CLAN

by Harry Shannon

  And from that point on, Selma would have tried to cover her tracks, maybe even rent the car under another name.

  But she couldn't have done that, because she would have had to show a valid drivers license. Unless she conned a ride with someone or took a bus…?

  Back to square one.

  Kelly called the travel agent back. There was a flight to Reno leaving in forty-five minutes, but she'd never make it even without luggage. Another was scheduled two hours later. Kelly ordered the agent to reserve her one aisle seat and a car in Reno. She'd have to wing the rest of it.

  Five days, maybe a week, to solve the problem. And then she'd be out of time. No VP, no job, no career. And that's if she got off easy. If these players decided she'd stolen the money and was just trying to brazen it out, she'd end up dead or scarred for life.

  Kelly emailed Bud's hotel in Cannes and told him the new receptionist had quit. She told him she had a family emergency and would be in and out of the office a lot this week, but would be 'on top of it.' She knew Bud would go ballistic anyway, but there was nothing else to say on such short notice. Kelly grabbed a few hundred dollars from petty cash, locked up the office and raced to the parking lot.

  Another conga line of overpriced vehicles extended around the block and back onto the sound stage where they were building sets for the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie. Someone in Security had decided to pull some surprise inspections to impress the front office.

  Kelly swore and dialed up some rock music on the radio. She chewed gum, tapped her nails on the steering wheel and nervously watched the clock. Finally it was her turn. She went through the usual routine: Showed her photo ID, answered a few questions, allowed her trunk to be searched and roared out onto Pass Avenue into the beginning of rush hour traffic. Her apartment was only a few minutes away under normal circumstances, but the snarled traffic held her up just enough to make both packing and catching her plane a risky business.

  She cut down some side streets, behind a 7-Eleven convenience store, across the parking lot of a gas station. She came to a dried-out front lawn at the corner of the street. Kelly looked around carefully, sped across the private property and into the next street, then came in to her apartment complex through the back alley. Most of the spaces were empty; the occupants hadn't left their own offices to return home.

  "Damn."

  Some inconsiderate dipstick had parked a large black van near the middle of the driveway, effectively blocking her from reaching her own space from this particular direction. Probably someone who was just moving in or out, and didn't even know there was another way into the complex.

  Kelly searched the numbered spots with her eyes, remembered that her neighbor Andrea Robinson was a studio singer, and almost always came home well after dark. She slid her car into the narrow space allotted for #14 and turned off the engine.

  Kelly saw that the black van was parked somewhat close to the stairwell at the front of the building, nearest her apartment, so she jogged up the rear, emergency stairs. She knew that the metal door, rusty and somewhat bent from the last earthquake, never closed properly. By the time she reached the third floor, Kelly was wishing she hadn't skipped going to the gym. She pulled on the door. It squeaked a bit, but held. Annoyed, she pulled harder. Another screech. A dog started barking in the nearest apartment. The door opened on the third try, and without much noise.

  She stepped out onto the balcony, her mind preoccupied, and fumbled around in her purse with no luck. When she arrived at the door to her own apartment, she paused to find her keys.

  "What you figure, five-thirty? Six?"

  It was a woman's voice, vaguely east coast accent, maybe someone from New York? Kelly's fingers closed on her keys. She found the apartment key by feel and brought it out, started to put it in the lock.

  "How the hell should I know?" A man, answering the woman. "Now pipe down."

  He sounded like a big man, with a gravely bass voice. He was only a few feet away from her. For the first time Kelly remembered that she had left the front window part way open, because it had a metal deadbolt to allow in a bit of fresh air. And also for the first time it hit her that the voices were coming from just a few feet away…

  In fact, from just inside her apartment.

  What the hell? Kelly eased her keys back into her purse, her mind struggling for traction. Somebody broke into my place!

  "Don't you give me 'tude, Lips." The woman. She was inside too; pacing, moving along the wall toward the door. Hispanic accent of some kind, faint but persistent.

