Death On the Flop (9 page)

But if that were the case, where was Ben now? At the hospital? Surely if he’d called 911, they would have left me a message. The message light on the phone was blinking. I almost reached for it, then remembered to preserve the fingerprints. I ran to the bathroom, snagged a wash-cloth, picked up the receiver and pressed the envelope button with my knuckle. One message. From me. I slammed the phone down at the sound of my voice. Then, I picked it up quickly and dialed the front desk.

“Do I have any messages?”

“No ma’am room 2003 has no messages.”

I don’t know why I didn’t report the break-in right then, but a weird feeling held me back. Maybe I didn’t want to hand over my credit card for the cost of the lamp and coffee table. Maybe I’d just recognized the scent that had been bothering me since I’d walked through the room.

A men’s cologne.

Iceberg Effusion.

The last time I’d smelled that scent this evening was when Electric Blue Rambo had caught me with Felix. I didn’t want to jump to a scary conclusion, so I returned to Ben’s bathroom and looked at the contents of his shave kit. I saw only the bottle of Balenciaga Cristobal I’d given him for his birthday. I smelled the crisp bite of the Iceberg again as I walked past the window. Damn. Whoever he was, he hadn’t been gone long.

If he was gone at all.

Without thinking more about that, I walked to the door and left.

I ran to the elevators, pressed both up and down buttons and jumped in the first door that opened. The car was going up. I didn’t care where I was going because I didn’t know what I was going to do. I pulled Frank Gilbert’s card out of my purse and considered it. Security. Hmm. I reached for my phantom cell phone. Damn Ben. I started to tear up for a second then squelched the urge. In the age of wireless communication, it was almost impossible to find a pay phone anymore. At the twenty-eighth floor, the doors opened and a corporate looking woman in a gray suit and gray pumps, carrying a briefcase hopped in. She looked so solid, so normal, so much like the people I’d worked with at my ad firm that I almost spilled the whole story. I opened my mouth when her cell phone rang and she answered in a baritone.

“Just tell the prick I’m on the way. If he wants us doing a Women of Wall Street gig at the last minute, he’s just got to be patient. Try finding butt ugly clothes that
fit
, in Vegas, in an hour, for a rehearsal. Hell, I know he’s a showman genius, but he’s got to chill when it comes to reality. I could find a thousand diamond thongs and not one knee length gray plaid polyester skirt.”

I was almost saved by a female impersonator. She severed the connection and shook her head at the phone in her hand. “Bosses are the bitch, aren’t they?”

Huh. I could relate to that one. “You said that right.”

I looked at the phone. Maybe she could save me after all. “Could I borrow your phone? I don’t have one, and I’d be happy to pay for the minutes.”

She handed it over. “Don’t worry about it, comes with the job. Speaking of which, sister, you’d be better off doing something else. Your line of work is just too damned hard on the body. I did it for years and now I just dance. It’s better money and better hours. Come by New York-New York and I’ll see if I can hook you up with an audition.”

Oh great, now I look like a transvestite hooker? “Uh, thanks for the offer, but I’m, um, really a woman.”

“Duh.” She hit her hand on her head. “I knew that. You couldn’t fake those tits. They are way too natural and nice, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

I shook my head. I really didn’t mind. I think Vegas was rubbing off on me. She continued. “No, there is a new show at our casino, it’s girls dressed up like guys. They look the real deal, girl, then they strip and wa-la, there’s real tits for all the world to see. The audience is floored. It’s the coolest. Wish I were a real woman. And the best part for you is, my boss only hires girls with real ones. No silicone. Nothing fake. That makes the surprise so much better in the end.”

I was really depressed now. I was a man-ish looking woman who looked like a hooker. I sighed and wondered why I continued to be polite, except that I kind of liked my new buddy. “Thanks, but I think I’m too old. I’m forty.”

She hit my arm and I nearly fell over. “You’re shitting me, girl! I would’ve never guessed it, and neither will my boss. Just fudge a little. By the time he hires you and sees those goods you got, he won’t care.”

She pulled out a card and handed it to me. Carey Beck-with. “Thanks.”

“Call me, or at least come see the show before you decide. I’ll get you in for free.”

