War Lord Read online

  Marnie relaxed a little once the lid was back in place. ‘Alabama Thornton – she’s a Vegas showgirl. Her boyfriend’s ex–Air Force. That’s his connection to Anna. According to Alabama, he met Anna in Germany, but I don’t think Alabama and Anna ever met. Anyway, from what I can gather, the boyfriend mentioned Anna to Alabama at some stage. When that arrived,’ Marnie said, motioning at the bucket, ‘Alabama didn’t want to involve the police, but she had to turn to someone so she called Anna. And along the way, Anna being my sister, Alabama was given my number. She called, and next thing I know I’m on a plane to Vegas, but I’m not Anna and I’m creeped out in a major way by dead things, let alone things chopped off people. I told Alabama about you, Vin, and that’s why I’m here.’

  To drag me into it. It was amazing how Marnie managed to get the whole tangled mess out in one clean breath. ‘So you picked up the hand in Vegas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How’d you get it here?’

  ‘I drove.’

  ‘Long drive.’

  ‘Especially with that riding in the passenger seat.’

  ‘Whose idea was the KFC bucket?’

  ‘Mine,’ said Marnie with a shrug. ‘Nothing more innocent than fried chicken.’

  She’d brought the severed hand across several state lines, so I couldn’t argue with her thinking. Driving wasn’t a bad decision, either: airport cops get sensitive about dismembered limbs in the carry-on. But there was a time limit specified in the note – twenty days, and now at least four of them had been soaked up.

  ‘What’s Alabama’s boyfriend’s name?’ I said.

  ‘Randy – Randy Sweetwater.’

  ‘So the hand belongs to Randy?’ Arlen said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said.

  ‘Alabama knows it’s not his. She already told me that.’

  Arlen took back his pen. ‘Okay, but how do you know that, Vin?’

  ‘Skin tone. It’s dark – Mexican, perhaps – and Randy’s a white guy.’

  ‘And you know this because Mexicans don’t call their kids Randy or have surnames like Sweetwater?’

  ‘They’re good reasons, but in this instance, no. Actually, I think I’ve met the guy.’

  ‘You met him?’

  ‘Depends on how many Randy Sweetwaters are kicking around out there, but I flew with one of them in Afghanistan. Hitched a ride in his C-17. While we were refueling at a forward operating base, he accidentally dropped some package being ferried around for a colonel and, wouldn’t you know it, half a dozen bottles of Glenfiddich just fell out. Then Randy discovered a whole bunch of mechanical troubles that grounded the plane for several days. My kinda guy.’

  ‘So this package just happened to be full of single malt?’ Arlen said dubiously. ‘Sounds like something you’d do.’

  I grinned. ‘Okay, officer, ya got me. Too bad the statute of limitations is up on this one. And anyway, smuggling booze into a Muslim country . . .’ I shook my head and tsked. ‘The colonel could have gotten into a lot of trouble.’

  ‘So is he the guy or not?’

  ‘The colonel?’

  ‘Jesus, Vin.’

  ‘Okay, okay . . . My memory’s hazy on the details of the episode – understandably – but I do remember this Randy Sweetwater saying that he was about to go to Nellis AFB, which, as we all know, snuggles up to Vegas.’

  ‘Sometimes I’m surprised you remember anything.’

  That made two of us.

  ‘So, assuming the Randy Sweetwater you met is Alabama’s boyfriend,’ said Arlen, ‘and that this is not his hand, what’s Alabama worried about?’

  ‘Because Thing here is wearing Randy’s academy ring,’ I said, looking at Marnie. ‘Right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Well, like I said, this is a police matter,’ Arlen repeated.

  ‘And what are we, chopped liver?’

  He had a point, though. Randy was ex–Air Force, and the ‘ex’ bit took him beyond our frame of reference. Technically, we couldn’t get involved. At least, not officially.

  ‘What’s Alabama expecting us to do?’ I asked Marnie. ‘What are you expecting us to do?’ I sensed discomfort from Arlen that I was including him in ‘us’.

  ‘To help her, obviously. The ransom – she doesn’t know what to do or who to turn to. And she doesn’t have fifteen thousand, let alone fifteen million.’

