Vegas Moon

5.

Monday morning, seven-thirty.

I’ve been at PhySpa, Phyllis’s day spa and plastic surgery center for more than two hours, but couldn’t find the device. I’m disappointed Phyllis hasn’t arrived yet. I hear someone unlock the front door, so I sneak out the back and head for the nearest coffee shop. I don’t know who entered, but it wasn’t Phyllis, because her name is on the only parking space behind the building, and she would have used that entrance.

After a coffee and bathroom stop, it’s eight a.m., and I’m surprised to see several cars parked in front of PhySpa. When I enter the waiting room, the receptionist asks if she can help me.

The sign on the front desk tells me her name.

“Hi Shelby.”

“Hello,” she says, brightly.

I lean in close and say, “I wonder if I could speak to Dr. Willis for a quick minute about something personal.”

She frowns. He doesn’t look like a salesman, Shelby’s thinking. But she’s not sure.

“Your name, please?”

“Connor Payne.”

“I’ll check.”

When she does, something in Shelby’s facial expression gives me the distinct impression Phyllis Willis is less than thrilled I’m in her lobby. Shelby says, “Yes, certainly,” and places the phone carefully in its cradle before saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Payne, but Dr. Willis is in the middle of a procedure.”

I smile sweetly and say, “Shelby.”

“Yes sir?”

“Call her again. Tell her if she’s not out here in two minutes, I’m coming for her.”

She looks like she’s about to say something, but changes her mind and repeats my message to Phyllis. I wait a minute, then feel a buzzing in my brain that tells me someone in the office—probably Phyllis—is trying to enter the kill code. The buzzing hurts ten times worse than the one I felt on Saturday night.

Son of a bitch!

I grab both sides of my head and stagger backward.

Shelby jumps to her feet. “Sir! Are you okay?”

The buzzing stops. I shake my head.

“Sir?”

“I’m okay, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

And I am, until—Shit!

She’s doing it again!

When the buzzing stops I take a few seconds to regain my equilibrium. Then I paralyze Shelby with a throat strike before killing her quickly. I kiss her forehead before lowering her carefully to the floor.

I know what you’re thinking: Shelby would rather be alive than kissed by her killer. I agree. She doesn’t deserve this, and it sucks. But I’m under attack, and she controls the phones and can identify me.

I lock the front door, then move through Phyllis’s office like clap through a whorehouse.

I open one door after another. Most of the rooms are empty, but I manage to find and kill a spa attendant, a masseuse, and the face-down woman he’s working on. I didn’t catch any of their names. I don’t enjoy killing innocent people, but my situation is critical. I had hoped to meet with Phyllis in private, but she tried to kill me, instead. And might still accomplish it, since I don’t know how the device works. If I had the luxury of time, these people would still be alive.

But when Phyllis made her move, I had to make mine.

Within a minute, it’s just me and Phyllis, who I find cowering on the floor of her bathroom.

She’d been on her cell phone.

“Who were you talking to, Phyllis?”

“N-No one,” she says.

I slap the right side of her face with the palm of my hand, and then the left side with the back of my hand, hard enough to open a small gash on both corners of her mouth. The way the blood trickles out makes her mouth look like the Joker in Batman. Except she’s not smiling.

I grab her cell phone and tap the button marked “Recent.” The name “Lucky” appears. I slip her phone into my pocket, figuring to check her caller list later.

“Who’s Lucky?”

“N-No one.”

She sees me looking at the controller in her lap, the one that looks like a fancy wrist watch. The one she used to punch in the code a few minutes ago. The code she thought would kill me.

“Looosy?” I say in my best Ricky Ricardo voice. “You’ve got some s’plainin’ to do!”