Sam and Greg approached one resident near the front entrance – entrance being a vague term in a place with no fences around it and little in the way of organizational structure but defined in this case by an open space around the dirt path. The man gave them a frank but not unfriendly gaze. He was an African-American guy, wearing clothes that had seen better days but were at least neat and mended. He had long hair, which years of exposure to the elements had turned mostly gray, and he was sitting in a faded and worn outdoor chaise-longue in front of a tent that appeared to be well cared for, reading a book.
'What's shakin', Officers?' he asked as they neared him. He put the book down gently on the chair and stood up. 'Welcome to our home.'
'Thanks,' Greg said.
'I'd like to ask you a favor, sir,' Sam said. He pulled a photograph of the dead man from the Cameron estate out of his pocket and showed it to the guy. 'Do you know this man?' he asked.
The man shook his head. 'Just 'cause a dude looks homeless don't mean he lives here.'
'It's not that,' Greg put in. 'He had this, like a rental agreement from here. Who would have had him sign it? Is there some sort of hierarchy here? A controlling authority of some kind?'
The man showed a big smile. 'You mean, do we got a government? I remember that agreement you're talking about. I signed it, too. That was with the mayor.'
'The mayor of Las Vegas?'
'The mayor of the Happy Hunting Ground. That's what he called this place, anyway, but the name never stuck. And he's the one called himself mayor. Nobody else objected, though, so pretty soon everybody called him mayor.' He nodded toward one of the tents with a trash pile behind it, flies buzzing around. ''Course, not everybody abided by the rules on that piece of paper, then or now.'
'Can we see the mayor?' Sam asked. 'Maybe he remembers this man.'
'Wish you could,' the guy said. 'But he died, what, three years ago now. Hit by a city bus, you believe that? He had lived here almost nine years by then. Lived on in the hospital for three days after he was hit, and some folks said it was the cleanest they had ever seen him.'
'This city, I believe anything,' Sam said. 'I'm sorry to hear it, though.'
'And there's no new mayor?' Greg asked.
'Plenty of people wish they were the mayor. Some folks like to make others run through hoops, right? Walk some kind of line. But there's nobody like the mayor anymore. Everybody loved him, most folks wanted to make him happy, so they went along with things like that agreement and his rules.'
'So if someone wanted to move in here now…'
'They'd find a space and fill it. There are social workers coming around all the time. They try to keep track of who's here, keep some sort of inventory, I guess you'd say. But lately, even they're coming around less. Some of them got fired, I guess, and the ones left got too many cases to follow up on.'
'There's a lot of that going around,' Sam said.
'Are there any of those social workers here today?' Greg asked. 'Someone we might be able to ask about this man? It's important.'
'I haven't seen any. Could be some around later, or not. Can't really tell, one day to the next.'
'Do you have any other suggestions for us?'
The guy smiled again, shrugging at the same time. 'Keep asking around, I guess. Watch out for knives while you do. Some here don't much like the law, but most of us are respectful, decent folks.'
'We'll keep that in mind,' Sam said. 'Thanks for your help.'
'Hope you find your man,' the guy said.
'Yeah, we're like the Mounties,' Greg told him 'We won't give up until we do.'
Most of the residents they met were less helpful than the first. Some gave them the cold shoulder, ignoring them altogether. Others simply scowled or spat curses at them. A few turned away at their approach, ducking inside a tent, shack, or van with sheepish expressions, as if embarrassed to find themselves reduced to such a lowly standard of living. Greg suspected he would feel the same way, even if, as was no doubt true in many of these cases, it was entirely bad luck that had landed him there and no personal failing on his part. He supposed if it came to that, he would rather live there than on the street, and he would eventually get past the humiliation he felt. But it would take time to reach that point, and it wouldn't be easy. There was, he reasoned, no shame in making do in whatever way one had to. That didn't mean, however, that he wouldn't feel shame anyway.
Some people were willing to be engaged, though, and they were finally directed to a woman called Crazy Marge. 'Crazy Marge, she knows, like, everybody,' a kid told them. He was probably ten or eleven, slightly built, with sandy blond hair and a coating of grime over almost every inch of him. He should have been in school, but Greg wasn't about to start in on that when the boy was being helpful. 'Talk to her.'
The kid pointed out Crazy Marge's home, an almost palatial fifth-wheel pop-top tent trailer with guy lines extending from its corners and bits of colored fabric tied to the lines, creating the effect of pennants. A soft breeze blew through the tent city, making the pennants flutter cheerfully. For someone living in meager circumstances, she made the most of things.
Sam announced them as they neared the trailer. 'Hello? Excuse me…? Marge?' he said. 'We're with the Las Vegas Police Department. Nobody's in trouble, we're just trying to identify someone and were told you might know him.'
'I don't know nobody,' a woman said from in side. 'Not till you call me by my right name.'
'Your right…' Sam trailed off.
'Sorry,' Greg took up. 'He meant to say 'Crazy Marge'.'
She threw back the trailer door and stepped out side. 'That's better,' she said. 'Now, who you tryin' to find?'
Greg was glad they weren't trying to identify Crazy Marge, because he could hardly get a sense of her. Her race was indeterminate, her skin dusky and leathery, but whether that was from sun exposure or racial identity was anybody's guess. Her hair was dyed a vivid pink and cropped short, blunt at the edges, and uneven around the sides. She might well have done it herself with scissors. Maybe with out the benefit of a mirror, Greg thought. Her smile was huge, her mouth glinting with gold. She was pear-shaped, narrow above the waist and wide below, and she wore tight-fitting pants, yellow with a bright floral pattern, that accentuated her figure. She also wore jewelry, lots and lots of it, bracelet upon bracelet, necklace overlying necklace, pins and brooches all over her red smock top, what looked like dozens of earrings clipped to or stuck through her ears. None of it looked expensive, but taken all together, it certainly made a statement.
Sam started to show her the photo, but she didn't even look at it. 'Someone probably told you old Crazy Marge knows everybody. They all say that. 'Cause it's true.' She laughed, throwing her head back, and Greg spotted more gold.
'Thing is, I'm one of the originals. Only but a few people been living here longer than me, and most of them's passed on. You stay someplace long enough, and you look like I do -' She shot a hip at them and lowered her eyelashes, looking sideways in what Greg supposed was meant to be a coquettish pose. 'People get to know you.'
'I'll bet they do,' Sam said. There was no malice in his tone; clearly, he was enjoying Crazy Marge's performance just as much as she was.
'Ain't nobody like Crazy Marge, that's what they all say. So of course they wants to be my friend. And some of them menfolks… they wants to be more than just a friend, if you know what I mean.' She gave an exaggerated wink.
'Who could blame them?' Sam asked, playing along.
Crazy Marge
Sam made a disappointed face and laughed along with her. Greg was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel himself.
'Now, who is this person you're lookin' to find?' she asked. Her face had gone suddenly serious. Greg didn't think there was anything crazy about her, except maybe for the persona she adopted. But it worked for her, as she said – people remembered her, and she had made herself a kind of celebrity among her peers.
Sam showed her the picture, and this time she perused it intently. 'He's met with an accident,' Sam said.
