November Road

by Lou Berney

  They pulled up to the Hacienda. Guidry started to get out of the car, but Ed shut off the engine.

  “You fly out of Nellis on Tuesday,” Ed said. “That colonel I mentioned. It’s all arranged.”

  “The day after tomorrow?” Guidry said.

  “I told you I’d take care of everything, didn’t I?” Ed said. “Ye of little faith. Once you get to Vietnam, Nguyen will take care of you. He’s your man on the ground. That’s spelled N-g-u-y-e-n. He does work for the Company, but don’t worry, we’re all going to hold hands and dance around the maypole together. Another guy has connections to the Vietnamese government, the military. He’ll be in touch. His name’s Nguyen, too. Nguyen and Nguyen, get it?”

  “A win-win situation.”

  “Now, go get your suitcase. Come back to the house with me. I have plenty of room. The Hacienda. Hayseed heaven. I can’t bear to think of you rotting away in there.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Guidry said.

  “Fine,” Ed said. “You like your freedom. You like to roam like the buffalo.”

  Guidry got out of the car. Ed got out, too, and came around—arms spread wide, prepared to crack another few of Guidry’s ribs. But before he could move in for the hug, Ed’s attention drifted to the lobby doors.

  Guidry turned as Charlotte and the girls emerged from the lobby. Charlotte smiled at him.

  “You’re just in time,” she said. “We’re going to get a closer look at the airplanes.”

  Ed looked at Guidry. He looked at Charlotte and the girls. He smiled, too.

  “Why,” Ed said, “what have we here?”

  25

  Charlotte had one last shot left on the roll, so she brought the Brownie out to the miniature-golf course. The frame: Joan preparing to putt, Frank crouched behind her, Rosemary staring up at the sky, distracted by a plane or a cloud or a bird.

  The rule of thirds. Mr. Hotchkiss would approve. Though of course he’d be horrified by Las Vegas in general. Too much noise, too much flash, too much raw, raucous emotion. Too much, too much, oh, dear.

  Charlotte found it all fascinating. Yesterday evening they’d taken a drive up the Strip, to downtown and back. The people! Men and women from every imaginable walk of life. They strode along, they stumbled along, they cuddled and shoved and ducked furtively into cars. A man stripped off his tuxedo jacket and waved it like a flag. Why? A woman sat on the curb, head in her hands but smiling. Why? Charlotte loved how every person they passed, every single person in the wide world, had his or her own story.

  A chorus girl strutted across the intersection. Who was she? What purpose so propelled her that she’d not had time to change out of her costume? The costume was made from opalescent beads and flamboyant feathers and very little, if any, actual fabric. Mr. Hotchkiss would not have survived the shock.

  Los Angeles was far bigger than Las Vegas. Charlotte reeled at the thought. If Las Vegas was this much, so much, too much, what awaited her in Los Angeles? She remembered what she’d told the girls right before they left Oklahoma: Let’s find out.

  Joan concentrated on her putt. Rosemary gaped at the sky above. Charlotte waited, waited, waited, the blades of the windmill turning, turning, turning. She wanted to freeze the moment in the perfect grid of shadows.

  Now. She pressed the shutter. Time stopped.

  And then the windmill resumed its slow, creaking sweep. The head of Joan’s putter clicked against the ball. Frank murmured encouragement as the ball dipped and curved. “Get in there,” he said. Rosemary twirled, attempting to duplicate the dancer’s pirouette she’d seen on a poster for the Jewel Box Revue.

  Charlotte wouldn’t know if she’d snapped the picture a split second too early or a split second too late until she saw the prints. That was what made photography so nerve-racking, so thrilling. You couldn’t really judge the result of what you were doing until it was already done.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Frank said. “Wish me luck.”

  After Frank left to meet his friend, the car dealer, Charlotte and the girls ate lunch, walked the dog, and from across the street observed a memorial ceremony for President Kennedy. A troop of Cub Scouts in front of McCarran Air Field raised a flag, saluted, and then lowered the flag to half-mast.

  The dog required a nap, but the girls were still full of energy. So off they set in search of a darkroom. The hotel had everything else under the sun, Charlotte reasoned, why not that, too?

