Dying for the Highlife Read online

  DYING for the

  HIGHLIFE

  A DAN RENO NOVEL

  _______________________

  DAVE STANTON

  LaSalle Davis Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Steve Whan

  Copyright © 2013 Dave Stanton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0989603113

  ISBN 13: 9780989603119

  ALSO BY DAVE STANTON

  Stateline

  Speed Metal Blues

  Dark Ice

  Hard Prejudice

  FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT DAVE STANTON’S WEBSITE:

  DanRenoNovels.com

  For Austin and Haley

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  Say you’re on a wandering drunk binge. The year you spent on the wagon seems a lifetime ago, a life that ended when you came back to the bottle like a soldier coming home after a long war. You don’t remember the day you decided to have a quick taste, just one, and then it would be back to your predictable, sober life. But there’s no such thing as “just one,” you always knew that, and you stayed drunk from that moment, as if it were the most natural process in the world.

  Then you run out of money, taking odd jobs to stay afloat, until one morning you wake up in some unknown town out in the godforsaken Southern California desert. You crawl from your bed and step into the parking lot of the fleabag boardinghouse you call home. And for some reason, as you hike down the empty street to your day labor job, you suddenly take a hard left and walk straight out of town, out onto the ancient, sunbaked sand and rock of the earth’s floor. You walk through the sagebrush and thistle, heading east toward the horizon, as if the vastness of the land holds some sort of mystical answer to your life.

  Before long you fall to the ground and sleep in a patch of shade. Around noon you wake up, parched, confused, your lips so dry they’ve split, your hair gritty and hanging in your face. Automatically you trudge back toward the distant buildings that shimmer in the heat, sadly but stubbornly beckoning you back to a life you gave up on for no reason you can remember, and traded in for a bottle of whiskey.

  But you’re broke again, and you got to eat, so it’s back to another day of bust-ass, miserable hangover work, with only the prospect of begging a front for chow and liquor to look forward to. That night, for the hell of it, you buy a two-dollar state lottery ticket, get drunk on a quart of beer and a half pint of cheap bourbon, and dream of an existence so farfetched that you almost cry when the gray light of dawn creeps through the ratty curtains in your room and wakes you from your drunken fantasy.

  You walk down the deserted street with your head hanging from your shoulders like a bag of wet sand, and stop at the twenty-four-hour market to spend your last four bits on a cup of coffee. The clerk runs your Lotto stub through the machine, and you’re halfway out the glass door before his frantic screams jolt you out of your stupor. You stare at him with bloodshot eyes, a Styrofoam coffee cup shaking in your dirt-caked fingers, the steam rising to your trembling mouth. And you listen to him tell you that you’ve just become a rich man.

  • • •

  The conference reception room at Caesars was crowded with men in business suits. They milled about, talking in clusters of four or five, juggling beer bottles and little plates piled with meatballs and stuffed mushrooms. Most of them appeared gregarious and energetic, and they all seemed to be talking over one another, as if they were competing to be heard and recognized.

  Out of boredom, I summed up the group from behind the bar. Salesmen, probably. Too well dressed to sell cars. Maybe they were in technology, or real estate, or stocks. Whatever their industry, it was obviously male dominated—there wasn’t a woman in the room. I sighed, and tried to ignore their loud verbal jousting and artificial enthusiasm. Two men leaned on the bar and ordered drinks, their brows wrinkled, discussing some financial matter. I mixed their cocktails stronger than I should have, silently wishing them shot nerves and drinker’s remorse. Then I poured myself a discreet drink, with the expensive scotch. On their tab, of course.

  You could feel the atmosphere in the room change when the lady walked in, as if sunlight had cut through a thick fog. The hubbub faded as every head in the room turned in her direction. She had straight, dirty blond hair that fell over her bare shoulders and onto a silky blouse a bit too sheer to contain her breasts in a manner suitable for proper company. Her black skirt was more conservative, but still showed off her slim waist and the sweeping curve of her thighs. But it was her eyes, sparkling like dark diamonds above her high cheekbones, that really caught my attention.

  She walked toward the bar, her hips swaying in a tantalizing rhythm. I couldn’t help but stare, and she met my gaze with the beginnings of a smile on her sensual lips, or maybe it was a smirk.

  The silence was awkward only for an instant, like a record had skipped, then the buzz of voices resumed. But it was obvious the room had a new focal point. Before she reached the bar, a tall, well-built man in a dark blue suit and maroon tie fell in step with her. His eyes were unnaturally green, his hair blond and perfect, and he moved with the confidence of a lady’s man in his prime. He escorted her to the bar, his hand touching her elbow.

  “Hello,” he said, smiling to show off his expensive teeth. “Buy you a drink?”

