by James Swain
A cocktail waitress slipped through the curtains. She wore a tasteful ruffled dress, her face heavily painted.
"Cup of coffee, black," he ordered.
"We got a special on the pina coladas," she said meekly.
"No, thanks. I'd like to see someone in charge."
"Sure. I'll get Charlene."
The coffee came before Charlene. It was very hot and tasted very good. He guessed it was a Columbian blend. His waitress reappeared with a menu, which she stuck in his hands.
"Charlene's kinda busy," she explained. "So she asked me to take care of you. My name's Sassy."
"I'm looking for someone," Underman explained.
Sassy sat down on the couch beside him. Beneath the makeup, he saw a young woman from the Midwest, maybe Ohio, who'd come out here chasing a dream and gotten behind on her bills and sucked into this crummy situation. Underman smiled at her pleasantly. To his surprise, she smiled just as pleasantly back.
"Aren't we all," she said sweetly. Taking the menu from his hands, she read aloud his choices. "Everything's a la carte. First, there are Warm-ups: sensual massage or a lingerie show, or you can have a party starter. That's where a girl gets you hard with her mouth. Next is Ready, Baby. That's your basic sucking and fucking: missionary, on your back, half and half, reverse it, or on your knees. You with me so far?"
Underman nodded. Her matter-of-fact delivery reminded him of the pizza boy reading the choice of toppings over the phone.
"Next is Keep It Going. Your choices are a Jacuzzi party; Show Time, which is two or more girls having sex with each other; or the Orgy Fantasy, which is just about whatever your little heart could desire. Then we've got One Step Further. That's for guys who like to indulge. There's Dominance, Pajama Party, Bondage, and Fantasy. Then we offer a refreshing massage and shower. Each lady is an independent contractor, and prices vary with different activities. We accept cash, Visa, MasterCard and traveler's checks, with proper ID, of course."
She stopped and smiled. Before Underman could tell her what he wanted, her hand flew up to her mouth.
"Whoops, I almost forgot. There's something new that isn't on the menu. Titty Fucking. That's where you put your erection between a girl's breasts and you come or she sucks you off. Your choice."
Underman took a deep breath. Just imagining this creative little endeavor was getting him aroused. He would turn seventy in October, which put any idea of experimentation out of the question. It wouldn't be the actual act that would kill him. The heart attack would come a few days later, just remembering it.
"So," Sassy said abruptly, "you ready to see the lineup?"
"I actually had something else in mind," he confessed.
"What's that, big boy?"
He dropped his voice. "I'm looking for Al."
The name didn't register. Sassy said, "You want a guy? Mister, I think you made a wrong turn. This is a whorehouse."
"I know what it is," Underman said, her patronizing tone losing its charm. "Al works here, at least the last time I checked."
"Never heard of him," she said.
"You must be new," Underman said.
That got her mad. "I've been working here two years next week, buster, and I've never heard of him."
"Al Scarpi," Underman said.
"Not ringing any bells."
"Little Hands," he said.
"You want to see Little Hands? Why didn't you say so?"
"I just did. His name's Al."
"No one calls him that," she said defensively.
"His friends do."
"Little Hands has friends? That's a new one to me."
Sassy approached the stage. The pianist stopped her playing and they had a little chat; the pianist raised her eyes and gave Underman a hard look. Underman stared right back while sipping his coffee. It had grown ice cold but still tasted great. Maybe he could talk the management into putting a bluebird special on the menu: coffee, talk dirty to a hostess, more coffee. It was about all he was good for these days.
"Follow me," Sassy said, offering Underman her hand. She escorted him to the entrance and then outside into the sweltering desert inferno. Instantly, her face turned old, the harsh sunlight keeper of few secrets. She pointed down the road in the opposite direction from which he'd come.
"Get in your car and go west five miles. There're a couple of trailers down there, girls who service the migrants. Little Hands lives there."
