Death of a Tenor Man

by Bill Moody

  “Well, there’s a lot in here you can use.”

  Ace grins and lightly punches me on the shoulder. “By God, I am going to have a helluva paper, aren’t I?” The wall-mounted phone rings before I can answer. Ace picks it up. “Yes, yes, he is. Just a moment.” Ace hands the phone to me. “It’s for you. Someone named Breeze?”

  I take the phone from Ace. “Breeze, how ya doing?”

  “Very well, my man, very well. I think I got what you were looking for. Even made some copies for you.”

  “When can I get it?”

  “Well, I have to be in court at ten. How about I meet you at eleven?”

  “Where?”

  “Coffee shop at the Four Queens? It’s close to the courthouse.”

  “Fine. See you then.”

  “Evan, you are going to love this.”

  I hang up the phone and turn to Ace. “Don’t even tell me,” he says, getting up from the table. “I’ve got to go over to school and see how well I’ve molded those young minds in my charge.”

  “All right. See you, Ace.”

  Natalie is up but still looking sleepy in the robe and tousled hair. “Want to meet The Breeze?” I say.

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  While Natalie gets ready I call Louise and Rachel, but there’s no answer at either number. I have the nagging feeling that Gallio is not going to rely on me entirely to produce the diary. He just might try something with one of them, Rachel especially, although I can’t be sure if he knows she had the diary. I leave a message on Louise’s beeper before we leave.

  “Where are we going?” Natalie asks, as I back the VW out of the driveway. The sun is climbing, and the heat is turned up full blast.

  “Four Queens, then I have to swing by Metro and see Lieutenant Trask. Coop’s probably there already. I also want to check on Rachel.”

  “Why?” Natalie wants to know.

  “I don’t know, just a feeling. I’d like to get her out of the picture just in case Gallio tries to lean on her.”

  I valet-park the VW and get a scornful look from the young attendant when I hand him the keys. “I won’t be long.”

  “I can’t wait,” he says, giving me the parking stub.

  We’re early, so we decide on the breakfast special while we wait for Breeze. Even at this hour the casino is busy, and the keno junkies play through their breakfast.

  “Feeling lucky?” Natalie asks, as she scans a keno ticket.

  “Not really.”

  “Well, we have to play at least a couple of games. Give me some numbers.”

  All I can think of is my birthdate. “Nine, twenty-seven, fifty-seven.”

  “Great. I’ll add mine.” She marks the ticket with a black crayon.

  “What are your numbers?”

  “Never mind,” she says, handing the ticket to a keno runner cruising the coffee shop.

  We’re on our second cup of coffee and third game when Breeze comes in. Today he’s gray suit, dark tie, carrying a leather briefcase. The only nod to his music persona is a Las Vegas Jazz Society pin on his lapel.

  “I’ll have some of that,” he says to the waitress hovering nearby. She pours him coffee and refills mine and Natalie’s. He extends his hand to Natalie. “Jonathan Counts. I bet we talked on the phone. You must be Natalie.”

  Natalie smiles and shakes hands. “Hello, Mr. Breeze.”

  Breeze returns her smile. “Only on the radio. Today I’m Super Lawyer. Sorry I’m late,” he says to me. “Judge was a drag, wouldn’t let me have a continuance.”

  He sets his briefcase on the table and snaps it open. Rummaging inside, he pulls out a file folder and hands it over to me. “This, bro, is for you. Not as easy as I expected,” he says.

  I start thumbing through the file while The Breeze fills me in. “What you’ll find in there is license applications, financial statements, real estate holdings, deeds of trust. Our Mr. Gallio is a very busy man.”

  I sift through the stack of photocopies. “I don’t have time to go through all this, Breeze. What does it all mean?” Breeze sets his coffee cup down and folds his fingers under his chin.

  “Gallio’s real estate holdings are extensive. Individually they’re small, but when you put them together, impressive. He owns the house in Spanish Trail; then there are some apartment buildings, a dry cleaners, part ownership in a restaurant, and some land on the west side that he is developing into a shopping center.” Breeze pauses for a moment to let this sink in.

