Drawing Dead

by Grant Mccrea

  Brendan, Butch said. Next time, just do what you’re supposed to do. That’s all.

  Brendan looked like he was going to throw up.

  I felt bad.

  Aw, forget it, I said.

  No, said Butch, leaning in and putting his face right up to Brendan’s. Don’t forget it. Get it right. Get it right next time, and every time after that. You fuck up again, we got no more use for you.

  Brendan looked like he was going to cry.

  Jesus, I thought. Better change the subject before Butch hauls off on him.

  Butch, I said, tell us about your satellite.

  Ah, he said, the big smile returning. It was a beautiful thing.

  He settled back into his chair. He started going through it hand by hand. Then I bluffed, and he folded, then I made a monster lay-down. On and on. Then I looked down at Five, Six off suit …

  I’d had enough.

  Let’s not talk poker, I said.

  All right, Rick, said Butch. I know my success causes you pain.

  Damn right it does, I said.

  I told a story about two girls I’d seen the year before, sitting at the slots at four in the morning. I’d been dragging myself by, they asked me for a light, my name. The usual routine. They were cute as hell. The only problem, apart from the fact that I don’t do sex for money, was that there was no way either of them was over sixteen.

  Man, said Butch, you expect that in El Salvador, but here …

  Something you’d like to tell us about your last trip to El Salvador? I said.

  I’ll tell you that story, he said, but …

  He was looking over my shoulder.

  … this might not be the time.

  I turned around.

  A woman in black. Sheath skirt. Tight silk blouse. Jacket cinched at the waist. An air of delicate but assured self-possession.

  Shit, I said, it’s the client.

  She’d seen us. She walked over. She smiled.

  I hadn’t seen her smile before. Not that way.

  She had a fragile kind of beauty. Small-boned. The kind that would ripen and fall away with the years.

  For now, it would do just fine.

  Hi, I said, standing up and extending a hand.

  Hi, she said, taking it.

  Her hand was soft. But it held mine with authority. I could smell her. Something with vanilla. Something good.

  I had a frisson. This is not appropriate, I told myself. Then I chuckled to myself. Damn, Redman, I said, stop being such a fucking lawyer.

  You’ve been following me? I asked with a smile.

  Las Vegas is a small town, she said with a laugh. I told you not to be surprised if I showed up.

  You did, I said. I admit it. Please, have a seat.

  She looked at Brendan. For a second too long. Or just remembering who he was. She looked warily at Butch. A hint of apprehension in her face. The woman had instincts.

  You remember Brendan, I said.

  Yes, she said. I do believe I do.

  She extended a hand.

  And this is my other partner, I said. Butch. Poker player. Friend. Better at the latter. He’s all right. Just looks scary. I told you about him. Used to be an NYPD detective. Maybe still is. I don’t remember.

  I gave her a big grin. To let her know I was kidding.

  I didn’t know, of course, what I was kidding about.

  I don’t think you did tell me about him, she said. But I’m pleased to meet you, anyway … Butch.

  She hesitated at the name. I’d sort of forgotten. What a silly name it was. It’s like you’re married for years. Your wife isn’t really beautiful, or raven-haired, or whatever other thing you were looking for, before you settled for her. She’s just who she is. You love her. And her name is Mabel. You don’t notice anymore. That’s just her name. Butch was just Butch. Of course, he was also six foot five, two-sixty, and black as the bottom of a well. Took some getting used to, for some folks.

  Pleased to meet you, he said in his richest, friendliest rumble.

  She sat. She smiled at Brendan and Butch.

  I’ve filled Brendan and Butch in, I said. They’re my partners, actually. I’m not sure I mentioned that. They come with the package.

  Of course, she said. Yes. You said that. Perhaps they can help.

  Butch is a cop in New York, I said. Detective, I mean. A very good one.

  I think you mentioned that, too, she said.

  Yes. And Brendan’s my ex-brother-in-law. Sort of.

  Brendan laughed. It was okay. We’d had enough to drink.

  Louise gave me a questioning look.

