Kolchak: The Night Stalker: A Black and Evil Truth (8 page)

“Mrs. Katz told police that Shelley often stayed out late but usually was home by 2:00 A.M. on these occasions. She said Shelley had ‘never got around to registering as a regular student even though she has a high IQ. I guess she still hasn’t found herself or what she wants to do with her life.’

“When Mrs. Katz discovered Thursday morning that Shelley’s bed had not been disturbed, she became worried and began calling some of Shelley’s friends and their parents.

“One of the girl’s friends, Janie McLoughlin, told Shelley’s mother she had last seen the girl talking with some of the cast members of the play, ‘Heads Up–Here’s Henry,’ in the breezeway at Grant Hall around 11:15 Wednesday night but that Shelley had not attended the gathering hosted at one of the student’s homes out on Maryland Parkway near Russell Road. Shelley’s red Sprite sports car was found on the university’s parking lot in front of Grant Mall by sheriff’s deputies at 11:30 Thursday morning with a parking ticket from the university police patrol stuck under its one windshield wiper.

“Mrs. Katz, unable to locate her daughter, finally notified her husband, a well-known Las Vegas dental surgeon, and he in turn called the police.

“Shelley is described as five feet two inches tall, weighs about one hundred and fifteen pounds and has reddish hair, blue eyes and freckles.

“Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts is urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department–385-1122.”

“We might be rushing this thing a little,” said Meyer, “but what with all these killings, I think we ought to play this big. It may be nothing at all; she may have shacked up with some boyfriend. She might even be asleep now and not even know what a ruckus she’s stirred up at home. But–better safe than sorry.”

He turned to Vincenzo and I finished my notes and stuffed them into my coat pocket.

“Want some art just in case?”
Vincenzo nibbled on his pica pole for a few seconds and told Meyer to go to the girl’s home and see the mother about a photograph.

“Get it back here and pick up a sandwich on the way. I’ll have it zinc’d and ready in case she doesn’t turn up by five. I don’t like it when a kid disappears at a time like this.”

Well, I never said Vincenzo was heartless. He’s human, like all of us. He even has his good points though he keeps them well hidden under a thick layer of cynicism and disinterest.

I headed back to my apartment. By 1:00 P.M. I had the closet door across from my ancient Underwood covered with my own “war map” with all the little yellow and red pins in their proper places. I stuck a blue pin in the map at the car lot’s location to indicate an “eyewitness report without violence” and an orange pin at UNLV, playing a hunch, to indicate Shelley Katz’s disappearance.

The doorbell rang and I loped downstairs to find Pete Harper.

“Just thought I’d drop in to say good-bye. I’m catching a 3:30 flight back to New York. My vacation’s just about over and there’s some news going ‘round that Hemingway’s widow is going to release one of his unpublished works. I talked to my editor and they’re going to let me dig up some stuff in advance of the publication date. Might even get a trip to Miami out of it.”

“No more scampi?” I asked, thinking of my losing a gourmet chef.

“Not for at least a year, buddy. Gotta beef up the old bank account. Besides, there are two beautiful women back east who’ve been pining away ever since I came out here.”

I told him not to bet on it, wished him well, and offered to drive him to McCarran Airport. He accepted and we made it there by 1:20. He checked in and then we headed for the lounge where we hoisted a few and killed the time until his flight was called.

After we parted company, I lit up a stogie and headed for home. But Shelley Katz’s untimely disappearance kept niggling at me and I decided to follow up a hunch and check her out at UNLV so I turned down Harmon and entered the campus via the “back door.” Several drinks made the three-story climb to the office of the dean seem like ten.

I was out of breath by the time I got to the secretary, and efficient and energetic young pixie named Sharon Reynolds. I asked her about Shelley in an off-handed way and she flipped through her index of students and came up with the fact that Shelley had registered as a non-matriculated student who was just auditing some art and drama classes. She said she’d seen Shelley at some of the drama offerings but didn’t know her very well. It was getting a little late in the day to talk to any of Shelley’s instructors, she told me, but her husband was probably over at the Little Theatre and he might know her.

