by Jeff Rice
“An’ let me tell you I made damn sure my assistant was on hand to take care of him when he showed up a week later for his stuff, which he did, and my assistant swears he won’t work nights anymore.
“I forgot all about him until today when the cops come by askin’ questions an’ they show me his mug in the drawin’. Then I see the mornin’ paper. Killer? Hah! Coulda told ya he was a killer alla time. But I’da figgered he was workin’ for the mob, know what I mean?”
I left Hurley with his dreams of Chicago’s “good old days” and went back to the office. I’d barely got back to my desk when I heard the squawk box report a missing person. That in itself was nothing too unusual. People–mostly students out too late–get reported missing in Las Vegas quite often. Sometimes, though, it can become a tragedy. In my years on the News at least seven youngsters from four to seventeen had disappeared without a trace. It seemed some teen-aged girl named Shelley Katz, a student at UNLV, had gone to some university function on Wednesday night and had still not reported home. What with the murders, I could well imagine her parents were frantic.
I was just about to head for the PD because the girl lived in the city when Meyer rushed out of Cairncross’ office (He’s got receivers in there) and yelled at Vincenzo, “I’ve got it!” grabbed the slip of paper I’d been noting down particulars on right out of my hand, and scampered out the door.
That was fine by me. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it. I’d rather sit than walk. If he wanted to run down the routine stuff, OK. It was a good thing that I did let him get away with it. It saved me much needless exercise.
When I had arrived at the Daily News back in ’63, Meyer and I had not hit it off too well. He was suspicious as hell of anybody who looked like a threat to his personal bailiwick. As far as he was concerned, he was the police reporter on the Daily News and that was that. For a couple of years, before I became chiefly a crime reporter, I only covered a few of the more interesting cases. Meyer got the big ones. Then he quit the paper to take a job as a flack at one of the big hotels so he could make more money and move with a “higher class” of women. After a year of this, he disappeared back east, and when he returned to Vegas and applied for his old job he found me sitting at his desk. For a year after that he “stole” stories from me and I let him, saving the really big ones for myself. Finally, one night, over several bottles of wine at the Tower of Pizza on the Strip, we managed to have at an armed truce based on the old adage, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
Meyer and I never became friends but luck was usually with us and we were never drunk at the same time. So I ended up covering for him on his binges and he covered for me when I got polluted.
Thinking these pointless thoughts with one part of mind, I occupied another part with condensing Hurley’s ramblings into something resembling a decent sidebar and around noon dropped it on Vincenzo’s desk.
He regarded it in silence. “OK. So the guy’s a creep. He won’t be loose for long now and the whole town knows that he looks like. Ten to one that when they catch him, he’ll get off with life and be paroled in seven years flat.”
“Or,” I countered, “he’ll get a smart attorney like Hobart Creighton and plead insanity. That way he’ll only spend five years up at Sparks.”
Vincenzo marked the copy for page one, indicating it as a two-column story with a three-deck headline in forty-two-point Futura Bold Condensed.
I asked if he wanted a picture of Hurley and he said he’d think about it.
“Enjoy it while you can, Kolchak. This guy’ll be in the can before the Sunday edition goes to press, and Monday you’ll be covering federal court again.”
Federal Court is Vincenzo’s idea of Siberia. I find it a good place to catch some sleep.
It was just about noon, and things looked quiet. Another phone check with the PD and sheriff’s office brought me nothing new, so I took a hike down the street to the SPD Office Equipment Co. on Charleston and bought some map pins. On the way back to the office I stopped at a gas station and picked up a map of Las Vegas. On the way back into the newsroom I dropped them in my car.
Meyer was back and typing in his fast, awkward two-finger style. I peeked over his shoulder and couldn’t resist taking shorthand notes on what he had. After all, he’d swiped the assignment from me. Now that he’d done the leg work, at least to the extent of picking up a printed police report, I was willing to give it my somewhat divided attention.
