[Rat Pack 02] - Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die Page 8

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you have to do somethin’?” he asked. “Okay some money or somethin’?”

  “He’s not sitting at a high limit table,” I said. “I doubt it.”

  “Maybe he talked to you, asked a question?”

  “Wait a minute ...” Suddenly, I could see his face in front of me, but what was he saying?

  “So he did ask you a—”

  “Shh, wait.” I almost had it. “It’s gone.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Jerry,” I said. “It’s my damn memory.”

  I got up.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We’re gonna stay in the hotel tonight.”

  “Will the Caddy be safe in the parking lot?” Jerry asked as we left the office.

  “I don’t know, but we’ll be safe.”

  “You don’t have to worry about nothing Mr. G.,” he said, putting his big arm around my shoulder. “I ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to ya.”

  “I’m touched, Jerry.”

  “Mr. S. would have my ass.”

  “It’s nice to know you care ....”

  Twenty-Four

  DANNY CALLED ME that night in my room at the Sands. He figured if I wasn’t at home that was where I’d be.

  “I talked with the valets,” he said, “parking lot attendants, doormen ... showed her photo. Nobody saw her leave.”

  “What do you make of that?” I asked.

  “I figure she’s in Vegas for the first time; if she left the hotel on her own it would’ve been by the front door.”

  “So if she went out the back,” I finished, “somebody took her that way?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  I told him what Jerry had told me about the possibility of two hit men.

  “Makes sense,” he said, “but I don’t think a second guy has her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why take ’er?” he asked. “Why not just kill her in her room?” “And who killed the one at the morgue?”

  “Maybe she did,” Danny said. “Maybe she got lucky.”

  “And then she ran? And somebody helped her?”

  “A good-lookin’ blonde?” he asked. “How hard would it be for her to get some help?”

  “From a guy who works at the Nugget.”

  “I’ll get on that tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe the guy won’t show up for work—if there is a guy.”

  “Thanks, Danny.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Try and stay out of the line of fire of a hit man, I guess.”

  “Stand behind Jerry,” he suggested. “That should do it.”

  I hung up, thought about turning on the TV, but decided against it. I sat on the bed with my shoes off. I’d called for room service a few minutes earlier because I wanted a pot of coffee. When the knock came at the door, I was proud of the Sands for taking such good care of its guests. But when I opened the door, a man stuck a gun in my face and I cursed myself for being careless.

  “Inside,” he said.

  “I-thought you were room service.”

  “You ain’t gonna get to eat tonight.”

  He stepped inside and closed the door. He was tall, almost gangly, about my age, and he had a Brooklyn accent.

  “I-it was just coffee.”

  “Sit on the bed.”

  I did.

  “On your hands.”

  Crap. I did it. We were in a standard-sized room. I got it on a comp, but I didn’t rate a suite. That meant he was too damn close to me with that gun for comfort.

  “Where is she?”

  “Where’s who?”

  “Don’t get cute with me, pit boss,” he snarled. “I ain’t in the mood. My partner’s dead and my target is on the run. I ain’t got the time.”

  “Your target?”

  “Don’t act stupid,” he said. “You’re clued in, you know the score.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “really. The score’s a mystery to me.” I was babbling, I knew I was, but I was looking down the barrel of a gun. That was not an everyday occurrence for me.

  “You work for Entratter,” the man said. “That means you’re on the inside.”

  “I work for the Sands,” I said. “I’m just a pit boss.”

  “Then why are you lookin’ for the girl?”

  “I was just doing somebody a favor.”

  “Who?”

  “One of my high rollers.”

  He poked the air with his gun and said, “Who, damn it?”

  Frank’s name was on the tip of my tongue but I decided I’d be damned if I’d give it to this bum.

  “Who hired you to kill her?” I asked, instead. “What’s she done to anybody that’d get her killed?”

  “I don’t ask those kinds of questions,” he said. “I just do my job.”

  “Well, if the girl’s on the loose and your partner’s dead,” I said, “you suck at it.”

  His hand tightened on the butt of his automatic and just when I thought I’d gone too far there was a knock on the door.

  “That’d be real room service,” I said.

  “Don’t answer.”

  “I have to. I work here, they know I’m here. They’ll wonder what—”

  “Tell ’em to leave it outside the door.”

  “They don’t do that here,” I said. I was playing for time. What good was the room service waiter going to do me? And I didn’t want to get him killed, too.

  “Okay,” he said, “okay, get the door, but don’t say nothin’. I’ll kill the both of you.”

  I got up off the bed. He stepped aside to let me approach the door.

  “Any funny stuff and you’re both dead,” he repeated his threat. “Remember.”

  I still had no idea what I was going to do as I opened the door, but it didn’t matter. Jerry’s left hand shot out, grabbed me and pulled me into the hall. At the same time he fired the .45 he held in his right. It bucked once, made a deafening sound in the hall, and then went quiet.

  “You okay, Mr. G.?” he asked.

  I peered into the room, saw the hit man flat on his back on the bed, blood seeping from his chest. His gun was on the floor.