  The clerk at the gift shop, a gruff émigré named Otto, sold her a new roll of film, but he knew of no darkroom or lab at the Hacienda. He was an aspiring magician, though, and demonstrated several tricks with a pack of souvenir cards. Rosemary tugged Charlotte’s sleeve. Charlotte bent down.

  “Mommy,” Rosemary whispered, “will you ask him if he’ll teach us a trick?”

  “You ask him,” Charlotte said.

  So Rosemary summoned her courage, and Otto obliged. Patiently, he walked the girls through a trick called Who’s the Magician? While they practiced, he described for them the salt mines near his hometown in Austria, the cave walls sparkling with crystal and a vast underground lake across which you could row a boat.

  Otto sent them off to see Gigi, the photographer at the Jewel Box, who recorded all the champagne toasts, the anniversary smooches. Otto offered to have a bellboy show them the way, but where was the fun in that?

  They got lost, of course, and ended up outside, in a serene little cactus garden. A Mexican man raking the sand, Luis, asked the girls did they know that a cactus could live three hundred years and weigh five thousand pounds? No! He invited them to touch the different prickly spines, some soft and straight, others hard and curved. The spines discouraged animals that might eat the cactus and also prevented the water inside the cactus from turning to vapor and escaping into the air.

  And to think: Charlotte had been worried about the girls missing school, about them falling behind in their education.

  They located Gigi, finally, tweezing her eyebrows in the staff break room. It turned out that she used a Polaroid Highlander instant camera, so she had no need of a darkroom. There was a lab downtown, though, near Gigi’s apartment, and she offered to drop off Charlotte’s roll of film.

  “What’s your room number?” Gigi said.

  “We’re in 216,” Charlotte said. “But I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying.”

  “I’ll give them a kick in the pants. Don’t worry.”

  The girls were fascinated with the Highlander. It was Joan who piped up, to Charlotte’s surprise, without needing any encouragement from her at all.

  “May we try it, please?” Joan asked Gigi.

  “Why, sure you may,” Gigi said.

  She let Joan take a photo of Rosemary. She let Rosemary take a photo of Joan. She showed them how to fan the prints gently until the fixative dried and the phantom of the image began to appear. Charlotte, curious, asked Gigi if she liked her job at the hotel.

  “It’s a hoot,” Gigi said. “Oh, the things I see. You wouldn’t believe half of them.”

  Exactly the kind of job, Charlotte decided, that she’d like to find in Los Angeles. And why not? What was to stop her?

  They decided to walk over to the airport. Frank, right as they exited the hotel, was climbing out of a limousine.

  “You’re just in time,” Charlotte said. “We’re going to get a closer look at the airplanes.”

  Another man had climbed out of the limousine, too. He came around to the other side and smiled at Charlotte. He was tall, broad as a barn, and not just larger than life but also somehow more vivid than it—the deep, rich tan, the tonsure of downy white hair that circled his bald dome, a smile so forceful that it practically wrestled you to the ground and pinned you there.

  He had a story, Charlotte guessed. Oh, yes.

  “Why, what have we here?” he said.

  “You must be Ed.” Charlotte smiled back at him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Frank had to struggl
e to make his way over to them. The girls had him in their clutches—Rosemary hanging on to one hand, Joan the other.

  “Ed, here she is,” Frank said. “Charlotte. The damsel in distress I’ve been telling you about.”

  “I feel horribly presumptuous about all this,” Charlotte said. “I hope Frank hasn’t put you in a difficult position because of me. I don’t usually go around asking perfect strangers to borrow one of their cars.”

  Ed lifted his sunglasses to better examine her. His eyes, as Charlotte had expected, were a sparkling Kodachrome blue. “Borrow one of my cars?” he said.

  She didn’t know how to respond. He had absolutely no idea, it slowly dawned on Charlotte, what she was talking about.

  And then, as her mind began to race—why hadn’t Frank mentioned the car yet?—Ed laughed. He bent down, lifted Charlotte’s hand to his lips, and kissed it. His breath was warm, his palm soft, his fingernails perfectly manicured.

