by Bill Moody
“Interesting fans you have,” he says. “Doesn’t this mall have any security?”
I finish the tune I’m on and stop playing. “Thanks, Coop.” I glance at my watch. “Ten minutes to go, okay?” Coop nods and goes for coffee.
Mary Lou shows up early with her briefcase full of music. “Quiet around here today, huh?”
“Yeah, really slow.” I say good-bye and join Coop at a table.
“Natalie says we have things to talk about,” Coop says. “I’d like to hear them, please.”
I tell him about Louise, Rachel, the diary, and my speculation about what it all means. He listens in silence until I finish. “So what do you think I should do?”
“What you should have done all along. Call the fucking police.”
“I did, remember. You were the one who introduced me to Trask.”
Coop rolls his eyes at me. “That was before all this other shit. Tony Gallio is not some disgruntled jazz fan who wants to keep Wardell Gray’s reputation part of history. Those two I just threw out of here are serious.”
“Why didn’t you arrest them?”
“On what charge? Annoying the piano player? No, you stop all this detective bullshit and Gallio will go away.”
“I don’t think so.” I hold up the diary. “He wants this for a couple of reasons. He’s got some deal cooking for the Rouge property, and he doesn’t want what’s in here to get out.”
“You,” Coop says, pointing his finger at me, “have to give that and everything you know to Trask. I don’t have any jurisdiction here, or I’d take it away from you right now.”
“I will, I will. Tomorrow.”
Coop sighs and lights one of his cigars. “That’s what I thought.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “This message is for you. Natalie gave it to me. Your retired cop friend. Wants you to call.”
“See, I am going to call the cops.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Buddy Herman, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, retired. Retired is the operative word,” Herman emphasizes in his gravelly voice as we shake hands. He’s a short, stocky man with a leathered, sunburned face. His retirement uniform is a Hawaiian shirt, Las Vegas Stars baseball cap, baggy jeans, and black canvas shoes.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.
“No problem. John Trask is good people. I don’t have much time, though,” Herman says, tapping on the small motorboat hitched to a Chevy Blazer that’s seen better days. The name Pin Puller is painted on the stern. “I’m headed out to the lake.”
We’re standing in the parking lot of a diner on West Charleston, the sun beating down as usual. According to the thermometer on the bank across the street, the temperature is a hundred and eight degrees. I can only imagine what it must be like at Lake Mead, baking in an open boat.
“Feels great, eh?” Herman says. “God, I love the heat.” He grins, takes in my tux pants, white shirt, and sweating brow. “You a waiter?”
“Musician.”
Herman nods. “Well, let’s go inside.”
The diner is busy, and the crowd seems to be regulars. Herman waves to some familiar faces and trades quips with others as we make our way to a table. We both order iced tea from a waitress who looks like she wishes it was closing time.
Herman takes a long gulp of his tea and studies me across the table. “John Trask told me you were on the force during the Moulin Rouge era. You remember much about it?”
“Era? Is that what it was?” Herman snorts and gulps more tea. “They were only open six months. I remember it as a time of easy police work in a small town. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen thousand people here then. ’Course, by the time I retired it was getting bad.”
He looks out the window at the traffic flying by on Charleston. “This place is like L.A. now. Murders, gangs, drugs, you name it, we got it. Today they walk right in the casino and take the money. The boys would never have allowed these casino robberies. I knew some of them,” Herman says. “Personally. They’d have these punks buried face-first in the desert. But that’s ancient history.” He holds up his glass to a passing waitress for more tea.
“The boys?”
“You know,” Herman says. “Bugsy Siegel, the guys who started this place.”
“Actually, that’s what I’m interested in. One of the musicians at the Moulin Rouge was found in the desert the night after the casino opened. Wardell Gray. May 1955. You remember anything about that?”
“Sure,” Herman says, “Trask reminded me. Colored boy, wasn’t he? Trumpet player or something.”