  Panicked, Kelly flattened herself against the stucco. The door opened a crack; the intruder peered out at the gathering sunset.

  "Look at that smog cloud," the woman said with disgust, "I don't like breathing air I can see."

  "Carlita, you on the rag or something?" Male voice, nasty and gravely, decent English but with a different kind accent…maybe Russian? Oh please, please no.

  "Screw you, man."

  The woman flipped a cigarette butt over the balcony and out onto the cement below. She exhaled. The plume of smoke was close enough to Kelly's perspiring face to make her want to sneeze. She closed her eyes and prayed. The woman slowly closed the door again.

  "I keep telling you keep your trap shut," the man said. "It's getting late. The little bitch might be home sweet home any time now. You want to scare her into running off or something?"

  "No, I want to cut her the hell up and fly home."

  Oh, dear Lord, they're talking about me. They're not just burglars; they're in there waiting for me. Kelly felt torn between a desire to hang around and acquire more information and the urge to run for her life. Discretion won out over valor. She started to inch along the wall, back the way she'd come.

  "Hey, Lips? Can we, like, pick up the pace this time?"

  The man: "What you mean?"

  "We get the money back and we do her, no screwing around, okay? It's not professional."

  Their voices were fading now, and Kelly's heart was hammering loudly enough to interfere with her hearing.

  "You'd understand, you had a dipstick."

  "I had a dipstick, I'd be just like you—rude and full of crude"

  "Sit the hell down and shut the hell up. She will be here soon. Then we see."

  "Loser."

  "What you say? Eat me."

  Kelly reached the emergency exit, eased through the door. This time the squealing sound made her flesh crawl. As silently as possible, she retraced her way down the cement steps. By the time she got back to her car she was soaked with perspiration.

  Dear Lord,, they want to kill me. What have I done?

  7

  Joe Case left Reno airport early that evening in a rented four-door Toyota Cressida. The car was a strange, bluish shade the chipper blonde at the counter had called 'teal.' Rush hour traffic in that part of Nevada was about as bad as six on a Sunday morning in L.A., meaning almost non-existent. Case sped up when he hit the long, flat stretch of cattle country that leads to the highway up to Lake Tahoe. He was still wondering if he'd made a serious mistake. If he was indeed ready to go back to work.

  Ready or not, here I come…

  In that part of Nevada, sunset comes slowly and without much fanfare. After the long flat stretch, a large hill took him out of the darkened basin. Maybe twenty minutes later, he dropped down the other side of the first ridge and into the capital, Carson City. The sudden oasis of lights, plus verdant green lawns fronting antique brick buildings, brought a smile to his face.

  Case stopped at a crowded Denny's to get a cup of coffee to go. The gaudy lobby was filled with cigarette smoke and noisy slot machines. A plump woman with a lipstick-stained Camel in her mouth took his order. Her nameplate read MADGE.

  After a few stop signs he hit the long right turn that led up into the Lake Tahoe resorts. He kept the window down. The crisp scent of sage began to be augmented by a trace of pine. Case had always enjoyed the mountains. His father had taken him on hunting, fishing a
nd camping trips when he was a boy, and although he'd never much cared for the hunting he'd loved to fish—with or without baiting the hook.

  Case couldn't find anything on the radio but a country station called KBUL. He shut it off, sipped his coffee, ignored the voice that told him it would taste better with some bourbon in it and continued on through the darkness.

  A few telephone calls had revealed an emerging pattern in credit card receipts. Bobby Lawford had purchased a ticket directly at the airline counter the previous evening, and then flown from LAX to Reno. After withdrawing two hundred dollars from an ATM, Bobby had rented a car and claimed he was driving up to Lake Tahoe. His most recent purchase was a full tank of gas the next morning from a station located right at the California state line.

  Unfortunately, that's where the trail disappeared.

  Case whistled when the highway dropped down into the Tahoe area. The beautiful silver lake on his right, shimmering by moonlight; the forest of shadowy, green pines on his left, it all brought back pleasant memories.

