Kelley and I don’t eat in restaurants much any more, but I feel comfortable in a Chinese restaurant. The food is already cut, bite size, which is an advantage when you can’t see what you’re eating. We took our time and enjoyed ourselves, with the prospect of some decent police work adding to my pleasure, and the prospect of some decent income adding to Kelley’s.
After a delightful dinner, washed down with a gallon or so of green tea, we took a leisurely walk to the garage, late evening now, coming up on nine o’clock, the summer city cooling down. I held Buster with one hand and Kelley with the other, comfortable with ourselves and with each other. The night was magical, calm and peaceful. The crowds and traffic had long since gone. The city was quiet, resting, settling in, knowing that tomorrow morning it all starts again.
We got the car and headed for the Walt Whitman bridge and the Atlantic City Expressway, Buster in the back seat, I in the passenger seat, happily entrusting myself to the driving skills of my beloved.
Atlantic City was just an hour away. We arrived after an uneventful trip down the Expressway, just about when I wanted to be there, since it seemed likelier we would find Bernice working the same shift she’d worked last Thursday.
“Atlantic City is beautiful at night,” Kelley said. “All the casinos lit, lined up along the ocean.”
I felt the car turn and knew we were heading in a new direction. Being in a moving car and unable to see out is disconcerting, and the next time you’re a passenger, try closing your eyes for a mile or two and see what I mean.
“Harrah’s Marina right ahead,” Kelley said. “Whattya think, boss, valet parking?”
“Hey, it’s on the expense account.”
Kelley gave the car to somebody I didn’t know and we headed for the casino. I grabbed Buster’s harness and we went through the big front doors. I had been there before, when I could see, so I knew the casino had a dock on the inlet, a short run to the open ocean, with pleasure boats tied up and gulls squawking and lots of other saltwater related sounds. But we weren’t going out on the dock tonight.
Buster led us through a throng of people, all seemingly walking in different directions. In addition to the perfume, soap and pressed clothes smell of a large group of middle class people, there was the overpowering, overriding smell of newly installed carpeting. At times like this I felt sorry for Buster, whose sense of smell was a thousand times greater than mine.
“If I see a security guard,” Kelley said, “I’ll ask for directions.”
She stopped and I heard her say, “Excuse me, I’m looking for a dealer named Bernice. Could you direct me to someone who can help us find her?”
A young male voice said, “Is she working now?”
“We don’t know. All we know is she was working last Thursday, and we’d like to talk to her. It’s quite important.”
The young man said, “Well, ma’am, I guess you better talk to the shift manager. He’d know if there’s anybody named Bernice on the floor.”
“Where would I find the shift manager?”
“There are house phones on that wall over there, ma’am,” the young man said politely. “Ask for Arthur Bertram.”
Kelley said, “Thank you,” and started off. Buster and I tagged along.
“Such a nice young man,” she said. “His nametag said Francis Terzian. We must mention him to Mr. Bertram.”
We reached the phones, apparently, because we stopped. I heard her pick up a telephone and say, “Mr. Bertram, please,” and then whisper, “That young man was so helpful. People see Buster and they bend over backwards.”
I grunted something more or less unintelligible.
“He isn’t?” Kelley said, apparently into the phone. “Is there someone else? Thank you.”
“Not there?”
“Mr. Bertram has left for the day, but the assistant shift manager is on duty, a Mr. Charles Karas.”
I started to say I knew a Charley Karas, but heard her say, “Hello, Mr. Karas?” so I didn’t. I’m sure it wasn’t the same Charley Karas anyway.
“My name is Kelley Doyle, Mr. Karas,” she said. “My husband and I are private detectives. We’re looking for a young woman, a blackjack dealer named Bernice, who was on duty last Thursday, early Friday morning. It’s very important, Mr. Karas.”
Silence, as they say, ensued, and then she said, “Thank you. We’ll be there in a few moments.”
She hung up and started away, Buster and I following. “The elevators are over here.”
Buster took us through the throng once more and before I knew it I was on an elevator, heading upward. The elevator stopped and emitted a pleasant sounding chime.
“Here we are,” Kelley said brightly. The doors opened, rattling a bit, as if the whole thing were getting just a tad tired. ”We’re coming into a corridor.”
The corridor seemed to be quite narrow, so narrow I could feel the walls on either side, not by touch, but by the increase in air pressure. When I tell people I can hear large objects next to me, they don’t know what I’m talking about, though to be fair I suppose I don’t really hear them. I sense them, there’s a pressure on my ears, or maybe on my skin, that says something large is close by. I suspect it’s something that happens to everyone, but is so subtle that it’s overwhelmed by what enters our brains through our eyes. Whatever it is, if I come within a couple of feet of a large, stationary object, a parked automobile say, or a contralto, I know something is there.
“We’re in a typical hotel corridor,” Kelley continued, “except the doors seem to be to offices instead of to hotel rooms. We’re looking for an office marked Shift Manager. Ah, here we are, just where he said it would be.”
She opened the door and we went into a room that smelled faintly of perfume, hair spray and stale cigarette smoke. A female voice said, “Are you Mrs. Doyle? Mr. Karas is expecting you. Go right in, please.”
