Shakedown (18 page)

"I want to make a phone call."

Sands laughed. "To who? To your wife and kids so you can tell them you're gay? Or maybe to your board of directors?"

"I ask this as a favor."

"Fuck your favor. You have one minute to make up your mind, then it's time to get booked for oral cop."

"What about the people at the bank?" Desmond said.

"Sir?"

"You said you talked about the stolen checks to the people at the bank."

"I'll talk to 'em again. This time I tell 'em the investigation showed your checks were from an old checkbook you'd thrown away. A Mexican guy found the checks in a trashcan, forged a few of them, then returned to Mexico. Since there's no extradition treaty with Mexico for the crime of forgery, the case is closed."

Desmond stared at himself in the mirror. Tears welled in his eyes. Eddie Sands stifled the urge to cheer. He lit a cigarette, tossed the match in the bathtub.

Mr. Enterprise's chin quivered for a moment. "If I pay a hundred thousand, how will I be guaranteed this ... uh ... incident will never come to light?"

"Because I don't want to go to jail for soliciting a bribe any more than you want your biography to be titled Call Me Jocko."

Harry Desmond looked at himself in the mirror for a moment. "No."

"No what, Mr. Desmond?"

"I'm not going to pay," he said, watching Sands carefully.

Without hesitation, Sands pulled his gun. "Then you're under arrest. Put your hands on top of your head."

Desmond's complexion turned pale. His chin quivered mightily. Finally he broke into uncontrollable sobs. His hands covered his face and he dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor. "Okay, I'll pay."

Eddie Sands smiled. "Where is your money?" he said.

Harry Desmond slowed his sobbing, looked up, wiped his eyes and nose with his right hand.

"The Chase Manhattan Bank-"

"This isn't some blue-chip stock trade," Sands said impatiently. "I mean money we can put our hands on right this minute."

"I have credit here at the casino."

Sands led Desmond into the other room. Ray Beadle was standing in the middle of the room with the handcuffed Skippy. He feigned writing in a small notebook. "Take him to the car," Sands said. Beadle put the notebook away, led Skippy toward the door.

As they went out, Sands picked up the phone receiver. "You were in a poker game with some pals," he said. "You need a hundred grand to cover your losses and you'll pick it up at the casino cage." He handed the receiver to Desmond and dialed the number of the casino count room.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The elevator doors opened onto the casino. Harry Desmond, wearing his dark glasses, stepped off, Eddie Sands behind him. In the casino, Sands watched from behind a row of slot machines as Desmond approached the cashier's cage. A bushy-haired man with thick glasses came to the counter. After a brief discussion, the man left. He returned shortly from the count room with a package wrapped in brown paper. Harry Desmond signed a form. The man handed Desmond the package. Awkwardly, Desmond looked about, then headed straight past the gaming tables and out the side door of the casino.

Sands followed.

Outside in the parking lot, which was full because of a convention being held at the hotel, Sands continued behind Desmond at a discreet distance until he was sure no one had followed them from the casino. Then he picked up his pace, caught up with Desmond, and took the package out of his hands. "Go back inside," Sands said.

"What about Skippy?"

"He'll be released," Sands said. "There will be no police report. You're free to go."

"Thank you, officer."

"Sergeant."

"Thank you, sergeant."

Harry Desmond walked slowly back toward the casino.

Ray Beadle approached Sands.

"Where's Skippy?" Sands said without taking his eyes off Desmond.

"His sorry fruit ass is long gone, partner."

Harry Desmond entered the side door of the casino without looking back.

"Wait here," Sands said. Carrying the package of money under his arm, Sands marched across the parking lot, circled around the building. He walked in the front entrance and through the busy, smoke-filled casino, and took an elevator to the eighteenth floor. At the end of the hallway, he knocked on a door.

Parisi opened the door. He looked both ways in the hallway, allowed Sands to enter. Sands handed him the package.

"No problems?" Parisi said as he tore the package open. He thumbed greenbacks.

"He never knew what hit him," Sands said.

