“You know something strange, Mr. Pansy?” Feingold said. “Someone broke into this office two nights before the murder, but nothing is missing, and nothing appeared to have been disturbed. Do you think it could be related?”
“At this juncture I’m inclined to say yes. But how is a crapshoot.”
We left the office and headed back to Kam’s. Howie’s mission was to locate Leon’s mom. My Southern California tan was fading, so I intended to catch a few morning rays of Vegas sunshine, and Kam had some business at the Federal Building. Tonight we would confront cousin Randy, and tomorrow my article would be on the stands.
Three o‘clock, Howie came by with a shit-eatin’ grin on his face to say Polly Hastings would arrive in Vegas tomorrow morning. She had asked him not to say anything to Leon because she would very much like to tell the story herself, in person. Good work Howie!
Fifteen-after-five my cell phone rang, it was attorney Finegold. “Mister Pansy, I believe I now know who broke into my office, and what was done.”
“What happened?”
“Well… before I could read the part about Randy receiving the Chicken-Shit Award, he described to all present the gist of it. Said that he and Gerald had conjured it up as a great publicity stunt, if something were to happen to Gerald.”
“Is that not possible?”
“No, it’s not. Gerald originally had left everything to Randy, but changed his will over a year ago. Gerald told me he had no contact with his cousin since he made the change. He asked me to handle the document with the utmost secrecy. He even quipped, ‘I would love to give my bequeath to Randy before I die. He still thinks he’s the beneficiary.’ Does that sound like someone who would let on to his prank? I don’t think so. No. Randy is trying to save face. Do you think he’s the murderer?”
“I couldn’t say so with any degree of certainty. Let’s just say he’s high up on our list of one.”
Rita’s is not the sort of club that comes to mind when you think of Las Vegas. Kam described the décor as early gauche. The three of us caused a stir just by showing up well groomed and in clean clothes.
There’s an adage that states, “Never carry a gun if you don’t intend to use it.” We were there to light a fire under Dandy Randy, not to shoot anyone, so we weren’t packing. Except forHowie, who was wearing that quick-draw knife-throwing outfit under his doe-suede bomber jacket.
Randy came from backstage and started the show within a few minutes of our arrival. Not bad, actually. He was a song stylist rather than a singer, and did a bit that had Johnny Carson interviewing Marilyn Monroe and J.F.K. He had lifted the routine word-for-word from one of the Headline acts on the Strip. He spotted Kam and announced over the mike, “Wow folks, guess who’s visiting Rita’s tonight? It’s the screamingest Queen this side of the Strip, Faggot Kam the Female Impersonator, and it looks like she’s brought two of her sisters with her. Arnold, why don’t you go greet our guests?” Arnold came walking over from the bar. Six-two, maybe 325 pounds, and wearing the most grotesque Hawaiian shirt I had ever seen. All the measurements for this guy were big numbers, except that Arnold’s hat size and IQ were the same.
“You the pansy?” Arnold asked Kam, while putting his index finger on Kam’s forehead.
“No, I’m the Queen, he’s the pansy,” Kam answered, while pointing at me and grinning.
“What do you think of my gay, colorful shirt, faggot?”
“That’s why all elephants wear gray, Arnold. It makes them look so slender.”
Arnold made a move on Kam, and a few of the bigger guys in the crowd started to move toward us. Before the hulk at the next table could get to his feet, Kam had broken Arnold’s pointing finger, thrown him to the floor, stomped on his groin, and rendered him immobile. I backhanded the hulk from the next table after he stood up, and broke his nose. Howie jumped up onto our table screaming at the top of his lungs, getting the crowd’s attention. While they watched him, and in a blazingly fast move, Howie retrieved a knife from the holster behind his neck, threw it, and scored a bull’s-eye on the dartboard hanging some 30-odd feet away. His next throw stuck in the wooden plank floor between the feet of a dude every bit as big as Arnold. The place had become so quiet you could hear the knife vibrating like a tuning fork. Howie looked over the crowd and asked, “Next?”
I leapt up onto the stage and threw Randy down onto the dance floor.
“Don’t move, you chickenshit bastard, just listen. I know you know about the labyrinth under the Magic Sanctum, that you’ve been there and probably committed the murder. I also know you broke into Attorney Finegold’s office to sneak a peek at Gerald’s will. I can’t prove it yet, but as Little Bo Peep is my witness, I will.”
Out in the parking lot Kam said, “That was quite a show, Howie. I think they got the point. And Little Bo Peep as your witness? Peter, that was a stroke of brilliance.”
“Thanks, just seemed like the thing to say.”
Howie looked at Kam and shook his head, “Damnation, I ain’t never see’d yer tough-guy side.”
“I’m just a powder puff,” Kam replied.
“Yeah, fer sure, man. But you gotta be talkin’ ’bout gunpowder.”
Leon’s mother arrived from Terre Haute at 10 the next morning. I picked her up at McCarran International and figured a stop at IHOP would break the ice before going to the house. No dice. Polly Hastings wanted to get right down to it. Polly Hastings is a beautiful, well-tailored, intelligent woman, whose profession as a news anchor on a major TV affiliate in Indiana led her to a straightforward, no-nonsense approach in her personal life as well.
She, Kam, and I sat down in the living room over a snifter of Gran Marnier, and it was she who started the conversation.
“Just how does my son figure into all of this intrigue, gentlemen?”
I answered, “What I find hard to believe, Mrs. Hastings, is that anyone as bright as your son could work as closely as he did with Gerald, for as long as he did, without learning of the existence of the labyrinth beneath the Magic Sanctum.” Then I filled her in on everything that had transpired to this point.
“Gentlemen, Leon’s dad Zak, Gerry, and I were called ‘Two Lads and a Lady’ when we first started on the showbiz trail. Gerry was the brains behind the outfit, I was window dressing, and Zak supplied comic relief and chatter while the stunts werehappening. He was quite jealous of Gerry’s acclaim and top-banana status, and became vocal about his displeasure.”
“Describe vocal,” Kam said.
“Name-calling in public, yelling for no reason, drunken behavior on stage during the act. Gerry attempted to work around and overcome Zak’s imagined misgivings to no avail, and after about two years the act split up. I had left a year earlier to embrace motherhood. I have not seen nor heard from my disgruntled ex-husband since he disappeared over two decades ago. But something Mister Pansy related has given me pause. Zak did a perfect impersonation of Gerry as part of our act. In fact, even off-stage you’d never know if it was Gerry or Zak on the phone or at the door.”
“Unt zoe…” Kam spoke in a caricature German accent. “Vot vee now haff iss a phantom zuspect who hass not been zeen in tventy yearz. Veddy interesting.”
“Please let me call and meet with my son and fill him in on the past. Then I’ll bring him here for you to question. I do not think my boy would lie to me, or to you. And I definitely do not think he is capable of murder.”
“No disrespect intended, ma’am, but that’s what Al Capone’s mother said,” quipped Kam.
“I think that would be a terrific next step,” I said. “And please call me Pete, and call Mister Laugh-A-Minute over there Kam.”
“Call me Polly. May I borrow a telephone and a car?”