Void Moon

24

KARCH stood in front of the practice mirror adjusting the tie on his fresh suit. It was a Hollyvogue that had belonged to his father, with Art Deco spirals on it. He was wearing it with the two-tone gabardine Hollywood jacket and pleated pants he had picked up at Valentino's in downtown.

His pager sounded and he picked it up off the bureau. He recognized the call-back number as Vincent Grimaldi's. He deleted it, hooked the pager on his belt and finished adjusting his tie. He wasn't going to call Grimaldi back. He planned to drop by in person to inform him of the progress he had made.

When he was done with the tie he went back to the bureau for his guns. He holstered the Sig and snapped the safety strap over it. He then picked up the little. 25 popper. It was a Beretta he could fit in his palm. He turned back to the mirror and held his hands loosely at his sides, the. 25 hidden in his right hand. He made a few moves and gestures, always sure to keep the pistol hidden from view. David's right hand, he thought. David's right hand.

He then went on to practice the finish, moving his apparently empty hands as if in conversation and then suddenly producing the gun pointed right at himself in the mirror. When he had practiced this enough he put the little gun back into the black silk magician's pocket that he'd had a downtown tailor sew onto the inside rear belt line of his pants – every pair of pants he owned. He then held his hands palms out to the mirror and then brought them together as if in prayer. He bowed his head and backed away from the mirror, end of show.

On his way to the garage Karch stopped in the kitchen and took a mason jar out of one of the cabinets. He took the top off and dropped the two bullet shells from the desert into it with the others. He then held the jar up and looked at it. It was almost half full of shells. He shook the jar and listened to the shells rattle inside. He then put it back in the cabinet and took out a box of Honeycombs cereal. He was famished. He hadn't eaten all day and the physical exertion in the desert had sapped his strength. He started eating the cereal right out of the box, handfuls at a time, careful not to get any crumbs on his clothes.

He stepped into the garage, which had been illegally converted into an office, and sat down behind his desk. He didn't need an office in a commercial building like most private investigators. Most of his work – on the legitimate side – came in from out of state on the phone. His specialty was missing persons cases. He paid the two detectives who ran Metro's missing persons unit five hundred dollars a month to refer clients to him. As a matter of policy, Metro could not act on a routine report of a missing adult until forty-eight hours had elapsed since the time of the report. This practice had originated because most missing people were missing on purpose and often turned up on their own a day or so after supposedly disappearing. In Las Vegas this was most often the case. People came on vacation or for conventions and cut loose in a city designed to knock down inhibitions. They shacked up with strippers and hookers, they lost their money and were too embarrassed to go home, they won lots of money and didn't want to go home. There were endless reasons and that was why the police had a wait-and-see attitude.

However, the forty-eight-hour policy and the reasons behind it did not placate the concerned and sometimes hysterical loved ones of the supposedly missing. That was where Karch and a legion of other private investigators came in. By paying off the cops in the MPU, Karch made sure his name and number were often suggested to people who reported missing persons and didn't want to wait the required forty-eight hours before a search was begun.

The five hundred Karch deposited each month into a bank account the two cops had access to was a bargain. He drew as many as a dozen calls a month on missing persons cases. He charged four hundred dollars a day plus expenses, with a two-day minimum. He often located the supposedly missing person inside an hour with a simple credit card trace but he never told the clients that. He just had them wire payment to his bank account before he revealed their loved one's location. To Karch it was all another form of sleight of hand. Keep things in motion with misdirection. Never reveal what is in your palm.

His office was a shrine to a Las Vegas long gone by. The walls were a collage of photographs of entertainers from the fifties and sixties. There were numerous shots of Frank and Dean and Sammy, some individual and some as a group. There were photos of dancers and framed fight cards.

There were postcards depicting casino resorts that no longer existed. There was a framed collection of gambling chips – one from every casino that opened its doors in the fifties. There was a large blowup photo of the Sands crumbling to the ground after being dynamited to make way for the new era of Las Vegas. Many of the photos were autographed and inscribed, but not to Jack Karch. They were inscribed to "The Amazing Karch!" – his father.

At center on the wall Karch faced while seated at his desk was the largest frame on any of the walls. It was a blowup photo of the huge neon-gilded headliner sign that had stood outside the Sands. It said Now Appearing FRANK SINATRA

JOEY BISHOP

THE AMAZING KARCH!

