Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) (14 page)

“Sam?”

“Hmm?” He looked at me over his shoulder. “Oh, hell, Eddie, to make a long story short, I took a picture that somebody wants to sell back to me.”

“A picture of what?”

He turned and looked at me.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Sam—”

“I’m missing a roll of film,” he said, “that has a picture that is … personally embarrassing. I’m trying to buy it back before it shows up in the papers. I don’t really wanna say more about it, Eddie.”

“So it’s not one photo we’re tryin’ to buy back?”

“It’s one photo I want,” he said, “but there’s twenty-four on the roll.”

“What if they’ve developed the whole roll?”

“It’s not actually a roll, it’s an envelope with the negatives from that roll,” Sammy said. “That’s how they know they have something to sell.”

I looked at Jerry.

“I’m lost, Mr. G. Wanna drink?”

“Sure, why not?” I asked. “This whole thing’s got me drinkin’ a lot earlier, these days.”

“Bourbon?”

“Please.”

“Mr. Davis?”

“Yes, thanks, Jerry.”

Jerry went and built three bourbons in a moment that was definitely filled with déjà vu.

As he handed us our drinks I said, “Sammy, don’t you know what else is on that roll?”

He sat back down on the sofa, so Jerry and I once again took our armchairs. I couldn’t help thinking we were having our own summit, only without the Leader, Frank Sinatra.

“I know it’s the envelope with the photo I want,” he said, “the last one. I’ve been wracking my brain tryin’ to remember what else is on it….”

“Where was it taken from?”

“My home in L.A. I have a darkroom. I develop my own pictures.”

“So somebody with access to your home took them?”

“Somebody broke in while we weren’t home.”

“And that was all they took?”

“Yeah, that envelope and the gun.” He shook his head. “Like I told you before, I’ve been waitin’ for one or both of them to come back and haunt me.”

“Don’t you … keep a file? Catalog your film?”

“I was starting to,” he said, “but I hadn’t gotten to all of them yet.”

“You must know something. What year did you take the photos?”

“It was last year.”

“And where did you take photos last year?”

“All over,” he said. “Vegas, here, L.A., New York, Europe …”

“What kind of photo would be worth fifty grand?” I said aloud.

“It’s a … candid shot. Like I said, personal.”

“Candid?”

“I like to catch people … unaware.”

“Like me?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “most of the shots I took of you were candid, but …”

“… but I’m certainly not worth fifty thousand dollars.”

“Few people are.”

“But most of the people you photograph are famous,” I said. “Frank, Dino, Joey, Peter …”

“… Jerry Lewis, Kim Novak, Nat Cole, Buddy Hackett, Tony Bennett, May—”

“And some, like me, who aren’t entertainers?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Businessmen?”

“Sure,” he said, “producers, directors, money men—”

“Money men?”

“The men who put up the cash for movies, records—”

“Oh,” I said, “I thought you meant … mob money men.”

“I don’t usually associate with mob money men,” he said.

“But you have performed at clubs owned by the mob,” I said. “The Copa, the Ambassador?”

“Well, yes—”

“And you took photos?”

“Yes.”

“So there could be some candid shot of, say, MoMo Giancana on there?”

“I suppose …”

“Or …”

I stopped myself. “Or what?”

“Just a thought,” I said. “So many men have died already, and it can’t be for your personal photo. There’s got to be somethin’ else on there….”

“What’s your thought?” Sammy asked.

“Last year, when you were all here for
Ocean’s Eleven
… when JFK was here … did you take photos then?”

“Yes, but … I didn’t take any shots of the President.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He said. “In fact, the Secret Service wouldn’t let me, even though he wasn’t president yet.”

“Too bad.”

“Why too bad?”

“Well, if you’d taken a photo of Kennedy when he was … enjoying himself …”

“Oh, I get you,” Sammy said. “That would be worth a lot of bread.”

“A lot,” I repeated. “If that was what it was they would’ve asked for a hell of a lot more than fifty grand, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah, but …”

“But what?”

“If you’re right,” he pointed out, “they wouldn’t be askin’ for it from me, would they?”