He wrote: “Shelley Katz, nineteen, a part-time student at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas was reported missing from her home at 1597 South Chapman shortly before 11:00 A.M. Thursday.
“She was last seen wearing bell-bottomed Levis, a fringed leather shirt and moccasins on Wednesday night when she left her home to attend a play at the university.
“Her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Sidney J. Katz, assumed she would be staying out late to attend one of the cast and crew pizza parties that are part of the normal activities of the Student Creative Theatre group at the university.
“Mrs. Katz told police that Shelley often stayed out late but usually was home by 2:00 A.M. on these occasions. She said Shelley had ‘never got around to registering as a regular student even though she has a high IQ. I guess she still hasn’t found herself or what she wants to do with her life.’
“When Mrs. Katz discovered Thursday morning that Shelley’s bed had not been disturbed, she became worried and began calling some of Shelley’s friends and their parents.
“One of the girl’s friends, Janie McLoughlin, told Shelley’s mother she had last seen the girl talking with some of the cast members of the play, ‘Heads Up–Here’s Henry,’ in the breezeway at Grant Hall around 11:15 Wednesday night but that Shelley had not attended the gathering hosted at one of the student’s homes out on Maryland Parkway near Russell Road. Shelley’s red Sprite sports car was found on the university’s parking lot in front of Grant Mall by sheriff’s deputies at 11:30 Thursday morning with a parking ticket from the university police patrol stuck under its one windshield wiper.
“Mrs. Katz, unable to locate her daughter, finally notified her husband, a well-known Las Vegas dental surgeon, and he in turn called the police.
“Shelley is described as five feet two inches tall, weighs about one hundred and fifteen pounds and has reddish hair, blue eyes and freckles.
“Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts is urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department–385-1122.”
“We might be rushing this thing a little,” said Meyer, “but what with all these killings, I think we ought to play this big. It may be nothing at all; she may have shacked up with some boyfriend. She might even be asleep now and not even know what a ruckus she’s stirred up at home. But–better safe than sorry.”
He turned to Vincenzo and I finished my notes and stuffed them into my coat pocket.
“Want some art just in case?”
Vincenzo nibbled on his pica pole for a few seconds and told Meyer to go to the girl’s home and see the mother about a photograph.
“Get it back here and pick up a sandwich on the way. I’ll have it zinc’d and ready in case she doesn’t turn up by five. I don’t like it when a kid disappears at a time like this.”
Well, I never said Vincenzo was heartless. He’s human, like all of us. He even has his good points though he keeps them well hidden under a thick layer of cynicism and disinterest.
I headed back to my apartment. By 1:00 P.M. I had the closet door across from my ancient Underwood covered with my own “war map” with all the little yellow and red pins in their proper places. I stuck a blue pin in the map at the car lot’s location to indicate an “eyewitness report without violence” and an orange pin at UNLV, playing a hunch, to indicate Shelley Katz’s disappearance.
The doorbell rang and I loped downstairs to find Pete Harper.
“Just thought I’d drop in to say good-bye. I’m catching a 3:30 flight back to New York. My vacation’s just about over and the
re’s some news going ‘round that Hemingway’s widow is going to release one of his unpublished works. I talked to my editor and they’re going to let me dig up some stuff in advance of the publication date. Might even get a trip to Miami out of it.”
“No more scampi?” I asked, thinking of my losing a gourmet chef.
“Not for at least a year, buddy. Gotta beef up the old bank account. Besides, there are two beautiful women back east who’ve been pining away ever since I came out here.”
I told him not to bet on it, wished him well, and offered to drive him to McCarran Airport. He accepted and we made it there by 1:20. He checked in and then we headed for the lounge where we hoisted a few and killed the time until his flight was called.
After we parted company, I lit up a stogie and headed for home. But Shelley Katz’s untimely disappearance kept niggling at me and I decided to follow up a hunch and check her out at UNLV so I turned down Harmon and entered the campus via the “back door.” Several drinks made the three-story climb to the office of the dean seem like ten.
