Shakedown (6 page)

NINE

Later that evening Eddie Sands sat with Monica in a dimly lit private booth at Caesars Palace. They talked softly, paying no attention to the tuxedoed waiters who weaved expertly among gold-leafed Roman columns carrying flaming dishes, or the piped-in violin music mixing with the sound of jackpot bells and slot machines from the casino floor below.

A young olive-complexioned waiter brought a standing ice bucket to their table. Having twirled a bottle of Dom Perignon in the ice and filled their glasses, he hurried away.

Eddie Sands raised a toast. "Here's to you and me," he said. She moved closer to him in the booth.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"When you were on the police department, how did you first get started with Tony?"

"I was investigating him-following him all day and writing bullshit surveillance reports. We got to know each other."

"The same way you met me."

Eddie Sands shook his head. "Not really. At the time no one could figure out what Tony was up to, how he was making all his money. But there was no doubt about you. I had a stack of complaints on you."

"The first time you interviewed me I was shaking like a leaf. Did you notice?"

Eddie Sands shook his head. "You were smooth."

"You were smooth, too," she said. "Too smooth for a cop.

"How so?"

"You would stare at my tits, look up, smile, then ask me a question. It was unnerving. But I could tell that if I did what you wanted, you wouldn't take me to jail."

He leaned toward her. They kissed. Eddie Sands picked up his glass, took a sip.

"You didn't think I'd be here when you got out, did you?" Monica said.

"I had my doubts," he said after a while.

"When I love somebody, I really love 'em."

"I love you too, baby."

The waiters brought their meal in leisurely courses: escargots, lobster thermidor, a dessert of baked Alaska. Perhaps it was during the dessert that Eddie Sands began to feel as if his conviction and prison sentence hadn't really occurred, as if it were just another distasteful police experience-like finding a swollen corpse along the roadway or having to beat some drunken moron into submission, an event that recurred in one's memory for a while and then, for the sake of sanity, flickered into the garbage can of the mind.

After dinner they stopped downstairs in the casino. Sands watched the action at a crap table as mesmerized gamblers took turns rolling the dice. Then, having wandered through the casino crowd, they made their way to the parking lot.

The car windows were open on the way back to Monica's place, and Eddie Sands felt as if the crisp desert breeze on his face was cleansing his mind of the gray prison haze. He steered along a block lined with pawnshops and wedding chapels and onto the highway.

Monica turned to him. "Now that you're out, what are we gonna do?" she said.

"We're gonna make money. Enough money to get over...once and for all."

Monica's eyes returned to the road. "I guess that's about it."

"And get married," he said. "It's you and me from here on in, fast-talking lady. You're all I've got."

Without meeting his gaze, Monica slid closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. As she clutched his right arm tightly, he could feel the softness of her breasts.

Back at her apartment, they hurried into the bedroom and made love again. Afterward, lying with arms around her, Eddie Sands could feel Monica's heart beating, her abdomen gently meeting his with each breath.

"I wish you hadn't gone to Tony Parisi in order to get out," she said.

"He was the only one with a connection to the Federal Parole Board. It was either go to him or do the rest of my time."

"But now he owns you."

"Nobody owns me, babe."

"Tony is dangerous. He can have anything done in this town. He just had the Corcoran brothers blow up Bruno Santoro."

"Lemme tell you something, babe. I am...uh, I was a cop. So hoods don't scare me. And Tony Parisi is nothing but a New York tenement-house meatball who made good. Fuck him and the Corcoran brothers."

"I'd rather fuck you," she whispered as she reached between his legs.

The next day, Eddie Sands drove slowly along the Strip, turning off here and there to wind his way along side streets he knew like the back of his hand. There was no corner in town that didn't carry some memory-a foot pursuit in the parking lot of the Sahara, a shoot-out with robbers at the Nevada National Bank on Tropicana Boulevard, three screaming whores in an all-out fight in front of the Showboat Motel.

Finally he pulled into a gigantic parking lot which surrounded the Stardust Hotel and Casino, an expansive, gaudy building with enormous neon arches criss-crossing a multi-doored entrance. He parked the car. Having removed the briefcase containing the fifty thousand dollars from the trunk, he carried it across the parking lot and up the imitation-marble steps. He strolled through the automatic doors. Engulfed in the familiar whir of slot machines, the smell of cigarette smoke and air-conditioned coolness, he just stood there for a moment and savored the fact that he was a free man.

As he weaved his way through the crowd of busy slot players he had the strange feeling, which he attributed to having been in prison, that he was invisible. And he saw the "carpet joint" for what it was-an institution designed with neither windows, doors, chairs, nor wall clocks in order to mesmerize the tourists therein trapped into losing track of time and place as they squandered money. He understood this, and he felt at home.

