Final Answers (8 page)

“Not necessarily in that order,” he shoots back. He downs his drink, then stands and glances to the piano. “I guess I got no cause to be bitter. I mean, how many people earn a living doing what they love?”

“Not enough.”

“Well,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh, “ ’round here the trick’s making sure you don’t give back more than you make.”

He crosses to the piano, nods in my direction as he settles at the
keyboard, and launches in to a rolling, rhythmic intro before pulling the lyrics from somewhere deep inside him.

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun,

I’ll be sittin’ till the evenin’ come,

watchin’ the ships roll in,

then I watch ‘em roll away again.

Yeah, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay,

watchin’ the tide roll away,

sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time.

Left my home in Georgia,

headed for the Frisco Bay.

I have nothing to live for,

nothing gonna come my way . . .

I’ve got some time before my flight. I listen for a while, finish my drink, and slip a hundred into the brandy snifter on the piano. As I turn to leave, I sway slightly, almost losing my balance. I’ve had only one drink. It’s in-country anxiety, a rush of adrenaline from the past. I take a few deep breaths and head for the tables, mentally booting-up my blackjack program.

If games of chance are God’s gift to actuaries, and they are, blackjack is
the
game because all the players reveal all their cards as each hand is played out. Despite the bank’s 18 percent edge over terrible players, and an average 5.90 percent over all players, the player who can remember which cards have been played, determine the number of tens to non-tens remaining in the deck, and instantly turn the ratio into a decimal, can cut that edge considerably. The best players cut it to an advantage of 2.3 percent—not for the bank but for the player. I’ve been doing it since about sophomore year in high school.

I lose a few hands while observing the run of cards, then I start winning, and begin doubling up, and the comp drinks start coming. I decline all but one. About a half hour later, I’m ahead almost six hundred dollars when I realize it’s time to cash out and head for the airport. As I stand to gather my chips, the stacks blur into patterns of dancing circles. My legs feel rubbery, and I’m swaying noticeably.

Several of the other players help steady me.

“You okay, buddy?” the dealer asks.

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” I hear a velvety female voice reply as an arm wraps around my waist. “He’s with us. We’ve been looking all over for him.”

They have? I wonder, as my head fills with the suffocating smell of heavy perfume. I’ve got double, maybe triple, vision. Out of the corner of my eye I catch blurred glimpses of tumbling blond hair, glistening ovals of neon-red lipstick, and curves of tawny flesh straining against a dress that looks like one of the skintights from the lounge. I realize there really are two of them, when her mirror image scoops my chips into her purse, then puts one of my arms over her shoulders to support me.

“Come on, we better get you back to the room,” she announces with a giggle.

“Room? I don’t have a room,” I mumble, as the casino starts spinning and they lead me away.

“Bet he don’t have a hard-on either, honey,” someone cracks, drawing laughter from the crowd.

The women direct me across the casino into an elevator. I’m on the verge of passing out. When the elevator stops, they usher me down a long corridor to one of the hotel rooms, and push me inside. The door slams as I’m stumbling forward. They shove me facedown onto the bed, then they go to work rifling my pockets, removing my wallet, cash, watch, jewelry, and clothing. I’m struggling, trying to resist, but powerful hands grasp one of my arms and twist it behind me. What feels like a knee holds it against my back. I manage to turn my head to one side.

The entire room is reflected in the mirrored headboard. My vision is blurred, but I can make out shapes and forms. There are three figures, not two. One of them is definitely a man, a man wearing sunglasses. The man in the blue car?! I can’t tell. He has something shiny in his hand. A gun? A knife?! I lunge sideways trying to roll free. He shouts an expletive. A sharp pain erupts in my upper arm, deep in the bone. What feels like a surge of electrical current goes down into my hand. The tips of my fingers crackle, then the pain races up the side of my head, making my skin crawl. Suddenly, they release me. The door slams and they’re gone.

The deafening thump of my heart trying to tear open my chest is the only sound now. I crawl off the bed onto the floor then, grabbing fistfuls of carpet, drag my limp body to the door. Somehow, I manage to reach the knob, and with what little strength
remains in my limbs, I get to my feet and try to open it. I’m bathed in sweat and my hand slips off the polished brass. Then the world dissolves into a series of white flashes that are followed by an oddly pleasant euphoria. I stumble backward across the room, and crash to the floor.

