Trace brought the coffeepot back to the table and poured for all of them. “I give up,” he said. “Now I don’t even know which end is up. Felicia may be a thief, yet she gets her own stuff stolen.” He shook his head. “Maybe there’s some sense in here but I don’t know what it is.”
Chico was looking out their window toward the Las Vegas Strip below. “Maybe I do,” she said softly.
“Well, tell me. Tell me.”
“Not quite yet,” she said. “I’ve got to think about it some more. Excuse me.” She left the table and went into the bedroom, and Trace sat back down.
“Well, at least we know for sure now that the baron isn’t the insurance detective.” he said.
“Guess not,” Sarge agreed.
“Then, who is?”
The question hung in the air and the two men sat silently, sipping their coffee. Chico came back into the kitchen and said. “I’ve got your birthday present, Trace.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.”
“Please, woman. This is my father. Are you trying to embarrass me?”
“I mean I’m taking the day off and I’m going to help you figure this out.”
“What about the convention?”
“I just called Flamma. She’s going to do it for me.”
“Flamma? She’ll have half the convention in bed before lunch.”
“It’ll make for a memorable convention, won’t it?” Chico said. “She promised to be on her best behavior. And I promised to give her four hundred dollars. That’s what your birthday present’s costing me, four hundred beans. When my birthday comes, I don’t want another sweat shirt.”
She sat back down and Trace said, “So talk. What is it you think you know?”
“I think Jarvis came to town to steal the countess’s jewelry,” she said as she bit into a piece of toast.
“Does that make any sense? He was devoted to her. You know that.”
“Sure. And now we know that both of them were probably jewel thieves. Maybe this time, instead of stealing jewelry from somebody else, they were going to steal it from themselves for the insurance money. The big score, kid.”
Trace thought about that for a few moments. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Of course not. I’m just getting started and I don’t have everything put together yet. But think about Jarvis sneaking into town, traveling under a phony name. He was avoiding leaving a track so that when the safe wound up empty, nobody could blame it on him.”
“I still don’t know.”
“Try this. You wondered why his bag had so damned little in it? Because he wasn’t staying. He was going to boost the jewelry and get back on the next plane.”
“Listen to her,” Sarge said admiringly. “‘Boost the jewelry.’ Where’d you learn to talk like that?”
“Charlie’s Angels reruns,” she said.
“Still too many holes,” Trace said. “Why an accomplice? Why the rented car? Why the call from the airport?”
“Give me your tapes,” Chico said. “I’ve got some ideas and I can go over them. Sarge, you want to come out and play with me today?”
“Actually, I’ve got this long string of beautiful women who’ve been begging me to spend time with them, but I’ll pass them all up for you.”
“You’ll never regret it,” Chico said.
“Hey, can I get in on this?” Trace asked.
“Sure,” Chico said. “What do you have to say?”
“Do anything you want.”
“Thanks, old-timer,” she said.
“Hey, I forgot,” Sarge said. “Happy birthday, son.
“Thank you.”
“Your mother’s waiting for you,” Sarge said.
“You know junk mail?” Trace said. “That’s junk news.”
While Chico was getting dressed and Sarge was watching television, Trace locked himself in his bathroom with his recorder and tapes. He hadn’t recorded anything on the other side of the tape he had made while in bed with the countess, so he just stuck that tape inside his jacket pocket.
Chico was waiting for him when he came out.
“Did you erase everything you didn’t want me to hear?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought that was pretty straightforward, as questions go.”
“I refuse to argue with you about it. Here. Take the tapes. You still have your own recorder?”
“Yes.”
Sarge was watching a tennis match.
“I don’t watch women’s tennis anymore,” Trace said.
“They’re good,” Sarge said.
“But it’s always the Ovum twins.”
“Who the hell are the Ovum twins?” Sarge asked.
“Whatever their names are. The Ovas. There’s Martina Under-and-over and Hannah Hit-it-over. They’re always playing, and who cares anymore? Where’s Mother?”
“Waiting in the room.”
“What was she doing?” Trace asked.
“When I left, she was looking at her watch every five seconds and getting ready to chew a drape.”
24
“Hello, Mother.”
“I suppose you ate breakfast,” she said. They were standing in the lobby of the Araby Hotel and Casino.
“Actually, I don’t eat breakfast much,” Trace said.
“No wonder, probably, with no one to cook for you. You wouldn’t want fish for breakfast. Or rice.”
“You’re right, Mother. People who eat fish for breakfast are uncivilized. Have you eaten? We could get bagels and lox.”
“I got so tired of waiting that I had them send breakfast to my room. They charge terrible prices here. Just awful. I wouldn’t splurge like that normally, but I thought if I went to the coffee shop, I wouldn’t be in the room when you called and I might miss you.”
“That would’ve been awful,” Trace said solemnly. “Do I look any different?”
