HE STORY OF THE MISSING GIRL had moved from the front page of The Las Vegas Sun to the second page–all in the same number of days. Barnes had promised Bino the maximum amount of protection if he would give up what he knew. Only by cooperating with them, he was told, could he hope to save his daughter.
With the missing agent mystery now in its sixth day, the trail leading to Mike’s body was growing cold. What’s more, the Agency’s resources were being spread thin. Two men on Ritter’s trail–one during the day, the other at night–two staying with Stephanie, two more on Bino, and half-a-dozen charting Vinnie’s every move–as well as keeping an eye on his carcass full of maggots–it was just getting to be too much. Barnes and Horne were all strung out. Outside pressures were building, with the SAC getting heat from Headquarters in D.C. Arrests needed to be made, families needed to be informed, and someone needed to take the long, hard fall for the lost agent.
The biggest break had come with the swift meltdown of the T-bird desk clerk. Three rooms had been paid for with cash. The guests staying in those rooms hadn’t been at all typical, having actually stayed the night. The hunchbacked mute with the red suspenders was with them, along with an old woman and a slender man, who was lacking in hair. Mitch had fit the description of one of the two most sane of the insane bunch. Cap’n’s description had somehow slipped through the cracks of the clerk’s memory.
A second, less significant break in the case had occurred when Smitty sauntered into Reverend Keller’s kitchen for a bowl of hot mush and the best cold orange juice on the city block. The reverend was more concerned about his little flock and the ecclesiastical aura of confidentiality than in giving the information the two agents demanded. One agent had leaned over the desk in Keller’s little office while the other stood in the hallway, keeping an eye on the mute, who was shoveling brown sugar-sprinkled mush in his mouth like it was going out of style.
About the time Smitty had taken his place in line for a second bowl of cereal, the voices in the back office had become heated, and every eye in the lunch hall turned its attention on the two cops harassing the shepherd of their flock. The retired plumber had finally lost his cool. Jerking the collar from his shirt and recalling the vocabulary of his pipe-bending days, Bart Keller lit into the two troublemakers. In short order he’d sent the both of them packing, at the same time tightening his trust and loving hold on his wayward flock, who had no idea the soft-spoken servant could wield such a big pipe.
Distracted by the fracas, Smitty, in a fraction of a second, had dropped his bowl, leaned down to pick it up, and disappeared under the table, crawling past the enormous legs of Cook, then scooting out the kitchen exit.
When the suits realized the mute was no longer standing in the soup line, they tore through the hall, splitting the wave of homeless hungry like Moses parting the Red Sea. Indeed, they needed a miracle to keep from being the laughingstock of the Agency. Their inability to follow a man who seemed just marginally functional would become legendary if Smitty got away. After an exhaustive search, they came to the one conclusion they most dreaded: They’d fumbled away the second best break the Agency had. The minor miracle of vanishing into thin air had been granted to a mute whose stepmother had claimed wasn’t worth the energy to drown.
It didn’t take long for the agents to buy 20 dollars’ worth of information from a man the others called “Finders,” their boneheaded bad luck seemed to have turned for the better. With Finders’ help, by 11:00 a.m. they’d located the remnants of Nurse’s shack, Cap’n’s empty home under I-15, and the homeless shelter near the Strip where Sound had once stayed. Smitty’s residence had as yet eluded them.
The big day was at hand–crunch time on the Strip. Avoiding the far corner of the back bedroom and the big-screen television box packed with dry ice and wrapped in several layers of dirty blankets, the Alley Team saw to its last-minute preparations. The mood in the apartment was somber. The loss of the silent deep-thinker, the character behind the wide, smiling face, left a painful hole in everyone’s heart.
Mitch seemed to take Smitty’s absence the hardest. He knew how much the man idolized his bold style; how he was all ears while Mitch described his clever get-away at the convention center. It seemed that, in a way, Smitty had given himself up as a sacrificial lamb.
