by Andrews
"I think if Mo were here he'd say that he's haunted by what's going on at his hotel and it has to stop," Callie said.
"Why didn't he stop it when Karla asked him to?"
"I don't know. I'm being told to come back here and see the Boy Review," Callie said.
I didn't mention to her that we'd already seen the show once. I just let it ride.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a man who looked familiar. I focused on him. He was a short, muscular man in a business suit, a buttoned-up employee crossing the theater aisle apparently on a mission: perhaps checking up on the cleaning crew or checking on supplies for the greenroom or maybe just taking a shortcut somewhere, and then I noticed the lifts. Lifts like the shoes worn by the man who delivered Joey to Sterling Hackett's hotel room. He turned in profile and it was Paco man. Images collided in my brain as if a projector light had illuminated my head: Opening night, Paco in the bar, cut to tight shot of "my friend Paco" bobbing inside the silk pants and grabbing my flesh with his thumb and forefinger. Cut to the same man coming at Callie near the slot machines, Paco in his pocket, his thumb and forefinger nipping at her leg, but this time in his pocket was a knife. Cut to Joey in the hospital, his small, frail hand, thumb and forefinger coming together like—Paco! I jumped up and sprinted toward the man.
"Hey, you!" I shouted. The man turned and looked at the stage, focusing on us for the first time and registering a decidedly startled look. "You know Joey Winters?" I asked and I saw the slightest tensing around his eyes. "Hold it, just a second!" But the man turned and ran. I pursued him as if spring-loaded.
"You beat that kid, didn't you, you sorry-assed sonofabitch!" I tackled him and we both fell to the floor. I rolled him over, pushed his chin skyward with my left hand, and slammed my fist into his Adam's apple with my right. "I should slit your damned throat!"
Callie was standing over us. "Tell us who you work for!" she shouted at him.
He struggled to reach his gun, visible now in its shoulder holster hidden beneath his suit coat. He was strong, and I only had him down due to the element of surprise. I squeezed his jugular vein and cut off blood flow to his brain. "Who hired you to beat up the kid?" I squeezed more tightly and he began to lose consciousness. "Shit!" I jumped up off the guy. "I shouldn't have done that," I said, straightening my clothes and feeling suddenly uneasy about how quickly I could turn violent.
"Why should he wake up feeling fine? Joey doesn't," she said, bitterly cold. Callie's cosmic attitude was apparently put on ice.
"Plus, he ripped your suit." I took a deep breath and tried to make light of it.
I rang Security Guard Roy, the front desk, and the LVPD. Roy arrived first and quickly explained that the man was a longtime lounge performer, beloved by the patrons, and that his behavior was due to having lost his wife. To which I replied, "Bullshit!" The woman from the front desk was none other than the lady who'd tried to comprehend homo-fucking, so I realized my current dilemma was several stratospheres above her comprehension. Her presence actually made me look forward to meeting the Las Vegas police, who arrived within minutes and began asking questions and taking notes. I went through the preliminaries and explained that the man before them had taken a young boy up to a room for sex. That boy was now in the hospital— Joey Winters. One of the officers, a tall, somber fellow, asked if I had evidence or a motive or something that could tie him to the case.
"Get a photo of this guy," I said under my breath to the officer, "and show it to the kid in the hospital. He'll ID him, I'd bet my life on it."
The officer said they'd look into it and after more conversation took Paco man with them. "Call me jaded"—I sagged into a chair— "but they'll prosecute that guy when pigs fly. For all I know those two weren't even cops, or they're cops that Karla has in her pocket." I watched Roy departing and started to laugh. "There's your guy with the headset! Roy! Why didn't I think of that before. Roy is in on it just like Ted and every other security person in this hotel, which means everyone who's guarding us is not only listening but is out to do us in!"
"Good to have clarity," Callie said and almost made me laugh.
That night, we returned to the theater again. This time for the show, because according to Callie, Mo wanted us to see it. There were a lot of remarks I could have made about that, but I chose to remain silent. I wasn't feeling too talkative, much less funny.