  “I am now,” I said. “How’d you know?”

  He smiled at me.

  “I tol’ you I wouldn’t let nothin’ happen to you,” he said. “I was on watch down the hall.”

  He stepped into the room, checked the guy to see if he was dead, then kicked the hit man’s gun under the bed.

  “Know him?” I asked.

  “Uh-uh,” he said. “I never saw him before. What about you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he say anythin’ helpful?”

  “Actually he did,” I said, “but right now we’ve got to come up with a story for the cops.”

  “Why?”

  “So you don’t get into trouble.”

  “Why should I get into trouble?” he asked. “I’m licensed to carry my gun, and I saved your life. You can tell them everythin’ he said.”

  “You mean ... you don’t care if I call the cops?” I asked.

  “Mr. G.,” he said, as if scolding me, “you gotta call the cops. It’s your duty as a good citizen.”

  I heard doors opening in the halls, guests no doubt peering out to find out what was going on.

  “Okay, Jerry,” I said. “Why don’t you close the door and I’ll make the call.”

  But I had to call Jack Entratter first. I didn’t know who this was going to piss off more, him or Detective Hargrove.

  Twenty-Five

  IT WAS A TOSS-UP.

  It only took an hour for the room to fill up with cops. Some were in uniform, some in plain clothes. They were talking to guests in the hall, taking pictures of the dead body, fishing the gun out from under the bed, bagging both it and Jerry’s gun and, oh yeah, putting Jerry Epstein in cuffs for saving my life.

  “Is that really necessary?” I demanded.

  Hargrove put h
is hand on my chest and said, “You’re lucky you’re not in cuffs, Eddie.”

  “For what?” Jack Entratter asked, entering at that moment. “For almost getting killed?”

  “We got a dead man here, Mr. Entratter,” Hargrove said. “If Eddie is right and he’s the partner of the guy we got on a slab down at the morgue, then they’re both hitters from New York.”

  “Not New York,” Jerry said, calmly. “If they was from New York I’d know ’em.”

  “Shut up,” Hargrove said. “I’m not talking to you. Not yet, anyway.” He looked at the uniformed cop who had put his cuffs on Jerry. “Take him downtown, put him in a holding room.”

  “Hey,” I said, “all he did was—”

  I was cut off by both my boss and Hargrove, who then got into a shouting match of their own. Jerry gave me a little shrug as the cop led him out of the room. The body was still on the bed. It had stopped bleeding when the heart stopped beating, but there was still a bloody Sands bed quilt that was going to have to go.

  I have to say I admired Hargrove. I thought he had always been a little intimidated by Entratter, but as their voices grew louder he gave as good as he got.

  “I’m conducting an inquiry here, sir,” Hargrove said, polite to the end. “If you interfere I’ll have you put in cuffs, as well.”

  Entratter rocked back on his heels, and then he laughed shortly.

  “You’d do that, wouldn’t you, you little pissant?” he demanded.

  “Try me.”

  Entratter wasn’t laughing then. His face turned so red he looked even more like he was about to burst than usual.

  “Jack, I’ve got it,” I said to him, then I turned to Hargrove. “Look, your hitter, here, came bursting into my room and would’ve killed me if it wasn’t for Jerry.”

  “The hitter’s name is Frank Capistrello. His partner on the slab is Joey Favazza. They’re cheap labor, freelancers trying to work themselves into one of the families.”

  “So you’re sayin’ you don’t know who they work for?” Entratter demanded.

  “That’s right,” Hargrove said, “we don’t. Maybe we could have gotten something out of Frankie, here, if your torpedo hadn’t killed him.”

  “He’s not my torpedo—” Entratter said.

  “He doesn’t like being called that,” I said.

  They both looked at me.

  “What?” Hargrove asked.

  “Jerry,” I said, “he doesn’t like being called that.”

  “Oh, Jesus ...” Entratter said. Throwing his hands into the air.

  “Well, whatever he likes to be called,” Hargrove said, “he fixed it so this guy can’t tell us anything.”

  “If not for Jerry,” I argued, “I wouldn’t be here telling you anything.”

  “You’re not telling me anything, are you?”

  “I’m tellin’ you what I know!”

  It got quiet all of a sudden. We looked around and saw that everyone in the room was staring at us.

  “What?” Hargrove demanded.

  “Uh,” his partner, Gorman said, “the medical examiner wants to take the body.”

  “Then tell him to take it, damn it.” He glared around the room. “Everybody get to work!”

  He turned to give me a glare of my own.

  “What did he want?”

  “All he had time to do was ask me where she is.”

  “Where who—the girl? He was asking about her?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “The truth. I don’t know where she is.”

  “But you’re looking, right?”

  “I’ve got some feelers out.”

  “Because of your high roller, right?”

  I nodded.

  Hargrove looked at Entratter then. Who had nothing to say. The detective apparently had not yet decided to push for the name.

  “How did Jerry know you were in trouble?”

  “He said he was watching my room.”

  “So he expected something like this?”

