Next Last Chance

by Jon A. Hunt

  “Cutie over at the bar sent me.”

  I recognized the simmering honey voice. “He must’ve taken a shine to you.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Bert can’t see two feet past his own nose. I made him leave the shotgun at home.”

  He reached across the table and I shook his dry hand. “Gabe Andrews. Grab a seat.”

  As soon as I slid into the booth’s empty side, the women resumed feeding the slot machines. Two of the pool players jabbered in low tones while their other friend fired chipped balls into the pockets. Nearsighted Bert cleared empties from the bar with a clatter. The whole place came back to the present like a switch had been flipped. Except for the music.

  “Retired law enforcement,” Andrews had picked up on my unspoken observations. “Every soul here’s put in their time protecting good people who don’t deserve it or running bad people to the ground who do. They keep an eye out for me.”

  “Even Bert?”

  Gabe Andrews’ brilliant teeth showed through a lopsided grin. “He keeps his ears open. But I wasn’t kidding about the shotgun.”

  “And what about you?”

  Sapphire eyes sparkled with hard-won pride. “Assistant Sheriff over Investigative Services, thirty-three years with Vegas Metro. I started before things got consolidated under Clark County. I’ve seen this town get a lot bigger and the criminals get a lot smarter.”

  “Since you’re here, I’m assuming you’re even smarter than they are.”

  Bubbling honey again. I was glad Andrews had a sense of humor because I rather enjoyed hearing his amusement. “Jerry seems to think so, or he wouldn’t have sent you.”

  “Is it safe to talk here?”

  He gestured at the ceiling. As loud as Waylon Jennings caterwauled over the speakers, we were doing well to hear each other. Eavesdropping wasn’t likely.

  “Did he mention why I’d be contacting you?” I asked.

  Andrews took a pull at the glass in front of him. “He said you had a run-in with Rico.”

  “He seems worried about it. But his information is second-hand.”

  “Sure as shit, it is, but he got it from me.”

  “Do you think I’m in trouble?”

  “I think you’re on your way to being a dead man.”

  “I figured I’d be all right while I’m out here.”

  “Maybe. If Rico doesn’t feel the need to find you. Are you moving out of Tennessee?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Then you’re on your way to being a dead man.”

  Roadblocks have always frustrated me. I swallowed the irritation creeping up from my gut and told the old cop: “I was hoping I might at least be a well-informed dead man.”

  Andrews laughed. I grinned back at him like an idiot.

  “Fair enough!” he relented. “Jerry called me last week. A few of the guys he had under surveillance were from here, old-school hard-cases like I might’ve seen while I was working. He checked in again on Wednesday, mentioned you and the cemetery, mentioned numbered bullets. I told him a little about Rico. He said he’d put a call in to the FBI and they were sending a man named Pennington. I told Jerry good luck and hung up the phone. We haven’t spoken since.”

  “Is it me, or is Pennington spelled with just four letters?”

  “He’s not on anyone’s Christmas list, if that’s what you mean. And the second he got involved, Jerry’s phone conversations ceased to be private.”

  “He shut the Metro investigation down.”

  “Pennington does that,” Andrews growled.

  It occurred to me—a little late—that Andrews might be putting himself at considerable risk to tell me much. He knew me only from Rafferty’s recommendation. He didn’t owe me a thing. The Boy Scout in me felt obliged to point this out.

  “Horse shit,” replied the old cop. “If I’d put Rico away twenty years ago you wouldn’t be in trouble now. And I do owe Jerry. He brought my son home from Iraq. Kid was dead. Jerry still went in under fire for him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The shine dimmed in his eyes. “Me too. I wouldn’t have minded bitching about his college tuition instead.” The glass went up and came down emptier, then his eyes brightened again. “How much did he tell you? No sense repeating what you already know.”

  I rehashed what Rafferty had shared. Then, Andrews filled in gaps. Rico’s marked slugs had started appearing in Vegas corpses in 1993. By spring he’d created enough chalk outlines that even a city used to violence demanded justice. A task force was assembled and Gabe Andrews ran it. No one unearthed Rico’s roots—he might have been dropped off outside the city limits by Satan—but they didn’t have difficulty digging up his connections to the Dover family.

