THREE
CHAPTER
The lights blurred and I could imagine globes of white and red glass.
Glass beads, maybe. A bundle of them held together with wire to make a bouquet.
My mind pulled the red beads out long, making flattened petals.
A poinsettia with white baby’s breath. A Christmas bouquet of glass that never needed watering.
My mother would like that. Or maybe Dena.
I started to pull out the battered little notepad I kept in the front pocket of my shirt to jot the idea down, then stopped.
Christmas was six months away.
A soft ache tried to take root, and I squashed it with practiced ease, like a lump of gum pressed under a table.
Keep to the routine.
I withdrew my hand and left the notepad where it was.
It was getting loud in the Pony Club. The show had supposedly ended an hour ago, but the shouts and whoops of some epic party were loud and clear—if muffled—through the cement of the venue’s back wall .
I pulled my cell phone from the front pocket of my uniform slacks to check the time. It was nearly one a.m. The limo was commissioned only until two, but I could already tell this was going to be a night of enforced overtime.
But what did I care if the job ran late? I didn’t sleep much these days and I could use the money. I’d stay until the band and their manager came oozing out of the venue, wasted and reeking, and take them back to the mega-mansion in Summerlin where I’d picked them up at five that evening.
The upside to driving at night was it left me time to work during the day.
The downside was the down time. So many empty hours spent waiting for my fare to get done with dinner or the show, or to finally emerge from the casino, stinking of booze and smoke and—more often than not—mourning their losses at the blackjack or poker tables.
Limo drivers tended to band together at events, lined up outside the venue in a train of sleek black or white vehicles.
I saw the same faces at different jobs, and some were my own co-workers at A-1 Limousine.
But I had to avoid smoke, and I wasn’t interested in making new buddies. I kept to myself, to my routine.
I leaned against the limo and looked up.
No stars could conquer the lights of Vegas.
I’d have to wait until my best friend’s Great Basin camping trip in a few weeks to see actual stars.
But the Strip was its own kind of constellation.
A riot of garish neon color and glittering lights.
It was beautiful in its own way, as long as you didn’t look down.
At my feet, in the gutter running between the street and sidewalk were cigarette butts, a crushed soft drink cup from Dairy Queen, and a flyer for a nudie show off the Strip. Shattered glass glittered green under a streetlamp.
One of the other limo drivers approached me. “Got a smoke?”
This guy was young. Younger than my twenty-six years, anyway.
Sweat beaded his brow as he looked at me hopefully.
Even in this summer heat, he was still wearing his service’s livery, a maroon polyester jacket with gold piping.
Newbie. My black jacket was on the front seat and had been since the band and their manager exited my limo nearly eight hours ago.
“I don’t smoke, man,” I told him. “Sorry.”
The sorry was code for conversation over, but this guy didn’t catch on.
“Shit, I ran out an hour ago,” he muttered. His nametag read Trevor. “Hey, who you driving for? I got a bunch of sweet-sixteen richies seeing the Rapid Confession show.” He barked a laugh. “Spoiled rich brats. I mean, what’s worse than that?”
“I can’t imagine,” I muttered.
My phone vibrated with a text. Probably my brother Theo, with the hourly check-in. I pulled the phone from my pants pocket. Yep.
What’s up? You good?
Rolling my eyes, I took a screen shot of the midnight check-in: the exact same message and my reply that I was fine. I hit ‘send.’
He texted back. Dick.
I smirked, typing. You make it so easy. Go to sleep, Teddy. I’ll call you in the morning.
“I wonder who has the band,” Trevor said, glancing down the line of limos. “If I had those bitches, it would be epic. Night made .”
Another photo text came in, this one of Theo’s middle finger. He hated when I called him Teddy. Almost as much as I hated it when guys called women bitches.
I turned to Trevor to tell him to get lost when the Pony Club’s back door banged open and the sound of raucous laughter, shouts, and shattered glass spilled onto the street.
