The Long and Faraway Gone (2 page)

A third robber sat on the workbench against the far wall, holding a strip of 35-­millimeter film up to the light. He'd completely removed his mask—­a bald rubber pirate head with a rubber eye patch. It sat next to him, drooping and deflated, staring into space with one empty eye.

The booth was weirdly quiet. Like they were in a submarine, the silence crushing in around them. Except for the robber going “Bang! Bang!” and a concession girl, Bingham couldn't tell which one, sobbing.

The robber with the shotgun stripped the pantyhose off his head. “On the floor,” he told Bingham. “Head down. Hands behind your back.”

Bingham squeezed in at the end of the row, between Karlene and the projector for auditorium number two. He laid his cheek against the floor. The polished cement was unbelievably filthy, twenty years of machine grease and shoe scuffs and smeared ash from the two packs of Camels that Harry smoked every shift.

Karlene faced him, close enough to touch. Her eyes were glazed, her chin slimy with tears and snot. She wasn't the one Bingham could hear sobbing, though.

“It's going to be fine, Karlene,” Bingham whispered as one of the robbers tied his hands tight behind his back. “You're going to love Hawaii.”

“Bang!” the robber in the Freddy Krueger mask said, right behind Bingham.

Bingham closed his eyes and ignored the sticky liquid heat that spread beneath him. It wasn't as if the floor could get any filthier, could it?

He tried to picture his daughter's face. Tiffany was six, the result of a drunken, ten-­minute fumble on one of his rare nights off. Her mother was one of the tough-­looking girls who worked the door at the Land Run, checking IDs and occasionally introducing the bands. When Bingham found out she was pregnant, he'd offered to marry her. She'd just stared at him with an expression that said,
Are you out of your mind?

Bingham hardly ever got to see his daughter. Tiffany's mother blew off his already meager visitation rights whenever she felt like it. If ever Bingham scraped together some money, he planned to hire a lawyer so he could see his daughter more often, so she wouldn't grow up wondering who was this stranger in a cheap suit who brought her a Cabbage Patch Kid every now and then, who always smelled like burned popcorn.

“No,” Bingham heard O'Malley say down by the other projector. “No, wait a second, just listen.”

“Shut up,” the robber with the shotgun said. Bingham heard a thump.

The sobbing concession girl sobbed more loudly. Theresa or Melody. The workbench creaked as the third robber stood. He murmured something to the other robbers that Bingham couldn't make out. One of the other robbers murmured back. Murmur, murmur, murmur—­back and forth, much like the bubbles that bubbled up from the bottom of the orange-­drink tank.

Bingham realized what she'd said, the old lady who rammed her Cadillac into the Dumpster, before she drove off. Not, of course, “You haven't furled the flag, mister.”

You haven't heard the last of this.
That's what she'd said.

Well, that made more sense. Probably she was planning to call corporate and lodge a formal complaint against him.

Go right ahead,
Bingham thought.
Go nuts with that.

The robbers stopped murmuring. Bingham heard footsteps. He felt something cold and hard come to a rest, lightly, against the nape of his neck.

Tears were rolling down Karlene's cheek and off her nose and dropping to the grimy floor.

“Don't be scared, Karlene,” Bingham whispered. “It's going to be fine. Close your eyes. You're in Hawaii. You're on a golden beach and the waves are rolling in and the breeze is perfect. You're living the life you've always wanted.”

 

October 2012

T
he Lexus, a block ahead, stopped at the Shell station. Wyatt played it safe and tucked into a gravel parking lot behind the Flamingo garage. He didn't want to spook Bledsoe. On the Strip, with all that traffic—­a dozen lanes of stacked-­up cabs and buses and rented Chevy Aveos buzzing around—­you could practically sit in a guy's own backseat and he'd never notice you. Koval Lane, though, which ran behind the hotels, was deserted an hour before the afternoon shift change. If you wanted to stay invisible, you better keep your distance.

