Not that the breakfast had been so fabulous that I felt compelled to come back for more; but on the off chance that somebody like Nick, staying in the motel, might just be lazy enough to take lunch there.
Of course, even so, it was a quarter to one and he may well have already eaten. I’d have to get lucky again.
And I was.
He was just sitting down to a table when I was ushered to a booth.
Nick Varnos was a small man, almost as small as Eric Conrad. He was pale and he had dark, dark eyes, dark eyebrows, medium-length well-barbered dark hair with long sideburns and a Tom Selleck mustache. He wore a gray button-down short-sleeve shirt, no sport coat, and a tie with Necco Wafer-colored stripes. His slacks were a darker, dirty gray, very stylish, his belt western-looking. It was an odd combo of casual and dressy.
He ate light-soup and salad.
I ate even lighter, just soup (a hearty chili, though), because I’d put away a good breakfast on my earlier restaurant stakeout.
The guy seemed quite composed. Cool. He was pleasant with the waitress, who was cute enough for flirting, but he didn’t flirt. He was in a good mood, apparently, but selfcontained.
After lunch, I followed him to his room and discovered he was not only on the same floor as Stockwell and me, but the same wing-in 319. Same side of the hall as Stockwell, too, but not next door (the director was in 313, you’ll remember, and I was in 316).
In my room, I pulled up a chair, cracked the door and sat and monitored Stockwell’s room across the way. It seemed endless, but was only maybe an hour, because around three o’clock, Varnos left his room and went down to the lobby. Then he went to the parking lot and got into the blue Buick Century he’d bought specifically for this job.
I followed him in my Nova into downtown Boot Heel. He parked in the Four Jacks lot. So did I. He went into the Four Jacks casino. So did I. He gambled for an hour or so. So did I.
Varnos was a real gambler, though-he played blackjack and roulette, and routinely bet fifty or more dollars. I was strictly a poker-machine amateur, never more than a buck a throw, but I was always able to find a machine in nice view of what Varnos was up to.
Around five, Varnos left the casino, going out one of the half-dozen doors onto Main Street. He walked two blocks to a movie theater that had four films playing: The Gong Show Movie; The Empire Strikes Back; The Shining; and The Long Riders. He bought a ticket for The Long Riders, a western. So did I. He bought no food. I did-Christ, what’s the point, without popcorn and a Coke? This, and that healthy lunch, he was starting to irritate my ass.
Having him in that movie theater, which was underattended (people didn’t go to a casino town like Boot Heel to go to the movies, and anyway this was a five-fifteen show), did provide a potential opportunity to remove him. I had my nine millimeter in my waistband, noise suppressor in my sportcoat pocket. I also had a retractable knife, a stiletto, which I didn’t love using, but there were appropriate times and places for the thing…
But again-what if something was rigged already to take Stockwell out in his room?
I considered putting the gun in Nick’s back on the way out of the theater, after the movie was over, and walking him somewhere for a talk and a bullet; but the lobby was full-it was a Friday night, which kicked the shit out of my nobody-goes-to-the-movies-in-a-casino-town theory.
So I wound up just following him again.
Back to the Four Jacks. It would be just my luck if I ran into Eric Conrad, with him thinking I’d had a change of heart. Or hard. But I didn’t.
Anyway, Varnos gambled another hour. He had lost this afternoon, but this time he cashed in way more chips than he’d bought. He played nothing but blackjack, and seemed to have a nice rapport with a pretty brunette dealer.
Around nine he went out into the parking lot and smoked a cigarette, standing by his Buick. So he wasn’t a complete health nut, then. Fifteen minutes or so passed, and the little brunette dealer came running out and took his hand. Apparently he’d hit it off with her and she was off work, and they got in the Buick and drove back to the Spur.
Here’s when I started to get really pissed at this guy: he takes her to the Spur for a romantic late supper. All the decent places to eat in a casino town like this, and he makes it so that I have to eat in that same boring hotel restaurant again.