  My wife, I said. Brendan’s her brother. Was her brother. She died. Last year.

  She flinched a tiny flinch.

  I’m sorry, she said.

  Yes, well. I’m sorry, too. It’s okay. We’ve gotten over it.

  Brendan looked hurt. Louise Chandler looked calm.

  I mean, I said, the passage of time. You know.

  I understand, she said. I’m sorry.

  Thank you, I said, remembering the protocol.

  Well, I said, desperate to change the subject, and having no idea why I’d broached it in the first place, I’ve shared the details of your case with my colleagues, of course.

  Of course, she said.

  She looked around for a waiter.

  Can I get you something? I asked.

  Don’t worry about it, she said. I’ll just get myself a drink at the bar.

  She got up before I had time to protest.

  Okay, guys, I said. Try to stay cool.

  Butch laughed at me.

  Brendan looked confused.

  I ignored them both.

  Ms. Chandler returned from the bar with a cosmopolitan. She gave me a Look. I’m not sure, the Look said, I can’t trust you yet. I don’t really know you.

  I put on my most innocent face.

  It took a while, but I guess I finally passed the visual inspection. She sat down. Sipped her cosmo. Looked good doing it.

  We chatted a while. Vegas stories. What to wear in the heat. Butch told a couple of NYPD war stories. I mentioned the Case of the Red Car Door. Yes, she said, she’d remembered it from the papers, when she’d spoken to Kennedy, the first time.

  Ah, I thought. My dubious reputation precedes me.

  I have a suite at the Wynn, she said out of nowhere. We could have privacy there.

  Certainly, I said.

  To talk, she said. I’d like to discuss the case in private.

  Of course, I said.

  I have my car here, she said. We can drive over.

  Even better, I said. Save cab fare.

  She grimaced slightly.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. Perhaps the idea of cabs was strange to her.

  She got up. I got up. Butch got up. Brendan got up.

  There was a whole lot of getting up going on.

  Too much, apparently, for Ms. Louise Chandler.

  Mr. Redman, she said.

  Yes?

  I don’t mean to be … awkward. But I would prefer this meeting to be just between you and me.

  I looked at Butch and Brendan. Butch shrugged, sat back down with a subtle roll of the eyes. Brendan, on the other hand, looked stricken.

  But then, when didn’t he?

  I’ll brief you later, I said to Brendan in my most professional one-investigator-to-another voice.

  That seemed to mollify him.

  My car’s a two-seater anyway, Ms. Chandler said.

  I noticed that she’d barely touched her drink. I see, I said. But you do understand, I will be sharing everything with my colleagues?

  Of course, of course, she said. It’s just that … I’ll be more comfortable.

  Inappropriate thoughts flooded my brain.

  I felt bad. I have to admit it. I might even have felt badly, had I been in any condition to attend to the grammatical niceties. But I was more in the mood to attend to Ms. Chandler’s niceties. And her niceties were ve
ry nice indeed. She was a trim little thing. With a tiny waist. There’s something about a tiny waist. Your hands around it. What is that thing? I guess it’s just the way it makes everything else fit. Or how it’s like a handle. You figure, maybe, that with a handle like that …

  I reined in my thoughts. Unprofessional, I told myself. Highly unprofessional.

  25.

  MS. CHANDLER AND I TREKKED THE TWO MILES through endless clanking chiming chunking slots to the front door of the Rio. Outside, she nodded to the valet parking guy.

  Yes, ma’am, he said immediately.

  I guess she’d made an impression.

  We waited no more than two minutes. But it was a long two minutes. She was silent. I felt awkward. I’ve never been much of a small-talk guy.

  When the valet guy tooled up in a Corvette in British Racing Green—my favorite, as it happened—Louise woke from her reverie. Handed him a couple of bills. Smiled a melting smile.

  I squoze into the passenger side.

  Wow, I said, finding my voice. You can rent one of these?

  What makes you think that it’s rented?

  Kennedy, I said, I mean Jack, I mean John, said you were here on business. Or you did, I guess. I assumed …

  You don’t have to rent it. If you own one.

