Murder in Vegas

NICKELS AND DIMES by Ronnie Klaskin

Once upon a time, in the summer of 1973, there were two sisters who went on a car trip with their Mommy and their Daddy, who were both school teachers and thus had the whole summer off. They left from Long Island New York and were driving all the way to Los Angeles, where their Uncle Phil, Aunt Miriam, and their cousins Jon and Karen lived in the Valley. But Uncle Phil, Aunt Miriam, Jon, and Karen are not important to this story, so it’s perfectly all right for you to forget their names. Neither is Los Angeles or any of the other places, mostly Holiday Inns right off the Interstate, with game rooms and pools, where they stayed for one night at a time, or the dozens of Stuckey’s, where they stopped for bathroom breaks and root beer and an occasional pecan log.

What’s important is Las Vegas, with its neon lit Strip, big hotels and glittery casinos. They got a room at one of the moderatesized and moderate-priced hotels called Dollars Dreaming, which had a big flashing neon one-hundred-dollar bill as a marquee. The room had two queen-sized beds, one shared by the parents, Brenda and Jeff, and the other by the two girls, Laura and Julie. The hotel served a large and cheap buffet breakfast and lunch, and boasted a big outdoor pool. It had a casino, of course, filled with slot machines and all sorts of gaming tables, but the sisters were not allowed in there. They were too young.

Laura, the older sister, was ten, almost eleven. She was a quiet, studious girl who was always reading. She was a good reader and had graduated from reading Nancy Drew books to those by Judy Blume, which weren’t mysteries but told of things like menstruation and pimples, things that were of the utmostinterest at that time of her life. Then she discovered mysteries by Agatha Christie, of which her mother had an entire collection.

Laura was not sure about what she wanted to be when she grew up. Maybe a teacher, like Mommy and Daddy, so she could have the summers off, as well as Christmas and Easter and a bunch of other holidays. Laura was an extremely practical young person. Or possibly she could be a detective, but she wasn’t very sure how you went about that. Or a writer, or movie star. A year before she had considered becoming a ballet dancer, except that she wasn’t really very graceful, and more important, Laura had heard her dancing teacher say that ballet dancers had to be skinny, and she liked ice cream and cookies far too much. She was tall and slim then, with straight, dirty blonde hair and a totally flat bosom which she feared would never develop.

Julie, who was just seven, was not at all like Laura. She was small and wiry with short red curls and a spray of freckles across her upturned nose, and was always moving. Kinetic energy, Jeff called it. She wasn’t anywhere near as well behaved as Laura. She wasn’t a bad kid, but her teachers said she talked too much in class, and she didn’t always pay attention or finish her homework, and she didn’t get very good marks on her report cards. She had also been known to lie on occasion. But she was popular, with a lot more friends than Laura ever had. She knew all of the dogs and cats in her neighborhood and constantly begged Brenda for a pet, which Brenda said was nagging, and explained that they couldn’t get one because Laura had too many allergies.

One of the things that made Laura have itchy eyes and sneeze a lot was cat hair. Julie didn’t ever see Laura sneeze when she pet a dog, but Brenda said a definite no to any sort of furry pet. Even hamsters and gerbils, which Julie said could live in a cage in her room, and Brenda could tell Laura never to go in there and steal any of Julie’s things anymore.

Another thing that gave Laura allergies was lavender. She had found that out when Grandma Helen had given them each a small bottle of lavender perfume. Grandma Helen always gave them exactly the same thing, hoping that they wouldn’t fight over whose present was better.

Laura smelled the perfume and went into a sneezing fit. Soshe traded her bottle with Julie for a gold locket that Julie had found lying in the street. At first she told Julie that the locket was just a piece of junk, but after the trade, she said she thought it was real gold. Julie was really angry, and, after that, every time Julie was mad at Laura about something or other, she would put some of the perfume on a piece of tissue and stick it between the pages of the book that Laura was reading. When Laura opened the book she would sneeze for hours. But she never told on Julie because then Brenda would find out about what happened with the locket, and she’d probably be punished and not be allowed to watch her favorite TV.programs for a night or two.

