Cold Desert Sky

by Rod Reynolds

  ‘He’s one of the locals here, it’s the only way he’ll cut me in on his source. Please, Buck – I know I’m way in the red already …’

  ‘I don’t—He’s willing to give up a source for personal gain?’

  ‘It’s just access to the source.’ I looked around the diner, grasping for something to convince. ‘Look, he can work for me, I’ll be responsible for him. I’ll post him to Sacramento, he’ll quit after a month up there.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate being put on the spot this way, Charlie. What’s his name even?’

  ‘Trip Newland. You know him?’

  ‘No. We don’t have an opening—’

  ‘I’ll take a pay cut. If it’ll help.’

  More silence, faint background chatter on his end. Then: ‘God knows I indulge you, Charlie, but this is …’

  ‘I need this, Buck. Please.’

  ‘You can’t call me out of the blue and …’ He let out a slow breath.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, I swear.’

  ‘This is bad business, Charlie.’

  ‘I know it. Thanks, Buck.’

  I hung up and beelined back to the table. ‘Legman work at the Pacific Journal. My watch. Headquarters out on the beach – you’ll forget this place in five minutes flat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Offer’s good for the next thirty seconds.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘No fooling. Twenty seconds.’

  He glanced around, dazed, reaching for a line to buy a breath. ‘It’s not the Times.’

  ‘You wanted a ticket out. My wife and I walk out of this diner and you come away with nothing.’

  He stretched his neck. ‘Same for you.’

  ‘I can ask questions the same way you did. I’ll get there. You’re a shortcut, that’s all.’

  He searched my face, turning his head sideways.

  ‘He’s not bluffing, Mr Newland,’ Lizzie said. ‘I can promise you that.’

  He looked at Lizzie, then started nodding, breaking into a smile. ‘Some reason, when you speak I believe you, ma’am.’

  He stuck his hand out and I shook it.

  ‘How soon can you put me in contact with your source?’

  He withdrew his hand slowly. ‘I don’t know how eager he’ll be for that.’

  ‘Then what would you propose?’

  ‘Tell me what you want to know and I’ll ask him.’

  ‘I don’t have time to go around the houses, there’s a woman’s life at stake. Coax him – get him to speak to me on the telephone if he won’t meet in person.’

  He cast his eyes down at his lap. ‘It’s not as simple as that. There are complexities.’

  Lizzie straightened in her seat. ‘He knew her from her work. Your source – he was a customer. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  I put my hand over hers on the tabletop, taking her intuition one step further. ‘Is your source a suspect?’

  Newland hesitated before he shook his head.

  ‘Is that in your estimation or the sheriff’s?’

  He blinked and looked away, moistening his lips before he spoke. ‘To my knowledge, the authorities haven’t talked with him yet.’

  I swiped my hand across the table. ‘Then how the hell can you know for sure?’

  ‘Give me some credit. Why would he come forward?’

  ‘Were you offering tip money?’

  ‘A lousy ten bucks. No chance a killer steps into the spotlight for that.’

  I clenched my jaw, wondering. ‘I’ll pay the same again if he’ll talk to me.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll put that to him.’

  I slumped back in my seat, afraid I was running down another dead end. ‘What can you tell me about the girl – was she working the street or at a cathouse?’

  ‘Neither. Appointment only – a high-class call girl.’

  ‘Then I need to know who for and how to contact whoever’s running the girls.’ I held his stare.

  ‘I see you eyeballing me but I don’t know. I’ll ask soon as I speak with him, and I’ll tell him about your offer. But just be prepared that he might not want to talk to you – even through me.’

  ‘Give me something for right now to get started on.’

  He leaned forward over his arms. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Anything. I can’t sit here waiting on you. How did you find your source? Where did he meet with her? Did he ever use another girl from the same outfit?’

  He nodded his head. ‘When the body turned up, I put the word out that I was paying for a name. After that, he found me. That’s the only one I can answer off the top of my head.’

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out some change, dashed it on the table. ‘Go ahead and make the call to your man.’ I tipped my head towards the payphone.

  He took some dimes and walked across the diner.

  Lizzie picked up a nickel and turned it in her fingers. ‘Why would a man with money enough for that kind of service need tipster cash from a newspaperman?’

  ‘You don’t believe his story?’

  She looked at me a moment, then gave a slight shake of the head. ‘I don’t think he’s showing all his cards. Do you?’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t expect him to.’

  She put the coin back on the table, started stacking the rest into a pile on top of it. ‘Were you serious about the job offer? What did Mr Acheson say?’

  I rubbed my forehead, elbows on the table. ‘I didn’t give him much a of a choice. I’ll smooth it over somehow – if it comes to pass.’

  She looked about to say something more but saw Newland coming back over and kept silent.

  He retook his seat. ‘No answer.’

  ‘At his home or place of business?’

  ‘It’s not like he’s a buddy, I only have the one number for him.’

  ‘Can you get a message to him?’ Lizzie said.

  He spread his hands. ‘If I knew how …’

  I screwed my eyes shut, gripped by frustration. Then I opened them again and stood up. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘Take us to where they found her.’

