A Time For Us (Michael Kaplan Mysteries)

by David W. Cowles

  Michael laughed and stood up. “With that sad observation, I’m going to leave you. If you learn anything more about Purdue, I’d appreciate a call, Mark. Not that I think there’s going to be much of a story to tell.”

  Michael’s cell phone rang. He waved goodbye to Caruso and pressed the send button as he walked out the door.

  “This is Michael Kaplan.”

  The voice was that of Kimberly. “Hello, lover. Myra just called.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She wants to meet us for lunch. Not at the Blue Hawaii, however. Myra sounded upset, but refused to talk about the problem over the phone.”

  Upset and problem were two words Michael did not like to hear. Especially in the same sentence as the name Myra. “Okay,” he groaned. “I’m leaving Mark’s office now. I’ll pick you up at the Times in fifteen minutes. Call Myra back and find out where she wants to have lunch.” It was Kimberly’s day to drive, so Michael had borrowed her red Porsche to meet with Mark.

  “Okay, Michael. You don’t think Myra’s having second thoughts about our ménage, do you?” Kimberly worried.

  “I hope not. No, I don’t think so. It must be something else.” Michael prayed he was right. Even though the three of them had been sleeping together for less than two weeks, he could not bear the thought of going back to his old lifestyle. Monogamy was monotony, he had discovered.

  Eight

  THE EGG-STRAVAGANZA cafe on West Sahara Avenue features omelets, soufflés, and other dishes made with eggs. It’s open around the clock, as are many restaurants in Las Vegas. A rack of foreign newspapers and tables with backgammon and chess boards built into the tops attract customers at all hours—eggheads with insomnia or time to kill, people who are too intellectual to waste time and money sitting in some casino mindlessly dropping coins into a slot machine.

  Myra drove into the restaurant’s parking lot the same time Michael and Kimberly arrived. She greeted them warmly and gave each a quick kiss on the lips. Michael felt better immediately. He’d been very concerned Myra might want to renege on their new living and loving arrangement.

  Each ordered the Egg-stravaganza’s specialty: toasted English muffins covered with a layer of Dungeness crab meat blanketed with two poached eggs and topped with a generous ladle of béchamel sauce. A small side salad came with the entrée.

  Myra seemed extremely nervous. She’d been chain-smoking, even though she had been making an earnest effort to quit the habit. It was becoming increasingly difficult, with another smoker now in her home. Perhaps, she thought, she’d try nicotine patches.

  “What’s wrong, Myra?” Michael asked. “Kimberly said you sounded distressed.”

  “I am distressed. Jeff Herbert quit. Actually, he came back to his office in the middle of the night, cleaned out his desk, and slipped a one-paragraph typed letter of resignation beneath Lois Lewis’s door.”

  Michael took a sip of coffee. “I’m sure Herbert must have his reasons for resigning. Do you think he quit because Lois Lewis insisted she hadn’t met with Cicily Purdue? In effect, Lewis called Herbert a liar.”

  “No. It was a very different matter entirely. Micki Nedrow told me the whole story.”

  “I’ve heard you mention Micki before. She’s your friend who runs the wardrobe department, isn’t she?”

  Myra nodded. “That’s right. Micki’s one of the sharpest people in the entire casino. Incredibly funny, too. I love her droll sense of humor. Did I ever tell you about the wardrobe department pool? I once won fifty dollars on Micki’s pool.”

  “You mean she was running a football or baseball pool?” Kimberly asked. “That seems like a peculiar thing to do in a casino. Anyone who wants to bet on a game can just go to the sports book.”

  Myra laughed. “Actually, it was a water pool. The wardrobe department is in the basement directly beneath the vegetable preparation room. Water constantly leaks through the floor and saturates the ceiling tiles in Micki’s department. Every so often, a soggy tile falls and gallons of water pour down and ruin expensive costumes hanging on the racks below.

  “Instead of fixing the leaks, the engineering department places plastic buckets on top of the ceiling tiles. Once a week, if they don’t forget, a crew of four or five engineers bring ladders and empty the buckets. Micki says they’re making careers out of living with the problem instead of trying to solve it. Every day, new leaks spring out in other parts of the ceiling.

