After promising to stop by the garage the next morning and exchanging farewells with his newfound friends, Red headed back to the Ace of Diamonds.
On the way, he checked into the Last Chance Motel under the name of Simon Jaffe. The dingy one-story complex, with two dozen rooms around an over-chlorinated pool, was a more plausible home for a job hunter them the Diamond Suite. He stopped at a K-Mart and bought work pants and a sport shirt.
He returned to the Diamond Suite and sent his suit out to be cleaned and pressed. He showered away the sweat and sand and called Evans on the house phone, arranging an interview with the chief of security, Ron Braun.
Braun had the build and warmth of a fireplug. He crushed Diamond’s hand and made it clear he was a busy man.
“What can I do for you, Dalmas?” he demanded. “Tex told me you’re going to be carrying a gun around here. I don’t like it, but I gave my boys instructions not to hassle you. And I know what a tough guy you are.”
“How’s that?”
“I heard about your run-in with Mike Gregory.”
“Who?”
“Van Houton’s bodyguard. The ex-mercenary you laid out in the hall last night. We frown on that sort of activity. If I had my way, you’d be gone too.”
“He’s gone?”
“Him and Van Houton checked out this morning.”
“I’m terribly sorry I hurt his feelings,” Diamond said sarcastically.
“You should be. He makes a bad enemy. So do I.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“So what do you want?”
“I carry large sums of money,” Diamond said. “I’ve already seen what a great job you do keeping hookers out of this place. I wanted to make sure it was safe. I’ve heard about the trouble a lot of places have been having.”
Diamond noticed a slight stress quiver in Braun’s eyes.
“What have you heard?”
“Just rumors.”
“Listen Dalmas, I was a cop for twenty-four years in New York. There isn’t anything I haven’t seen. I’ve got a hand-picked force of five hundred men under my command. I can take care of things.”
“Good. I feel much better now.” As the P.I. moved toward the door he said, “Say hello to Moe.”
“What? What?” Braun asked, the stress tremor again crinkling his deep set eyes.
Diamond exited without answering. j
He took the elevator down to the main floor. The noise of chips clicking, slots jangling, roulette wheels spinning, and cards snapping, overlaid with the moans of losers and shouts of winners, hit Red as he stepped out into the main casino. It was about one-third full and decorated with the same diamond motif as the rest of the hotel. Diamond-shaped fixtures, diamond patterns on the wall, diamond designs in the carpet. The usual Las Vegas gaudy overkill. It was enough to make Diamond wish his name was Smith.
The casino was dimly lit, with each table bathed in a soft spotlight and every slot machine its own little glowing temptation. White-gloved old ladies sat at the slots, oblivious to their surroundings as they plunked quarter after quarter into the one-armed bandits. At the craps tables, men in conventioneer’s fezzes shouted “Six the hard way” and “Be good to daddy” as they nuzzled the dice and bounced them down the green felt. The well-dressed men and women around the baccarat tables were quieter, pretending they were princes and princesses looking grand at Monte Carlo.
As Diamond sauntered past, he could feel questioning eyes on him. John Dalmas, high roller with a .38 on his hip, was making a grand entrance. The pit bosses’ antennae vibrated.
“I think I’ll start small,” he said to the dame behind the cashier’s window. “Give me ten chips.”
“Very good, sir,” the cashier said, accepting ten thousand dollars in cash and giving back ten brown chips with white diamonds embossed on them.
Red toyed with his chips as he passed by the row of crescent-shaped, green felt-topped blackjack tables. Small plaques at each one announced the minimum bet. The seven seats at each of the half-dozen $2, $5, and $25 minimum tables were filled.
The hard-boiled detective could never go for baccarat. Get dressed up, bet before you see your cards, and hope to get as close to nine as possible. About as much fun as watching a one-armed mechanic rotate the tires on a sixteen-wheeler. Roulette and the slots were too mechanical. Keno was jazzed-up bingo. He’d never gotten along with dice. And poker was more fun to play with a few buddies and a case of beer.
Besides, Diamond had been sapped enough that the name blackjack had a certain appeal.
The dealer at the $1,000 minimum table stood alone, arms akimbo, a slight challenging smile on his face. He had stern features and thinning hair. Four decks of cards were fanned out on the baize before him.
