By John H. Irsfeld
Samuels looked at Brady as if it were Brady’s fault that a pair of detectives was interrupting their conversation, as if the murder of an old girlfriend was nobody’s business but theirs, and certainly not the cops’.
For unknown reasons, Brady felt a tinge of guilt, as if he had indeed called the cops and told them that Samuels was in town and had a connection with the front page — but below the fold — story of a brutal murder. As if there were any other kind.
Almost against his will, Brady shrugged. Then he and Samuels both stood.
“Bring them out here, won’t you, Kevin? Don’t bring any extra chairs. They won’t be long.”
“Yes, sir,” Kevin said, no emotion reflected either in his voice or on his face.
A moment later, Kevin ushered two young men, or so they seemed to Brady, out the sliding door to the deck.
“Thank you, Kevin,” Samuels said. “That will be all. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Brady wondered. Why would a Stanford MBA take such a job? If he was a Stanford MBA. Well, money talks. It spoke to Brady.
“Mr. Samuels?” one of the young detectives said. “I know it ain’t you,” he said then to Brady. Brady smiled slightly.
“Yes?” Mr. Samuels said, apparently no longer perturbed by the interruption. Well, thought Brady, you don’t get to be a whale by spouting off when the whalers come around.
“I’m Detective Brittain,” said the young man. “Two t’s. This is my partner, Detective McCullough.” He extended his hand, which Mr. Samuels ignored. In a moment Brittain’s hand fluttered down to his side. As for McCullough, he only nodded, as if he’d seen this movie before and didn’t want to sit through it again.
“Please, have a seat,” Brittain said.
“Will this take that long?” Samuels asked.
“That’s pretty much up to you, Mr. Samuels,” Brittain said. “And your buddy Brady here.”
Brady half smiled again. He knew he should have taken the money and run when he had the chance. If he had had the chance. He decided to sit. This could take as long as the two young cops wanted it to take and it could be as uncomfortable as they wanted it to be. Samuels hadn’t exactly started the meeting off the way Brady would have advised, but rich people, they really are different from you and me, and it ain’t just because they’ve got more money, either. They know God has touched them and made them one of His own — He loves them best, or they wouldn’t be rich.
So, although Brady sat, Samuels did not. Even in his Fila tennis outfit and sandals, he was an imposing figure, taller by half a foot than either of Metro’s finest, and enhanced, as some lucky men are, by the silver of his age.
“We wanted to ask you a few questions about Colleen Winters,” Detective Brittain said.
“And why would you think I know anything about this Colleen Winters?”
“Look. We can make this easy or we can make this hard. That’s your call.” It wasn’t a question. “Colleen Winters, nee Colleen Depeau, an old girlfriend of yours from some forty years ago, found dead in her house here in Metroland several days ago, done in with a rag shoved halfway down her throat and a few little marks on her body inflicted by someone who apparently wanted to make an impression on her. Like maybe they wanted to know something she wouldn’t tell them.”
Detective McCullough laughed. “And we know,” McCullough said, “that very soon after she died, you left your home over in paradise and came back here to your old playground.”
“Coincidence?” said Detective Brittain. “Down at Metro, we concluded that the answer to that was ‘No.’ We concluded that while it is true that blood is thicker than water, semen is thicker than blood. We concluded that you either knew something about this sad matter, or planned to know something about it, one.”
Detective McCullough backed to the sliding glass door leading inside and leaned against the wall next to it. Like Brittain, he was wearing khaki pants, a dark polo shirt, untucked and cut fuller on the right side than the left, and well-used running shoes. Both men had plastic-encased I.D.s around their necks on dogtag chains. Both were as clean-shaven as Kevin himself, and both had short hair. Textbook stuff. Brady could see the ill-concealed lumps where their holstered pistols rode. Probably Glocks. Trendy as a Starbucks.
Brady didn’t recognize either of the men, but he recognized the type. He was pretty sure he had not run across either of them since he’d taken up private work. He was also pretty sure they knew who he was, because before they had left their office someone had told them he would be there on the deck or in the TV room or somewhere in the whale’s part of the ocean visiting with Samuels. The men reminded him of new guys to the team, guys who hadn’t yet gotten the “quiet” part of “the quiet professionals.” The name itself made Brady cringe, but he had to admit there was a part of him that was proud he had been among their number. And these two had no doubt been told the story of how Brady had lost his job at Gaming Control. Unsound practices, they had said, and although it was Brady’s partner who had indulged in such practices, they both had paid the price. Sometimes “quiet” meant “silence.”
He felt his phone vibrate again, but even though he was curious — Ilene’s sister with information about Axel? Lil sending him a tardy heads-up? Gaming Control with an offer to return to the fold, no hard feelings? — he thought it prudent to leave it in his pocket where he’d slipped it after the earlier call.
