Hard Cash (2 page)

I thought about this over a second cup of coffee.
I wasn't wild about where it was heading because I wanted the money, but I knew
I couldn't make out the deposit slip just yet. Soon, the coffee got my insides
cranked, so I put on warm clothes and left my apartment, making the short drive
to the Bank of America building.

Blake Enterprises spread itself over an attractive
suite of offices on the tenth floor of the towering structure. The wind outside
had done a number on my hair, so I tried to fix it as best I could in the
elevator. I stepped off directly into the reception area, with hallways running
down either side of it.

As I approached the receptionist, I caught a fast
look in both directions. Offices lined each hallway, while people moved with
purpose all over the place. It was obviously a fair-sized operation. A cream and
coral logo hung from the wall behind the reception desk. It matched the one on
the envelope Lane had given me.

A fresh-faced girl behind the desk watched me
enter. She sweetly asked if she could help me.

"I'd like to see Mr Blake." I shook off
the cold from outside.

"I'm sorry. Mr Blake is not in right now. Can
I tell him who's called?"

"Yes, tell him Jack Barnett would like to
speak with him on a matter of great importance."

Her eyebrows raised ever so slightly, making her
chocolate-colored eyes much larger. That elevated her from cute to beautiful.

"May I tell him what this is in reference
to?"

I don't have business cards because I don't have a
business, so I wrote my name and cell number on a piece of her scratch paper,
using one of her pens on the desk.

"Just say it concerns a mutual acquaintance
in Texas. Here's my number. I think he'll want to speak with me."

I turned and left before she could push me any
further.

In the elevator, the thought occurred to me that I
did my part here. I went to Blake's office to talk to him about this and he
wasn't there. Not my fault, right? Maybe I could end it right now and keep the
money.

I decided I would do exactly that after one more
phone call.

When I got back to my car, I called Frank Madden.
I'd played poker with him quite a few times downtown, and he was one of the
very few people in town who knew my background, including my troubles in LA. He
was certainly the only cop who knew. After a minute or two, they put me through
to Homicide.

"Jack. How's it going?"

"Good, Frank. Listen, I need some
information. Can you help me out?"

He hesitated, his silence relaying his discomfort.

"Well … what kind of information are we
talking about?"

"What can you tell me about this guy Ricardo
Lane, who bought it yesterday up by the Neon Boneyard?"

Right then, a metermaid came putt-putting up in
her gussied-up golf cart, which the Las Vegas PD euphemistically calls an
"Interceptor", and examined my parking meter. It had about two
minutes left on it. She gave me the evil eye from out of her angular face, then
slowly went on her way. Given her attitude and the shitty condition of my
eleven-year-old car, I knew she'd be back.

"Jack, I, uh, I thought you were out of the
PI business."

"I am. And believe me, I wish I could stay
out. But I stumbled into something, and I think I can connect some dots for
you."

"Like what? What dots?"

"First, what do you have on Lane?"

"I got nothing. At present, the Traffic
Bureau's got that case. Hit-and Run Detail."

"Then I need whatever they've got on him."

"How do you fit into this?" I could hear
rising interest in his voice.

"I saw it happen. It was me who made the 911
call."

"
You?
" he shouted. "And you left the scene?"

"Frank,
you know I can't afford to have my name run through the system. I'm probably wanted
in California."

"But
still, you can't just —"

"Listen,
I know they can trace the 911 call to my cell phone, but this isn't a priority
case. They may not get around to looking me up for awhile."

He said,
"Maybe sooner than you think. There was a fatality, you know."

"All
the more reason I need the dope on Lane right now. I'll give you what I've got.
Tell Traffic you got it from a Concerned Citizen."

"Jack,
this is some tricky shit. I give you this info and I could find myself standing
on the fucking carpet in the chief's office, getting my ass handed to me while
he's writing me up."

"Nobody's
gonna know, Frank."

"I've
got over twenty years in. I can't be —"

 
"I give you my word, nobody's gonna
know. Besides, what I've got will go a long way toward cracking the case."

Madden was a veteran cop and a good one. He was a
family man, too, but like me, he could get agitated at times. Like whenever a
conviction got flushed down the toilet on some obscure technicality. Over the
years, he'd learned to — how shall I say it? — sidestep those
technicality traps. I won't go into it here, but let's just say his cases were
seldom if ever thrown out of court. Lawyer-proof confessions were his stock in
trade.

Sometimes, following our poker games, we had a few
coded conversations over coffee and sandwiches about rule-bending, so I felt he
would cooperate with me here.

"All right,
 
what've you got?" The hard edge left his voice.

I said, "It was a tan cargo van, either a
Chevy or GMC, late model. Windows in the rear doors. Nevada plate, but I
couldn't snag the number. The van had printing on the side, like a tradesman
would have, or a delivery vehicle for some kind of retail operation. The driver
may have been drunk, because it swayed back and forth a little as I saw it go
down East Wilson."

He stayed silent for a few moments while he
furiously jotted down the info. Then: "I'll get right back to you."
And he hung up.

I saw the parking meter click over to
"expired". Knowing the metermaid would reappear any second with her
ticket book in hand, I started the car and pulled out of the spot.

As I maneuvered around the corner onto Bridger
Street, I began to wonder why Lane was even in that shabby part of town in the
first place. I swung the car back around, turning north onto Las Vegas
Boulevard, toward the scene of the killing.

Then my phone rang. I answered on the first ring.

"Jack," Madden said, "here's what
we've got on Lane. He was an independent real estate operator in Texas.
Small-time. Mainly sold residential. Single-family homes, that kind of thing.
His wife is the mayor. He's also got a teenage daughter."

"His wife's the mayor? Of Port Isabel?"

"That she is. We're not sure how, or even if,
that figures in."

