He was tall and handsome and usually had three or four women revolving through his private office on any given month. How he managed to do this while maintaining his relationship with his wife and three kids was beyond me. He ran a full-page ad in the Yellow Pages, and after seducing the young lady who sold him the ad, he gave her a picture of himself from the shoulders up and told her to include it in the layout. The photo looked like it was taken at a modeling agency. His hair was tousled just right, and he had a cavalier, devil-may-care expression on his chiseled mug. I laughed when I saw the ad, but the number of attractive ladies who came through the doors increased to the point that I found myself showing up early, brown bagging my lunch, and not leaving until well into the evening. When it came to womanizing, Ray had incredible energy and charm, but even he couldn’t handle the steady volume of good-looking women the ad brought in, and I did fine with the ones he couldn’t fit into his schedule.
Despite Ray’s preoccupation with bedding down as many women as possible, he approached his work with deadly seriousness. The stream of lowlifes flowing through his office often mistook Ray’s movie star looks as a sign of weakness, and that led to some interesting situations. While working for Bill Ortega, I’d dealt with desperate, violent types on a regular basis, but with Ray, dangerous confrontations and altercations were almost a daily event.
During my first day on the job, three local cholos came into the office and copped an attitude. They were trying to post bond for a fellow gang member arrested for dealing, and their collateral was bullshit. The ringleader leaned over Ray’s desk, started into his intimidation routine, and Ray zapped him with a 300,000-volt jolt from his Panther stun baton.
The second man pulled a switchblade and ran face first into a dose of pepper spray that made his mother’s red-hot chili taste like vanilla ice cream. The last guy was a little less tough, or maybe a little smarter. He started waving a knife and screaming a blue streak of Spanish profanity, while trying to back out of range without seeming chicken. When I finally fumbled my Beretta out of my desk drawer, I think the dude was relieved to see a gun instead of another non-lethal enforcement device.
“Hell, boy, I heard you were quick on the draw,” Ray said, then came around his desk, gesturing at the uninjured gang member with his stun gun. “Go visit Mendoza Bail Bonds on Seventh and San Antonio. He’ll take care of you if you show some manners.” The trio limped out and drove off in their lowered Chevy.
“You think they’ll be back?” I asked.
“If they do, you better be ready,” he said, as a gorgeous black woman walked in and followed Ray to his private back office.
With my first paycheck, I bought the same combination stun baton-pepper spray device that Ray owned. I also decided I needed a bulletproof vest, but the model I wanted was over $500, and I couldn’t afford it. There were cheaper models of body armor, but they didn’t have threat level IIIA stopping power. I told Ray I’d have to wait a month or so before buying a vest, hoping he would take pity on me and ease up on provoking his criminal clientele into life-threatening situations. He looked at me with an appraising expression, then rose from his desk and motioned for me to follow him to his back office.
On the opposite end of the room, across from the curved bar with padded rail, entertainment center, and king-sized bed, was a large wooden cabinet Ray used to store his weapons and assorted gear. He unlocked it and chose an armored vest from three that were hanging.
“Try it on,” he said. The vest was tight on me. I was somewhat broader in the chest and shoulders than Ray and definitely thicker in the gut. “Drop about ten pounds off those love handles and it’ll be a perfect fit,” he said, helping me adjust the straps.
“Is it level three-A?” I asked. I had become familiar with the safety ratings, and I didn’t see any logic in wearing a vest if it couldn’t stop a .44 Magnum round.
“You bet, son. It’s also saved my ass a few times, so it’s got good karma.”
I guessed the fact it saved him was good, but the fact he’d been shot was bad. I wasn’t sure how karma fit in, but I gladly accepted the vest all the same.
I worked three years for Ray Lorretta, sober as a Mormon bishop, and traveled all over the Western states chasing skips. When business with Ray was slow, I also did some freelance bounty hunting. Ray taught me how to apprehend and secure subjects quickly and efficiently, and I became good at it. I grew to have a great appreciation for Ray’s central theme, which was “Do unto others before they do unto you.” This was no business for a negotiator, a talker, or someone who needed to be angry in order to use violence.
