by Lex Lander
Low cards were in the ascendancy and I was at a cumulative count of plus four when I became aware that someone was breathing down my neck.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, Freeman?’ was the less-than-friendly enquiry. I recognised the source of the enquiry without turning to look – it came from my ex-employer, Carl Heider. The dealer was looking at him with an air of apprehension.
‘Passing the time of day,’ I said, adding, just for mischief’s sake, ‘Counting cards.’
He spluttered like a firework about to go off.
‘You shitting me?’
Now I turned towards him. He wasn’t alone. Son Nick was dancing attendance, seeming amused.
‘Nobody admits to counting cards in a casino,’ was his contribution.
‘Well, I really am counting cards,’ I said, ‘Or I was until you interrupted me.’
If Heider Sr could have breathed fire it would have been jetting from his nostrils.
‘You’re out of here,’ he snarled, and cast around the hall, probably trying to spot a cooler to escort me from the premises.
‘Chill, Pa,’ Nick said. ‘He’s not playing, so who cares?’
That brought Heider up short, like a train hitting buffers.
‘Yeah, that’s right, I guess,’ he said, his tone almost sheepish. ‘Just keep it that way, huh?’
‘Sure. So it’s okay if I stay?’
I fired up my sincere, respectful look. No sense in making an adversary of him. He studied me, a tiny smile tweaking the ends of his lips.
‘Now you are shitting me,’ he said. ‘Okay, I’ve gotten your number, Freeman. Get out of here, and out of Vegas is my advice. Pronto. I wouldn’t want you to have an untimely accident.’
‘Is an accident ever timely?’
He snorted. ‘You’re so not funny it’s almost funny.’
With that quip, he stalked off. Nick hung around briefly after he’d gone and challenged me to a staring duel. He was good but he still lost. A nod, conceding defeat, and he drifted away with studied nonchalance.
Within minutes, I reckoned every staff member in the hall would have me under surveillance, not to mention the overhead CCTV cameras. Card counting, even for fun, had lost its appeal. I didn’t even hang about in the hope that Maura would emerge from backstage and invite me someplace private.
THE HUNT IS OFF
THIRTEEN
For the time being, the Heiders were out of my hair. Other interested parties unfortunately weren’t. As I approached my Nissan rental in the Pieces of Eight parking lot, a car drew up alongside me. Through the open window on the driver’s side, the face of Detective First Grade Gratrix, gazed out at me behind sunglasses. Beside him, female Detective Rozon, also sporting shades. I groaned, not quite aloud.
‘Hi there, Mr Freeman’ Gratrix greeted. ‘Spare a minute?’
If I’d said ‘No,’ would he have driven on, left me in peace? I didn’t think so.
‘Hi, Detective.’
‘Jump in, we need to talk.’
About what, I could guess. The rear left door swung open, inviting me inside. The front and rear compartments of the car weren’t separated by a grill as they are in standard police cruisers, which was some solace. No sense in resisting or running anyway. Failure to cooperate was just going to land me in even bigger trouble.
I eased onto the rear seat and shut the door. Gratrix removed his sunglasses and twisted round to put me in his line of vision. Rozon continued staring ahead.
‘You’ll recall our little chat of last week,’ Gratrix said in his quiet voice.
‘Word for word.’
He overlooked my irony and said, ‘Then you’ll remember my asking about your relationship with Maura Heider.’
‘And I remember what I told you.’
‘Good. We’re making progress. Yesterday you had lunch with Mrs Heider. Don’t insult my intelligence by telling me it was a chance encounter. So, if it wasn’t a chance encounter, it was a date. So, if you had a date with Maura Heider you are at the very least more than mere casual acquaintances.’
‘We are now. We weren’t then.’
‘Ah.’
‘Are you claiming that you have a relationship with her that started the day she gave you a ride?’ This from Rozon, without turning her head.
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘And your visit to the Pieces of Eight just now?’ Gratrix said.
