odds with the rest of his plush office and a far cry from the kind of furnishings in the house he’d grown up in. Everything in this penthouse suite of rooms was elegant, as top-of-the-line as the decorator could make it. Ankle-deep carpeting, an array of built-ins, pricey paintings on the walls, soft, buttery furniture, and a view of Las Vegas that had no equal. The palatial suite had its own bathroom, where everything was oversize to accommodate him. He was almost ashamed to admit he never used anything but the towels. He did like the bidet, though. The suite was one massive perk arranged by the Nevada Gaming Commission to get him to sign on as their legal counsel. He’d argued over the Gaming Commission’s contract, saying he wanted to be able to practice law with a few select clients and do some pro bono work, and he wouldn’t budge. He’d actually walked away when they wouldn’t cave in, but they caught up with him at the elevator and agreed to his demands, then threw in what they thought was the clunker, but to Cosmo it was the icing on the proverbial cake. He was to be on call to all the casino owners, who would pay him his six-hundred-dollar-an-hour fee for whatever work he did for them plus a yearend bonus. The only stipulation was that his private clients and the casino owners not interfere with the commission’s work. It was a solid-gold deal that worked for everyone.
Twenty-three years later he had so much money, he didn’t know what to do with it, so he let other people manage it, people who made even more money for him.
In the beginning, when the money started flowing in, he moved his parents to a mansion, got them live-in help, and bought them fancy cars all without asking them first. That lasted one whole week before they moved out in the middle of the night and went back to their little house in the desert, where they had lived out their lives. He still owned that house, and it was where he himself lived. He’d updated it and was snug as a bug in a rug.
Cosmo chuckled when he thought of the other perk he’d negotiated: acquiring the entire floor below his suite of offices. He’d been disappointed that he hadn’t had to go to the mat on that one. The “powers that be” gave in meekly, and he rented it out for outrageous sums of money, which he, in turn, donated to his favorite charities.
Cosmo looked at Mickey again and saw that it was almost six o’clock, which meant it was almost nine o’clock back East. He looked forward to calling Elizabeth and talking for an hour or so. God, how he loved that woman.
Mickey told him he had fifteen more minutes to reflect before he headed home. Thinking about Elizabeth Fox made him smile. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought a woman like Elizabeth would fall in love with him. Or that he could love her as much as he’d loved his parents. It just boggled his mind.
Cosmo’s smile widened when he remembered his parents sitting him down when he turned six and was about to go off to school. They told him how he was different and how the other children were going to react to him. He’d listened, but he hadn’t understood the cruelty of children; he learned quickly. It hadn’t gotten any better as he aged, but by the time he went off to college, he didn’t give a shit what anyone said about him. He accepted that he was big and that his feet were like canoes and that he was ugly, with outrigger ears and a flat slab for a face, and that he had to have specially made clothes and shoes and a bed that would accommodate his body. He was comfortable in his own skin and made a life for himself.
And then along came Elizabeth Fox, or as she was known in legal circles, the Silver Fox. At first he couldn’t believe she loved him, or as she put it, “I don’t just love you, Cosmo, I love every inch of you.” And she meant it. He was so light-headed with that declaration, he’d almost passed out. She’d laughed, a glorious, tinkling sound that made him shiver all the way to his toes. Then she’d sat him down and told him everything she was involved in.
“You can walk away from me right now, Cosmo, and I will understand. If we stay together, you will know I’m breaking the law, and so will you. I’m giving you a choice.”
Like there was a choice to be made. He’d signed on and never looked back. He was now a male member of that elite little group called the Vigilantes.
Cosmo looked over at Mickey and saw that it was time to fight the Vegas traffic and head for home. He looked around to see where his jacket was. Ah, just where he’d thrown it when he came back from lunch, half on one of the chairs and half-dangling on the floor. He was heaving himself out of his rocking chair when he heard the door to his secretary’s office open and close. Mona Stevens, his secretary, always left at five o’clock on the dot because she had to pick up her son from day care. Mona had been one of his pro bono cases. A friend of a friend had asked him to help her out because her husband had taken off and left her and her son to fend for themselves. He’d hired her once he’d straightened out her problem and gotten her child support, and he paid her three times what other secretaries earned on the Strip. She was so grateful and loyal she would have brushed his teeth for him if he’d allowed it.
Cosmo opened the door to see a woman sitting primly on one of the chairs. She looked worried as well as uncomfortable. When the door opened she looked up, a deer caught in the headlights. “Can I help you?”
She was maybe in her mid-forties—he was never good at women’s ages—well dressed, with a large leather bag at her feet. Her hair looked nice to his eye, and she wasn’t slathered in makeup. All in all a pleasant-looking woman whose husband had probably gambled away their life savings and the house as well. He liked to think he was a good judge of character and always, no matter what, he waited to see a client’s reaction to meeting him for the first time.
This lady, whoever she was, didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t do anything other than ask, “Are you Mr. Cricket?”
“I am. I was just leaving. Do you have an appointment I forgot about?”
“No. I did call three different times but…no, I don’t have an appointment. Should I make one and come back? If I do that, I might not…”
“I have time. Come on in,” Cosmo said, stepping aside so the woman could enter. He knew little about women’s fashions and wondered what she carried in the bag that was heavy enough to drag her shoulder downward. He wasn’t even sure whether the bag should be called a handbag, a backpack, or a travel case. His mother always referred to her bag as her pocketbook. It was where she kept a fresh hanky with lace on it, a small change purse, a comb, and a tube of lipstick. This woman’s bag looked like it contained a twenty-pound rock and maybe the hammer she’d used to dig it out. He felt pleased with his assessment when the bag landed next to the chair with a loud thump.
Cosmo made a second assessment. The woman didn’t want to be there. But she was, and she’d called three times, and had hung up probably because she lost her nerve. For some reason women did that when their problems involved errant husbands. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a clean yellow legal pad and a pencil. He never used pens, just in case he had to erase something. His first rule was: never commit something to paper you don’t want anyone else to see.
Pencil poised, Cosmo spoke, his tone gentle for such a big man. “We’ve established that I’m Cosmo Cricket, attorney-at-law. Who might you be?”
“Right now I’m Lily Flowers. Last week I was Crystal Clark. Before that Ann Marie Anders. And before that I was Caroline Summers. I don’t care to tell you at this time what my real birth name is. I have”—she bent down to poke in the bag at her feet, her voice muffled as she fumbled around for what she wanted, finally finding a small envelope and spreading the contents out on Cosmo’s pristine desk—“a passport in each name, a driver’s license in the same name, along with a credit card that matches the picture ID on the driver’s license. Each one of these identities has a bank account with minimal activity, rent receipts, and utility receipts. In different parts of the country. And a birth certificate,” she said breathlessly.
Cosmo