There were times when I hesitated, and I paid the price. Two brothers in Austin, Texas, once gunned me down in a rock-and-roll club when I lost the element of surprise. I wanted to avoid a situation in a crowded area, but somehow they were on to me and opened fire without warning. I was hit twice, but was able to shoot the younger brother in the ass as he ran out the front door. The older brother sprinted into the street and was crushed underneath a bus. I walked away with two bruises that looked like raised knuckles sticking out of my midsection, but Ray’s Kevlar vest saved my life.
The nature of my work required a good level of fitness, and after losing a foot race to a forty-six-year-old man in Las Vegas, I started working out. I had been a wrestler in high school and junior college, and the old habits came back more quickly than I expected. I hit the weights hard, jogged nightly, and rode a mountain bike in the hills above Los Gatos on a regular schedule. I lost twenty pounds, and at the age of thirty, I was stronger and only about five pounds heavier than when I wrestled in college.
Ray was envious of my new physique, and one night he got drunk and challenged me to a wrestling match. We moved the desks, and I pinned him three times in two minutes. He paid me back by getting me into the boxing ring. We put on the headgear and sixteen-ounce gloves, and he soundly whipped me. I had him teach me the fundamentals, how to move and time punches. We boxed once a week, and I spent a couple extra nights a week at the ring. A month later I boxed him to a draw.
Ray’s wife finally caught on to his lifestyle and trapped him one afternoon in his office with a blonde in her early twenties. His wife went psycho and chased him around the office with a knife until finally the cops showed up and subdued her. She never said a word to me, but on her way out she slapped me across the face as hard as she could.
In the ensuing divorce settlement, Ray was forced to sell his business. I was disappointed but not surprised, and secretly somewhat relieved. Working for Ray was exciting, but after a while the novelty wore off, and I needed a break from the endless parade of gangbangers, drug addicts, sexual predators, murderers, and miscellaneous douchebags. As I left Ray’s office for the last time, I wondered if I was too old to try a different career. Instead, I went to work for Wenger.
******
Beverly insisted on taking me out to breakfast when she awoke. She seemed happy and chipper, while I groused about trying to figure out where to get a cup of coffee. She brought me one from the check-in office, then left to change at her hotel down the street. I washed away my hangover with a second cup and four aspirin. The smell of diesel and the heavy sounds of big rigs signaled the beginning of the workday. I waited outside my door, watching the long-haul and local truckers slowly rumble through town. I was still there when Beverly pulled in and parked her beat-up Plymouth.
“You sure look perky,” I said, watching her walk toward me. She wore fresh jeans, modest heels, and a purple sweater.
“I feel a lot better after talking last night,” she said, then took me by the hand and led me across the street like a mother walking her child to school. We went into the local diner, which looked like it hadn’t changed since the 1950s. It was busy; waitresses bustled about in a hurried but efficient manner, juggling plates, glasses, menus, and order tickets, dodging each other in the narrow walkways. A table of miners, looking haggard and blackened even before work, stood to leave, and we sat in their boo
th while a busboy cleared the table.
Beverly smiled, her face radiant. Her smile was like a burst of sunshine. The restaurant seemed to become brighter.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a little girl,” she said. I looked at her, and it occurred to me this place might be one of the few happy memories from her childhood.
“It’s a great old place,” I said.
“It sure is.” A waitress came by and took our order. Beverly ordered a Belgian waffle with extra whipped cream and chocolate syrup. I had toast.
“You can’t imagine what it’s been like to hold everything in,” she said. “I didn’t want to go to the police. I was afraid they’d arrest me for being a call girl, or maybe think I was involved in some way. Thank you for being kind last night. You make me feel safe for some reason, and I really needed that.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“Most men would try to take advantage.”
We were silent for a moment. “Why do they call Sam ‘The Gum-Out Man?’” I asked. I didn’t mean to startle her. I was asking mostly out of curiosity, but her mouth dropped.