A huge bodyguard hurried out carrying the limp body of a woman, her leather skirt hiked up her thighs and her head hanging so that her blond hair spilled over the bodyguard’s arm.
I gave Trevor a little shove out of the way and opened the limo’s passenger door. The bodyguard never broke stride but bent his hulking form over to lay the girl inside, on the long leather seat that ran opposite the door.
Trevor sucked in a breath. “That’s her! The blonde… The guitar-player for RC.” He looked at me like I was his hero. “ You have them?”
The bodyguard reemerged from the limo and towered over Trevor, his hands balling into fists. “Is this your business?”
Trevor cringed and backed off. “N-no, sir.”
“Are you going to tell anyone what you saw here?”
“No. I sure won’t.”
“Good answer.” He turned back to me. “Take her home. Quick. Before the paparazzi show up. It’s a fucking riot in there.
”He jerked his head toward the venue where the shouts were louder, punctuated by shrill cursing and more breaking glass.
“I gotta get back.” He jabbed a finger into my chest. “You make sure she gets home safe.”
I saw the concern bright in the guy’s dark eyes boring into mine, then he was loping back to the venue. Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer.
With the huge bodyguard gone, Trevor crept forward, peering into the limo. “Dude. Dude, she is smokin’ hot.”
I had to agree with Trevor’s assessment, but the girl was also passed out drunk. Women needed to be coherent and conscious for me to entertain even fleeting sexual thoughts. Trevor’s tongue was lolling out of his mouth, and I slammed the door shut, disgusted, cutting off his view.
“What are you going to do with her?” Trevor asked.
I paused at the driver’s side door to stare. “I’m going to take her home, asshole.”
Trevor held up his hands. “Jeez, chill out. I didn’t mean…”
I didn’t hear the rest as I climbed into the car and shut my door.
Trevor wasn’t going to keep his promise to the bodyguard about the girl in the backseat. No chance. And the news of whatever happened in the Pony Club was going to hit the streets anyway—the sirens were guarantee of that.
Just get her home, finish the job, keep to your routine.
I pulled the limo away from the curb. I hit traffic on the Strip and lowered the partition to check on the girl.
Her skirt was still hiked up, showing a fishnet-clad thigh and part of a tattoo.
More inked patterns snaked up the pale skin of her forearms, and a larger one covered her right shoulder.
The rounded tops of her breasts were pushing out of the bustier-thing she wore.
But I was looking for her chest to move, to show me she was breathing.
I wondered if I should veer to the Sunrise Hospital—my home away from home—when the girl gave a groan and rolled to her side.
I watched the streets in front of me while listening to her heave what sounded like a barrel’s worth of booze onto the limo floor.
The smell of regurgitated liquor filled the confined space.
“Awesome,” I muttered. “This is why they pay me the big bucks.”
When she was done retching, the girl—the guitar player, according to Trevor—slumped back on the seat to moan softly, her eyes still closed, her white-blond hair sticking to her cheek.
I turned off the Strip, found a dark, empty side street, and pulled over. I climbed in the back where my fare lay sprawled on the long seat, stepping around the mess on the floor to sit near her head to brush the hair from her face.
I hated to agree with Trevor about anything, but this girl was beautiful.
Even passed out drunk and reeking of booze, puke, and cigarette smoke, she was stunning.
Large eyes fringed with long, dark lashes, broad mouth with full lips painted a deep red, and dark, shaped brows that contrasted with her white-blond hair.
I reminded myself I was there to make sure she wasn’t going to die on me, not waste time ogling her. I’d had a lot of pretty girls in my limos over the last few months. Lots of drunk pretty girls. This one was no different.
This girl—I wished I’d thought to get her name from the bodyguard—was breathing better and some color had returned to her face.
Upchucking a fifth of liquor probably helped.
Satisfied that she didn’t need a hospital—though I didn’t envy the epic hangover she was going to wake up to—I concentrated on getting her home so I could call it a night.
I drove northwest, to the Summerlin neighborhood. The big house was a pale peach color with white columns and a circular drive, and it was totally dark.
