Lemons 03 Stroke of Genius (11 page)

“This is a magnifying glass, but not a bad joke, all the same.”

“Thanks. I learned from the best. I actually can’t believe we are sitting in a room where a guy died masturbating and with an open box of Junior Mints on the table and you haven’t made a single Marcie Playground joke.”

“Huh?” I ask, distracted. “Oh, um, I smell sex and candy. Wacka Wacka!”

“Really? That’s it?”

“Sorry. I’m just looking for something.”

“Ooookay. And what are you looking for, oh wise one?”

“Actually, I’m trying to see if he is wearing a belt. I looked through his clothes on the bed there and there wasn’t any kind of dress clothes or shoes. They obviously weren’t here to go classy or go to a club. Nothing but a pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts and the jeans he died in.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I wear, too. And guys like us don’t bring more than one belt with us on vacation. It’s one of the luxuries of being so handsome and laid back casual.”

“So laid back casual is the new lazy with no style?”

“Whatever, nice skinny jeans, Mary Tyler Moore.”

“Nice try. You know you like these! Just look at my ass in these things? What two kids?!”

(Gah, knock it off. Your ass distracts me enough, vile woman, I’m trying to work!)

“Yeah, real good, now shut up for a second while I figure this out. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. No belt on and we’re right back where we started, but if he is wearing a belt I think we hit pay dirt. I just…cant…tell.” I squinted into the magnifying glass, trying desperately to see anything. No luck.

I flipped to the next photo and took another look. Nothing. On to the next. I clearly saw a belt loop in this one. Nothing underneath it. No belt. Out of luck. Game over, mannn, game over.

“Shit, he’s not wearing a belt.”

“Don’t you think the detective would have figured that one out by now?”

“Ya never know, sometimes the most obvious clues are the ones that are overlooked. It was worth a shot.”

“You’re right. Nice try, kid.”

I stood up from my squat, slowly and rather painfully. I was getting old and was still ridiculously out of shape. One day I would work on that. One day. Just not, ya know, today. But one day. Probably.

I reached into my bag again and grabbed my tape measure. “Here, follow me. I need to see something.”

“Okey dokey.”

She followed me back in to the bedroom and we made our way to the closet of orgasmic death.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Sit down right here.” I pointed to the spot where Balls was found, right in the doorway.

“Um, okay,” Elise said, as she reluctantly sat down. “Why can’t you do this?”

“Because, ew, what if that guy jizzed all over the carpet right there? That’s exactly where your boyfriend Killed Bill and that’s gross. I’m not sitting in that.”

“God damn it, Lemons!” Elise yelled as she started to stand up.

“It’s too late now. You’re practically already pregnant from it, may as well just see this through to the end. Sit sit.”

“I hate you. This is gross!”

“You love me. Here, sit exactly like this.” I handed her the picture I had just studied. Balthazar was slumped over to his left side; the only thing keeping his body from falling to the floor was the belt around his neck. His pants were pulled down around his knees and of course, his wiener was left standing there like a lone baby mushroom in a deserted field of shit.

“How am I supposed to sit like that?”

“Gawd, use your hand to prop you up. Duh. Come on.”

“Fine.” Elise sat there exactly as Balls had died.

“Speaking of semen, what’s with those Sobe drinks? Seriously, they look like someone took a bottled and filled it with ji-‘

“FOCUS!”

“Okay, okay. Shit,” I said. “Well judging by these pictures, how tall would you say this cat is?”

“I dunno. Looks about average height I would assume. 5‘10’ maybe?”

“Okay, how much do you think he weighs?”

“Oh geez, I have no idea. He’s not fat but he’s certainly no skinny minny.”

“You’re right. I’m going to guess about 200. That would put his waist at, probably, thirty-six inches or so. Hmmm.”

“Whatcha thinkin’?”

“Hold on. I’m going to have to call Vince. This needs to be right on.”

I took out my cellphone, found Vince’s number in my contacts and hit call. Thirty seconds later he picked up.

Me: Vince, Archie Lemons

Vince: Archie, any news?

Me: Not yet, my man, not yet. We’re trying though. It’s just hard to do without having been here when the body, I mean, when Balls was still in the room.

Vince: I understand, man. I appreciate you still trying, though.

