by Rod Reynolds
At the terminal, we purchased a one-way ticket on the next departure – an American Airlines nonstop to Chicago Midway. From there she’d be able to connect to New York. ‘I’ll call Sal to let him know to expect you.’ Sal Pecorino – the man who’d saved my job at the Examiner.
She wrapped her arms around me. When she let go, I passed her my papers – everything I’d written in Iowa and since; my life for the last year and a half. ‘I’ll join you as soon as I can – three or four days.’
She wrapped her fingers around one end but didn’t take their weight. ‘I can’t believe we’re still in this. Even with him dead …’
‘We’re almost there.’
She closed her eyes and nodded. She placed the papers in her bag, then she took my tie and kissed me on the lips. ‘Three days.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I drove out of Lockheed and straight to Las Vegas. Took me six hours with two stops: one to fill up on gas, the other to test fire Siegel’s revolver. A barren stretch of desert provided the opportunity; the weapon worked fine, the retort echoing off the broiling highway.
The closer I came, the more doubts surfaced in my mind. Knowing Lizzie was on her way to the other side of the country gave me strength. If things went bad and I didn’t make it out, my papers would give Sal enough to carry out his own investigations. There was nothing close to proof in them, but they’d leave him with dozens of avenues to pursue. The names were all there; it’d take him years, but he’d find a way to tell the story – my story: a coast-to-coast web of organised crime groups, working in concert; collusion between those groups and law enforcement agencies at all levels; racketeering proceeds funding developments in Las Vegas; cover-ups, kickbacks, murders. We’d worked together long enough at the Examiner that I trusted him to do what he could – and to do right by Lizzie with any money that came of it.
But with that realisation came certainty of my own responsibility.
*
The parking lot of the Flamingo was half-full. I parked on the kerb just along from the entrance and stepped out. The desert couldn’t have been more different to how I’d experienced it before; the sun was beating down, the reflection off the other cars’ chromework blinding. I shielded my eyes and put my other hand in my jacket pocket to triple-check the snub nose was there.
Going inside, the place was transformed. The drop cloths were gone, replaced by patterned walls and plush fittings. As hot as it was outside, air conditioning made it cool almost to the point of being cold. The lobby buzzed with guests, a queue of people ten-deep at the check-in line. All the chairs had been upholstered in hot pink, even the barstools topped with the same.
I moved through to the casino, the one part that had been operational on my first visit there. I watched for Moe Rosenberg, needing him not to see me before I made the call. There were enough bodies milling around to hide my presence.
There was a house telephone on a wall near the front of the room. I went to it and examined the casing – two small dents showing and a pen mark next to the dial. A telephone that’d been in use longer than most in there – maybe as far back as last winter, when Henry Booker was helping to build the joint. It didn’t matter too much if I used the exact same one he had; the line I would be calling was the key, but if it was the same, there’d be a certain elegance to the symmetry.
I lifted the handset and asked for Mr Rosenberg’s office. ‘Tell him it’s Charlie Yates calling.’
There was a pause, and then his voice. ‘You have to be ribbing me.’
‘Nice deal you worked out for yourself, Moe. Keys to the kingdom.’
‘You’re on the casino line? Stay where you are.’
‘Sure. But one thing: you’ll want to come see me for yourself.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure.’
‘Not when you hear what I have to tell. Special Agent Colt Tanner has your telephones tapped. All of them. He’s listening to every damn word you say.’
I hung up and steadied myself against the wall, my heart coming out of my chest.
I walked to the middle of the casino, craps and blackjack tables around me, at least fifty people within twenty feet – as close to safe as I could get. I waited for him to show.
It wasn’t long before I saw him bustle through the crowd. As he drew up to me, he hollowed his cheeks sucking on his cigar, three hard puffs in succession.
‘He played you, Rosenberg. He played all of us.’
‘You’re the dumbest cocksucker I ever knew, coming here.’
