Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 20

“I left some money in the machine,” Tony complained as they tried to keep the two in sight.

“Hurry up,” Shahla said, taking his hand so they wouldn’t get separated while navigating their way through a line of people who were waiting to see a show. “We don’t want to lose them.”

“This might be totally innocent.”

“Or it might not be. The way he talked about the cliff…”

Paul and the girl went out the door of the hotel. Tony and Shahla followed them as fast as possible. Outside, swarms of people walked along Las Vegas Boulevard in the light of the still-hot setting sun.

“Which way did they go?” Shahla asked.

“I don’t see them. Oh, there they are.” Fortunately, Paul’s head stuck up above the crowd. “They’ve turned on Tropicana.”

Tony and Shahla weaved their way through the pedestrians, trying to regain visual contact with Paul and the girl, who had disappeared around the corner. The pursuers also turned right onto Tropicana Avenue and saw the other couple again, loping along at a swift pace. The girl seemed to have no trouble matching Paul’s long strides.

“Maybe they parked in the same lot we did,” Tony said. He slowed down as the traffic thinned, away from the Strip. Fewer people between them and the pursued made their chances of being spotted greater. Shahla dropped his hand and slowed down beside him. He noticed that she wasn’t even breathing hard. She must be in good shape from cross-country.

Paul and the girl walked past the lot where Tony’s car was parked.

“We’re going to need a car if we want to follow them into the hills,” Tony said, hesitating as they approached the entrance to the parking lot. “But if we get the car now, we’ll lose them.”

“You get the car,” Shahla said. “I’ll stay behind them.”

“How will I know where you are?”

“I’ll call you. My cell phone is in my purse. Give me your number.”

Tony always carried a pen with him. He scribbled the number of his cell phone on the back of a business card he pulled from his pocket and gave it to Shahla. He said, “Be careful. Don’t let them know you’re following them.”

“Don’t worry.”

She took off at a trot to regain the distance she had lost. Tony hoped Shahla wouldn’t attract too much attention by running in a dress. He had misgivings about leaving her and almost called her to come back. He’d better get the car as fast as he could.

He ran to the car and started it. Another car was backing out of a parking space behind him-and the driver was taking his sweet time. Tony fumed, but he knew that blowing his horn would only aggravate the situation. When he finally drove out onto the street, Shahla and the other couple had disappeared. Where were they? He had promised Rasa to protect her. He warded off a surge of panic. He had to trust her. She was a smart girl.

He drove slowly, looking for a sign of any of the three. When he figured he had driven farther than they could have walked by now, he circled the block. Five minutes went by without a sighting. Why hadn’t he written down Shahla’s cell phone number? He stopped the car to work on a plan.

His cell phone rang. He punched the talk button and said, “Tony.”

“They’ve gotten in a car and driven toward the hills.”

“Where are you?”

Shahla gave an intersection. Tony remembered that one of the streets she named crossed the street he was on. He was only a few blocks from her. Relieved, he gunned the engine and took off. He spotted her within two minutes. He pulled the car up beside her, and she jumped in.

“Quick, write down their license plate number before I forget it.”

Tony took the card she was still holding and wrote the number Shahla dictated.

“Which way did they go?”

“Toward the hills.” Shahla pointed. “They’re in a gray Honda.”

“So is the rest of the world.”

“I think I’ll recognize it.”

Tony drove as fast as the traffic would allow. The sun was just setting behind the hills they were approaching, so spotting the car would be that much more difficult. Still, there only seemed to be one road that went up into the hills. And Paul had to go in that direction if he was going toward a cliff. The traffic was heavy enough so that Tony doubted that he could catch Paul. Maybe it was just as well. They would drive uphill for a while and then turn around and go home.

The views got better as they drove. This must be the right direction. Paul had mentioned a view of Las Vegas. But what chance did they have of actually spotting the car?

“I think I just saw it,” Shahla said.

“Where?”

“Parked beside the road.”

She must have sharp eyes. It was now quite dark. Tony said, “Do you want to check?”

“Yes.”

It took him several minutes before he found a place wide enough to allow them to turn around. He pulled off the road, waited for traffic to go by, and swung a sharp U.

“Go slowly,” Shahla said, as they rounded a curve. “I think it’s near here. There it is.”