Diamond sat down casually and put his ten chips on the table.
With long thin fingers, the dealer collected the fanned out cards into a stack. He shuffled without looking at his hands, keeping his appraising eyes locked on Diamond’s. After nearly a minute, he offered the P.I. the pile and a green plastic card. Diamond sliced the card into the middle of the deck. The dealer cut where Diamond had indicated and put the cards into the shoe at his left. Diamond put two chips into the circle painted in front of him and the game began.
Diamond was no card counter. He had no system. All he did was draw another card whenever he had a diamond in his hand. He played with a casual boredom, his mind barely on the game.
He scraped the table, indicating he wanted a card, even though he had seventeen in his hand. The dealer hesitated, but flipped Diamond his card. It was a four.
Rocco was running around loose, Fifi was missing, and here I am playing cards, Red thought. It’s part of the role, he knew, but he still felt rotten. Wasting valuable time. Playing with house money. A shamus acting like a shill.
Making it through the day was a gamble, Red figured. He didn’t need to play games. The deck was stacked enough in the real world.
A cocktail waitress in a zircon-spangled mini-dress brought him a drink. He tipped her ten dollars. She had bleached blond hair, a nose that bore a plastic surgeon’s touch, and pushed-up breasts. But nice legs that appeared to be the original issue.
The legs reminded him of Fifi. Legs that went from here to there and back again. Legs that could wrap around him and shut off the rest of the world.
The game continued. Diamond didn’t bother splitting pairs, doubling down, or getting insurance. Simple, straightforward. He won most, lost some. He noticed a bead of sweat on the dealer’s brow.
Fifi could be anywhere. Dealing cards, waitressing, running Keno cards, operating a switchboard in some back office where he’d never see her again.
But she was talented and loved men’s eyes on her. A mutual pleasure. She’d want to be in the public eye. On the stage. In the chorus line.
Las Vegas was a city of two hundred thousand, but Red had found smaller needles in bigger haystacks. The total population was deceiving. In any city there are hundreds of communities. Not geographic areas, but occupational, socio-economic, sport, enclaves.
To find a missing stamp collector, go to a philately society. A doctor, call the medical association. A jockey, the race track. Even if a fugitive gave up his or her profession, they’d return to familiar stomping grounds. Like the lawyer Diamond had found working in a gas station in Milwaukee. The ex-attorney had blown his cover by becoming a court buff.
What better place to look for a raving beauty like Fifi than in the Las Vegas floor shows? And chorus girls were as chummy and gossipy as any other people. If anyone would know where his beloved Fifi was, it would be the women who danced and sang for their supper.
Diamond pocketed a dozen of his chips, and flipped the dealer his thirteenth.
“For good luck,” he said and slid away from the table.
Without a glance back, he headed to the cashier’s cage. As he cashed in his chips, a man standing at the back of the cage let himself out and came over. Balding, with tufts of brown hair and a thin brown mustache, he extended his hand.
“My name’s Slim Vogel,” he said with an artificially sincere smile. “I’m the hotel’s courtesy officer. You’re John Dalmas.”
“That’s what my driver’s license says.”
“Are you enjoying your stay? Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah, come to think of it. I wonder if I could get a tour of this place?”
“No problem. What would you like to see?”
“How about backstage at the show?” Diamond said with a properly lecherous tone. “I’ve heard you have some of the best-looking dames in the world.”
“An excellent choice,” Vogel said, throwing his arm across Diamond’s shoulder. “Come with me.”
They walked out through the casino and Vogel launched into a well-practiced spiel.
“We get more than one hundred thousand people a week coming through here. More foot traffic than the busiest railroad station. Our casino’s bigger than a football field. And it has a lot more action. We have more currency transactions than the Bank of America. And we burn enough bulbs here and in the display outside to light up the city of Des Moines.”
Diamond put on a suitably impressed expression. They edged through the milling crowds to a metal service door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
Vogel opened the door with a key and they entered.
“Not many outsiders get to see this. Only staff and our most favored guests. This corridor here leads to our ‘Eye in the Sky’ monitoring rooms,” Vogel said, gesturing to a hallway.
“How many people have access to it?”