I was out of breath by the time I got to the secretary, and efficient and energetic young pixie named Sharon Reynolds. I asked her about Shelley in an off-handed way and she flipped through her index of students and came up with the fact that Shelley had registered as a non-matriculated student who was just auditing some art and drama classes. She said she’d seen Shelley at some of the drama offerings but didn’t know her very well. It was getting a little late in the day to talk to any of Shelley’s instructors, she told me, but her husband was probably over at the Little Theatre and he might know her.
She called over to Grant Hall and got her husband, Al Reynolds, a teaching assistant, on the phone. She told him who I was and he said to come on over. I was feeling so punk by the time I got back to ground level I decided to drive.
When I pulled up to a lawn-side space in front of Grant Hall, I noticed Shelley’s car was gone. I figured the sheriff’s boys had dusted it for prints (and probably searched it for marijuana as well) and then returned it to her mother. They can move pretty fast when they want to.
UNLV’s Little Theatre is the center for Las Vegas’ theater-hungry students and adults. Whatever else may be said about the town, it is definitely not a hotbed of culture, and UNLV is currently the sole oasis in what some critics have called a wasteland of high-priced café entertainment. There is no hard core of intellectuals here and the tourists who flock to the bright lights and casinos don’t hanker for serious music or serious theater with its messages and social comments. People come here to forget their worries and have fun, not to gain a better understanding of their fellow man.
Since 1955, UNLV has managed to struggle along with a stopgap theatre arrangement in a multipurpose room on the ground floor of Grant Hall which seats just over 100 on metal folding chairs which have an excellent view of a postage-stamp sized stage. But the university if growing and there are plans for a multi-million dollar legitimate theater seating 600 with all the facilities to put on full-scale, professional productions, a tribute to the grit and drive of UNLV’s hard-put speech and drama department and some very loyal students. It won’t be long, maybe a dozen years or so, when UNLV will outstrip its big brother to the north and have 25,000 students or more. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it.
[Note: The six-hundred-seat theater Kolchak described is now a reality. J.R.]
In the midst of a clutter of props and flats, I found several young girls and two or three shaggy males sweeping and hammering away. Presiding over this feverish activity was a great bear of a man who looked vaguely like Henry the Eighth but was wearing a beige, double-breasted coat opened to the waist, no shirt, rumpled brown whipcord bell-bottoms and scuffed brown boots. This, I assumed, was Alonzo Reynolds as the card his wife had given me listed him. Alonzo! Well, one of the girls, carrying a canvas flat out the doorway I was standing in, bumped into me and I asked her.
“Yeah! That’s him. Alonzo J. Typhoon,” she said, shaking her tawny, waist-length hair.
I approached him.
“Mr. Reynolds?” I said, tentatively.
“Yeah. That’s me. Can I help you?”
I introduced myself and we shook hands, mine disappearing in his huge paw like a small animal devoured by a big one. The grip was strong but not painful. Obviously, Reynolds didn’t feel the need to impress people with his grip. He was about six-two or six-three and looked to weigh about 260 pounds. About the right size for what I originally had guessed the killer would look like. He looked like the late English actor, Laird Cregar.
“Yeh, I know Shelley. Quiet little broad. Sort of a part-time ‘groupie.’ She hangs around with the crew sometimes and helps out. Never did any acting since I’ve been here but sews costumes and sometimes paints flats. I think she’s auditing some of the drama courses here. Why?”
I told him she’d been reported missing earlier that day and asked if he knew anything that might be helpful.
“Well, let’s see…” He sat down in an oversized throne chair on stage and proffered a peasant’s chair for me.
“Last time I saw here was about 11:00-11:15 last night. She saw the show–I’m in it as Henry–and she came around back to the dressing rooms in the art gallery on the other side of the building and we talked for a few minutes. She said she had come to see a friend… uh… Janis McLoughlin.
