Certainly there was at least one believer on the casino floor. I heard her shriek, “Five thousand dollars!” while I was waiting for my meal. The words cut through the crowd like a gunshot. Several hundred people became suddenly quiet; then a ripple of applause brought the volume back up as the woman danced around a dollar slot machine, hugging complete strangers who had encircled her to share her good fortune.
“Double or nothing! Double or nothing!” a woman in the restaurant shouted. I turned to look at her. She was seated six tables away, and I could see her profile.
“Hundred bucks says she blows it before the night is out,” she bet her companion and laughed again. It was a joyless laugh, high-pitched and forced. I think the laugh was more recognizable to me than the face. Both belonged to Eleanor Koehn, King’s wife, the “slush” Gretchen Rovick had pointed out during my first visit to Deer Lake.
Her companion scanned the eyes of the restaurant patrons as they turned toward Eleanor, and he pulled in his head like a turtle.
“What are you afraid of?” Eleanor demanded scornfully.
Her date didn’t reply, and Eleanor slapped him hard. I could feel it even where I was sitting. He stared glassy-eyed at her for a moment, then swiveled his head around fearfully, looking for something, seeing nothing. She spoke softly to him, and he replied with a wide grin. She laughed again, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. While she was kissing him, she straddled his lap, her skirt hiked up to there. When she was finished, she laughed some more and called him, “My little doughboy.”
“Enjoying the floor show?” the waitress asked, placing a platter in front of me.
“Better than the afternoon soaps,” I told her, and she grunted. She must have alerted the management because a moment later a tall Native-American gentleman meticulously dressed in matching jacket and tie approached the table. He said something quietly, and Eleanor removed herself from her date’s lap. She smiled seductively and brushed the manager’s cheek with her fingertips as she returned to her chair.
“Champagne!” she called, slapping the table, rattling the remains of their dinner. “A big bottle.”
Her date bowed his head and said nothing.
A bottle was brought to the table in a bucket of ice and opened expertly by the waitress, much to Eleanor’s obvious disappointment. She no doubt had wanted to try shooting out one of the overhead lights with the cork. Still, whatever the manager had said must have registered because although Eleanor poured liberally from the bottle, she remained comparatively quiet.
I grew bored with the show by the time I had finished the prime rib and signaled for the tab, paying by credit card. That’s when a man entered the restaurant and approached Eleanor and her date like he had been expected all along. He was a big, soft-bellied man with gray hair that may or may not have been his own. It was King Koehn. I knew it without knowing him.
After taking my receipt, I ordered another beer, deciding to wait for the second act. The waitress sniffed at me and turned away. Near as I could tell, she had no sense of humor. Perhaps she had never been unhappy enough to develop one. Either that or she simply didn’t appreciate the entertainment value of a good public brawl between husband and wife.
King Koehn spoke with the clear, booming voice of a practiced politician. I could understand every word he said from fifty feet.
“There you are,” he told Eleanor and slapped her date on his back. From the look on the date’s mug, it might as well have been the kiss of death.
But whatever hope of maintaining his dignity that King might have entertained was dashed when Eleanor asked loudly, “What are you doing here? What do you want? Did Michael throw you out? No, no, wait. She’s sleeping with the sheriff these days. No, no, I forgot. Somebody shot her. An outraged housewife, you think?”
Say what? Another suspect? I removed my notebook from my pocket and wrote Eleanor’s name under Gretchen’s. Then I crossed out Gretchen’s name. After a moment’s thought, I crossed out Bobby Orman’s, too.
“Eleanor, please,” Koehn said. It wasn’t a plea. It was a warning. And it went right over Eleanor’s head.
“‘Eleanor, please,’” the woman spit back at him.
Bad move. I knew it and so did the other diners. Suddenly it felt like we were watching a tightrope walker who abruptly stops and begins to teeter back and forth, fighting to regain his balance. Suddenly it was no longer amusing. And while no one departed, you could see from the expressions that none of us were sure we wanted to see what would happen next.
“It’s getting late,” the date said and attempted to rise.
“Sit down, fat boy!” Eleanor screeched at him. The date sat. It was clearly a tossup as to who he was more afraid of, husband or wife.
“Slut,” Koehn called his wife.
“Prick,” she countered.
“Whore!”
“Queer!”
“Bitch!” Koehn screamed and pulled the near-empty champagne bottle from the bucket by the neck.
“No!” Eleanor screamed in reply and hid her head behind her arms.
I anticipated the violence. With the first volley of insults I was on the move, and by the time Koehn raised the bottle above his head to crush his wife’s skull, I was in position to pull his arm back. I held it there for a moment as the champagne cascaded over the two of us then yanked hard, wrenching his shoulder and forcing the bottle from his grip. He grunted and tried to hit me with a backhand. I used the bottle to block him, and he hurt his knuckles against the unyielding glass.
“You look ridiculous, Mr. Koehn,” I told him softly.
“Huh?”
“All these people watching, you don’t need this.”
Koehn didn’t move his eyes so much as an eighth of an inch, yet he was suddenly aware of everyone around him.
“He was going to kill me! He tried to kill me, you saw it!” Eleanor shouted to whoever might be listening.
“You’re an important man in Kreel County,” I reminded Koehn. “You can’t act like this.”
His nod was imperceptible to anyone not looking for it.
“Call the police! We need the police!” Eleanor added.
“Now’s a good time to take a walk,” I said. “Clear your head.”
“Call the police!” Eleanor repeated.
“She’s a whore,” Koehn told me. “She’s ruining my life.”
I didn’t know if she was ruining his life or he was ruining hers, and I didn’t care, but I said, “Screw her. Life’s too short.”
“Who are you?” Koehn asked.
“Let’s just say I’ve had woman troubles myself and let it go at that.”
Koehn nodded his thanks, stepped away from me, and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for disturbing your evening. I hope you will forgive me. Good night.”
“Where are you going?!” Eleanor shouted at his back as Koehn moved away. He didn’t reply, didn’t turn his head. “Where are you going?!” she shouted again, louder. She was interrupted by the manager, who informed her that her patronage was no longer welcomed.
“I’ll leave when I’m good and ready,” she told him.
The bouncers on either side of the manager quickly convinced her otherwise. One gripped her elbow and escorted her to the door. The second grabbed her date by his collar, yanked him up out of his chair, and pushed-pulled him in the same direction. In sixty seconds flat their table was cleared and prepared for more genial customers.