We were both ex-military, former Vietnam, though Boyd had been there much earlier than me. That’s who the Broker recruited for his network of professional killers... contract killers, if you insist, or — if you watch too much TV — hitmen.
I’d been a sniper and in that capacity took out thirty VC and at least that many more in firefights. I don’t say “confirmed” kills because that’s a bullshit term. Snipers filled out after-action reports that included kills “confirmed” by a second witness. But there’s no official or unofficial “confirmed kill” record kept by the Marines, which was my branch.
Snipers worked with spotters (often the second witness mentioned above) and it was the same with the Broker’s people. We worked in two-man teams, passive and active, and Boyd preferred the former and me the latter, which is why the stakeout conditions mattered to him.
And why Vegas was such a nice change of fucking pace.
I got that, but to me all these distractions were liable to, you know... distract.
I had moved in with Boyd in a two-bedroom suite that overlooked the pool and, beyond that, faced the rambling pastel-green building whose central section was four stories and whose wings were variously two-and three-stories — a mission-style castle built by that long-deposed king, Bugsy Siegel.
After flying from Mitchell airport in Milwaukee to McCarran here in Vegas, I took a cab to the nearest used-car lot to buy wheels for cash. Buying a piece of shit car to use on the job was my usual practice; I’d sell it back on the way out of town or dump it.
I’d had a busy enough day to crash for a few hours on a nice comfy double bed. The suite had light pink walls and darker pink everything else, and furnishings that were modern, if modern was twenty years ago.
I shat, showered and shaved, then joined Boyd in the living room. Sporting a salmon sports jacket, green turtleneck, green-and-black-and-white flared trousers and white loafers, my partner was seated on an Atom-age couch that looked a little less comfortable than the crate it was likely delivered in. Happy Days was on, having nothing to do with my youth. It was dark outside, a condition neon could only enhance, not defeat. I checked my watch — eight-fifteen. I’d slept a good long while.
Boyd filled me in on what he’d learned about our target. The timetable lacked the usual inconsistencies of behavior, because a schedule for our guy was built in. We were all set. Putting any more days between now and carrying out my end could not be justified, beyond the simple desire to live the good life in Vegas for a while.
And, like I said, this was not a vacation.
Of course, that didn’t mean we had to live like monks. I got into the new shiny gray sharkskin suit, a black turtleneck and Italian loafers with no socks. We found our way to the Skyroom Restaurant with its westward view of the Caesars Palace fountains and various pulsing signage, the La Madre Mountains unable to compete without electricity. We took our time with a couple of filets, then let the casino have a shot at us, Boyd playing blackjack while I got to know one of these new video poker machines. I wound up five bucks ahead, playing quarters, while Boyd was down a couple hundred, at two bucks a pop. Finally we repaired to the Speakeasy Lounge.
The gangster-themed lounge boasted Joe-sent-me trappings, from flapper waitresses and bow-tie bartenders to fake brick walls with mounted machine guns and framed wanted posters. A friendly little place for fifty or sixty people to hang out — no cover and buck-twenty-five drinks, fifty-cent brews, free soda. We picked a table in back.
There were two acts. First was one of those bawdy busty broads who sang blue song parodies and told jokes that were shocking in 1955 (“Saturday night you girls sow wild oats, and Sunday morning you pray for a crop failure!”). She, the little card on the table said, went on at ten p.m., midnight and two A.M. She was just wrapping up her first show.
The audience was made up of more women than men, wives cooling their heels while their husbands gambled. The floating smoke was thicker and bluer than the raunchy gal’s act, and the laughs from the well-oiled females were raspy in that aging Lucille Ball way.
Next up (eleven P.M., one A.M. and three A.M.) was Chicago boy Cliff Anthony, a road-company Sinatra who’d had one hit in the fifties (“Why Don’t You Believe Me,” a Joni James cover). He bounded out wearing a tux and confidence to the backing of a five-piece combo and didn’t loosen his tie till halfway through the second song. He was handsome in a puffy kind of way with hair as black as India ink; a typically small Italian crooner, he was nonetheless sturdy-looking, though his moves were like a compact car trying to get around a truck.
I guess he wasn’t bad, but it annoyed me that every time he sang somebody else’s song (“The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Volare”) he would pause to get the audience to applaud, like it was his goddamn hit. I don’t know which irritated me more, the way he was milking a cow that didn’t belong to him or how the dumb-ass crowd applauded on cue.
“I got a couple of his albums at home,” Boyd whispered during an instrumental break in “The Candy Man.”
“That right.”
He gave me a squinty-eyed look. “Don’t you like this kind of stuff? Or are you strictly into that Beatles shit?”
Boyd thought the Beatles were the latest thing. If I’d said I liked Blondie, he’d have thought I was talking about the funny papers.
“Well,” I said magnanimously, “at least it’s not disco.”
“What’s wrong with disco?”
That trend he was up on!
A woman wearing half a tube of lipstick and with more wrinkles than a shar pei shushed us. Boyd made a face and sipped his ginger ale. I sipped my Coke. Anthony was getting credit for “Danke Schoen” now.
During “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” Boyd said, “You know, they love him in Chicago.”
“He’s flat everywhere. Riding the cracks in the piano.”
“Maybe so, but he works one week a month here, and the rest of the time in little clubs all over the Windy City.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“What?”
“Nobody from Chicago calls it the Windy City.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m not from Chicago. Anyway, he does a ton of weddings and bar mitzvahs there, too.”
The shar pei with lipstick was giving us a dirty look.
Boyd nodded toward the stage. “See that cauliflower-ear character down front? Table for one?”
“Yeah. That’s the evening-shift guy?”
“That’s him. None of them are Outfit. Just guys our boy plucked out of this bar or that one. Bouncers. Think at least one goes back to high school days. Football buddies.”
“Rah yay team.”
As if we’d requested it, the lounge lizard started in on “My Kind of Town.” That was enough for me. Had to get out of there before “New York, New York.” I rose, curled my finger at Boyd, who pouted but followed me reluctantly out.
“What now?”
I checked my watch. “You need a nap or anything?”
“What am I, six?”
“Lose some more money, if you want. I’m gonna go back to the room and relax. Watch some TV.”
He gave me a silly grin. “They got porn.”
“What am I, sixteen?”
Shrug. “I’ll play a while. When you want me back?”
“Five. It’ll still be dark.”
He nodded, then strolled off into the midnight sun of a dinging and clanging world that waited to take more of his money. I had a little work to do, spending half an hour checking out the underground parking garage, where I found what I was looking for, right where it was supposed to be.