Diva Las Vegas (Book 1 in Raven McShane Series) Read Free Page B

caters to the kind of people who don’t have any use for dancing fountains, wine stewards or martinis that have anything in them besides gin and vermouth. 
    For a Tuesday night, Hugo’s was surprisingly crowded.  The bar was on the left side of the entrance, and at it a large hunched woman was sitting by herself sipping a glass of pink wine.  She was reading a worn paperback book through reading glasses that were attached to a chain around her neck. 
    “Ms. Trondheim?” I asked.
    She twisted back to me and frowned—I was obviously not what she was expecting. 
    “Who in the world are you?” she asked.
    “Raven.  We just spoke on the . . .”
    “The PI?” she practically spit out her pink wine.  Her eyes dropped to my heels and made their way up to my chest, where they lingered a moment too long.  “You’re so….”  She let the phrase hang in the air.
    “Sorry,” I said stupidly, not knowing what I was apologizing for.  Who did she expect, Nancy Drew?  I self-consciously adjusted my top to cover up some cleavage.  It was mostly a waste of energy.
    Leslie scooted the bar stool back a few inches and struggled a bit to get up.  She stuck out her hand.   “Call me Les,” she said, and gave my hand a firm shake.  She was all smiles and neck fat now.  Apparently she had forgiven me. 
    “Are we eating or drinking?” I asked. 
    “Both,” she said, and winked.  She slurped down what looked like a half-glass of wine.  So that’s how it was.  Les smiled apologetically and whispered something to the bartender.  She stood only about five-two and looked like she ran a good two-hundred pounds, although instead of appearing wide and bulky she somehow carried the narrow, tubular frame of a juvenile walrus.  A prominent quadruple chin gave her face a lumpy appearance, and it was framed by straight hair that used to be dark but was now streaked heavily with white and various shades of gray.  With her reading glasses on, she could have passed for Benjamin Franklin.
    I gestured toward the dining room and we made our way to a small table near the door.  For some reason I pulled the chair out for her and helped her into the seat.  She seemed to like that.
    “You’re a cute one,” she said, looking me over as I sat down.  I couldn’t tell if she was being flirtatious or grandmotherly. 
    “Thanks.”  I hoped I wasn’t blushing.  A compliment was a compliment.
    “So why in the world are you looking at that boring old case?” she asked, her eyes fixing on me over the reading glasses she still wore. 
    “Just idle curiosity, really.”
    She arched her left eyebrow up at me as though I’d just told the whopper of the century.  Another glass of pink wine suddenly appeared in front of her, and I told the waiter to bring me a glass of prosecco, champagne’s budget-friendly cousin. 
    “So how can I help?”  She asked.   
    “Well, to put it bluntly,” I said, “how the hell was Cody found not guilty?”
    She smiled broadly.  “Isn’t it obvious?  You have to remember that the jury had eight women on it, okay?”  Her voice had the kind of rehearsed self-assurance shared by celebrities on talk shows who have answered the same few questions a million times.  I hadn’t known about the jury’s heavily female slant, but I nodded anyway.
    “And any woman would find it very difficult to send that man to prison.  His face, his eyes . . .” She sighed dramatically, like a character in an Austen novel.
    “Okay, okay,” I laughed, cutting her off. 
     “It’s true,” she insisted.  “No other explanation for it.”
    “So you think he was actually guilty?”  My drink arrived.  We had forgotten to study the menu, so we perused it quickly while the waiter stood by.  Les ordered a lobster bisque to start and an entree of prime rib with a side of garlic potatoes.  I got the bone-in rib eye with a house salad. 
    Les picked up where we’d left off.  “I didn’t say I thought