by Roy Chaney
Hagen ignored the question. “How do I get in touch with this Poof fellow?”
“He wants you to call him tomorrow.” Gubbs set his cigarette on the lip of the ashtray, pulled a leather billfold out. He removed a slip of paper and handed it to Hagen. It was a phone number—written in a crooked, childlike hand.
“Don’t cross him, Hagen. He’s got juice. He might be a little light in the heels, but he’ll walk all over you if you cross him.”
“You said you didn’t know him.”
“I don’t. But I know of him. And that’s enough.”
“What about Sidney Trunk? What do you know about him?”
Gubbs shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“You sure?”
“What do you want me to do, cross my heart and spit on a Bible?”
“Trunk was some kind of fence too. He talked to Ronnie on Monday—which was a neat trick because Ronnie was dead. Then he got even trickier, got himself burned to death in his house out in Boulder last night before I could talk to him. If any of this starts sounding familiar, Gubbs, just speak right up.”
“I don’t like what you’re getting at, Hagen.”
“Gubbs, why did Marty send you here to tell me all this?”
Gubbs stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray with short jabs. Down in the club the deep bass beat of the music pounded on and on, louder now than it had been. Hagen could almost see the synapses in Gubbs’s foggy brain pulsing and pounding in time to the beat. Hagen wondered how fast Gubbs’s mind was working, and where it was taking him.
Gubbs stood, pointed a shaky finger at Hagen. “You don’t listen too well. You wanted some names, I gave you a name. It’s the only one I’ve got and I’m sticking my neck out by giving it to you. Now you can just forget about me. Leave my name out of this mess. We’re square now. Right?”
“If you say so.”
Gubbs walked out of the office. Slammed the door shut behind him.
Hagen smiled. Winnie the Poof? Well, he’d asked Gubbs for names. And that was certainly a name.
Hagen picked up the binoculars—
Down on the center stage two young women in leather boots, G-strings and feathered tiaras on their heads were going to town. One of the women was on her knees, kneading her bare breasts and bobbing her head in the air while the other one stood over her, gyrating her hips, the sequins of her G-string only inches from the kneeling girl’s face. A standing crowd had gathered. Hagen could see the crumpled greenbacks landing on the stage.
Hagen thought of the sex clubs in Berlin. Hagen had interviewed more than one ex-Stasi agent in the smoke-filled reaches of those clubs. The clubs were dark, anonymous and hidden—just the place for a clandestine conversation—and the line between what was make-believe and what was real was often blurred beyond distinction. The women were seldom beautiful but they were willing and creative, and the stage was a hot house floor that had to be mopped every hour or two to keep the artistes from slipping and falling under the lurid theater lights.
If Harry Needles had ever tried to re-create a Berlin sex club show here in Las Vegas the audience would be stunned into an uncomfortable silence and Harry Needles would quickly find himself in jail. But that was the difference between Las Vegas and Berlin, at least the Berlin that Hagen had been required to live in. The one was strictly show business. The other was murkier, seedier, perhaps a little psychotic.
Like Jack Gubbs.
Gubbs was distasteful. Gubbs was seedy. Gubbs was off balance. But was he telling the truth? Maybe he was. But true or not, someone else had told Gubbs to come here to tell him about Winnie the Poof, Hagen was sure of that. And Marty Ray was the likely choice.
Hagen set the binoculars down, walked over to Harry Needles’s desk and picked up the phone. He dialed the number for the Venetian, asked the clerk who answered to connect him with his room phone so that he could check his messages. There was one, from the Sniff. He’d talked to Dallas Martinez. Martinez had agreed to meet Hagen that night, eleven o’clock. At the top of the Stratosphere Tower. The southwest side, facing the Strip.
“He’s not thrilled about it, Bodo,” the Sniff said on the recording. “But he’ll play along—just this once.”
Hagen hung up the phone.
When Harry Needles returned he disappeared into a small bathroom adjoining the office, came back out with his shirtsleeves rolled up, wiping his hands on a white hand towel, as though a visit from Jack Gubbs required a good scrub afterward.
