“Yeah. Sure.”
“How’s your mother?”
He always asked about Marianne. Kasey knew he still loved her. She suspected her mother loved him still; but after years of pain and disappointment, the bitterness went far too deep. Marianne had made a decision, and she would never reconsider. Dotus Atwood was like a poison to her.
“Mom’s good. She’s putting up peaches and honey. Ready for more honey?”
“God, no. My cupboards are full of the crap. Only thing honey is good on is cornbread. You can only eat so much cornbread.” He drank his beer. “What’cha doing now? You on a job?”
She told him about spotting at the club. She made it sound routine, boring almost.
“Isn’t that the hotel that old lady was killed in?”
She had found his lucid window for the day. He was sharp, up on events, giving her a rather fatherly, concerned look.
“How’d you know about that?”
“Lou freelances for the Trib. He mentioned it not more than half-an-hour ago. You in on that?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m not a private detective or a cop. But I’m keeping my eyes open.”
He seemed thoughtful for a moment. “You be careful. Okay?”
She nodded. “Dad, I tried calling you a couple times earlier in the week.”
“I’m not easy to catch.”
“I know. That’s why I gave you the answering machine. What happened to it?”
“I’m not one for those modern contraptions, Kasey. I don’t know enough people to even make it worthwhile to use the thing.”
“Where is it?”
He shushed her, pointing at the TV screen anchored above them. “My race. Watch the number-six horse. This one’ll pay over thirty bucks to win. Got it tied to the nine horse in the seventh.”
She watched his face as the horses raced around the track. His eyes danced. His muscles seemed wired, twitching like slight electrical charges under his skin. Out of his seat, he pounded the table, chanted, “C’mon, Jamie Boy, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.” The horses were only halfway down the final stretch when he let his arms drop to his sides. With dejection written all over his face, he sank into the chair. “Can’t win ‘em all.”
“The answering machine. Where is it, Dad?”
He avoided her eyes. “I got the ticket on it. I can redeem it anytime.”
“You hocked it?”
“It seemed like such a damn waste hooked up to a phone that didn’t ring. If you want it back, I’ll get it out on the first when my check comes.”
She pushed the beer away. She reached into her purse, pulled out two twenties and pressed them into his shirt pocket.
“What’s that for?” he asked. “The answering machine?”
“Forget the answering machine.” She stood, kissed his cheek. “In case your pal doesn’t pay you back. Buy a few groceries, will you?”
Chapter Fourteen
“‘Romance builds in the workplace.’”
“Ma, enough with the romance, okay?” Kasey said, sipping coffee. “I don’t have time for romance. I don’t know where I’d squeeze it in.”
“That’s not what it says here. Besides, there’s always room for romance. It’s like JELL-O.”
“Interesting analogy.”
Marianne Atwood folded the newspaper and looked at her daughter with genuine concern. “Kasey, you work too hard and you’re much too young to be, well, uninvolved. What’s wrong with killing two birds with one stone? Didn’t you say you were working with a young, single man on this job?”
“He’s ten years younger than me, Ma. A baby, for cryin’outloud.”
“Times have changed, Kase.”
“I consider a twenty-three-year-old male still a boy.” She grinned. “Maybe in ten, twenty years I’ll think differently.”
Kasey opened the refrigerator door. One of George’s photos fell to the floor. She picked it up. It was a color print of the Reno balloon races. “How long is George planning to leave these pictures lying around?”
“Until he decides, with our help, which ones he wants for the book. The more we help, the faster it’ll go.”
By now many of them had green tabs stuck along the borders. Kasey studied half a dozen. She tagged two more. One of the old Reno arch and the other a current photo of an A&W Drive-in, its parking lot filled with classic cars of the fifties in town for the Hot August Nights festivities.
Kasey went to the sink, rinsed out her mug, and set it in the drainer. She looked out the window and saw Snickers lying in the shade of an apple tree. “That dog must be sick. It’s only eight o’clock and he’s lying down.”
