He was alone with his bottle. And, of course, his beast.
—
She was ready at nine-forty-five, though, looking fresh and tidy, with that mass of cherry-colored hair held back off her face by a thick black band, her body covered with jeans just as snug as the night before’s had been and a long-sleeved, wide-necked T-shirt with narrow black-and-white stripes.
Not that he cared. He was in the same clothes, after all, although he’d managed to get in the shower that morning. The hot water had helped the cobwebs in his head but hadn’t done anything about the rest of his problems. Especially the beast, which had been whining and pacing ever since he’d woken up. It was getting sick of waiting for him.
“So where are we going?” Ardeth leaned against the counter in her kitchen and cracked open a can of one of those energy drinks that tasted like a mixture of lemonade and battery acid. “What are we doing first, since we’re going to solve a murder and save the day and all?”
“Wow,” he said. “You’re even more sarcastic in the morning. How fun.”
“Nobody else has ever complained,” she said, sipping from the can.
“Nobody else was listening to you.” Looked like she wasn’t going to offer him anything to drink. Whatever. He’d seen a water pitcher in her fridge when she opened it to get her drink; that would do just fine. He pushed past her to get it. “We’re going to talk to your friend Nielsen, and find out what he knows and who wanted a demon-sword, and if he got them one.”
She nodded. “I assume Doretti’s going to pay for that?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Like he was planning to pay Nielsen anything. “Then we’ll find out what he knows about this mirror, and decide what to do from there.”
The pitcher was almost full. Good. He filled a glass to the rim, gulped it down, and filled it again.
Her voice came from behind him. “Hungover?”
“No. Just thirsty.” He wished he could get hungover—okay, he almost wished he could. He’d never had a hangover in his life. But he’d never been really, truly drunk in his life, either. Close, once or twice, but not sloppy, crying, puking drunk. It was a stupid thing to feel robbed of, but sometimes he did just the same.
“You’re a strange guy,” she said.
“Yep.” He set the now-empty glass down and headed for the front door. “Come on. Let’s get moving.”
“Should I call him and tell him we’re—”
“No.” Nobody waited for them outside. That was a relief. He’d had a short nightmare vision of opening her front door to a hail of bullets. But her street was clear of everything but shadows and dust, and no suspicious smells drifted toward him on the breeze. No one was out there. He glanced back and waved for her to join him. “We don’t want to give him any warning. Better to surprise him.”
“I don’t know why,” she said, sailing past him. She walked like a prostitute in a homecoming parade, a combination of pure sex and privileged pretty-girl innocence. “Nielsen’s not the bad guy here.”
Oh, right. She thought that, didn’t she, and he wasn’t going to dissuade her unless he had to. “Right. But if he’s so protective of his clients, we don’t want him to have time to come up with excuses not to give us what we want, or with some lies or stories about how he wasn’t really involved in the deal.” He opened the door of the Dart and watched her settle herself on the seat, ready to close the door again. “Honesty is usually easiest to get when it’s gotten off-guard.”
That was true, as far as it went. But he was pretty sure they weren’t going to get anything like honesty from Nielsen.
—
Driving to Nielsen’s house was exactly the opposite of driving to Doretti’s: Instead of the wealthy suburbs, Nielsen lived downtown, right on the Strip. Instead of a sprawling sixties mansion with an impossibly—and expensively—green lawn, Nielsen’s home was in a high-rise condo only a couple of years old. Amazing how many different kinds of lives could be lived in one city, how everywhere he looked he saw a different Vegas. That, at least, never got boring.
Ardeth lifted her hair off her neck, twisted it, and then dropped it so it fell in one long roll over her shoulder. It glowed in the sun, and looking at it wasn’t boring him, either. What would it feel like to bury his hands in it, to capture that fire between his fingers, soft and alive?
He was so busy imagining it that it took him a minute to realize she was talking. “Sorry, what?”
“I asked how you slept. Nobody’s slept in that room in a while.”
“Oh. It was fine. I don’t sleep much, anyway.”
“I guess not, if you always get up this early.” Black sunglasses hid her eyes, but he could feel them glaring at him just the same.
“I do.” A lie. A big fat lie. But it was so much fun to dig at her, he couldn’t help it. The way her brow furrowed or her lips pressed together ever so slightly…it made something inside him fairly jump with glee. “Best part of the day.”
“There’s no such thing,” she said, leaning her head back against the headrest. The movement arched her back a little. He refused to look. “The only good part of the day is night.”
“Well,” he said. “Yes, but the best part of the time when the sun is out is morning.”
“Nope. Evening. Sunset—”
“Jesus, will you just give me one?” He wasn’t sure if his laugh was exasperated or genuinely amused. “Why do you have to argue with everything I say?”
“Because you’re always wrong.” She smiled at him, though. “Besides, when you get annoyed your voice gets kind of growly, and it amuses me.”
“Far be it from me to spoil your amusement.”
“I doubt anything could. Hey, you want to go steal me another drink?”
The faint cheer that had just started spreading through him evaporated. He probably ought to do that. He’d have to do something, because the beast was starting to get tired of lustful thoughts and peeks at Ardeth’s lithe body in tight clothes. It wanted action.