  “Micki came up with the idea of a wagering pool. Everyone who participates puts a dollar in the pool and selects a ceiling tile. If your tile is the next one to fall in a gush of water, you win the jackpot. One time, I had the lucky number. That’s how I won the fifty dollars.

  “But I’m digressing. Let me get back to Jeff Herbert.

  “In casinos, gossip and rumors travel faster than e-mail on the Internet. And Micki hears everything. Most casino employees have to go to the wardrobe department twice a day to pick up and turn in their uniforms and costumes. Everyone from blackjack dealers to change girls to cocktail waitresses to maids to kitchen workers and waiters and waitresses. At times, the wardrobe department is like Grand Central Station.

  “When employees quit or get fired, they have to obtain a clearance slip from Micki to prove they’ve turned in their uniforms before they can pick up their final paycheck—even if their job doesn’t require them to wear a uniform. Early this morning, long before the people in Human Resources normally report to work, Jeff Herbert was down in the wardrobe department waiting for Micki, so he could get his clearance slip. Apparently Herbert didn’t want to have to face any of his coworkers.

  “Herbert and Micki were good friends. He told her what happened and why he quit.”

  “Why did he quit?” Kimberly asked

  “Late yesterday afternoon a uniformed security guard went to H.R. and told Jeff that Rick Lacey wanted to see him in his office. Jeff didn’t think it was anything pressing. Perhaps one of the eye-in-the-sky surveillance cameras had caught an employee stealing, and the incident needed to be confirmed by someone from H.R. and written up in the employee’s personnel file. So, he finished the project he was working on, then strolled leisurely over to the Security Department.

  “When Jeff got to Lacey’s office, he was surprised to see Lois Lewis sitting there cozied up next to Lacey, their heads together. He was even more perplexed when the uniformed security guard closed the door and stood at attention just inside. Lacey told Herbert to sit down, and then dropped his bombshell.”

  “Which was—?” Michael asked.

  “Lacey flashed some papers in front of Herbert and said an employee had filed a complaint against him for sexual harassment. Jeff was dumbstruck. As I told you before, he’s a family man and has always impressed me as being a perfect gentleman. I’m convinced he would never do or say anything any rational person could possibly construe as sexual harassment.”

  “Who filed the complaint, and what was Jeff accused of?” Kimberly asked.

  “Oh, Lacey wouldn’t say who wrote the complaint, nor would he tell Jeff what was on it. He just waved the papers in Herbert’s face.”

  “Shades of Joe McCarthy!” Michael exclaimed.

  “Sounds more like the Gestapo to me,” Kimberly observed. “What happened next?”

  “According to Micki, both Lacey and Lewis began intimidating Jeff—much as Lacey tried to intimidate me a little earlier in the day. Jeff told Micki that Lacey grilled him mercilessly about an incident that happened a week or two ago. It seems Herbert and a cocktail waitress tried to go through a narrow doorway at the same time. They bumped into each other and said, ‘Excuse me,’ then bobbed back and forth several times trying to get out of each other’s way. Finally, Jeff made a joke out of the incident by saying, ‘Shall we dance,’ and the cocktail waitress laughingly retorted, ‘We’ve got to quit meeting this way.’ Two tired clichés. In someone’s pathetically sick mind, the accidental physical contact and Jeff’s remark constituted ‘sexual harassment
.’”

  “That’s it?” Kimberly was incredulous. “That’s asinine. Everyone has said and done virtually the same things at one time or another. How did Lacey learn about the doorway incident, anyway?”

  “That’s a good question and I don’t have the answer,” Myra replied. “I do know the network of Surveillance’s eye-in-the-sky video cameras can follow a person virtually anywhere in the casino, except in the restrooms, and, as I pointed out before, the offices. The detail is incredible. Video images taken by remote-controlled cameras sixty feet in the air are so sharp and clear you can count the spots on a playing card or see the denomination of a gaming chip. And everything is stored on tape for at least thirty days.

