“You said ‘off-premises’…”
“Not in a casino, not regulated. They could still have the same equipment, but without all the rules.”
“Would a casino operate the game?”
“Not the casino, I doubt it. Somebody from the casino might,” Dixie said, “but you’re getting out of my area. I’m Major Crimes, homicide, any kind of sudden or unattended death. The wise guys, racketeering, narcotics, they come under the Economic Crimes section. And then anything in the casinos, cheating, stealing, that’s handled by the DGE, Division of Gaming Enforcement. They’re state cops.”
“Iris’s death was fairly sudden.”
“That’s why I’m on it.”
“So you’re gonna talk to Ricky,” Vincent said, “not give him to somebody else.”
“No, I’m gonna talk to him first thing in the morning,” Dixie said, “if he’s still around. Bring along a couple of guys to hold him.”
Vincent said, “Dix?” He was going to mention Linda’s coat, but then hesitated. Maybe he’d better wait. “Never mind, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
After he had another talk with Linda.
She had warmed up a little in the cab, smiled a couple of times. There was hope. He liked her and had a feeling she liked him. But he also had a feeling-one of those good ones that kept you wide awake-she knew a lot more than she was telling. Most of the ride, from the funeral home to Spade’s, she was very quiet.
WELL, SHE WAS A DIFFERENT GIRL NOW. Brought back to life in a gold-orange turban, big loop earrings, low-cut bra and layers of ruffles on her orange tango skirt open all the way up the front to show bare legs moving, doing spastic little knee-jerk trip steps to a rattling, rackety sound of bongos, congas, steel drums, now a synthesized marimba sound kicking in-Now Featured in the Winner’s Circle Lounge, LA TUNA!-Linda Moon moving with the guys, everybody moving, caught up in the rhythm of the Caribbean funk, or was it barrio punk? There were dreadlocks gleaming up there in the stage lights, but it wasn’t reggae. Vincent sipped his beer and wondered, because what was the number? “Beat It,” that’s what it was. “Beat It” gone to the Gulf of Mexico and converted, brought back latinized. Linda was singing it in Spanish, belting it-”Pégale!… Pégale!”-shoulders back, whacking maracas off hips cocking to one side and then the other, back and forth to the beat.
Everybody in the packed lounge loved it, clapped and whistled and stayed through the set, sitting up, moving to “La Bamba” and “Hump to the Bump” and then grinning at the quick slick lyrics of “Oh, Frank Sinatra… Oh, Frank Sinatra… Frankie my boy you don’t know, you have the perfect voice to sing calypso.” Followed by “Mama, Look a Boo Boo.”
Linda said, “Cute, uh? Jesus.”
“You look different. I’ll say that.”
“I have to wear this goddamn Chiquita Banana outfit four straight sets. No costume change.” She glanced around. “I wouldn’t mind a drink.”
“I ordered you one,” Vincent said. “It’s coming.”
“All that noise, that jungle rock-six guys, they’re beating on everything but a washboard and a gutbucket. I can duplicate all that with one poly-synthesizer and a rhythm box. They’re not bad guys, but they ought to go back to Nassau, play for the cruise ships… How do you know what I drink?”
“You kidding?” Vincent said. “With that act? I got you a Rum Sunrise.”
She frowned, “What is it?”
“We’ll find out.”
The waitress’s legs appeared, long ones in net stockings. “In a frosted glass with an umbrella,” Vincent said, as the girl did the bunny dip to place the drink on the table without losing her breasts.
“Just what I wanted,” Linda said. She sipped it. “I could kill Donovan… You have a cigarette?”
“I quit while I was in the hospital.”
She said, “Yeah, why get cancer when you can get shot.” She said, “Donovan, the big shit, he tells me I can have my own band. I get here, I’ve got one number I do, ‘Automatic,’ the Pointer Sisters? These guys, they get on their roll I don’t even know what they’re playing. They’re spazzed out on ganja anyway, they don’t give a shit, they’re gone. ‘No Parking on the Dance Floor,’ the Midnight Star number. I’m on the synthesizer? I’m trying to keep it precise, these guys ride right over you.”
“You’re not happy,” Vincent said.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“When’re you through?”
“What’s today? Started at eight, we’re off at twelve. Weekends we’re on ten to two.”
“We could get something to eat after.”
“I don’t know-I could meet you for a drink. But not if you’re gonna ask questions.”
“I think Iris went up to that apartment the night before she died,” Vincent said.
Linda put her drink down, started to rise.
“That wasn’t a question. I didn’t ask if she went up there the night before. But I think she did.”
“I have to go back to work.”
The bartender came down from the lounge interior to the far end of the horseshoe bar nearer the casino floor, the dark edge before the circus of lights and mechanical sounds. The bartender was smiling. He said, “Mrs. Donovan, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
Nancy Donovan was watching Vincent and beyond Vincent the girl in the orange tango dress walking through the tables to the bandstand. She said to the bartender, “What’s her name? The singer?”
“Oh, that’s Linda. Linda… I don’t recall her last name. What can I get you, Mrs. Donovan?”
She watched Vincent get up from the table. Bearded man in a raincoat, out of his natural element. Talking to the waitress now, paying his check. Then coming this way, along the dark lounge side of the bar.
Nancy could take three steps and be standing in front of him. She thought about it. She thought of an opening line but didn’t like it. She turned to the bar and said, “A glass of water, Eddie. Please.”
“Nothing in it, Mrs. Donovan?”
“Ice.”
The bartender said yes ma’am and moved off as Vincent passed behind her. She wasn’t ready for him quite yet. But she would keep him in sight and turned to watch him as she had watched him in the lounge talking to Linda, Vincent close to Linda’s bare shoulders, dark hair showing beneath the headdress, Linda not bad looking, the same Linda who was in San Juan. They seemed to be friends. She watched Vincent walk through the empty outer lounge to a railing and stand looking over the casino, at the activity, the flashing lights, the serious faces in that funhouse the size of a dozen ballrooms. She watched him turn and walk toward the stairway, the five red-carpeted steps to the casino floor.
Nancy rode a gold elevator to the fourth level. She followed the executive hallway, pale gray and silent, past suites of offices with nameplates on double doors. Casino Hosts. Administration. Payroll. Division of Gaming Enforcement. Casino Control Commission… turned the corner, walked past executive offices and her husband’s suite of rooms to the end of the hall where she knocked on a door marked Surveillance.
“Mrs. Donovan-”
The woman stepped back, surprised, opening the door wide for Nancy.
“What can we do for you?” She wore a plastic-covered I.D. card pinned to her blouse that said she was Frances Mullen, Supervisor, Casino Surveillance.
“I think I saw somebody I know,” Nancy said, “but I lost him.” She led the way through a narrow hall.
Behind her, Frances Mullen said, “What’s he look like?”
“Beard and a raincoat, dark hair, about forty.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
They entered a small, windowless office where a young man and woman sat before a bank of twenty monitors, rows of video screens that framed areas of the casino floor, bits of action in black and white, angles on gaming tables, aisles of people playing slot machines. Frances leaned in close to the console, between the young guy and the girl. She pressed buttons and pictures on several of the video screens changed while looking much the same as before. “Man with a beard, wearing a raincoat. What color, tan?”