Vegas Vengeance Page 5

  “I told myself I was just being a tough businesswoman. I had a product that men were willing to pay dearly for. So I exploited it. In those three years, I grossed $463,500. I didn’t make the common mistake of not declaring my earnings to the IRS. I reported every cent, paid the taxes, saved every remaining dollar. I told myself I could quit when I had a quarter of a million. After three years as a whore, after paying taxes and living expenses and making some wise investments, I had saved $305,000. It was all the money I needed to start my own business. I had seen the ruin of too many fellow prostitutes, and, like I said, I’d spent some time in the hospital myself. So I decided to start my own house. A classy place that was safe and carefully monitored. A whorehouse run like a first-rate business firm. The girls in my house have a damn good retirement plan. I strongly encourage them to take a sizable portion of their earnings and pool it in money market accounts or CDs or bonds. If they want to continue their education, the house pays seventy-five percent of the tab. Drugs kill more prostitutes than sickos, so the first thing I did was set up a drug rehab program. Every one of my girls is clean. So you see, Hawk, I was a whore before I became a rich businesswoman.” Her tight smile was like a challenge. “Are you shocked?”

  Hawker shook his head. “Like you said, there are many forms of prostitution. I imagine most junior executives in major firms compromise themselves more often than an average prostitute. Why should I be shocked?”

  The woman looked at him carefully. “For just a moment there, I thought I was hearing Jason again.”

  “Which is exactly what I need you to talk about.”

  Barbara Blaine finished her drink, laughing. “God, I got carried away, didn’t I?” She found the martini pitcher and poured herself another drink. “But it all has to do with the way I met Jason and why I was attracted to him.”

  “He wasn’t a … he didn’t come to your house—”

  “Jason visit a whorehouse? You would have had to know him to know just how funny that question is. Jason is … was a pure spirit. An intellectual who loved the clarity of science. The absent-minded-professor type. He was very bright and very naive, and I grew to love him dearly. The way I met him, the Doll House was just nearing completion. It’s about a mile from here and, like the casinos, there’s nothing else around it. Just the neatly landscaped lawn out front, and sagebrush behind. I was in the house one afternoon, and I saw this stranger lurking around out back. On my property! With all the pomp and severity of a new landowner, I charged right out and asked him just what in the hell he was doing on my property. He had this shoddy canvas knapsack he always carried, and he had one of those funny-shaped hammers that rock collectors carry. I bawled him out good, lecturing him about trespassing and snooping and God knows what else. Like all whores, I guess, I had come to hate men, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to put this man in his place. But he just stood there, smiling kind of shyly, and when I was done, he held out this pasty-colored rock. He asked me to look at it. I came very close to slapping it out of his hand and calling the police. But instead I took it and looked. I spent the next two years secretly thanking myself for looking at that rock.

  “On the outside, it was just a plain old rock. But inside was the perfect outline of an animal. Some kind of fish. Very delicate and very pretty. Jason began talking about that fossil. He told me that thousands of years ago, the land the Five-Cs complex was built on had been a riverbed. He said it was a big raging river that flowed to the sea. By that time, I had him marked as some kind of kook. Tall and blond, with glasses. Kind of gangly and boyish-looking, but harmless. I no longer had any interest in men in a physical sense. Even so, he was kind of attractive in a funny way. He made me feel like he needed protecting or something. So I listened to him talk about the fossil, and before I knew it, what he was saying was actually interesting. I had gone right from high school to being a Las Vegas showgirl, and then to being a Vegas whore, so I was academically ignorant. He made all that stale stuff come alive. I could actually see this river flowing where my business now was. He talked about the geological formation of the mountains, and about the dinosaurs and jungles that once covered Nevada. The things he talked about made me realize for the first time how … insignificant my own problems and accomplishments were. It did something to me. I can’t explain it. I guess it was because it made all the guilt I felt at being a whore seem ridiculously unimportant and small. Then all of a sudden I started to cry. I don’t know why. I couldn’t stop crying. Jason bundled me into his car and drove me up into the mountains to his cabin. He made tea for me and then listened to me talk. I must have talked nonstop for three hours. I told him everything.”

  Barbara Blaine looked up at Hawker uncomfortably. “I know it must sound odd, my going off and talking to a complete stranger. But I had no male friends. A whore can’t afford male friends, you see. And Jason had this knack for making strangers feel completely and totally at ease. He listened like what you said was the most important thing in the world. Jason had a very real magic about him. Everyone who ever met him felt it. Whenever someone was in trouble or had a problem, they came to Jason to sort it out.”

  “And you became lovers?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Not at first. I had been a whore, remember? I had already had intercourse with three hundred and seventeen different men by actual count. All kinds of men—fat, thin, white, black, big, little and in between. And I despised every one of them. To me, sex was work, a bit of theater to be performed nude. I took no pleasure in it. Maybe that’s why I felt so comfortable with Jason. He never once made a pass at me. Never once said anything suggestive. When I saw him, it was usually to go on collecting trips. He called me his pack mule, because I carried whatever he happened to be collecting at the time. We talked a lot. We talked about everything. He opened my eyes to a lot of things: science, history, religion. I stayed up there in his cabin with him sometimes. I slept in the bed, and he slept outside on the porch because he said he loved sleeping outside. It was all very open and innocent, and very damn good for me. I hate to think what I would have turned into if it hadn’t been for Jason Stratton.”

