“You roofied him?” Vince said.
“Put that in your rag and I’ll track you down and blow off both your kneecaps with your own gun,” I told him.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, looking thoughtful.
Shanna led us down what used to be a hallway, now a channel between charcoal nubs where wall studs had burned almost to the floor. Finally she stopped. “It was in there, I think.”
Except for an outside wall, the room hadn’t been destroyed as completely as the rest of the house. A wall had been torn out and was lying in pieces on the ground outside. Interior walls were still standing, and I saw why. They were clad in sheet metal, maybe an eighth of an inch thick. The metal was buckled but still upright. The door was open, possibly sprung by the intense heat. Everything inside the room had either burned or melted. Not much remained except the room itself, but the metal sheeting was a clue as to its purpose. If I had to guess, I would say it had held valuables, things he kept under lock and key. He was away from this place for days or weeks at a time, maybe with no one to watch over it, or a caretaker once a week he didn’t entirely trust. The signs along the road would keep most people out, but there was always that tenth of a percent willing to take risks for easy profit. This room, I thought, might have held a safe, which made me think about Melanie’s words in the dark outside her trailer—the diner’s owner, Arlene, buying a safe on Craigslist. A safe that had been delivered without the combination or keys needed to open it. Steal a safe, you might have trouble opening it.
The room wasn’t big, ten by ten feet, big enough to hold a good-sized safe. A pile of ash littered with blackened hardware might have once been a cabinet with drawers. I rubbed the ash with a foot, didn’t see anything that might’ve been jewelry.
“I didn’t see any power lines coming in,” I said to get Vince out before he saw too much. “Maybe he was on a generator.”
We trooped outside and around the house. On a pad west of the house I saw Xenon’s helicopter, a hundred fifty feet away, far enough that the fire hadn’t damaged it. Two steel sheds were fifty feet from the main house, still intact and unlocked, paint slightly scorched. The first held shovels, rakes, shears, and other tools I couldn’t imagine Jo-X using. The second had housed a generator big enough to power the house. The generator itself was gone. Stubby bolts that might have held it in place were embedded in a concrete slab floor. A wire as thick as my wrist dangled from a three-hundred-amp power panel. The cable ended in a socket that would connect to the generator. Big air-conditioning condensers were outside the house, so I thought the generator was at least 50kW, maybe more. The floor was scored, as if the generator had been dragged outside, and I saw what looked like blood spots on the concrete slab. The blood, if that’s what it was, was beneath the scrape marks the generator had made. So, blood first, then the generator was removed. If it was blood. Sure looked like it.
I thought about that. If I wanted to put a bullet in him out here, I would monkey with the generator, turn it off or cut off the fuel. Power goes out. When he came out to see what the problem was, putting a bullet in his skinny chest wouldn’t be hard to do, one more in his head to make certain.
Behind the shed was a thousand-gallon tank of diesel that hadn’t gone up with the house. A gauge on the tank indicated that it was less than a quarter full.
I turned away from the shed and looked back at the house.
“Now what?” Lucy said, putting an arm through mine.
“Now I don’t know what.”
“I like it that you’re always so modest.” She stared at the black smelly ruins of the house with me. “Anyway, this was fun. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
Back at the cars, Vince sidled over and said, “Bigfoot loose in Manhattan subways? That’s pretty good. Okay if I use it?”
“Be my guest. If you write it up, send me a copy. I want to know how it turns out. Do they finally catch him and give him a job with the IRS, or is he running loose with occasional aboveground sightings, like shinnying up the Empire State Building?”
“Those’re good, too, IRS especially.” He got in his car, hung a U-turn in the driveway, then stopped opposite me. “I think he’d still be loose, living on rats and small dogs, terrorizing people. It’d read better that way and I could do follow-up stories. But I like that IRS bit, too. If you ever want a job at the News, I’d say you’ve got the chops for it. Let me know and I’ll put in a word for you.” He gave me a grin and drove away.