Karch looked at the photo across from him for a long moment before getting down to work. He had been nine years old when he saw his father's name on the big sign. His father took him with him one night to watch the show from the side of the stage. He was standing there watching his father perform an illusion called The Art of the Cape when he was tapped on the shoulder and looked up to see Frank Sinatra. The man who was the living embodiment of Las Vegas faked a punch off his chin and asked with a smile if he had an exclamation point at the end of his name, too. It was the most indelible memory of his childhood. That and what happened to his father a few years later at Circus, Circus.

Karch looked away from the photo and checked the message machine on the desk. He had three waiting messages. He hit the playback button and picked up a pencil, ready to take notes. The first message was from a woman named Marion Rutter from Atlanta who wanted to hire Karch to look for her husband, Clyde, who hadn't come home from a kitchenware convention in Las Vegas. She was very worried and wanted someone to start looking for Clyde right away. Karch wrote down her name and number but wouldn't be calling back because for the moment he was booked.

The next two messages were both from Vincent Grimaldi. He sounded annoyed. He demanded that Karch check in with him right away.

Karch erased the messages and leaned back in his padded leather desk chair. He grabbed another handful of cereal and studied the two stacks of cash on his desk while he ate. He had gone to Jersey Paltz's apartment after the desert and used the dead man's keys to go in, open the strongbox he found in a closet and take the money. One stack was $ 8,000 in one-hundred-dollar bills. The other stack was $4,480 in twenties. Karch figured the $ 8,000 belonged to Grimaldi. Minus the $ 550 Karch had accumulated so far in expenses – $ 500 to Cannon for the Flamingo video trail and $ 50 to Iverson for the plate run. Make it an even $ 600 to cover gas and other incidentals, he decided. The other stack Karch was going to keep free and clear. It had not been part of the caper at the Cleo. It had apparently been Paltz's own savings.

He put what was his into one of the desk drawers, which he then locked with a key. He took out a preprinted and generic invoice form and wrote out a receipt for the $ 7,400 he would be returning to Grimaldi. He did not put his name anywhere on the form. When he was finished he folded the money inside the receipt and put it in an envelope he then slid into the inside pocket of his coat.

He sat motionless at the desk for a few moments wondering if he should have deducted more money to cover the trip he knew he would be making to Los Angeles. He finally decided against it and got up and came around the desk to the row of file cabinets beneath the blowup photo of the Sands going down. He unlocked a drawer with a key, looked through the files until he found the one he wanted and then went back to the desk with it.

The file was labeled FREELING, MAX. Karch opened it on the desk and spread the contents out. There were several police reports and handwritten pages of notes. There was also a packet of carefully folded and yellowed newspaper clippings. He opened these and read the one with the largest headline. It had been on the front page of the Las Vegas Sun six-and-a-half years before.

"HIGH-ROLLER ROBBER"

PLUNGES TO DEATH

BY DARLENE GUNTER

Sun Staff Writer A man authorities believe to have been responsible for a string of hotel room burglaries of high rollers at Strip casinos jumped to his death early Wednesday when faced with certain capture in a penthouse suite at the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.

The man's body crashed through the casino's signature atrium ceiling, sending glass showering on players at 4:30 A. M. The body landed on an unused craps table and the incident caused a momentary panic among those in the casino. However, authorities said no one was hurt in the incident other than the man who fell.

Metro police spokesmen said the suspect, identified as 34-year-old Maxwell James Freeling of Las Vegas, fell twenty floors after crashing through the window of a penthouse suite when he was confronted by a Cleopatra security agent who had set up a sting operation to nab him.

It was unclear late Wednesday why Metro police were not involved in the sting operation. Also unclear was why Freeling chose to jump through the window in a fatal effort to avoid capture.

Vincent Grimaldi, the casino's chief of security, was close-lipped about the incident but expressed relief that it occurred during a time when the casino was at its least crowded.

"We were just lucky it happened when it happened," Grimaldi said. "There weren't many people in the casino at the time. If it had happened during a high-occupancy period, who knows what could have resulted."

Grimaldi said the casino would stay open while repairs were made to the atrium ceiling. He said a small portion of the playing area would have to be roped off during the repairs.

After Freeling's death a 26-year-old woman was taken into custody at the hotel and turned over to police officers. She was arrested when she ran to Freeling's body in the casino after his fall. Authorities said that it became obvious by her reactions that she was "involved" with Freeling in some capacity.

"If she had just split we probably wouldn't have ever known about her," said Metro detective Stan Knapp. "But she ran to the guy and gave herself away."