The tensions seemed to mount on every side. Nurse was up and dressed, and had used a new, non-minty brand of denture cream to affix her teeth to her gums. Nevertheless, her grumbling and goading hadn’t changed one bit. Abig bundle of nerves, she took it upon herself to find fault with everything and everyone: Sound didn’t look at all like a butler; the way he’d fixed her hair was “silly-lookin’,” not to mention the fact that he had used way too much hair spray; her stockings clung to her legs “as tight as Ace bandages;” and they were all going to get caught, “sure as shootin’!”
Greg watched with fascination as the crabby old woman stormed around the apartment. Her made-up face brimmed with happy wrinkles even while her mouth was spewing contempt. The source of her venom was threefold: first, she was jittery as all get out, dreading her coming-out party; a second factor was her rough upbringing and hard life; and part stemmed from Smitty’s absence. This the entire team understood. In their eyes she was a remarkable woman who had risen above all odds. Because of her innate goodness and love, her giving heart, her plucky courage and staunch determination– which some would instead term ‘reckless abandon’ and ‘stubbornness’– she’d flourished.
As she started out the door, she turned sharply, stretched the white gloves up over her wrists, and said, “An’ what you findin’ so funny ‘bout all this, Sunny?”
Greg blinked and fitted a frown on his face. “I was just thinking what an amazing woman you are, and how foolish your husband was to let you get away. You’re truly one of a kind, Mrs. Rebecca Lambert. And no matter what happens, you’ll always be a winner to me. The ‘Rain in Spain’ can’t even change that.”
Nurse winked, then chomped her teeth to keep them in place. “You can tell me all that mushy stuff after we bring back the dough.” She flashed an anxious smile, then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
Sound followed, then took Greg’s extended hand. “You’re an incredible person, too,” Greg said, giving Sound’s slim fingers a brotherly squeeze. “Take good care of her.”
“I will.”
“And remember, pull out at any sign of trouble.”
Sound doubled over as he coughed and clutched at his bruised ribs. “Don’t worry,” he sighed, “I’m the biggest coward of the bunch. Believe me, I wouldn’t even be going if she wasn’t with me.”
Greg clapped a hand on the man’s gaunt shoulder. “You okay?” “Fine. Just a little cough.”
“I hope so. If it makes any difference, you’re the only one of us brave
enough to admit you’re a coward.”
The grand dame and her faithful butler disappeared down the hall.
Greg had closed the door and gone back to studying the master plan,
when Mitch came out of the bathroom, drying his hair with the same
towel the rest of the team had used previously. “You think they can do it?”
he asked, dropping the towel on the floor.
Greg stared derisively down at the towel, then over at Mitch, whose
mind was fastened on other things. “If anybody can pull off this crazy
stunt, Nurse can.” He stepped to the window and parted the blinds.
There, crossing the parking lot, were the two well-dressed vagabonds.
The sight evoked in him the same feelings as when he sent his first
group of junior executive trainees out on their maiden journeys. Mitch ran his fingers back through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about
Smitty.”
“Me too.” Greg walked over to where Mitch had tossed his towel. “If they let him go, you think they’ll try to follow him back?” “That’s what I’ve been wondering. I hope not. There’s no telling
what the authorities would do if they found what’s inside that box in
the back room–the one we’ve all been avoiding all morning.” He picked up
the towel and shook it out. “What does your wife say when you leave your
towel laying around on the floor?”
Mitch stared dumbly at the towel in Greg’s hand, then at the floor
where it had lain. “I didn’t even realize I’d dropped it.”
The expression on Greg’s face was one of empathy, not of finding
fault. “How long have you been married?”
“Three years. Why?”
“She must not complain much. I used to do the same thing. It was
the second year of our marriage before Linda finally admitted that it
drove her crazy to pick up after me.” Greg stared distantly at the floor,
the bitter-sweet memory still fresh in his mind.
Mitch lifted his eyebrows. The conversation had taken a strange
turn. “Sorry. . . . I’ll put it away.”
“No, I’m sorry. The oddest things make me yearn for what I can’t have. What I’d give to have Linda nag me again about picking up my dirty socks. . . . Now, about the body, do you have any ideas where to put it?”
Longing to jump on a bus or two and come along home–just like Mitch– but having no cash, Smitty rested on a park bench off Mojave and Harris. A fountain in the center of the park sent geysers of water high into the air. When the water reached its peak, it would hover for a split second on the gushing stream below, then tumble back down through the strong jet, back to the rippling waters that had given it birth.
