I could see the mountains from my room. They were shimmering in the morning heat, smokey blue, lost behind haze. The valley floor leading to the mountains was flat desert broken by roads and strip malls and the backside of the Strip. I could see the billboard and neon sign for the Rio Hotel and Casino.
There was no place else on earth like Vegas. Even Disney couldn't compete with this. I'd been to Vegas twice before. Several years ago and then last year for the PBUS conference. I was always shocked at how fast Vegas grew. Trailer parks, McMansions, artificial lakes and fountains, bigger and more spectacular hotels and malls. They erupted overnight. It was magic. Good old-fashioned American capitalist magic.
It was close to nine when Lula came bustling in. “Just give me a minute to jump in the shower and get dressed and I'm ready to roll,” Lula said. “This here's a shopping paradise. They got stuff here that I didn't even know existed. Everything's spandex and sequins. It's a retired ho's dream come true.”
By ten we were in a rental Taurus, heading out of town. Lula was reading the map, directing me to the address Singh had given Califonte on his job application. I wasn't making the bust at Singh's house, but I wanted to see it anyway. I wanted to make sure nothing weird was going on.
Much of the sprawl in Vegas is given up to high-end gated golf course communities. We were deep into the sprawl, but we were on the wrong side of the tracks. We were driving past block after block of small dusty Southwest houses, not a ghetto situation of graffiti and uncollected trash, more an area of neglect by necessity. Screen doors were askew, yards were hardscrabble weed and desert dirt, cars had seen a lot of hot, dry miles.
Connie had checked on Singh's address before we left and found he was living with a woman named Susan Lu, a cocktail waitress at Caesars. So here was the Susan in Singh's life. I was guessing Singh met Lu on his business trip, communicated with her by email, and decided to move in.
The house was typical of the neighborhood. It was a modest single-story stucco bungalow. A Joshua tree grew in the front yard. The small backyard was fenced. I didn't see Boo, but then most of the yard wasn't visible from the street.
“Sure would be tempting to knock on his door and drag his boney ass out here,” Lula said. “Then we could lock him in the trunk and go shopping.”
“We aren't that good,” I said to Lula. “We don't even have handcuffs. I'm not taking a chance on screwing this up.”
My cell phone rang. It was Lou Califonte. He was calling to tell me that he hadn't been able to get in touch with Singh. He'd spoken to Susan Lu and Lu told him Singh went out early this morning and hadn't yet returned. Lu expected Singh back by lunchtime. Califonte set up a tentative meeting for two o'clock.
“Don't you hate that?” Lula said. “Right in the middle of our time here. How are we supposed to have any fun like that? I hear Siegfried and Roy got their tigers on display. How many chances you think we're gonna get to see Siegfried's tiger?”
“Just help me get Singh back to the hotel room and you can go off for a couple hours. We don't have to leave for the airport until six-thirty.”
“Yeah, it's not like I gotta check luggage.”
We returned to the room a little after one. Connie was still asleep with the pillow over her face. There was a small sealed cardboard box on the coffee table. The delivery from Ranger. And there was a small floral arrangement next to it. Red roses and white carnations. The card with the flowers read: You're one step behind me again. Singh's been eliminated. The game continues.
I was totally dumbstruck.
“Hey,” Lula said. “Are you okay?”
I took a step back, bumped into a chair, and sat down hard. I went lightheaded for a moment. I hadn't been expecting this. I'd been caught totally off guard. The killer knew I was in Vegas. Even worse, he had to be here, too. I was pretty sure he was telling me he'd killed Singh and, according to Susan Lu, Singh was alive this morning.
“I think he's dead,” I said.
“Who's dead?”
“Singh.”
I'd dropped the card on the floor. Lula picked it up and read it. “I don't get it,” she said.
“Just give me a second and I'll explain it to you.” I found my way to the bathroom and I stood there until I was sure I wasn't going to throw up. Lula was at the bathroom door, watching. I put a hand up. “I'm getting there,” I said. “I was just caught by surprise and it knocked the air out of me.” I left the bathroom, walked to the desk, and reread the card. The card was standard hotel stock. The flowers had been sent through the hotel.
I called the concierge and waited on hold while he traced the flowers down. He returned to tell me the order had been phoned in and placed on Carl Rosen's credit card. The hotel wasn't able to access the call origination number.
Stephanie Plum 9 - To The Nines
Chapter Ten
Lula was standing over Connie. “Do you think she's dead? She's not moving under the pillow.”