But the way she said it, the way she acted like it was a joke…to her, it probably was. No, to her it definitely was. And it was what she did for a living; he imagined she barely thought of it as being wrong at all for a person to do. But to have it treated that way somehow made him feel worse. He didn’t steal because it was fun. He stole to keep from going Mr. Hyde on the general public—he sinned to keep from going Mr. Hyde on the general public. It wasn’t something he chose to do, just because.
He didn’t say any of that, of course. “I could use a drink,” he said. “I’ll stop, if you want.”
“Please.”
They pulled into a convenience store, where he bought a couple of Cokes and stole a couple of packages of little doughnuts. Ardeth held up her hand when she saw them. “No, thanks. I never eat in the morning.”
“They’re not for you,” he said, backing out of the parking lot. “So that works out just fine.”
“You didn’t bother to get me anything at all?”
He waited for a silver pickup to rattle past, averting his eyes to avoid being blinded by the sunlight glinting off the windshield. “You don’t eat in the mornings anyway.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know that.”
“Last time I checked,” he said, tearing open the doughnut package with one hand, “I wasn’t your manservant, and your eating habits weren’t my concern. I’m pretty sure that’s still the case, too.”
“Oh, right. I should have known better. Considering other people isn’t your thing.”
“And being polite isn’t yours.” What exactly had she heard about him? He had a reputation, yeah, but she made it seem like he ought to be chained up in the basement or something.
He expected a snappy reply, but it didn’t come. Instead she said, “You’re right.”
“What?” Surprise almost made him drop his doughnut.
“You’re right. I’m not being polite. I’m sorry. I’m not usually rude, I’m just—I’m nervous, and it hasn’t been a
great few weeks—a great few months, really—and—I don’t know, Speare, something about you just makes me want to poke you with a stick.”
Well. He knew how that felt. And, yeah, he guessed their errand for the morning wasn’t one that spelled relaxation and joy for her. “Forget it.”
They rode in silence for a minute, a long minute while the need to say something else made his neck itch. Fine. “I probably haven’t been real polite, either.”
The atmosphere lightened. Well, that was nice. Almost as nice as the way her body curved as she stretched in the seat next to him. “Turn down here and park in the garage underneath.”
“Remember,” he said, starting to make the turn. “Let me do the talking, okay? At least when it comes to the mirror, because we need him to talk to me about it and to think I’ll keep it from you, too, if need be. So, you know, try to act innocent and feminine and shit. Instead of like you could eat a dozen men for breakfast.”
“I could.” She dug a lipstick out of her purse. “But only if they beg me to.”
“I bet they do.” The words just popped out of his mouth before he could stop them, before he even realized he was thinking them. Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that.
Her eyebrow quirked; she paused with the lipstick halfway to her mouth. Not that he noticed either of those things. He wasn’t looking at her at all, oh, no.
“Why, Speare,” she said. “You flatter me.”
“Hey, men can be pretty dumb.” He slid into a parking spot. “My point is, try to keep your mouth shut. I’m sure that’s going to be extremely hard for you, but try. If we want him to talk to me, I need to get his trust fast, and that’s only going to happen if he thinks—”
“If he thinks I’m under your thumb, and you’re in charge. Got it.”
“It’s not just that, though,” he said. “How much work do you actually get from this guy?”
“Eh. A job or two a year, at the most. We don’t really work like that. Why?”
That was good. “Because if asking about clients and items is such a big ethics breach for him—for you—then you don’t want to be involved in that part. You want to make it seem like you’re bringing me there for one thing, and I’m springing something else on him. But we also don’t want to make it look like you’re stupid and can’t tell when some guy is feeding you a line to get what he wants, not if you count on him to give you work. If you don’t…”
“Of course.” For the first time, he heard real warmth in her tone. Not sarcasm, either. “Thanks. That’s pretty genius.”
He didn’t know what to say in reply to that. “So, look, we’ll go at him with the mirror, but I’ll ask about the demon-sword. When I ask you to leave the room…do, okay? Just let me handle it.”
“Right.”
“Just trust me on this one, and follow my lead.”
“I’m not the one who isn’t willing to trust here.” Before he could even start to think of a reply, she added, “Come on. The elevator to the lobby’s over there.”
Address the damn trust thing—again—or let it go? Let it go. What was the point? “Does he have any guards or anything? Any security?”
“Nope.”
That seemed odd. “None at all?”
“He’s not Lazaro Doretti,” she said, sliding the lipstick over her bottom lip, then popping the cap back on it. He had to fight to keep from asking her to do it again. Slower.
God, what was wrong with him? She wasn’t that damn sexy. It had just been too long, that was it. Four days or so, he thought, and that was a day or two longer than the beast usually let him get away with.
Or, okay, it wasn’t so much that the beast demanded sex every day, it was that sex was the easiest and best sin: Nobody got hurt, everybody enjoyed themselves, it kept the beast happy for a decent amount of time, and it didn’t make him feel like either a total scumbag or a total loser afterward—at least, not as much as the other sins did. So yeah, again, nothing to do with her. It wasn’t that he wanted her, that he wanted that particular body pressed up against his or to hear that voice gasping in his ear or to feel those legs wrapped around him. She was just there, convenient.
