At 5:45 p.m., exactly one hour later, Jack Emery whistled sharply to get everyone's attention. “Progress report, people.”
Ted opted to go first. “You were right. The chicken ranch is owned by Earl and Helen Bolton. It's a multimillion-dollar business. The Boltons have chicken ranches in Reno and Tahoe. The Boltons are in their seventies and spend half the year in Monte Carlo. And they go on to Macau, then back here for the Christmas holidays, after which they go off again. Vegas is their home base. A foreman oversees the farm here. Ditto for Reno and Tahoe. Sometimes, the Boltons rent out the main house or just let friends who want to winter in Vegas stay there. Before Kitty Passion, someone named Diane Sarrocco was staying there. No other information is available. Nothing comes up under that name, so I assume it's an alias of some kind, just the way Kitty Passion is an alias.”
“The sister's name is Clare Andreas,” Snowden said. “The brother's name is Steven Andreas. He's a full-bird colonel in the marines. A career officer. Happily married, with two kids in college. Wife is a nurse. Same mother, different fathers. The man in the Lakeshore Assisted Living facility is William Andreas, Dixson Kelly's stepfather. The mother died ten years ago.
“The baby sister is hard to track. She never stays in one place too long. She's a free spirit. She was a dancer at Trump in Atlantic City, but only for eight months, before she moved on. The last known footprint was Atlanta, where she did a modeling stint at some big designer's show. Nothing shows up after that.”
“Nothing on Google for Kitty Passion. I knew it!” Maggie volunteered.
“What about a driver's license? Passport? We need to know what she looks like,” Jack said.
“I ran this all by the local field office. So far nothing. I asked them to find out everything they can on the dancers, Kitty Passion in particular. It's going to take a while, but if there's something to find, they'll find it,” Sparrow said. He looked at Snowden and asked what he had come up with.
“Working on it. Remember, I have that luncheon on the flash drives from that day at the Cat & Cradle. Let me see if I can bring them up on the computer.”
“I need some help here. It's almost six o'clock. That dinner is scheduled for eight o'clock. I'm supposed to show up around dessert time, which would make it around nine or nine thirty. Am I going or not? I never answered Kitty's text. For all I know, she could be checking out that room at MGM. I thought you guys were going to corral Kelly and bring him here. Do I have to do everything?” Maggie groused.
“He didn't respond to my text,” Jack said.
“Or mine,” Charles said.
“Then we need to sic the big gun on him,” Sparrow said. “Have Bert call him and tell him to move his ass up here on the double. I have a question, though. Once he shows up, what are we going to do with him?”
“Good question,” Snowden said quietly. “What do you think we should do with him? Think about this. Maybe we should let him take his sister to dinner, then snatch them both when they're leaving the restaurant. We need to think this through. Do you want to sweat them? What's our endgame here?”
“Do you think it advisable to send someone out to the chicken ranch to nose around after she leaves?” Jack asked.
“We have enough people to do that. I could send three female operatives out there. The foreman or the men probably won't think twice about seeing women wandering about. If they elect to cause a ruckus, my operatives know what to do. This is the height of traffic right now, so if you think that's a good idea, I'd like them to hit the road immediately, which means they'll arrive right around the time Kitty Passion is leaving. She'll leave early, knowing what the traffic is like.”
Charles looked up from his keyboard and said, “Do it! Have them report in hourly.”
“What about me?” Maggie asked without looking up.
“We have three hours to decide, dear. Off the top of my head, the answer is more likely no than yes,” Charles said.
She shrugged. What else was she going to do?
* * *
Somewhere in Las Vegas, a bell rang at six o'clock. It was a loud, not unpleasant pealing sound. For the most part, people stopped for a second as they tried to reconcile the sound with the gambling mecca they were in. Most just ignored it and went about their business.
Seventy miles away as the crow flies, Philonias Needlemeyer looked at the clock in the kitchen. Both hands were straight up on the number twelve. He missed the sound of the church bell. From his Babylon terrace, he heard it every night. To him it was the signal that the day was coming to a close. All in all, a comfortable thought.
“I guess this is it, kids,” Philonias said as he, Abner and Mary Alice left the kitchen and walked outside to the car. “Time to say good-bye. I want to give you both something. Not exactly to remember me by, because I'm the kind of person you never forget. Just a way for you to get in touch, should you ever need me. I want you to remember that, because I mean it.” He handed over two phones, one to Mary Alice and one to Abner. “No one, and I mean no one, has this. Nor can it ever be traced. Just want you to know that. I will always take care of you.”