The Boy Review was one of the few places I could be perfectly comfortable kissing Callie, and now I was no longer kissing Callie, because I still hurt, my feelings were on ice. Why in hell do I care if she’s snuggling up to some old fart at a bar, if she’s chosen me to make love with? Why can't I just enjoy the moment and take from it what there is to take? Because I'm hard-wired for fidelity, because I flunked sharing, because she’s either all mine or she can go screw whoever she wants and get the hell away from me! I have to shut this out of my mind before I go nuts.
We were midway through the show, beyond all the high kicks and Marilyn Monroe impressions, and into the full acrobatic review that came just before intermission. It was quite an extravaganza designed to have us heading out to the lobby in a wild, enthusiastic buzz. Boys in tights dangling from high wires, cyclists on wires overhead, acrobats leaping into the air. It was a virtual Gay du Soleil and exceptionally well done, cut in time to rhythmic rock music, the strobe lights fluttered disco style, and with each strobe effect, all the men onstage turned into women and back again.
By the time we hit the famous first half finale, the stage was a feast of feathered flight. Graceful birdlike men slashing across the skies, their wings outspread, sending a massive breeze across the audience, choreographed to celestial music that gave everyone chills. It was awe-inspiring. Suddenly, Callie gasped and stiffened in her chair, staring center stage. "Do you see Rose?"
"Rose isn't even on the stage," I said. "She's out of town, remember?"
"We've got to find Rose!" Callie was out of her seat and heading for the lobby. I hurried out after her, catching up with her just past the massive theater doors and into the bright lights on the other side where I worked to get her to find a spot and plant her feet so we could talk.
"Rose Ross was caught in the rope hanging from the scaffolding in the back of the set."
"Rose Ross was caught in a rope onstage?"
"Yes, I saw her," Callie panted.
"Like you saw the other two?"
"Yes, I finally get it," Callie said.
"Well, help me out, because I don't. Start with the guy in the bathtub. Was he real?" I asked.
"He was real, but he was alive at the time that we saw him in the bathtub. He wasn't in the bathtub at that point. It was Mo putting that image, that form there, a man lying in the tub demonstrating that Bruce Singleton was about to drown in water."
"Mo's dead, you told me!"
"Mo was showing me that a man who looks like this is about to die. Of course, I didn't get it, so hours later the guy is found dead. Then the woman at the party who cracked her skull on the terrazzo, I looked for help, and no one seemed to even care. Well, that's because they couldn't see her—Joanie Burr in full costume! It was Mo putting the form of Joanie there, saying someone who physically looks like this, wearing this, is going to die. Sure enough next day, Joanie Burr is dead from having hit her head on the patio, and I didn't get it."
"Mo is talking to you from the grave?"
"Tonight, Mo showed me Rose Ross hanging dead before my eyes. He's saying she's in trouble, big trouble, Teague, and we've got to find her. Within twenty-four hours of my seeing the other two, they were dead."
"Did he give you any clues? She's hanging by a rope, right? From a scaffolding. Maybe there's a big construction site?"
"I'm trying to tune in, but I'm not getting anything."
We went back to our room to determine our battle plan. Elmo was barking at the phone, having discovered that when we picked it up and talked into it, food came to the door.
"Sorry, Elmo, we made a pa
ct not to eat food from room service... too dangerous," I said. As if by magic, there was a knock at the door. We froze. I looked through the peephole. "Room service," I whispered to Callie and stared at Elmo as if he had mentally ordered it up. I opened the door and a waiter sailed in with a tray. "We didn't order anything," I said.
"Compliments of the hotel manager," he said. The tray smelled of hamburgers, and Elmo was already nudging the silver domed cover off to get to them.
"I know you. You're the guy from backstage..." I said.
"Yeah, the one with no name tag. Only now I have it on," he said.
"Rob! How did you get this duty?" Callie asked.
"They switch us around when we first come here so we learn different areas," he said.
"Well, I'd ask for a transfer out of this gig," I said and tipped him.
He'd barely closed the door when Elmo put his paws up on the table in an uncharacteristic show of bad manners.