A blue SUV reversed into the adjacent slot, its height casting a shadow over us. Gratrix glanced at it, presumably dismissed it as harmless, focused back on me.
‘Business with Carl Heider.’ No lie there.
‘Ah,’ he said again. ‘Carl Heider. You seem to be expanding your connections with the Heider family. Nicky Boy, the lapdog attorney horned in on your lunch date for a while too, didn’t he?’
‘Your information is accurate, though I don’t think “horned in” is quite apt.’
‘Don’t play word games with us, mister,’ Rozon cut in, bad cop to Gratrix’s good cop. ‘We want to know what your real business is with the Heider mob, and if you don’t tell us you’re going to find yourself sitting on the wrong side of an interview table.’
She was right inasmuch as it would be best if I played it straight and serious. The trouble was, although I was totally innocent of any involvement in the Heiders’ activities, I had so much baggage of my own that I had to watch every utterance I made.
‘No need to make threats. I told you why I’m here, and that’s the truth. My meeting with Maura Heider was happenstance. In conversation, she asked me what I was doing in Vegas. When I told her, she mentioned that the Pieces of Eight is seeking investors. My meeting with Carl Heider was a result of that.’
It was plausible, and it all fitted together. Gratrix and Rozon, being cops, would by instinct and by training treat my explanation as suspect. They had to decide whether or not I was an innocent, accidently dredged up by their tail on Maura, or actively doing rackets business with the Heiders. It belatedly occurred to me to wonder if they were also sounding me out as a possible fifth column.
‘Give me your driver’s ID again, will you?’ Gratrix said.
This was a request too many. If he decided to hold on to it and run it through the national records computer, I would be in deep doo-doo. That risk notwithstanding, refusal was not a solution.
So I handed it over. Gratrix in turn passed it to Rozon, who began writing the details in her note book.
When she returned it to me, I said, ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yeah, you can go.’ In Gratrix’s reply a hint of weariness. ‘If you’re on the level, all well and good. My advice to you is to forget all about investing in Heider’s empire, and to forget about screwing Maura Heider. You might get infected.’
‘I appreciate your concern for my welfare.’
When I got out he did too, and it wasn’t to shake hands and give me a parting pat on the back. In a blur of movement that impressed me, he whirled on me and pushed me back against the car by my lapels, almost lifting me off my feet.
‘Now get this straight, you high-and-mighty fuck,’ he snarled, his nose almost touching mine. ‘I’m done with treating you nice. If I have to pick you up again I’ll find a charge I can make stick, and run you in so fast your shoes will smoke.’
The compulsion to smack his hands aside and land a quick one-two to the breadbasket was almost too strong to resist. He was tough, and probably fit, and definitely younger than me, but I didn’t keep myself in shape just to impress the girls. If I had to, I could take him.
He released me, pretended to dust me down and smooth the wrinkles he had made in my lapels. He backed away as if to keep out of range. A half-apologetic grin creased his features.
‘You see what happens when you make me mad?’
‘Sure I do. You scared me to death there.’
His headshake was a flag of surrender in our war of words.
‘Somehow I feel I haven’t gotten through to y
ou.’
About that, he was dead wrong.
They drove off, leaving me inhaling their exhaust fumes and speculating on how long before they sussed out my phony driving license. That would be a charge Gratrix could make stick.
To keep the police and others off my back some elementary precautions were called for. A change of rental car was most urgent, then a change of hotel. The police were probably not (yet) tailing me, but it wouldn’t be long before they came around to it.
I delivered the Nissan back to the rental firm. From there I walked by a roundabout route to a competitor outfit. Over the years I had developed ESP about tails, and I was confident that nobody followed me between the two locations, be it the LVPD, the Tosi boys, or the Heiders.
