Sandy had come in and was also peering down.
"I believe that Subic started the chain of events that led to Anthony’s death," said Nina.
"Well, that tainted old tree’s too far away to visit," Paul said.
"Auntie Alice!" Sandy announced suddenly, loudly.
Paul looked at Nina significantly and tapped his temple with his forefinger. "No, Sandy, Auntie Alice is still in Kansas with Auntie Em."
"Maybe yours is," Sandy retorted. "My Auntie Alice is a payroll clerk at Subic."
Daylight saving time had finally arrived. Only the first week in May, but not until eight did a few shreds of magenta and orange chase each other across the sky.
Paul knew he had eaten too much grilled steak and baked potato, but it had been worth it. He was in the living room with Matt, lying down on the couch and watching the Giants beat the Dodgers. The women were off putting the kids to bed. Matt had built a big fire, and there was another can of Coors on the burl-wood coffee table. For a brief moment Paul wondered if he shouldn’t settle down with Marilyn, buy a place by the beach, give in to a couple of kids who would kiss him on the cheek at night and call him Daddy, like Matt’s kids did.
Nah.
He got up and put on his windbreaker. It would be a relief to get back to fact-gathering, away from the intuitions Nina passed off as reason. Fact: Anthony Patterson had been chief of security at Prize’s. Fact: Peter La Russa was a pit boss at Prize’s, a friend of Anthony’s. Fact: The client had a reputation with men.
As far as he was concerned, the yellow brick road led straight to Prize’s.
Life in the nineties had lost its glamour, Paul thought as he walked down the gift-shop aisles toward the playing area of Prize’s. Glitter, diamonds, tuxes, limos, flashy shows, liquor, parties, late nights, gambling, even recreational sex had been put away as frivolous and unhealthy in this dour decade.
But glamour lived on in the pleasure domes of Tahoe, if you squinted and suspended your disbelief a little. As he crossed into the huge gaming room, past the shouts from the craps tables, past the croupier stacking chips at a packed roulette table, past the shiny red BMW rotating seductively in front of the Megamachine slots, past the Tonga Bar with its thatched roof and bubbling aquariums, past the long line for the nine o’clock show, Paul felt ready for some action.
Near him one of the dealers, a woman about forty, stood with her arms folded, a single deck displayed on the green baize cloth waiting for customers. "Peter La Russa on shift?" he asked her.
"Right over there," she said, pointing out the pit boss. Her table was in La Russa’s group. On impulse he pulled out a chair, sat down, and handed her a hundred-dollar bill.
"All nickels," he said. She pushed over a stack of green chips, scooped up her deck, and started shuffling. Paul set two of his five-dollar chips on the table. Very fast, her pretty hands twinkling with rings, she dealt him his hole card and turned over a ten for herself, then dealt him a three. He looked at his hole card. Damn, a ten. He tapped the table lightly with his cards, and almost before he was finished tapping received a jack. Bust. He turned his cards over and she showed her last card, another ten, before she took his money.
Next hand, she dealt herself nineteen and he lost with a queen and a seven. For the next ten minutes he played with all his concentration, following the basic strategy, but his stack shrank relentlessly. It seemed like he had hardly sat down when she said, "Bet?" and he saw he’d lost it all. He decided not to drag out his wallet again right then.
"Cocktails?" a voice said as he was rising. He looked down at a nice-looking girl, about thirty-five, her little breasts served up in the black satin like dinner rolls in a fancy napkin, her face inert with boredom. He pictured Misty in that outfit, that night in April. Was her smile as cold? "No, thanks," he said. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"
Her smile dropped back into a thin line. "About Anthony and Misty Patterson," Paul said, but he already knew it was hopeless, she was looking around for help. La Russa came over as though she had called him. The cocktail waitress slipped away.
"Mr. La Russa?" Paul said. "I need to talk to you about Anthony Patterson."
La Russa slicked back greasy gray hair, which matched his shiny gray suit. Soft, beautifully manicured hands laden with heavy gold rings gestured to the wings. "Come on over here," he said. He led the way over to an empty bank of tables and they sat down at one of them.
