Stateline

by Dave Stanton

  “John Bascom, Cody Gibbons,” I said, enjoying a beer buzz and trying, unsuccessfully I thought, for a tone of formality. “He’s a detective for San Jose PD and a close friend of mine.” Cody was sitting in an easy chair with his legs propped up on another chair. He balanced a piece of pizza on his fist and leaned forward to drink out of a straw angling from a can of Coors. We were both still in our hospital gowns since we couldn’t fit our clothes over the bandages on our hands and feet.

  “I thought it would be best we talk in person,” I said. “I met the man who stabbed your son.”

  “What?” Bascom said.

  “Take a seat,” I said.

  “Have a beer, man,” Cody said, but Bascom ignored him.

  “Yeah, I met him,” I said. “I haven’t got his name yet, but I think he should be easy enough to find, unless he goes into hiding, and I don’t think he will.”

  “How do you know he’s the killer?” Bascom said.

  “I’ve talked to two eyewitnesses who were in the room. They described him in detail. He was in the truck that ran me off the road, and he shot at me. Then last night, Cody and I were ambushed by him and three cops. They damn near drowned us, then we almost froze to death.”

  “Three cops? What in hell are you talking about?” Bascom said. His face bunched up and he squinted at me, as if I were an inept underling who’d just blown the last of his credibility. He shook his head. “You’re telling me three cops did this to you last night?”

  “They were trying to scare us out of town. They don’t want me investigating your son’s murder.”

  “Why the hell not? What kind of lunacy is this?”

  “It may sound crazy, but it ain’t bullshit,” Cody said, struggling to open the flip top of a beer with a pen. Edward opened two for him and put straws in each.

  “What’s this all about, Reno?”

  “The Silverado County sheriff, Conrad Pace, does not want me trying to find out who killed your son. I think Pace is impeding the police investigation too—that’s probably why Raneswich and Iverson haven’t made much progress.”

  “You think Raneswich and Iverson are crooked?” Bascom said.

  “Good chance.”

  “Goddammit! I knew I couldn’t trust those two jackasses!” Bascom’s eyes were livid. He began pacing back and forth.

  “What could possibly be Conrad Pace’s motivation?” he said.

  “I don’t know that yet.”

  Bascom looked out the window. “This is all wild, just too wild,” he mused. “Do you have any idea why my son was murdered?”

  “I still think it was a botched robbery. Sylvester had two hookers in his room at the Crown. One of them let Michael Dean Stiles, a known drug dealer, into the room to rob Sylvester. Sven Osterlund was in the closet, watching and probably filming your son and the hookers from a peephole. Osterlund came out of the closet, and he and Sylvester got the best of Stiles. So the hooker let another man in, who was there as backup. This man stabbed your son.”

  “The hooker, who is the hooker who let the men in?”

  “Her name’s Samantha Nunez.”

  “So she knows for certain what happened,” Bascom said.

  “That’s true,” I said. “Raneswich and Iverson are supposedly looking for her. She’s disappeared.”

  Bascom paced the room, rubbing his temples. “Cops on the take, murder, drugs, whores,” he muttered. “My son…he had so much to live for…” Grief etched his face.

  “You need to watch your back,” I said. “These cops know you hired me, and they might try to convince you to forget about resolving your son’s death. Their methods won’t be pleasant. Check into a different hotel, under an assumed name. Or, better yet, leave town.”

  “What?” Bascom said. “I’m not going anywhere. Our deal was you deliver the killer. To me. Here.”

  “I know what our deal is.”

  “Are you going to finish the job?”

  I stared at John Bascom. “These men will figure out soon enough I’m still in town. When they do, they may try to find me through you. You want nothing to do with Conrad Pace, believe me. Leave town. Tonight. Take Edward and your family with you.”

  Bascom ignored me. “I want the names of all the crooked cops, Reno. If they’re protecting the son of a bitch who killed my boy, they need to be prosecuted. I know the editor in chief at the Sacramento Bee, and if what you say is true, this will be the story of the year.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t seem to be hearing me-”

  “I hear you loud and clear, goddammit! I’m paying you to do a job, not shell out chickenshit advice! From what it looks like, you’d be better off looking out for yourself instead of worrying about me.”