Me: Absolutely, man. Absolutely. What I’m calling about is, I need to know Balthazar’s exact height and weight if you know it. I have his driver’s license here but it seems to be a bit outdated. His picture looks like it was taken when he was like fifteen and he looks to be at least a couple inches taller and little more hefty than his stats would suggest.

Vince: Yeah, well college will do that to ya, ya know. As will sitting around writing stroke movies.

Me: We’re up in his room right now and we need this information to do a little experiment. Any idea?

Vince: Well, I’m almost positive he is..was…five-eleven. I’m six-one and I have always been about two inches taller than him, barely even noticeable with that mop of hair he had.

Me: Five-eleven, great, great. What about weight? Any guess?

Vince: Probably just a little more than me. He was a little denser than me. I’d guess two-hundred, two-ten mayyybe.

Me: Fantastic. Hey listen, Vince, we’re going to get back to work now. If we find anything, you’re the first person we contact.

Vince: Thanks again, man, I appreciate—

I hit End Call on my phone. No time for goodbyes, Sucka.

“Five-eleven, two hundred to two-hundred and ten pounds,” I tell Elise.

“Okay, so?”

“So? So you ask? So this!” I walked over to the bed and grabbed the pair of jeans. I flipped up the tag, size 36/32. I showed it to Elise. “See, 36 inch waist.”

“Where ya goin’ with this, Monk?”

“Okay, so he’s five-eleven with a thirty six inch waist. That means the longest his belt would be would be forty inches.” I started pulling the extracting the ruler from the measuring tape, locking it when I got to forty inches.

“If you deducted all that from his pants, Columbo, why the hell did you need to call Vince?”

“Shut up, I was a bit scatter brained. I was meaning to call him today anyway. Just. Shut up. Shut up. Sit back down.”

“Nope, that’s gross. Plus I know where you’re going with this and you are way closer to Balls’ height and weight. It’s easier for you to shrink two inches than it is for me to grow six inches. And the weight thing, well…ya know.”

“I hate you.”

“Good to know, but you’re sitting in the crusty semen this time, big boy. Go grab a towel from the bathroom and lay it down first if it makes ya feel better.”

“Gah! Fine!” I walked to the bathroom and returned with all four towels. I laid them all out on the carpet, one on top of the other, for extra protection.

“Ok Nancy, take a seat.”

Very slowly I knelt down and eventually planted my big fat ass on the pile of towels.

“See,” Elise said, “now what you’re doing here is seeing if his belt was long enough to wrap around his neck and stay hanging on that hook, all the while he is moving around vigorously and eventually slumps over to his final position. Yes?”

“Very good, Mac. If the belt doesn’t fit, either too short or too long, then me-thinks the belt belonged to someone else. If someone was in here and strangled Balls with his own belt, he would probably leave the belt behind so the wounds matched up with the width of that belt. And, if the killer was smart, he would have removed Balls’ belt to make it seem like he had used it himself while he died. I know that because that’s what I would have done if I killed someone in the matter.”

“Very good observation, now let’s see if it amounts to a hill of beans.”

“Very well, very well.” I positioned myself on the towels exactly how Balls was found. Elise put the lip of the measuring tape on the hook in the closet and tried to wrap the end of it around my neck. It didn’t work. The lip wouldn’t stay on the hook. We had to reverse it. She wrapped the lipped end around my neck, (rather tightly, frak!) and raised the housing of the tape up to the hook. It fit. Barely. My plan had backfired and we were right back at the same dead end we’d been hanging out at since we arrived. Damn.

“It was worth a shot,” Elise said, trying to cheer me up.

“I know. Maybe this whole thing was just an accident and a huge coincidence. I don’t know.”

“We don’t have much time left here, ya know.”

She was right. We had to be back on the road by tomorrow night at the latest. Sorry, Tom Jones, but Elliot has his Christmas program at school on Friday and there was no way in hell we were are to miss it. After that, it was the politically correct WINTER BREAK. We had twenty four hours to solve two cases with very little leads.

Things weren’t looking promising. I wanted some dinner. We decided to call it a night so we could order some room service and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow would, more than likely, be a very long day.

18.

