In the closet area behind her he spotted a clear dry cleaner bag covering a garment. Ripping off the plastic, he worked it over her head and wound the edge around her neck, careful not to pull too tight. His intention was not to strangle her, but to let the plastic do the work. He wanted no marks.
As she bucked and twisted, the thin plastic, like a clinging membrane, drew in and out over her nostrils and mouth. He carried her thrashing body back to the bed and held her down. For several minutes he watched her, back arched, eyes and mouth open wide. The bony fingers of one hand clutched the sleeve of his windbreaker, the other hand clutched at her heaving chest, over her heart. Pain replaced the fear in her eyes.
He relaxed his hold, pulled the plastic away.
She sucked in air, or tried to. Her hand, reaching for the medication that had been on the nightstand, flailed helplessly in the air. He sat back. Waited. Watched. Within minutes she lay still, eyes open, no movement. He listened for and was rewarded with a final exhalation of breath. The death rattle.
He pried her hands away and, inside the rigid claw of her palm, forced the vial of nitroglycerin. In the pale light he caught the glinting of a large diamond on her finger. The stone was at least two carats. Even in the dim lighting he sensed by the many brilliant facets that it was a quality-cut stone. A solitaire with a plain setting, not likely to be as traceable as the gaudy pieces in the jewelry bag. He pulled at it, felt its resistance, pulled and twisted until the ring finally came free. He dropped it into the pocket of his windbreaker.
He rolled the plastic cleaner bag into a ball and stuffed it into the other pocket to be disposed of later. Slowly coming to his feet, he surveyed the room. Satisfied that there was nothing to incriminate him, the Monk quietly let himself out.
Before he left, he hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the knob.
*
Seven miles away in the neighboring city of Reno, at the Silverbar, unobserved and sitting quietly in the dark, Kasey Atwood had a clear view, a bird’s-eye view, of the subjects below.
Kasey stared at an old woman with a dowager hump, concentrating on her mouth. The woman lifted her pointy chin to the man facing her and, with a certain daring in her piercing eyes, formed the words, “Hit me.”
He did.
“Again,” the old lady mouthed, doggedly.
He hit her again.
The woman stiffened, pounded a fist on the green felt, and flung her cards across the table, hitting the blackjack dealer in the chest with them.
Without a word, his face expressionless, using the cards from her “busted” hand to scoop up her bet, he dropped the chips in the tray in front of him and moved on.
On a black-and-white monitor in the tiny room known as the “eye in the sky,” a room filled with TV screens that monitored the casino gaming, Kasey continued to watch the action. Four of them sat at the “21” table—a mixed bag of age, intellect, and breeding—the dowager-humped woman, a Paiute Indian with a straw hat, a ponytailed young man in denim with silver rings on his fingers and gold hoops in one earlobe, a conventioneer with a lopsided name tag pinned to the lapel of his jacket. All were poised for battle, win or lose, squared off against the tall, grim-faced man with manicured fingernails.
She noted that the dealer’s up card was a queen.
The Indian hit and busted. The young man in denim stayed. At the last hole at the table, the man in a gray wool-blend jacket with suede patches at the elbows, a man of average appearance wearing a crooked name tag, hesitated a moment before sliding his cards under his bet.
Kasey nudged the surveillance man sitting beside her and tapped the screen. He turned a knob on the monitor. The camera zoomed in to the end seat, to the anchorman’s bet and cards. The top chip read SILVERBAR, Reno, Nevada. Five dollar chips. Four bet. She counted twice to be sure.
“How many, Joe?” she asked.
“Four.”
The dealer played out his hand, took a hit on sixteen, and busted. He began to pay the winners.
Kasey noticed the anchorman had stayed on fourteen. She leaned in closer to the screen to watch the dealer pay off. A moment later she exchanged glances with the beefy man at her side, then smiled. The player’s bet had mysteriously increased by two.
She lifted the receiver and punched several numbers. One floor up, in the executive office, a phone rang. It was late, nearing the end of the swing shift. The raspy voice of the casino manager answered.