"Hey, hold on. One day you might meet a nice lady basset, and you don't want to have the manners of a warthog," I warned him.
I pulled the lid off. "Don't they normally put the flowers in a vase beside the plate?"
Callie stared down at the burgers with the single flower lying beside it. "A dead rose," Callie said. "We have to find her right away!"
"Look!" There was a plastic card under the rose. It was a security clearance card. I couldn't believe my eyes. "Why would someone give us that?"
"Someone gave us that to get us through the cashiers' room. So they're either helping us or setting us up," Callie said. "They could have someone waiting there for us to say we stole the card to break into the cashiers' cage. Imagine trying to explain how we got the card."
"Yeah, it arrived with a hamburger we didn't order and was under a dead rose." I sighed.
Elmo dove on the burgers before Callie could get them away from him. I hooked up Elmo as he gulped the last bite.
"Come on, buddy, we'd better take a quick walk. This could be a long night."
I stopped at the front desk because the room service order with the dead rose was presumably compliments of "the manager."
"Is Ms. Loomis in?" I asked.
"Ms. Loomis is gone," the golden woman said and went back to her computer screen.
My body froze. "Gone? For the day, for the week, forever?"
The woman shrugged and gave me a sweet smile.
Joanie was killed after we asked if she would talk to us. Joey Winters was beaten nearly to death for talking to us, and now Rose is missing for talking to us. Have they gotten to Loomis too? And who the hell are these bastards?
Chapter Twenty-one
I took my gun on the walk with Callie and Elmo, looping Elmo's long leash around his neck to substitute for his collar. I knew things were heating up. I might not have a sixth sense about much, but I have it about dangerous situations. It was an uneasy feeling, and Elmo seemed to have it too. He glanced up at me, gauging my tension, then hit the bushes fast, aware that we were in a time crunch. The three of us went inside and crossed the casino, where I caught sight of Dealer Brownlee who was there the night the man he called Mr. Emerson bet ten thousand dollars on number fourteen.
"I think we need to talk to that guy. I just think he knows something." Callie nodded toward Brownlee.
One thing was for sure, I couldn't get his face out of my mind, the way it looked when the man bet on number fourteen, like somehow he disapproved or that it was the wrong number. The expression on his face had stuck with me. The number of players around the table was sparse. I pulled some money out of my pocket.
"This gig is costing me a fortune. Every time I want to talk to a dealer, I lose about twenty bucks!" I slid onto the black tufted leather bar stool in front of his table and fooled around in my wallet to delay the transaction.
"Too bad about that young kid that got beaten up out here," I said. The dealer didn't respond, but the woman next to me did.
"Terrible! There's a rumor that he came to the hotel as a male hooker!" the woman said. I just got lucky. A perfect stranger saying all the things I need said.
"Can you imagine?" she said in indignation. "And he was only fourteen!"
I looked straight into Brownlee's eyes. Fourteen, he was only fourteen! I was right! The man bet ten thousand on fourteen. Brownlee knew Mr. Emerson well and most likely got his boys to him in short order, but maybe not that young. Maybe fourteen turned even Brownlee’s stomach. The woman lost her money, cooed over Elmo, and left like an angel, having been planted there to help me.
"So Mr. Emerson and even the famous Sterling Hackett get their chicken from you?" I glanced down at the bird on his pinkie ring. "But this time the chicken was a little too tender even for your taste," I said flatly. "But, of course, you went ahead and sent Joey Winters up there anyway, because business is business, right, Mr. Brownlee?"
"I'll call security," he said.
"And I will turn you over to the FBI so fucking fast it will make your Gambler Boy Name Tag pop off your three-dollar tux! Tell me right now, who has Rose Ross?"
He blinked at the sound of Rose's name.
I put my money down and he slid some chips across the table, putting them on red. The house took my money, and I didn't care. I bet again as he spoke, his lips barely moving. "Get away from my table and don't come back," he threatened.
"Where is Rose Ross?"
"Don't know her."
