by Mike Dennis
"Ms Sandemore," I began, "my name's Jack Barnett. I'm a private investigator." I flashed the wallet ID, just long enough to give her a quick look. "I'm here to inquire about someone who used to be one of your tenants. Maybe she still is, actually."
She looked up from my ID straight to my eyes. I could tell she didn't like anything about this encounter.
"Who would that be?"
"A girl by the name of Emily Lansdorf. Age twenty-three. Pretty girl. Blonde hair, blue —"
"I know who you mean," she interrupted in a controlled, tight voice. She had no accent I could identify. "No, she's long gone from here. Left sometime last spring. May, June. Somewhere around there. And good riddance, I might add."
"Why. Was there a problem?"
"Ha. Saying there was a problem with her is like saying it gets a little warm around here in the summertime. That girl brought in more lowlifes than you can imagine at all hours of the day and night. Made all kinds of racket."
I took the seat facing her across the desk. "No offense, Ms Sandemore, but how do you know this. I mean, you've got lots of other tenants here and she's just one girl."
"She lived in the unit right next door to the office," she said, pointing to her left. "I could see her out the window bringing in one scummy guy after another. Day in and day out, it was. I had to call the police one day after I heard a gunshot in her apartment. Say, is she in trouble or something?"
"No, ma'am. She's not in trouble. I'm just trying to locate her. Now, with this gunshot incident, was anyone hurt? Were there arrests made?"
"No, none. The sleazeball she was with left before the police arrived. When they got here, she said the gun went off accidentally while he was cleaning it and she didn't know his real name. The next day, she had a black eye."
"Did she leave any kind of forwarding address? You know, for mail and such?"
"None whatsoever." I could tell she had quite enough of me and my questions. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
I thanked her for her time. As I wrestled with the door on my way out, she hollered above the blustery wind, "If you find her, tell her she owes me eight hundred in rent!"
4
I knew what my next move would be. I hopped back into my car, then headed over to see Ronnie Wills.
Ronnie was a cab driver who worked swing shift. Every once in a while, he'd drop into Binion's to play a little poker after getting off work. That's where I met him.
He'd been driving in this town for over thirty years, since back in the days of the "old Vegas". He was full of stories, but more importantly, full of knowledge about how this town works. If you've got your eyes and ears open, he always said, you can learn anything you ever wanted to know while driving a cab.
He lived a couple of blocks from the cab yard. It was theoretically downtown, or at least on the lip of it. But you wouldn't find downtown tourists anywhere near here. Only a grouping of grim, single-story buildings along Main Street, housing bottom-level businesses: cheap furniture outlets, body shops, greasy diners, and the like.
Move one block off Main and you enter the land of the lost. Ramshackle apartment courts and duplexes lined First Street, the last stop for many of those who never made the Big Las Vegas Score.
Hollow-eyed and ashen, each one of them carries a story of a life that jumped the tracks somewhere. You can see them shamble along the emptiness of First and Second Streets, running out the clock.
Very little vegetation intruded into this expanse of flat, white concrete. Just a few blocks away, though, sat the silvery downtown hotels and office buildings, sparkling cold beneath the winter sun.
Ronnie Wills lived here, along First Street, but he wasn't like the rest of them. He didn't have a drug problem and he drank no more than a few beers after work. He lived here for one reason only: because it was two blocks from the cab yard and he didn't own a car.
I parked in the front lot of his apartment building, right outside the office. Even though I drove a ten-year-old car, I didn't want to get careless. I couldn't afford to let it get stolen. The moment I stepped out, the cold wind slapped my face. I zipped my jacket up all the way, but the chill still sliced through me.
Steps creaked on my way up to the second floor. As I meandered down the landing past graffiti and dirty windows, I heard yelling in one or two of the apartments, and it wasn't from a TV. Ronnie's place loomed alone down at the end.