In the less-than-crowded bar, he approached the bartender, a slim effeminate man who smiled, stealing a glance at Sands's groin.

"I'm here to see Tony," Sands said.

"Does he know you?"

"Just tell him Eddie Sands is here," Sands said.

The bartender made a brief phone call.

A few minutes later, a tall man with a grayish Mediterranean complexion and a large purple birthmark on his neck approached. He wore a black Italian-cut sport coat. "I'm Vito Fanducci," he said. "Tony's upstairs."

They took an elevator to the penthouse level, where Vito led Sands to a suite at the end of the hallway. He used a key to open the door, motioned Sands into the room. "Tony wants you to wait for him in here."

Sands entered, and Vito closed the door behind him. The room was expansive, airy, furnished with white Danish-modem sofas and chairs.

Sands strolled across the room to a wall of glass doors which led onto a balcony overlooking the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. Having taken in the view, he set his briefcase down on a portable bar in the corner of the room and picked up a newspaper. In the Metropolitan section of the paper he read a six-column article captioned "Feds Probe Alleged Skimming at Three Casinos." At the sound of a key slipping into the front door, he set the paper down.

Tony Parisi, his paunch accentuated by a tight-fitting golf shirt, stepped in the front door. He wore beltless checkered trousers, and his ever-present handful of cigars bulged from his shirt pocket.

They met in the middle of the room in an insincere
abrazo
. "Been laid yet?" Parisi asked, giving Sands a slug on the shoulder as he made his way to the bar.

"What's that have to do with anything?" Sands said.

"The day I got out of TI I had a broad waiting," Parisi said. "Porked her right there in the backseat of the car in the prison parking lot." He poured whiskey over ice. "When I came it was like my balls were shooting out of the end of my cock." He chuckled.

"Nice," Sands said, He picked up his drink.

Parisi came from behind the bar, clinked his glass to Sands's. "Welcome back," he said. As they drank, Sands noticed that Parisi barely touched the glass to his lips. Instead, he set his drink down, unsnapped the hinge locks on the briefcase, opened the lid.

"I pushed for more," Sands said. "But fifty was all the man would go. He was tough. Real tough."

"How could a guy who's into that kind of shit be tough?" Parisi said. He thumbed some of the bills.

Sands smiled wryly. "You just answered your own question," he said.

Realizing that the comment was meant to be humorous, Parisi forced a smile, then a laugh. "That's right. To get a charge out of having hat pins stuck through your nuts you gotta be a tough monkey." He yanked a cigar out of his shirt pocket, and with a rat like bite, offed the end, then spit it onto the carpet. "The juice I have with the Federal Parole Board is new. One of those deals where I get to a guy from Newark who knows a lawyer who knows a Congressman who knows bleepety bleepety bleep. I'm not keeping a dime of the fifty for myself."

"I hear you've been doing real well," Sands said, not bothering to say thanks. He figured Parisi was bullshitting him about the money.

"Real well was the way it
used
to be in this town. When we owned the casinos we didn't have to worry about collecting a little taste here and there. The count-room people, the casino managers, the pit bosses...we was all one big happy family. The biggest problem was finding somebody to drive the skim money back East every week." He licked the end of his cigar, then looked at it. "The way the casinos are now, you gotta crack heads to make a buck. You gotta spill blood before they believe you."

Sands shook his head as if he really gave a shit.

"Television."

"Television?" Sands said.

"I pay a visit to one of the casino people. I lay the touch on them real nice-like. I tell them I'm their new partner. But they don't get it. They think it's like something they see on TV. They think everything is gonna work out okay even if they don't send me my weekly piece. Just like things work out okay at the end of a TV show." Parisi made a face as he took three big puffs from the cigar, making the ash glow. "So people get clipped."

"How are the cops?"

"I change rooms a lot, go from place to place to keep em guessing. And I get a call if anything big is happening." Parisi stepped out onto the balcony, blew smoke at Las Vegas. "Can he be had twice?" he said.

"You're talking about a rehash."

"That's right-going right back to the motherfucker and doing him again."

"He might blow."

"The man thinks he's in a cross-otherwise he wouldn't have sprung like he did," Parisi said.

"I guess I could try it," Sands said.

Parisi turned to face him. "I know you can do it. Say we go fifty-fifty on the take?"

"Sounds fair enough," Sands said, though it didn't.

Eddie Sands wandered toward the door.

"Tell me something," Parisi said in a voice loud enough so he could be heard from across the room. Sands turned.

"With only six months to go on work release, why didn't you just save the fifty K and serve out your time?"

Without acknowledging the question, Sands left the room.

