'Yeah, you do,' he said.
'He's your husband.'
He listened, moving the toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other.
'Have it any way you want,' he said.
'I'm in the lobby. I want to see you. I can come up or you can come down.'
He winked at me.
'No, no, sis, those are the choices, you come down or I come up.'
He listened, nodding slightly.
'Okay, but I don't see you in fifteen, I'm knocking on your door.'
Then he hung it up, and grinned at me.
'I guess she wants a head start,' Bernard said.
'Says she was in the shower, has to get dressed, be down in fifteen minutes.'
'Might be true,' I said.
'Sure. I got a tenner says she'll be in here with the schwartza in less than three minutes.'
'His name's Hawk,' I said.
'No offense. Hell, I call myself the mini guinea.'
I looked at my watch. We waited. A group of people who must have gotten off a tour bus from Kansas trouped in through the front door. They turned right and followed their tour guide down the corridor toward the ballroom where Debbie's next show was gathering momentum. As they cleared the lobby, Hawk walked in the front door with his hand gently on Bibi Anaheim's arm. It was two minutes and thirty-four seconds from the time Fortunato called.
'You owe me ten,' Fortunato said.
'I didn't bet,' I said.
CHAPTER 48
I paid Bernard J. Fortunato off, in cash, on the spot, expenses included. He folded it up without counting it and slid it into his right-hand pants pocket.
'You don't want to count it?' I said.
'Naw, my line of work you can't tell the difference between who you can trust, and who you can't… time to find another line of work.'
Bernard tipped his hat forward a little lower over the bridge of his nose and we left him getting a drink at the bar in the hotel lobby. Probably waiting for Debbie.
It was about 11:30 and Convention Center Drive was the road less traveled at this time of night in Vegas. Hawk and Bibi and I were nearly the only people on the street, as we walked west toward the Strip in the neon-tinged late-night twilight, which was about as dark as it gets in Vegas. If Bibi was glad to see us, she had mastered her emotions completely. She had not spoken since Hawk had brought her into the lobby. And as she walked between us she seemed to be dwindling inside her silence, as if eventually it would become so thick we couldn't find her.
'Told her we ain't working for Marty,' Hawk said.
I nodded.
'We've been looking very hard for you,' I said.
She gave no indication that she'd heard me.
'Mostly we were worried about you. You've had a lousy life for quite a while.'
We got to the Strip and turned left, heading south toward The Mirage. On the Strip the dry desert night was full of people and cars and lights, thick with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and deodorant spray and hair spray and mixed drinks and cologne and desperation. There was a lot of energy on the Strip but it was feverish, the kind of energy that makes you sleepless, that makes you drive too fast, and chain-smoke, and drink heavy. The Strip was choked with people in dogged search of fun, looking for the promise of Vegas that had brought them all from Keokuk and Presque Isle and North Platte. It wasn't like it was supposed to be.
It wasn't the adventure of a lifetime, but it had to be. You couldn't admit that it wasn't. You'd come too far, expected too much, planned too long. If you stayed up later, played harder, gambled bigger, looked longer, saw another show, had another drink, stretched out a little further…
'I was in Fairhaven High School a few days ago,' I said to Bibi.
'Nice-looking old building. Looks like a real high school, doesn't it.'
She didn't respond. As we walked through the crowd, people would occasionally stare covertly at Hawk.
'I met your friend Abigail,' I said.
Nothing.
'Abigail Olivetti,' I said.
'Hey, Abbey, where's the party?'