They checked into the hotel a little after three on Thursday, changed right into their bathing suits and took a dip in the pool. Brenda made sure that the girls were well covered with suntan oil because it was very hot and sunny, 109 degrees, even that late in the afternoon, and she didn’t want them to get bad sunburns. Both girls had very fair complexions. Julie was the better swimmer, but she also enjoyed splashing Laura, who complained to Brenda, and then Brenda said that twenty minutes in that hot sun was enough for the first day in that awful heat, and it was time to go back to the room and take showers. Julie whined a bit, and Jeff gave her a light tap on the bottom of her two-piece bathing suit.

Laura was disappointed too. The lifeguard at the pool was really cute. Laura was just beginning to notice these things. He wore his blond streaked hair long, almost to the bottom of his ears. Gold hair glistened on his suntanned arms.

“So what?” Julie said when Laura told her she had a crush on the lifeguard. “He’s too old for you,” Julie said. “He must be more than twenty, and besides, he has a pimple on his chin.”

Laura touched her chin and then her forehead. She was just beginning to break out in pimples and had loads of blackheads on her nose. She hoped that Julie wasn’t going to tease her and say she was ugly because of it.

“His name is Ken,” Julie said.

“How do you know that?” Laura asked.

“It’s written on his shirt,” Julie said. “And he has a big bulge in his bathing suit, you know where.” Julie began to giggle.

“You’re not supposed to notice that,” Laura said.

“I thought you wanted to be a detective,” Julie said. “If you’re a detective you’ve got to notice everything, just like Nancy Drew does.”

Julie had inherited Laura’s Nancy Drew books, though she never had much patience for reading, but on rainy days when she couldn’t play outside, she had read just enough of them to know that girl detectives looked for clues.

“Not that sort of thing,” Laura blushed. She had noticed Ken’s bulge also, but she wasn’t going to let Julie know that.

When they got back to the room, Brenda said, after they all showered, they would go to Circus Circus, and then out for dinner, but that this would have to be an early night. They had traveled over four hundred miles that day and were hot and tired. Besides, they had three more days there, so they’d have plenty of time to spend at the pool.

Circus Circus was fun. There were lots of games that the children could play, games like throwing balls into cup-like containers or knocking down pins. If you won, you could get prizes, like stuffed animals, but not any money. Jeff gave them each three dollars to play the games, which cost a quarter apiece.

Julie was the better player and had a good pitching arm. She won two small teddy bears, a light-brown one with a blue ribbon around its neck, and a dark-brown one with a red ribbon and a large stuffed panda.

Laura was disappointed. She didn’t win anything. She loved teddy bears and had really wanted to get the light-brown one, but she wasn’t nearly as good at games as Julie.

Brenda said she didn’t know where they would put them, but since they were traveling in Brenda’s big, brown Ford Country Squire station wagon, not Jeff’s old Rambler, even though Jeff did most of the driving on this trip, Julie wasn’t worried. Julie and Laura could nap in the back, still in their pajamas, every morning, when they left the Holiday Inns atfive o’clock so they could get a few hundred miles in and still stop in time for a swim. The back of the wagon was loaded with pillows and blankets, so Julie knew there would be plenty of room for the stuffed animals too. She was so excited about having won the panda that she actually gave Laura the light-brown teddy bear, since Laura was clumsy and never won anything.

Then they watched the acrobats and tightrope walkers. They laughed at the antics of the clowns. Finally they went to dinner at one of the other hotels, where Jeff had made a reservation.

They saw people playing the slot machines while they waited to be seated. Bells rang, lights flashed, and coins poured out of the machines. Nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and large, shiny silver dollars. And this wasn’t even in the casinos that didn’t allow children. It was on both sides of the line outside the restaurant. There were lots of kids standing on that line, watching the slot machines, but they weren’t allowed to play.

Jeff grumbled about having to wait when they already had a reservation. He removed his change from his pocket. He put five quarters in one of the machines and won ten more. Then he put them back in the machine and lost nine of them. The last quarter netted him two more, which he put in his pocket. “For later,” he said.

“I thought we agreed to play only nickels and dimes, nothing larger. We need to budget,” Brenda said.

“This doesn’t count. It’s only the loose change that was in my pocket,” Jeff said.

“We had an agreement,” Brenda said.

“Okay, okay, nickels and dimes. Only nickels and dimes. Or maybe you’d rather go downtown, where they have penny slot machines,” Jeff said.