The fountain took the sting out of the afternoon heat. For Smitty the place had been a regular spot to meditate and ponder when the sun rose high. The park usually emptied in the heat of the afternoon, and he would find himself trying to build up the courage to wade in the water like he often saw the children do, their mothers close at hand, smiling and laughing.
Feeling the cooling mist against his face, the mute reflected on the simple thought that had plagued him for years. Could he get close enough to slip off his shoes and just put his feet in the water? Would it swallow him up, pull him under? Why were the children so unafraid as they frolicked and splashed about? They seemed to find it exhilarating. He gazed across the babbling fountain to a man on a bench, reading a magazine. The stranger peered up periodically from his publication. Smitty thought it odd that he sat opposite the breeze.
Smitty stood; the man peered over the top of his magazine. Sliding his thumbs under his red suspenders, Smitty, feigning a leisurely stroll, made his way across the fresh-cut grass, deeper into the park. The man stood and tucked his magazine under his arm, an act that didn’t go unnoticed by the crafty street urchin, who stopped to pick up a small feather from the lawn. Holding it up to the sky, he ran it through his fingers, then stroked it across his cheek and forehead. The stranger paused, then sought relief from the scorching sun under a nearby palm. Smitty resumed his loafing, paying no mind to his stalker. By and by, the man nonchalantly dropped onto the soft, cool turf to pick up where he’d left off in his reading.
In a sudden burst of energy Smitty stretched his new-found wings to the air and dashed across the lawn like a bird in flight, back toward the fountain. The agent gave chase, stopping briefly to report that the mute was on the run. Smitty skidded to a halt on the up-wind side of the fountain and raised his feather high in the air, setting it adrift in the wind. It glided softly on the breeze, coming to rest on the water, bobbing gently on its surface. Just then the agent came into sight. With Smitty’s gaze on him, he quickly narrowed his stride and tried his best to shield himself behind another paltry palm.
Again Smitty took a seat on the bench and soaked in the pond’s mist, studying the feather’s movements and pondering his own life, mirrored in that tiny speck of sodden wing. Within a few minutes the small feather seemed to lose its buoyancy. Under the waves it went, over and over again, being dunked like a drowning child.
Nurse stood next to Sound at the cashier’s desk with a false New York ID and a purse full of new credit cards. She smiled widely, even as her knees knocked together under her dress. “That’s five thousand, Mrs. Thurston,” the cashier said, placing the last hundred-dollar chip on the stack. “Have a nice afternoon.”
With her gloved hand, Nurse scooted the stack toward Sound, who once again addressed the cashier. “Would you give us a thousand in fifty-dollar chips?” He peeled off ten bills and slid them back across the counter, then deposited the balance of the heavy wad in his pants pocket. As the teller stacked the chips, Nurse peeked up out of the corner of her eye to the camera in the corner. It swept slowly back and forth, making indelible digital images of their illegal act.
Her mind raced back some five decades earlier. Only 20 years old, she’d taken a job with the laundry business on Carson. They paid 25 cents a day, then a decent wage. She went by the name ‘Becky’ back then. Living in a little studio apartment behind the laundry, she was known by all as “the crazy girl.” In those days, a single mom raising an infant daughter was considered an outcast. The other employees often teased and ridiculed her. But Becky carried on, doing her job, loving her precious Belle. She was a good baby, for the most part sleeping during the day and only needing to be nursed at the noon break and before and after work. The young mother found solace in pretending the babe was yet alive.
The great depression didn’t hit Vegas quite as hard as the rest of the country. That’s why Becky was there. One of the attendants at the Alabama State Mental Hospital had recommended the change. Since people still came to the city to try their hand at chance, pouring their meager earnings into the hands of the rich and powerful, the place was more boom than bust. Still, the laundry business struggled to survive. Before she’d had four solid weeks of work under her hat, the place closed its doors.
A sharp elbow gently jogged Nurse from her musings. “You okay?” Sound whispered.