  He snapped his fingers at me without taking his eyes from her.

  “Yes, I’d like that,” she said, then plucked his hand from her elbow and flicked it away like a used tissue. “As long as I don’t have to drink it with you.”

  “What?” he said.

  “I’ll make you a deal. If I need a pretty boy to run my errands, I’ll give you a call. How’s that?”

  “Are you serious?” he said.

  “I don’t have time for fun and games. You want some action, go jump your secretary.”

  The man walked back toward his associates, who were watching him expectantly. He stuck his hand in his pocket like he was searching for some lost article, and smiled bravely, as if his nuts were in a vice and one false move would tighten the crank.<
br />
  “Sapphire Martini, dry, three olives,” she said. I mixed her drink and smiled.

  “That was well done, ma’am. But this is a private party,” I said.

  “Aren’t they all?”

  I smiled wider. “Do you always crash company cocktail parties?”

  “No,” she said, sipping her martini. “I don’t make a habit of it. And frankly, I don’t have that kind of time to waste.”

  “I know of no better way to waste time than sitting on a barstool,” I said.

  “That’s very witty.”

  “Yeah, I spend hours coming up with stuff like that.”

  “You’re Dan Reno, right?”

  I winced, as it occurred to me she might be a summons server, or maybe worked for a bill collector.

  “Yeah. And it’s Reno, as in no problemo.”

  “I’ll have to remember that,” she said, lowering her eyelashes and sipping from her drink. “So, Cody Gibbons gave me your name and told me where to find you. My stepson is missing, and I need to reach him as soon as possible. He was last seen here in South Lake Tahoe. Cody said you do this kind of work, and that you’re the best.”

  “Cody Gibbons is a good buddy of mine, so his opinion’s probably biased,” I admitted.

  “I hope I didn’t drive all the way here for nothing.”

  “From San Jose?” I said. It was where Cody lived and where I used to, a four-hour drive from Lake Tahoe.

  “That’s right.”

  I pulled the stops from the three bar sinks and watched the water begin to drain, then looked at the lady. She was nearly beautiful, but up close the hard edge to her eyes was a distraction. So was the small pendant that dangled in her cleavage and touched her well-rounded breasts, which were held in place by the skimpiest of bras.

  “My shift’s over in half an hour. How about we meet in the casino lounge, over near the sports book?”

  “See you there,” she said, and she finished her drink and slid off the barstool. I watched her walk away, and I could tell by the way she strutted she knew everyone in the room was watching.

  2

  I announced last call and served another quick round, then closed the bar and headed out to the casino. The walkways were clogged with gamblers and the card tables and rows of slots were packed three deep. Waitresses glided through the crowds, balancing full trays of free casino drinks—rum and Cokes that tasted like watered-down caramel, syrupy gin tonics, and Vodka Collins I swore were spiked with cleaning fluid. People who live in Nevada know casino work is a sure thing, but also a dead-end gig. A large casino can generate staggering revenues and profit, but most casino workers are paid minimum wage, earn meager tips, and have to tolerate drunken, surly tourists losing money they can scarcely afford to part with.

  The bartending gig at Caesars was something I took after my aspirations for a successful private detective agency in South Lake Tahoe became a sad delusion. The small mortgage on my wood-sided A-frame home now threatened to outstrip my monthly income, and I would be short on this month’s payment. Unless I improved my financial situation, I’d have to face the grim prospect of selling out and moving back to the rat race, back to San Jose. So when the strange lady showed up, bearing the prospect of paying detective work, I didn’t try too hard to hide my interest. Maybe this was the break I needed, the beginning of good things. I yanked off my clip-on bowtie as I approached the sports bar, and resisted the urge to drop it in a trashcan.

  She waited at a table, the highlights in her hair glowing under the dimmed lighting. Three men at the bar had swiveled their seats outward so they could eyeball her more readily. I pulled a rumpled card from my wallet as I approached her. It’d been a while since I’d looked at my own card, and it suddenly seemed very plain and unimpressive. It simply read: Dan Reno—Private Investigations. I thought fleetingly if I might somehow improve the card.

  “Let’s start with your name, ma’am,” I said, sitting and grabbing a keno pad to take notes. I wanted to get down to business, but when I looked up I was again struck by her, not only on a visual level, but more by a certain aura she projected. Her presence was no doubt sexual, but there was something beyond that, something classy and sultry but also hard edged and manipulative. I didn’t know quite what to make of her. I got the distinct impression she’d be equally at home in a biker bar or at a highbrow party for rich socialites.

  “I’m Sheila Majorie.” She took my card from my fingers, studied it for a moment, then set it on the table and moved it aside with a red fingernail.

  “Mrs. Majorie?”

