Xavier steps back, and I keep Charlene by my side as we follow the mammoth guy, with Martin bringing up the rear. Behind me I can hear him pull the door shut and slam a deadbolt into place.
Charlene doesn’t seem afraid as we pass through the dimly lit hallway. A series of doors about twenty feet apart lines the sides of the hall.
Standing beside maybe half of the doors are women dressed in cheap, skimpy lingerie, waiting expectantly. One at a time, as we pass, they eye us. A couple of them smile alluringly. One woman points to Charlene and then to me, motioning for us to join her.
“No thanks,” I reply.
The walls are dingy and covered with crude graffiti. The sounds coming from the rooms that don’t have a woman standing by their door are the sounds I expect to hear.
We reach the end of the hall, and the guard who’s leading us pulls out a key and unlocks the scratched steel door in front of him. It opens with an abrasive scraping sound.
Inside the room, half a dozen women — three Asian, two Hispanic, and one Caucasian, and all dressed in the same style of seductive lingerie as the women in the hall — lounge on pillows surrounding a bone-thin Caucasian man who looks about twenty-five or thirty years old.
He’s shirtless and has an intricate tattoo with a Chinese inscription wrapping in a serpentine circle around his neck and ending with a red drop, which I assume is supposed to be blood, falling into a vial tattooed onto his chest.
The smell of marijuana lingers fresh and ripe in the air, and all the women except for one of the Asians, who’s seated near the man and has a length of chain fastened around her neck, look high. The man, who I’m assuming must be Solomon, holds the other end of the chain, and as we step into the room, he tugs it softly, drawing her closer to him.
Martin and the sentry leave us alone, locking the door behind them.
“I’m Solomon.”
“Jevin.”
His gaze shifts to my right. “And you are?”
“I’m Charlene.”
He studies us for a moment, then folds his hands placidly on his lap. “You’re not part of the law enforcement community, are you? Recent Nevada law. I’m asking this directly. You need to inform me if you are.”
“We’re not,” I tell him.
Most of the women appear uninterested in our conversation. The one with the chain around her neck looks demurely in my direction, then Solomon pulls lightly on it again, and she nestles in closer to him and gently kisses his fingers one at a time. I see a series of fresh scars on her thigh. One looks like it was branded on there.
“I understand you wanted to see me.”
“I’m trying to find a man named Tomás Agcaoili. He murdered my friend and I want him to pay for it. He flew into Las Vegas earlier today. I think someone hired him to kill my friend, and I think that person might be here in Las Vegas.”
Solomon has sharp, incisive eyes, and when he lets his gaze pass from me to Charlene, I sense that he’s carefully evaluating what to say. “Tomás Agcaoili.”
“Yes. I’m willing to pay for information.”
“I don’t want your money. There’s something else you can give me if you really want me to tell you what you came here to learn.”
The guy who’d been driving the blue car backed out of the alley and took off, and Fred Anders, who’d been watching from the shadows near the street, took a deep breath and then drew his gun.
Wray was finally alone, standing in the alley, staring at the door that Banks and the woman had disappeared into.
Fred eased forward, shaded by the darkness draping across this side of the alley. When he was just far enough away to be safe from the Taser that he knew Wray carried, he called out to him.
“Xavier.” Wray turned and Fred leveled the gun at his chest. “Throw your Taser to me.”
Wray reached toward his pocket.
“Slowly.”
Without a word he produced the Taser and tossed it toward Fred’s feet. He kicked it back behind him and it slid under the reeking dumpster, then he closed the space between himself and Wray.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Well.” Wray didn’t look afraid, but he was eyeing the gun cautiously. “I’m all ears.”
“You were at Benigno’s house this morning.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Ah. And so were you.”
“Do you have the drive?” Fred asked.
“The drive?”
“The files.” He raised the gun. “Do you have them?”
Wray raised his hands. “Easy now, bro. Yes.”
“What’s on it?”
“I’m not sure. Something about a pharmaceutical firm’s research, that’s all we know.”
“I need that drive.”
“I don’t have it with me.”
“Then you’re going to take me to it.”
“No, I need to stay—”
“You’re coming with me.” He waved the gun to signal Wray to go with him to his car. “Let’s go.”
Solomon’s Dilemma
“What was your friend’s name?” Solomon asks me.
“Emilio Benigno.”
“He was killed in the Philippines.”
I’m a little surprised he knows that, but it could just be from watching the news. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why was he killed?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know. If it’s not money, what do you want from me?”
“I know you can pay. I know who you are, Mr. Banks.”
In this case I’m not sure if fame is an asset or a liability. “Billboards?”
“Tomás.”
“So you do know him.”
“I do.” A light breath and then a warning: “This is a dangerous world you’re poking your nose into, Mr. Banks. I would suggest that you leave it alone, but I’m guessing that since you’ve come this far, that’s not going to be enough to convince you.”
“No, it’s not. Where is Tomás?”
It takes him a moment to reply. “Do you remember the story of King Solomon and the baby?”
Charlene speaks up. “Two women came to him. They told him that they lived together in the same house, that they’d both recently had babies only a few days apart, but no one else was there to see the babies. One of them died in the night.”
A nod. “Very good. And do you know how?”
“The first woman claimed that the other had rolled over in her sleep onto her own baby and it died. Then, according to her story, the other woman switched the children so that she would have the living baby. But the woman she was blaming claimed the first woman was lying — that the living child was hers and the dead boy was the son of the first woman. And so it went — back and forth.”
“Exactly. And so Solomon was faced with a dilemma.” He holds his hands in the air as if he’s balancing the truth in them. “What was he to do? The women argued bitterly in front of him, each claiming that the dead baby was the other woman’s.”
“Solomon ordered that the living child be cut in two,” Charlene answers, “with half of the boy going to each of the women. One of the women told the soldier to go ahead, while the other cried out, ‘No! Give the boy to her! It’s her son!’ And Solomon, knowing that the child’s true mother would do anything, say anything, to save the boy’s life — even if that meant letting the other woman raise him as her own — judged that the baby was hers and stopped the guard before he could harm the child. He gave the boy to her.”
Solomon taps a finger against the air. “You see, sometimes we have to take chances to find out the truth. Something must be at stake. Unfortunately, in this world, the way it is, honesty is in short supply. Did you know psychologists say that men tell six lies every day.” A small laugh. “Twice as many as women, interestingly enough.”