For my replacement wheels, I chose something with plenty under the hood – a BMW 650i X-Drive. Next, the hotel. To be doubly sure I hadn’t been followed to the rental company, I took the Beamer for a sprint along the I-15, checking the mirror constantly. About twenty miles out of town, I came to Exit 64, signposted Love’s Travel Stop, and quit the interstate. Love’s turned out to be a gas station-cum-supermarket-cum-roadhouse. Almost no other vehicles entered the parking lot after me; just a battered pick-up that would never have been able to stay with me on the highway, and a couple of bearded bikers. Both of them tanked up and left.
I grabbed an espresso in the road house and sat by a window to watch the movements in the parking lot. Nothing caught my eye. I stayed for an hour, getting through two more espressos. When I returned to the road, I initially drove along Highway 93, towards nowhere according to the blank void on the GPS screen. After ten minutes of motoring, with the rearview mirror empty of other road users, I was satisfied that I was not being shadowed. I U-turned and headed back towards the I-15.
The Renaissance was my next port of call. A message was waiting for me, dictated over the phone, typed by a hotel employee.
Please come to the house tomorrow evening. If you can’t make it call me on my cell not the office phone. MB
I stuck the note in my wallet. I completed the checking out process. My account was twenty dollars in credit.
‘Keep it,’ I said to the woman behind the desk.
She thanked me. As I picked up my valise she said, ‘By the way, someone was here last night, asking if you were still staying here.’
My initial thought was the police.
‘A young man with bushy black hair. He didn’t want to speak to you, just confirm that you were a guest here.’
It sounded like Cesare. So he was back in town. To have travelled from Reno meant it was a lot more than a casual visit.
Mind racing at the implications, I bade the woman farewell.
Under the hotel entrance canopy a scene was being enacted involving an attractive blonde woman old enough to be my mother, and a trio of much younger females, also blonde on top but elsewhere black and done up in dominatrix-style leather. All four were cracking whips at passers-by and I wondered idly if they were from a brothel, promoting a BDSM service. The blonde piece was to the forefront, well-oiled and boisterous, while the three black women were taking it seriously.
‘Hey, big boy,’ the blonde called to me as I detoured around them. ‘Fancy a little light flagellation before dinner?’ She was dressed more conservatively than the others, and I took her for the brothel madam.
I grinned, waved my no-thanks, and left them to their pantomime.
Las Vegas. City of opportunities for the unwary.
My new hotel was the Club de Soleil, a 3-Star establishment off West Tropicana, unfashionably west of the Strip. Me and my best friend, Ruger. All rooms, as I had ascertained before making the booking, were fitted with safes.
‘I’ll pay cash, a week in advance,’ I told the young, Hispanic desk clerk when I signed in.
‘Not a problem,’ he said, blank-faced.
To the seven hundred dollars for the room and breakfast, I added a hundred for his shirt breast pocket, just in case I ever needed him to bend the rules. That at least earned me a nod of appreciation.
Different hotel, different car. For the time being, I was as good as invisible.
First the police, now the Tosis. I was getting too popular in Vegas for my own health. If the Tosi gang didn’t get me, the police would. No sense in sticking around.
No sense. But nor was I in a hurry to pack my bags. The reason for my lassitude was simple yet complicated. Maura Beck. Not because I had fallen for her. I liked her, even liked her a lot. It wasn’t that liking that kept me in Las Vegas though, it was a hunch that she was in some sort of trouble and needed an ally. More than that, she saw me as that ally, even if she wasn’t yet crying damsel in distress. She was bringing out the nobility in me, always there, latent but usually suppressed. The side of me that had me charging to the rescue of a girl called Libertad, at a lonely gas station in northern Spain.
In my suite at the Club de Soleil, I transmitted instructions to my Swiss bank to refund the $500,000 to Heider’s account, which happened to be in the same town. After receiving confirmation, I went for a swim in the outdoor heated pool. I had it to myself and did a punishing hundred lengths, followed by a stint in the sauna, then an hour in the gym. It took a lot out of me, a sign maybe that I was approaching the age where I should throttle back a notch or two.
