Murder in Vegas

by Connelly, Michael

  Golding waved to a tough-looking man whom Aaron had noticed standing near the window during the whole dinner. The man left the room and returned with glasses and an unopened bottle of bootleg bourbon while Golding was still describing the wonders of his hotel. He opened the bottle and Golding poured two drinks, topped them up with water from the carafe on the table, and handed one to Aaron. Well, Aaron thought, he sure isn’t suffering under Prohibition—and later realized that Golding was not only not suffering, Prohibition was making him the millions he had for building hotels.

  “Now you know,” Golding went on, after drinking half his highball in one long draught. “There’s a lot of movement in the state legislature to repeal the ban on gambling in Nevada. Hell, we’re in a Depression. The state needs money, and there ain’t a better way to get it than to open it up to tourists who come here and want to spend, spend, spend. Now listen to what I’ve planned.”

  He leaned over the table. “I got the architect—and believe me, he’s the number one architect in the country—maybe the whole world. I got him to put in a whole extra floor. Maybe if somebody wants to have a convention there or a big wedding or something they can use it; it’s gonna be finished and all. But really, it’s a waiting room.” He laughed loudly. “That’s what I call it, ‘my waiting room.’ He leaned so close Aaron could feel his breath.”It’s waiting for that law to be repealed, and the next day I’ll open a casino that’ll make the Frenchies who own Monte Carlo jump into the Mediterranean ocean!”

  Aaron started to speak, and Golding held up his hand.

  “I know, I know. You wanna know where you come in.”

  Aaron opened his mouth again, but Golding forestalled him. “Here’s where you come in, Plotkin. I want my casino opened the day that bill gets signed. I wanna get ahead of everybody else, but my hotel won’t be done yet. That restaurant of yours is just in the right place. I want to fix her up—I’ll pay you good, and I’ll pay all the expenses. I want it to be whatcha might wanna call my ‘Casino in Waiting.’ We run the games from there until the hotel is ready and then we move the whole kit and caboodle over. And you don’t have to worry,” he added. “There ain’t nobody in this town—in this state—who wants to discourage building up Las Vegas with gambling. Nobody!”

  Aaron thought that was a somewhat extravagant statement, but he saw what Golding was getting at. Legal gambling would draw crowds from the whole West Coast—even the whole country.

  However, he wanted nothing to do with gambling. If he could have stopped the rough poker games that his current clientele insisted accompany their laden plates, he would have. He was smart enough to know that it wouldn’t be the food but the gambling that was going to bring the crowds in. But they had to eat, didn’t they? Tourists from California and Utah (Mormons to the contrary notwithstanding) and then from farther and farther away would want more than the plain meat and potatoes that was all the railroad workers and construction workers were perfectly happy with.

  He also was wary of any connection with the “businessman” from Brooklyn or his like. As diplomatically as he could, he turned the offer down.

  Nevada’s repeal bill went through the legislature, the governor signed it and the antigambling law was history. The town began to change drastically. The Strip became more colorful every week as another entrepreneur entered the race for tourist money. Aside from his worries about Max, Aaron was happy. The restaurant was getting a real reputation; tourists were filling the tables and often waiting in line to get in. He had some steady customers, who swore Aaron’s food was the best this side of—wherever they came from. Aaron was so busy he hardly had time to write to Molly, but he sent her brief (and tantalizing) notes, telling her she would really like Las Vegas now. The town was becoming civilized. The restaurant was doing real well, and it was fixed up beautiful; she’d love it. He got a postcard back from Virginia Beach, where she’d gone with her mother and Aaron’s oldest sister for a vacation. “Having wonderful time,” it said. Period. Well, he didn’t wish he was there, either.

