He had got the address from a friend who could run license plate numbers; it had taken more than twenty-four hours, but Scarecrow Smith—or, as his real name seemed to be, Scott Crane—apparently hadn't gone anywhere.
A blue van with tinted windows was parked on the other side of the street, and as Funo drove slowly past it, he noticed a faint, powdery white mark on the front side of the rear tire; that implied that a meter maid had chalked the vehicle recently, so recently that the driver had moved only a few yards before parking again. Was someone watching Crane's house? Obstadt's man had warned him that this assignment might be contested.
He looked more closely at the other cars parked along the street under the carob tree boughs, and noticed: an old pickup truck, empty; a Honda, empty; and a gray Jaguar, with a fat bald man sitting inside.
Funo turned left onto Bush Street and then right onto Third. He drove for a block and then pulled into a Chevron station that had a pay telephone at the edge of the asphalt apron, out by the self-serve air and water hoses. He got out of his car, got Crane's telephone number from information, and punched it in.
The phone rang twice at the other end, and then a young man's voice said, breathlessly, "Scott Crane's residence, can you hold a minute?"
"Sure, friend," said Funo easily, watching the sweep second-hand of his Rolex. He had at least three minutes before anybody could possibly trace the call, even if they'd managed to get Pacific Bell security to put a trap on the line.
"Sorry," said the voice after only ten seconds. "Scott was in an accident, he's in the hospital."
Nicked him after all, thought Funo. "Jesus," he said in a shocked tone, "what happened! I was playing Poker with him Tuesday night!"
"You were? Listen, he keeps asking for two people—he's semiconscious—two people named Ozzie and Diana. Do you by any chance know who they are?"
"Sure I know Ozzie and Diana!" said Funo instantly. "Listen, what hospital is he in? I'll bring them over."
A car alarm in the Norm's parking lot started up, monotonously honking beep … beep … beep as a couple of shabbily dressed men walked hastily away down the sidewalk. Stupid bums, Funo thought.
"It's," said the voice at the other end, "shit … I can't remember the name. Jim's the one who knows it, and he's on his way back … right now, matter of fact. Why don't you pick up Ozzie and Diana and bring them over to the house? Or just give me their numbers, sure. I—"
"I can't right now," said Funo. "How about if I call back soon, when Jim'll be home?" He spoke loudly, for he could hear the car alarm both directly and, more faintly, over the telephone.
"Could you give me their numbers?" asked the agitated young man. "Where do they live? Diana he 'specially needs to see."
"I don't know exactly, they're friends of friends. When can I call and catch Jim?"
"God, I don't know how long either of us is gonna be able to hang around here. Uh—are you at a number where Jim can get hold of you?"
Funo looked around at the gas station lot. "For the next half hour anyway, sure. Got a pencil?" He read off the number of the pay phone.
"Okay," said the voice on the other end, "got it. We'll get back to you quick."
"Thanks," said Funo. "I really appreciate it. I mean it."
He hung up the phone.
Something was bothering him, and he always paid attention to his hunches. What was it? That noise, the car horn honking on and on …
He'd heard it over the telephone as well as directly. Therefore, the young man at the other end had probably heard it both ways, too, and would know that Funo was calling from a nearby outdoor telephone.
Funo quickly folded himself into the Porsche and drove across Third and parked behind a Pioneer Chicken restaurant, then walked inside and sat at a table from which, through the tinted glass, he could watch the gas station. If nothing happened within half an hour, he would drive to another phone and call again.
Within five minutes the gray Jaguar had pulled into the Chevron station, and the fat man hauled his startling bulk out of the driver's seat. He looked at the telephone, and then for several seconds looked around at the nearby cars and pedestrians. After a while he stumped over to the cashier window and talked to whoever was inside.
Funo's heart was thumping, and a twitchy grin bared his teeth. Pretty good, he thought. They could tell I was within earshot to the north. I wonder what they had for south—another car horn, in a different pitch or cadence? A barking dog? A realistic-looking street lunatic chanting about Jesus?
Through the tinted window Funo watched as the fat man got back into the idling Jaguar, and for several minutes just sat there behind the wheel; then the car moved off, turning left onto Third Street, back toward Crane's place.
The Jaguar had a Nevada license plate. Funo wrote down the number.
The Commerce Casino was the first one Crane saw, a gigantic cubical building that from the front looked like some ancient Mediterranean temple, with its arched entrance and gold pillars and expanses of windowless wall, and looked like a prison from around in the back lot, where they had to park. There was even a little guard tower back there. To the south side of the casino a dozen high-tension electrical cables hung from the skeletal silver shoulders of a line of tall towers that marched away to the north and south; on the long, narrow plot of land under the towers, as if nourished by the electromagnetic fields, knee-high pine trees grew in dense rows.
Ozzie stared back at the cables and the trees as he and Crane and Mavranos slowly walked toward the building, and he muttered something about evergreens under hydroelectric power.
Mavranos told him that land under power lines wasn't good for much, and that a lot of such stretches were used as Christmas tree farms. "Come back here on New Year's Day, you see nothing but dirt."
Ozzie nodded, frowning.
The inside of the casino was one vast room; when a person had walked in through one of the several glass doors, street level became just the level of a wide, raised, railed walkway that ran all the way around the acre of playing floor five steps below. Tables and chairs and couches lined the rails, and doors in the high walls opened onto a delicatessen, a bar, a banquet room, a gift shop, and even a hair salon. Mirrored pillars, square in cross-section, rose to the high mirrored ceiling.
Mavranos sat down to have a beer, and Crane and Ozzie split up.
Crane hopped down the nearest set of steps to the playing floor and then limped through the maze of tables.
The games were quick, the house dealers shuffling low to the table and then skimming the cards out across the green felt, the players checking and folding and betting so inconspicuously and rapidly that Crane several times found himself unable to tell whose bet it was, or what the amount. Some of the players had hamburgers—or even full dinners, with mashed potatoes and gravy—on little wheeled wooden carts beside them, and they found a calm second or two now and then in which to bend over the food and shovel some into their mouths without taking their eyes from the table.
Crowds of Asians stood around tables where some game was being played that involved dice in a brass cup as well as cards, and the chips being shoved back and forth in tall stacks were the black hundred-dollar ones. The hasty diners around these tables all seemed to be eating noodles with chopsticks.
Under the frequent loudspeaker announcements—"JT, One and Two-Stud," "DF for the one-three Hold 'Em"—were the constant click and rattle of chips.
Crane gave his initials to the floorman who was working the five- and ten-dollar Five-Card Draw chalkboard, and while he waited for his turn to get a seat at a table, he leaned against the rail and watched the nearest game.