The last thing I remember is the reflection in the mirrored ceiling of a half-naked man sprawled on a scarlet rug. He looks just like me.

A
strong, antiseptic odor that burns my nose is the first thing I’m aware of, then the sounds: people scurrying, rapid-fire conversation, equipment rolling. But I sense none of it has anything to do with me. I remain in this state of semiconsciousness for a while, finally awakening to the painful glare of a bank of fluorescents directly overhead. As my eyes adjust to the light, a green haze gradually sharpens into the folds of a hospital curtain. I’ve been here before. Only this time my legs aren’t wrapped in bandages, and the world isn’t painted in shades of khaki and brown camouflage. I lie here for a long time, baffled and disoriented. Occasionally a nurse or doctor comes by and takes my pulse and blood pressure. “Good,” one finally says. “You’re going to be fine.”

I don’t feel fine. As a matter of fact, I feel absolutely hideous, like I’ve got a hangover that’s never going to go away. Shadows fall across the curtain, as some people approach and stop just outside it, carrying on a conversation. At least two, maybe three men, and a woman. Her voice sounds very familiar. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was Nancy. God, it is Nancy.

“There has to be some mistake,” she says sharply. “My husband doesn’t use drugs.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Morgan,” a man says in a gravelly voice. “But Vegas does strange things to people. They come here to gamble and end up doing all kinds of other stuff.”

“That’s not why he was here,” Nancy protests, her voice starting to take on an edge.

“Maybe that’s what he told you.”

“Look, I know my husband.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Mrs. Morgan, but if I had a five-dollar chip for every time I’ve heard that, I could bail out the S&L crisis single-handed. People think they know their spouses, but believe me, they really don’t.”

“Well, I know mine,” she snaps.

“I’d prefer you don’t make this too long,” I hear another man saying. His voice is authoritative and smoother than the others, and I assume he’s my doctor. Finally the curtain slides back and Nancy is standing at the foot of the bed. She looks shaken and worried as she crosses toward me, followed by two men in J.C. Penny ties and sports jackets.

“You okay?” she says, leaning over the bed and hugging me tentatively almost as if she’s afraid I might break if she squeezed too hard.

“Yes babe, I guess. How long have I been here? How long have you been here?”

“About a half hour. They called me at school. I got the first flight I could. I was so worried.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I say, my temples throbbing with pain. “I don’t know what happened.”

“According to the police,” she says, indicating the two men behind her, “a maid at the Stardust went to make up a room and found you on the floor, unconscious.”

I shiver at the thought. My mind is a tangle of fractured images. “I don’t know, I kind of remember stumbling and falling . . .” I pause, and finish it with a confused shrug. “What’s this drug stuff?”

“I don’t know. They want to know if you use them.”

“They what?”

“I told them you didn’t. They still want to talk to you about it.”

I shrug resignedly. “Okay.”

She steps back from the bed and nods to the two detectives. They exchange looks before the short, tired-looking one with the moustache leans to Nancy. “You might want to wait outside, Mrs. Morgan,” he says in a tone that suggests he’s trying to spare her some kind of embarrassment.

“I’ll stay with my husband,” she replies without hesitation.

The detective’s head bobs in a “suit yourself” gesture as he
fetches the remote control for the articulated bed. “I like to be able to look people in the eye when I talk to them, Mr. Morgan,” he explains as the motor whirrs, slowly raising me into a sitting position. “I’m Sergeant Figueroa, this is Detective Wallach,” he continues, gesturing to his younger, clean-shaven colleague. “We’re with the Las Vegas Police Department. Before you say anything, I want to advise you of your rights.”

“Why?” I ask, bewildered. “Am I under arrest?”

“No, sir. Just a precaution.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Nancy sigh with relief. “I know my rights,” I grumble, starting to feel a little annoyed.

“Good,” he says, going on to read them to me anyway. “Now, do you know what happened to you?”

I shrug and splay my hands. “I was sort of hoping you could tell me.”

“Sure,” he says, swinging an amused look to his colleague.