“Let’s not be sarcastic,” Brenda said.

“Can I play the slot machines?” Julie asked.

“May I, not can I,” Brenda said.

“No,” Jeff said. “Children are not permitted to play.”

“Why not?” Laura asked.

“Because it’s gambling and children are not allowed to gamble.”

“But Julie gambled when she won the teddy bears and the panda,” Laura said.

“That’s different,” Jeff said. “Teddy bears and pandas are not the same as money.”

“I don’t understand why it’s different,” Laura said.

“Because it is,” Jeff said.

Finally they were seated at a round table with a red and white checked tablecloth. They had steak and baked potatoes with sour cream instead of butter, and vanilla ice cream on apple pie for dessert.

“Time to go back to the hotel and to bed,” Brenda said.

“I’m not sleepy,” Julie said.

“We’ve had a long day,” Brenda said, “and we have a lot to do tomorrow.”

Julie lay in bed next to her sister. She hated sleeping in the same bed as Laura, who was restless when she slept and sometimes kicked her. She thought that she’d be kept awake all night long, but they both fell quickly into a deep sleep.

The next morning they ate a buffet breakfast in the hotel. Again they had to wait on line. There were lots of slot machines on both sides of the line. It was before breakfast and the grownups were already playing. Some of them were winning money.

Julie wished she was a grownup. She thought she would come back to Las Vegas as soon as she was old enough and then she could gamble all she wanted.

They had orange juice, cut up melons, bacon and sausages, eggs, hash brown potatoes, pancakes, and French toast. Then they went to see some more of the hotels.

There were stands in the street that looked like they might hold newspapers, but instead they had little guides full of advertisements and discount coupons for lots of stuff to see or to buy in the gift shops.

Brenda wanted to do some shopping in the hotel gift shops that used the coupons.

“That’s not for me,” Jeff said. “I hate shopping. Why don’t I go back to the hotel while you girls shop?”

Brenda glowered at him. “Do what you want,” she said.

“I’ll see you in the room before lunch. Take a cab back. It’s too hot to walk,” Jeff said.

Laura was kind of glad. Mommy and Daddy had been fighting a lot on this trip. She figured they were getting on each other’s nerves. She and Julie were getting on each other’s nerves also, but then they usually did, even when they were at home.

She and Julie had saved their allowances for weeks to buy all sorts of stuff on the trip.

The girls bought liquid silver necklaces (they had collected a lot of those discount coupon books) for themselves and for their best friends. Brenda bought presents for just about everyone, for both grandmas and grandpas, all the aunts and uncles and cousins, a dozen of her friends, some of the other teachers in her school, and Peg, their next door neighbor who was watering their plants while they were gone.

When he got back to his hotel, Jeff went into the casino. He changed a twenty-dollar bill into twenty silver dollars and went to a dollar slot machine. He had no intention of telling Brenda he played the dollar slot machines. She was probably spending quite a lot more on silly bargain gifts for the entire world than he was in gambling. But she still tried to boss him around about how he spent their money.

He lost the first ten dollars. If I lose the rest, he thought, I’ll switch back to dimes. But when he lost the rest, he went back to the cashier and got twenty more silver dollars. He lost the first nineteen.

The twentieth one won a thousand dollars.

Jeff was ecstatic.

Then he thought, I can’t even tell Brenda that I gambled silver dollars. She’d have a fit. From now on it would have to be nickels and dimes.

He cashed in the money, which weighed a ton. Then he went to their room and hid the ten hundred-dollar bills in his eight-millimeter camera case.

They stood on line waiting to get into the cheap lunch buffet at their hotel. Jeff unwrapped a roll of nickels. He dropped oneinto one of the slot machines that flanked the line. He pulled the arm. Cherries and watermelons and peaches twirled around and around and then stopped. Jeff put in another nickel. This time five nickels clanked out.

“Oh, please, Daddy,” Laura said. “Please let us play the slot machines.”

“Please, Daddy. Pretty please,” Julie said.

“Just one week’s allowance worth,” Laura said.

The line moved very slowly.

“It’s illegal for children to play the machines,” Jeff said.

“Oh, please let us play,” Julie and Laura said in unison.

