I cruised along the Strip, lined with grand and glitzy hotel-casinos, standing like proud but aging ladies of the evening. In this hot sunlight you could see their wrinkles and the edges of their makeup. But tonight, in the soft, dark desert air, when they draped themselves in a million jeweled lights, they’d be irresistible.
The Aladdin and the MGM Grand slid by on my right, the Dunes and Caesars Palace on my left. Out near the Sahara lay the Desert Mirage—gaudy, sure, but not as large or pretentious as the others. A working-class retreat.
I turned into the lot.
A mousy-looking woman wearing a string bikini lay on a lawn chair and watched her three children splash in the small hotel pool. Hubby was probably in the casino getting free drinks at the blackjack table and losing his vacation money. Hit me again. Ah, damn.
I wondered if Vince was killing time in the casino. Maybe he was just hanging around his room, waiting for Wendy’s call.
I carried my bag up to room three-oh-nine, which was in the economy section—a row of outside entrances facing a brick wall. If Vince questioned me through the locked door, I’d be from Federal Express, his dream fulfilled. If he opened up, I’d be his worst nightmare.
He didn’t answer. I opened the door with my picks, then closed it behind me.
The room was cool, almost chilly. Weak light sifted through heavy drapes and fell across twin beds, a nightstand, and a dresser with a big, ugly TV bolted on top. A stuffed vinyl chair sat in the far corner, in case you wanted to sit and admire the room.
The drawer in the nightstand contained only Desert Mirage stationery, a Gideon Bible, and color brochures of half-naked showgirls. I searched the dresser and found socks, underwear, and the bottom page of an airline ticket: Denver to Las Vegas, coach, nonsmoking, seat 21C, Vincent Pesce. Hanging in the closet next to a couple of polo shirts and a pair of cotton blend slacks was a nice leather jacket. It was too heavy to wear in this heat, but it would be perfect attire for clambering down hotel fire escapes and shooting at people in alleys.
The bathroom hadn’t been used since the maid’s last visit—razor, toothpaste tube, and toothbrush were all in a row, and the water glasses were sealed in paper envelopes.
I turned down the air conditioner, sat in the vinyl chair, and waited for Vince.
Gradually the room got dark. I left the lights and the TV off and tried not to fall asleep. By eight I was hungry and by ten I was starved. I drank water to fool my stomach. It was not amused.
At eleven-oh-five I woke up to the sound of a key scratching a lock. I hustled across the semidark room and stood against the wall, sap in hand.
The door opened. A shadow figure stepped in and reached for the light, and I laid the sap behind his ear. He collapsed like a tent. I closed the door and got out the cuffs.
“Wha?” he asked, coming to. I guess I’d been too gentle.
I grabbed a handful of his curly hair, remembered how Meacham had looked shot to death in his hotel bed, and slammed his forehead into the floor. Then I remembered Lloyd Fontaine, so I slammed it a few more times.
He lay still.
Working in the dark, I pulled his arms behind him and cuffed them together. Then I took a few turns around his ankles with the clothesline, looped it through the handcuffs, and cinched it up. I dragged him across the floor and lifted him into the chair.
He moaned.
I turned on the light and got my first good look at him. He wore a navy blue silk shirt with the collar open, pearl gray slacks, and pearl gray patent leather shoes. He had a gold chain around his neck and a gold ring on his pinky, plus a red bruise on his forehead and drool in the corner of his mouth.
He groaned.
So did I. He was Vince Pesce, all right, but he wasn’t the guy I’d chased from Meacham’s hotel. On the other hand, he’d had a reason to want Meacham dead, and he’d fled the state right after the murder.
“Don’t kill me, man, please.”
He was fully awake now, and he looked scared. Who wouldn’t, for chrissake?
“Shut up,” I said, and yanked the wallet from his hip pocket. It contained a few hundred bucks, plus a Colorado driver’s license and a few other cards with his name on them.
“That’s all the money I’ve got,” he said with a whine, “but I can get the rest, I swear to God, just please don’t kill me.”
