Dying for the Highlife Read online

  Heather bit her tongue.

  Eric stood and began pacing. “Now, the goal is to get him stripped. Tell him you want to blow him or whatever—just get his clothes off. And that’s when I’ll burst into the room.”

  “And then?”

  “First I’m gonna slap him around a bit, just to scare him. Then you’re going to accuse him of trying to rape you. I’ll go into a rage and threaten to kill him for that. Then you’ll say, ‘Let’s call the cops instead.’ Once he’s in a panic over the mess he’s in, we’ll offer him an easy way out: pay us three million in cash.”

  “And what if he says no?”

  “Then I’ll break his fuckin’ arm. He’ll cooperate after that, I guarantee it.”

  “My god,” Heather murmured. The prospect of violence stunned her for a second. It represented the point of no return. Moving forward with the plan now meant it was all or nothing: success meant wealth for life, tropical drinks in paradise, total freedom. Failure probably meant jail. This was unlike anything Heather had ever been involved in.

  “You think he’ll actually give us the money?” she asked.

  “One way or another.”

  Eric’s face looked charged with an evil energy, and it scared Heather. She was then overcome by a wave of loss and regret so powerful her knees almost buckled. How had things got to this point? She always thought her beauty would naturally result in a privileged life; a rich, classy husband, interesting, successful friends, material surroundings that spoke of higher culture. But none of that ever happened. Instead, here she was, with her whacked-out, unemployed, steroid-abusing spouse, sitting in a lousy apartment, working on a desperate scheme to steal $3 million.

  She blinked and took a deep breath. “Let’s do it,” she said.

  9

  Heading north on Highway 50, I crossed over the California-Nevada border, passing the casinos and leaving South Lake Tahoe in my rearview mirror. I followed the highway around the lake, then downshifted and began climbing the pass over Spooner summit, toward Nevada’s Great Basin desert.

  The pine-choked forest became sparse, replaced by brown hills dotted with sagebrush. I crested the summit and coasted down the grade, until I reached the flats outside Carson City. The late-afternoon sun was falling behind me as I cruised Highway 395 through the center of town, past the old bars, second-rate casinos, fast-food joints, and strip malls. Toward the north end of Carson, 50 reconvened heading east again. From there the highway stretched without interruption for four hundred empty miles across Nevada’s high desert and into Utah. Fortunately, I only had to drive eight miles before I saw the low billboard marking the brothel complex Jimmy Homestead visited a week ago.

  I followed the potholed road around a few bends and back behind a low rise that hid the neon cathouse signs from the highway. The complex was made up of four single-story, chain-link-fence-enclosed buildings set in a horseshoe. In the middle was a large gravel parking lot. One of the establishments was a strip club; the other three were whorehouses, sanctioned and licensed by the state of Nevada.

  I drove around the parking lot and parked in front of Tumbleweeds Ranch, the most upscale of the bordellos. The last time I’d been here was a year ago. I got out of my truck and walked over to a spot a little ways out and kicked at the gravel with my boot. It was here I’d shot an ex-mercenary who tried to send me to the next dimension with a sawed-off twelve-gauge. My shot didn’t kill him, though; Cody Gibbons finished the job by blowing his head off from twenty feet with a .44 hollow-point round. I lingered over the spot for a moment, then walked back to where I’d parked.

  There were two motorcycles among the dozen or so cars in front of Tumbleweeds. One of the bikes was a customized Harley, the other an old Honda with long, makeshift forks and a sissy bar. I rang the buzzer and waited for the lock on the gate to be released. The sun had sunk behind the desert hills, and the temperature was dropping quickly.

  When I entered the parlor the madam was nowhere to be seen, so I waved off the lineup of prostitutes and took a seat at the bar, which was scattered with a handful of men. I ordered a whiskey rocks and let the ice cubes melt while I scanned the velvet couches against the walls. A small group of ladies were talking and laughing, led by a stunning Asian whore I’d met last year, but I couldn’t remember her name. Three other women sat alone, separate from the group, seemingly aloof, or maybe just bored.