  Damn, I thought. She does like to be in control. And I still didn’t have an answer to my question.

  She took a right. The top was down. It was hot as hell. But, of course, it was a dry heat.

  The desert heat is different. It really is. It’s like being slow-baked, instead of deep-fried. It calms you up. Loosens you down. Until you die.

  And with the top down, Louise at the wheel, it was awesome.

  We flew to the Wynn. The wind was too loud for conversation. Which was helpful.

  The valet guy at the Wynn knew her, too.

  The place was huge beyond thought. Like most of the newer Vegas monstrosities. And they did their frantic best to make everything appear terribly classy. Lots of designer shops in the vast entrance promenade. Thirty-foot ceilings that bizarrely squashed down to ten or so—or so it seemed—when you entered the gaming area. I pondered why that might be. More space above for floors of rooms, I supposed. But since building heights appeared to be effectively infinite in Las Vegas, that didn’t really seem to explain it. More to the point, maybe, they wanted to keep your eyes down, on the games, the machines, the compelling lights and noises, and the near-naked shopgirls stuffing drinks into your face to fuel the urge to spew your hard-earned cash into those selfsame machines or the rigged-in-favor-of-the-house games, which constitute all of the games. Except poker, of course, though only in a specialized sense, because the house still takes a regular and usurious chunk of change from the poker table in the form of a rake, sometimes a piece per player per half hour and sometimes a piece of every pot, a rake that to be a winning player you must overcome by winning more off the other guys than the rake takes off you. Which for an accomplished player isn’t that hard, but still. Somebody’s getting ripped off. You just better make sure it’s not you.

  We went to the twenty-fourth floor. We walked several hundred yards to the door of her suite.

  Normally, when you’re standing in front of the hotel door of an attractive woman, she’s getting out her key, you aren’t thinking about a business meeting. You have other responses.

  I was having them.

  Cognitive dissonance. Bodily dissonance. Cognition in dissonant state with bodily reaction.

  Her suite could not have been more different from our motel home. The chairs were deep and comfortable. The furnishings elegant and expensive, if a little overdone, impersonal.

  Nothing like a change of scenery.

  She unbuttoned her jacket. Placed it on the back of a chair. I supposed the gesture was meant to create a sense of informality.

  It didn’t work.

  I sat. She sat. She crossed her legs.

  She did it very well.

  Leg crossing. There’s no official competition. But if there were, Louise would definitely be on the national team.

  I didn’t know what the lovely Ms. Chandler really wanted. Still less did I know what might impress her. And at the end of the day, I reminded myself, this was business. I could entertain all the fantasies I wanted. About her ambiguous Looks. My irresistible charm. The likelihood of my actually scoring big in the World Series. But really, when you came right down to it, the best cost-benefit wager here was to play on the impression Kennedy had fostered. To keep her as a paying client. Do what we could for her. At least, I mused, for as long as it took to earn the money I’d stolen from her.

  I congratulated myself. Damn. From time to time I still had the capacity to think straight. Maybe, just maybe, I could make a living. Afford my daughter’s tuition.

  Mr. Redman, said Ms. Chandler, interrupting my reverie.

  Yes? I responded. I’m sorry. I was thinking about my daughter. She’s a freshman in college. Middlebury. I worry about her.

  Ms. Chandler smiled. A warm smile. I was mildly shocked. Maybe there was more to her than style. She sat on a gold divan. Brought her legs up to the side. Tilted her head. She looked like a thirties movie star.

  Just about as touchable.

  I told Ms. Chandler about my trip to Henderson. The mention of a bartender. The description of the couple.

  Yes, she said, that’s them. She loves those Japanese outfits.

  I thought it was Chinese.

  You thought wrong.

  Of course, I said. I will defer to your judgement on matters of women’s clothing.

  I suggest that you do.

  Concession made. Meanwhile, I’d suggest you defer to me on matters of investigative procedure.

  Have I interfered with your procedures?

  No indeed. But then, I haven’t given you the opportunity. Yet.