"Know Anthony Patterson?"
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"Know he’s dead?"
"I heard. So tell me again why I should talk to you."
"I’m an investigator for the attorney who represents Misty Patterson," Paul answered, passing over his card.
La Russa jumped up so quickly, he knocked over his club soda. "Shit," he said. "You looked like a cop. I don’t have to talk to you."
"No, but it will look strange if you don’t," Paul said.
La Russa said, "Anthony was a friend of mine. He never should have married Misty, ’cause she made him goddamned unhappy, but I’ll say this, then you can get the hell out: Patterson had a lot going for him, and it’s a fucking shame." He walked rapidly back toward his station inside the next bank of tables. Paul followed. "What were you and Patterson into, Peter?" he said loudly.
"Get Security over here," La Russa told his assistant, who picked up a phone and punched a number. All the dealers were watching, surprised to see a civilian enter the pit area, some of them smoothly dealing out cards at the same time.
A massive shadow stepped forward. Obviously, security was good at Prize’s. "Problem?" he said.
"I have an appointment with Mr. Rossmoor," Paul said. "Could you direct me?"
Stephen Rossmoor waited at the door of the penthouse suite.
"Sorry about your luck tonight," he said, waving Paul to a plush couch under a large, bright painting. "Call me Steve." His grip had just the right pressure, and he was smooth, but he looked young for the job, in his early thirties.
"You I.D.’d me fast," Paul said, looking around him. The penthouse living room was as large as his house back in Monterey. One wall was window, looking down over the sparkling lights of the gaming district. Through the inner door he could see a desk and conference table. The whole place seemed to be carpeted in pale gray fur and furnished with antiques older than California. "You live here?"
"My home is in Zephyr Cove, but I spend the night here now and then. Drink?"
"Whatever you have," Paul said. It was Chivas, straight up. Rossmoor sat down at the other end of the couch. He wasn’t drinking.
Paul had done some background checking on Rossmoor. Yale ’82, Princeton for his master’s, a miserly Connecticut grandpa who had left him a bundle. Paul knew and despised Ivy League, the buttons on the Oxford shirt collar, the hair a little mussed but short enough, the class ring, the scuffed but expensive loafers, M.B.A.’s sliding easily into the jobs of men who had worked their way up. Rossmoor fit the stereotype, except he had the fresh-air browning of a tennis player or swimmer, a big difference between him and the pasty faces Paul remembered from the East.
Inherited money always bugged Paul. It might not buy happiness, but it bought the deep-seated security and ease that Stephen Rossmoor possessed. Paul had been a scholarship-and-loans boy. He resented the rich kids.
"Mr. La Russa didn’t want to talk to me," Paul said.
"I told him not to," Rossmoor said.
"What kind of liability is the club worried about?"
"Just the usual risk management, Paul. How is Misty? Is she having trouble putting up the bail?"
"She’ll probably be out tomorrow."
"Great. And her parents are helping her with the legal fees?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I want to help. I’d like to see that she gets off as lightly as possible. My attorney says she might be offered a plea bargain for probation if you push the self-defense angle."
He sounded sincere. Paul said, "Nina Reilly should talk to y
ou directly."
"I’ll talk to her."
"I need to ask you a few questions about the Pattersons."
"Be my guest."
"Fine," Paul said. "Let’s start with your relationship with Michelle Patterson. Misty."
"She’s an employee, has been for over a year." Rossmoor scratched his head. "I admit to a personal interest in Misty. It would be hard to find a male employee who didn’t have one, actually."
"You’re close?"
"No, I wouldn’t say that. I wanted a relationship, but she didn’t."
"Tell me about it."
"She came up with me for a drink before work just a few times. We talked, got to know each other a little bit. The truth is, I found myself rather suddenly getting serious about her. She didn’t seem to want that."
"When was this?"