  “I’m pulling your leg,” he said. “Of course you can borrow one of my cars, Charlotte dear. I told Frank you could have the pick of the fleet. Didn’t I, Frank?”

  “You did,” Frank said.

  “Any friend of Frank’s is a friend of mine. Why, he’s like a son to me. What’s mine is his and what’s his is mine. Isn’t that right, Frank?”

  Charlotte relaxed. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

  Ed turned to the girls. “And these must be the lovely daughters I’ve heard so much about. I’m your Uncle Ed. How do you do? Are you enjoying Las Vegas so far?”

  “How do you do,” Rosemary said. “Yes. There’s cactus and miniature golf and a man who taught us tricks with cards. It’s just like in The Wizard of Oz. Isn’t it, Joan?”

  “Yes,” Joan said.

  Frank nudged the girls toward Charlotte. “We won’t keep you, Ed,” he said. “Let’s talk tomorrow, shall we?”

  Ed snapped his fingers three times, three loose flicks of the wrist, like a jazz singer tossing off the band’s beat.

  “Do you know who’s playing a gig in town this week, up at the Stardust?” he said. “You won’t believe it. Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow himself.”

  “You know the Scarecrow?” Rosemary said.

  Even Joan, whose poker face slipped only once every century or so, gaped up at Ed, too.

  “Know him?” Ed said. “Ray and I are old pals. Listen, I’ve got a little boat at Lake Mead. Have you been to Lake Mead yet? Why don’t we go out tomorrow, a family outing. I’ll see if Ray wants to tag along.”

  “That’s generous of you, Ed, but …” Frank tried to keep nudging the girls forward, but he’d run up against the immovable object of their astonishment.

  Charlotte looked over at him. Why not? It would be an adventure. Ed captivated her. He was, like Las Vegas, too much.

  Frank continued to smile his easy smile, but she glimpsed a pinch between his eyebrows, an almost invisible pucker of hesitation, a trace of dismay. Or did she? Here and gone, vanished in the blink of an eye. Charlotte wasn’t sure.

  Frank gave Ed a hearty slap on the back. “I think that’s a first-rate idea, Ed. When do we sail?”

  The girls ate an early dinner in the Garden Room. Afterward Charlotte and Frank left them for the evening with the hotel babysitter. Rosemary bristled at the name of the Hansel and Gretel Nursery—“We’re not babies”—but then discovered that the “nursery” catered to children of all ages and was stocked with board games, building blocks, and jigsaw puzzles.

  The hotel’s formal dining room was just across the lobby. Frank escorted Charlotte to a table by the pianist. Their first proper date. That realization, as they sipped champagne, made Charlotte laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Frank said.

  “This,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”

  He smiled. “I do.”

  He knew exactly what she meant. How was that possible? How could two people know each other so well and yet not at all?

  “You don’t want to go to Lake Mead with Ed tomorrow,” Charlotte said.

  He pulled the bottle of champagne from the bucket and refilled her glass. “Why do you say that?”

  “Just a feeling, I suppose,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want you all to myself,” he said. “You and the girls. I don’t want to share you with anyone else, not even for an afternoon.”

  She believed him. He leaned across the table to kiss her. It was a lovely moment. The champagne, the candlelight, the music. Only when Frank had folded his napkin neatly and left to visit the men’s room did Charlotte stop to wonder why the question had occurred to her in the first place, whether she believed him or not.

  26

  Barone dropped the Fairlane downtown, by the train station. He wiped it clean and emptied it out. The kid had left behind his Windbreaker and a brown paper sack with the toothbrush and the toothpaste and the pimple cream he’d picked up along the way. Barone wadded up the Windbreaker and stuffed it into a trash can across from the Golden Nugget. He stuffed the brown paper sack into a trash can a block farther on.

  He took a cab out to the Tropicana. Carlos’s joint in Vegas. Or maybe he just owned a big piece of it, Barone wasn’t sure which.

  Dandy Stan Contini was the whole nine yards. Rings, diamond stickpin, a walking stick with a carved ivory handle. Underneath, though, he was nothing but sagging gray skin and bone, already a skeleton, every breath a rattle. He took Barone up to his office.