  “Keep your money. I don’t need it.”

  “I didn’t take you for a quitter, Reno.”

  My mouth tightened, and I looked at the floor and took a deep breath. “You remind me of a man I used to know, Mr. Bascom. He never backed down from a situation in his life. And when he died before his time, it left an empty hole in a lot of lives.”

  “Is dime-store sentimentality included in a package deal with shoddy, unfinished detective work?” he replied.

  “I’ve got enough bodies on my conscience. I don’t need yours.”

  Bascom paced the room with his hands on his hips. I watched him impotently, feeling like a clown in the hospital gown. After a length of time had passed, he looked down at me.

  “I understand you’re disabled at the moment, but the killer of my son is still free and nameless,” he said.

  ******

  After Bascom and Edward left, Cody and I sat around like a couple of extras from a mummy movie, watching TV and drinking slow beers. The next day I found Marcus Grier’s home phone number in the white pages and managed to dial his number, but there was no answer.

  By our second evening at the hotel, Cody proclaimed he had mastered the art of drinking beer through a straw.

  “Watch, I can down one almost as fast as if I was chugging it.” He set up a beer can on the table and drained it.

  I decided we’d remove our bandages and check out the next morning. We had settled in to watch the seven o’clock movie when the room phone rang.

  “Dan, it’s Edward.” His voice was trembling. “Those guys. Those bastards found me.”

  ******

  The way Edward told it, they had caught him as he was walking to his car after having dinner at a small burger joint, a quiet place away from the lights and commotion of the casinos.

  “Stop right there, boy,” a voice said, and Conrad Pace emerged from the dark, his face shadowed by his cowboy hat. “Nice night like tonight, you’re not in any hurry, right?”

  “Actually, I am,” Edward said.

  “You’d best slow down, son. It’s downright impolite to turn your back on me.”

  Edward walked faster and nearly reached his car, but Pace was too close. He grabbed Edward’s arm and stood over him, then struck him across the mouth with the side of his gloved fist, the coarse rawhide opening a cut on Edward’s lip.

  “A couple friends of yours, a private eye and his buddy. I’d like to have a word with them. So why don’t we get in your car and you drive me to where they’re at?”

  A bloody string of spittle fell from Edward’s mouth. He looked up at Pace and saw his yellowed teeth and gray mustache in a streak of light from a car passing by on the road.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward said.

  “Get in the fucking car,” Pace said.

  A hand suddenly closed around Edward’s neck from behind.

  “Pay attention, Theo,” a different voice said. Edward froze at the sound of his middle name. His mother was the only one who had ever called him Theo. The hand tightened on his neck.

  “You lucky,” the voice whispered, “maybe I let you live.”

  As Edward fumbled with his keys, he saw a dark hand reach out, holding a pair of arced garden shears. The steel bla
des glinted in the moonlight.

  “You know what these are for?” the voice said. “I sharpened them myself.”

  Edward dropped his keys to the gravel, and as he bent to pick them up a carload of drunks careened into the parking lot, the sedan lurching on its springs and skidding sideways over patches of ice and rock. Laughter and jeers spilled from a partially rolled-down window, and a fleshy buttocks, half exposed above lowered jeans, was pressed up against the glass. The car’s tail end came around, the tires locked and skidding, and hit the back bumper of Edward’s Ford. The Ford jolted on impact, Conrad Pace was knocked to the ground, and then the hand was no longer on Edward’s neck.

  The driver of the sedan pegged the throttle, roasting the tires in a well-executed fishtail, and bounced down the curb and back out onto the highway.

  Edward snatched his keys up and broke for the tree line, scrambling like a cat with a dog on its tail. His rubber soles caught traction, and he caught a terrifying glimpse of a barrel-shaped, dark man behind him. Edward hurdled a low fence, and then he was in the trees, darting and cutting through the moonlit woods.

