“Seven bathrooms, seven bidets,” Carlisle observed proudly with a sweep of his hand as he walked me into the living room. “Hell, I didn’t even know what a bidet was before I bought the place.Y’all want something to drink? An Arnold Palmer, some lemonade or something? Mr. Royale can whip you up anything you want.”

“Mango nectar,” I said, for the hell of it.

“On the rocks?” Royale said.

“Rocks are for cavemen.”

“Blended it is.”

He strode across the living room to a fully stocked bar that looked like it had been salvaged from the saloon scene of some Old Western movie.

“Never knew you to be a mango man,” Carlisle said.

“The Buddha was big into mangos. Tons of vitamins.”

“Makes sense.”

I had no idea whether the Buddha liked or loathed mango juice. I only asked for a glass of the stuff because the still-bitter former son-in-law in me wanted to let my still-controlling ex-father-inlaw know that I wasn’t quite as predictable as that guy who’d been only too willing a few days earlier to pocket his $25,000 check like some junkie scoring a fix.

“Yeah, Mr. Royale’s one of a kind,” Carlisle said, loud enough for Lamont to hear. “Came to work for me about six months ago. I don’t know how I ever lived without him. Cooks like a damn French chef and hits a drive 300 yards, straight as a Comanche’s arrow. He keeps giving me lessons out on the course, I’m gonna be joining the tour. Me and Tiger.”

“Luckiest day of my life, the day I went to work for Mr. Carlisle,” Royale said, slicing a fresh mango from behind the bar.

Carlisle and I sat down on a long couch covered in steer hide. He asked me if I intended to press charges against the knifewielding skinhead whose wrist I’d broken on the way in from the airport. I said I had better things to do.

Zambelli entered. “Sir, excuse my interruption. Mr. Tarasov just faxed in the draft memorandum of agreement on the Kashagan limited partnership. Everything appears to be in order.” He handed Carlisle a sheaf of documents and gave me a sideways look while Carlisle took a gold Mont Blanc fountain pen from his shirt pocket and unscrewed the cap.

I waited as Carlisle skimmed the documents and edited the partnership agreement.

“Mr. Logan was reluctant to share information with me,” Zambelli said, more to me than his boss. “He said he was concerned about confidentiality.”

“My young assistant here is chompin’ at the bit to know what you’ve learned with respect to Mr. Echevarria since we last spoke,” Carlisle said. “I’d have to say he’s not alone.”

“I’d prefer that we talk alone.”

“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Mr. Zambelli.”

Zambelli’s lips curled in a gloating smile.

Carlisle handed Zambelli the documents, returned the gold pen to his shirt pocket, crossed his arms and waited for me to dish.

I asked him when was the last time he’d spoken with Echevarria.

Carlisle looked away, thinking. “You know,” he said after a few seconds, “I don’t rightly remember. About a week before he passed, as best I can recall.”

“Echevarria flew to Kazakhstan a week before he died. I assume you knew that.”

Zambelli cleared his throat and pretended to sift through the signed documents, while Carlisle gazed at me a little too dispassionately. “What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”

“You’re planning to do business in Kazakhstan, Echevarria goes to Kazakhstan. A week later, he’s murdered.”

Carlisle got up and looked out at the view. Through his eightyfoot expanse of greenhouse-style windows, he could take in all of downtown Las Vegas and the sunbaked wastelands of Nevada beyond.

“It’s important to know the lay of the land, who your friends and enemies are, before you start writing big checks,” he said, watching traffic crawl along on the boulevard below. “I had Arlo do some digging for me. Just to be on the safe side.”

“When you say ‘friends,’ you mean Tarasov?”

“Among others.”

“Did Echevarria turn up anything?”

“Nothing to suggest that Tarasov would do him any harm.”

“Unless, of course, Arlo did find something, and somebody took him out before he got a chance to tell you.”

“If Arlo had anything to say, I’m sure he would’ve called me.”

“You don’t call with sensitive information,” I said. “You deliver it in person.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve been watching too many spy movies, Mr. Logan,” Zambelli said.

“Who has time for movies? I’m too busy watching Dancing with the Stars.”

Carlisle turned somberly from the window. “I know that you and Arlo worked for the government in some kind of sensitive job, tracking people, whatever it was the two of you did. We had some beers once. He started telling me things he probably shouldn’t have. I hushed him up before he got too far. Never told Savannah a word of it. The point is, I hired him because he was married to my daughter and needed the work. But I can tell you one thing, beyond question: the job he did for me had nothing to do with who killed him or why.”

“Are you aware that Pavel Tarasov has been linked to Russian intelligence?”

Carlisle rubbed his eyes and ran his hand across his mouth. “Look, I have every confidence that had Arlo found out anything significant, anything at all, he would’ve let me know. Pavel Tarasov’s a good man. I’ve seen his heart. I’ll consider myself fortunate indeed to be in business with him.”

“If he’s such a good man,” I said, “why did you have Echevarria investigate him?”

“Like I said. Better safe than sorry.” Carlisle crossed to the bar and poured himself a scotch.

“Why didn’t you tell me your daughter and your assistant, Mr. Zambelli, slept together?”

“That’s none of your goddamn business!” Zambelli said. He took an angry step toward me with clenched fists, then thought better of it.

“Maybe not my business,” I said, “but it is the LAPD’s business.”

“How the hell’s it their business?” Carlisle said.

“Wife has fling, husband leaves, husband turns up dead. I’m no homicide investigator, but I do believe that when they get to the ‘who done it’ list, the whole jealous lover scenario is usually right up there, no?”

“If you’re insinuating that I was somehow jealous of Mr. Echevarria, or that I had anything to do in any way with his death,” Zambelli said, “you’re sadly mistaken.”

Carlisle surveyed me coldly. “You have no right to come into my house, making bullshit insinuations like that.”

“You’re right, Gil. I probably should’ve made them at the police station.”

Carlisle’s eyes were flat hard stones. Gone was the velvet twang from his voice. “Did you tell the police what happened between Savannah and Mr. Zambelli?”

“You asked me to tell them what I knew about Echevarria. That’s what I did. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Very good,” he said, heading for the door. “I suggest you keep it that way.”

“Why don’t you want the police to know about Savannah’s affair, Gil?”

“Mr. Royale will see you back to your airplane,” Carlisle said.

He disappeared down a long hallway. The forcefulness of his stride conveyed barely bridled anger. Zambelli shot me a contemptuous look and followed after him, nearly colliding with Lamont, who swerved like a running back and somehow managed to hang on to the highball glass of mango juice he’d prepared without spilling a drop. A pink hibiscus floated on top.

“The hibiscus is edible,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard a word of my exchange with Carlisle and Zambelli.

“Bonus,” I said.

Lamont Royale chauffeured me back to the North Las Vegas airport in Carlisle’s four-seat Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead convertible. The car had teakwood paneling and the initials “GC” stitched into its leather headrests. I rode shotgun.

“Don’t be too upset with him,” Lamont said. “Mr. Carlisle’s a fine man.”