“I appreciate the thought, Jack-”
“I’d have to replace you,” he went on, “and good pit bosses are hard to find.”
“I get it, Jack,” I said.
“Keep Jerry with you.”
“I plan to.” I stood up. “What happened with the cops? I thought they’d be all over me when I woke up this mornin’.”
“I got them to lay off ya,” he said, “but they’ll wanna talk to you later today. Not that you’re a suspect no more-”
“Jerry told me.”
“-but they figure whoever tried to kill you probably killed Borraco and those broads.”
“They still like Lucky Lou for that?”
“Either that, or they just don’t have any other suspects.”
I sat there for a moment, going over it in my head.
“I can’t see Lou tryin’ to blow me up,” I said, finally.
“Why?” Entratter asked. “Are you and him such good buds?”
“No, but-”
“If he did kill the two broads and Mike Borraco, he don’t like you pokin’ around, Eddie,” he said. “You see Lou Terrazo comin’ at you, I’d go the other way. Lou’s a made guy.”
“What?” I said. “I thought he was just …”
“Just what? Another mug? Naw, Lou made his bones in Chicago years ago. I gotta tell you, if you’re on Lou’s list …”
Christ, I thought, how stupid could I be? I worked in Vegas right in the midst of these guys. Just because I didn’t think they were very bright didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.
“What about Borraco?” I asked. Jerry had asked me if Borraco was made, but I didn’t know.
“What, made? Mikey? Naw, not yet, maybe not ever. Mikey was a gopher, Eddie. If you had him pegged that way, you had him pegged right. But Lou … he’s a killer.”
So if Lou Terrazo was not only a killer but the killer, the cops were already on his tail. Did he think killin’ me would get them off? Or was I just next on his list?
“So like I say, keep Jerry close to you.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “close as a Siamese twin.”
“A what twin?”
“Close, Jack,” I said, “I’m gonna keep him real close.”
I collected Jerry and we went back down to the casino floor. I realized that lately I had been prowling the floor without my customary black “pit-boss” suit, just going with slacks and polo shirts. I thought it was odd, so I wondered why nobody had been commenting on it.
But walking through the casino today I was getting comments about the bandage over my eye and the stiff way I was moving. Maybe people did care.
“I gotta go talk to Frank,” Jerry said, suddenly. “He wanted to know when you got out of the hospital.”
“Isn’t he shooting at some of the casinos?”
“Yeah,” he said, “tomorrow they shoot here. I think they’re at the Riviera today.”
“Well, go ahead,” I said. “I’ll be okay here.”
“Don’t leave or anythin’ until I get back.”
“I won’t, believe me. I’m not goin’ anywhere without you, Jerry.”
That seemed to please him.
“I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be around, down here on the floor, somewhere,” I said, “or in the lounge.”
“You want I should give you a gun-”
“Go!” I said.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m goin’.”
He walked across the floor and out toward the front door. I turned and headed for the lounge. When I got there I saw that Bev was working, so I sat at one of her stations. Some baby-faced kid was on stage singing in what sounded like German. He didn’t look old enough to even be in a casino.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “I heard what happened.” Gently she touched my head near the bandage. “Why would someone do that to you?”
“Maybe it was a jealous husband,” I kidded.
“Are you sleeping with other men’s wives again, Eddie?” she scolded me.
“What do you mean, again?”
She laughed.
“What can I bring you. A beer?”
“No,” I said. “Something that will numb the pain. Bourbon on the rocks should do it.”
“Comin’ up.”
She turned and flounced off to the bar. I was watching her anddidn’t notice the man approaching my booth until he slid into it across from me.
“Don’t make any sudden moves, Eddie,” he said.
I looked at him and didn’t recognize him right away. He was wearing a Dodger baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, which were covered by sunglasses. As a Yankee fan I found the hat offensive, but before I could say a word he reached across the table and grabbed my wrist.
“Hey!” I said. “What gives?”
“I got a gun pointed at you under the table,” he said. “We’re goin’ for a walk.”
“Who the hell-”
“What do you want to see first?” he asked. “My face or the gun?”
“Let’s start with the face.”
He released my wrist, lifted the ball cap and removed the glasses.
“Hiya, Eddie,” Lucky Lou Terazzo said. “I hear you been lookin’ for me.”
Fifty-seven
Jesus, Lou,“I said.”What the hell are ya doin’?”
“We’re gonna get up and walk outta here together,” Terazzo said.
I licked my lips and looked around. No one was looking our way.
“What if I don’t wanna go?” I asked. “You gonna shoot me here, in front of all these people?”
“Why not?” he asked. “I killed three people already, ain’t I? Three this week, that is.”
Oh Christ, I thought, he just confessed to me. No way I was getting out of this alive. Why had I let Jerry go?
As if reading my mind Terazzo said, “I been waitin’ for your big New York gun to take a walk. I ain’t gonna miss this chance to take you out-not after missin’ you last night.”
“You blew up my car?”
He nodded.
“I did some demolition in Korea,” he said. “Guess I was rusty, or you were lucky. One of the two. But now I’m gonna take you out myself, the easy way.”
“B-but, why me? What’d I do to you?”
“You started askin’ questions,” he said. “I didn’t need you askin’ questions when I was plannin’ on killin’ Carla. I panicked.”
“Why Carla?”
“She was cheatin’ on me.”
I didn’t bother asking with who. That really didn’t matter, in the long run.
“And why her roommate?”
“She got in the way,” he said. “It was an accident.”
“She didn’t fall over the railing into the pool and drown.”
“No,” he said. “I hit her and she died. Simple as that. I dumped her into the filthy pool, figured nobody’d find her until I finished with Carla.”
“And what about Mike Borraco?”
“He was helpin’ you, wasn’t he? Askin’ about me? Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait.” Even with my own death staring me in the face I figured this might be my only chance to find out if the killings were connected to the threats on Dino. “Why were you sending threats to Dean Martin?”
“What?” he asked. “Whataya talkin’ about? What threats?”
“You weren’t sending threatening notes to Dean Martin?”
“What the hell for?” He looked amazed. “I love the way that guy sings.”
“But … why did you dump Mike’s body at the warehouse they’re using for Ocean’s Eleven?”
“Hey,” he said, “I was cruisin’ Industrial Drive with a body in the trunk. I stopped at the first place I could find to dump it.”
A coincidence?
“And what the hell did you come lookin’ for me in the first place for?” he asked. “What’d I ever do to you?”
“I–I just wanted to ask you some questions about … about Dean Martin.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Somebody was sending him threats and you thought I’d know who it was?”
“I thought you might have heard rumors,” I said. “I–I was stuck, didn’t really know what to do next.”
He glared at me, and I didn’t know if he was going to laugh or cry.
“You just stumbled into my life? And ended up finding Misty’s body?”
“That’s the way it went.”
“And you called the cops?”
“Lou … I’m sorry. I just-”
“Shut up!” he snapped. “Just shut up. Because you went bumblin’ around I got to kill you, too. Let’s go.”