This was all shot without sound, which made it spooky. Knowing Evan, who loved to play in the Foley studio, there would be lots of silence in the finished product and real or natural sounds mixed with the score, or sounds from another film even. Charlie could imagine him mixing war sounds with the shoot-out in front of Loopy’s. Instead of police sirens, there might be air-raid sirens from the bombing of London during World War II. Just enough to throw you off.
Sometimes he’d begin a scene with sounds from the last sequence. He liked to call this technique “transition.” Again, it would be labeled conceit—distracting and unnecessary—by some, brilliance by admirers. You either liked or hated an Evan Black film. They were as controversial as their maker. And more than once he’d been termed mad—as in nuts. Charlie had always wondered how, in Hollywood, you could tell.
But when his projects worked—and probably three-fourths did—they grossed bucks, big bucks on the cheap. Because he did so much of it himself. No second unit on his films, despite Toby’s title. No power struggles between egos on the set that drove costs up on most projects. Talent or production crew, they were free to walk, because he wasn’t paying squat anyway and there were people lined up to take their places. People worked on a Black film as a way to become better known in their specialty, not for guild or union scales. Studio brass got intimidating, interfering, Evan would walk the project to another studio, never shooting anything in L.A. While endless lawsuits were being filed, threatened, some scheduled in court, he was garnering awards. If this guy was nuts, he was like the Einstein of nuts.
The question was, Was he capable of murder? And treason?
* * *
The raw oysters and camel fries seemed to have worked, but Mitch ordered up a deluxe hamburger and french fries sometime in the wee hours. And a bottle of red.
Charlie’d had enough of everything but sex. Well, she did eat one fry. Okay, five, but that was it.
Between bouts of lust that had little to do with the lustee—he could have been anybody that night—in her savaged room at the Hilton, which she and the lustee had no time to put right or to inform security of what might be missing from the obvious search, Charlie dreamed. And when awake, she relived that ground stuff.
It was awesome. In her head, she mixed the sound herself.
Groom Lake even in wide angle from a nearby mountaintop stood well disclosed, impossible to hide on open desert. The massive runways looked able to launch a fleet of ocean liners, or aircraft carriers three at a time—side by side. What could possibly require such spaciousness? No stealth bomber needed anywhere near that width or length. And those runways were in excellent condition, not patched up like at most airports.
The vast hangarlike buildings and sheds sprawled low, flat, and again were impossible to hide. Perhaps the only option was to deny their existence. Stranger things have happened. The fleet of white 737s, unmarked but for a wide red stripe along the side pocked by the windows, showing white here, lined up as she remembered them from her brief flight over that ridge with Caryl Thompson, Evan, and Mel. Just before the orange light knocked her out.
That orange light, really more of a thing, had more substance than normal light does. Yet Charlie couldn’t be sure it was an object. Round, huge, and spinning, it reminded her fleetingly of a sun before it vanished. It didn’t go away or dissolve or spin past the little Mooney. It couldn’t. It filled the sky. And then it just simply wasn’t. Like it had never existed. This was not on the footage in Evan’s film—it was in Charlie’s head, at the back of her eyeballs, leaving the orange smear that still returned now and then.
Or it was in her dream. Her imagination. Probably induced by the french fries. And a sex and Chianti hangover.
No, on the screen in Evan’s screening room, the Groom Lake, or Area 51, sequence had continued with the wide-angle lens turning in a slow circle, panning empty desert and low mountains until it faced an enormous eye. It seemed to be some sort of surveillance or sensor thing on a tripod. The wide angle moved on to people in denim and straw hats sitting on rocks, raising sandwiches and beer cans to the camera, bloated distortions, too large because they were too close to the lens. It continued its circle to come to a stop on what appeared to be barren desert scenery.
Until you noticed the dirt road snaking off to the horizon, the white Jeep parked to the side, and two or three figures bent over the road next to it. About all you could see was their movement, not its purpose. Spreading tacks? And in the distance where the road dropped over into a gully, was that a tow truck?
