Chance (11 page)

"Now I know."

"It's not what you think. We love each other."

"That's what I thought," I said.

"I finish here, we're going someplace, get married."

"How's Marty feel about this?" I said.

Bibi had her arms folded across her stomach as if she were sick, or cold. She squeezed herself a little tighter when I asked the question.

"Marty don't matter," Anthony said.

"We clean out this place and we're gone."

"How do you feel about it?" I said to Bibi.

She shook her head.

"She feels great about it," Anthony said.

"Either of you worried that Marty Anaheim might be jealous and try to find you and, ah, attempt to correct your behavior?"

Bibi seemed to be getting colder; she hugged herself tighter.

"That's what I got you and Hawk for," Anthony said.

I passed that by without comment.

"Anthony with you last night?" I said to Bibi.

She nodded.

"All night?"

She nodded.

"From midnight to four-fifteen?" I said.

She nodded.

"No," Anthony said.

"Bibi, you remember I was playing blackjack until four-fifteen. Hawk saw me. I was with you from four fifteen on."

Bibi nodded.

"Sure," she said.

"That's right."

"Isn't that swell," I said.

"You through now, man. I gotta get back to the table before it goes cold."

"Sure," I said.

"Hawk's not there. So stay in full view."

"You think Marty's here?"

"Better to act like he might be," I said.

"Aren't you going to come with me?"

"I'll stay and talk for a while with Mrs. Anaheim," I said.

"Don't call me that," Bibi said.

"Man, you're supposed to be guarding me."

"I was supposed to be bringing you back to your wife," I said.

"Well, that's over," Anthony said.

I stood. Bibi sat. Anthony looked at me and at the door and at his watch. He shifted from one foot to the other.

"You coming?" he said.

"Nope."

"Man, the table's getting cold on me while we stand here."

I waited. Anthony looked at Bibi.

"I got to get to the table," he said.

She nodded. Anthony looked back at me.

"Yeah, sure. Okay. I'll be right there at the tables. Nobody's gonna try something right there, in the middle of the casino."

I smiled encouragingly. Anthony shifted again and then headed for the door.

"I'll be playing," he said.

The door closed behind him and the ornate room was quiet. Bibi sat on the couch looking at me. I glanced around the room. There was nowhere to sit without moving a pile of clothing. Bibi didn't seem to care if I stood or sat.

"Want some coffee or something?" she said.

"I can call down."

"No," I said.

"Why don't we go downstairs and have lunch."

"What if somebody sees me?"

"Bibi," I said, "somebody killed Shirley Ventura Meeker in a vacant lot a half mile down the Strip."

"Who did it?"

"I don't know, but it makes everything different. A lot of people are going to see you before this thing gets straightened out."

"This thing?"

"This thing," I said.

"Whatever it is. Let's eat."

I put my hand out to help her up. She ignored it and stood and hesitated and then went out the door ahead of me. She never said a word down in the elevator, across the casino, and into the restaurant, where, only this morning, Susan and I had eaten breakfast together. I looked at my watch. She'd be landing in about an hour.

She'd stop at Henry's, get Pearl, and go home. She'd feed Pearl, unpack and hang everything up carefully, iron things that had wrinkled, take a bath, put on the pajamas she usually wore when she slept without me, get in bed with Pearl, have a half cup of frozen chocolate yogurt sweetened with aspartame, and watch a movie. Pearl would burrow under the covers and then Susan would fall asleep with the television still on.

"Hey, Boston," the waiter said, "how ya doin?"

It was Bob from Dorchester. Bibi ordered a glass of white wine.

I had decaf. Bibi asked for a cheeseburger and fries. I ordered something called a Roman salad. I didn't know what it was, but Vegas was very taken with ancient Rome, and I wanted to be with it.

"What do you want to talk about?" Bibi said when Bob went away.

"You."

"Oh God," Bibi said.

"You know how many times I've heard that line?"

"Tell me about yourself."

"Yeah. You know what it means?"

"Sometimes it means tell me about yourself," I said.

"Mostly it means, "Let's fuck." "Tell me about you and Marty and Anthony," I said.

