Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (11 page)

The African American woman behind the desk looked at me from over her glasses, her grayish eyes steady and penetrating.

“Mr.
Reno
, as in, no problemo. What can I do for you?”

“You have a good memory, ma’am.”

“I never forget a face.”

“I imagine that’s an occupational hazard at times.”

“Who’s this?” she said, ignoring my remark and shifting her eyes to Cody.

“Cody Gibbons, ex-San Jose PD,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

She dismissed him with a nod. “I hear you were involved in a shooting a few nights ago,” she said.

I scratched my ear. “Word gets around, huh?”

“I’m connected to law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border, Mr. Reno. It’s part of my job to stay informed of local criminality.”

“Maybe you can help me, then. I’m looking for Jason Loohan, a known felon from New Jersey. He’s a friend of the man I shot, a rapist from New Jersey.” I handed her Loohan’s picture. “He jumped bail on rape and armed robbery charges.”

She studied his face, then ran the sheet of paper through a device next to her computer monitor.

“I’ll send it out and have his picture posted on our bulletin boards. If he’s spotted, I’ll contact the authorities.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d contact me directly, Ms. Wallace. I don’t believe there’s a warrant for him in Nevada yet, so the local police can’t do much.”

“Sure they can. A phone call to New Jersey is all it takes.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. Anyway, if I catch him, there will be no doubt to the conclusion—he’ll be on a plane back to the East Coast within twenty-four hours.”

“Whether you have to shoot him or not.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

“Really? In your case, Mr. Reno, shooting seems like an occupational hazard.”

• • •

We left after I convinced her to at least call me along with the Nevada PD, should Jason Loohan show up in one of Harrah’s establishments.

“Sounds like you’re not exactly a local hero,” Cody said, as we crossed the street toward Pistol Pete’s.

“What else is new?”

“Not my patience, that’s for sure. Let’s say we give it a rest after this joint, huh? Go get some chow and have a drink or two.”

“All right. But after that I’m heading to Carson City.”

“My friend the workaholic,” he sighed.

We went through the street-side glass doors into Pistol Pete’s, a place I avoided after Cody and I were involved in a case last year that resulted in the death of a corrupt sheriff and the disappearance of Salvatore Tuma, a Mafioso and previous owner of the casino. I’d later learned the business was under new ownership, but I suspected there were still those at Pistol Pete’s who’d be less than happy to see me on the premises. To say that applied to Cody would be an understatement.

“Cody, why don’t you chill out at the bar while I take care of this? I shouldn’t be long.”

“What, you think I might start something if we run into one of Sal Tuma’s old buddies?”

“Tuma’s long gone. So is his crew. The Nevada Gaming Commission forced him to sell out.”

“Who’s the new owner?”

“Beats me. What does it matter?”

“I’m gonna play a few hands of blackjack,” Cody said. “Call my cell if you can’t find me.” He walked away, and I began searching for the security desk, without luck, until a janitor guided me to the opposite side of the casino, to an unattended counter near the sports book. I waited there for another few minutes before spotting a uniformed guard with a walkie-talkie.

“Can I talk to your head of security?” I said.

He looked at his watch. “He’s probably gone home for the day.”

“Anyone on duty I can talk to?”

“Try him.” He pointed at a fellow in a short-sleeved shirt coming out of the adjacent bar.

“Excuse me,” I said, walking over to intercept the man as he strode into the maw of the casino floor.

“Yes?”

His bald head shone under the lights, and the wrinkles on his face were those of a man in his fifties, but his flat stomach and the thick veins that ran up his forearms and oversized biceps belonged to someone younger. Steroids and human growth hormone were now being marketed as the fountain of youth. It looked like he’d bought into the dream.

I handed him a picture of Jason Loohan. “We think he’s in the area. He’s jumped bail and is considered armed and dangerous.”

He looked up from the picture, the lines across his forehead like rows of dry riverbeds. “Are you Nevada PD?”

“No. Private investigations.” I hesitated for a second, trying to place his accent, before handing him a business card. “If you see him, would you call me?”

I waited while he studied my card. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “No problem.” His eyes met mine, and there was a hint of levity there, as if we were sharing a joke.

