“Um, thank you?”
“You’ve got a lot going on up here.” He tapped his head. “What made you think you needed Security so quickly? Why didn’t you just go find one of my people on the casino floor?”
“I didn’t,” I insisted. Mr. Curtis looked at—or rather, through—me like it was clear he was not buying what I was selling, even though it was true. “Fred had some kind of fit.”
“A fit?”
Only the way he said it, it was like he said, “Ms. Callihan, I can read your mind and I know you are lying.” What if Mr. Curtis were telepathic?
“A fit or a hallucination. Or maybe he really did see someone. He said something, something like, ‘Don’t let him come any closer.’ And then he ran off like he was terrified.”
“He didn’t tell you who he saw?”
“You think he really did see someone?”
“Fred Bristol is very mature for his age and not prone to fits.” He found another dark thread on his cuff and pulled it off, turning it between his fingers pensively, like he was trying to make up his mind about something. He leaned forward and said, “Would you like to see how your adventure with Fred looked to our cameras?”
“Yes!” I said, probably too enthusiastically because Mr. Curtis leaned away fast as if he were afraid I might kiss him.
Sorry, Leonard. Not today.
But seriously, the chance to see real surveillance footage? Of myself? Committing a crime (by accident)? Without having to fast-forward through the bad commercials on the Discovery Channel? Who would not think that was the coolest thing ever? I mean, provided you weren’t on trial for murder or anything.
Mr. Curtis pushed some buttons and all four of the television monitors started to cycle through different shots. There was the pool and the spa and the Grand Canal Shoppes and the lobby and the parking lot and the room corridors and the casino. There were even cameras behind the hotel, on the loading docks, and in the kitchens and service corridors. It was incredible.
“Are there cameras everywhere?” I asked.
“Everywhere but the bathrooms.”
Was that why Ms. Bristol had taken her teary phone call in the ladies’ room the night before? Did everyone but me know this about the cameras? “Is that true in all the casinos?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s the law.” I got the feeling that what he thought was unfortunate was that there weren’t allowed to be cameras in the bathrooms, not that people required so much surveillance. But would you really want to see people going to the bathroom? If you answered yes to that question, SEEK HELP NOW.
Mr. Curtis had been concentrating on the changing images on the screens and he sat forward now, like he’d found what he was looking for. He pushed a button and three of the monitors went black. On the fourth we were looking at the casino floor and several of the tables adjacent to the ice cream counter.
“I want you to tell me when you see the moment that Fred became afraid. We’ll be tightening his security, of course, but if we can narrow down who we’re looking for, it will be a big help.”
I tried to ask again about why Fred needed security, but Mr. Curtis said, “This is very important, Miss Callihan. Please keep your full attention on the video.”
Little Life Lesson 18: If you have to watch yourself on a surveillance video, do not be alarmed: It is not just you; no one looks good when filmed from above.
Probably not everyone looks like their hair could eat them for dinner like mine did, though.
I didn’t see myself and Fred enter, but then suddenly there we were, sitting at our table, Fred and my hair, both staring hard at our ice creams. Then Fred looked up and spoke and I saw my hair try to grab him as I leaned forward to give him that etiquette pointer about discussing dead bodies on the first date. Soon my hair was getting up from the table and going around to hug him.
“It’s coming up,” I told Mr. Curtis. I saw Fred drop his spoon and I said, “There. That’s when he had his fit. I mean, got scared.”
Mr. Curtis hit PAUSE, and the other three monitors flickered on. They were showing different parts of the casino floor around the table where we were sitting.
“Which way was Fred facing?” he asked me.
I tried to remember. “Toward the slots with the big wheel on the top. Away from the Haywire Hoedown slots.”
One of the monitors went blank, leaving the one of us at our table and two with views out into the casino in the direction Fred had been looking. “I want you to watch these,” Mr. Curtis said, “and tell me if you see anyone familiar.”
I can’t say I am proud of what happened next. I had always hoped I’d be a natural at police work, but it turns out that after spotting myself, I was kind of useless at spotting others. I did see the two women with the pink and blue Mohawks that I’d noticed at the pool the previous day, but Fred had been afraid of a man. Mr. Curtis was very patient and rewound the tapes three times for me to try again. I kept feeling like there was something there, but I didn’t know what. It was only when he slowed them down that I saw it.
Or rather him.
“That man,” I said, pointing to the center of one of the screens. “I think I ran into him last night at the Voodoo Lounge. When I was coming out of the bathroom.”
“Do you remember everyone you meet?”
“No, but he was drunk and distinctive—I mean, he’s wearing a caftan—and I was sort of in a rush.” Caftan Man? Was that who Fred was afraid of? Was he—
“Did he look suspicious in any way?”
“Not apart from his outfit. Why, is he after Fred? What is going on?”
“I just need you to make this identification.”
“Could you zoom in?”
Mr. Curtis hit a button and the center of the screen, where the man’s face was, got bigger. As did a face in the crowd behind him. My toes and arms and legs started to get tingly and I had a strong urge to get out of Mr. Curtis’s office.