TEN

Standing on the balcony of a room at the Stardust, John Novak, dressed in slacks and a loose-flowing sport shirt that covered his gun, lit another cigarette. As he crushed the empty package he told himself he'd been smoking too much. But he always smoked too much on surveillances.

"What are they talking about?" he said.

Red Haynes, wearing earphones that looked small because of the size of his ears, adjusted the volume control on a briefcase-size receiver which was sitting on the dressing table in front of him. "The guy Parisi's talking to sounds like a confidence man...and he might have just been released from Terminal Island...was on work release when he got out. Small talk."

"We've been sitting here for five days and Parisi hasn't said a word to anyone about the bombing," Novak said, thinking out loud.

Suddenly, Haynes's hands cupped the earphones. "The visitor is leaving," he said.

Novak hurried to the door and put an eye to the peephole. A pale, clean-featured man with neat, close-cropped hair came out of the door across the hall and headed toward an elevator bank. Quietly, Novak turned the door handle. He stepped out of the room and moved down the hall. With the sound of a chime, the elevator arrived. Novak followed the man into the elevator. As the man pressed a button marked "Lobby/Casino," Novak feigned reaching for the same button and noticing that it was already lit. The doors closed. Casually, the man glanced at his wristwatch, then at Novak. The elevator descended as Novak, avoiding direct eye contact as the man stared at him, lifted his eyes to the row of blinking numbers above the door.

Finally, the doors opened onto the bustling, smoky casino. Novak allowed the man to step out first. The man moved directly into a slot-machine area which was crowded with busy players and sallow-faced change girls in fishnet stockings. Novak followed at a discreet distance.

Suddenly, a group of Japanese tourists, clustered around an oversized slot machine, engulfed him, and Novak realized that he had lost sight of the man. He looked about in the casino, then hurried outside onto the crowded taxi-lined sidewalk of Las Vegas Boulevard. The man was gone.

"Shit," Novak said out loud. Then he turned and walked quickly to the driveway exit. Blending in with a crowd of people waiting for taxis, he surveyed the driver of every vehicle leaving the parking lot. About ten minutes later, the man who had been in Parisi's room drove out in a Chevrolet sedan. Novak yanked a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket and scribbled the license number of the Chevy on the palm of his hand. It was a California plate.

When Novak returned to the room, Red Haynes was still sitting in front of the tape recorder. He looked up.

"He left in a Chevy."

"Get the license plate?"

Novak held up his ink-marked palm. He copied the license number onto a page in his investigative notebook, then stepped into the bathroom and washed his hands.

Haynes's fingertips touched his earphones. "Parisi's telling the hotel operator not to put any calls through to the room.... Now he's brushing his teeth." He removed the earphones and dropped them on the dressing table. "It's time for the asshole to take his daily nap."

Novak asked to hear the last conversation. Haynes nodded. He pressed the rewind button on the machine, stood up, and stretched. The tape rewound, he hit the play button. As the tape began to play, Haynes moved about in the room shadow boxing, like some skinny-assed boxer before a fight.

Novak sat down in front of the tape recorder and made notes on a pad of hotel stationery. Finally, he turned the machine off.

Standing in front of the balcony, Red Haynes cracked his knuckles one by one. "Whaddaya make of it?" he said.

Novak rubbed his chin as he looked at his notes. He had written "fifty grand" and "six months to go."

"Five days' work, and we end up with a reel of tape full of small talk: Parisi and some local hoods, Parisi and his girlfriend, Parisi and his foul-mouthed sister in San Francisco, Parisi and some con just out of the joint...and not one word about Bruno getting blown up," Haynes said. "Practically a whole week shot."

As Novak struck a match to light a cigarette, it came to him.

"So where do we go from here?" Red Haynes said.

But Novak was reliving his last conversation with Bruno Santoro, and he only half-heard the question. Absentmindedly, he blew out the flame.

Later, at the Las Vegas Racquetball Club, Novak changed into athletic trunks, T-shirt, and court shoes. He left the locker room, headed down a wide, carpeted hallway which was filled with the muffled sound of racquetballs bouncing off court walls. He stopped at the door near the end of the hall, peered through a glass peephole. Lorraine Traynor, attired in trunks and a loose-fitting T-shirt, was standing in the middle of the court facing the front wall. Gripping her racquet firmly, she gave the ball a bounce, then, with a practiced swing, fired it low against the front wall. A kill shot. Novak opened the door and stepped inside.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"How did the bugging go?"

"Parisi didn't say anything definite. Not a word that could tie him to the bombing."

She whacked another shot at the wall. As it bounced toward the back wall Novak made a powerful return.

"So of course you want the authorized time on the bug order extended," Lorraine said as she tapped the ball lightly. It hit the front wall low and dribbled back.

"If you don't mind."