Shanna stood with Lucy and me, shading her eyes with a hand as she looked back at the house. Finally she turned away. “I wonder who did this? And why.”
“Same person who killed the Zee, probably,” I said.
She widened her eyes. “Wow, you’re good. Probably make private eye of the month on the street where you live.”
Man, I hate irony. Especially when it comes in short shorts and a straining halter.
Shanna opened her car door, started to get in.
“Back to Caliente?” I asked.
“Where else? This place is . . . gone.”
“Danya didn’t want to check it out with you?”
“Obviously not, but as a private eye you’re on top of things like unreal. Awesome, really.”
“Go, before I’m forced to hurt you.”
“Pussycat. I worry more about the junior high chick you’re hooked up with.” She got in, banged the door shut.
“If you’re smart, you’ll ditch the shoes,” I said to her.
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“You’ll never get them clean. Investigators could tell you’ve been up here. If that’s a concern, that is.”
She looked at me for a moment, said, “Thanks,” and took off down the mountain after Vince.
“So, what have we learned here?” I asked Lucy.
“Don’t play with matches, don’t smoke in bed, don’t slosh gasoline around your house, remember to ditch your shoes, and Shanna’s a bitch?”
“All good observations for sure, but besides those.”
“Whoever burned the place down might’ve stolen a big-ass generator.”
“An even more cogent and useful observation. What else?”
“High-capacity halter tops are made of Kevlar, and Shanna’s a bitch and a half?”
I gave her a one-eyed squint. “Kevlar might be useful as a reinforcing agent, but I was referring to other things.”
“Actually, I think it’s totally interesting that Shanna was even here. And the darling little tabloid guy.”
“Totally, huh? You’re so Valley. And given darling Vinny’s propensity and skills, it’s likely he followed her here. But you’re right about Shanna. Last thing I expected was to see her up here.”
“She’s a bitch.”
“You could let that go.”
“Don’t see why. One thing she did right, though, she roofied Jo-X, gave him a superglue special, and left here by car.”
“Probably couldn’t find the keys to the whirly.”
“So, she knew where the place was, Mr. PI. Then she comes back but didn’t know the place had been set on fire. I’ll bet she was looking for something. She might have left something that would point to her being here and she wanted to get it back.”
“She might still be looking for that guest book Josie signed.”
“Possible, but people don’t usually haul those around.” She stared at the house. “No one reported the fire. Look at it. It went up, burned right to the ground. No fire trucks, nothing.”
“Another tremendous observation.”
“So, what did you get from this place, Smarty Pants?”
“Ash in my throat.”
She laughed. “That and an eyeful.”
“An eyeful?”
“Her halter top. Jeez Louise, it was like she was shoplifting honeydews. I bet she could’ve asked Jo-X for thirty thousand a concert. I would’ve. Well . . . if.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I RESET THE odomete
r, then drove us out past the first gate, the tire shredder, then the gate near the highway. I dragged the gate back across the road to keep the riffraff out. The distance from Jo-X’s hideaway to the highway was fourteen point seven miles.
“Where to?” Lucy asked as I stopped the Mustang a few feet from the highway.
Left was Caliente, right was Vegas. I checked the time—5:50. Temperature readout on the dash was dead on a hundred.
“How about your favorite resort?” I said.
“Back to our Jacuzzi. Perfect. Get the smell of ash off us.”
“I meant the Midnight Rider and its shower.”
She didn’t respond for a few seconds. Then she shrugged. “The water was tepid but the shower was still a blast. I could get you all lathered up. Which I haven’t really done yet.”
I sighed deeply.
She smiled. “What?”
“You never quit, do you?”
“Hey, I’m only thirty-one, not a hundred one, and it’s been a while since I’ve . . . since . . . anyway, we haven’t checked out the food at the diner. The place might be a sleeper. It might have a nice crab salad or a world-class lobster thermidor.”
“Right. And the ceiling farther back might be plated with gold or painted with a Michelangelo fresco.”