  Tahoe was buzzing with diners out looking for restaurants. Timmy's Chevron was actually on the Nevada side, although the ass-end of the convenience store bulged out a few feet into California. The rail-thin man behind the glass was chewing tobacco. He stood under harsh, fluorescent lighting and listened to Case, then examined the photograph of Bobby Lawford as if it were counterfeit money. He shrugged.

  "Mighta seen him, but maybe not."

  Case produced a twenty-dollar bill. The attendant cocked his lead like a pigeon. Fingers crept out, crab-like to take the bill. "He ain't gonna come back here 'n kick my ass for tellin' you or nuttin' right?"

  "Nope," Case said. "He's my brother-in-law. He only hits women. I'm just trying to keep him from making an even bigger mistake."

  The man cleared his throat and spat a disgusting mass into what Case hoped was a trash basket near his feet. "Yeah, he was in here last night with some little honey with a real nice rack."

  "What did the woman look like?"

  "Dark hair. Nice rack."

  "Can you be a bit more specific? Like the color of her eyes, height, if she wore glasses?"

  The man shrugged as if the answer were self-evident. "Nope. But like I said, she had a real nice rack."

  "Any idea where they went from here?"

  "Well…"

  "Don't tell me, not a clue, but a real nice rack?" Case grunted with annoyance. "Okay. Can I have some of my twenty back, then?"

  "Yeah. Right."

  Case walked back to the city sidewalk, stood under the streetlight and looked up and down. The area was littered with motels, hotels and cabins for rent. Most said NO VACANCY. But Bobby Lawford liked to gamble, specifically to play craps. That would mean he'd have been likely to have visited at least one casino, if not stayed the night there. The two closest, on opposite sides of the main drag, were Harvey's and Harrah's. Case went back to his car, drove up the street and pulled to the right and into the Harrah's parking lot. It was packed.

  He went in through the back entrance and his ears were immediately assaulted by the jangle of slot machines. Nevada's obnoxious Casinos are a uniquely American experience. The wild, multi-colored weave in the carpet, the freezing air temperature, the recessed lighting are all specifically designed to be disorienting to the gambler—and the combined effect does a remarkable job of keeping people inebriated, confused and thus constantly in debt.

  Oh, and thirsty.

  The bar beckoned. Case felt a wave of dizziness trickle down his flesh like a cold shower. His senses telescoped and gave him the rattle of ice cubes in a chilled glass and the wood-smoke bite of Jack Daniels on the tongue. Whoa, would that be dumber than dumb.

  I can do this. One day at a time, I can do this.

  Case worked the room, trying to be thorough, yet reasonably subtle. He showed the photograph of Bobby Lawford to several different people, including the night clerk. Although the man would not confirm or deny anyone's presence in the hotel on the record he did shake his head slightly when Case slipped him a twenty. On the way out the door, a waitress with a stunning figure and an icy expression got annoyed with him when he started to produce the photograph.

  "I already told you guys no," she said. The ex-cop in Case thought her eyes looked a bit wild, like someone currently using speed.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I already told you I hadn't seen her when you asked me earlier, now let me get back to work."

  "Miss, I wasn't here earlier. And I'm looking for a man."

  Her face finally relaxed a bit. She looked at the photo. "I'm sorry," she said, not sounding at all like she really meant it. "I mixed you up with somebody. No, I haven't seen him."

  "Someone else?" But she had already stalked away.

  Case felt a ripple of unease. He let it pass. Nevada probably had a lot of runaway people. He shrugged off her comment, went out to the crosswalk and looked up at the stars above Harvey's Casino. He glanced down at the billboard. The headline act was someone he'd never heard of, and the lounge group was doing a tribute to the Beatles.

  Case crossed the road with a lump of drunken tourists. The night air was turning chill. He hunched his shoulders, went through the revolving glass door and into Harvey's. Noise, confusion, color. It took him a few moments to locate the front desk, but once Case found it he struck pay dirt immediately.

