had struggled with the words.
On his deathbed, he had asked for three promises from Drake. The first was for Drake to stop gambling. He had, that very day. The second was for Drake to learn how to swim—he had carried the name “Aqua Man” since high school after jumping into a pool to save a bikini-clad damsel in distress. She’d gotten out fine on her own. Took two lifeguards to haul Drake out of the water.
Just like his dad to throw humor into life’s darker situations. Aqua Man took a few swimming lessons.
The third promise was to take care of his grandmother, his mother and especially his brother. His mom and Grams were easy, his brother was a pain in the ass. Drake had asked Brax to dump his gangster chums and build his own business, but he’d refused. Seemed to think being under the thumb of that no-good scum Yuri Glazkov was the path to success.
Yuri, what a slick bastard. Brax had done things for him that should have put him behind bars, but Yuri’s high-profile lawyers made sure the charges against Braxton didn’t stick. It sickened Drake that his brother thought he was better than the law.
If he had his way, he’d do what their mother had done—close the door on Brax—but he had made that promise to their father.
So here he was tonight, hunting down his brother to check up on him, try to talk sense to him again about living his own, law-abiding life.
Drake had another reason, a personal one, to quiz his brother. Yuri, recently back in Vegas after an extended stay in Russia, was up to something. Drake could smell it. He wanted facts about the thug’s life, the kind his brother could supply, because he had a score to settle.
But so far, all Drake had gotten was the runaround from his brother’s employees at the strip club.
Have no idea where Brax is at, man.
Mr. Morgan is unavailable. If you would like to leave your name and number, I’ll be sure he gets the message.
Yuri? Never heard of ’im.
Tossing his jacket over his shoulder, Drake glanced across the street at the green neon sign. Last Neighborhood Bar in Las Vegas. Lots of businesses had closed during the recession, but Dino’s Lounge had stayed open, just as it had for five decades.
He decided to walk over, leave his pickup parked in its secluded spot. Later, he would head back to Topaz, and if he didn’t find his brother’s car in the lot, he’d do the question routine again. Try different employees, see if one of them might get hit with a pang of conscience and tell the truth. He’d help that pang along with a bill or two.
Because in a town like Vegas, everything had a price. Especially an honest answer.
* * *
VAL SAT IN the rental car, a Honda Civic, in the Topaz lot, watching the guy standing outside the strip club. He fit the description Marta had given her earlier: a little over six foot. Buzz cut. Wearing a suit. Before he removed the jacket, the gray two-button number had looked like something Don Draper might have worn on that TV series Mad Men. From the way this guy walked—carrying himself like he owned his space and some of everybody else’s, too—he had more than his share of mettle.
Marta said his name was Drake, but didn’t want to divulge his last name. Even after Val recited the confidentiality spiel she’d heard Jayne give to new clients, Marta refused. Said she had her pride. No last names. Besides, couldn’t Val do the honey trap without knowing that?
Val had agreed, partially because she wasn’t sure what else to do...and then there was the money.
Drake headed toward the street.
Time to report in. Val reached for her cell phone and punched in a number.
“What news?” Marta answered. No hello. “I am anxious.”
Join the club, Val felt like saying. Wearing this skimpy outfit and blond wig, which she had used at her last job as a card-dealing Christina Aguilera look-alike, and sitting on her first surveillance in a rough Vegas neighborhood outside a strip joint, was nerve-racking.
But she couldn’t let on she was tense. Had to act cool, knowledgeable, as though this were her hundredth surveillance gig. After all, Marta thought she’d hired a professional, not an amateur.
“He left Topaz,” Val said, “and he’s walking toward Las Vegas Boulevard.”
“Where he park?”
“At Baker’s Service, one street over.” A guy in a retro suit driving a ’79 Ford pickup didn’t fit Marta’s sleek designer style. Val guessed they were one of those opposites-attract relationships.
“Baker’s,” Marta repeated.
“It’s an appliance store.”
After she observed him walking into Topaz, Val had circled the block and found the pickup parked in front of the store. The business was closed, its lot dark, and he’d taken the extra precaution to position it behind some palm trees.
After parking a short way down the block, she had walked back to the truck, a faded brown-and-gold two-tone with rusted chrome strips, and pointed her miniature flashlight into the bed, where she spied a toolbox, tarp, several chew toys and a small doggie bed. Next, she perched herself on the metal step below the driver’s door—not easy in high heels—and pointed the light at the front seat. A closed notebook and coffee-stained foam cup were on the ripped vinyl seat. A video camera lay on the floorboard.
“How long he at club?” Marta asked.
“Forty minutes. Now he’s crossing the street...there’s only one bar over there, so that must be where he’s going.”
“You go to this bar.”
Val looked at her outfit. The skimpy top and skirt could pass for a sexy summertime outfit, but fishnet stockings? They had seemed like a great addition when she thought she’d be conducting a honey trap outside a strip club, but they’d look sleazy, over the top, in a regular bar.
Even Vegas had its limits, didn’t it?
Screw it. Sitting at the crossroads would get her nowhere. “I’ll go.”
She reminded herself that this was Sin City, the unconventional capital of the world. On a scale of one to ten on the weird scale, fishnet stockings were probably a five.
She slipped the cell into the pocket of her skirt and turned the ignition.
CHAPTER TWO
DRAKE SNAGGED A stool at the bar. Behind the lighted displays of bottles, the smudged wall mirror reflected hazy red pool table lights and the words Dino’s: Getting Vegas Drunk Since 1962 in large white letters on a back wall.
His old man had groused when they had first painted that sign. “Makes the place sound like a bunch of blottos.” By then in his seventies, he hung out most afternoons at Dino’s with a group of fellow retirees who called themselves the Falstaff Boys, in honor of the “late, great” beer. But after the painting of the sign, they changed their name to “the Blottos.”
“Well, look what the Mojave winds blew in.”
