Private Vegas (Private 9)

Without a doubt, this was the most exciting day of her life.

Chapter 39

WAITERS ON SKATES whizzed by me as I stood in the shadows at the entrance of the Socket. Enormous cogs and gears from the original bulb factory had been burnished and highlighted to terrific effect. Iron pillars punctuated the concrete floor, and hundred-year-old light fixtures, tracks, and pulleys hung overhead.

It was still early, about seven p.m., and the smartly dressed, twenty- to thirty-something after-work crowd were filling the club, cozying up to the Line, a forty-inch-long bar topped with a steel-and-leather conveyor belt in the center of the floor.

Groups and couples, laughing and carrying on, gathered in the comfy conversation pits around the perimeter, and one young woman with a flashing tiara was having a birthday.

Tonight’s music was swing, and it seemed to me that the boozy sound of the old instrumentals was putting the customers in a very nice mood.

I looked for Tommy but didn’t see him on the floor, so I moved to the bar for a better view. A wannabe-actor barkeep came over with a smile and a frothy white drink, put it down in front of me.

He said, “The game starts in a minute, Tommy—actually, I think it just started.”

I was an accidental clubber passing as my brother, and I had not been briefed on the game.

I sipped the drink, which looked like milk. It was, in fact, milk.

I said, “Well, I’ll be a little late.”

The bartender said, “Izzy asked after you, went down ten minutes ago. And there goes Billion-Dollar Bill. I hear he lightened your wallet the other night.”

I swiveled on the stool, saw a guy in a pale herringbone sports coat and a good haircut heading toward the wide down-going staircase at the back of the room.

I put a twenty on the bar, said, “I guess I’ll follow the money.”

The bartender wished me luck, and, keeping the herringbone jacket in view, I went down the cantilevered, concrete slab stairs to the basement. The lower level was a dance floor set up for a DJ who hadn’t yet arrived, but recorded music pounded, and the crowd was getting thick, dancing in place, drinking steadily.

I tagged behind Bill, and when we came to a green door at the rear wall marked Shipping, Mr. Bill turned and clapped me on the back.

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sp; “No kidding,” he shouted over the music. “Good to see you, Tom. I was hoping you’d try to get your money back.”

“I don’t scare off easily,” I said.

I didn’t know what was behind the green door and I had no plan. But, hey, I’m a pilot. I was going to have to wing it.

Chapter 40

A CARD GAME was in progress in the soundproofed room behind the green door. Two goons with crossed arms and bulging biceps stood just inside the entrance.

To my left, ten players sat in high leather chairs around the oblong green felt table. The players were old and young, snappily dressed and sloppily, male and female. They all looked bored, but I was sure that they were anything but. From the height and number of the stacks of chips, the stakes were very high.

The dealer wore a red-velvet vest over his starched white shirt and had a perfect black bow tie. He was sliding cards from the shoe, snapping them down in front of the players. He looked up when I came in, did a double take when he saw me. Then he shifted his hard gaze across the table to a player with his back to the door.

That player was Tommy. A pile of chips was at his left hand and he was turning over his cards with his right. A girl with short platinum hair in a skintight black dress was draped across Tommy’s shoulders like a sweater. She wore a rope of pearls turned to the back so that the long loop of them fell almost to her waist.

The dealer said to my brother, “Who’s this, Mr. Morgan?” He angled his chin toward me.

Tommy turned, saw me, and jerked his chair around. His eyes narrowed and he said, “You need something, Jack?”

The platinum-haired girl was pretty, twenty-one or so. She looked up at my face and said, “Wow.” I took this to mean that she thought she was seeing double.

“I’m Jack,” I said to her. “Tommy’s brother.”

“I’m Isabella. Izzy. Tommy’s girlfriend.” She stuck out her hand and we shook. “Nice to meet you.”