Private Vegas (Private 9)

He may have been my first client. But I never liked him. He was a bully. He demeaned his employees, all of them, including his contracted consultants, guys like me. Did I want to fire a client whose business was worth three million a year to Private’s bottom line?

I did.

I hit my phone’s Call Back button, listened as the line connected and Hal answered.

“Hal, it’s Jack. I have an idea. I have a good friend, I used to work for him, as a matter of fact, and I think he would be more suited to handling your business than Private is.”

“I killed her, Jack.”

The air went absolutely still as I tried to process what Archer had said.

“That’s not funny, Hal.”

“I killed that bitch in self-defense. Maybe you’ll come over to my house now, Jack. That is, if you’re not too busy.”

His voice was saturated with sarcasm, but the quaver was still there. Archer was afraid. And this time, he had reason to be.

“Who else knows about this?” I asked him.

“Only you.”

“What about people working in the house for you?”

“They’re in

the main. We’re in the back. Pool house.”

“Don’t let anyone in. I’m on the way.”

“Your father would have said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything, Hal.’”

“Don’t go anywhere. Don’t touch anything. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll be there soon.”

Chapter 48

THE BEVERLY HILLS Post Office is the part of town that falls into ZIP code 90210, and it contains nearly all of the luxury gated communities in LA, including Beverly Park, where movie stars and studio heads and other moguls live and reign.

Harold J. Archer’s estate cost him twenty million to build, which he did on the site of another twenty-million-dollar manse he’d bought to knock down. It fronted the best street, and from the edge of a canyon in the back, it had a drop-dead view over the city of Los Angeles.

Hal’s wasn’t the priciest palace in Beverly Park, but he also owned homes in Provence, St. Barts, and Bali, so I guess it added up to a whole lot of money for walls, roofs, and views.

I parked the Mercedes outside on the steep street and sat for a moment, knowing that I was about to walk into some tremendously upscale version of hell.

I snapped out of it as a lithe young man, some kind of valet, trotted out to the curb and asked me if I was there to see Mr. Archer and was Mr. Archer expecting me?

I said that Hal had invited me to join him in the pool house. The valet checked with Archer by phone, and Archer gave the valet the okay. I followed him up the green marble pathway through a contiguous line of pyramidal teak pavilions to the entrance of what Hal called “the main.”

Young-man-without-a-name opened the heavy brass and mahogany door, and I entered the foyer to the combination living room/kitchen. The entire house was tiled in golden marble, and the center of this room’s floor was divided by a rill. The thin and musical stream of running water ran through the house, out the wide-open folding doors, and to the infinity pool that seemed to be running over the edge of the canyon.

To the left of the pool was another Bali-inspired pavilion. I knew that the view through the back of the structure was the broad cityscape of Los Angeles far below. But the front doors were closed.

“Can I bring anything to you?” the young man asked. He was polished and confident, but he watched my expression with the kind of intensity found in people for whom pleasing or displeasing was the difference between life and death.

I told him, “Several people who work for me will be arriving. Can you just send them back here?”

I gave him the names and thanked him. Then I circumnavigated the pool. I knocked on a wooden door that was as thick as a tree, and when there was no answer, I called Hal on his phone. After four rings, he picked up.

“Are you inside the pool house, Hal?”