Tony stopped opposite the car Shahla pointed at and pulled off the road as far as possible. They got out and crossed the pavement to a turnoff where the car that Tony now could identify as a gray Honda was parked. He compared the license plate number to the one he had written down. They matched.

“Good work,” he told Shahla. “Now where did they go?”

“There’s a path,” Shahla said. “It leads up that hill.”

The dirt path disappeared into the desert foliage and the dark.

“You wait in the car,” Tony told Shahla. He handed the keys to her.

She refused to take them. “I’m not going to let you go up there by yourself.”

He knew from experience that she meant what she said. “Okay, this is what we’ll do. There should be enough light from the moon to follow the path. I’ll go first. If I hold up my hand, stop.”

“All right.”

At least she didn’t argue. Tony started up the path, slowly, avoiding rocks and roots that made the footing tricky. He was relieved that it wasn’t especially steep. The night air was chilly-it cooled off rapidly in the desert-but he wasn’t going to take time to go back to the car for the sweatshirt he had brought. And Shahla wasn’t complaining. They walked uphill for several minutes in silence. Then the path leveled off, and Tony saw an open space ahead. And moving shadows; they must be people. He held up his hand. Shahla obediently stopped.

He beckoned for her to come up beside him. He bent down and spoke into her ear. “There are at least two people there. In order for us to get close enough to hear them, we’ll have to get behind that rock.”

A rock large enough to hide them stood fifty feet ahead. Tony moved toward the rock, staying silent and close to the ground, to keep from being silhouetted against the moonlit sky like the two figures he was watching. It was difficult work. He crouched as low as he could, but sometimes he had to get down on his hands and knees, amid small but sharp stones. He kept looking back at Shahla. She remained at his heels, stuck to him like a tick. He hoped her dress-Rasa’s dress- wasn’t getting too dirty.

Several times he saw a flash of light coming from the direction of the two people. The first one startled him, but then he realized that they must be taking pictures.

He could hear voices, but he couldn’t make out words. Probably a man and a woman. When they got to the rock, he felt more secure. At least they weren’t exposed. Tony put his finger to his lips as Shahla hugged the rock beside him. He inched forward so that he could see around it.

What he saw almost made him gasp out loud. A girl-she was now lit well enough by the moon so that he could tell-was standing right at the edge of a cliff. Behind her he could see city lights-Las Vegas. It looked to him as if one step and she would be over the edge.

Shahla leaned against his back so she could see. She put her mouth to his ear and said, “She’s going to fall over the cliff. And what is she wearing?”

Not much, as Tony could see now. It looked as if she was wearing a bra and panties. She must be cold. He spotted Paul-the angular silhouette could only be Paul-a few feet away. He had something in his hands, probably a camera.

“Now the bra,” he heard Paul saying.

The girl didn’t argue; she immediately took off her bra. Paul was aiming the camera. There was a flash. Another flash. Each flash momentarily lit up the girl. It was the blonde, no question about it-and she was beautiful.

After taking several pictures, Paul told her to take off her panties. And she did. Without any fuss. Tony was perplexed. This was too easy. Especially for someone he had said was a new girlfriend. Paul took more pictures.

Shahla said, with her mouth to Tony’s ear, “He’s got her underwear. Now he’s going to push her off the cliff.”

Was he? Was this what Paul had done to Joy? Convince her to pose for him in the nude? Pretty girls were vain about their figures and susceptible to flattery, but Joy hadn’t even known him-had she? What was going to happen next? Should he intervene?

They heard Paul say, “That’s enough of that.”

Paul placed his camera on the ground and started to walk toward the girl.

Shahla spoke into Tony’s ear, loud enough to hurt his eardrum. “He’s going to do it now. Stop him!”

Tony sprang to his feet and ran toward Paul. The girl screamed. Tony lowered his head and hit Paul with his shoulder, at waist level, the full weight of his body behind the blow. Paul crumpled to the ground, and Tony fell on top of him. Tony lay dazed for several seconds. Paul didn’t move either.

Then he realized that the girl was standing over him, yelling at him. “What are you doing?” she shouted, again and again. He was aware that she had picked up something. A rock. She was going to hit him with a rock. He staggered to his feet and raised his arms. She threw the good-sized rock at him with both hands. It was a weak throw, and he evaded it.

“He was going to push you off the cliff,” he told the girl.

“You idiot. He wasn’t going to push me off the cliff.”