“Nobody’s going to kill you,” I assured him.
He did not look convinced.
“Tell Fat Paulie I’ll have four grand for him in a day or two,” he said. “I’m waiting for the call right now, just please don’t hurt me, okay?”
Fat Paulie? I sat on the corner of the bed. The .357 was poking me in the side, so I pulled it from my belt and set it beside me. Vince stared at it as if it were a ticking bomb.
“Okay, Vince, tell me about you and Rueben Archuleta and Zack Meacham.”
“Huh?” He blinked a few times and looked up from the gun, fear giving way to confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Archuleta killed Meacham and you’re involved.”
“Zack Meacham? He’s dead?”
“Don’t play games, Vince, I’m not in the mood.”
“Who the fuck are you, anyway?” Vince was no longer afraid—he was pissed off. I liked him the other way, so I picked up the gun and let it dangle over my knee. Vince stared at it and swallowed hard. That was better.
“Talk to me about Meacham’s murder,” I said.
“Hey, I swear, I don’t know anything about it.”
“You wanted Meacham out of the way because he was sleeping with Wendy.”
“Wendy. You got to be kidding; Wendy sleeps with everybody. Shit, man, I introduced Meacham to her.”
That made me blink.
“What is this, anyway?” Vince asked, perplexed. He wasn’t the only one. “I thought you were from Fat Paulie DaNucci.”
That explained a few things. DaNucci ran perhaps the largest book in North Denver. He employed a pair of notorious bone-busters to collect money owed, and they were enthusiastic about their work.
“Think of me as being from Fat Paulie, Vince, and tell me why you left Colorado in such a hurry.”
“Because I’m trying to raise the eighteen grand I owe your boss. Jesus, man, the word is out on me in Denver and I can’t even get a bet down. All I need is a chance to win back the money I owe Fat Paulie and, you know, make things like they were before.”
Like they were before. That’s what Vince had told Wendy.
“I’m getting four grand tomorrow or the next day,” he said, the whine creeping back in his voice. “I can hand it right over. Just please don’t hurt me.”
“How well did you know Meacham?” I asked him.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Answer the question, Vince.”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I knew him, that’s all. I’d see him in Fancy Dan’s sometimes and we’d buy each other drinks. That’s it.”
“Did he ever talk about a guy named Charles Soames?”
“Soames, Jesus, that’s about all he talked about the last few times I saw him.”
“What did he say?”
Vince squirmed in his chair, trying to find comfort.
“Do you think you could take off these cuffs?”
“Maybe later.”
Vince winced, then looked at the plaster on the ceiling.
“Okay, let’s see. Meacham told me this guy Soames had killed his brother Buddy after a big jewel heist some years back and now Soames was out of prison and Meacham was going to square things.”
“By killing Soames?”
“So he said. But for my money, Meacham was fullashit. No guts. Fact is, he even told me he wasn’t sure he could do it and that he was trying to work up the nerve. He threatened Soames on the phone and even went to his house once, but he said Soames had some bodyguards. Indians, he said. I mean, seriously, Indians? The guy’s gotta be fullashit, right? Also, he said Soames had hired som
e guy to follow him.”
“Soames hired someone? How did Meacham know that?”
“Well, he didn’t actually know it, he just figured it out. A week or so after he started bugging Soames, Meacham spots this guy hanging around his garage. He’s afraid the guy’s going to murder him in his sleep or something, so he tells me he’s going to hide out until he gets Soames. But I guess the guy must’ve found him, right?”
“Get up.”
Vince swallowed hard. “What for?”
“So I can uncuff your hands.”
He stood unsteadily, feet together. I took off the cuffs. He rubbed his wrists, then sat down and untied his ankles.
“I’ll pay Fat Paulie back in a few days,” he said, “I swear to God. I came out here with fifteen hundred and this afternoon I had it up to almost seven grand, so I know I can do it.”
“Where’s the money? I only saw three hundred bucks.”
