Hotline to Murder

by Alan Cook

  “We’re approaching Barstow.”

  “I’ve never been to Barstow.”

  “Neither has anybody else who doesn’t drive to Las Vegas from L.A. It’s not exactly the garden spot of California.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We’re making good time. We’ll stop and grab a bite to eat. How did you sleep?”

  She gave him a smile. “I had a good sleep. This is closer to the time I usually get up on Saturday.”

  Tony downshifted as he cruised along an off-ramp. The desert community had plenty of fast-food restaurants and gas stations. It was designed for the traveler passing through. But, surprisingly, quite a few people lived here, also. It was a bustling place. What did the residents do? Besides cater to tourists. He pulled into the parking lot of the first restaurant they came to, in a space with campers on either side.

  “It’s hot,” Shahla announced after getting out of the car.

  “No cooling ocean breezes in the desert, like we get at the beach.”

  However, the air-conditioning was cranking away inside. They found a booth amid the weekend visitors, with their hats and loud shirts. A waitress, who had been waitressing for a long time and would continue more or less forever, took their orders. Shahla ordered orange juice and an English muffin. Tony ordered coffee and thought the muffin sounded good, so he also asked for one.

  After a couple of sips of coffee, Tony said, “We need a plan for dealing with Paul. We should get there before he does, which is good.”

  “I thought we’d sit at separate tables, and I’d talk to him while you keep an eye on us.”

  “No way. I don’t want to be separated from you. And I need to hear everything he says.”

  “You’ll scare him.”

  “No I won’t. I’ll be your…brother. Don’t you think we could pass as brother and sister?”

  “In a dim light, maybe. But let me do the talking.”

  Tony chuckled. “You’re really a control freak, aren’t you?”

  “I’m just trying to protect you, Tony. You don’t know poetry. You might say the wrong thing.”

  “I thought I was supposed to protect you. That’s what your mom wants. And speaking of, you must really have her buffaloed to convince her to let you run off to Vegas with a character like me.”

  “Quit running yourself down. And she exaggerates. I’m a good daughter. Especially compared to some of the others. One of the girls at school won’t live at home. She lives with a friend and communicates with her mom mostly by e-mail.”

  “Whew. No wonder I’m not married.”

  “You’ll make a good father.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  ***

  They made a nonstop run from Barstow to Las Vegas. Shahla, now fully awake, became quite talkative, commenting on the desert scenery, talking about her plans for college and life. She was in the process of filling out applications to universities. Tony reflected that she was doing a lot more planning than he had done at her age—maybe than he did now.

  “Have you written a lot of poetry?” Tony asked her at one point.

  “I started writing poetry when I was eight or nine. Mom sent me to my room for a time out, and I didn’t have anything better to do so I wrote a couple of bad poems. I’ve been writing poetry ever since. I’ve had some published in the school paper and a few other places. I’ve also written articles for the paper.”

  “You’re so busy. When do you find time to write?”

  “Oh, when I’m sad. Or depressed. Or happy. I can write pretty much any time. I have a notebook full of poems.”

  They parked in a lot in downtown Las Vegas, near Fremont Street, and walked several blocks to the Tortoise Club. It was a typical downtown casino—loud and flashy, but without much substance beneath the facade, as Tony knew from experience. A good way to lose your money in the slots or at the blackjack tables slowly, with minimum bets, without the distraction of shows. Perfect for the businesslike gambler who didn’t have a large stake. And the small gamblers were out in force today—the retirees who came on buses and lost their Social Security checks before returning home to their empty lives.

  Tony steered Shahla into the coffee shop, away from temptation, a half hour before their appointment, and they sat down at a table, both of them on the same side, facing the door. A quick glance at the other tables convinced them that Paul had not preceded them here. Tony suggested they order lunch.

  “Can we drive by some of the big hotels on the way back?” Shahla asked between sips of a soft drink.

  Tony didn’t know whether her excitement was at the prospect of meeting Paul or from the effect Las Vegas had on people. It was probably a combination. He had avoided Las Vegas Boulevard on the way in because traffic on it was so miserable—worse than in many parts of Los Angeles.

  “Why not? We’ll give you a look at plastic city. They’ve recreated some of the great places in the world here—Paris, Venice, New York, Egypt. You just have to remember that it’s all fake.”

  “Don’t be so cynical. This is all new to me.”

  Paul didn’t appear at 1:30, the scheduled time. Tony wondered whether he was going to show up. They finished their lunches and continued to nurse their drinks.

  “How much time should we give him?” Shahla asked. She sounded restless, as if she would rather be sightseeing than playing detective.

  “We’ve driven all this way. Let’s give him until two.”

  At five minutes of two a tall young man walked into the coffee shop, or rather eased his way in. Considering his dominating height, he looked a little timid, as though he wasn’t sure how the world would treat him. Skinny as a broomstick, he wore thick-lensed glasses and had sandy hair that stuck out at odd angles. He had on a T-shirt with some writing on it and carried a notebook.

  “That’s him,” Shahla said. She raised her arm and waved at the man.

