Michael Connelly (52 page)

Bosch nodded. So Aliso had been a regular at Dolly’s going back at least a year. Bosch was planning to go there, to get a line on the woman named Layla. She was probably a dancer, Bosch guessed, and Layla was more than probably not her real name.

“You seen him more recently with anybody?”

“You mean a broad?”

“Yeah, some of the dealers said there was a blonde recently.”

“Yeah, I think I saw him a couple, three times with the blonde. He was giving her the dough to play the machines while he played cards. I don’t know who it was, if that’s what you mean.”

Bosch nodded.

“That it?” King asked.

“One more thing. Eleanor Wish, you know her? She was playing the cheap table on Friday night. Tony played for a while at the same table. It looked like they knew each other.”

“I know a player named Eleanor. I never knew her last name. She the looker, brown hair, brown eyes, still in nice shape despite, as they say, the encroachment of time?”

King smiled at his clever use of words. Bosch didn’t.

“That sounds like her. She a regular?”

“Yeah, I see her in here maybe once a week, maybe less. She’s a local, as far as I know. The local players run a circuit. Not all the casinos have live poker, see. It doesn’t earn a lot for the house. We have it as a courtesy to our customers, but we hope they play a little poker and a lot of blackjack. Anyway, the locals run a circuit so they don’t play against the same faces all the time. So they maybe play here one night, over to Harrah’s the next, then it’s the Flamingo, then maybe they work the downtown casinos a few nights. You know, like that.”

“You mean she’s a pro?”

“No, I mean she’s a local and she plays a lot. Whether she’s got a day job or lives off poker I don’t know. I don’t think I ever cashed her out for more than two bills. That’s not a lot. The other thing is I heard she tips the dealers too well. The pros don’t do that.”

Bosch asked King to list all the casinos in the city that he knew offered live poker, then thanked him.

“You know, I doubt you’re going to find anything other than Tony knowin’ her to say hello to, that’s all.”

“Why’s that?”

“Too old. She’s a nice-lookin’ gal, but she was too old for Tony. He liked ’em young.”

Bosch nodded and let him go. He then wandered through the casino in a quandary. He didn’t know what to do about Eleanor Wish. He was intrigued by what she was doing and King’s explanation about her being a once-a-week regular seemed to make her recognition of Aliso innocent enough. But while she most likely had nothing to do with the case, Bosch felt the desire to talk to her. To tell her he was sorry for the way things had turned out, for the way he had made them turn out.

He saw a bank of pay phones near the front desk and used one to call information. He asked for a listing for Eleanor Wish and got a recording saying the phone number was unlisted at the customer’s request. Bosch thought a moment and then dug through the pocket of his jacket. He found the card that Felton, the Metro detectives captain, had given him and paged him. He waited with his hand on the phone so no one else could use it for four minutes before it rang.

“Felton?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Bosch. From earlier today?”

“Right. L.A. I still haven’t gotten the prints back. I’m expecting to hear something first thing.”

“No, I’m not calling about that. I was wondering if you or any of your people have enough juice with the phone company to get me a listing, number and address.”

“It’s unlisted?”

Bosch felt like telling him that he wouldn’t be calling if the account was listed but let it go.

“Yeah, unlisted.”

“Who is it?”

“A local. Somebody who was playing poker with Tony Aliso on Friday night.”

“So?”

“So, Captain, they knew each other and I want to talk to her. If you can’t help me, fine. I’ll find her some other way. I was calling because you told me to call if I needed something. This is what I need. Can you do it or not?”

There was silence for a few moments before Felton came back.

“Okay, give it to me. I’ll see what I can get. Where you going to be?”

“I’m mobile. Can I ring you back?”

Felton gave him his home number and told him to call back in a half hour.

Bosch used the time to walk across the Strip to Harrah’s to check out the poker room. Eleanor Wish wasn’t there. He then went back out onto the Strip and headed down to the Flamingo. He took his jacket off because it was still very warm out. It would be dark soon and he hoped it would cool off then.

In the Flamingo casino he found her. She was playing at a one-to-four table with five men. The seat on her left was open but Bosch didn’t take it. Instead, he hung back with the crowd around a roulette table and watched her.

