Friday evening, Las Vegas
His head still buzzed as Michael Schiftmann snapped the plastic cable tie that had been looped through the latch on his hotel minibar and pulled out a tiny, airline-size bottle of Dewar’s. He unscrewed the cap, poured the contents over a tumbler filled with ice, and took the first sip.
That first sip always burned, but it was a good burn to Michael, for it signified the end of another long day. Five days into the second phase of his book tour and he was already starting to have trouble remembering where he was.
Let’s see, he thought. Monday, Manhattan; Tuesday, Boston and Minneapolis; Wednesday, Detroit; Thursday, Denver; Friday, Las Vegas.
And tomorrow, he left for two days in San Francisco, then on to what felt more like a whistle-stop tour down the coast to L.A. and San Diego. He raised the glass to his lips, downed the rest in one gulp, then grabbed a second bottle from the bar. He crossed the room, sat down on the bed, and picked up the hotel phone. He dialed 9, waited for a second dial tone, then punched in ten numbers from memory.
The phone rang four times-Michael knew the machine would pick up on the next ring-when a rushed feminine voice answered. “Hello.”
“Hey you,” Michael said, raising the glass to his lips and taking a small sip.
“Hey you right back,” Taylor said. “I was hoping you’d call. How are you?”
“Tired. I just finished the signing at Gambling on Murder,” he said.
“Great. How’d it go?”
Michael pressed his head deeper into the pillow and sipped again from the drink. “Fine, just fine. About seventy-five, I’d say.”
“Michael,” Taylor said, her voice rising. “That’s wonderful! Do you have any idea how big a crowd that is in Las Vegas?”
“I would’ve thought with this being one of the most famous mystery bookstores in the world, I’d have had bigger.”
“Stop it,” she scolded. “I’ve been in Gambling on Murder.
You can’t fit any more people than that in the whole store. In fact, my guess is you’re lucky the fire marshal didn’t show up.”
Michael smiled. “You always make me feel better.”
“I’m your agent; it’s part of my job. How’d the interviews go?”
“That lady on the public radio station did an okay job. She at least had read one of the books. But I did that noontime talk show, with that-oh hell, what’s his name? God, I met him seven hours ago and can’t remember his name.”
“That’s life on the road for you,” Taylor interjected.
“No kidding,” Michael said. “Stress-induced memory loss.
Anyway, he was an idiot. Typical daytime talk show blow-dried anchorperson. Hadn’t read the book, didn’t know who I was. At least he sort of stuck to the prepared questions.”
“That means he can read,” Taylor said. “In the TV business, he’s an overachiever.”
“So what’s new on your end?” he asked.
“I had dinner tonight with Brett,” Taylor answered.
“Oh, so no hot date?” Michael offered.
Taylor hesitated. “No, no hot date. But she did tell me you’re climbing to number three on the list Sunday.”
“Great!” Michael said.
“And on top of that, The Fourth Letter made it onto the paperback list. You’ll debut at eleven.”
“Oh man, I love it!”
“And the contracts have been processed and I expect a check within the next couple of weeks.”
Michael stretched on the bed and finished off the Scotch.
“If your job is to make me feel better, you’re sure doing it well.”
“All part of the package,” she teased.
“I wish you were here,” he said. “I’m stretched out all alone on this king-size bed with no one to massage the tension out of my tired muscles.”
“So get a rubdown,” Taylor said.
“That’s not the muscle I meant,” he teased, then lowered his voice. “I miss you.”
Her voice lowered as well. “Well, hmm.”
There was a long silence filled only by a faint whisper of static on the line.
“You still there?” Michael asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Something bothering you?”
Another long pause. “I’m just not quite sure what’s going on, that’s all,” Taylor answered. “I mean, I’ve never done this before.”
“Done what before?” Michael asked. “You mean you were a-”
“No, silly,” she snapped, laughing the tension out of her voice. “I’ve done that before! I’ve just never done it with a client.”
Michael rolled over on his side with the phone resting on his right ear. “Okay, so it’s a little weird, mixing business with a personal life. But there’s something going on here, Taylor. Something powerful. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’d sure like to find out.”
“I just don’t want to … don’t want to make another mistake, that’s all.”
“Look,” Michael said, “this stupid tour is almost over. At least I can see the end. Then I’m going back to New York City and find a place, get moved, and get back to work.
That’s a tall order. I think I’m going to need a rest before I take that on.”
“So-”
“What say we get on a plane and go lie on a beach for a week or so? Just the two of us? Maybe someplace in the Caribbean.”
Taylor cleared her throat and was silent again for a few moments. “I don’t know, Michael, I-”
“C’mon,” he said. “It’s wintertime. You need to get away.
We need to get away. Please?”
“Let me think about it,” she said.
“Fair enough. At least it’s not a no. So what are you up to for the rest of the evening?”
