Iceman

by Rex Miller

  Even now he could hear the echo of fat Dana's one-liner that would live on at Buckhead Station as a kind of mini-legend.

  “Well, there's one dude who won't shoot his mouth off again."

  Las Vegas, 1985

  The handsome man with the strikingly beautiful woman walked around the corner of the hotel corridor—that is she walked around the corner—as they moved through a pocket of tourists standing at some sort of information counter. He was what you saw first, but she was what you speculated about, whispering of her beauty, wondering if she was a showgirl or perhaps a high-priced courtesan.

  She walked behind him, a comforting presence, and he had a fixed smile on his face as they moved through the hayseeds. She knew how he liked to be treated and it relaxed him a bit. He was always somewhat on edge right before heavy play, and one less thing to concern himself with was a definite plus. He could count on her.

  She was a knockout, and it never failed to amuse and please him the way not just men but women too stared when she—when THEY—came into a room. He liked her best in low-cut necklines when they went shopping to those carefully selected stores that he considered accessible, to clubs, bars, restaurants, but not to the casinos.

  When he gambled he wanted her decorous. Sexy but decorous. So he kept her in tailored suits. Sweater ensembles. High-necked cocktail dresses. It mattered not. They, the pair of them, still drew an instant crowd, but with the low tops guys would hover like buzzards, pressing around them at the tables for a closer look at those perfect breasts, the finest that money could buy. And it made nun uncomfortable and fucked his concentration over, so that's why he had her dress up her act a little for the tables.

  The casino was buzzing tonight. Heavy play in the neon beehive. A swirl of activity, a cloud of smoke, a circumambience of continuous movement inside a vast and noisy arena. They were moving in the direction of the roulette table with the least action. Like most of the plush joints on the strip, this one only had two wheel tables and this was his action. Red and black. He was like the good-looking masthead on a ship's prow, cutting through the waves of moving jerks, slicing purposely through the congestion with his beautiful Nicki behind him, leaving the small fish gasping in their wake.

  They reached the table and he beckoned her to him with a hand.

  “I love your ass,” he whispered to her possessively as she smiled at him. A beautiful, dazzling, perfect smile. “You gorgeous bitch."

  She smiled and kissed him very lightly, saying, “I love you, too,” saying something else endearing, whispering so softly he couldn't hear over the din.

  He loved that soft, feminine voice. Jeezus. Who'd ever guess? In a million fucking years you'd never know that Nicki was a guy.

  Of course she WASN'T. He never thought of her as a young man or a transvestite or anything like that. Even the first time they'd made love, when he'd drawn her on that weird outcall thing, back when she was tricking. He smiled. “Tricking.” What a word. Perfect for Nicki. She was a trick, all right. Even then, first time he'd found out about the “plumbing” problem, he'd accepted it as just one more terrific joke by the cosmic stand-up comic. Nothing about her was a turn-off. Least of all what she really was, clinically and legally.

  She loved the way he treated it as nothing. Joking with her about it. Something something cock-and-bull story changing to a cock-and-balls story. He'd shrugged it off. Getting a smile out of her, then a guilty pleasure laugh or two, and then out of nowhere Nicki felt herself drawn into his life, falling head over heels in love with her handsome John.

  He'd changed her life overnight. Immediately convinced her to give up tricking. He'd give her the operation money. Fine. The next thing she knew he was also talking her out of the operation. Not permanently, just as a holding action.

  “I don't want to be apart right now. Not just when we're beginning our life together,” he'd reasoned. It made sense. She had to have the surgery, and he understood that, he said. Just not quite yet. But in truth he saw no reason for her to go under the knife. She was perfect as is. Beautiful. Docile. Obedient. Kee-rist—the perfect woman.

  He wasn't all that crazy about the look of a female snatch anyway. Oral sex was fine. The best. He'd always had to fight back the revulsion when he'd had intercourse with a woman, especially older women. It wasn't so bad when he'd been poking his sister: she was so ... vulnerable or something. So nonthreatening. But older broads, they seemed to snap at him with those gaping pussies. Wanting to capture his male pride down there and squeeze the masculinity out of him. No, the plumbing was no big deal.