I was shaking my head. ‘You had Gilardino execute Henry Booker for blabbing to the press and putting a name on the girl you killed – Diana Desjardins. Think about how you came to learn that was him, and so fast, too.’
‘That the best you got?’
‘You didn’t even know it came from Tanner, did you? Ask whoever it was brought you Booker’s name, I bet the trail leads back to Tanner – or a cop named Belfour. Even his cut out might not know his real identity.’
He deadpanned it, but the lack of comeback was its own response.
I stole a breath. ‘Booker’s mistake was to call in his tip from here. Maybe he did it on his break. Tanner was listening so he made sure you found out. A little favour, something to cash in later, perhaps.’ I kept my hands in plain sight, fighting the urge to brush against the pocket holding the gun. ‘Another man might’ve got off with a beating, but someone on the payroll talking out of turn that way? You couldn’t let that slide. The poor bastard probably had no idea it was your toes he’d stepped on.’
He came closer to me. ‘How’s Mrs Yates?’
I held my ground. ‘She’s on vacation.’
He lifted his chin. ‘Hope she travels safe. Let’s go to my office.’
‘How long have you been working with Tanner?’
He stared at me, the muscles in his cheeks pulsing, glancing over his shoulder as if to check who was close enough to hear.
‘What did you have to offer him to help you knock off Siegel?’ I held my arms out to gesture at a room dripping with money. ‘An off the books share in this place? A promise you’d snitch the bosses?’
He tossed his cigar into a standing ashtray, anger coming off him like a furnace. ‘Come with me.’ He took my arm but I snapped it away.
‘You still don’t see it, do you? You thought you were using Tanner, and all the while he’s using you. You didn’t know about the wiretaps, and now you do, so that leaves you a decision to make: do you go after Tanner for double-crossing you, or do you tell your bosses in New York what he’s been doing and try to limit the damage? Not a comfortable set of choices. And don’t forget, there’s someone else who’s wondering what you’re going to do next.’
His face gave nothing away, but I could see a sheen of sweat at his hairline.
I pointed to the telephone I’d called his office from, and he glanced back to look. When he turned to me again I said, ‘Colt Tanner just heard me tell you about his precious bugs. I think his ambitions go way beyond you, Moe, all the way East. How long do you think he’ll chance leaving you alive?’
His whole head was shaking. ‘I’ll outlive you, I know that.’ He said it so soft, it was like he was already dying.
‘He has a knack of turning up real fast when he needs to,’ I said. ‘Better get moving.’
I patted him on the shoulder and started to move off, and as he raised his hand to stop me, I tightened my grip and smashed my knee into his balls. I held onto him as he doubled over and whispered in his ear, ‘From my wife.’
I let go of him and he collapsed to all fours, and I was already running when the first gasp went up at the sight of him hitting the floor. My hand was wrapped around the gun in my pocket. I couldn’t even feel my legs; through the casino, through the lobby, out into the parking lot. I threw myself into the car, gunned the engine and left the Flamingo in my dust.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I kept my promise and made it to New York in three days, sleeping in the ca
r and stopping only for gas, food and coffee.
I drove straight to Sal’s apartment block and ran up the steps. I’d called ahead before I crossed into Manhattan, letting them know to expect me, so I’d barely pressed the buzzer before the door flew open and Lizzie shouted my name. Sal stood behind her, beaming, a little heavier in the face a year and a half on. ‘It’s good to see you, Chuck.’
*
News of Moe Rosenberg’s death emerged a day after I arrived. According to the reports that made the papers, an unidentified gunman had opened fire on his car as he arrived at a bank in Las Vegas, hitting him in four places and killing him instantly. Analysis of bullets recovered from the scene suggested an M1 carbine had been employed in the murder, the same weapon as used in the recent slaying of Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel. Some of the reports made mention of speculation by police sources that Rosenberg’s assassination was linked to, or perhaps even in retaliation for, that of Siegel – citing an underworld rumour that the two men had recently had a falling out.
