Hotline to Murder (17 page)

“This is a good experience for a listener on
the Hotline,” Shahla said. “After all, many of our callers have
addictions of one kind or another, or compulsions, as they call
them. I want to see what it feels like to lose. Will I want to
throw good money after bad?”

Tony decided to let her lose her five
dollars, and then they would leave. There wasn’t going to be any
testing of compulsions. He stood by her side while she sat in front
of the machine.

After playing a dozen hands, Shahla got an
interesting deal. “Wait,” Tony said as she pressed the buttons to
hold all her cards. “Let’s take a look at this.”

“I’ve got a flush,” Shahla said. “Five
spades.”

“I know, but look at what else you have. You
have the ace, king, queen, and ten. In other words, you are one
card short of a royal flush which pays 250 to one.”

“Ooh,” Shahla said, taking another look at
the cards. “So I have one chance in…”

“Forty-seven of drawing the jack of spades
because five cards have already been played from a fifty-two card
deck.”

“I want to go for it.”

They stared at the cards for a while, not
wanting to spoil the anticipation. Finally, Shahla drew one
card.

“I can’t look,” she said. “Tell me…”

Tony peeked at the credit counter. It was
going crazy. She had drawn the jack of spades. “You did it.”

Shahla jumped up and down screaming. Then
she threw her arms around his neck and lifted her legs off the
ground.

“Calm down,” Tony said laughing, as he tried
to keep his balance. When she let go of him, he pressed the button
to cash out and scooped the quarters into the cup. “If you look too
much like a teenager, you’ll blow your cover.” He started toward
the cashier.

“Where are you going?”

“Now, we’re really going home.”

“But I might win some more.”

“You’ll get the opportunity to know what it
feels like to quit when you’re ahead. That will give you empathy
for your callers who can’t do that.”

Shahla grumbled, but Tony was adamant. He
pocketed the three twenty dollar bills, plus a five and a couple of
ones that he received from the cashier, telling Shahla that he
would give the money to her when they got home.

She threatened to take more money out of her
purse, but Tony said, “I’m leaving, and I’ve got the car.” He
walked away.

Shahla caught up to him and said, “You are
really mean. I’m never going to Las Vegas with you again.”

“Shhh,” Tony said suddenly, turning to face
her. “Look over my right shoulder.”

Shahla peeked over his shoulder and said,
“It’s Paul. And he’s got a girl with him. Should we go talk to
them?”

“Wait. Describe the girl.” Tony kept his
back to Paul and the girl.

“She’s blonde. She’s quite tall. And pretty.
She looks something like…Joy.”

“That was my impression, too. Of course, it
probably means nothing.”

“That he likes girls who look like Joy? Or
maybe he really hates them.”

“What are they doing?”

“They’re going over to where we just came
from, where those video poker machines are. He’s got his arm around
her neck, as if he’s aching to strangle her.”

Tony turned his head and could see the pair,
walking diagonally away from them. Paul did have his elbow resting
on the girl’s shoulder, with his forearm curled in front of her
neck. Innocent though it might be, if you could picture him as a
killer, it looked scary.

“We should follow them,” Shahla said
urgently, taking the thought right out of his brain.

“But if we want to learn anything, we need
to be incognito.”

“I look different from what I did at the
coffee shop. Turn your T-shirt inside out.”

Tony glanced down at the front of his shirt,
which had the words “San Diego” on it and a picture of a beach and
palm trees. If Shahla could undress in public, he could too. He
pulled the shirt over his head and put it back on wrong side
out.

“Now put on your dark glasses.”

He took them out of the case in his pocket
and put them on. He glanced at Shahla. “Put on yours, too, so he
can’t see your eyes if we get close to them. They’re a dead
giveaway.”

Shahla took her dark glasses out of her
purse and put them on. She said, “One thing more. I’m going to
change your hairstyle. Sit down there.” She pointed to a chair in
front of a slot machine.

Tony did as he was told. She took a comb out
of her purse and fooled with his hair. She chuckled and said,
“There. He won’t know you now.”

“What have you done?”