“Well, anyhow, we wrapped up around here by 11:30 and most of us went on down the road to a friend’s place for pizza. But…no, I don’t think she made that scene. She’s not really a regular. Doesn’t belong to SCT. Sort of shy and hung up. What can I tell you? You say she’s missing. Don’t’ make too much of that. There are a lot of kids like her. They’re OK but just sort of drift from one group out here to another. No regular hours outside of class. You check her apartment?”
I told him she lived with her parents.
“Oh, yeah. I can dig that. She’s probably with some guy. Happens all the time with these little foxes who are so straight at home with their folks around.”
We stood up and he came over to me, throwing a bear-like arm around my shoulders. I felt like a midget.
“We’ve been extended a week. Saturday’s sold out but I can get you a seat for tomorrow night.”
It occurred to me that he might know more than he was letting on so I tentatively accepted his invitation but added that I was making no promises.
“Hell man, do your thing! But try to make it. You’ll enjoy yourself. Get the smell of the Strip out of your nose. On the house. Say! If you can’t make it, drop by The Kitchen later on. Up at the back of the Student Union ballroom. We do a lot of experimental stuff up there that’s pretty good.”
I prodded him once again on the Shelley Katz thing, asking if he knew of any steady boyfriends but he couldn’t offer anything further. He held a quick conference with his students and told me that they didn’t think she had anyone steady. A later check by Meyer confirmed this. I thanked him for his time and he boomed out as I reached the door, “Take care, buddy!” and threw me the V-fingered peace sign.
Looking back at him I thought of a line I’d read in a book somewhere that seemed to fit him like a glove: “The great hall roared with laughter.”
UNLV looked very quiet in the darkening light. It’s a peaceful campus populated mostly by serious students who’ve never had a riot. They had one peaceful demonstration full of singing and chanting the week before as an observance for the slain students at Kent State. While they quietly and effectively closed the campus down for the day, one of the state’s major candidates for U.S. senator was openly advocating using troops to keep the students on both campuses “in line” and asking for laws making it possible to conduct periodic no-knock-no-warrant searches of student dorms in search of… what? Guitar strings and protest poems?
From a pay phone just opposite the theatre’s entrance I called Meyer at the News and gave him what I’d picked up, telling him I’d be home if I was needed. I was beginning to feel
the start of a prize-winning migraine.
I stopped off at a McDonald’s for a Big Mac and hustled on back to my place in anticipation of a quick, quiet meal and some time to unwind. The stairs there seemed even higher than at the university. By the time I’d shucked off my coat and tie and poured the beer, my head was throbbing and the Big Mac didn’t look too good to me. I tried the beer and poured the rest down the drain. The hamburger went into the refrigerator and I headed upstairs. I took another look at my map and checked the time, deciding I’d better lie down for a while as it was getting hard for me to focus my eyes.
By seven I was ready for my second dose of aspirin and my nose was running like Niagara Falls. Penance for my sins. On Wednesday I had planned to fake the flu and goldbrick. Today I had a beauty of a cold. I flipped on the TV and caught the news coverage of Shelley’s disappearance. She was still missing and no one had seen her. On all channels, the word was the same. Where’s Shelley Katz?
I got up and looked at the map. I still had a queasy feeling about the Katz girl. Even a second-rate hack can develop good instincts. Playing the hunch for what it was worth, I called Bernie Fain at home and interrupted his dinner long enough to ask if he’d heard about the Katz girl (which was, of course, stupid of me; he does run the FBI office) and he repeated it was not his department’s concern until and unless either a ransom demand was received or a special request was made for Bureau help from the local officials. Obviously, from his gravelly tone I should have waited a few days. Interrupting his mean hadn’t improved his disposition towards me. When I asked him if there’d been any follow-up of his inquiries with the other FBI offices on similar murders he snarled “No!” and hung up.
I muttered something obscene and went back to the TV, not shivering, sniffling and sweating like a pig. While I sat watching, the chief suspect, tentatively identified as Martin Lubin, was spotted up on the Strip. Unfortunately, this fact did not come to light until Monday. Had I been up and making my rounds I might have seen him myself.