"He came to make a drop," Grimaldi said. "This morning. That's what the meeting was about."
He gestured toward the body.
"I come up this morning and find this. The fucking mutt brought somebody in here and now the money's gone. We have to get that money back, Jack. It's spoken for, know what I mean? We need to get it quick. We – "
Karch shook his head, took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and cut in.
"Spoken for by who?"
"Jack, some things you don't need to know. You just need to get on this and find out who – "
"Take it easy, Vincent. And good luck with this."
Karch waved a hand and headed toward the door. He got all the way to the living room and was heading to the suite's front door when Grimaldi caught up with him.
"Okay, okay, hold on, Jack! I'll tell you, okay? I'll tell you the whole thing, you think you need to know."
Karch stopped. He was still facing the door with Grimaldi behind him. He noticed that the door's flip-over lock was missing. He reached up and touched the unpainted square on the door frame where it had been fastened. There was a grayish, waxy material in the screw holes. He rubbed some of this between his finger and thumb, thinking he had seen it before. He turned back to Grimaldi.
"Okay, Vincent, from the beginning. If you want my help on this you have to tell me everything. Don't leave anything out."
Grimaldi nodded and pointed to the couch. Karch stepped back into the room and sat down. Grimaldi went back to his position by the room's glass wall. From Karch's angle, he was completely framed in bright blue sky. He was the dark, angry cloud in the middle of that sky. Karch took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and put it in his coat pocket with the one he had used during the elevator gag.
"All right, this is the story," Grimaldi said. "Two weeks ago I got the word from somebody that there was going to be a problem with the transfer. Something came up on the background. What they call an association problem."
Karch nodded. He wasn't as far inside the loop as Grimaldi, but his job gave him more than a general understanding of what was going on. The Cleopatra Resort and Casino was for sale. A Miami entertainment consortium called the Buena Suerte Group was lined up to buy. The Investigations Unit of the Nevada Gaming Commission had been working on a background inquiry of the buyers for twelve weeks and would soon submit a final report making a recommendation to the commission to approve or disapprove the sale. The commission – an appointed board – almost always followed the investigative branch's lead, making the report the key element in any bid to buy or open a casino in Nevada.
"What happened?" he asked. "From what I heard, Buena Suerte was gonna come up clean."
"It doesn't matter what happened. What matters is the money, Jack."
"Everything matters. I have to know everything. What came up?"
Grimaldi waved his hands in frustration and surrender.
"A name came up, okay? They found a connection between one of the directors and a man named Hector Blanca. Now, you'll ask, who is Hector Blanca. Suffice it to say that he's a silent partner who was supposed to have remained silent. And that's all I'm saying on him."
"Let me guess, Vincent. La Cuba Nostra?"
Karch said it in an I-told-you-so voice. He and Vincent had talked about the mob hybrid before. Transplanted Mafia soldiers from the northeast teaming with Cuban exiles in Miami to take control of organized crime in South Florida. The word in criminal intelligence circles was that the group had secretly bankrolled a failed gambling referendum in Florida a few years before. It stood to reason that if they couldn't get casinos into Florida, they would look elsewhere to invest their money.
That elsewhere most likely would include Nevada, where you didn't need a referendum approval to set up gambling operations; you just needed to get by the Gaming Commission and the short-term memory of the current city fathers. The fact that Las Vegas was born of a mobster's dream and run for decades by like-minded and associated men was being lost in the community's collective amnesia. Las Vegas had been reborn as the All-American city. It was pirate ships and half-scale Eiffel Towers, waterslides and roller coasters. Families welcome. Mobsters need not apply. The problem was, every time a new subdivision was approved and cut farther into the desert, the backhoes of progress came perilously close to digging up the reminders of the city's true heritage. And some of the sons and grandsons of those forefathers – even some of the ones buried out in the desert – could not let the old place go.
"We're not going to talk about La Cuba Nostra," Grimaldi said, seemingly putting both an Italian and Cuban accent on the words. "My ass is on the line here and I don't give two shits about how smart you think you are."
"Okay, Vincent, then let's talk about your ass being in the crack. What happened?"
Grimaldi turned and gazed out the window as he spoke.
"Like I said, I got wind there was a problem. It was brought to my attention and I was informed that the problem could go away, could be cleaned up, for the right price."
"Why you?"
"Why me? Because I had the connection. You might not think I'm worth a shit, Jack, but I've been working this city for forty-five years. I was already here a lifetime before your old man got his first gig. I've seen a lot. I know a lot."
He glanced over his shoulder and looked pointedly at Karch as he said the last sentence. Karch took it as a reminder of what Grimaldi knew about him. Karch looked away and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Okay, Vincent. How much was this little cleaning operation going to cost?"
"Five million. Two and a half up front, the rest after the commission vote."
"And I guess you stepping in and brokering the deal was going to solidify your position here under the new ownership."
"Something like that, Jack. It would have solidified yours, too. Anybody with me would be along for the ride. I was going to get kicked up to GM. I would've been able to pick my own man in casino ops, put whoever I wanted up in the nest."
"What about Hector Blanca? He'd want his own man up there."
"Doesn't matter. The deal I made gave me the choice."
Karch got up and joined Grimaldi at the window. They spoke while both looked out across the desert to the mountains beyond.
"So the guy on the bed – Hidalgo – came out here with payment number one and got ripped off. It sounds like their problem, Vincent. Not yours. Not ours."
Grimaldi responded in an even tone. His words were measured, severe. The histrionics were gone and Karch knew this was when he was most dangerous. Like a dog with a broken tail. You try to pet it and you still might get your hand bitten off.
"It is my problem and that makes it yours," Grimaldi said. "I set up the transaction. The second that Hidalgo stepped off the plane at McCarran he and the money were in my care. That's the way Miami looks at it, so it's my ass that is on the line."
Karch raised his eyebrows.
"You already told Miami about this?"
"I talked to Miami right before I called you. Not an enjoyable call to make. But the picture was made real clear to me. The courier is no great loss. But the money, that's different. They're holding me responsible for it."
He paused for a moment and when he began again there was a note of desperation and maybe even pleading in his voice. It was a small note but it was there. It was a tone Karch had never heard coming from Vincent Grimaldi in the many years they had known each other.
"I have to get the money back, Jack. The GCIU report goes to the printer on Tuesday. After that it's too late to change. I have to get the money back and make the payment or the sale goes down the toilet. That happens and Miami will be sending people out."
He used his chin again to point, this time out toward the desert.
"That's where they'll take me. Out with the rest of them who didn't go the distance in this town. Breathing sand."