  “What Rico made impossible to find, Buck Dover practically handed to us,” Andrews said. “We’d been watching him anyway, and had undercover men in place. I just redirected them a bit.

  “Buck started seeing a girl named Harley Jansen. By ‘girl’, I mean she was fourteen. Beauty queen material, couldn’t settle for the captain of a high school football team, had to have herself a mob boss. Her dad was a prominent banker and understandably concerned. But he was smart enough to realize making a stink about it would land him upside down in a dumpster behind the MGM. So he clued us in instead.

  “I leaked hints to the news stations. Worked like a charm. Buck already had a regional turf war to deal with, Rico’s showmanship was generating too many bodies to explain away as random, and reporters hounding him about shacking up with a minor were too much. He hid the girl in one of his safe houses, along with Rico, till things hopefully settled down. Two of the bodyguards he sent with them were my undercover officers.”

  “You got close,” I commented.

  Andrews nodded gravely. “It was just a matter of my men getting me the address. I didn’t dare risk going in without decent manpower. I called in the FBI to be safe.”

  “Pennington.”

  “Among others. He was all ‘yes, sir’ and ‘how can I help, sir?’ at first. He managed to get the phones bugged, though none of the calls gave us a solid trace. We thought we had Rico and Buck in the same net. Then everything went south. One of my undercover guys got spooked. He actually came to the police station and walked in through the front doors.”

  “So much for his cover,” I said. “Did he have a good reason?”

  “Beats me. He got shot through the back of the head from the sidewalk before the doors closed. No one saw the shooter. I found a note in my mail with the officer’s real name and the number 11.”

  “The bullet that killed him.”

  “Exactly. The FBI immediately decided we were in over our heads. My team was ordered off the investigation, by people so high up I couldn’t argue. Feds took over.”

  “What about your other undercover man?”

  “He left town. I hardly blame him. If you’re the only honest person who can identify Rico on sight and the feds aren’t going to save your ass, what good is the lowly police department? I give Clarence credit for extricating himself on his own but that just reinforced Pennington’s opinion of us hick locals.

  “Suddenly no one had inside information. Buck and Rico knew it. Rico gunned down nine more of Buck’s rivals a week later and the G-men were clueless, even though the mayor got Rico’s letter a day before it happened. The DA was incensed. Cops got fired, good cops, and it didn’t matter we’d been told not to do a goddamned thing. I avoided demotion by the skin of my teeth. Pennington never got close to Rico. Son of a bitch still came out smelling like roses.”

  “How?” Nobody seemed to have a high opinion of the guy, so I was genuinely curious.

  “The men Rico killed were on the FBI’s records. Rapists, murderers, dealers. The Bureau hadn’t been able to put them away, either for lack of evidence or witnesses who were too scared to talk. Rico may have been working for Buck but he did a bang-up job saving taxpayers’ money. Vegas wound up cleaner and the numb
er crunchers back in DC let Pennington take the credit because he was their man on the ground.”

  A bell over the door clanged. Hard-edged desert sunshine intruded and swept over tables and slot machines. The old women never blinked. Their spindly arms kept drawing down big chrome handles. But Bert’s shot-glass spectacles flared and for a moment the man who’d poured my drink appeared positively demonic.

  Andrews raised a sapphire gaze toward the newcomer who paused, as I’d done, inside the door after it closed. I remembered the Smith & Wesson but Andrews shook his head before my hand strayed far. He beckoned the person to our table, an average-looking fellow with his greasy ball cap turned backwards. The man avoided eye contact and leaned close to Andrews. Andrews concluded their whispered conversation with a nod. The man retreated outside. Lindbergh Local was embroidered over the face of his cap and again across the shoulders of his uniform.

  “One of us has friends waiting in the parking lot.”

  “I didn’t invite any,” I said.

