Chapter 7
Shaw
You can tell everything you need about an organization by its clubhouse.
Most MCs go for authenticity by way of brute force—rusty muscle car on the wall, a pool table with just enough green left to evoke the original color, maybe a sign hammered out of a road hazard they actually caused.
The Royal Harlots went for something else: plausible deniability.
The front room looked like a casino bar somebody’s uncle might have invested in, assuming that all it took to print money was buying neon and figuring out how to staff the graveyard shift.
The windows were dressed with faux velvet, but it was the same tier you’d find in a themed steakhouse.
Poker tables lined the main floor, felt surfaces chewed bald at the edges, the kind of surface that made you want to keep your hands up. The tables were full.
Behind the bar, a flotilla of beer signs buzzed electric blue and fire engine red, breaking up the black-and-amber gloom.
The stools were plastic, but nobody seemed to care.
If you stuck around long enough, you could probably get a burger with a side of mescaline from the line cook, and a tattoo in the parking lot after.
There was no one at the front door—there never was—but inside you could feel the vetting.
I had the sense of a dozen eyes on my back before I even got to the bar, and a separate sixth sense, the one that likes to warn you about traps, told me that there was at least one set watching me from somewhere I hadn’t spotted.
The air was syrupy with cigarette smoke and something sweeter, maybe a bourbon spill from last night that nobody bothered to mop.
I let myself absorb the flavor for a few seconds before making contact.
No point in telegraphing anything. Let them see you, let them try to read you, and they’ll always tip their hand first.
Part of being a detective was knowing that the mundane was never the mundane. Something was always lurking in the shadows. You just had to be smart enough to avoid whatever the fuck it was.
She was at the bar, not drinking, just turning an unlit matchstick over in her fingers.
The President. Selene. I’d seen her in mugshots, newspaper spreads, a candid or two from county.
Always the same aura, like she’d stepped out of a different century and decided to run the world with a mixture of good bone structure and knowing everyone’s secret.
She was shorter than I’d expected—most women you see in charges for aggravated assault are.
She carried it with a posture you could shelve books on.
Her hair was black and tight to the scalp, shiny with product, and the lines at the corners of her eyes only made her look more serious, not old.
She didn’t turn when I came up. “What’re you having?” she said. Her voice was dry as the Nevada air, and twice as cutting.
I played it casually. “Whatever the house suggests.”
“Tequila.” She let the matchstick roll onto the bar. “You’re a detective.”
I chuckled. “How the hell did you figure that out?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Wrinkled shirt, loose tie, sports coat. Fuck, you might as well pin your badge to your breast pocket.”
“Jason Shaw.” I didn’t bother with the badge, because it always made things worse before it made them better. And she’d already figured it out.
She gestured with her chin. “Still want that tequila?”
“Not while I’m working.”
Selene gave a smile that flashed like a razor and vanished. “Everyone’s always working in this town. Have a seat and tell me what’s on your mind.”
I did, hands flat on the table, but kept my attention up. “Because there’s always some shit going on,” I said. “Never know when I might have to run.”
“From or to?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s Vegas after all. Gambling, prostitutes, drinking, drugs, serial killers.”
“Sounds like a brutal combo.”
“You’ve done well with this once-upon-a-time shithole.”
“I work my ass off,” she said. “For club and casino.” She leaned on the counter. “Which are you here for?”
The rest of the room was staging a little show for me.
A guy in a faded Rattlers hoodie pretended to mop the same two feet of floor, but his eyes flicked every ten seconds to the back office door.
A woman with prison biceps and a lip piercing was shuffling cards, not to play but just to make the click and snap of them into background noise that made you hurry your business.
Somebody behind the bar, just a silhouette, kept rearranging bottles with the single-mindedness of a person paid not to listen but to hear.
Selene poured herself a two-finger whiskey from the bottle at her elbow. It was the good stuff, but she didn’t comment on that or drink it. She just looked at me over the rim of the glass, as if the drink was a camera and she was collecting evidence.