  He ran instinctively, fueled by fear and adrenaline. The garden shears whizzed past him, tumbling through the air like a pinwheel. Edward leaped a shallow stream and followed the water down into the forest, running full out, his feet dancing around snow-covered rocks, branches, and stumps, his hands knocking icy foliage from his face.

  Ten minutes later he stopped, panting and soaked with sweat. His pursuers were nowhere in sight. He crouched and waited, hidden in the lee of a fallen pine, and after a few minutes his pulse returned to normal. That’s when he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called me.

  ******

  The next morning the room looked like the aftermath of a high-school party. Empty beer cans were strewn about the floor, and a pizza box lay face down on the carpet. I hobbled into the bathroom and tried to brush my teeth.

  “I’m done with these bandages,” Cody said when I came out. He was gnawing at his hand.

  “Let me call the doctor first,” I said. After a minute I reached a nurse who said if we removed the wrapping, we should wear gloves and two pairs of socks for another week. I began tearing at the gauze with my teeth and managed to unwrap my right hand. It was pale and stiff, and a collection of small blisters covered the skin on my fingers. Working the muscles, I was able to make a fist after a minute.

  We were peeling the wrappings from our feet when Edward arrived.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” he said, watching us pull at the bandages.

  “No,” I said.

  “But it beats the hell out of not being able to scratch you balls,” Cody said, flexing his hand.

  “Or hold a beer can,” I said.

  “Speaking of which, looks like you guys had a good time last night,” Edward commented, glancing around the room. His lower lip was swollen, and there was a broad scrape across his cheek.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Fine, except for a fat lip,” Edward said. “Well, there’s no question Conrad Pace knows you’re still in town.”

  “He’s probably got a lot of eyes out there. You sure you weren’t followed here?”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yes, I was very careful. After I lost them in the woods, I made my way out and walked back to the Nevada side. I spent the night at one of the cheap hotels behind the casinos, and picked up my car once it was light. What are you going to do now?” His eyes were round and full of anxiety and expectation.

  I stretched my fingers and squeezed them into a fist. “Go back to work,” I said.

  “Here you go,” Edward said, his expression uncertain and a bit incredulous. He had picked up our freshly washed clothes from the hotel laundry. He set the neat stack in my hands. My fingers didn’t feel normal; the joints ached, and the pads seemed a little numb. But at least now I could change out of the ridiculous hospital getup.

  “Mr. Bascom called his friend at the newspaper,” Edward said. “The guy wants to talk to you. From what I gather, this is the type of story that can make a career for a journalist. Here’s his number.”

  Once Cody had his hands and feet free, he called room service for breakfast. “You want anything?” he asked Edward, who politely declined, then left for his hotel.

  “Hey,” I said, as Cody lumbered off toward the shower, “I promised Edward I’d take him to the cathouse while we’re here. I owe him that.”

  “I’d say we have more important things to do,” he replied.

  I picked up the phone book and found a listing for a gun shop and shooting range in Stateline. We had breakfast, then walked outside into a thin sunlight that provided little warmth. Cody set out across the street over to Harrah’s, while I hung back, watching for a tail. I waited a minute, then followed him. I saw Cody reach his truck, parked under a tree in the middle of Harrah’s parking lot. I was still without a jacket, and I put my hands in my jean pockets and hurried to get out of the cold.

  “Looks clear,” Cody said from the cab as I walked up.

  “Yeah, I didn’t see anyone suspicious.”

  We drove around town, running errands, taking care of business. I stopped at the bank and took out three grand in cash. When we drove off the iced-over curb onto the road, my cell phone tumbled out from under Cody’s passenger seat. I hadn’t seen it since being abducted by Pace, and I had assumed it was gone. The display said I had two messages. The first was from Iverson. He had called that morning, asking I call him back. The second message was from Beverly Howitt. I heard her say her name and leave a number. I jotted it down and folded it carefully away in my pocket.

  On the way back into Nevada, we did what we should have done first, which was to find a sporting goods store and buy gloves for our blistered hands. I also picked up a fancy blue ski jacket, one of the expensive brands I had never been able to afford. Cody chose a heavy-duty green parka, size XXL. Before leaving, I found us some thick wool socks and bought both of us new boots.

