Shadow Play Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Identity theft? Credit card theft?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me tell you about my son.”

  “Mr. Davis, do you want to hire my company?”

  “My son is dead.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Seven years ago, he killed himself.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, not in any way sure where this was going.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ve dealt with it. My wife and me. My ex-wife. She wanted to…I guess, she needed a whole new life, away from family, away from the house. That’s okay, it happens. Very hard for families to deal with a child’s death. But that’s not what I really want to tell you.”

  “Uh,” I said. Toying with the margarita glass, wetting a finger to run across the rim and licking the salt off my finger.

  “You were asking about people who lose a whole ton of money here.”

  “How much money?”

  “Hundreds of thousands. Occasionally seven figures.” He stopped talking, a hand inside his tuxedo, fingering something in a pocket while watching my face light up with understanding.

  “Suicides?” I said. “Are we talking about suicide over gambling losses?”

  He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. “A serious problem, all over the country. Gambling addicts, mostly. People who get in so far over their heads they’ve got no other way out.” He opened the paper, folded it shut, ran the creases through fingernails, I couldn’t tell if he wanted to show me the paper or not. “Fortunately, this casino has never had a jumper. Suicides in the rooms, mostly.”

  “Mr. Davis. I’m totally lost here.” He unfolded the paper, slid it to me. Seven names, addresses, and a variety of personal and financial information. And a date. “On this date,” I said. “Did the person commit suicide?”

  “Yes. But that’s not what’s significant.”

  “Mr. Davis. We’re crossing over into a zone here, I have to know what you want me to do.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. I’ve had this list for several weeks. One of the things I do, when I’m off work, I read online editions of newspapers. New York, D.C., L.A., eight or ten in all. Just over three weeks ago, a front page article in the local section, I don’t even remember what paper, but the article was about a millionaire who’d committed suicide because of gambling losses. Almost three million dollars. I recognized the name. He’d been here, dropped just over a million in a fourteen-hour period. Because of his financial status, we agreed to hold a signed lien on one of his properties. We checked, discovered that all of his properties were mortgaged to the max. But even that…he had no survivors. Absolutely no family at all, nobody to leave his estate to.”

  “And the other names on this list?” I said.

  “Same.”

  “And?”

  “Whales,” he said. “We call them whales.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gambling addicts who’ve got a whole lot of money and very little skill. We know we’re going to take them off. We comp them to the hilt. Free limos, our best suites, our best food from our best chef. We lay out a thousand a day, they lose a hundred thousand in an hour. Whales, it’s just, I don’t know where the term came from, but they keep us in the black.”

  “And without them? Would you be in the black?”

  “I’m salaried. I deposit my paycheck every week.”

  “And the casino?”

  “Barely afloat.”

  “Is that what this conversation is about?” I said. “Is the casino losing money? Does Vincent have something to do with this?”

  “I showed the list to Wes McCartney. Said I was concerned about the casino’s losses. He told me to forget about it, that he personally knew of the list and that he and Vincent had worked out arrangements with the estates.”

  “And? I just don’t see where this is going.”

  “Where could it go, Miss Winslow?”

  “I had a case,” I said. “Three years ago. People who’d died, with no survivors, no family, their identities were used to take out all kinds of loans. To buy houses, buy property, expensive jewelry. All of which were refinanced by a third party within days of the purchase, sometimes within hours. A massive fraud, actually the first serious case I ever had with identity theft. Do you suspect that?”

  “My son died seven years ago,” he said shortly, pushing back his chair, standing up after checking his wristwatch. “Suicide is very much on my mind.” Holding out his palms at my startled expression. “Not me, no, I’d not do that.”

  “Are you asking me to run checks on these seven names?”

  “I’m telling you about what happens after a suicide.”

  “Is the casino involved?”

  “The casino?” he said finally. “No.”

  “McCartney?”

  “Thank you for listening, Miss Winslow. I’ve got to take over my station.”