“So,” she said. “What do you want to ask, Detective Shaw?”
“Straight to it,” I said. “I like that in a woman.”
“This woman is unavailable.”
“Wasn’t asking her to be available. It was an observation.”
I put on my own smile—nicer than hers, but only because I had more practice.
“I’m looking for someone. Name’s Spade. Works as your Sergeant at Arms, unless you’ve had a recent shuffle.
” The club had its bylaws, mission statement, and list of officers online.
They were hiding something by not hiding.
At least that’s what detective work told me.
Selene’s hand stopped mid-sip. She set the glass down with a small, controlled click. “You know the name. And the title. That’s a good start.” She didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder, but I watched a small nod propagate through the staff in the room, and everyone got a little quieter.
“She around?” I asked. “Maybe in the back. Maybe watching us on a security camera.”
Selene drummed two fingers on the bar, then leaned back and finally took a drink. “Spade works odd hours. But maybe I can help if you tell me what this is about.”
“Thick as thieves,” I said. “I like that. Got each other’s backs.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, detective.” She was getting antsy. Her tone had changed.
The textbook answer would have been “an ongoing investigation.” The real answer was that I didn’t know whether to bring Spade in or bring her a drink.
She’d been in the periphery of a half dozen unsolved murder cases, but the only consistent through line was her knack for being close enough to the action to get painted with the same brush, but never so close that I could put a case together.
Someone like that either had a guardian angel or was a devil who liked to wear other people’s wings.
I tried a soft lead. “Spade’s name has come up on a few incident reports. Nothing major. Just some cases we’re working on. I was hoping to talk to her about her whereabouts last weekend.”
Selene smiled again, but it was smaller, meaner. “Spade works weekends. She was here, with the club. Friday through Sunday.”
I didn’t challenge her, not yet. “And she didn’t leave the premises at all?”
“Not unless you count a run-up to Boulder City with three witnesses and a stop for coffee at Dot’s.
” She listed them like she’d been prepping for this.
“You can check the security footage if you want, but it’s really boring unless you like watching people play poker until they owe the house their mortgage. ”
“You have a damn good memory, Selene.”
“In my line of work, I have to.”
She turned and returned the bottle to the counter behind her, watching me through the glass as I checked out her ass in a pair of jeans that hugged her the way a baby hugs a tit.
“Will that be all, Detective Shaw?” She glanced around the casino and then said, “Things are starting to pick up a bit.”
I wrote it all down, even though I already knew what I needed from the traffic cams. “I’ll want to see that footage. When’s the last time you saw her?”
Selene paused. “Depends on what you mean by ‘see.’”
“Physically, in person.” I know she was expecting me to look around the casino, but I didn’t. I’d played this game too often.
She sipped her whiskey. “About an hour ago.”
“She still here?”
Selene gave me a look that was so blank it came all the way back around to being aggressive. “You want to go search the premises, Detective? I could escort you.”
I raised a hand, warding off the challenge. “Not yet. Just doing my job.”
She lifted her glass in a mock salute. “So am I. The women in my club are good people, detective. They don’t walk around Vegas killing people.”
“I never mentioned any murders,” I said, thinking I’d caught her in a lie.
She pointed at the small notepad I’d been writing in. “Third page, where you were writing, at the top, MURDERS.”
I let the silence spool out, waited to see if she’d fill it. In my experience, people always do. The trick is making them want to.
“Spade’s a good person,” Selene finally said. “You won’t find anyone here who’ll say different.”
I glanced at the mirrored wall behind the bar. “I’d love to hear her tell it.”
She shrugged, a small movement. “If she wants to talk to you, she’ll find you. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.”
The interview was going nowhere, but that was the point. This place ran on the kind of loyalty you can’t buy—only earn, or blackmail. And I could tell that nobody in the room was going to break rank, not for me and not for anyone else with a badge.
I stood. “Thanks for the drink,” I said, even though I hadn’t touched it.
Selene smiled, this time with teeth. “Anytime, Detective.”