She called over to Grant Hall and got her husband, Al Reynolds, a teaching assistant, on the phone. She told him who I was and he said to come on over. I was feeling so punk by the time I got back to ground level I decided to drive.

When I pulled up to a lawn-side space in front of Grant Hall, I noticed Shelley’s car was gone. I figured the sheriff’s boys had dusted it for prints (and probably searched it for marijuana as well) and then returned it to her mother. They can move pretty fast when they want to.

UNLV’s Little Theatre is the center for Las Vegas’ theater-hungry students and adults. Whatever else may be said about the town, it is definitely not a hotbed of culture, and UNLV is currently the sole oasis in what some critics have called a wasteland of high-priced café entertainment. There is no hard core of intellectuals here and the tourists who flock to the bright lights and casinos don’t hanker for serious music or serious theater with its messages and social comments. People come here to forget their worries and have fun, not to gain a better understanding of their fellow man.

Since 1955, UNLV has managed to struggle along with a stopgap theatre arrangement in a multipurpose room on the ground floor of Grant Hall which seats just over 100 on metal folding chairs which have an excellent view of a postage-stamp sized stage. But the university if growing and there are plans for a multi-million dollar legitimate theater seating 600 with all the facilities to put on full-scale, professional productions, a tribute to the grit and drive of UNLV’s hard-put speech and drama department and some very loyal students. It won’t be long, maybe a dozen years or so, when UNLV will outstrip its big brother to the north and have 25,000 students or more. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it.

[Note: The six-hundred-seat theater Kolchak described is now a reality. J.R.]

In the midst of a clutter of props and flats, I found several young girls and two or three shaggy males sweeping and hammering away. Presiding over this feverish activity was a great bear of a man who looked vaguely like Henry the Eighth but was wearing a beige, double-breasted coat opened to the waist, no shirt, rumpled brown whipcord bell-bottoms and scuffed brown boots. This, I assumed, was Alonzo Reynolds as the card his wife had given me listed him. Alonzo! Well, one of the girls, carrying a canvas flat out the doorway I was standing in, bumped into me and I asked her.

“Yeah! That’s him. Alonzo J. Typhoon,” she said, shaking her tawny, waist-length hair.

I approached him.

“Mr. Reynolds?” I said, tentatively.

“Yeah. That’s me. Can I help you?”

I introduced myself and we shook hands, mine disappearing in his huge paw like a small animal devoured by a big one. The grip was strong but not painful. Obviously, Reynolds didn’t feel the need to impress people with his grip. He was about six-two or six-three and looked to weigh about 260 pounds. About the right size for what I originally had guessed the killer would look like. He looked like the late English actor, Laird Cregar.

“Yeh, I know Shelley. Quiet little broad. Sort of a part-time ‘groupie.’ She hangs around with the crew sometimes and helps out. Never did any acting since I’ve been here but sews costumes and sometimes paints flats. I think she’s auditing some of the drama courses here. Why?”

I told him she’d been reported missing earlier that day and asked if he knew anything that might be helpful.

“Well, let’s see…” He sat down in an oversized throne chair on stage and proffered a peasant’s chair for me.

“Last time I saw here was about 11:00-11:15 last night. She saw the show–I’m in it as Henry–and she came around back to the dressing rooms in the art gallery on the other side of the building and we talked for a few minutes. She said she had come to see a friend… uh… Janis McLoughlin.

“Well, anyhow, we wrapped up around here by 11:30 and most of us went on down the road to a friend’s place for pizza. But…no, I don’t think she made that scene. She’s not really a regular. Doesn’t belong to SCT. Sort of shy and hung up. What can I tell you? You say she’s missing. Don’t’ make too much of that. There are a lot of kids like her. They’re OK but just sort of drift from one group out here to another. No regular hours outside of class. You check her apartment?”

