of makeup. The only obvious flaw other than a possible lack of scruples the set of the shoulders. They strode through the casino like jocks. In fact, when Eichord looked at the big one, he thought of Alex Karras reincarnated as a woman. Just your average middle linebacker working girls—what could be more inviting? Jeezus.
But in the same breath he saw something fantastic. A woman in the shortest, blackest, tightest clinging top of a material that revealed every outline and curve. Perfect, movie-starlet mammaries, nipples thrusting like hard fingertips, gorgeous blond hair, and a face without a hint of makeup—stunning, spectacular, smashing. But, of course, he told himself, I have something better at home.
But this WAS Vegas, after all, and Eichord spent the first ten minutes just checking out the chicks. With that important detective work done, he called a pit boss aside and asked to see the shift manager, waiting by the side of a 21 layout. An old man wandered over and tried to make some pitiful, erratic bet of some kind. It took the dealer three or four minutes to explain to him why he couldn't place the wager.
A hard-eyed, suspicious-looking man in a silk suit introduced himself and Eichord showed his tin and explained what it was he wanted and was told how totally impossible that would be. Nobody employed here at the club would have any way of identifying somebody from that long ago—not even from five WEEKS ago—in a wheelchair?—no big deal. We have handicapped in here all the time, the man informed him, looking around and seeing in fact a wheelchair rolled up to the craps table where a group of fifteen men were screaming at the moment.
Eichord showed the drawing to some people anyway and watched various pairs of bored Las Vegas eyes glaze over. After all this WAS Vegas, pal. These people have seen it all. They've seen all the cops. All the wise guys. All the hookers. All the stars. What's one more serial killer in a wheelchair—right?
The old man was still farting away his Social Security leftovers when Eichord decided he was spinning
They talked briefly. Her name was Stephanie or Kim or Lisa, she was twenty-one, or twenty-two, or twenty- three, she was married to a struggling lounge performer, or she was a would-be student or a part-time nurse working cocktails to support a child, and he'd known a thousand girls just like her. On his way back out of the club he tried to remember all the name tags that went with the glazed eyes: Lethea, Nadja—from Iran, Gerry, Nassia. A dealer named Takio, Sam. A lady pit boss with an American first name he couldn't remember—last name Wong. Eduarda, whom they called Fast Eddy. Stephanie. Kim. Lisa.
A maid said, “How ya doin'” to him as he smiled at her in the hallway, back in the hotel.
“No good,” he said, meaning it.
“I know what you mean. I live here.'
Jack spent all of the next morning getting the official glad hand from the guys at Metro headquarters. MLVPD was one of the top cop shops in the country for a Homicide detective. The action of a high-crime-incidence beat without the hazards of some shithole like East L.A. or Bed-Sty. It tended to draw slick sleuths with a taste for gold and rich, Corinthian leather.
Eichord was accorded full VIP status whether he wanted it or not, which automatically made any good copper just a tad suspicious of this big-media mocker, this ink-happy fed from some mystical task force dropping by to snoop around.
He eventually got shoved off onto a liaison type named A.W. “Augie” Stiverson.
“Sorry you got saddled with me, Augie,” Eichord said with a smile.
“It's a dirty job'—Stiverson smiled back—'but...” He left it go unsaid.
Eichord had to spend twice as much time getting duked back in while he went around listening, being a good dude, being Eichord, acting like he was just one more flat-footed copper who didn't think his shit smelled like Chanel.
“Let me know what we can do for you and we'll give it our best shot.'
“This one's a bitch kitty, so far,” Eichord said, handing a stack of the police drawings to Stiverson. “Got this dude who looks real good for about five serial homicides back in the 1960s. Spoda, Arthur. It's all on the other sheet. We're talking about a male Cauc maybe forty-one, forty-two years old now. Likely he could have been a resident here for years, possibly. I believe he may have killed again recently, the first kill after twenty years, back on my home turf. Just a hunch from the M.O. Nothing solid. But the more I looked at these old files, he was doing the victims in and around Amarillo, Texas, I think they had him.'
“What happened?'
“I never got a real handle on that. I think it may have just been a combination of things. Their so-called eyeball witness fell apart on them. Violated some Texas statute when they put him into a lineup, best I can judge. He was nineteen, this Spoda, and all of that and some sloppy paperwork and he just ended up walking. Like a dude there said to me, You know how it is, it happens.'
“Yeah.” Siverson nodded. “I know. Sometimes the scumbags walk. I know how it happens. Can you put something together on this individual if you can find him again?'
“I dunno.” Eichord scratched his head. “Beats me,” he said quietly. “I know the Iceman killings stopped as soon as the suspect became hurt. He apparently was crippled to the point where he was in a wheelchair.” Eichord told him about the mother and the man in Vega, Texas, who had supposedly seen Spoda in Vegas.
“Shit. I think you could send these around to all the big hospitals, clinics, therapy centers, and what not. Real needle in a haystack without a mug shot or prints.” He read the short information sheet Eichord had handed him with the stack of drawings.
“Well, for starters, I'd like all the guys to get one of these. I'll also get them run through all the casinos just on the odd chance it might shake something loose.'
“Sure. What else?'
Eichord gave him a couple more requests, including the standard desk-directories-telephone requirements, and Stiverson eventually left him to his own devices while he sat there in busy MLVPD Homicide dialing and smiling, finding out in the course of one afternoon that Las Vegas, Nevada, had about all the health care anybody could handle.
By late afternoon he was getting punchy. The day had not been a total loss, however. He had learned about how the coloration of a victim's fingernails and the consistency of the vomit will help determine if they have ingested a slow-acting, nonvolatile poison. That a shotgun leaves pellets, wadding, markings, ejected shell casings, and that people who do police work send these things to laboratories for analysis. He learned they found a homosexual with over a hundred stabbing wounds in the body, of which a detective observed “Boy! Somebody was sure pissed.'
He learned more about the Vegas sports books than he had ever wanted to know, including the line on three important games. He learned that in Vegas they use the transitive verb “shake” the way they use the word “smoke” in Buckhead. That most homicides are solved by witnesses or informants. That most Vegas crimes are solved in the first twenty-four hours or they tend to go unsolved. That a three-day-old killing was “getting there ‘cause this guy in the joint told me this hump he knows said he was gonna shake him.” He learned that a stringer for Channel 11 was a turd. And the guy on the early-morning assignments desk was cool. And that a guy in the News Cruiser eats shit. And that somebady “got their ten-thirty-one stepped on” and all of this was profoundly more interesting than the sheet of doodles in front of Eichord. A list that said: 5 x 39 .6
Gloria (39) Strangulation
Darleen (37) Strangulation
Ann (38) Bludgeoning/Stabbing
Elnora (41) Stabbing
May (43) Stabbing.
The doodles were average. Nothing great. He was proud of the numbers, though. They were nicely rendered. Why would a nineteen-year-old boy want to “shake” 39.6 year old women? Because he could? Because they were