  Our next stop was a shooting range and survival shop on the outskirts of Stateline. I had never seen a store carrying such a huge selection of military gear.

  “Hellfire, you could arm a small country,” Cody said as we looked around in awe.

  “What, are the tanks out back?” I asked the guy behind the counter.

  “No, you have to order them through the catalog,” he said with a straight face.

  An hour later we were outfitted with new top-of-the-line flak jackets and firearms. Cody had given me a ration of shit over my preference for the Italian-made Beretta automatic—he was partial to a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver—but he quieted down after I outshot him at the store’s indoor range. We each picked up three boxes of hollow-point ammunition.

  “Payback’s a bitch,” Cody said, weighing a box of bullets in his hand.

  “What’s Pace’s game?” I said as we climbed into Cody’s truck. “Why’s he so hell-bent on preventing me from investigating Bascom’s murder? What’s his relationship with the Samoan?”

  Cody gave me a hard glance. “Don’t underestimate crooked cops. Once they go down that road, there’s no turning back.”

  “Pace must be involved in something pretty heavy.”

  “Weird for him to have actually taken part in putting the muscle on us. His kind usually don’t like to get their hands dirty.”

  “Pace is different. He enjoyed it,” I said.

  “No shit, huh? I’m gonna enjoy punting my foot up his ass. That’s a promise. I still feel bad about being on the crapper when they snatched you.”

  “Bascom was a rich kid. I wonder what he was involved in.”

  “It’s all just mental masturbation, Dirt. How about a little less talk and a little more action?”

  CHAPTER 23

  We were driving through a neighborhood a few blocks from Pistol Pete’s when I spotted the tail. I told Cody to pull over, and I watched a light-blue Subaru turn into a driveway a hundred yards behind us. Whe
n we started again, I saw the car back out and slowly follow us.

  “Could be anyone of them, Pace, Perdie, or the Samoan,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten.

  We turned onto Highway 50 and drove east through the tourist traffic. Once we passed the state line, I jumped out at a light and ducked into Harvey’s Casino. I watched the street from behind the dark glass doors as Cody drove on, followed by the blue Subaru three cars later. The driver peered toward Harvey’s as he went by, but he couldn’t see me through the mirrored glass. I looked at him in surprise. “Hello, asshole,” I muttered. It was Raneswich.

  I went out Harvey’s back door, hiking through the ice and mud. I ducked into The Horizon and came out their side exit into the parking lot, then slipped through the double doors of Pistol Pete’s. I took a seat in a comfortable chair in the spacious hotel lobby. Pistol Pete’s was decorated in an exaggerated Old West motif—gunfight murals dominated the walls, and various cowboy paraphernalia—saddles, bullwhips, rifles, and the like—were on display in large glass cases. A life-size bronze sculpture of a cowboy on a rearing mustang overlooked the lobby from a large pedestal.

  I read a local entertainment paper, watching the passersby like a husband waiting for his perpetually late wife. About ten minutes later, Cody walked in, his thick thatch of straw-like hair visible above the masses.

  “You lose him?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he chuckled. “Medium height, stocky, light hair, right?”

  “That’s Raneswich.”

  “I parked behind Harrah’s and sprinted in the back door. I saw him trying to keep up, but he hit an ice slick and did a header into a parked car. I came across on the pedestrian underpass.”

  “Nice work,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We split up. My goal was to find the Samoan—Samantha Nunez, for what it was worth, said he could be found at Pistol Pete’s. If I saw him, I would try to get him alone and subdue him with my stun gun, then take him to Bascom. As far as plans go, it was thin, but left a lot of room to improvise.

  Cody took the keno area, the sports book, and the surrounding slot floors, while I searched the main card floor, including the adjoining bars and slot machine rows. The casino was crowded, even though it was before noon. The masses were a diverse mixture of old folks, kids, white trash and white collar, rowdy drunks, and intently serious gamblers, with a heavy representation of Asians, blacks, Mexicans, and some people who looked like a mixture of all three. I didn’t find that to be a curiosity; California had become so racially diverse that people with blended ethnicity were commonplace.