The glass door slid open and Kevin stepped out. He was carrying a cell phone that he handed to Mr. Samuels. “It’s for you, sir,” he said. “Mr. Creamer.”
“Please excuse me a moment, won’t you?” said Samuels to the detectives. He was past showing anything now — he was the poker-playing real estate tycoon, getting ready to do whatever it was he was getting ready to do but not tipping his hand except to say, unnecessarily, “Mr. Creamer is my lawyer.”
Well, thought Brady, what’s the point of being really rich if you didn’t have your own snitches? And anyway, what had Samuels done to anyone, except what all sociopaths do: rip them off, fuck them dry, and then kick them to the curb. I mean, he wasn’t as guilty as some. Probably. Maybe.
Samuels followed Kevin off the deck and into the tastefully opulent suite. He really must lose a lot of money in this joint, Brady thought.
“So,” McCullough said from his perch by the door. “How did you and Samuels get together, Brady?”
“He’s an old college friend,” Brady said.
“He’s got twenty years on you,” Brittain said.
“I said ‘old,’ ” Brady said. “Same school, different classes.”
“Very funny,” McCullough said, pushing himself back from the wall and crossing to the balustrade to look out over the city. “There’s two million stories in this city. And one or two of them is right here in this penthouse.”
“Look,” Brady said. “I did some investigating for Samuels. I reported to him the results of my investigation. We were visiting with each other. Small talk. We had just reached the part where I got paid when you two showed up. Anything beyond that, I think you ought to get from Mr. Samuels.”
“You know it doesn’t have to happen like this, Brady,” McCullough said.
“We can take you with us when we leave, even if we can’t take him,” said Brittain. “Like we said, hard or easy, easy or hard. Danny.”
“Let’s start with Mr. Samuels, can we do that?” Brady said. “And if that doesn’t get us anyplace, then we can figure out where to go after that.”
Samuels returned to the deck just then. He handed the cell phone to Detective Brittain.
“Yeah,” Brittain said into the phone. “Un huh. I know. Whatever you say, Mr. Creamer. Absolutely. But you know, it doesn’t end here.”
He nodded as he spoke, affirming or negating, it was hard to tell, but after a few moments he handed the phone back to Samuels.
“Yes?” Samuels said. “Yes, I think they are just leaving.” He gently closed the clam shell. He had a contented look on his face.
“We are,” said Brittain. “But we may be back. If not us, somebody. Because this conversation isn’t over.”
“Unfortunately for you,” said Samuels, “I think it is.”
Kevin appeared just then, as if he’d gotten buzzed telepathically.
“Would you show these gentlemen to the door?” Samuels said politely.
“This way, gentlemen,” Kevin said, just as politely.
At the sliding door, McCullough stutter-stepped, turned back, and said to Brady, “It’s guaranteed we’ll see you later, though, buddy. Sure enough.”
As soon as they were gone, Brady took his own cell phone out, opened it, and checked the number from the vibrating call he had not answered when the detectives were present. It was Lillian.
Brady pressed the dial key to call her back. In a moment, a man answered the phone. “Yeah?” he said.
“Lil?” said Brady foolishly.
“Who is this?” said the man at the other end of the invisible line.
“Who is this?” Brady said.
Whoever it was — maybe Tommy, Brady couldn’t tell, maybe not — hit the end button, and that was that.
“The sister?” said Mr. Samuels.
“No,” said Brady. “Not the sister. Nothing.” He paused a minute and then he said, “I need to go, Mr. Samuels.”
“And you would like your money,” Samuels added.
Brady nodded. He couldn’t check out of this joint too soon.
Again, Kevin appeared at the door.
“Please give Mr. Brady his envelope, will you, Kevin?” Samuels said.
“Yes, sir,” said Kevin, again opening the door wide enough for Brady to pass by him into the suite.
* * *
On the way down, Brady examined the elevator. He would wait until he was in the Ford before he took a look at what was inside the envelope. He might even wait until he got home. He certainly didn’t need to have it on the hotel tape. Right now, he could tell he was getting a headache. Two Diet Cokes was two too many late in the day. Caffeine intolerance. Goes with age. But as for going home, maybe there were better places to go right then. Still, home was the where the heart was, wasn’t it? Isn’t it?
He stopped the elevator at the mezzanine and took the stairs down the rest of the way. Some hotels were engineered to keep such a subterfuge from happening. Someone might have dropped the ball on this one.
He could see neither Brittain nor McCullough, but Brady knew that didn’t mean they couldn’t see him.
In short order, even given the insanely dense and frenetic traffic, Brady was back at the Horseshoe. Wherever Lil was, it wasn’t like her not to answer her cell, especially if she could see it was Brady calling. Something was seriously off here.