“But we can play them for you,” Jeff said.

“Jeff, no,” Brenda said.

“Up to one week’s allowance,” Jeff said. “Not a penny more.”

“Oh, Jeff, what in the world are you doing?” Brenda said.

“We’ll put the money into the machines for you and anything you win, you get to keep,” Jeff said.

“It’s not fair. Her allowance is bigger than mine,” Julie said.

“Only one week’s allowance. Not a penny more,” Brenda said. She used that tone of voice that Julie knew there was no arguing with. But at least she had given in to Daddy, and they were going to play the slot machines after all.

“Well, I’m going to play with Daddy,” Julie said and was delighted with her small victory when Jeff said okay.

Laura was just as happy having Brenda play her dollar allowance for her. But they lost it right away, and Laura figured that maybe gambling was not such a good idea.

Julie’s allowance was only thirty-five cents a week. It really sucked being the younger one, she thought. Laura always got more of everything than she did.

Jeff counted out seven nickels. He put the first one in the machine and pulled the arm.

The fruits went round and round. Bells clanged. Coins clattered.

They won a whole dollar. As much as Laura got for one week’s allowance.

By the time it was their turn for lunch, Julie had two dollars and seventy cents in her pocket.

“I want to play more,” she said.

“We have to eat,” Brenda said.

A thin young man with the name Charlie embroidered over his shirt pocket escorted them to their table.

They grabbed plates at the buffet and filled them with salads and baked ziti and macaroni and cheese and chicken and turkey and roast beef and ham.

“Can we get dessert also?” Laura asked, eyeing the cakes, cookies, pies, red, green and yellow Jello molds, and assorted cut fruits on the dessert table.

“After we finish our main course,” Brenda said.

Laura ate fast. She didn’t know if she could finish all of the food she had piled on her plate, but she really wanted dessert. Especially the chocolate brownies, which were her favorite, and chocolate chip cookies, which were her second favorite, and chocolate cream pie, which was her third favorite.

Julie pushed her food around her plate. “I’m not very hungry,” she said.

Her face was flushed. Her eyes were glazed. She appeared to be feverish.

“When are we going back to the slot machines?” she said.

“Not till we finish eating,” Brenda said.

“I’m not hungry,” Julie said.

Brenda looked at Jeff.

Jeff looked at Julie.

When they finished their main course, Laura asked, “Can we get dessert now?”

Brenda nodded. “Just one dessert each.”

Julie had eaten hardly anything. “I don’t want any dessert,” she said.

“Can I have hers?” Laura asked.

“Just one,” Brenda said. “You don’t want to get fat.”

“I’m not fat,” Laura said.

“If you want to be a ballet dancer, you have to stay thin,” Brenda said.

“I don’t want to be a ballet dancer. I think I’m going to quit ballet lessons,” Laura said. She had already quit piano lessons, after two years.

Brenda had a rule about these things. Brenda had a lot of rules. If you started any lessons, you had to stick them out fortwo years. Laura had gone to ballet lessons for four years already, since she was six, and now she was ready to quit. She’d rather stay in the house and read.

Julie refused to take any lessons. School was bad enough.

“Can I go back to the machines now?” Julie asked.

“Don’t you want to keep all of that money?” Brenda asked. “If you play it, you might lose it all.”

“I want to go back to the machines,” Julie said.

“Then while Laura and I have dessert, you go back to the slots with Julie,” Brenda told Jeff.

Jeff nodded.

“Lose it all, no matter how long you have to play,” Brenda whispered.

Rosa put out another tray of brownies. They seemed to go the fastest of all of the cakes. Rosa was tiny, only five feet tall. She hated being short, because she had always wanted to be a show-girl and wear those beautiful feathered costumes. But even though everyone told her that she had a very pretty face, the only job she managed to get in Las Vegas was working at the dessert table at the buffet. Just her luck. Here were all these delicious cakes and cookies, and she wasn’t supposed to eat any of them. Every once in a while she’d filch one and stuff it into her pocket. If she kept up this way, she’d be as fat as her mother and her aunts.

Oh, oh, Rosa thought. Here comes Jerry, the security guard. If he saw her pocketing the oatmeal raisin cookie, he’d report her for sure. He had it in for her ever since she refused to go to bed with him. She told him she was a virgin and intended to remain one till she married.

