by L. J. Martin
“You’re Mike Reardon?”
“Yes.”
He turns to Pax. “And you’re Paxton Weatherwax?”
“Hey,” Pax says, a little smartass as usual, “you’re psychic.”
“Give up the piece in the middle of your back. It will be returned.”
“And you have x-ray eyes.”
“The piece, please.” Somehow the please doesn’t sound sincere.
Pax gives him a tight smile and hands him his Glock, butt forward.
“Thank you. Not necessary to pat you two down?” he asks.
“The door frame’s a metal detector?” I ask.
“It, and me,” he says, giving me a tight grin.
“I didn’t think I’d need anything but these, and I pat my right bicep with my left hand. “The right is a .44 mag and the left even scares it.”
“I heard you were a funny guy.”
“No weapons, other than being trained to kill.”
There are two sets of double doors off the small lobby, one has gold letters announcing The Whale’s Lair. Opposite are an unmarked set, but equally impressive. Unlike we were led to believe, we don’t enter the Whale’s Lair but the others.
Another tight but very doubting smile from no-neck and he opens the door and stands aside, and I’m glad he’s not blocking the view of the blond moving, or should I say gliding, from a desk larger than Pax’s through magenta carpet too deep for her five-inch gold colored spike heels. She’s Charlize Theron at her prime—not that Charlize is past it unless those Hollywood makeup artists are more than merely that—tall, with boyish blond cut that in no way detracts from the fact she’s obviously NOT a boy. And the sultry voice I recognize from the phone. I’m pretty sure typing is not her main responsibility as the perfectly manicured nails are more suited for raking a back…my back if I can figure out how to make that happen.
Her smile is well practiced but seemingly sincere. “Mr. Reardon, and Mr. Weatherwax, I presume.”
“And you’re?”
“Cindy McAllister.”
Pax is seldom speechless in front of a beautiful woman, but he merely nods. She’s in a Kelly green suit with her neck encircled by a gold silk scarf artfully tied with the tails to the side so it does not conceal her cleavage. I glance at him as she extends her hand to me and shakes, then to him…I hope he doesn’t embarrass us both by drooling. It’s obvious she spends time at one of the Majestic’s pools, as her tan is perfect and I’ll bet beautifully browned over one hundred percent of a nine point five body…and there are no tens. She has a slight accent, Russian or Romanian maybe, but ever so slight.
“Take a seat and I’ll see if Mr. Pointer is ready for you. I hope you’re hungry….” She flashes the smile again and disappears into another set of double doors. She returns before I can get into the first article in the Casino Journal which adorns a side table separating the doe-colored, kid leather chairs where Pax and I have flopped.
She holds the door and we wander into an office the size of a three-car garage. Three walls are speckled with a herd of African animals surrounding a full-size snooker table; its felt is the trademark orange of the Majestic, it’s carved wood, likely ebony. I recognize a kudu, eland, and bushbuck but my Jungle Book imparted knowledge of the animal kingdom fails me for the rest, other than a full-maned, full-body mounted African lion in one corner and a magnificent leopard in the other. The carpet is matching orange and the walls a rich brown.
Cindy passes us. As we’re ogling the opulence of the place she moves to a patio door and I realize Pointer is at a table on the tennis-court-size patio outside, being served by a redhead almost a match, beauty wise, to my new best friend, Cindy.
At one end of the patio is a water feature twenty feet tall, with an eight-foot wide wall of water, only a half-inch thick, moving down over a wall of tile inset with a six-foot-wide logo of the Majestic, I’m sure the gold tiles of the logo are real gold.
At the other end of the patio is a small eight-seat bar, carved from the same quality ebony as the snooker table, behind which is a Black fella in a spotless white coat who goes about his business without looking up.
The round glass table Pointer is seated behind will seat eight. He rises. Most of these guys don’t get to his position without being personable and reasonably polite, even if they’d as soon bury you in the desert as put up with thirty seconds of lip.
He rounds the table and extends a hand. He has a confident, if thin-handed, handshake.