The wind picked up, and I turned the collar up on my jacket. I figured he'd be watching a DVD, so I knocked on his door a few times, with hard raps so he would hear me through his headphones. Eventually, I heard him fiddle with the locks. Down on the street, two police cars roared past, sirens blaring.
The door opened. "Jack!" he said. His full beard tried to hide his gap-toothed grin. Headphones hung around his neck. "Well, what the hell are you doing here on a day like today?"
"Hey, Ronnie." We shook hands.
"Yeah, hey. Come on in, man. Really, now, what brings you over here? No game at Binion's?"
"I don't play day shift. You know that."
We sat down. He took the easy chair, I took the footstool. They were the only seats in this private, inner universe of his. A quick look around showed me the mattress and box spring still over in the corner, along with a tidy kitchenette tucked off to one side. A portable floor heater tried its best to warm the room up, with little luck. I kept my jacket zipped.
Two other doors were closed — a bathroom and a closet, as I recall. The only window was blacked out by a blanket tacked to the wall. What light there was in the room came from a plain overhead low-wattage bulb covered by a frosted glass bowl. No phone, no TV. Neat stacks of DVDs covered the floor. Hundreds of them.
He showed me his DVD player. It was a small item that fit on his lap with maybe an eight-inch screen. A black-and-white image, frozen in pause mode, was visible on it.
"The Roaring Twenties," he said. "Cagney and Bogart. A Warner Brothers classic. This's the scene where Cagney gets killed and Gladys George is standing over his corpse. The cop is taking information from her and asks her what Cagney did for a living. So she goes, 'He used to be a big shot'."
He spoke with a lot of passion. I could see he treasured that scene.
"I hope I didn't come at the wrong time, you know, I don't want to ruin the movie for you."
"Ah-h, don't worry about it. I've seen it a hundred times. You ever seen it?"
I shook my head.
"Jack, man, these old movies are like nothing else. They reveal a side of America that's lost forever."
"What, Jimmy Cagney getting killed?"
"No, not that. It's all of them put together. The big picture." His faded blue eyes grew intense, and his voice rose to the occasion. "You watch these movies and you slowly realize what this country was like back then. The way the scripts were written. The way the scenes were constructed. The way the actors spoke. It all fit together somehow. It painted a picture of our values and our morals of that era. Now … well, let's just say it can never be the same. We've lost a … a piece of our cultural soul. Something irretrievable."
I blinked at his articulate description. I'd never before heard him speak at that level.
"Beer?" he asked.
"Sure. Thanks."
He hustled over to the kitchenette, where he pulled two cans out of the small fridge. He popped both tops and handed me one. Even though it was a little early for a beer, it tasted good going down.
We passed a little more small talk. Then he shifted in his chair, settling into listening position. "So … what's on your mind, man?"
He took a long pull from his beer, as I set mine down on the floor. I reached into my jacket for a copy of Las Vegas Weekly, opening it to Emily Lansdorf's picture.
"How do I get hold of these people?"
He shrugged. "Call the number. They'll fix you up."
"No, no. I don't want a date. I want to get to whoever runs the operation."
"Oh-h-hh," he said. He took another drink, then le
t out a light burp. "I don't know who runs that particular one, but if it's not Sonny Beck, he'll damn sure know who it is."
"Who's Sonny Beck?"
"He operates a lot of these escort services here in town. Point man for the mob. Came here from, I think, New Orleans eight or ten years ago."
"Can I get to him?"
"Depends on what you mean by 'get to him'."
"I just need to talk to him is all." I picked up my beer for another slow, smooth sip.
"Man, you know, I'm not his social secretary."
"I know, I know," I said. "But where do you think I might find him? Come on, Ronnie. It's important."
I reached into my pocket for my money clip. I peeled off one of Lansdorf's benjamins, handing it to him.
He stuck it in his shirt pocket. "You might try the Golden Nugget sports book on Sundays. I can't guarantee you'll find him there, but I've driven him there a time or two at the beginning of my shift. He likes to bet pro football."