  In spite of Max’s fears (and to tell the truth, Aaron’s as well) Lucky Golding didn’t seem to resent the turndown. When the hotel was finished and opened with a grand blowout, he hired Max as a bellboy. The job wasn’t hard, he was a strong young man. The tips were generous and he got to mingle with—well, carry the bags of, say “Yes, sir,” and “Thank you, Madam” to—celebrities he had only read about in the tabloids or seen on the movie screen. Aaron kept at him about not doing anything really dumb, like trying to sell reefers to the guests or giving them tips on how to win at the tables (as if he knew). “You’re dealing with dangerous people here,” the big brother said. “Golding is pretty low to the ground, but so is a rattlesnake. You may think he’s your friend, but he couldn’t care a button for you, you’re nobody. He’d only notice you if you did something stupid, and then, watch out!” Max would nod solemnly, which hardly made Aaron feel any better.

  Golding opened his casino in the hotel, and sent his guests to Aaron’s Eats for dinner. That was fine with Aaron. His restaurant had a growing reputation now, little brother had brought him luck, and he was grateful. He was happy to be a citizen of this thriving town.

  Of course, there were still street brawls and holdups. When the fifteen-month-old daughter of one of the railroad workers went missing, Aaron, along with the other volunteers, spent two full nights searching for her. They didn’t find her. Theories flew through the air and landed in the local newspaper: She had run into the desert and had died of sunstroke. She had fallen down a well. She had been taken for ransom (although no ransom had been demanded). Ugliest of all was the solution put about by a handful of rabble-rousers and directed at the few Jews who lived in Las Vegas and the Jewish tourists now coming in from the West Coast: The medieval canard that Jews kidnapped and killed Christian children in order to drink their blood at secret religious ceremonies was resurrected. “Well of course, you never know” started to be heard in the bars and grocery stores.

  The missing child was discovered unharmed; she had wandered off and been picked up by a farmer who was trying to scratch out a living in the countryside beyond the town. She was too young to be able to tell him who she was, and it was several days before he trotted into town on his horse holding the little girl in his arms. By that time rumor had done its work.

  And then one early morning Aaron arrived at the back door of Aaron’s Eats to find every window broken, shards of dishes littering the dining room, and Max, who usually worked at the restaurant on his day off, lying beaten and bloody amidst spilled and scattered food from the now-empty pantry shelves.

  Aaron didn’t stop to check whether his brother was alive or dead. Max couldn’t be dead—he was the little brother. Aaron ran out into the street, waving at the sparse traffic coming down the Strip, howling “Help! Police! My little brother!” A milk truck stopped and the milkman and Aaron picked up Max’s limp body—he was still breathing, but painfully—and drove to the town’s only hospital.

  Max had been badly beaten. He had two broken bones, three missing teeth, and a bad concussion. But the doctor was optimistic. Aaron blamed himself, letting his brother get mixed up with the gangsters from Brooklyn. But why? Why? Because he’d turned Golding down? Why?

  He’d damn well find out—and right away. The doctor said he’d call him if there was any change, and he raced on foot to the hotel. There he frightened the desk clerk into giving him Golding’s suite number, and when the man stammered it out (and was subsequently nearly fired for doing it) Aaron didn’t wait for the elevator; he ran up the stairway to the fourth floor and pounded on Golding’s door.

  It was opened by one of the grim bodyguards, who was just about to punch him—or possibly shoot him—when Golding appeared, wearing a bathrobe.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “What the fuck do you want? Why are you breaking into my room, waking me up—are you crazy?”

  “Yes, I’m crazy. Crazy to find my restaurant wrecked and my l
ittle brother almost dead on the floor.”

  Shock showed on Golding’s face. “What! What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Aaron shouted. “I don’t care what your apes here do to me, you’ll be sorry! That’s my little brother you’ve nearly killed—maybe he is killed!” And he suddenly sank sobbing to the carpet.

  Golding turned to his bodyguards. “Do you know what happened?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I gotta find out. Maybe it’s that Dutch Horburg—maybe he thinks we’ve got a hand in that restaurant. Keep him quiet until I get some clothes on. But don’t hurt him! Understand?” They nodded.

