by A. D. Miller
The project’s lead developer, Savannah Group, recently broke ground on the 22-acre site, which will feature restaurants, retail space, a hotel, and an eighteen-story luxury apartment tower. Critics have charged that the project represents a giveaway to the Las Vegas-based developer, which will receive tax breaks totaling nearly $50 million for the first phase of construction.
“If the council really wanted to help the district, they would’ve sold the land to the highest bidder and used the money for programs for the residents,” said Jeff Geller, director of the Downtown Homeless Alliance. “Instead they leased it on favorable terms to a developer who’ll take all the profits out of state.”
Councilmember Grace Salas, who serves as head of the committee overseeing the project, disagrees.
“Michael Freed’s impartial analysis proves that we’ve worked from the beginning to put the taxpayers’ needs ahead of any other concern,” she said. “The economic activity created by this development will generate revenue far exceeding the city’s initial investment.”
Scrolling back to the top of the page, Nyman found the story’s byline and was writing down the reporter’s name when someone sat down on the stool beside him.
“What’s that you’re drinking? Vodka?”
The voice was soft and throaty. Looking up, he saw that it belonged to the pale, sharp-featured woman he’d seen in Kasbah. Her glossy red lips were curved in a playful half-smile; her slender hands were wrapped around a black-and-silver purse.
Nyman said he was drinking gin.
The woman turned to the bartender. “Gin and rocks.”
The bartender gave her a long look of distaste, then reached for a bottle of Tanqueray. The woman pretended not to notice the look and said to Nyman:
“You were over at Kasbah, weren’t you? By the slots?”
Nyman nodded. “You were attracting a crowd at the bar.”
“A crowd of boys. Drunken boys.”
“There seem to be a lot of them around.”
“Oh, they’re always around. You can’t get away from them.”
Close at hand, despite her thick makeup and the dim lighting, he could see the dark smudges under her eyes and the deep, narrow clefts on either side of her mouth.
“You live here in Vegas?” he said.
“Most of the time. What about you?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Mmm. Let me guess. You’re a businessman in town for a conference.”
“Something like that.”
“I knew it.” She smiled and sipped her drink. “I could tell by the clothes. Nobody wears clothes like that unless they’re here on business.”
“Someone told me yesterday I look like a cop.”
“No,” the woman said, leaning playfully to one side so that her shoulder bumped against Nyman’s. “You look like an accountant.”
“Thanks.”
“I bet your wife picked out that tie, didn’t she?”
The ice rattled in Nyman’s glass. He put the glass down and said: “I don’t have a wife.”
The woman moved sideways again to bump her shoulder against his. “Why don’t we get out of here and go someplace else?”
Nyman didn’t shift his gaze from the glass. “What did you have in mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s lots of places to go. You’re not scared of me, are you?”
He swallowed the dregs of gin. “No. I’m not scared of you.”
* * *
Her name was Mara. From the Aloha Lounge they went to the MGM Grand, where the doorman of Hakkasan looked at them skeptically and said that the club was filled to capacity.
Mara, flushing under her makeup, turned to Nyman and said in a loud, artificially cheerful voice that one of the clubs across the street was more fun anyway.
It was after two o’clock when they got to the second club. This time the doorman greeted them with a smile, told them that the cover was ten dollars for women and forty dollars for men, collected the cash from Nyman, unhooked the rope that barred the entrance, and waved them inside.
The music made conversation impossible. Communicating by pantomime, Nyman led Mara up to one of the bars and ordered drinks.
She finished her drink standing at the bar, excused herself to the bathroom, and came back after several minutes with bright, glittering eyes and said that she wanted to dance.
Nyman said that he didn’t dance.
“Never?” she shouted.
“Never.”
“You mind if I do?”
“Not at all.”
She said that she’d be back in five minutes. As she turned, the passing beam of a spotlight caught the fabric of her dress and the smooth paleness of her exposed back and neck. The bumps of her vertebrae, thrown into relief, showed the S curve of a scoliotic spine.
Nyman stood beside the bar and watched her dance—sometimes by herself, sometimes with men or women—for more than half an hour. His face as he watched was creased with the concentration of someone trying to solve a puzzle or mathematical problem.
When she left the floor and came back to him she was damp with sweat and smiling. Shouting into his ear, she said: “You’re an all right guy, you know that?” and draped both arms around his neck and kissed his mouth.
* * *
They left the club at four a.m. and walked along the Strip, moving in the general direction of Nyman’s motel. Once or twice they went into bars to have another drink and to continue their conversation, which consisted of comments about the people they saw on the street. Mara said that in Las Vegas there were only three classes of people and that each person belonged to only one class.
“What class do I belong to?” Nyman asked.
“Man-in-town-on-business.”
“What about you?”
She patted his cheek and told him to drink up.
* * *
The sky was brightening when a taxi let them out in the parking lot of the Lady Luck Inn. Nyman, nodding to the office of the motel, asked Mara if she wanted him to book her a room.
