Effinger.
Trapped. In a room. With Matt behind a one-way mirror, watching him for lies. Justice? Or for just another foolish attempt at erasing a painful past with a vengeful present?
Matt checked his watch. Not even 8 p.m. Lucky he had the night off.
At 8:30 a uniformed officer escorted Matt by elevator to the proper floor. The young, stoic guy gave no indication of what he thought of Matt's presence or mission. Probably nothing.
Molina met him in her long, narrow office, as cramped and dysfunctionally functional as usual, and led him to a string of small, nondescript empty rooms.
"We're interviewing him in there. We gave him a coffee break." She led Matt through a different door to another room as antiseptically devoid of decoration as the one indicated. "You'll look and listen from here. I'll leave the interrogation room if I want to confirm what he says with you. Just sit down and get comfortable."
Matt eyed the oak armchair that belonged in a courthouse anteroom. It was no red suede sofa. He couldn't help smiling.
"Coffee?" Molina's tone was as warm as the Stewardess from Hell's.
"Yeah. I brought a notepad and pen."
"Aren't you the Boy Scout, always prepared?"
She shut the door, giving him an instant tinge of claustrophobia, which was ridiculous in the face of the huge picture window framing the adjoining room. She returned soon, butting the ajar door open to enter carrying two plastic cup holders and their filled cups.
Matt accepted one and sat down, watching the blank window. Imagine, viewing Cliff Effinger like a specimen bug in a plastic box. If only he had glimpsed this day years ago.
Matt felt like someone watching an ill-produced early TV show.
The Spartan setting--a wooden table and metal folding chairs-- was as stark as The Honeymooners' apartment in the Jackie Gleason classic skits, and remained empty.
Could people live with so little as the Kramdens had in New York City of the fifties? Matt had wondered that the first time he'd viewed retrospectives of the early TV show. Now he wondered, could the police do much with so little? A bare room and a few questions, with a peephole -turned-picture -window that everyone recognized for what it was.
Finally the door with the chicken-wire-sandwiched window glass opened into the next room. A mustached man in a beige shirt and pants showed in Effinger. Molina came last, coffee cup in hand. Every click and rustle and scrape of their motions transmitted to the room Matt occupied.
Molina spoke. It was her show. "You know your rights," she told Effinger and the tape recorder. "You've waived the presence of your attorney."
"What's to wave at?" Effinger's upper lip writhed in an Elvis-curl. He waved at the window, and Matt flinched. "I don't have an attorney and I'm not going to answer much."
With his hat off, he looked worn and seedy, but his age-seamed face still had the mean under bite of a junkyard dog.
"Just wanted to know your whereabouts on September twenty-ninth of last year."
"Like I keep a Day Runner."
"Think."
"I wasn't even in Las Vegas around then."
"Where do you go?"
"Places. L.A. Chicago."
Molina nodded. "Any witnesses see you there?"
"No! I visit places, not people."
"In LA.?"
"The track."
"In Chicago?"
"The dogs."
"Always gambling. Why travel for it when it's all here?"
"Variety."
"What do you know about this man?"
From his observation post, Matt could see a black and white photo of the corpse that fell from the Crystal Phoenix ceiling last fall, the corpse that had carried Cliff Effinger's ID, but not his finger-prints. What had anyone hoped to gain from that?
"What do I know about this guy? He's dead?" Effinger offered with a shrug.
"Why did he have your ID on him?"
"Was it my ID? Probably he stole it."
"What about the ID you're carrying now?"
"What about it?"
"It's not yours."
"Prove it."
Molina got up, walked to Matt's window, folded her arms and kept her back to Effinger. "We don't have to prove it. We can get your fingerprints. The inkpad tells all."
"Not all. People can have their fingerprints altered."
"To match yours! Why on earth would anyone want to be taken for a petty crook like you?"
Effinger shrugged.
Molina turned back to the table and skated two more photos from the folder toward him. "Know these guys?"
Effinger's glance was cursory, but Matt saw something tighten in that indifferent face. He'd always done that when he was preparing to lash out, or to lie to someone's face.
"Nope. Never saw them."
Molina eyed the photos with certain ruefulness. "Well, that doesn't surprise me, Cliff. Seems no one's seen these two Vegas eyesores for a few months. My guess is that someone quietly took them out."
Effinger grew even stiller.
"You have any idea who might want to do that, hmm? They're ugly customers, as they used to say, but small fry, really. What do you think? Did someone run or buy them out of town, or just drive them out on the desert?"
"Like you said, Lieutenant. They're not worth the cash or the gas. I say they took off for greener pastures."
"Like L.A.? Or Chicago?"
Effinger shrugged.
Molina packed her folder and picked up her empty coffee cup.
"Coffee anyone?" she inquired in a tone that didn't encourage a yes, not even from her so-far-silent interrogation partner.
She left the room and Matt braced himself.
A moment later his door opened.
She slapped the folder down on the table, then leaned on the table edge.
"We'll get zilch from him. At least directly. What did you notice?"
"He was lying about the two photos you showed him."
"Of course."
"Were they the hoods who assaulted Temple?"
"What do you think?"
"Are they really missing?"
She nodded.
"He knew them, Effinger did."
She nodded.
"Then--" Matt realized where he was going, and stopped.
"Say it." Molina smiled grimly. "You're not protecting anyone or anything but your own shadow-sense of honor. Effinger lied about knowing those two thugs, who are--?"
Somehow he had become the one being interrogated. Seeing Molina's cleverness in using one to prod the other, he understood-- almost sympathized with--Effinger's weary reluctance to speak. But there was no escape for anyone who still pretended to honesty.
Matt opened the folder to pull the two photos into the light. "If this is the pair who assaulted Temple, that means that--"
"That means that their intense interest in Max Kinsella's whereabouts, and their unadmitted recognition by Cliff Effinger, ties Kinsella into the recent casino killings."
"You're not saying Kinsella killed these absent creeps? If they're dead."
"I'm saying that he's one of the few people in Las Vegas I can think of who could, and would. If you have any idea where he's gone to ground--"
"I don't."
"If you have any idea that Miss Temple knows where he's gone to ground--"
"I don't, I hope she doesn't and I wouldn't say even if she did."
Molina swept the photos back into the folder "But you do see what--and who--Effinger knows? You know anybody in Chicago who might provide an alibi for him?"
"I'll ask the next time I get there," Matt said, as blankly as she.
"Do that. And don't forget to tell me what you find out." Molina pushed herself free of the table's hard-edged support. "You can go now. The coffee isn't that good here."
Matt left, aware that Molina had always hoped to get more out of him than Effinger during this double-edged interrogation.