For the ride out to Maura’s I booked a cab to collect me at 5.30pm at the corner of Cameron and West Reno, about a mile from the hotel. I made sure I was tail-free. Again, for security’s sake, I had the driver drop me well short of my destination. Even so, it was going to be tricky. If Maura was under round-the-clock surveillance, I would be logged as a visitor. The obvious vantage point for a stake-out was on a knoll on the edge of the Summerlin Golf Course, bordering the upmarket estate that included Maura’s house. It was about two hundred yards from her gate, topped with pine trees and assorted bushes. I had used it myself, two years ago, while preparing to kill Jeff Heider.
The sun was setting behind Bridge Mountain, a blazing orange disc that shrank in size even as I watched it. Dusk fell as I closed in on the knoll, until I was close enough to hear him talking, presumably into a cell phone. I applied myself to a tree trunk and eavesdropped.
‘ ... moving here,’ he was saying. ‘She came home about twenty minutes ago, alone. I’ll call it a wrap at six-thirty, unless you want me to stick around.’ A few seconds silence, then, ‘No, that’s what I figured.’
It was my guess that Maura was a low level observee in the police investigation, a long shot. Calling it off when darkness fell was no great sacrifice as callers would be hard to ID. I withdrew to a point where I would be able to see him descend to the road without myself being seen.
The sky darkened and the stars began to twinkle. I recognized the two Ursa formations – Major and Minor – and that was the extent of my astronomical knowledge. A car drove past Maura’s place and swung into a driveway two lots down. The watcher emerged from the bushes and descended to the pavement, then set out on foot down the road that served the estate. I stayed put.
Out of sight, an engine started up. My cue to move. Maura had left the driveway gate open for me. I jogged up the drive to the house’s portico entrance, barely illuminated by two feeble lamps; I supposed Maura had dimmed them deliberately to make it harder for any snoopers, now that she knew she was being watched. I thumbed the bell push.
When she answered my summons, she was prevented by a security limiter from opening the door more than a crack.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, and unhitched the limiter to let me in.
‘Good to see you again.’
‘I’m sure somebody’s watching me from that high ground over there.’ She pointed out the knoll. ‘I saw something flash there when I arrived home, when it was still light.’
‘You’re right. I went up there and listened to a police officer talking. He’s gone off duty now.’
She pushed the door shut with more force than was required, locked it and engaged the li
miter.
‘It’s hateful, this being watched. What do they want with me?’
‘Nothing at all. They’re interested in your contacts. People like me.’
She made an exasperated growling noise in her throat, and led me through to the living room. She was dressed in the skinny jeans with a cashmere sweater and a pearl necklace. Still a head-turner, even ultra casual.
‘Make yourself at home, James,’ she said. ‘I have something to tell you, and you won’t like it. Can I fix you a drink?’
‘Vodka and lemon, please. Ice if you have it.’
She fixed two drinks; red wine for her. We faced each other across the coffee table. Soft music was being piped to the room.
‘Cheers,’ I said, tipping my glass towards her.
She smiled, mirrored my action, and drank rather than sipped.
‘They’ve wired my phone at the office,’ she blurted, as if it were a secret she wanted to get off her chest. ‘They’ve been listening in to our conversations.’
Icy fingers played scales down my spine.
‘Who – the police?’
‘No, no, not the police. Carl. I don’t know when it started, probably after the night we talked in the casino. Somebody reported it, I expect – Roger, most likely. People are loyal to Carl first, not me.’
Trying to recall the gist of our telephone conversations tested my memory to the limit. On one occasion I had referred to her husband but not, I was positive, my responsibility for his death.
‘How did you find out?’
‘You remember how Nick said I’d told my secretary and or the front desk girl that I was lunching at the Stratosphere?’ I nodded. ‘It wasn’t true. I didn’t tell a soul, for the simple reason I didn’t want anyone to know. That made me suspicious. Then I noticed a faint buzzing on the line that tripped in a moment or two after I picked up the phone. I took the phone apart, and there it was – a nasty little bug.’