“The ‘Eye in the Sky’ allows us to monitor dealers and…What did you ask?”
“How many people can get back there?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“I’m a strange guy.”
Vogel stopped and plucked at his mustache as he thought. “Oh, I guess a couple hundred. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
They continued down the hall, passing workers wheeling carts loaded with food, linens, and assorted hotel supplies.
“Our kitchen is down here,” Vogel said, gesturing off in another direction as food smells drifted to them. “We serve over twelve thousand eggs a day and ten thousand pounds of shrimp. Besides our five restaurants, we have room service available in all twenty-one hundred rooms and snacks in our four cocktail lounges.”
“You’re full of facts and figures, aren’t you?”
“Thank you,” Vogel said. “If you like figures, wait ‘til you see our showgirls. Anyway, the hotel cost a hundred fifty million dollars to build and that was back in ... “
As Vogel babbled on, they passed a man in a bellhop’s jacket wheeling a handtruck laden with metal cans. The ferret-faced bellboy looked familiar but Diamond couldn’t recall where he’d seen him. The man showed no sign of recognizing Diamond.
“... One hundred thousand square feet in our shopping arcade,” Vogel was saying as they came to the end of the cinderblock corridor. Diamond dismissed the bellboy as someone he’d seen around as Vogel swung open another metal door.
The purified air smell of the corridor was replaced by a wave of perfume, sweat, and female odors. They stepped into the showgirls’ lounge. It was a brightly lit, mirrored room with a half-dozen couches and women in various states of undress. None of them made any move to cover up as the men entered.
Vogel was clearly enjoying the view and Diamond’s embarrassed expression. Red felt like a lion in a herd of wildebeest, not sure how to react to the appealing flesh circulating around him. The mirrors multiplied the effect of the breasts, buttocks, and thighs. Sequins, spangles, bangles, feathers, and generous lengths of female skin were everywhere.
“These are the Diamondaires, the most talented group of females in Las Vegas,” Vogel said. “And some of them can dance too.”
A redhead with small breasts and taut legs gave Vogel a punch in the shoulder. “Introduce your friend,” she said.
“This is John Dalmas, a guest in our Diamond Suite,” Vogel said.
The women made cooing noises.
“Are you as good with the ladies as you are with the cards?” Vogel asked Diamond.
“Only if I can cut the cards first,” Diamond said.
He was rewarded with a few giggles.
A tall black woman with mahogany-colored skin entered and frowned at Diamond and Vogel. She had short cut hair and a muscular, but womanly, body. At her side was one hundred pounds of muscle disguised as a Samoyed. The dog stalked over to Diamond, sat down in front of him, and bared his fangs.
“Cute puppy,” Diamond said, standing motionless. “Has he killed anyone today?”
The black woman strode over and stood behind her dog. “Bart don’t like strangers.”
“He’s not going to make many friends like that,” Diamond said as the dog continued to sneer.
“It’s okay, Rosie,” Vogel interjected. “John is a friend of the house. Don’t be so protective.” The courtesy officer turned to Diamond. “I’ve got to get back to the cage. I’ll leave you in these ladies’ capable hands.”
“I’ll take good care of him,” the redhead said.
“Just don’t keep him away from the tables too long,” Vogel said with a wink. He opened the service door and disappeared into the hallway.
“What you want?” Rosie demanded of Diamond.
“How about giving Fido a bone so he stops eyeing my leg like he wants to take it out and bury it?”
“Bart! Place!” Rosie said, and the dog regretfully moved to a small rug on the far side of the room. He kept a hungry eye on Diamond.
“The girls go onstage in a few minutes,” Rosie said. “They don’t got time to be flapping their lips.”
“Are you the house mother?” Diamond asked.
“She’s just a mutha,” one of the showgirls said.
Rosie swiveled her head quickly but didn’t catch the one who’d said it.
“My job is keeping lowlifes from bothering the ladies. Me and Bart keep these sweet young things safe.”
“They look like they can handle themselves,” Diamond said.
The redhead looped her arm through Diamond’s. “I’m Angie. And you can handle me however you want.”
“Are you ready to go on?” Rosie asked Angie.
