Dying For LA by Ian Jones (best adventure books to read TXT) 📗

to keep a tight schedule, we know what we’ve got to do. Let’s find the Mile High Club.’

And then there was the next bit of bad news. They found the club easily enough, it was the ground floor of a small office block, down the road from Hooters and next to a gym. It had big plate glass windows on both sides of the doors which were thickly painted over, one which said, ‘Mile High Club – Your Eyes Only’ and the other had silhouettes of naked dancing women and ‘Nude Live Girls’ written across the bottom.

It looked closed to John, but he tried the doors anyway. Locked.

Reed was tapping the glass close to the doors.

‘Place opens at five Monday to Thursdays, twelve on the other days.’

‘Shit,’ Warner said.

An old man holding a broom was walking round the building and he walked over to them.

‘Help ya?’ he asked.

‘Er yeah, we need to talk to the manager?’ Judy told him.

‘Nope, nobody there. Deliveries Mondays and Fridays, you’d have maybe got lucky then. Else, probably gets here about four-thirty I guess.’

He stood looking at them, leaning on his broom.

‘Thanks,’ Reed told him, and they went back to the minivan.

‘You see, I said we should have got Officer Casiano,’ Warner complained.

John held up his hand.

‘It’s no big deal. We’ve got other things to do, we’ll just change the order. Let’s go and talk to the wedding people and find this motel.’

Chapter Nineteen

Sammy had a spring in her step and was ready to make history. She had been in a meeting that morning with a lady she had never met before called Davina, who worked at LA Plus as a research advisor, and specialised in dealing with information from law enforcement. She was no Jimmy Frost, she did not have the useful connections he did but she was helpful and knew what they could and couldn’t do.

As she had already suspected, Sammy had been told by Davina that they wouldn’t be able to run a story naming any names or any real details regarding the events on the platform, the police had a strict clampdown on information and were still refusing press access to the witnesses. But there was a lot they could do, and Davina was happy to go direct to the LAPD with the information they now had, and gauge the reaction. She believed that often this could force their hands, and also suggested that Sammy could at least appear to reach out to the police on her programme.

So, Sammy had presented the news, and then her follow up morning show, still focussed on the events that had occurred and clearly questioning the efforts to find the perpetrators.

‘Where was the information from the LAPD?’ she asked on several occasions.

She ran the all the video they had, John Smith visible at the end, frozen on the screens.

‘There are so many questions, but no answers. Who is this man?’ she asked. ‘Can anyone help us to find him?’

On the floor, she saw Davina give her a thumbs up.

‘LA Plus are eager to help the Los Angeles Police Department in any way we can, so please, if any of our viewers recognises or has seen this man, or has any information at all please call us straight away,’ Sammy told her viewers earnestly, fighting the urge to smile.

***

The Happy Chapel was just north of The Stratosphere, a narrow building with the gilded white archway across the front that they had seen in the Hayter’s wedding photograph. They parked up and walked in, to be met by a ludicrously bright orange couple with perfect white teeth and meticulously made up hair. Both well into their sixties. But behind the fake tan and the shiny clothes there was nothing going on in their minds but dollars and cents.

It was pretty much a one-way conversation. The couple fixed on their most helpful smiles and nodded a lot but they only vaguely remembered the Hayter’s when they were shown the picture, they had done seven weddings that day. They produced their book, which was a large elaborate white faux leatherbound edition with gold edges and ‘Special Memories’ embossed on the front. They said it was their records but really it was just a sales pitch. Inside were glossy photographs and the names of the parties, one wedding per page. The Hayter’s were there, the same wedding snap they had already seen. No witnesses listed, but they were told this was a common occurrence.

So, no help, at all. Thanks for nothing, and off to the next piece of the puzzle. Time was not on their side.

They found the motel, which was off East St Louis Avenue, roughly twenty minutes’ walk to The Stratosphere. It was a beige and grey cube, on the edge of a small strip mall, its neighbours were a nail bar, convenience store, hair salon, two bail bond offices and a Chinese restaurant. None of them were busy. A sign outside said ‘Supreme Cour Hotel. Stay in Wonderful Las Vegas – Twenty Dollars!!!!’ Someone had unsuccessfully tried to replace the missing ‘t’ using a marker pen. There was an office which jutted out to the left of the building, and they made their way across. Once inside they filled the tiny space, Reed had to wait outside with the door open.

Behind the counter was a furtive, dishevelled man with greasy hair and thick glasses who was looking at something on a computer. He peered out at them and without speaking pointed to the wall behind which had a sign that said ‘Vacancy – $30’.

Nobody bothered mentioning the misleading sign outside.

Judy produced her ID and the file photo of Major Hayter, wearing his uniform.

‘We need to talk to you about this man,’ she said firmly.

The man looked at it, back at her ID, then the photo again, peering closer every time.

He shrugged.

‘Maybe. Kinda familiar I guess. But I don’t know him.’

‘I’d think you do, he’s been staying here pretty much every week for God knows how long,’ Judy