"The early part of March. She was working till midnight, and Patterson worked midnight to eight A.M., graveyard. I never deluded myself that I was the only one she was seeing," Rossmoor went on. "But I didn’t want to know."
"Patterson might have had a nasty reaction if he found out," Paul said.
"He never found out, I don’t think. And from my point of view, she was another man’s wife but she was unhappy and trying to get up the strength to divorce him. I’m single. My intentions were ... honorable."
"She stopped seeing you?"
"She dropped me, to be honest. I don’t know why. I wanted ... a lot more. Actually, I still do."
"Does she still have a job here?"
"Sure, if she wants it. Sure."
"I don’t know, I’m just asking," Paul said. "I mean, she’s supposed to have killed another employee here. You’d think his friends would be unhappy to see her again."
"Maybe Peter La Russa. I don’t know that Anthony Patterson had any other friends," Rossmoor said. He seemed more relaxed talking about Patterson. Paul pressed on.
"So what was it they were doing? You know, what kind of scam were they running?"
"You know, Paul, talking about that sort of thing might cause trouble for the club."
"I know. I’m not simpleminded," Paul said.
"Let me guess," Rossmoor said. "Let’s see, community college in California, army or marines, maybe finished up at UC. Career as a cop, left because you couldn’t get promoted. How did I do?"
"Born and raised in California. Harvard undergrad. Northeastern for my M.S. and then the Peace Corps. The cop part is right."
"College in Boston but a California boy. I knew some West Coast fellows at school. They didn’t much like Yale. They thought we were all snobs, but California snobbery is the worst. I should have known by the way you looked down your nose at the antiques," Rossmoor said. He was smiling, inviting Paul to join in. It was hard not to like him.
"Look," Paul said. "You tell me you have a thing for Misty, you want to help her. You’re privy to some information that might help her, about Patterson and Peter La Russa. Are you going to give it to me or not?"
Rossmoor got up and moved to the window, hands behind his back.
"Suppose the information might lead to the arrest of someone else and free her?" Paul said. "Which wins out, the corporate or the personal interest?"
"My turn," Rossmoor said. "I want to know if you can prove somebody else struck the second blow, the one that was fatal."
"Where’d you hear about that, Mr. Rossmoor?"
"Steve. Of course we obtained the police reports."
"Help me out here, Steve."
Rossmoor fell silent. He finally said, "It doesn’t seem relevant, but I’m willing to give you the general outlines of a problem the club had with Anthony Patterson, on condition you don’t talk to the press, look into it quietly, and keep it all confidential unless something important to your client does turn up."
"Fair enough."
"Patterson knew his job, I’ll say that. For the first year or so he did really well. Knew how to peg the bad guys, knew where to lay the blame and how hard to come down to keep the peace."
"Would you describe him as violent?"
"You’re an ex-cop; so was he. Would you describe yourself as violent? He manipulated violence like an expert, the same way he could use any other kind of weapon. If he blew, it was a calculated blow."
"What changed after a year?"
"Purely speculating, his marriage started to sour. After that, aside from his hobby of controlling his wife, he devoted most of his attention to pursuing easy money. He could be quite persuasive and attractive when he wanted to be. I admit he had me fooled at first. Anyway, he and La Russa brought in a card counter, a really brilliant blackjack player who’s on the Gaming Association’s blacklist."
"Hey, I didn’t last thirty seconds out there before you knew me."
"They put him in a wig and glasses and he played only at a table La Russa supervised. He played big money. That set off the alarm bells, but Patterson shut them off. The counter won about twenty thousand, as near as we can tell, before I got into it and watched Anthony protecting La Russa, who was protecting the counter."
"I got the internal report at the beginning of April. Patterson was due to be fired, but Misty called him in sick on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth, Friday and Saturday. He was off Sunday. Then he was found on Monday. La Russa we weren’t sure about until this week. The final word on him is coming in tomorrow. He’s already retained an attorney from Carson City. Considering everything, we’ll probably just let him go quietly."
"What happens to the counter?"
"If we see him again, we run him out. It’s a gray area legally, so we probably wouldn’t try to prosecute."