“Don’t worry. It looks good. I got rid of
your cowlick.” She put away the comb and said, “How shall we do
this?”

“It would be nice if we could get close
enough to listen to what they say.”

They approached the video poker machines and
saw Paul sitting in front of one. The girl stood beside him with a
hand on his shoulder. The adjoining video poker machine was
free.

“Do you think we can sit at that machine
without being recognized?” Tony asked, speaking softly.

“You sit down, and I’ll sit on your lap,
facing away from them. If we don’t say anything, Paul won’t
recognize us.”

Tony took a few quarters out of his pocket
that were left over from their play. He approached the machine from
behind Paul and sat down in the chair while Paul was engrossed in a
deal. Shahla quickly jumped up on his lap with her back to Paul.
All Paul would be able to see of Tony if he looked over was a
profile. Tony noisily threw his quarters into the tray and put one
in the slot. He would play slowly so they could mostly listen.

He had to play with one hand because the
other one was around Shahla’s waist. He was conscious of Shahla’s
closeness to him. At first, Paul and the girl said nothing. He
could tell from the noises of their machine that Paul was playing
steadily.

After a couple of minutes, Paul said, “I’m
not having any luck today. I found an interesting cliff overlooking
the city. Come on, I’ll show it to you.”

Paul got up and walked away with the
girl.

“He’s going to push her off a cliff,” Shahla
said, jumping down from his lap. “We’ve got to stop them.”

CHAPTER 20

“I left some money in the machine,” Tony
complained as they tried to keep the two in sight.

“Hurry up,” Shahla said, taking his hand so
they wouldn’t get separated while navigating their way through a
line of people who were waiting to see a show. “We don’t want to
lose them.”

“This might be totally innocent.”

“Or it might not be. The way he talked about
the cliff….”

Paul and the girl went out the door of the
hotel. Tony and Shahla followed them as fast as possible. Outside,
swarms of people walked along Las Vegas Boulevard in the light of
the still-hot setting sun.

“Which way did they go?” Shahla asked.

“I don’t see them. Oh, there they are.”
Fortunately, Paul’s head stuck up above the crowd. “They’ve turned
on Tropicana.”

Tony and Shahla weaved their way through the
pedestrians, trying to regain visual contact with Paul and the
girl, who had disappeared around the corner. The pursuers also
turned right onto Tropicana Avenue and saw the other couple again,
loping along at a swift pace. The girl seemed to have no trouble
matching Paul’s long strides.

“Maybe they parked in the same lot we did,”
Tony said. He slowed down as the traffic thinned, away from the
Strip. Fewer people between them and the pursued made their chances
of being spotted greater. Shahla dropped his hand and slowed down
beside him. He noticed that she wasn’t even breathing hard. She
must be in good shape from cross-country.

Paul and the girl walked past the lot where
Tony’s car was parked.

“We’re going to need a car if we want to
follow them into the hills,” Tony said, hesitating as they
approached the entrance to the parking lot. “But if we get the car
now, we’ll lose them.”

“You get the car,” Shahla said. “I’ll stay
behind them.”

“How will I know where you are?”

“I’ll call you. My cell phone is in my
purse. Give me your number.”

Tony always carried a pen with him. He
scribbled the number of his cell phone on the back of a business
card he pulled from his pocket and gave it to Shahla. He said, “Be
careful. Don’t let them know you’re following them.”

“Don’t worry.”

She took off at a trot to regain the
distance she had lost. Tony hoped Shahla wouldn’t attract too much
attention by running in a dress. He had misgivings about leaving
her and almost called her to come back. He’d better get the car as
fast as he could.

He ran to the car and started it. Another
car was backing out of a parking space behind him—and the driver
was taking his sweet time. Tony fumed, but he knew that blowing his
horn would only aggravate the situation. When he finally drove out
onto the street, Shahla and the other couple had disappeared. Where
were they? He had promised Rasa to protect her. He warded off a
surge of panic. He had to trust her. She was a smart girl.