  *

  We headed out of town and retraced our route down the Los Angeles Highway, speeding into the frigid desert. The sun hung in a clear sky, but the cold was just as severe, and so dry that the skin on my knuckles had started to crack.

  We passed two large hotel-casinos adjacent to the highway, the El Rancho and the Last Frontier, and beyond them there was nothing to see for miles. Nothing until we came upon the Flamingo construction site for the second time that day. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it, even as I felt Newland watching me with curiosity.

  ‘It’ll never make money.’

  I glanced at it again as we passed. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Won’t even make the construction costs back.’

  ‘You said the locals tried to stop him and even they couldn’t.’ I thought of Lyle Kosoff and his talk of blackballing the place around Hollywood.

  ‘Couldn’t stop him opening it, I meant.’ He folded his arms tight across his chest against the cold. ‘He’ll fill it for the big launch, but who’s gonna come out here to pay over the odds after that? Siegel doesn’t understand this town – there’s no one here calling for Beverly Hills in the desert. They want to come here to gamble and still have enough money left for a steak dinner and a decent room.’

  We left the site behind, speeding onwards down the highway, me watching it still in the wing mirror as the dust in our wake obscured the view. Newland jolted me out of it, pointing through the windscreen. ‘On the right. It’s coming up.’

  I guided the car onto the shoulder and brought us to a stop where he said. We climbed out and I felt the sun on my face, the barest trace of warmth. There were no other cars on the highway, an intense silence, broken by Newland’s footfalls as he set out across the rocky ground.

  I turned to Lizzie. ‘You don’t want to stay in the car?’

  ‘
It’s as cold inside as out.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  She flashed a sad smile. ‘I know what you meant. I want to come – you don’t have to do this alone.’

  I looked away to one side. ‘I can manage.’

  She took my arm anyway and guided me after Newland.

  He’d come to a stop a short distance ahead, next to a ditch that looked like a shallow ravine, and was glancing about as if to orient himself. ‘Somewhere around here. Hard to be exact now.’

  We picked our way across the terrain and came up to where he stood, Lizzie letting go of my arm to slip behind me as we slowed. I crouched down and ran my hand over the ground, my mind jumping back in time: Jimmy Robinson letting the dirt run through his fingers in a clearing outside Texarkana. The smell of rotting leaves came to me then, even there in the desert. ‘Who found her?’

  ‘Passing motorist. Stopped to relieve himself, if you can believe that.’

  I stood up and looked back to the road, twenty yards away, wondering if I did. But my eye was drawn to the north, the incongruous palm trees and towering sign of the Flamingo visible on the horizon. ‘Cops take a look at the man as a suspect?’

  ‘Yeah, but he was never in the frame. Regular Joe on his way home to San Diego, wife never left his side the whole time he was in town.’

  ‘His story stand up?’

  ‘They let him go home, so I guess so. You’d have gotten a look at him, you’d know.’

  A year ago I might have agreed with him, complacent in my belief in a newsman’s instinct. Events since had stripped me of such misplaced arrogance. ‘You said it’s your feeling whoever killed her just dumped her here.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If it was one of her Johns, wouldn’t they go to more trouble than that?’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  I pointed back to the highway. ‘Big risk of being seen or the body being found, this close to the road.’

  ‘Say he panicked. He kills her for whatever reason, carts her away in his trunk then ditches her in the first place out of town he can find.’

  ‘But walk that back; the John arranged to meet Desjardins, so whoever’s running these girls knows who he is and who killed her. They’re not going to be happy about this – you said it yourself, someone’s losing money. So wouldn’t he be afraid of reprisals – leaving her out in the open like that?’

  ‘Possibly. I go back to him panicking, though. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Doesn’t feel right, it’s too flagrant for an amateur. I’m wondering if whoever she was working for left her out here.’ Someone cold enough to ditch her like broken-down machinery.

  He looked at his shoes, turning his mouth down. ‘Can’t understand that. Whoever’s making money off of her is the last one in line with a motive to kill her.’

  ‘I’m not saying they killed her, just that they were the ones dumped her. Either way, they’d have a line on who did kill her.’

  He took a pack of cigarettes out and offered it to Lizzie and me. When we declined, he stuck one in his mouth.

  ‘You know what I’m driving at,’ I said. ‘Who runs girls in Las Vegas?’

  ‘You want to solve a murder or find her missing friend?’

  ‘They’re all tied up together, why are you ducking the question?’

  ‘I already told you I don’t know who she was working for.’

  ‘Speak in general terms.’

  He snatched the unlit cigarette from his mouth. ‘You’re asking for the telephone directory. It’s a legal business here, various parties have a piece of the action. And they go to real trouble to keep their noses clean.’

  ‘What about girls-by-appointment specifically?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His response made me throw my hands up, and he waved the cigarette in the air to placate me. ‘I don’t know. First time I came across that.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to ask your source who she was working for?’

  ‘Sure I did, but he didn’t want to say. I didn’t press him because I wanted her name.’