"Do you report this kind of information to the Nevada Gaming Commission?"
"Not if we can keep the lid on it," Rossmoor said. "And I’ve been instructed to do that."
"You’re taking a risk."
"I’m not as conservative as I look."
"I don’t suppose you stopped by to check in with Misty or Anthony on Anthony’s last night."
"No. I wasn’t there. Ask Misty."
"Where were you?"
"In bed, here at Prize’s that night. We’re working on some new security for the parking lot and I got hung up. We’ve been having some problems with cars being vandalized. And we prefer happy customers."
"Alone?"
"Yes, alone."
"Any witnesses at all who can place you here?" Paul persisted.
"Security," Rossmoor said. "They videotape the hallway outside the penthouse."
"You must be in love," Paul said.
"What do you mean?"
"They videotape the hallway...." Paul repeated.
"What are you getting at?"
"I assume they don’t just videotape the hallway, but they watch the tapes later?"
"It’s something I’m so accustomed to, I don’t think about it."
"He knew about you and his wife," Paul said.
Rossmoor was a professional. He smiled and blew it off. "That’s not ... that wasn’t Patterson’s area. Chances are another guard would see those tapes and wouldn’t think a thing about them. Meanwhile, hate to say it, Paul, but I have another appointment."
"Sure," Paul said. "Just a couple more questions. Do you drive a motorcycle?" He didn’t expect a positive answer. A Bentley, yes.
"I’ve got a nice Harley, but I haven’t been out on it since last summer," Rossmoor said. "It’s about time to grease it up, now that the ice is gone, not that I get your drift here."
"Idle curiosity." Paul rose. "Any chance I could have a look at your internal reports about Anthony?" he said.
"It would be difficult. I’ll think about it. Are you in town long?"
"If I’m not around," Paul said, "you can always talk to Nina."
"I didn’t mean that. Play tennis, Paul? I’m always looking for a good game."
"I was thinking you were probably a swimmer," Paul said.
"Always on duty, I see. I swim, but I don’t swim on Thursday nights. Nice to meet
you, Paul."
Paul walked past him. "Just one last thing," he said. "Got the name of the counter?"
"Al Otis. He lives in a trailer park in Sparks, we understand. His wife is Sharon Otis, once Patterson."
"What do you mean?" Paul said.
"Anthony Patterson’s ex-wife," Rossmoor said. "For what it’s worth." As the door closed, Paul watched Steve Rossmoor head for the bar and pour himself a very stiff one.
Back at Caesar’s, where he was staying, Paul went down to the club and worked out on the Nautilus equipment, then swam laps. The recreation area was almost deserted. They must be losing money, he thought, between the off-season and the recession. He rode up the tower elevator to the seventh floor, where his room was, and got into the hot tub with his phone.
This time Nina answered on the third ring.
Paul told her most of what he had.
"You’ve been busy," she said when he was finished.
"It’s always like that when you start looking into people’s lives," Paul said. "We’re much more complicated than we think."
"So in early March Misty was seeing Tom Clarke and Stephen Rossmoor at the same time. Carrying on two affairs after marrying a jealous husband."
"I don’t know how heavy she was with Rossmoor, but there’s definitely something there. As for her husband, she was blind if she didn’t think he was keeping a very close eye on her behavior. Rossmoor’s an idiot too. In one breath he tells me about the security cameras on his door, and in the next he tells me he doesn’t think Anthony knew about him and Misty."
"Does she really believe he never knew or does she just want to believe it? My biggest problem with this client has to be understanding her. Do you think she was looking for punishment?"
"Who knows why women sleep around?" Paul said. "All I know is, it hardly ever seems to be out of simple lust."
"Let me assure you, it happens. Anyway, if he did know, you’ve got to assume he would be upset."
"Not the type to forget, by all reports."
"By the way, she had him buried by a funeral parlor in Placerville today. A few people from Prize’s came. A relative in Philadelphia sent a wreath. He died before he got his revenge on his fickle wife."
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