Clark County Sheriff Robert Lang, heading up the investigation, was quoted in one piece as saying, ‘The machinations of racketeers being as they are, we may never know the true motivations of the men who carried out this attack. But my department will explore every avenue to see justice served.’ The story went on to note that no suspects had so far been identified.
I imagined the case file in his top drawer, the spine barely creased.
*
I spent two days taking Lizzie on a grand tour of New York City. We moved as if in a daze, two people trying to make like any other sightseers, the morning after having a death sentence lifted. She took in Liberty, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge with empty eyes; the contrast was so jarring, it was if we’d stepped through the looking glass into someone else’s life. I wondered if we could ever go back to being the people we’d been before.
On the second day, we were on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry with Manhattan floating slowly away from us, when she turned to me and said, ‘You didn’t really send me here for the reason you told me, did you?’
My pitch to her back in LA – that she should travel to New York and if she didn’t hear from me inside of twenty-four hours, to tell Sal about Tanner’s wiretapping, so he could get a tell-all message to Rosenberg’s bosses. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You meant to have me out of harm’s way.’
I scratched my top lip. ‘It served two purposes. It was an insurance policy.’
She stared at me without saying anything. She laid her hand on my arm and faced the railing again, turning her eyes to a sailboat jutting through the whitecaps in the harbour.
I saw no call to mention that I’d briefed Sal to do no such thing.
*
For my part, I thought obsessively about what was coming. One last hurdle to clear – but maybe the biggest. My instinct told me I’d walk out of it alive, and it worried me more that the cost of doing so would be too great to bear.
Because at the same time I’d called Lizzie and Sal to let them know of my arrival, I’d placed a call to the FBI office in Los Angeles and left a message for Colt Tanner – telling him I’d be in Times Square at noon three days hence.
*
I stood with my back to the too-bright Pepsi-Cola sign and watched the lights blink and dance all around me. I’d chosen the location because it was so public, but the resemblance to Las Vegas became apparent now, and I wondered if that’d been in the back of my mind somewhere.
It was three minutes after twelve. I had no idea if he would turn up – but if he didn’t, it’d give me an answer of sorts about my future safety. Anything was better than being left wondering; back in the same situation as when Siegel was gunning for us, just a different tormentor now.
I couldn’t pinpoint why I was certain he wouldn’t kill me on sight. It had something to do with Lizzie’s reasoning about his choice to keep me alive on the night he shot Siegel. Afforded three days’ driving time to think about it, I couldn’t shake the sense that he’d showed himself, when he could’ve just ditched out unseen, because he wanted me to know what he was capable of.
At ten past, I settled on giving him another five minutes. I lived each one of them a dozen times over.
He never showed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It was too hot in the desert to drag matters out. But it needed to be done.
Lizzie was holding the flowers, a small bunch we’d picked up coming through town. The creased photograph of Julie Desjardins and Nancy Hill that had been with me from the start was in my hands.
We made the same short walk from the highway that we’d taken before, to the patch of stony ground where Julie Desjardins’ body had been discovered. There was nothing to mark the spot, no way to even know exactly where it was. The county coroner may have arranged to have her buried somewhere, if they hadn’t cremated her, but I didn’t want to leave my remembrance on an anonymous grave. Somehow this seemed closer to her memory.
We came to a stop. Lizzie crouched to set the flowers down.
I placed the photograph on the ground next to them and put a rock on top to keep it from blowing away. Never knowing who she really was. A family shorn of a daughter, left to always wonder. The kind of hell my wife spoke of.
I stayed crouched. ‘I’m sorry.’
Lizzie put her hand on my shoulder.
After a moment I stood up again, seeing the Flamingo in the distance. A cruel monument to her passing. The parking lot was full.
