Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) (22 page)

“Will do.”

“Meanwhile, we don’t have much to do but wait,” I said.

“Anybody got a deck of cards?” Jerry asked.

“We’re in a casino town,” Sammy said, as he picked up the phone. “I’m sure we can get as many as we want.”

“You want to play gin?” I asked Jerry. “Or poker?”

“Nope,” he said. “I thought maybe you could teach me how to play blackjack.”

Jerry was a quick learner.

“I’ve never seen anybody catch on to strategy as fast as this guy,” Sammy said.

He was watching while I taught Jerry the rudiments of the game, and then played hands with him. Before long he was standing when he should, hitting when he should, and splitting when he should. He did everything by the book, never used instinct or a hunch.

“This game is easy,” he said after he’d won another hand.

“It’ll be different when you’re facing a house dealer,” I said.

“Is this the game you used to play when you first started goin’ to Vegas?” Jerry asked.

“Yes.”

“And how did you do?”

“I used to be a CPA. My math is good, so I did okay. But there are times when you have to toss out accepted strategies.”

“Like when?”

“Like when you start losing with twenty to the dealer’s twenty-one again and again,” Sammy said. “That’s when the game gets too frustrating to play. I’ve seen it make grown men cry.”

“I watched them play at the Sands,” Jerry said. “I never saw nobody cry. I seen ’em curse, and get mad, but I never seen ’em cry.”

“You start playin’ this game in the casinos,” I said, “and I guarantee you’ll see a lot of stuff you’ve never seen before.”

“I ain’t gonna play it in the casino,” he said. “I only risk my money on the horses.”

“Then why’d you want to learn how to play?” Sammy asked.

Jerry looked at Sammy and said, “Just a way to pass the time.”

“Well,” Sammy said, looking at his watch, “there’s still time to kill.”

Jerry smiled then and asked, “Room service, anybody?”

J
ERRY AND I FLEW
into Vegas about 8
P.M
. the next night. We killed the day in Tahoe watching Sammy rehearse, checking out the Harrah’s operation, playing some more blackjack in our rooms. Finally I called the pilot and he flew us in.

We were in the Sands parking lot at nine, with an hour to go before the meet. We decided to sit in my car and wait.

“Nothing should go wrong this time,” I said. “Nobody should know about this meet, even if somebody was listening to our phone conversation.”

“Unless the dame and her boyfriend blab to somebody,” Jerry pointed out. “Ya know, if they got, like, one more partner they could still fuck it up and get us all killed.”

When he said that I touched the .38. It felt heavy in my jacket pocket. Jerry had cleaned his .45 yet again the night before.

I was nervous, sweating as if it was ten degrees hotter than it was, but Jerry was cool and calm.

“Mr. G., you really gonna give this broad all that money?”

“I’m gonna give her some of it, Jerry,” I said, “and use the rest as bait.”

“Bait?”

“Joe Kennedy wants to know who’s got that photo of JFK,” I said.

“You wanna go after those guys?” Jerry asked. “They’re not gonna be like yer girl and her boyfriend, ya know.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t want to go after them, but Joe Kennedy might. We may not know how many prints of these photos have been made, but like you said, there’s only one way to make sure they don’t get released to the public.”

“So even though Kennedy ain’t sent any of his own hitters out yet—or so he says—you think he will once you get him the names?”

“That’s all he wants.”

“You comfortable with that, Mr. G.?”

“I’ve given it some thought and, yeah, I am,” I said. “I think they killed the guy in the warehouse and I think they’d kill Caitlin and her boyfriend if they had the chance.”

“So you think she’ll give them up to you?”

“If I can convince her that they’ll kill her if she doesn’t, yeah,” I said. “Also, I’m holdin’ back fifty thousand.”

“What if she doesn’t know who they are.”

“There can’t be two different factions holding those photos,” I said. “Too much coincidence. It’s more likely somebody in the original group decided to go out on their own.”

“Caitlin and her guy?”

I nodded.

“You got any suggestions about where I should stand?” he asked, craning his neck to look around.

“I think you should stay here, keep your eye on me,” I said. “About ten to nine I’m gonna start walkin’ around. I figure she’s gonna pick out one of these dark corners out here and draw me in.”

“Naw,” he said, “I gotta get outta the car, in case her boyfriend’s around. I can’t leave ya out there with your ass swingin’ in the wind, Mr. G.”

“I appreciate that, Jerry,” I said, “but you’re gonna have to stay low.”

“I may be a big guy, Mr. G.,” he said, “but I can stay low.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

When the time came Jerry said, “Let me get out first.”

“Go ahead.”

He opened his car door, closed it as quietly as he could, then drew his .45 before he slunk away between the cars. He was right, he was able to keep low enough not to be seen.

I waited a minute or two then opened the door and stepped out. I didn’t close it as lightly as Jerry had.

I walked out in the center of the brightest light in the lot. I had to be as easy to spot as Jerry was difficult.

Time went by—seconds, then minutes. I checked my watch several times. Finally, it was ten-seventeen when I heard someone hiss at me from the darkness.

“Caitlin?”

“Over here,” she whispered, and stepped out of the shadows.

I touched the gun in my pocket, but left it there. Likewise the envelope of money in my pocket. I had split the money into one third, and two thirds.

I walked over to the lamppost and she stepped out into the light.

“Give me the money,” she said. She looked bedraggled: limp hair, pale complexion. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Quickly.”

“Where are the photos?”

“You’ll get the damn photos,” she said. “I want the money first. Now!”

“Not until I see the photos,” I said. “And the negatives. Or the roll.”

“There’s no roll,” she said, impatiently. “The photos were developed.”

“Where are the negatives?”

“We only have one,” she said. “The one photo you’re lookin’ for.”

