Private Vegas (Private 9)

Chapter 82

KHEZIR MAZUL WOKE up in the darkened room and for a long moment did not know where he was. Then he remembered checking in to the Armstrong Hotel, a small, half-star place where they could be under the radar for now.

He sat up, saw the tossed bedding, the video game paused on the TV, and the fat girl in bed beside him, still trussed like the pig she was.

He reached over to the night table, grabbed the water glass that still held an inch of flat champagne, and tossed down the dregs. He looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. He fell back in the bed, covered himself with the blankets, and went to sleep.

The next thing he knew, Gozan was shaking his arm, saying, “What did you do to her, Khezzy?”

What did he do?

What he always did. He put something in her drink. He played with her for a while, then he passed out. Khezir said to his uncle, “What’s wrong?”

Gozan had turned on the bedside lamp. He was wearing an undershirt and nothing else, and his hair was flying everywhere. The skin under his eyes sagged. He looked tired and old, and Khezir had never seen him look so afraid. Not once in his life.

Gozan bent over the girl on the bed, slapped her cheeks lightly, and cooed, “Wake up, please. Wake up.”

He pinched her nostrils closed, waited. She sputtered, and then coughed, thrashed her head from side to side, said, “I’m…Don’t forget…to take out…the dog.”

“She’s fine,” said Khezir. “She’s a sleepyhead. Where’s my knife?”

“What do you want with your knife?”

“Cut the wrist ties, of course. Uncle, are you drunk? What is wrong with you?”

“Your knife is in my bathroom. On the floor.”

“You took my knife?” Khezir asked. “No, I did not take your knife. Would I ever take your knife? You left it in there.”

“That’s crazy,” Khezir said.

He got out of the bed, stepped into his shorts, and walked into Gozan’s bathroom, where he found the woman on the floor, blood soaking into the cream-colored bath mat and staining her yellow hair.

He stared at her. Her name was Margot or Margaret or something, the peachy woman his uncle had talked into coming back with them. Her neck was cut. He liked to do that, but lightly, sex play. Not like this, her head almost separated from her body. Yes, he had cut off heads, but not in play.

His knife, the one with the black stone handle and the serrated blade, was next to her.

“I didn’t do this,” Khezir said, looking at his uncle.

Gozan said, “Well, I didn’t do it. I don’t even know if I fucked her. I think I showered. My hair is wet in the back.”

Khezir stared. He had bought the bottles himself at the liquor store. He had opened the bottles and poured the drinks into the glasses. He had put in the pills himself.

Had his uncle drunk from the wrong glass? Had he?

“The door is locked,” Khezir said. “One of us did it, but it doesn’t matter. You call them. I’ll shower and dress. Don’t worry, Uncle.”

Gozan found his mobile phone and forced himself to make the call.

“Balar,” he said. “We have a problem. It was a mistake, but someone is dead.”

Chapter 83

GOZAN WENT TO the door of their shabby room at the Armstrong Hotel and looked through the peephole. He opened the door for Balar Aram and his crew, who came in, moved through the suite like smoke, looked right through Gozan.

Gozan called out, “Balar, she’s in there.”

Balar went into the master bathroom, saw the dead woman lying nearly decapitated on a lake of blood on the floor. Balar’s eyes passed over the corpse. Then he went into the adjoining room, where the other girl was lying on the bed, her arms tied behind her back. Passed out cold.