LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
OCTOBER 21
9:20 P.M. PDT
Lourdes, Lewis Gruvver's sister-in-law, put their rambunctious kids to bed (too many kids, Lewis thought, wondering if he had it in him ever to be a daddy) with Charmaine's easygoing assistance. Lewis gave his half brother Cornell a hand clearing the soak-proof foam plates, empty one-liter plastic soda bottles, and other trash from the patio where they'd feasted on West Texas barbecue and some Honduran specialities from Lourdes's kitchen. Los Lobos on the speakers concealed in low shrubbery around the stake-fenced backyard and pool. Big black western sky with a gaunt moon and field of stars thick as crusty sugar on a doughnut.
While the women wrangled the youngsters with good-natured threats about their prospects for longevity if they didn't cooperate, Lewis and Cornell lit up two of the El Sublimados from the box of cigars Gruvver had brought along with a gift bottle of golden tequila, and they settled down on redwood gliders padded with fiesta cushions. A radiant heater on a pole nearby cut the gathering chill of high desert night.
Sports talk, then technical, aficionado car talk that aroused in both men the lust of pornography without the dirty words.
Cornell was ten years older than Lewis, just into his forties and with the gut of a settled-in family man, half a head of red-toned hair. He had a serious way of cocking his head to listen or observe. A slow-talking man with a deep voice, he only stuttered occasionally, having worked hard to overcome that blight in his life.
"So what's your interest in luh-Lincoln Grayle?" he asked, after their passion for hot wheels neither of them could afford had been talked to death.
"I heard he puts on a damn fine show. You seen it?"
"No. I'll go to hear Gladys Knight or Lou Rawls anytime. Lourdes can get me to Gloria Estefan without too much fuss. But magic shows're not my thing. There's a glut of 'em here anyhow. The Grayle Theatre's an expensive ticket, I know that, but they still sell out even though plenty of the hotel shows got rigor moths from the fuckin' economy." He looked in admiration at the cigar between his fingers. "Man, this here is a smoke. That cuh-cognac flavor comes right through, don't it?"
"Best smoke for the money I know of. By the way, Mama said to deliver you a message. E-mails are fine, and she knows you're a busy man, but she'd like for you to put the kids on the phone once in a while so she can hear their voices again before she's gone stone deaf."
"Her hearing's got that bad?"
"She hears what she wants to. Don't have any trouble singin' in the choir, Rascalla tells me."
"I invited her out to visit twice this year already" Cornell said with a defensive shrug. "Said I'd gladly put up the fare."
"You bring up the subject of manned flight, Mama says ain't no way, I'm not ready to be wait-listed for Eternity."
Cornell laughed. "Heard Peabo's latest fiancée bailed on him short of the altar. Too bad he couldn't hang on to this one. What I saw of her, she had auspicious ways."
"Yeah, Peabo. If love was golf, he'd be a do-over." Cornell cocked his head. "You hear that?"
"What, coyote?"
"It's quiet in the house. Mercy! We got through another day without a trip to the ER." He exhaled a perfect smoke ring in the direction of the moon. "And Lourdes is already talkin' up number five, if you can believe that."
"Well, Cornell, reckon you own the faucet, you can ration the water."
"It's a superstitious thing with Lourdes; or, you know, the Catholic influence that is in her blood, even though she don't practice. Those half-crazed priests they get in the deep buh-back country down there in Central America? Tell a woman that if she deliberately blocks a child from bein' conceived, then the Lord will surely smite her for it, take away one she's already got."
"The female mind. Need a road map nobody's invented yet."
"Speaking of women—that is one terrific package keepin' you company now. What she wants with a empty-pockets 'Lanta police like yourself?"
"I'm cute," Gruvver said, feeling relaxed, blissful, and a little smug. "Say, Charmaine's dying to see Lincoln Grayle. Think you could get us comped for his show?"
"Not me. Lourdes probably can, but I believe they're duh-dark right now. He's on vacation or shooting a TV special, Africa, I think it said in the paper."
"What do you know about Grayle, Cornell?"