I looked away, a brilliant blue sky stretching forever above us, thinking about all the secrets I was keeping and the men I protected with my silence. All the dead looking to me for retribution, for my failures and otherwise. A debt that could never be paid – but I’d go to my grave trying.
I took Lizzie’s hand and started retracing our steps. Los Angeles was still hours away.
Another car pulled in behind ours, a rising cloud of dust in its wake. A grey Dodge—
‘Charlie …’
I moved in front of her and stopped.
The driver’s door opened and Colt Tanner got out. He laid his arm on the roof, squinting at us.
I glanced at the Flamingo, weighing if she could make a break for it.
Tanner started towards us, something in his right hand. Not a gun.
I reached for the snub nose in my pocket, keeping it just out of sight.
When he was ten yards away, he called out. ‘I’m not armed, Charlie, and you’re not about to draw on a Federal agent. Let’s start there.’
He kept coming, and I saw it was an envelope he was holding.
I studied him, feeling my neck flush as he closed. ‘Is that what you are?’
‘Don’t come at me like you have a grievance.’
I pointed my finger in his face. ‘You were in league with them the whole time. You gave us up to them when we were at the Breakers Motel. You gave them Trent Bayless. You gave them Henry Booker—’
‘Christ, you want to hang the Lindbergh Baby on me as well? Listen to yourself.’
I swiped my hand away. ‘I saw through you, too. Soon as I saw that photo of us at the Breakers, I knew you were rotten and I talked myself out of it—’
‘When I showed up to bust your ass out of jail? Or when I showed up to save your ass at the ranch?’
‘Go to hell. You came to that ranch for Rosenberg, he called you there – that’s the only way to make sense of it. That was how you cemented your pact. You’re a mobster with a badge—’
‘You’re not possessed of all the facts, Charlie, and you’re fitting them to a narrative that doesn’t work. Henry Booker was a degenerate with statutory rape jackets going back years. Bayless was a queer, you knew that. However they came to meet their ends, if you asked me to trade their lives for Ben Siegel and Moe Rosenberg? I’d do it and sleep like a baby.’
I was gritting my teeth hard enough to crack. ‘Don’t pretend this was all some grand plan. Don’t insult
—’
‘It’s a war, Charlie. You take casualties.’
‘Like Julie Desjardins?’
He’d started to say something but stopped with his mouth ajar.
‘She’d be alive but for you,’ I said.
He closed his eyes and took a breath. ‘That was unfortunate.’
I waited, stole a glance at Lizzie, standing beside me now.
When he kept his silence, I said, ‘That’s all you’ve got to say? You must’ve known where they were all along.’
‘My operation was barely aware of that aspect of Siegel’s dealings. It wasn’t a high priority, I had no idea lives were at risk. And you’re wrong, I didn’t know where they were keeping them.’
‘You lying son of a bitch.’
He waved his hand as if he was swatting away a fly. ‘Siegel and Rosenberg are dead. I thought I’d find you in better spirits.’
‘You were expecting gratitude?’
‘No, but I didn’t expect to find you mourning them either. I think you’re coming to realise something about yourself, Charlie.’ He looked out across the desert.
‘I didn’t call you to have my head shrunk.’
He turned to me again. ‘They both of them deserved to die, and you can’t be at peace with it because now you’re empty. You live for the chase, Charlie: you could’ve bargained for my help in finding those girls when we first talked in LA. You chose not to, so don’t delude yourself you gave a damn about them. I bet you’d have preferred to never find them so you’d always have your doomed search – someplace to put all that guilt you carry. The same with Siegel and Rosenberg.’
I shook my head, trying not to show hesitation. ‘Must’ve stung to have to off your business partner that way.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Now we get to it. That’s why you called me, isn’t it? You wanted to know if my feelings are hurt.’
‘That’s not how I’d put it—’
‘But it’s right.’ A thin smile crossed his face, looking as if it was something he was trying for the first time. ‘You didn’t sing to any of the bosses in New York—’