They talk quietly. She does most of the talking. First date, but this woman is in her mid-thirties (Varnos is maybe forty) and, like a lot of Boot Heel gals, this is not her first time at the rodeo. He buys her lobster and has a chef’s salad himself, fucking rabbit. I eat a rare filet that is not terrible with a baked potato that also isn’t bad.
By ten he has taken her up to his room.
Back in my room, I try to dope it out. Is this what it seems to be on the face of it? Has Varnos just had a day off, gambling, movies, dining, picking up a babe for the night? Maybe relaxing before the big day tomorrow when he does his thing, and then hits the road?
Or is he setting up an alibi with some local girl, just in case he needs it?
Or has he already rigged that room for a kill?
I went across the hall to Stockwell’s room and knocked. It was ten-thirty and maybe my client was back from the set. Or maybe Joni was. At this point, I’d settle for her. Shit! What an idiot I’d been, not asking the director for a key to his room-I really needed to get in there and look around.
No answer.
So he wasn’t back yet.
Or he was dead in there, having fallen for some trap that Varnos set.
Back in my room, I was frustrated, kicking things, since I wasn’t limber enough to kick myself. Maybe I could figure out a way to scam a room key off the girl at the desk. Maybe it would be that nice kid Tina down there again tonight.
I went out onto the balcony into a balmy desert breeze, to think about it, to come up with some way to con Stockwell’s room key out of whoever was on duty. I leaned against the railing, then backed off, remembering how Varnos liked to make balconies go bye-bye.
That was when I noticed the lovely woman in the bikini swimming below, a silhouette again in the under-lit pool.
***
I wore my sport coat down there. The night wasn’t cool enough to warrant it-the whisper of wind carried warmth-but I was taking the nine millimeter with me, in my waistband, and I didn’t want it showing.
She was swimming lengths, her long dark hair streaming free, her bikini tonight a red skimpy thing. I pulled up a deck chair and sat near the shallow end. Again it was past legal pool hours and we had no company. Few lights were on in the windows facing the courtyard-this was Friday night in Boot Heel. Nobody was in their hotel room.
She stood in the shallow to catch her breath, water lapping at her hips, the light from the pool’s floor highlighting the edges of her, but most of her in shadow. Then she noticed me and looked up. Eyes wide, the whites popping out of the darkness.
“Jack,” she said.
“You suggested we talk. We probably should.”
She pushed through the water, and it sloshed gently around her tan body. She leaned against the edge of the pool, just a tiny bit out of breath, face beautifully pearled. “Water’s nice, Jack. Cool but not cold. You still like to swim?”
“Yeah. But no beaches near where I live.”
“Where do you live?”
“Where it gets cold.”
She didn’t press for more. She gestured to the expanse of water. “Care to join me?”
“I already swam today.”
She smiled. “Don’t pout. Go on up and get your trunks and come back down.”
I stood. I unbuttoned the sport coat and took the gun out of my waistband. Her eyes grew large and she seemed to be trying to decide whether to be afraid or not. I wasn’t leveling it at her, but it was there.
“What are you doing, Jack?”
“Making a point.”
Part of me wanted her to think I’d come to kill her. The rest just wanted her to understand tha
t she was in the middle of something serious. Really, deadly serious.
“Your husband is in trouble,” I said, “and I’m helping him.”
“Because of me?”
“For money.”
“Are you some kind of…security person now? Rent-a-cop? Bodyguard?”
“There’s no word for it. But it’s life or death.” I put the nine mil back in my waistband and buttoned the sport coat over it. “Still want me to join you?”
“Yes.”
“I show you a gun and you still want me to go get my swimsuit?”
“You had your chance to kill me, Jack, a long time ago.”
So I went up and got my suit.
***
We swam together, not racing, just doing lengths, easy, gliding freestyle under the sky with its slightly more generous slice of moon tonight and enough stars to matter.
In the shallow end, we sat on the edge of the pool together, dripping.