“He was black. Saxophone.” I wonder about Herman’s quick answer and try to keep the irritation out of my voice, reminding myself he is from another era.
Herman shrugs. “Colored, black, African-American, people of color, that’s the latest,” he says with almost a smirk. “I can’t keep up.”
“You would if you were still with the police.”
“Whatever.” Herman rubs a beefy hand over his eyes. “Let me think. I wasn’t the primary on that, but I remember it. He was found in the desert somewhere over on the west side, out by the railroad tracks.”
“Trask says there wasn’t any investigation, and there’s no file. Do you know why that was?”
“Didn’t need to be one’s my guess,” Herman says. “You find a guy in the desert two days after he’s killed, no suspects, no motive, no witnesses, he’s a known drug user. What are you going to investigate? We had some other guy in from the show for questioning.”
“Teddy Hale?”
“Yeah, Teddy something. Said he and Gray had a dope party in their room and Gray fell out of bed, broke his neck.” Herman smiles like he knows something I don’t. “Right, fell out of bed.”
“You don’t think that’s how it happened.”
Herman shakes his head. “Naw, I think this Hale character bopped Gray. You look at the coroner’s report? Cause of death was drug overdose, but there were head wounds from the proverbial blunt instrument.”
“So why wasn’t there an investigation then?”
“Already told you,” Herman says. “Maybe this Gray character stepped on the wrong toes. This town was run differently then, if you know what I mean. If Gray annoyed somebody well connected, and they knew he was a dope addict—don’t musicians take dope to play better?”
“Some did, but not to play better.”
“Whatever. Anyway, they could make it look like an overdose pretty easy, dump the body in the desert, who would know?”
“Or who would care?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying if there was no investigation, there was no need for one. Look, son, no suspects, no weapon, could have just been a simple robbery assault. Coroner files an incident report, and that’s that, nice and clean.”
This is the end of the line, then. If there’s no file, no investigation, and I’m talking to a cop who knew of the case, then there’s nothing else. Wardell Gray’s death will remain under what’s it’s always been—a cloud of mysterious circumstances.
“Who were some of ‘the boys’ at that time? You remember anybody particular?”
Herman shakes his head. “Naw, we didn’t have much to do with the Strip. They took care of their own problems.”
“How about Anthony Gallio?”
“Gallio? The name is familiar, but I don’t remember from where. What did he do?”
“It doesn’t matter. What about another case, a stabbing at the Moulin Rouge, sometime after Gray was found?”
“A murder, you mean?” Herman looks genuinely puzzled. “No, I’d definitely remember that.”
I lapse into silence. Either Herman was carefully coached, or he really didn’t remember. Pappy seems sure he’d killed someone.
Herman glances at his watch. “Well, sorry I couldn’t be more help, son, but I got to go. The lake is calling, and there’s some fish out there with my name on them.”
>
“Sure, thanks anyway.” Herman reaches for the check, but I beat him to it. “I got it. Thanks again.”
He gets up and starts for the door, then turns and comes back to the table. “You know what I’d do if I were you? I’d let that Gray boy rest in peace.”
I pay the check and call Natalie from the pay phone in the diner. No messages or calls from anyone, including Breeze. Coop evidently hasn’t told her about Tony and Karl’s visit to the mall. When I tell her about the conversation with Herman, she senses the disappointment in my voice.
“You’ve done all you can, Evan. You’re just going to have to accept that.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just hoping Herman would have some first-hand information. If he’s typical of the police in those days, they didn’t care about Wardell anyway.”
“Are you coming back to the house now?”
“I guess so. I want to check with Breeze first.”
“I thought you said he was a jazz DJ. He sounds like a lawyer on the phone.”
“He is. I’ll tell you about it later. That’s probably a dead end, too.”
