The cops came and took statements from Diamond and Rosie. The only statement Fingers made was a sad moan. Bart looked pleased with himself.
As firefighters vacuumed up gasoline and spread foam, Norris materialized and escorted Diamond to Evans, who was waiting in a locked broom closet.
“I don’t like crowds,” Evans explained as he and Diamond huddled amid mops and cleaning gear. Norris stood guard outside.
“I heard what happened,” Evans said. “Partner, you already earned your keep. And then some. The Fire Department boys said there was enough to make us go up like a Comanche fire arrow. I’m mighty pleased you’re on my side.”
“The dog did most of the work. And Rosie’s a pretty ballsy lady.”
‘I reckon so.”
“I met your security chief. I wasn’t very impressed. This shows I was right. I think you should give Braun another job, or the boot.”
“Would you take over?” Evans asked, chomping enthusiastically on a chaw of tobacco.
“I’ve got too much to do,” Diamond said, thinking of Fifi. “But I bet Rosie could handle it. I know she’ll run a tight ship.”
Evans thought for a moment, punctuating the silence by spitting into one of the pails. As his shot pinged off the side, he said, “I bet you hit on something there, fella. The sun’s coming up on Las Vegas. With Fingers in the hoosegow, there’s bound to be a whole lot of pressure on the guys in black hats.”
“I got a feeling you’re seeing the opening shots in a range war,” Diamond said.
He slipped out of the closet and took the elevator to his suite. He relaxed with a Scotch and a cigarette while reviewing the mug shots.
Fingers should be a guest of the government, at least for a while, Red thought. If the cops were able to get anything out of him, it could crack the case wide open. Fingers drops a dime on Greenberg, Greenberg gives up Rocco, and Diamond gets Fifi.
Red didn’t believe in the Easter bunny and he didn’t believe it would go that easy. Greenberg’s money and muscle gave him more juice than Sunkist. Fingers would keep his mouth shut.
Diamond skipped the pictures of Greenberg and Silky. He had them committed to memory. Fingers photo he put off to one side. That left Babe McCloor and Freddie DeFilippo, also known as Flip.
Babe was a three-hundred-pound mountain with a thick black eyebrow that stretched from temple to temple. He looked like he could slip into a Neanderthal cave and mingle unnoticed. Seventeen arrests, mainly assault, and as dumb as he looks, Saint had penciled on the back.
Flip was a greasy-haired lounge lizard with a sensual, mean mouth. The type who thought himself a real lady-killer. On the back of the mug shot, Saint noted that he was indeed a lady-killer, having married a heiress and then running her down with her down with her own Rolls Royce. The cops had gotten wise, and instead of an inheritance, Flip got ten years in the slammer.
Flip and Babe were a two-man team. Flip managed Greenberg’s prostitution rings and Babe kept order.
There was a knock at the door. Diamond walked over and swung it open.
“I came to return this,” Rosie said, holding out his .38. “Thank God I didn’t have to use it. Can I come in?”
Diamond stepped aside and the woman and the dog entered. Bart marched over to the couch, jumped up, and promptly went to sleep.
“It’s been a long day,” Diamond said, holstering his gun.
“You’re telling me. Tex offered me the job as head of security,” Rosie said sadly. “He said it was your recommendation. Thanks.”
“You don’t sound too thrilled.”
I’m not taking it,” she said, lowering herself into one of the chairs. “I’ve got a few hundred saved up. I’m leaving.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know this place the way I do. It’s a different world. There’s hundreds of dudes who will off me just so Moe will give them a nod. I don’t know where you’re from, but you ought to take my advice and go back there.”
“I never backed down since the doctor slapped my butt as a baby.”
“You ain’t seen what I have, John. You may be a big gambler, but you don’t know the game you’re playing in. I’m clearing out.”
“It’s your decision. Is there anything I can do?”
“Can I stay here tonight? I’d feel safer.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I sleep alone,” she said with some of her old spark. “I don’t shack up with a dude less I really know him.”