“How do you know? You just met him.”

“I’ve known him all my life. He’s my brother.”

“Your brother?” He looked from the girl to the still horizontal Paul. There was definitely a family resemblance. This was terribly wrong. Tony couldn’t sort it out, but he knew he had to get out of here. Right now. Before Paul got up. And Paul was stirring.

Tony started running toward the path. Where was Shahla? Then he saw her running ahead of him. He came to the downhill portion. He was going too fast in the dark. He tripped over a root and went flying. He landed hard. He couldn’t breathe. The wind had been knocked out of him. He lay there for several seconds, wondering if he was going to die. He gasped for breath and then realized that since he could gasp, he could breathe.

He climbed slowly to his feet. He hurt all over. He continued down the hill, looking over his shoulder, expecting to see Paul coming after him. But there was nobody in sight. Tony limped down to the street, waited for a car to pass, and then crossed to the other side. Shahla was standing beside the car.

“Are you all right?” Shahla asked anxiously. “I was about to go back and look for you.”

“No.” But he had to get them out of there before Paul identified them. He belatedly fumbled for the keys in his pocket-found them. His hands were shaking as he tried to press the remote that unlocked the car. He finally heard the click and then managed to open the door. He fell into the car. Shahla was already in her seat. He started the engine and ground the gearshift into first. The car jolted forward.

“You look terrible,” Shahla said as Tony stiffly got out of the car.

“Thank you.”

They had stopped at a diner outside of Las Vegas. Shahla had insisted on it. They hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. And Tony’s hands, elbows, and now he realized, his knees were ground up like raw hamburger from his fall. He admitted he couldn’t drive home until he ate and got cleaned up, but he refused to go to an emergency room, thinking that if Paul reported the attack he would be linked to it.

“They won’t let me in there looking like this,” Tony said, surveying his wounds.

“I’m going to get some paper towels to clean you up.”

Shahla went into the diner. Now that the initial shock had worn off, Tony wondered how he would be able to hold the steering wheel for 300 miles with his mangled hands. And his pants were ruined, torn at the knees. He sat back down on the car seat as he became conscious of increasing pain.

Shahla returned a few minutes later with damp paper towels and a knife.

“I borrowed this from the kitchen,” she said, referring to the knife.

“Are you going to put me out of my misery?”

“I’m going to cut off your pants above the knee so we can get at your knees.”

In order for her to do that he had to stand up. He was afraid she’d cut his legs off, but she was careful. And skillful. She fashioned him a new pair of shorts. Together they cleaned up the worst of his injuries. By the time he walked into the diner, he was confident he wouldn’t attract too many stares.

“Go into the restroom and finish cleaning yourself off,” Shahla ordered.

“While I’m doing that, call your mother and tell her you’re all right.” It wouldn’t be a complete lie.

Tony emerged from the restroom a few minutes later, feeling almost human. They ordered dinner, and he realized how starved he was.

“What do you think was going on between those two?” Shahla asked, after the waitress took their order.

“Well, I think that’s what you call an incestuous relationship. When I tackled Paul, he was starting to take his shirt off.”

“Incest? I’ve heard callers talk about incest, but I thought they were fantasizing.”

“That didn’t look like a fantasy to me.”

“I can’t stay awake. If I try to keep driving, I’m going to kill us.” Tony took the off-ramp into a rest area and parked the car. It was past midnight, and he hadn’t had any sleep since 5:30 that morning. Even the pain from his injuries couldn’t keep him awake. He had been driving all over the road. His left knee was stiffening up, too, making it difficult for him to shift, although not much shifting was required on the Interstate. It was the sleep factor he couldn’t overcome.

“I’ll drive,” Shahla said.

“Have you ever driven a stick shift?”

“No, but I can learn.”

“Not in my Porsche. Besides, you must be as tired as I am.”

“I got an extra couple of hours sleep. Remember? And I’m younger.”

“Call your mother again and tell her you’re still all right.”

The car was not designed for sleeping. The seats didn’t tilt back. Tony slid down in his seat to try and get comfortable, but his left knee hurt when he bent it. He closed his eyes. At some point Shahla bridged the gap between the seats and placed her head on his shoulder.

Tony spent a restless night, but every time he woke up he fell asleep again and had dreams with violent but undefined movement. Finally, he opened his eyes and saw that dawn was breaking.