I told him she lived with her parents.

“Oh, yeah. I can dig that. She’s probably with some guy. Happens all the time with these little foxes who are so straight at home with their folks around.”

We stood up and he came over to me, throwing a bear-like arm around my shoulders. I felt like a midget.

“We’ve been extended a week. Saturday’s sold out but I can get you a seat for tomorrow night.”

It occurred to me that he might know more than he was letting on so I tentatively accepted his invitation but added that I was making no promises.

“Hell man, do your thing! But try to make it. You’ll enjoy yourself. Get the smell of the Strip out of your nose. On the house. Say! If you can’t make it, drop by The Kitchen later on. Up at the back of the Student Union ballroom. We do a lot of experimental stuff up there that’s pretty good.”

I prodded him once again on the Shelley Katz thing, asking if he knew of any steady boyfriends but he couldn’t offer anything further. He held a quick conference with his students and told me that they didn’t think she had anyone steady. A later check by Meyer confirmed this. I thanked him for his time and he boomed out as I reached the door, “Take care, buddy!” and threw me the V-fingered peace sign.

Looking back at him I thought of a line I’d read in a book somewhere that seemed to fit him like a glove: “The great hall roared with laughter.”

UNLV looked very quiet in the darkening light. It’s a peaceful campus populated mostly by serious students who’ve never had a riot. They had one peaceful demonstration full of singing and chanting the week before as an observance for the slain students at Kent State. While they quietly and effectively closed the campus down for the day, one of the state’s major candidates for U.S. senator was openly advocating using troops to keep the students on both campuses “in line” and asking for laws making it possible to conduct periodic no-knock-no-warrant searches of student dorms in search of… what? Guitar strings and protest poems?

From a pay phone just opposite the theatre’s entrance I called Meyer at the News and gave him what I’d picked up, telling him I’d be home if I was needed. I was beginning to feel the start of a prize-winning migraine.

I stopped off at a McDonald’s for a Big Mac and hustled on back to my place in anticipation of a quick, quiet meal and some time to unwind. The stairs there seemed even higher than at the university. By the time I’d shucked off my coat and tie and poured the beer, my head was throbbing and the Big Mac didn’t look too good to me. I tried the beer and poured the rest down the drain. The hamburger went into the refrigerator and I headed upstairs. I took another look at my map and checked the time, deciding I’d better lie down for a while as it was getting hard for me to focus my eyes.

By seven I was ready for my second dose of aspirin and my nose was running like Niagara Falls. Penance for my sins. On Wednesday I had planned to fake the flu and goldbrick. Today I had a beauty of a cold. I flipped on the TV and caught the news coverage of Shelley’s disappearance. She was still missing and no one had seen her. On all channels, the word was the same. Where’s Shelley Katz?

I got up and looked at the map. I still had a queasy feeling about the Katz girl. Even a second-rate hack can develop good instincts. Playing the hunch for what it was worth, I called Bernie Fain at home and interrupted his dinner long enough to ask if he’d heard about the Katz girl (which was, of course, stupid of me; he does run the FBI office) and he repeated it was not his department’s concern until and unless either a ransom demand was received or a special request was made for Bureau help from the local officials. Obviously, from his gravelly tone I should have waited a few days. Interrupting his mean hadn’t improved his disposition towards me. When I asked him if there’d been any follow-up of his inquiries with the other FBI offices on similar murders he snarled “No!” and hung up.

I muttered something obscene and went back to the TV, not shivering, sniffling and sweating like a pig. While I sat watching, the chief suspect, tentatively identified as Martin Lubin, was spotted up on the Strip. Unfortunately, this fact did not come to light until Monday. Had I been up and making my rounds I might have seen him myself.

As I later discovered, the confrontation took place between the mysterious Mr. Lubin and a Las Vegas show producer, one Henry St. Claire.