Eleanor Wish’s face showed total concentration on the cards as she played. Bosch watched as the men she was playing against stole looks at her, and it gave Bosch a weird thrill to know they secretly coveted her. In the ten minutes he watched, she won one hand— he was too far away to see what she won with— and bailed out early on five others. It looked as though she was well ahead. She had a full rack in front of her and six stacks of chips on the blue felt.

After he watched her win a second hand— this time a massive pot— and the dealer began to push the pile of blue chips to her spot, Bosch looked around for a pay phone. He called Felton at home and got Wish’s home phone and address. The captain told him that the address, on Sands Avenue, was not far off the strip in an area of apartment buildings mostly inhabited by casino employees. Bosch didn’t tell him that he had already found her. Instead, he thanked him and hung up.

When Bosch got back to the poker room she was gone. The five men were still there, but there was a new dealer and no Eleanor Wish. Her chips were gone. She had cashed out and he had lost her. Bosch cursed to himself.

“You looking for someone?”

Bosch turned around. It was Eleanor. There was no smile on her face, just a slight look of irritation or maybe defiance. His eyes fell to the small white scar on her jawline.

“I, uh . . . Eleanor . . . yeah, I was looking for you.”

“You were always so obvious. I picked you out one minute after you were there. I would’ve gotten up then but I was bringing that guy from Kansas along. He thought he knew when I was bluffing. He didn’t know shit. Just like you.”

Bosch was tongue-tied. This was not how he had envisioned this happening and he didn’t know how to proceed.

“Look, Eleanor, I, uh, just wanted to see how you were doing. I don’t know, I just . . .”

“Right. So you just flew out to Vegas to look me up? What’s going on, Bosch?”

Bosch looked around. They were standing in a crowded section of the casino. Players passing on both sides of them, the cacophony of the slot machine din and whoops of success and failure created a blur of sight and sound around him.

“I’ll tell you. Do you want to get a drink or something, maybe something to eat?”

“One drink.”

“You know a place that’s quiet?”

“Not here. Follow me.”

They left through the front doors of the casino and walked out into the dry heat of the night. The sun was all the way down now and it was neon that lit the sky.

“There’s a bar in Caesar’s that’s quiet. It doesn’t have any machines.”

She led him across the street and onto the people mover that delivered them to the front door of Caesar’s Palace. They walked past the front desk and into a circular bar where there were only three other customers. Eleanor had been right. It was an oasis with no poker or slot machines. Just the bar. He ordered a beer and she ordered scotch and water. She lit a cigarette.

“You didn’t used to smoke before,” he said. “In fact, I remember you were—”

“That was a long time ago. Why are you here?”

“I’m on a case.”

During the walk over he’d had time to compose himself and put his thoughts in order.

“What case and what does it have to do with me?”

“It’s got nothing to do with you, but you knew the guy. You played poker with him on Friday at the Mirage.”

Curiosity and confusion creased her brow. Bosch remembered how she used to do that and remembered how attractive he’d found it. He wanted to reach over and touch her but he didn’t. He had to remind himself that she was different now.

“Anthony Aliso,” he said.

He watched the surprise play on her face and believed instantly that it was real. He wasn’t a poker player from Kansas who couldn’t read a bluff. He had known this woman and believed from the look on her face she clearly did not know Aliso was dead until he told her.

“Tony A . . . ,” she said and then let it trail off.

“Did you know him well or just to play against?”

She had a distant look in her dark eyes.

“Just when I’d see him there. At the Mirage. I’ve been playing there on Fridays. A lot of fresh money and faces come in. I’d see him there a couple times a month. For a while I thought he was a local, too.”

“How’d you find out he wasn’t?”

“He told me. We had a drink together a couple months ago. There were no seats at the tables. We put our names in and told Frank, he’s the night man, to come get us at the bar when there was an opening. So we had a drink and that’s when he told me he was from L.A. He said he was in the movie business.”

“That’s it, nothing else?”

“Well, yeah, he said other things. We talked. Nothing that stands out, though. We were passing the time until one of our names came up.”

“You didn’t see him again outside of playing?”