"What was he doing when you went in?"

"He's a fruit. He was fruiting off."

Parisi smiled one of his lewd blue-lipped smiles. "You're the best I've ever seen at this game," he said.

"When will you have Monica out of jail?"

"The bondsman will have her out within two hours," Parisi said. "I'll call you."

"And my money from the phony chips?"

"Come back in two hours and I'll have the money I owe you.

"You're standing there with a hundred grand in a bag and you're telling me to come back for what you owe me?"

"I'd cut off some of this right now, but I'm parlaying a deal in another room right at the moment," Parisi said as he maintained unflinching eye contact. He made a gracious smile. "Go get your wife out of jail and I'll have your money for you."

Outside, Sands found Beadle waiting where he had left him. Together, they walked briskly through the dimly lit parking lot. "Did he come through with the chips money?" Beadle said as they turned this way and that among endless rows of vehicles which, because of the synthetic light, all looked the same color.

"He's still stalling. I can't figure it."

They reached the car Beadle had rented earlier in the day.

"Maybe that sorry-assed Desmond will do a TV talk show about it someday. His new book will be called
The Case of the Cork Soaker's Checkbook
."

They laughed.

"Thanks for helping me get Monica out," Sands said as they reached the car. "I owe you, old partner."

They reached the car, climbed in. Beadle put his key in the ignition. There was movement in the backseat. Sands whirled.

A man sprang up, pointed a gun. It was Vito. "Turn around and keep your hands where I can see them," he said with an inflection in his voice that meant to Eddie Sands he was ready to kill. It was a tone that every veteran cop comes to recognize for exactly what it is-the promise that death is just a six-pound trigger pull away.

Slowly, Sands turned toward the windshield. He felt his heart pounding, slamming, trying to escape from his chest.

"Drive out of the lot," Vito said to Beadle.

Beadle's eyes moved in Sands's direction.

"What do you want?" Sands said. For some reason, he recalled standing at a doorway in a trailer court off the Boulder highway years ago. He had talked a drunken auto mechanic into giving up a knife he was holding to his wife's throat.

Vito touched the barrel of his gun to the back of Beadle's head. "Drive, motherfucker," he said. "Someone wants to meet you."

"I delivered the money to Tony," Sands said, trying to buy time to size up the situation.

"Start the engine and drive," Vito said. "Or your head comes off."

"Do what he says, Ray," Sands said to the windshield.

A well-dressed couple with arms around each other passed by. The gray artificial light in the parking lot gave their complexions a deathlike pallor. They didn't notice the three sitting in the car. Sands's abdominal muscles were taut, his breathing labored.

Ray Beadle started the engine. He put the car in gear, backed slowly out of the parking space. Just as slowly, he changed gears. He stepped on the accelerator, drove carefully to the exit.

"Turn right."

Beadle complied, pulled into traffic on the crowded Las Vegas Boulevard. They passed the Frontier Hotel.

"Where are we going?" Sands said.

"Everything will be okay if you do what I say."

"You've got a lot of balls taking us without any help," Sands said.

"Shut the fuck up."

Beadle steered past the Hacienda Hotel, some service stations, and a small business district at the north end of the Strip. In front of them was nothing but darkness and desert.

"Who wants to talk to us out in the desert?" Sands said.

Vito said nothing.

Eddie Sands made a circular motion with his left hand and prayed that Beadle would notice. "Looks like we're gonna get killed, Ray," Sands said as they left behind the lights of Las Vegas. Beadle blinked rapidly to show that he understood. The car accelerated steadily.

"You gonna bury us?" Beadle said to Vito with his voice cracking. The car accelerated.

"You're going too fast. Slow down," Vito said. He sounded worried.

For a moment, Sands thought of Monica. He imagined her head resting on his shoulder, her hand clasping his. He smelled her hair. Then he allowed his legs and arms to become taut, ready. Suddenly he whirled, lunged at Vito. With a catlike motion he snatched the barrel of the .22, twisted. The gun fired. With the immediate ear-splitting crack of the revolver, Beadle shrieked. The car swerved.