We were almost to the ground floor, so I quickly dialed Frank’s number. A sleepy male voice answered. “Gilbert.”

“Frank? This is Belinda Cooley.”

“Uh . . .”

Oh great, he’d been so drunk he couldn’t remember me. Maybe this was a mistake.

“Belinda Cooley,” I repeated, thinking I might add, that mannish looking woman you sat next to last night at the Caesars Palace bar. But then I remembered I never introduced myself. “Uh, ‘Debbie Dallas’ from last night?”

Carey’s eyebrows went up and she did a humping action against the wall. It looked so funny for a corporate maven to be doing the nasty that I giggled.

“Oh, yes,
Debbie
,” Frank said, his cold voice warming. “Sounds like you had a better evening after I left. What can I do for you this early morning?”

“You said I could call you anytime,” I reminded him, sobering and still not sure this was a good idea. The elevator deposited us on the ground floor and we exited, Carey following as I walked to an alcove against the wall. “I wondered if we could meet somewhere for coffee?”

“Sure, about ten?”

“Could it be sooner? Like in a half hour? I’m staying at the Lanai too. I could come to your room.” I didn’t like the way that sounded but I didn’t want to talk about what happened in the middle of the casino. I didn’t know when or where Electric Blue Rambo might reappear. Besides, I didn’t know if I was being overly dramatic, imagining the danger of the whole thing, and if he’d laugh at me in public. Private was better. I held my breath as his pause stretched on. Carey shot me a sympathetic look, clearly misunderstanding the reason for my call.

Finally, Frank answered hesitantly. “Sure. Come on up. Or down, depending on where you are.”

“I’ll be right there. 2521. Right?”

I handed over the phone with a thanks that she waved off. “Those cold calls are hell. Really, girl, think about a new career. Call me.”

She reached into her cleavage, came out with a handful of twenties and handed it to me. “Here. Tell the guy to take a powder. Being a working girl nowadays is just too dangerous.”

I put the money back in her hand, touched at her kindness. “I promise I’ll come see your show.”

She grinned. “The show is pretty fun, always. Can’t make any promises on this Wall Street woman thing, but I’d love to see you in the audience, girl.”

On impulse, I gave her a hug and we waved goodbye. She was by far the best person I’d met in Vegas. Transvestite show girl, amateur psychologist. I guess that said it for the city. Of course, Frank could elevate himself above Carey within moments. I was quickly back on the elevator, headed to his room. Only time, and probably a few aspirin on his part, would tell.

 
“
This is a surprise,” Frank said, stepping back in his
maroon terry cloth robe, from the door of his room to allow me to enter. He reminded me of my Aunt Telly who always acted like it was a surprise when we showed up, invited, for Thanksgiving dinner.

“Really, I’m sorry to wake you so early, and I wouldn’t have done it except that your card said ‘security,’ you offered to help and I have a problem.”

“Okay,” Frank said from behind me as I hurried in and sat on the loveseat in his suite that was bigger and more expensively decorated than ours.

“What?” Frank asked as he sat in the chair opposite the loveseat. I looked around in awe, as he continued, crossing his legs at his ankles, “I’d have to guess you are on a floor below me? Some of those are the comp rooms.”

For some reason I was distracted by his bare feet. Men’s feet, when bare, seem so vulnerable to me. That was a good thing in this case, because now I felt like I could tell Frank my problem without being intimidated. I looked again. Size twelve B, nicely kept, but not professionally pedicured. Feet that made me wish I’d noticed the hands that went with these nice big feet. They were currently hidden in the pockets of the robe, but I might find a reason for them to come out to play.

I stopped myself.

No, no, no. No fun for me. I had to find Ben and get to the bottom of the break-in.

I sucked in a breath and explained: “We are on the twentieth floor. And when I went up to our room for the second time tonight, I found it had been vandalized.”

Frank sat forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you mean?”

I described the scene in detail and he didn’t interrupt me, which led me to believe he might have spent some of his past as a cop. I’d been interviewed by a few of them, through no fault of mine and all of Ben’s, but suffice it to say I had experience with the men in blue. Frank struck me as an ex-cop.