Suspiciously, she answered, “No, I don’t think so. Maybe. Why?”
“I’m forty years old,” Trace said.
“My uncle Phil died when he was forty,” she said.
“Who could blame him?” Trace mumbled. He took his mother’s arm and led her into the casino, where he saw an out-of-order sign on the second machine in the right-hand bank. He put his mother at a machine near it.
“Play here for a while, Mother. 1 want to do something.”
“What?”
“You see, you have to pick these machines carefully. Some pay better than others. What you try to do is get a machine that’s just been repaired and serviced.”
“Why?”
“Because the wheels are still round and the electronic fabricator inside the devious speculum produces a much more honest count for the player.”
“So you could win?” she said.
“Something like that. If you’re lucky.”
“I haven’t been lucky yet. I keep losing ten dollarses. Even when I use the machines you tell me.”
“Not today. Warm up. I’ll be right back.”
Trace left her playing, one grim nickel after another grim nickel, and talked to the pit boss, who called the slot-machine mechanic.
“Jerry told you that he rigged up Machine 186?” the pit boss asked, and the mechanic nodded.
“Okay. This is Trace. Go turn it on for him.”
“All right,” the mechanic said.
As they walked toward the machines, Trace slipped the mechanic twenty dollars.
“Mum’s the word,” he said. “She mustn’t ever know.”
“You won’t hear it from me. What is it, a special occasion or something?”
“Yeah,” Trace said. “It’s my birthday and I’m investing in my own peace of mind.”
The mechanic walked to Machine 186 and Trace whispered to his mother, “We’re in luck. That machine over there has just been fixed. It’s ready for plucking. Grab your nickels.”
As soon as the mechanic had turned on the machine, Mrs. Tracy brush
ed by, shouldering him out of the way. The mechanic winked at Trace, who nodded back.
She won a dollar with her first nickel.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I can feel the difference already. The wheels feel round when they’re turning. Why didn’t you take me to this machine when I first got here?”
“Just waiting for the right moment, Mother.”
He found her a chair to sit on and bought twenty dollars’ worth of nickels at the change booth.
“Here. Stick these in your purse, in case you need reserves,” he said. “Can I get you something?”
“They still have free stuff here, don’t they?”
“Drinks and things. Coffee,” he said.
“I’ll wait for the waitress,” she said.
“Okay, Mother. I’ve got to go to work. I’ll see you later. Knock ’em dead;”
“I’d be happy to get even after all the ten dollarses I lost,” she said.
Trace kissed her on the cheek and walked away.
“Oh, Devlin.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Happy birthday. And many more.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Before he left the hotel, Trace was spotted by Bob Swenson, who was coming out of an elevator. “Trace. Hold up,” he called.
“How are you doing? You look like hell,” Trace said.
Swenson’s face was drawn and his eyes seemed darker, deep set. “Not much sleep,” he said.
“You going for breakfast?”
“No. A drink. Come on, have a drink with me.”
“Maybe one,” Trace said. “No, not in there. My mother’s in there. The other lounge.”
They ordered drinks at the bar and Swenson said, “I’m in love.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Nash.”
“I was going to ask you how your night went,” Trace said.
“Well, I wasn’t in love with her when we did it in the bed or even when we did it in the shower. I don’t think I even loved her when we did it in the closet. But when we did it in the potted plant on the balcony, I think that’s when I fell in love.”
“Is she in love too?” Trace asked.
“She’s sworn off donkeys,” Swenson said solemnly. “I want to take her home with me.”
“You mean home home?”
“No, I mean back to New York. I can set her up in an apartment somewhere. Shit, Trace, I’m rich. Shouldn’t I be able to do that?”
“No,” Trace said.
“What the hell kind of an answer is that? I bring you down here and make you buy me a drink and you give me a ‘no’? I’m your employer. Don’t be my friend. Be my employee. Say yes.”
“No,” Trace said.
“Have you forgotten that you still owe me three thousand dollars?” Swenson said.
“Stop worrying, you’ll get your money. What are friends for if not to say no? You think Groucho’s going to tell you no?”
“He’d better not. Why did you tell me no? I think what I just had was a perfectly smashing idea.”
“Never work,” Trace said.
“Why not?”
“Only two things can happen, and both of them are bad. First, you set her up, and then, I know you, you start spending too much time with her. Or when you can’t spend time with her, you start to wonder what she’s doing. The next thing, I get called in to tail her and find out who she’s seeing, what she’s doing. She’s going out and you’re going nuts. You wind up doing something stupid and your wife finds out. You want your wife to find out?”
“That question’s too dumb to deserve an answer, Trace.”
“Okay. So maybe even your wife doesn’t find out, but she’s going to get on your back anyway because you’re so nutty about climbing into the rack with National Anthem that you’re trying to spend all your time there. And then it escalates.”
“It sounded pretty bad already,” Swenson said.