“You really are a private investigator, aren’t you?”
“It’s not hard to find people when they’re not trying to hide. Especially in a small town. I ran into Sam last night at the bar at the end of the road.”
“You mean Rasmussen’s? That’s where he’d be, I guess.”
“So why do they call him that? It’s an odd name.”
“He used to be a big coke head, and he always rubbed it on his gums. He did a little dealing too—it made him feel cool, I think.”
“He seems like a decent fellow.”
“He was nice to me. But I’ve learned it’s not a good idea to date a man who has more problems than I do.”
“I hope things go better for you, Beverly,” I said. “You deserve happiness, maybe more than a lot of people.”
“That’s a sweet thing to say.”
“You’ve had a tough childhood. Some people would let that destroy them. But I think you have a good heart.”
“You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever said something like that to me.” She was still smiling, but her eyes filled with tears.
The waitress brought our orders and left the check.
“Are you going back to Reno today?”
“Yeah, I’ll need to get to the airport.”
“I was hoping you might hang around town for a day or two,” she said.
“I can always come back.”
Her face said she didn’t believe me.
“I mean it,” I said.
“Okay.” Her mouth tried to smile.
“About Samantha…had you ever talked to her, or do you know anything else about her?”
She didn’t. I asked her a number of other questions, but she had never seen any of the men in the room before. I felt convinced she was being honest and forthright. I believed her role was that of an innocent bystander.
We left the diner and went back across the street to my hotel.
“You sure you don’t want to stay the night?” she asked me in the parking lot. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had dinner with a gentleman.”
“I’d like to. I hope I can wrap this thing up in a couple of days. Here.” I wrote my cell phone number on a scrap of paper. “Can you keep the invitation open?”
“You bet,” she said, but she already looked alone and deserted.
“Hey,” I said, and we came together. She hugged me, her arms under my coat, squeezing hard. Then she put her hand on the back of my head and lifted her face. Her kiss was as soft and warm as the hues of a lazy summer sunset.
“I don’t want you to forget me,” she said. I couldn’t think of anything to say as she walked to her car. I heard the engine start and watched the Plymouth disappear down the road.
“I won’t,” I said, my words lost in the brittle cold of the morning.
CHAPTER 19
I headed back to Salt Lake City, driving under clear skies and a rare winter sun that made it seem like a spring day. The dew-covered meadows sparkled in light, and the green peaks rising from the valley floor emerged out of the shadows with stunning clarity. A few random clouds, brilliant white against the sky, drifted over the mountaintops. A solitary hawk flew out of the clouds and glided in a lazy circle, scanning the flatlands for prey.
It would have been easy to pull over, have a beer, and enjoy the sights. It would have been even easier to pitch the Ford into a brake-stand 180 and haul ass back to Salina to get to know Beverly Howitt a lot better. But my boot stayed glued to the pedal as I drove north on Interstate 15, right up the gut of Utah.
I should have called Edward from the terminal at Salt Lake, but a strange listlessness had taken hold in my chest. I wandered around the airport in a fog, unable to focus on any single line of thought long enough to draw a conclusion. I found myself eating a tasteless sandwich and drinking a watery beer in the anonymous airport bar when my cell phone rang.
“Dan. Dan, can you hear me?” It was Edward’s voice coming through the scratchy reception.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Where?”
“Salt Lake.”
“Listen, Mr. Bascom got into it with the detectives again today. Raneswich and Iverson want to sit down with you right away. Mr. Bascom told them you’ve been all over the Western US talking to witnesses, and they’re hitting all dead ends.”
“That’s too bad.”
“How did it go in Utah?”
“Pretty good.”
“Yeah? Do you know who the killer is?”
“No, but I’ve got enough that I think I can find him pretty quick. I know what went down in the hotel room.”
“What happened? Why was he killed?”