The woman, whom police declined to identify until charges are filed, was being questioned throughout the day Wednesday at Metro headquarters.

Police said that Freeling is believed to have been the highly skilled thief who struck eleven times in the last seven months at casino hotels on the Strip. In each case, a casino guest was robbed of cash and jewels in his or her hotel room by a thief who entered while they slept.

The thief was dubbed the "High-Roller Robber" by police because the targets were all "players" – hotel guests who wagered and won large amounts of cash. The estimated take from the eleven capers was in excess of $300,000, according to police sources.

The thief apparently used several different means of entering the hotel rooms – from air-conditioning vents to gaining room keys from unsuspecting housekeepers and front-desk employees. None of the victims ever saw the thief, who came in after they had gone to sleep. A police source said the thief may have monitored his targets through hidden cameras but would not elaborate.

Karch stopped reading. Because it was the first article on the incident, it had the least information, the writer having woven several paragraphs out of a handful of facts. He went on to the next day's story.

ACCOMPLICE CHARGED IN

"HIGH-ROLLER" DEATH

BY DARLENE GUNTER

Sun Staff Writer A woman police say was the lookout for the so-called High-Roller Robber was charged Thursday with homicide in his death from a fall from the penthouse of the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.

Cassidy Black, 26, of Las Vegas, was charged under Nevada's felony-homicide law, which holds anyone who takes part in a criminal enterprise responsible for any death that occurs during the commission of the crime.

Although Black was waiting for Max Freeling in the lobby of the Cleopatra when he crashed through a penthouse window twenty stories above, she is still legally responsible for his death, said Clark County District Attorney John Cavallito.

Cavallito said Black, who was also charged with burglary and criminal conspiracy, could face 15 years to life in prison if convicted of the charges. She was being held without bail at the county jail.

"She was just as much a part of this incident and this crime spree as Freeling was," Cavallito said at a press conference. "She was a coconspirator and deserves to be and will be hit with the full weight of the law."

Freeling's death was ruled an accident and not suicide. He reportedly crashed through one of the windows of the penthouse suite in an effort to avoid capture.

More details on the dramatic events of early Wednesday morning were revealed by Cavallito and police investigators on Thursday.

The so-called High-Roller Robber had struck at Strip resorts eleven times in seven months, prompting the Las Vegas Casino Association to put up a $50,000 reward for the capture and conviction of a suspect.

Police said the thief had allegedly been targeting high rollers who took their winnings in cash with them to their rooms at the end of the day.

On Tuesday a private investigator hoping to claim the reward money contacted officials at the Cleopatra and told them he believed the High-Roller Robber was currently targeting a guest in the hotel and casino.

The investigator, Jack Karch, then agreed to serve as a decoy. When the target gambler, whose name was not released, retired for the evening, a switch was made and it was Karch – disguised as the gambler – who went to the penthouse suite.

Two hours after Karch turned out the lights in the suite and feigned sleep, Freeling entered the room through an air vent he had accessed through the ceiling of the penthouse housekeeping station. As Freeling entered the suite's bedroom he was surprised by Karch, who held him at gunpoint and used a two-way radio to call for help from hotel security agents waiting nearby.

"Before those agents could get to the room, Mr. Freeling inexplicably made a run for the window," Cavallito said. "He threw his body into it and crashed through and fell."

Cavallito said there was a small ledge below the window and Freeling may have believed that he could escape on it by moving along the facing of the building to a nearby cable used to lower a window-washing platform down the side of the building.

However, the momentum of Freeling's body going through the glass carried him past the narrow ledge and down. He crashed through the casino's signature atrium window, creating a panic among the few gamblers in the casino at the time. No one else was hurt.

Following Thursday's press conference Cavallito answered few questions, citing the ongoing investigation and prosecution of Black. He refused to reveal how it was that Karch, the private investigator, learned that Freeling was targeting a gambler at the Cleopatra.

Efforts to contact Karch for comment were unsuccessful and messages left on his office answering machine were not returned. As a young child Karch performed on occasion with his father, the now deceased magician known as "The Amazing Karch!" who was a mainstay at Strip casinos and hotels from the '50s to the early '70s.

The younger Karch was called "Jack of Spades" because of an illusion in which his father placed him in a locked mail sack in a locked crate and he would disappear and be replaced by a playing card – the Jack of spades.

While Cavallito said Karch has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the death of Freeling, the district attorney did criticize the decision of Karch and Cleopatra officials to set up the sting operation without police involvement.

