The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) by Craig Schaefer Page A

white gold Rolex, snug on Monty’s wrist as he hugged her from behind.
    “Weird question,” I said, “but did he always wear that watch?”
    “Ever since that day, yeah. That was the day I bought it for him, to celebrate our success. There’s an inscription on the back:
Forever Gold
.” She tilted her head at me. “Why? What’s important about the watch?”
    Bingo. A gift from the woman Monty was deeply in unrequited love with. Stealing a token like that off a dead man’s body was exactly how you ended up with angry ghosts in your penthouse suite.
    “Nothing. Just a…pet theory.” I changed the subject. “So what are you going to do now? About Dino, I mean.”
    She frowned, squaring her shoulders as she looked to the front door.
    “Right now? Call up my bodyguards from my place in LA, get them out here, and tell ’em to hand out a world-class beatdown if his boys come poking their noses around here again. I don’t get scared, I get mad. Dino’s not making one dime off of my hard work. What are you gonna do?”
    “Well,” I said, “I’ll be writing up everything we’ve learned and conveying it to my superiors at the company—”
    “And then they’ll call the police?”
    “Right. Then they’ll call the police.”
    She folded her arms. “Good. Dino needs to pay for what he did.”
    She walked us to the door and I tried not to feel guilty. The cops weren’t coming. Monty’s death was never going to be anything, on the record, but a heart attack. And the only payment was going to be another envelope of cash from Greenbriar, once I got that Rolex back and laid Monty’s ghost to rest. I didn’t like giving people false hope. There was no money in it.
    “Just one thing,” she said, opening the door for us. “I watched the fight from the window. How did you do that…that thing with the cards?”
    “Oh, that?” I smiled and shrugged it off. “It’s a trick deck. Spring-loaded. I do some sleight of hand in my free time, keeps my hands limber.”
    She nodded, buying it. Of course she did. In a world of CGI and special effects, where you saw the impossible every time you turned on the TV, nothing covered up for real magic like saying, “It was just a trick.” It was easy to believe. Safe.
    “Sounds like the plot of a TV show,” she said. “Like you’re some kind of…magic detective.”
    I winced. I smiled, I shook her hand, but I winced.
    “You know,” I muttered to Caitlin as we walked back to the car, the door swinging shut behind us, “back when I was a full-time gangster, Nicky Agnelli called me his ‘hired wand.’”
    She wrinkled her nose at the mention of Nicky’s name. “So?”
    “So it’s
cooler
.”
    Caitlin unlocked the Camaro, and I slipped into the passenger seat. She fired up the engine and looked at the dashboard clock with a slight smile.
    “We should get back to the city just in time for dinner.” She paused, glancing sidelong at me as she stepped on the gas. “My fearless magic detective.”
    *     *     *
    “Oh,” I said as I peered around the glossy room, my voice carrying over the thumping bass beat of a live DJ set, “STK.
Steak
. I get it now.”
    The steakhouse sat inside the W Hotel in West Beverly Hills, rich wooden tables offering a splash of earth-tone color in a sea of slate and ivory. Dozens of steer horns bristled along one creamy wall like a battalion of curving spear tips, looming above rounded banquette tables where a bevy of B-listers and their entourages held court. I recognized a couple of TV actors—by face if not by name—perfectly positioned to see and be seen.
    Caitlin had reserved a banquette just for us, sitting side by side in the big, curving booth. I caught an uncomfortable number of glances shooting our way, people trying to figure out if we were famous or not. Or maybe just eyeing my date, who’d stopped at our hotel room to slip into a little black Chanel dress.
    “We’re ready to order,” Caitlin told the waitress,