Chance

by Robert B. Parker

  I ate some chicken with cashews.

  "Can compulsive gamblers be helped?"

  "Sure," Susan said.

  "Same old conditions. If they want help. If they are able to do the work."

  "Is it the hope?" I said.

  "The chance for the big hit?"

  "Often it's losing," Susan said.

  "The thrill of defeat?" I said.

  Susan shrugged.

  "Something like that, maybe. Sorry I'm not more helpful."

  "Only idle curiosity," I said.

  "I don't need to know why he's compulsive to find him."

  "I doubt that your curiosity is ever idle," Susan said.

  There were a few grains of rice on the countertop near Susan's elbow, spilled when Susan had served it from the carton. Pearl got up with her forepaws on the counter and lapped it off.

  "She likes a balanced diet," Susan said.

  Susan's office was downstairs and she had come from work to dinner, still dressed in the conservative gray pants suit and understated jewelry that was part of her Dr. Silverman look. Her thick black hair was shiny. Her eyes were very large, and full of thought.

  She had a wide mouth, faultlessly made up. Her perfume smelled like rain.

  "Hawk and I are going to Las Vegas Monday," I said.

  "We'd like you to join us."

  "What about my appointments?"

  "Can you reschedule for a few days?"

  "Will Henry take Pearl?"

  "Yes."

  "Will we see Wayne Newton?"

  "I can't promise anything," I said.

  "Can I sleep with you?" she said.

  "I can't promise anything," I said.

  "The hell you can't," Susan said.

  "I'll reschedule next week."

  "Ever been to Vegas," I said.

  "Years ago, with my first husband."

  "Suze," I said.

  "He's your only husband."

  "Well, technically. Since you refuse to marry me."

  "I thought you refused to marry me," I said.

  "Hard to keep track, isn't it," Susan said.

  "I think Anthony's in Vegas," I said.

  Susan was drinking a glass of Merlot. She always chose red wine, regardless of what she was eating, because it didn't need to be chilled.

  "With some of his father-in-law's money?"

  "Yes. I figure he was carrying money between Ventura and Gino Fish. I don't know why but it would explain Marty Anaheim's interest. And I figure he either skimmed some, or simply took off one day with a bag of it."

  "And Mr. Ventura doesn't want either his own people or Mr… what's his name?"

  "Fish," I said.

  "Gino Fish."

  "Or Mr. Fish to find out. So he hires you to look for Anthony."

  "Yeah. But Fish finds out about me. And very quickly."

  "Which means that Mr. Fish has some source of information in Mr. Ventura's organization," Susan said.

  "In fact, if he's trying to keep the whole thing secret it's probably someone very close to Mr. Ventura."

  "Likely," I said.

  "And Mr. Fish sends his man…"

  "Marty Anaheim," I said.

  "And Marty Anaheim sends some people to follow you to find Anthony."

  "Which means what?" I said.

  "Which means Mr. Fish either knows he's been robbed, or is suspicious."

  "You therapists are a smart bunch," I said.

  She shook her head.

  "It's not because I'm a therapist," Susan said.

  "It's because I'm Jewish. Jews are very smart."

  "I've heard that," I said.

  "I've also heard that their women are desperately oversexed."

  "Some of them are, it's true."

  "How about yourself?"

  "Desperately," she said. And smiled her postlapsarian smile.

  "I like that in a woman."

  CHAPTER 12

  I was in my office on the phone booking our Las Vegas trip when Vinnie Morris came in with a tall, angular, gray-haired specimen whom I knew to be Gino Fish. Fish sat in one of the client chairs, directly in front of my desk, firmly upright, elbows on the chair arms, hands folded in his lap.

  He glanced slowly around the room and then looked at me as if he were interested. Vinnie leaned on the wall to the right of the door.

  I nodded at him.

  "Do you know who I am?" Fish said.

  His voice was dry and faintly hoarse, like wind whispering over sandpaper. His diction was precise.

  "I do."