“Ward, it’s Kasey. I’m in the eye. Check out the action on BJ seven.”
She heard his desk chair squeak and groan and pictured him leaning across his desk to the monitor, a monitor identical to those surrounding her. She gave him a moment to channel in on the blackjack table that she was watching.
“Yeah, got it,” Ward Bellini said.
“Seems the guy at third base has a favorite dealer.”
“Dumping out?” he asked.
“Yeah. Crossroaders. I’ve been watching that pit and that dealer for three nights. I’m pretty sure the same guy’s been playing, following the dealer from table to table. Tonight he’s dressed like a conventioneer, last night it was western wear, and the night before it was tourist casuals. Fortunately for us, he has a habit of snapping his watchband. Those little quirks always get them. The dealer has a few quirks, too.”
“Signaling?”
“Among other things.”
“Are you sure?”
“Got it on tape. Dealer’s hot this shift, so signaling alone isn’t enough. There’s a lot of pressing going on.” In her many years of surveillance, Kasey knew this common form of cheating was probably one of the hardest to detect. The dealer and player worked as a team. A set of signals clued the player to the denomination of the dealer’s hole card. Once the player had that information, he had an added advantage. To further sweeten the take, the dealer might cap or press his “buddy’s” original bet at the pay-off. Teams like that could take in two to three hundred bucks a night, seven nights a week, and not get caught—unless they got greedy. They always got greedy.
“Good work, Kasey. Who’s in the eye with you?”
Kasey looked over at the burly man with the perpetual scowl, a man of few words with whom she’d spent the past three nights. He was removing the incriminating cassette. “Jolly Joe.”
Without taking his eyes from the monitor, the man allowed himself a half-smile.
“Tell him to take care of that lousy sonofabitch and his sidekick. He knows what to do. I’ll put in a call to the Gaming Board.”
“Will do.” She nodded to Joe.
“You think that’s it?” Bellini asked. “Anything else?”
“That’s all I spotted. ‘Course with these two it was easy. Greedy guts got ‘em. Our dealer’s so damn hot that even with signals the percentages stayed in favor of the house, so instead of calling it a night like any pro-team with an ounce of brains would do, they tried making it up on the payoffs.” From the corner of her eye she saw Joe leave the room. Within fifteen minutes he, with the aid of two security officers, would detain both dealer and “buddy” in a holding room until an agent from the Gaming Control Board showed up to take over. She added, “When word gets out about these two, if anyone else is dumping out, they’ll cool it for a while. Give me a call if the tables should turn unlucky again.”
Kasey checked her watch. Midnight. Joe still had a couple hours on his shift, but she had accomplished what she had been hired to do—spot a cheat. Self-employed, she punched no time clock.
She stood, stretched. If she went straight home to bed, she’d be lucky to get six hours sleep before Artie Brown cranked up the mower and weedmuncher, the Saturday-morning ritual. Kasey needed her beauty sleep tonight. She was going to an elaborate wedding the next day. She had never met the two intended—the invitation came from the guardians of the bride, a couple she hadn’t seen in ages. Although it was both business and pleasure, it was the first social event she’d made time for in months. After the bombshell her mother had d
ropped on her that afternoon, she needed a big job and she needed it bad.
When Joe returned, Kasey said good night, left the dim, quiet room, and made her way down an even-dimmer catwalk and a steep flight of stairs. She pushed open a door and stepped into the bright, noisy casino with its flashing lights and ringing bells.
She blinked, paused until her eyes became accustomed to the brightness. Straight ahead on the stage in the small cabaret, an Elvis impersonator wearing Ray Bans belted out “All Shook Up.” Heavy in the air was the aroma of tomato sauce and garlic from the Friday night all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed in the Silverdollar Diner. A typical weekend in July. The house was packed.
On her way out, weaving through the gaming tables and slot machines, she felt a surge of cool air from the overhead vents. The oxygen, a wake-up call supplied by the casino, kept drooping players going a little longer. Mesmerized by spinning reels and wheels, rolling dice and fast-dealt cards, without windows or clocks and with the glass doors tinted dark, twelve midnight could be twelve noon for all it mattered to those psyched with gaming fever.