  He thought of Nicki as a beautiful woman with one small physical flaw. So what? She had perfect breasts—tit jobs that had set her back a fortune. Her Beverly Hills he called them. That cute clipped nose like some fucking movie star. Skinny. Terrific tush. Great legs! An added bonus, as that was one of the things the sawbones couldn't redesign. Most of the guys who changed over just didn't have the legs for it. She was nothing short of a hundred percent sensational. And she gave head that was to die for.

  “Not YOU again,” the croupier joked. One of his favorite dealers, Alberta, was working. Good. He pulled out a precounted ten and fanned it out across the blue felt.

  “No.” He smiled at her and offered the bucks. “It's somebody else this time."

  The other dealer laughed.

  “I told you it wasn't him this time,” the other girl said.

  “Nine thousand dollar chips, nine hundreds, four quarters,” he told Alberta.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, stacking up the chips next to the toke glass. A pit boss whom he didn't recognize was right on top of it telling them to examine the money carefully, but obviously speaking to the new girl, clearly just starting on the job, without a name tag on her pocket.

  “Always look at the back of the bills,” he said in a loud voice, oblivious to the man in the wheelchair.

  Satisfied, the pit boss backed off and noted something on a pad of paper. The man in the chair was already rated so he'd be in the hotel's computer. Come on, he thought, but he only held the fixed smile as they put the money down the table slot into the cashbox.

  He was pushed up against the table, Nicki behind him with a slim hand resting lightly on his left shoulder so the guys would know she was his property. He was in the first position next to the wheel, first base, and the chair put him slightly below the level of the other players seated on stools around the side and end of the roulette layout.

  Alberta slid the tall pyramid of stacked chips across to him. Actually twenty-two chips was not a tall stack—only if you knew there was ten thousand dollars there. The pit boss glowered at him as he slid his first chip out. A crowd had already begun to gather, guys moving in for a closer look at Nicki, and then the yahoos and hayseeds gathering to see the man stacking thousand-dollar chips. He was always conscious of the eyes of the watchers, self-conscious of the jerks who would whisper about the man in the chair.

  He had pushed a twenty-five-dollar chip onto the black, and he moved his head from side to side, head going back as he smiled up at the one-way mirrors of the eye-in-the-sky surveillance, feeling his beautiful bitch lightly massage his neck. It was so tiring when you had to sit all the time. Normal movement was something people took for granted, but how lucky they were. These lucky, hayseed schmucks with legs that worked.

  He'd show them luck. It was red, and Alberta took his chip, raking it with the others. He pushed another quarter out as soon as she cleared the table of losing bets. Nobody won. He put fifty dollars on black and went down. A heavy man with gold chains and an immense diamond ring won a big combination bet on the bottom dozen. The man in the chair never bet anything but straight-up bets. He shoved three hundred dollars onto the black, and the wheel spun.

  “I gave you a second chance,” Alberta teased the players as it hit red again, his bet swept away. He pursed his lips up in a silent kiss to her and she gave him a big smile. She wondered what sex would be like with a guy in a wheelchair. Could he
have sex at all? The beautiful woman who usually accompanied him was obviously very devoted. No gorgeous woman would love a man like that unless the sex was okay. He had a great mouth, maybe he gave dynamite head. She had to jerk her mind back on the job. She loved dealing roulette because you didn't have to think. Mindlessly she watched the good-looking guy shove seven hundred dollars in hundred-dollar chips out. He'll hit this one, she thought, and when he missed again, she raised her eyebrows and shrugged as she raked the chips. The fat guy had hit the lower twelve again—what a chump bet.

  The man in the wheelchair slid a thousand-dollar chip toward Alberta and caught her attention. “Give me hundreds, babe,” he said, and then slid another one over. She gave him twenty hundred-dollar chips and he kept the stack where it was. “Put ‘em down for me, doll. Please cover all the blacks.” She supposed it was hard for him to reach all the numbers on the layout.