“That was pretty melodramatic,” she said. When I said nothing, she prompted me: “Before? The gun?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Why are you here?”
“There have been threats against your husband’s life. I’m looking into it.”
“So I was right about what you are.”
“Joni, what I do is way off the radar. Nothing near legal, understand?”
“More melodrama, Jack?”
“No. It’s real and it’s rough. That’s part of why I waved that gun at you.”
“You didn’t wave it at me. You pointed it down. I wasn’t scared.”
“Really? Because the other part of why I waved it was to scare you.”
“To get back at me?”
Yes.
“No,” I said. “Just warning you about what you’re in the middle of. Watch yourself. Don’t trust anybody you don’t know. And maybe some you do know.”
“Should I trust you?”
“Sure. Joni, we really do need to talk. I need to ask you some things.”
“All right. Give me a second.” She got up and dripped over and got her towel and dried her hair and face off a little. Then she trotted back and sat next to me, feet and most of her legs in the water. Like mine were.
I asked, “Is there anybody you can think of who’d want your husband dead?”
Her response was immediate and damn near casual: “Sure. You know who Lou Licata is?”
“I know who he is.”
“Well, that bimbo Tiffany is Licata’s girlfriend. Never mind that the Godfather has a wife and four kids, Miss Goodwin is his property.” She shrugged. “And Art was fucking her for a while. How’s that for stupid? Fucking a mob boss’ mistress.”
“It’s not smart. How did that make you feel?”
“It didn’t. Art’s fooled around before. He’ll fool around again.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“No. I was his ‘this year’s model’ a long, long time ago. Enough of one to get a wedding ring out of him. Any love or passion is long gone. We’re still friendly. We like each other. Let me answer the question in your eyes, Jack-yes we still have sex. Once or twice a month.”
“You’re okay with this.”
“Fine with it. Jack, you know what kind of background I come from. Now I live in the Hollywood Hills. In a house that’s damn near a mansion. With a pool bigger than this.”
“Your husband isn’t exactly the hottest ticket in Tinsel Town.”
“No. Some would say he’s on the way down. But on the way up, he made a lot of money, and invested well. He likes to work, so he takes gigs wherever he can-TV mostly. And that pays just fine. Me, I’ve had a good career, too, but I’m almost over the hill. Thirty-six, Jack. Two, three more years, I’m an unemployable hag in Hollywood terms. Meantime, it’s a comfortable life. And will continue to be.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“And this silly picture we’re making? The first Hard Wheels was enough of a minor success to put Art back on the map, at least as a genre filmmaker.”
“What does that mean, genre filmmaker?”
“Action stuff. Sex and violence. Horror. Sci-fi. He’ll keep working. And he’ll use me in his movies, and he’ll never leave me for anybody, because he’s not looking for a new wife, just an occasional starlet to bang. Don’t you dare look at me like you feel sorry for me, Jack. I am happy. I have everything I want.”
Which of us was she trying to convince?
“Joni…none of my business, but…how the hell did you become an actress, anyway?”
“Oh, it was Art. Art my husband, not art the pursuit of which. He discovered me. I was working at Disneyland… not in one of those fucking suits! You should see them pour the sweat out of those things at the end of the day…I was a waitress in a German-theme joint and I guess he liked the way I looked in a peasant blouse. Gave me a screen test.”
“And you passed the audition.”
She was kicking in the water. “You ever think about me, Jack?”
I didn’t lie. “Sometimes.”
“I loved you in my way, Jack. I didn’t want you to die over there. I really didn’t want any of you boys to die.”
“All three of us?”
She shook her head, smirking humorlessly. “So I married three times. And got the benefits. If you feel like looking at me like you feel sorry for me, do it because of that. Do it because my life was such a hopeless dead-end that the best I could come up with was to go after a serviceman’s crappy monthly check.”
And benefits. Three times. But I didn’t rub it in.