“I … I lost it, but look, with the four grand I’m getting tomorrow …”
I took out Wendy’s check and showed it to him.
“Here’s your four grand, Vince. Wendy wanted you to have it, but I told her to keep it.” I ripped it into a dozen pieces, figuring Wendy still had the receipt. “She’s keeping it. Don’t ask her for money again, unless you want me to deliver it.”
Vince stared at me with his mouth hanging open.
“You’re not one of Fat Paulie’s guys?”
“That’s the good news,” I said. “The bad news is if I found you, so can they.”
I left Vince sitting there—confused, scared, beat up, and broke. Another Vegas success story.
20
I CAUGHT A LATE flight back to Denver, and since they hadn’t yet delivered my furniture, I slept again on the floor. The phone woke me up Saturday morning. It was Abner Greenspan.
“You’re in deep shit, Lomax,” he said.
“Good morning to you, too, Abner.”
“I tried to get hold of you yesterday. Where were you?”
“It’s a long story. What’s wrong?”
“Plenty,” he said. “The D.A. is considering changing the charge against you from second- to first-degree murder.”
“What?”
“That’s right. Lieutenant Dalrymple handed Krenshaw a statement signed by Helen Ester saying that you went up to Meacham’s room with the intent of murder.”
“That’s bullshit, Abner.”
“Krenshaw showed me the statement. It’s got her signature on it and—”
“You mean, somebody’s signature,” I said.
“Yeah, somebody named Helen Ester. She states that before you left your office to drive to the Frontier Hotel, you said, and I quote, I’m going to kill that son of a bitch, and I’ve got just the gun to do it with, one the cops won’t find,’ unquote.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“You said that already.”
“Look, Abner, Dalrymple is playing with the facts. He’s got no real evidence.”
“He has Helen Ester’s testimony.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Are you saying he falsified evidence?”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Greenspan was silent for a moment.
“I can’t believe he’d do that,” he said.
“Believe it, Abner. When Helen shows up at the preliminary hearing and—”
“Is she going to be there?” he asked.
“She has to, doesn’t she? I mean, if the D. A. is going to use her statement.”
“Not necessarily. Her signed statement and Dalrymple’s testimony plus whatever else the D.A.’s got will probably be enough to satisfy the judge to have you bound over for trial.”
“No way. I’ll have Helen Ester at the hearing to dispute Dalrymple’s phony statements.”
Greenspan was silent again.
“Well?”
“Are you sure about her, Jake?”
“You’re goddamn right I’m sure,” I said, louder than I’d intended.
“Okay, okay, take it easy.”
“Sorry.”
“I just want you to be sure, that’s all. Because if she turns on you in front of the judge, then—”
“She won’t,” I said.
“Okay, fine.”
“When she disputes Dalrymple’s faked evidence, he’ll be the one in trouble, and the D.A. will have nothing on me.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘nothing.’ You’re the only one who saw the guy on the fire escape. Krenshaw’s got the night clerk, who saw you go in, and one of the residents, who saw you on the fire escape.”
“Winetta somebody,” I said, “and her testimony could be shaky. She didn’t even recognize me when I first talked to her.”
“You talked to her.” Greenspan was mad. “I thought I told you to stay away from those people. If Dalrymple can prove you intimidated a witness, he—”
“I didn’t intimidate her. She offered me candy.”
“What else have you done that I should know about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Much.”
Greenspan sighed into the phone. “Let’s hear it.”
“I went to Las Vegas.”
“After Judge Sanchez told you not to leave the state?”
“Right, Las Vegas is in another state.”
“Don’t be a smart ass. If Sanchez finds out—”
“He won’t,” I said.
He might, I thought. If the airline ran a check on me and my gun, some cop somewhere knows about it, and most cops belong to the same computerized gossip club.
“If he does find out, Jake, he can raise your bail so high you can’t possibly pay it.”
“Just like that?”
“Hell yes, he’s the judge, he can do what he wants. Why do you think they call it the judicial system? You might have to sit in jail until your hearing.”