“Yeah. That, too. We should go see.”
“Back again?” said the lady behind the counter, head tilted slightly to the left, eyes dark behind reading glasses with violet frames on a beaded chain. Smoke filled the air around her like the ash in Jo-X’s former hideout.
“We’re traveling between Ely and Vegas,” I said. “My oldest sister died. We got a bunch of family stuff to sort out.”
“That’s never fun. I’ll put you in room four. That’s—”
“Actually,” I interrupted, “we were in One the other day. I’d rather stay there if it’s all the same.”
“Four’s a better room. Same price.”
“Even so, how ’bout we take number one again? It’s closer to the diner here if we get hungry.”
She hesitated, lips twitching. “If you insist, One it is. That’ll be fifty-two dollars, cash. Fifty-five if you use a credit card.”
I gave her three twenties and got change. “I don’t suppose you have lobster thermidor tonight in the dining room?”
I don’t know if it was the “thermidor” or the “dining room” that made her laugh, but she did. Maybe. Her smoker’s voice transmogrified it into a fragmented cackle. Spooky.
Our waitress was Melanie. Hard to believe she was eight years younger than Lucy. Before we were seated, she told us the closest they had to lobster in Arlene’s Diner was a tuna salad sandwich made fresh yesterday or a bowl of clam chowder out of a can, take your pick.
Lucy stared at me. “We could be at the Luxor in an hour and a half. Less if I drive.”
“We’ve already got a room for the night here.”
“Jacuzzi over there. Clean sheets. Free food in the casino. They might even have lobster thermidor.”
“Good ’nuf.”
I said so long to Melanie and we left, which felt weird, but I had a plan of sorts rolling around in my head.
We arrived at the Luxor at seven forty-five. The sun wouldn’t set for over an hour. Temperature a hundred and one degrees. Vegas runs hot. Up and down the Strip, half the women were in clothing that showed quite a bit more than the usual amount of skin you see in Iowa, which was both good and bad. As a result, Lucy fit right in as we rolled into the valet area and she got out in running shorts and her peek-a-boo crochet halter. Even with the competition, she drew stares. There is skin and then there is skin. Lucy’s was the latter variety.
“Got any thousand-dollar chips on you?” she asked.
“One.” I adjusted the wig and moustache.
“Gimme it. I feel lucky.”
“Last time you said that you lost ten thousand bucks.”
“They’ll be overjoyed to see me. They want their money back, Daddy. They figger it’s just a matter of time.”
“Go get ’em, Sugar Plum.”
Which she did. Red, three times, letting it ride, then she put down a “shuckins” to keep them guessing, and we headed to the suite with seven chips, up another six thousand dollars.
“Why the hell do you want to be a PI?” I asked her when we got in the elevator. “A few days here and you could retire.”
“Everything we’ve done since I got rescued from Tonopah, of course. Luck can change. But you should try waiting tables, sometime. Or renting party stuff, talking on the phone, telling people what they can rent. Same thing over and over and over. Prices, terms, and conditions. Scorpions on the ceiling. Now I’m running around with a hot PI who carries a .357 Magnum.”
“Hot, right. They have anti-psychotic drugs now, you know. Keeps people like you from being institutionalized.”
“You don’t think?” She took my hand. “Smile. You’re about to get happy with a girl who knows how to use a .38 loaded with plus-P ammo and who’s a little bit worked up at the moment.”
“Worked up?”
“Well . . . yeah. Little bit more than a little bit.”
“That can’t be good. When’d that happen?”
“I dunno. It just did. I’m thinking of maybe doing something about it, too.”
“Like what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Kinda would, yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll give you a hint.”
We were in the midst of a tremendous kiss when the elevator doors opened. We walked down to the room a little faster than usual, sort of a lope. I opened the door and there was my all-time favorite detective, sitting on a bed, watching television.
Our television.
Shit.