Her mother snorted good-naturedly. “He’s resting up.”
*
The moans, soft, muffled, told him they were there again this morning.
In the corner of the basement, from his hiding place behind the cartons, the Monk watched the two lovers.
They stood in the same place as before with the supply duct at the woman’s back, their hands buried inside clothing, kissing wantonly, urgently—illicit lovers fearing discovery at any moment, rushing to beat an intrusive clock.
He watched them, feeling the heat rise in his own body as the woman fumbled to open the man’s fly and the man lifted her skirt and none-too-gently lowered her panties. The two came together abruptly amid moans and heavy breathing. He watched them copulate, the moans soon turning to grunts and soft cries, their bodies thumping against the padded tin shaft. Within minutes it was over. Like rabbits, he thought.
As he watched them quickly straighten their clothes, he grinned. The puta, whore—that’s what he thought of any woman who lifted her skirt so readily the way this one had— she would have one itchy ass later from the pink fiberglass insulation.
The Monk waited to see who would leave first. He hoped it would be the man. He liked the looks of this woman. She was busty with a small waist and glowing skin, like his stepmother. Would she taste like her? Smell like her? Would her skin feel as hot or have the same creamy smoothness?
The man in white lit a cigarette, settled against the supply duct, smiled a self-satisfied smile, turning away just enough to confirm his dismissal of her.
The woman stood there uncertainly for several moments, then without a parting word, she whirled around and strode off. “Inez, later, at quitting time, hey?” he called after her.
The Monk waited until he heard the metal door to the main floor close, then he left his hiding place and silently headed for the service elevator. He had wasted enough time. He had business on the sixth floor.
*
Jay King sorted through the morning mail. His secretary had already gone through it, tending to whatever did not require his individual attention. One unopened envelope with the red embossed King’s Club logo, addressed to Mr. Jay Garner King, was marked Personal.
Jay felt an involuntary tightness in his gut. The other anonymous letters had arrived at his office on hotel stationery.
He held the envelope to the light, then ran his fingers over it, feeling for a bulge, a wire, anything that might indicate the thing could be lethal. A poison-pen letter was one thing, but a letter bomb was quite another.
He felt nothing. With a letter opener, he carefully slit the top and pulled out a folded Gazette newspaper photograph. Jay unfolded it. This one, from the society section, showed two women, one elderly, the other young and pretty and quite familiar—Dianne—presenting an oversized check to a representative of the Nevada Theater Arts Coalition. Dianne’s head was circled in red ink. Below the photo the message read: Nice. Not my type, but I’m willing to make an exception in this case.
With a clenched fist, Jay pounded the desk top and cursed. He snatched up the phone. “Gail, get Kasey Atwood on the beeper. Ask her to come up when she’s free.”
*
The Monk stood on the landing of the sixth-floor emergency stairway and peered through the small, wire-mesh window. Not more than four feet away he saw a housekeeping cart
parked in front of 634, the last room on the floor, the room to which Mr. Nicker, the vending machine man from Auburn was registered.
Last night, the Monk had spotted the drunken little prick flashing a fistful of hundred-dollar chips and running off at the mouth. Apparently he’d had another lucky streak at the dice table. At midnight, just as the Monk’s shift ended, Nicker had gone up to his room, again taking his winnings with him. The Monk had changed from uniform to street clothes, punched out for the night, then, allowing plenty of time for Nicker to pass out, he had gone up to the sixth floor and with a keycard for Room 634 tried to gain access. He had been thwarted by the deadbolt.
No problem with the deadbolt now. Someone had to be in the room to engage it, and at that very moment Nicker was downstairs in the coffee shop ordering breakfast. The only hitch was the maid, whom the Monk hadn’t counted on.
He poked the nozzle of nasal spray into each nostril and shot the antihistamine home. He sniffed, clearing his stuffy head, and settled back to wait.