“I don’t shack up with guys even after I know ‘em for years,” he said with a smile. “I’ll take the couch, if Bart will share it.”
They both looked at the dreaming dog, who was flicking his paws and making little whining noises. It was the only sound in the room.
“I’ll take the couch,” Rosie said. “I’m used to sleeping with Bart.”
“Lucky dog.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I’m really tired,” she said, droopy eyed. She pointed at his crotch. “Do you mind leaving that with me?”
He looked down at his fly.
“The gun,” she said.
“Oh.” He thought of the Army chant, “This is my rifle, this is my gun. One is for shooting, the other for fun,” but said nothing. He took the .38 in the belly holster out and put it on the end table next to the divan.
“Thanks,” Rosie said. She walked to the couch and shoved in behind Bart. The dog grumbled and barely opened his eyes. She was asleep before Diamond shut the light.
Diamond went to the bedroom with a bemused expression on his face. The second night in a row he had a woman sleeping in his suite and the relationship was platonic.
It hadn’t always been that way. In his prime, he could outdo Shell Scott, Mike Shayne, Timothy Dane, or any Don Juan dick in the sack. During his cases, he’d picked up secretaries, waitresses, embittered divorcees, women lawyers, switchboard operators, gal reporters, gun molls, and nurses. A dirty job, but someone had to do it. He’d broken dozens of cases by taking advantage of pillow talk. But then he’d gotten involved with Fifi and it just wasn’t the same.
]Fifi, and me checked into the small motel on the outskirts of the dry Texas town. Our clothes were torn from the car crash, after Rocco’s thugs had tried running us off the road.
With a couple of slugs from my gat, I sent them on the highway to Hell.
The palsied gent behind the motel desk grinned at our shabby look, but Andrew Jackson convinced him we were all right. We signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Chandler Raymond. Most of the other entries were from the Smith family.
We went to our room and locked the door. Fifi’s perfume mingled with the stuffy, mildewed odor of the sparsely furnished room.
“Listen dollface, maybe I should ...”
“Not now, you fool, kiss me,” she said and gave me her lipstick to taste.
I pressed hard on her lush lips and they opened. She ground into me until the throbbing of my lust felt like a balloon about to bust.
I picked her up and carried her to the swaybacked bed. Our clothes disappeared and I was on her and in her and with her. It was like never before. And even better a half hour later when I entered heaven again.
The night was a blur of passion, building to crescendos, peaking, and then building again. It only got better.
By the time the sun came up, I decided I never wanted to leave the motel room.
How the heck did Scott Marks know every intimate detail, Red wondered. It was like he had the room bugged; he even knew what Red was thinking.
Diamond didn’t believe in psychics. He’d busted up too many scams—like the time Gabrielle Leggett got mixed up with those wackos in Frisco—to fall for that hokum. But Marks did seem to be a mind reader.
The Ameche rang three times before Diamond slipped out of his reverie.
“Dalmas?” a smarmy voice said when he picked up.
“Who’s this?”
“I got someone wants to talk to you.”
Diamond heard a scuffling sound and then a terrified woman’s voice.
“John. This is Teri Lennox. Please help me. They—”
More scuffling and the smarmy voice was back on the line.
“I want to see you,” the man said. “Take Tropicana out past Jimmy Durante Drive. Make a left when you see the dirt road. Get over here right away or the girl dies.”
“Who is this?”
“Just so you know we’re not kidding around,” the voice said. There was a woman’s scream through the phone, so strong it made Diamond’s ear hurt. There was no question it was real. It sounded more like a hurt animal than a human.
“You harm the girl and you’ll pay.”
‘Tough talk,” the man said smugly. “You’re in no position to make threats. The sooner you get here, the less time we’ll have for fun with her.”
Click. The line was dead.
Rosie was standing in the bedroom doorway.
“I heard the phone,” she said. “What happened?”
“I got to go get someone I know.”
“It’s trouble. I can tell by your face.”
“She’s being held.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”
“I’m already in this up to my ass,” Rosie said. “I got nothing to lose. And I’d rather be where the action is than sitting back here worrying about you.”