  "Vinnie says you can be trusted."

  "Under the right circumstances," I said.

  "Vinnie says if you give your word, you will keep it."

  "Generally," I said.

  "Vinnie is not given to praise," Fish said.

  "So his regard for you is impressive."

  "Impresses the hell out of me," I said.

  "Vinnie also said you are inclined to be flippant."

  "Vinnie thinks flippant is the name of a dolphin," I said.

  Fish smiled as dryly as it was possible to smile and not be frowning. His teeth were remarkably white. I wondered if he had them bonded.

  "I did in fact rephrase Vinnie's remark," Fish said.

  "I thought Marty Anaheim walked around with you," I said.

  Fish shook his head very slightly.

  "Marty is my business associate," Fish said.

  "Vinnie has kindly agreed to be my bodyguard."

  "You and Broz never patched it up," I said to Vinnie.

  "Kid's in the way," Vinnie said.

  "Kid wasn't the best thing that ever happened to Joe," I said.

  "He knows that," Vinnie said.

  "But what's he gonna do."

  Fish seemed in no hurry. He sat perfectly still with his hands folded and waited for us to finish. He was wearing a gray three piece suit with a gentle glen plaid pattern. His shirt was blue with a white tab collar, and his tie was a gray and blue geometric.

  While he waited he examined the sink in the corner, the big green file cabinet to the right of the window with the head shot of Paul Giacomin on top of it, the picture of Susan with Pearl on my desk.

  "I have a problem," he said.

  I tilted back in my chair and waited. Behind me the September air, with only the smallest edge of fall inside the still summery softness, drifted in through the half-open window that overlooked the Boylston-Berkeley intersection.

  "May I assume that this discussion is entirely confidential?"

  Fish said.

  "No," I said.

  Fish looked mildly surprised and glanced at Vinnie.

  "He's just being a hard-on, Mr. Fish," Vinnie said.

  "He does that. Means he'll decide whether it's confidential after he hears it.

  Go ahead and tell him."

  "I have been in business a long time," Fish said, "and I have learned prudence. I have learned that if you have associates you have to trust them."

  He spoke slowly, with pauses between words that required no pauses, so you never quite knew when he was through talking. I waited.

  "But I have also learned never to trust them beyond the limits of their venality."

  "You go to Yale?" I said.

  Again the driest of possible smiles.

  "I have very little formal education," he said.

  "But I have always valued language and during a long period of incarceration when I was very much younger, I took it upon myself to master language."

  "Are you sure you're a bad guy?" I said.

  "Yes," Fish said.

  "I am."

  I waited. Fish seemed to be thinking about something. Somewhere below me on Boylston Street I heard the boop beep of someone's car alarm remote.

  "So, I have instituted a system of, ah, checks and balances in my organization. No single person is solely responsible for the management of money. Sometimes there are two, sometimes more than two, people who control a particular source of income and
are responsible for its accounting. These people are generally not known to each other, or, two people are known to each other, but there may be a third or even a fourth who is unknown to the others, indeed, whose very existence is unknown to the others."

  "Labyrinthian," I said.

  "I value precision and control," Fish said.

  "And you caught somebody stealing," I said.

  "I told you at the beginning that I had a problem," Fish said, and his velvet fog voice was suddenly metallic.

  "If I had caught someone stealing, I would not have a problem."

  I let that pass.

  "You have, I believe, recently had dealings with Marty Anaheim."

  "Marty had a tail on me," I said.

  "I backtracked the tail to Marty and expressed my dismay."

  Leaning on the wall, Vinnie almost smiled.

  "You are intrepid," Fish said.

  "Marty is extremely dangerous."

  "But does he value precision and control," I said.

  "Did Marty tell you why he had a tail on you?"

  "No, but he seemed very interested in whatever I might be doing for Julius Ventura," I said.

  "And he seemed quite interested in Julius's son-in-law."

  Fish pursed his lips for a moment and blew short silent whistles through them.