A short time later he saw the maid backing out of Room 634. He watched her close the door, test the lock, then turn to her cart and dump the soiled towels. He quickly pulled back, pressing his body flat against the wall. He had only caught a glimpse of the maid, yet he recognized her as the one he’d watched earlier in the basement with the spic dishwasher. Inez. Pretty, dark-haired Inez. So this was her floor. He would remember that, maybe pay her a visit one day soon. Only they’d use a nice big bed, not an insulated duct. He wondered if her ass had started to itch yet?
Moments later he chanced a peek. The door to the utility closet was open, the maid nowhere in sight.
Impatient to get in and out before Nicker returned, which could be any moment, the Monk pulled on thin leather gloves, left the stairway, unlocked the door to Room 634, entered, and closed the door behind him. He quickly went to work, deftly patting down the clothes hanging in the closet area. He knelt, lifted a pair of cowboy boots and shook them. Something shifted inside. He grinned. Too easy. A favorite place to conceal valuables. He tipped the boot, caught the bulky sock. He rolled it down to expose casino chips and a wad of hundreds. He was about to stuff the money into his pocket when the door behind him suddenly opened. The maid strode in, towels draped over her arm.
She looked at him, surprised. “The, uh, extra towels you…” Her gaze dropped to the money-filled sock in his gloved hand. Awareness, along with fear, sprang into in her large brown eyes.
She moved backwards, her hand reaching behind her. She grabbed the doorknob and whirled around, pulling the door open.
“Inez!”
Her name made her hesitate for a split-second. It was enough time for him to throw himself at her. He grabbed her around the waist, clamped a hand over her mouth, and slammed the door shut.
With his body he pressed her into the corner behind the door. She struggled, trying to scream through the hand that covered her nose and mouth.
“Be nice, Inez,” he whispered in her ear. “Be nice to me like you were nice to that little potscrubber downstairs in the basement this morning.” He saw her blush, felt the heat of it through her thin uniform. “Thought you were all alone, didn’t you? Thought that was your secret place.” He chuckled. “Yours and every other horn dog in this shitty place.”
He pressed against her. His other hand glided over her buttocks. “That was fiberglass you were rubbing against down there. Does it itch, huh, Inez?”
The Monk heard a faint sound on the other side of the door.The door handle moved. The Monk pushed against the door, twisted the deadbolt. He tightened his grip on the maid and warned her with his eyes and the pressure of his body to stay quiet. She moaned softly.
The handle jiggled.
A voice on the other side muttered, cursed. The handle jiggled again.
For what seemed an eternity, the Monk held tight to the maid, staring hard into her eyes until she finally closed them. Beads of sweat broke out across her nose and forehead. She trembled.
The handle had ceased its jiggling.
“I’m going to open the door,” the Monk whispered to her. “You do anything to tick me off and I’ll gouge out your eyes and feed them to you, do you understand?” He brought his thumb up to her eye and pressed. “Understand?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Good. Now look out there and see if he’s gone.” Holding her, he turned the deadbolt, eased the door open, and pushed her forward.
She nodded.
The Monk looked. Except for the housekeeping cart, the hallway was empty.
“Do exactly what I say. Don’t make me hurt you.” He pocketed the sock of money, tossed the towels on the bathroom counter, pulled her out of the room, then made her push the cart into the utility closet.
Moments later they were in the stairwell going down the steps.
Chapter Fifteen
Kasey and Brad King had to hurry to keep up with the hotel guest. This was her second trip down this corridor to Room 634. Yesterday afternoon, after the staff meeting, she had carried out the casino manager’s instructions to contact Mr. Nicker with an offer of dinner and another night’s lodging, compliments of the hotel. Yanick, concerned that the casino’s money might leave the premises and not find its way back into the pit where it belonged, now had more to sweat about. In addition to the five grand, their comped guest had scored another thirty-two hundred the night before.
“I’m telling you,” the man was saying, “I couldn’t get the door open.”
