by Joel Travis
“You’re crazy!” Lori said. “You owe me fifty bucks!”
“Party’s over, ladies,” I said calmly, though my heart was racing.
Lori cut me a cold look. “Let’s go to Stacy’s room,” she said to her new friends as she brushed past me. The other girls filed out behind her. I took a deep breath and exhaled. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I had kicked five drunk, sexy girls out of my room.
I went back to the phone. “Still there, Ace?”
“What did they want?”
“Wrong room,” I said. “Some sort of mix-up.”
“Happens all the time. Nobody knows where their room is.”
“Is Marty there?” I asked.
“Just got here. I guess I’ll have to catch you later. Here’s your brother.”
“I’m glad you called,” Marty said. “I don’t know where you are, but wherever you are, you’ll have to come back.”
“I’m in Vegas,” I said. “Why would I want to come back?”
“From what Forest tells me, you’re likely to be the most likely suspect in a murder investigation.”
My heart started racing again. “Who was murdered?”
“Melvin Hedgeway.”
Melvin Hedgeway, my codger client! The man who had won a hundred grand from me. Also the man who had never tried to collect it. No wonder. Somebody had rubbed him out.
“He disappeared a year ago,” Marty said. “Been a Missing Persons case until now.”
“Are you telling me he was missing for a year and they just found his corpse?”
“They haven’t found a body. That’s why the police will want to talk to you.”
“Why would the police think I’d know where his body is?”
“The killer always knows where he hid the body.”
“I’m not the killer, you fool!”
“Forest says the police have good reason to believe you are.”
“Name one good reason.”
“When Hedgeway disappeared, you owed him a hundred thousand dollars. That probably seems like an impressive motive to the police.”
Even to me it sounded like a halfway decent motive.
“How in the world did the police find out about that wager?” I asked.
“That’s an easy one. You blurted it out during your deathbed confession. Forest was there listening. Once he heard about the bet, he had no choice but to include it in his report about Cesar’s operation, the inner workings of which you also explained at length.”
“I can’t believe any of this,” I said. “Forest was in my hospital room as a friend of the family, not a vice detective.”
“The problem is the police department is computerized. Whenever someone—let’s say a homicide detective—enters a name in the computer, it calls up every report which includes that name. When the name ‘Melvin Hedgeway’ was entered, Forest’s report came up, and Homicide was able to tie you to Hedgeway and establish a motive for his murder. It wasn’t Forest’s fault. It’s the system.”
“Forest got the ball rolling. Without his interference they’d have nothing on me.”
“That’s not true,” Marty said. “Remember when you sold your house?”
“A person doesn’t forget selling his own house. What does my house have to do with—”
“You sold it to a young couple with children. The new owners wanted to put in a pool so the kids could swim. The pool guys had to plow up Sheila’s garden to make room for the pool. They found a few things buried in the garden.”
“What things?”
“Melvin Hedgeway’s wallet, watch, and keys. The wallet contained his driver’s license, credit cards, money, the whole works. The Mickey Mouse watch had traces of blood on the wristband. Based on the new evidence of foul play, the police have reclassified the Hedgeway case, changing it from Missing Persons to Homicide.”
“There’s no way they could have found those things in Sheila’s garden,” I said. “The police are making up evidence.”
“I doubt it. Forest believes someone is attempting to frame you by planting evidence in what used to be your backyard. Of course, that person is also the real killer.”
I felt chill bumps forming on my skin. “I’m coming back to Dallas.”
“The only choice you have,” Marty said. “But hurry. Forest needs to interview you before it’s too late. Once Homicide brings you in for questioning, he’ll have to back off and let events run their course. Forest is a vice detective. He can’t meddle in a homicide investigation.”
“No, he’s not the meddlesome type.”
“He’s on your side, Brit.”
I thanked my brother for the information that was ruining my life and signed off. A killer was trying to frame me. I buried my head in my hands and closed my eyes to concentrate.
Several people knew about the wager, my alleged motive to do away with the Codger, a.k.a. Melvin Hedgeway. The killer almost certainly had to be one of those people. So who knew? My brother and his wife, Forest Gardner, Reverend Means, Ace Monroe, and Cesar’s younger brother, Julio. All of them heard my deathbed confession.
Of course, Julio had wasted little time in reporting my confession to his big brother. So Cesar knew I had taken a one hundred thousand dollar bet without informing him, attempting to cheat him out his profits after all he’d done for me.
In addition to Cesar and the suspects gathered at my deathbed, who else knew about the wager? Hedgeway and myself, of course. And one other person. Sheila.
Suppose Hedgeway had dropped by our house to collect his winnings. Sheila would have known the purpose of his visit. Could she have killed him in some misguided effort to help me? She could have conked the Codger over the head with a frying pan for all I know.
Then I divorced her. I killed for him, she might have said to herself. He deserves to pay for what he’s done to me. The vindictive woman plants the wallet, watch, and keys in her garden, knowing from her conversations with the new owners that they plan to install a pool in its place. The incriminating evidence would be uncovered and point to me as the Codger’s killer.
I tried to picture Sheila as the murderer. Did she really have the killer instinct necessary to murder an elderly man she didn’t even know personally? Maybe she did. Who else among the suspects possessed such a terrible temper?