We went through another door and a tenor male voice said, “Good evening, Mrs. Doyle. Charles Karas. How can I help you?” I didn’t recognize the voice. He wasn’t the Charley Karas I knew, which was too bad. Charley owed me one, and would’ve busted his ass to find our Bernice for us.
I stuck out my hand and said, “Matt Doyle, Mr. Karas. We’re investigating a murder for the defense attorney for the accused, and we’re attempting to establish that the accused was in your casino late last Thursday, probably from around eleven Thursday evening to six the next morning, all of it at one blackjack table. He doesn’t remember who the dealers were, in fact he only remembers one name, a young black woman named Bernice.”
“That kind of narrows it down,” Karas said helpfully. “There aren’t too many young black women named Bernice these days. Not too many young white ones, either. The name seems to have fallen out of fashion. He doesn’t remember her last name, does he, or her employee number?”
“No, all he remembers is Bernice.”
“I see,” Karas said. “Let me pull up the list.”
I heard him hitting some computer keys, heard a chair squeak, heard him breathing, asthma breathing not hard work breathing.
“I have two African American dealers named Bernice, Mr. Doyle,” he finally said. “Bernice Tisman and Bernice Renter. Both are on duty, and both were working last Thursday evening. Miss Tisman finished her shift at four o’clock Friday morning, and Miss Renter finished her shift at one o’clock Friday morning, so either could’ve been your Bernice. You’ve no idea which table your client was sitting at?”
“No, sir. All he remembers is Bernice. But he was there all night, so maybe Bernice remembers him. That’s what we’re hoping, anyway.”
“I don’t want to dash your hopes, Mr. Doyle, but Bernice would’ve only been at that table once in the course of her shift. A dealer works a table for an hour and then has a twenty-minute break. Bernice would’ve returned from her break and gone to another table for an hour, had a break, then gone to a third table. We call this rubberbanding. Each dealer goes from table to table in the pit, six tab
les in an eight hour shift, including the breaks, and since there are more than six tables in a pit, they never work the same table twice in any one shift.”
“Kind of cuts down the chance of remembering our man,” I said. “Still, you never know. Would it be possible to talk to them for a few minutes?”
“If they want to talk to you, why not? Let me check the schedule.” I heard him fool with the computer again.
“Bernice Renter is scheduled for a break right about now,” he said. “You can probably find her in the lounge. The dealers have their own lounge, no other employees allowed in. Bernice Tisman is scheduled for a break in about thirty minutes.”
“Thanks, Mr. Karas,” I said. “Shall we just walk into the lounge and ask for Bernice, or do you have to call ahead? I notice there isn’t a lot of security, we just got on an elevator and walked to your office.”
He laughed. “That’s because there isn’t any money in my office, or in any of the other offices on this floor. If you wanted to get into one of the money areas, one of the counting rooms, for instance, you’d have to go through a mantrap.”
“Sounds provocative,” Kelley said.
“A mantrap,” Karas explained, skating right on past Kelley’s remark, “is a vestibule, or small room, between a money space and a non-money space. If you want to get into a counting room from the hallway, for instance, you first have to go through the locked hallway door into the mantrap. Once you’re in the mantrap, and the hallway door is locked behind you, then you must signal for someone to unlock the second door, the one into the room where the money is. The second door can’t open unless the first door is locked. That’s a mantrap. Only certain people are allowed in a mantrap.”
“Sounds like they keep the money safe,” I said. “How do we get to Miss Renter?”
“I’ll call the lounge, see if she’s there, see if she wants to talk to you. If she doesn’t, I can’t force her to.”
I heard him pick up the phone and talk into it. He put the phone down and said, “She says she’ll talk to you if it won’t be long, but she already told everything she knew to the other detectives.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Once I’m there, can I just wait for Bernice Tisman to walk in?”
“Better to wait outside the lounge door. The dealers are quite protective of their lounge. They don’t like people wandering in and out. Interesting Miss Renter said she’d already talked to detectives. I knew nothing about it.”
“Philadelphia Homicide talked to your dealers a couple of days ago.”
“They must’ve gone through Mr. Bertram,” he said, a touch aggrieved, I thought.
He said the dealer’s lounge was back by the cashier’s booths, and we went back down the elevator to the casino floor.
“There she is,” Kelley said, “looking our way.”
Bernice Renter smelled nice. I couldn’t place the perfume, but it was nice.
I stuck out my hand and said, “Hello, Miss Renter, I’m Matt Doyle. Mr. Karas spoke to you about talking to us.”
A pleasant sounding young female voice said, “Yes. I already spoke to a Mr. Geiss, or Geist, I believe it was. He showed me a picture of a man, a mug shot I think they call it, and I told him I had no recollection of anyone like that at any of my tables.”
Her voice was as nice as she smelled.
“Did they show you a picture of a woman?” I said.
“Yes they did, it was another mug shot, and I didn’t remember seeing her either.”
I took out the artist’s sketch of Maureen and the picture of Jimmy Pompo. “Are these better pictures than the mug shots?”