“Edward, I got to assume what I tell you will go direct to John Bascom and then to Raneswich and Iverson. Understand, I’ve got fifty grand at stake here.”
He was silent.
“Those cops are on their own,” I said. “They’ve got ten times the resources I do, so if they’re too damn stupid, that’s their problem. I have an arrangement with Bascom that he pays me fifty K if I deliver the killer before the police find him. And that’s what I intend to do, hopefully in the next forty-eight hours.”
“I see your point,” he said slowly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Raneswich and Iverson want to talk to you.”
“Do me a favor. Tell Bascom I’m agreeable to talk to the detectives. Just leave it at that.”
“I guess that’ll work. Between you and me, I don’t care if you don’t talk to them as long as you close the case—and quick. That’s Mr. Bascom’s bottom line, and that’s what I’m looking out for.”
“I respect that. Hang loose, and I’ll be in touch.”
“By the way, I’m still interested in seeing that place in Carson City when you get back. Just out of curiosity, nothing more.”
“Okay.”
“So you’ll take me?”
“Sure. Keep your pants on.”
******
The conversation with Edward snapped me out of my funk. I reviewed my options as I waited for the plane. My obvious priority was to find the Samoan at Pistol Pete’s. If that was a dead end, I could try to track down Mr. 187 through Samantha’s address book. Maybe Cody could help out by accessing prison release information. Assuming I could identify and locate the Samoan, I’d secure him and take him to Bascom and collect the bounty. Pretty straightforward. If the detectives caught up to me before I was ready, I’d piss in their ear and tell them it was raining.
The sequence of events in the hotel room suggested a robbery gone bad. Samantha took a break to let Beverly do the dirty work, and opened the door for Mr. 187. The robbery probably would have been quick and easy, if Osterlund hadn’t jumped out of the closet. It was likely that Osterlund was there with some sort of specialized camera or video device that could capture images through the peephole. He may have been taking pict
ures for his own pleasure or possibly for a blackmail scam on Sylvester Bascom. The blackmail angle made good sense. Sylvester was a perfect target, and Osterlund needed money badly.
But what was the Samoan doing there? Was he just backup for Mr. 187? Did he stab Sylvester in the heat of battle? Or was something else going on? The questions would have to wait. They might never be answered, but my job was to identify and deliver the killer to John Bascom, nothing more. After that, Raneswich and the authorities could go figure out who was guilty of what crime.
The flight back to Reno was uneventful, and when the shuttle bus dropped me off near my car, the skies were just turning dark, the weather clear and cold under a brilliant full moon sitting low over the westward ridgeline. It would make for an easy drive to Tahoe. I decided to take Interstate 80, which would take me back to Stateline through Truckee and Tahoe City. It was a slightly longer drive, but there was a great burger place in Tahoe City I wanted to stop at for dinner.
I pulled my keys out of my jacket, but when I went to my door I saw it wasn’t locked. My skin tingled and I frowned. It was possible I had left the car unlocked, but I considered it unlikely. I set my bags on the pavement and walked around the Nissan. Nothing looked unusual about the car. It was dirty when I parked it, and it was still dirty. I lay down and peered underneath, but it was too dark to see anything. I didn’t like it. I opened the rear passenger door and checked the interior. Everything appeared as I left it. Before starting the motor, I opened the hood and looked over the engine compartment with my flashlight. Satisfied that the car hadn’t been tampered with, I fired it up and drove out to the highway.
******
Interstate 80, running from Reno to Sacramento, had been built along roughly the same pass the ill-fated Donner party had attempted to cross in the winter of 1846-47. The group of a hundred or so pioneers left from Illinois in April and enjoyed relatively easy traveling until they reached the territory that would later become the state of Wyoming. A trail guide informed them of a shortcut to the south, through Utah, and across the Great Basin desert into Reno. They were told it would take about a week to reach the Great Salt Lake. All went well until they arrived at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, and the trail petered out in the foothills. The energy and time they spent clearing the thick brush and leading their oxen and cattle over the mountains marked the beginning of their troubles.