CHAPTER 7

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1970

EVENING

[Note: The following was written by me after reading Kolchak’s complete file and rechecking the incidents and facts on the location, the physical plant and the people involved. JR]

Since there were no conventions or gambling junkets “in residence” at the Dunes Hotel that evening, the casino was only moderately active during the late evening hours. All those who showed up for the Casino de Paris extravaganza, even without reservations, were accommodated without the necessity of resorting to “juice.”

At 10:45 P.M., the coffee shop had only a few scattered customers seated in the tables nearest the entrance, and a few pit bosses taking quick snacks in the blue section. Farther back, at a separate counter section, dealers were coming and going, huddled over coffee and talking quietly. In the Dome of the Sea Restaurant, there were perhaps a dozen diners listening to the strains of “Lara’s Theme” from the motion picture Dr. Zhivago, as played lightly on a golden harp by a lovely young “mermaid” named Kippy Lou as she floated on a motorized seashell around a central pool. Electronically-projected fish swam past the peripheral “windows” and the overhead, multicolored, stained-glass lighting arrangement added to the dream-like, aquatic atmosphere.

Waiters clad in sea-green jackets moved like ghosts through the room, silently tending to their guests as the maitre d’, Frederick Ashton, a personable Cockney, glanced from his watch to the reservation book and shook his head thinking of how he’d have to juggle reservations for the weekend when the Dome would be filled beyond normal capacity by the vacationing hordes that swarm into the Dunes every five days.

Seated at the second booth to the left of the Dome’s inner archway with his latest “protégé” was FrancoAmerican show producer Henry St. Claire. Just back from a scouting trip in Europe, St. Claire had chosen the Dome precisely because Freddie had informed him that it would not be crowded that night. St. Claire wanted to get better acquainted with his new find, and perhaps unwind before the evening’s end, which he intended to make quite soon, by 1:00 A.M., at the latest. He anticipated a busy weekend.

As producer of “Paris Extraordinaire!” at the Deauville, just down the street, as well as two lounge shows at other hotels, St. Claire was rarely fortunate enough to have an evening free from some kind of negotiation or other interruption. He was determined not to allow anything to mar his evening. His eyes were fixed with singular intensity on his lovely companion and, in his mind, he was contemplating how he would “audition” her within the next few hours. She would, no doubt, be in a receptive mood. She wanted to work in Las Vegas. And she had been wined and dined with an excellence rare even for Las Vegas’ best efforts.

They had begun with an aperitif and proceeded through succeeding courses that included escargots de Bourgogne, Green Turtle Amantillo, Hearts of Palm Salad, and Curry of South Seas Lobster Industan. For dessert, naturally, it had been Crepes Suzette. Two varieties of excellent white wines had accompanied the meal which had been personally directed by Ashton as it was each time St. Claire made one of his infrequent visits to the Dome.

St. Claire glanced at the bill which came to about fifty dollars. He smiled when he saw the expected “COMPLIMENTS OF” stamped across the back of the check and the familiar name signed along side. One a line just below it he signed “St. Claire” with a flourish.

His companion murmured something about wishing to “freshen up” and he nodded, rose, and extended his hand to her. As they left the restaurant he handed the maitre d’ a twice-folded twenty-dollar bill. Then the couple walked down the outer aisle of the casino past the Persian Room where “Vive Les Girls” was just beginning its first show of the evening. St. Claire paused to greet Gino, the maitre d’, before continuing his walk past the crap tables and around to his right.

At the poker pit he parted company with his companion as she turned to enter the ladies’ room and he strolled toward the magazine stand. Once there, he waited in line between a young couple, obviously newlyweds, and a tall, thin man in a well-tailored black suit. The couple made their purchases and moved on as the tall man picked up a Daily News and turned to pay the cashier. St. Claire was for some reason arrested by the man’s appearance and paused in his pursuit of a magazine to look at the man who collected his change and disappeared around the tiled corner of a hallway leading to the shop section of the hotel’s tower.