“You think I dress like this to do the laundry,” Angie snapped. She was wearing a sequined G-string and pasties with tassles hanging from them. She had blue plumes coming off her rump and head. “I’m not on until the third number anyhow.”
“Rosie, I need a hand with this strap,” one of the women at the other side of the room said.
With a glare at Diamond as hostile as her Samoyed’s, Rosie stormed away.
“That’s my friend,” Angie said, indicating the woman who’d asked for help with the strap. “She knows when to get Rosie out of my hair.”
Women drifted out of the room toward the stage area. The band began to play. Soon Diamond, Angie, and two other women were in the lounge. The other women sat on a sofa gossiping while filing their painted toenails.
Red knew he could get more from one-on-one questioning than he would if he asked the roomful of women. He put his arm around Angie, squeezed her shoulder, and led her to a corner away from the toenail trimmers.
“You got a powerful grip there,” Angie said. “I bet you could crush a little gal like me.”
“Angie, you’re cuter than a pet shop full of puppies, but I’m looking for a particular lady.”
“Oh.” She stiffened.
“But I’d be real grateful to whoever told me where she was. Her name’s Fifi La Roche.”
“How grateful?” she asked, her flirtatious manner replaced by a cagey tone.
“A C-spot grateful.”
“We’re talking a cecil? A hundred bucks?”
“Crisp and green.”
“You must really love her,” Angie said. “I don’t know the name. What’s she look like?”
“She’s a blonde. Early thirties. About five and a half feet tall. Hundred and twenty pounds. Blue eyes.”
“If you want you can order girls like that by the dozen.”
“But Fifi’s different. Her hair is like gold, her eyes so blue you want to swim in them. And she’s got the kind of body men kill for.”
“I bet music plays when she enters the room,” Angle said. “You’re a real poet but your description doesn’t help. Every time they have a cattle call here, you get a couple hundred girls that could fit the bill. I’d like the money, but I can’t finger her for you. If you’d like a redhead, however ...”
Finger. Fingers. Diamond plunged his hand into his pocket and grabbed the mug shots. Fingers. Vito Falanges, ex-Chicago hood. That’s who the bellboy had been.
“Hey. What gives?” Angie asked.
Diamond spun and jerked at the locked service door. It didn’t budge. A quick look at the hardware and he knew he couldn’t batter it down or open it without a pick set.
“Quick, how can I get back in the hall?” he asked, grabbing the bewildered Angie.
“The only way out is through that door,” she said, pointing to the door to the stage. “But you can’t go—”
Diamond was barreling toward the stage before she finished her sentence. He ran into the wings. A thickset man wheeling a prop chest tried to stop him but he shoved the man aside.
“Hey, you can’t go out th—” a security man shouted. But he didn’t move quick enough. Diamond pushed through a heavy curtain.
Several thousand watts of light hit him, freezing him momentarily in place. The security man grabbed for his arm and Diamond began moving again.
The band was playing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. The chorus girls, wearing translucent droplet costumes, were kicking. Diamond ran between their flying legs. Three women fell over trying to avoid kicking him. He stumbled over one well-shaped leg and got kicked by two others. The band kept on playing and the audience roared with laughter.
But when he made it through the gauntlet Rosie was waiting with anything but a smile on her face.
“You stupid bastard! You ruined the—”
“Listen and listen good. I’ve got to talk to Tex. It’s an emergency.”
Rosie hesitated.
Diamond took out his gun. “If you don’t hurry, I’m going back on stage and start shooting this thing in the air.”
“There’s a house phone on the post,” she said, backing toward it. She walked to the wall box and lifted the phone. “What’s going on?”
“No time to explain. Just get me Tex.”
“He don’t answer the phone for no one,” she said, handing the receiver to Diamond.
It took thirty seconds for Evans to get on the line.
“This is Red. I saw one of Moe Greenberg’s boys in the service corridor a few minutes ago. Does he have any business being here?”
“Who?” Tex asked.
“Vito Falanges. Fingers.”
“Hot damn no! That polecat makes Billy the Kid—”
“No time. He was heading to the casino area from the corridor backstage. What’s there that he could hurt?”
“Everything. There are doors to the basement, the spotting rooms, kitchen, storage rooms. It’s like a maze.”