“All right, see you soon. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
I hang up the phone and stare out the window of the diner, trying to put my finger on something Herman said or didn’t say, but it eludes me. Like everything else lately. Herman said he wasn’t primary on Wardell Gray’s case. If he wasn’t, then who was? And doesn’t that mean there was a case, an investigation? I think there was a file on Wardell Gray.
But if there was one, who has it? And why would anyone want the file on a thirty-seven-year-old case to disappear?
Natalie’s surprise is brewing in Ace’s kitchen. She’s taken over and is busily dicing onions and peppers, grating cheese, and stirring some ground beef simmering on the stove alongside a pan of refried beans. A stack of tortillas rests on the counter. Natalie, wisps of hair falling over her eyes, wields the knife with considerable skill.
“Ace told me you like Mexican food,” she says. “Coop is coming over later. He’s meeting with John Trask.” Her light kiss, which I’d like to go on much longer, is interrupted by the whir of the blender where Ace is whipping up margaritas.
“Coming right up,” Ace says. He stops the blender, dips three large glasses upside down in a plate of salt, sets them upright on the counter, and fills them with his mixture from the blender. “Try these on for size.”
Natalie stops her dicing long enough for a quick taste and licks her lips. “A tad too much tequila, maybe?” Ace and I try ours and disagree. “Okay, you guys win, now get out of the kitchen,” she says.
“C’mon,” Ace says, “I want to show you something.” We take our drinks and go into his office. He turns on his computer and calls up a file folder labeled “Death of a Tenor Man.” There are files with notes, police reports, history, and excerpts from books and interviews. “It’s really coming together,” Ace says. “You, mister piano man, have given me enough to go with my research for a very fine paper at the conference coming up.”
I sit down and watch Ace happily scroll through his files. “I’d still like to talk with Pappy Dean,” he says. “Think you could arrange that?”
“Yeah, probably,” I say absently.
“What’s the matter?” Ace asks, sensing the mood I can’t seem to shake, even with an excellent margarita. “Come on, you found Rachel and maybe got her back on track with her mother.”
“But in the process maybe I’ve exposed Louise Cody to some real danger unless I can come up with something to get Gallio to back off. And I still can’t finish that paper for you with a definitive answer on Wardell Gray.”
“Look, you can’t be responsible for what Louise did thirty-seven years ago. She’s going to have to deal with that herself. You found her daughter, that’s what she wanted. You’ve also given me more material than I dreamed of for this conference coming up. I can shove it up the department chair’s ass. Sorry, Natalie,” Ace says, noticing her at the doorway.
She smiles at Ace’s uncharacteristic venom. “I thought the humanities were the last bastion of gentle, scholarly exploration.” She winks at me.
“Not when it comes to department politics. The knives really come out then. I’m just sick of it. Hey, don’t get me started on this.”
“What I want you to get started on is dinner. Let’s not wait for Coop.”
Ace shuts off his computer. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Gallio is still a problem for Louise and maybe the Moulin Rouge. Breeze is perhaps the answer to that one. I phone his office and leave two more messages for him on his service.
Coop still hasn’t arrived by the time we’ve had our fill of tacos and margaritas. Ace retires to his office and leaves Natalie and me sitting on the patio with coffee. Natalie obviously has other plans anyway. Her hand is warm in mine, and her eyes are pools of darkness. Inside the apartment, I suddenly remember the diary.
“Oh yeah, I’d like to see that,” Natalie says, “if it won’t break the spell or take too long.”
“Right, I left it in the VW. Be right back. Hold that thought.”
“I will,” she says. “You can read to me.”
I walk down to the lower walkway when from my left, something slams into me, and I go crashing into the hedge with Karl’s huge body on top of me. He quickly pins my arms behind my back and jerks me to my feet. I turn my head, trying to see him, but I know it’s Karl, and the hard object against my cheek is a gun. The hand holding it belongs to Tony.
“Your fucking cop friend in there, Horne?” Tony asks.
“No, no one.”