“Sit, please. Lobster okay? Anything you want, if not. We do a great chateaubriand?”
He’s smaller than I’d thought, only having seen him from a distance or on TV. His features are soft and his hair thin, not hiding liver spots on his pate, both belying the strength of his handshake. But his gaze is laser penetrating and distractingly unblinking.
We both say “Lobster’s great,” at the same time and we flank him, me at four o’clock and Pax at eight.
“Albert, at the bar, will make anything you want. If you’re going to want more than one, order it now as I’ll excuse him as soon as you’re served.”
“What are you having?” I ask Pointer.
“Campari and soda. I can make it all day with a couple of those.”
Since he’s drinking, I order a Jack rocks and Pax follows suit. “Just one for me,” I say.
“Likewise,” Pax echoes.
We make small talk until we’re served, each a two-pound ‘steaming in shell’ lobster so large it flops over the edges of the plate, along with a cup of butter, both surrounded by tiny yellow Yukon potatoes in the space the crustacean doesn't occupy. I’m hoping they have to-go boxes as I dig in. Pax, on the other hand, takes large portions as a personal challenge.
Albert brings our drinks and is excused with a very polite “Thank you, Albert,” from Pointer.
We haven’t gotten down three bites before Pointer gets serious. “Can I talk freely in front of Mr. Weatherwax?” he asks me.
“I presume we’re talking about some sort of employment?”
“We are, and we are not being recorded. I have this office swept daily. I say that so you know, and I'm confident you'll respect, what happens on the top of the Majestic in Vegas, stays on the top of the Majestic...period.”
I smile. “Sometimes it’s wise to have a good bug exterminator. You can say anything in front of Pax you’ll say to me.”
“Okay. I want you to find, and kill slowly, with as much pain as you can stand to apply, whoever is responsible for the bus bombing.”
I’m silent for a moment, and Pax even stops chewing.
Finally, I offer, “Mr. Pointer, we’re not hit men.”
“Yet, if my information is correct, over the past three years you’ve been responsible for more than a dozen killings.”
I clear my throat. “That’s probably true, in fact probably a low estimate. But that was, in every instance, in self-defense or as we’d say in the military, in the line of duty.”
“You think revenging twenty-nine innocent deaths is not in the line of duty?”
He’s got a point.
He continues. “And what would you do if one of those deaths was your grand-daughter?”
That’s more than merely a point.
2
I understand that Pointer is interested in revenge, and he's he's not alone. Every good American wants to revenge what happens to other innocent Americans—in fact all innocents—who are killed by some useless heathens who kill for their own purposes, misguided as they might be.
But wet work, and money therefore, is never our motivation. Justice first, money a distant second. That said, one does have to eat.
So I try and make a discrete retreat. “Mr. Pointer, I appreciate your considering us as a potential solution to your problem. But we don't do hits and I'm sure this bombing will be quickly resolved. The FBI has imported a hundred or more agents, ATF&E has half that many hard at work. A fully staffed fibbi Counter Intelligence Squad is at work here. Obvio
usly these assholes are Muslim terrorists and even though the feds are a day late and a dollar short, they'll solve the problem. You'll be revenged—”
“You're off base,” he snaps. “Way off base.” He rises and walks to the glass doors and raps on them. Cindy hurries across her office and opens the door. “Ask Rashad to join us.”
“Rashad?” I ask, obviously an Arab or Muslim name.
Pointer returns to his seat, clears his throat, and continues, “Rashad Al-Saud is my son-in-law. Lina, my granddaughter who died in the attack, was my daughter Mandy and Rashad’s daughter. He's Muslim, obviously, an active and well-respected member of Abu Hanifa Mosque. He knows far better than you and I, and probably better than the FBI, what the Muslim community is up to in Vegas, probably in all Nevada. And this bombing wasn't a terrorist act...at least not a Muslim terrorist act. The only possibility that Muslims committed this...this atrocity...is that they are from way out of the area...and we think that unlikely.”