"How will I know him? What's he look like?"
Ronnie polished off the last of his beer, then crumpled the can.
"He's crowding fifty. About five-ten with dark brown hair. Big-shouldered, husky kind of a guy. Smokes cigars, probably Cuban."
I took one more swallow of beer before I put the can down. It was only about half-finished.
"Thanks, man. I've got to get going." I shook his hand.
We stood up and walked to the door. I was careful not to step on any of his DVDs.
"Jack," he said with his hand on my shoulder. "Be careful. Beck's a very tough guy. And he's got even tougher guys backing him up. You can't get out of line with him."
"Don't worry, Ronnie. I'll watch myself. And thanks."
≈≈≈
That night, I called the number of the escort service. I said I wanted the girl whose picture was in the ad I saw in the magazine. By the way, what was her name, I asked. Stormy, they said. She wasn't currently available, but they'd be happy to send someone just like her. Someone who would take care of me just as well. I said, no, I really wanted that cute blonde in the ad, Stormy. They told me she was out of town for a week or so, flown to the Middle East by some rich Arab who had to have her.
Right. Like these rich Arabs get their girls from tawdry ads in the back pages of alternative magazines.
On second thought, maybe they do.
I decided to give the whole thing a rest until Sunday.
5
THE Golden Nugget is by far the nicest of the downtown hotel/casinos. It has a luxurious feel to it, kind of like the big Strip hotels, only on a smaller scale.
I arrived a little after noon on Sunday and walked into the cozy, elegant lobby. A half-dozen chandeliers, enveloped in gold vine on frosted glass, hung high over the glossy, brass-railed room.
I glimpsed the front desk. A family of Japanese tourists stood at the head of the long checkout line, luggage in tow. As I passed them on the way into the casino, my heels clicked across the marble floor. Deep inside the gambling area, I found the sports book.
It was smaller than most of the books out on the Strip, which tended to be cavernous and overwhelming. This one had an intimate feel, yet provided enough room for a whole lot of those new flat-screen TVs, the kind that hang on the walls. A row of booths lined one wall, while little cubicles took up the center of the room, each with a television monitor for horse bettors. More TVs, including a couple of big screens, covered the far wall.
It was January, which meant the NFL Playoffs were under way. East Coast games started at about ten in the morning, our time, so the place already teemed with action. All the seats were taken, while people stood around the fringes, eyes glued to the various televised games. Excited bettors lined up at the cage to place every conceivable type of bet one can make on a football game. Gorgeous cocktail waitresses hustled for big tips, delivering free drinks to thirsty gamblers. The noisy room got noisier with each play that unfolded on the TV screens to cheers of those with money on the line.
The bedlam was too great for me to do any kind of walking reconnaissance of the room looking for Beck, especially since Ronnie's description was on the vague side. I went to one of the betting windows, where I caught the attention of "Andrew", his name badge read. He seemed to be enjoying the hectic scene.
"I'm looking for Sonny Beck," I said to him over the din. "Do you know him?"
Andrew pointed across the room to the line of booths. "Second booth from the left, the one with the three guys in it." he said. "Sonny's the guy on the right."
I looked at the TVs. Two different games. One had just gone into halftime, the other playing out the last two minutes of the first half. I waited till that one reached halftime, then approached Beck's party. He sat with two younger guys, big-boned blonds, all three smoking cigars and drinking.
I approached him from his left and tapped him once, lightly on the shoulder. Ronnie was right. His shoulders were big. And hard.
He turned toward me, showing a broad, rough-skinned face, with oversized features, including a nose that looked like it had been broken a long time ago. His neatly-combed brown hair was medium length, the color of shoe polish.
"Sonny?" I said.
"Who wants to know?" His voice was gravel.
"My name's Jack Barnett. Can I speak with you a moment? In private?"
He eyed me closely, then turned back to his friends, telling them he'd be right back. He flicked the ash on his cigar, carefully setting it in a big glass tray as he rose from the table. He motioned to the nearby exit from the sports book into the casino.