“I still don’t see what all this, as impressive as it is, has to do with Charlie’s room being tossed,” Mitch had said either at the end of the screening or in her dream, or both.
“They’re looking for clues as to how she did it. There are bets still out there.” Was it Evan who said that? For real or dream?
“Do you know who searched my room? Was it those good old boy reverse militia guys? Retired ARPs?”
“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised, but not to worry, Charlie. A magical event is about to occur that will make them all look so silly, they won’t dare get smart with us.”
But before Charlie could ask the young genius what this magic was, she was sucked into a giant orange and taken advantage of. Was it a dream, Mitch Hilsten, or an omen?
CHAPTER 25
CHARLIE SHOWERED AND dressed before Mitch Hilsten stirred an eyelash, studied herself in the mirror in the bathroom to see if she really did look different, younger, less stressed, dewy—like her boss had said.
She didn’t look bad. She felt great. Her room was still a mess, the search a thorough one, but her computer was safe. Surely “they” had found what they were looking for. She downloaded her E-mail and hurried downstairs to the serious coffee bar in the lobby next to the black Stealth. And next to the bank of slots where she’d won a jackpot and Art Sleem had dumped cash and warnings on her in the morning, before getting himself murdered in the afternoon.
She took her skinny latte with nutmeg to the café and looked for Ardith. There was something reassuring about Ardith and her attempts to mother Charlie’s eating habits.
But it was a harried Bobby Sue—the name badges gave only first names—who stopped by Charlie’s table with the menu, masticating gum as if holding her face together depended on it.
“First time in fifty years Ardith Miller’s missed work, except once when the union struck and another time she got the flu. I’m working her section too.”
“Fifty years?” Charlie reconsidered her retirement options.
“Something’s happened. I just know it.” Maybe not fifty years, but Bobby Sue had been around awhile herself. Her ponytail was snow white and thinning. “Something bad.”
Charlie, who’d eaten only five french fries—okay, maybe seven—last night while the granola-boy lustee consumed a huge hamburger, decided it was time for two eggs. Over easy so she could cut up and scramble them on her plate, making the whites all yokey, and then dip her toast in the yoke that remained. Well? This was a rough vacation.
She sipped her latte, felt the caffeine booting her up in that marvelous way it did only first thing in the day, booted up the Toshiba notebook on its battery power, and read her E-mail while breakfast cooked.
The news from Larry—three out of five really important deals she had going were toast. The industry was like that—string you along with awesome fantasizing material for months and then kick you in the stomach with rejection in one afternoon. The worst part—Charlie got to break the news to the writers, and she’d better do it before they read it in the trades.
Nebula had decided not to renew the option on Parnell Davidson’s legal thriller. Universal had rejected Jerry and Leo’s final script revisions for Thelma & Louise: The Early Years, and Mega Studios had scrapped the Trojan Hearse project. Charlie represented three of the writers on that baby.
The new office witch, Ruby Dillon, threatened to quit if Richard didn’t call her immediately, which was ye
sterday. Lovely Libby had decided she was going to college to learn to become a veterinarian and Tuxedo the Dreaded had gained forbidden access to Charlie’s closet and peed on all her shoes.
“It really stinks in there,” the kid reassured Charlie. No word about the groping boss, the retarded boyfriend, or the secondhand car that defied all emission standards known but which Libby managed to get passed anyway. All together, a worrisome communication.
But even more worrisome—a message from an address she’d never seen before and unsigned, the server something obscure she’d never heard of. “Good thing I know where you live. Too bad you don’t know where I do. Will they call it murder or suicide, do you think?”
She’d already consumed her meal before it occurred to her that just because Art Sleem was dead didn’t mean “they” had given up trying to poison her.