“And the claims made by Destroy Satan America.”
“Those terrorist pricks claim credit for anything and everything. Rashad assures me if they tried to build a bomb they'd blow themselves up in the process. I don't give a damn, and neither does Rashad, if all of DSA goes to meet Allah...or more likely whatever the Muslim version of Hell happens to be. We want who actually did this.”
“And the FBI and—”
“They are on the wrong track, the politically expedient track, but the wrong track.”
Rashad is more impeccably dressed than Pax, and enters with a bit of a hangdog look.
“Gentlemen,” he says, “you'll pardon me. I'm still a bit shaken by this horrid last two weeks. I understand you'll need some help—”
“We haven't come to terms yet,” I interrupt.
Pax has been unusually quiet but jumps in, “Those sons of bitches killed twenty-nine and probably more as three are still critical, and crippled a half dozen more. Two will never get out of wheelchairs. We'll do whatever it takes.”
I'm a little taken aback as Pax is usually the guy who's waiting for the payoff, but he's also the guy still gimping around with one leg a half inch shorter than the other. And I have to thank him everyday as he got that short leg from an AK47 taking a chunk out of his femur while dragging me out of an Iraqi street where I was wandering around the middle of a haji infected neighborhood, drunkenly, in shock after a near strike of an RPG. He saved my ass, and I owe him.
So, if he wants to take this gig on for shits and grins, it's okay with me.
3
Rashad reminds me of Omar Sharif, the movie star. Tall, Tall, dark, a blaze of gray along the sides of a full head of jet-black hair.
I’ve seen lots of Muslims in my time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of them good people with superb morals, some of whom have vowed to protect any stranger in need no matter his religion…and I’ve seen a lot more who take the infidel verses of the Koran seriously and think the rest of humanity equal to cockroaches.
I’m afraid much of the latter has stuck with me and I’m instantly on my guard when confronted with any Muslim. Profiling? You bet your ass.
Of course, I understand that if one took many verses of the Old Testament at face value, one would be equally suspect. But we have the New Testament. They don't entertain a modernized version. Still….
“Have you eaten?” Pointer asks his son-in-law.
“I’m still off, Alex. Soup or oatmeal is about as much as I can handle.”
Pointer introduces us and Rashad takes a seat next to his father-in-law.
“Rashad is my vice president, runs the gaming floor. I’ve asked Butch Flannigan, our head of security to join us. He’ll be up in a minute.”
“Mr. Pointer,” I stop him, a little rudely. “As I said, my buddies and I are no death squad. We solve people’s problems that attorneys and law enforcement can’t seem to take care of. Someone steals your plane, your captain runs off with your yacht, or in your case, if your cage manager skips with a few mil, we’ll be happy to go after him, and return him and the money to you. What you do from then on is not our affair.”
“Fine,” he says. “Find these scumbags and bring them to me. You can be in Cabo San Lucas sipping margaritas when justice is meted out. However, I know quite a bit about you…you cleaned up a fair chunk of the Paraguayan Air Force, a crooked colonel as I understand, when you went south to recover an airplane. You mopped up North Dakota oilfields and left a lot of dope dealers and flesh peddlers weighed down with lead. You did a little recon into Afghanistan and repatriated some guys taken captive there, and left some mullah and troops in a tangle of camel dung—”
“Okay, okay,” I say and have to laugh. “We’ve had some success and spilled some blood along the way, but our mission in every case was not only destroy, it was mostly search and return.”
“Fine,” he says, “bring these scumbags to me.”
“And you’re offering?” Pax asks, finally coming to his senses. We don’t have a dog in this fight, at least not directly. So we should be remunerated for the risk, not speaking of the effort.
“You bring me the assholes who had that bomb placed and it’s worth a cool mil.”
“A mil plus expenses?” Pax snaps.
Pointer shrugs. “If you go over a hundred grand we talk again.”
“Fifty up front will do.”
He nods as the glass door opens and is filled by a guy who at first glance one would think fat, but at second you realize he’s big, and muscled. Could have been a defensive tackle for the Rams in a past life.
