Missing Persons

44

My girls were sleeping in separate beds when I got home. The dogs were squirrelly though, and I had to spend ten minutes outside with them before I could get them settled. Emily detected the scent of a critter of some kind while we were walking the lane and once we were back in the door she strolled the entire perimeter of the interior of the upstairs of the house checking to see if an unseen enemy had succeeded in breaching our defenses. Ultimately confident that all of our flanks were protected, she plopped at my feet with a satisfied sigh.

The entire house shook when she landed.

I was thinking about calling Sam to get his inevitable rage over my visit to Doyle’s house out of the way, when the phone rang.

I pounced on it: Raoul.

“I’m starting to get somewhere. Couple of pieces,” Raoul said.

His tone told me that he hadn’t found Diane, so I didn’t ask. His words told me that he wanted to confront the practical, so I refrained from asking the question that was second on my list: How are you doing with all this? Instead, I said, “What do you have?”

Raoul started with bad news, not, in my mind, a good sign. “Marlina’s a dead end. The woman from Venetian security? One more meal with her tomorrow, and I’m done. I know exactly why the woman’s been divorced twice though I still haven’t figured out how she got married twice. She’s playing me.”

“Okay, then what pieces do you have?”

“Two. The guy from the craps table? The shopping center developer who was playing craps at the same table as Diane? He finally called me this morning, told me he’d been drunk when I phoned him and he’d forgotten to call me back. He was cleaning out the memory on his mobile and saw my number. Anyway, he said that Diane was his luck at the craps table that night and when she cashed out, he decided to do the same. He said he was right behind her as she was walking through the casino.”

“Sounds kind of creepy.”

“Sí. He says as Diane’s walking across the casino, two guys walk up to her, say hello. Pretty well dressed. Both of them forty to fifty. One tall, one average. One of them whispered something to her. She seemed happy to hear it and the three of them walked on together, talking. She had her phone in her hand, dropped it trying to shake hands with one of the guys. He picked it up and she stuffed it in her purse. One of the two reached around behind Diane, took the phone right back out of her bag, and tossed it on the floor by a row of slot machines. He said the guy was smooth; he picked Diane like a pro. Until the man dumped her phone, the guy from the craps table thought one of the two guys was Diane’s husband, or boyfriend.”

“Fits with what I remember, Raoul.” I paused before I added, “The guy from the craps table was going to hit on her, wasn’t he? That’s why he was following her?”

“Yes,” said Raoul without any animosity. He understood these things.

“So that was it? He never reported this to anyone?”

“He said that Diane didn’t seem to be in any distress. The phone thing was odd, but she went with them voluntarily.”

“But he doesn’t know where they went?”

“They were walking in the direction of the lobby, but he didn’t follow them out of the casino. He went up to his room.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m thinking what he said to her had something to do with Rachel Miller. That’s why she went with them-she thought she was going to get a chance to talk with Rachel.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.” I paused for a moment. “Somebody must have picked the phone up off the floor and put it in the tray of the slot machine where that drunk woman found it.”

“It also explains why Venetian security isn’t too eager to let me see the surveillance tape. Probably looks a lot like a rendezvous to them. You know, something between… adults.”

“But they must have a picture of these two guys, right?”

“Right. You can’t walk out of a casino without a camera seeing you. No way.”

“You said you have a couple of pieces of news. What’s the other one?”

“Norm Clarke came through. I should’ve called him the first day I got here. I can be such a putz.”

I was surprised-no, shocked-at the Yiddish. I didn’t know it was part of Raoul’s language repertoire. I grabbed a beer from the kitchen so I could sit down and listen to his story about Norm Clarke.

Any good big-city daily newspaper that doesn’t take itself too seriously has one, though few are fortunate enough to have that special one that becomes a silk thread in the urban fabric. San Francisco had Herb Caen. Denver has had Bill Husted for as long as I can remember.