Diamond glanced over at Rosie. She was staring at him wide-eyed. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone.
“Do you have a key to the service corridor?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“How’s Bart on tracking?”
“He can do it.”
Diamond put the phone back up to his mouth. “I’m going to hunt for him with Rosie and her dog,” he said. “If you don’t hear from me within fifteen minutes, you start evacuating the place. Got it?”
“Sure do,” Tex said.
Diamond hung up. “Let’s go.”
“But we got a full house,” she said. “I can’t just leave.”
“You’ve got to trust me. There’s no time to argue. Fingers is a torch. I saw him with a bunch of fluid cans. Do you understand what that means?”
She nodded.
“What’s the quickest way to the corridor?”
“The audience seemed to like your act last time,” she said with a grim smile.
Diamond and the woman ran back across the stage. This time he only got kicked once. And Rosie deftly avoided the fast moving feet of the thoroughly confused chorus line. The crowd loved it.
As the P.I. ran into the girls’ lounge, Bart put the snarl back on his face. But he kept his distance. Rosie hurried to the service door and opened it.
“Come,” she yelled, and the dog ran to her side.
Stepping into the hall, Diamond offered his .38 to Rosie. “You know how to use this?”
She shook her head.
“Aim it at the center of the target. Keep both arms out in front and point. Don’t lock your arms. Squeeze the trigger slow, don’t jerk it. It’s simple to shoot. Once you decide to do it, empty the gun. Stay calm. And make sure it’s not me in the sights.”
She took the gun awkwardly and Diamond ran to the stairwell. “Anybody up there?” he shouted. His voice echoed off the hard walls. There was no response.
“Send Bart up,” Diamond said.
“Bart, search!” Rosie commanded, and the white Samoyed took off up the stairs. They counted him bounding up three flights before Diamond had Rosie call him back.
“I’ve handled a few arson cases,” Diamond said as the dog ran to them. “Heat rises. The pros usually go for the stairs or the basement.”
“The basement is this way,” she said, and they ran further down the hall.
Red opened the cellar door. The smell of fresh linen and a variety of stored foodstuffs came to his nostrils. But the scent that got to him was the pungent odor of gasoline.
“No smoke yet,” Diamond said, breathing heavily from the exertion. “Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“Don’t shoot unless it’s necessary. If a slug sparks off the metal, we could do Fingers job for him.”
“Okay. Be careful,” she said reflexively.
He smiled, and they descended the metal stairs. The only sound was the click-click of the Samoyed’s nails on the metal tread. When they reached bottom, Diamond whispered, “You hide over here. If he gets past me, shoot him. He’s a killer.”
“I understand.”
“Will Bart obey me? We haven’t exactly hit it off.”
Rosie knelt and put her face by the dog’s. “Give me your hand,” she said to Diamond.
The P.I. extended it reluctantly. The dog still looked hungry.
“Bart, friend,” she said, putting Diamond’s hand to the Samoyed’s nose.
The dog opened his mouth and licked Diamond. The canine’s fluffy tail wagged.
“Let’s go Bart,” Diamond said, and they moved to the far wall where a half-dozen metal conduits were blocked by a stack of cartons.
Diamond spotted a crowbar lying on a wooden crate. He picked it up, hefted it, and moved on. The dog looked at him like they were about to play fetch.
They moved cautiously around the warehouse-size basement. The gasoline smell grew stronger. The dog sneezed.
They came to a stack of cartons. FLAMMABLE was stamped on each box. They could hear movement on the other side of the eight-foot-high, and twice as wide, stack. The Samoyed’s white fur seemed to stand on end as his hackles went up. He looked at Diamond for direction.
“Search,” Diamond said. Bart seemed to be smiling as he set off in a stealthy, hunter’s prowl.
Diamond waited, the crowbar poised above his head. He breathed in and out. The stench of gas filled the air.
A man screamed, and Fingers came staggering around the corner of the cartons. He was trying to pull his gun out with his left hand while one hundred pounds of Samoyed was turning his right into chopped meat. He drew his gun and was shoving it into Bart’s rock-hard belly when Diamond brought the crowbar down on his head. Fingers fell to the floor and Bart let go. The dog walked over to Diamond and licked his hand.