  Two seats from me, a pair of men sat huddled over drinks. The larger of the two was a burly moose of a man; his shoulders were broad and bulged with muscle and his torso was thick as a barrel. He had a flat face with blunt features, framed by curly, reddish-brown mutton-chop sideburns that nearly met at his chin. When he spoke, I could see one of his front teeth was broken off, almost to the gum.

  “It ain’t my problem you were dumb enough to not bring a coat,” he said.

  “Gimme a break, it was eighty-five in San Jose,” said the other man, a wiry dude with matted-down brown hair. He wore an old pair of jeans and a black T-shirt with sleeves that were too short. Below his shoulder was a scrawled tattoo of a naked female.

  “You said you were resourceful,” the big one said, with a chuckle that was more like a snort. “I’m sure you’ll figure out how to stay warm.”

  The wiry man’s face bunched up in cords of tissue, and his eyes grew flat as pennies.

  “You are truly testing my patience, Sanzini,” he said. “If we’re going to find this dude, you’re going to need me. I can’t ride at night without a jacket. I’m asking you to loan me the goddamn money to buy one.”

  “Sure, how about if I buy you a whore too?”

  I stifled a yawn. The tone of their conversation was one that could be heard endlessly in dive bars. Next they would start talking about how ruthlessly the local cops enforced drunk-driving laws. Or a recent bad-rap domestic violence charge. Or how thirty days in the city jail ain’t really that bad of a gig—hell, it’s three hots and a cot. I was trying to tune them out when one said something that made my head turn.

  “Our whole reason for being here is the guy won the Lotto, right? Forty-three million, right? After I get my share, I’ll pay you back.”

  “We got to find him first,” the one named Sanzini said. He cleared his throat, and then said, “Excuse me,” in a loud voice to the bartender, a stocky, balding man who wore his hair in a short pony tail.

  “I’m trying to hook up with an old buddy of mine,” Sanzini said. “He was here a few nights ago. Blond hair, blue eyes, about six foot, mid-thirties. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Lot of guys fit that description come through here,” the bartender said from around a toothpick.

  “This guy probably was throwing money around like he had it to burn.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “Blowin’ dough like he won the lottery.”

  The man behind the bar shrugged.

  “Who runs this cathouse, then? I need to talk to someone who knows something.”

  The bartender set down a bottle he was holding and leaned forward. “The madam is in charge. She’ll be here later. If you ask her politely, she might be able to help you.”

  “Good,” Sanzini said. The bartender walked away, shaking his head.

  “Hey, Tony, when the madam shows up, let me talk to her. I got a way with older broads.”

  “Huh? Screw you, Rancour. You’re just here because you got the connection with the security company. This is my deal. You stay quiet.”

  “Well, try to use a little charm, then.”

  “Blow yourself.”

  I left the bar and took a seat at a vacant couch, near where the group of prostitutes had congregated. After a minute the Asian woman I’d met before turned to me. She had an exotic aura to her, and I seemed to remember she’d told me she specialized in unusual positions.

  “Meow,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What’s the matter, don’t you understand pussy?” she said, and the ladies around her all laugh
ed like crazy.

  “So,” she said, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa, “you wanna party?”

  She wore a sheer turquoise gown, and the slit had fallen open, revealing her thigh all the way to her waist. Her legs were long and slinky, and the nipples on her small breasts were extended and pointy against a thin layer of silk that left little to the imagination. She parted her lips and eyed me with a sly expression that looked practiced.

  I had met her during the investigation that resulted in the shooting in the parking lot. I had also been responsible for the death of her best friend’s fiancé, but I didn’t think she was aware of that fact.

  “You’re so beautiful I doubt I could afford you,” I said. It was the same line I used with all prostitutes.

  “We take credit cards,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

  “Mine’s maxed out,” I said, but she put her warm hand in mine and sat next to me on the sofa, then her mouth was next to my ear. “I guarantee you won’t leave disappointed,” she said. The beginning of the full-court press.

  “You mind if we talk a little first?” I said, confident she didn’t remember me. Prostitutes who spend any length of time in the trade learn to forget the men they meet very quickly.

  “Whatever you want,” she purred.