At the back door she dropped three quarters into a triple 7 machine, pulled the handle, backed up, watching until the first two reels clunked to a stop without a match, then turned around and kept on going.
*
The Monk disposed of the plastic dry cleaner bag in a large green Dumpster at the rear of the hotel, shoving it deep into the raw kitchen-garbage. A cool breeze lifted the fine, sparse hairs on the top of his head. One thing he liked about this area was the cool evenings. Sleep was easier when it wasn’t so hot. The scent of rotten meat and fish sent him back a step.
He glanced around, thrust his hands into his pockets, and quickly walked away. As he headed for the employee lot across the street, he worked his fingers around the capsules and felt the smooth metal of the diamond ring. If the diamond were real, it would be worth a buck or two. Of course, he’d have to hock it, and that might be a bad idea just now, especially if the cops were to get suspicious. Hey, no hurry. He wasn’t pressed for bread. He’d just tuck the ring away for the time being, and maybe one day, if things ever got tight again, he’d head to Vegas and pawn it there.
The Monk didn’t expect things to get tight for a while. It was good now. Really good. He had a real sweet deal going for himself, and he was going to play it for all it was worth.
The deal of a lifetime. It was definitely going to be worth plenty—and not just in cash.
In the parking lot, as he opened the door to his black Camaro, he glanced up at the eighth floor of the King’s Club. He had killed the old woman in 814 tonight. It wasn’t the first time he had killed. There had been at least two others, not counting Jimmy Sue. He couldn’t count her because he’d never found out if she’d lived or died. There was something about not knowing that titillated him. Killing was not something he did for kicks, not like those serial killers who snuffed people because they liked it, or because God or Satan told them to. Nuts like that usually ended up a slave to their own whacked-out chemistry, pathetic and out of control. No, he didn’t get any real kick out of it; it just seemed to happen.
What he did get a kick out of was brawling, using his fists, feeling his knuckles driving into flesh and bone. The dying came as a result, an end to a means. His fists, his temper, and his obsession for retaliation had gotten him into a shitload of trouble throughout forty volatile years.
From his shirt pocket he brought out a bottle of antihistamine, squeezed off a shot in each nostril, and sniffed, waiting impatiently for his blocked sinuses to clear. He cursed his allergies and the dry air of Nevada. Years ago he’d become hooked on the antihistamine. Forced to use it daily in order to breathe.
He climbed into the car, reached under the seat, and pulled up a pint bottle. He popped one of the capsules into his mouth and washed it down with a shot of tequila. The drug he had taken from the old woman’s purse wouldn’t alter or enhance his mind. These shiny pink-and-blue babies would do their miracle work undetected.
He turned the key and smiled when the engine immediately caught, the loud roar reverberating throughout the parking lot. He revved it several times, getting a natural high on the powerful sound, the acrid smell of high-octane gas and exhaust, the solid mass of vibrating steel surrounding him.
All he needed now to make him feel complete was the uniform. The stiff blues, badge, radio, keys, utility belt. But most specifically, the commanding weight of the gun at his hip.
Chapter Two
The old carriage house, no longer used for carriages or automobiles, had been converted into living and office quarters five years ago when Kasey moved back home. Her bungalow, a miniature replica of the main house, stood like a proud offspring in the cool shadows of the white, two-story wood frame structure with its green shingled roof and shutters. Both structures were enveloped in a jungle of wild gooseberry and lilac bushes, shasta daisies, English lavender, and along the western boundary of the four-acre parcel, towering sycamores lined up like sentries to buffer the late-afternoon winds. A grand weeping willow stood in the front yard, its thirsty roots taking moisture from a nearby stream, and in the rear beyond the vegetable garden, extended an apple and peach orchard, the branches of the peach trees now heavy with ripening fruit.