Hagen said, “Harry, did Ronnie ask you if you could find him a fence?”
Harry Needles started to laugh. The laugh died out when he saw the expression on Hagen’s face. Hagen hadn’t been sure earlier that he wanted to tell Harry Needles the whole story. But right now Hagen needed to know if Harry Needles had heard anything about it. Anything at all. Harry Needles knew the Sniff from years ago, when Harry Needles worked for Bodo’s father at the Sands, and now Hagen told Harry what the Sniff had said, about Ronnie looking for a fence and asking for a loan. About the photograph of the wooden hand—what Ronnie called the dead man’s hand. About Hagen’s visit to Gubbs’s apartment the day before. Hagen didn’t mention the woman from Paris and he didn’t mention Sidney Trunk—the story was clear enough without those two angles. When Hagen told Harry what Gubbs had said, about the fence named Winnie the Poof, Harry Needles could only shake his head. Harry had heard the name before, but he wasn’t sure where, or when.
A slow ponderous look appeared on Harry Needles’s face. “What kind of trouble did Ronnie get into, Bodo?”
“I wish I knew.”
Harry Needles turned away. He looked out on the bright flashing lights of his nightclub. Deep lines appeared at the corners of his eyes, as though he’d spotted something down there that could explain to him what Hagen couldn’t, if only he could squint hard enough to bring it into sharp focus.
Hagen worked on his drink for a minute before he broke the heavy silence.
“Harry?”
“Yeah, Bodo?”
“Can you get the girl now?”
“I’m very sorry,” Theresa Sanchez said to Hagen, her brow knitted together in sympathy, as soon as she entered Harry Needles’s office. “When I heard that your brother died in such a terrible way—” The unfinished remark hung in the air. Theresa Sanchez shook her head slowly.
The woman’s condolences sounded genuine but there was a wariness in her eyes as she studied Hagen. She wasn’t sure what this was about and wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. Harry Needles explained that Hagen wanted to ask her a few questions. “Bodo thinks it might be important.” Harry Needles motioned toward the table, gave Hagen a questioning look. Hagen shook his head. He wanted Harry to stay. The woman was nervous. Harry’s presence might calm her.
She was a short woman, no more than five foot three. Twenty-five years old, Hagen guessed. Her face was full and dark, with brown eyes and long eyelashes and black hair that was parted in the middle and hung past her shoulders. She wore black slacks and the requisite Venus Lounge polo shirt. She wasn’t a naturally thin woman but she had a thin waist that called attention to her full hips and breasts. An attractive woman, and one who spent some time keeping herself attractive.
“So you met Ronnie on Sunday, is that right?” Hagen began when the three of them were seated at the table.
“He was downstairs at the bar,” Theresa Sanchez said, soft Spanish inflections in her voice. “Waiting for Harry to come in. Business was kind of slow so I talked to him for a little bit. He said he was an old friend of Harry’s and that he worked here at the club when it first opened.”
“What else did you talk about?”
Theresa Sanchez looked to Harry Needles for help. He smiled, nodded—go ahead and tell the man. “Just shooting the breeze,” she said, hesitant. “He told me he’d just gotten out of the military and that he’d been away from Las Vegas for many years. He’d had a little bit to drink but he was pleasant. He asked me if I wanted to go out
for a drink when I finished work. I couldn’t go—I had to get home and study. I told him some other time maybe. He said okay. That was all.”
“When was the next time you saw him?”
“Tuesday night. He came in about eight o’clock. He sat at the bar and asked me again if I wanted to go out for a drink. I was off at nine so I said okay, and when I finished we drove over to the Bellagio and had a couple of drinks and talked. He told me about the places he’d been to—Africa and France. I’m in the nursing program at UNLV so we talked about that a little bit. After we left Bellagio we drove to Diamond Jim’s. He said he used to work there too. We had a couple of drinks there and then I had to go. I had class in the morning—I didn’t want to stay out late. We were going to maybe go out again last weekend. . . .” Theresa Sanchez’s voice trailed off.
“What happened at Diamond Jim’s?”