Some unknown thing compelled St. Claire to walk down the hallway in search of the tall man and he spotted him in the Dunes drug and sundry store just paying for a handful of Binaca breath spray tubes and several packages of Chlorettes.

At the door they came face to face and St. Claire, who felt so certain now that he knew, or at least should know the man–he met so many in the course of a day, or a year–that he said, “Good evening, ah, Monsieur…” The man hesitated as if on the verge of a reply and then said in a particularly precise way, in English, “I beg your pardon?”

Feeling uneasy now, as if something were definitely out of tune, St. Claire repeated his greeting, this time in French. “Good evening, Monsieur. Don’t I…”

“Yes,” came the reply in lightly accented French. “It is a… good… evening. The evenings are always most exhilarating,” and with that the tall man turned and headed down the hallway past the men’s shop and around a slight bend in the rough marble wall, disappearing from sight.

St. Claire started to follow him and then remembered his companion and returned to the casino to find her waiting for him by the giant slot machine, “Big Bertha.” They headed for the hotel entrance and by the time his Mark III Continental had been brought around, St. Claire was certain he knew the man he’d just seen but still couldn’t place him. Perhaps from Europe. From before the war? But where? Paris? Vienna? The Sorbonne?

Before he had eschewed the academic training offered at the Sorbonne?… Could it have been one of his old professors? No, they’d all be dead and this man couldn’t have been much more than forty. Maybe it was some theatrical manager he’d met when he had been the male half of an adagio act, something he’d given up in his late thirties to become an entrepreneur.

“Well, no matter,” he told himself as he headed for his Rancho Circle home. He looked at his companion who was leaning back against the heavily padded seat, eyes half-closed and an enigmatic smile on her lips. He thought to himself, “I have more important and pleasant things to attend to.” Yet somehow, for a reason he could not explain, the brief encounter seemed to put a damper on his evening.

While St. Claire was speeding down the freeway, the tall man was walking across the courtyard toward the Dunes’ Olympic Wing. He circled the pool’s high-diving board, paused briefly to look at the pool lights change from red to yellow to blue, and then turned into the nearest entrance. In the hallway he paused, looked both ways, then walked a few paces to a rear exit and found it locked.

Once again he looked around. Then he took the tubes of breath spray and distributed them in his pockets, carefully folding the paper bag and putting it, too, in a pocket. With a single smooth motion, he braced himself against the door and easily forced the lock. Ahead lay a slowly rising footbridge over the rear parking lot. Quickly he padded across the bridge and down to its base in front of the Emerald Green clubhouse, a white and gold circular building nearly three stories high with two kidney-shaped wings on each side. The interior, seen from the tall windows on its east face, was dark.

He started to descend into the parking lot when there came a low growl from his left, and then a sharp bark. The tall man stiffened, hissed sharply and headed straight for the guard dog, a huge German Shepard chained in front of the clubhouse’s south wing, just off the footpath that paralleled the gold course’s east perimeter. The dog snarled viciously once, then fell silent and began to whimper. As the man neared the animal it cowered back as far as its chain would allow and then turned to face the man, now barely five feet away. The dog laid back its ears, bared its fangs and snarled again.

The man hissed again and in one incredibly swift movement lunged at the dog and struck it a sharp blow across the snout with the edge of his right hand. The stunned animal fell to its left side and the man grabbed it from behind its neck with his left hand and hoisted it, with no apparent effort, into the air with sufficient force to snap the chain. He wrapped his long, thin arms around the dog and gave a sudden squeeze. The animal gave a compulsive shudder, grunted once, and went limp as blood spurted from its mouth and nostrils. Then the man dropped the dog and stared fixedly at the blood. He knelt beside the dog and buried his face in the fur below the animal’s right ear.