Drawing Dead (54 page)

No accounting for taste, I said.

Yeah. Anyway, he gave up the other three clowns easy enough, once he saw the position he was in. So we rounded up the goons, and when we got them all down here we did the four-way. Like you saw. Our guys have transmitters in their ears. So we can feed each of them stuff we’re getting from the other two. Keep the whole circus rolling nice and smooth.

Nice, I said.

We like to think we know what we’re doing. Anyway, your buddy Butch here told me he’d given you the lowdown on our original read. That it was an accident. The fun and games got out of hand, whatever. That you had some doubts. And I got to tell you, what he told us really helped us out. We owe you some thanks.

And an apology, maybe?

No fucking way. So, like you thought, turned out it wasn’t so simple. This Brendan kid comes off a little better once you know the whole story.

I could see Rod liked to meander around to the point in his own way, so I just kept quiet and listened.

So after we got the word from Butch here, we’re going back over the tapes, Rod continued. Frame by frame, like. Make sure we didn’t miss anything. Another perp maybe. A witness we can use. Whatever. And then we got this. Butch, you got that thing?

Here, said Butch, pulling an eight-by-ten black-and-white from a brown envelope and handing it to me.

Look at the upper right, said Rod.

The image was dark, out of focus. But I recognized it. It was a still shot from the same video surveillance camera footage Rod had been so kind as to show me earlier. You could see the red door on the left. It was half open. People going through the door. It wasn’t as clear as
what I’d seen on the film, but I didn’t have any doubt it was part of the same sequence.

Upper right, Rod repeated. Here.

He drew a circle with a black felt pen.

I brought the photo up close to my face. The blacks and grays formed sworls and protrusions, blanks and waves. At first it seemed totally abstract. Like an Ansel Adams black-and-white of a canyon at sunset. But slowly the shadows and shades resolved themselves into a figure. A man, probably. In the midst of turning towards the red door.

He was wearing a tuxedo. And no shoes.

Shit, I said.

Yeah, said Butch.

Yup, said Rod. Turns out your friend Brendan knew Ms. Wittenburg rather well.

Eloise, I said.

Whatever.

It hit me.

Well enough to visit her at home, I said.

What’s that? said Rod.

The Gitanes. Butch, you remember that pack of smokes I gave Brendan? I told him I’d gotten them from Eloise.

Yeah, said Butch. And he acted weird about it.

That’s why he didn’t go to the Henderson house. Why would he need to? He knew where she was all along.

There was a long pause while this sank in.

Yeah, said Rod. It makes sense. This community, whatever you call it. These types who are into this stuff, they’re a tight group. Small world. Smaller even than most.

I’m learning, I said.

So anyway, Butch said. It turns out Brendan was really worried about Eloise. She was doing sicker and sicker shit. Dangerous shit.

I know, I said. Louise talked about it.

So there he was, at the club, and these guys are dragging her into the room, and of course she’s into it. It’s her thing. It’s exactly what she wants. But Brendan’s scared, he wants to make sure she’s okay. So he goes back there with them.

Which at first, Rod said, was okay with these guys. The more the merrier, or whatever. Like I said, it’s a tight thing they got going.
Everybody has their thing. Nobody’s judging nobody. Nobody gets in anybody’s way. Brendan wants to watch, they’re okay with that.

He’s one of them, I said.

There’s a bunch of other people in there already, said Butch.

Yeah, it’s a big space. All decked out in chains and clamps and rubber suits and shit. So anyway, these guys start doing their thing with Eloise, and she’s totally into it, she’s wanting more, and … shit, I figure you don’t want to know all the details, right?

Damn right I don’t, I said.

So anyway. At some point to Brendan it starts looking really scary, like they’re really going to kill her. And he doesn’t know what to do. I mean, call for help? I don’t think so.

I see where it’s going, I said.

Yeah, said Butch. He grabs the knitting needle thing. I guess some guys are doing that thing that they do, or they’ve already done it, and the thing’s lying around, and he grabs it, it’s the only thing he can find, and he stabs Artie, Oleg, whoever the fuck he is, in the neck with it.

Not too fucking smart, said Rod.

Not too fucking smart, I said.

Yeah. So of course Artie and his buddies go apeshit. Grab Brendan, hold him down, tie him up, whatever. There were bruises on his wrists. They clear everybody else out of the room.

Oh fuck, I said. But I thought—Butch told me the cause of death was this silicone thing.

Well, yeah. That’s what they wanted you to think. And it’s what we did think. I guess the thing is pretty well known in these circles. So they used it. They pumped a bunch of it right into his lungs.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Yeah. Some ugly shit there.

I put my head on the table. I felt sick.

And Eloise, said Butch.

I lifted my head. Eloise.

Yeah, said Rod. Well, she didn’t get that all night. She tells them Brendan was just some nutcase, a stalker. They believe her enough they let her go. But somehow they find out different, send Jerry out to her place, take care of her.

Shit, I said. The teeth.

The teeth?

Yeah. That’s all I saw of him in that mask. The shitty teeth. I didn’t put it together. I noticed his teeth at Yugo’s.

Yeah, well, you wouldn’t have been thinking in that direction.

Fuck no.

So anyway you cowboys fuck that one up, just before Vladmir gets there.

Christ, I can’t believe it, I said.

What now?

I was right about something.

Congratulations, said Rod. So next night they go to the club, her and Vladmir. He’s going to take care of these guys.

Real smart, said Butch.