  "What are you doing for Julius," Fish said.

  I shook my head. Fish nodded sadly.

  "If I need to know," he said, "I will make you tell me. For the moment the point can remain moot."

  "Maybe you can tell me something," I said.

  "Was Marty acting for you when he put a tail on me?"

  Again Fish whistled silently for a moment.

  "Marty is ambitious," Fish said.

  "And charming," I said.

  "I understand that Julius's son-in-law used to courier cash between you and Julius."

  "He has done some work for me. Julius and I have areas of common interest in which we are cooperative."

  "It's what life's all about, isn't it?"

  Fish ignored me. We both sat quietly for a time.

  "Do you know why Marty was interested in Anthony Meeker?"

  Fish said.

  The name was up in the front of his brain. Did that mean Gino knew Anthony because he'd done some work for him, because he was Julius's son-in-law, or because he had recently become interested in him?

  "If Marty was working for you, I'd say Anthony was skimming. If Marty's on his own in this, I don't know."

  Fish nodded.

  "Maybe Marty is skimming," I said.

  "Why would that cause him to be interested in Meeker?"

  "It would explain why you were interested in Marty," I said.

  "Maybe they were both skimming."

  "Many people, ah, skim," Fish said.

  "It is human. But it doesn't seem an answer sufficient to my questions."

  "Don't you hate it when that happens," I said.

  Fish didn't answer. He sat still and looked thoughtfully at me, his long hands folded quietly in his lap.

  "Well," Fish said, finally.

  "Neither of us has learned as much from the other as he would have wished."

  "True," I said, "but I enjoyed listening to you talk."

  Fish did his imitation smile.

  "Perhaps we'll talk again," he said.

  He stood and walked toward the door. Vinnie opened it, Fish walked through. Vinnie, his face expressionless, shot me once with -his forefinger and walked out after him.

  CHAPTER 13

  Julius Ventura didn't like it much that I was going to Vegas to look for Anthony. He wanted me to find Anthony in East Boston, or maybe Scituate at the outmost. "You sure you ain't holding me up for a trip to Vegas?" he said.

  We were in his office, in the back of a bar room called Cutter's on Atlantic Ave." near Quincy Market. Shirley was there too, sober, in a flowered dress with puffy sleeves and a very narrow skirt with a flared hem.

  "Sure," I said.

  "Me and Hawk. The dream of a lifetime. Vegas!

  Who could blame us?"

  "I ain't paying for you two clowns to go on no joy ride," Ventura said.

  "But, Daddy, if Mr. Spenser thinks he's there…"

  "Mr. Spenser thinks there's a good time there," Ventura said.

  He was going to okay the trip and we all knew it. This was just foreplay to Julius, who felt like being a hard-nosed guy. I didn't mind. Julius needed to feel like a hard-nosed guy, and I had plenty of time.

  "I could have said he was in Paris."

  "He wouldn't go to Paris," Shirley said.

  "Did he go to Las Vegas with anyone?"

  "Don't know," I said.

  "Got anyone in mind?"

  "No. Not at all, I was just wondering."

  "You and Hawk both got to go?" Ventura said.

  "We'll find him quicker," I said.

  "With two of us looking."

  "Just why is it you think he's there?"

  "I'm told he's always dreamed of it. That he's got a system and as soon as he could get the dough together he was going to go out and bust Vegas."

  "And where you think he got the dough?"

  "From you," I said, "or Gino Fish, or both."

  "You think we give it to him?" Ventura asked.

  "No, I think he took it."

  Shirley stood up as if there was a spring in her chair.

  "That is absolutely not so," she said. She had her fists resting on her hips.

  "Anthony made a very good salary and he was as honest as the day is long."

  "That honest?" I said.

  "And besides, if he was going anywhere because he had a dream he'd take me with him. He wouldn't go anywhere without me unless he was forced to."

  "So you think he's been kidnapped and taken to Vegas?" I said.

  "I don't know where he is. You said he was in Las Vegas, mister smart-ass detective."

