I don’t know how long it was before I heard the footsteps.
At first they seemed far off and muffled and I didn’t yell because it didn’t matter anymore. I figured that it was Heinz and Sami and that they were about to drop the bodies down the shaft. I didn’t want to see that anyway so I closed my eyes and tried to drown.
Then I heard someone say, “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
And Karen say, “Then I want to find his body!”
Karen? “His body”?
“Down here!” I yelled. “I’m down here!”
I could hear the footsteps shuffling around.
“Down here! I’m down here!”
“Neal?!”
“Down here! Down here!”
I saw Karen’s face peek out from the circle of blue sky.
“Hold on, babe!” she shouted. “They’re bringing a rope!”
“Are you okay?!”
“I think I have a cracked rib! Are you okay!?”
“Well, I’m alive!”
“Well I guess that beats the alternative!” she hollered. “I love you!”
“I love you, too!”
“Nathan?!” I asked.
“He’s okay!”
“Hope?!”
“Fine!” she yelled. “Everyone’s fine except for Heinz-57! I don’t think he’s going to make it!”
Actually, I didn’t care if Heinz made it or not.
“You hang in there, babe!” Karen yelled. “They’re coming!”
They came a few minutes later. I saw the rope come down and managed to grab the end with my right hand. Then I saw the barrel-chested guy from the Sands peer over the edge.
“Can you loop that around yourself and tie it off?” he asked.
I didn’t want to say that I probably couldn’t do that standing on dry ground with two good arms, so I yelled, “I can try!”
“Trying won’t cut it!” he yelled. He pulled the rope back up. “Hold on.”
A few minutes later he was in the water with me. He looped the rope around both of us and yelled, “Take her up!”
I could hear the Jeep moaning in the sand. A minute later we were in daylight.
At first the sun blinded me so I couldn’t see Karen. I could feel her, though, as she put her arms around me. When I was able to see her face, there were tears on her cheeks.
I wanted to cry too, to be honest. But Mickey the C was standing there in a three-piece suit, in the desert sun, not even sweating. Not a bead of perspiration on his smooth face.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No problem,” he answered. “Anything for Natty Silver, the laughs he’s given me. And Joe Graham reached out for you. Said you’re like a son to him.”
Okay, maybe then my eyes might have moistened a little bit.
Don’t ever tell Graham, though, okay?
In the distance I heard the basslike beating of helicopter rotors.
“The cops?” I asked.
Mickey the C snorted. “The cops? They take forever to get here.”
A few minutes later I was on a stretcher beside Nathan Silver on a mob helicopter zooming us back to Las Vegas.
We’d been in the air about ten seconds when he mumbled, “So Arthur Minsky says to the Irish kid, ‘Son, you’re never going to be a good errand boy. Can you do anything else?’ And the kid, Costello, says, ‘I want to be a comic.’ Arthur laughs, I laugh, Eileen the Irish Dream laughs, Benny the Blade laughs. Then Arthur turns to me and says, ‘There you go, Natty. Here’s your replacement for Phil Gold. Teach him “Who’s on First.”’ And I say, ‘This kid? He can’t learn it. He’s the dumbest Mick I ever seen! Dumber maybe than you, even.’ I said to Arthur Minsky…”
“Nathan?”
“Yeeees?”
“Didn’t I meet you in Cleveland once?”
“I’ve never been to Cleveland.”
“Neither have I,” I said. “Must have been two other guys.”
And I actually got a laugh out of Natty Silver.