Chance (8 page)

"Debbie'll sign her book for you," the clerk said.

"Comes right out every night after her show and talks with people." He gestured toward the coffee shop.

"Right outside there. I can sell you tickets.

Show starts at eight."

I thought about getting two tickets, one for me, and one for the little guy, but decided that I wasted too much time being self amusing When I came into the lobby of The Mirage, I was thinking about beer. At the casino entrance on the rude bridge that arched the artificial flood, Hawk was leaning on the rail, looking at the water.

"Anthony's here," Hawk said. He nodded toward the casino.

"Blackjack?"

"Un huh. He a guest here."

We started toward the blackjack tables.

"You know that for a fact?"

Hawk looked at me.

"Of course you do," I said.

"It pays to have contacts."

"You know you got a tail," Hawk said.

"Little guy, big beezer, Panama hat," I said.

"Un huh. You don't want to brace him?"

"No. Let's let it play out." I said.

"See what happens when he sees us with Anthony."

"You figure he's from Gino?" Hawk said.

"Or Julius, or Marty Anaheim, or all three, or Wayne Newton, for all I know. But I figure it's Anthony he's trying to find."

In person Anthony was better-looking than his wedding picture.

He was taller, more graceful. His nose was less pronounced. His eyes looked less beady. He was nicely dressed in a collarless white shirt buttoned to the neck, and a tropical-weight tan blazer that fit him well. He was standing at a $100 blackjack table, his face blank, watching the cards come out. Hawk and I separated as we approached and stood to either side, a little out of the game, spectators. There was nothing unusual about Anthony's play. He was as serious as any other hundred-dollar player. As I watched I counted cards for a while. Plus one for the low cards, minus one for the high ones, zero for the rest. After maybe half an hour I had a very low count, which meant that a lot of high cards had come out. That left a lot of low cards, which favored the dealer. Anthony looked at his watch, handed in his cards, picked up his chips, and left the table. Hawk and I followed him to the bar. He ordered a scotch and soda, and idly fed a dollar coin into one of the poker machines set into the bar. He won three dollars. He played it again and lost. Hawk sat down on one side of him, and I sat down on the other. He looked sideways at me, then at Hawk, and fed another coin into the machine.

Hawk ordered a couple of beers.

I said, "How you doing, Anthony?"

"Do I know you?"

"Not yet," I said.

"My name's Spenser. The gentleman on the other side of you is Hawk. We need to talk a little."

"Nothing wrong with right here," Anthony said. He drew one mechanical card on the poker machine, and failed to fill a flush.

"Whatcha want to talk about?"

"You, Shirley, Julius, money, stuff like that."

To his credit he didn't waste time pretending.

"You from Julius?"

"Julius and Shirley. They're worried about you."

"You with the outfit?"

"Nope, I'm a private detective."

"A private dick? No shit. Him too?"

Hawk smiled to himself.

"He's more like a soldier of fortune," I said.

"So you found me. Now what are you supposed to do."

"I guess we're supposed to bring you back."

"You got any paper, something like that, says you can make me come with you?"

"Nope."

"Then I don't have to go," Anthony said.

"He didn't say that," Hawk murmured.

"He just said he didn't have no paper."

"You talking about kidnapping?"

"We're just talking, Anthony, trying to see how it is," I said.

The bartender set the beers down in front of Hawk and me.

Without being asked, he put another scotch and soda in front of Anthony.

"You talking kidnapping, I'm talking cops, you dig?"

"How come you took off?" I said.

"You scoop some money?"

"If I did, nobody I scooped it from is in a position to go to the cops."

Anthony sounded confident but occasionally he would look at Hawk for a flickering moment out of the corner of his eye.

"You think Julius Ventura spends much time calling the cops?"

I said.

"They usually take care of things like this themselves."

"Yeah, so how come he sent you?"

"I've been wondering that myself. Any thoughts?"

"I figure he isn't going to rough up his own son-in-law."

"You got a better opinion of Julius than I do," I said.

Anthony dipped into his second scotch. He took a mouthful, raised his head, and tipped it back so that the drink could trickle down his throat. When he'd swallowed he looked at me and winked.