The overpass, just overhead, boomed and shuddered. Wyatt watched Bledsoe swipe his American Express black card at the pump. Wyatt had to smile. Bledsoe did everything with a flourish. Swiping his credit card, tucking into pan-­roasted sea scallops, walking across a casino floor. With
panache.
Even when no one was watching. Even when he thought no one was watching.

The Lexus and the black AmEx were red flags. Or were they? Over the past eighteen months Bledsoe had been late three times on the Lexus lease. He'd been dinged two grand in fees on the card. That might mean something. Or anything. Or nothing.

Bledsoe, who worked at Caesars, was up for a big job at the Mirage—­senior vice president of sales and marketing. The Mirage loved him. They loved the M.B.A. from Wharton, the three years at Caesars, the two years before that at Citibank. They loved Bledsoe's fresh vision and his functional Mandarin ( junior year abroad) and his panache. But until Wyatt filed his report, the Mirage wasn't going to offer Bledsoe a job picking pubic lice off the Jacuzzi filters.

Wyatt had been on Bledsoe for the past two weeks and, so far, had nothing to report.

Bledsoe got up every morning at eight, the crack of dawn by Vegas standards. He hit the gym in his building and ran four miles on the treadmill. Curls, crunches, squats. Afterward he showered, gelled back his hair, and flirted with the girl—­petite, blond, bangs—­who taught a hot-­yoga class at nine.

On the way to Caesars, Bledsoe stopped at Starbucks for a venti americano, room for cream, the first of three he'd knock back before noon. He worked clients all day and all night, laughing and slapping backs and just generally spreading around the Bledsoe panache. His only real meal of the day was around five, at the hotel steak house, where he caught up with e-­mail and flirted with the girl—­petite, blond, bangs—­who brought him his sea scallops and heirloom-­tomato salad, oil and vinegar on the side.

After lunch Bledsoe usually ran a few errands. He picked up his dry cleaning. He picked up hair gel. He filled up the Lexus. He returned a wonky Blu-­ray player to Best Buy or browsed the Pottery Barn at Rampart Commons. He flirted with the girl who sold sunglasses from a kiosk at Rampart Commons. How did you guess? She was petite. She was blond. She had bangs.

Oh, yes, Bledsoe knew what he liked. So why, then, was his girlfriend a tall, athletic redhead, no bangs? Why was his other girlfriend a full-­figured brunette, no bangs?

A mystery. Or maybe not. ­People, in Wyatt's experience, often wanted what they didn't have. Or, if you preferred an even bleaker perspective, they often had what they didn't want.

Bledsoe, at age thirty, seemed to have it all. The job, the car, two very attractive girlfriends he managed to juggle without either girl finding out about the other, a closet full of Tom Ford suits. A huge glass-­walled bachelor pad on the next-­to-­top floor of a luxury tower complex called Veer, right in the heart of the Strip.

Wyatt checked to see if any of that secretly annoyed him, that a kid eleven years younger than him drove an eighty-­thousand-­dollar Lexus and made three times the money he did.

No, Wyatt decided he was cool. He had what he wanted, wanted what he had. A four-­year-­old Honda Accord in good shape and paid off. Perfectly suitable suits from J.Crew. A three-­bedroom house that was small but comfortable. The house was almost paid off, too. And Wyatt worked for himself, which meant he took the jobs he wanted, passed on the ones he didn't. He might never get rich, but neither would he ever find himself pacing around a Shell station, checking his email and voice mail and text messages yet again, sweating it out while some corporation decided his professional fate.

Wyatt yawned. How long did it take to gas up a Lexus? Well, yeah, by now he knew exactly how long it took to gas up a Lexus.

Wyatt would put Bledsoe's two girlfriends in his report, but this was Vegas, and Bledsoe was single. The Mirage might be disappointed if a prospective vice president of sales and marketing at a Vegas casino
didn't
have more than one girlfriend. They would question his panache.

The companies that hired Wyatt to do deep background on pending high-­level hires cared about drugs, gambling, money problems. They cared about sexual orientation, but only if the candidate was trying to keep his or hers a secret.

There was a tap on Wyatt's window. A security guard glared down at him. He was a beefy guy, late fifties, squeezed into a brown-­on-­brown uniform. His glare seemed more perfunctory than sincere.