  Tony wondered how she could be so sure, but he spotted them and came toward their table with a shambling step, looking relieved. Maybe it was because they weren’t monsters.

  “You must be Paul,” Shahla said, standing up and extending her hand. “I’m Sally. And this is my brother, Tony.”

  Tony stood up and shook hands with him across the table. “Sit down,” he said. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “Maybe a coke,” Paul said, his first words other than hello.

  Tony signaled the waitress while Shahla said, “So what’s this limerick on your shirt?” She read it aloud:

  “Now God was designing a mammal,

  With beauty and grace, without trammel,

  By computer, of course,

  The genetics said ‘horse,’

  But the disk crashed and out came a camel.”

  “The Association for the Prevention of Cruel Statements About Camels is not going to like that,” Tony said.

  Paul looked uncertain, as if he didn’t know whether Tony was serious. But then he smiled. He said, “I won a contest on the Internet for writing it.”

  “I like your sense of humor,” Shahla said. “I could see it in the poems on your website. “Does that book have your poems in it?”

  Paul nodded shyly.

  “May I see it?”

  He slid the notebook across the table to her. It was a three-ring binder, crammed full of pages. Tony wondered whether he spent all his time writing poetry. Didn’t he have to work for a living? And did all poets have a similar notebook? Shahla had said she kept her poems in one.

  Shahla started leafing through the book, reading and commenting on some of the poems, always positively. She and Tony had agreed that if he brought poems with him—and she had asked him to in her e-mails—that they would try to look at all of them. Of course, if they could find a copy of the spaghetti strap poem, that would be a coup. If not, they would look for other poems with similar style or subject matter.

  Tony was relying on Shahla to do most of the work. In retrospect, it was a good thing she was here. He would
never have been able to fake enough of an interest in or knowledge about poetry to fool Paul. When Shahla excused herself to go to the lady’s room, he was stuck for something to say. He decided on a subject he knew something about.

  “Do you ever do any gambling?” he asked.

  “People who live here will tell you they don’t gamble,” Paul said, “but that’s not necessarily true. I like to play video poker once in a while.”

  “Where’s a good place to play?”

  “I like the New York-New York because it has some machines that pay eighty to one for four of a kind. They’re hidden in a corner as you curve around from the theaters.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Tony said.

  Shahla came back, and the discussion returned to poetry.

  “I notice that a lot of your poems are about pain,” Shahla said. “You use metaphors for pain.”

  Paul didn’t immediately reply. Tony knew from his Hotline training that he and Shahla should remain silent and wait for Paul to say something. The silence dragged on for several minutes. Shahla continued to leaf through the book, looking completely at ease. Tony admired her composure.

  In his calls to the Hotline, Paul had sometimes talked about an abusive aunt. Or abusive parents. Somebody had abused him. Maybe that’s where the pain came from. If so, did that trauma color his feelings toward all women? Tony leaned toward Shahla and read pieces of some of the poems. The figures of speech in the poems, such as “a fire inside that makes me scream” must be the metaphors Shahla was talking about. They were not specific as to where the pain originated.

  “I’m feeling better,” Paul said finally. “The pain is going away. Maybe I won’t be able to write poetry anymore.” He smiled.

  “Has something good happened to you?” Shahla asked.

  “I have a new girlfriend.”

  “You should have brought her with you.”

  “She’s working today.”

  “When was the last time you were in Los Angeles?” Tony asked, hoping to speed things up. They didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything and he was getting bored.

  Paul hesitated and then said, “I’ve never been to Los Angeles.”

  “Never?” Tony said, not believing him. Everybody who lived in the West had been to Los Angeles.

  “My parents don’t like big cities, and I just never got there on my own.”

  Shahla had finished going through the book. She glanced at Tony and imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. What now? It was time for direct action. Tony reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a copy of the spaghetti strap poem. It was folded and wrinkled.

  He smoothed it out and said, “I’m not much of a poet, but I found one poem that I kind of like. He pushed it across the table and watched Paul’s eyes as he read it, hoping to see a spark of something. He didn’t detect anything.

  When he finished reading it, Paul said, “It sounds like it was written by a teenage boy with raging hormones, but very few teenage boys can write poems like this.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it takes a lot of practice and a certain amount of ability to achieve that use of meter, rhyme and organization.”

  “So who do you think wrote it, then?” Shahla asked.

  Paul pushed his glasses up on his nose. He did that frequently. He said, “It was probably written by an older man who wishes he were still a teenager.”

  After some further discussion about the poem, Paul excused himself to use the restroom.

  Tony said, “Well, do you think he wrote it?”

  “Definitely not,” Shahla said.

  “Then we have no more use for him. Let’s get rid of him.”

  “Tony. You know as well as I do that our callers have fragile psyches. We can’t just dismiss him.”

  “Well, what do you suggest then?”

  “I read about an art exhibition at one of the hotels. We could invite him to accompany us to see that.”

  Was she falling for this geek, just because he was tall and wrote pretty words? Tony caught himself before he said anything he would regret. “Great idea.”