  “Does the casino make money? Lose money? Does the casino need money?”

  “Please have another margarita. If you want. Or a late dinner. On the house.”

  “Is Vincent involved?”

  He folded the list over and over, compressing the sheet of paper into a tight square wad, poked it into my handbag, and left me alone.

  Whatever do I do with that whole conversation? I thought, driving on I-10 back up to Casa Grande, Picacho Mountain ahead and to the left, a pronged horn against the night sky. I played back the evening with Vincent, found nothing to change my feelings about him. I liked him, I…liked…him? Or that he was a movie star.

  30

  Once upon a time, a long time ago, I swung open my front door and found a live five-foot diamondback rattlesnake. Nailed to the back of the door. Ever since then I’ve looked at doors, doorways, everywhere, checking for snakes. Always carried a flashlight, coming home in the dark, swung the light in front of me like a blind woman’s white cane. Back and forth, back and forth. All the way to the door, open the door and light up the back of the door.

  It’s an old habit. We’ve got these habits, you and I, like we’re on automatic because of something that’s happened in the past, our semiconscious programmed with habits. See an octagonal sign, red with white trim and letters, we stop. ATM asks for a PIN, we’ve got it memorized in our fingertips.

  But some times, some emotionally loaded times like now, coming from the casino, head swimming with possibilities as supercharged as becoming a mother again, these are times, I tell you, when we’re never thinking of snakes until we get inside the door.

  The house was dark, but I heard the TV playing. Saw a flicker from the living room, I wondered about that, Nathan rarely watched TV, but he could be watching anything. I sighed, dead-bolted the front door, and went toward the white leather chair, seeing a man’s figure laid out against the headrest, feet propped up on the coffee table, he knew I was almost in the room and muted the sound. I grabbed the bottom of my pullover, lifted it off my sweaty torso and back, dropped it on the floor, glad that Nathan was by himself, Bob and Frank must be in bed.

  “Hey,” Wes McCartney said. “You got a dynamite DVD collection here.”

  “God!” I said. Throat constricted, I had to grab for air. Said, “What are you doing in here?” as I backed against the front door, reaching for my Beretta nine, it snagged on the edge of a belt loop, I ripped it loose and racked the slide.

  “I heard that,” Wes said. “C’mere. C’mon in here. Look at this.”

  He unmuted the system, ramped up the surround sound system. Tires screeching, action-movie soundtrack blaring underneath roaring engines. Moving toward the sofa, alert in the Weaver stance, left palm supporting my right wrist until I rounded the sofa.

  “Ronin,” he said. He muted the sound. “Middling DeNiro, David Mamet screenplay blah-blah, but the most incredible car chase scenes on film. They put cameras out-board on those cars, I mean, look at this. Stellan Skarsgård, in back of the van, working the computer mapping softwa
re.”

  “Turn it off,” I said.

  “Oh.” He pressed several buttons on the remote, turned the whole system off. Slowly flopped open both flaps of his jacket. “I’m not carrying.” Holding out his hands, he wore latex gloves. Why didn’t he want to leave fingerprints?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Vincent asked me to check you out,” he said. “In your world, you’d turn on a computer, look at some databases, find out everything about a person you can.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked again.

  “Working,” he said. “I love those sports bras. Woman your age, they shape up your breasts nice and round, gives you tightness, I like that in a woman.”

  “For Vincent?”

  “In a way. Yes.”

  “In what way?”

  “Can you put the gun down?” I hesitated. “Laura,” he said in an entirely different voice. “Seriously, no more kidding around. If I was here to do you any harm, I’d’ve already done it. Right?”

  He moved his right hand inside his jacket, froze.

  “I’ll do this slowly. It’s just paperwork.”

  Pulled out a single sheet of crinkled paper, smoothed it on his knee.

  “Got your whole history here. Especially the last four years. Audrey, the woman in the kitchen. Your friend Meg, your time down in San Carlos, rescuing Meg, and she killed the guy on the boat. Lot of violence in your life, Laura.”

