“No problem,” he led them away.
“Detective,” Dawson said. “I’d like a word with my staff first, if I may? I’d like to go over the log and drop sheets.”
“And you are…?” King said.
“Len Dawson. Manager of Forged’s operations here.”
“Mr. Dawson, once we’re finished, they’re all yours.”
Fontaine led Braddick and Perez to a small meeting room. Plush carpet. Floor to ceiling one-way glass overlooking the outdoor pool. Big mahogany table. Thick leather chairs. Dark paneled walls. Gil Perez puffed his cheeks and exhaled as Braddick took his name and particulars, then asked:
“How much was in the truck when it vanished, Gil?”
“Three million seven hundred thousand. Unmarked nonsequential.”
“You sure about the number?”
“I’m the money man, the counter.”
“OK, tell me about the driver, Jessica Scout.”
“Jessie, was-is a good person. She always defended me in front of Elmer. He’s our crew chief.”
“You needing defending?”
“He called us names. Called me Refried. Called Jessie squaw, Pocahontas. She’s an American Indian. She stood up to Elmer. He’s good at his job. Never had a successful hit on his watch. Retires this week after twenty-two years. He’s a very tough boss.”
“Gil, what was Jessie’s demeanor today?”
“Same as any other day. She was quiet. Alone in her thoughts, she was a very quiet woman. What if she’s dead? What if she’s been killed?”
“Gil, we don’t have any evidence of anything. We’re only one hour into this. Do you remember anything unusual today?”
“Two guys.”
“What about them?” Braddick wrote carefully.
“At the drop before this one. Here, I wrote it on my drop sheet,” Perez handed it to Braddick, explaining. “Jessie said two rollers got too close to the truck. She sounded the horn to make them back off.”
“Maybe a distraction for something else?”
“You think so? What if they killed her, there was three point seven million left in the load. I was the money man today.”
“Yes, you said. And she was scheduled to drive?”
“Yes.”
“And the truck without the finder? You knew about that today?”
“Yes. Each crew is scheduled in advance to take it.”
“In advance?” Braddick continued writing. “How long has Jessie been with the company?”
“Four, nearly five months.”
“And you? How long?”
“Three years.”
“What do you know about Jessie? You two socialize after work?”
“No. She’s shy, quiet.”
“Any money problems? Debts? Drugs? Gambling? She living beyond her pay?”
Perez shook his head.
“You know what she does after work? Who her friends are?”
“Like I said, she’s very quiet.”
“So you really don’t know her at all, do you Gil?”
“I-I guess, I, man, I worked with Jessie four months.”
“Gil, tell me why you said she was so quiet.”
“I figure, by the little she told me, she’d had a sad life.”
“How?”
“She started to tell me once how bad things always follow her.”
“What bad things?”
“Death.”
“Death?”
“Detective Braddick, what if she’s dead already?”
A few doors away, in a dim office, Elmer Gask fished out a stick of gum and a fresh toothpick from his chest pocket, crossed his arms, leaned back hard in his chair and watched King.
“She was a bitch to me all morning, is all I can attest to her ‘demeanor.’” Gask’s toothpick moved rhythmically with his chewing.
“What do you think happened?”
The toothpick froze as the gum chewing stopped.
“I’ll tell you what happened.” Gask’s eyes widened with cold rage. “I just lost a twenty-two thousand-dollar bonus because of that stupid squaw.”
King waited for an explanation.
“I retire at the end of the week. You clock out with a loss-free sheet, you get a grand for every year.”
“That’s a tragedy. What do you think happened?”
“If I knew that, we’d recover our load,” Gask resumed chewing. “She wasn’t careful. I told her to be cautious after the incident with the two jerks at the previous drop.”
“The two guys who approached the truck?”
“I told her to log it, to call it in to dispatch when we were in here servicing the ATMs.”
“Did she?”
“I doubt it.”
“What about her past, her personal and career history?”
“Squaw or half breed from some welfare-eating reserve in Montana, or some end of the world state like that. Supposed to have done a good job at security for some faggy antique dealer in New York. If you ask me, she was an equal opportunity hire. Right gender, right race, right useless.”
“You don’t think she was qualified?”
“I don’t hire ’em, Chester.”
“What kind of driver was she?”
“Substandard.”
“What about her past, any debts, habits, anybody leaning on her?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that shit.”
“Tell me about today, what sort of day was it?”
“Routine, we were just making our drops.”
“What about the truck? It had no finder?”
“That was her job as driver to deal with that. I told her to get that finder fixed. She ignored me.”
“Aren’t you her supervisor?”
Gask gave some thought to how he should answer.
“Yes and I supervised her to see the finder was fixed. I was intending to write her up for not following through.”
“I see. What do you know about Jessica Scout, her circles?”
“Not a goddamned thing. She never spoke to me. I told you, she was an ice bitch who acted like she was better than everyone.”
“Tell me about Gil Perez?”
“He’s kind of a shifty beaner.”
“That right?”
“Always talking about his dream of going away and starting his own car wash business. Only thing holding him back was lack of cash.”
“That so?”
“That’s so.”
“And what about you, Elmer, what do you talk about?”
“Football and America.”
“What about America?”
“She’s fucked up real good.”
“What really happened to the money?”
“Jessica Scout got herself jammed. Thought she knew it all. Let her guard down, now she’s gone.”
“That prospect doesn’t exactly bring tears to your eyes.”
Gask shifted his toothpick to the opposite side of his mouth then leaned to King. “Her stupidity cost me twenty-two grand.”
“But you break even.”
“How’s that, Chester?”
“Scout may have paid with her life.”
Later, Braddick and King compared notes at a quiet table at the casino’s nearest bar, which serviced a keno lounge.
Braddick started. “My guy fears she is dead.”
“Mine hopes she is,” King said before his pager went off. He read the caller’s number. “Looks like the feds.” He squinted, tilting the pager for better light. “Yup. FBI’s offering to help. I’ll call.”
“Three point seven. What do you make, Chester? Inside? Outside?”
“All of the above.”
Joe Two Knives’s dark glasses reflected the sun, cloudless sky and warehouses of a light industrial section of Las Vegas.
What if something went wrong? He watched the garage one hundred yards away. He did not want to be near it in case something went wrong. Nothing appeared suspicious. Everything had gone smoothly. Every detail of preparation had come off cleanly.
He checked his watch then the cell phone on the seat beside him. His hands were sweating inside the two pairs of surgical gloves he wore. The car’s air conditioner kept him cool. He kept himself calm. He had been through this before. Twenty-five years ago. No one will die this time. But what if she didn’t make it? What would he do? He didn’t know. It was the one event he did not plan for.