W
HEN JERRY AND I LEFT
Sammy’s room we walked down the hall to the elevator.

“Jerry, we can’t talk about this when we’re around other people,” I said. “The drivers, the helicopter pilots … nobody.”

“I getcha, Mr. G.,” he said. “Mum’s the word.”

“That way we can control who else hears about this.”

The elevator doors opened and we got in. There were two people already there—a man and a woman who weren’t together—and we picked up a few more along the way. When we got to the main floor we let them get out first, then followed.

“Whataya think, Mr. G.?” he asked.

“I can’t figure out how somebody knew to break into Sammy’s house in the first place,” I said. “If we could figure that out, we might get some answers.”

“So how do we figure it out?”

“We’ll have to think about it once we get back to Vegas,” I said. “While we’re in the car, and the copter, we’ll talk about something else entirely.”

“Like what?”

As we approached the limo I said, “Cars, women, sports … anything but what we’ve just been talking about.”

Before we got into the car Jerry said, “You know what I think the photo might be?”

“What?”

“A naked picture of May Britt. That’d be somethin’ Mr. Davis would pay to get back. Man, a picture of that blond babe with all that pale skin … She’s kinda like Marilyn, ya know?”

I didn’t say anything as we got into the car, but from the beginning I had been thinking the same thing. And then when Sammy said something about candid photos I was even more sure that was it.

I knew that May Britt had not made a film since she married Sammy Davis Jr. In fact, her film career would virtually end because of the marriage. I also knew, at the time this was all happening, she was about four months pregnant.

I could only wonder what they’d gone through to be together. But while the effects on her were obvious, the effects on Sammy were not. He must have been holding everything inside, where no one else could see. Where he could suffer alone.

We didn’t talk about it again until we were in my room at the Sands.

Jerry sat on the bed and looked at me, then looked around.

“Can’t you get yerself a swankier setup?”

“I guess we could go back to my house,” I said. “If the cops were lookin’ for me they would have come here by now.”

“I guess.”

“Then again, we might be safer here,” I added. “After all, they obviously know where I live—whoever ‘they’ are.”

“What’s this?” Jerry asked.

“What?”

He picked up an envelope from the night table. It had my name written on the front. I grabbed it from his hand and stared at it.

“It’s the same kinda envelope,” I said, “and the same handwriting as the first note. The one stuck to my door in Tahoe.”

“Another note.”

I opened the envelope.

“It’s instructions for the next meeting,” I said.

“Where’s the meet, this time?”

“Reno. After dark, again.” I looked at him. “Why Reno?”

“To take you away from a place you know?” he asked.

“They could’ve said Tahoe, for that.”

“Then maybe it’s to take you someplace that they know.”

I picked up the phone and called the front desk. I got a man I knew named Ted.

“Did anyone send anything up to my room?” I asked. “Like an envelope?”

“Nope,” he said, “I don’t have anything for you.”

Ted’s not the smartest kid on the block.

“No, Ted, there’s already an envelope in my room,” I said. “I want to know how it got here. Would you check with the bell captain, see if anyone brought it up?”

“Sure, Mr. Gianelli.”

“And call me right back.”

I hung up.

“What about the maid?” Jerry asked.

“Good thought.” This time I called housekeeping and made the same request. Now we just had to wait for a call back.

I sat on the bed next to him.

“The only people we know of who know what’s gone on are you, me, Sammy and that driver, Thomas.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He’s still doing what he does, I guess. Driving.”

“He’s got somethin’ on us, now.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got more on him,” I reminded him. “He killed those men.”

“Well, two of ’em,” Jerry said. “You killed the third.”

“The point is we’ve got something on each other. And he doesn’t know where we are right now. I’m trying to figure out how they got this envelope here.”

“Has anybody been in this room but you?” he asked.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said, closing my eyes.

“What?”

“Caitlin.”

“Who’s Caitlin?”

I looked at him and said, “Exactly. Who is Caitlin?”

I
EXPLAINED
, as briefly as possible, about Caitlin.