“Take the pillow off her.”
“Not me. I hate dead. If she's dead, I don't want to see.”
I walked over and took the pillow off Connie's face.
Connie opened an eye and looked up at me. “Did you bring Singh in?”
“No. I think Singh might be dead.”
“Dead or alive,” Connie said. “It's all the same to me.” She sat up in the bed. “I can't get any sleep in this hotel. People keep coming in and out delivering stuff. Did you see you got flowers?”
“About the flowers,” I said. And I told them about the carnation killer.
“Holy crap,” Lula said. “Why didn't you tell me sooner?”
“I didn't know what to say. The whole thing is so bizarre. And the police wanted the details kept from the public while they tried to match the photos to a victim.”
“Hey, I can keep a secret. Look at me. My mouth is zipped,” Lula said.
“You can't keep a secret, ever,” I said. “You have no sense of secret.”
“That's so not true. I didn't tell you about Joe and Terry Gilman, did I?”
For a couple beats no one in the room said anything. We just stared at each other with our mouths open.
“I didn't say that,” Lula said.
I felt my eyebrows pull together. “What about Joe and Terry Gilman?”
“You keep doing that and you're going to need Botox,” Lula said.
“Are you talking about the jumping out the window incident?”
“No. I'm talking about the coming out of the motel, looking chummy incident.”
“When?”
“I guess it must have been about two weeks ago. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was going shopping at Quaker Bridge and you know how there are a couple motels on Route One that are mostly by the hour? Well, I saw them coming out of one of those skanky motels. It was the one with the blue trim and the wishing well in the front. I almost ran off the road.”
“You're sure it was Joe and Terry?”
“I bet they were doing police business,” Lula said. “That's why I didn't tell you. I knew you'd get that look that you got now. And you'd get all huffy and make a big thing for nothing.”
I used my fingertips to smooth away the frown line in my forehead. “I don't get huffy. Do I look huffy?”
“Fuckin' A,” Lula said.
At least she took my mind off the flower freak. It's always nice to have a choice of things to worry about.
“Open the box from Ranger,” I said to Lula. “I have to call Morelli and tell him about the flowers.”
Morelli answered on a sigh. “Yeah?”
I meant to start out with the facts about the flowers, but the wiring between my brain and my mouth got crossed and I started with Terry Gilman. “So,” I said to Morelli as my opening line, “have you seen Terry Gilman lately?”
“I saw her yesterday. Why?”
“You are such a jerk.”
There was a beat of silence where I figured Morelli was staring down at his shoe and counting
his lucky stars he never married me. “That's what you called to tell me? I'm a jerk?”
“I called to tell you I just got a floral arrangement. Red roses and white carnations.” I read the card to him. “The flowers were ordered through the hotel and placed on Carl Rosens credit card. You might want to remind the Rosen family to cancel Carl's cards. It looks like the killer lifted Rosens MasterCard.”
“He's loving this,” Morelli said. “This is like a chess game. And he's winning. He's taking your pieces one by one.”
“This particular piece was with Susan Lu first thing this morning and hasn't been heard from since. I don't suppose you have Bart Cone in custody.”
“Not in custody, but he's being watched. He's not in Vegas. I'm almost sure of it.”
“What about the other Cones?”
“All three were in for questioning late yesterday afternoon. It's Saturday so they're not at work, but I'll make sure they're tracked down and accounted for.”
“I'm going back out to talk to Susan Lu,” I said to Morelli. “I'll call you if anything turns up.”
“I'd feel better if you just stayed in your hotel room until your plane. Let the Vegas police talk to Susan Lu.”
“I'll be fine. Ranger had a care package dropped off for me. And I've got Lula and Connie to watch my back.”
“Oh shit,” Morelli said.
“This is like Christmas,” Lula said, opening the box from Ranger. “I love getting presents. Look at this. Pepper spray. One for each of us. And handcuffs. Not the cheap-ass kind, either. These are good-quality cuffs. And leg shackles. And a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson snubby revolver. Guess that would be yours since I shoot a Glock. And here's a box of rounds for your thirty-eight.” Lula pawed through the packing. “Hey, there's no Glock. Where's my gun?” She dumped the box upside down and a note and a stun gun fell out.
I took the note and left the stun gun for Lula.
Call if you need help. I'll come to your room at six to take you to the airport Erik. His phone number was printed at the bottom of the note.