  “The licensing applications are for food, beverage, and gambling, although there are several layers separating Gallio from the application. That took a few calls to a friend in Gaming Control. The major property sale pending at the moment is, guess what? The Moulin Rouge.”

  “He’s going to open it again?”

  Breeze shakes his head. “He’s going to tear it down and start all over, but he’s run into some snags with county commissioners. There’s a group, which includes the present owner, who want to see the Rouge restored and get it historical landmark status. The other hang-up is the Gaming Commission. They’ve got a Black Book here that frowns on organized-crime types applying for gaming licensing, but they can’t get anything concrete on Gallio even though they know he’s connected.”

  I look through the pages of the file and wonder how the Gaming Commission would like a look at Louise Cody’s diary and someone to testify against Little Tony and Karl. They’d like it even more if Gallio could be implicated in Sonny Wells’s and Buddy Herman’s deaths:

  “How much would it take to smear Gallio’s chances for license?”

  Breeze shrugs. “Not much. The Gaming Control Board is very careful these days. They even went after Jackie Gaughan a few years ago, and he owns a bunch of these downtown casinos. Spotless record, straight as an arrow, but he had to go before the board anyway.”

  “And without a license?”

  “Gallio’s out of business before he starts. You can’t run a casino without a license. What have you got in mind?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Good, I’d rather you didn’t. There’s one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gallio may look strictly legit, but bad publicity would hurt him with his back-East connections almost as much as with the Gaming Control Board. You know who Tony Spilatro was? Tony the Ant, last of the Chicago family that was in Las Vegas, but he got to be too much of a celebrity.”

  I remember Trask bringing up his name.

  “They were the ones found face down in an Indiana corn field.”

  Rachel’s car is parked out front when we pull up to her Naked City apartment building. So far so good, but I have a feeling something is wrong, something I should have thought of before. Gallio isn’t really going to trust me to come through with the diary. He would take out some insurance, just to cover all the bases.

  I try to tell myself I’m wrong, but it doesn’t work. It takes nearly five minutes for Rick to come to the door, too long for Rachel to be in there.

  Rick, clad only in cutoffs, is spaced on something. There’s also a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “Oh man,” he says, “you guys are bad news.”

  We push past him into the apartment. Rick flops on the couch. He folds his arms over his chest and gazes at us through glassy eyes. The coffee table is overturned, and so are the chairs. A few of the cassettes are lying on the floor in front of the bookcase.

  “What happened, Rick?”

  He slumps over on the couch. I pull him upright and shake him. “Come on, Rick, wake up. Where’s Rachel?”

  “Leave me alone, man.” He tries to pull away.

  “As soon as you tell us where Rachel is.” Natalie sits down next to him to hold him upright.

  He stares at her with a pleading look. “Don’t let him hurt me, okay?”

  “Nobody is going to hurt you, Rick. We just need to know where Rachel is.”

  “They did, those guys,�
� he says, looking at me again, trying to focus.

  “Who, Rick?”

  “Two guys, man. Bad dudes, one really big one, shoved me around.”

  “Tony and Karl,” I say to Natalie. “They took Rachel with them?”

  “Yeah, man.” He looks at both of us. “I couldn’t stop them. I—” His head flops back on the couch, and his eyes close.

  “C’mon,” I say to Natalie. “He’ll sleep it off.”

  “Now what?”

  “We’ve got to see Trask and Coop and then wait.”

  “For what?” She glances again at Rick.

  “Gallio’s phone call.”

  The diary for Rachel, that’s how this is going to go down.

  We don’t have to find Trask or Coop. They’re waiting for us back at the house.

  “Rachel Cody is gone,” I say to Coop. “Little Tony and Karl.”

  “We’re way ahead of you, sport. Her mother called in, but we had to expect this.”

  Ace is back, looking bewildered by the invasion of his home. Trask is on the phone, while another plainclothes detective is setting up a tape recorder on the kitchen table. Trask barks something into the phone and slams it down.