“Shit.”
I got out of the limo and rang the front bell, hoping someone’s personal assistant or maybe another security guard was around. Nothing. I tried the front door on the off chance it had been left unlocked. It wasn’t.
I went back to the limo and fished out my cell phone from my pocket and called A-1’s dispatch. Tony Politino was working the lines.
“Tony? It’s Jonah. I need the contact number for the Rapid Confession job.”
“You got that job?” Tony let out a wolf whistle. “Lucky bastard.”
“Not as lucky as the cleaning crew,” I muttered. “You got the number or not?”
“Hold up…”
I rubbed my eyes and waited until Tony came back on.
“Jimmy Ray. He’s their manager,” he said. He droned the phone number. “And hey, sneak a few pics for me, right? The blonde? She’s fucking smoking.”
I glanced at the girl sprawled on the back seat.
An insidious thought crept in. I could take a few pics of her, sell them to a gossip rag and make a killing.
I’d lose my job, of course, but with the money from the photos I wouldn’t need it.
I could spend all day, every day at the hot shop and never have to worry if my installation would be finished on time for the gallery opening in October.
It was a nice fantasy except for the small fact that I’d never forgive myself for being such a lowlife scumbag.
That I’d even entertained the idea was repulsive.
I chalked it up to tiredness, along with the heavy pang of dread that lurked behind every waking thought, ready to ooze out if I let it.
The fear that told me I was running out of time and the installation would be left forever unfinished.
“Keep to the routine,” I muttered.
“What’s that, bro?” Tony asked.
“Nothing, thanks for the number.”
I hung up on Tony and called Jimmy Ray, the band manager.
I remembered him—he stuck out like a flashy used car salesman in my memory.
A skinny, middle-aged guy who dressed and acted like he was a decade younger, trying to be slick.
He talked to the women in the band as if they were his meal ticket instead of human beings.
Jimmy Ray answered the phone on the fifth ring but talking was impossible. Loud music blasted from behind him, and the chaotic sounds of a hundred voices shouting and screaming almost drowned him out.
“Hello, what? What? ”
“Mr. Ray,” I had to shout. “I’m your driver.”
“What? I can’t hear a fucking thing.”
“I’m from A-1 Limousine—”
“Who the fuck is this?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Elvis. Elvis Presley. Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated…”
“Look, whoever this is, I’ve got a damn catastrophe on my hands. Call me back.”
More shouting and then it all turned muffled. The guy had probably put the phone in his pocket without hanging up.
I ended the call on my end and checked the time. Just after two a.m. On the darkened street, no lights heading my way, no one coming home. I glanced inside at the nameless girl.
“What am I going to do with you?”
The urge to take her back to the Pony Club and hand her back to the bodyguard was a strong one, but that poor bastard probably had his hands full.
I shut the passenger door to the limo and got back behind the wheel. This whole scene felt seedy and wrong. I wanted to get her someplace safe and while taking her to my apartment wasn’t exactly kosher, it was better than seeing her splayed out drunk in the back of a puke-splattered limo.
“I hope you realize this is highly irregular,” I told her as I navigated out of the Summerlin estates.
“Totally not in the employee handbook. In fact, I seem to recall watching an educational video about this sort of thing, How Not to Get Sued Into Oblivion. Step one, don’t take your fares home with you, especially if they are of the blacked-out drunk and female persuasion. ”
At two in the morning, Vegas showed its dark underbelly.
The streets were filled with the most desperate: gamblers hoping to salvage some of their losses, hopeless drunks, drug dealers and prostitutes.
This was the Vegas I hated, but as I crossed the Strip, heading east, I passed the Bellagio.
My smile returned. There was real beauty in Las Vegas. You just had to know where to look.
The Bellagio’s lobby ceiling was one place. In my rearview was another.
The girl passed out on the long seat threw one tattooed arm over her eyes and gave a little moan.
“We’re almost there,” I told her gently. “You’re going to be okay.”