“Great.”
“And if things go badly at the hearing, they might lock you up until your trial.”
“What trial, for chrissake? Come on, Abner.”
“Hey, I’m doing all I can, Jake,” he said. “Your hearing’s Thursday at one o’clock. Try to relax until then.”
“Relax? You just said if this goes to trial, I could rot behind bars for months.”
“Maybe not.”
“Look, Abner, I’m not going to risk being put away while Meacham’s killer roams free.”
“Meaning what?”
“Just for the sake of argument, what if I don’t show up for the hearing?”
“Then you’d be fucked. As your attorney I would advise you to be there no matter what.”
He hung up.
I phoned Helen Ester at her hotel. When I got no answer, I tried Caroline Lochemont.
“She was here not five minutes ago,” Caroline said, “and I sent her away in the same cab that brought her. My grandfather is sick in bed. He’s exhausted.”
“Where was Helen going?”
“Back to her hotel, I think. Uh, Mr. Lomax, I—”
“Call me Jacob, okay?”
“Jacob. I—that is, my grandfather and I—want to talk to you about, well, about helping us.”
“Helping you?”
“Well, yes.”
“I could be there—” my watch said almost nine, and I was thinking I first needed to catch Helen at her hotel for a long, serious discussion—“say, around noon.”
“Could we make it tomorrow?” Caroline said. “By then I hope my grandfather will be feeling better.”
“Tomorrow, then, at noon.”
I got dressed in a hurry, had a glass of water and an old doughnut for breakfast, and drove to the Westin Hotel. I parked the Olds in the second underground level and walked toward the elevator.
Then I saw someone familiar, not fifty feet away. Black hair, dark, handsome features; murderous black heart. Rueben Archuleta. He was standing beside a new maroon Chrysler New Yorker with Colorado plates, and he was wearing the same leather jacket he’d worn
on the fire escape outside Meacham’s hotel. He was talking to a woman—angrily, it seemed, although I couldn’t hear his words. The woman’s back was to me, but she looked familiar, too.
Just as I unholstered the magnum, Archuleta spotted me. In one fluid movement he jerked the woman around in front of him, curled his left arm around her neck, and pulled out a sleek automatic pistol, a Beretta.
The woman was Helen Ester. Archuleta pressed the gun to her head.
“Don’t do it,” I said to him, straining to keep my voice calm and the gun down at my side. “Just let her go.”
He didn’t let her go, but he did move his gun. He pointed it at me.
I dove behind a Volkswagen bus as he popped a few rounds in my direction, punching holes in the metal. When I edged around the back of the bus, Archuleta again had the gun to Helen’s head. He pulled open the door of the Chrysler, reached in, and started the engine. Then he shoved Helen away, sending her sprawling to the concrete. In an instant Archuleta was behind the wheel and smoking the tires, first in reverse, then in low, steering toward Helen. She barely managed to roll out of the way as he squealed past her. He fired twice more into my guardian bus, then sped toward the ramp at the end of the building.
I came out in the open and took careful aim at Archuleta’s profile, firing as he slid the Chrysler into a tight left turn. But I’d led him too far—the slug ricocheted off the concrete wall, and the car disappeared up the ramp.
I went to Helen Ester and helped her to her feet. She clung to me, shaking uncontrollably.
“Oh, my God, Jacob, that man … who …”
“He’s Rueben Archuleta, back from the past.”
“Jacob, he said … he said if I didn’t stay away from Charles, he’d kill me.”
21
WE FOUND A PHONE and called the cops. By the time we got back underground, a patrol car with two uniforms was cruising through the parking structure, looking for us. The Volkswagen bus, though, was gone. Apparently its owner had returned and driven away, oblivious to the bullet holes in the side panels. The cops took our statement, then drove us to headquarters, where we were led to none other than the sad-faced Detective Healey. We repeated our story to him.
“I’m still not clear about why this man threatened you, Miss Ester,” Healey said.
Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2) Page 12