  When Golding had gotten the story out of the enraged and terrified Aaron, he seemed to puff up and become not only larger, but taller. “You think I would do that?” he demanded. “You think I’m such a goniff that I’d do that to a young boy who made a mistake? What kind of a mistake so terrible could a bellboy make? Steal a shirt maybe? Even say he insulted a guest—you think Golding doesn’t have enough guests he couldn’t lose one or two? You think I’d do something like that? I ought to get you beat up for that. Sure I’d yell, that’s what you do when you’re mad. Listen, if somebody cheats me, if somebody rats on me—he’d feel it. But a young kid like your brother can’t do Golding no harm even if he tried—you think I’d do something like that? I’m a monster?

  “Come on!” he took Aaron roughly by the arm.

  “Where?”

  “We’re gonna go back to your restaurant. Figger out who did that!”

  He said something Aaron didn’t catch to his bodyguard, and almost dragged Aaron out of the hotel and down the street. When they got to Aaron’s Eats, Golding pointed to the front of the building. Covering most of the wall were huge letters, white paint dripping down from them. JEW BABY RAPIRS! they screamed. BABY KANIBLS! KILL JEWISH KANIBLS!

  Aaron stared at it numbly. “You think I’d write something like that?” Golding demanded. “You couldn’t think I’d write shit like that in a million years.”

  “Then why?” Aaron asked, his voice full of tears. “Why would they do something like that to my little brother?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Golding said harshly. “Because you’re a Jew, that’s why. Because they think if that little girl had been hurt or killed, it’s your fault, just because you’re a Jew. You and your little brother could have been in Kalamazoo since before she disappeared, and they’d still pick you for it. Look, Aaron, leave this to me. I know how to take care of the shitheads like this.”

  “But how do you even know who they are?”

  Golding’s laugh sounded more like a curse, “Listen, Aaron, any good businessman has to keep his eyes open for shits like these. You never know when you need the information.

  “You want to go back to the hospital, no? McSorley!” he called out to the gorilla standing by the door. “Get the car!” He turned to Aaron. “McSorley will drive you there. I know you’re worried about the kid—what’s his name, Milton?”

  “Max.”

  “Okay, so it’s Max. You go be with Max.”

  “But the police …”

  Golding snorted. “The police! Listen, I wouldn’t faint with surprise, one or more of the slime under those white sheets they wear could be cops. Aaron, I keep on top of this stuff. I’m a businessman!” And with this rousing speech, he reached up to pat Aaron reassuringly on the shoulder and gave him a gentle push toward the door.

  At the hospital, Aaron sat in his brother’s room, worrying. Never mind the restaurant. He’d give up the damn restaurant, he’d go back to Akron, he didn’t care. Just let Max live. Outside, the town was stirring, with no sign that something terrible had happened.

  Some time in the late afternoon an orderly arrived pushing a wheeled stretcher. With a nurse helping, he got Max on the stretcher and went off down the hall—“X-rays,” the nurse told Aaron. The bed was still empty when the doctor came in; by that time Aaron had convinced himself that he’d never see his little brother alive again. But the doctor’s news was good. Good? Beautiful!

  “It will take a while, but he’s going to be all right.”

  “Thank God,” breathed Aaron. And when the orderly brought his brother back to the room, Max actually was able to open his eyes and manage a weak smile at Aaron before shutting down again.

  Aaron spent the night at his brother’s bedside. Some time around five in the morning there was a commotion in the street; shouts, automobiles racing down the Strip. Aaron thought “drunken tourists” and forgot it until he heard the local radio station when he went home to change.

  “The mangled body of Jonathan Whately, rumored to be the organizer and head of Las Vegas’s clandestine Ku Klux Klan, was found this morning at the edge of town. The police have no information on how he was killed. Several other Las Vegas residents suspected to be Klansmen seem to have left Las Vegas in a body, a welcome departure for all the good citizens of our town concerned.”

  L’Envoie

  Max did recover, after many weeks in the hospital. When he was discharged he moved in with his brother Aaron at Golding’s hotel, the Golden Peacock. They were living there rent-free, as befitted the most highly valued member of the hotel staff.

  “Listen, it’s not for your good, it’s for mine,” Golding told Aaron. “That jerk I got in the kitchen can’t cook for shit. We’re gettin’ real high-class customers here. They want real high-class food. So I’m makin’ you my top chef.”