“It gets worse. You start doing dopey things just to hang on to her. You tell her that you’ll back her next movie. The insurance-company board of directors hears that you want to back a film called Sex Secrets of the Silent Stars and they take a vote to throw you out. You’re out on the street. Homeless. Only the suit on your back.”
“I’ll bring another suit. I’ve got a lot of suits,” Swenson said.
“Your wife burned them all after you lost your job and became penniless. Anyway, that’s the way one goes,” Trace said.
“Is the other one as grim as this? I didn’t like that one at all,” Swenson said.
“The other one starts out better.”
“Start it. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“Okay. Nash falls in love with you. You’re the older, sophisticated, skilled, and talented man she’s always wanted. A man she can trust and look up to, someone who’s not just trying to get into her pants.”
“I still get into her pants in this story, don’t I?” Swenson asked.
“Yes. Very frequently. More and more frequently, because she’s crazy about you. She wants you all the time. She starts calling you at the office, making you come over for lunch. She comes to the office in the afternoons to see you. Soon, people start to talk. Who is this woman? Why is Bob losing weight and twitching a lot?”
“This is where it gets bad, right?”
“Sort of,” Trace said.
“Go no farther.”
“I’ve got to tell you how it ends,” Trace said.
“Okay, make it quick, though. Bartender, another drink.”
“Soon people are talking. Everybody’s talking. Nash resents every minute you spend home with the family. One day, she can’t take it anymore. She knows you’re out and she goes to see your wife to tell her that you and she are deeply in love and your wife should just butt out. Your wife gets mad and sues you for divorce and gets everything and you wind up out on the street. This time, maybe if you’re lucky, you get to keep two suits.”
“I still have my job. My insurance company,” Swenson said.
“No. Your wife gets the stock. The company fires you because you’ve embarrassed them and they elect Walter Marks to be the next president. He fires me and the two of us are out in the street. And I’m bigger than you are and your suits don’t fit me. We look like derelicts, the two of us, walking along the gutter, battling pigeons for peanuts.”
“You’re some way to start the day,” Swenson said. “I thought I had everything worked out and you come and rain on my parade.”
“That’s not rain. Your parade is marching underwater,” Trace said.
“I think I should tell you that I’m not at all happy with the way you’ve dealt with my life plan,” Swenson said. “I’d say it was basically cavalier, this analysis.”
“Nonsense,” Trace said. “I’ve given this a great deal of thought. Ever since I saw you with her for the first time and noticed your tongue lashing the tops of your shoes.”
“You think this is just sex, don’t you?” Swenson asked.
“I wouldn’t know what it is.”
“Well, it isn’t just sex. There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“You share a love of animals?” Trace asked.
“That’s unkind. Really. So you’ve got all these terrible scenarios; give me a good one.”
“There is no good one, but here’s the best of a bad lot. You rent Nash an apartment here. Or in L,A. You make it a point to fly out to the coast a lot to do business. You don’t really do business, though. That’s just an excuse to get to see her. When you’re with her, you screw your brains out. When you go home, you forget her till the next time.”
“I’ve got to think about it,” Swenson said.
“Give it a lot of thought,” Trace said.
“You just missed your father and Chico,” Dan Rosado said as Trace walked into the office.
“What’d they want?”
“They wanted to look at the pictures of Jarvis’ body.”
“Did you show them?” Trace asked,
“Why not? Everybody else in town has got a theory, why not them? Anyway, I wanted to see how Chico deals with blood.”
“She’s tough, isn’t she?” Trace said.
“Not even a blink. I got out all the really disgusting close-up photos too. You’d think she was looking through a family album.”
“They say what they were up to?” Trace asked.
“No. I figured you sent them on another mission, like the one yesterday. I told them, though, if they find any more bodies, they have to call me first. After that, they can call you. So what are you doing here?”
“I can’t stop in to say hello to my old buddy?”
“That lie is received, rioted, and filed. What do you want?”“
“You still holding Hubbaker?” Trace asked.
“Let him go this morning. Somebody made his bail. The guy said he knew you,” Rosado said.
“Walter Marks?”
“That sounds like it. Little guy?”
Trace nodded. “How much bail did he go for?”
“Twenty-five hundred,” Rosado said.
“Good. I hope he eats it. Dan, I ask you a question, you don’t ask me any questions?”
“I don’t know. Try me,” Rosado said.
“Did you find any money in Roberts’ office? Money, casino chips, anything like that?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a hunch.”
Rosado shrugged. “Just two hundred bucks or so in the back of one of the desk drawers. And that list, I guess it was his pimp list.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah. What hunch?” Rosado said.
“What about Roberts?” Trace asked, ignoring the question. “You find out anything about him?”
“Yeah. You won’t believe it.”
“Listen, I’ve got a father who thinks he’s Wyatt Earp. I work for a boss who’s a sex maniac. I’ll believe anything,” Trace said.
And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2) Page 18