Sleepless in Las Vegas. Colleen Collins

      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.” Sally, a thirtyish female bartender, stood behind the bar wiping dry a glass. She had small blue eyes set in a narrow face that could use some sun. She and Drake had a history that made him a bit uncomfortable.

      The muscles in her arms flexed as she reached to set the glass in the overhead rack. Her black T-shirt crept up, exposing a faded tattoo on her side, a skull adorned with a crown of roses. She’d once told Drake it was from her Deadhead youth, but now that she was clean and sober she no longer listened to jam-band hogwash.

      “Hasn’t been too windy lately,” Drake said.

      “Yeah, just hot. Monsoon season is late this year. City could use a downpour or three. Fortunately, the air conditioner in this place is built like a tank.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder. “Bud?”

      He nodded, wondering when she’d cut her hair. These short, spiky styles on women confused him. He liked long hair on women. Long and straight, the simpler the better.

      “Hey, Aqua Man.”

      He turned, recognized a buddy from high school. Still slim, but his face showed wear. He wore a gray shirt with “Easterman’s Plumbing” on a pocket.

      “Hey, Jackson,” Drake said, “how’s it going?”

      “Got divorced.” He shrugged. “You?”

      “Never been married.”

      “Smart. How’s your brother?”

      “Fine.”

      “Married?”

      “No.”

      “Smart.” Jackson nodded. “Well, take it easy.”

      As he left the bar, Sally slid a bottle toward Drake. “Poor guy. Just got divorced.”

      “Figured it was still fresh. Thanks, Sally.” He took a swig. The frothy chill soothed his mood a bit.

      “Work keeping you busy?” She focused intently on washing another glass.

      “Some.”

      “See Viva Las Arepas moved?”

      The Venezuelan fast-food place had operated out of the kiosk in Dino’s parking lot for several years. When he’d walked past, the place had been dark, its windows boarded, although a few stools remained outside. “Thought it had closed.”

      “No, moved to a bigger place in that strip mall down the street. Mr. Arellano’s been driving a shiny new Hyundai, so they must be doing good.”

      “They survived.”

      “Yeah. Recession didn’t kick their butt. Didn’t kick Dino’s, either.”

      He raised his beer. “To Dino’s.”

      She picked up her tip glass and clinked it against his bottle. As he took a sip, she pointed to the framed photo over the cash register. “Some TV producer was in here the other day, saw the photo. Told her it was Dino and Benny.”

      “Benedict.”