Eddie Sands was still gripping the gun with both hands as he fought for control, for his life. There was the sound of wheels hitting rocks and gravel as the car left the road. Suddenly Sands felt the world turning upside down. He continued to struggle for the weapon. It fired twice more. Glass shattered. Finally the car ground to a stop on its side. Thrown together in the wreck, Sands and Vito were face-to-face, so close that Sands could smell the other man's sour breath. The gun was still between them. Sands managed to get a grip on Vito's thumb. Slowly, as Vito made little groans, Sands pried the thumb away from the butt of the revolver. He shoved downward on it with all the adrenaline strength he could muster. As he continued to force the thumb backward, Vito emitted a long, controlled moan. Finally, with a powerful life-or-death effort, Sands forced the thumb fully backward. There was a sound like a green twig breaking. Vito's moan changed to a deafening, full male scream.

Sands yanked the gun away.

He worked the trigger until the gun was empty. Vito screamed as the bullets hit him. His body twisted, convulsed, and his head slammed loudly against a window. Finally, he stopped moving and there was a long, wet gasp as the last air he would ever emit came from his lungs. His body went slack.

The interior of the upturned car was filled with the smell of gunsmoke and blood.

Eddie Sands disentangled himself, reached for Beadle, who was lying slumped beneath him. He slid his hand under Beadle's collar, touched his carotid artery. Nothing. "Ray. Ray," he said. Then saw the hole in the back of Beadle's head. "No. Oh, God, no," he said.

Sands found himself scrambling, crawling upward and out of the passenger window of the wrecked sedan as if death would take him too if he lingered. He dropped into sagebrush, backed away from the wreckage.

The desert was still, and for as far as he could see there was dark gray landscape broken only by a string of telephone poles and wires wetted with moonlight. Regaining control of himself, he checked to see if he was injured. Nothing but a few scrapes. He hurried up an embankment to the roadway.

For a moment, he just stood there hyperventilating, sick with fear, as he ran through the details of what happened. There were headlights in the distance, and he suddenly realized he was still holding the gun in his hand. He hurried back down the embankment, waited as he heard the sound of the car coming closer. Finally, the car sped by. He looked about. The wrecked sedan had ended up lower than road level in the sagebrush, hidden from view of those passing on the highway, at least until morning.

His mind raced. He forced himself to return to the wreckage, climbed back inside. With some difficulty, he removed Beadle's gun holster and badge. He shoved them in a side pocket of his suit jacket. He used a handkerchief to wipe his fingerprints from the barrel and trigger guard of Vito's gun, then dropped it near his hand. He climbed back out of the wreckage.

He told himself that there was nothing to tie him to the wreck and the bodies. Beadle had rented the car under his own name. He started to run toward Las Vegas, stopped himself, slowed down to a deliberate pace. It took him two hours to make his way back, keeping out of sight of cars and trucks passing on the highway. Finally, he reached the edge of the Strip.

From a service station, he called a taxi. On the trip back to Monica's apartment to pick up his car he told an amused driver that he'd had a fight with his wife about losing his paycheck at the crap table and that she had taken the car and headed back to L.A.

He was lucky at the city jail-the cop on duty remembered him and opened up the visiting room of the women's section. As Monica sat down on the bench opposite him on the other side of the glass partition, Sands thought she looked ill.

"How did it go?" she said.

"Ray's dead."

"Jesus. What happened?"

"I took the money to Parisi. Then he tried to hit me," Sands said, his voice cracking. "Ray got shot."

"Why would Parisi try to hit you if you already gave him his money?"

"Somebody must have put some paper on me."

"But who...?"

"Doesn't really matter. The point is, Parisi has paper on me and I'm dead, hon."

"What about my bail?"

"Parisi's got the hundred grand. I would never be able to come up with enough collateral without him."

Monica lowered her head. After a moment, she looked up. There were tears in her eyes. "Poor Ray," she said.