  “Okay, Horne, you’re next. Let’s go outside.”

  I follow him and Coop out to the patio. Trask is all business, but he’s not angry. “Okay, Horne, your little nocturnal excursion has put a different light on things.”

  “I didn’t exactly volunteer for that trip,” I remind Trask. Coop signals me with his eyes. Do they think I’m enjoying this?

  “I know,” Trask says. “Coop filled me in, and he’s made a very interesting suggestion. You’re in this pretty deep now, enough so you can help us nail Gallio.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he has Rachel Cody, he’ll be calling here, and he’ll more than likely have you as the go-between for the exchange. We’ve got the diary from your professor pal, so we can make a trade and also get something definite on Gallio. You’re the only one who’s been close to him lately, so it might work.”

  I look from Trask to Coop. “I don’t think I like the sound of this. What am I going to have to do?”

  “We’ll decide for sure after the call, see what he’s got in mind. Basically you’ll agree to a location for the exchange, and we’ll grab Gallio once it’s made.”

  I glance from Trask to Coop. Both of them have made up their minds. “You don’t really think Gallio himself will be involved in this? He’s way too smart for that.”

  “He will if you insist,” Coop says.

  “Right,” says Trask. “He wants that diary. I can understand why. I’ve just been skimming through it.”

  I glance toward the house. I can see Ace talking with Natalie as they watch the tape recorder being attached to the phone. I hope he made the copy I asked for.

  “So, how is this going to work? Gallio will want me to come to his house in Spanish Trail.”

  “No way,” Coop says. “We’ve got to come up with a place we can stake out with reasonable security.”

  “What do you mean, reasonable security? Can we do a little better than that? I’d like to get out of this in one piece.”

  “You and Rachel,” Trask says. “Gallio isn’t foolish enough to try anything, and besides, all he wants is the diary. So—”

  “I know just the place,” I say. I’ve already been thinking about it from the moment I knew Gallio had Rachel.

  “I already know I’m not going to like this,” Coop says.

  “Where?” says Trask.

  I look at them both for a moment, take a deep breath. “The Fashion Show Mall, while I’m playing.”

  “Out of the question,” Trask says. “No way.”

  Coop watches me, and I can tell from his expression he wants to hear more.

  “Why not? It’s a very public place. Gallio certainly won’t try anything there with a mall full of shoppers. I can have the diary on top of the piano where you can see everything. You can have some undercover guys around. He gets the diary, we get Rachel, and I’m in very plain sight.”

  Trask mumbles and mulls it over as if he’s waiting for a vote of confidence from Coop. “It’s not bad,” Coop says. “We could control it maybe better than anyplace else.”

  “You’d have to convince Gallio,” Trask says to me. “And do it exactly how I say.”

  “I’ll convince Gallio. You guys work it out.”

  “What time do you play?”

  “Two o’clock. I’m on till four.”

  Trask checks his watch. “Christ, that doesn’t give us much time.” He paces around the patio for a couple of minutes. Coop winks at me. Finally, Trask comes to a halt. “Okay, let’s see what Gallio says and if he calls in time.”

  “He will,” I say, “and anyway that’s the only way I’m going to do it.”

  We don’t have to wait much longer. The sliding glass door opens, and we all hear the phone ringing. Ochoa motions us inside.

  “Okay,” Trask says to me. “Take it.”

  Ochoa hits the record button on the recorder, and I pick up the phone on the third ring.

  “Horne? I assume you know who this is?” I nod to Trask and Coop.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Then you also know what I want,” Gallio says, “and what I’m willing to do in exchange for your cooperation.”

  “You know Rachel might be your daughter,” I say. I look at Coop and Trask waving their hands at me, mouthing, no, no, no.

  “My what?” There’s silence for a few moments, and for a minute I think I’ve pushed the wrong button. He’s going to hang up. Hasn’t he thought of this? “I’m tired of your games, Horne. Here’s what you’re going to do. You will come alone, I stress that word, to the Spanish Trail main gate, where the security guard is, and—”

  “No,” I say. “You want the diary, you come to me.”