  “Rob thinks they’re feds. Expensive sunglasses. How concerned are you about the car?”

  “It’s a rental.” Rented cars aren’t worth dying or going to jail over.

  “Good. You flew in how?”

  “Private jet at Henderson.”

  “Even better. We’ll hitch a ride with Rob when he’s finished. As long as they stay in their car with the AC running they’ll never see us go.” He tipped up his glass. “Where was I?”

  “How swell DC thought Pennington was.”

  “That’s it. Shortly after that, everyone stopped looking for Rico because we thought he was dead. Buck apparently decided to tie up three loose ends at once. He sent Rico and the girl in a Lincoln full of pay-off cash to one of his dealers who wanted to go private. Except the Lincoln was only half full of cash. The rest of the trunk was crammed with C-4. Highway 372 out on the border was closed for a month while crews filled in the crater. Bits of cash, the Lincoln, the dealer’s car sent to meet it, and the passengers of both cars, were scattered over a square mile. The girl wasn’t intact enough to identify with dental records and nobody had a way to ID Rico. But there was a finger wearing her favorite nail polish. And Rico’s gun. The FBI certified the gun by comparing ballistics tests to the bullet found in Rico’s last known victim. Buck Dover had been shot that same morning.”

  “That worked out neatly,” I commented.

  Andrews’ glass made a satisfied clunk when he returned it empty to the table. “Very neatly. Keeping the gist of things secret from Metro wasn’t feasible. Still, what Pennington’s men told us was easy to stomach so we left it alone. Rico had gotten wind of the money in the trunk, offed the old man, and planned to drive into the sunset with the girl and a carload of laundered cash. Good plan, he’d just missed the part that went boom.

  “One way or another, the job Pennington had come to do was done. He packed up and his crew was happy to go with him. Life returned to our version of normal.”

  I polished off my drink, parked the glass next to his, and we stood in unison. Andrews had a disorienting tendency of parceling a narrative between other activities. The door jingled and Rob wheeled in a hand truck laden with boxes. Sunlight didn’t follow him in this time: he’d backed the delivery van snugly against the entrance. When Rob returned to his van and drove off, its cargo was several cases lighter and two passengers heavier.

  We rode out of sight back in the gloom and smell of cardboard. Nobody talked. The van found its next stop with a lurch. Rob pounded the shift lever till it crunched reluctantly into reverse. The van beeped up to the outside of another building, this one with a proper loading dock. Andrews and I disembarked through a stockroom of a liquor store five miles from Confession. A dusty Mini Cooper waited out beside the dumpster. Andrews rummaged through his pockets as the van rumbled off, and produced a key. The little car’s starter ground through a few revolutions before the engine gasped to life. Then we were sputtering through town toward Henderson Airport.

  “You always keep this far ahead of the game?” I asked.

  Andrews chuckled his honeyed chuckle. “Maybe after thirty-three years you’ll have learned a thing or two yourself. If you stay alive.”

  I studied the mirror vibrating outside my window. Nothing alarming reflected there. Familiar buildings passed. “I learned a bit this afternoon,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Nothing yet that’ll save your ass, though.”

  “No. Not really.” Andrews had spent three decades catching liars so I didn’t bother.

  He downshifted and the Mini slowed noisily. Henderson’s flat-topped beige control tower came into view, then the gray and gold tail of my jet.

  “You’re a likable guy, Bedlam. I’d hate for you to miss out on the aches and pains of old age. How about I at least send you home with a useful name?”

  “Not if it’ll cause you any grief.”

  “Quit trying to be chivalrous. My undercover officer who wasn’t killed, the one who moved out of Vegas, is in Nashville. Or was a few years ago. Clarence Barr. Smart as hell, just not very polite. Find him and you’ve possibly found the only living person who doesn’t work for the mob who might know Rico by sight. He won’t want to talk but tell him I sent you.”

  The Mini stopped at the curb with more grace than I’d have credited to it. I opened my door. A new name to track down when my time was severely limited didn’t thrill me, but I reached across to shake the old cop’s hand.