  “Yes, sir,” she said as she quickly dropped a chip onto each of the eighteen black squares. She knew as she did it he was hitting this time for sure. Smart gambler, she thought. She started to hand him the two hundred dollars back and he said, “Cover the zeroes please,” and she did. She didn't mind helping him. He always toked her at least a hundred.

  “Way to go, sir,” she told him when black hit. She payed him $3,500 on the number, and saw he'd covered black with a thousand-dollar chip.

  “Cash me out, hon,” he said. He'd been at the table maybe five minutes and hit the casino for fifteen hundred. True to form he toked her a hundred. Then he changed his mind and dropped four hundred dollars back down on black and hit again, and the “model” wheeled the gambler away with an easy nineteen hundred dollars. Chicken feed on his way to dinner.

  Buckhead Station

  “Enemies,” Eichord told the men in the squad room, “we have to take a look at every possibility."

  “I don't much like it,” Brown said, his gaze wandering with unconcealed desultoriness and boredom, “but, um, hell, uh, I dunno. I don't see it. Not with an icepick."

  “Suppose somebody had her at the top of their shit list and they paid somebody. Somebody with an icepick."

  “Unnnnn,” Brown groaned, “you know what I mean?” As if that was a logical response.

  “We got an eyeball on her leaving the speaking engagement and we got driving time. We got her pulling up in front of the church. We got an ETA. Now. Something happens to Tina Hoyt. She gets out. The killer who her political enemy has paid the money to is surveilling her. He grabs her as she gets out of her car, throws her into his vehicle, does her with the icepick. Drives out to the park and dumps her. Huh?"

  “Nah. It's somebody knows her. He's waiting for her and she parks, gets in with him, he drives to the river and whacks her inna ear."

  “Dana? You agree?"

  “Hey, I can suddenly answer riddles now?” Dana whined. “Whatta hell do I look like, a fuckin’ contestant on Wheel of Fortune?"

  “No, you look like a contestant on Dialing for Hippopotami. But what do you think—if anything?"

  “You really wanna know what I think?"

  “No. But tell us anyway."

  “I think somebody did her because she was a diesel dyke. Some ole man finds out his missus was gettin’ the double-dildo put to her by this bull dagger, see. And he makes her get inna car like you said. Takes her down to the park and reams her ears out real good, pushes her out the door, and roars off into the night. Or jacks off into the night."

  “What a load of shit,” Monroe Tucker said. “This is a definite political assassination."

  “Wait a minute. I got it. Dig this, Monroe, Martians beam the bitch up into a flying saucer and—"

  “You give me d’ porker-dorkers,” the huge black detective told his partner.

  “Yeah? You give me the jungle jitters, Rastus."

  “We assume a feminist with a high profile and with political aspirations as well could easily have crossed paths with somebody who wanted her hit.” Eichord continued as if uninterrupted. “So we'll start with that. Who stood to gain a political advantage by her death?"

  “Yeah,” Dana mumbled, “we'll round up all the known heterosexuals."

  “That'll leave YOU out."

  North Buckhead

  “Gosh,” the small woman said, her face scrunched up at Eichord's. “This makes the third time I've had to go through all this. The fourth, if you count the press. No! Five times is how many times, counting television. You know they came out from Chan—"

  “I understand, Mizz Wright. Just a couple more questions and I won't bother you anymore.” He spoke soothingly, a look of genuine concern on his face. He knew what it was to go over the same ground endlessly.

  “It's not that you're bothering me, but, you know, I've just told it so many times I don't have anything to add."

  “Sure.” He shook his head sympathetically. “I understand. But if you could just make a couple of comments, maybe you'll hit on some seemingly insignificant fact you haven't remembered before."