He drove slowly, looking for a sign of any
of the three. When he figured he had driven farther than they could
have walked by now, he circled the block. Five minutes went by
without a sighting. Why hadn’t he written down Shahla’s cell phone
number? He stopped the car to work on a plan.

His cell phone rang. He punched the talk
button and said, “Tony.”

“They’ve gotten in a car and driven toward
the hills.”

“Where are you?”

Shahla gave an intersection. Tony remembered
that one of the streets she named crossed the street he was on. He
was only a few blocks from her. Relieved, he gunned the engine and
took off. He spotted her within two minutes. He pulled the car up
beside her, and she jumped in.

“Quick, write down their license plate
number before I forget it.”

Tony took the card she was still holding and
wrote the number Shahla dictated.

“Which way did they go?”

“Toward the hills.” Shahla pointed. “They’re
in a gray Honda.”

“So is the rest of the world.”

“I think I’ll recognize it.”

Tony drove as fast as the traffic would
allow. The sun was just setting behind the hills they were
approaching, so spotting the car would be that much more difficult.
Still, there only seemed to be one road that went up into the
hills. And Paul had to go in that direction if he was going toward
a cliff. The traffic was heavy enough so that Tony doubted that he
could catch Paul. Maybe it was just as well. They would drive
uphill for a while and then turn around and go home.

The views got better as they drove. This
must be the right direction. Paul had mentioned a view of Las
Vegas. But what chance did they have of actually spotting the
car?

“I think I just saw it,” Shahla said.

“Where?”

“Parked beside the road.”

She must have sharp eyes. It was now quite
dark. Tony said, “Do you want to check?”

“Yes.”

It took him several minutes before he found
a place wide enough to allow them to turn around. He pulled off the
road, waited for traffic to go by, and swung a sharp U.

“Go slowly,” Shahla said, as they rounded a
curve. “I think it’s near here. There it is.”

Tony stopped opposite the car Shahla pointed
at and pulled off the road as far as possible. They got out and
crossed the pavement to a turnoff where the car that Tony now could
identify as a gray Honda was parked. He compared the license plate
number to the one he had written down. They matched.

“Good work,” he told Shahla. “Now where did
they go?”

“There’s a path,” Shahla said. “It leads up
that hill.”

The dirt path disappeared into the desert
foliage and the dark.

“You wait in the car,” Tony told Shahla. He
handed the keys to her.

She refused to take them. “I’m not going to
let you go up there by yourself.”

He knew from experience that she meant what
she said. “Okay, this is what we’ll do. There should be enough
light from the moon to follow the path. I’ll go first. If I hold up
my hand, stop.”

“All right.”

At least she didn’t argue. Tony started up
the path, slowly, avoiding rocks and roots that made the footing
tricky. He was relieved that it wasn’t especially steep. The night
air was chilly—it cooled off rapidly in the desert—but he wasn’t
going to take time to go back to the car for the sweatshirt he had
brought. And Shahla wasn’t complaining. They walked uphill for
several minutes in silence. Then the path leveled off, and Tony saw
an open space ahead. And moving shadows; they must be people. He
held up his hand. Shahla obediently stopped.

He beckoned for her to come up beside him.
He bent down and spoke into her ear. “There are at least two people
there. In order for us to get close enough to hear them, we’ll have
to get behind that rock.”

A rock large enough to hide them stood fifty
feet ahead. Tony moved toward the rock, staying silent and close to
the ground, to keep from being silhouetted against the moonlit sky
like the two figures he was watching. It was difficult work. He
crouched as low as he could, but sometimes he had to get down on
his hands and knees, amid small but sharp stones. He kept looking
back at Shahla. She remained at his heels, stuck to him like a
tick. He hoped her dress—Rasa’s dress— wasn’t getting too
dirty.

Several times he saw a flash of light coming
from the direction of the two people. The first one startled him,
but then he realized that they must be taking pictures.

He could hear voices, but he couldn’t make
out words. Probably a man and a woman. When they got to the rock,
he felt more secure. At least they weren’t exposed. Tony put his
finger to his lips as Shahla hugged the rock beside him. He inched
forward so that he could see around it.