He nodded. “This morning.”
“You gonna tell me what this’s about or do I have to pistol-whip you?” I sat on the edge of the bed. He rolled away from me. “Come on, Herb. Somebody tossed our room last night. And beat you up. You have to know what’s happening here.”
“Did the cops say I knew who it was?”
“How could they? You were out cold. Look at me, bub.” He rolled back a little. “What’s the deal? You do something bad?”
Jesus, I sounded like I was his dad-and he was two years older than me. I would never take a free trip with a relative again. The strings attached to this one were strangling me. He was silent, twiddling with his hospital gown.
“Who was it, Herb? You said something about the casino yesterday.”
“I did? What did I say?”
“I asked if you were in trouble and you said, casino. That’s all.”
He seemed to relax. I knew how he felt. When I had drugs to get my nose straightened out I told the doctor several embarrassing tales, including how I lost my virginity with a girl who worked at the PX on the base. I even told him her name, something I couldn’t remember on a normal day. He regaled me with the stories and slapped my back on my next visit.
“I must have been thinking about all the money I lost. Cynthia was very understanding.” He worked up a sympathetic look.
“That’s not her story,” I said. His eyes cooled. “She says you wired six thousand dollars to her. Is that what you were doing in the U-Pack-M?”
“No. You saw me lose at blackjack. I’m a terrible card player.”
“You are. You stink at cards. Always have.”
He scowled briefly. “I just sent her the telegram to show her Irealized how seriously I’d messed up. And it worked. Thank heavens. I didn’t know if I could go home again.”
“So you’re saying my sister is lying.”
“Aaron, knock it off! You misunderstood her. She was just upset because of the, um, the attack.”
“Okay.” I was more than fed up now. And he’d talked to Cynthia so they could get their stories straight. “So what did these guys look like, the ones who beat you up?”
He closed his eyes. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”
“You want me to send in the cops now? The ones out in the hall?”
His eyes flew open. “Are they waiting for me? To talk?”
“Unless you talk to me.” I had no idea where the cops were, but they should have been here torturing him. I stood up to leave.
“No, stay, Aaron. The cops are so-” He gulped.
“Serious? Yes, they don’t much like liars.”
Time to go home. I’d been out West too long, I was starting to sound like a John Wayne movie. I squinted at Herb’s quivering form under the sheets and squelched an urge to say, Pilgrim, I don’t cotton to no yellow bellies neither.
But he was my sister’s husband. So I sat down on the bed again and waited.
“There were two of them.” His eyes darted around the room in classic liar style. “Dark, Italian or Mexican or something. Very nice tans, I remember thinking. Then they brought out the guns and I-I think I fainted. It might have been the heat though. That parking lot was really hot.”
“Everything in Vegas is hot in August.”
“True. The asphalt was sticky. I remember thinking that as I went down.”
“So they didn’t talk to you? You just toppled over like a pussy?”
“No, no, they said something about giving them my money. I said I didn’t have any, I lost it all on cards. They didn’t believe me. Right there in the afternoon sun, a robbery. Can you believe it?”
Actually, no. “Then what happened?”
“They pushed me around a little. I had nothing to give them.But they seemed to think I did. I pulled my pockets out like this-” he mimicked the motion “-but they just got madder. Then the one with the mustache-”
“Mustache? What did the other one have, a beard?”
“Nothing, I think. I don’t remember him so much. The mustache one did the talking.” I motioned him to continue. “That guy gets out a gun, a big one. And the other guy gets out his. And I faint.”
“Just like that.”
“I might have said, please don’t kill me or something like that.”
“So you don’t remember them hitting you over the head.”
“Um, no. Not really.” He looked up at me. “Will you tell the cops for me? Please, Aaron. You know the police better than I do. I always feel so guilty around cops.”
That stopped me. Usually the innocent feel that way. But I supposed the guilty do too, and with more reason. I cruised the stifling streets where a bank thermometer said it was 116 degrees, and ran from car to casino, a.c. to a.c. Pausing for hydration in the bar (tonic water is very medicinal and gin, well, it had to be good for something besides pickling private detectives) I figured Herb’s story was half true, if that. The mail clerk had seen two men pistol-whipping him, so that part was probably true. And he possibly did faint at the sight of weapons. He was that sort of a boy scout.
I spied a casino office sign in a far corner of the gambling hall and made my way through the tables to it. As I knocked a young woman, a dealer, came by with her card tray and opened the door with a code on the numbered panel. She paused, looking back at me. I told her I was looking for whoever comps rooms so I could thank them. She pointed me to another office where a receptionist talked on an intercom to someone named Connie.
When she walked out my heart stopped for a second. She looked so much like Jeannie they could have been sisters. But Connie’s hair was bleach blonde, very Vegas, and she wore a tight-fitting red suit, something that Jeannie would have called professionally slutty. Which I, like most men, find attractive. She shook my hand and the words came out of my mouth: “Can I buy you a drink to thank you?”
Her laugh was genuine, not fake like her hair. “It’s a little early for me, Mr. Nelson.”
I looked at my watch. “Have you had lunch?”
Her name was Connie Rossi, her title was Guest Relations Manager, and she knew a good place for lunch where we could talk away from the sounds of gambling. In the elevator I had to keep telling myself to be cool, to slyly get information from her about the room, about Herb. I didn’t feel very cool-or sly. In fact, despite the arctic blast of air conditioning, I felt very un-cool. In a hot sort of way. It disturbed me and made me think of my mother, which is very disturbing at such a time. How she used to say, “Eh, so now you thinking with your you-know-what?”
The restaurant was on the top floor of the hotel, very quiet and classy. And expensive. Oh, well, I gulped as we ordered $30 lunches. I was too much of a Midwesterner to ever be a high roller. I felt my coolness return. I ordered us each a glass of Pinot Grigio which Jeannie had liked. When it came I thanked Connie again for the complimentary room.
“Just doing my job,” she said. She had pretty blue eyes, even though there were gobs of mascara on them. It felt better finding her faults.
“I don’t know if you heard about my brother-in-law’s, um, accident.” She looked concerned. “He was attacked a couple blocks from here. He’s in the hospital with a concussion.”
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” She patted my hand, which under most circumstances I would have enjoyed. Even this one.
“Yes. It’s darn shocking.” The sly one works his magic.
“Do you-I’m sorry, Aaron, is it?” I nodded, my slyness evaporating. “Aaron, do you need a few more days? I’m sure we can do that.”
“You can? That would be great, thanks. But, well, why exactly are you comping our room? We aren’t big gamblers, although God knows we lost a few zillion pesos.”
She gave a delicate shrug, smiling mysteriously. “It’s best to just say thank you, Aaron.”
“I heard that. So-thank you. But with Herb’s attack and all I feel like I really should get more information. Did Herb do something for you, for the casino?”