Donn Cortez - The Killing Jar

He was telling the truth. And she knew what that meant.

CLIVE CRABTREE STOOD on the sidewalk, watching the artificial volcano in front of the Mirage erupt. He thought he knew how it felt.

Clive had never been to Vegas before. Gambling had never been his thing, or his wife’s, and seeing big glitzy shows with topless showgirls didn’t really appeal to him, either. But the shift in the 1990s toward a more family-friendly Vegas had changed his attitude; roller coasters and theme restaurants and acts like the Blue Man Group seemed more his speed. Plus, both Clive and his wife had been known to enjoy the occasional buffet, and there had never been any shortage of those in the city.

Fireballs shot into t h e air to the rumble of explosions-recordings of actual volcanic eruptions, Clive had heard. He could feel the heat of the flames on his face, though he doubted real volcanoes came with a drum soundtrack and smelled like a piña colada.

Their first mistake had been to book rooms in a resort they’d never heard of. The ad had claimed it was on the Strip, but that was only technically true; it was at the very end of Las Vegas Boulevard, about as far as you could get from the Strip and still be on the same street. The promised five-star accommodation had turned out to be more like one, and Clive suspected it was a star in danger of burning out. Construction next door had woken them up at six in the morning, and they’d been forced to park across the street because the resort’s parking lot was full of heavy equipment and building supplies.

Smoke and fire belched into the air. Flames da nced on red-tinted water intended to simulate lava. Clive wondered if the pirates next door at Treasure Island ever got a headache from all the noise. Probably not; a propensity toward migraines didn’t tend to steer you down the buccaneer career path.

The biggest mistake Clive and Sheila had made was agreeing to the free breakfast. It turned out to be a meager offering of cheap Danishes and second-rate coffee, accompanied by a two-hour, mind-numbing presentation on time-share condos-located at this very resort, what a bargain, you just can’t beat these prices. The only reason they hadn’t walked out after the first ten minutes was the promise of half-price tickets to a show they’d really wanted to see.

But that hadn’t been the worst of it. After the crappy breakfast and a tour of a show suite in far better condition than the one they were actually staying in came Brent.

Brent was deeply tanned, with large white teeth and blow-dried blond hair. Clive was pretty sure Brent was also a robot, because his single-minded dedication to selling them a time-share verged on the mechanical. No matter how many times they said they weren’t interested, Brent would keep going. He showed them cost breakdowns that to Clive’s eyes-he was a CPA-were laughable, even insulting. Even when Clive pointed out that for the amount of money they were expected to invest they could stay in an actual five-star hotel for a week every year, Brent would not be dissuaded. In fact, he became even more aggressive, his demeanor suggesting that only a complete bona fide idiot wouldn’t grab the deal he was offering.

Clive was not a man easy to anger. It had taken an hour of being badgered, lied to, and treated as no more than a wallet with legs before he’d finally lost his temper. He hadn’t actually punched Brent in the face, but he’d come close. He’d stormed out of the presentation, leaving Sheila to try to claim the promised tickets-which he knew would just turn out to be another con-and marched off down the street in the closest thing to a blind rage he’d experienced since high school.

That had been over an hour ago. He’d walked off most of his anger, gotten to the point where he thought he could talk to another human being without shouting at them. Watching the volcano helped-for all its implied violence, it was strangely soothing. Look at what human beings can do , it seemed to be saying; we can tame even the most destructive forces of nature .

It was an illusion, of course. Just like the whole city. Sexy showgirls you could never sleep with, huge piles of money you could never win. The more Clive thought about it the more he felt that his encounter with Brent, with his empty eyes and his vacant good looks, was like a personification of Vegas itself. Clive had never met s omeone he’d felt less of a human connection to in his life; he was pretty sure that if he pumped Brent’s arm up and down a few times, the salesman’s eyes would spin around and then show a lemon and a horseshoe.

Clive sighed and resumed his walk. He shouldn’t let one bad encounter with a soulless huckster ruin their trip. All he’d lost, after all, had been a few hours of his time-that was a lot better than some visitors to the city could claim. He could have been a real Vegas success story: arrive in a ten-thousand-dollar car and leave in a hundred-thousand-dollar bus.

He found himself turning off the Strip and onto the quieter streets that paralleled it. The glitter and flash of the big hotels were still visible, but they were less overpowering. The farther away they got the better he felt, so he just kept going.

Clive wasn’t stupid. He knew the shadows that lay alongside the expensive glare of a place like the Strip held their own, much less civilized dangers-but his own less civilized self, the ape that lived at the back of every human’s brain, was telling him that no one would dare mess with him right now. And even if they did, they’d be sorry. Hell, just let them try.

There was a man sprawled out on the sidewalk ahead.

At first, he thought the man was just drunk. A tourist like himself who’d had a few too many Bloody Marys with his eggs-Vegas was the only town Clive had ever been in that had a drinks section in the breakfast menu-and wandered off for some desert air to clear his head, who needed to just lie down for a moment…

Then he got closer and saw the blood.

Grissom stared down at the dead man as David examined the body. Some break, he thought. Grissom was supposed to be at a conference, exchanging ideas with fellow professionals, and had found himself dragged back by the Harribold case. Now he was answering another call, simply because they were so short-handed. Maybe I was fooling myself by thinking I could get away at all. Maybe that’s how it’s always going to be.

Maybe Sara was right.

David pulled the wallet from the dead man’s back pocket and handed it to Grissom. “Tourist taking a walk found him. Can’t have been dead more than an hour-almost no rigor, no postmortem lividity.”

Grissom opened the wallet. “Paul Fairwick. Thirty-eight, has an address in Henderson. I’ve got an all-access pass to the Athena Jordanson show, too.”

“Oh, she’s great,” said David. “I took my wife to see her Motown revue for her birthday. Amazing voice.”

Grissom bagged the wallet, then knelt down beside the corpse. “Well, COD seems pretty obvious.” There was a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. “Powder burns and a muzzle sta mp-he was shot at close range.”

David held up one of the man’s arms. “Ligature marks on the wrists, too.”

“But very little blood. He wasn’t killed here, just dumped.”

“Strange place to dump a body. It’s awfully close to the Strip.”

“Not if you’re trying to send a message…”

Aaron Tyford did his best to fill the interview room with the hate radiating from his eyes. He was a tall, wiry man with a scar that ran along his jawline and a nose that had been broken more than once. His body language told her there was nothing he’d enjoy more than throwing her through the nearest window.