I stuck out my hand, not knowing what the proper etiquette was, but I needn’t have worried. Women know the right things to do. And she was a woman. Holy cow, I produced this creature?
She gave me a kiss on the cheek and sat down on the padded bench beside me, her arm through mine for a minute.
We chatted. No, Marge and Jeannine chatted like they’d known each other for years. I just grunted occasionally. In top form for me, socially.
Jeannine went over to talk with the maitre d’. Gave him a bunch of orders I was sure. Bowing and scraping was not quite the word, because he wasn’t that kind of a guy. He was the kind of a maitre d’ who would give her anything. That’s Las Vegas. Anything, anytime.
But he knew her. She came here a lot? The cop in me still observing. Dinner was-the best I’ve ever had. Raymond Cabernet, yes. But a year not on the winelist, and judging by the other prices, off the Richter scale for my budget. It was liquid velvet. Drinking the wine, I could believe myself a connoisseur. Now I understood the words-complex, flavors, nose.
When the last of the lobster shells disappeared into the sunset, I was a P.I. again.
“The reason I’m in town,” I said, and told her what she should know to answer my questions.
“Is that the reason you called me?” Her eyes held a hint of amusement exactly like her mother’s. My mother, her mother. She brought the women of my life, who were no longer on this planet, alive. I took a gulp of water. Then I realized from her words, somehow I had missed a cue. I looked at Marge, but she looked as mystified as I felt. Jeannine must have sensed our confusion if she couldn’t read the stupid look on my face.
“I thought you were asking me because of the security system at the Mirage.”
“Kendall Security Systems,” I said slowly, guessing that there was no coincidence.
“I am Kendall Security Systems,” she said.
Afterwards Marge assured her that we had no idea. Marge kept looking at me, but I can’t fool her, so she knew I was telling the truth about not knowing about the connection. Then I wondered if Doug had thought I was part of Kendall, or if he just hired me for the past jobs because we had worked together. Maybe both.
We got back to my questions. “Why would anyone want to steal them?” I asked her.
Without batting a blonde curly eyelash, she went to the heart of the matter. “The tigers are the Mirage’s drawing card. It’s what sets them apart from all the other hotels here. Everyone’s looking for a shtick. Without it, they are just another hotel. Without the tigers, the Mirage might be in serious financial trouble. They have a way high profit margin and operate on that. If they drop even one percent, they could have a problem. Without the tigers…” she let the sentence hang. “I’m guessing, they’ll hold the tigers for ransom.”
I looked at her face, intelligent, and watched the words form in her mouth. I had two brains. One brain processed the information she gave me. Now the ‘why’ made sense.
The other brain listened to my mother, pre-me, talking. I shut that part of my brain down.
“So what will they do with the tigers if they get the ransom?”
“They don’t need them, can’t use them or exhibit them, so they’ll probably kill them.”
A frozen hand clutched my heart. I gasped. Not on mywatch. No way, José. Don’t even think about touching the tigers while I’m responsible for them, I wanted to shout to the world.
“There’s an element here in Las Vegas who would do anything to make more money. And there’s an element here, Dad, who would help them do it.”
Dad.
For a moment I was back being a social oaf. That brain door had sprung open.
I slammed it shut.
Back to work.
“Do you have any names?” I pulled out my notebook.
Doug would probably know them. I wondered if that thought had occurred to him. Since the tip came from out of town, maybe he wasn’t looking at locals.
“I had the tour with Melissa and Karen, so I know the basics. Anything else you can tell me about the security system?”
“I’ve got stuff in there I never even told the Mirage about.”
“You’re checking employees?” I thought about Doug. Did he know? Was he one of them? I hoped not. But there was a lot of money to be made in Las Vegas, greed eased a lot of consciences.
She laughed. “Would you believe animal abuse complaints?”
Yeah, I would.
“We want to be sure that when we go to the D.A., the complaint’s not going to go anywhere. In fact, those two get treated better than our homeless.”
The tigers were in their den, both lazing around, only a few people and no kids banging on the glass. Everyone at the parade-and the fireworks.
I was crouched in the chute that connected their indoor den and the show one. The iron gate separating me from the tigers was down and pinned in place. No way it was going to be moved. No matter what happened. At the other end of the chute, their path to their indoor lair, was locked on the inside. In essence, I was locked in, but I was the one who could do the unlocking. The smell of the tigers was strong in their chute. Had they marked their territory?
There was another entrance to the den about twenty feet away, a door for maintenance, feeding, and all the people who cared for the tigers.
It came down to the fact that I had to trust someone on the inside to get into the chute. I swore her to secrecy. Tell no one, not even your bedmate. I played on her love for the tigers, her babies. She was momma. If she told, they would die, that’s the way I put it to her, no finesse used. She had to be with me one hundred percent otherwise I could be the tigers’ next meal and looking at them blue eye to blue eye made me feel like the main course.
My gut instinct was usually right. Besides that, she was the one with the most to lose in this caper.
Melissa, the human mom. She was the only other person who knew what I was going to do. Not the head of Kendall Security Systems. Not Doug. Not even my bedmate.
I had boots on, a work jumpsuit that Melissa had outfitted me with, and covered with some sort of aroma that tigers weren’t interested in and that negated my human smell.
Don’t wear any cologne or hairspray, Melissa had warned me, or anything with a fragrance.
Crouched down, my calves whimpering, I wondered how long I could hold out. Stakeouts had never been my long suit. And I couldn’t have a cigarette. Fireworks at 9. I was sure that’s when they were going to make their move.
Move. There was a movement off to my right.
Herbie. Hose in hand.
He cleaned up at night? With the tigers in the den?
He placed the hose carefully over a concrete crag, then climbed to the top of the concrete mountain. It took me a moment to remember the built-in ladder on the other side.
What was he doing?
Bright light flooded the den.
What the hell!
The tigers got up and padded across the side of the pool toward me. Some signal for them? Daylight? Some sound? Now it was time for them to go into the night den?
They couldn’t get through the grate that separated us. The smell of their bodies and their hot breath made me sweat. Theywere so close. The male and I were looking each other in the eye. Blue to blue.
They weren’t cute anymore, not nose to nose, they were jungle animals, man eating tigers. He checked me out, his tongue licking the sides of his mouth.
Their smell drifting toward me on the draft.
I didn’t move a muscle except my eyes. I couldn’t even close my eyelids.
Sweat was coming out of every pore probably canceling out whatever that stuff was that Melissa had put on me. Bored, the tigers drifted away.
I tried to bring my heart rate down. Herbie was doing something. The light-a helicopter!
Why hadn’t I foreseen that?
Cops never look up, that’s a known fact. Hide anything above eye level and it’s safe.
The tigers gathered around the foot of the ladder. Maybe Herbie wasn’t about to descend all the way.