The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(12)

Even if he wasn’t the one who murdered her, he still took her life.

I put on my sunglasses, drove to the Value Lodge on East Tropicana, and knocked on Jud’s door. He squinted into the sunlight, still draped in a tattered bathrobe. Six empty cans of Coors cluttered his bedside table. I stood in the doorway.

“Mr. Faust?”

“You need to go home,” I told him. “Back to Minnesota. Tonight.”

His face fell. “You’re…not going to help me?”

I took off my glasses and looked him in the eye.

“Artie Kaufman is going to have a terrible accident,” I said. “I don’t want you here when it happens. Go home. Watch the news.”

“T-thank you! But I can help, I can—”

“Go home,” I repeated calmly. “Watch the news. You’ll know when it happens.”

He kept thanking me. I didn’t want his thanks. I didn’t even want his money. I just wanted Artie Kaufman dead.

? ? ?

This was going to be tricky. All the circumstances pointed to Artie being responsible for Stacy’s murder, but that wasn’t the same thing as hard proof. There was still the matter of the two cops dumping her body in the storm drains. Some people might have the juice and the contacts to get that kind of service, but a small-time pornographer isn’t one of them. Everybody involved in Stacy’s death, one way or another, was going to pay for it.

I still had to find out exactly how she died. Going by Corman’s story, it sounded like her soul was literally in pieces, keeping her from moving on. Freeing her was priority one, but I couldn’t even start to figure it out without learning all the facts. While I was enticed by the idea of laying a death curse on Artie’s head, or just showing up on his doorstep with a baseball bat, I had to keep a cool head and fight smart.

Inspiration struck. I pulled into the nearest parking lot and called Paolo.

“Thank you for calling the Love Connection, where you can make your love connection,” he said tiredly.

“Paolo, it’s Faust. You still have Kaufman’s contact info?”

“I’ve got a card somewhere, probably. Why?”

“Make a phone call for me, and I’ll refresh those protective wards for free next week. Even trade. Deal?”

“What’s the angle?”

“I want you to ask Kaufman,” I said, “if he’s still in the market for a snuff movie. Because you happen to know a guy who might be able to get him one, and you’d just love to introduce him.”

Forget booze and drugs: nothing in the world makes a person more prone to stupid, reckless behavior than the pursuit of an unfulfilled fetish. If my hunch was right, I had the key to getting into Artie’s inner circle. Of course, I’d have to come up with a nonexistent snuff flick, but I’d cross that bridge when I got there.

I had planned to go home and catch a quick nap before meeting everyone at the Tiger’s Garden to discuss our cambion problem, but the two bruisers hanging out in my parking lot—all gristle and fists squeezed into tailored, salmon-pink suits—had other ideas. They walked up to meet my car, waiting patiently while I killed the engine and got out.

“Mr. Agnelli wants to see you,” one said, staring down at me from behind sunglasses the color of burnt onyx.

“I don’t have any business with Nicky,” I said, trying to step around him. He moved to stand in my path, a brick wall of menace.

“Mr. Agnelli,” he said pointedly, “has business with you.”

They politely escorted me to their waiting Lincoln and put me in the back seat. I figured I was better off not trying to push them into not-so-polite territory. When Nicky Agnelli wanted to see you, you got seen. Besides, I was curious to find out what he wanted. Strange coincidence, being called to a sit-down with the most dangerous man in Las Vegas at the same time as everything else that was going on this week.

Third rule of magic: there is no such thing as a coincidence.





Seven



The Lincoln eased its way through the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard, a white shark in a sea of yellow cabs. The monoliths of the Strip rose up on either side, from skybound twists of crystal and chrome to black art-deco pyramids. Come nightfall they would erupt in a riot of colors and flashing lights, but for now they slept, dusty and quiet, in the afternoon sun.

We pulled into a parking garage halfway down the boulevard. Nicky’s boys flanked me as we walked down the ramp and out onto the street, pushing though a swirl of tourists. A woman dressed for tennis and clutching a digital camera did a double take, looking at the suited thugs and then at me as if wondering if she’d seen me on television.

No, no, they’re not my bodyguards, I felt like saying. They’re just here to break my kneecaps if I run. Or maybe break them anyway. We’ll see how the day goes.

The Medici was a slice of old-world class in the heart of the city, standing watch over an artificial lake where the waters danced in a syncopated ballet at the top of every hour. In the lobby, frescoes on scalloped walls depicted the beauty of vintage Italy, and crystal fountains murmured under the electronic clangs of distant slot machines. The thugs marched me across the casino’s zebra-striped marble floor. It was early still, just a few locals and older tourists sitting at the cheap slots, but not much real action in sight.