"What I told you. That theatre's earned him a walk-in freezer full of cold cash. He's a big Vegas booster, like wuh-Wayne Newton. Sponsors a big tennis tournament for charity. I don't think I've heard a word said against him, which is not true of plenty other celebrities earn their bread here. Bad drunks, whore stompers, casino welshers. And you know somethin'? Most of those male actors look so imposing on the movie screen, they're runts. Need a stepladder to see over a dime." Cornell looked at the flicker of a bat just above the pool, a spreading ring in the water where an insect had been. "So where's your question comin' from?"
"Oh, I don't know. Just some coincidences got me to thinking."
"You on a case, Lewis?"
"Was." Gruvver explained about the murder of the evangelist Pledger Lee Skeldon, and identical incidents involving other religious leaders. Then that business about the "Lucky Tickets" to the Lincoln Grayle show.
"I don't know yet about the 'Nam kid who took a bus ride down to L.A. to greet the Dalai Lama with a piranha kiss, but I'll be looking into that tomorrow while
Charmaine has a back rub and a facial. Also I wouldn't mind getting a look at the list they have of Lucky Ticket holders over at the Grayle Theatre. Those folks who rate a special audience with him after the show. They probably have photographs too, lucky folks arm in arm with Mr. Magic." Gruvver picked a fleck of wrapper leaf off his lower lip with an index fingernail. "Audience. Isn't that what they call it when the Pope visits with dignitaries at his home place in Rome?"
"Believe so. Lewis, you care to hear a piece of good advice?"
"Why not?" Gruvver said, already sure of what Cornell's advice would be.
"You don't want to go near Lincoln Grayle or none of his people with off-the-wall speculations, especially since a vuh-visit by you is in no way connected to official business. Which you have no jurisdiction here anyhow."
"That's true." Gruvver placidly drew on his cigar, admiring his view of the starry night.
"It's all just a weird coincidence, what I'm saying."
"I've always found magicians to be a little scary, haven't you, Cornell?"
"Showmanship, man. Good scare is all part of the fun."
"Some of them are expert hypnotists too, aren't they?"
"Here it comes," Cornell said, puffing out his cheeks in exasperation. "What're you thinking, that Grayle is some kind of evil cult figure, follower of Satan, a spawn of the devil who can get people to do awful things against their will?"
"Spawn of the devil? Probably not. I wouldn't rule out that he is the devil." Gruvver put his cigar down on a smokeless ashtray and had a good stretch. "No matter he's not around this week, his business office will be open. I'll take a run over there tomorrow, see if they'll let me have a look at that list I'm curious about."
"Won't happen. You won't get to see nothing without a warrant, which a lawyer is going to read first under a microscope."
"Fuck warrants," Gruvver said, disagreeing with a smile. "Sometimes all you need to do is hit the right note of humble and nice to get their cooperation. One thing I do know about celebrities, there's no such thing as enough good PR."
The women had come out of the house and were walking toward them, ice cubes clinking in their glasses. Charmaine moved with the grace of a deer crossing a dawn meadow, head bent as she listened to squat, solid, cheerful Lourdes.
"And it's hard to say no to a pretty woman," Gruvver mused, studying on Charmaine, who lifted her head and called to him.
"Lewis! Lourdes is saying we don't want to miss the roller-coaster ride at the top of the Stratosphere. And that other deal they got, the Big Shot, lifts you right to the tiptop of the needle and drops you, practically a free fall."
"Not tonight, girl. I'm digesting beans and barbecue and good tequila I don't want to be hurlin' all over Glitter Gulch. How about the late show at the Tropicana?"
"He means the Folies Bergere," Lourdes said with a laugh.
"Uh-uh. All those bare boobs? You don't need the stimulation."
"I take that as a compliment," Gruvver said, gathering Charmaine in with one arm. She perched in his lap with a twist and a wiggle and pressed her frosted margarita glass against his cheek as if branding him. He yelped, then had a sip of her drink. Lourdes laughing and laughing. Cornell still with his serious expression, head cocked to one side, watching Gruvver.
"You know there's twenty-four-hour wedding chapels all over Vegas," Lourdes said, giving Gruvver the needle, "and Cornell and me don't have anything to do for the next couple of hours."
"Gettin' hitched might spoil all our fun," Gruvver said, gazing up at Charmaine's face, waiting on that little lift of an eyebrow he knew was coming.
Charmaine bounced on him. "For sure it would spoil your life when my daddy got hold of you. You'd be better off dragged five miles behind a slow mule with a bad case of the farts. I'm still his baby and you better not forget it, Gruvver-man."