Abner was so choked up, he couldn't speak. He felt his eyes start to burn. He squeezed them shut. He nodded. He just knew that any minute now he was going to blubber.
Impulsively, Mary Alice threw her arms around Abner and started to cry. “Everything he said goes for me, too. Phil programmed both our numbers into your phone. Take care of yourself, Abner.”
Abner nodded again. He looked at Phil, and he wasn't sure, but he thought he saw tears in the big guy's eyes. He finally found his tongue and said, “Um . . . let's not say good-bye. Good-byes sound so final. I . . . I want to drive away from here knowing we're going to see each other again. Maybe not tomorrow or next week or next month, but sometime. Let's just say . . . âSee ya.' Does that work for you guys?” he asked anxiously.
Mary Alice's head bobbed up and down faster than that of any bobblehead doll as she shrieked her misery. Phil chewed on his lip and nodded. He held out one massive hand.
Abner looked at the big, meaty hand and grinned. “Uh-uh. Real guys hug. Just don't break my ribs, okay?” he said, trying to wrap his arms around Phil's chest.
Suddenly, Abner found himself airborne, and Phil was laughing uproariously as he swung Abner around like a rag doll. When he finally set him down, Abner was breathless.
“How's that for âSee ya sometime'? Should we say something corny, like âDon't take any wooden nickels' or âDon't let grass grow under your feet'?”
“Nah,” Abner drawled.
“One more gift, and we're outta here.” Phil extended his hand to Abner, who tried to figure out what was clasped in the mighty hand. It looked like a flash drive.
“What's this?”
“That little gift, my flesh-and-blood friend, will make your world right side up again. Go back to Vegas and decide what you want to do. Check it out before you make a decision. See ya,” Phil said, sliding into his custom Bentley. Mary Alice scooted around the side of the car and climbed into the passenger side.
“Where you going, Phil?” Like the big guy was really going to tell him.
“I'm going to get a manicure. Gotta keep these treasures,” he said, wiggling his fingers in front of him, “in tip-top shape, in case I have to save your ass again.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, who saved whose ass?” Abner bellowed as the Bentley roared down the road, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.
“Manicure, my ass!” Abner yelled to the empty surroundings.
Then again . . .
Chapter 18
B
y seven thirty, the group as a whole was nastier than a group of polecats in a perfume factory. Charles had to commandeer Dennis, who whistled between his teeth so loud that Cyrus went nuclear, barking so loud that everyone had to clamp their hands over their ears.
“That's enough!” Charles roared. “You're acting like spoiled children. Simmer down, and we'll talk. And you, Cyrus, you will confine your comments to one short bark. Do
you
understand me?”
Cyrus barked once, but his heart wasn't in it.
“All of you, do
you
understand me?”
The response he received was heads nodding up and down.
“Good. I love cooperation. I have a bit of news and some suggestions I'd like to share with you. The news is that we cannot locate Mr. Kelly. Bert is telling us that Kelly asked Pete Justice to cover for him from six to ten this evening. Justice, seeing no reason not to, and given that Kelly is, after all, his boss, said yes. That tells us Mr. Kelly plans to return to Babylon by ten this evening, no matter how the dinner goes at Chezmarie. When he returns here to Babylon, that's when we snatch him. We need someone at the restaurant, either to keep eyes on the sister or pick her up once dinner is over. You all need to make that decision and quickly.
“Maggie will not be showing up at dessert time. I think it's much too risky. She has not responded to Kitty Passion, so that young lady is going to be wondering why. âBetter to be safe than sorry' has always been my motto.”
Charles turned his attention to Director Sparrow. “How out of the box would it be for you to order your people at the Vegas field office to do a sweep? By sweep, I mean have your agents pick up all the showgirls who were at the Cat & Cradle and out at the chicken ranch to sweat them, as the saying goes. Have the agents take them all back to your field office and see who cracks first. Is that feasible?”
“Absolutely,” Sparrow said. “All I need are the names and addresses. The first shows start at ten. We can pick them up the minute they're off the stage.”
“First thing you do once you pick them up is to confiscate their cell phones so they can't call anyone. We're bound to lose a few, but we'll have to live with it. And by the end of the shows, we should have Kelly and the sister in hand. Once you tell the showgirls you can hold them for seventy-two hours without their lawyers present, I think they'll all cooperate. No matter what they did feel or do not currently feel for Dixson Kelly, at this moment in time they will not want to go to a federal prison for nothing more than a bruised and battered heart. Do any of you see a problem with what I just said?”