  “What. Do. You. Want.”

  “I’m here strictly looking out for Vincent,” he said.

  “Vincent?”

  “My boss. Vincent Basaraba. The movie star. Well, the one-time movie star.”

  “I want you to leave right now.”

  “Music,” he said, and I realized that was his interrogation pattern. Jump subjects unexpectedly, trying to throw people off balance. It was a tell, a major tell. And like most tells, he didn’t seem to be aware of what he was doing. “Theme music, movies and TV shows. There’s just, I mean, these signature pieces of brilliance. Like that chaCHING sound in Law and Order. Brilliant. Or those Angelo Badalamenti scores that David Lynch uses. Theme of Twin Peaks. What kind of music do you like, Laura?”

  “Flutes.”

  “You got quite a collection here. I tried a few of them out. Ah, I don’t know, I love music but I can’t play anything but a jukebox.” He leaned toward me. “Can I cut the crap, here?”

  “Uh,” I said, “uh, you’re really freaking me out.”

  “I know. You come home, you think you’re alone, bada bing, you’re not. Do you know how much Vincent is worth? His casino, I mean, not just his personal assets, but all the money he’s got sunk into the casino, into this movie he thinks he’s making? Trying to make a go of it, trying to, like, succeed in the gambling business while he reinvents himself as a movie. A ton of money coming in and going out. More than I’ve ever had. He pays me well. Six figures, my salary. Well, low six figures. But I’m his security manager. Mostly, I keep women away from him. Women want his money. I see you visiting him, once, okay, that could be business. Twice, I’m his man. I’ve got to check out these women. I’ve got to check you out. What are you after with him?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. He’s asking if Vincent has hired me, I thought. And if he’s asking that, he doesn’t know why I had dinner with Vincent.

  “Go on.”

  “Vincent. Me. We don’t know much about computers. We pay people who know how to work computers. Me, I favor the personal touch. Chitchat. Look you in the eye. I work for Vincent Basaraba, Laura.” Serious again. “He’s, uh, the casino, like I said, there’s a lot of money floating around here. Lots of people, lots of women trying to get inside Vincent’s good behavior. Trying to out-act the actor. Get to some of his money. I’m just here, as a favor to Vincent. See if you’re out for the money.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good. Hey.” He stood up. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned the TV back on, cranked up the speakers, started the final chase scene of Ronin. I wrapped my thumb around the hammer, eased it down, and released the clip. I laid the Beretta on the coffee table and just as I took my hand off it he reached underneath the back of his jacket and pulled out a chrome-plated Llama .40 and shook his head. Stunned, I sank back into my chair, but he laughed, and stuck the Llama in his belt.

  “That was stupid,” he said. “Trusting I didn’t have a piece, that was really stupid. I didn’t figure you for being a dumb sucker like that.”

  He worked the remotes, changing from the DVD player to the digital TV channels, pressing the Guide button and flicking down the channel listings. 11:00. The only thing I noticed, the time, figuring Nathan was at least half an hour late getting home.

  “Look at this.” He punched buttons to one of the HBO channels. The Making of Tomb Raider. “Some people see Angelina Jolie playing Lara Crap, they think movie roles for women can’t get any worse in terms of sexual exploitation. Are those breasts real or inflated, I mean, come on. Me? I think that’s what Hollywood’s all about. Exploitation. Women, niggers, spics, queers, teenage sluts, anything they can make money from. Personally, in terms of exploiting women? I mean, Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight. Can you imagine anything dumber than Geena playing an amnesiac company hit woman, driving a semi tanker near the end, where she crashes across the border into Canada and says, honest to God, if you’ve never seen it, she actually says ‘Suck my dick!’ I mean, she was so great in Thelma and Louise. I remember, I first saw her in Tootsie. She shares this dressing room with Jessica Lange. She’s really young, got this great body, Dustin Hoffman comes into the dressing room, there’s Geena in her bra. And Earth Girls Are Easy. Geena loved showing off her body. But really, to actually condescend to a director and say Suck my dick? Shows you the absolute power of the adolescent sexual fantasies of those men that run Hollywood.”