Her playful smile went away. Standing in the blinking glow of the motel’s sign, her face was muddled and confused.
“Aren’t we going to your room?”
Nyman shook his head. “I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“But it was your idea. A night out, then back to your room.”
“That’s what you really believe?”
“Of course it’s what I believe.” Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell’s going on here, Tom?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
Flinging out a thin white arm, she said: “We got a call from you. You said you saw me at Kasbah and you wanted a date. You’d be at the Aloha waiting for me.”
“By ‘we,’” Nyman said, “who do you mean?”
She flushed with anger. “You know what I mean, you son of a bitch.”
“I’m sorry, Mara, but I never called and asked for you.”
“Of course you did. When I showed up at the bar, you didn’t bat an eye. You knew I was coming.”
“I knew something was coming. I didn’t know it would be you.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Telling her to stay where she was, he walked back along the sidewalk to the entrance of the alley that ran behind the motel. There, parked beside a dumpster, was an unmarked Ford in which two men were sitting with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner running. They were watching the back side of the motel, where the window of Nyman’s bathroom stood at street-level.
He walked back to Mara and said: “There are two cops in the alley.”
“What?”
It was a set-up, he explained. “Someone wanted me off their hands.”
“Who the hell cares about you?”
He told her who he was and why he was in town. She dismissed the explanation with a stream of curses and said that he owed her money.
“I don’t do this for free, Tom. Y
ou told us you’d pay for all night. I’ve seen the cash in your wallet.”
“I never called you. The money I have is what I got from my client.”
With an awkward thrust of her arm she hit him on the left side of his face, driving her knuckles into his eye. He took a half-step backward in surprise and put a hand over his eye.
She called him a number of names, said that he would pay her the money he owed her, said that he had wronged not only her but certain people who didn’t like being wronged, and told him what he could do to himself.
When she stalked away on the sidewalk there were drunken men laughing and shouting at her from the windows of the hotel across the street.
Mara ignored them and walked off toward Flamingo Road. Nyman listened to the clicking of her heels with a face that was drawn and gray and exhausted.
Above him the sun was rising.
Chapter 22
He went into his room and turned on the light. His valise was still on the bed where he’d left it; there was no sign that any of his things had been disturbed. Going into the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and washed his face and was drying his face with a towel when someone knocked on the door and told him to open up.
He opened the door. The men from the unmarked Ford stood in the doorway. Their grim, expectant gazes went first to Nyman, then to the bed, then to the open door of the bathroom.
Nyman said: “She’s not here, but you’re welcome to check.”
He opened the door wider. The older of the two men introduced himself as Sergeant Carrillo and showed Nyman a badge. His hair was gray and the square shape of his face was accentuated by a square gray moustache. His partner was a taller, heavier man named Parks.
Parks walked into the bathroom, pulled aside the shower curtain, came back out, and shook his head at Carrillo.
Carrillo turned to Nyman. “What happened to her?”
“She went home for the night. Or for the morning, I guess.”
“You didn’t want her to stay?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Seemed like a bad idea.”
Parks said: “Then why bother to hire her in the first place?”
“I didn’t hire her. I met her at the Aloha Lounge and we went dancing.”
Carrillo rubbed his moustache with a thick finger. “You sure about that? Because we heard you picked her up at Kasbah.”
“Was it the casino manager who told you that? Emmler?”
“Just answer the question.”
“No,” Nyman said, “I didn’t pick her up at Kasbah.”
“But you were there last night?”
“Yes.”
Parks said: “So you were there and she was there, but you didn’t pick her up there?”
“Correct.”
“Mind telling me why we should believe that?”
Nyman opened his wallet, took out the copy of his license, handed it to Carrillo, and gave him the same explanation he’d just given Mara. Carrillo wrote Nyman’s license number in a small blue notepad and asked if there was anyone who could confirm his story.
“Lawrence Sutter,” Nyman said. “He owns one of the agencies in town. Oasis Security.”
“Larry’s a friend of yours?”
“A colleague, at least. He used to work for my old boss.”
“Who’s your old boss?”
“Joseph Moritz.”
Carrillo sat down on the edge of the bed and was silent for a time, his moustache curving in a thoughtful frown. “You’re giving me your word about not picking the girl up at Kasbah?”
Nyman said that he was.
“So she thought you were just a john who’d called in for her?”
“That’s what she said.”
“What’d she do when she found out you weren’t?”
“She said a few things.”
“She threaten you?”
Nyman shrugged. “I wasn’t listening very closely.”
Carrillo asked him how long he was planning to stay in Vegas.
“I’m not sure. At least another night.”
“Well, if you decide you want a girl, don’t mess with the ones in town. Go to one of the ranches outside the city, where it’s legal.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Carrillo got up from the bed and said that he and Parks would be in touch. Nyman walked with them to the door, promised to let them know if he heard again from Mara, shut the door behind them, pulled the coverlet off the bed, lay down on the top-sheet fully clothed, and closed his eyes.
