I hung around the casino watching them shoot for several hours. I overheard the director tell Eric Conrad and Tiffany Goodwin that a major camera move was required for what would be the last shot of the day, and they might want to go up to their suites until they were needed.
Tiffany, however, hung around signing autographs for fans and being attended by Licata. The smooth, mustached mobster from California continued to show no signs of wanting to distance himself from his protйgйe, much less the prying eyes of onlookers.
Meanwhile, Eric Conrad was escorted to the elevators by a pair of the biker boys, who kept autograph seekers back while Eric nodded and smiled and promised fans he’d sign for them at the end of the shooting day.
I didn’t follow him up, not immediately. I waited until I saw the bikers come back down and resume their security posts. Then I sought Ginger out and got the actor’s room number from her.
Eric was in a suite on the top floor, but fortunately this was not one of those hotels where you needed a special elevator key to reach the heavens, and the stars dwelling therein. His room was
1201, off the elevator to the left and down a short private hallway of its own-a small scrolly gold plaque identified this as THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.
It was so fancy it had a buzzer, which I utilized. I had to be a little bit persistent, but finally I heard Conrad’s radioannouncer voice behind the door, slightly irritated. “Yes?”
“Mr. Conrad-Eric? It’s Jack Reynolds. The publicist?”
The door opened a crack. The diminutive, bronzed, buff actor was in the jeans but not the denim vest of his costume. He smiled up at me, any irritation vanished. It was a shy smile.
“Well, this is a nice surprise, Jack.”
“Can I come in for a second?”
“Sure.”
He showed me in with a generous sweeping gesture, indicating the living room of the Presidential Suite, with its Early San Francisco Whorehouse decor. Lots of plush red with gold trimmings-couch, drapes, brocade wallpaper, all about as subtle as a velvet whoopee cushion. A door was open onto the bedroom where the decor was similar but with red trimming gold. For variety.
“Can I get you something?” he asked. He indicated a red faux-leather wet bar. He was looking at me with a handsome smile and eyes that were a little too eager. Now I knew how Little Red Riding Hood had felt.
“No thanks,” I said.
On a small antiqued gold-and-light-pink table just inside the door a few things had been deposited-rental-car keys, sunglasses in a soft case, a pack of Marlboros, and a room key. I put myself between him and the little table.
“It’s just…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” I said. “After yesterday morning. I couldn’t help but think you were…that you might be interested in me.”
This wild speculation was based upon him dropping his robe and waving his hard-on at me.
He shrugged. “You aren’t wrong. I felt a real connection between us yesterday. I’d love to get together.”
“Great.”
Now the eagerness went out of his expression as something occurred to him. “But, Jack-this is awkward. Not a good time. I could get called down to the set any second now, and well…I am seeing somebody right now, and while it’s more an understanding than a relationship, I just can’t…Let’s just say I have a date tonight and leave it at that.”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “But there’s weeks to go on this shoot, and you’ll be around that whole time, right?”
“Right,” I lied.
“I promise you we’ll get together.” He leaned in and gave me a tender kiss on the lips. “I promise, Jack.”
I touched his face and smiled. “You just name the time.”
And he let me out.
In the hall I pocketed the room key I’d lifted.
After the film crew had wrapped for the day (the last shot being called the “martini,” why the fuck I have no idea), Tiffany made a beeline for Licata, and the couple caught the elevator arm in arm. Again, the elegant mobster was making zero effort to avoid anyone’s eyes, although the media was gone now and unapproved cameras were a nono, as more than occasional signs with big screaming letters informed the tourists who were the casino’s customer base.
The Four Jacks had a steak house, Bronco’s, that was as close to fine dining as the resort offered. The only dress code was that men had to wear jackets and women dresses. I was fine with the male requirement, because the nine millimeter was in my waistband now.
It was early enough to get right in, and I dined alone, at a corner table, and ate light-a salad and steak sandwich. I drank Coke on ice, no beer or mixed drink.
The decor was again San Francisco Whorehouse, lots of red-and-gold brocade wallpaper, only with brass trimmings and smoky etched glass panels. I was playing a hunch-call it a small hunch inside a larger one-and the smaller one paid off just about when I had given up on it.
Licata, still in the white sport coat, black t-shirt and white slacks, strolled into the restaurant with Tiffany on his sleeve. Despite a number of parties who were ahead of them, they were immediately swept to a private booth. Tiffany was in a low-cut black mini-dress, similar to the white Marilyn one but much shorter, and couldn’t have displayed her Playboy credentials more openly unless she’d been nude with staples.
Since they were just getting here and I’d already had my meal, I ordered some cherry cheesecake and poked at it endlessly, irritating people waiting for a table. Thankfully Tiff and Lou did not linger over dinner, and when (forty minutes later) they left, I left, too, signing my dinner to Eric Conrad’s room.
Surreptitiously, I watched them step into the elevator, and then I moved back into the casino where I bumped into Ginger.