Bob brought the decaf and white wine. I looked at Bibi. She was a handsome woman with very big greenish eyes, and a wide mouth.

There was very little life in the eyes. Besides the scar under her right eye, there was some thickening to her nose, not much, but a little the way fighters sometimes get it. A little like mine. Her teeth were white and even and might have been capped. There was about her the quality, almost the aroma, of sexuality. Susan always C H A it would ask how I knew. I could never tell her exactly, except that when I'd seen it before and put it to the test, I'd nearly always been right.

"What's to tell," she said.

"I was with Marty, now I'm with Anthony."

"How was it with Marty?"

She shrugged.

"Marty's a pretty dangerous guy," I said.

"He's a pig," she said.

"Yes, he is. That why you left him?"

"Yes."

"Why'd you marry him?"

Bob returned with the Roman salad and the cheeseburger. The Roman salad looked very much like a tossed salad except that it had green olives and wedges of artichoke heart in with the cherry tomatoes and shredded carrots and red leaf lettuce. Bibi took a small bite of her cheeseburger.

"Was he a pig when you married him?" I said.

Bibi chewed carefully and swallowed. She picked up a French fry and ate it.

"He's always been a pig," she said.

"But I didn't always know it."

"He treat you right?" I said.

"He beat the shit out of me," she said.

Everything she said was flat and offhanded as if nothing mattered more than anything else, and she was kind of bored to have to tell me.

"At least he's consistent," I said.

"I think he liked to do it," she said.

"I think it gave him a thrill."

"He do it often?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't leave."

"No."

I nodded and took a bite of my Roman salad. Bibi had stopped eating and sat staring past me as if she were looking at her own past, just beyond my left ear.

"I didn't have any money," she said.

"He kept it all. I didn't even have a credit card. He'd give me money for food shopping once a week, two hundred dollars, and he'd check the register receipt when I came home and make me give him the change."

I didn't say anything. You do it long enough and you get a sense when somebody is at the start of a long talk. The best thing is to give them space and wait for them to fill it.

"I didn't have a credit card. I didn't have anyplace to go, even if I had one. He wouldn't let me work. You know I never had a job? I married Marty right after high school."

Bibi shook her head. Her face was blank but there was painful self-mockery in her voice.

"Fairhaven High School, nineteen seventy-seven, most congenial. Met him down the Cape, bar in Falmouth we used to go to 'cause they didn't card you. He picked me up. He was dangerous.

Everybody was scared of him, but me. I thought he was exciting, you know? A real man."

Bibi stared down silently at her cheeseburger for a time.

"You got married right away?"

"Three months."

"Kids?"

She made a sound that had it been less bitter might have been a laugh.

"Marty didn't want kids. Didn't want my figure get ruined, he said. I think he didn't want to share me with a kid, you know?"

"Well," I said.

"Your figure didn't get ruined."

She gave me a little automatic smile to acknowledge the compliment.

"Let me join a health club, aerobics, body shaping, that stuff;

Marty said he liked me looking good."

Bob came by and poured a little more decaf in my cup. I looked at it gloomily. It was better than nothing. It was not, on the other hand, better than an Absolut martini on the rocks with a twist. And the more Bibi Anaheim talked about her marriage, the more I wanted the martini.

"He used to like to punch me around," she said.

"And then have sex. Called it making up."

I nodded.

"He had a lot of trouble," Bibi said, "getting it up, you know?

I'm not sure he could get it up, he didn't rough me up first."

"Probably wasn't pleased that you knew that."

"No, he wasn't. Said it was my fault. Said he had no trouble with the whores."

"Probably because they were whores," I said.

She shook her head impatiently.

"I don't know anything about that," she said.

"He used to go to the whores a lot. Good. Keep him away from me. Bastard gave me the clap once."

I was quiet. She sat thinking back, looking past me at the lush artifice of the Las Vegas restaurant and probably not seeing it.

"And then Anthony came along," I said after a while.

"Funny thing," she said.

