Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts

a while I had to agree with his judgment.
    I held up the wall near the stairs. From here, I could watch Dane unobserved. He was bent over a display, his ass pointed in my direction. My mind was just beginning to wander into forbidden territory when my Nextel vibrated at my hip. I was smart enough to have put it on silent. Its normal wail would shatter the silence in this techie mausoleum. Everyone in the joint would probably have a coronary and planes would fall out of the skies.
    I pushed-to-talk as I bounded up the stairs, two at a time. “Hang on,” I whispered. I raced up the stairs and back outside, and stuck a foot between the door and the door jamb so I didn’t get locked out. “O’Toole here.”
    “Hey, Lucky. Where you at?” Jerry was apparently pulling the night shift in Security.
    “I’m hot on the trail of a missing helicopter.”
    “Then you’re gonna like this. I just got a call from some irate Mexican dude—he kept cussing at me in Spanish like I was too stupid to understand.” Jerry chuckled. “The dude was really hot. Even
I
learned a few words.”
    I gritted my teeth and kept quiet. Jerry loved to string me along when he had something really good to tell me.
    “Anyway, it seems this guy works as security at Spanish Trail,” he continued.
    I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Jer, I’m getting older by the minute.”
    “Right. Our missing helicopter is sitting on the ninth green of the Lakes golf course at Spanish Trail Golf and Country Club. Doors are unlocked, but no pilot. I promised the security guy a hundred bucks for not calling the police.”
    “I could kiss you!” I reclipped the Nextel just as Dane materialized at my elbow.
    “Who could you kiss?” he asked.
    “Jerry. He found something for me. Did you find out anything from Captain Kirk in there?”
    “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Dane said with an evil grin.
    “Okay, smart-ass. You first.”
    We both walked toward the waiting limo. “It seems our boy circled around for a while after the gal took a header. Then he asked for clearance to Northtown.”
    “Northtown?” I asked as Dane waved Paolo away and opened my door. We both settled in, this time side by side.
    “North Las Vegas Airport, a general aviation field off Rancho.”
    “I know the place.”
    “My buddy checked with their tower. It seems the chopper landed there, but only stayed for a few minutes. The guys in the tower either couldn’t see or didn’t notice whether anyone got on or off. Once he was airborne again, they cleared him to the west. From there the trail goes cold. After the chopper exited the airport’s airspace, the pilot turned off his transponder and disappeared off the radar.”
    “Transponder?” I asked, then thought better of it. I could get a lesson in air traffic control some other time. “Never mind.”
    “Now I get to see yours,” Dane reminded me.
    “Well,” I said as I settled into the deep seat. “Before I turn my cards over, I call and raise you one dinner at the restaurant of my choice.”
    He whistled. “It must be good.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at my face. “Or you’re bluffing.” He waited a moment then said, “Okay, I’ll play. What do you have?”
    I smiled and pressed the intercom switch. “Paolo, take us to Spanish Trail, the east entrance, please.”
    “REMIND me never to play poker with you,” Dane said as he and I stared at the Babylon’s missing helicopter silhouetted by the eerie yellow glow of the streetlamps.
    We were standing on what I had been told was the ninth green of the Lakes course at Spanish Trail. And sitting right in front of us, big as life, was our missing helicopter. In the dark, the faint glow of the streetlights reflected off its bubble cockpit. With its rotors sagging limply, the helicopter looked like a giant dragonfly.
    A man emerged from the shadows. He wore the uniform of the security guards at Spanish Trail. “You guys from the Babylon?”
    “I