She laughed. “It’s nearly eleven here,” she said. “And I’m pooped. I might finish reading the paper and go to bed.
Don’t know if I’ve got that much left in me.”
“Me, too,” Michael said, raising up on the bed and plant-ing his feet on the floor. “I think it’s a phone call to room service and then some free HBO. I’ll call you tomorrow from San Francisco. Okay?”
“What time’s your plane leave?”
“Not until eleven, which is a real treat. Writers aren’t used to being up in time to make seven A.M. flights.”
“You and Carol will get a break tomorrow,” Taylor said.
“By the way, how is she?”
Michael felt the muscles in his jaw knot up and fought to keep the tension out of his voice. “She’s Carol,” he said.
“You know.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Sleep well,” Michael said.
“You, too. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Taylor said. “And Michael-”
“Yeah?” he asked after a moment.
“I miss you, too.”
Michael grinned and rattled the ice around in his glass.
“Go to bed,” he said. “Think of me.”
“Can’t help it. Good night.”
Michael hung the phone up and stood, stretching his arms high over his head and arching his back. He walked over to the large window that nearly covered the wall opposite him.
He pulled the drapes aside, revealing the buzzing, chaotic, hyper light show that was Las Vegas on any night of the year. In the distance, he spotted the beam of light coming out of the apex of the Luxor, a light so bright it was visible from the space shuttle when the sky was clear. Off in another direction, the strip ran twenty-five floors below him, lined with cars bumper-to-bumper.
Michael felt restless. He was in Las Vegas, one of the most exciting cities in the world, on a Friday night in a luxury hotel room someone else was paying for, with a very generous expense budget included. And he was alone.
He reached down and picked up a spiral-bound notebook that described and promoted the various features of the hotel. The room service menu was extensive and available any time, day or night. Just pick up the phone … Maybe there was a movie on he hadn’t seen.
Then again, maybe there wasn’t.
Michael walked into the bathroom, ran water over his face and rubbed his tired eyes, then brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He pulled a navy-blue double-breasted jacket out of the closet and slipped it on, then walked to the door of his hotel room and opened it. He stopped in the doorway, took one last look at the rumpled bed, and pulled the door behind him.
In the two years Carol Gee had been the senior publicist at Accent Press, she thought she’d seen just about every form of schizoid author imaginable. She’d once accompanied a best-selling author on a twelve-city tour in which the famous literary author managed to get himself arrested four times-twice in the same city. A mega-best-selling female author had once called her in the middle of the night from her four-room suite and demanded that Carol clean up the mess where her cat threw up. And she’d been hit on by famous authors so many times, she no longer bothered to record that in her mental diary.
Twenty-eight years old, Yale graduate, second-generation Korean-American, and with an IQ that placed her in the top point-five percent of the world’s population, Carol Gee was finally beginning to wonder what the hell she was doing with her life. All her career aspirations, her ambitions, her desire to achieve and succeed had been thrown into jeopardy by the behavior of one man: Michael Schiftmann.
Carol had never seen anyone like him. Charming and affable, even warm, one minute, he could in an instant become an over-controlled, seething cauldron of cold fury. In Detroit two days earlier, at an old Waldenbooks in a decaying strip mall, the two of them had arrived for Michael’s book signing only to discover that no advertising had been done, no announcement made, and the only notice of the signing was a handwritten sheet taped to the cash register with the wrong date listed. To add even further insult, the five cases of books Carol had overnighted to the store hadn’t even been opened. It took the assistant manager and the sixteen-year-old girl working the night shift five minutes to even find them.
This was not the first time Carol Gee had seen a book signing botched, although it was relatively rare to see one bungled this badly for a New York Times best seller. Carol was prepared to deal with it, go on to the next city, and make a note to never schedule a signing at the store again. The usual procedure was to stick around for an hour, chat up the bookstore salespeople, then sign every copy in the store so they could be sold as autographed copies, a practice known in the business as “signing stock.”
Carol had grimaced as they walked into the nearly empty bookstore only to have the teenage girl behind the cash register stare blankly and ask if she could help them find anything. Carol started to say something when Michael shot her a look, the coldest, blackest look she’d ever seen in another human being, then turned to the salesgirl.
“Let me see your boss,” he said quietly. The young girl gulped, excused herself, and disappeared into the stockroom. The assistant manager came out seconds later, a concerned look already on her face as the enormity of her problem gradually soaked in.
Michael’s voice was low and steady as he explained to the poor woman who he was and why he was there, and just how much money and time and energy had been spent in arranging this signing. The woman stammered a barely intelligible reply, then scrambled back into the stockroom and was gone for several minutes.
“Maybe we should just go,” Carol suggested.
Michael turned to her. “Not yet.”