“Are you all right, Miss Callihan?” he asked.
“Yes. Fine. I just feel—tired.”
“I see. Is that the man?”
“The man? Yes, it is. The man from last night. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“Don’t you worry about that. Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else?”
I almost jumped out of my skin. “Nope. No one else. Not another person.”
I was so eager to get out of there I almost missed the part where Mr. Curtis told me that since I’d been so helpful, he didn’t think my dad needed to know what had happened, although I did tune in for the part when he said, “These people are very dangerous. They will stop at nothing to get what they want. If you think of anything else, I am counting on you to call. Anything.”
I’m sure I was just making it up that he looked at me with special emphasis when he repeated, “Anything.” And I really hoped mind reading was not L. A. Curtis’s superpower. Because if it were, he would have known what I was thinking.
Which was: Little Life Lesson 18 was wrong. Some people looked fine when captured on surveillance video from above. Some people who you could only see when the image was enlarged. Some people looked like dreamboats in green Adidas. Just like they had the night before when they had been surreptitiously questioning me about Fred.
Little Life Lesson 18, REPLACEMENT VERSION: If you meet a guy who is six feet three inches of perfect manly splendor with green eyes and a British accent and warm soft hands and a nice-smelling chest who laughs at your jokes and has lovely manners and is named Jack, keep your distance. Then call security.
Fred had been afraid. But not of Caftan Man. No, the man he’d been afraid of was Jack. I was positive.
Just positive enough to want to find out more. Not quite positive enough to tell Mr. Curtis.
Eleven
Little Life Lesson 19: If you drift from the head of Venetian Security’s office and make a left turn and walk across the casino and go out the front doors of the hotel in a total daze, having just discovered that the man
of your dreams might be at worst a killer and at best a terrorizer of boys, try to keep your wits about you anyway, because you don’t know when someone is going to yell, “Here she is,” and an arm is going to poke out of a group of people, and you will find yourself being bundled into a gondola as it moves away from land and you will look up and see that you’re sitting across from the dream man/boy terrorizer himself.
This really can happen.
(Little Life Lesson 20: You might also want to have applied lip gloss.)
When I finally realized what was going on, I looked around for an escape route. The gondolier, who was perched behind me, was pushing us out into the middle of the canal that runs in front of the hotel. I didn’t know how deep the water was, but I did know that my lucky (ha!) cowboy boots would not benefit from a dip in it. Which meant I was trapped. In a gondola.
With Jack. Who was wearing a button-down shirt with different-colored green stripes on it, rolled up at the cuffs so I could see his supple, manly wrists.
And the gondolier. Who was not much comfort because she started singing that song “Memory” from Cats really loud. You know the song. The one that makes you want to claw something?
I decided to get right to the point. “Why did you kidnap me like that?” I asked.
Jack looked pleased with himself. “I wanted to see you again.”
“That’s so nice,” I heard my mouth say, and felt myself melt, as he smiled at me with Super Smile and reached out one of his soft firm hands to take one of my—
I said, “No way, buster,” and pulled away from him.
He frowned. When he frowned he got these crinkles by his eyes that made my heart vroom like I’d just eaten an entire package of mini marshmallows.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You. You’re a—” I was stumped. “I don’t know what you are. But you aren’t what you say you are.”
Good one, Jas. Monkeys, you couldn’t have stepped in here to at least make me say something clever? Monkeys? Hello?
Total silence from the monkeys.
“Jasmine? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about an hour and a half ago, in the casino, with Fred.”
All at once, like lightning, his face changed. “So you knew I was there and did it on purpose. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re working for them. Damn, I had hoped—” He leaned away from me and crossed his arms.
“Who am I working for?” I wanted to know. And I wanted a raise. This job sucked.
“Fiona and her hench people.”
And you see, here was an example of how tragic this whole thing was. Because Jack used the phrase “hench people.” I used the phrase “hench people.” It was a sign we were meant to be together. If only he weren’t evil.
Pure evil, as I was soon to find out.
“Wait, you just called her ‘Fiona,’” I said. “Why did you lie to me last night and say that you didn’t know who the family at the pool was?”
“I never said that. I didn’t lie to you.”
Which, when I thought about it, was true. He’d only implied it, sneaky-snake style. “Who are you?” I asked.
He brushed the question aside like it wasn’t important. “If you’re not involved, you should stay away. Stay away from all of them. You have no idea who these people are. They will do anything to get what they want.”
“That’s funny, that is what Mr. Curtis just said about you.”
“You told him about me?”
I hesitated. Jack smiled a very cute and yet sort of, well, malicious smile. “You didn’t. If you had, your precious security forces would be all over us by now.”
“If you’re not dangerous, why was Fred terrified when he saw you?”
“You terrified him. You told him to run into the casino, away from me. You’re the one who gave him the quarter so the guards would come. You were trying to get me caught.”
“No, no, yes, no,” I said.
“Don’t equivocate.”