“Hi Jack,” the little redhead said. She had nice blue eyes that went well with the freckles. “We’re torn down and ready to go. Some of us are going out to a little blues bar tonight. You wanna join the fun?”
“Prior commitment, Ginger,” I said. “Rain check?”
“Sure,” she said. She looked a little disappointed. It was one of those moments when I wished I was someone else.
I took a few minutes to watch her go, because that well-shaped behind in a pair of jeans was enough to make me believe in God again. For a few seconds, anyway. Then I found my way to a poker machine that had an angled view on the elevators. I wasn’t really expecting to see a familiar face, but my hunch was just a hunch, and any intel at all that I could gather might prove helpful.
About half an hour later, Tiffany exited the elevator. Alone. She was very much dressed down-white hair ponytailed back, zip make-up, a loose yellow blouse that downplayed her formidable chest, and jeans that weren’t loose but neither did they allow bystanders to make a visual gynecological exam, like other jeans I’d seen her in.
This provided just enough corroborating evidence to make me feel like I was on to something. Another twenty minutes should do it, and it was a good thing I waited, because just when I was getting ready to ditch the poker machine and head upstairs, I hit a royal flush and made $85.
By the time I’d cashed in my quarters for folding money, half an hour had passed since Tiffany exited that elevator and gone wherever the hell she’d gone. Maybe to join Ginger and the gang at the blues club.
Half an hour passing might be just fine for my sketchy purposes. This was something of a crapshoot, but what the hell? It was a casino wasn’t it?
I took the elevator up to the twelfth floor, Top of the Mark where the Four Jacks was concerned, and took out the key to Eric Conrad’s room and got the nine millimeter into my hand-my left hand, while with my right I worked the key in the lock, quietly-and I slipped into the Presidential Suite.
Nobody was in the living room with its red plush sofa and red-and-gold drapes, but sound was coming from the ajar door to the bedroom. Make that sounds: two voices, both grunting, but in different ways. One grunting forcefully, the other mingling pleasure and pain.
Here’s the funny part. Funny ironic, I mean.
Eric was up on the brass bed on his hands and knees facing me, and Licata was behind him, delivering the male shall we say, both naked, their position a direct echo of that moment when I entered Joni’s bedroom back in La Mirada and found her getting her bottom pounded by that mechanic, Williams.
There was no significance to the similarity, just an odd resonance. I guess I’m not experienced enough to know whether that’s standard for rear-entry fun-and-games, but in my experience, my partners and I (females all, I’ll have you know) were on the bed facing the headboard. But Joni and Williams, and now Eric and Licata, had their backs to the headboard, conveniently facing the doorway.
Which was fine with me, because I would rather look them in the eye, anyway.
Both froze, Licata in mid-thrust.
Eric’s shocked expression was almost comical, but there was nothing funny about the sneering anger on the mobster’s face.
Then, when I raised the hand with the nine millimeter in it, letting it point at them like a scolding finger, their expressions changed respectively to abject fear and cold hatred.
“Fellas,” I said, “disengage.”
They did so and the actor, as chagrined as he was frightened, scrambled back and got the covers over him with just his handsome head popping up. Licata, his chest black with hair, remained on his knees, as defiant as his erect member.
“Let’s get something straight,” I said, and immediately regretted putting it that way, “I don’t give a fuck what you boys do to each other. You are neither one of you in danger.”
Licata, despite having a gun on him, said, “You are.”
But his dick had started to wilt.
I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Eric, you just stay here in the bedroom and relax. Don’t use that phone. Don’t call for security or anybody else-just think how embarrassing this could be. How damaging.”
Eric nodded. In fact, he nodded about half a dozen times.
“Lou,” I said to the proud little mobster, “I need a word with you in the other room. This gun is no threat to you as long as you cooperate. I’m only holding it on you for my protection, because I understand that you’re a powerful man. And, yes, I understand, too, that I’m potentially the one in danger here. On the other hand, I do have the gun.”
Licata growled, “What do you want from me?”
“First, relax. You don’t need to be defensive. Your secret is safe with me.”
Eric said to the mobster, “Jack’s gay, too.”
Licata snapped, “No he isn’t, you dumb cunt!.. What, Mr. Reynolds?”
“Put on your pants and join me in the other room.”
He took time to put on his boxers and his white slacks, but when I waved the nine mil, he understood that the rest of his wardrobe was to remain behind.
I let him out of the bedroom, and shut the door on Eric. Then I motioned the barefoot mobster to the red plush couch; when he’d perched himself on its edge, poised for just the right moment to take the gun away from me, I pulled up a matching red chair and sat across from him.
“Sit back,” I said.
He did. His hands were in his lap. His trigger finger was twitching.
“If you behave,” I said, “everything’s going to be peachy keen. If you make a try for me, then you just enjoyed your last cornhole… capeesh?”
He sighed heavily-contempt was in it. Understandably. But he nodded. His eyes were hooded and he was so very fucking pissed.
I asked him, “Do you have any reason to want Arthur Stockwell dead?”