  The woman shivered slightly, thinking about it. Then she began to talk once again, with the same faraway look in her eyes, remembering. “When we finally did become lovers, I had to initiate it. I was staying at the cabin. It was very late, and it began to rain. Really pour. Jason was sleeping outside, as usual. I got up to check on him. He was soaking wet. And shivering. It gets very damn cold up there. I helped him get out of his wet clothes, and I began to rub him dry with a blanket. I was wearing one of his T-shirts for a nightgown. While I dried him, I began to feel something. It was that funny feeling, low in the abdomen. It had been so long since I had felt it that it took me a moment to realize I was becoming sexually aroused. Jason, very obviously, was feeling the same way. We became lovers that night, Hawk, and I can honestly say that it was the first time in my life that I enjoyed it. It was wonderful because I loved him, you see. I really did. I couldn’t get enough of Jason Stratton, and he felt the same way about me. We spent the next two days alone on that mountain, and I consider it one of the most wonderful times in my life. I knew then that I would be with that man always and forever, no matter what happened.”

  Hawker watched with admiration as Barbara Blaine fought the tears and won. She shifted her weight and continued. “He wanted to get married because he wanted kids. I did too, but not as the proprietor of a whorehouse. We decided that I would work for two years, sell the place, and then we would be financially set for the rest of our lives. Money meant nothing to him, but it was still important to me. And you have no idea how sorry I am now that we didn’t just go ahead and become husband and wife.”

  “Did Jason know there were people trying to force you into selling the Doll House?”

  She shook her head. “No. I kept my business dealings completely out of our relationship. He still came to the Doll House because of all the fossils left by the old river.
The girls liked him and highly approved of our relationship. But we never discussed the business. He knew how uncomfortable it made me feel.”

  “Did the mob give you any indication they would take measures so drastic?”

  She thought for a moment. “I guess they did. But I guess I just didn’t believe their threats. It all started when two men came to the Doll House and asked to see me. They were dressed like they wanted to look important and respectable, but it made them look all the sleazier. They said they represented people who wanted to buy the Doll House. Because I wanted to marry Jason, I listened to the proposal. But their numbers were all wrong. They didn’t want to buy the place, they wanted to steal it. I told them I wasn’t interested. But they just sat there sort of smirking at me. They said I didn’t understand. They said they weren’t asking me if I wanted to sell. They were telling me I had to sell. I told them to get the hell out or I would call the police. They left, but those smirks never left their faces. After thinking about it, I decided to call the police anyway. I gave the police their names. The police checked into it.”

  Hawker guessed what had happened. “The police couldn’t do anything because the men had given you fake names and, besides, there were no witnesses to the threats.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “When was that exactly?”

  “Ah … about two months ago. Mid-June.”

  “The same time they tried to buy the Five-Cs complex.”

  “Yeah. And they pulled the same deal. Made Captain Smith and his associates a low offer. A very low offer. Two days after they refused, the threats started.”

  “What kind of threats?”

  “Telephone threats. When they called here, they didn’t even ask for me. They’d say stuff like, ‘If your boss doesn’t sell, a lot of you girls are going to see the inside of a hospital.’ The worst thing was the way they disguised their voices. They used weird accents. It scared the hell out of my girls. And it scared me, too.”

  “But they never actually did anything?”

  “We’ve had some broken windows. And three weeks ago, someone tried to torch the place. But I’ve got a damn good security system, and the sensors picked up the smoke in plenty of time. And you know about how Charlie Kullenburg was beaten up. Three men in stocking masks. They robbed him, but Captain Smith thinks it was so the police would treat it like a regular holdup. That was three weeks ago—just before Jason disappeared. After that, my girls have been afraid to leave the house. I don’t blame them. And we’ve been keeping an especially close eye on our clients.”

  Hawker was surprised. “You can do that?”

  Barbara Blaine nodded and stood. “So far, James, all you’ve seen is my soft side. Maybe it’s because you’re easy to talk to. But I’ve got another side, too.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Walk me back to the Doll House and I’ll show you. We can have dinner there, and I can tell you more about Jason.” She gave him a look of quick appraisal. “Then, if you like, I can fix you up with one of the girls.”

  “Dinner will be enough.”

  Barbara Blaine smiled. “Don’t decide too quickly. You haven’t seen my girls yet.”

  eight

  The Doll House was a three-story white clapboard reproduction of an eighteenth-century mansion.

  It had the look of a small estate that had been modernized and turned into a business. Green shutters on the windows, a porch with pillars, lighted fountain in the front yard surrounded by formal plantings. The small parking lot and the walk to the front door were shielded by a high copse.

  And Barbara Blaine’s girls truly were spectacular.

  It was a Wednesday night, a slow night, according to Barbara. In Vegas, the junket masters usually arranged for gamblers to arrive on a Thursday or Friday. They flew them out on a Monday or Tuesday.