  When Paul came back, Shahla brought up the subject of the exhibition.

  Paul said, “I’d…really like to, but I’m meeting my girlfriend after she gets off work. If fact, I should be leaving now. It was really nice to meet both of you.”

  He picked up his notebook. Tony shook his hand. Shahla gave him a hug, which apparently surprised him. He turned and almost ran to the door of the coffee shop. As he went through the doorway, he turned and looked back at them, giving a tentative wave. Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER 19

  “There’s the Sahara. The Riviera. Oh look, Circus Circus.” Shahla excitedly craned her neck and read the names of the hotels as they crawled past them, stuck in the Saturday afternoon traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard. “Can we go inside just one?”

  “You know you have to be twenty-one to gamble,” Tony said. He had put the top of the Porsche down to enjoy the sun. It was easier to cruise slowly along in the car than to face the hassle of parking and walking in the heat.

  “What are they going to do, card me? It didn’t look as if they were watching too closely at the Tortoise Club.”

  “But we didn’t do any gambling there.”

  “I can look older. I brought a dress with me. It’s in the trunk, er, the front.”

  “We’re stuck in traffic, and there’s no place to change.”

  “I can handle it. Open it up so I can get my bag.”

  Shahla started getting out of the car.

  “Shahla. What are you doing?” When he saw she wasn’t going to stop, he said, “Stick your fingers under the hood to release it. And when you shut it use two hands.” And do it gently.

  Shahla went around to the front of the Porsche, oblivious to the stares of the other motorists stuck in traffic. Tony had no choice but to unlatch the hood. Shahla grabbed her small traveling bag and brought the cover down hard enough to make Tony wince. She was back in the car in thirty seconds.

  “What are you going to do now?” Tony asked as he inched forward.

  In answer, Shahla unzipped the bag and pulled out a dress. “It’s my mom’s. We wear the same size. Don’t you think it will make me look older?”

  “Yes, but as you can see there’s no place to change.”

  “Don’t look.”

  To his amazement, she pulled her top up over her head in one fluid motion. Sure, she was wearing a bra, but all the tourists in their SUVs, towering over them, had a good view of her as they looked down at the little Porsche. And telling him not to look? She might as well tell a bear not to hibernate.

  “I saw the ads for the nudie shows,” Shahla said as she unzipped her jeans. “Las Vegas is a pretty casual place.”

  It was no easy job for her to wriggle out of her tight jeans in the enclosed space. She had to lift her legs and place her bare feet against the windshield of the car in order to accomplish it. Some senior citizens in a tour bus watched her, fascinated. Maybe they thought she was part of the entertainment on the Strip. Several guys in a van opened their windows and cheered. It was a good thing Tony was stuck in traffic, or he would have been in danger of wrecking the car.

  She had an easier time getting on the dress. She pulled it over her head and worked it down, slowly, until eventually it reached her knees, and she became the picture of modesty.

  “There,” she said. “How do I look?”

  “Like a million dollars. You should be on display in a casino to show what a million looks like.”

  “I’m not through.”

  Next, Shahla took her long hair and wrapped it into a bun. Then she applied a little more lipstick and some eye shadow to what had been an almost makeup-free face. She turned to face Tony.

  “What do you think now?”

  “Okay, I give up. We’ll go to New York-New York. I heard they have some video poker machines that have a good payoff.”

  It took a while, but Ton
y was eventually able to park within walking distance of the hotel. Shahla took his arm as they knifed their way through the crowds of pedestrians outdoors, despite the September heat, and finally made it into the air-conditioned interior of the hotel.

  “It’s so big,” Shahla said, craning her neck in all directions, as they strolled through the gaming area, which was like an irresistible force that oozed its way into all corners of the building not taken up by restaurants, theaters, or shops.

  They stopped beside one of the blackjack tables, where a bored dealer was dealing out of a shoe to a couple of bored players.

  “Can we play this?” Shahla asked as one of the players displayed an ace-king combination and collected his reward from the dealer.

  “Not here,” Tony said. In spite of her transformation, it wouldn’t be wise to let Shahla be scrutinized by a dealer and the unseen employees who watched all the games on video monitors. In addition, the minimum bets were far too high to allow her to play just for fun.

  They wandered around, looking at the other games. They watched the roulette wheel spin, and Tony explained some of the bets at the craps table. They read the information about the shows that were playing. Shahla was interested in everything.

  Finally, Tony realized that the afternoon was moving along, and they would be very late getting home. He told Shahla they had to go.

  “We haven’t tried gambling yet, ourselves,” she said. “You promised.”

  “We’ll play a little video poker.”

  Tony led her to the area that as nearly as he could tell was where Paul had talked about. After some wandering around, he spotted a cluster of video poker machines in a relatively isolated place. He checked the payoffs on one of them. Sure enough, it paid eighty to one for four of a kind. It also had a slot that accepted bills. He inserted a five dollar bill and twenty credits appeared on the monitor.

  “Do you know how to play poker?” Tony asked as he figured out which buttons to press.