"Thanks," he said, reaching for his wallet.
She slipped the fifty between her breasts and pecked his cheek.
"Stop back in if you need anything."
"I'll do that," Underman said.
The Intrepid was too hot to drive. Underman started the engine and got out, letting the AC run while he hid in the building's shadow, thinking about Sassy. She was a hostess, not a hooker, so her offer intrigued him. She probably talked to a thousand sex-starved men a week, which made her a real pro on the male condition. With a selection like that, why service him?
Driving down a miserable gravel road ten minutes later, Underman was still wondering about it. Just about all he was good for these days was playing chess and listening to records. Wouldn't Sassy have figured that out? He'd lost his vanity long ago and assumed everyone saw the same old crow he saw in the mirror each morning. How bad was the light in there?
The migrant brothel was an ugly sore on the landscape. Four inhospitable double-wide trailers surrounded by a row of razor-sharp cyclone fencing. Underman pulled up to a guard booth and rolled down his window. Inside sat a dark-skinned Mexican with a shotgun, a small electric fan beating back his stringy hair.
"What you want?" the Mexican said.
"I'm looking for someone," Underman said.
The Mexican raised an expectant eyebrow.
"Little Hands."
The Mexican had a face of stone. Underman decided he wasn't nearly as stupid as he looked. For all he knew, the Mexican owned the place.
"Who?" the Mexican asked.
Underman held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Little Hands."
The Mexican frowned, not seeing the humor. "Who you?"
"A friend."
"Never seen you before," the Mexican said.
The Intrepid's interior was heating up, his precious cool air escaping. With sweat pouring down his brow, Underman said, "Look, do I look like trouble to you?"
The Mexican lifted his head, peering inside the rental.
"Maybe," he said. He picked up a walkie-talkie from the floor and called inside. "What your name?"
"Don't push it," Underman said.
The Mexican's brow furrowed suspiciously.
"You not gonna tell me your name?"
"I don't think so," Underman said through clenched teeth. "Let me ask you a question. How well do you know Little Hands?"
The Mexican's face turned blank.
Underman smiled. "Good. I just wanted to be sure we understood each other."
The Mexican chewed his lip, considering. Then said, "He's behind trailer with red door."
Underman pulled into the squalid compound and got out of his car. The ground was soft beneath his feet and he saw a squashed scorpion where his tires had been. He walked around the trailer with the red door, the sun beating down mercilessly on his head and shoulders. It was like descending into hell, one step at a time.
Little Hands was in the back with his shirt off. It was a frightening sight, his muscles popping grotesquely as he stuck a crowbar into the dashboard of a Volkswagen Beetle and tore it from the car. The Beetle was brand new, a temporary license taped to the rear window. Its owner, a freckle-faced whore wearing a pink nightshirt, stood helplessly nearby, kicking the ground with her bare feet.
Underman found a shady spot and watched Little Hands dismantle the vehicle. The rules against the women stashing money were strict. Every room was wired, allowing management to listen in as negotiations were made and prices settled on. Once the money was collected, it was the woman's responsibility
to deliver it to the office, where it was held, to be split in half later.
"You gonna tell me where you're hiding it?" Little Hands said when he had reduced the Beetle to a worthless shell. He ripped the last seat apart and tossed the stuffing at the freckle-faced whore's feet. "Or what?"
"Ain't nothing to tell," she said sullenly.
"You think I'm fucking stupid?"
"Never gave it much thought."
Little Hands went to work on the body. German engineering was no match for American bodybuilding, and soon the car looked like a hot rod, its frame stripped down to almost nothing.
"These Michelins are worth something," Little Hands said, whacking the front tires with the crowbar. "You want me to puncture them, or are you going to tell me where it is?"
The freckle-faced whore crossed her arms. Little Hands jabbed the right front tire, causing it to explode. Underman jumped as the hubcap went flying. A small, tightly wrapped plastic bag fell out of a hollow cavity in the tire. The whore burst into tears, then ran into one of the trailers.