  In this instance help could mean anything, except maybe assisting Alabama with a loan application for the ransom money. ‘And what about you?’ I asked Marnie. ‘What are you gonna do?’

  ‘Me?’ Marnie pointed at herself like I’d just accused her of something. ‘I’ve done my bit throwing you the ball. I’m going home. I’ve got a diving business to run.’ She looked at me and then at Arlen.

  The initial Anna Effect experienced when I’d opened the door and seen her standing there had worn off. Marnie had Anna’s eyes, hair and bone structure, and even the tone of her voice was similar, but in every other way she was the kid sister. Anna wouldn’t have looked elsewhere to offload this. I reached across and again lifted Arlen’s pen from his shirt pocket and signed the 988 with it. ‘Sorry,’ I told him.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You’re gonna have to absquatulate on your own.’

  Three

  I hitched a ride on the first plane heading for Vegas, a C-17 ferrying a load of practice missiles to Nellis. And five hours later, I was in the Nellis commissary buying an ice chest and freezer packs to go with it, condensation having terminally weakened the waxed paper seals on the KFC bucket. The amputated hand was in real danger of slipping out the side, and that would be tricky to explain. With Thing newly secured in a plastic ice chest, I caught a cab out past McCarran airport to Thrifty to pick up a rental. And half an hour after that I was driving down the Strip in the last of the early evening sunshine, the Ford Focus’s AC wound to the stops yet barely able to penetrate the midsummer desert heat.

  I drove nice and slow to soak up the sights. It’d been a few years since I’d visited Vegas, and while the town needed nighttime to show its true colors, there was a feeling of urgency in the air that reminded me of someone drowning. Maybe the global downturn had hit the place harder than anyone liked to admit. The guys on the sidewalk handing out calling cards for the hookers were going at it in broad daylight, scooting from prospect to prospect like rats on a foundering ship hunting for an exit. Several glossy new buildings stood vacant, others looked a little tired – none more so than Bally’s, ‘the home of Donn Arden’s Jubilee Showgirls’, as the posters up and down the Strip called the show. Bally’s was a refurbished seventies tower which, I’d learned when I’d booked a room online, was once the MGM Grand before it caught fire. In fact, looking at it on screen, if Bally’s were a dancer, I’d be hoping her clothes would be staying on.

  From what I could tell from the advertising, the Jubilee girls were old Vegas – all poise and sequins and makeup and feathers. Their antecedents would have danced for Sammy Davis Jr and Ol’ Blue Eyes. Today, however, out on the Strip, the advertising for Jubilee was engaged in a running battle with posters for joints where the girls danced in people’s laps. Without seeing what the Showgirls had to offer, I didn’t like their chances of routing the competition.

  My cell rang. It was Arlen. I put him on speaker. ‘Hey, s’up?’

  ‘Your friend, Randy. Seems he checked out with a BCD.’

  BCD – a bad conduct discharge. ‘What were the circumstances?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘Cloudy. “Conduct unbecoming” is what the file says. There was a court martial. I talked to the JAG and his defense counsel. There was a suspicion he was acting as a courier service in Afghanistan – hashish.’

  That didn’t sound like the Randy I knew, but then I probably didn’t know him all that well. ‘Was Anna involved?’ If Sweetwater was in trouble he’d have called her, wouldn’t he?

  ‘First thing I checked. Anna’s name doesn’t come up in any of the r
ecords, and JAG has no recollection that she was ever called.’

  Somehow, that was important. I didn’t want Anna messed up in this in any way. ‘Were the charges proved?’ I asked.

  ‘The BCD was the result of a plea bargain.’

  ‘How’d he swing that?’

  ‘The evidence went missing.’

  Sure it did.

  ‘He pleaded guilty to possession but without intent to distribute.’

  I couldn’t help but smile. Randy was lucky. He could’ve done hard time.

  ‘Maybe it’s not relevant, but I thought you should know,’ said Arlen.

  ‘Thanks,’ I told him.

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  ‘Driving down the Strip, looking for my hotel.’