We went to bed fairly early, which was good for me since I was exhausted from the night before. We showered and got dressed, getting ready for our day. We also packed our bags, thinking it would be better to be able to work as late as possible, then just grab our stuff and leave when the time came. I removed my sheets from the bed and replaced them with the proper, Vegas Style, Crab-Infested linens. On our way out, I pushed the room service tray out into the hallway, giving it a good once over, making sure there was no way to smuggle a body out on it. There wasn’t. Damn.

We made our way back down to the security office to scrutinize more boring video footage. Once we arrived and took our seats, my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello,” I answer.

“Hey honey,” a woman’s throaty voice cackles at me.

“Um, hey. Sorry, who’s this?”

“It’s Gena, baby, what are you doing?”

“Gena?”

Elise stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me, eyes wide with half anger, half disgust…and I guess another half of disbelieve.

(Three halves, whatever, that’s possible in Vegas.)

“Gena…” I continued, “From the Gap in Beverly Hills?” My face had contorted to what I could only imagine as a look of pure fright. My eyes were clenched tight and I actually realized two of my fingers on my left hand were crossed.

(Please be Gina from the Gap please be Gina from the gap.)

(That’s stupid, why would Gina from The Gap call you?)

(Oh my god, is phone herpes possible?)

(Ohmygodohmygod)

“No baby, Gena from the other night. Remember, you took me to dinner? Wined me, dined me but you never six-‘

(ohmygod!)

“Gena! Oh my god,” I yelled, cutting her off before she could finish that sentence, the sentence that would make my ears bleed for all eternity. “What…? Wait…How…? Why…? How…did you get my number?”

“You gave me your card, silly. Told me to call you anytime. You don’t remember?”

I looked towards Elise who put her hands up in defeat and began to scoot away in her chair.

“Ohhh…yeah…sure I do. Sure I do. So, um, whatcha dooooin?”

“Oh nothing, I’m just bored, ya know. I’m working your casino, thought I’d give ya a call. I ain’t even slept yet, ya know. Had nothin’ goin’ for me last night. Buncha fuckin’ deadbeats around here on a weeknight. Only time a weeknight is good for me lately is when there’s one of them big conventions in town, ya know? This place hosts a lot of them. So does Mandalay Bay. There was a big one here last week. It was great. That’s good money right there. Those poor ol’ bastards are desperate and lonely; they’ll pay anything for a slice of ol’ Gena.” She tried to laugh at her own witty joke but it ended up coming out as some rancid, wet and phlegmy smoker’s cough that seemed to go on for about a minute and a half. I wanted to drop my phone in bleach. Scratch that, I wanted to drop it in a mixture of bleach and ammonia, and breath in the heavenly fumes to enjoy that sweet relief only death can bring. I had another idea though.

“Hey Gena,” I said, (holy shit, Elise is going to kill me…) “Do me a favor. Since you’re not busy right now, would you mind coming down the security room of the hotel. I need you to take a look at some people for me.”

Elise’s chair had magically, and rather swiftly, returned to my side. Her arms flew up like a drowning victim and her eyes were so wide you could see white all the way around her irises. I won’t tell you what she was mouthing to me, just use your imagination on that one. Let’s just say I haven’t heard the F word used so colorfully since the last time I watched Pulp Fiction. Actually, that’s a lie; I heard that glorious word woven through such a fine tapestry of awesomeness the one and only time I ever went skiing with her.

I put my finger up, letting her know I knew what I was doing and had an idea. She slapped it back down.

(ow!)

“I’ve been to the security offices here before, big stud,” Gena responded. “I don’t really want to go back, ya know’im sayin’?”

“It’s not like that. If you know where the office is then I will meet you out front in five minutes. I’ll go get you a clearance so you can come back here with us.”

“Okay, baby, I hope this ain’t no setup or nothin’?”

“Why would I set you up? Don’t be lame. Five minutes.” I hung up the phone. I swear to god I didn’t even hear the call disconnect before Elise was yelling at me.

“Calm down! Shit. Just trust me on this one. It’s worth a shot and we’re running out of time. Look, here’s what I’m thinking. We’ve been staring and this stupid video for hours and hours, looking at person after person after person. Looking for anyone who looks suspicious, anyone who is acting shady or nervous or anything. Studying every frame looking for even the slightest little tick in every goddamn person that comes off that stupid elevator. We can’t find anything, correct?”