Underman approached Little Hands, his floppy hat in his hand. Little Hands squinted at him.
"Mr. Underman," he said with surprise. "Fancy seeing you out here. Looking for a little action?"
"You and I need to talk," Underman said under his breath.
Little Hands pulled a sleeveless T-shirt on over his sweaty, bulging torso. "I got my own trailer; nobody will bother us."
"In my car," Underman said.
"I'm not supposed to leave the premises. I'm locked up in here, just like the whores."
"Can you get a pass?"
Picking up a towel, Little Hands wiped the sweat from his little hands. Underman tried not to stare, knowing how it would set his client into a rampage.
"What's this all about, Mr. Underman?"
Underman got right up next to him. "Guess who ripped off the Acropolis the other night."
"I dunno. Who?"
"Sonny Fontana."
"Come on, Mr. Underman. You and I both know that ain't so. I snuffed that greaseball up in Lake Tahoe."
"You killed someone else," Underman said.
"Can't be."
Underman nodded. "Fontana's alive. Now, how about you and I take a little drive?"
Underman had defended Little Hands four times in jury trials, all of which ended in acquittals. In each trial, the charge had been murder in the first degree, and in each case Underman had swayed the jury to believe his client's side of the story without ever putting his client on the witness stand. To do otherwise would have been suicide.
Underman drove to a spot in the desert directly between the two brothels and pulled off the road. Leaving the engine running, he reached beneath his seat and removed a manila envelope. Little Hands was watching a rattler crawl beneath the car and did not seem to notice when the envelope was dropped into his lap.
"They threw a big party for me at Caesars," he said, glancing Underman's way. "There were girls and booze and a band."
"I heard about it," Underman said.
"And there was a cake. No one ever threw a party for me for snuffing somebody before. It was special, you know?"
"I'm sure it was," Underman said.
"And now you're telling me it wasn't Sonny Fontana. Shit. You think they're going to ask for their money back?"
"They might," Underman said truthfully.
"So what am I gonna do?"
"Find Fontana," Underman said. "Do the job right this time."
Little Hands tore the envelope open. Two black-and-white photographs fell in his lap. He picked up Fontaine's first and examined it.
"This what the greaseball looks like now?"
Underman nodded. "My sources say he's living near the Strip."
"Cute bitch," Little Hands said, examining the second photo.
"Name's Nola Briggs," Underman said. "She's a blackjack dealer at the casino. She's holed up with Fontana."
"So what you're saying is, I find her, he'll be nearby."
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"This might take a while," Little Hands said.
For an old man, Underman could move like lightning when he had to. Jumping out of the rental, he popped the trunk, retrieved a heavy paper bag, and was back behind the wheel before a drop of sweat could form on his forehead. The paper bag landed with a loud thump! in Little Hands's lap.
Little Hands peered inside the bag. "Jesus. There must be-"
"Fifty grand," Underman said. "Turn the town upside down if you have to. Just find that son of a bitch. You think you can do that?"
Little Hands was all smiles. "Mr. Underman, with this much money, I could invade a country."
"It shouldn't be that hard."
"No, sir."
On the drive back, Little Hands memorized the photos, shredded them and tossed them out the window. Underman had once visited an apartment where Little Hands had holed up for a while. Every single thing that could be torn into little pieces had been. It was simply the way he was.
"The casino bosses sent you, didn't they?" Little Hands asked as the migrant brothel came into view.
Underman said nothing, letting him believe what he wanted.
"I appreciate it, is what I'm saying. Getting a second chance and all. I won't let them down. That's a promise."
"I'll pass it along," Underman said.
"What about the bitch?"
"What about her?"
"I find her… what?"