“Well, for openers,” the clean-shaven one says, with an apologetic nod to Nancy, “several people at the hotel said they saw you leave the blackjack table with a couple of hot-looking young women. That refresh your memory any?”

“God,” I groan, nodding as it starts coming back. I glance to Nancy, wishing I could disappear. “Yes, yes, it does,” I reply, going on to tell them about almost passing out in the casino and the two women coming to my rescue. “They pretended to know me. I’m not sure, but I think they sized me up in the lounge. I figured they probably slipped something into my drink so they could, you know, rip me off or something, but I was too weak to stop them.”

The two detectives exchange skeptical looks. They told me their names but I can’t remember them. They’re just moustache and clean-shaven to me.

“What does that mean?” I challenge angrily.

“Mr. Morgan, we handle a couple dozen of these a week,” moustache says, taking over. “People come here looking to party, sometimes they get a little more than they bargained for. Now, if you’ll cooperate there’s a chance we might be able to—”

“Party?!” I explode, infuriated by what he’s insinuating. The exertion and anger fill my head with pain. I lean back against the pillows until it subsides. “I wasn’t partying,” I explain, calmly,
deliberately. “I told you these two women drugged me and took me to a room; then they—”

“We know,” he interrupts, smugly. “It was registered to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes. We found your clothes scattered all over the place; lines of cocaine on the coffee table, bottles of booze, porno tapes, video camera, all the standard good-time Charlie toys.”

“That’s ridiculous. Besides, I wasn’t in that room for more than a couple of minutes.”

“From the time you left the tables until the maid found you?” he scoffs. “Try a couple of hundred.”

“Three hours?” I say in disbelief.

“Damn near.” A thin smile raises the corners of his moustache. “You tested positive for both cocaine and heroin, among other things, so we know you weren’t in there taking a nap.”

I’m angry and stunned, and the words are sticking in my throat. “That’s, that’s even more ridiculous. I don’t use drugs. I had two drinks. One with the piano player in the lounge, the other at the blackjack table. Ask the cocktail waitresses, they’ll—”

“Come on, Mr. Morgan, the doc says you were higher than a kite when they brought you in.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I was drugged and robbed? I don’t know what they gave me, but I remember them going through my pockets. They took my watch, my wallet—”

“They always do.”

“I’m telling you I came here on personal business. I wasn’t looking to party.”

“Somehow these hookers got the idea you were.”

“Wait, wait, hold it,” I say, starting to see hazy flashes of the mirrored headboard, followed by reflections of shapes and figures. “I think there was a man. Yes, yes,” I continue as the image clarifies. “Two women and a man.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Positive. He was the one holding me down. Really hurt my arm.”

They exchange looks again, uncertain looks, which suggests they’re reconsidering their initial verdict.

“Well, that might change things a little,” clean-shaven says grudgingly, circling to the other side of the bed. “I mean, the guy might’ve been their pimp; but flesh peddlers rarely set foot on the
playing field, so there’s a chance you’re right. There are a number of Rolex rings working the city. If that’s the case, the guy was probably their Fagin.”

“Yeah, sometimes they make it look like a kink-and-coke bash,” the moustache chimes in. “So the mark doesn’t report the theft. We see a lot of that.”

“You sure could’ve fooled me,” I say angrily.

“Can you describe them?” he asks coolly, ignoring the insult.

“Well, sort of,” I reply, taking a moment to regain my composure. “Everything was pretty hazy. I remember the guy was wearing glasses and . .” I pause, drawing a blank, and shrug. “That’s it. Like I said, I really didn’t get a very good look at him.”

“What about the ladies?”

“Tall, blond, sexy,” I reply, splaying my hands. “Very sexy.”

Moustache emits an amused chortle. “I’m sure we’ll have no trouble finding them,” he says in as sarcastic a tone as he can manage.

I realize I’ve just described half the women in Las Vegas. “What happens now?”

“That’s up to the prosecutors. Go home. Get some rest. We’ll file our report and send you a copy.” He slips a business card from a shirt pocket and flicks it onto the bedding in front of me. “If you have any questions, that’s where you’ll find us.” He hitches up his pants, nods to Nancy, and shoulders his way through the opening in the curtain, then he pauses, turns back to me and adds, “Of course, if it goes any further, we know where to find you.”