"Marty introduced us. He never did that, you know, but he introduced me to Anthony. Figured Anthony was safe, I guess. He's not a tough guy like Marty. And he was married to Julius Ventura's daughter. I guess Marty never thought Anthony would be the one."

"He was a friend of Marty's?"

"Marty had a lot of guys hang around him. I don't think he had any friends. Everybody was scared of him."

"So what was his relationship with Anthony?"

She sat staring past me as if she hadn't heard me and then her eyes came slowly onto my face.

"You scared of Marty?"

"No."

She kept her eyes on me for a while. Then she nodded her head slowly.

"No, maybe you're not," she said, still looking at me.

"But you should be."

I waited.

"Marty and Anthony had some deal going," she said, finally.

"Do you know what it was?"

"No."

"Was Gino involved?" I said.

"I don't think so."

"I assume the deal is now off," I said.

She nodded.

"Marty finds out you're here, what happens?" I said.

"He'll kill Anthony. Probably with his hands. Marty likes that.

And he'll take me home and beat the shit out of me and it'll be like it was. Except this time he'll probably hurt me worse."

"We'll have to see to it that he doesn't do that," I said.

"Can Anthony stand up to him?"

"Oh, God no," Bibi said.

"Nobody can."

"Somebody can," I said.

"You love Anthony?"

She made the bitter laugh sound again.

"Better than Marty."

"And he was a way out," I said.

"He was. Now it's all shot to hell," Bibi said.

"He's gotta break the bank or whatever he thinks he's going to do, and we sit here and wait until he does it, and now the stupid wife shows up and gets killed and Marty will hear about it and know I'm out here and find us and…"

She shrugged.

"Or not," I said.

She shook her head.

"There's no or not," she said.

"You can't stop him. He'll find me and do what he's going to do and no one will stop him. Nobody can."

"I might stop him," I said.

She shook her head, and kept shaking it, slowly back and forth.

Tears formed in her eyes and came down her cheeks. She lowered her head, and I could no longer see the tears but I could see her shoulders shake. I put a hand out on top of hers. She didn't move except for her head swaying back and forth and her shoulders shaking. I guess she didn't believe me.

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and which is more you'll be a Man, my son. Kipling had never been to Vegas. I was drinking club soda because in recent years beer in the middle of the day made me sleepy.

I didn't want to be sitting at the bar in the middle of the day, wide awake, drinking club soda and thinking of poetry. But I didn't know what else to do, and at least this way I could keep an eye on Anthony Meeker while he mourned his wife at the blackjack tables. I knew Julius would show up to take his daughter home. I figured sooner or later Marty Anaheim would show up to straighten out his marital circumstances. The Vegas cops might or might not catch whoever murdered Shirley. Hawk would or would not spot someone at the MGM Grand which would explain why Shirley had the number written down.

I wondered if I was still employed. The question of returning Anthony to his wife was no longer pressing. Murder spilt a lot of milk. And if Julius really had wanted me to find Anthony before word got out that he skimmed some money, it was too late, that probably being some of the milk that was spilt. I wondered if the stolen money was part of Anthony's deal with Marty Anaheim.

Gino's visit to my office made me think that something was wrong between Gino and Marty.

I fed a dollar coin into the poker machine at the bar and won ten dollars. I fed the money back into the machine mindlessly until I lost it. It wasn't that I liked to gamble. Gambling mostly bored me. I just had nothing else to do and I didn't want all those dollar coins clanking around in my pocket. Eventually I managed to get rid of about thirty dollars. The bartender asked if I wanted another roll.

"No thanks," I said.

"I've got to let my pulse rate settle."

The bartender put a fresh club soda on the bar in front of me.

"On the house," he said.

"I'm supposed to cozy up to the high rollers."

"You've got a real instinct for the job," I said, as Hawk slid onto the bar stool next to me.

The bartender looked at him. Hawk shook his head.

"Marty Anaheim," Hawk said.

"At the Grand?"

"Yeah. Little guy's been tailing Anthony is with him."

"Okay, that answers one question," I said.

"Cops find where Shirley staying?" Hawk said.

"No," I said.

"I called Romero this morning. As far as they can tell she wasn't registered anywhere."