  “You want a drink?” Contini said. “Something to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Cancer, in case you’re wondering. Stomach and lung, the daily double. So you’re the infamous Paul Barone. You don’t look all that hot yourself, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “What do you know about Guidry?” Barone said.

  Contini started coughing and couldn’t stop. He stabbed his walking stick into the carpet and held on, as if the coughing might shake him to pieces if he didn’t. The ivory handle of his walking stick was carved to look like a girl’s leg in a fishnet stocking.

  Finally he hacked himself dry. He wiped his forehead with a hankie that matched the cravat. “My apologies.”

  “What do you know about Guidry?” Barone said.

  “Nothing so far,” Contini said. “My boys are sniffing around. If he’s in Vegas, I’ll know something soon.”

  “I’m going to do my own sniffing around, too.”

  “Do what you want. I don’t mind.”

  Barone hadn’t asked if he minded or not. “Anything else?”

  “Be discreet,” Contini said. “This is Vegas. Did Seraphine explain that to you?”

  Shoot. Did she explain that to me. Barone could hear the kid’s voice. He almost smiled. Instead he stood. “If you hear anything,” Barone said, “I need to know it right away.”

  Contini scribbled something on a pad. He peeled off the page. “Take this down to the desk. Slim will fix you up with a room. You can call in for your messages. What else?”

  “I need a car.”

  “Just tell Slim,” Contini said. “He’ll fix you up. If you want—”

  He started coughing again. Barone paused on his way out the door. “How long did they give you?” he said. “The doctors?”

  Contini kept coughing. He waved a hand. Too long, that’s how long.

  Barone’s room at the Tropicana had a view of the Strip. Room service brought him a steak. He ate a few bites. He went easy on the rye, just a splash over ice. He took one of the pain pills. The other bottle of pills … where was it? Oh. Still in the kid’s pocket, that’s where. It wasn’t a problem. Barone felt all right, and his appetite had started to return, a good sign. He called Seraphine and gave her his number at the Tropicana.

  The Dunes. He started there, just up the street. The casino floor was crowded, hardly any room to move, suburban squares on the loose for the weekend, wild-eyed and dressed to
the nines and laughing too loudly, holding their cigarettes above their heads as they moved around so that nobody got burned.

  I’m a private dick. I’m looking for a guy. He ran out with the company’s payroll, his boss hired me to find him. He’s with his wife and kids, two little girls.

  Stickmen, bartenders, cocktail waitresses, bellhops. A house dick came over and asked Barone who the fuck he was and what the fuck did he think he was doing.

  “I’m a private dick.” Et cetera.

  “Beat it, pal,” the house dick said.

  Barone beat it. He was done with the Dunes anyway.

  The Stardust, the Sands.

  Nothing. Barone called to check his messages at the Tropicana every half hour.

  Sunday he checked the rest of the Strip. The Sahara. The New Frontier. The Flamingo. The house dick at the Desert Inn played it tough. Barone restrained himself. He tried the hotels downtown. The Mint. He could feel the fever creeping back. Paul Barone doesn’t quit. Binion’s Horseshoe.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  Where the hell was Guidry? Sunday evening, eight o’clock, he went up to his room to rest. A quick break. He called down and told the desk to wake him in an hour.

  But he couldn’t sleep. Lying in bed, the room an oven, light from the Strip bleeding through the crack in the curtains. Barone realized that he’d been driving in the wrong lane, the wrong direction. Guidry wouldn’t stay at one of the big fancy joints. Too many people, too many eyes, someone might recognize him. He was at one of the dozens of little motels in town. The Del Rey, the Monie Marie, the Sunrise, the Royal Vegas. But no, that didn’t feel right either. Not enough people, Guidry would feel too conspicuous.

  Barone got out of bed and went downstairs and found Dandy Stan Contini in the showroom. Contini was tap-dancing, twirling his cane. “Look at me!” Contini sang. “I’m dead, and I feel like a million bucks!”

  No. That wasn’t real. The fever. The colored kid turning around and looking at him. Theodore, don’t call me Ted, don’t call me Teddy. That was the fever, too. The kid with the hole in his head, looking at Barone before he even pulled the trigger.