'So what was his relationship with Anthony?'
She sat staring past me as if she hadn't heard me and then her eyes came slowly onto my face.
'You scared of Marty?'
'No.'
She kept her eyes on me for a while. Then she nodded her head slowly.
'No, maybe you're not,' she said, still looking at me.
'But you should be.'
I waited.
'Marty and Anthony had some deal going,' she said, finally.
'Do you know what it was?'
'No.'
'Was Gino involved?' I said.
'I don't think so.'
'I assume the deal is now off,' I said.
She nodded.
'Marty finds out you're here, what happens?' I said.
'He'll kill Anthony. Probably with his hands. Marty likes that.
And he'll take me home and beat the shit out of me and it'll be like it was. Except this time he'll probably hurt me worse.'
'We'll have to see to it that he doesn't do that,' I said.
'Can Anthony stand up to him?'
'Oh, God no,' Bibi said.
'Nobody can.'
'Somebody can,' I said.
'You love Anthony?'
She made the bitter laugh sound again.
'Better than Marty.'
'And he was a way out,' I said.
'He was. Now it's all shot to hell,' Bibi said.
'He's gotta break the bank or whatever he thinks he's going to do, and we sit here and wait until he does it, and now the stupid wife shows up and gets killed and Marty will hear about it and know I'm out here and find us and…'
She shrugged.
'Or not,' I said.
She shook her head.
'There's no or not,' she said.
'You can't stop him. He'll find me and do what he's going to do and no one will stop him. Nobody can.'
'I might stop him,' I said.
She shook her head, and kept shaking it, slowly back and forth.
Tears formed in her eyes and came down her cheeks. She lowered her head, and I could no longer see the tears but I could see her shoulders shake. I put a hand out on top of hers. She didn't move except for her head swaying back and forth and her shoulders shaking. I guess she didn't believe me.
CHAPTER 23
I was sitting at the bar drinking club soda, watching the gamblers, and thinking of the Kipling poem… something about piling all you own on a single bet and losing and smiling and walking away.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and which is more you'll be a Man, my son. Kipling had never been to Vegas. I was drinking club soda because in recent years beer in the middle of the day made me sleepy.
I didn't want to be sitting at the bar in the middle of the day, wide awake, drinking club soda and thinking of poetry. But I didn't know what else to do, and at least this way I could keep an eye on Anthony Meeker while he mourned his wife at the blackjack tables. I knew Julius would show up to take his daughter home. I figured sooner or later Marty Anaheim would show up to straighten out his marital circumstances. The Vegas cops might or might not catch whoever murdered Shirley. Hawk would or would not spot someone at the MGM Grand which would explain why Shirley had the number written down.
I wondered if I was still employed. The question of returning Anthony to his wife was no longer pressing. Murder spilt a lot of milk. And if Julius really had wanted me to find Anthony before word got out that he skimmed some money, it was too late, that probably being some of the milk that was spilt. I wondered if the stolen money