Charlie hoped the unidentified message was just one more threat from Sleem, powerless now that he was dead, and not some “they” who took no prisoners. Could somebody be threatening Libby, still back in Long Beach, where Charlie lived? She got on a pay phone in the lobby to leave messages with her neighbors Maggie Stutzman and Jeremy Fiedler to keep an eye out for Libby and any strangers hanging around the compound, explaining the E-mail letter.
Then more calls to commiserate with six writers. They’d every last one already heard the bad news. Trying not to, they blamed Charlie. She was the middleman-woman. The shield and the target for both sides.
* * *
Charlie peeled a couple of hundreds off her roll and threw them on the blackjack table. One thing, the tossing of her room hadn’t been your ordinary robbery, not that she’d ever suspected it was. Her cash winnings were still in the safe with her computer.
Please tell me we’re not going to investigate.
Why, you think I’m not up to it?
Charlie, we are staggering under a load of problems now. We can’t take on any more.
We are being threatened by E-mail, stumbling over dead bodies by the truckload, involved in scary, maybe antigovernment, stuff, and I am worried about Ardith Miller.
Ardith Miller—the waitress we barely know—
Did not show up for work today after fifty years, minus a union strike and sick leave from the flu. And she knew me.
Lots of people know you.
Doesn’t keep them from going to work.
Your problem is not conspiracy. It’s guilt. You take on responsibility for a waitperson not showing up for work when you’ve seen her maybe two, three times.
What are you today, my conscience or my good sense? Charlie did wave away the cocktail person. No more drinks in this casino.
I’m the you you don’t want to listen to. Call me what you want.
So now what do we do?
“Decide whether to stand or hit would be nice.” This dealer was a woman and as unfeeling, unemotional, and unimpressed a robot as you could imagine.
Until Charlie scratched for a hit and asked, “Do you know Ardith Miller?”
The dealer squeezed the card she’d slipped from the shoe. It hit Charlie in the face.
Eddie, the pit boss with the hairy, flinching hands and turquoise jewelry, appeared from nowhere. “You gonna make it, Zelda?”
Zelda nodded, blinked a lot, took in a raspy breath, and retrieved the errant card. It mated with Charlie’s hand to produce twenty-one.
There might be something to this idea of not concentrating on what you’re doing while playing blackjack. Made more sense to Charlie than moons, planets, stars, houses, and trines.
“It’s you again,” Eddie said from behind the stoic Zelda.
“She knows.” With what looked like a rapid waving of her hand, Zelda clicked cards from the shoe to begin a new game.
“You know?” Eddie watched every move at the table and Charlie at the same time.
“I know,” Charlie said, and she did, “Ardith Miller is dead for no good reason.” She beat the house on the next hand too.
What she didn’t bring up was the fact she hadn’t a clue why or how. Hell, at her age, Ardith could have dropped dead of a heart attack. Charlie didn’t like knowing things. It was depressing. I am not psychic.
The game played out, Charlie doing well, if not as well as the house. The two men at her table were losing heavily, keeping a balance to this game of chance. A new dealer appeared to replace Zelda, who apparently was not stoic enough, and Eddie escorted Charlie to the very room in which a zealous staff had broken Ben Hanley’s sternum while he was dead.
The world was a fun, exciting, dangerous place. And totally screwy.
“I just meet somebody and they die,” Charlie explained to Eddie and a couple of suits in the secure area. “When I heard Ardith hadn’t shown up for work today after fifty years, I just figured it had happened to her too.”
“After fifty years of what?” The suit with reams of paper on his lap and a ballpoint pen poised above the top page looked up at her. He had to be a lawyer or a super-number-cruncher. Charlie met this type all the time in showbiz. They financed things or worked for those who did. They were seriously powerful dudes, whether they worked for banking interests or Pepsi or gaming.
“Being on time to work.”
“Do you always become so involved with resort staff when you travel?” He lifted eyebrows carefully trimmed. Older guys often make money but no sense—they go bald and then grow long hair in their noses and eyebrows.