  “Miss,” she said, looking at me so directly I felt she was challenging me to look away. I did, and watched her pull a pack of Virginia Slims from her black leather purse.

  “Residence in San Jose?”

  “Yes. That’s where I live.”

  “Okay. So your son is missing.”

  “My stepson.”

  “Right. When was your last contact with him?”

  “Oh, about five years ago.”

  “He’s been missing for five years?”

  “No, he hasn’t been missing that long. Actually, it’s only recently I’ve tried to get a hold of him. But I can’t find him. The last I heard, he was here in Tahoe, gambling at Harrah’s.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Must have been five, six weeks ago.”

  “All right. His name?”

  “Jim Homestead,” she said, and her mouth tightened.

  “Jimmy Homestead?”

  “Yes. People used to call him Jimmy.”

  “I remember him,” I said, then raised my eyebrows. “You’re Sheila Homestead?”

  She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray and slowly twirled the burning end against the glass rim, until the cherry was barely glowing.

  “I used to be Sheila Homestead.”

  I remembered her too.

  • • •

  I had known the Homesteads back in high school, fifteen some odd years ago. They were a blue-collar family, not poor but definitely a rung below middle class. Jimmy Homestead and his brother Marty were both popular, seemingly happy kids, but it was general knowledge among my crowd that their father, John, was a heavy drinker and a less than ideal parent. Some years later I heard John Homestead had been conned by his younger brother into a bogus investment scheme, resulting in the Homesteads going bankrupt, and forcing them to sell their house and move into a low-rent apartment. I also recalled a high school rumor that circulated regarding John Homestead’s wife, Sheila, a sexy-as-hell brunette who looked far too young to be the maternal parent of the two teenage Homestead boys. She showed up on campus one day, for some reason, smoking and wearing a tight leopard-pattern outfit, showing off a body that made the hottest girls at our school stare in wonder. Soon after that, it was rumored that for a hundred dollars, she would take you to a hotel room, and when you left an hour later, you would understand things about love and sex that would change your life.

  Later, while I was going to junior college, I came to know the Homestead brothers a little better. Jimmy was a year older than me, and Marty a year younger, and both were tall, handsome men, with wavy blond hair and intensely blue eyes. During a series of seemingly endless summer keg parties, their popularity among the local teenage girls was admired and envied by the rest of us.

  Eventually, Marty Homestead enlisted in the Marines and went off to boot camp, leaving Jimmy behind to entertain the gaggles of local females seeking transitory pleasure before settling into the predictable monotony of adult life awaiting most of them. It was around then I saw that Jimmy had a petty selfish streak and was also a compulsive liar. I overheard him boasting about his sexual conquests and going into detail about the particulars of his various partners. His tone suggested he felt he was an expert on the subject. But he started getting caught in so many lies it was impossible to know if there was any truth to his stories.

  It was only on odd occasions I saw Jimmy Homestead after that summer, but over
the next couple of years I heard he’d been caught stealing an expensive stereo system from a close friend, and later did thirty days at Elmwood when he couldn’t pay the fine for a drunk driving conviction. When he was released from jail, he found the pink slip to his brother’s car, sold it, then went into business selling pot, coke, crank—whatever there was demand for in his social circle. The last I heard of him was a few years ago. I was told he couldn’t hold a job, had given a teenage girl a venereal disease, and was on the run from a drug dealer he’d burned for an ounce of coke.

  • • •

  “Why don’t you start by telling me what Jimmy’s been up to since high school,” I said.

  “Mostly taking after his father, I suppose.”

  “Can you be more specific, Miss Homestead?”

  “Miss Majorie,” she corrected, and her eyes flickered darkly. “I go by my maiden name. Can we get a drink in this damn casino?”

  I looked around for a waitress, then went to the bar and brought her back a martini, and a bottle of beer for myself.

  She sipped her martini and made a face. “This is terrible.”

  “It’s a casino drink, ma’am. They’re made with the cheapest bulk ingredients available. They serve them free to gamblers, who think they’re getting a great deal. Drink it quick,” I advised. “Don’t prolong the agony.”

  “I got a better idea,” she said. “Let’s go where we can get a real drink. And if you call me ma’am again, I’ll slap you silly. Call me Sheila.”

  “All right, Sheila,” I said, but her name felt odd on my lips. “I know a bar you’ll like.”

  Ten minutes later we pulled up to the Mountain Side Mine restaurant and took a table in the adjoining bar, the old Rosewood Lounge. She had sat quietly in my truck during the short drive up the grade, and she wasn’t saying much now, as if she were perhaps reconsidering her agendas. She sipped her drink and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows, over the dark silhouettes of the pines, to where the lights of the casinos glittered. Beyond the casinos, the black expanse of Lake Tahoe stretched into the night.