She took a small white envelope from her pocket.

“Seventy-five thousand,” she said, her tone filled with awe. “For one picture.”

I
TOOK THE ENVELOPE
from my pocket. We approached each other and exchanged envelopes. Hastily, she tore hers open and counted.

“You’re way short!” she said, angrily. We had split the money into two envelopes. Jerry was carrying one of them.

I took the photo from the envelope she had given me and reluctantly looked at it, then checked for the negative, holding it up to the light above us to make sure it was the right one. It was. I could see how Sammy would be embarrassed by it.

“You cheater!” she snapped. “Tony, Tony!” she shouted and looked about wildly.

Suddenly, a man came into view, but he wasn’t moving on his own, he was being pushed from behind.

“He cheated us—” she started, but then she saw Jerry behind her boyfriend. “What—”

“He jumped me,” Tony said. “I didn’t have a chance.”

No, he didn’t. He was barely out of his teens. Jerry towered above him and was more than twice his weight.

“You have a gun!” she shouted at him.

“He
had
a gun,” Jerry said, and held it up for her to see. It looked old and rusted. “If he’d tried to pull the trigger this thing would have exploded in his hand.”

“I didn’t do nothin’,” the boy said. “It was all her idea—”

“Shut up!” Jerry said, slapping the back of his head.

I reached out and snatched the money from Caitlin’s hand.

“Hey!”

“Plans have changed, Caitlin,” I said. “This is your partner? This kid?”

She dummied up.

“I can make her talk, Mr. G.,” Jerry said.

She looked at Jerry and her eyes got wide.

“She’ll talk, Jerry,” I said. “Let’s go inside, where we can be more comfortable.”

We took them into the Sands to the security office, where Larry Bigbee, the second in command, gave us a room so we could talk in private—rooms where they usually took cheaters for questioning. There were no two-way mirrors, though. This wasn’t the police department.

Jerry pulled me aside before we started. “Mr. G., I been grilled enough time by cops to know we should probably split them up.”

“We will,” I said. “Let’s just get her to say a little bit first. It’ll prime the boy.”

We went inside. I put the two envelopes of money on the table, with the greenbacks kind of spilling out. They both sat with their eyes glued to the cash.

“Caitlin, come on, why would a smart girl like you hook up with a loser like this kid.”

“Hey—” the kid said, but Jerry smacked the back of his head again.

“I had to have another partner,” Caitlin said. “Ernie, my boyfriend—it was his idea, and they killed him.”

“The guy in the warehouse,” I said.

“He went there to trade with you,” she said, “but they got to him first.”

“Who’s they?”

She pointed at Tony.

“His brother and his boys,” she said.

“His brother?”

“Walter. The whole thing with the pictures was his idea.”

“Which picture?”

“The one Walter thought was worth half a mil,” she said.

“Have you ever seen that picture?”

“No,” she said. “Walter won’t show it to anybody.”

“So he’s the only one who knows what’s on it?”

“Yeah.”

“But your boyfriend Ernie, he recognized this photo?” I touched the photo in my pocket. “And decided to make some money on the side?”

“The half a mil was gonna be cut up,” she said, “and we were only in for a small piece. So yeah, we figured we’d get some money from that Sammy Davis guy.”

“So Ernie set the meet-up with me, but Walter got to him first and killed him.”

“Yeah.”

“So you took over.”

“We were just tryin’ to make some extra money,” she said. “That’s all. They didn’t have to kill him.”

“Where did you get this one?” Jerry asked. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“He was always hangin’ around the gang,” she said. “His brother let him hang around, but not do anythin’. And he had eyes for me right from the start.”

“His brother,” I said. “How did he get ahold of the film in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” she said, jerking her thumb at Tony. “You’ll have to ask him.”

I looked at Jerry. Almost time to split them up.

“Gimme my money!” she said, suddenly making a grab for it.

“I’ll give you this envelope, and this envelope only,” I said, holding it up. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“That ain’t fair—” the boy, Tony, started, but Jerry smacked him.

The girl shouted, “Shut up!” She looked at me. “What do I have to do for it?”

“Tell me where to find the others.”

“That’s easy,” she said, pointing at Tony. “He knows where they are.”

I looked at Tony, who suddenly realized he had something to sell.

“That’s right,” he said, “I know where they are. But I ain’t tellin’ … unless you give me the money, not her.”

“How about I just break your neck?” Jerry asked.

“No!” Caitlin said. “That’s not fair.”

She meant giving him the money, not breaking his neck.

But the decision was mine.

I
PULLED JERRY ASIDE
.

“The kid’s the one who knows where his brother and the others are, so why don’t you take the girl outside.”

“Gotcha,” he said. “She ain’t no good to us if she don’t know where nobody is.”

We went back to the table. Jerry grabbed Caitlin by the arm and said, “Up. Yer comin’ with me.”

“Where?”

“Never mind.” He pulled her to her feet and propelled her toward the door.

“Eddie—” she said, but I kept my back to her as Jerry opened the door and shoved her out.

“What’s goin’ on?” Tony demanded.

“You have a chance to make a lot of money, Tony,” I said, “and it’s up to you if you want to share it with Caitlin or not.”

Tony suddenly grinned and said, “She’s a hot piece of tail.”

“Yes, she is,” I said, speaking from experience. “It’ll take a lotta cash to keep her hot, too.”

“What do I gotta do?” he asked.

“You know damn well,” I said.

He nodded.

“Take out your wallet.”

He hauled a cracked leather wallet from his back pocket and dropped it on the table. I went through it until I found his driver’s license, which identified him as Anthony Peaks.

“Your brother have the same last name?”

“Of course.”

“Same address?”

“No,” he said. “We don’t live together.”

“So this whole scheme to sell these photos was your brother’s big idea?”