The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(47)

I booked it back to downtown Vegas, keeping an eye on the clock. If this guy was for real and Nicky’s twin enforcers had his scent, he might already be dead. Wishing he were dead, maybe. Justine and Juliette liked to play with their food. I didn’t want to go up against those two without a lot of preparation and maybe a platoon of marines in my back pocket, but I knew I might not have a choice.

I called Bentley as I drove, keeping one hand steady on the wheel, and left a quick message when his voicemail picked up.

“It’s Daniel. Look, I don’t want to worry you, but you need to know I’m going to meet with somebody, and there’s no gentle way to say this. If I vanish or something happens to me, it was Nicky Agnelli. Spread the word and drop the boom on his ass. I don’t think it’s a problem—I’m sure I’ll be fine, but just in case. Just in case.”

My one hope was that Nicky’s desire to keep the peace with Vegas’s occult underground outweighed the sting to his pride when I stole Caitlin out from under him. Tough call. I’d find out when I got there.

The Lamb Boulevard parking garage sat half empty this time of the afternoon, the snaking aisles lined with rental cars and the occasional plate from California or Arizona. Cars grew sparser as the floors climbed higher, leaving the upper deck a decent place for a clandestine meeting. Or an execution.

A short, balding man in an off-the-rack suit paced beside a rusted Camry, rubbing the back of his neck. I pulled up nice and slow, not wanting to spook him, while keeping a sharp eye on the scattering of cars on the roof. The Vegas skyline rose up around us, dusty and sleeping in the sun.

I pulled into a spot about ten feet away, easing out of my car. I showed him my open hands. He pressed his back to his car, jumpy as a cornered rat.

“Mr. Faust?”

“That’s right,” I said, not moving any closer. “Just me. Let me guess, you’re Nicky’s seer. That’s your shtick? Remote viewing?”

He nodded. “I was born with it. I’ve worked for Mr. Agnelli for years. It’s always been minor things, harmless, like watching local celebrities and political figures. Gathering gossip and insider business news.”

“Not anymore, huh? What’s Nicky’s interest in Stacy Pankow’s murder? Why did he warn me away from pursuing it?”

He shook his head. “He doesn’t care about her. But you freed that…that creature. You’re threatening his plans and worse, theirs. The people he works for.”

“Sheldon Kaufman?”

“He’s just another pawn!” the man snapped, ruddy faced as his eyes darted from side to side. “A few weeks ago, I started using my talent to watch Mr. Agnelli. I knew I shouldn’t, but he’s been so different lately. He’s changed. Driven, utterly consumed with his work. I wanted to know why.”

“Slow down,” I said, “and take a deep breath. What’s Nicky after? What’s his end game?”

The seer waved his hand. “Something in hell. Putting his father on some demon prince’s throne, making daddy proud of him. It’s all rubbish. It’s small time.”

I furrowed my brow. I figured Nicky just wanted Caitlin bound and out of the way so he could make a play for Vegas. “That doesn’t sound small to me.”

“Compared to what they want? He’s dancing on strings. And Lauren Carmichael, she’s the puppet master. Carmichael-Sterling’s CEO. You don’t understand, she’s been planning this for decades. Everything that’s happening now, it’s just one tiny piece of her grand design.”

I thought back to my glimpse of the golf foursome. “Lady in her late forties, stylish, about this tall?”

“That’s her,” he said, his head bobbing like a metronome. “She has the ring, the damned ring, and it’s just a tool to her. She went to India. She went to India, but it wasn’t her who came back.”

“Breathe,” I said. “Just…breathe, okay? What ring?”

The seer paced relentlessly, spittle flying as he raved, his agitation growing. I wasn’t sure if he was out of his mind with fear or just plain out of his mind, but I kept my distance.

“What’s she’s planning, it’s monstrous. I wasn’t supposed to look. I wasn’t supposed to, but I looked. The plans for the Enclave. Not the ones they filed with the city, the real plans. I know what she’s building, what that place really is. Haven’t been able to think straight since I saw, but that’s not the…tonight! That’s why I ran, why I called you. Tonight is critical, that’s, that’s—it’s critical. You have to stop them. You have to!”

I held up my hands, trying for a soothing tone. “Okay, okay, I will. But you need to calm down, all right? Tell me exactly what I need to stop. Focus for me.”

“They’re going to kill a man.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a heaving wheeze. “He has what they need, the last piece of the puzzle. He’s a fence, local, I’m trying to remember his name—”

“Think hard,” I said, my stomach muscles tightening.

“It was Spend, no, Span.” He looked me in the eyes, suddenly lucid, and snapped his fingers. “Spengler!”

The seer’s head exploded in a spray of red mist.





Twenty-Four