Cesar Hernandez, that’s who.
#
I went down to the casino to lift my spirits with free drinks and the camaraderie of the other drunken gamblers. I played exceptionally well. Betting strictly in accordance with the probabilities and catching a few lucky breaks along the way, I nearly broke even.
I returned to my room in good spirits (and full of good spirits) hoping to hook up with Lori. I was paying for her company, yet I hadn’t spent much time with her. Any chance I had to spend quality time with her that evening was diminished by the fact that she was nowhere to be found. I took off my clothes and laid them on the dresser beside the new clothes I had purchased. Then I crawled inside the sheets with the intention of waiting her out, even if it took all night. It took all night. I drifted off around dawn.
I awoke at noon. For the first time in two weeks I woke up in a bed instead of the Pinto, so it took a few foggy moments to realize where I was, but it soon came to me. I was in Las Vegas with the sexiest girl in the universe!
And yet, upon a quick inspection of the room, I felt quite alone. Lori had apparently stayed out all night, traipsing around Vegas in her obscene swimsuit! Not one to overreact, I decided to cut her some slack. I shouldn’t expect a young girl to act responsibly in a wild town like Vegas after she had ingested cocaine.
I climbed out of bed. On my way to the shower I passed the open closet door. I couldn’t help but notice that the closet safe was also open. I was sure I had locked it the previous evening. How odd, I thought, that the safe door should pop open while I was asleep.
I don’t know what it feels like to have a heart attack, but it couldn’t be much worse than what I felt
when I saw that my money was gone. The safe was empty except for my journal. Like all crime victims, I felt stunned, vulnerable, and alone. I pounded my fist against the wall and cursed out loud as I stared into the sorry safe. I wondered if there might not be a lawsuit in this somewhere. It had to be someone on the hotel staff who’d robbed me. Lori and I were the only other ones who had keys.
I surveyed the rest of the room to see if anything else had been stolen. My clothes were on the dresser. I sighed with relief. I was still faced with the prospect of leaving the hotel a poor man, but at least I wouldn’t be leaving a naked man. My relief was short-lived. Where were Lori’s leather bags? I looked in every nook and cranny until I finally had to face up to the truth.
Lori’s bags and all her clothes had been stolen along with the money!
Then it hit me, as if I was Ben Franklin flying a key-laden kite during a thunderstorm. Quite a shocker. I realized what had taken place while I was sleeping. It was painfully obvious. Lori had returned to our room. Then some thug had barged in, coerced Lori into opening the safe, forced her to pack her bags, and taken her hostage. What an evil bastard!
I knew what I had to do. I had to track down a brazen criminal and save an innocent girl’s life. If I failed, the repercussions would be severe. I would never see my money again.
Returning to the scene of the crime, I peered into the safe, hoping it was all a bad dream. I noticed my journal was splayed. Instinctively, I picked it up and read from the open pages. My eyes locked onto a sentence I had written about the night I met Lori at the strip club. I could find a better traveling mate than an uneducated, drug-addicted, gold-digging nitwit.
My gaze drifted to the adjacent margin. Written in a feminine scrawl were two additional words: FUCK YOU!
#
Never slow on the uptake, I realized that Lori had stolen my cash after reading the honest reporting in my journal. Of course, she had no right to be reading the journal in the first place. Not one to be deterred by a nebulous concept like right and wrong, Lori had robbed me.
Without a job to fall back on, I couldn’t afford to lose my last three thousand dollars. Not to mention the twelve hundred and fifty dollars I had paid the thief for five days of her company. I threw on some clothes which didn’t remotely match and took a slow elevator down to the ground floor. I asked the cabbies and airport shuttle drivers waiting in front of the hotel if they’d noticed anyone matching Lori’s description getting into a cab or shuttle. No luck.
If she hadn’t taken a cab or shuttle, I concluded that Lori must be on foot. Since she was a girl toting two bags, I might catch up to her if I could determine which direction she went. Where would I go if I was Lori? I would take the least traveled path in order to avoid any potential witnesses. I decided to check out the area behind the hotel, away from the constant activity of the strip. I ducked into a secluded alley and followed its winding path at a hurried pace until I reached a fork in the road. Unsure which path to take, I paused to catch my breath.
“Could you spare a dollar for a tired old woman?” said a voice.
I looked over my shoulder. Much to my surprise, I saw a tired old woman standing there. The decrepit creature extended a gnarled hand and lifted an eyebrow in supplication. I tried to overlook her hook nose, broken teeth, and haggard face in order to regard her as a fellow human being in need. I couldn’t do it. I was repulsed by her very existence.
Most people who had stumbled across her like I did had probably given her a few bucks just to be rid of her. I refused to be intimidated by the hideous, homeless hag. I was about to tell her to make herself scarce when I had an idea which required her cooperation.
“I’ve always been a friend to the homeless,” I said to earn her trust. “I myself was homeless the last two weeks. I lived in a car, believe it or not.”
The crone looked me over. “I believe it.”
“I need your help,” I said as I withdrew a crisp dollar bill from my wallet.