“I guess I should call the Las Vegas police.” I said. “This has all been made more complicated by Ben, yet
again
, who made us leave our cell phones at home. They need to know he’s missing.”

“First of all, this casino is not in city limits, so the city cops wouldn’t care. You would have to call the deputy sheriffs for Clark County, and let me warn you, Belinda, that you have to be careful who you talk to on the force.”

“You sound paranoid,” I offered, I admit, a little antagonistically.

He wasn’t offended. You had to love that. He looked at me with that awesome intensity. “With good reason. Some well placed guys on the force are on the pad from the mob and from some drug runners, some operate their own illegal gigs. You don’t want to be telling your story to them, because if this had anything to do with any kind of corrupt doings, they might want to cover it up instead of investigate. That might turn out to be dangerous to you.”

“Come on.” I said, “That sounds like an episode of
Las Vegas
.”

Frank gave me a look. “Trust me, it’s worse than any Hollywood imagination could dream up.”

“I really don’t have any other option. My brother is missing. My room is trashed. What am I supposed to do?”

Frank sighed. “Was anything missing?”

I shook my head. “Nothing of mine was missing, but I don’t know exactly what Ben brought.”

“You don’t have a cell phone and neither does he,” Frank mused. “Is there anyone back home, friends, family he might contact if he can’t get a hold of you?”

“I doubt he would call Mom, she manufactures reasons to panic and Ben is her baby. She’d have the National Guard here if he got a hangnail. Dad tells Mom everything so calling him is like calling her. He has a couple of good buddies but I certainly don’t know their phone numbers, and Ben knows I don’t. He might call my best friend, though.”

“Call her first, then call your parents and his closest buddy if you can get his number from information. Don’t let on anything is wrong.” Frank handed me a paper thin phone. Very high tech, very cool.

He watched carefully while I talked to Shana. She hadn’t heard from Ben, obviously, and chastised me for not gambling yet. Mom didn’t know we’d gone to Vegas and hadn’t been able to get a hold of me and had called police to my house. She sent me on a major guilt trip. I started to give her my room number and Frank shook his head, scribbling his own instead as well as his phone number. I reluctantly read both to Mom, and finally extracted myself from the conversation.

“You really don’t want my mom having your number. She’ll call fifteen times a day.”

“Better that than whoever roughed up your brother finding out about your mom and going to see her.”

Yikes. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“We don’t know what Ben was into and what they wanted from him.” Frank pointed out.

Finally, I tracked down Sam Cuero, who asked how much money we’d won so far. I did tell him Ben and I had gotten separated and he just advised me to sit tight because Ben was probably “getting him some.” Ah what a romantic. And to think I’d turned Sam down when he’d asked me out ten years ago.

I shook my head when Frank raised his eyebrows in question. “No luck.”

“Okay, you need to check in periodically with them. Let’s go back to the sequence of events. You said that when you found the room trashed, it was the second time you were there. Tell me exactly what you and your brother did between when I saw you and when he disappeared.”

“After I left you, I was going to find Ben when a casino security guy stopped me and asked if he could help me. He sent some goons to find Ben at the poker tables.” Frank drew his eyebrows together at that but rolled his hand to get me to continue the story. “Then we walked over here and as we entered the Lanai, the Steely Stan guy got out of a limo in front of us. I said something snide to him as he went in. Ben was obsessed with finding out where he was going and what he was doing.”

Frank held up a hand to stop me and sat forward on the couch. “Wait a minute, Belinda. Why did you say something snide to Stan?”

“His limo nearly ran me over, then he gets out with a girl on each hip and a hand on each breast and walks over and through people like he owns the world. It just rubbed me the wrong way. It was tacky.”

Frank narrowed his eyes and gave me the most intense stare I’ve ever seen. “Belinda, I warned you to stay away from Stan. He is dangerous.”

Have I mentioned I don’t like to be told what to do? Especially by virtual strangers. I straightened my spine and looked down my nose at Frank. His intensity was hard to fend off, and those bare feet were hard to ignore, but I tried with a look my mother perfected to guilt her little bad boy Ben into behaving. Frank just stared back. I don’t think it worked as well on him. Or maybe I wasn’t as good at it as my mom was.