  “Okay. Sure.” She had a face like a tiny bird. Just on the borderline from being one of the little people. Very tiny bones. The features chiseled like a sculpture's face. She wasn't pretty but she made him think of movie stars and a case he'd worked on in Southern California. He'd seen some of the familiar faces from the silver screen. Tiny people with little shrunken images made well known by the celluloid pictures. Some of them disappointing up close. Smaller than life, as it were.

  “You're sure of the time."

  “I really am. She'd just ... Ms Hoyt had just given her talk and we were standing right there"—she pointed—"and I was telling her how effective she'd been. And she thanked me. And she walked over there and got into her car and pulled out."

  “Did you happen to notice if anyone had pulled out after she did. Somebody else leaving or pulling out of the parking lot about that same time?"

  “No. And I would have seen them. I was standing right over there by her car with her and I stood there a while watching her car pull out. And then I went back inside. Nobody else pulled out of the lot during that time."

  “If you were to describe her mood, what was her mood when she was leaving?"

  “Her mood?” She acted as if the word was one she'd never heard before.

  “Was she frightened? Anxious? Relaxed? Worried? You know. How did she seem to be when she left.” The man talking to her softly. Drawing her out.

  “Hurried. I would have to say she seemed businesslike. Pleasant. In a hurry."

  “Mizz Wright, I know you're active in the women's movement. How was Tina Hoyt regarded within the movement?"

  “Highly. That much I can tell you. Everybody thought highly of her. She was vitally important to the movement."

  “Might someone have conceivably reasoned that they could strike a serious blow at the movement by hurting Tina Hoyt?"

  “Sure. I suppose that's possible."

  “Did she ever speak of having any threats? Or any enemies or someone who had expressed animosity toward her?"

  “Not that I ever heard of, huh-uh. No. I'm sure she hadn't. I think she was well liked by everyone and respected even by most of the people whose opinions differed from hers. I never heard of anyone expressing any sort of serious hostility. The reverse, in fact: her adversaries admired her, um, strong, iconoclastic positions."

  Eichord nodded but automatically saw the Greek word derivation: one who breaks images. What a name for a Greek gasoline. Ikonoclas, the Gas with Class. He was trying to read Ms. Wright as she responded to his questions. Something a hair off-center.

  “Did she comment on why she was so hurried when she left here?"

  “Yes. I believe she made some comment about running late. Or she had to give a speech at this church, which was quite a long drive from here—maybe forty-five minutes away. And I know I felt guilty talking to her, taking so much of her time, but I wanted to tell her how important her speech was, you know?"

  I know. He nodded slowly tilting his head
back another eighth of an inch.

  “Important to all of us. How much we appreciated her. But I could sense she was in a hurry and I tried to be succinct."

  “Okay. Do you have any idea who might have wanted to do her harm? Any speculation at all?"

  “None whatsoever.” The small woman shook her head at Eichord. “It was a total shock to all of us."

  It was a total shock to Tina too, baby, he thought. He thanked her and got back in the car. Turned the key and headed back toward the station.

  He thought about the place she'd been found in. The look of her with the dress in a small pool of muddy water. Dirt on her shapely, pantyhosed legs. The hair and the skin-fiber reports. The extra time they'd taken with this one: the fingernails, rectum, under the eyelids, the soil-deposit trace, the forensic analysis, the whole fine nine that Earl Rich at the police lab had summed up in two syllables: “Nada."

  MacTuff's guys in the white coats hadn't been able to add a shred of anything to what Earl's boys and the old redneck Buckhead M.E. had handed him. They did have some lab work on the possible weapon.

  Not necessarily an icepick. PROBABLY an icepick. Could be one of the old, long, wooden-handled type. Could be a sharpened awl or a homemade job: any steel weapon ground down to that particular configuration. A group of examples included various antique and contemporary sword canes and umbrellas. Jack remembered his grandmother had still used an icebox in the late 50s. They'd had to come in and replace it with a fridge while she was asleep. She never did get use to that “'Frigerator” but at least she wouldn't be stabbing herself to death with the mean, needle-sharp pick that she kept stabbed into the butcher's block beside the door.