Murder or Bust (We're Not Dead Yet Club Book 3) Read online

  Only Cecil heard Ida May’s pained groan. Percy stared expectantly between each of them before finally clapping his hands together in excitement, spinning around on his heels and strolling off across the hall.

  Clara leaned in towards Ida May. “Shouldn’t we…?”

  “Wait for it…”

  They watched as Percy made it about fifty meters away from them before he suddenly came to a halt. He looked left. Then he looked right. And then he looked left again, before turning on his heels and sidling back towards the bar. As he arrived, his eyes focused on a point just above our heads, and he bit his bottom lip in a manner that appeared to be nonchalant but was almost certainly out of deep confusion and embarrassment.

  “Ah, where is the poker room?”

  Ida May smiled and curled a long finger to their right where a large sign signaled the way towards the card tables. Percy gave a little nod of thanks and made his way off again, strutting along like a film star walking down the catwalk.

  “Do you think I should go with him?” Ida May asked. “Make sure he doesn’t get lost?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Clara replied. “The only thing we have to worry about is one of us getting caught cheating. Percy is an uptight lawyer – I think if there was any one of us who wouldn’t try to cheat, it would be Percy…”

  As it turned out, she couldn’t have been more wrong…

  Chapter Three – The Gillette Effect

  It was a long while before Clara, Ida May and Hazel finally decided on their pursuits for the day. Finally, after they had arranged to meet back at the bar in a couple of hours, the three of them parted ways and headed off in their separate directions. Clara made her way off towards the Black Jack tables, Hazel trotted off in the direction of clacking sounds of the roulette wheels and Ida May – who scowled after them for a long while – begrudgingly turned and skulked across the hall and settled down in front of a slot machine.

  Cecil – meanwhile – remained sitting on his stool, occasionally glancing a wary eye in the direction of the hooker while sipping from an elaborately blue-colored cocktail that he’d ordered once he was sure the girls were out of sight. He waited quietly, his eyes carefully examining the bar before him with the suspicion and accuracy of a man expecting to be attacked at any moment.

  The bar had once been something truly extravagant, he had concluded. The now rusted metal of the bar surface seemed to sing of times when it flashed and shone various colors as the now defunct disco lights poured red, green and blue light down upon it. The shelves at the back of the bar still bore the dust marks where hundreds of fabulous spirits had once lined along them, although now they were barely half full with knocked-down priced liquor. Even the waiter’s waistcoat showed signs of fraying and disrepair, and his face was sullen and spoke of many unfulfilled years behind this dying bar.

  It was sad really. But all things come to an end eventually and – as he sipped the cocktail – Cecil began to wonder how long it would be before this house of gamblers finally fell to the inevitable.

  “Why so glum, brother?” a voice called out from just behind Cecil’s right shoulder. “You know what they say - if you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time…”

  Cecil recognized the voice instantly. He spun on his stool to find himself staring up at a man dressed in the most garish red velvet suit that he'd ever seen. Unlike his surroundings, this man’s suit was immaculately kept. His shoes were polished within an inch of their life, his belt buckle sparkled in the light and his shirt was so neatly pressed that there was a single line visible on the black silk.

  “Robert Gillette, as I live and breathe…”

  “Hallo, Ces…”

  Cecil jumped to his feet and the two men embraced.

  He hadn’t seen Robert in a long time, but even so age had been harsher to his old friend. His grey hair was now a startling white color and his skin was so waxy and wrinkled that it looked as though Robert had spent the last twenty years carefully applying Vaseline just to make it shine.

  “The years are treating you well,” Cecil lied.

  “I could say the same to you, you old dog,” Robert chuckled, rapping Cecil hard on the shoulder before settling down in the stool next to him. “How’ve you been? Still chasing the world in that van of yours?”

  Cecil shook his head. “No, I stopped all that. I live the small town life now…”

  “Do you really?” Robert’s face looked genuinely shocked. “Well, if you’d asked me to predict twenty years ago, I would never have come up with that one…”

  Cecil smiled. “I wanted to be near my son.”

  “Jasper? How is the lad?”

  Robert beckoned the waiter over and gestured for two more of whatever Cecil had been drinking. Cecil sipped the last of his cocktail and pushed it a little down the bar before answering.

  “The lad is now a man of forty…”

  “Never!”

  Cecil nodded. “And a top-flight police detective.”

  Robert’s face seemed to stutter for a split second before he answered. “Well, good for him. About time someone in your family made something of themselves.”

  The drinks arrived. Cecil reached forward and took a little sip. By the time he’d turned back to Robert, he discovered that his friend had already downed his drink and was hastily ordering another from the somber-looking bartender.

  “What about you, Bobby?” Cecil asked, taking another sip. “Still in the singing game?”

  Another flash of something leapt across Robert’s face. He almost seemed to wince at Cecil’s words.

  “To be honest, Ces, it’s not all it’s made out to be…”

  “Tough times?”

  “Far from it,” Robert replied, shaking his head. “Nah, you know I can’t really complain. I’ve had forty years in this game and it’s done me well up to now. And I have a new girlfriend, Ava…”

  Cecil’s eyebrow flickered. “A new one, eh? What does Roxy think of that?”