  “Thanks again, Mr. Andrews. Do you know what Barr was doing in Nashville?”

  Andrews grinned a mile wide. Like I’d just set him up to deliver a punch line. “Yep. He needed me as a reference to get his private investigator’s license. And he changed his last name to something French. Diesel or DeBelle or something—”

  I paused with one foot on the sidewalk. “DeBreaux?”

  “That’s it! There can’t be too many of those in Tennessee.”

  “Just one, I think.”

  “You’re welcome. Good luck! Now finish getting out of my car and go back home before we attract attention.”

  I followed orders. The Mini’s exhaust barked at me and it scrambled away. Gabe Andrews’ tanned face smiled in the rearview mirror. Then I was on my own again.

  Thirteen

  The Learjet let go of the ground twenty minutes after I scrambled back into her air-conditioned belly and Las Vegas’ broiling climate fell away. The mountains slopes looked as if they’d been scraped free of vegetation. Nice place.

  For the next four hours I wasn’t in anyone’s crosshairs, but I would be again soon. No more blinking LED on my phone meant the thing was finally usable. I tapped a button on the armrest to patch through the jet’s secure communications system and got to work.

  Not many messages filtered through. Delbert Ray anxiously reminded me my regular car was ready. Sandra had left a short apology without mentioning what she was sorry for. A nine-second blip from JD requested I return his call at my earliest convenience. First, though, I had ten minutes to get hold of a friend before he closed shop for the weekend.

  “Tyler! How the hell are you?” Buster Tillman at the Tennessee Association of Licensed Private Investigators took calls from everybody the same way. I’d heard it happen.

  “I’m hanging in there, Bus. Could I get you to run a quick search for an old licensee?”

  “Sure. But I thought you did your own investigating.”

  “I inherited the guy’s clients.”

  “Ah! What’s the name?”

  “Clarence DeBreaux.”

  The pause was too long not to be telling. “The guy Donovan had working for him when his mother was killed?”

  “Cut the crap, Bus, you’ve had this conversation before.”

  “Hang on.” A door bumped shut in the background. Buster returned with a subdued voice. “Okay, you got me. Nobody called but that file was accessed a couple days ago and I have a directive from TBI to track any inquiries.”

  What the Tennessee
Bureau of Information collected would be seen by their federal counterparts.

  “Tell ‘em I said ‘hi.’“

  Buster sniffed and a computer keyboard rattled. “DeBreaux, Clarence T. License revoked June of 2005, per Tennessee Code 62-26-217,a,4. He barely missed conviction on aggravated assault after he beat the hell out of a small-time adult filmmaker in 2004.”

  “They snagged his license without a conviction?”

  “It wasn’t the assault that screwed him. He got his papers under an assumed name, which came up during the hearings. How the application went through in the first place is beyond me.”

  “His real name is Barr.”

  “Yep.” Tillman’s keyboard made more noise and he relayed DeBreaux/Barr’s last known address and phone number. The number matched what JD had given me. “Between us, there’s some nastiness attached to this one. We wouldn’t be logging your call otherwise.”

  “I have the same hunch,” I said. “What’s a guy to do?”

  The beep of Buster’s computer shutting down signaled an end to our recorded business. But he had a couple off-the-books tidbits for me. “Far as I know nobody’s tracked Whatsisname down since. Maybe try the bars: the man drank like a fish. Or you might look for Ellis Ball.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “No one to bring home to mommy. After DeBreaux broke his nose and all his fingers, he had to quit taking pictures of people having sex.”

  I watched the phone go dark. I watched miniaturized New Mexico scrubland crawl by the window. I watched sunlight sparkle from flecks in the faux granite trim around the arms of my seat. The stuff looked convincing but real granite is too heavy for airplanes. With enough concentration I was sure I’d spot repetition in the arrangement of pretend mica flecks. Finding a pattern there seemed more likely than connecting the Donovans, Nick, Del, Rico, the FBI, Clarence DeBreaux, Sandra’s blackmailer, the girl in the blue Mazda, and who knew who else…