  “My guess is, Lacey saw the incident on a video monitor in the Surveillance room—they have a bank of several dozen monitors going at all times—and then questioned the cocktail waitress to find out what was going on. He probably scared the poor girl half to death and then put words in her mouth.”

  Kimberly shook her head sadly. “Big Brother is watching. In the casinos, anyway.”

  “Ever since President Clinton was sued by that woman with big hair, accusing people of sexual harassment has become a national pastime,” Michael stated. “Sports figures, politicians, entertainers, and other celebrities are prime targets for the sickos and weirdos and wannabes and neverweres who’re looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, but the average man—or woman—is equally vulnerable. Perhaps even more so, because the average Joe doesn’t have the financial or legal resources needed to fight false allegations.

  “I believe legitimate sexual harassment cases should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, many malicious, malevolent, rancorous people have discovered they can ruin a person’s life merely by making ludicrous, unfounded allegations. It’s almost always one person’s word against another, with no real evidence or proof possible. Once the charges are made, the damage has been done—regardless of the final outcome. The accused are considered guilty until proven innocent. Even then, they’ll bear the taint of the investigation or lawsuit for the rest of their lives. Of course, the accuser gets off scot-free. It’s a sad fact of life that someone with a twisted or vengeful agenda can make false accusations with impunity.

  “The unfortunates who are on the bottom rung of the social or economic ladder now have an easy avenue—make that a highway—to destroy those they resent or envy, people who have strived diligently to reach a respected position in life.”

  “That’s what happened to Jeff Herbert,” Myra concurred. “He was set up, plain and simple.”

  “But why?” Kimberly asked. “Who could have been so vicious?”

  Myra nodded. “That’s what’s bothering me. Someone must have wanted to destroy Jeff’s credibility and ruin his reputation, perhaps with the intent of inducing him to quit his job or getting him fired. So—he was humiliated with a trumped-up sexual harassment complaint. The person who promulgated the scheme was obviously successful.”

  “What ever happened to the principle of jurisprudence that gives every person the right to confront his accuser?” Kimberly asked.

  “That right apparently doesn’t extend to casino employees at the Blue Hawaii,” Myra replied. “I’m so upset over this wicked witch hunt I am about ready to walk out. No one in his right mind would want to go through a lengthy sexual harassment investigation, even if he or she had nothing to hide. If the life of a respectable person like Jeff Herbert can be turned inside out by phony, anonymous charges that put his employment in jeopardy, there’s absolutely no job security at all.”

  “Let’s see,” Michael mused. “The accusations were made against Jeff yesterday, just hours after he told you Purdue met with Lewis. Right?”

  “Right,” Myra confirmed. “And also, just a short time after I’d been in Lacey’s office trying to get confirmation about the meeting.”

  “And it was both Lewis and Lacey who confronted Jeff Herbert?”

  Myra nodded. “That’s right also.”

  “Maybe there’s a connection. Something isn’t kosher, that’s for sure. Someone is trying to hide something—but, who and what? Right now, those are the $64,000 questions.”

  “One more thing,” Myra stated. “Lacey’s a damn hypocrite. Micki told me—in strictest confidence, mind you—that Lacey, who has a pregnant wife and twin four-year-old boys, is having affairs with both a cocktail waitress and a cashier who works behind the hotel registration desk.”

  “How on earth did she find that out?” Kimberly asked.

  Myra giggled. “It was simple. Each of the women bragged to Micki while she was fitting them for their uniforms. They told Micki intimate details of their sex life. Believe me, that guy Lacey is really kinky. He likes to bite. Enough to draw blood. Micki’s seen the scars.”

  “I never realized casinos were such hothouses of intrigue,” Kimberly said.

  “They are,” Myra confirmed. “But the big problem with working for a casino is the losers you have to deal with every day.”

