“They are.”
He drained his beer and said he’d see me later. On the way out he passed Danny, and the two men sized each other up.
“What’s goin’ on?” Danny asked, sliding onto a stool next to me. “Cops outside, and big Jer looks like somebody took the bullets out of his gun.”
“Have a drink,” I said, and I told him about it just as I had Jerry.
“Jesus,” he said, “Dean Martin saved your ass?”
“That he did,” I said, “and I’m very happy about it.”
“So the killer’s off the streets.”
“He confessed to me,” I said. “I’ll make a statement to Hargrove and that should be that. Now if I could just wrap up my original job …”
“I’ve got something for you on that.”
“From the employee list?”
“No. I’ve had my ears to the ground and something came up today.”
I put my drink down.
“Okay, give. If we could wrap both of these things up in one day I could go back to my pit, where nobody tries to kill me.”
“Yeah, they just wish you dead.”
“Danny …”
“I got somebody who saw your two dead goons, Ravisi and Davis, meet with a big man in a bar off the strip. Money changed hands.”
“So they lied about bein’ hired on the phone.”
“Maybe,” he said, “and maybe they were payin’ off a gamblin’ debt.”
“You don’t have a better description of the man they met with?”
“Big guy, expensive suit, wide shoulders. Could be Big Jer, except for the suit. His is more off-the-rack Robert Hall.”
“No, not Jerry.”
“Well, whoever he is, he’s your insider.”
“Then find me somebody on that list you got from Marcia who matches the description.”
“Sure,” he said, sarcastically, “that’ll take no time at all.”
“I’m gonna go up and talk to Dean.”
“Take me with you.”
“You’ll meet him tonight. Besides, I gotta thank him for helpin’ me out when I’m supposed to be helpin’ him. It’ll be a little embarrassin’.”
“Hey, one more thing,” he said, as we headed out. “My man says this big guy in the bar was always holdin’ his head, you know? Like he was in pain all the time?”
We walked out of the lounge together then went our separate ways. I told him I’d see him at the show. His last comment to me had given me the answer I needed. Now I had to decide what to do with it.
Mack Gray opened the door to Dean’s suite. He was still wearing a dark suit and white shirt, like the first day I met him. In fact, it could have been the very same suit. He also still had that pained expression on his face I’d come to know.
“The Boss is gettin’ changed,” he said, letting me in. “You wanna drink?”
I stared at him for a few seconds and he had to ask me again.
“Huh? Oh yeah, sure. Bourbon, rocks.”
We walked to the bar together. He went around behind it and I sat on a stool. While he got my drink I went over it in my head and it fit. I was basing it on some pretty skimpy evidence, but there was only one way to find out for sure.
Ask.
Fifty-nine
Not havin’ one?” I asked when he pushed my drink over to me.
“No.”
I sipped it.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Mack,” I said. “I figure you did it because you wanted Dean to need you a little more. Maybe he doesn’t depend on you so much after eight years, or maybe just not as much as Mr. Raft did.”
He didn’t answer, didn’t look at me, but I thought I saw his shoulders hunch.
“Or maybe,” I said, “you’re afraid he’s gonna ship you off to someone else the way Raft did.”
“The Boss didn’t have a choice,” Mack said. “He was broke. I told him I’d stay with him for nothin’, but he said no. So I ended up workin’ for Mr. Martin.”
“And he became your boss.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re still loyal to Raft?”
He glared at me, now.
“I’m loyal to both of them,” he said. “They’re great guys.”
I stared at Mack. He must’ve been about fifty-four then. Movingon would not have been a very good option for him. Starting over somewhere else.
“So you sent the notes.”
His jaw tightened and for a moment I thought he’d either ignore me or slug me. Instead, he turned, poured himself some scotch, then pulled a pill bottle from his pocket and took two. Percodan.
“Somebody saw you with Ravisi and Davis, Mack,” I said. “Big guy in a dark suit, always holdin’ his head like it hurt. That’s you.”
He looked down at the vial of Percordan in his hand, as if it had betrayed him. I continued.
“It only occurred to me later that while Frank referred to the notes as death threats, they never really said anything about dying. Even in a note you couldn’t bring yourself to threaten Dean in that way.”
“I sent one,” he said. “I thought that would do it, but he never mentioned it. Then I sent another. He still didn’t mention it-to me. Pretty soon I found out he was talkin’ to Mr. Sinatra, and then to you.”
“So when I came into the picture you stopped sendin’ the notes.”
“They weren’t doin’ no good, so yeah, I stopped,” he said. “I didn’t mean ta threaten the shootin’ schedule. I wasn’t trying ta force the boss into hidin’. I was just … I don’t know what I was doin’.”
“And then you hired Ravisi and Davis to scare me off.”
This time Mack looked away.
“I never meant you no harm, Eddie,” he said. “That’s all they were supposed to do, scare ya. They wasn’t supposed to hurt ya.”
“Well,” I said, “they did that.”
I decided not to tell Mack that he was responsible for the two hoods getting killed. I figured they were no loss to anybody, anyway.
He drank down half his drink while I sipped some more of mine.
“So I guess you’re gonna turn me in now, huh? Tell the boss it was me?”
“What good would that do?”
“What?”
“He’d probably fire you.”
“Naw-well, yeah … yeah, I guess he might.”
“I don’t want you to get fired, Mack.”
He looked at me with surprise etched on his face.
“You ain’t gonna tell him? Gee, thanks, Eddie.”
“Maybe you should, at some point, but I’m not gonna. The important thing is that the threatening notes have stopped, right?”
“Definitely,” he said. “No more notes.”
“If you want Dino to depend more on you, find another way, okay?”
“Okay. You got it.”
Suddenly, we heard Dino’s footsteps coming down the hall.
“What are you gonna tell ’im?” Mack asked, lowering his voice.
“I’m gonna wing it,” I said, quickly. “Just go along with me.”
He nodded and we both turned and tried to look as innocent as newborn babes as Dino entered the room, shaking his right hand.
“It’s been a few years since I hit somebody for real,” he said to us. “Had to soak my hand for a while.”
“You want ice, boss?” Mack asked.
“No, Mack, that’s okay,” Dean said. “I could use a drink, though.”
“Comin’ up, boss.”
“Just one before the show,” he said, approaching the bar. “So Eddie, what happened down there after I left.”
“The guy you hit was Lou Terazzo,” I said. “He killed his girlfriend and her roommate, both showgirls at the Riv. He also killed a guy named Mike Borraco, who worked with him there.”
“Was it a sex thing?” Dean asked, accepting a glass of amber liquid from Mack. I hadn’t watched him pour it, but I assumed it was bourbon.
“Yeah,” I said, “sort of a triangle, and the roommate got caught in the fallout. But here’s the weird part.”
“Tell me,” he said, still flexing the fingers of his right hand, “I like weird.”
“Lou Terazzo was the guy sendin’ you the threats.”
“Why? What’d I ever do to him?”
“He fancied himself a ladies man, modeled himself after you, even thought he could,” I lied. “When he realized he was none of those things, he snapped.”
“Are you kiddin’ me?” Dean looked delighted. “You mean I got him myself?”