  She almost stamped her foot. It was as if she'd learned how to be mad by watching old Doris Day movies.

  Ventura said, "Shut up, Shirley. What makes you think he lifted money from me or Gino?"

  "He's got a gambling problem. He collected money for you. Now he's gone and you're looking for him, but you don't want people to know and Gino seems to be trying to find out what I find out."

  I shrugged and spread my hands.

  "He doesn't have a gambling problem," Shirley said. She was sitting again" her knees tight together, her fists clamped together in her lap. Her top teeth were on her lower lip again.

  "Shirley, I tole you shut up," Ventura said.

  "This is business, you unnerstan? I'm trying to think about business here."

  Shirley looked down at her folded hands. She spoke very softly, as if to herself.

  "He wouldn't go without me."

  Ventura stared at me hard for a while. I waited.

  "Gino's been trying to find out what you're doing?"

  "Marty Anaheim," I said.

  "Same thing," Ventura said.

  "They put a tail on me as soon as I started looking for Anthony.

  They knew about me the day I started."

  Ventura's eyes were on me but they weren't seeing me. The tip of his tongue rested for a moment on his lower lip. He sat that way for a while.

  Finally he said, "I do some business with Gino."

  "Cash," I said.

  "Yeah, a course." Ventura looked at me as if I questioned the law of gravity.

  "And Anthony bagged the money back and forth."

  "Some," Ventura said.

  "Sometimes, for good faith, because he was, you know, family, he'd do some pick-up for Gino."

  I waited.

  "You sure about this Las Vegas shit?"

  "I talked to some people. I'm sure he gambles bad and loses worse. I'm told he had a plan for winning big in Vegas."

  "How come I don't know anything about it?" Shirley said. She was still looking at her fists in her lap. Her voice was still very small.

>   "If he was like that I'd know. We were closer than anything."

  Ventura ignored her.

  "You don't say nothing about this. Especially you don't say nothing to Gino or Marty Anaheim."

  "Normally," I said, "I stay in business by being a blabbermouth, but since you asked so nice…"

  "I don't want no talk about this anywhere," Ventura said.

  "That your son-in-law stole your partner's money?"

  "You don't know what he did," Ventura said.

  "All you know is he's missing and you better find him."

  "He wouldn't steal anything," Shirley murmured.

  "So we're off to Vegas," I said.

  "Yeah, and right now. And don't stay in no fucking Caesars Palace, you unnerstan?"

  "Probably just sleep in the airport," I said.

  CHAPTER 14

  I always suspected that Las Vegas Airport was bigger than Las Vegas, but I'd never seen any hard stats on it. Hawk and I were carrying one shoulder bag each for our clothing and two suitcases each for Susan's clothing. Slot machines lined the concourse. "You planning on changing clothes every hour?" Hawk said.

  "You never know when I may meet Wayne Newton," Susan said.

  "I have to be ready."

  "Long as you don't have to carry it," Hawk said.

  "Jewish American princesses do not carry luggage," Susan said.

  "That's why there are goys."

  "I wonder if we could pick up a couple of little red caps," I said.

  Hawk shook his head.

  "Don't issue them to white guys," he said.

  At the limousine pickup area there was only one other party, a man and a woman. Susan studied them for a moment and then made a covert head gesture to Hawk and me.

  "Wayne?" Hawk said.

  "Shh. No. That's Robert Goulet," Susan whispered.

  Hawk put down the suitcases.

  "You need to change?" he said.

  "No," Susan said.

  "What I'm wearing is fine for Robert Goulet."

  A slender light-skinned black man in a white suit came into the waiting area. He had short reddish hair. Inside the door, he took off his aviator sunglasses while his eyes adjusted.

  Hawk said, "Lester."

  "Hawk, my man," Lester said.

  Hawk introduced us. We stayed with the air-conditioning while Lester hustled the luggage out to the car.

  "Lester runs a specialty limo service," Hawk said.