Michael Connelly - Murder in Vegas

As Ed now came to a stop in one of the vista’s parking spaces, Brandi finally opened her eyes. “It’s dark out. What’re we gonna be able to see?”

He opened his door, came around to hers. “A fat broad told me a story about a guy, said nobody should miss it.”

Ed could tell the only reason the chick’d leave the car would be to feel her feet on solid ground again, and that was fine. She got out of the Mustang, leaving her lucky fucking totebag on the floor between her feet, and Ed took her hand, guiding her over to the edge of the vista’s platform.

“I don’t want to go any closer.”

“You have to, to appreciate the story I’m gonna tell you.”

“Honey, please. I’ll do you every which way but loose back in the room-”

“-the suite-”

“-whatever, but please don’t…”

“Hey, there it is.”

Ed had his hands on the sides of her shoulders now, marching her in front of him, teach her a lesson about going through his briefcase. She was arching over, pushing her butt into his groin, the grinding sensation of their little “dance” making him hard.

“Honey, please…”

“See? Right there, through the tree branches?” Brandi’s butt was writhing, like a wet cat trying to get free of the drying towel. “The moon’s lighting it up like noontime.”

“It’s a… all I see is this island-ohmigod, way down there?”

“This fat broad told me that back in the old days-eighteen-hundreds we’re talking-there was a caretaker for the house that’s on the mainland, back under the trees.”

“I don’t-”

“Seems this caretaker stayed all winter,” said Ed, “but he liked the island more, and his booze the best. Fact is, he’d row all the way from here to where we’re staying in Tahoe City-miles and miles through the cold, though the lake doesn’t freeze over like you might expect-to hit a saloon, then he’d row all the way back.”

“Honey, let’s go, huh?”

“But this caretaker, he fell in love with that island, so he built his own tomb on it. For when he died, to be buried there.”

“Why are you-”

“Only thing is, the poor old coot was rowing back from town one night with too much of a load on, and he went over into the water. They found his boat, but not him. Not ever. And so he’s at the bottom of the lake someplace, and his tomb’s just falling apart, empty, down there on that pretty little island.”

“Honey, this is too weird for-”

Ed dropped his hands from her shoulders to her biceps, and then lifted her off the ground-swinging her legs straight out-and sat her down, hard, on the ledge overlooking the drop-off.

Brandi lifted her face to the sky and screamed like a baby.

Ed said, “I invited you along on this trip-a complete freebie-and I didn’t move on you ’til you let me know you were ready for it.”

“Yes, yes,” the tears streaming down her cheeks from eyes clenched shut.

“And I don’t expect you to help me at all in what I’m doing, just be half the cover story of the nice couple on a vacation.”

“Anything, Honey, I will.”

“But if I ever…” Ed thrust his pelvis forward, into her butt, like Brandi was giving him a lap-dance and he was pounding her doggy-style. She screamed till her voice broke, then began just sobbing and gasping for breath. “Ever…” he banged her harder, nearly over the edge but for him holding her upper arms, Brandi now just choking on her own breaths, “… think you’re double-crossing me, you’re gonna join that fucking caretaker down there, deep at the bottom of the fucking lake. Or worse.”

“Don’t… Please, don’t…”

Ed pulled Brandi with an “I” back off the ledge, almost having to carry her toward the car. He would have done her on the rear seat, too, finish the lesson, but he could smell what she’d already done to herself, and so Ed Krause wanted her back in their suite and cleaned up first.

Standing under the showerhead, the water so hot she almost couldn’t bear it, Brandi Willette thought, Girl, nobody does that to you and gets away with it. Nobody.

Fuck Ed, the goddamned homicidal maniac, hanging you over the fucking edge of that fucking cliff. Literally fuck him as soon as you dry off, keep Dickhead happy and his fucking mind off killing you, but really fuck him good tomorrow, just like the Eskimo’s note said, just before telling you to tear it up.

Fuck Ed with the other thing that gardener gave you, too.

And, for the first time in hours, Brandi actually smiled, even if only to herself. Feeling the luck changing, guiding her toward the fortune she’d always felt she deserved.

About two hundred miles into the drive that next afternoon, the scenery now pretty much scrub desert on the eastern side of the California mountains, Ed Krause noticed that Brandi wasn’t all that interested in small talk anymore.

Hey, count your blessings, he thought, glancing again to therearview mirror, not such good viewing with the convertible’s top up, but necessary against the withering heat outside: At least today the chick’s not complaining every two minutes.

No, their time at the moonlit vista over Lake Tahoe seemed to have had the right effect on little Brandi. Or so Ed would have thought, from the way she romped him in bed after her shower back at the lodge. Good thing he’d taken the trouble, though, while she was still in the bathroom, to go through her stuff a second-shit!

Checking the rearview, like always, Ed saw the same vehicle again. Making three times in the same day, even after stopping the Mustang for lunch and once more for gas.

A dark Chevy Suburban, or some other fucking station-wagon-on-steroids, coming around the last turn behind their Mustang along one of the narrow state roads in Nevada that linked together like a poorly designed necklace from Reno to Las Vegas. Between the sun’s glare and the Suburban’s tinted windshield, though, Ed couldn’t make out the driver, much less how many others were in the thing.

“What’s the matter?” said Brandi.

Ed thought about how to play it, both with the Suburban and her. “Don’t turn around, but we’ve got somebody tailing us.”

Predictably, the stupid bitch started to turn her head, so he reached over and squeezed her thigh like he wanted to break the bones underneath.

“Owwww! That hurt!”

“It was supposed to. I told you, don’t turn around. Right now, they’ve got no reason to think I’ve spotted them, and I don’t want to give them one.”

“You didn’t have to hurt me for that.”

Ed just shook his head, not trusting his voice right then.

“So,” said Brandi, “what are we going to do?”

Different tone now, kind of “We’re still a team, right?”

He glanced again in his rearview, the Suburban dropping back a little. “Try to lose them.”

Ed nailed the accelerator, Brandi making a moaning noise, kind of like when they’d started again in bed back at the lodge the night before. But the Mustang at least didn’t give him any trouble, the V-8 he’d insisted on at the rent-a-car agency coming into its own.

Maybe five minutes later, Brandi said, “Aren’t you, like, worried about the police or anything?”

“Lesser of two evils,” said Ed, noticing nobody behind them now. Problem was, based on his study of the map that morning before heading out from Tahoe City, there were only so many roads you could take to get to Vegas, so the tail could probably find him, and he didn’t have the firepower onboard to stage an effective ambush.

At least not until he found a perfect spot, and after dark.

Brandi piped up now with, “Are they gone?”

Ed tried to remember whether he’d ever said “they” in talking about the tail, decided he had. “For now.”