More than a half-century ago, the five-bedroom house, and what was then fifteen acres, had served as a productive, operating dude ranch for Kasey’s widowed grandmother. Cassie Bane and her daughter, Marianne, had once catered year-round to a succession of prominent women. Movie stars; socialites; the wives of producers, directors, and tycoons from California resided under her roof for a minimum of six weeks. Contingent upon the weather, they rode horses, tended the gardens and orchard, played endless games of canasta and contract bridge, skied on the nearby slopes, or took long contemplative walks.
As diversified as they were, all had one thing in common. Divorce. And there was never a shortage of guests.
All that had changed years before. Times got tough for the Banes, and most of the surrounding acres had to be sold. Again times got tough. To pay off the Atwood debts, they were forced to borrow against the house. The boarders, once prominent, were now just plain folk and fewer in number. Then, in the spring of the present year, after long-suffering with cancer and a series of strokes, Grandma Bane, at the age of ninety-one, mercifully succumbed.
Early that Saturday morning, the ringing of the telephone in the small bungalow bounced off the high-beamed ceiling and cedar paneling of the loft where Kasey Atwood slept to sharply jar her sleep-numbed brain.
Moving only her arm, she knocked the receiver off the cradle and onto the floor. One eye opened to peek at the clock. 7:28.
She buried her face in the pillow and moaned. She’d scarcely closed her eyes. Instead of falling right to sleep the night before, Kasey had lain awake thinking about the latest wrinkle in the life of the Atwoods. Kasey’s mother, not one to bring up bad news until the twelfth hour in the event some miracle should occur to save the day, had informed her that not only was their savings all but gone, eaten away by Grandma Bane’s medical bills and the funeral costs, but the house and property were on the line as well.
Kasey’s mother had always been closemouthed about personal finances. Whenever Kasey had asked, Marianne’s stock answer was, “The stars will provide. They always have.”
Well, the stars had come up short this time.
But they would pull through this. No way in the world would Kasey allow their homestead to be stripped from them. Not without a fight. If she had to beg, borrow, or steal, she’d get them back on their feet. The house had sheltered three generations of Bane women. They had a problem, yes, but nothing that a steady income couldn’t fix—which at the moment was not in the stars. Kasey’s consultant jobs were usually based on a flat fee. A retainer upon taking the job, the balance rendered when the job was done. She figured just one long-term, high-paying job would do the trick. That, or the big payoff on the Megabucks, and since gambling for h
er consisted of a few coins dropped into a machine on her way out the casino door, it had to be the job.
She stretched, making a groaning sound deep in her throat, then slowly sat up. Downstairs in the kitchen she heard water running through the coffee maker. In a moment she’d be able to smell it. She rose, took two steps, and tripped on the phone cord. Disgruntled, she hauled the receiver up by the cord and was about to hang it up when she heard the voice. Amazed by the caller’s tenacity, she asked, “You still there?”
“Hello? Kasey Atwood? Are you Kasey Atwood?”
“Maybe.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Who’s this?”
“Look, I got your name from the guy who delivers my booze. He said you might be able to help me.”
“Help in what way?”
“He said you were a—what do you call it?—a spotter.”
“A consultant, actually. Who’s the guy who delivers your booze?” Kasey didn’t advertise. All her business came from word of mouth, friends referring her to other friends and associates. At one time she had considered having cards made, putting an ad in the yellow pages, and maybe even ordering stationery with a logo—something plain and simple like Eye-spot or Eyewitness—but business had been steady without it. Also, the fewer people who knew what she did for a living, the better off she was. When asked her occupation, she said telemarketing. End of inquiry.
“Sonny Kubbet,” he said.
Sonny was a friend of hers. A driver for a local beer distributor, his mouth was one of those whose word made the rounds, and to the right people. “Where does he deliver?”
“Well, hell, how should I know? All over town. Hey, you want the business or not?”
Curb that wicked tongue, she told herself. She needed the work, in fact, all the work she could get. Lack of sleep was no excuse to be surly to a prospective client. “Sorry, what I meant was who are you and how do you know Sonny?”
“The name’s Leroy Tate. I own Clementine’s in the mall.”
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