“No, and what’s it to you? Are you saying I’m a suspect because I had a drink with the guy?”

“No, I’m not saying that, Eleanor. Not at all.”

Bosch got out his own cigarettes and lit one. The waitress in a white-and-gold toga brought their drinks, and they settled into a silence for a long moment. Bosch had lost his momentum. He was back to not knowing what to say.

“Looked like you were doing pretty good tonight,” he tried.

“Better than most nights. I got my quota and I got out.”

“Quota?”

“Whenever I get two hundred up I cash out. I’m not greedy and I know luck doesn’t last for long on any given night. I never lose more than a hundred, and if I’m lucky enough to get two hundred ahead, then I’m done for the night. I got there early tonight.”

“How’d you—”

He stopped himself. He knew the answer.

“How’d I learn to play poker well enough to live off it? You spend three and a half years inside and you learn to smoke and play poker and other things.”

She looked directly at him as if daring him to say anything about it. After another long moment she broke away and got out another cigarette. Bosch lit it for her.

“So there’s no day job? Just the poker?”

“That’s right. I’ve been doing this almost a year now. Kind of hard to find a straight job, Bosch. You tell ’em you’re a former FBI agent and their eyes light up. Then you tell them you just got out of federal prison and they go dead.”

“I’m sorry, Eleanor.”

“Don’t be. I’m not complaining. I make more than enough to get by, every now and then I meet interesting people like your guy Tony A., and there’s no state income tax here. What do I have to complain about, except maybe that it gets to be over a hundred degrees in the shade about ninety times a year too many?”

The bitterness was not lost on him.

“I mean I’m sorry about everything. I know it doesn’t do you any good now, but I wish I had it to do all over again. I’ve learned things since then, and I would’ve played it all differently. That’s all I wanted to tell you. I saw you on the surveillance tape playing with Tony Aliso and I wanted to find you to tell you that. That’s all I wanted.”

She stubbed her half-finished smoke out in the glass ashtray and took a strong pull on her glass of scotch.

“I guess I should be going, then,” she said.

She stood up.

“Do you need a ride anywhere?”

“No, I actually have a car, thank you.”

She started out of the bar in the direction of the front doors but after a few yards stopped and came back to the table.

“You’re right, you know.”

“About what?”

“About it not doing me any good now.”

With that she left. Bosch watched her push through the revolving doors and disappear into the night.

Following the directions he had written down when he spoke with Rhonda over the phone in Tony Aliso’s office, Bosch found Dolly’s on Madison in North Las Vegas. It was strictly an upper-crust club: twenty-dollar cover, two-drink minimum and you were escorted to your seat by a large man in a tuxedo with a starched collar that cut into his neck like a garrote. The dancers were upper-crust, too. Young and beautiful, they probably were just shy of having enough coordination and talent to work the big-room shows on the Strip.

Bosch was led by the tuxedo to a table the size of a dinner plate about eight feet from the main stage, which was empty at the moment.

“A new dancer will be on stage in a couple minutes,” the man in the tuxedo told Bosch. “Enjoy the show.”

Bosch didn’t know if he was supposed to tip the guy for seating him at such a close-up location as well as putting up with the tuxedo, but he let it go and the man didn’t hang around with his hand out. Bosch had barely gotten his cigarettes out when a waitress in a red silk negligee, high heels and black fishnet stockings floated over and reminded him of the two-drink minimum. Bosch ordered beer.

While he waited for his two beers, Bosch took a look around. Business seemed slow, it being the Monday night tail-end of a holiday weekend. There were maybe twenty men in the place. Most of them were sitting by themselves and not looking at each other while they waited for the next nude woman to entertain them.

There were full-length mirrors on the side and rear walls. A bar ran along the left side of the room, and cut into the wall in the back was an arched entrance above which a red neon sign that glowed in the darkness announced
PRIVATE DANCERS
. The front wall was largely taken up by a shimmering curtain and the stage. A runway projected from the stage through the center of the room. The runway was the focus of several bright lights attached to a metal gridwork on the ceiling. Their brightness made the runway almost glow in contrast to the dark and smoky atmosphere of the seating area.