  I look forward to the chance to do so.

  I look forward to giving it to you.

  Can I get you a drink? she said, uncoiling herself from the divan.

  Scotch. Whatever they have. Make it a double.

  She complied.

  Oh, I said when she’d rearranged herself. There was something else. Probably not a big deal.

  She looked at me with an air of indifferent expectancy.

  Apparently some FedEx package had arrived. After she’d moved out. For the boyfriend.

  Really?

  Yes. I’m sure it’s nothing.

  You might want to let me be the judge of that.

  Of course. Of course. Anyway, I didn’t open it. I’m not sure I can. Legally. It’s a piece of mail. Addressed to someone else.

  To whom?

  I told you. The Russian guy. At least, I assume it’s him. It was a Russian name.

  What name?

  I don’t remember.

  Mr. Redman, she said severely.

  I know, I know. It’ll come back to me. Don’t worry. I mean, who else could it be?

  I don’t know. It is my understanding that it is your job to ascertain the facts.

  Yes. Of course. Anyway. It was old. A little battered. Something was leaking out of the corner. Some brown substance. Granular. I assume some kind of drug.

  I see, she said. Mr. Redman, I think I need to see this envelope.

  Yes, well. I understand. But there are issues.

  Issues?

  It’s addressed to someone else. It’s a piece of mail. Or the equivalent. It’s not at all clear that we have any right to open it. That I have a right to give it to anyone. Other than the addressee.

  Mr. Redman, she said.

  Yes?

  I’m paying you a large sum of money.

  Actually, I thought, I wasn’t entirely sure of that. I had the big retainer, of course, or rather, what was left of it, but I wasn’t at all sure how much of it I was earning. Was I on an hourly rate? Contingency? We’d never discussed it. And the last thing I wanted to do was bring it up. Seeing as how I’d effectively embezzled the
funds.

  Wouldn’t be prudent.

  At any rate, I said, we can defer this conversation. I’ve sent it out for testing.

  She gave me a sharp look. Began to twist the watch on her wrist. I braced myself for a lecture.

  There was a long silence, her eyes on mine.

  I began to think maybe a lecture would be preferable.

  I took a deep breath.

  She arranged herself again. This time she sat a little sideways. The jut of her hip through the black skirt. How flat her stomach was. Every pose was somehow different. How did she do it? Was it practice? Or natural talent? I vowed to ask her. Some day.

  I had to break the silence.

  I told her more about Eloise’s former home. How the house had looked. How it had felt. What Dani had told me of Eloise and her friend.

  I left out some details. The soft pneumatic pout of Dani’s lips. The seductive lilt of her Oklahoma accent. The question mark at the end of every phrase.

  Didn’t seem relevant.

  I see, she said.

  Not much, I said.

  Not much, she repeated.

  There was another silence. It pulled at me. I felt obliged to fill it. I started telling stories. Poker stories. I didn’t have any other kind of stories. None that you would tell a cultivated woman, on just your third encounter.

  I told her about Brighton Beach. The Russkies. Fat guys. Skinny pockmarked guys. How endlessly entertaining it all was. I told her about Dinnie the Magician. Charlie Kick-Ass. Evgeny.

  She laughed. She leaned forward in her chair. She seemed fascinated by it all.

  Tell me about the most outrageous one of all, she said with a tiny tilt of the head.

  That’s a tough one, I said.

  I thought about it.

  Well, I don’t know if you can say what’s most outrageous, I said, but here’s a pretty funny one.

  Go ahead, she said.

  There’s a guy, name of Maxie Veinberg, I said. Maxie’s the shape of a stuffed sausage. A very, very stuffed sausage. He can’t be more than five foot six, must weigh close to three hundred pounds. But his arms and legs aren’t fat at all. They’re sort of tiny. Thin and delicate. His arms are way short, barely long enough to handle his cards and chips. And his legs aren’t even close to strong enough to carry him around. At the casino he uses one of the electric carts. Seeing as he’s a big-time whale, the staff is always happy to park it for him, bring it back to the table when he needs it.