  “Last week a blond dude came through here. About my age, maybe a little shorter. A decent looking fellow, probably drunk or on drugs.”

  “Maybe you’re talking about Lotto-boy,” she said with a laugh. “Kind of handsome, ripped half out of his mind, went to the VIP room with three of us.”

  “Lotto-boy?”

  “Yeah. Guy claimed he won a forty-million-dollar lottery.”

  I pulled the picture Sheila Majorie had given me from my front pocket.

  “This him?”

  She studied the photo briefly. “Yeah, that’s the man. But his hair’s longer now, and he looks older.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, while she snuggled her chest into my ribs and ran her fingers down my forearm. I tried my best to ignore my body’s reaction.

  “Did he say where he’s staying, by any chance?”

  “He talked a lot about all his money.”

  “How about where he’s staying?”

  “He said he was going to drive his Ferrari down to Vegas.”

  “You mean his Lamborghini.”

  “Yeah, right. Then he said he was going to build the most bitchin’ mansion money can buy.”

  “Did he say where?”

  “Nope.”

  I was trying to peel her arms off my shoulders when I saw the man at the bar, Sanzini, approach us.

  “What’s this about a guy in a Lamborghini?” he said.

  “I was having a private conversation with the lady,” I said.

  He bent down to her. “Tell me about the guy in the Lamborghini.”

  She looked up at his brutish face and crossed her legs. “You’re acting rude,” she said. “I don’t like rude.”

  “I asked you a goddamn question,” he said, loud enough to get the attention of the bartender.

  I walked around the couch and stood facing Sanzini, our faces no more than a foot apart. I noticed his partner at the bar, sitting quietly.

  Sanzini stared at me, his eyes twitching in agitation. “Get out of my face,” he said, stepping back. I moved toward him, and he shoved me in the chest with both hands.

  At that moment, a tall, gangly man emerged from a side room. He came at us, carrying a billy club, the kind with a short handle attached at a ninety-degree angle. A difficult weapon to defend against, assuming your adversary knows how to use it. He also wore a snub nose .38 on his hip. I sat on the back of the sofa and folded my hands in front of me.

  The bartender pointed at Sanzini and me with two fingers.

  “Maybe next time,” I said to the Asian lady, and headed for the door. Sanzini started to say something, but I didn’t wait around to hear it.

  Outside it was still and dark in the high desert. I waited in my truck, and a minute later Sanzini stumbled out of the whorehouse, his friend trailing behind him. Sanzini held his thigh and limped. The pair made their way to their motorcycles, and I rolled down my window so I could listen to what appeared to be escalating into a shouting match.

  “You are one dumb mother, Sanzini. Jesus Christ, ain’t no one gonna cooperate with you if you’re such an asshole.”

  “Yeah? Well, fuck you, Rancour! The only dumb thing I did was hook up with you.”

  The smaller man whom Sanzini called Rancour climbed onto the chopped Honda and crossed his arms against the cold.

  I climbed out of my truck. “Why are you looking for a guy in a Lamborghini?” I said to Sanzini.

  “Who are you to talk to me?”

  “Maybe I know something about where he is.”

  “Then you best start talking, boy,” he growled.

  “Tell me his name and why you’re looking for him.”

  “Jimmy Homestead,” Sanzini said. “Now tell me where he is, and maybe I won’t kick your ass.”

  I looked over at the man called Rancour, who sat on his bike. He shrugged and smiled.

  “See you later,” I said and began walking back to my rig. A moment later I heard gravel spitting beneath shoes as Sanzini came after me. I turned in time to see he was limping badly. He must have taken a good shot to the thigh from the billy club. He lunged at me and threw an awkward right cross that I easily sidestepped. Trying to fistfight with a bad leg is usually a losing proposition.

  I chopped him across the back of the neck with the meat of my fist and kicked him hard in the ass, hard enough to leave what I knew would be an ugly bruise to go along with the one on his upper leg. The blows sent him sprawling. I continued toward my truck.

