like an empty Budweiser can. Pieces of bumper and other debris littered the street. He circled and paced and kept shouting, “Look at my ride!”

He was about five-nine, solid and wide. Shaved skull. Baggy shorts. No shirt. No neck. Pumped pecs and grossly oversized arms— the kind you build juicing steroids. A tattooed German cross took up the whole of his upper back. Over his heart, in six-inch gothic script and surrounded by a daisy chain of intertwined ivy and little swastikas, were the letters “AB”—for Aryan Brotherhood. The dude was either an avowed white supremacist or he played one on TV.

“So,” I said, “how’s your day going otherwise?”

“What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Jesus Christ! Look at my fucking ride!” He was in a ’roid rage. His topaz eyes looked like they were about to explode out of his bullet head.

“Relax, cowboy. Insurance’ll cover it.”

“I got no insurance, fuckhead!”

“We do. Trust me, your pimpmobile will be back in shape before you know it. Better’n new. And you won’t be out a penny. The important thing is, nobody got hurt, right?”

He drew a deep breath and let it out, trying to dial down his temper. “I want a rental car while mine’s in the shop — and none of them little fuckin’ Hello Kitty Jap rides, neither.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

Other cars maneuvered around us through the intersection. Two drivers rolled down their windows to holler that they’d called 911. I could hear an emergency siren in the distance.

Royale climbed out of the limo and strode over. “Why’d you stop?” he demanded of the Aryan.

“Why did I stop? I stopped because the light was yellow, asshole!”

“You stop at a red light, not yellow.”

“Maybe in Africa.”

“I’m not African, motherfucker. I’m American!”

“Who you calling a motherfucker, you little spade faggot!”

They grappled. The skinhead grabbed a handful of Lamont Royale’s shirt and was about to slam him face-first into the side of the SUV, when I hooked his arm and flipped him over my left thigh, judo-style. He landed on his face, scraping his forehead bloody. Bits of gravel stuck to the wound. He bounced to his feet and flicked open a switchblade.

“You just made the worst mistake of your life,” he snarled.

“If you only knew how many mistakes I’ve made in life, Adolf, I’m confident you’d retract that statement.”

“Fuck you.”

He lunged. I sidestepped the blade, snatched his hand, then twisted it back and away from his body, splintering the joint with an audible snap. A deceptively benign sound, I thought. Like Mrs. Schmulowitz clicking her tongue. He dropped the knife and rolled around on the street, clutching his broken wrist and writhing in agony.

“You’ll pay for this! I’m suing your ass! You hear me?”

I picked up the knife, retracted the blade, and put it in my pocket. I could have lectured him on the notion that suffering is really payback for our own bad deeds, and that I would probably be repaid with excellent karma for putting down a racist puke like him. But I didn’t. It probably wouldn’t have done any good anyway.

“Thanks, man,” Lamont Royale said. “I owe you one.”

“My good deed for the day,” I said.

A fire engine and paramedic unit rolled up. Zambelli walked over, looking like some NASCAR fan who’d just witnessed a spectacular crash, his expression one of horror and rapture.

“You totally owned that guy,” he said.

“I’m just glad you had my back.”

I doubted my sarcasm was lost on him. The man went to Harvard.

TEN

Gil Carlisle’s 14,000-square foot penthouse occupied the top three floors of a fifty-four-story high-rise one block off the Las Vegas strip and a thousand light years from the tumblin’ tumble-weeds of west Texas where he’d grown up. Cut-crystal chandeliers hung from twenty-three-foot ceilings. There were fragrantly fresh gardenias in Waterford vases, and a circular stairway hewn from solid French limestone. There was Frank the bodyguard, standing watch near the private elevator where my ex-father-in-law greeted me.