Another dealer relieved Brownlee on a shift change, allowing Brownlee to escape out through the back of the casino. I was certain there was a camera, or a button, that had allowed him to signal someone and get the brilliantly timed change of dealers just as I was boring in on him. I signaled Callie to follow me, and we tracked Brownlee to the backside of the casino and into an alcove where he was on his cell phone.
"They're asking questions," he told the person on the other end of the phone.
I stepped into his line of sight and pulled my gun and placed it under his chin.
"Hang up," I said quietly, and he made an excuse for having to go.
"That was so fucking stupid. Now I have to do something really unpleasant to you," I said, and he began to beg. "And why should I save you? You were willing to get Joey killed; you're willing to have someone kill Rose Ross; why is it killers are such cowards? All I want to do to you is maybe blow off your hand so you can't work..." and I put the gun into his palm.
"Please, please, listen. You don't know what you're dealing with," he said in an unintentional play on words.
"Who runs the ring?" I demanded.
"People say Mo Black still runs it from the grave. The money from the transactions goes into a small vault in the back of the casino through the tunnel." So there is a tunnel; Callie was right! "Everybody says it's the ghost who takes it out. Look, I won't tell anyone about you."
"But you just did. Who was on the phone with you?" I grabbed his cell phone and hit redial, wanting to know who he'd talk to about us. A voice answered saying, "Welcome to the Desert Star Casino. How may I direct your call?'"
"Brownlee wants to talk to her again," I said quickly, taking a fifty-fifty chance it was a her, and I was right. There was a click, and hold, and then Ms. Loomis came on the line. I hung up. "So Loomis is here, on duty, in the hotel and hiding from me, or someone wants me to think she's gone," I said to Brownlee.
"Please just get away from me and leave me out of this. I'm just trying to make a living. Traugh. He knows everything. The Rose girl, she knows too much, is all I hear."
"Who's got her?" I asked.
But Brownlee either didn't know or wasn't telling. Despite my gun pointed at him, he yanked free and ran, apparently having decided that being head-shot was preferable to what awaited someone who squealed on the ring. Elmo growled and lunged after him, but I held the fearless basset in check.
With Elmo in tow, we headed for the theater to find Elliot Traugh.
"I know your legs hurt, Elmo, but we don't have time to take you back to the room," Callie t
old the hapless hound, and I could have sworn he groaned. We proceeded down the long corridor under the arches and to the theater door. It was unlocked and no one was inside. The stage was empty. I looped Elmo's leash lightly over a stair rail and asked him to wait for us; it was dark in the theater, and I didn't want to trip over him. Callie and I worked our way down the long aisle. A man's voice rang out over the PA system, asking us if he could help us. Callie informed him that we were looking for Elliot Traugh.
"Right here," he said and a single light bulb came on overhead, illuminating an A-frame ladder and Elliot Traugh standing beside it in what I thought was a very clever and dramatic entrance. "My theater wannabe friends," Elliot lightly mocked us.
"Brownlee said you know everything, and I don't think he's referring to the meaning of life."
"You're beginning to bore me," Elliot said.
"How boring would it be if I told you that rumor has it that you killed Joanie Burr?" I said, cutting through his B.S.
"That's the problem with rumors. They're so...rumor-ish."
"Stellium in Scorpio is this hotel's chart," Callie interjected. "A Stellium in Scorpio has great intensity, and the potential for extreme good or evil."
"So which is it?" he asked, and then answered his own question. "Depends on which side of the sod you're on, I suppose. If you're dead, you probably think this place has great potential for evil. Mo Black most likely thinks so."
"Mo committed suicide?" Callie's voice was a question mark.
"That's what Karla told you, didn't she? The truth is that Mo Black and Giovanni were partners in this boy business, and Gio tried to shut it down. Mo threatened to blackmail Gio—not good to be a macho, Italian mafia type who likes boys better than hookers. So, in retaliation, Mo...committed suicide? That doesn't sound right." He paused for dramatic effect. "Or was it that Gio murdered Mo? Or was it that Karla killed Mo? You see the dilemma. Of course, the police could never prove anything. The police in Las Vegas don't try to prove much related to the mafia."