Equivocate. Was it wrong that at that moment all I could think was, he has such a lovely vocabulary? Yes, it was wrong.
I said, “Look, I don’t know what you want with me, but—”
“I want you to tell me where they’re staying. What room number. Where they’re keeping Fred.”
“Fred is not being kept, he is with his mother,” I corrected. Jack made a very ungracious noise then, but I wasn’t going to be stopped. “And the chances of my giving you their room number are infinitesimally smaller than the chances of you turning into a huge plastic cootie that talks.” Oh! I see the monkeys are back! Hello, pals. Thank you so much for NOTHING.
Jack blinked at me. “This is not a joke, Miss Callihan.”
Why do people always feel forced to point that out to me? “I realize that. I’m not joking. Hasn’t Fred suffered enough? He is terrified of you and I see no reason why I should not be as well. Not to mention, I’m already in enough trouble with my father as it is. I don’t need any help from you and your chase-boys-through-the-casino tactics. In fact, I think it’s time for me to end this little powwow and summon Security myself.”
Jack’s voice got low and serious. “Don’t.”
“I—”
He grabbed my wrist. A piece of one of those plastic things they put price tags on was sticking out of the edge of his rolled-up cuff and scratched my skin. He said, “I’m telling you, don’t do it. Not for my sake, I don’t care about that. For Fred’s sake. If you call them, he will very likely end up dead.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I gaped. “Are you threatening him?”
“I am just telling you the truth.”
“So he is right to be terrified of you.”
“Stop saying that. Just give me twenty-four hours. At the end of that time, you can tell your friend Mr. Curtis about me. But not until then.” He let go of my wrist. “Please.”
I said, “Why do you think you can trust me?”
He made some kind of sign to the gondolier over my shoulder, and I felt the boat turn slightly.
Then he leaned very close to me. He was looking deep into my eyes and our noses were almost touching. His lips were less than an inch from my lips and his breath smelled like glazed doughnuts.
Bringing his mouth right next to mine, he whispered, “Because I want to trust you.” And then he—
—left. He jumped from the gondola to the brick walkway next to the sidewalk, bounced over the metal railing there, and disappeared into the crowd crossing the Strip.
I was too stunned to follow him. I was too stunned to move. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even breathe. When I regained my senses—DID I MENTION HE WAS LOOKING AT ME LIKE HE WAS GOING TO KISS ME AND THEN HE TOOK OFF?—the gondolier was singing about how she remembered a time, now past, when she knew what happiness was.
Boy, she could not have been expressing my own thoughts more clearly. For me, that time had been only about thirty seconds earlier, when I thought Jack was going to plant one on me.
But thirty seconds earlier and right that minute were two very different things. Because when the haze from not getting kissed cleared I was forced to face the facts that:
Jack was a very bad guy
Jack had threatened Fred
Just thinking he was going to kiss me made me tingly everywhere
In a way no other guy ever had
And that was without our mouths even touching
Which meant that
If they ever did
Woohoo baby!
Except that it did not matter
At all
Because he was plotting against Fred
And I was complicit in whatever he’d planned if I didn’t tell Mr. Curtis
And I was trapped on a boat with a woman singing show tunes
But suddenly I knew what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to turn Jack in. Maybe that sounds like a bad
idea, or you think I made the decision based solely on the fact that when he was near me my insides felt like a Slurpee, or because he had an astonishingly cute butt. Astonishingly.
That is not, however, why I made my decision. I was not thinking with my hormones. I was thinking, What if he wasn’t lying? What if my telling on him really would result in Fred’s death?
I decided that was a chance I couldn’t take. Plus, he’d only asked for twenty-four hours. Mr. Curtis had told me himself he was stepping up the surveillance on Fred. The boy would be safe for that long.
Jack said he trusted me; I would trust him.
Little Life Lesson 21: Trust means different things to different people.
Twelve
As I went inside and took the elevator up to my room, I had no idea that I was the one who would be needing the round-the-clock surveillance to stay safe. Or that Jack had only asked me to trust him for that much time because he planned to have gotten rid of me long before that.
Nope, I was back to blithe. My guard was completely down. Which is why, when I opened my door and saw that there was someone in my room, I screamed.
And they screamed.
And Sherri!, coming through the connecting door, screamed.
And my father, coming in after her, yelled, “Does anyone know how to work this blasted contraption?” and brandished the television remote control.
Because that is what a genius does, you know. Interact well with others. Stay up on what is going on in his immediate environment. Be down with the scene.
He looked around now. “Hello, Polly, Roxy, and Tom. Good to see you. Do any of you know about these things?”
Many people would have paused to wonder, “What are Jas’s best friends doing in her hotel room on a Friday afternoon when they’re supposed to be 250 miles away in Los Angeles at their summer jobs?” but not my dad. That’s the kind of basic, mundane question that geniuses don’t trouble themselves with.
Not being a genius, I was curious.
Before I could ask, though, Polly came over, stood in front of me frowning, and said, “Oh, Jas, I can’t believe you did that.”