  "Have you seen this man, miss?"

  "Yes, sir," the young, freckled clerk said brightly. "I do remember that man." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Are you with the police?"

  Case dropped his voice. "Yes, but let's keep this off the record. Are you absolutely sure it was him?"

  The girl's cheeks flushed nearly as red as her hair. "Oh, yes. I remember because he came in with a woman, but when she went to the restroom he started to flirt with me. I thought that was really odd."

  Yeah, that sounds like Bobby. "Thank you, miss."

  She lowered her voice again. "1252," she said. "That was their room. But I think they checked out this morning."

  Damn. Case went to the bar, but just to think. A bored waitress with dark hair and a practiced walk dropped several blank Keno sheets and a crayon on the table in front of him. She grimaced when he ordered non-alcoholic beer. Case ignored her and doodled on the sheet.

  What was Bobby Lawford doing in Lake Tahoe? Who was this mysterious woman he was with last night? And was Bobby running away with her for good? Hell, Janet would certainly be better off without the dickhead around, but Case couldn't exactly tell her that to her face. Unless of course he gathered some serious evidence.

  Someone paged. "Mr. Chase, please call the front desk."

  Case looked up out of reflex. Before he dropped his head again, he noticed that a nice-looking woman in a business suit was talking to the same red-haired desk clerk. Case resumed thinking and doodling, even sipped his beer before a couple of things finally jogged in his memory.

  First, that the woman was a brunette with awfully nice breasts. And second, that she had been asking the desk clerk a question and showed her a photograph. Someone else on the same trail, but why?

  Case looked up again. The woman had seated herself at the far end of the bar and appeared to be watching some couples at a nearby card table with a great deal of interest. But it struck Case as feigned interest. Case had tailed a few people in his day. He watched her eyes flicker over to his table on three different occasions. He finished his tepid, fake beer, threw down some change, then suddenly got to his feet and stretched. The woman flinched involuntarily when he moved.

  Joe Case turned and casually walked down the steps and back into the casino. He could feel the woman's indecision. He stopped to play the quarter slot machines and caught her out of the corner of his eye. She was drifting after him, following in a very clumsy and clearly unprofessional way.

  Case lost a couple of bucks and moved back toward the parking lot. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets.

  He passed the loun
ge and made an abrupt turn into the men's room, where the woman could not follow. He killed some time and washed his hands, then went back outside again. She was playing the nickel slots right in front of the restroom entry, pulling the handle furiously like someone in a hurry to lose the last of a paycheck.

  So Case walked directly over to her, sat down on the next stool and played a few nickels. He could feel her tension and she was clearly avoiding looking his way. Her machine coughed and wheezed and vomited fistfuls of coins. She had won five dollars.

  "Congratulations," he said.

  The woman mumbled something and gathered the money into a plastic bucket. She did not look up. Case rose and left for the parking lot. He paused in the revolving door so that he could check his reflection. The brunette was following him, the bucket of coins in her right hand. Case could not tell if another tail was attached, or if the woman was working alone.

  He went through the door and out into the night. When he turned down a long row of planters, he knelt as if to tie his tennis shoe and lifted his snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 from its ankle holster. He walked on.

  Case got lucky in the parking lot. The eastern quadrant was virtually empty. He moved briskly around a cement column and then melted into the shadows. He could hear the woman following him; high heels on the pavement, light and rapid breathing, the tiny jangling of coins in the winner's bucket. She paused right by his hiding place as if sensing something.

  Case listened intently, but still heard no one else behind her. Perhaps she was alone after all. He held still to draw her out.

  The woman peeked around the corner. Case clapped his hand over her mouth, yanked her back into the shadows and showed her the gun. She dropped the coins and they hit the sidewalk with a metallic crash. Some rolled off into the night to brighten someone else's chances. Case gripped her, pulled her closer. He could feel the thudding pulse in her throat. Her heart was racing too fast. He whispered in her ear.