Now that I got a look at him standing, he was about my height, as Ronnie said, five-ten, but with a much stronger build. He wore a nice chocolate brown leather jacket over a thick, white denim shirt. He moved with surprising grace through the dense crowd, but when we got just outside the sports book, he turned abruptly toward me, his dark, deepset eyes drilling into mine.
"Who are you and what do you want?"
"I'm a private investigator from Los Angeles," I said, as I held up my wallet ID in front of him, but not for too long. "I'm here in town looking for a girl who works for you. Goes by the name of Stormy."
He flinched. Just a little. Only in his eyes, almost imperceptibly, and maybe he didn't even realize it himself. But I caught it.
"Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"Like I said, Sonny, I'm a private investigator. And I might add, I'm not here to cause trouble for you or for any of your operations. I'm just looking for the girl. That's all."
"She don't work for me anymore. Now kiss off."
"That's not what they told me when I dialed up the service."
"Well, I'm tellin' you she's gone. And this better be the last I ever hear about it. Or about you."
His eyebrows slowly turned downward into a tight frown. His face reddened as he started to elbow his way around me back into the sports book. I stepped into his path.
"Sonny, none of this concerns you. So don't be such a hardass. I just need to find the girl. Now where is she?"
Suddenly, he turned calm. Too calm. He lowered his harsh voice to a near-whisper, but fury exploded from his cold, dark eyes.
"Listen, my man, if you know what's good for you, you'll forget that … little … bitch." His thick index finger poked my chest three times in sync with those words.
He looked like he wanted to spit in my face. Guy pokes my chest like that, I want to put my fucking fist in his face, but I held back.
As he made his way back to his table, he pulled out his cellphone, against sports book regulations, and speed-dialed a number before disappearing into the crowd.
6
I left the Golden Nugget immediately, then headed for the freeway to the Strip. The southbound freeway traffic out of downtown was heavy, as usual, so it took me over twenty minutes to get to the Flamingo Road exit.
Heading east toward the Strip on Flamingo, I turned into the north valet parking area of Bellagio. I slipped the guy a buck, telli
ng him to take good care of my car.
He nodded his assurance with a smile. It might've been a cynical chuckle, maybe because I only gave him a buck. Or maybe it was because the car was ten years old and not worth anyone's extraordinary attention, but I preferred to believe the smile.
I'd been to Bellagio before, but only to their poker room. I'd never made it as far as the lobby, which sat clear on the other side of the building from the north valet entrance.
The lobby was massive, big enough to hold a Saturday night dance. A great expanse of carpet covered the center of the mosaic-patterned marble floor. Behind the long front desk were pillared archways, giving way to an open botanical conservatory, loaded with dramatic vegetation. There was plenty of activity.
I approached the front desk, asking for a room. The clerk himmed and hawed, then mumbled something about being overbooked on this big weekend. She went on about how sorry she was that there was absolutely nothing available, but a fifty across the counter into her palm suddenly shook a room loose.
Three twenty-nine a night. What a racket.
I paid cash and took the card key. It was on the sixth floor, freeway view.
As soon as I got to the room, I called the number from the magazine ad again. A vivacious voice answered, different from my earlier call, so I told her I'd just arrived in town and wanted company right away. I told her where I was staying.
"Ooh, Bellagio," she chirped. "Very nice. I can have someone there in about a half an hour."
I gave her the room number and we discussed the details. Then I ordered a single-malt Scotch from room service and waited.
≈≈≈
The girl arrived before the drink. She looked good, but the dress was cut a little too low, clinging tightly where it shouldn't've, and the heels were a shade too high. If the dress were only one size larger, she could've passed for a stock broker's flashy girlfriend. But as it stood, the whole look was cheap enough to show she didn't live next door.
"Hi," I said in my best out-of-town voice. I held the door, ushering her in.