* * *
When he opened his eyes the room was filled with late-morning sunshine. He sighed, coughed, and reached to the bedside table for the pack of cigarettes. Lying on his back, he lit a cigarette and inhaled.
His eyes were gummy and rimmed in red. His thick black hair stood up from his forehead at an angle. He shut his eyes and smoked in silence for ten or twenty minutes, half-dozing. Then he coughed again, ground out the cigarette, and went into the bathroom.
He showered, shaved, put on the same clothes he’d worn the previous day, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Taking two slices of bread and an apple from the valise, he turned on the T.V. and watched the start of the Mets-Nationals game. When the food was gone he left the room.
He stopped in the motel office to fill a paper cup with coffee and tell the clerk he’d be staying another night, then got into his car and drove to Kasbah’s underground parking garage.
An elevator took him from the parking levels to the casino floor. He made his way past the slot machines and gaming tables to the registration desk, where he told a smiling woman that he needed to speak to Mr. Emmler.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not here this time of day. He works the swing shift.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Sorry. I wouldn’t know.”
“What about his house? Does he live here in town?”
“Can I ask why you’re so interested in Mr. Emmler, sir?”
“Gratitude,” Nyman said. “He sent me a gift last night and I wanted to thank him.”
“Well, if you wait for the swing shift, you can thank him in person.”
Yawning, he turned away from the desk and went into a café just off the gaming floor. There he bought a larger cup of coffee and sat down at a table, taking out his phone. A search for Stephen Emmlers in Las Vegas gave him the address of a house on Anaconda Road.
Fifteen minutes later he was driving along a freshly paved street in a subdivision of large, newly built homes. He left his car in the driveway of a beige stucco house and rang the doorbell.
The woman who answered was small and jittery and had a fitness tracker on her wrist. Before Nyman could speak, she said:
“Sorry. We’re not buying.”
“That’s okay. I’m not selling.”
“What do you want, then?”
“This is Stephen Emmler’s house?”
Her face tensed. “My husband’s sleeping. He works nights.”
“So do I. If you tell him Tom Nyman’s here, I think he’ll want to talk to me.”
“Why would he want to talk to you?”
“Because I’m the one he tried to put in jail.”
She shut the door and turned the lock. The sound of heels clicking on tile came faintly through the door.
Nyman took the cigarettes from his pocket and leaned against the railing of the porch, looking out at the line of identical, xeriscaped lawns across the street.
After two or three minutes the door opened again and the woman said in a hoarse voice: “He’s out back, by the pool.”
The pool was a dark blue rectangle set into a quarter-acre of white gravel. Emmler sat on the edge of the shallow end with his legs in the water, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of lime-green trunks. The skin of his scalp, beneath its short blond hair, was turning red with sunburn.
Nyman walked along the edge of the pool and sat down in a lawn chair facing him. Laughter dri
fted over from the other side of the yard, where two small girls were playing on a jungle gym. Emmler looked down at his legs and moved them in the water, making small blue ripples.
“I haven’t had a chance to check on that jackpot your friend won,” he said quietly.
Nyman watched the ripples. “That’s all right. I imagine you’ve had a busy morning.”
“Pretty busy.”
“What did they threaten you with? Filing a false report?”
“Carrillo and Parks, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Emmler shrugged. “They didn’t do much threatening. Just a lot of questioning.”
“Did you give any answers?”
“Not as many as they wanted. I tried to explain that someone like me is just a middle manager. The executives tell me what they want done and I make it happen on the floor.”
“Or in my motel room.”
“Until a few months ago,” Emmler said, “I never thought I’d have anything to do with people’s motel rooms.”
Nyman asked him what had changed a few months ago.
“Lots of things. Mainly it was the Swiss leaving.”
“The Swiss?”
Moving his legs in the water, Emmler said: “The construction loan to build Kasbah was held by a bank in Switzerland. The original owners defaulted, so the bank stepped in to finish construction and run things until they could find a buyer for the casino. The bank is the one that hired me four years ago.”
“And a few months ago they found a buyer?”
He nodded. “The new guys replaced most of the management, but they decided to keep me around. At least for now.”
“Who are the new guys?”
“I doubt you’ve heard of them. It’s a real-estate firm that mostly does new developments. Kasbah’s what they call an opportunistic investment.”
“Savannah Group?”
Emmler looked over in surprise. “You keep up with the industry?”
“I keep up with Savannah.”
Nyman told him about Merchant South and its connection to Alana Bell’s murder. When he was finished, Emmler shook his head and said:
“No—that’s crazy. All Savannah cares about is the bottom line. They’re not interested in killing people.”
“They’re interested in me, though,” Nyman said. “Someone told you I might come around and ask questions about Alana Bell. Didn’t they, Stephen?”