"No."
She kept her eyes on me for a while. Then she nodded her head slowly.
"No, maybe you're not," she said, still looking at me.
"But you should be."
I waited.
"Marty and Anthony had some deal going," she said, finally.
"Do you know what it was?"
"No."
"Was Gino involved?" I said.
"I don't think so."
"I assume the deal is now off," I said.
She nodded.
"Marty finds out you're here, what happens?" I said.
"He'll kill Anthony. Probably with his hands. Marty likes that.
And he'll take me home and beat the shit out of me and it'll be like it was. Except this time he'll probably hurt me worse."
"We'll have to see to it that he doesn't do that," I said.
"Can Anthony stand up to him?"
"Oh, God no," Bibi said.
"Nobody can."
"Somebody can," I said.
"You love Anthony?"
She made the bitter laugh sound again.
"Better than Marty."
"And he was a way out," I said.
"He was. Now it's all shot to hell," Bibi said.
"He's gotta break the bank or whatever he thinks he's going to do, and we sit here and wait until he does it, and now the stupid wife shows up and gets killed and Marty will hear about it and know I'm out here and find us and…"
She shrugged.
"Or not," I said.
She shook her head.
"There's no or not," she said.
"You can't stop him. He'll find me and do what he's going to do and no one will stop him. Nobody can."
"I might stop him," I said.
She shook her head, and kept shaking it, slowly back and forth.
Tears formed in her eyes and came down her cheeks. She lowered her head, and I could no longer see the tears but I could see her shoulders shake. I put a hand out on top of hers. She didn't move except for her head swaying back and forth and her shoulders shaking. I guess she didn't believe me.
CHAPTER 23
I was sitting at the bar drinking club soda, watching the gamblers, and thinking of the Kipling poem… something about piling all you own on a single bet and losing and smiling and walking away.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and which is more you'll be a Man, my son. Kipling had never been to Vegas. I was drinking club soda because in recent years beer in the middle of the day made me sleepy.
I didn't want to be sitting at the bar in the middle of the day, wide awake, drinking club soda and thinking of poetry. But I didn't know what else to do, and at least this way I could keep an eye on Anthony Meeker while he mourned his wife at the blackjack tables. I knew Julius would show up to take his daughter home. I figured sooner or later Marty Anaheim would show up to straighten out his marital circumstances. The Vegas cops might or might not catch whoever murdered Shirley. Hawk would or would not spot someone at the MGM Grand which would explain why Shirley had the number written down.
I wondered if I was still employed. The question of returning Anthony to his wife was no longer pressing. Murder spilt a lot of milk. And if Julius really had wanted me to find Anthony before word got out that he skimmed some money, it was too late, that probably being some of the milk that was spilt. I wondered if the stolen money was part of Anthony's deal with Marty Anaheim.
Gino's visit to my office made me think that something was wrong between Gino and Marty.
I fed a dollar coin into the poker machine at the bar and won ten dollars. I fed the money back into the machine mindlessly until I lost it. It wasn't that I liked to gamble. Gambling mostly bored me. I just had nothing else to do and I didn't want all those dollar coins clanking around in my pocket. Eventually I managed to get rid of about thirty dollars. The bartender asked if I wanted another roll.
"No thanks," I said.
"I've got to let my pulse rate settle."
The bartender put a fresh club soda on the bar in front of me.
"On the house," he said.
"I'm supposed to cozy up to the high rollers."
"You've got a real instinct for the job," I said, as Hawk slid onto the bar stool next to me.
The bartender looked at him. Hawk shook his head.
"Marty Anaheim," Hawk said.
"At the Grand?"
"Yeah. Little guy's been tailing Anthony is with him."
"Okay, that answers one question," I said.
"Cops find where Shirley staying?" Hawk said.
"No," I said.
"I called Romero this morning. As far as they can tell she wasn't registered anywhere."
"So where's her luggage?"
"Romero says maybe she didn't have any."
"Romero ever travel with a woman?" Hawk said.
"I asked him that. He admitted that mostly they bring luggage."
"So where is it."
"They don't know. They figure the murderer stole it."
"A woman's luggage?" Hawk said.
"You knew Shirley, would she have luggage?"
"She'd have luggage like Susan has luggage."
"So our guy rapes this woman," Hawk said.
"And strangles her, and then runs off carrying her handbag and three, four pieces of luggage?" Hawk said.
"Or," I said.
"He rapes her and kills her someplace else and carries her nude body to a vacant lot and drops it."
"And your card, 'less she still clutching it in her lifeless hand and he don't notice."
I sipped some club soda. The slot machines chanted their endless song in the background. There was very little night and day in Vegas. There were no windows in the casinos, no clocks, no closing time, no last call. Only if you went outside, for which there was very little reason, or waited at your window for the volcano to erupt, did day or night matter.
"He wanted to prevent her identification," I said.
"Un huh."
"And went to a lot of trouble to do it," I said.
"Un huh."
"Which means he can be tied to her. Otherwise why bother?"
"Which mean the finger of suspicion point to Anthony," Hawk said.
"Or Marty Anaheim."
"Marty ain't tied to her."
"So why'd she have the number for me and The Mirage and the MGM Grand written on the back of my card?" I said.
"Got any tighter fix on time of death?" Hawk said.
"Cops say no. Anytime that night before she was found."
"I got Anthony until four-fifteen," Hawk said.
"And his girlfriend says he was with her the rest of the night."
"
"Course she might lie."
"She might. She's Marty Anaheim's wife."
Hawk stared at me for a moment, which was as much surprise as he ever showed.
"Anthony got a death wish," Hawk said.
"Marty and Anthony had some kind of deal going."
"Did it include Mrs. Anaheim?"
"No, he ran off with her after, as far as I can tell, double crossing Marty."
"Be quicker for Anthony," Hawk said, "he just stepped in front of a train."
"And more pleasant," I said.
"How's he doing?"
"Don't know," I said.
"Right now I think he's counting, and betting progressively."
"If he loses doubling the last bet?" Hawk said.
"Something like that," I said.
"I don't study his technique."
"He'll find a way to lose," Hawk said.
"Anybody double-cross Marty Anaheim and run off with his wife knows how to lose."
I sipped a little more club soda. Refreshing. Hawk gazed absently at Anthony Meeker across the room at one of the blackjack tables. He was dressed today in a black blazer and a white silk shirt with vertical black stripes like a successful referee.
"Cops still holding out for a random rape and murder?" Hawk said.
"I doubt it. They don't like to complicate things if they don't have to, but Romero doesn't seem stupid to me. Of course they'd have a better chance if I told them all I know."
"Why don't you?"
"I'm trying to protect our client," I said.
"And I'm trying to figure out who did what to whom before I sic the cops on them."
"Just who is our client," Hawk said.
"And why we still working for him? Shirley's dead and Julius knows where Anthony is."