Ace High Read online

  Ace High

  A Cold Poker Gang Mystery

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Cold And Colder

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Not Just Another Closed Hotel

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Yet Another Surprise

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Darling Black

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Unscrambling The Mess

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Cold, Then Hot

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Follow The Money

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Also by Dean Wesley Smith

  Newsletter sign-up

  About the Author

  Ace high means the best card you have at the end of a hand is an ace. No pairs, no straights, nothing else. Just an ace is your best card.

  A very weak hand in most instances.

  But not always.

  Author’s Note

  The characters in this book are fictional and any similarity to any person, alive or dead, is purely accidental. The Landmark Hotel did exist, but as far as I know, the events in this novel did not happen. This is a work of fiction.

  Part I

  Cold And Colder

  Prologue

  April 3rd, 1991

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  The Landmark Hotel, or as it was called before it was closed, the New Landmark Hotel, felt more like an ancient ruin to Steven Bell. And as a long-time resident of Las Vegas, that made him sad. In its glory, the hotel and casino had really been something to see, towering proud and gleaming over the valley. Now it desperately needed paint, the windows hadn’t been washed in years, and weathered plywood covered all the entrances. It just looked worn out and tired as only a well-used and not-maintained building could look in the desert winds and heat.

  Sad, just flat sad, that a building of such importance to an entire city had been left to rot.

  He just hoped someone with a lot of money would come in and bring the Landmark back up to use. Maybe not as a hotel, but as offices and restaurants or a something.

  Anything.

  But after seeing the inside of the place, he was starting to doubt if that would ever be possible no matter the amount of money.

  The Landmark had been designed to imitate the Space Needle in Seattle, thirty stories of tower with restaurants and a show ballroom with a huge dance floor at the top. For the longest time it had been the tallest building in the valley.

  Most of the rooms and suites were in the buildings around the casino area on the ground floors, but some suites lined the sides of the tower all the way to the top.

  Construction on the place had started in the early sixties, but it wasn’t until Howard Hughes bought the Landmark that it opened in 1969. The hotel and casino went through numbers of owners after that, never really getting profitable until finally closing in August of 1990.

  Clearly to Steven, no money had been spent at all to keep the place up in the last few years of its existence. Everything just looked worn or broken. The last guests before this place closed must have been disgusted at what they found. He would have been.

  Now everything inside was to be liquidated and it was Steven and his crew’s job to do an inventory. At first, when the court had hired him, he thought the job sad, but that thought vanished the moment he started through the place.

  There just wasn’t much worth selling left. Even worth selling or not, they had to inventory it.

  Old blackjack and craps tables and such in the casino area might be worth something, but the casino had leased all its slots and those were long gone already. He and his crew of four found the beds in rooms were often rotted and the mattresses bug-infested. The wooden end tables and coffee tables in most rooms were worn and scarred. Lamps and their shades often were spotted with age or just broken.

  All of the bar equipment was so dated as to be almost antique. And food had been left in the fridges and the pantries to rot when the place shuttered. If this place had sat like this in any other town but Vegas, the entire building would have been overrun by rats by now. As it was, he only saw some minor signs of mice. But who knew what was living in the walls.

  He and the four people working for him had focused on the ground floor and casino area for the first few days. Now they were working their way up the tower slowly, leaving all the restaurant equipment and furniture in the top floors for last.

  The afternoon of April 3rd was getting warm outside and the inside of the hotel was getting stuffy. He had already shed his outer shirt at lunch and was now in just a T-shirt and jeans. He had a work belt on his waist with most tools he would need including extra pens.

  They had started at sunrise to avoid this kind of heat problem and in an hour they would call it a day. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what this place would feel like without power and air conditioning in the summer. It would be like walking through an oven.

  He was looking forward to getting home to his condo and showering off the smell of mold and rot.

  He had climbed ahead of his crew to the twentieth floor, just doing a quick walk around the hall, making sure all doors were open as they should be.

  Just as with every other floor, the carpet in the hallway was worn and everything smelled like it had been closed up far, far too long. The beam of his flashlight cut through the darkness of the hallway, with light coming in from the open suite doors to help some.

  He stirred up a fine cloud of dust as he moved and the dust floated in the beam of his light. He desperately wanted to go throw open a few of the windows in the suites to get some fresh air in the place, but then they would just have to close them. Wasn’t worth the effort to even try to pry open rusted and old windows.