He went straight to the bar — shaped like a horseshoe, of course — scanning it as he approached. No sign of Lil. No sign of Tommy. It was busier now than before, and it took him longer than he wished before the bartender slapped a napkin down in front of him, smiled and said, “And what will it be for you, buddy?”
“I’m looking for a friend,” Brady said, ignoring the ‘buddy.’ ”
“Ain’t we all,” said the bartender, “ain’t we all?” Men seated on both sides of Brady chuckled appreciatively. Everybody loves a comedian.
“Where’s Tommy?” Brady asked.
“Who?” said the bartender.
“The guy who was on the shift before you. The bartender. Tommy.”
“There ain’t nobody works here named Tommy,” the bartender said.
“Yes,” said Brady. Well, he thought, this was beginning to look like it would get worse before it got better.
“You want something to drink or what?” the bartender said.
Brady waved him off.
As he half backed away from the bar, he saw the bartender say something to the two guys who had laughed at his earlier joke, but this time Brady couldn’t hear what it was. The two guys laughed again, this time a little harder.
Brady decided to wait it out a little, see what he could come up with. Sometimes the best thing to do was nothing. Sometimes things just happened. He had not opened the envelope on the ride over, but he liked the feel of it — fat. He decided to head downstairs to the coffee shop and get something to eat. Maybe it wasn’t too late to stifle the headache he could feel still building, as if it was going to go serious on him.
The gal at the hostess stand met him with a broad, bright smile and a handful of giant glossy menus. “Are you alone, sir?” she asked.
Alone, he thought. Yeah, pretty much. “Yes,” he said. “Just one.”
She led him to one of the few open tables. He pointed to a booth. “How about over there?” he said.
“But … ”
“It’s okay,” Brady said. “I’ll make up for it.”
“Well … ” she said.
But by then he was already sliding into the seat on the side facing the stairs down from the casino and the elevator up to the garage. His car was parked there, level four. Pretty good place for such a night, but then the Fremont Street Experience had its own parking garage. That whole thing, the Fremont Street Experience. What about back in the day, when they all made the loop, a weekend tribal ritual, dying even then, Charleston to Fifth, or further, to Fremont to Main to Charleston, or maybe the other way, around and around, looking for one another and who knew what might transpire. In those days, it really was an experience. Hot nights, windows down, cars full, waving, shouting, smiling, emerging, entering, going off into the night. Now it wasn’t an experience, it was just a show. They weren’t the same thing.
Yet there was still Binion’s, even if the old man was gone, Ted too, the daughter and her husband out of the business, and Jack back on the Mississippi River someplace. It had been something. Binion’s had the Mexican food. The Four Queens had one of the best steak joints in town, downstairs in a bunker, the best newsstand in town right behind it, across from the .… What was that the name of the theater where Brady had seen The Last Picture Show when it first came to town when he was a kid? The last picture show! He hadn’t really understood the movie, probably the last one he saw in a theater in black and white, but he liked it because it was kids like himself who played the big parts in it. Movies. When had he seen one last? Some things were passing him by.
Even though there were a lot of Mexican restaurants in Las Vegas now, Binion’s had some of the best Mexican food Brady knew of. The story was that Binion would get homesick for sure-enough good old-fashioned Tex-Mex food, norteno — after all, he was a Texas boy — and he’d drive to San Antonio and get him the finest Tex-Mex chef he could find, offer him a lot of money, throw him in the car, and bring him back to Las Vegas. Things would be fine for a while, the story would go, until the chef got drunk and homesick at the same time, and he would quit, tack a GTT sign on his door, and head back to San Antonio. The old man would stew about it for a while, but inevitably, back to San Antonio he’d go himself, lasso another Tex-Mex specialist, and drag him back home to Nevada. Brady didn’t know if it was true — half the stories you heard about Benny Binion he figured weren’t true — but it was hard to tell which ones were and which ones weren’t. It didn’t matter. Maybe the cook they had now was cut out of that old Benny Binion cloth. Maybe he was even from San Antonio.
His waitress brought the food. It was okay, but it wasn’t as good as it was the last time Brady had eaten there. Maybe that cook had gone to Texas and Brady was eating frozen. What did he know? He wasn’t a foodie, after all. He ate only because he had to. Whatever this was, it filled the hole.
So who had answered Lil’s phone? Where was Tommy? Who was Tommy? Was he a cop, too, who worked with Lillian and was just playing the part of bartender while they were doing whatever they were doing? Probably not. Lil was already too drunk to be on duty and, anyway, she worked exclusively at the academy these days. She wasn’t ever on the street like in the old days, loaned out in the great fight against crime. Tommy was young enough, however; maybe he was Lil’s date for the evening. Ah, these kids.
Just then Brady’s mobile began vibrating again. He slid it out, flipped it open, and looked at the tiny screen. Not Lil and, the best he could remember, not Ilene’s sister, either. Not Samuels. Who then? He pressed the talk button.