Something deep inside him said that was bullshit, and that he knew it. He ignored it and got out of the car; Ardeth was already out, heading across the parking garage to the elevator with that slow, sinuous walk of hers, her head held high, her back straight. Like she was walking through a crowd of admirers and didn’t see any of them but was aware enough to throw a little extra swing into her hips for their benefit. For his benefit, anyway, because he wasn’t complaining as he watched. Nor was he complaining when she bent over a little to punch a code into a keypad, opening the glass elevator bank.
“He gave you his code?”
“Please.” She waved a hand. “You think I can’t figure out how to get into a building?”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Ordinarily I’d call up, but you want to surprise him, I guess,” she said, stepping into the elevator.
He followed. Just as the doors slid shut behind them, he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer so he could lower his voice. “Just so you know…some of the things I’m probably going to say in there about you—”
“I don’t care what you say about me, if it gets us to the bottom of this.”
He looked into her eyes. She meant it. All he saw was focus, and trust. She probably would have agreed to strip naked and do a little dance in the lobby of the MGM Grand if it would solve the puzzle her father had left.
Made sense to him. All those years trying to find out where his beast had come from, how it had gotten attached to him and why…he would have done anything, and damn near did, before he finally gave up.
Or, well, “gave up” wasn’t entirely true. He’d stopped actively searching, because he had to earn a living. He’d accepted that he’d probably never have the answer. But he still poked around every once in a while, still made the occasional inquiry, still looked for others like him. He’d just made a decision not to devote his life to the search anymore, because it was the only life he had, and the beast already dominated it far too much.
She tilted her head a little, looking at him. “Something wrong?”
“No.” Shit, he’d been staring at her. “No, sorry, just thinking.”
“Yeah, I guess that takes you a while to do.” She grinned and set her hand on his upper arm. “Come on, I had to get one last one in before we go inside.”
To his surprise, he found he was smiling back. “Enjoy it while you can. Once we’re in there, it’s my turn.”
“I look forward to it,” she said, and stepped out into the lobby.
All he could say about the place was that his mother would probably love it. He’d never seen so much gilding and rhinestones in one place, and he’d been to so many shows at so many hotels, with so many high-kicking beauties in sparkly leotards and feathers, that he’d lost count by the time he was five. In fact, he’d been to a few shows in that very building, back when it was the Dancing Diamond and one of the cheapest places on the Strip.
None of that cheapness remained. Tackiness, yes; even aside from all the gilding and rhinestones, the lobby was an eye-popping expanse of Overdone. Water features, fainting couches, a huge fireplace surrounded by green marble, a pattern of enormous gaudy flowers painted onto one wall. Granted, it was the kind of tacky that loved being tacky and had a sense of humor about it, but man, walking through that space several times a day would drive him crazy.
Especially with all the hidden places there, the nooks created by screens and high-backed furniture, the wide pillars, the sunken seating areas with white glass borders. He didn’t trust those secretive places, and he wasn’t sure he trusted the expensive high-rise the Dancing Diamond had become.
Which didn’t matter, did it, because he wasn’t moving in. He didn’t even have to spend much time looking around, because Ardeth was already calling the elevator to the lobby. More tacky. The wide elevator was lined with
gold mirrors and contained a long, low sofa covered in red velvet; the numbers on the buttons were done in calligraphy. It looked cheap, but it was obvious that none of it had been cheap. Why anyone would waste so much money on things like that, he didn’t know, but hey, it wasn’t his money.
Either the look on his face made his opinion clear, or Ardeth had excellent taste. She gestured around her. “Awful, isn’t it?”
“It’s not what I’d choose.”
“No,” she said, eyeing him with something between curiosity and fondness—confusing, that, but who could figure out what she was thinking? “I imagine it’s not sparse and functional enough for you.”
He shrugged, thankfully spared the need to think of some reply by the dinging of the elevator as they reached the twentieth floor, where Nielsen’s condo—and hopefully the information they needed—waited at the end of a long, wide hall. Ardeth looked almost lost in it as she trotted ahead of him on the gold carpet and leaned on the bell like she was prepared to wait there all day.
For a moment he worried they might in fact be there all day, after the sound of the buzzer inside went on for longer than any normal person would be able to stand hearing it. He was just about to ask if she was sure Nielsen was home when a gruff voice came through the door. “Goddamn it, I’m coming! Quit ringing that fucking bell.”
The second she took her hand off the button her entire demeanor changed. She fluffed up her hair behind the band and clasped her hands behind her back, pulling her feet together as she did. The movement thrust her chest out slightly, but not in a seductive way. She looked like a child standing respectfully in line. Even the way she held her head changed. Was that deliberate? Probably. She didn’t miss a trick.
However artificial her sudden girlish demeanor may have been, the smile that burst across her face when the door swung open looked completely genuine. So did the enthusiasm with which she jumped forward to embrace the gray-haired man in the silk robe who stood in the doorway. “Nielsen! I’m sorry to wake you. How are you?”