What’s their role? Gossip columnist? Man about town? If they’re good, the phrases don’t do them justice. These guys, and a few gals, take the pulse on their city. They tell the rest of us what happens behind closed doors, what happens after the bars close, what’s new, what’s old, what’s coming next. They invite us to the city’s water cooler for the latest gossip on the movers and shakers, and they whisper the latest dish over the city’s backyard fence. They’re the ones who know what local boy has done good, and what local girl has gone bad. What famous visitor has been spotted where, doing what, with whom.

Las Vegas’s version was Norm Clarke.

Norm had briefly gone head-to-head with Husted back in Colorado, scrounging the usually dull Front Range of the Rockies for paltry scoops, but years before he’d moved on to ply his trade at the Review-Journal in the much more fertile gossip terrain of Las Vegas. By all the reports that made their way back across the Great Basin and the Rocky Mountains to Denver, Norm soon owned his adopted town.

He knew everybody in Vegas, had spies everywhere, had eaten at every now table, could get backstage at any show, and was escorted to the front of the line and past the velvet rope at any trendy club. After a few years in the desert Norm had, literally, written the book on Las Vegas, and was always busy taking notes for the next edition. His mug, and his column, graced the front page of the paper every weekend.

Celebrities weren’t really in Vegas until Norm said they were in Vegas. Some begged him for ink. A few had managers and publicists call and beg him to please, please, please forget what he had seen or heard.

Back in his days at the Rocky Mountain News, Norm had done a feature on Raoul, and on Raoul’s golden touch incubating Boulder tech companies during the heady days of the early 1990s. Raoul, who generally despised publicity, thought the piece was on the money, and he and Norm had become casual friends. They’d stayed in touch over the years even as each of their lives grew more complicated.

When Raoul called Norm asking for help in finding Diane, he was asking Norm to do something that Norm wasn’t often asked to do: He was asking him to keep a secret.

Raoul’s first sit-down with Norm had taken place almost twenty-four hours before in one of the many bars that dot the expansive, expensive acreage on the main floor of the Venetian. After some pleasantries Raoul had told Norm that he had a personal favor to ask, and asked Norm if he could speak off the record. Raoul proceeded to provide only the Vegas pieces of the puzzle: that Diane was in town to talk to a patient’s mother, which was as good an excuse as she needed to spend some time playing a little middling-stakes craps. On Monday evening Diane had been talking to a friend on her cell while walking through the Venetian casino, and hadn’t been heard from since. She’d disappeared. Hadn’t returned to her hotel room. Hadn’t called anyone. Nothing.

Earlier in the day she disappeared, Diane had tried to track down the patient’s mother and had ended up at the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel out on Las Vegas Boulevard, where she’d apparently located someone named Rachel Miller-yeah, Raoul told Norm, that Rachel Miller-but Raoul hadn’t been successful finding her. Raoul also told Norm about his conversation with Reverend Howie at the Love In Las Vegas and about Howie’s suggestion that Rachel could possibly be tracked down through an intermediary-a man, someone who apparently made Howie shake in his Savile Row boots. Somebody scary.

Norm admitted to Raoul that he didn’t have a clue about the intermediary’s identity, but that he suspected the man didn’t inhabit the part of Las Vegas that typically interested his column’s readers.

“But…” Raoul had said, sensing something.

“But,” Norm had added quickly, “I think I know somebody who might be able to help.”

The way Raoul told it to me later, he and Norm met again at almost exactly the same time that I was finishing my meal with Sam, Darrell, and my new buddy Jaris at the Sunflower in downtown Boulder.

Norm was on the clock getting ready to chronicle for his column which of-the-moment celebrities were really going to show up at some cocktail-hour charity-do at one of the trendiest of the city’s many trendoid restaurants, this one high in the newest tower of the Mandalay Bay. A setup crew was bustling around the still-vacant space, frantically arranging the tiers of a gorgeous raw bar, and test-fitting the blown-glass platters that would soon be heaped with gleaming shellfish, sushi, sashimi, and maki.

