Iceman

Las Vegas

Eichord deplaned at McCarron International and managed to find both his luggage and a cab, and within minutes he was bound for Las Vegas Boulevard. He chose the option of coming in “unofficially,” at least for the moment. He planned to sniff around some on his own first.

Vegas was a nighttime town. No clocks. City of the perennial weekend. And the Strip had been designed for darkness—all light show and bright dazzle. But, God, it was a depressing vista in the daytime.

The gray smog layer clung to the skyline like dirty smoke and it was all you could see from the Tropicana clear over to the Hilton ... dirty gray sky and garish hotel architecture. Check-in was a nightmare of tourists logjammed through a maze of brass-tipped, velvet rope. Eichord found himself caught in a giggling, whispering hubbub of Japanese with cameras. The slow-moving line inched forward as he listened to the Japanese talk about going to Anaheim and Disneyland, and which shows to see first. Where did all these people COME from?

Finally Jack reached the front desk, checked in, and was whisked through the casino to an elevator, and before long was unpacking his rumpled clothing. His room had a sliding glass door and he walked out on a small balcony about the size of a coffee table. Everywhere he looked fabulous, fabled neon icons lit up the Nevada smog with promises of easy money and good times and no tomorrow.

But down on the rooftop adjoining the hotel's parking garage he spotted the yellow pages and a pair of white, high-heeled pumps. What scenario of anger, frustration, rage, and sad despair might account for such an irrational act? Did a drunken woman throw them herself? More likely it was a man's work. The Vegas phone directory is not an easy toss. An event for the Las Vegas Decathalon, the hundred-meter telephone book and high-heel throw.

He changed clothes and made his way back downstairs, taking a cab downtown to the California Club, as good a starting place as any. He was armed with a police sketch he didn't have much faith in, and less sense of purpose than he could remember.

The first thing he spotted in the casino was obvious giggle of three hookers. If it is a coven of witches, a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese, an army of caterpillars, a school of fish, a pod of seals, and a flock of sheep, what do you call a trio of hookers? Oh, about $250, he imagined.

His cop eyes saw them the way he always saw people, registering overly tight maroon corduroy slacks and a bulge of green sweater with an invitation to all monied males, the middle one with a too-dressy black cocktail dress, the third with lots of poundage packed into another pair of tight slacks. All of them with high wedgies, frizzes, tons of makeup. The only obvious flaw other than a possible lack of scruples the set of the shoulders. They strode through the casino like jocks. In fact, when Eichord looked at the big one, he thought of Alex Karras reincarnated as a woman. Just your average middle linebacker working girls—what could be more inviting? Jeezus.

But in the same breath he saw something fantastic. A woman in the shortest, blackest, tightest clinging top of a material that revealed every outline and curve. Perfect, movie-starlet mammaries, nipples thrusting like hard fingertips, gorgeous blond hair, and a face without a hint of makeup—stunning, spectacular, smashing. But, of course, he told himself, I have something better at home.

But this WAS Vegas, after all, and Eichord spent the first ten minutes just checking out the chicks. With that important detective work done, he called a pit boss aside and asked to see the shift manager, waiting by the side of a 21 layout. An old man wandered over and tried to make some pitiful, erratic bet of some kind. It took the dealer three or four minutes to explain to him why he couldn't place the wager.

A hard-eyed, suspicious-looking man in a silk suit introduced himself and Eichord showed his tin and explained what it was he wanted and was told how totally impossible that would be. Nobody employed here at the club would have any way of identifying somebody from that long ago—not even from five WEEKS ago—in a wheelchair?—no big deal. We have handicapped in here all the time, the man informed him, looking around and seeing in fact a wheelchair rolled up to the craps table where a group of fifteen men were screaming at the moment.

Eichord showed the drawing to some people anyway and watched various pairs of bored Las Vegas eyes glaze over. After all this WAS Vegas, pal. These people have seen it all. They've seen all the cops. All the wise guys. All the hookers. All the stars. What's one more serial killer in a wheelchair—right?

The old man was still farting away his Social Security leftovers when Eichord decided he was spinning his wheels. The man's sweet wife had joined her hubby and stood beside him, this strange old dude in a ragged undershirt, as he had his moment of fun, escaping momentarily out of whatever drabness, escaping into the bright flash for a second—one turn of a card or spin of a wheel and a thirty-second promise of easy dough that had led so many of us down the wrong pathway. A cocktail waitress in a push-up bra and stiletto heels whispered at him and by reflex he showed her the picture.

They talked briefly. Her name was Stephanie or Kim or Lisa, she was twenty-one, or twenty-two, or twenty-three, she was married to a struggling lounge performer, or she was a would-be student or a part-time nurse working cocktails to support a child, and he'd known a thousand girls just like her. On his way back out of the club he tried to remember all the name tags that went with the glazed eyes: Lethea, Nadja—from Iran, Gerry, Nassia. A dealer named Takio, Sam. A lady pit boss with an American first name he couldn't remember—last name Wong. Eduarda, whom they called Fast Eddy. Stephanie. Kim. Lisa.

A maid said, “How ya doin'” to him as he smiled at her in the hallway, back in the hotel.

“No good,” he said, meaning it.

“I know what you mean. I live here."