"Do you know what he was doing here in town?
Any local connections that you know of?"

"No. And no. We do know that he was staying
at the Four Queens. Checked out yesterday. In his coat pocket, he had a plane
ticket on last night's red-eye back to Texas."

I had to hit my brakes abruptly as I got stuck in
the right lane behind a stopped city bus. Traffic to my left was thick, so I
was trapped.

I said, "Any idea why he was walking around
up in that neighborhood? I mean, it's not exactly the type of place you'd find
a strolling tourist."

"Maybe he was visiting the Neon
Boneyard."

"No, I was at the Boneyard taking a tour
myself. That's why I was there in the first place. I can tell you positively
that Lane was not in the tour group."

"Maybe he was coming for the next tour,"
Frank said.

"They don't do them one right after the
other. They only do a couple of them a day. Now, did he have any kind of
criminal record?"

"None here, but we're still checking with the
Port Isabel PD as well as the FBI. Strictly routine. You want to tell me where
you're going with this, Jack?"

"I can't right now because I don't know
myself," I said. "But I'll spill it to you as soon as I have a
clearer picture."

The bus in front of me finally finished its
passenger exchanges, then lumbered off up the street. I still couldn't pull
left into the next lane to get around it, so I trundled along behind.

Madden said, "They're treating this right now
as an accidental hit-and-run. Lane being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Are you suggesting it was something else?"

"Not really."

"Well, what then?"

"It's pretty hazy. I can't really say for
sure. Just give me a little time to see what I can piece together before you
put this one on ice. Okay?"

"Okay, but I want a full accounting, no
matter what."

"You'll get it. And thanks, Frank."

As I flipped my phone shut, I turned onto East
Wilson Avenue and drove one block to Encanto Road. Lane went out of his way to
go there and it cost him his life. I needed to know why.

III

E
ncanto was an unimportant little street, only a couple of
blocks long, running parallel to the east side of Las Vegas Boulevard. The Neon
Boneyard lay between the two. Across the boulevard stood a cheap strip center
with signs in Spanish.

On Encanto, several small, one-story houses
occupied one side of the street, all of them looking to be around fifty years
old or more. The houses crept around the corner, down Wilson Avenue past Ninth
Street, all the way to Maryland Parkway. From all appearances, they were once
part of a rather choice early suburban development, back when those Boneyard
signs were new and flashy. These days, however, they were just a collection of
deteriorating dumps, studded with old pickup trucks and dirty yards.

Down Encanto, in the next block from the Boneyard,
sat a three-story, low-rent apartment complex, also from another era. Peeling
paint and missing door numbers told the tale, along with trash that lay strewn
around brown, fenced-in grounds. There were characters walking around in there
that you wouldn't want to encounter outside the fence.

The complex did have one interesting feature,
though. My eyes went straight to the sign out front:

THIS PRIME DOWNTOWN TRACT

FOR SALE

JBB PROPERTIES, INC.

And there was a phone number. I pulled the car off
to one side and called it. When the receptionist answered, I asked where JBB
Properties was located and she gave me the address of the Bank of America
building, tenth floor.

No sooner did I hang up than my phone rang. I
noted the caller ID. It said "Private caller". I let it go for a
second full ring before I answered.

"Is this Jack Barnett?" The male caller
had a very soothing voice.

"With two t's," I replied.

"Mr Barnett, this is John Brendan
Blake."

"Well, Mr Blake, I didn't think I'd hear from
you so soon. But thank you for returning my call."

"Not at all," he said. "Now, you
say we have a mutual acquaintance in Texas?"

"Yes. Ricardo Lane." I didn't add
anything else, letting the name dangle all by itself over the balcony railing.

"Lane? I'm afraid I can't help you there, Mr
Barnett. I don't know anyone by that name." His voice still swathed in
silk, showing no sign of unease.

"Are you sure? Ricardo Lane?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure. Now, what exactly is
your connection to him? Why would you bother me about someone I don't even
know?"

Blake had all the earmarks of a guy you couldn't
push around too easily. So rather than badger him about Lane any further, I
took a chance and said, "Well, you
are
doing some business in
Texas, aren't you?"

"We have some tentative things in the
fire—"

"Down on South Padre, right?"

"Uh, just what
is
your business, Mr
Barnett?" His voice told me he still wasn't rattled.

"Let's just say I'm acquainted with Mr Lane.
Or should I say,
was
acquainted with him till he was run over and killed
yesterday on the north side of Las Vegas."

"Sorry to hear about it. But I must now
conclude this conversation. Goodbye, Mr Barnett." As I heard the line
click dead, I thought I caught a slight quiver in Blake's voice right at the
end.

Okay, so let's see where we are. He insisted he
didn't know Lane. That would be one point for me, edging me closer to the
ninety-five large. But in my gut, I thought he was lying, which, unfortunately,
tied the score again.

I ruminated over it some more, trying to come up
with any justification at all for dropping this whole affair and keeping the
money. Then I realized I was getting hungry.

Lunch was a particularly filling grilled chicken
sandwich and a beer at Magnolia's, the coffee shop at the Four Queens.
It was a pleasant place,
located up a small flight of stairs opposite the roulette tables. Much of
Magnolia's seating offers a sweeping view of the casino floor. Today, however,
neither the casino nor the coffee shop were overly crowded, so it afforded me
the chance to quietly run this around the track a few more times.

Who was Lane, anyway? All right, I knew he was a
real estate guy, but he was a ham-and-egger. Blake was big time. What was their
connection? Was he deliberately killed? Why was he right in front of Blake's
shabby apartment complex? And what was he doing carrying that kind of money? Why
was he so anxious to get it to Blake? And most importantly, if it really was
Blake's money, why did he deny knowing Lane? Why didn't he just say, "Yes,
I know him, and he owes me $95,000"?