There was a portrait of Moose Dargon on black velvet stitched into the middle seat on Amanda’s left. He looked twenty years younger, with wild wavy black hair, caterpillar eyebrows, and a bulbous red-veined nose. Amanda clucked her tongue in disbelief. Elvis had not left the limo.
She chose to sit on Moose’s face, because she could get some traction on the velvet. There was a series of wooden drawers built into the lower half of the seats. She glanced through the limo window, then slid open the drawer between her legs.
No surprise: drugs and a six-pack of Trojans. Amanda removed the envelope of cocaine.
She felt the car rock as the driver got out. A few seconds later, the rear door swung open, and Tierney slipped inside. She took a seat opposite Amanda and brushed her dirty curls out of her face. She wasn’t smiling.
“This is about MJ, huh?” Her voice was girlish and made her sound even younger than she was.
Amanda nodded.
“Sorry, I must look like a mess,” Tierney apologized. “I’ve been really upset about what happened.”
“You look fine.”
Tierney gave her an embarrassed smile. “That’s nice of you to say.”
It was amazing, Amanda thought. In Las Vegas, even murder was no excuse for not looking your best.
“I guess you found the video,” Tierney added.
“Yes, we did.”
“God. I can’t believe I was so stupid. But MJ thought it was hot doing it on film. If this gets out, Moose is going to kill me.”
Amanda raised an eyebrow. “I hear he has a temper”
“No, no, I didn’t mean literally. Moose would never touch me. But he’d be upset, humiliated. I never wanted that.”
Her defenses were up. Amanda decided to go another way. “When did you go to San Francisco?”
“Sunday morning. As soon as I heard about MJ. My family’s there, and I told Moose I wanted to spend some time with my parents, but mostly I stayed in a downtown hotel and cried. I didn’t want Moose to see me that way. He’d wonder why.”
She was on the verge of tearing up. Amanda realized that Tierney wasn’t cold, like Karyn Westermark. This girl actually felt something for MJ.
“Were you in love with him?”
“Who, Moose?” Tierney asked, misunderstanding. “Of course. I know what everybody thinks, that he wanted a bimbo on his arm and I wanted his money. It’s not like that. We care about each other.”
“He does have a lot of money,” Amanda pointed out. Moose lived in Lake Las Vegas, a gated resort community on the other side of the mountains.
“Sure, but I won’t see any of that. I’m with him because he’s funny and sweet and he treats me nice. I was nothing before him.”
“What about MJ?”
Tierney stared blankly at the television screen in the limo for a long time before saying anything. “I’m twenty-four, okay?” She said it as if that were enough to explain everything.
“You have a reputation as a party girl. Lots of hookups.”
“Well, that’s crap,” Tierney retorted. Her brow wrinkled in annoyance. “I’ve only slept with a couple guys. Lately it was just MJ.”
Amanda wondered about the pack of condoms in the drawer under her feet. “Did Moose know about MJ? Or the others?”
“It was more like ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ He knows there are things he can’t give me.”
“But what if he did find out? Moose has put a few people in the hospital in his time.”
“That was years ago! He’s eighty years old, for God’s sake.”
“But would he hire someone to send a message? He might not hurt you, but what about MJ?”
“You think Moose had MJ killed?” Tierney shook her head vehemently. “No way. First, he wouldn’t do that. I told you, we have an arrangement. And second, he didn’t know about MJ.”
“Come on, Tierney,” Amanda scolded her. “Don’t be naive. People knew. We didn’t recognize you from the video. We asked someone who MJ might be sleeping with, and yours was the first name that came up.”
Tierney’s mouth fell open. “Oh, shit. I can’t believe this.”
“Did you love MJ?”
“Love him? Yeah, a little, I guess. I don’t sleep with people I don’t care about, whatever you think.”
“Well, if Moose thought you had feelings for MJ, that might make him feel pretty vulnerable. Like you might leave him.”
“You’re wrong,” Tierney insisted. “Moose knows I would never do that. He’s sick. Cancer. He doesn’t have a lot of time left, and he knows I’ll be there for him. MJ, he was-well, I kind of wondered about the future. After.”
Amanda was having a hard time deciding whether Tierney was a sweet, lonely girl or a shrewd gold digger with her eyes on the next prize. If she was putting on an act, it was a good one.
“Did you know about MJ and Karyn Westermark?” Amanda asked.
Tierney pressed her full lips together until they formed a thin line. “Yes.”
“Did that bother you?”
“We did a threesome once. That freaked me out. I didn’t want to do it again. MJ wanted to, though.”
“Were you with MJ on Saturday morning?”
She nodded. “And Friday night, too.”
“Why’d you leave on Saturday?”
“I had a thing with Moose on Saturday night. A party.”
“Where?” Amanda asked. She jotted down the details as Tierney told her. “Were you with Moose the whole time? Did he make or receive any calls on his cell phone?”
Tierney shook her head. “He was schmoozing. It was a political thing for the governor. You know, it’s reelection time. I was with Moose the entire evening.”
“Did you know MJ was with Karyn that night?”
“I figured,” she said unhappily.
“You sound jealous.”
Tierney tucked one of her curls around her finger and played with it. “Karyn is the big leagues. I know that. I’m just a cocktail waitress who was in the right place at the right time. I try to fit in with MJ and his crowd, but I don’t, not really. I know they laugh at me.”
“So why hang out with them?”
“What else do I have? My old friends, they can’t deal with who I am now. Because of Moose. You know, living by the lake, the bodyguards, the limo. It doesn’t matter that I’m still who I was. If you’re young and you’ve got money, you just wind up at the Oasis. And there are all the same little cliques in that crowd. It’s like high school.”
“What clique was MJ in?”
“Karyn’s. That’s how I met him. He was at the casino with Karyn about six months ago. She was really friendly to me, and I only realized later it was because she wanted to get me in bed with them. But I liked MJ, so I did it. We started going out after that, just the two of us.”
“How did Karyn feel about that?”
Tierney shrugged. “I don’t suppose she cared. She still slept with MJ whenever she wanted.” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice.
“Karyn says MJ was planning to dump you,” Amanda said.
Tierney was shocked. “She said that? No way. I don’t believe that. MJ wouldn’t do that.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill MJ?”
“No, I don’t,” Tierney said. “I can’t imagine. But not Moose. Definitely not.”
Amanda asked, “Do you know if MJ had anything to do with Boni Fisso? Did they know each other?”
“Boni? Not that I know of. He never mentioned him.”
“How about Moose? Does he know Boni?”
Tierney nodded. “Well, sure. Moose played the Sheherezade all the time in the old days.”
Amanda wasn’t sure it meant anything, but Moose was a volatile man, despite his age and health. If someone like Moose did want to hire a hit man, it was easy to imagine him talking to Boni.
She thanked Tierney and reached for the door to the limousine. Tierney took her arm in a soft grip. Her hand felt small.
“Does this have to become public? Me and MJ?”
“I can’t make any promises,” Amanda said. “And like I said, it’s already an open secret.”