"Shirley wouldn't let him touch me," he said.

"She's got that much influence with Julius?" I said.

"Shirley gets her way," he said. He saluted Shirley with his glass and took another drink.

"How much influence she got with Gino Fish?" I said.

Anthony finished his drink, and got an ice cube in his mouth.

He chewed on the ice cube and shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't think she knows Mr. Fish."

"You know him?"

"Sure, I met him."

"You ever carry any of his money?"

"Sure. It's what I been doing, working for Julius. So sometimes I bring money from Julius to Mr. Fish and sometimes I take money from Mr. Fish to Julius."

Hawk was leaning his back against the bar, his feet outstretched, looking at the casino. He appeared to have no interest in what Anthony and I were talking about.

"You know what the money's for?"

Anthony shrugged elaborately.

"What are you, from the IRS? You got a wire maybe? You think I'll say anything you can use, good luck to you, pal."

Anthony gestured the bartender for another scotch. I shook my head no to another beer.

"You know Marty Anaheim?" I said.

Anthony stared at me for a moment before he caught himself.

"Yeah," he said.

"Got any idea why he might be interested in you?"

"Marty?"

"Yeah."

"Interested how?"

"Like he might want to know if I found you?"

Anthony looked at the mirror behind the bar, and I realized he was scanning the room behind him. If he saw the little guy halfway across the casino, watching roulette, he didn't react.

"I don't want nothing to do with Marty Anaheim."

"But he might want something to do with you," I said.

"Does he know I'm here?"

"Not from me," I said.

"You take some of Gino's money?"

"No. I swear on my mother, I never took no money from Gino.

Has Marty been asking you about me?"

Still watching the room without any apparent interest, Hawk spoke to Anthony.

"How about we give Marty a call, tell him you here?"

"Jesus, don't do that."

"Why not," I said.

"You know him?"

I nodded.

"Then you know he's a fucking animal. I mean he likes to kill people, for cris sake I nodded again. The bartender brought Anthony a fresh scotch and soda. Anthony took a long pull on it.

"So why would he want to kill you?" I said.

"Who knows," Anthony said, "an animal like that."

Hawk and I were quiet. Anthony drank a little more of his scotch, though not as if he was in desperate need. He stared at the half-empty glass for a moment while he swallowed.

"Listen," Anthony said.

"I'm on to something here. It's going to pay off for me, big time, you unnerstand? But I need a little breathing room. You guys want to be in on it, give me some of that breathing room, in a manner of speaking, and I can cut you in on a very nice chunk of change."

"You got a system?" I said.

Anthony shook his head.

"I can't tell you, you're going to have to trust me. But you stick with me on this, and I can make it worth your while. In capital letters, worth… your… while."

Hawk said, "Un huh."

"Two days, three at the most and I'll have all the money there is.

I give some to you. I pay back Julius; and Shirley and I buy a nice house in Lincoln. Gimme two, three days."

"What if Marty Anaheim shows up?" Hawk said.

"You guys keep him off me."

"Lemme see your room key," I said.

"How come?"

"Want to see where you'll be if I need you."

"Why not just ask me?" Anthony said.

"Anthony," I said, "you told me the time, I'd want a second opinion. Gimme the key."

He produced it. It was a Mirage key. Room 1011.1 gave it back to him.

"You here alone?"

"Yeah."

I spoke to Hawk.

"You want to give him time to break the bank?"

"Sure."

"Think we can keep Marty Anaheim off his back? If he shows up?"

Hawk turned his head slowly and looked at me from the other side of Anthony. He smiled.

"We could do that," he said.

"You think he's got a system?" Hawk said.

"Don't know," I said.

"He doesn't seem to be counting."

"Maybe one of those progressive betting systems," Hawk said.

"Casinos love them."

"Anthony was born to lose," I said.

"He'll play till he does."

Hawk nodded more in agreement with himself than with me.

"So how come we didn't just grab him and call Julius?" Hawk said.

"And then what?"

"Then it's up to Julius," Hawk said.