Brad, acting as assistant hotel manager until Epson reported in at ten, said, “Are you sure you had the right floor, Mr. Nicker. Except for the color scheme, the floors look pretty much alike.”
“I had the right floor. I had the right room. What I didn’t have was the right key.”
“You say you used that key last night when you turned in?”
“Yeah, sure. So that means someone changed the code on me.”
They reached 634.
“That’s not possible, Mr. Nicker—”
“Just watch,” Nicker inserted his keycard into the slot, waited for the green light, then pulled it out and turned the knob. The door opened.
“Well, what the hell?” He turned to Brad. “I tell you it wouldn’t work before.”
Brad and Kasey exchanged glances. Wrong floor? Wrong room? Or he had turned right instead of left when stepping off the elevator? All common mistakes.
“Hey, hold it,” Nicker said when Brad and Kasey turned to go. He stepped into the closet area, dropped to his knees, lifted a pair of cowboy boots and shook them. “Sonofabitch! I’ve been robbed. Goddamn sonofabitch, it’s gone, all of it. Eight thousand bucks. Gone!”
Both Kasey and Brad knew about Nicker’s luck at gambling the past two nights. They also knew he had refused to put his winnings in a hotel safety deposit box. Legally, the hotel was not responsible for lost or stolen goods which were not properly secured.
“I’m calling the cops,” Nicker said, his face turning crimson. “I’ve been robbed, and you people are gonna make it good. It was one of your hotel maids. The cart was right there.” He pointed at the utility closet “She must’ve been in my room when I tried to go in. She dead bolted the damn door, then swiped my money. What kinda people have you got working here? Psycho security guards, thieving maids—”
“Mr. Nicker,” Brad said, “calm down. We can straighten this out. All of our employees are bonded. They’re issued police cards, which means they’re fingerprinted, photographed, and are thoroughly checked out through the FBI.”
“Ah, great. That’s a big comfort. She’s probably on a plane to Guatemala right now with my ten grand—”
“You said eight a minute ago,” Kasey said.
“It was ten. I said ten. What difference does it make? With that kind of money she and her whole family can live it up pretty good across the border.”
“I doubt—”
“Find her then,” Nicker said. “And if you do, make her take a goddamn polygraph
.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Brad said, relieved to have a direction. “May I use your phone?”
“Make it quick. I’m calling the cops.”
Kasey wandered down the hall to the utility closet. She found a housekeeping cart inside. Brad joined her as she was looking it over.
“He’s on the phone to the police,” Brad said of Nicker. “He’s gonna make a big stink over this.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“What do you think?” he said. “The maid?”
Kasey shrugged. “If Nicker’s eight grand is gone—and I’m sure it’s eight, not ten—it’s more than possible. There’s used linen in this cart, and some of these towels are still wet. I’d say this is the cart Mr. Nicker saw in the hall awhile ago. It’s too early for the housekeeper to take a midmorning break and it’s certain she hasn’t finished rounds on this floor, so what is this cart doing here? Give LeBarre and Epson a call. As chief of security and hotel manager, they both need to be in on this.”
“What about my uncle?”
“Him, too.” She started out the door. “I’m going to find out who was assigned to that cart.”
From her office Kasey called the housekeeping department and had them pull the month’s work schedule, which confirmed that Paula Volger, the maid who the day before had reported a possible intruder in 603, was assigned duty on the same floor all week. Two other maids worked in different wings of the floor, Inez Ramos and Betty Olcutt.
Several minutes later, Kasey got a second message that Jay King wanted to see her. Believing he had heard about the theft in 634, she gathered as much information as she could regarding the three employees in question before going up to the executive office. She knew nothing about Miss Olcutt or Miss Ramos except that both were considered reliable, hardworking, and had been with the hotel several years and that neither had prior citations. Miss Volger, on the other hand, had come to her attention twice in as many days.
When she passed Brad’s office, she heard her name called. She went back, stood in the doorway.
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