Lula was reading over my shoulder. “Who's Erik?”
“Ranger said he was sending hardware to replace what we lost in luggage. It looks like Erik comes with the hardware.”
I loaded the .38 and slipped it into my purse. I stuffed the personal-size pepper spray canister into my jeans pocket, I stuck the cuffs half in and half out of the back of my pants, and then I shrugged into a lightweight zipper-front sweatshirt that was going to make me sweat, but it covered the cuffs. I called to ask that the car be brought around from valet parking.
“I'm going, too,” Connie said. “Give me five minutes to jump in the shower.”
A half hour later the three of us left the room for the lobby. Lula on one side of me, Connie on the other. Connie had made a phone call to a local bondsman and had arranged for a second arms delivery. As a result, Connie and Lula now wore two guns apiece. They each had a gun at the small of their back and they each had one in their purse. My fear of getting shot by the carnation killer was considerably less than my fear that I'd get shot by Connie or Lula.
“You know what I think?” Lula said in the elevator. “I think we're an accident waiting to happen.”
I could ask Erik to ride along with us, but I'd had some past experience with Ranger's men and there was no guarantee that Erik would be any less scary than the carnation killer. “Just keep your eyes open. We'll be fine.”
Connie didn't say anything. Connie had some Mafia skeletons in her closet and Connie took soldiering seriously.
It was after noon when we pulled into Susan Lu's driveway. Lula, Connie, and I got out and went to Lu's front door.
Susan Lu was about five feet, four inches with a flat dish face and glossy straight black hair. She looked older than Singh. I placed her somewhere between forty and forty-five.
She was surprised to find us on her porch and immediately bristled. Probably we looked like door-to-door missionaries, so I understood the bristle. I looked over her shoulder at a small curly white dog scratching at a baby gate that confined him to the kitchen. Boo.
I identified myself, introduced Lula and Connie, and I asked if we could come in. Lu said no and we went in anyway. Lu was a lightweight.
I already knew Singh wasn't in the house. The car still wasn't in the driveway. And besides, I was pretty sure he was dead. Still, I asked anyway.
“Is Samuel Singh here?” I asked Susan Lu.
“He isn't,” Lu said. “He went out first thing this morning for a pack of cigarettes for me and he hasn't returned. He should have been back hours ago. And he isn't answering his cell phone. Men are such shits. Listen, I'd like to chat, but I have to get ready for work and I'm not feeling all that social without my goddamn cigarettes.”
The dog was barking now. Yap yap yap. And every time it yapped its little front paws would come off the ground.
“Is that Samuel's dog?”
“Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with it. Usually the little turd just mopes in the corner. I've never seen it trying to get out like this.”
Lula took a step back and nervously shifted foot to foot. God only knows what she had in her purse. Suckling pig, two dozen hamburgers, a twenty-pound turkey.
“Sammy brought the dog with him just to piss off some awful old woman and her daughter. He was boarding with them and he said the old woman was something out of a horror movie. He wanted to take a picture of himself with the dog and send it back to them, but he hasn't gotten around to it. After he gets his picture the dog's going to the pound. Nasty beast.”
I gave Susan Lu my card. “Tell Samuel to call me when he comes in.”
“Sure.”
Lula, Connie, and I left Lu, got into the car, and I backed out of the driveway. I drove around the block and parked three doors down from Lu, behind a van so we could watch the house.
“You think Singh's gonna show up?” Lula wanted to know.
“Nope.”
“Me, neither.”
“You parking here so you can keep an eye on Lu?”
“Yep.”
“You're waiting for her to leave and then you're gonna snatch the dog, aren't you?”
“Yep.”
Connie was in the backseat, probably reviewing in her mind which of the local bondsmen she'd use to bail us out after we were arrested for breaking and entering.
After fifteen minutes of no air-conditioning, the car started to bake under the desert sun. Lula immediately fell asleep in the heat. She was head back, mouth open. And she was snoring. Loud.
“Holy mother,” Connie said, “I've never heard anyone snore like this. It's like being locked in a car with a jet engine.”
I gave Lula a shove. “Wake up. You're snoring.”
“The hell I am,” Lula said. “I don't snore.” And she went back to snoring.
“I can't take it,” Connie said. “I've got to get out of the car.”
I joined her and we walked down the street. We were wearing baseball hats and dark glasses but no sunblock and I could feel the sun scorching the exposed skin on my arm.