Tony relaxes immediately. “Good. My uncle wants to have a few words with you. You don’t mind coming along with us, do you?”
I don’t have to answer. Karl drags me out to the street and shoves me in the backseat of their car. Tony slides in beside me. Karl gets in the driver’s seat, starts the engine, and roars off.
How long will Natalie wait before she comes looking for me? And if she calls anybody, what could she tell them?
“Thanks for being so cooperative, Horne. My uncle will appreciate the fact that you’re coming along,” Tony says. He smiles and holsters his gun. “I’m sure I don’t need this, right?”
I ignore him and lean against the seat, trying to get my breath back. Karl heads up Rainbow, then turns south toward Tropicana. At the next light he turns west, and I really get worried. There’s some new housing developments out this way, but just beyond is open desert.
Tony senses my apprehension and laughs. “No, it doesn’t work that way anymore, Horne. We’re not taking you out to the desert, are we, Karl?”
“No,” Karl says. “I’d like to take his cop friend out there, though.”
“No, you wouldn’t Karl,” I say.
Karl half turns in the seat to glare at me, but Tony shuts him up.
“Just drive, Karl. We’re almost there, Horne,” he says to me.
There is Spanish Trail, a very expensive, upscale planned community, complete with a tennis complex and golf course, where people like Steve Wynn and Andre Agassi and, apparently, Anthony Gallio live.
I feel momentarily relieved as we turn into the entrance past a security booth, thinking I should yell out to the guard, but there’s no chance. Karl and Tony both nod to the guard as he waves the car through.
We drive for another few minutes, turning several times through the maze of streets, then pull into the driveway of a huge home the size of a library. Karl presses a remote button, and the security gate rumbles open. I see a large gold letter G slide past us. Tony pulls the Lincoln in beside a Mercedes and a white Cadillac. The gate shuts behind us.
Tony jumps out and holds the door open. “Let’s go, Horne. Inside.”
The house is brick, lots of windows and two turrets dominating the silhouette. With Karl leading the way, we go in the house down a long hallway and step down into a tennis court-size living room.
“Wait here,”
Tony says. Not much choice with Karl just looking for a chance to show me his NFL line backing skills. Tony disappears down a hallway. I glance around the living room. It looks like a setup for an Architectural Digest photo layout. In the soft lighting everything looks expensive and placed just so, right down to the angles of the photos on the mantel. Music comes from somewhere, an opera at very low volume.
Tony reappears and motions me. “This way, Horne” I follow him down the hall around the corner. “In here,” he says. I step down into a room brightly lit by fluorescent tubes.
“Good evening, Mr. Horne. So nice of you to join us. Please have a seat.”
“How could I resist Karl’s invitation?” Gallio is seated on a high stool, bent over a workbench. Under a high intensity lamp, he holds something in his left hand and peers through a magnifying glass eyepiece. When he looks up at me, the glass picks up the light and shines like a spotlight. His right hand holds a small brush. In front of him is an array of paint bottles.
“I’m glad to see you’ve retained your sense of humor,” Gallio says. “Can I offer you a drink?” Behind Gallio on a massive table that dominates the room is the most elaborate dollhouse I’ve ever seen.
There’s a landscaped yard and garden, and through the windows of the house, I can see tiny figures in the various rooms, which are lit in varying degrees of brightness.
“Have a look,” Gallic says while continuing his work.
I look in the window of what is obviously the living room. Its furnishings are identical to the room I was standing in only minutes ago. The scene is a party in progress. Miniature dolls, some holding drinks, are seated around the room or stand in groups. In one corner is a grand piano complete with a pianist seated on the bench, his hands locked on the keys.
“My hobby and my passion,” Gallio says. He lays the brush on a cloth and carefully places the doll on the table. He takes the eyepiece out and switches off the lamp. “It’s very delicate work, sometimes frustrating to get everything exactly right, but it relaxes me. I enjoy the control, the way I can change the scene. Watch, I’ll show you.”