“You got laid?” he asked, breaking it down into even simpler terms. “Yes,” I said, “but I should have suspected something when she came to my room.”

“Don’t you, uh … I just thought you had a lot of, um …”

“I do okay with women, Jerry, but this girl is twenty-four years old,” I said. “I really don’t think she came to my room just because she had to have me.”

“So you think she’s part of the gang?”

“If there is a gang. There’s one way to find out,” I said. I called down to the employment department and asked about Caitlin. I listened to the reply and hung up.

“She started working here as a trainee last week,” I told Jerry. “She quit today.” I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Jesus, I’m so stupid!”

“Hey, she was good-lookin’, right?”

“Very.”

“So, you’re just a guy,” he said. “She threw herself at ya. What were you supposed to do?”

“Be smart,” I said. “I should have been smart and figured something was up.”

“So she left you a note. If that’s all she did, so what? You were waitin’ for more contact, anyway.”

“True,” I said, “but why didn’t I see it this morning?”

“Maybe you had your mind on somethin’ … else.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving at him. “Okay, Caitlin’s gone, but she did what she came to do, I guess.”

“She probably coulda done it without fuckin’ you,” he said, “like … slidin’ the note under the door?”

I stared at him.

“I ain’t no genius, Mr. G.,” he said, “but what I got is a lot of common sense.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you’re right about that one. Okay, so we have to go to Reno.”

“When?”

“Today,” I said, “we go today.”

Instead of calling Sammy to arrange for Frank’s helicopter I called Jack Entratter.

“You need a chopper to take you to Reno?” he repeated into the phone. “For what?”

“I can’t tell you that, Jack.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll arrange it. And a car.”

“Thanks. Half an hour?”

“You got it.”

When I hung up Jerry asked, “Why didn’t you call Mr. Davis?”

“I don’t want him to know about this meet.”

His eyes widened.

“You don’t trust Mr. Davis?”

“I just want to keep it quiet this time,” I said. “Just between us two.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just between us. Now what?”

“I’m gonna wash up and then we can go down and take the car to the airport.”

He made a face. “The helicopter, again.”

“It doesn’t bother you to fly in a helicopter, does it?”

“It don’t thrill me.”

“You sure hid your feelings real well.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “I’m good at that.”

I dry-washed my face with my hands and said, “I just need to slap some cold water on my face and then we can go.”

“I could use some water myself.”

We took turns at the sink in the bathroom, then left the room.

That is, we started to leave the room. When I opened the door there were some men in the hall. One of them had his hand raised, as if he was getting ready to knock on the door.

“Mr. Gianelli,” Detective Hargrove said. “Just the man I was looking for.” Then he looked past me. “Oh, and look who’s in town. If I had any doubts when I came up here they’re gone now. Come on, boys. We’re takin’ a ride downtown.”

I could see that the meet in Reno was now definitely in jeopardy.

T
HE DOOR TO THE INTERVIEW ROOM
opened and Hargrove came walking in. I had been waiting almost two hours.

“Where’s Jerry?” I asked. “What the fuck did you do with him?”

“Don’t worry about your buddy,” Hargrove said. “He’s been through this plenty of times before.”

“Did you put him in a cell?” I asked. “That ain’t fair, ya know.”

“You ever notice how your Brooklyn accent comes out when you’re agitated?” he asked, seating himself across from me. “Or when you’ve spent a lot of time with that Jewish torpedo? Yeah, you’re starting to sound like him.”

“Actually, Detective, you have a way of bringin’ the Brooklyn out in me.”

“And you know what you bring out in me, Gianelli?” he asked. “The urge to put you away.”

“For what?”

He opened a brown eight-by-ten envelope, took out four photos, and placed them in front of me. All four were dead men. One was the man we’d found in the warehouse, the other three were the men who were killed in my house. I hoped my face was expressionless.

“You know any of these men?”

I leaned forward, as if to take a better look.

“No,” I answered, leaning back. “Should I?”

“You tell me.”

“I thought I just did.”

Hargrove reached across the table and reclaimed the photos, putting them back in the envelope.

“Your buddy Jerry’s singin’ like a songbird,” he said.