  “Not everyone can be a winner all the time,” Michael commented. “Gamblers know the odds are heavily stacked in favor of the casinos—that’s the chance they take when they place their bets. They overlook the fact that the huge, successful casinos are built and expanded by money they win, not by what they pay out to winning players. But that doesn’t deter people from playing. ”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Myra explained patiently. “I wasn’t referring to the gamblers, I was talking about the employees. Not the salaried executives and managers, most of whom are intelligent and good at their jobs. If not, they don’t last very long. What I consider to be losers are the by-the-hour and by-the-shift workers who constitute the majority of a casino’s staff. There’s a chasm between them and the managers as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.

  “Many casino employees don’t have any real job skills and have to get by on next-to-minimum wages and tips, They’re uneducated and undereducated rejects from fast food franchises. Some are senior citizens who should have retired years ago, but have to keep working because they can’t survive on their pension or Social Security. People with gambling habits, who put all their salaries into the slot machines. Alcoholics. Misanthropes who hate their jobs and hate their coworkers and who hate their bosses. Defeated, angry, miserable miscreants who want everyone else to share in their wretchedness. In other words, they’re fallen from the bottom rungs of the social and economic ladders.

  “Cicily Purdue was such a person. Keno runners are among the lowest-paid employees in a casino. They make less than the porters who sweep the floor. Keno runners have to be familiar enough with the game to be able to explain it to customers. Their duties involve strenuous physical activity and generate a lot of stress. So, the job should command a livable wage. Even the change girls, who only have to be able to count, make about half as much again as keno runners.”

  “Why is that?” asked Kimberly.

  “At the large casinos on the Strip, change girls have union representation. The smaller casinos, such as Blue Hawaii, pay their change girls union scale or more, in order to keep the unions out. But keno runners aren’t organized. The unions have forgotten about them. So, they’re paid as little as the casinos can get away with. It’s a crying shame, for many of the keno runners are young single mothers who have a couple of kids to support, and they need to earn enough money to live on.”

  “Do you think that’s why Cicily turned to prostitution?” questioned Kimberly. “Because she couldn’t make enough money running keno?”

  Myra shook her head. “From what I’ve been able to gather, Cicily was promiscuous by choice. She was a trollop, a demimonde. I think Cicily considered the money she earned by selling her body to be merely icing on the cake.”

  Nine

  MICHAEL FOUND THE HOUSE without any difficulty. It was on a quiet street in a middle-income area on the east side of town. The modest homes were built about thirty years ago, Michael estimate
d, judging by architectural design, tree height, and style of landscaping.

  It seemed to be an active neighborhood, with cars parked on the street in front of most houses, bicycles lying on many front lawns, boats and RVs in some driveways, and the flotsam and jetsam of toys temporarily forsaken by toddlers scattered about willy-nilly.

  Michael parked in front of the house beneath a large cottonwood tree. The tree offered shade, so the car would not become unbearably hot. The downside was that birds in the tree might spot the paint on Kimberly’s freshly-washed Porsche.

  At the door, Michael could hear that someone inside was watching a television talk show. Shortly after Michael rang the doorbell, the TV sound was muted. The front door opened a crack and a man peered out. He appeared to be in his early forties and was wearing a pair of black Dockers and a Blue Hawaii tee shirt.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Herbert?” Michael asked, though from Myra’s description he knew he was facing the right man.

  “Sorry, I’m not interested in buying anything,” Herbert replied, neither confirming nor denying Michael had identified him by name.

  Michael handed Herbert a business card. “I’m not selling anything. My name is Michael Kaplan, and I’m with the Las Vegas Times. I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes.”

  Herbert examined the card. An eyebrow raised suspiciously. “Oh? What about?”

  “About the sexual harassment charge filed against you at the Blue Hawaii.”

  Herbert’s face blanched. “No comment. I have nothing to say,” he replied, then shut the door in Michael’s face.

  Michael rang the doorbell again. No response. And again. Still no response. And still again. Finally, Herbert opened the door. He looked more frightened than angry.

  “Please go away. I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve done nothing wrong. Hasn’t enough damage been done already? How did you find out about the complaint, anyway?” Herbert was almost in tears.