Sanchez shifted in her chair. “Nothing much. We had one drink at the bar and then he asked me if I wanted to play blackjack. I don’t gamble, but I sat with him at the tables and watched while he played blackjack. He said I’d bring him good luck. I’m afraid I didn’t.”
Theresa Sanchez’s gaze fell from Hagen’s face, came to rest on the surface of the table. The idea that she hadn’t brought Ronnie Hagen luck seemed for her to extend beyond the game of blackjack at Diamond Jim’s.
“Did he lose a lot of money at the tables?”
“Not so much. He didn’t play for long.”
“How much?”
“Maybe a hundred dollars, I’m not sure.”
Hagen glanced at Harry Needles. Harry was smiling, throwing encouraging looks at Sanchez, trying to make her feel more comfortable than she obviously felt. A hundred dollars—that was nothing. A hundred dollars was cab fare. But right then one thing struck Hagen as strange—Ronnie saw Harry Needles on Sunday night. He didn’t mention needing money, didn’t ask to borrow any. On Monday he went to the Sniff, looking for a fence and asking to borrow a thousand dollars minimum, more if the Sniff could spare it. Why hadn’t Ronnie gone to Harry Needles for a loan? Harry Needles would’ve been an easier touch. Harry Needles had always been fond of Ronnie and Ronnie knew that.
Hagen didn’t get much else out of Theresa Sanchez. After Diamond Jim’s, Ronnie had dropped her off at her apartment. That was the last time she saw him. Sanchez didn’t recall Ronnie speaking to anyone at Diamond Jim’s—didn’t recall much else at all. She shook her head sadly, told Hagen that she wished that she could be of more help, but she simply didn’t know anything. Or was it that she just didn’t want to tell him all that she knew, Hagen wondered. She was nervous. She was worried. Was it because Harry Needles was here? Hagen wanted to talk to her alone now, see how she acted without Harry Needles sitting next to her.
Hagen saw his chance when Theresa Sanchez got up from the table, asked Harry if she could use his phone to call her roommate for a ride home.
“I’m leaving now too,” Hagen said. “I can give you a lift.”
“Thank you but no, my roommate will pick me up.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Harry Needles got up from the table, placed his arm around Theresa Sanchez’s shoulders, gave her a friendly squeeze. “I’ll vouch for Bodo, Theresa. He’s a safe driver.”
Theresa Sanchez looked from Harry to Hagen, tried to smile.
Theresa Sanchez’s apartment was on the east side of town. Hagen took the surface streets—Industrial to Wyoming, Wyoming to Las Vegas Boulevard, then right on Bonanza Road. The woman’s manner had changed as soon as they left the club. The politeness and reserve melted away. It was replaced by a hardness and suspicion. Theresa Sanchez was more savvy that she let on. But then a woman probably didn’t work as a professional stripper without learning a few things about the world and how it works.
“You used to be a dancer, is that right?” Hagen said.
Theresa Sanchez stared straight ahead. “Did Harry tell you that?”
“Marty Ray told me that.”
“Did he?”
“How well do you know Marty?”
“I know who he is. He used to own part of the Venus Lounge. But I don’t know him.”
“He remembers you.”
“What did he say about me?”
“He said he remembers you when you danced.”
“I don’t dance anymore.”
“Do you make more money working behind the bar?”
“I made more money dancing.”
“So why did you switch?”
“Mister Hagen, have you ever spent six hours dancing in four-inch heels?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“Try it some time. You won’t last long.”
“I’m sure of that.”
Theresa Sanchez kept her hands in her lap, her fingers worrying a small gold ring on her little finger. She slid the ring off, slid it back on.
Hagen tried a lie, just to see where it got him. “Marty Ray also said he saw you and Ronnie at Diamond Jim’s last week.”
“Maybe he did. But I didn’t see him.” The woman’s answer was quick and firm.
Hagen changed the subject. “Why does Harry Needles make you nervous?”
“Does he?”
“You weren’t very comfortable in his office. You seemed bothered by the fact that he was there.”
“Harry is my boss. I like him. I don’t want him to think badly of me. Having him there listening while I’m being questioned by the police isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“You think I’m a cop?”
