Security in Vegas was more elaborate than most guests realized, not just in the casinos but in the hotel rooms as well, the fear being that guests might stage private card games, which were illegal. To prevent this from happening, electronic door clickers counted the number of times guests visited their rooms each day. If the number of visits exceeded a certain level, the hotel would send security guards to the room to make sure nothing improper was going on. Since Ricky Boswell was dead, anyone visiting his room would set off an alarm.
“What time did this happen?” he asked.
“Around eight thirty this morning.”
“That was hours ago. Why wait so long before doing anything?”
“Crunchie thought the person might come back, so we had a pair of security guards camp out in the hallway inside the emergency exit and wait for him.”
“But the person didn’t come back.”
“No. How’d you know that?”
“Because Ricky was a scout. His job was to check out your casino before his family took it down. From what you told me last night, Ricky had already given his family the green light before you killed him. That meant Ricky’s job was done. He wouldn’t have any contact with his family until Saturday afternoon. No phones calls, no e-mails, no texting, and certainly not any visits.”
“So who visited his room this morning, Santa Claus?”
“Probably a cleaning lady. Crunchie’s wrong to think a family member would make contact with Ricky prematurely. They’re too smart for that. If you want my advice, you need to stop listening to what old smelly says. He’s poison.”
“Really. And what does that make you?”
“I know what I’m talking about, and he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.”
His shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and she placed her finger on his hairless chest and drew an imaginary line down the center as if preparing to do open-heart surgery.
“But what if you’re wrong? What if one of their family screwed up and went to Ricky’s room? Can you deal with that, Billy?”
“I’m not wrong.”
She pulled his shirt open and touched his nipple, making circles around the dimpled flesh with her white-painted fingernail. “You’re a cocky little son of a bitch. Let’s bet on it.”
“What do you want to bet?”
“Let’s bet to see who gets to be on top. Sound good to you?”
She pinched his nipple and gave it a twist. It was easy to imagine having sex with her-no foreplay or soft romantic music to get them in the mood, just hitting the box springs with the force of two overheated Greco-Roman wrestlers. He supposed he’d have a better chance of surviving if he started on top.
“I’m game,” he said.
“Let’s check out Ricky’s room and see who’s right. Where are those two clowns that are guarding you?” She went to the punishers’ bedroom and banged on the door. “Hey, you dumb slobs, get moving.” No answer, so she opened the door. “Oh, my. Isn’t that cute.”
Billy glanced over her shoulder into the room. A naked Ike and T-Bird were spooning on the bed. No wonder they argued so much. They were married.
“Get up,” she said.
T-Bird appeared in the doorway holding a sheet around his waist. In celebration of their deal, they’d polished off the bottle of Hennessy, and T-Bird looked wildly hungover.
“Wass up?” the bird man asked.
“Brush your teeth and throw some clothes on, and tell your lazy partner to do the same.”
“Which lazy partner is that?” he said, screwing with her.
“Don’t get smart with me, or I’ll have Marcus fire you.”
“I thought we were buds.”
She poked him in the gut. “Get moving, before I get mad.”
“Don’t do that. Nobody likes you mad.”
“Stop talking back to me, asshole.”
T-Bird laughed to himself. He was going to be a rich man soon, and it had filled his head with grand plans. He went back into the bedroom without another word.
To reach Ricky Boswell’s room, they rode an elevator downstairs, crossed the hotel lobby, and boarded a second elevator, which ascended to the nineteenth floor of Tower B, home to the hotel’s lesser-priced accommodations, its rooms facing a hideous unpainted garage. Billy stood in the corner so that he faced Crunchie. In the fashion of old-time gunslingers, they’d put each other on notice; now it was simply a matter of time before one called the other out.
He was not looking forward to their showdown. Fighting was for people not clever enough to anticipate the future. That was how he saw it, anyway. Still, there were times when the person standing before you was going to destroy your life, and you had no choice but to act out of self-preservation. The doors opened and they marched down a hallway littered with room service trays. Shaz was reading door numbers. She stopped and held out her hand.
“Give me the key.”
Crunchie produced a plastic room key. She shoved the key into the lock and waited for the green light to come on. Billy glanced at the hallway’s end where the emergency exit was located. The door was ajar, and he counted to himself. One potato, two potato, three potato. A pair of security guards emerged with guns drawn and came hustling toward them.
“Put your guns away,” Shaz said.
The guards obeyed and holstered their weapons.
“Sorry, Miss Shazam. No one said you were coming up,” one of the guards said.
“Don’t let it happen again,” she said.
The guards returned to their post, and Shaz led the others into Ricky’s room. Billy came in last, his eyes doing a sweep. The room had as much personality as a pod, which was what a hundred and fifty bucks a night scored you on the Strip. Square-shaped, with a double bed, a desk that would never be used attached to the wall, a cheap dresser, and the prerequisite wall TV showing the house station, the modern equivalent of Chinese water torture.
“All right, so what are we looking for?” she asked.
“I’ll know it when I find it,” Crunchie replied.
“So find it.”
The old grifter began pulling open the dresser drawers. Finding nothing, he searched the closet, which contained two dress shirts and two pairs of slacks hanging on the bar, along with a dark suit in a plastic dry-cleaning bag.
“There’s nothing here,” she said.
“Somebody came into this room. The door clicker wouldn’t lie. Let me look around some more. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Spend all fucking day. It’s not like I have anything to do.”
Crunchie was desperate now. Entering the bathroom, he tore apart Ricky’s toilet kit, as if within the razors and lotions was hidden the secret to the Gypsy’s scam. He emerged with his eyes downcast, mumbling to himself like a dispirited old geezer at the mall.
“Are you done?” she asked.
“There’s a reason someone came into this room this morning. I just can’t find it.”
“Marcus is going to love it when I tell him what a fuckup you are,” she said. “You had him convinced the Gypsies were about to get caught. Nice going.”
She left in a huff, brushing Billy’s sleeve the way strippers in clubs did to get your attention.
“You win, lover boy,” she said under her breath.
Crunchie followed, his shoulders sagging. Billy waited until he heard the door click shut before addressing the punishers.
“Who came into the room this morning?” he asked.
The dull look of their hangovers had blunted their faces.
“Wasn’t me,” Ike said.
“Me, neither,” T-Bird chorused.
“It was a hotel employee. The evidence was right in front of Crunchie’s face, and he missed it. Did either of you see it?”
Both men shook their heads.
From the closet he removed the dry-cleaned suit in the plastic bag that the hotel concierge had delivered to the room, and shoved it in their faces. “It was the concierge. You want to run with me, you need to be on your toes. Got it?”