"We certainly wish that they had contacted the Metro Police Department before going ahead with this," Cavallito said. "Maybe then this whole incident could have been avoided."

Vincent Grimaldi, chief of security at the Cleopatra, declined to comment on Cavallito's criticism.

A spokesman for the Casino Association declined to say whether Karch could claim the reward in light of the death of the suspected thief and arrest of his accomplice.

More details about Freeling were emerging yesterday as well. Authorities said the suspect had twice before been convicted of burglary and had previously spent a total of four years in state prisons. Freeling was said to have grown up in Las Vegas and, like Karch, was the son of a figure of note. Freeling's father was Carson Freeling, who was convicted in 1963 of taking part in a daring armed robbery of the Royale Casino, a caper which many locals believe was inspired by the film Ocean's Eleven, starring Frank Sinatra and other members of the so-called Rat Pack.

Maxwell Freeling was three years old at the time of his father's arrest. Carson Freeling died in prison in 1981.

Karch studied the photo that accompanied the story. It was a mug shot of Cassidy Black taken on the day of her arrest. Her long blond hair was messy and her eyes looked red and sore from crying. He remembered that she had refused to say word one to the Metro cops, even through twelve hours of interrogation. She had stood up and Karch admired that.

During the investigation of the Freeling incident, Karch had never met her or even been in the same room with her. It was impossible to confirm that the woman in the photograph was the one he had watched on surveillance videos at the Cleo and the Flamingo but in his gut he knew it was.

He scanned through the remaining few clips until he got to the last story. This one had another photo of Cassidy Black running alongside the story. It showed her in a jailhouse jumpsuit and shackles being led from a courtroom by two bailiffs. There was something about the angle of her jaw and the focus of her eyes upward that he liked. It showed that she still carried her dignity, despite the cuffs and the jumpsuit and the situation she was in.

His eyes moved over to the story and he read it. It was the last story in the saga, the cleanup. It was short and had been buried inside the Sun.

HIGH-ROLLER ROBBER

BLACK ENTERS PLEA, GETS PRISON

BY DARLENE GUNTER

Sun Staff Writer Cassidy Black, one of the so-called High-Roller Robbers, pleaded guilty Monday to charges relating to the crime spree that included the dramatic death of her partner two months ago. She was immediately sentenced to state prison.

In a plea agreement negotiated with the Clark County District Attorney's office, the 26-year-old one-time blackjack dealer pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to commit burglary. She was sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Barbara Kaylor to serve five to fifteen years in prison.

Black, dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, said little during the courtroom hearing. She spoke the word "guilty" after each charge was read by Kaylor and then told the judge she fully understood the ramifications of her plea.

Black's attorney, Jack Miller, said the agreement was the best Black could do, considering the overwhelming evidence of her involvement with Maxwell James Freeling in a seven-month crime spree that ended with her arrest and Freeling's plunge from a penthouse window at the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.

"This agreement still leaves her a chance to start over," Miller said. "If she keeps her nose clean in prison she can be out in five, six, seven years. She'll still be in her early thirties and that leaves her a lot of time to start over and be productive in society."

Authorities said the evidence mounted against Black indicated she was Freeling's spotter and lookout on capers in which the hotel suites of high-rolling gamblers were burglarized while they slept.

Karch dropped the clip onto the others without reading it to the end. Cassidy Black's guilty plea had precluded a trial and allowed him to avoid having to testify about what happened in that suite with Freeling. Her conviction also allowed him to claim the reward, though he'd had to get a lawyer to sue the Casino Association for it. After attorney fees and taxes he had walked away with $ 26,000 in reward money and Grimaldi's leash around his neck. He had allowed himself to become Grimaldi's go-to guy for all the misdeeds and dirty work, the runs out to the desert with the full trunk.

All that is going to change, Karch said to himself. Soon. Soon.

Karch carefully refolded the newspaper clippings and closed the file. He then closed the box of cereal and took it back to the kitchen on his way to the front door.

At the front door he picked up the suit bag he had packed earlier and chose a porkpie hat from the rack. His traveling hat. He looked at the inside lining before putting it on. It was chocolate brown, a Mallory, the inside label said, For Youthful Smartness. He fitted it on and geeked the brim flat like an old jazz musician would, the way he had once seen Joe Louis wear a porkpie as the greeter at the front door of Caesar's. He stepped out the door into the brilliant white sunlight.