Page 20 of Blind Luck

I pulled a face. “Yes, I am.” I left the “unfortunately” at the end of the sentence unspoken, but they heard it loud and clear.

“Next time, try the Nile Palace. They offer a good discount if you book direct.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that.”

Maddie checked a message on her phone, grimaced, and shoved it back into her purse. “The Galaxy isn’t that bad.”

“It didn’t used to be,” Kina said. “But now? The end stall in the ladies’ bathroom has been broken for the past three months. There are water stains on the ceiling in the hallway. Every time a member of staff leaves, they never get replaced.”

“The L in Galaxy fell off the front,” the redhead said.

I’d noticed that, but I figured it was a recent thing. “So you’ve been coming here for a while?”

“A couple of years.”

“At least they don’t water down the drinks,” Maddie put in.

A server brought our order, and the redhead chugged back half her Jack and Coke before I had time to pick up myglass. That guy must have been a real prick. Kina squeezed the redhead’s hand and then turned her attention to her drink. The orange juice came with a swizzle stick and three cherries. Other folks’ drinks only seemed to have two cherries, so I figured the bartender had a soft spot for Kina.

She’d relocated to Vegas from Milwaukee, I found out, in a last-ditch effort to escape a bad relationship. I offered appropriate condolences. Maddie had grown up in Naked City, which was probably why she didn’t think the Galaxy was so bad. The redhead didn’t mention her past, but her accent said she hailed from New Jersey, and the way she bit her lip when she ordered another drink said her reasons for leaving hadn’t been good.

Once she’d swallowed the last mouthful of OJ, Kina put down her glass and glanced at her watch, a not-so-subtle hint that my time here was done and they needed to get back to work.

“Well, it was nice meeting you. I hope your friend does okay.”

“Before I go, I need to talk to you about work.”

“Work?” Now Kina bristled. “Are you going for entrapment? Because the guy who used to own this place, Uncle Mike, he was okay with us being here. He basically said that as long as we’re discreet and we stay away from the family areas, he wouldn’t kick us out. We’re not hurting anyone.”

“It’s no trap. You have your wires crossed—I’m hoping to hire you.”

Maddie was already shaking her head. “No, no, no, we don’t do women.”

“This is more of a side project. You’re at this table most of the time, aren’t you?”

“So what if we are?” Kina had turned frosty. Defensive.

“Would you be willing to multitask?”

“What do you mean, multitask?”

“Over the past several months, a number of personal items have gone missing from the executive suite here. Wallets, purses, phones, that kind of thing. We have a picture of a suspect, but as yet, nobody’s been able to track him down.”

At this stage, I decided to skate around the truth. Telling them about a possible Bitcoin loan and a bunch of armed home invaders would sound wilder than the lie anyway.

“Wait, do you work for hotel security?”

“No, I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been contracted for this job only. Nobody knows whether this guy is connected to the hotel in some way.”

“So what do you expect us to do about it?”

“Last night, my colleague was keeping watch in case he came back, but obviously things got a little dramatic. Anyhow, I thought you might be willing to help out with surveillance.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious, and I’d also be paying for your time.”

The frostiness was replaced by a gleam. “How much?”

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