Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) (16 page)

He turned and looked at me.

“That’s a choice?”

“Not really,” I said. “Not if we still want to help Sammy.”

“What if Mr. Davis is still not tellin’ us everythin’?” he asked.

“Hopefully, we’ll find that out, in time.”

Now he turned to face me head-on.

“So how do we find the meeting place?”

“Same way we got the car and this room,” I said. “My buddy Jim Rooker.”

“Ain’t he gonna wanna know why?”

“He’s not going to ask any questions,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I know some stuff his wife doesn’t know.”

“Ah …” He nodded with a knowing look.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go and find Jim.”

Jim was in his pit and he agreed to meet us outside in half an hour. He wanted a cigarette and some fresh air.

Outside, on the street in front of the casino, I said, “Jim, this is Jerry.”

They nodded at each other.

Jim was ten years younger than I was. I had trained him at the Sands and he ended up getting married, moving to Reno, and landing this job at Harrah’s. I knew two things about him that he didn’t like people to know. One, he was unfaithful to his wife, and two, he loved her. He could not reconcile the two things, except to tell me once that a “new piece of ass” was too much of a challenge to him.

“Walk with me, guys,” he said, and we started down the street, me next to him, Jerry behind us.

“Here are your directions,” he said, handing me a slip of paper. “That’s in the middle of nowhere, you know. That area gets used for lots of, whatayacallit, clandestine meetings? Sex? Drugs? The whole shebang. But I guess that’s why you’ve got Jerry with you.”

We got to the end of the block and he stopped. Across the street, on the corner, were three streetwalkers in skimpy tops, short skirts and high heels. He waved and they waved back, laughing and calling out his name.

“How’s Enid?” I asked.

“She’s fine,” he answered, still waving. “I told her I’d be seeing you and she sends her love.”

I had introduced him and his wife while they were both working at the Sands.

“She also wanted to know if we could have dinner together, the three of us,” he said. “I told her you would be in and out real quick and didn’t have time.”

“Is it me who doesn’t have the time,” I asked, “or you?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

He checked his watch.

“I only took a ten-minute break. How’s your room?”

“Fine.”

“And the car?”

“Crap,” Jerry said.

“It’s no Caddy, but it was the best I could do on short notice.”

“It’ll do,” I said.

He took a last drag on his cigarette and tossed it into the gutter.

“Is your friend gonna gamble while he’s here?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “We’re not here to gamble. I’m just gonna show him some of the casinos.”

“And drive out into the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“Jim—”

“I know, none of my business. Stop by the pit and say good-bye before you leave.”

“I don’t know if that’ll be tonight or tomorrow,” I said.

“Whenever.”

“Okay.”

As Jim walked away Jerry said, “We better not find no bodies this time. He’s gonna remember we went out there.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ll just have to hope that this time we just make the buy.”

“W
E AIN’T HEARD NOTHIN’
from any of them people you talked to,” he said. “The girl, the kid, uh, that car jockey—”

“They’d only call if they knew something,” I pointed out.

We didn’t go back into the casino right away, just stood there on the corner. The hookers called out to us but Jerry waved them away with a big hand.

“We should take a drive and check out the location,” I said.

“You never told me what you found out about the girl, back in Vegas,” Jerry said.

“She had a boyfriend who picked her up every day,” I said. “Anthony said he was in his late twenties with dark hair.”

“Big guy?”

“Average.”

“Good-lookin’?” he asked. “He’d have to be good-lookin’ ta get a dame like that.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Anthony didn’t say.”

“He know anything else, this Anthony?”

“No,” I said, “nothing helpful.”

“You’ll never see her again,” he said, “unless she’s at the meet.”

“How likely is that?” I said. “Her job was probably to get that note to me, and that’s it.”

“So they put her in the hotel just in case they had to use her?”

“Seems like it.”

“That means they were prepared for somethin’ ta go wrong.”

“And it did. Jerry, would that mean they were pros?”

“Naw,” he said, “this’s all been way too messy for pros. Just means they been thinkin’, plannin’.”

“Well, their plan seems to have a lot of flaws in it. Let’s hope this part of it goes right.”

Jerry didn’t look too convinced.

That made two of us.

Jerry read the directions while I drove. We left the Reno strip behind and drove out into the country. I wondered what it was that made the area so bad. It was a far cry from the warehouse where the first meet had been set.

Then we passed by homes badly in need of repair and I started to see what Jim had meant. This section was no doubt populated by people who kept rifles in their homes. I could feel them eyeing us with suspicion as we drove by.

Eventually, we reached a point where the street turned to gravel.

“Supposed to be at the end of this road,” Jerry said. We soon left gravel for a dirt road.

As we reached the end of the road we came to a freestanding barn, with the burnt-out remnants of a small house standing—if you could use that word—next to it.

I stopped the car in front of the barn and we got out.

“Plenty of cover here,” Jerry said, looking around. There was brush he could hide behind, as well as hills and dips.

“I’d have to drop you where the road begins,” I said, looking behind us. “The rest of this ride is in plain sight.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I can hike it.”

I looked at him. Jerry was a city guy, and this was rough terrain.

“Don’t worry,” he said, as if reading my mind, “I’m in shape for a hike.”

“Let’s go have a look,” I suggested.

The inside of the barn was empty, and had obviously been empty for a long time. There were rusted tools and dried-out bales of hay strewn about.

“I’ve got an idea,” Jerry said. “I’m gonna have a look at the house.”

“You mean what’s left of the house.”

“I think there’s enough.”

“Enough for what?” I called after him, but he left the barn.

