The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [13]
“I don’t think it was English personally. It was one of his thugs.”
“They’re called investigators, Nada, and we use them, too.”
“Your Jerry’s a pussycat. The ones Judson uses are thugs.”
“Well, what makes you think one of English’s thugs was in your place?”
“Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know. David, maybe?”
Nada cackled loudly enough for Donald to hear upstairs. “You think David Amoyo broke into my apartment to sniff my panties? No way. Not his style. If he cared enough about me to do that, we’d still be together.”
“But why would English do it?”
“He wants me to leave Phillip Truman alone. Maybe he was hoping to find drugs or pot. Something he could blackmail me with. Too bad for him I’m not that interesting.”
Bea could think of a long list of more probable explanations. A stalker still following Nada from the days when she played in televised poker tournaments. Or a frustrated burglar who found nothing of worth in her spartan apartment. Or maybe it was one of those nuts on the Internet who was obsessed with her dead father. All of it creepy, but more plausible than what Nada was suggesting. “I don’t know. It sounds—”
“Paranoid?”
“You said it; I didn’t.”
Nada chuckled and scratched the corner of her eye. “Would it be okay if I crashed here tonight? The whole thing’s freaking me out a little.”
Every few weeks or so, Nada asked to stay over. Sometimes she’d become buzzed on the Beaujons’ expensive Rioja and didn’t want to drive. When she was living with David, he’d frequently do something to piss her off and she’d want to stay for a night just to make him wonder where she was. Donald was understanding about these sleepovers, and Bea’s daughter, Lori, was usually downright ecstatic.
Nada closed her eyes, nodded once, and relaxed her shoulders an inch or so, which Bea recognized as one of the many subtle ways she said thank you.
A good time to change the subject. “I got a call about you today,” Bea said.
“From who?”
“A lawyer in Chicago. Don’t know him, but he’s with a huge firm. He said he had a client who could use your ‘services.’”
“Oh yeah?” Nada lifted one shoulder seductively. “Which services would those be?” She drawled the phrase in a way that sounded intentionally dirty.
“That’s the way he put it. He promised the money would be good.”
“What’s the job?”
“Don’t know. Based on your reputation, I can guess.”
“Client’s desperate and he needs information.”
Bea sipped her wine. “Like I said, the firm’s respectable.”
Nada whispered something inaudible. Something about Chicago. Something “memories.” Something “mother.” “Corporate” something “espionage.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Nada looked through the doors toward the pool, which was illuminated with bright floodlights. “Do you want to make a bet? About whether you can find Kerry Meadows before Truman’s trial?” Nada pressed the right side of her head against her own shoulder, like she had a telephone handset pinned there.
Bea chuckled. “A proposition, you mean?” Bea had lived in Vegas long enough to know that gamblers like Nada bet on anything—that the next commercial on TV would be for beer and not razors, that one or the other could lose fifty pounds in a month—and they called these bets “propositions.” By habit, a gambler will assign every event a probability, and every probability a value. “I know better than to bet against you.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just close them.”
A skeptical glare.
“I’m helping, Boo, not hurting. Trust me.”
Bea shut her eyes. She heard Nada crumpling paper and felt something hit the ground lightly next to her foot.
“Open.”
Bea’s eyes found the yellow ball of Post-it on the carpet. “What’s this?”
“Anonymous tip. Just flew in the window.”
“Dammit, Nada.”
“Just read it.”
Bea unfolded the paper, which Nada had wrapped around a green casino chip to keep it from fluttering when she tossed it. “Twenty-five bucks from the Colossus Casino. Thanks.” She read the Post-it. “And a phone number.”
“Northern California.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I watched Truman key it into his BlackBerry.”
“God. From your seat at the bar?