  Robert’s lip curled up. “I haven’t seen my wife in nearly eight years. But Ava – man, you need to meet her – she’s got a smile that could melt the heart and most gorgeous red flowing hair that just gets the blood pumping…”

  “You like her then?”

  Robert’s eyes sparkled. “Like her? Ces, if Roxy wasn’t around, I’d marry her in a heartbeat. She’s a showgirl here, you know…”

  “Classy…”

  “Just you wait till you meet her, sport. I swear to God, you’ll wish you’d met her first.”

  Robert’s second drink arrived. This time Cecil watched as his friend tilted back his head and allowed the bright, blue liquid to flow down his throat. It didn’t really register with him at the time, but it seemed to Cecil that Robert was like a man trying to live life as fast as he could. He was no longer the smooth talking, care-free and easy-going man that he’d known for so many years. He was an experience junkie – wanting to get every ounce of life into his soul as quickly as he could.

  “So, what’s the problem?” Cecil asked, taking another sip of his own drink while watching Robert out of the corner of his eye.

  Robert set his cocktail glass down and seemed to slump back a little on his stool – he almost sat so far back that he toppled over it onto the hard floor behind him. He stared wistfully down at the fading shine of the metal bar surface and sighed deeply before turning his aging eyes back towards Cecil and giving him a small shrug.

  “I don’t know, Ces – this job just isn’t what it once was. Sure, there’s the glitz and the glamor of it all – and the women, boy Cecil you would want to do this game just for the women who throw themselves at you…”

  “But it’s not enough?”

  Robert shrugged again. “You know, since Roxy left me, Ava is the only thing that’s happened in my life that made me feel truly alive. My priorities are different now. I just want to settle down with her, fall into the shadows of obscurity and become a blackjack dealer or some such.”

&nbs
p; Cecil barely recognized this as the same man. The Robert he’d known had always been driven by his career. It had largely been down to his passion for singing that Roxy had finally walked out on him in the middle of the night. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the lifestyle – he was the lifestyle. And it was him. It was hard to see how Robert and singing could ever be apart – no matter how beautiful and wonderful this Ava was…

  “I don’t know, Bobby,” Cecil replied, leaning on the bar as the alcohol began to kick in. “Singing has been your life for forty years. It’s all you know…”

  “I’ve got to do something, Ces. I can’t keep going on like this…”

  Cecil thought for a moment – well, in fact it was more like several minutes, but to Cecil it felt like a moment. He gently swayed back and forth, his eyes beginning to grow a little hazy as his body threatened to lose balance completely, and his lips began to grow dry and coarse, no matter how much he tried to wet them.

  “What you need,” he said slowly. “… is something to happen. Something big to happen to give your life a bit more spirit. After that, you’ll forget all this nonsense about giving up the singing and realize what you’ve had all these years…”

  Robert shook his head. “I know what I have, Ces,” he replied, a small smile stretching across his face. “And I don’t ever want to lose it…”

  It took a while for Cecil to become aware of the shuffling of movement behind him. But he only really realized that something big was going on when he saw the look of sheer concern in Robert’s eyes as he stared at something over Cecil’s shoulder. Spinning around in his chair - and very nearly toppling off in the process – Cecil turned to look at the commotion. No sooner had he turned, he saw a group of police officers making their way quickly across the entrance hall towards them with their guns drawn.

  At first Cecil thought they were pointing them at him. He quickly raised his hands up in the air and hid his face in his chest as the officer nearest to him came to a stop only a few feet away.

  “I haven’t done anything,” he called out, burying his head even lower to hide his eyes from the cops. “I’ve just been drinking, that’s all…”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Robert seemed as confused as Cecil . The policemen stared at the pair of them for a few moments before a suited man stepped through the armed line and made his way slowly towards Robert. He stared him up and down a couple of times, and let out a long, drawn-out breath while his eyes seemed to burrow deep into Robert’s.

  “Robert Gillette?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Robert replied. “What’s going on here?”

  The suited man blinked a couple of times and nodded to the police officers behind him. One of them reached to their belt and pulled out a single pair of handcuffs, which they handed over to the detective.

  “Detective Alaberky, LVPD. You’re under arrest.”

  “Oh?” Robert replied, raising an eyebrow in an obviously amused manner. “On what charge?”

  Detective Alaberky’s eyes narrowed. “On the charge of murder, Mr Gillette,’ he replied. “The murder of Ava Lemiux.”

  Chapter Four – Percy The Lawyer’s Defense

  Robert stared back with his mouth wide open. Cecil’s eyes darted back and forth between his friend, the police detective and the array of handguns pointed in their general direction, and then back to his friend once again. He did this a couple of times – almost as though he was watching some elaborate tennis match – while everyone else stared very still and stern.

  Robert – his mouth quivering with nervous disbelief – stepped a little closer to the detective and the waiting handcuffs. His eyes were watering with the deepest feelings of sorrow that Cecil had ever seen him have before and, with a distinct croakiness in his voice, he finally whispered:

  “Ava? Is dead?”