“Maybe you could marry me,” Jerry said.

“No thanks,” Rosa said. Not if he was the last man on earth.

He was probably too cheap to go to a prostitute, Rosa thought. That was probably the only kind of woman who would have him. Prostitution was legal here in Las Vegas. Jerry could afford one. He earned a decent wage, unless he gambled it away. Rosa thought that Jerry was crude and unattractive. He was tall and large-boned and always had a scowl on his acne-scarredface. When he did smile, showing crooked teeth, all yellow from chewing tobacco, it gave her the creeps.

A young girl and her mother came up to the buffet table. The girl put a brownie on her plate.

“Just one,” the mother said.

“That’s not fair,” the girl replied. “You let Julie go back to the slots just because she won. And you lost my whole dollar for me, right away. The least you could do is let me have a double dessert.”

The mother scowled. Then she smiled. “Well, okay,” she said, “But only two. Not more than that.”

The girl took one of the chocolate chip cookies and put it on her plate.

The mother just took some honeydew melon and a bit of Jell-O.

Rosa wondered how the girl had lost the dollar. Had the parents let her gamble? That was a really dumb thing to do. Luckily Jerry had not caught them at it. You didn’t want to get onto Jerry’s bad side.

When the girl and her mother left, Jerry came up to her. “You doing anything special tonight?” he asked.

“Look, I told you before, I’m not interested in going out with you.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Jerry said.

Rosa shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to offend Jerry any more than necessary, but she had to tell him something to get him off her case. She said, “I already got a boyfriend.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She should have let it go at that, but she suddenly felt the need to elaborate. “Yeah, Charlie, the guy who works at the entrance to the buffet and brings the people to their tables.”

She had never actually dated Charlie. But she wouldn’t mind if he asked her out. He reminded her of Frank Sinatra.

“Him. He’s skinny, like Sinatra. I don’t see what you see in him.” Jerry flexed his arm showing overdeveloped muscles.

“Sorry,” Rosa said, and then added, just to be safe, “We’re engaged.”

It took fifteen minutes for Jeff to lose Julie’s entire two dollars and seventy cents.

Brenda and Jeff were quite relieved.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to Hoover Dam,” Jeff said when they got to their room. He needed to get away from the slot machines for a while.

They rested for an hour and then Jeff, Brenda, and Laura put on their bathing suits.

“I have a belly ache,” Julie said. “I don’t want to go swimming.”

“You can just sit at the pool,” Brenda said.

“I want to take a nap,” Julie said. Brenda felt Julie’s head. It felt warm. “I’ll stay in the room with you then. I’m not leaving you alone,” Brenda said. “You might have a slight fever.”

She had looked feverish at lunch, Brenda thought.

“You can go swimming,” Julie said. “I’m just going to sleep.”

“Poor Julie,” Brenda said. “You’re upset that you lost all that money.”

“I’m all right,” Julie said. “I just have a belly ache. That’s why I didn’t eat my lunch.”

Brenda picked up her book and lay down on her bed and started to read.

Julie lay down also. A while later she got up. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

Brenda didn’t respond. The book lay open on her chest. She snored lightly.

On the way to the bathroom, Julie grabbed a handful of change that Jeff had left on his dresser. Six nickels, three dimes and two quarters. She went into the bathroom. She wrapped the money in her handkerchief, the one that had violets embroidered on the corner, so that the coins wouldn’t jangle. She flushed the toilet. When she came out of the bathroom, Brenda was still fast asleep. Julie tiptoed to the door of the room. She opened it quietly and slipped out into the hall, closing the door softly behind her. Then she ran to the line that was waiting for the buffet.

Two weeks earlier, a child had been kidnapped and murdered. She had been a guest at the Dollars Dreaming Hotel. She was asmall thing, not quite six years old, and she had roamed away while she and her three brothers were horsing around at the pool. The brothers were supposed to be keeping an eye on her, but you know how teenage boys can be.

Anyway, they didn’t find her body at the hotel, but partially buried in the sand in an undeveloped area, a few blocks off the Strip. The parents had gotten a ransom note to put the jackpot money they had won in the casino, the night before, in a paper bag and leave it at a certain place downtown and not to notify the police.