“Aren’t you? You ask questions like a cop. You have a gun under your coat. If you’re not a cop, what are you?”
Hagen wondered if the Heckler & Koch in the shoulder holster under his sport coat stood out more than he thought. Either that, or Theresa Sanchez had sharp eyes and knew what to look for.
Farther out on Bonanza Road Theresa Sanchez busied herself with giving directions. Turn left here, then down one block and turn right. They were near the address now. She opened her handbag and began sifting through the contents. She pulled out a key ring. A rabbit’s foot covered in white fur was attached to the ring.
“Mister Hagen, I’m very tired,” Theresa Sanchez said as she got out of the car. “I’ve told you what I know. I wish I could help you more but I can’t. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Thank you for the ride. Good night.”
She closed the car door hard.
Hagen watched her ascend the outside stairway that led to the second-floor walkway of her apartment house. A line of palm trees stood out front. The streetlights threw the shadows of the palm fronds against the side of the building, long fingerlike shadows that seemed to grip the building tightly.
Hagen was certain of one thing—Theresa Sanchez knew a few things about cops.
And she had learned them the hard way.
Hagen drove to the Stratosphere Tower, turned his car over to the valet at the hotel entrance. He had some time to kill before his meeting with Dallas Martinez. He walked around inside the casino, watched the action at the tables, studied the faces in the crowds. The Stratosphere might be the tallest building in Las Vegas—tallest observation tower in the United States, according to a sign on the wall near the entrance—but the action was all low rollers, the kind of grind action that came into town on tour buses and left again at two o’clock in the morning to save on the price of a hotel room. Day-trippers—old folks betting their pension checks, young parents with bad haircuts and souvenir T-shirts, a few wide-eyed young men whooping it up on free casino beer that they spilled on themselves and the card tables while they tossed dollar bills around like someone cared.
After a while Hagen rode the elevator up to the tower’s observation deck.
The circular deck was noisy and crowded. A roller coaster flew around the circumference of the roof above the deck and another carnival ride called the Big Shot—some type of multiseated platform that shot riders straight up to the tip of the tower on a burst of compressed
air—stood above the roller coaster. Need a strong stomach for that kind of entertainment, Hagen thought. Or several stiff drinks that just might come back up after a few good jolts up into the night sky a thousand feet in the air above Las Vegas.
Hagen worked his way around to the southwest edge of the deck. A crowd of young people dressed for a swank nightclub milled around, pointing out the landmarks on the Strip. The lights of the city looked like a sparkling carpet. The nightclubbers took snapshots of each other and toasted themselves. They slowly dispersed and now Hagen noticed a man standing farther down the deck. An older Latino man, dressed in black—thin black silk shirt that hung loosely from his thick frame, black slacks, black shoes. As the man studied the view of the city before him he pulled a peanut out of his pants pocket. He crushed the shell with deliberation, pulled the nuts out and chewed them slowly, tossed the pieces of shell aside, wiped the palms of his hands together. Then he proceeded on with another peanut plumbed from the depths of his pocket.
The man’s face was long and wrinkled. His gray hair was as unkempt as his bushy gray mustache.
“Quite a view, isn’t it?” the man said as Hagen approached him. “Vegas looks nice and tidy from up here. Looks like a place where a person might want to live. It’s a different story down on the street, but up here it looks kind of peaceful.” The man glanced over his shoulder as a metallic rumble filled the air. The roller coaster sped around the tower above them in tracks that looked too narrow, turns that looked too sharp to be anything other than fatal. “The kiddie rides kind of ruin the effect, but I guess you can’t have everything.”
“Martinez?”
The man nodded. “And you’re Hagen.” The man popped another peanut into his mouth, wiped his hands together. “I was going to stuff a red carnation in a buttonhole but I didn’t have one. Wasn’t sure you’d recognize me without some kind of signal. Big spic with a beer gut—they grow on trees around here.” Martinez patted his stomach, his eyes focused off into the distance. “And if they’re not careful, sometimes they hang from trees. Like Sidney Trunk.”