“Thanks,” I said, and was about to walk away when I paused. “Your accent reminds me of someone I used to know. New York, right?”

He smiled thinly, his teeth barely visible. “No, I’m from Detroit. Born and raised.”

“Go Red Wings.”

He blinked, and I could almost hear the file cards shuffling in his head. He looked away for a second before his eyes came back to me, no longer amused.

“I was always more of a Tigers fan,” he said. Then he slid my card into his pocket and walked away, the picture of Loohan rolled up in his hand like a length of pipe.

• • •

As I moved toward the card tables, I considered the possible meaning of a continuing mob presence at Pistol Pete’s. An indirect consequence of the case I handled a year ago was the arrest of Sal Tuma’s son, Jake, for his role in a drug ring. The enterprise had fattened a lot of wallets, including those of some former South Lake Tahoe cops. When Jake Tuma went down, I imagine it created a void, a situation where demand was greater than supply, a business opportunity. It looked like the Mexicans operating out of the Pinewood Apartments had moved in to take advantage.

When I spotted Cody, he wasn’t playing cards, but instead was sitting at an inactive roulette table, highball glass in hand, chatting with a dark-haired cocktail waitress. For a second I hoped it wasn’t Teresa Perez, but then she turned, and though I still couldn’t see her face, her bust line gave her away.

“Hi, Teresa.”

“Oh, Mr. Reno. Hi.”

“Dan, Teresa tells me she’ll be singing at the show here next week,” Cody said. “Can you believe this girl?”

“I didn’t know you were a singer,” I said.

“I’ve always sang. But this is the first time I’ll be doing so professionally.”

“Well, congratulations, Teresa. That sounds wonderful.”

“I told her we’d be there,” Cody said, beaming. “We can buy tickets tonight.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Cody just asked me to dinner,” Teresa said. “I’d like to invite you both to my place tomorrow night. Juan and I will cook you a real Mexican meal.”

Cody’s mouth fell open, but he recovered quickly. “Why, that sounds splendid,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m working a case and I might be over in Reno…”

“Juan and I would be really disappointed if you can’t make it,” Teresa said, looking up at me with her brown eyes.

“He’ll be there,” Cody said, slapping me on the back. “We have to go now, dear, we have work to do. But we’ll see you tomorrow.”

We headed toward the exit, and once we were out of earshot, Cody said, “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I got designs on her for a piece of ass.”

“What is it, then?”

He didn’t speak until we were outside. The sun had fallen, and the thirty-foot cowboy above Pistol Pete’s main entrance was alive with neon light against the darkening sky, the six-shooter flashing orange and red at the end of the barrel.

“You remember when I told you I got Stacy Hicks pregnant, right before we graduated from Oakbrook?”

“Vaguely.”

“So, she didn’t want to get an abortion.”

“And?”

“About a year ago she wrote me a letter, out of the blue. Said I have a sixteen-year-old daughter. She included a picture.”

“Wow. Is she looking for child support?”

“No, I don’t think so. She just asked if I was interested in meeting her.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, yet. I mean, I haven’t responded.”

“I’m not sure what this has to do with Teresa Perez, Cody.”

“What I’m saying is, I have a daughter that’s not much younger than her, all right? So maybe I feel a little guilty about it.”

“So now you’ve sworn off younger women?”

“No—listen, my point is, Teresa seems vulnerable. Maybe she could use someone around to help out, if needed.”

“And it’s just a coincidence she’s beautiful with a body that walked off the pages of
Playboy
?”

“Christ, get your mind out of the gutter, would you, Dirt?”

We stopped at the corner to wait for the light to change, and when I looked at Cody, the confident, cavalier expression he usually wore had collapsed, replaced by an uncertain grimace.