Her gaze was at once sweet and patronizing. “Jack, you were a nice kid. Naive. You didn’t understand that sometimes people do things, to survive, that look crazy or immoral to other people. Maybe you can understand better now, how a young girl could get fucked-up enough to-”
I held a hand up. Shook my head. “You don’t owe me explanations. It was a long time ago. We’re different people now.”
“Jack, maybe it helps to finally air this out…”
This shit was getting old. I flat out asked her, hoping maybe, just maybe, her eyes would tell me something. “Do you want your husband dead?”
“What?”
“If you had a choice between me stopping something fatal happening to your husband, and-”
She gripped my arm. Other than when we shook hands, it was the first time she’d touched me.
“No,” she said. “Help him.”
“Did you sign a prenup?”
“What?”
“Do you stand to benefit if he dies?”
She just looked at me. “I don’t remember you being such a prick.”
“Do you benefit? It’s not like it’s a foreign concept to you. Maybe you’re taking it to a new level.”
“That’s fucking cruel…”
I put a hand on her shoulder. Tight but not enough to hurt. “I don’t like being near you, Joni. It stirs things up in me, none of it good. You need to understand something-you need to believe me: if you are behind this, I don’t give a shit.”
“What?”
“If you want him dead, I’ll walk away. I wouldn’t kill him for you, but I’d walk away.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m fairly well-balanced, considering. I’m giving you an out. Tell me to go and I’ll go. If I stay, I can probably save him.”
“Stay! Stay.” She stroked my face. It was like pleasant razor blades. “Please. If you have even one tiny memory of me that you cherish…stay.”
“You didn’t answer me. Would you benefit if he died?”
She sighed. Turned away from me and stared into the gentle ripple of the pool where she’d been absently kicking. “There was no prenup. But, Jack-we live in California. Community property. I get half anyway, if I ever decide to bail on him.”
“Maybe you want it all.”
She set those big brown eyes loose on my face. “All I want is the life I have right now, Jack. It’s the kind of life I dreamed
about as a young woman-a really nice house, swimming pool and everything, no kids, plenty of money, a husband who is nice to me but gives me lots of space. I was never looking for a white knight, Jack. Just a life of comfort. A life that didn’t suck. And I fought to get that life.”
“Tell me about it.”
Her upper lip curled a little. “You know what your problem is, Jack? You don’t know whether you want to fuck me or kill me.”
I got out of the pool. To dry off a little, I had to dump the nine millimeter out of the towel, and it bounced on the deck chair webbing. Got her attention.
“Is there an all-of-the-above?” I asked her.
And I gathered my gun and went up to my room.
SEVEN
After my evening swim, I got dressed and made my way down to the Spur’s lobby, taking along a western paperback I’d been reading, Valdez Is Coming, to pass the time while I waited for Stockwell to get back from the film shoot.
With the lobby’s slots and poker machines making their ringing whirring music, concentrating on the book wasn’t easy. But I only had to sit forty minutes before Stockwell showed, around a quarter past midnight, with his producer Kaufmann striding at his side, a supportive hand on his friend’s shoulder.
The director seemed beat, his eyes so puffy they got lost in the folds of flesh; he was smoking and-for all his tiredness-moving fast, in the midst of a jocular conversation with the producer, who appeared far less frazzled, even energetic. Kaufmann’s light polo shirt and darker blue slacks looked comparatively fresh next to Stockwell’s sweated-out t-shirt and dirt-smudged jeans.
My sense was that Kaufmann was bucking up his pal, providing encouragement after a hard day’s shoot.
I could understand the need for that-even based on my brief visit to the set, I could see that the burden of pressure was on the director, who had to keep moving and working and handling this problem and that, while a producer was mostly dealing with paperwork, phone calls and personnel.
I managed to catch up with them before they got to the elevators.
“Mr. Stockwell!” I called, and when both men turned, I said, “Art, I need a moment please.”
Kaufmann threw me a mildly irritated glance, then nodded at the director and, resigned to being excluded, stepped onto a waiting elevator.
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