The hag reached out to accept the handout. I raised the bill high over her head. She leaped and snatched madly at thin air, desperately trying to make a fast buck.
“Not so fast,” I said. “I need some information first.”
“What information?” she asked wearily, exhausted from leaping.
“I need to know if you saw a beautiful young girl pass by. Blond hair, big boobs, and very short, although much taller than yourself. Have you seen her?”
“You’ll give me the money if I saw her?”
“All you have to do is tell me which way she went.”
“She went thataway!” the crone said, pointing a bony finger in the direction from which I had arrived.
“I seriously doubt that. She was trying to get away from the hotel. If she reached this point, she would have taken one of the two forked paths.”
“I meant thataway!” the crone said, pointing in the opposite direction.
I sighed. “You didn’t see her at all, did you?”
“No.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” I said, “even if it did take you three tries. I now know she didn’t pass this way. You have saved me time, old woman, and time is of the essence. I am deeply in your debt.”
She extended an open palm. I placed a dollar in her bony fingers and bade her farewell.
#
My trick knee started to play its old tricks, so I limped to back to my hotel room to plan my next move. I stretched out on the bed and pondered the idea of staking out the airport. If I could intercept Lori before she boarded an available flight to Dallas, I could get my money from her and board that same flight. A sound plan, but one that’s impossible to execute when you’re sound asleep. When I woke up two hours later, I knew Lori had made a clean getaway.
I took a shower. I brushed my teeth. I shaved and applied aftershave. I performed nineteen push-ups. I put on clothes that matched. I began to feel better about myself.
I studied myself in the mirror. You have a lot going for you, I said to the misty mirror image. Yes, it’s true that you have no prospects of work and nowhere to live. And there’s no doubt that you’re about to be arrested for murder. And yes, you do have a killer trying to frame you. It’s a fact that you’re broke and have no means to pay your hotel bill or get back to Dallas. But still …
I slammed my fist into the face in the mirror. Glass shards flew everywhere and I recoiled to protect my face from the flying fragments. I snatched a towel from the rack and held it over my bloody hand. When my breathing returned to normal, I bent down and began to pick up the scattered shards. As I collected the pieces, I couldn’t help but feel that I was picking up the fragments of my shattered life.
It was time for a new start.
Chapter 6
That evening I ordered a bottle of scotch from room service. I made sure the bathroom door was closed so I wouldn’t have to explain the broken mirror. I tipped the good man my last three bucks. Then I killed the lights, and sitting alone in the dark, I began to reflect on my life as I had lived it thus far.
Where had I gone wrong? I started out in a tenement and raised myself to respectability. I somehow graduated from college. I found a job I loved. I married a beautiful woman when I was in my thirties, at an age when I should have been mature enough to handle the complexities and subtleties of matrimony. So how did I get from there to here?
Was it possible, I asked myself as I took a draw from the bottle, that I possessed a character flaw that was causing me to fail? I started to take another swig when I realized that drinking straight from the bottle lacked the class to be compatible with the new life I was determined to begin. I poured some scotch into a glass. I would have scotch on the rocks, as classy a drink as ever drunk. When I reached out in the darkness for the ice bucket, I clumsily knocked it to the floor, spilling its contents on the carpet. I picked up the empty bucket and groped my way to the door.
I left the door cracked a sliver so I wouldn’t have to use my card key when I returned with a fu
ll bucket of ice. The ice machine on my floor was empty. I took the elevator up one floor and filled the bucket with ice cubes, or more accurately, ice rounds. It took a few minutes wait to get the elevator going down. Ten minutes after departing, I returned to my room.
I pushed the door open wide enough to gain passage and slid into my room, closing the door behind me. I froze in the darkness when I heard someone breathing. Upon hearing that sound I had quit breathing, so I knew it wasn’t me when I heard the sound again. Suddenly, a body backed into me. Instinctively, I dropped the ice bucket and wrapped my arms around the intruder’s neck. Filled with adrenaline, I tossed him to the floor like a rag doll. I began to bash his face with my injured right hand. Time and again I pounded him, knowing I dare not stop until he was subdued to submission.
“Stop!” the intruder screamed between blows.
And after another solid blow to the face I did stop, recognizing the familiar screaming voice. I got up and switched on the light. I helped the intruder up.
“God, I’m sorry,” I said. I helped Sheila steady herself. “Let me get you a towel for your nose and the rest of your face.”
#
I helped Sheila over to the bed and applied the towel to her face, hoping to stem the flow of blood. She didn’t have much to say. Nor did I. I think we were both in shock.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Maybe I should call the hotel medic.”
“I’ll be okay. Can you get me another towel? This one’s used up.”
She handed me the blood-drenched towel. My heart went out to her. In spite of her misfortune, she had managed to smile. Perhaps I read too much into it, but I felt she was happy to see me again. I sat there smiling.
“I really do need another towel,” she said. “Are you waiting for me to bleed to death?”
I went into the bathroom and grabbed a clean towel. I’d always wondered why hotels provided their guests with so many towels. What sort of slobs did they assume were staying in their establishment? I was grateful for their foresight. Between my bloody hand and Sheila’s bloody face, we used the full allotment.