In law enforcement circles, Cody Gibbons was seen as a larger-than-life, quick-to-violence cartoon character, a grim sight indeed for criminals unfortunate enough to cross his path. He treated legal convention as a mere suggestion, much in the way traffic lights are viewed in some third world countries. His reputation as an out-of-control confrontation junkie hiding behind a bounty hunter’s license was no doubt warranted to a large degree, but Cody could always justify his actions by pointing to the end result. He’d been officially fired from the San Jose police force for shooting a PCP-crazed suspect, but he had done so to stop the man from beating a fellow officer to death. In another episode, he shot dead a Latino gangbanger holding a rifle to the head of a naked and battered woman. And two winters ago, he’d saved my life by blowing away a hired assassin who was trying to kill me.

As for his personal life, he never spoke much about his divorce from a woman I considered a normal, mainstream type. Since then, his relationships consisted of strippers who moved into his apartment for a couple weeks then vanished, drunken one-nighters, and a brief affair with the wife of the SJPD lieutenant who was behind his firing.

Not a man drawn to introspection, at least that he let on, Cody seemed mostly oblivious to his public persona. If it was suggested to him that he was an emotionally shallow womanizer who no respectable lady would have, or, perhaps, a drunken bear happily frolicking among and waging war against society’s worst criminal elements, Cody would probably shrug and say, “What’s your point?”

But there was another side of Cody Gibbons few knew of. I’d met Cody when he was a fifteen-year-old kid, abandoned by an alcoholic father and left to forge his way on the streets. I remember him at our high school in middle class suburbia, wearing the same pair of pants and shirt for the entire semester. We’d become friends on the football team and worked together on weekends at odd jobs, mostly physical labor. There were times he’d come to work with no lunch and pull an eight hour shift hauling rubbish at a construction site, a job so back breaking everyone they hired quit except us. Cody often worked without a break, and though I always offered to split my lunch with him, he never accepted.

In our senior year, Cody’s play on the defensive line won him a scholarship to Utah State, which he almost lost after tossing our head coach into a garbage bin. On the last day of high school, he proposed marriage to a cheerleader he’d been dating, and when she declined, he left town on the spot and hitchhiked to Salt Lake City.

Five years later he landed back in San Jose as a rookie patrolman. It was during that time my marriage was dissolving, due in part to my inability to deal with my emotions after killing a man. I’d woke up one morning in the parking lot of a seedy wino bar, my life unhinged, my job lost, my wife gone. Cody was there for me then, lending me enough to make my rent, and helping me land employment at a local bail bonds company. Since then, I learned I could always rely on Cody in the darkest of times. He’d put his life on the line for my cause more than once, and I had no doubt he’d do it again if need be. Loyalty was as much part of his nature as his more debatable traits.

The light turned green and Cody stepped into the crosswalk, but I stopped him. “We forgot to pick up the tickets for Teresa’s debut,” I said, and started walking back to Pistol Pete’s. “Come on, man.”

He looked at me like a vindicated soul.

• • •

Afterward we drove to Sam’s place, a small tavern off 50, for tacos, beers, and french fries, then proceeded around the lake until turning where the road forked east toward Spooner Pass. Within a minute or two, the forest was replaced by treeless hills dotted with sagebrush. Above us a sky splattered with stars illuminated the colorless terrain, which looked as forlorn and cold as a moonscape.

“I figure I’ll give this two more days,” I said. “I’ll cover Carson City tonight and Reno tomorrow. If I don’t come up with anything solid on Loohan, I’ll cut my losses.”

“You ever consider maybe Loohan might like to catch up with
you
and get some payback for what you did to his best buddy?”

I watched Cody light a cigarette, then turned my eyes back to the road. “Sounds farfetched,” I said. “He’s running from the law, not looking for it.”

“Never know. Let me ask you a question: What would you do if you skipped bail?”

“Get a fake ID and keep a low profile, maybe leave the country.”

“And how many bail jumps actually do that?”

I steered deftly to avoid a jackrabbit bounding across the road. “Not many.”

“Right. Because most of these douchebags couldn’t logic their way out of a wet paper bag if their lives depended on it. You try to apply logic to their behavior, next thing you know they do something completely opposite.”

“Contrarian theory, huh?”

“Call it a fancy name if you want, but it happens.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

We came around a bend and over the pass and watched a brightly lit roadway appear in the dark valley below. We glided off the grade and hung a left when we reached the lights, onto Highway 395, Carson’s main drag.