  ‘Put ten bucks in a slot for me. Oh, and I’m acting on the advice I gave you.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Take a vacation. Marnie invited me over.’

  ‘You’re going to St Barts?’

  ‘Yeah . . . Look, if you’ve got any problems with that, let me know, because if you do I’ll—’

  ‘No problem my end,’ I said. ‘Knock yourself out, bud.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Cool. Hey, before I forget, your test result came back in.’

  ‘What test?’

  ‘Your Myers-Briggs test.’

  ‘Did I pass?’

  ‘No passes or fails, remember? You’re supposed to go through the results with a specialist, but, in short, your type indicators are ESFJ. Do you want to know what that means?’

  ‘That I’m good with the ladies?’

  ‘Dream on. Extroverted, sensing, feeling, judging – ESFJ. I’ll make sure the initials go on the bottom of your emails.’

  ‘Tell me you don’t actually believe in this shit?’ I asked him.

  ‘Depends who’s asking. If it’s Wynngate, it’s genius.’

  ‘Who am I supposed to get on with best?’

  ‘Other ESFJs.’

  ‘And who should I avoid?’

  ‘ENTPs.’

  ‘Aren’t you one of those?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I rest my case.’ The driveway entrance to Bally’s was coming up. ‘Hey, gotta go. When you come up for air in St Barts, gimme a call.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  I hit the end button, went up the ramp and found a space in the parking lot. Eventually, I made my way to reception and stood in line behind buffalo-sized people moseying toward the counter. The air hummed with the sound of musical bells and magical twinkles rising from the slots down in the pit.

  After checking in, I took the ice chest and carry-on, wheeled over to the counter selling seats to the evening’s Showgirls performance, and bought my seat from an uninterested black guy who conducted the transaction without eye contact. I still had plenty of time to freshen up before the show so I took myself up to my room out on the end of a dark two-hundred-yard-long tunnel on the twentieth floor. Opening the drapes I discovered that I had an aerial view of ‘Paris’, its pool occupying the area around the base of the Eiffel Tower. The place was packed, the countless lounge chairs still occupied, the desert heat ignoring the fact that the sun was below the horizon. Waitresses in bikinis worked the couches, shuttling drinks and snacks. Ah, Vegas . . .

  I took a shower and dressed conservative – jeans, desert boots and a navy shirt. If I hurried, I still had time before the show to indulge in Vegas’s other main attraction: the buffet, the place where the buffaloes roam. I was on vacation after all, and seriously underweight compared to the rest of the herd. When I couldn’t possibly fit in another complete four-course meal, I lumbered over to the Jubilee theater at Bally’s.

  When I arrived, the tiered theater, which probably sat around seven hundred, was close to full. Frankly, I was surprised. Maybe old-style Vegas was the new black. I found my seat, close to the front and in the center, as the lights went down and the music welled up. The curtain opened on a guy in a tuxedo singing a song about ‘hundreds of girls’, who then began to appear wearing almost nothing, and all of it sparkling. I wondered which one was Alabama. Pretty much all I knew about her was that she danced topless, narrowing it down to about half the field. The show rolled on into a Samson and Delilah number, about a guy whose girlfriend cuts his hair off, which I just knew was a euphemism for his balls, followed by a number where the girls sank the Titanic under several tons of rhinestones. The finale saw the cast all gliding down a giant glittering staircase balancing ornaments the size of Chewbacca on their heads. I liked the costumes and I liked the breasts even better, especially when they were coming down those steps. There was a feverish round of applause, which died out pretty quick.

  The theater evacuated fast, the patrons eager to leave and get back to the slots. I was almost last out, and loitered around the side entrance. Ten minutes later, a tall woman in gray sweatpants and an old sweat top, wearing outrageously heavy makeup and her hair pulled back in a net, appeared outside the entrance and scanned the area like she was expecting to see someone. Me, I figured. I walked over and introduced myself.

  ‘Alabama Thornton?’ I said. ‘Vin Cooper.’

  ‘Vin, hi. So great to meet you. You got here fast.’ She was all smiles and gave me a long slender hand to shake. I must have been frowning at her because she suddenly became self-conscious. ‘Oh, excuse the makeup. It looks weird off stage, I know.’