“Ho-ly smoke,” Fairchild said as he got to his feet. “I mean, uh, this is the assistant you were talkin’ about? Lucy?”
I took off the hairpiece and the moustache, tossed them on a chair. “What the hell are you doin’ here, Russ?”
“Hey, it’s nice to see you, too, Mortimer.”
“Mort.”
Russ held out a hand to Lucy. “Russell Fairchild, Reno PD. And you are . . .”
“Out of your jurisdiction, obviously.”
Russ lowered his hand and shot me a look. Then Lucy said, “Lucy. Mort’s assistant. And I’ve like been to Reno a few times, but I’m really sort of from like all over, totally.”
She said all that in the voice of a fifteen-year-old Valley Girl, and the “likes” were just great. Her “totally” at the end was like the cherry on top of a sundae. Russell knew how old she was, but still. Here she was in color and 3-D, 3-D being the main thing, especially in that halter top with seven inches of tummy showing. When he looked at me, I saw new respect in his eyes, which were jittering slightly.
“Think I’ll go put on something different,” Lucy said. She went into the bathroom and shut the door.
“Holy Christ, Angel,” Russ said in an awed whisper.
“Yeah. And whatever your mouth thinks it wants to say next, don’t let it.”
“That is . . . is she . . .”
“What?”
“Is she any good? I mean, as an assistant?”
“She’s fantastic.”
He didn’t know how to take that. He shook his head and said, “I am in the wrong . . . Je-sus. Okay, before she comes back, I got something to tell you about that Jo-X dipshit. Boyce found it during the autopsy, figures it must’ve happened a week or two ago. Xenon . . . well, he, he . . .”
“Had a little superglue accident with his pecker, would be my guess.”
His eyes widened. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“I have these vivid dreams.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“I’m a gumshoe, Russ. Good one, too.”
“Sonofabitch. Boyce was backed up. He did the autopsy two days ago. We kept that superglue business hushed up. There isn’t six people who know about it, so I’d really like to
know—”
Lucy came out barefoot, wearing a white Luxor terrycloth bathrobe that ended at mid-thigh, left a lot of nice leg showing. As Hammer would say, she looked like a million bucks.
“Okay, Mr. Reno Detective,” she said. “What’re you doin’ here? How’d you get in this room?”
He gawked at her for several seconds, then said, “You just called me ‘detective.’ That’s how I got in.”
“Detectives can float through locked doors? I didn’t know that. I’ll watch while you float back out.”
“If you must know, I knew you two were staying here at the Luxor. I’ve got a friend works security here. I asked him if a girl won big at roulette in the last day or two, and he said some ditzy broad was driving them nuts at the table, playing like a complete idiot but winning big.” He gave me an accusing look. “Upwards of forty thousand dollars big, not twelve.”
I shrugged. “I rounded it off. And we won a little more after I talked to you. Then lost ten grand.”
He stared at me, then said, “My friend owed me. He knew which room the ‘ditzy broad’ was in. He got me in here where I could wait in comfort, be sure to see you if you came in. Which, as you can see, worked.” He offered Lucy a tentative smile.
“Give you ten minutes, then I’ll kick you out myself,” said my young, volatile, gorgeous, somewhat-underdressed assistant.
Fairchild’s smile faded.
“Nine minutes fifty-five seconds and counting,” she said. “You’re interrupting things.”
Smooth.
“Interrupting what?” His eyes swiveled to me.
“Dinner,” I said. “We haven’t eaten yet.”
“Hey, great, I’ll buy. We could go on down and—”
“I need a bath,” Lucy said. “Dinner can wait. Nine minutes forty seconds. Say what you gotta say, then take it somewhere else and have a nice day.”
Russell’s eyes ping-ponged between us for a moment, then he said, “Where in Caliente is Danya? And Shanna?”
“And here I thought you were a detective.”
“I could find ’em, no problem. I thought I’d see you first, find out what they’re doing there, get some information before I bust in on ’em.”
Gumshoe on the Loose Page 23