I walked around for a few more minutes. The back doors of the barn were falling off their hinges. There was no way anybody could possibly get locked in.

I walked over to the house. There were only two walls left, and they faced the barn. One wall still held the front door, and Jerry came walking through it.

“I can stay in here,” he said.

I looked up at the sky.

“Unless there’s a lot of moonlight you’re gonna need a flashlight.”

“Somebody’ll see it.”

“How will you find your way to that house in the dark?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “I’m sayin’ now. I can stay here now so that I’m already here tonight.”

“Jerry, that’s hours away. And what happens if they get the same idea, to put a man in that house?”

“It won’t be big enough for the both of us.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s a good idea.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” I said. “I’m just sayin’ I don’t like it.”

“Mr. G., it’s the best way to go,” he said. “If somebody gets the same idea I’ll deal with it. But it’s your call.”

“I know it,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”

While he waited, Jerry walked completely around what was left of the small house.

“Jerry—”

“I’m good, Mr. G.,” he said. “I got my forty-five, and I just ate.”

I looked up at the sun, which was shining brightly.

“You have no water.”

“I won’t die,” he said. “The sun’ll go down soon.”

“And then it’ll get cold.”

“Cold don’t bother me.”

He was wearing a sports jacket over a short-sleeve shirt.

“You don’t know what cold is like in the desert,” I warned him.

“Let’s check the trunk of the car,” he said. “Maybe there’s a blanket.”

We walked to the car. As we approached it, we saw clouds of dust in the distance.

“A car,” he said, “comin’ fast.”

“I guess they got the same idea a few minutes after we did,” I said. “Let’s pull the car into the barn, just in case they haven’t spotted us, yet.”

“Let’s push it,” he suggested.

We put the Chevy in neutral and pushed it into the barn, then stayed in there with it while the car approached.

Jerry slid the .45 from his holster, and we waited—at least one of us with bated breath.

T
HE CAR PULLED
to a stop outside the barn. The driver got out, then the back doors opened and two more men got out. They were all wearing suits and, since the dust had not yet settled, they started slapping at their jackets and pants.

“Feds,” Jerry said.

I turned my head quickly. We were watching them from between slats of wood in the barn wall.

“How can you tell that?” I whispered.

“The car, the suits, the hats,” he said, “an’ the ties.”

“Really?”

“They ain’t the sellers,” he said. “They’re too well dressed. An’ they ain’t the mob on account of they ain’t dressed good enough.”

I couldn’t argue with him. He had the experience edge on me.

I looked back outside. They were milling about, looking at the ground. One of them walked over to the half-a-house and took a look, then he turned and pointed at the barn. The other two nodded, and they all turned to face us.

“Come on, Mr. Gianelli,” one of them said. “We can see by the tracks your car made that you’re in the barn.”

“What the fuck—” I said. “Who are these guys, Daniel Boone?”

“Feds,” Jerry said again, and if possible he made it sound like an even dirtier word than when he said “Cops.”

“And if you or your big friend have a gun, please toss it out first,” a second man said. “We’d hate for any accidents to happen.”

I turned and looked at Jerry.

“I guess we better do it.”

“Yeah,” he said, then added, “unless you wanna shoot it out?”

“Gee,” I said, “I only wish I had a gun, then I would, but we’re a little outgunned here, don’t you think?”

“It was just a thought.”

He tugged his .45 free from his shoulder holster, walked to the door and tossed it out.

“Gonna have ta clean the damn thing when I get it back,” he muttered.

I walked to the door and shouted, “We’re comin’ out.”

“Come ahead. Hands in the air!” came the reply.

Jerry and I raised our hands and walked out of the barn.

The three men were identically dressed and, except for slight differences in height and weight, alike in appearance, as well.

“Frisk ’em,” one man said, and as the other two approached us the first took out an ID holder and flashed it.

“My name is Agent Sloane, these are Agents Simpson and Byer.”

“Agents?” I asked. “FBI?”

“No, sir,” Sloane said, “Secret Service.”

“Secret Service?” I repeated as Byer did a quick pat-down on me and Simpson did the same to Jerry—although it may have been the other way around. I was glad I’d left the money in the hotel safe.

I looked Byer—or Simpson—in the eye and said to the three of them, “Can I see all your IDs up close?”

Sloane came closer, while Byer and Simpson—mine did turn out to be Byer—opened their ID holders. They all had credentials imprinted with
UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE
on them.

“Can we put our hands down now?” I asked.

The three of them backed away a safe distance and Sloane said, “Sure. And while you’re at it produce your own IDs.”

We lowered our hands, took out our wallets and handed them over.

“Edward Gianelli?” Sloane asked, looking at me.

“That’s right.”

He gave Byer our wallets so he could hand them back to us.

“Who was carrying?” Sloane asked. Byer went over, retrieved the .45 and carried it to Sloane, who tucked it into his belt.

“I was,” Jerry said.

“You got a permit?”

Jerry took it out and handed it to Byer, who carried it back to Sloane. There was absolutely no doubt who was in charge, here.

“This is for New York and New Jersey.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware of it, Mr. Epstein, but you’re in Nevada.”

“I’m visiting.”

“Why were you carrying?”

“For protection.”

“Against what?”

“You didn’t need my wallet to know who I was,” I said, interrupting. “You called out to me by name.”

Sloane looked at me, then handed the permit back to Byer, who gave it to Jerry. Apparently, the head man had decided to let Jerry off the hook for a while.

“You’re right, Mr. Gianelli,” Sloane said, “I do know who you are. What I’d like to know, however, is what you and your friend are doing here.”