  Ahead of him the hallway was even darker because the door to Suite 2017 was closed. He moved to open it, but it was locked. He tried the pass-key, but that didn’t work either. More than likely the door was jammed shut.

  “Munro, bring the crowbars,” Steven said into his radio. “Got a stuck door on twenty.”

  “On my way,” Munro said.

  Steven moved on around the rest of the suite hallway, making sure all other doors were open. They were. So far, he and his crew had been forced to pry open or break open about thirty doors. He was just happy it wasn’t a lot more. These old casino doors were solid.

  Munro met Steven at the closed door and handed him a large crowbar. Munro was the largest man on the crew. Young, and with a wife and two kids, he never missed a day and was the hardest worker Steven had ever met.

  Steven also knew Munro worked out at a local gym every day after work and had muscles on top of muscles. But when it came to heavy lifting and forcing a closed door, Munro was the best.

  The two of them quickly had the trim off the door and with both bars jammed
between the frame and the door, they managed to shove the door inward.

  “Shit,” Munro said, stepping back as a wave of dry, rotted-smelling air hit them. “What the hell is that?”

  Both of them moved back along the hallway and away from the smell. Steven knew exactly what that smell was. Something had died in that room. He knew the smell of death from his days on search and rescue for the county. And it wasn’t the smell of fresh death, but old death.

  Steven took out a mask from his tool belt and handed an extra to Munro. “Let me take a look first, decide what we need to do.”

  Munro nodded. Even in the pale light of the hallway, Steven could see that Munro’s face was white. He clearly had never dealt with anything dead before.

  With masks on, they went back to the now-open door.

  Steven took two steps inside and stopped. Munro stopped right beside him, looking over his shoulder.

  It was clear what had caused the smell.

  On the bed was a naked woman.

  Dead, very dead.

  “Shit,” Munro said and turned away, going back into the hall to throw up what he had had for lunch.

  Steven just stared.

  The mummified body still looked very human in the daylight pouring in through the window. She had long brown hair spread out around her head and she looked peaceful, with her hands crossed over her chest as if someone had placed her there, looking up at the ceiling, legs together. She had been young and thin.

  And she had clearly been dead for some time.

  A blue backpack lay on the bed beside her and her clothes, what looked like a white blouse, a white bra, and jeans were draped over an old chair. He could see nothing at all that looked like a cause of death.

  In fact, she looked very peaceful.

  He backed out of the room, making sure to not touch anything.

  Munro was leaning against a wall, trying to catch his breath. The hallway now smelled of old death and Munro’s former lunch.

  Steven said into his radio to his crew. “Mark clearly where you left off and everyone meet at the truck at once. Don’t depend on remembering where you were. We’re done for the day.”

  More than likely they were done for the week. Crime scenes tended to do that to jobs.

  Steven then patted Munro on the shoulder and the two of them headed for the staircase.

  The hotel had gotten even sadder now. Its last resident was a young dead woman.

  1

  December 4th, 2016

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  * * *

  Retired Detective Debra Pickett stood at the marble kitchen counter sipping on a cup of black coffee and watching as three kittens appeared at full speed from a hallway, chased each other through Sarge’s living room, then through the new archway into her condo and out of sight.

  It was amazing how much noise three kittens playing could make. You would have thought an entire heard of cattle had gone through the place as they scuttled along the wood floor.

  Her black-and-white girl cat named Nose loved playing with Sarge’s two orange tabbies, Pete and Ree. And now that Pickett and Sarge had finished the archway between their two condos, she guessed her cat was his as well and his cats were hers. They were still working out the details on this new living arrangement. It would take time.

  She and Sarge now had two kitchens, enough bedrooms to hold a small convention, and two full living rooms and dining rooms. Maybe she should have just sold her condo and moved into his, but they had both liked the idea of combining the two condos. The building board hadn’t objected once Sarge offered to pay for a remodeling of the building’s fitness area and buy some new equipment. But they both had had to sign an agreement stating that if they wanted to sell either or both condos, the wall would have to be replaced completely.

  She was actually surprised and very pleased that the board had agreed, even with Sarge’s offer of a bribe. At some point, she and Sarge needed to have a conversation about how rich he really was. She was well-off from her divorce from the idiot who loved his secretary more than his money. But Sarge seemed to be at the next level of rich.

  He said he never worried about money at all, which is why he had the most expensive and largest condo in the Ogden Building. He said it was his gift to himself.

  She had felt the same way about her condo. And they both owned them outright.