  The detective nodded. “You’ll have to come with us, sir…”

  Cecil once again trained his eyes on his friend. Somewhere behind Robert’s watering eyes was a look that Cecil hadn’t seen for a long time – a mischievous quality that reminded him of the way Robert had been when he first met him. It was a look that, for all the tragedy of the tears in his eyes, bore a certain lack of genuine concern. In fact, the longer Cecil stared at his friend, the more convinced he became that Robert Gillette was no more upset about the death of the showgirl he had been so adamant to give up his lifestyle for than he had been when Roxy had finally marched out of his life…

  It was this sensation – although the alcohol in his system probably had a fair amount to do with it as well – that eventually caused the Vietnam veteran to burst out into the most uncontrollable fits of giggles. One by one, Robert, Detective Alaberky and the other members of the arresting party turned their heads to consider the old man, swaying uncontrollably on his stool.

  Cecil clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Nice one, Bobby. I thought that whole giving up your lifestyle for a woman was a bit farfetched for you…”

  Robert turned his head slowly towards Cecil. “Ces…”

  “No, no,” Cecil replied, waggling a playful finger at him. “I admit it was a very spirited attempt – I mean, the police officers and the guns… How did you even get the casino to agree to this little stunt?”

  Alaberky stepped forward. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step back…”

  “No, no, Detective,’ Cecil replied, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “it’s fine. I must say that going to this much effort on my behalf is flattering, but if you think I’d fool for such a cheap trick…”

  “Cecil, this is real…”

  “A really bad attempt you mean,” Cecil chuckled. “I should’ve realized you had something up your sleeve when you started talking about Ava…” He turned to Alaberky and nudged him playfully on the arm that held the handcuffs. “Can you believe this guy told me he wanted to settle down with Ava? I mean, he’s Robert Gillette – the man is infamous for leaving a string of unhappy women in his life. He once had to bribe an old girlfriend so that she wouldn’t take him for everything he owned some time back…”

  “Cecil,” Robert hissed through gritted teeth. “Not the time…”

  “And talking about Ava just before they walked in. If I didn’t know better, you were just doing it to provide an alibi so I would leap to your defense. But I’ve caught you out, you old dog…”

  Cecil paused as Alaberky reached into his pocket and produced a badge. He showed the badge to Robert and then to Cecil, who instantly fell silent as the color drained from his face.

  “I’m afraid this is completely real, sir,” he said to Cecil, putting the badge back in his pocket and turning to Robert. “And Ava Lemiux is really dead. I think you have some explaining to do…”

  Cecil watched in astonishment as the detective placed the cuffs around Robert’s wrists and hoisted him gently to his feet.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Robert stuttered, turning to Cecil. “I was here at the bar with my friend. Tell them, Ces…”

  “You can get into that at the station…”

  “But I didn’t do it, I tell you…”

  The rest of the officers had holstered their weapons and were now making their way back through the entrance hall towards the main door. The detective placed a single hand on Robert’s back and guided him gently behind them. Robert continued to plead his innocence, but allowed himself to be guided along anyways. They had only gotten a few meters before Cecil bellowed out:

  “Stop!”

  The detective paused and turned to face Cecil, his eyes narrowing slightly as he did so.

  Taking a deep breath, Cecil placed a hand on the bar to steady himself and swung his feet around the stall and fell rather gracelessly to the ground. As his feet landed on the hard floor, his legs seemed to give way and, in a moment of complete carnage, he collapsed to the floor bringing not only the stool with him but also several glasses and a bar mat as well.

  The detective watched with
interest and Robert groaned quietly while Cecil took a moment to register what happened before scrambling to his feet once again. He then made a purposeful walk in – what he thought was – a straight line to the waiting detective and thrust a single finger up towards his nose.

  “You will not take my client anywhere!”

  The detective’s eyebrows lowered, his face bearing the same confusion that was written all across Robert’s.

  “Your client?”

  “My client?” repeated Robert.

  “Yes, Mr. Gillette’s client,” replied Cecil, attempting to place his hands on his hips, missing and having to be satisfied with placing his hands just above his buttocks instead. “My name is Percy and I am a lawyer of things to do with the law. And this man…” he said pointing dramatically to Robert, “… is my client.”

  “I see, Mr Percy…”

  “No, just Percy,” Cecil replied confidently. “Percy the Lawyer.”

  “I see,” Alaberky replied, shooting a confused glance to Robert, who was more than willing to send it right back to him with the addition of a single shrug. “And why, pray tell, can’t I take your client to the station?”

  Cecil thought about this for a moment.

  “Because it is a breach of his Eighth Amendment rights!”

  A flicker of amusement crossed Alaberky’s face. “Is it now?”

  “Yes, it is…”

  “I see,” Alaberky replied, his face erupting into a large smile. “And on what grounds does it breach his Eighth Amendment rights?”

  “Because,” Cecil began, before having to stop for a little think. “The people have a right to bear arms…”

  “That would be the Second Amendment.”

  “Is it?”

  “Afraid so…”

  “Really?”

  Robert nodded solemnly. “Nice try, Ces…”

  With that, the detective hoisted Robert around him and the two began moving again towards the door. Cecil watched them, his mind little more than a blur of confused ideas and thoughts.