Raoul joined Norm at a corner table that had a stunning view of the Strip’s neon at dusk. The table in front of Norm was naked except for his ubiquitous mobile phone, a longneck Coors Light that was almost full, and a couple of paper cocktail napkins on which Norm was scribbling notes with a felt-tip pen.

Norm looked up and said, “Raoul, hi. Any luck?”

Raoul shook his head as he sat down.

Norm asked, “You want a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Norm slid the beer aside and leaned forward. “I didn’t think you’d have good news. Especially given what I found out about the guy you’re looking for. You ready? His name is Ulysses Paul North. That’s U-P-North. Or… Up, North. On the street they call him Canada.”

Raoul took a second to pull it all together, then he couldn’t help himself: He smiled. “Up North? Canada? Really?”

Norm smiled, too. He held up his hand like a Boy Scout taking an oath. “I’m good, but I couldn’t make that up.” Norm’s grin caused his cheekbones to levitate-just a tiny bit-and that motion caused the distinctive black, flat crescent patch that always covered his right eye to rise.

Raoul said, “There’s more, yes?”

“There’s more. Canada’s a facilitator, apparently. A street facilitator of some kind.” Norm sipped from his beer. “If this place were Hollywood”-he gazed down at the flashing neon skyline of ersatz New York, and the ejaculating fountains at the Bellagio, and the distant faux icons of Egypt and Paris and Venice-“and if Canada’s people were movie stars, he’d probably be called a manager. But this is definitely not Hollywood, and Canada’s clients are, well, definitely not movie stars, so there’s not exactly a name I know of for exactly what he does.”

“He’s not a pimp?”

“No. He probably counts some pimps and prostitutes among his… clients.”

“He’s not muscle, protection?”

“Not in any conventional sense. But should the need arise, he has all the muscle he might want. That’s what I’m told.”

“I assume he gets a percentage of-”

“He does. I was told he advises his… clients-I’m sorry, I keep stumbling over that word-on business matters, helps them formulate strategic plans. I swear; that’s the party line. He intervenes only when necessary. Tries to keep turf fights in his territory to a minimum. Settles occasional disputes. For those services, he is paid a percentage of his clients’… proceeds.”

“The clients are crooks?”

Norm took a moment before he decided how to reply. “Let’s say they don’t report their income to the IRS.”

“And Canada’s a scary enough man to do this… job?”

“He is known to be ruthless when necessary. And sometimes more, when he needs to make a point.”

“Your source knows him?”

“Of him.”

Raoul sat back. “You have contacts everywhere.” He intended it as a compliment, and as a question. Norm read it both ways.

“Everywhere I can. To do my job for the paper, I need all the eyes I can find.” He gestured over his shoulder. “When nobody knew where Jacko was after his indictment, I found him. When Britney got married for ten minutes, I knew about it before her mother did. Roy Horn after the tiger mauled him? I knew things his nurses didn’t know about how he was doing.

“Tonight? One of the busboys here is going to tell me exactly who shows up for this shindig. Sometimes it’s a host who helps me, occasionally a chef. Some of my best sources are people on the fringes of the A-list. They get invited to the hot parties, then tell me who else is there. Rule number one in this business: Everybody knows somebody.”

“And one of them knows how I can find this Canada?”

“You won’t find Canada. He doesn’t like to be found by people outside his orbit. But if you would like, the man who’s talking to me will pass the word along on the street that you would like to speak with him. That’s how it works, apparently.” Norm shrugged, a gesture that at once apologized for the melodrama and acknowledged that the show was totally out of his control.

Raoul sat back. “Canada is what? Nevada’s answer to Osama? I get a canvas bag on my head and get driven out to a cave somewhere in the desert?”

Norm’s face remained impassive. “I’m a reporter; I don’t make this stuff up. I’d never heard of this guy before today. Odds are I’ll never hear about him again after today. This is North Vegas stuff. It’s way off my beat.”

“But you trust your guy? Your source?”