“Yes,” he said.
“If you want to see anybody alive again, you’d better take your ill-gotten gains, go upstairs to that old piece of shit Ford of yours, and head down to Laughlin. Otherwise, you’re out of luck, buddy.” No click, just the whirr of the ether or whatever it was that carried the words through the air, and then what passed for silence on cell phones.
“Buddy?” Brady said. Or maybe he had said Brady, he wasn’t sure. Well, this was a new wrinkle. So much for going home.
From his jacket, he pulled the plump envelope that Kevin had given him in Samuels’ place, held it under the edge of the tabletop, ran his finger under the flap and opened it — gave himself a little paper cut doing it — and peeked inside. Not bad. Even if they were all one-dollar bills, not bad. They weren’t. He inched one of the hundreds out of the envelope and put it on the table in front of him. “God damn,” he said barely aloud. “Nice payday. Too bad it ain’t over yet.”
* * *
He hadn’t been to Laughlin in a long time; not long enough, though, really — Laughlin is not the center of the universe. Didn’t used to be, anyway. But off he went out on U.S. 93/95 toward Arizona, the real West. Henderson would have been a blur of salmon-tiled rooftops had it been daylight to see, not the smoky industrial trap it used to be in the days of his youth. As it was, lights, lights, and more lights. The joke used to be that at Christmas, all the locals in the valley turned off all the lights except the red and green ones. Not anymore — strip mall signs, and stoplights, and window lights burning for the return of the person who had turned them on in the first place when they’d left. Brady didn’t leave the lights on when he left his place. Sometimes he didn’t turn them on when he was there. It was always dark when he came back, too.
Was it Axel? Back in his old life — if it was his old life, before he was born again — Axel no doubt had made the Laughlin River Run on his Harley, back before the laser had done damage to his tattoos just as the Bible had to his sinning ways. Back before the rumble there a couple of years ago diminished the bike traffic somewhat. Axel was still rough cut, and he hadn’t traded his Harley away, either. Generally, once a man had a Harley he pretty much did his best to keep it, unless a woman intervened. Brady didn’t know much about Ilene except that she had both cut herself and swallowed a handful of bad pills and still had managed to live through it. Apparently she loved her Grandmother Colleen a lot — maybe even more than she loved Axel. Or maybe love didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe Ilene had something else on her mind besides grief over the loss of old granny. It sucks to be cynical, but it’s safe.
Or was it Lillian, confused maybe, by love or sex, into compromising something more than her body? It couldn’t be Samuels. He was safe in his aerie with Kevin. MBA, my ass, Brady thought. It couldn’t be Ilene, of course. She was already in trouble enough of her own making. And as for old Colleen, she had already been done in. So who?
And why was he making this trip anyway? He had taken a job, done the job, gotten paid for the job, eaten a passably good Mexican meal, paid for it with cash, and then tipped well, and should already be at home either in bed or poking around in his medicine cabinet looking for a Motrin or Excedrin or his house gun or something to stop the niggling, nagging, painful beat of the persistent ache behind his eyes.
Brady slowed down at the Railroad Pass casino to make sure no unhappy loser decided just then to pull into oncoming traffic so he wouldn’t have to go home and try to explain to a significant other where all the money had gone. Brady was safe — his way was clear. Not much farther on, he pulled off 93/95 on to plain old 95, Veterans Memorial Highway, on his way south toward the cutoff to 163 east that took any curious soul into Laughlin, then on to Bullhead City, Arizona, too, if he wanted to go there — if that curious soul turned out to be as bull-headed as maybe Brady was starting to seem even to himself.
Veterans Memorial Highway. Brady guessed they couldn’t have found a lonelier, more godforsaken highway in Nevada to dedicate to veterans. Maybe they were thinking of guys like Brady when they chose this stretch of 95 to dedicate.
On impulse, Brady reached across to the glove box of the Ford and popped it open. There was his Browning, safe as a baby in its bed, sitting atop his insurance and registration papers. But where was the list with all the names on it that Axel had given him only hours before?
Brady pulled off on to the narrow emergency lane, felt the jolt of rumble strips all the way up his spine and into his aching head. He slipped the car into park, unbuckled his seat belt so he could get a closer look at the glove box, took out the Browning and the car papers, and found himself looking into a bare, poorly lit, absolutely empty cavity. No list. His head was pounding now.
“If I was ten years younger,” Brady said, “I’d start to be getting pissed off just about now. And if I was ten years older, I’d be at home in bed.”
Author Bio
Raised and educated in Texas, John Irsfeld is a longtime UNLV English professor and member of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He is the author of several novels and story collections, including Night Moves (2007), Radio Elvis and Other Stories (2002), Rats Alley (1987) Little Kingdoms (1976) and Coming Through (1975).
