“How can you be sure?”
“They’d closed the door to my room. They’re not supposed to do that when they’re servicing a room. One of them was wearing a tool belt. He was going to open my room safe.” She glanced at the bar, then looked at him. “I had my notes and copies of my interviews locked in the safe.”
“Did you take them out?”
“Yes. They’re hidden now.”
What Gloria was describing was a serious crime. Hotel employees could not open room safes unless the person occupying the room requested it. Employees who got caught breaking this rule not only got fired, but often went to jail. The waitress appeared with their drinks balanced on a tray.
“Tap water is on the house,” she said.
The waitress left, and they clinked glasses with smiles on their faces.
“Based upon what you just told me, I’d say someone from the hotel is keeping tabs on you,” Valentine said. “They legally can do that a number of ways. They can listen to your voice messages, and they can monitor your room through the door lock. Each time the door is opened, it’s seen. There are also surveillance cameras in the hallways which can follow you around.”
“This is all legal?”
“It is in Las Vegas.”
“You don’t approve of that, do you?”
“Not in the least. But I don’t make the rules.”
Gloria held her drink in one hand, her burning cigarette in the other. It was a pose straight out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, and he didn’t think she was doing it on purpose.
“Who’s behind it? The tournament?”
“That would be my guess,” he said. “You aired the piece with Rufus, and all hell broke loose. Someone at the tournament pressured the hotel to start following you, and maybe break into your room safe. It’s not a pretty picture.”
“You mean for me?”
He nodded. He didn’t want to tell Gloria that Las Vegas was notorious for keeping scandals out of the news. The city spent a hundred million dollars a year marketing itself, and the money bought a lot of favors with the press. Gloria glanced at his cell phone, which he’d placed on the table when they’d sat down.
“Can you really call someone, and make this stop?”
Valentine nodded again. He would call Bill Higgins later, and tell him Gloria was being electronically tailed by the hotel for no good reason. Bill would send his agents to Celebrity’s surveillance control room, and have them read the riot act to Celebrity’s technicians. Hopefully, that would stop the problem.
Gloria smiled at him with her eyes. Her face had become enveloped in a curl of cigarette smoke, and it gave her features a dreamy quality.
Valentine’s cell phone began to move across the table, and they both stared at it. He remembered that he’d put it on vibrate, and he picked it up and stared at its face. It was Gerry, the prodigal son. He answered it.
“What’s up?” Valentine said.
“Frank just shot a guy to death,” his son said.
Valentine brought his hand up to his eyes. Just when everything was moving along in brilliant fashion, his son spoiled the party. Sensing his distress, Gloria shot him a concerned look.
“Where are you?” Valentine asked.
“At a gas station on Sahara, just off the strip,” his son said.
“I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks, Pop. Thanks a lot.”
Valentine killed the connection while shaking his head.
“Is something wrong?” Gloria asked.
“It’s my son.”
“Problem?”
“Yes. A big problem.”
“Well, he certainly called the right person,” she said.
27
Mark Perrier, Celebrity’s forty-two-year-old general manager, sat in his office on the top floor of the casino, staring at the burnt orange desert that was his property’s backyard. The desert stretched as far as his eyes could see, and he often imagined himself taking a long walk across it. Maybe someday, he thought.
His eyes fell on the spreadsheet lying on his desk. It contained yesterday’s take from the casino, and showed the money they’d made for slots, video poker, keno, the Asian games, Caribbean stud poker, blackjack, craps, and roulette. The total was one million, one hundred thousand dollars, or fifty thousand dollars over their nut. The casino had made money yesterday, but just barely.
He pulled off his necktie, then took a bottle of Scotch out of his desk and poured a finger into a glass on his desk, then gulped it down. The Scotch made his throat burn; he shut his eyes, and felt himself relax. He didn’t think anyone in his life understood the pressure he was under.
His wife, Tori, was a perfect example. She looked at the opening of Celebrity’s Las Vegas hotel like the opening of any other hotel that her husband had been involved with. Mark had opened five-star hotels from Perth to Paris, and all of them had been wildly successful. Why should this be any different?
His bosses at corporate headquarters in Chicago also didn’t understand. To them, Celebrity’s Las Vegas hotel was one more casino in the chain. They didn’t want to discuss the fact that Celebrity had never run a property in Las Vegas, the company content to stay in smaller, less competitive markets. They had never swum with sharks this large.
Celebrity’s stockholders didn’t understand, either. When construction of Celebrity’s Las Vegas hotel had been announced two years ago, the company’s stock had shot up 20 percent and become the darling of Wall Street. The stockholders were banking on the property to pay huge dividends, and had no idea how tough the market really was.
But Perrier knew better. He’d been a hotel guy his whole life, and had cut his teeth running resorts all over the world. He could spot a good property in a minute. It was all about location, location, location. Everything else was camouflage.
Celebrity’s Las Vegas hotel was a dog. The property was four miles from the strip, which was too damn far. His bosses had tried to buy property on the strip, but had been turned off by the high prices. Instead, they’d bought a hundred-acre tract out in the desert, and called it paradise.
The other problem was the staff. Corporate had promised to transfer the best people from their other casinos to run the Las Vegas hotel. Only no one had wanted to come, forcing Perrier to fill hundreds of positions with retreads and high school dropouts.
Which left Perrier sitting on a nine hundred million dollar white elephant. Long term, the hotel wouldn’t survive. But short term was a different story. The World Poker Showdown was being shown live on national television. It was the best advertising going, and would keep the place filled long enough for him to find another hotel to run.
The phone on his desk rang. His private line.
“Perrier here.”
“Are you watching Valentine?” his caller asked.
“That you, Jasper?”
Karl Jasper growled at him. He was the founder and president of the WPS, and as trustworthy as a snake oil salesman. On television, Jasper projected the image of a devoted family man and all-around good guy. In person, he was a foul-mouthed thug, and would go to any extreme to get what he wanted.
“Are you watching him or not?” Jasper asked.
Perrier played with the keyboard on his desk. A picture appeared on his computer screen, showing Valentine in the rooftop bar with Gloria Curtis.