Norm took a long pull from his Coors Light. “I work hard to write my column. It’s not a party. To do this right, I have to have great instincts, I have to hustle, and I have to have a good bullshit detector, or I end up becoming a joke. I don’t get them all right, Raoul, but I get almost all of them right. My gut says I have this one right.

“I grew up in a middle-of-nowhere town in Montana. Small-world time: Turns out a guy I went to high school with is part of the North Vegas street life. I tracked him down after his photo showed up in the paper one day with a story on the homeless. He’s my source on this. He has no reason to lie to me, and it was pretty clear to me that he’s honestly afraid of this guy Canada. He would much rather have been telling me that he knew where I could get serviced by the pope’s favorite hooker.”

Raoul pondered for a few seconds. “This man you know? Did he tell you anything about Rachel?”

Norm shook his head.

“Diane?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

Norm’s cell phone rang. He excused himself to Raoul. “Sorry, I have to get this. I’m waiting for a confirmation about an item for tomorrow’s column. That thing at The Palms.” He opened the phone. “Hello.”

Raoul didn’t know about the thing at The Palms, and preferred it that way. He’d read it fresh in Norm’s column the next morning.

Norm listened for a moment, stood up from the table, faced the window, and said, “Of course, yes.” He listened for a longer period, almost a full minute, before he said, “He’s with me right now.” Beat. “Okay, you know that… You want me to ask him?”

Norm set the phone on the table between himself and Raoul. He nodded at it and with an extended thumb and pinky held up to his face, he mimed that the telephone conversation was continuing.

“It’s one of Canada’s… people. If you agree to leave the police out of this, totally out of this, Canada will talk with you.”

In a heartbeat Raoul said, “Agreed. Is my wife safe? Can he tell me that? Please?”

Norm shrugged. He didn’t know the answer. He picked up the phone and placed it against his ear. “You heard?” he said. Norm listened some more, nodding, and finally added, “It shouldn’t be a problem. He’ll be there.” Norm folded his phone shut.

“I’ll be where?” Raoul asked.

“The tram platform at the Luxor at seven o’clock. That’s only twenty minutes from now.”

“Is it far?”

“If we could get a real good running start, and if we could jump out those windows over there, we could probably land on it. But from way up here, without flying? It’ll take us most of that twenty minutes to get over there.”

“You know the way?”

Norm stood up. “Of course.”

Raoul threw twenty dollars on the table and they ran.

“We had to hustle,” Raoul said to me. “Down the elevator, all the way across the casino, which is like the size of Luxembourg, over to the monorail station. Wait for the train, get onto the train, ride it over to the Luxor. It’s a turtle. The thing moves so slowly, you wonder why they bothered to build it. My mother has a cane; she walks faster than the damn tram moves. We finally made it to the platform with only a couple of minutes to spare.”

He stopped.

“And?” I asked.

“And nothing. We stood there for half an hour. Nothing. Nobody. Trains came, trains left. Nothing.”

“Nobody met you?”

“No.”

“Now what?”

“I don’t know,” Raoul said. “I suppose I’ll continue to try to reach out to Canada some other way.”

I’d grown increasingly discomfited listening to Raoul’s recanting of his meeting with Norm Clarke, especially the parts about the man called Canada. I stood up and began to pace in front of the big windows that faced the mountains. My movement caused Emily to stir. She was so exhausted that it appeared as though the simple act of lifting her big head to see what I was up to required a monumental effort.

“When I got back here a little bit ago?” Raoul said.

“Yes.”

“Marlina had dropped off an envelope. A single grainy screen shot from the casino security tape. Diane with the two guys who walked her out of the casino. They’re all in profile.”

“How does she look?”

“Fine.”

“Any idea who they are?”

“No.”

“It’s something, right?”

“It’s something.”

“Raoul, I have some news that I originally thought was good news, but may now be bad news.”

“What?”

“The Boulder police are involved. They’re asking the Las Vegas police to take Diane’s disappearance seriously.”

In my ear, I heard one of the familiar Catalonian profanities. Then he said, “I’ll have to call Norm, so he can tell Canada.”