  “Come to you? You think I’m going to just drive over to your house?”

  “No, I don’t expect that, but I want my insurance too. You be at the Fashion Show Mall at three o’clock with Rachel. The diary will be on top of the piano. You pick it up. When you’re satisfied, you release Rachel.”

  “Tony and Karl will pick it up,” Gallio says.

  “No, you be there or it’s no deal. We both know how much you want this, Gallio, so you come get it yourself.”

  There’s another long pause while Gallio thinks it over. I put my hand over the phone and say to Trask, “I think he’s going for it.”

  When Gallio comes back on the line his voice is quieter, more controlled, like it was at Spago. “All right, Horne, I’ll be there.”

  “I don’t mean Little Tony and his playmate.”

  “I don’t either,” Gallio says. “Three o’clock. Horne?”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s not my daughter.” He hangs up, and I put down the phone. Ochoa presses the stop button.

  Coop and Trask look at me as if I’m about to say the winning lottery numbers. “Well?” they say in unison.

  “He’s coming. Fashion Show at three.”

  “Yes!” Trask says, clapping his hands. together. He grabs the phone and starts making calls.

  Coop looks at me. “You got a big gig coming up, sport.”

  Ace and Natalie have been watching and listening to the whole thing. “Ace, have you got a large envelope I can put this in?” I ask, indicating the diary lying on the table.

  “Huh?” Ace must feel like he’s wandered into the set of a television police show. “Oh, sure. In my office.”

  I follow Ace to his office, where he digs out a large manila envelope. I slip the diary inside. “You did make the copy, right?”

  “Yes, of course. Just like you said. It’s in a locked file cabinet in my office at UNLV.”

  “Good, thanks, Ace. This will all be over soon.”

  I leave him and go back to the kitchen. Trask is still on the phone, Ochoa is making some notes on a pad. Coop and Natalie are ta
lking quietly. “She’ll go with me,” Coop says. “Trask is arranging for some undercover, but you won’t know who they, are.”

  Trask hangs up the phone, stands up, and checks his watch again. “Okay, everything will be in place. You don’t do anything but sit quietly and play the piano, got it?”

  “He means it,” Coop says. “No matter what else goes down.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “This is your show. I’m going to change.” I take the diary with me. I change into my tux, make one call, and come back with the diary sealed in the manila envelope. By then they’re all gone.

  “Want to take the Jeep?” Ace offers.

  “No, a nondescript VW Bug sounds right for this outing. Wish me luck, Ace.”

  Carrying my jacket and the diary, I go out to the car, sweltering in the heat, feeling ridiculous in the tuxedo. I toss the diary on the seat beside me and wonder what Brent Tyler would think if he knew his mall was about to be invaded by undercover Metro police and several organized crime figures, gathered to make a kidnapping exchange.

  Especially when it is all going to be orchestrated by a piano player.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I spot Ochoa standing near the ice cream stand, licking a cone, trying to look casual, but his eyes are everywhere. Coop and Natalie are seated near the cappuccino bar, facing me, two paper cups on the table in front of them. I don’t see Trask, but I know he’s there somewhere.

  We met briefly in the parking lot to settle the final details, make sure I know my part. Where is he? Outside, in radio contact with everybody undercover? Any of the shoppers walking by the piano carrying department store bags could be Trask’s undercover people. I’m glad I don’t know who or where they are.

  “We want to keep this as low-profile as possible,” Trask had said. He was emphatic. “You stay at the piano no matter what.” Or under it, I think. Tony and Karl will be armed for sure. Gallio won’t chance that. He just wants the diary and a clean getaway.

  I look at my watch for what must be the tenth time. Still fifteen minutes to go. “These Foolish Things” pops into my head. As good a tune as any for the occasion. I play, smile at the passing shoppers, and try to focus on the music, but my mind is on Anthony Gallio.