“They’re better pictures, but I don’t recognize either of them. I work a half dozen different tables every shift. Some of the tables are full all the time, some of the tables are full some of the time. People come and go. I might start a new table with a full load of players and thirty minutes later I got a whole different set of people. I don’t even look at them. I deal the cards and work my table.”
“Thank you, Miss Renter,” I smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
We stood outside the lounge door, waiting for our other Bernice.
“Doesn’t look good,” Kelley said.
“Most times it doesn’t,” I said, “but you never know.”
Several sets of footsteps approached, all female by the sound of them. Women walk differently than men do. Women do almost everything differently than men do.
“Miss Tisman?” Kelley said.
One set of footsteps stopped and the others continued. A young woman’s voice said, “Yes?” in an annoyed tone.
“May we speak to you for a moment?” Kelley said.
“What about? I only get a twenty-minute break.” She didn’t sound nearly as pleasant as the first Bernice, though she smelled just as nice. Not the same, there was a subtle difference, but just as nice.
“We’re detectives, Miss Tisman,” I said, showing her some ID.
“Who, you and the dog, or you and the lady?”
“All of us. We’re a special trained team. We understand you were interviewed by the police a few days ago. You were shown pictures of a man and woman and asked if you recognized them.”
“That’s right, and I told them I didn’t recognize them, they weren’t nobody I ever seen before.”
I took out my artist’s sketch of Maureen Zobranski and asked if she recognized her. She didn’t say anything for a few moments. Finally, she said, “She looks familiar. She looks a lot better than she did in the picture the police showed me. You look a lot different when you’re smiling.”
“People don’t usually smile for a police picture,” I agreed. “What is it that makes her look familiar?”
“The hair. I remember the hair. The artist got the color just right, kind of a cross between a lilac and lavender. You don’t see something like that every night. If it’s the same one, she was at the same table all night. I was fascinated by that hair. Every time I came back from a break I’d look over to her table, just to look at that hair.”
“You never talked to her?”
“Never talked to her, except when I was working her table, and then just to ask if she wanted a hit, stuff like that. I think the game was a little too fast for her. She needed prompting from time to time.”
“Do you remember if she was with someone?”
“She was with a guy, I think. Dark hair maybe.”
I showed her my picture of Jimmy Pompo.
“Does this look like the man she was with?”
“I really couldn’t say,” she said, after a pause. “I only noticed her because of the hair.”
“But she was with a man?”
“That was my impression.”
“Can you remember which night they were here?”
“No, I can’t. I think it was toward the end of the week.”
“Could it have been a Thursday?”
“Coulda been, coulda been Friday, too.”
I held up the sketch again and said, “But you’re sure this is the woman who sat at a table all night, either Thursday or Friday?”
“No, I ain’t sure that be her at all,” she said, the unpleasantness returning. “But there was a woman with lavender hair sat at a table all night, or at least she was there when I left, which was four a.m.”
“Thank you, Miss Tisman.”
“You’re welcome. Is that all?”
I said it was for now, and heard her walk away. We collected the car and left.
“Buster must be starving,” Kelley said. “His dinnertime was hours ago.”
“When we hit the Expressway, pull off and I’ll feed him.”
I felt us make the turn and a few minutes later Kelley pulled off onto the shoulder. I got Buster’s food out of the trunk, aware of the constant swish swish of traffic flowing past us. We carry a supply of Buster’s food with us because you never know where you’ll be when it’s time for him to be fed. When we’re home he’s on a regular schedule, but h
e’s apparently gotten used to the irregular hours of the policeman. Or maybe he’s just too polite to complain.
I filled his bowl and stood by him by the side of the road, the car between us and the highway. Traffic roared by, relentless and unending. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard a different sound, the sound of a car slowing down. Then a shot, muffled, like it came from inside something, inside a car maybe. Another sound, simultaneous with the shot, a dull thwack, which I recognized as automobile safety glass shattering.
Before I could move our car horn started blaring and I heard the roar of an accelerating car. I got my muscles in action, finally, and ran for the driver’s side door and flung it open. The horn stopped. Frantic, desperately afraid, I yelled, “Kelley!”
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” she screamed, scrambling out the door. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
We called the cops, and when they left we cleaned the shards of glass from the back seat and headed for home, silent most of the way. The bullet had gone through both back windows, leaving them shattered but for the most part intact.
The kids were in bed. I put Buster down for the night and Kelley and I hit the sack. I just couldn’t figure it out. Leon? Could I have been wrong about the game he wanted to play?
“I don’t want you going to work tomorrow,” I said. “Somebody took a shot at us, and I don’t know if it was mistaken identity, a warning, or a deliberate attempt.”
“I’ll be fine dear,” she said, snuggling close. “It was just a nut. Road rage. I must’ve done something he didn’t like and he stopped and took a potshot at the car. Nothing personal.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “My first thought was Leon, but now I’m not so sure.”
“I think you must be right. From the sound of it, he has something crazy in mind, not that taking a shot at someone on the expressway isn’t crazy. I don’t think it was Leon. Road rage was all it was. Had a losing night at the tables and took it out on somebody. Everybody’s wound too tight.”
AND A TIME TO DIE Page 11