“I don’t have time to argue.”
“Then get the safari going, bwana. And you try anything from the movies like knocking me out so I miss the party and Bart gonna take a piece of your hide.”
The dog looked like he would.
The three of them ran to the elevator. Diamond cursed at its slowness as it descended to the garage. They jumped in his car and screeched out.
“Do you know the area where Tropicana meets Jimmy Durante Drive?”
“I knew you’d need me,” she said. ‘It’s out on the east side. It shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes. The area’s being developed. They got a lot of vacant lots over there.” She acted as navigator as they sped through the streets.
It was 3:00 A.M. and the hard-core gamblers were either in the casinos or their rooms, dreaming of how much money they’d win their next time at the tables.
The Strip was far from deserted, though. Hookers offering a different kind of roll waved at cars, doing everything but throwing themselves under the wheels to get attention. Cars filled with losers, who thought their luck would change if they tried their own kind of table-hopping, drove from casino to casino in search of Lady Luck. A few drunk conventioneers cruised, yelling out of their car windows like teenage boys with their first car.
Diamond swerved in and out among them, drawing beeps and curses. Rosie bit her lips.
“Do you have to go this fast?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” he said, banging the curb as he took a corner sharply. “I’ve always been a pro behind the
wheel. There’s something about being in a car that makes me comfortable.”
He made a left onto Paradise Road, nearly hitting a slow-moving Cadillac. Traffic was lighter and he leaned on the gas pedal.
“I feel like I spent my life in a car. Must come from the surveillances I been on. I must’ve tailed a couple hundred people. Did I tell you about the case that got some ink as ‘Race to Death?’ I was following this race car driver, a real hot rodder—”
Brakes screeched and a Toyota driver leaned on his horn.
“Please don’t talk, just watch the road.”
“Don’t worry, babe. You’re in good hands.”
“Famous last words.”
He immersed himself in the task of driving, moving the steering wheel like an artist stroking a canvas.
They passed malls with the usual franchises, and developments with cinderblock walls shielding identical houses from the roadway. The houses got cheaper-looking, Spanish-style quickies put up by developers who didn’t come to Vegas to gamble. It was strange seeing regular homes in Las Vegas, like finding a normal household in the middle of an amusement park.
The houses thinned out. There were more sandy vacant lots with sparse scrub grass eking out a dry existence. Wherever man didn’t irrigate, the harsh environment took over.
There was no one on the street.
“You’re not what you seem, are you?” Rosie asked.
“Huh?”
“This talk about surveillances, cases. The way you got Evans on the phone. Who are you?”
They passed Jimmy Durante Drive before he had to come up with an answer. “Get down,” he ordered, and she squeezed below the dashboard.
He drove another quarter of a mile. The ground was flat, with dry arroyos carved into its harsh face.
He saw no one as he pulled the car a dozen yards up the dirt road.
“Stay inside,” he whispered to Rosie. He pulled the dome light cap off, and took out the bulb. No point in giving his caller an easy target.
Diamond stepped out into the cold night air. A dry wind blew an ominous silence across his ears. Torn sofas, car fragments, and rusted refrigerators were strewn near a No DUMPING sign. The city lights in the distance gave a faint glow to the sky.
He walked a few yards into the brush, carefully watching where he stepped. He was an urban tough guy but he knew the snakes came out at night. And if there was one thing Red Diamond was scared of, it was snakes. Goons with guns, double-crossing dames, sharp knives, bomb blasts, windy heights. None of them bothered him as much as the slithering reptiles.
He heard a cry and began moving in the direction it was coming from. He reached for his .38.
It was gone. He stiffened. Then he remembered where it was. On the small table. Where he’d left it for Rosie.
Diamond was alone in the snake-infested desert, looking for a ruthless kidnapper, without his trusty roscoe.
He felt a quiver of fear, an urge to run back to the car. But he was Red Diamond, and Red Diamond didn’t back out of a jam. He pushed on.