“You don’t look very sad.” The other suit leaned forward—no paper or pens on his lap. He must be even higher on the honcho ladder. “About the waitperson’s death.”
She noticed these suits didn’t feel the need to introduce themselves. Like the shorthaired fed with Detective Battista.
“I’m just numb. She’s what, number seven in a week?”
Both suits wore shiny gray and sported tailored gray hair and spa suntans. And very expensive eyeglasses. This was obviously big money sitting here. Why? For the death of a waitperson? Charlie didn’t think so. Both wore plain silver bands on their wedding fingers.
“Seven what in a week?” Eddie was trying to keep things rational for his bosses.
“Seven murders. Might not be that big a deal in Vegas, with all the loose change around, but that’s one for every day of my vacation, if you can call it that.”
“You’ve been involved in seven murders in a week?” This was the guy with no paper on his lap.
“I’ve just been involved with the victims, which does not make me feel comfortable. My Las Vegas experience has been ruined by death, violence, and destruction.”
The lawyer/accountant type leaned over the paper on his lap and raised his chin to study Charlie without sympathy through the magnification at the lower end of his eyewear. “Why do you suppose your room here at the Hilton was so methodically searched? And have you found anything missing?”
Charlie remembered her dream. “They,”—the ones who probably work for you—“wanted to know how I did it.”
“How you did what?” one suit asked, but all the men wore identical expectant expressions.
“Someone thinks I had something to do with the power outage the night the casino was robbed. Maybe that I had some kind of device that could make it happen. I think they were looking for it. They didn’t touch my cash or a valuable computer. If they took anything, I haven’t missed it yet.”
But Evan Black knew what they were looking for. Charlie was sure these men were not to be tarried with, even by Evan Black. Why would he risk such a thing? And involve Charlie too? And now old gullible Mitch?
Charlie needed to talk to Bradone. But when finally released from the inner sanctum, she found that Bradone McKinley had checked out of the hotel.
CHAPTER 26
“WHY WOULD SHE check out and not say good-bye? What if she’s number eight?” Charlie asked Mitch, who was back to coffee and granola—granola he glopped up with yogurt instead of milk. Tickled Charlie’s gag reflex just to look at it.
“Num
ber eight what?” He sat on the foot of the bed with the room-service table on wheels in front of him. He didn’t even have the TV on. “God, how do you do it?”
“Eighth dead body in seven days. Good thing I’m leaving tomorrow.” She began tossing the stuff strewn on the floor into drawers. “And you’re the one who had to have a deluxe hamburger, fries, and a bottle of red zin at two in the morning.”
“Who’s the seventh dead body?” He did look some worse for wear. “And you ate half the fries.”
“I only had seven—okay, maybe nine. There must have been fifty on that plate anyway. Ardith Miller, a waitperson down at the café, didn’t show for work this morning after fifty years.”
“You know, Charlie? We sound married. Here we are talking away, making no sense at all. And we understand each other.”
“Now don’t start on that.” Charlie found another pair of panties under a pile of sofa cushions, and couldn’t believe how many she’d brought along. What could the people who searched this room think Charlie possessed that turned out the lights in the casino and a good part of the hotel?
“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to be—”
“To a man who eats raw oysters with camel fries? I don’t think so.”
“See, there we did it again. We’re a natural.”
“Mitch—”
“Okay, so what happened to Ardith Miller?”
“I don’t know. I just know she’s dead.”
“What’s that got to do with you? It’s not like you don’t have an alibi for last night. Boy, do you have an alibi.”
“I just know that if I hadn’t come to Vegas, she’d still be alive. Because people I’ve been meeting are dropping like flies.” She was really tossing stuff now, just to get it out of sight and out of mind. The fact someone she didn’t know had touched it was almost worse than Tuxedo peeing on her shoes. “She was murdered like the rest of them, I’m sure of it. You just might start looking over your shoulder yourself, guy.”
“Know something else? We’ve had two very full nights together and you’re not even talking guilt. We’re making progress. Our relationship.”
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