  You’re nowhere near as smart as you think you are, I thought. Trying to keep my eyes neutral, my face muscles composed. But he saw something, bent over to look into my eyes, he’d caught me looking at my Beretta and noticed that while he’d been talking I’d inched forward so I could dive, grab, roll, and fire.

  “Chicks with guns,” he said, taking the Beretta and ejecting the shell still in the chamber, sent it tinkling against the tile floor. “Thought I’d forgotten about that live round in there, didn’t you? What movie was that, chicks with guns? Oh, yeah, Jackie Brown, where Sam Jackson’s got the TV on for DeNiro, showing these bodacious babes wearing not much more than automatic weapons. Tarantino. His first three movies, he let the guys do the slaughter. Kill Bill, now, wow, all different shades of blood whooshing out, those swords and stuff. Times have changed, haven’t they, women in movies now kill like men.”

  Why is he still talking? I thought. What is he waiting for?

  “You know where it really started? La Femme Nikita. Or Nikita, in the original French version. Anne Parillaud, gorgeous body, she must’ve been a model and a dancer, she’s deadly. You do any of that, you being a PI and all? Oh, yeah, I’ve read up on you, about once a year, you get involved in some kind of gunplay, some people die. Tarantino understands what’s happening these days, give women the power to kill. Uma Thurman, now, I always thought she was icy looking, but in Kill Bill, she’s like old Charlie Bronson in Death Wish. Wants revenge for her lost family, the avenging angel. Talk about a movie you could lose your head for. Takes slice and dice to a new level, women don’t just lie there for sex and slice, they whoosh off other women’s heads.”

  I heard a faint rumble and relief must have flickered in my eyes.

  “He’s coming home,” Wes said.

  So that’s what he was waiting for. “Stick around. He’d like to meet you.”

  A mile away, I thought. At least a mile. Nathan had replaced the exhaust system of his 1500 cc twin-cylinder Suzuki Intruder, installing straight pipes, hollow chrome tubing with absolutely no noise-dampening capability.


  “Didn’t know your man was a biker. Okay. I’m outa here.”

  McCartney left quickly. I heard an engine turn over, a car drive off. Minutes later, Nathan turned off the main road, the Suzuki’s pipes blatblatblatting up the driveway, but instead of parking in front of the work shed, he stopped, revving the bike. I turned on the outside lights and he switched off, looking back down the driveway as he got off the Suzuki, removing his helmet.

  31

  “Who was that?” Nathan said when I ran to hug him. I couldn’t talk, buried my face against his neck, trembling. “What’s wrong?” Disengaging his right arm, touching his holstered Glock nine. “You’re only half dressed, what happened? A coyote, some animal in the brush startled you? Where’s Bob and Frank?”

  Still holding me, he leaned back, brushed my hair, touched my nose.

  “A man from the casino,” I said. “Security manager.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Met him yesterday. Wes McCartney.”

  “You invited him here?”

  “No. When I arrived, he was watching a DVD. Caught me by surprise.”

  Shifting me to one side, left arm around me while he drew his Glock, thumbed back the hammer, I always hated that he kept a live round in the chamber, with no safety on the Glock.

  “Anybody else?”

  “No. Where have you been?”

  “Get my flashlight, left saddlebag on the bike.” I got it out, a four-cell Magnalite, turned it on to flood the pathway. “Had to clear my head, been out riding for an hour. Let’s go inside. What’s that?” The flashlight picked up the latex gloves, lying beside the path on a large rock, one carefully placed on top of the other.

  “He wore those, he didn’t want to leave fingerprints.”

  “Then why leave the gloves? We can turn them inside out, use crazy glue or whatever to raise prints from inside. Doesn’t make sense. Where are Bob and Frank?”