The night wind felt colder. The whimpering was louder. He nearly stumbled over her. “It’s Red. I’ll get you out of here,” he promised, kneeling and tugging at the ropes that bound Teri’s thin wrists to pegs set in the ground.
A shot whistled over his head. He threw himself flat and cursed the weapon that lay useless in his room.
“John?” the girl whispered .
“We’re going to be okay,” Diamond said, trying to express confidence he didn’t feel.
Another shot drilled into the ground nearby.
“Who did this?” he asked.
“Babe picked me up on the Strip. I should’ve known,” she said. “Him and Flip took me here.”
It was closer. Diamond saw the muzzle flash. Near the ground. The gunman must be hunched down in one of the arroyos.
Diamond grabbed a stake and the adrenaline surged. He ripped it out of the ground. Wooden splinters stuck to his hands. He tore at the other stakes until the girl was free. His hands were a bloody mess.
“Who knew that you’d been with me?” he asked.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
Another shot kicked up sand barely a foot away. They were pinned down like butterflies on a bug collector’s board.
Diamond rose and another shot went off. It was too low to hit him. But not her. Teri Lennox’s fear was over. Forever.
Diamond crouched down and moved toward the gully as shots went whizzing by. He yelped in pain and fell on his belly. The sand felt cold and gritty against his face.
A half-dozen more rounds were fired. After the final crack there was a long silence.
Diamond saw the lone figure rising out of the arroyo. Silky. The P.I. struggled to lie still as every muscle in his body cried out for revenge.
Silky moved cautiously forward, his gun trained on Diamond’s body. He was about fifteen feet away when he lifted his gun for the coup de grace.
The headlights from the Plymouth froze Silky like a deer on a country road.
Diamond stopped playing possum and charged as Silky fired at the oncoming car. He saw the windshield shatter, the car swerve out of control and crash into a gully.
Silky turned and aimed at Diamond. The P.I. hurled himself through the air and caught the hood in the gut with his head. Diamond’s fists were pumping like jackhammers before the two men hit the ground.
“Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me,” Silky whined. He was clumsy with his fists when a helpless girl wasn’t involved. The P.I.’s punches sent Silky to thug dreamland.
Red’s hands felt like tenderized beef as he got up and ran to the car. It rested at a forty-five-degree angle with its nose at the bottom of the slope. Rosie looked like a boxer who’d gone one round too many. Bart was licking her face.
“Are you okay?” Diamond asked, regretting the dumb question as soon as it was out of his mouth.
“I guess,” she said weakly.
“Damn women drivers. Can’t get behind the wheel without wrecking a car.”
“I must look a mess,” she said.
Little bits of glass stuck to her hair and clothes. Diamond leaned in and kissed her forehead, damp with dog saliva. He took some rags out of the trunk and began cleaning her up.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Good. We got a long walk home. I don’t want a cab picking us up anywhere near here.”
“Was that Silky?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he dead?”
“I doubt it.”
She looked sad. And scared.
“You stay here,” Diamond said. “I’ve got to go talk to him.”
He walked back to where the thug lay. Diamond was five feet from the man when he saw the movement. Silky had his handgun pointed at Diamond.
The private eye kicked sand in the punk’s face. Silky fired. Diamond dove on top of him. Again they struggled. But Silky was weak from his beating. Diamond twisted the gun as Silky fired and the hood caught his own bullet.
“Who sent you?” Diamond demanded of the dying man.
“Help me.”
“Who sent you?”
“Moe.”
“What about Rocco? Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Don’t try and cover up. Rocco Rico.”
“I don’t know no Rocco Rico. Help me.”
“Don’t try and cover up.”
I’m telling the truth,” Silky said desperately. “Help me and I’ll tell you about them. I don’t like that bastard anyway. He called me a—” He coughed blood.
“I know about it. About Atlantic City and the mob,” Diamond said.
“It’s more than that. The lands. They looking to—”
Silky began choking. It was the last sound he ever made.
Rosie staggered over. “What happened?”
“Silky wasn’t smooth enough,” Diamond said. “Scratch one punk.”
“Thank God,” Rosie said as she collapsed into the desert sand.