The parents hadn’t told the police about the ransom note until it was too late. They didn’t want to anger the kidnapper.

Somehow they got confused. It was their first time in Las Vegas and they didn’t know the city. They couldn’t manage to find the spot that the kidnappers had specified. A day later, the police found Amy’s strangled body.

Charlie had seen her just before she was kidnapped. She wasn’t very pretty, from what he recalled. Skinny, with stringy yellow hair and sharp features. Charlie worked at the buffet, seating the customers. He hated working there and hoped one day to wait tables at one of the dinner restaurants. There at least you got tips. And the food was a lot more expensive to begin with.

Ironic, wasn’t it? Here he came to Vegas from New Jersey, hoping to be a singer, the next Frank Sinatra, maybe, and now he was aspiring to be what every failed performer hated to be, a waiter.

He had seen the little girl-Amy, he found out her name was, after they discovered her body-hanging around the slot machines where you waited to be seated for the buffet. She was in a bathing suit, one piece, blue with pictures of colored fish. It looked like it was still damp from the pool. She didn’t seem to be with any adults. Charlie thought he should have gone up to her and brought her to one of the security guards, right then and there. But then Rosa came up to talk to him and he stopped noticing the little girl.,

Charlie felt guilty as Hell. If he had done something sooner, maybe she’d still be alive today. But he hadn’t told anyone that he had seen her and now he couldn’t. They’d probably fire him, if they knew, or worse, suspect him of the crime.

Today there was another little girl hanging around the machines.At least she wasn’t wearing a bathing suit, but navy blue shorts and a pink polo shirt. She was small and cute, with bright red curls. She was feeding nickels into one of the slot machines. Which was illegal.

Charlie stepped away from the buffet table. This time he was going to report the child to security before anything happened.

And then Rosa came over again and informed him that she had told Jerry that she and Charlie were engaged.

Charlie wouldn’t have minded if it were true. He was attracted to Rosa and would have liked to ask her out, but he was afraid that he’d be rejected. And, frankly, he was more than a little intimidated by Jerry.

After Rosa left, Charlie noticed that the little girl was gone.

The good-looking lifeguard was not on duty that day so Laura was not upset when Brenda rushed out to the pool and told her that she and Jeff had to go back to the room right away. Laura wondered why Brenda had left Julie alone in the room by herself. She would have been in big trouble if she had done something like that. She was always getting into trouble for things that Julie had done, or not done.

But when they got back to the room, Julie wasn’t there.

“I fell asleep and when I woke up she was gone,” Brenda said.

Brenda wanted to call the police right away, but Jeff thought they should contact hotel security first.

“I bet she went back to the slot machines,” Laura said.

“She had no money,” Brenda said.

But then Jeff noticed that all of his change was missing from the top of the dresser.

They rushed out to the slot machines outside of the buffet. Jeff and Brenda ran up to the security guard.

Laura walked over to the skinny man who had seated them at the table. The one with the name Charlie on his shirt.

“Maybe you’ve seen my sister,” she said. “She has curly red hair and was wearing blue shorts and a pink shirt. I know pink doesn’t go with red hair, but she insisted, and she’s a very stubborn little girl.”

At first Charlie thought he would say he hadn’t seen her. Butthen he remembered what had happened to Amy and he just couldn’t keep it to himself. “She was here,” he said. “She was playing the nickel slot machines. I was just about to report her to Jerry, that’s the security guard, when I had to take a customer to his table. When I came back, she was gone.”

“She must have lost all of her money and left,” Laura said. She hoped that was what had happened.

“Maybe she went back to your room,” Charlie said.

“I don’t think so,” Laura said. “We would have passed her in the hall.”

“Did your Daddy or Mommy win a lot of money in the casino?” Charlie asked.

“Probably not,” Laura said. “Daddy promised Mommy that he would only gamble with nickels and dimes. They’re on a budget. I don’t think you can win a lot of money with nickels and dimes.”

“I think your Mommy and Daddy should call the police, anyway,” Charlie said.

Laura started to worry when Charlie said that. If he told her to call the police, he must think that something was really wrong. She wondered if it was like one of the mysteries in the books she had read. A robbery, maybe, or a murder.