“Oh . . . fine,” she mumbled, the air trilling past her teeth. She finished gathering up the stacks of chips and held them tightly in her gloved hand.
“Let’s start with a few slots; maybe it’ll help calm the nerves,” Sound said above the clamor of the Casino. They weaved their way across the room. Taking up a corner position, Nurse deposited the chips in her purse and they leisurely began feeding a quarter slot.
Just then a tall, handsome black man in his mid-fifties strutted through the front door, carrying a dark, leather briefcase. His outfit was typical Vegascool–a pair of dark dress slacks and a deep jade-colored shirt, partly unbuttoned to show off a gold chain suspended from his thick neck. His face was clean-shaven, except for an impeccably-trimmed goatee, peppered with gray. His head shaven, it reflected the flashing lights that bordered the ceiling entrance.
“Let’s move over there,” suggested Sound, motioning to another bank of slots. “I’ll go get some more change.”
Nurse hobbled over to another stool and propped herself up on its cushion. In a few minutes Sound returned with a plastic bucket filled with onedollar tokens. Nurse opened her purse and gave him half of her chips. Then she went back to feeding the slot machine.
Within a few minutes Sound was parked on a toilet seat in the men’s room, transferring the cash and chips into a briefcase that had been slid under the partition from the neighboring stall. He snapped the case shut, slid it back to the adjacent commode, flushed the toilet, and returned to the casino, where Nurse was still playing her one-armed bandit.
In the meantime, after a minute had elapsed, Cap’n stood, towering above the stall door, gazing at his sweaty reflection in the bathroom mirror. He flushed his own toilet and exited the stall. Standing at the sink, he tucked the case under his arm and doused his hands and face with water. Large rings of sweat had formed under each arm pit. He patted dry the slick, tender skin on his head. And another minute later he was back watching the winning numbers scroll across the Keno game’s giant screen.
Sound leaned over to see inside Nurse’s bucket, silently trying to calculate how many tokens she had left. The Las Vegas Hilton touted 97% returns. That meant that, if the odds held true, the first time through she would have $97.00 of her $100.00 in change. The next round would return $94.00, and so on until it was all gone. He lost track on the 25th time, and decided the math was toasting his tired brain.
Nurse mindlessly kept depositing the coins in the slot, remembering back to the first time she ever saw Eddie. He’d pulled up behind the vacant laundry business in a shiny new ‘49 Ford pickup, its bed jammed with suitcases, gym equipment and trophies. For six long years, since the death of his wife, he’d taken his anger out on his opponents in the ring. When the anger was finally spent, he’d decided to take his winnings and open his own gym.
The young fighter had hopped out of the truck with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. It was a sight she would never forget. Having taken on too many fighters, now he was ready to take on the world. Sad-faced, six-year-old Marge had climbed down from the other side of the cab. Her small blanket dragging behind on the ground, her left thumb was firmly planted between her little lips, held by a suction force that only the power of love and security could pry loose. By the time she arrived, little Marge had already missed her kindergarten year. Two months passed before Eddie actually met Marge’s pair of new friends, Becky and Belle. Too busy training new fighters, he’d brushed off his daughter’s tales of fun and adventure out back in the nearly abandoned garage. Marge was a shy girl who didn’t make friends easily. He thought that the two “silly girls” she talked about constantly were only make-believe–and he was halfway right.
Now “little” Marge was a grown woman, married to a wealthy New York attorney and sitting at the foot of her daddy’s hospital bed. Nurse thought it ironic that at that very moment, she, an imposter, was gambling away money that Marge’s own husband had earned. Pretty soon, two hours had vanished, as had the bucket of coins. Nurse plunked the last few tokens in the bandit, then, mission accomplished, stood and wandered over to the blackjack table, where Cap’n was parked. Having settled his nerves by downing three large sodas, he’d watched the gamblers come and go, some walking away winners, others, losers. In time, he’d not only become versed in the game, but immersed in it. Now he was prepared to play for keeps. Placing his bet without a word, he waited for Nurse to lay down hers. Game after game, the two reluctant leading actors played out their roles. Each time she wanted another card, she’d tap the table with her fingers. On one occasion, when Nurse won a sizeable amount of cash, Sound got a little too carried away, letting out a euphoric whoop. Still, gambling is gambling; it didn’t take nearly as long to lose the thousand dollars in chips as it did the tokens.