"How do you justify it?" she said.

"Just because he didn't come right out and say he had Bruno killed during the time we were listening doesn't mean he's innocent."

"The defense would say that if you listened to Parisi's conversations for five days and he didn't say a word about the bombing, what makes you think that listening to him for another five days, or five years for that matter, would yield any different results?"

"What do I care what a defense attorney might say?" Novak said as he moved across the court. He reached down, picked up the ball.

"I can't extend the eavesdropping order without some proof that you're not just on a fishing expedition for evidence."

Novak shook his head. "Anyone listening to the tape would know that the man is a crook."

"Under the Constitution, even crooks have the right to privacy. Go ahead and serve."

Novak moved forward to the service line. He bounced the ball a couple of times. "Where does it say that?" he said. Then, with a powerful swing, he slammed the ball.

It hit the front wall like a shot.

Just south of the Desert Inn, Eddie Sands turned off Las Vegas Boulevard onto a side street. Halfway down the block, situated between a pair of cheapie hotels, was the Plush Pony Cocktail Lounge, which the vice cops had always called the Dog because of the misshapen neon pony above the door and the looks of the women who hung out in the place. Sands parked in front and went in.

Inside the dimly lit bar, things were as he remembered them-black leather booths and a large, comfortable bar. The ten or so male customers at the bar looked like bookmakers and collectors rather than tourists.

Ray Beadle, a husky man with a crew cut who was a few years older than Sands, sat at the bar facing the door. He spotted Sands, hurried to him, grabbed his hand in a friendship lock, slapped him on the back. "Good to see you back, partner." Sands noticed that Beadle was wearing the same brown sport coat he had worn before Sands had gone to prison.

"Gonna buy me a drink?" Sands said.

"Absolutely."

Sands motioned to a booth away from the others. Beadle stared at him for a moment, then followed. They sat down.

"I owe you, partner," Beadle said. "You could have done yourself a lot of good by handing me up to internal affairs."

"I told you that if I ever had to walk, I'd walk alone."

"You're a man of your word."

"On the other hand, now I wish I'd ratted on you," Sands said with a hint of a smile. "I could have used the company.

They looked at each other for a moment. Sands laughed. Beadle, looking uncomfortable, laughed along.

"How'd you get out?"

"I paid the price."

"Who handled it?"

"Tony Parisi."

"That's the least he coulda done for you," Beadle said.

"I hear Tony is now the man to see in this town."

"It all happened right after you went in. Tony got real big."

"How did he do it?" Sands said.

"He cracked a few coconuts, iced a couple count-room guys, and the casino owners shitted out and let him have his way. He does business in one casino for a while and then moves on. They all give him a taste. A joke, isn't it?"

Eddie Sands shrugged. "In the old days a guy like Parisi would try to muscle in at one of the big places and he'd find himself out in the desert with a coyote eating his ass for dinner."

"The big guys from Cleveland and Chicago sold to the big corporations," Beadle said. "They got yuppies running the places now."

Sands slapped his old friend on the shoulder. "How are ya makin' it these days?"

"My sorry ass makes enough to get by. I collect a few debts for the bookies...that plus my police pension."

A knock-kneed waitress wearing a short white fringed buckskin skirt and purple lipstick came to the table.

"Can I get you fellas something?" she said in a Southern drawl. Beadle introduced her as Tex. They ordered drinks. As Tex walked away, Sands admired the way she moved her hips.

"Nice broad, but don't even think about it," Beadle said. "I've been to her apartment. Dirty clothes, empty Kotex boxes, full trash baskets, cats crawling on the kitchen table. To me a dirty apartment means a dirty box. I'd expect gnats and blowflies to come flying out of her pussy. She'd invited me over, but I left without balling her sorry ass."

"I'm not interested anyway."

"You gonna marry Monica?"

Sands nodded. "And you're gonna be the best man.

But first I have some business to take care of. That's why I stopped by to see you."

Ray Beadle swallowed twice. "What kind of business?"

"The touch-play business...like the old days when you and I worked the vice squad. I need a backup man."

Ray Beadle examined the palms of his hands. "Extortion is a heavy beef."

"It's also where the heavy gold is."

"How much are we talking about?"

"I just took somebody down for fifty. With a backup man I can make a return trip."

Tex, with buckskin flapping, brought drinks to the table. As she set the drinks down, Sands noticed that she had dirty fingernails. She winked, moved back to the bar.

Ray Beadle, with furrowed brow, fingered the moisture on the outside of his cocktail glass. Then he picked up the glass, took a big drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "I can't do time," he said. "My sorry ass just ain't made to do time."

"There's a lot of bucks to be made," Sands said.

"Easier said than done."

"I guess you could say that about anything."