Laura decided that she would have to be like Nancy Drew or Miss Marple, even though Miss Marple was very, very old, and that she would be the one to find her sister. Or maybe she’d try to think like Hercule Poirot with his little grey cells, even if he was a man and had a mustache. Much as Julie annoyed her at times, at least Julie had been nice enough to give her one of the teddy bears that she won at Circus Circus. Laura wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

But she didn’t know how to start. Maybe she should just walk around the hotel and look for Julie.

The security guard was yelling at Brenda and Jeff when Laura went to ask them whether she should go back to the room and see whether Julie had returned.

“You let a minor gamble? Don’t you know it’s against the law? I should have you both arrested,” he screamed. His voice was quite high-pitched for such a large man.

“We can talk about that after you find our daughter,” Jeff said. “Right now that’s our main priority.”

“If anything bad happened to her, I’m going to hold you responsible,” the security guard said.

Brenda began to cry. “What do you think could have happened?” she asked.

“Maybe she was kidnapped,” said the security guard. His name, Jerry, was embroidered above his pocket, just like Charlie’s was.

Brenda cried louder.

“And you don’t belong in the lobby in your bathing suits,” Jerry added.

“Look, our daughter is missing and all you care about is that we gambled a few coins for her and dress codes,” Jeff shouted. “I want you to find her. Right now. Do you hear me?”

All the people waiting on line for the buffet turned to stare at them.

Laura tugged at Jeff’s arm. “Charlie says we should call the police,” she said.

“Who’s Charlie?” Jeff asked.

“That bastard,” Jerry said. “First he steals my girl, and now he’s trying to do my job for me.” He rushed over to Charlie’s post and grabbed him by the collar.

“Let him go, Jerry.” Ken, the lifeguard, walked up to Jerry and pulled him away.

At first, Laura hadn’t recognized Ken because he was wearing clothes. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a red plaid shirt. He looked different than he had when he was half naked. He wasn’t as good looking either.

“Call the police,” Charlie said. “Maybe your daughter was kidnapped, just like the other girl, Amy, the one who was murdered.”

“Shut up,” Jerry said. “This is my job, not yours.” He tried to punch Charlie, but Ken pinned his arms behind his back.

“Murdered?” Brenda cried louder.

“A girl was murdered?” Jeff said. He glared at Jerry. “When? Where? Why didn’t you tell me to call the police right away?” He put his arm around Brenda’s shoulder.

Rosa, having heard the commotion, walked from the dessert table, carrying a chocolate cream pie, which she shoved into Jerry’s face. “Don’t you dare talk to Charlie like that. I love him. We’re going to get married. You leave him alone, you creep.”

Then Rosa picked up the phone from Charlie’s workstation and called the police herself.

Charlie looked at Jeff. “Did you win a lot of money in the casino?” he asked.

Jeff squeezed Brenda’s shoulder. He shook his head. “No. Of course not. Why?”

“Because if you did, that may be why your daughter has disappeared. The other girl, Amy, was kidnapped because her father won a jackpot.”

“Oh, Jeff. I’m so scared,” Brenda said.

Jeff’s hands dropped to his side. He couldn’t look Brenda in the eyes. He looked sheepish as he muttered, “Well, uh, I did win a thousand dollars. I didn’t want to tell you. I thought you’d be mad at me.”

“Playing nickels and dimes?” Brenda asked. “A thousand dollars, playing nickels and dimes?”

“Well, no,” Jeff said. “I played silver dollars.”

Brenda stopped crying. “You bastard,” she said. She slapped Jeff across his face. She wiped her eyes with the side of her hand. She sniffled.

Ken reached into his pocket and handed Brenda a handkerchief.

Brenda wiped her nose.

Laura sneezed.

Brenda handed Laura the handkerchief. Laura blew her nose. She sneezed again and again.

The handkerchief smelled of lavender.

Laura looked at the handkerchief. It was small and one corner of it was embroidered with violets. It was Julie’s handkerchief.

Laura pointed to Ken. “He’s the one. He’s the one who kidnapped Julie.” She sneezed again. “This is Julie’s handkerchief, the one that Grandma Helen gave her, the last time she visited. Mine had pansies on it.”

Ken dropped his hold on Jerry. He started to run.

Jerry, his face covered with chocolate cream pie, turned and ran after Ken.

