vulnerable? Because they were surrogate mommy targets? Forcing Mom to give him head and then going to work with his hands or his sharpened icepick? I am twisted. So here's some
It bored him so badly, this doodle, that he concentrated on the more accessible Homicide work at hand. And by the time he packed it in for his last overnight in Vegas, he knew exactly how the three-county-level special unit worked Homicide calls, suspicious deaths, and officer-related shootings. He knew that the officer, or pair, depending on the beat, calls in the “criminalistic” officers, the HDs and the ID techs. He learned how to write up an incident report, how to get hold of a path, the pathologist, the way photographs are made, the manner in which diagrams are drawn. The place the autopsy is performed. All sorts of useful stuff in case he ever decided to do any Homicide work.
You had to walk right through the casino to get to the elevators. What made him think it was planned that way? He put a ten-dollar bet on ODD and lost. Put a two-dollar bet on 39 and lost. Put two five-dollar chips on ODD and won. Put ten dollars on EVEN and won. He was eight dollars ahead, and he quit. There was a slot machine near the bank of elevators and he fed five dollars in while waiting for his elevator. Still, he was quitting three bucks ahead. Another Vegas winner.
The noise and the smoke and the lights and the sleaze factor were almost overpowering. He couldn't wait to have Las Vegas become a memory. One more piece of business in the morning and he was gone.
“Pull your coat down a little,” a metallic voice commanded over the intercom, and the good-looking man seated beside the car mouthed a silent okay and leaned forward as far as he could, pulling his coat down under him as well as he was able, smoothing his lapels.
“Okay now?” he asked aloud.
The intercom did not choose to reply and a boy with a rattail haircut clicked a marking slate clapper and said, “Fourteen,” looking at the man in the chair saying, “Stand by.'
The seated man held his smile into the bright lights, and when the rattail boy pointed at him, he smiled widely and said, “Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He let the smile relax a little and took a breath.
The intercom squawked, “Let's do it again.'
“Sure.'
“Take Fifteen.'
“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He was very tired. “Was that better?'
“Let's wild-track it again, please,” she answered in her grating, metallic squawk.
“Sixteen,” the boy said, and marked it.
“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody—'
“Hold it.'
He breathed again. Fucking imbeciles.
“Wha hoppen?” He beamed in the direction of the control booth.
“You're saying Lug-sury. It's LUCKS-U-REE. Make it a real hard X sound, okay?'
“LUXury in a beautiful car. Like so?'
“Better. Do it again. Here we go.'
“Seventeen.'
“Nobody ... Shit, I'm sorry. I forgot the line.” He kept his smile as the rattail boy giggled and said, “That's a take.” Wise little fuck. “Okay. I'll get it right this time, folks. I promise.'
“Okay,” over the intercom. He could feel himself reddening a little. Fuck it.
“Eighteen,” the kid said in a tone of unmasked contempt.
“LUXury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” The eyes boring in under the red light. His hundredth spot maybe. An old pro.
“I think that one got it, but give me a safety,” she said, and he tilted his head back and said, “Sure,” ever the gentleman.
“Nineteen, safety,” the wise-ass kid said, and the man in the chair smiled brightly, gestured to the new car parked in the production studio, and gave her another perfect one. Smiling into the camera with his handsome public face.
He was up, dressed, and checking out half an hour before dawn and the casino looked like nine p.m. on a Friday night. An incessant blur of movement and a ceaseless roar of voices and noise. He walked past a blackjack layout and a woman dealer whose tag said adele—nevada. A Yugoslavian crackpot was babbling something to her about how GM was going to pay him a billion dollars in “reparations” for patent infringement.
“Don't bet until I've cleared the table, sir,” he could hear another dealer scolding someone as he walked by the early-morning crew. You can have it all, Adele Nevada. Every last dirty dollar. Just lemme outta here.
Heading north out of Las Vegas on I-15 past the Moapa Reservation, he drove into the Valley of Fire, and the sun came up over the mountains like a blazing red H-bomb, lasering the eyeballs as it mushroomed out into billowy fallout over the rocky canyons and the bust-out, degenerate gamblers, and the poor, ordinary folks, and the pathetic detectives, and whoever else.
Even with his shades on and the visor of the rental flipped down the blindingly bright sun gave him a massive headache, smashing into his eyes and into the brain like the needle-sharp Icepick of the Gods. He remembered the mirrored reflections from the eye-in-the-sky back in the casino. He knew the day was going to suck and it hadn't even started yet.
Far out in the sky over the Valley of Fire some movement caught his eye. He had to shield his eyes to squint, looking through dark lenses and tinted glass at buzzards circling something dead or dying out there. Eichord hoped it wasn't a sign.
The one flimsy semilead he'd turned up out west had flattened out on him. A former Vice guy, three years retired, had vague memories of this “spectacular pony” who lived with this wheelchair-bound gambler in one of the old plush joints—the Flamingo, he thought. The guy turned out to be hazy on the whole thing—some fuzzy recollection of the guy and his show-bizzy broad. He couldn't be sure of the drawing, he said. Bottom line: el zero.
Eichord heard a radio or television blaring as he descended into the sublevel of Buckhead Homicide. One of the guys had brought a TV set to work. Not a portable, but a twenty-one-inch set purloined from God-knows-where and squeezed into the back seat of an unmarked ride.
“Couldn't you get a big screen?'
“It's Dana's tummy tee vee,” Peletier said, and brought forth some snickers.
The detectives were watching a dog show for some reason.
“Peletier,” fat Dana Tuny growled, “you'd hafta pick up forty more IQ points to qualify as a fuckin moron, ya know that.'
“I'm gonna be fuckin a moron inna minute. Jumbo, so gitcher pants down and reach for your ankles.'
“This ain't mine,” Tuny said to Eichord, ignoring Marv Peletier, “the schvatza boosted it in Watts.'
“Welcome back, Jack. Have a nice trip,” Eichord said to himself out loud. “Yes, thanks. A real bummer. Glad you missed me,” he told himself.
Peletier turned up the volume as the announcer's voice intoned out of the speaker “Ah! Here comes the giant schnauzer. What a gorgeous bitch.” And the entire squad room hooted with catcalls, a room full of twelve-year- olds.