  I gave a shrug like it was no big deal, but she was right. Her false eyelashes were long enough to sweep the floor, and a thick black line was drawn under each eye as well as above those lashes. The rouge on her cheeks was heavy, as was the fire engine–red lipstick she wore. On stage and under bright lights the effect was glamorous. Up close, she looked like Chucky.

  ‘I don’t want to talk here,’ she said. ‘You wanna come backstage?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘We’re not supposed to bring people back. If anyone asks, you’re with management. Act like you own the place.’

  ‘I can give you incompetent arrogance. That do?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Four

  I followed Alabama to an unmarked brown steel door with a combination lock. She tapped in the code, leaned into it with her shoulder, and we entered a brightly lit corridor that sloped down toward a flight of stairs and another door with NO ENTRY painted on it. Alabama ignored the instruction and pushed through. Another corridor opened out at right angles on either side behind it. This one was busy with men and women going back and forth, some chatting and joking, others deep in conversation or carrying costumes or tools, and others wearing makeup that singled them out as dancers. No one asked who I was or what I was doing there. Seal’s version of ‘My Vision’ came from a room with a sign over the door that read DRESSING ROOM I. We headed for it. The music underscored the sound of women laughing and chatting within.

  ‘Everyone decent?’ Alabama called out before entering.

  ‘Hang on,’ came the reply.

  ‘This is the topless talls’ dressing room,’ said Alabama, pausing at the doorway. I must have given her a look, because she translated, ‘The girls are tall, and they’re topless.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. Another tough day at the office for Special Agent Cooper.

  ‘Okay . . .’ a woman called from inside.

  Alabama motioned for me to follow her in. The room was filled with sequined costumes and feather boas and fishnet stockings and makeup and hatter’s heads topped with headpieces and plenty of other items of clothing that I couldn’t identify, most of it covered in colored cut glass and sequins. A number of mirrors rimmed with warm yellow lights were set up round the walls. Most of the mirrors were adorned with photos of boyfriends or husbands, I supposed – a couple had snaps of young children – as well as news clippings and show reviews. There were books and magazines and iPods and hair dryers and portable fans and various items of makeup at each station, and the air smelled vaguely of warm soap. Around h
alf the mirrors had their lights turned off, which suggested that the women who sat at them had already gone home. There were still plenty of showgirls in the room though, sitting at their stations taking off makeup or organizing their lives into overnight bags. Everyone was chatting over each other. One or two women smiled at me, but mostly I was ignored. The women who were standing were indeed very tall but, disappointingly, not a single one was topless.

  Alabama went to a mirror at the end of one wall. Her station was no different from any of the others. A photo of a Siamese cat was tucked into the frame around her mirror and below it were two pictures of a guy I recognized. Randy. In one he was dressed in a flight suit, standing on the flight line, a C-17 behind him. In the other he and Alabama were cheek-to-cheek, Randy’s arm extended in front of them – one of those photos couples take when there’s no one else around to get the shot. In the background was the Statue of Liberty.

  ‘Nice-looking cat,’ I said.

  ‘That’s Fluffy. She’s our baby.’

  Fluffy?

  ‘Was your obstetrician surprised?’ Even though you know it’s the wrong time and place, some questions just have to be asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I know Randy. Met him once,’ I said, getting things back on track.

  I reached for the photo. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Please, go right ahead.’

  I took the photo of Randy and the C-17 off the mirror for closer inspection. I’d seen thousands of photos like this over the years – guys with their planes. This one was taken in Afghanistan – Bagram, perhaps. It might even have been the plane I hitched a ride in.

  ‘So, you met Randy . . . ?’

  ‘In Afghanistan, before he came to Nellis. He’s one of the good guys.’

  Hope lit up her face. ‘I’m sure he’s okay. I’d know if he was in trouble. I’d feel it.’

  I suspected that, even though she knew the hand wasn’t her boyfriend’s, the facts that it was wearing his ring and accompanied by a ransom note were more reliable indicators on the trouble scale. And they were saying that, no matter what her feelings told her, the shit was up to Randy’s nostrils.