We shake hands with Butch Flannigan. He offers an easy handshake which is not uncommon from guys who could probably send the average guy to the emergency room with crushed bones if he gets over exuberant.
He takes a seat and Pointer rises and gives us a nod. “Butch and Rashad will bring you up to speed. I’ve been through all this a dozen times and have work to do. Good luck, gentlemen.”
Both Pax and I show our manners and rise as he heads back into his office from the patio.
Butch wastes no time. “I have a full dossier on what we’ve learned to date. It’s our conclusion that this was not a random act but rather a specific hit. The most obvious target was the federal judge, but there are three others who died that could have been—”
“Hold a sec,” I say. “Why have you eliminated those who’ve claimed credit?”
Rashad speaks for the first time. “I am very active in the Muslim community. And I have a network and know pretty much what’s going on. In fact I have been personally responsible for thwarting two attacks by misguided groups of Muslims. That, of course, shall not leave this table or I’ll never learn of the next plan.”
“You’re an FBI informant?” I ask.
“We shall not discuss what I do and with whom. It’s not necessary. It's enough for you to know I'm a good American and believe in this country. I will give you the name of the agent sent here to lead this investigation. He’s agreed to speak with you…although I’ll warn you, he still believes the Muslim community is behind this heinous act. You can draw your own conclusions. Special Agent Maxwell Anthony Merrick is the guy you want to meet. I'll set it up and have Butch call you.”
“And we will draw our own conclusions and are free to meet with Merrick anytime,” Pax says.
And I add, “And you should know, 'pretty much' is not enough for me.”
“Pretty much?” he asks.
“You said you know 'pretty much' what's going on.”
Rashad gives me a nod then shrugs. “You were in Iraq and Afghanistan and spilled the blood of many Muslims. Can you set aside any prejudice you have? Otherwise, you’ll never find the real perpetrators.”
“I’ll set aside all my prejudices when Muslims begin to clean up their own community. That said, I’m a fair investigator and I’ll weigh each and every gram and grain of information for what it’s worth. You obviously have your own ax to grind and I believe you believe what you say…that
the Muslim community is innocent. At least until we discover otherwise.”
“Fair enough,” Rashad says, and rises and we all follow suit. He extends his hand and shakes with Pax and I and excuses himself.
Butch gives us a wave to follow as he trails Rashad into and through Pointer’s office, and out where we hope to get another glance at the beautiful Cindy. But we’re disappointed as she’s not at her desk.
As we await the elevator, and Pax recovers his Glock from the security guy there, Butch advises us, “We’ll go to my office and I’ll load you up with our findings.”
We get off on the second floor and Rashad continues to the casino. He says nothing more as we disembark.
Security is made up of five offices, in addition to a waiting room and to my only slight surprise, a holding cell. It seems they have occasional real trouble which is no surprise, as a place full of half-dressed women, millions of dollars in chips and cash, where the booze flows like the nearby Colorado River, is bound to erupt once in a while.
We take a seat in Flannigan’s rather Spartan office, with light green walls and gray metal furniture and only a few framed certificates testifying to his qualifications. I'm surprised to see the guy is a Stanford graduate in Engineering. He pushes a three-inch-thick binder across his desk to me. “I’m turning off all recording devices,” he informs us, not that we can be sure that’s a fact. “Now, let me tell you a few things that are not in that material.”
We both nod and wonder if now we’ll hear the good stuff.
“Mr. Pointer has given me strict instructions to tell you everything, hold back nothing, and to do so when it’s just between us. And it will stay just between us. Agreed?”
“Certainly,” I say and Pax and I both nod.
“You bet your life on it?” he asks, and it’s obvious he’s serious.
My voice drops an octave and I’m sure my brow furrows. “We don’t know each other, Mr. Flannigan, but you should know…first, we don’t say what we don’t mean, we don’t repeat what we’ve heard in confidence, and second, and more to the point, we don’t take threats lightly.”