Cyrus barked to show he understood and was on board, while the others simply nodded.
Sparrow shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for Snowden to print out a list of the showgirls and where they worked, along with their home addresses. He made six copies and handed them over to Sparrow.
“Listen, Director, I saw those women as a whole, and my advice for you to give your agents is this. Tell them not to turn their heads and to keep their eyes on them all the time. Take my advice, or leave it alone. The choice is yours,” Snowden said.
“As Countess de Silva is fond of saying, âThis ain't my first rodeo,' Snowden. You can reach me if you need me at the field office. I won't take the van we rented. I'll just hail a taxi. Check in with me.”
Cyrus let loose with a shrill bark, then lowered his head between his paws and waited until the next time he was needed for a vote.
“Now what?” Maggie demanded, her eyes on her watch.
“Now we wait,” Charles said.
* * *
Abner Tookus parked his Range Rover in the parking lot of a Best Western. He turned off the engine and leaned his head back against the headrest. He couldn't ever remember a time when he had felt so physically drained of all emotion. He was bone tired, and he was hungry. Even when he went through his rough patch with his wife, Isabelle, he had never felt this beaten. He rubbed at his gritty eyes, then wished he hadn't, because his eyes started to burn. He perched his glasses on top of his head and rubbed some more. He needed sleep. He needed food, and he needed peace. Right now, this very moment, he knew he would give up everything he held dear to be able to talk to Isabelle.
That wasn't going to happen, and he knew it. Nothing was going to happen unless he moved his butt out of the car, registered, and checked out the flash drive. Then he could eat and sleep. Only then.
His room was like all hotel rooms, clean, neat, and smelling of air fresheners. He popped a cola from the mini-fridge and sat down at the tiny desk. He plugged in his laptop and inserted the flash drive. All he could see was a blur, until he remembered to put his glasses on. Man, he was so out of it. But he was out of it for only a moment before his eyeballs almost popped out of his head at what he was seeing and reading. When he finally got to the end of what was on the flash drive, Abner started to laugh, his body shaking so hard that he threw himself on the bed and continued to laugh till he was gasping for breath. “Philonias Needlemeyer, you are one crafty, wily son of a gun!” Then he went off on another bout of laughter.
Finally, exhausted, Abner staggered to the bathroom to wash his face and comb his hair. He didn't look any better, but he knew he had to look presentable to go to the lobby and do what he needed to do. Outside his room, he walked toward the EXIT sign over a doorway and walked three flights down to the lobby. It was crowded, and it took him a minute to see where the concierge desk was. He walked over, said that he was a guest at the hotel and that he needed to messenger something immediately to Babylon Casino and Hotel.
Two hundred dollars later, plus cab fare, the packet, with Maggie Spritzer's name on the envelope, was on its way to Babylon Casino and Hotel. He heaved a deep sigh as he trudged his way back to his room.
Shower or not? Not. Leave or not leave? Leave, of course.
He could drive a little farther down the road and register at another hotel. Just in case Maggie or one of the others decided to grill the messenger, and he told them that Abner was staying at the Best Western.
Back in his Rover, he had to fight to stay awake. When he saw a sign for the Starlight Motel, he pulled in, parked, registered, paid cash for one night, and was given a key. He hit the room, locked the door, threw his bag across the room, then flopped down on the bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. The digital clock on the nightstand said it was 8:30 p.m.
Abner woke at five minutes to midnight, fully cognizant of where he was and what had transpired. He hopped out of bed, brushed his teeth, and washed his face. There was no need to get dressed since he had slept in his clothes. He was on the road at five minutes past midnight. He planned to burn rubber and use his smokey detector all the way. If his calculations were right and he drove straight through, he should be back in his loft in twenty-four hours. Give or take.
He stopped at the first gas station he saw, loaded up on gas, hot black coffee, snacks, and cigarettes. He made a mental promise to quit smoking the moment he reached home. For now, he had to do whatever it took him to get cross-country.
After pulling out of the gas station, Abner slipped a disk into the stereo. His two favorites, Bon Jovi and Tina Turner. He realized that he actually felt good. So good, in fact, that he sang along with his favorite artists as he blew smoke ring after smoke ring.
Then he realized something else. At this moment in time, his life was going to be whatever he made of it. No one else, just him.