The Big Dirt Nap

bleached teeth, and a tan to rival George Hamilton's, powered toward us, arms out to his sides.

Bernie Mishkin took up a lot of psychic space. A big man to begin with, he seemed intent on expanding his territory with sweeping arm gestures and a cloak of cigar smoke that I suspected was permanent, like that Peanuts character who was always surrounded by dirt.

'What the . . .' He stared down at Nick's body and bit his left knuckle. His hands flew to his chest operatically, as if he was having a heart attack. 'Nicky, Nicky, Nicky.' He looked around plaintively. 'I'm glad Fran isn't here to see this. She'd be inconsulate. He was like a son to us.' The group didn't offer much sympathy, neither did I. I stood there wondering if inconsulate was really a word.

'What happened, Stacy, I mean, Detective?'

'Who knows, Bernie? Nick stepped on some toes. Always did. Who knows that better than you? And he had some questionable friends.' She switched from comforting to faintly confrontational in a heartbeat and a look passed between them that suggested she thought Mishkin was one of them.

'Anything you can tell us?' she asked.

Mishkin could have had a career in overblown amateur theatricals. He threw his hands in the air; if he could have torn out little tufts of hair, I think he would have.

'We weren't close these days.' He sighed, finally clasping his hands. 'I'll admit it. He . . . we . . . had words.'

Winters pulled Mishkin away and continued questioning him about three yards from me. With Mishkin's back to me, I couldn't hear what they were saying. The homeless guy was leaning on his cart and haltingly giving his statement for the second time since I'd arrived. He sipped a clear liquid from a two-liter bottle, and rearranged his bag collection, tucking in a thin black leather strap. I nearly asked him for a swig of water to clean my mouth before coming to my senses.

More interested in Mishkin now, Winters seemed to have forgotten about me; I was left with Hector, the deceased, and the stinky puddle I'd made. After fifteen minutes, which seemed longer given the stench and the chilly night air, I challenged her again. 'Are we finished, Stacy, I mean, Detective? Much as I'd like to help you, I don't think there's anything I can add to your investigation since I didn't know the victim,' I said. I mustered all of my nerve, refolded my arms tightly across my chest, and tried to look tough. Easy in Doc Martens, not so easy in flip-flops.

'Just when we were getting on so well,' she said.

'I'm sorry,' Mishkin said, as if noticing me for the first time. 'Have we met? Were you a friend of Nicky's?'

'She was seen with the victim a few hours ago,' Winters said.

Mishkin stepped toward me and stared, trying to recall if he'd seen me before.

Winters gave me her card and lapsed into cop speak, telling me to call her if I remembered anything else that might have a bearing on the case. Fat chance I'd get in touch with her again of my own free will. As soon as Lucy checked in, we were checking out.

A news van arrived and Winters motioned for Hector to get me out of there; I was more than happy to leave. I followed his squat body and knocked knees, retracing our steps back to the loading-dock doors; then I remembered about the greenhouse.

'Mr. Mishkin,' I said, turning, 'could I possibly have fifteen minutes of your time tomorrow?'

Mishkin looked at me, then Winters, bewildered and almost nervous. 'Sure,' he said, 'call my assistant, Rachel, to set up a time.' He seemed to be waiting for an explanation. I let him stew for a few seconds.

'It's about the corpse flower.'

Three

Once we were away from the real cops, Hector slowed down and regained some of his swagger. He may have even shot his cuffs.

'You get a lot of police activity here?' I asked, speeding up to walk alongside him so I didn't look like I was being ejected from the premises.

He smirked as if it was no big deal.

'We found another homeless guy by the Dumpster once. Got stupid drunk and curled up in a spot where one of the delivery trucks sat idling the next morning. Died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Big Y comes for the food,' he added, smiling. 'Rachel, Mrs. Page, doesn't like it, but there's not much she can do about it—she can't stay in the kitchen all day.'

It must have finally dawned on Hector that he was escorting a not-bad-looking woman through the hotel lobby, so he took the opportunity to flirt. 'No one else comes here for the food. Not spicy enough. If we had a better kitchen, maybe there wouldn't be so much food thrown out,' he joked.

He eyed me up and down. 'You don't look like a gambler.'

'I'm not,' I said. 'Why do you ask?' I thought of Nick's dumb comment about the odds favoring the house.

Hector told me that most of Titans's guests checked in and then left for the mega-casino twenty miles down the road. At one-third the cost for an overnight stay, Titans was a cheaper alternative for the nickel-slots crowd and the road warriors on limited travel-and-expense accounts who worked the Boston–Hartford–New York corridor.

But they didn't spend much on food and beverages here, and that was where the real markup was.

'Judging by the Maltese and her owner, you're pet lovers, too,' I said.

'Yeah, we're pet-friendly. Fran'—he remembered himself— 'Mrs. Mishkin loved animals.'

So the Mishkins had somehow held on through the lean years with this motley clientele and, according to Hector, had recently, miraculously, been given the promise of an influx of cash from a Chinese investor named Wai Hi. But right now, the Mishkins were hanging on by their fingernails.

As we made our way out of the labyrinth of service corridors, past the much-maligned kitchen and into the all-beige lobby, I envisioned a change in decor to foo dogs and red tasseled lanterns. I wondered aloud why a Chinese businessman would want to invest in a nearly bankrupt hotel in Connecticut.

'Wai Hi made a lot of money in Malaysia. Solid-gold-faucet-kind of money—like that guy who had the six- thousand-dollar shower curtain,' Hector said. 'He's smart, that Bernie. He's got an in with the foreign press.' Which meant that four or five times a year a busload of European journalists stayed at the hotel and went outlet shopping the next day. The idea was that they'd write about the experience when they got home to the Netherlands or Italy or wherever they came from.

'Publicity,' Hector said, tapping his temple. 'Bernie's always thinking about the big picture. In two or three years, we could have bingo tables all over this room,' he added, spreading his chubby arms and fingers out wide, in an unconscious imitation of his hero.

Now, bingo, to me, conjures up very fond memories of Aunt Jo and little plastic disks and bottles of red ink with spongy tips. Warm and fuzzy, but not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of.

'Is bingo such a hot ticket?' I asked stupidly.

'Shows what you know. That's how they all get started,' Hector said, as if I were an idiot or a five-year-old. 'The big ones. Fox-woods, Mohegan Sun. All the Indians start with bingo.'

We walked through the hotel lobby, past the corpse flower, past the sparsely populated bar, and I flashed back to grade school, trying to remember if I'd ever heard of an Indian tribe called the Mishkins.

Hector deposited me at the elevator and I assured him I could make it to the sixth floor under my own steam. Just then, Oksana, the bartender, ran over to us. She was shaking and jabbering in two languages.

'Is it true?' she asked, her accent growing thicker. She folded and refolded a thick wad of cocktail napkins.

Hector nodded.

She looked at me, in my revealing outfit, and must have gotten the wrong idea. She spat out a stream of what might have been Ukrainian and ended with the one word I could understand: 'bitch.'

'Hey, I didn't do anything. They just found my business card on him.' The girl started to whimper again and Hector put his arm around her. Celine Dion's heart was still going on in the background, accompanying Oksana's