His frown of confusion could not have been more complete. And I saw nothing fake in it. But there was real indignation.
He blurted, “What the fuck…? Artie’s directing the picture! Why would I want that?”
“Well, somebody wants him dead. And you were the prime candidate because, just before this production started, Stockwell had a fling with Tiffany. You remember her-your girlfriend? Main squeeze? Love of your life?”
“Why would I give a fuck about him fucking her?”
I was studying him. “That’s what I’m trying to figure. The only way it plays is if you are so intent to portray that bimbo as your mistress, you feel it necessary to prove the point by getting rid of somebody who really did fuck her.”
“Stupid,” he muttered.
“I mean, I caught on this afternoon-when we spoke, and when I saw how you and Tiff behaved on set-that she was your beard. Why else would you want your PR man to spread pictures of such a forbidden relationship? Unless you were in another relationship even more taboo. No whisper of your real sexual proclivities can be allowed, right, Lou? So you have a wife and kids, and a mistress, a Playboy playmate that the goombah crowd can envy you over with their mouths wide open and watering.”
“Like Don Rickles says,” Licata said nastily, “you win a cookie. But no fucking way would I want Artie dead. He’s too useful to me.”
“Sure. If his movies make money, well, hell, that’s money. If they lose money, then you have the perfect laundry. But there’s another possibility.”
The mustache emphasized his sneer. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”
“My understanding is that Art is insured. That if he went down, something called a ‘completion bond’ would kick in. An insurance company would write you a big fat check to cover production costs of a film that never got finished.”
He folded his arms. “Why would that be a good idea? The money would come in, and everybody would get paid off. So what? How do I stand to benefit?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that.”
“Well, don’t sprain yourself. Anyway, if I needed to shut the production down, I’d get rid of somebody above the line who’s more easy to replace, like that kiss-ass producer or…” His next words were sotto voce. “…one of the stars.”
I leaned forward, still pointing the gun at him, but not as threateningly. “Lou, somebody took a contract out on Art.”
“Says who?”
“Says the two assholes I iced since I got here. One today, one day before yesterday.”
“The fuck.”
“The fuck, Lou. The first guy was doing back-up, the second was arranging an accidental death for Art. I saw the doctored pills he was planning to switch with Art’s Percodan. That guy, the second guy? He had an accident this morning at the Spur in his own bathroom. Probably won’t be found for a while, since he has a ‘Do Not Disturb’ on his door.”
“…Who are you?”
“I used to work for the Broker out of the Quad Cities.”
“…Shit you say. Somebody killed him.”
“He was in a dangerous business.”
“What’s your business, Reynolds? What’s a guy who hits people doing hitting other guys who hit people?”
“Like you said, Lou-it’s my business. I’m working for Art, making sure he survives this film shoot. Call me a bodyguard or a troubleshooter, but however you put it, I’ve taken the immediate threat away…but do I have to tell you, Lou, that if somebody has marked Art for murder, another team won’t be far behind?”
He huffed a laugh. “So you think I’m the guy who wants him dead? Well, you’re fuckin’ nuts!..So what now, kill me and that innocent kid in the other room? You are one sick fuck.”
I sat looking at him. The nine millimeter, unsilenced, might bring attention. There was a pillow on the couch I could grab and use. And maybe just stuffing the snout in his gut would muffle the sound enough to get by. All that hair on him might help.
But then his honeybunch would come running in or maybe just start screaming, and then what? Collateral Damage starring Eric Conrad. Playing a hunch, doing things on the fly, it had its drawbacks.
“I don’t think you’re the guy who wants Art dead, Lou.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m not.”
“Not interfering with me, and my work, would benefit you. In fact, any theories you might have about who stands to gain from Art’s death, I’d like to hear.”
He shrugged. “Probably that wife of his. Art has money. Nice house in the Hills. She’d get it all. And he fucks around on her with other women, like you said. Kill her ass, why don’t you? And leave me the fuck alone.”
“Do I need to kill you, Lou?”
“What?”
“Convince me I don’t need to kill you. Maybe we can be allies.”
“I already helped you, didn’t I? With my theory?”
“If you really don’t want your director dead-and to have your movie hit a real bad speed bump-just forget we had this conversation, and we’ll go our separate ways. You forget I barged in on you waving a gun, and I’ll forget you were playing slap and tickle with Billy Jack.”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “I can do that.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“…Are you the one they call Quarry?”
“I might be.”
“I won’t lie to you.”
I stood. “Good. I can’t hang around forever, because even in a casino town, suspicious deaths attract attention.”
“What did you do with the surveillance bozo?”
“I smacked him with a hunk of rubber.”
“Why would that kill him?”
“It was on a car at the time.”
I put the nine mil in my waistband. I buttoned the sport coat over it. I stared at the seated mobster for a while, my expression telling him he was free to make a try for me. It was no Wild West stunt. The guy was unarmed and smaller than me. He didn’t make a move.
But if I said I wasn’t shaking a little when I shut the door on the Presidential Suite and headed for the elevators, I’d be lying.