  Both of them were retired Las Vegas police detectives. Most retired detectives never ended up in paid-off penthouse condos, but they had both been lucky, if you consider lucky being her husband buying a new sports car and running away with his large-chested secretary and Sarge’s father dying of cancer and leaving him a fortune.

  Pickett sipped on her coffee again and watched the action as the three kittens returned at full speed and disappeared up the stairs. If the pattern lasted, they would soon end up lying in the sun taking baths in Sarge’s big living room.

  She had no idea what was going to happen if they decided to put a Christmas tree in here. It would be a kitten playground, she had no doubt about that.

  This morning she had gotten up and showered before Sarge and had made the coffee. His cup was waiting for him on the counter along with the new file for the new cold case they had been given at the Cold Poker Gang poker game.

  They were to meet Robin, another retired detective and her former partner, in thirty minutes for breakfast to talk about the case. Pickett loved those meetings. The three of them made an amazing team.

  This morning Pickett wore her normal jeans, a cotton blouse, and a light sweater. She had her badge in a holder on her belt covered by a knit sweater and her service gun in a holster under her arm. She would hide that with a light brown jacket when they went out.

  The weather today promised to be clear, but brisk in temperature, a perfect day as far as she was concerned. She didn’t mind air conditioning in the summer, but her favorite time of the year was the winter. The weather actually changed at times.

  And the coming holiday this year, with Sarge in her life, promised to be fun instead of depressing as it had been the last few years.

  She had gotten out of the bathroom ahead of Sarge this morning. She kept her brown hair short because it was just easier to take care of and she never wore makeup. Not only was it silly at her age, but it felt awful in the summer.

  Sarge said he liked the fact that she never spent much time in the bathroom getting ready. It seemed his ex-wife, who had left him for another man, spent far too much time in the bathroom by Sarge’s measure.

  Both of them had agreed that their marriages had been casualties of their job. It seemed that being a detective didn’t leave much time and mental energy for making sure a marriage worked.

  Sarge wasn’t angry at his ex-wife in the slightest. He was still in contact with her and the guy she moved east with. He said he even liked the guy.

  Sarge was far more forgiving than Pickett was with her ex-husband. Her ex deserved the young bimbo he got. Those large bimbo-breasts (as Pickett called them) had certainly cost him a lot of money.

  She flipped open the file on the new cold case, a bizarre death from 1991. She loved the fact that she got to still work in an unofficial capacity as a detective because she was a member of the Cold Poker Gang.

  The gang had been declared an official task force by the chief of police and the mayor. They were all unpaid and with no requirement to do paperwork. Their entire mission was to look into cold cases. So far the gang had an amazing closing rate on the cases. And had stopped a few active serial killers as well along the way.

  None of them took credit, instead giving the credit to the active detectives who had to do the paperwork. That desire for no credit kept them on great terms with all the other younger detectives and made the chief look great to the mayor and the public.

  The Cold Poker Gang met every week to play poker and talk cold cases. At this point, there were fourteen retired detectives in the gang, but only about ten showed up for the game on any given Tuesda
y. She and Sarge and Robin had decided they wouldn’t miss a night.

  And Sarge was the best player of the three of them. He seldom left a game without some extra money in his pocket.

  But what was the most important to her was being able to carry her badge and gun again and feel useful, even after she had retired. Being a detective had been her identity and now she had that back.

  She actually had been too young to retire, but the divorce had made her lose focus a few years back and question everything, including herself. Now she was barely over sixty and everyone said she looked younger. She felt younger, especially now that she was back working and living with Sarge.

  She felt she still had a lot of useful years ahead of her.

  At that moment, Sarge came from down the hall, smiling at her. His hair still slightly wet from the shower.

  He was the most handsome man she had ever met, she was sure of that. He had hazel eyes, thick gray hair, and a square jaw. This morning he was dressed in his normal jeans, dress shirt, and light jacket. He kept his badge where it always had been, on his belt on his right hip and his gun in a carry holster under his arm.

  Just as she did, he always put on a light jacket to cover the gun and the badge.

  He kissed her, then picked up his coffee as the three kittens came tearing back down the stairs. This time the two orange cats were being chased by the black-and-white. They stopped in the living room area, with one orange cat near the window in the sun, the other on the back of a chair, and Nose on the couch.

  That was the end of the standard morning exercise for them. Now it was bath time.

  Sarge just shook his head and laughed, then sipped his coffee. After a moment he pointed to the folder. “What in the world are we going to do with that?”

  They had both read the thin cold case file last night and decided to just hold off talking about it until today with Robin.