  But like most low-life dumb-asses, Sanzini wasn’t smart enough to know when to quit. He rushed me again, and I turned in time to box him. We squared off, and when he lost his balance on his hurt leg, I drilled him with two good left jabs to the face. He spit a stream of bloody saliva at my feet and put his head down and tried to tackle me, but I stopped him with a solid right uppercut and felt my knuckles split against his teeth. Busting up my hands on this meathead pissed me off. But I gave him one more chance.

  “Go home,” I said.

  He came at me again.

  I ducked his roundhouse and hit him with a straight right to the solar plexus. When he keeled over, I kicked him between the eyes with the toe of my boot. His body flipped back like a fish out of water, and he thudded into the gravel and lay still.

  I watched the scene unfold in my rearview mirror as I idled away. Rancour ran over to Sanzini and stripped the leather coat from his body. Then the man with the billy club and the bartender came outside, and Rancour started his Honda and rode after me.

  10

  At a hundred miles per hour, the 1982 Ford LTD was dangerously unstable. The nearly bald tires buzzed loudly against the pavement, the motor knocked and whined, and the chassis jolted at the slightest bump in the road. The man behind the wheel grinned like a maniac, a cigar clamped between his teeth, his mirrored flip-up sunglasses reflecting the sun.

  John Homestead hadn’t felt this alive in years. He used to go on road trips like this when he was a kid, party trips on the open highway, where roadhouse beers and willing women always seemed just a few miles away. That was when he was young, back when money wasn’t a concern, and his natural good looks attracted more women than he knew what to do with.

  Maybe those days weren’t just a sad memory, he thought, as he popped another couple of diet pills and washed them back with a slug of gin. Join a gym, lose fifty pounds, move out of his dump into a classy condo. Was it possible? Hell, yes. With a couple million to back him up, anything was possible. Fifty wasn’t too old to enjoy the good life. He eased up a bit on the gas pedal as he approached the speed traps outside Placerville, while he imagined the details of what his future might hold in store.

  Tracking down his son had been easy. As
a young man, Jimmy always had an affinity for the Lake Tahoe area, as he loved gambling and whores. John never quite understood Jimmy’s inclination toward prostitutes. Jimmy was always getting laid and had plenty of girlfriends. He certainly didn’t have to pay for it. But that was a long time ago.

  It took John no longer than fifteen minutes to dial the Tahoe casino hotels and find that Jimmy was staying at Harrah’s. Apparently, after all these years, Jimmy’s habits hadn’t changed. John was quite pleased with his investigative work, but felt his buzz subside as his thoughts returned to the fact that Jimmy had made no effort to contact him after winning the Lotto. He chased the bad vibes away with another swallow of gin and concentrated on thinking positively. But in the back of his mind, he knew the gun in the glove box was there for a reason.

  There was a line at the reservation counter when John arrived at Harrah’s, so he wandered the casino for a while, working out the kinks in his legs and back from the long drive. He thought a few quick hands of blackjack might help him relax, but he decided otherwise when he saw the minimum at the twenty-one tables was ten bucks a hand. When he turned from the tables, he saw a woman in a fur coat walking away through the crowds. He caught a glimpse of her profile and stood dumbfounded.

  Was he losing his mind? No, he wasn’t that far gone. It was his ex-wife, Sheila. God, even after all these years she hadn’t changed much, she was still a knockout. His eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, were they? No, dammit, that was Sheila—you don’t see beautiful vixens like her very often. John’s mind was fuzzy from the booze and pills, but he was sure it was her. What the hell was she doing here?

  The obvious slowly dawned on him. It was no coincidence. She must be here with Jimmy. How the hell could that be? Sheila hadn’t had any contact with Jimmy after their divorce, at least not that John knew of. When Sheila left him, it was with a flourish of hatred directed not only at John, but at everyone in his family. She had made a clean break, and John thought he would never see her again.

  After all this time, he still remembered her wrath. John knew he hadn’t been the greatest of husbands, but she wasn’t perfect either. Toward the end, he had accused her of sleeping with a younger man. Her response was one he never forgot. She looked him straight in the eye, very calmly, and said, “So?” And then she smiled, a bitchy little grin that cut right through him and made him feel as insignificant as an ant.