As Cap’n dropped the last of his own chips on the table, Nurse and Sound walked over to the teller’s window and cashed out, returning the last of the chips, collecting a second pile of cash, and hailed a cab.
In the safety of the back seat, Sound took a small pad of paper from his pocket and jotted down their take: nine-thousand and change–Las Vegas Hilton. Back at the casino, Cap’n made a second trip to the restroom– this time for legitimate reasons–then hailed a cab of his own to follow the leader.
The soup kitchen was closed until 5:00–or so said the sign on the door. Greg paced out front, trying to decide if he should ring the bell or just wait it out.
“I’m first in line,” said a lone, rather ornery woman, who at first had appeared to be asleep in the shade of the front steps. “I’m savin’ places for my friends, too,” she added, her nasal rumblings charged with mistrust.
“Oh–I’m not looking to eat,” Greg apologized.“Then go ‘round back. Reverend’s in the kitchen,” she said, pointing to the side of the building.
Greg disappeared around the corner and peeked through the open window. Inside the noisy kitchen, Cook, his back to the door, held a giant potato masher in his thick fist, smashing the ‘hard’ right out of a giant pot of spuds. The hot, moist air that escaped through the window screen clashed against the dry desert breeze that fluttered in the narrow, dead-end service alley. The clatter of chairs being set up echoed from the opposite doorway. Greg climbed the two steps to the landing and rapped his knuckles on the metal door frame. Cook reeled around like a wounded soldier, his masher cocked and ready to fire.
“Doors open at five!” he barked. “Go wait up front!”
“I–uh . . .” Greg stuttered.
“You heard me–wait up front.” Cook started for the door. His masher whipped menacingly through the air, sending fragments of Idaho’s best across the room.
Greg backed off the steps, ready to bolt. “Sunny,” came the reverend’s voice. “I’ve been hoping you’d stop by.” Like a spent wind-up toy, Cook halted his attack and returned to his riotous assault on the helpless spuds.
Reverend Keller chugged through the kitchen and extended a hand, lifting Greg back onto the landing. “Don’t mind Cook,” he chuckled, scarcely lowering his voice. “He’s got a good heart. Just has to warm up to you, is all.” His arm extended across his guest’s back. His short legs doing doubletime, he urged Greg inside. “I’ve heard some things,” he said, his warm smile fading slightly. “You and some of my friends are in a pile of trouble.”
Greg turned sharply to face the man. “What’ve you heard?”
“Two FBI agents came by this morning. Smitty led them here in order to ditch them.”
“Behind that dumb exterior, the guy’s a fox, isn’t he?”
“I’d say he’s gifted in some areas and not so gifted in others. Regardless, he’s as innocent as a child.”
“How much do the agents know?”
“Enough to get some people hurt.” Reverend Keller paused. “You’re playing a dangerous game against a powerful man.”
“Vinnie?”
The reverend shook his head. “With a little help, Nurse can handle Vinnie Domenico. He’s a coward that hides behind the skirts of fear and intimidation. He’ll be easy to tumble. . . . Of course, you’ve already found that out, haven’t you?”
Greg nodded. “Smitty and another friend were mostly responsible. They left Vinnie talking to himself.”
“Yeah, they did a fine job. . . . No, Vinnie’s small potatoes. But this other guy–well, you’re flirting with danger messing with him, but it seems you and your friends really ticked Vinnie off. He put a price on your heads–over a hundred grand. A man that’s used to keeping others in total submission can’t rule when someone takes the legs out from under him. And that’s what your friend did.”
“A hundred grand?”
The reverend nodded, then added, “I know one old woman who’d give the rags off her own back to keep a soul worth saving out of trouble. That tells me that your friend must be worth the hassle.”
“She already did that,” Greg said, flashing an embarrassed smile. “–clear to the boxer shorts.”
As Greg recited the dramatic love scene that had played out in the alley between him and Nurse, great gusts of laughter echoed out into the still empty mess hall.