  In Vegas, Wednesday was the equivalent of Sunday in most other towns.

  Barbara took him in through the front door. The foyer was manned by a balding bouncer with football-size biceps. Barbara patted him on the shoulder, and the bouncer lowered his eyes and smiled like a grateful pup.

  The interior was a masterpiece of decoration, lighting and efficiency. Chandeliers draped from high ceilings. Plush carpet and velvet divans. Tasteful nudes done in oils or sculpted marble. Two sitting rooms. The first was less formal. A full bar. An antique jukebox loaded only with classics from the Big Band era and a few light opera pieces. Tables for eating and drinking. A tile floor for dancing.

  The other sitting room was kept in a softer light. This would be where the men would make their selections. Velvet chairs positioned near windows, like a photographer’s still-life. Ornate floor lamps with golden bulbs. A Gone With the Wind stairway that led upstairs to the private rooms. An intercepting desk with a leather receipt book and a credit card roller.

  American Express. Don’t leave home without it.

  But on this night, a slow night, Barbara Blaine’s girls were enjoying themselves in the least formal of the two rooms. They carried drinks in tall glasses, and the jukebox vibrated with “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

  There were thirteen of them. Striking blondes, leggy brunettes, busty girls of glistening ebony.

  They wore pants suits or short shorts and halters, and they laughed uproariously.

  Hawker had seen plenty of whores in his time—and too often, they were facedown in some back alley, beaten to death. Or eternally asleep in their own bathtubs, wrists slit.

  The whores he had seen were creatures of the night; the streetwalkers with tawdry tight dresses, cheap flaxen wigs, gaudy makeup and bright lipstick.

  But the girls of the Doll House looked like no prostitutes he had ever seen before. They looked like they had been shipped to Vegas from some Midwestern beauty show. They were ripe and lovely, and their hair and skin glistened with health.

  Barbara Blaine called for attention and introduced Hawker. She introduced him as an “old friend,” which, Hawker noted, seemed to tell the girls he was not a potential customer. They filed past one by one to shake his hand. Their smiles were warm, the hand contact tempting. More than one of the girls gave him a burning look and a meaningful extra squeeze of the palm.

  Barbara Blaine raised her eyebrows, asking Hawker for his reaction.

  “I’m speechless,” he said with a laugh.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “It boggles the mind. I had no idea.”

  “But they’re more than just beautiful, James. They’re smart. These girls have the looks to be film stars or big-league dancers, but they don’t have the talent. It’s not their fault. They just didn’t happen to be blessed with the abilities they need. But unlike too many tragic women, these girls have the brains to admit to themselves that they would never get past the casting couch in Vegas or Hollywood. So they’ve come here. And believe me, I only select the best. I check their records clear back to grade school. We don’t want any neurotics or drug addicts here. I want clean, healthy girls who have the emotional stability to deal with the trauma of being a high-class whore. And it is traumatic, James. I can testify to that.

  “We sign a two-year contract. They can leave anytime they wish before the two years are up. But, at the end of the two years, they must leave for their own well-being. Each girl makes a minimum of a hundred thousand a year, plus tips, so it comes out to more like a hundred and twenty thousand. Their room and board, hospitalization, social security and life insurance are covered by the house, so they don’t have many outside expenses. I don’t exactly force them to put the money into blue chip stock portfolios and CDs or bonds, but I make it clear that if they don’t, they won’t be working here long. So at the end of their two years, they leave with my very best wishes and about a quarter-million in cash. By that time, I’ve also made sure they have a few business courses under their belts.”

  Hawker gave a low whistle. “Now I can see why they’re laughing.”

  The woman smiled, pleased that H
awker was impressed. “Follow me. I want to show off the rest of the place.”

  “There’s more?”

  “You’ve seen the icing. Now I want to show you the cake.”

  Hawker followed her through a side hall that went through a small but modern kitchen that was all tile and stainless steel. The chef was a tiny man in white with a huge gray handlebar mustache. Barbara gave him their dinner order and then led Hawker to the back of the house.

  Here the decorations were so different that they might have entered a separate building.

  These were her living quarters, she explained, a house within a house. It was a one-bedroom suite with a den, a massive sunken living room and a wall of glass that looked out onto a tropical garden and swimming pool.

  Hawker hummed and nodded his approval dutifully. “Not exactly a hand-built cabin on a mountain, is it?”

  “Between the two, I preferred the cabin.”

  “That brings us back to Jason, Barbara. In the weeks before he disappeared, did he say or do anything unusual, anything out of character that suggested he might have found out about your problems?”

  She thought for a long moment. “No. No, I don’t think so. Actually we didn’t get a chance to talk much during that last week. He was very busy working on one of his projects.”

  “What kind of project?”

  “Something to do with fossils and rocks, that’s all I know.” She thought for a moment before adding, “He did say one thing that was rather odd. It was the last time I saw him, as a matter of fact. It was late in the morning, and he stopped at the house for something to drink. He seemed to be in a very good mood. He said that he thought his doctoral dissertation was going to be even better than he had hoped. He said it might make it possible for us to get married a lot sooner than we had planned. When I tried to press him for details, he just laughed and said he would tell me later.”