  Aaron’s dream had come true. He moved his knives to the hotel kitchen without ever setting foot back in Aaron’s Eats. An entrepreneur from Los Angeles was delighted to clean up the mess that Max’s attackers had left. He transformed the site into a high-end women’s clothing and jewelry boutique.

  An acquaintance of Golding’s taught Max to serve as croupier at the roulette table, and what with that and a changing supply of attractive and more or less unattached young women, he settled in.

  Molly married the head of the Production Engineering department at Topnotch Tire, had four children in quick succession, and never did come out to see Las Vegas.

  THE MAGIC TOUCH: A PETER PANSY DETECTIVE YARN

  A. B. ROBBINS

  Howie Tabor had the fastest hands in town. None of the pros on the Vegas Strip, nor any of the street magicians on either coast, could do up-close magic like Howie. The only thing that kept Howie from the pro ranks and a career on stage was his speech: Howie made Gomer Pyle sound like Laurence Olivier.

  One Sunday afternoon, Howie stuck a single silver dollar into Big Beulah and hit the two-million-dollar jackpot. He now had enough money to buy the upscale tricks and illusions that set the big acts apart, and decided to make a run at a stage career. His idea was to develop a show that would not require him to speak. One murder and a few bizarre events later, I was in Las Vegas at Howie’s hire to find out “Whut in the hayell wuz goin’ awn.”

  My shingle reads Peter Pansy∼ Private Eye, and, please, no wisecracks about the name. I used to be one of those by the book, gold-badge guys out of L.A. Robbery/Homicide. Now my beat is what I ever-lovingly refer to as Beverly the Hill.

  As is my habit, I was sitting in my office at Numero Uno Rodeo Drive, wearing Gucci loafers, an Armani suit, Lagerfeld shirt, and a gold lamé shoulder holster, in which I keep “Golda,” my gold-plated .357 with mother-of-pearl grips. I was laid back, listening to the honeyed tones of Johnny Mathis, sipping on a Perrier, just waiting for who knows who, to come in and ask me to do who knows what, who knows where, when I got a phone call from my friend, Kam. I met Kamal Masik during my stint with Robbery/Homicide when he joined an investigation. He is an ex-Navy seal and real-life tough guy. Kamal, with his history of covert legal violence, is now the leading female impersonator in Las Vegas, yet he still does work he can’t talk about for one of those government alphabet agencies. Kam is my closest friend and a sometime work associate. It was he who recommended me to Howie.

  I took advantage of the opportu
nity and drove my XKE, top down, to Vegas. When I pulled off of I-15 at Tropicana Avenue, I called Kam. He said to meet him and Howie at his place. Place my ass. Palace was more like it. They were waiting out front as I drove up. Kam, his olive complexion and Mediterranean look enhanced by Las Vegas solar power, looked as if he stepped from the cover of GQ. However, when he spoke, you didn’t know if you were going to get a young Anthony Quinn or Jane Russell.

  “Peter, Howie. Howie, Peter,” Kam said.

  “Ah’m pleasured to makin’ yer ’quaintance, Mister Pansy,” Howie said. “Thissa here’s a awful mess we got.” He was a good looker, a bit under six feet, muscular, and smart. He just sounded funny.

  If you want big tricks built, Vegas was the place to be. If you had an idea, there were geniuses who could make it happen; or, better said, make it appear to happen. Choreography, original music, costuming, staging, everything you needed, just around the corner. Think of the stunts you’ve seen on TV, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, elephants, lions, tigers, and bears, oh my … all of them made to vanish before your very eyes. The competition is fierce, and industrial espionage, better known to us commoners as stealing, runs rampant. It appeared someone out there didn’t want another player on the field and was willing to stop at nothing to accomplish that end. The police literally didn’t have a clue. Now it was my turn.

  “Mister Pansy, I …”

  “Call me Pete or Peter, please, Howie.”

  “Pete, whoever done murdered Gerald Tannon was good. I mean, real good at magic, the way it happened and all. The po-leece is looking wrong at it. Mis-die-rec-ted, jes like with sleight-a-hand in a card trick.”