  “All he said was that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

  “So he could’ve stopped this guy before he got into your room?” “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  He pointed at me with his right index finger.

  “I should put you in cuffs, too, and take you down for questioning.”

  “For what? Almost getting killed?” I demanded. “And you can ask me all the questions you want. I can’t tell you any more than I have. I don’t know this guy, never saw him before. Or his partner.” Well, that wasn’t true, and if he bothered to search my clothes—my jacket—he’d find the photo of Joey Favazza in my pocket. But I opened my mouth and the lie came tumbling out.

  “I’m gonna let you off the hook, Eddie,” Hargrove said. “I’ll be pretty busy questioning your buddy, anyway.”

  “I’ll have a lawyer down there in twenty mimutes,” Entratter said.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “Come on, Eddie,” Jack said. “Let’s get you another room.”

  I went to get my jacket, with the Favazza photo in it, and Hargrove said, “Don’t disturb any evidence.”

  “I just want my jacket.”

  I waited, all my muscles tense while I tried to look relaxed. I wanted to get that photo out of the room.

  “Take it,” he said, with a pissed-off wave.

  I grabbed it and followed Jack into the hall.

  “Jack, I—”

  “Shut up!”

  We walked to the elevators and after we’d stepped into one he asked, “What the hell happened?”

  “Exactly what I told Hargrove,” I said. “I was expecting room service and the guy stuck a gun in my face when I opened the door.”

  “If Jerry was watching your room,” he demanded, “why didn’t he stop the guy outside, like Hargrove asked?”

  “And like I told Hargrove, I don’t know,” I said. “You are gonna get that lawyer down there, aren’t you?”

  “I should leave him there,” he said. “The guy comes to Vegas twice and kills somebody both times.”

  “And both times to save my life.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Here.” He handed me a key.

  “A suite?”

  “Enjoy,” he said, “and use the peep hole if you order room service again.”

  “Believe me,” I said, “I will.”

  Twenty-Six

  I DIDN'T ORDER ROOM service again because now I had a suite. Not as large as the ones Frank and Dean had, but still I had a bar and a well-stocked refrigerator. I had a few belts of good bourbon and then went to the window to look over the city. I could almost feel the heat of the neon bulbs. It soothed me. I had almost stopped shaking. A close call like that every six months was about all I could stand.

  I got myself another drink and took it with me to the plush sofa. I didn’t know I had fallen asleep until the phone rang and woke me. I fumbled for it, knocking over my empty glass.

  “Huh? Hello?”

  “Hey, Mr. G.”

  “Jerry? Where are you?”

  “In my room,” he said. “I just got back. Mr. Entratter brung me a lawyer and he got me sprung.”

  “Clean?”

  “Naw,” Jerry said, “I gotta go to court, for sure. Can’t leave town for a while.”

  “Good for me,” I said. “Listen, Jerry, I’m sorry you had to kill that guy.”

  “Hey, no sweat, Mr. G.,” he said. “It’s what I do, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I just don’t like you havin’ to do it for me.”

  “You want me to come up to your room?”

  “No,” I said, “get some sleep. Meet me downstairs in the coffee shop at nine o’clock for breakfast. I don’t think you’ve had the pancakes there yet. I owe you a big stack.”

  “Sounds good. I gotta go take a shower, get the cop stink offa me.”

  “Hey, Jerry.”

  “Yeah?’
>
  “Did they ask you why you didn’t stop that goon out in the hall?”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  I waited, then asked, “Well. . . what did you tell them?”

  I could hear his big shoulders shrug over the phone.

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  * * *

  In the morning, before meeting Jerry for breakfast, I called Danny Bardini at home.

  “This better be good,” he groaned into the phone when I told him it was me. “I was plannin’ on sleepin’ another hour.”

  I told him about the excitement the night before, and that woke him up.

  “Man, that Jerry’s your guardian angel, Eddie.”

  “You said it. Look, I don’t know if this is gonna make the cops come lookin’ for you again, but you might be getting a visit from Hargrove.”

  “No problem,” he said, through a yawn. “I can handle him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “See what you can do at the Nugget today, will you? We’re on kind of a tight deadline here.”

  “I gotcha. I think I’m pretty much lookin’ for a guy young enough to be impressed by a babe with blond hair and big tits.”

  “A young guy? How about any guy?”

  “Ah, I’m not so sure an older guy would want to try to play hero, you know? But I could be wrong. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Look, one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We got two dead mechanics now.”

  “Not very good ones,” I replied, “from what I’ve been told.”

  “Yeah, well, whoever sent them may send some good ones, next time.”

  “Next time?”

  “Eddie,” he said, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that there’s always a next time.”

  Twenty-Seven

  THE WAY JERRY PACKED away the pancakes I owed him I was glad I hadn’t owed him money.

  “So did they tell you the names of the two guys?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, with his mouth full. “Capistrello and Favazza.”

  “You ever hear of them in New York?”

  He finished chewing and looked at me.

  “Mr. G., I mostly hang out with made guys in New York,” he said. “Guys who are in crews. They wouldn’t even spit on those bums.”