He tackled him, just as the police marched in.

After questioning Ken, the police located Julie tied to a chair in small shed behind the hotel. It wasn’t air-conditioned. Julie was all sweaty and had wet her pants. Her hands were tied behind her back and she had a red bandana wrapped around her mouth. When the policeman removed it, she began to sob.

They brought Julie to her parents who were waiting in the lobby. Brenda rushed up to Julie, gathered her in her arms, hugged her, held her close and rocked her. Julie began to cry.

“I’m the one that found out that Ken was the killer,” Laura said.

“Who found out, not, that found out,” Brenda said.

“Killer? Who did he kill?” Julie asked, and began to cry harder.

“We’re going to have to take you down to police headquarters,” one of the policemen said. “But you’d all better get dressed first.”

Julie snuggled against Brenda’s breast.

Jeff patted Laura on the head. “I’ m very proud of you,” he said.

After a long afternoon at police headquarters, they returned to the hotel. The management offered them a free dinner and refused to charge them for their room. The police said they could leave Las Vegas, but that Julie would have to return to testify when Ken went to trial.

Brenda and Jeff decided to leave Las Vegas the next morning, but to continue on their trip to Los Angeles. They wanted to make life for Julie seem as normal as possible. They left Las Vegas early and spent two days at Disneyland before visiting Uncle Phil and Aunt Miriam. Uncle Phil and Aunt Miriam had a dog, a golden retriever named Harley. At first Laura was apprehensive, but when Harley put his head on her lap, she pet his soft fur and her eyes didn’t itch and she didn’t sneeze. “I don’t think I’m allergic to dogs,” she said. “Just to cats.”

Julie ended up returning to Las Vegas, way before she was an adult. She had to testify at Ken’s trial. Jeff took time off from his job to be with her. Neither of them had any desire to gamble.When they got home, Julie read all of Laura’s hand-me-down Nancy Drew books. And Brenda bought Julie a dog, a female basset hound that they named Lavender.

Ken was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing Amy, and to twenty additional years for kidnapping Julie.

Now, while remembering the names of Uncle Phil and Aunt Miriam and the cousins Jon and Karen is not important to the story, I thought you might want to know what happened to the rest of the cast, over the years.

Jerry left his job at the hotel and became chief of security at a house of prostitution. He married a five-foot-eleven, dark-haired prostitute who kind of looked like a much taller version of Rosa and had been a showgirl when she was younger.

Rosa did not marry, or even date, Charlie but ended up marrying one of the cops who had rescued Julie. She had five children a year apart, and ended up fat, just like her mother and her aunts. She started a business baking chocolate cream pies and raisin oatmeal cookies and distributing them to the hotel buffets.

Charlie became a headwaiter at one of the dinner restaurants and married a croupier from one of the casinos. He never did become the next Sinatra or even make it as a singer in one of the smaller hotel lounges.

Laura became a psychiatric social worker. She and Julie and their parents had needed a number of years of therapy after they returned from Las Vegas and Laura had felt helped by it. But she never mentioned to anyone that she always slept with a small brown teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck.

Ironically Julie was the one who became a writer. She wrote mysteries. She was never compared to Agatha Christie, though. Her books were very dark and brooding, and bad things always happened to small children. She never returned to Las Vegas, after the trial, and won’t go anywhere near a slot machine.

Brenda insisted that Jeff put the one thousand dollars that he won toward the kids’ college accounts. After the girls finished college, Brenda and Jeff divorced.

“It was bound to happen,” Laura said. “I’m surprised they waited this long.”

“I feel kind of guilty, that it was all my fault,” Julie said. “I never should have sneaked off and gone to those slot machines by myself.”

“It wasn’t you. It started before you ever bet anything. It was the thousand dollars that Daddy won,” Laura said. “They had an agreement to play only nickels and dimes and he sneaked back to the hotel and broke it. And then he hid the money and didn’t even tell Mommy that he had it. And I don’t believe, if you hadn’t been kidnapped, that he would have told her either. Even when Charlie asked if he had won any money in the casino, he lied. Mommy could never really trust him again. He should have stuck to nickels and dimes.”

“Yeah, nickels and dimes,” Julie said. “Only nickels and dimes.”