Underman had wondered about that very thing during the drive up. Having Fontaine killed wasn't going to bother anyone-hell, the casino owners might throw Little Hands another party-but Nola was a different story. She appeared to be an unwilling pawn, and he felt genuinely sorry for her. Still, she had dragged him into this, and he was not prepared to lose his license or go to jail because of her misfortune. The best thing that could happen to her would be if she disappeared as well.
"I'll leave that up to you," the defense attorney said.
19
Only in Las Vegas did Valentine think he could start his day by having an argument over whether a guy was dead.
He'd been waiting for an elevator to take him downstairs when two medics pushing a corpse on a gurney came out of a room. Ignoring him, one of the medics punched the button for the service elevator, then popped a piece of gum into his mouth.
Valentine tried to act nonchalant. The corpse's feet were visible, and he guessed the deceased to be a middle-aged white male of medium height and above-average weight. Back in Atlantic City, guys fitting this profile had dropped about once a week. Their stories were always the same: In for a convention or trade show, they'd hit the town like a runaway train, gambling and drinking and whoring for a few days without sleep or proper nourishment until the ole ticker finally had enough and quit.
"Service elevator must be out of order," the gum-chewing medic remarked, the name skull stitched above his breast pocket. "We're going to have to wheel him through the lobby, Larry."
"That's just swell," Larry said. "Better pull the sheet back."
A regular elevator came and Valentine held the door. As they descended, he watched Larry draw the sheet back and expose the deceased's head, which bore the bemused expression of someone who'd died doing something he probably shouldn't have been.
"So how long's he been dead?" Valentine asked.
"He's not dead," Larry said.
"Beg your pardon?"
"You heard me," Larry said. "Man's not dead."
Valentine put his hand on the deceased's neck. The pulse was long gone, the skin ice cold. He guessed six hours.
"You willing to swear to that?" Valentine asked.
"Why?" Larry said. "You a cop?"
"Ex. And having been around a few corpses, I'd say you'd be doing this gentleman's memory a disservice by claiming he's still alive."
"Man's not dead," Larry said, stone-faced.
Valentine became incensed. What kind of fool did this gruesome twosome take him fo
r? Reaching the lobby, he put his hand on the gurney, halting the medics' departure.
"You'll lose your license if I report you," Valentine said.
"Like hell we will," Larry said.
"Man's not dead," Skull said, cracking a loopy smile. When Valentine would not let go, he added, "It's a game, mister. Make a scene, and you'll get thrown out of the casino."
"Like hell I will!"
The two medics burst out laughing. They both had a ghoulish sense of humor, which Valentine found distasteful. Respect the dead, and they won't come back to haunt you. Releasing the gurney, he ran to the front desk. It was empty; he went into the casino looking for someone who wasn't sleepwalking.
The casino was empty except for an old lady with liver-spotted forearms as big as two-by-fours pumping the slots. Desperate, he ducked into the alcove that housed One-Armed Billy and grabbed Joe Smith by the arm.
"Come here," Valentine said, pulling Joe toward the front door as the medics loaded the corpse into a waiting ambulance. "I want you to be a witness to something."
"I'm not supposed to leave my post," Joe said without conviction, eager for something to do. "What's up?"
"I want you to look at this guy."
"What guy?"
"This dead guy."
Outside, Valentine stopped the medics and drew the sheet back. Joe put his giant hand on the dead guy's chest and felt for a heartbeat.
"He's mighty cold," Joe said, crossing himself.
"Does he appear to be breathing?" Valentine asked.
The dead guy broke wind, cracking up the medics. Holding a smile, Joe said, "No, sir."
"Any signs of life?"
"Not that I can see."
"So you'd agree that he's dead?"
Joe shook his head in the negative.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Man's not dead," Joe muttered.
The medics slapped their sides and laughed some more. Thinking the whole world crazy, Valentine ran back inside, hoping Roxanne was in the back room doing the books, only to hear the ambulance turn on its siren and peel out. Joe came inside, and Valentine followed him into the alcove.
