I'm a fool to kill you

FIVE

The last film I’d seen Ava in was On The Beach, with Gregory Peck. That had been in fifty-nine, three years ago. She’d done an Italian film with Dirk Bogarde in sixty, The Angel Wore Red, but I hadn’t seen it yet. Since then she’d been off the screen, living in Madrid and supposedly trotting around the globe. Only a few months back I’d heard that she’d started production on a new film called Fifty-Five Days at Peking, with Charlton Heston and David Niven. I didn’t know if that movie had wrapped or not, but if not what would she be doing in Las Vegas?

The answer was obvious. She would have been looking for Frank. They had been divorced since fifty-seven, but being friends with Frank I knew that he stilled loved her, and she still loved him. They tried to stay friends, but they mixed like dynamite and fire. Frank had once said to me, very sadly, ‘I love her, and God damn me for it.’

I went to the hotel lobby to talk to the staff, hoping to find out who had actually seen Ava in the building. But there had been a shift change. If a bellman or desk clerk had seen her, they had gone home. I decided to go outside and talk to the valets. That’s where I lucked out.

‘Yeah, I saw ‘er,’ a valet named Kenny said. He had enough acne to make him look like Howdy Doody. ‘Got out of a cab, went inside, came running out again a little while later.’

‘Where’d she go?’

‘Got into another cab.’

‘Did you hear where she told the cabbie to take her?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t hear, but I figured it must be the airport,’ Kenny said.

‘Which cab was it?’

‘It was an Ace cab.’

‘You know which one?’

‘I don’t know the number,’ he said, ‘but the cabbie’s name is Leo.’

‘Is he in line now?’ I asked.

Kenny looked over at the line of cabs waiting for fares and said, ‘No, he’s not back yet.’

I thought about going to the airport to find him, but he might have been on his way back.

‘Kenny, if he comes back in the next ten or fifteen minutes I’ll be in the lobby,’ I told the valet. ‘Tell him there’s a ten in it for him if he comes in and talks to me.’

‘What’s it about, Eddie?’ he asked.

‘Just do it, Kenny. OK? As a favor?’

‘Sure thing, Eddie.’ I gave him a five spot and went back into the hotel.