"So where's her luggage?"

"Romero says maybe she didn't have any."

"Romero ever travel with a woman?" Hawk said.

"I asked him that. He admitted that mostly they bring luggage."

"So where is it."

"They don't know. They figure the murderer stole it."

"A woman's luggage?" Hawk said.

"You knew Shirley, would she have luggage?"

"She'd have luggage like Susan has luggage."

"So our guy rapes this woman," Hawk said.

"And strangles her, and then runs off carrying her handbag and three, four pieces of luggage?" Hawk said.

"Or," I said.

"He rapes her and kills her someplace else and carries her nude body to a vacant lot and drops it."

"And your card, 'less she still clutching it in her lifeless hand and he don't notice."

I sipped some club soda. The slot machines chanted their endless song in the background. There was very little night and day in Vegas. There were no windows in the casinos, no clocks, no closing time, no last call. Only if you went outside, for which there was very little reason, or waited at your window for the volcano to erupt, did day or night matter.

"He wanted to prevent her identification," I said.

"Un huh."

"And went to a lot of trouble to do it," I said.

"Un huh."

"Which means he can be tied to her. Otherwise why bother?"

"Which mean the finger of suspicion point to Anthony," Hawk said.

"Or Marty Anaheim."

"Marty ain't tied to her."

"So why'd she have the number for me and The Mirage and the MGM Grand written on the back of my card?" I said.

"Got any tighter fix on time of death?" Hawk said.

"Cops say no. Anytime that night before she was found."

"I got Anthony until four-fifteen," Hawk said.

"And his girlfriend says he was with her the rest of the night."

"

"Course she might lie."

"She might. She's Marty Anaheim's wife."

Hawk stared at me for a moment, which was as much surprise as he ever showed.

"Anthony got a death wish," Hawk said.

"Marty and Anthony had some kind of deal going."

"Did it include Mrs. Anaheim?"

"No, he ran off with her after, as far as I can tell, double crossing Marty."

"Be quicker for Anthony," Hawk said, "he just stepped in front of a train."

"And more pleasant," I said.

"How's he doing?"

"Don't know," I said.

"Right now I think he's counting, and betting progressively."

"If he loses doubling the last bet?" Hawk said.

"Something like that," I said.

"I don't study his technique."

"He'll find a way to lose," Hawk said.

"Anybody double-cross Marty Anaheim and run off with his wife knows how to lose."

I sipped a little more club soda. Refreshing. Hawk gazed absently at Anthony Meeker across the room at one of the blackjack tables. He was dressed today in a black blazer and a white silk shirt with vertical black stripes like a successful referee.

"Cops still holding out for a random rape and murder?" Hawk said.

"I doubt it. They don't like to complicate things if they don't have to, but Romero doesn't seem stupid to me. Of course they'd have a better chance if I told them all I know."

"Why don't you?"

"I'm trying to protect our client," I said.

"And I'm trying to figure out who did what to whom before I sic the cops on them."

"Just who is our client," Hawk said.

"And why we still working for him? Shirley's dead and Julius knows where Anthony is."

"Well, we can't let Marty Anaheim run around loose here," I said.

"Why not?"

"His wife took off with Anthony because Marty abused her," I said.

"You're surprised Marty Anaheim would abuse his wife?" Hawk said.

"He'll abuse her more if he finds her here."

"So we working for her now?" Hawk said.

"She hasn't hired us. But I sort of told her we wouldn't let Marty get her."

"Sure you did," Hawk said.

"She's probably good looking and sad and you do four or five back flips and say we gonna eat Marty's lunch for him, he comes near her."

"I didn't do that many back flips," I said.

Hawk signaled to the bartender and ordered a glass of champagne.

"Marty Anaheim," he said thoughtfully, "is the meanest man I ever knew. He lost his hands, he'd bite you to death."

I didn't say anything.

"Marty Anaheim," Hawk said again, shaking his head slowly.

I shrugged.

The champagne arrived. Hawk drank half of it, and toasted me with the remainder.

"You often been a headache," he said.

"But, babe, you never been a bore."