Moments later, the assistant manager, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead and a hank of unkempt hair down in her face, returned with a stack of hardcovers, obviously hoping to placate them by offering Michael the chance to sign stock. Michael looked at her, turned to Carol and said, “Wait here.” Then he took the assistant manager by the elbow and led her back to her office.
“What’s he going to do?” the ashen-faced girl behind the cash register asked.
“I don’t know,” Carol said quietly.
A minute or so later, Michael emerged from the office, strode quickly across the store, and met Carol at the front.
“We can go now.”
“But-” she said. Then she felt his fingers clamp down on her elbow and gently, but firmly, aim her toward the door.
The two walked out into the sparse mall crowd. As they exited the store, Carol glanced over her shoulder and saw the assistant manager emerge from her office, tears streaming down her face.
“What did you say to her?” Carol demanded. It occurred to her that she’d never talked to one of her authors like that before.
Michael continued walking quickly, staring straight ahead, with his hand still on Carol’s elbow pulling her along.
“Let’s just say that won’t ever happen again,” he said. Carol said nothing else until they got back to their hotel.
That had been two nights earlier, and ever since, Carol had wrestled with her feelings from that night. She’d been repulsed by an author’s behavior before. She’d been angry at them, frustrated by them, grossed out by them, resentful of them, and each time had managed to suppress all those reactions and emotions and do her work in the most professional manner possible. But this time …
This time was different. This time she was frightened by her author, and Carol Gee had never been frightened by an author before.
Denver had gone well, along with the side trip to Boulder, and the day had gone very well in Las Vegas. Still, Carol had kept her distance from Michael. For the first time, she was beginning to think she wasn’t cut out for this line of work.
Fatigued and stressed, she had gone straight up to her room after the evening’s signing. She was awaiting a FedEx package with the next group of airline tickets, the block of tickets for the last phase of the tour. Several of the signings in Southern California were so close together they would rent a car, and the contract for that was coming as well.
Carol looked down at her watch: nine-thirty. The package was supposed to have been delivered by eight. She’d been unable to get through to the toll-free number to check on the package, and the front desk had been unable to find it if it had been delivered. She was tired, but too restless to eat.
Just as she sat down on the side of the bed and reached for the remote control, the phone rang.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Front desk, Ms. Gee,” a friendly male voice said. “We found your package. The concierge got busy and forget to let us know it was here. I’m terribly sorry.”
Carol felt the muscles just below her rib cage relax. At least she could let go of that worry now. “Good, thanks. I’ll be right down.”
“I can have it sent up,” the clerk offered.
“No, I’d rather come right now. I need the walk anyway.”
Carol hung up the phone and left her room. On the elevator, she stared ahead at her own image in the polished brass.
Her hair needed trimming, she thought, and in the slight distortion of her reflection on the brass, she saw that she looked even more tired than she felt.
She exited the elevator and wound her way around a group of large men wearing fezzes, smoking cigars, and laughing.
She heard laughter and bells ringing and shouts from the casino. She wondered how people stood it.
The front desk was dark mahogany, polished to a bright luster, with a mirrored tile wall behind it. She walked over to the corner, smiled at the desk clerk, and motioned with her hand. He picked up the package and brought it over to her.
“Ms. Gee, I take it,” he said.
“Yes, thanks. We’ve been waiting on that.”
“Great,” he said brightly. “I’m glad we were able to locate it. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No,” Carol said, taking the package.
“Have a pleasant stay.”
Carol turned and headed back across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two people walking toward the main entrance to the casino from deep inside.
It was Michael Schiftmann, and on his arm was a curva-ceous blond nearly as tall as he. She wore a sequined, body-hugging dress, makeup so thick it could have been slathered on with a butter knife, and high heels of the type usually characterized as “do-me pumps.”
My God, Carol thought. Not again …
The two were walking straight toward her. Carol turned quickly and stepped behind a tree that was perhaps fifteen feet tall and in a pot as big around as a tractor tire. She turned her head away from the center of the lobby and peeked out from between the thick branches. Michael and the blond walked arm-in-arm through the lobby, weaving in and out of the throng of people, oblivious to the crowd around them.
As they passed by not ten feet away from Carol, she stepped out from behind the potted trees and watched as the two headed toward the main entrance of the hotel. A bellman held the door open as they stepped outside into the arid Las Vegas night.
Carol’s eyes tracked them through a bank of windows that ran along the front of the hotel. She strained to see past the blazing reflections of dancing, chaotic, multicolored lights in the massive plate-glass windows.
But she could see well enough to follow Michael and the blond as a taxi pulled up next to them and they climbed into the backseat together.
Carol Gee watched as the cab pulled away, then shook her head slowly and turned back toward the elevator bank.
How does he do it? she wondered. Night after night …
This will all be over soon, she reminded herself, as she went for the safety of her own double-locked hotel room.