  I put my hands on my hips and turned away, faced myself towards Lizzie. She was huddled against the cold, trying not to show she was shivering. Her face was stony, but I blanched at the thought of the things she’d had to hear in my company. I put my arm around her and pulled her close, started to make for the car again. Over my shoulder I called back to Newland. ‘We need to find your source, right now.’

  As we walked, the low rumble of diesel engines resounded across the desert, construction equipment at work. I found myself staring, again, towards the Flamingo.

  *

  We stopped at the first payphone back in town so Newland could try calling his man again. He climbed out and darted across the street, Lizzie and I watching from the car. When he dropped the coin in the slot, I scoped the businesses along the block and turned to Lizzie.

  ‘I need you to do something. Head to the coffee shop just there and wait a few minutes. When he comes back I’ll get him out of here – you stay out of sight until we’re gone. Then I want you to call the operator from that telephone and see if you can’t get the details of who he called. I’ll take him to his office and be back for you in ten minutes.’

  She glanced at Newland. He had the receiver to his ear but wasn’t speaking. She looked away and then at me again. ‘Is that ethical?’

  My eyes flicked to Newland, who’d turned away from us. ‘Please, Liz. Think about why we’re doing this.’

  Her eyes were locked on him, tension in my chest as the seconds ticked past.

  ‘It’s now or never. Please.’

  She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Then she reached out and opened her door.

  I watched as she walked into the coffee shop, looking back to Newland just as he hung up the phone. He crossed back over and slid in. ‘Still no answer.’

  ‘You have any idea how else to reach him?’

  He shook his head. ‘I spoke to the man twice in my life; let it lie a couple hours, he’s got to show up some time. Where’s your wife?’

  ‘She hasn’t eaten all day.’ I tipped my head down the block to the eatery, layering a note of weariness to my voice. ‘Come on, unless you have something else up your sleeve, I’ll drop you at your office.’

  ‘You don’t want to go eat with your old lady?’

  I pulled away from the kerb. ‘I’ll eat later. I want you to keep trying your source.’

  He pointed ahead. ‘Make a left here.’

  I switched lanes. ‘What you said earlier about Sheriff Lang – something about him working out how to make the cards fall. What were you implying?’

  ‘Who is it pays his salary?’

  ‘The county. I’m not interested in guessing games—’

  ‘And where does Clark County get its revenue from?’ He bobbed his head, indicating I should humour him.

  ‘The hotel-casinos. So you’re saying he works for the owners?’

  ‘That’s going too far, but he knows whose side he’s on.’

  ‘Who’s the other side?’ It came to me as I spoke the last word. ‘Siegel.’

  ‘Partial credit. Los Angeles is the other side – but Siegel’s the lightning rod for that at the moment.’

  ‘So what does that mean for the investigation?’

  ‘I don’t know, you’d have to ask him – but I can tell you he doesn’t pull his pants on without giving thought to the consequences.’ He tapped the dash and pointed. ‘You can leave me right here.’

  I pulled over and set the brake, trying to remember what I’d said to Lang about tracking the girls in Los Angeles, what inferences he might draw – and what he might do on account of them.

  *

  I stopped sharply outside the coffee shop and jumped out to look for Lizzie. I’d been gone twenty minutes and couldn’t see her through the window or on the street. I looked over to the payphone, but there was no one there.

  I crossed the sidewalk to the coffee
shop’s entrance and pulled the door. As I did, I heard Lizzie call my name. I turned and saw her hurrying towards me.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She held up a small paper bag. ‘I went to the drugstore to buy some aspirin.’

  ‘Something the matter?’

  ‘Just a headache. It’s nothing.’ She put the bag in her purse. ‘I have a name for you.’

  I took her elbow and guided her back to the car, opening the door for her to get in. When I climbed in the other side, she was holding a scrap of paper.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Henry Booker.’ She glanced down at it. ‘445 East Brady Avenue. I have directions from the man in the drugstore.’

  ‘Good job.’ Nervous excitement made me crack a smile – but she didn’t return it. ‘What did you have to say to the operator?’

  She rubbed the back of her hand. ‘I told her I was worried my husband was having an affair and I wanted to know if he was calling another woman.’ She looked sheepish. ‘I think she felt sorry for me.’

  I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ve nothing to feel bad about. Every reporter that ever lived has done the same and worse. Much worse.’

  ‘I’m not a reporter.’

  I was turning the wheel to take off but stopped as she said it and looked over at her. ‘But you take my point.’

  She didn’t reply, instead dipping into her bag for the aspirin and dry-swallowing a pill.

  *

  The address was a timber frame house on the last subdivision before the town gave way to the desert. With a lick of paint it could have looked homely, instead of isolated. The mailbox at the front of the property bore the name Booker in uneven lettering – hand-painted in what looked like a rushed effort.

  I walked down the path to the front door and knocked. There was no car on the driveway, but the tracks in the dirt suggested it had been in use recently. No sound came from inside as I waited. When no one answered, I stepped back and off the small porch, glancing over at Lizzie in the car.

  I skirted the edge of the building and poked my head to look around the side. I couldn’t see anyone. I went a short way along the side of the house to get a view of the whole of the backyard, but it was empty so I doubled back to the street.