The biggest mistake Clive and Sheila had made was agreeing to the free breakfast. It turned out to be a meager offering of cheap Danishes and second-rate coffee, accompanied by a two-hour, mind-numbing presentation on time-share condos-located at this very resort, what a bargain, you just can’t beat these prices. The only reason they hadn’t walked out after the first ten minutes was the promise of half-price tickets to a show they’d really wanted to see.
But that hadn’t been the worst of it. After the crappy breakfast and a tour of a show suite in far better condition than the one they were actually staying in came Brent.
Brent was deeply tanned, with large white teeth and blow-dried blond hair. Clive was pretty sure Brent was also a robot, because his single-minded dedication to selling them a time-share verged on the mechanical. No matter how many times they said they weren’t interested, Brent would keep going. He showed them cost breakdowns that to Clive’s eyes-he was a CPA-were laughable, even insulting. Even when Clive pointed out that for the amount of money they were expected to invest they could stay in an actual five-star hotel for a week every year, Brent would not be dissuaded. In fact, he became even more aggressive, his demeanor suggesting that only a complete bona fide idiot wouldn’t grab the deal he was offering.
Clive was not a man easy to anger. It had taken an hour of being badgered, lied to, and treated as no more than a wallet with legs before he’d finally lost his temper. He hadn’t actually punched Brent in the face, but he’d come close. He’d stormed out of the presentation, leaving Sheila to try to claim the promised tickets-which he knew would just turn out to be another con-and marched off down the street in the closest thing to a blind rage he’d experienced since high school.
That had been over an hour ago. He’d walked off most of his anger, gotten to the point where he thought he could talk to another human being without shouting at them. Watching the volcano helped-for all its implied violence, it was strangely soothing. Look at what human beings can do, it seemed to be saying; we can tame even the most destructive forces of nature.
It was an illusion, of course. Just like the whole city. Sexy showgirls you could never sleep with, huge piles of money you could never win. The more Clive thought about it the more he felt that his encounter with Brent, with his empty eyes and his vacant good looks, was like a personification of Vegas itself. Clive had never met s omeone he’d felt less of a human connection to in his life; he was pretty sure that if he pumped Brent’s arm up and down a few times, the salesman’s eyes would spin around and then show a lemon and a horseshoe.
Clive sighed and resumed his walk. He shouldn’t let one bad encounter with a soulless huckster ruin their trip. All he’d lost, after all, had been a few hours of his time-that was a lot better than some visitors to the city could claim. He could have been a real Vegas success story: arrive in a ten-thousand-dollar car and leave in a hundred-thousand-dollar bus.
He found himself turning off the Strip and onto the quieter streets that paralleled it. The glitter and flash of the big hotels were still visible, but they were less overpowering. The farther away they got the better he felt, so he just kept going.
Clive wasn’t stupid. He knew the shadows that lay alongside the expensive glare of a place like the Strip held their own, much less civilized dangers-but his own less civilized self, the ape that lived at the back of every human’s brain, was telling him that no one would dare mess with him right now. And even if they did, they’d be sorry. Hell, just let them try.
There was a man sprawled out on the sidewalk ahead.
At first, he thought the man was just drunk. A tourist like himself who’d had a few too many Bloody Marys with his eggs-Vegas was the only town Clive had ever been in that had a drinks section in the breakfast menu-and wandered off for some desert air to clear his head, who needed to just lie down for a moment…
Then he got closer and saw the blood.
Grissom stared down at the dead man as David examined the body. Some break, he thought. Grissom was supposed to be at a conference, exchanging ideas with fellow professionals, and had found himself dragged back by the Harribold case. Now he was answering another call, simply because they were so short-handed. Maybe I was fooling myself by thinking I could get away at all. Maybe that’s how it’s always going to be.
Maybe Sara was right.
David pulled the wallet from the dead man’s back pocket and handed it to Grissom. “Tourist taking a walk found him. Can’t have been dead more than an hour-almost no rigor, no postmortem lividity.”
Grissom opened the wallet. “Paul Fairwick. Thirty-eight, has an address in Henderson. I’ve got an all-access pass to the Athena Jordanson show, too.”
“Oh, she’s great,” said David. “I took my wife to see her Motown revue for her birthday. Amazing voice.”
Grissom bagged the wallet, then knelt down beside the corpse. “Well, COD seems pretty obvious.” There was a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. “Powder burns and a muzzle sta mp-he was shot at close range.”
David held up one of the man’s arms. “Ligature marks on the wrists, too.”
“But very little blood. He wasn’t killed here, just dumped.”
“Strange place to dump a body. It’s awfully close to the Strip.”
“Not if you’re trying to send a message…”
Aaron Tyford did his best to fill the interview room with the hate radiating from his eyes. He was a tall, wiry man with a scar that ran along his jawline and a nose that had been broken more than once. His body language told her there was nothing he’d enjoy more than throwing her through the nearest window.
“You’re lucky you don’t glow in the dark,” said Catherine. “Guess you left the chemistry to Boz, huh? Moving product is probably more your line.”
“You’re crazy, lady. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There are three things essential to any business, Aaron. You need someone to do the work, you need someone to sell what you’re offering, and you need the capital to get started in the first place. Everything else is details.”
“If you say so.”
“You and Diego had the business plan. Boz had the skills, you had the contacts-all you needed was the cash to get started. Which is where Hal Kanamu came in.”
“Hey, I barely knew the guy.”
“But you wanted to know him better. You wanted to be more than just party buddies-you wanted his respect.”
He leaned forward, his jaw clenching before he spoke. “Listen-everybody respects me. You know someone who doesn’t, give me his number and I’ll pay him a little visit.”
“Sorry, I don’t give my number out on a first interrogation. And what you’re talking about isn’t respect, it’s fear-fine for intimidating business rivals, but not so good for someone you want as an investor. What happened, did Kanamu get cold feet, decide to back out at the last moment? Or did you just get impatient, decide to kill him and take the money?”
He studied her for a moment, and then a cold smile spread across his face. “You want to know what happened? Nothing. Maybe I did float a business idea his way, and maybe he was too stupid to see how sweet a deal it was. But since you seem to know so much about business, let me ask you this: how many investors do you think an entrepreneur is going to attract if he starts killing everyone that says no?”
He shifted in his seat, leaning back and throwing an arm over the back of the chair. “Maybe that’s what a small-timer would do, grab t he cash and run. But that’s not my style.”