21st Birthday by Patterson, James (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📕

pulled around to the entrance and stopped. The valet opened the rear door for Burke plus one. They got in, and their tangerine ride looped around and merged into the Strip.

I pushed ahead of the waiting crowd and flashed my badge. “Police business. Excuse us. Police.”

Another cab pulled up and I also badged the driver.

I hated to use the timeworn phrase, but after Alvarez and I were seated and belted in the back seat, I said it:

“Follow that cab. And step on it.”

CHAPTER 93

THE STRIP WAS fully jammed with vehicular traffic even on a Monday at 9:30 p.m., and Evan Burke’s tangerine-colored cab was locked in place three cars ahead of us.

Hotels came and went on both sides of the road, their hyper-bright icons leaving lingering images behind my eyes. The median planting between the north and southbound lanes of the Strip was a mesmerizing stretch of tall sabal palm trees. I processed it all peripherally, but kept my eyes glued to the orange cab.

A logjam in the intersection up ahead broke apart and cars sped up, then bumped to stops at the next light.

“Where’s Burke going?” I asked myself, but Alvarez answered as our cab turned left onto Fremont.

She said, “Looks like he’s heading for the Golden Eagle Hotel. Used to be a big-time movie-star hangout, but now it’s mainly down-and-outers who stay there. It’s due for a renovation it will never get.”

I saw the massive rectangular brick building three blocks away. It took up a whole block and was topped with a big gold eagle sculpture with its smaller twin perched over the marquis. Looked more like a wartime munitions factory than any of the other hotels on the Strip.

I said, “Sonia. You know this place?”

“Sure do. I know the layout, personnel, where to find the ladies’ rooms. Spent a good part of the last ten years undercover here.”

Up ahead, the traffic light turned red. The glowing orange taxi zoomed through. Horns honked, but there was no sound of crunching metal. Cars between us and Burke’s cab were at a standstill.

I spoke to the driver through the partition, “The orange cab? Did you see him drop off passengers at the Eagle?”

The driver said, “Looks like he stopped at the curb and, yeah. There he goes taking a turn at the next street over.”

I would have asked him to run the light, but it was impossible. We were hemmed in by traffic on four sides.

The driver turned to face me. “Want to get out here?”

I calculated time and distance, found a twenty plus tip in my handbag, stuffed it into the Lucite cash drawer.

“Let’s go,” I said to Alvarez.

She was already half out of the cab.

I followed her, wiggled around the lane of cars, reaching the sidewalk, and hit my stride with the Golden Eagle still a long block away.

Every second counted. If we lost Burke, we might not see him again.

Liveried bouncers opened the front doors for us. Sonia had Burke’s forty-year old army enlistment photo now updated with facial-aging software. She showed it to the bouncer, whose name tag read “Reynolds” and asked him, “Jamie. Is he here?”

“He had a girl with him.” Jamie Reynolds made a twirling motion with a finger near his head, indicating “curls” or “crazy.”

“Bet they’ll be in the casino.”

We entered the air-cooled darkness and into a lobby straight out of the 1940s. There was an eagle motif in the mile of carpet and gold striped wallpaper throughout. The casino was to the right, the front desk just ahead. I swept both spaces with my own eagle eyes but did not see the young woman with golden ringlets. And I didn’t see Evan Burke.

I said, “I’ll check out the casino.”

Alvarez approached the front desk, where an elderly woman was counting out cash, filing the large bills under the drawer.

I kept my eyes hidden with my fake hair and my phone as I traversed the rows of slots, looking for the man in gray, the girl with the curls.

I heard my name and turned.

Alvarez said, “He checked in under the name ‘William Marsh,’ identifying his companion as his wife.”

“Room number?”

“I’ll go you one better, Boxer. I’ve got the key.”

CHAPTER 94

THE “KEY” WAS Christopher Johns, one of the desk managers at the Golden Eagle.

Johns was in his thirties and had worked with Alvarez as an unofficial CI for the fun of it, and a little cash.

“Detective, don’t get me fired over this.”

“For doing what?” she said.

“He’s in room B16.”

She tucked a bill into his hand.

As we peeled off, Alvarez said, “B16 is basement level. Probably costing Burke about twenty-nine dollars a night.”

As we headed down a long alley of slots, Alvarez dug her phone out of her bag and made a call.

“Chief Belinky,” she said. “Sergeant Boxer and I need two squad cars at the Golden Eagle. Code 2. God willing, we’ll need transportation to the station house for our person of interest. Yes, that’s the one. Thanks, chief.”

Picturing Berney still at the Bellagio’s baccarat table, I pulled up his contact on my phone and used a maps app to share our location. I hung up and said to Alvarez, “Let’s go wreck Burke’s party.”

We continued down the slot machine alley, alive with flash and din, whoops and curses, bells ringing and coins clattering into the trays. There was more whoop-de-doo on the margins: to our right, a darkly lit bar; left, a brightly lit, deep-fried all-night buffet; and down a little farther, a party room spilling over with wedding guests, dozens of youngsters dancing to something like music that I’d never heard before.

The open service elevator at the very end of the lobby was the size of a boxcar. Adrenaline gave me a small jolt to the heart as I pressed “B” and the car took us down one floor to the basement. What were we walking into?