"I don't want to leave it up to Julius," I said.

"Or Shirley," Hawk said.

"Her even more," I said.

"So who we leaving it up to?"

"There's something wrong here," I said.

"Anthony did seem to be thinking 'bout Marty Anaheim a lot."

"He reacted different to that name than the others," I said.

"When I first brought up Gino's name, you notice, Anthony didn't have any reaction. He didn't react to Gino until after we mentioned Marty."

"You believe him he didn't take no money from Gino?"

"He swore on his mother," I said.

Hawk smiled.

"That did it for me," he said.

"You got a friend at the hotel," I said.

"You are an ace detective," Hawk said, "figure that out."

"We didn't have to register and everything's free," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"You don't miss nothing, do you, Bawse."

"Nothing," I said.

"So maybe you could ask her if Anthony is registered here with anybody."

"How you know my contact is a her?" Hawk said.

"Ace detective."

We were quiet. Hawk took the bottle from the ice bucket, poured a little more Krug, and put the bottle back in the ice bucket.

"You think there's something between Anthony and Marty?"

Hawk said.

"We been looking at Marty Anaheim and seeing Gino Fish," I said.

"What if Gino's got nothing to do with it. What if it's Marty?

Gino didn't seem too sure about Marty when he came to see me."

"So what's that got to do with Julius?" Hawk asked.

"Maybe nothing. Maybe there's two sets of things going on.

Julius you can figure. Anthony stole some money from him and it makes him look bad. Julius wants the money and Anthony back without anyone knowing about it."

"And Marty?"

"I don't know. If he's not working for Gino on this… be kind of hard to drag Anthony back to Boston, he doesn't want to go," I said.

"Sure," Hawk said.

"That be really hard for just the two of us, him being such a bad ass and all."

A woman wearing a designer baseball cap and carrying a coin cup slid into the bar beside Hawk. She ordered a bourbon oldfashioned, looking covertly at Hawk while the bartender mixed it.

When it came, she put it down in three swallows and headed back to the slots.

"Okay," I said, "so we can drag him back to Shirley if we wanted to. Let's wait and see first if we want to."

"During which time we hang around and protect him from Marty Anaheim. If Marty were to show up. For whatever reason, which we don't know, that Marty might have. If Anthony needs protection from Marty."

"Which he thinks he does," I said.

"Or which he lets us think he thinks he does," Hawk said.

"Unless we misinterpret."

"Unless that," Hawk said.

Hawk was looking at the casino floor as he talked. His face was expressionless. His eyes always seemed to see nothing and everything simultaneously. After a minute he looked back at me and grinned.

"You know what you're doing?" Hawk said.

"No."

"But you trying to do the right thing, soon as you know what it is," Hawk said.

"Yes."

"And meantime we going to fuck around with Anthony until we find out who to save."

"That's my plan."

"So we going to cover him twenty-four hours a day, you and me?"

"I don't think he'll run," I said.

"Why not?"

"He's not going anywhere," I said, "until he loses all the dough.

We'll sort of cover him while he's playing."

"So Marty Anaheim won't come and scare him to death," Hawk said.

"Marty's pretty scary," I said.

"What you going to do about Julius," Hawk said.

"I told Anthony I wouldn't blow the whistle on him yet."

"Yeah but Julius paying us," Hawk said.

"I'll let him know we've located Anthony, see what he has to say."

"And if he say bring him right back?"

"I'll tell him, soon."

"And if he say now?"

"I'll tell him, soon."

"You got to do it your way," Hawk said, "don't you."

"I don't do kidnappings."

"The hell you don't," Hawk said.

"I seen you do more than kidnappings, you think it's what you should do."

I shrugged and took a sip of beer. I had nursed it so long that what was left was warm. I pushed the bottle away.

"For something important, maybe," I said.

"Not for Julius Ventura's money. Not to send Anthony back to Shirley."

"You decide," Hawk said.

"Who else," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Don't ask me. I don't worry 'bout things like that. I just do what I feel like."

"So why you asking?"

Hawk smiled his still smile.

"You ever think about running for Pope?" he said.

"Some," I said.