Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

We spent the next couple of hours just catching up. Liam and Everett spent a good chunk of the time pulling my chain about the San Francisco incident. After all, they were the professional athletes, and I was supposed to be the dilettante, the pretender; they thought the whole thing was a great laugh.

Eventually, though, the joke was played out and so were the black grapes and Stilton. Santi gave me a copy of the revised shooting schedule, and I promised to look in on the set before Wednesday to get to know the rest of the cast and the key crew members. I’d enjoyed the break, but the overriding problems hadn’t gone away. For all I knew, Susie might have called me while I was away, or sent me another e-mail, or Prim might have had a call from Wallinger about the completion of their business.

I put the two together and came up with the scenario of Susie calling and Prim answering. That sent a shiver through me, so I said, ‘So long,’ to the guys and headed back to my, our, suite.

I was halfway along the corridor when my mobile sounded. I tore it from my pocket, in the hope that it might be my wife wanting to kiss and make up, but the incoming number read-out showed me at once that it wasn’t. My caller was American, but it wasn’t anyone in my phone book. I pressed the receive button and muttered a noncommittal, ‘Yes,’ in case it was a wrong number.

‘Mr Blackstone?’ a man’s voice rumbled; a voice I thought I knew.

‘It is.’

‘This is John Wallinger.’ I’d been right. ‘Can you speak? Are you alone?’

‘Yes to both. What is it?’

‘Mr Blackstone, I want you to meet with me.’

I joined up a number of mental dots, to form an ugly picture. ‘Has this become a family enterprise all of a sudden?’ I asked him. ‘Or was it all along?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that. I repeat, I’d like you to meet with me. It’s of vital importance to me that you do, and I believe it will be to you also.’

‘Lieutenant, I’m in Las Vegas, and I’m here to work. I can’t just hop on a plane and go to Minneapolis.’

‘I’m not in Minneapolis. I’m in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’

‘John, I can trust you, can I? If I go there I will be coming back, yes?’

‘I promise you, Mr Blackstone, I wish you no harm; the opposite in fact.’

‘Okay, I’ll be there. But tell me, man, what the hell’s it about?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. It’s best that you see for yourself. And one other thing, sir: don’t tell anyone about this, anyone at all.’

‘However you want it. What’s another mystery to me? Where do I meet you, and when?’

‘Midday tomorrow, at a restaurant called the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I’ll be waiting in the bar.’

I must be crazy , I thought. By that stage in the enterprise, I probably was, so without a second thought I headed down to the lobby and to the concierge. ‘You do travel bookings?’ I asked.

‘We do, sir,’ said yet another of the stunning women who seemed to populate the place.

‘Can you get me a flight to Santa Fe? I have to be there, in the city, by midday tomorrow, returning later in the day.’

She shook her perfectly coiffured head. ‘By schedule, sir, that’s impossible. All the flights from McCarron go via Denver.’

‘Could I drive?’

‘Sir, it’s seven hundred miles. You’d need to leave now.’

‘What do I do, then?’

‘Private charter is your only option. I can probably find you a Lear jet for tomorrow. How many passengers will there be?’

‘Just me. Do it.’

I waited while she called someone. Whoever it was they were on first-name terms; she was Anita, and he was Troy. When the conversation was over. . it involved a lot of nodding, as if they could see each other. . she came back to me. ‘That’s a reservation, sir. Your pilot’s name is Troy Hawkins, and he asks that you be at the Hawkins Air reception desk at McCarron airport by eight thirty tomorrow. It’ll be a two-hour flight, departing at around nine. That will give you time to make your meeting in the city. I’ve taken the liberty of asking Troy to have a car and driver at your disposal at Santa Fe.’

‘No liberty at all, Anita, that’s fine.’

I paid for the charter there and then. Her smile grew even toothier when she saw the name on the credit card. Mine almost disappeared when I saw the cost, but I kept it fixed on, and signed on the dotted line.

I said nothing to Prim about my trip. John Wallinger had made me promise to tell no one, and I sensed that he hadn’t envisaged any exceptions. Besides, I feared that she wouldn’t like being left alone, and the idea of having two women pissed off at me at the same time didn’t attract me.

There had been no call from Susie, or from Wallinger, and when I checked AOL I found no new e-mails either.

Prim wasn’t keen on leaving the suite but I wasn’t keen on staying there either, so I persuaded her that we should see some of the sights. We waited until some of the heat had gone from the day, and then set out.

We stopped on the bridge that crosses the road from the Bellagio to watch the fountains, the hotel’s main public attraction. . apart from the slot machines, roulette and black-jack tables inside. They kicked off every half-hour or so, in a fantastic choreographed display, with Andreas Bocelli and Sarah Brightman singing their wee hearts out in the background.

When that was done, we headed across the bridge and past Bally’s until we came to Paris, an enormous casino complex with streets lined with shops and restaurants and its own Eiffel Tower rising up out of it all, not quite as tall as the real thing, but going on for five hundred feet high, with an observation platform on top and a restaurant on the eleventh level. When we’d done that, we moved on to Venice, which has its own Grand Canal, singing gondoliers, the works. The people who are building Las Vegas. . oh, yes, it’s still growing. . don’t think small: they want Americans to keep their money in America, so they’ve brought Europe to them.

We knew the real thing, though, so we crossed the Strip and explored New York, New York, which is a sort of Medium-sized Apple, with its version of the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t look for an inscription on its base, but if there is one I’ll bet it doesn’t say, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. . like the real one does. There’s a fair chance you’ll leave tired and poor, but the casino owners want you to arrive rich and wide awake.

We grabbed a couple of chimichangas in a Mexican restaurant in a reproduction of SoHo village, then lost a few bucks in the slot machines. . you feel you have to; maybe their constant tinkling din is addictive. . before walking back to the Bellagio just before eleven, soaking up the spectacle of the Strip, all lit up in its night clothing.

Before going up top, we looked in at the Fontana Bar; Liam was in there, with Erin, his wife, so we stopped to have a drink with them. If Erin was puzzled to see Prim with me, rather than Susie, she didn’t show it; but she was an air steward, so she’d probably seen all sorts of celebrity situations in her time. Liam, of course, knew Prim from Barcelona; there had been an incident there once, involving Jerry Gradi, and her nursing skills had come in very handy indeed.

There were no messages showing on the phones upstairs, and nothing new on e-mail when I checked. I had to be downstairs for the car at eight, so I turned in. I looked at Prim. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked her.

‘Okay. I know what I’m going to do: I just have to wait for Paul to contact us again, that’s all.’