Yeah, said Rod. There’s a whole room full of them and one of him. I mean, the guy’s big, he’s a mean sonofabitch, but those ain’t good odds. So they grab Eloise in the ruckus, get him out of there.

And …

Yeah .

So tonight Vlad tracks them down again, chases them to the parking lot.

Got to give it to the guy, said Butch.

The guy don’t give up, said Rod.

Doesn’t talk easy either, said Butch.

Took a while to get him going, said Rod. Had to have him listen in to what those other clowns were saying about him. Honor among meatballs, I said.

Something like that, said Rod.

So that’s the whole fucking story?

We’re pretty sure it is. That’s what we got. It fits everything we know. Nothing any of those fucks is saying changes anything much.

Aw Jesus, I said.

Sorry, said Rod.

Silence. The coffee got cold. It didn’t improve the taste.

So how did they get Brendan’s body to the casino? Dump it there without anyone seeing?

I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that, Rick, said Rod.

What do you mean?

Butch looked away.

It can’t get any worse, I said. Just lay it on me.

Well … shit, I’ll just tell you. He was still alive.

Still alive?

Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes it worse. He’s suffocating with this shit in his lungs. But slowly. He’s still conscious. They drive him over to the casino. We got it on tape, from the security cameras. They drive up in this panel truck. Push him out. He staggers in the door. Collapses. By the time you get there, of course, he’s gone.

Christ on a stick, I said.

Yeah .

I got up, walked around a bit. Thought about Brendan, desperate for air. Those sick fucks.

Something else was bothering me.

Panel truck? I said.

Yeah .

What did it look like?

Kind of a hot rod thing. Not exactly inconspicuous.

Fuck. A guy who fixed up old cars. An impossibly deep voice.

Was it red? I asked.

The tapes are black-and-white. Could have been.

An old one, from the forties?

Yeah. Looked like it.

Big chrome exhaust pipes from the engine compartment flaring out the back?

Yeah. How the hell’d you know that?

I can’t fucking believe it.

What’s up with this, man? asked Butch.

When Bruno punched me out, on the expressway?

Yeah .

That was the truck.

You’re shitting me.

No. That was the truck. And when you put the speaker on in there, Rod? That way deep voice? I knew I’d heard it before. The guy driving the truck. It was Vladimir.

Whoa, said Butch. Are you serious? So Bruno’s mixed up in this, too?

Mixed up, I don’t know. In the Eloise thing, Brendan, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. But he sure as hell knows those Russian guys.
I must have seen him five, six times hanging around with Evgeny and those. And now Vladimir. Hah.

What?

Explains why he told Delgado, I mean Andy, that his name was Vladimir.

A little private joke.

Yeah .

The fucking shit-heel.

I don’t know, Butch. Yeah, he’s a shit-heel. Doesn’t pick his friends very well. But when we played that heads up, I don’t know, I kind of started to like the guy.

No accounting for taste.

Luckily, said Rod, we don’t rely on your taste in meatballs to make decisions around here. We’ll pull him in.

Yeah, I said. I guess you should.

I shook my head. There was only so much I could take in.

Rod went back to the control room. Butch and I sat in silence. I played with my cup of cold coffee. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Fucking Brendan, I said after a while.

Yeah .

The problem, I said, was built into him. He could just never fit in. He always wanted to fit in. He had this kind of desperation.

Yeah, I know.

And in the end, what happens? He breaks the cardinal rule, the unwritten laws of the group. He interferes with the natural order of things. And pays the price. For not getting it. Not fitting in.

What rule?

You don’t bring a priest to an orgy.

Jesus.

Him neither.

I need a drink, said Butch.

I’m with you, I said.

N
EXT MORNING
, before the flight, I got a call from Rod. They’d brought in Bruno. He was very cooperative. Seemed like he knew
about the chip scam. But they weren’t going to hang anything on him for that. And he didn’t know anything about the Eloise thing. I mean, he knew about her, from Vladimir. But he didn’t know anything about what happened to her. Or Brendan either.

They believed him.

I was relieved. It didn’t make any sense, but I was. I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. Tempt the fools.

I had a few hours to kill. Figured I’d make one last pilgrimage to Binion’s. God knows what they’d do to it now. Might even raze it to the ground, build some Megalopolis in its place. Eighty-six floors of dancing cleavage and slot machines.

The cab smelled of cheap cigar smoke, and nostalgia.

I told him to let me off a couple of blocks south of the Promenade. I’d take a last stroll through Loserville. Never know who you might meet.

I stopped at a boarded-up storefront to light a smoke. I tried to imagine how it looked thirty years ago. A hat shop, I decided. Fedoras. Umbrellas. Forget the umbrellas. This was the desert. Lots of fedoras.

A hard hand clapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around.

The face looked familiar.

Can I help you? I asked.

You took my money, it said.

I did?

You took my money.

Oh shit. The flat intonation. The awkward stance. The blank stare.

Yes, I said. I did. I took your money. And I’ll give it back. Right now. And I’m sorry I hit you, too.

You took my money, he said.

I took your money. Yes.

I scrambled about in my pockets. How much had it been? I didn’t have a clue. The cab had been about fifteen. I’d left the rest in a pile on the bedside table, for the maids. Probably about twenty.

And then he’d have to buy some new overalls.

I found forty-nine amongst the crumpled bills in my pockets. Handed it to him.

You took my money, he said, turning away and walking south.

Good delivery, I thought. Not much range.

I nodded after him. You’re welcome, I said.

I turned towards Binion’s. I had a hundred dollars left. I’d stashed it in my boot.

I felt lucky.