Wyatt rolled down his window and smiled. “Good afternoon, Officer,” he said.

The security guard's lips pressed together and his glare turned more sincere.

Wyatt had yet to figure it out, the central mystery of his life, why so many ­people assumed, automatically, that he was being a smart-­ass. ­People he'd never met before, who didn't know him from Adam, who unless they were clairvoyant couldn't possibly have any clue that, yes, occasionally, Wyatt could be a smart-­ass.

It had happened his whole life, for as long as Wyatt could remember. The teacher would call roll, and Wyatt would answer “Present,” and the rest of the class would giggle. The teacher would shake her head and clench her jaw.

Wyatt wished someone would explain to him how you could be a smart-­ass by saying “Present.” Or by telling a security guard, “Good morning, Officer.”

“This is a restricted lot, sir,” the security guard said. “Employees of the Flamingo only. I need you to move your vehicle.”

Wyatt stuck his hand out the window. “Wyatt Rivers,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

The security guard continued to glare, but Wyatt's hand wasn't going anywhere, and in the end the security guard broke down and shook it.

Wyatt was a big believer in the civilizing power of the handshake, of genuine eye contact, of just basically acknowledging the fundamental existence of the person standing in front of you.

That didn't happen as often as you'd think. ­People lived in their heads. They walked in their sleep. They exchanged vague pleasantries and half glances and were rarely, when it came right down to it—­when roll was called—­truly
present.

“I'm a private investigator,” Wyatt said. “I'm doing background on Mr. Panache up there at the Shell station. With his hair gelled back? The Mirage wants to hire him, sales and marketing. He's come up pure as the driven snow so far. A ­couple of credit dings, but that's it. And two fairly serious girlfriends he's juggling, but the Mirage doesn't care about that.”

The security guard shifted from one foot to the other, tilted his chin up, and scratched his neck. He was trying to figure out if Wyatt was telling the truth and, if so, why in the hell?

Wyatt took the stance that if you had nothing to lose by telling the truth, why not tell it? The truth was usually more interesting than a lie.

“Much money in it?” the security guard said finally. “Private investigating?”

“Not bad,” Wyatt said. “But remember, it's not always as glamorous and exciting as watching a guy gas up his Lexus.”

The security guard scratched his neck. Wyatt spotted a slight twinkle of amusement in his eye, like a fish darting and catching the light just for an instant.
You want to tell me about glamorous and exciting? I'm the guy watching a guy watching a guy fill up his Lexus.

Bledsoe had finally finished. He racked the nozzle, and Wyatt dug out his wallet. “Here's my card,” he told the security guard. “Give me a call if you're really interested. I'll tell you which certification classes aren't a waste of time.”

The security guard took Wyatt's business card. “Appreciate it,” he said uncertainly.

Wyatt rolled his window back up and eased onto Koval, thirty yards behind Bledsoe's Lexus. The Lexus drove two blocks down Koval, turned west on Sands Avenue, crossed the Strip, and jumped on I-­15.

Wyatt had no problem keeping up. For a guy who did everything else in his life with panache, Bledsoe sure didn't drive that way. He obeyed the speed limit, he stopped for yellow lights, he signaled well in advance of turns and lane changes.

Did that mean something? Anything? Nothing?

Wyatt picked Bledsoe up at Rampart Commons, at the sunglass kiosk, where he was chatting up the petite blonde with bangs. When Bledsoe finished there, he crossed to Pottery Barn. Wyatt took the opportunity to find a bench and call Laurie. He got dumped straight to her voice mail.

“So I'm at Rampart Commons,” he told her voice mail, “and I'm thinking, hey, maybe while I'm here, I'll buy my girl a little something. A little something we can both enjoy, if you get my meaning, you and me in the privacy of the boudoir. So I go into Victoria's Secret, right, and get this—­they don't have a single thing that fits me. Can you believe it? At least nothing flattering. So I guess I'll end up getting you a lime juicer from Williams-­Sonoma. Which actually, upon reflection, we might well find some creative use for in the . . .”

Bledsoe emerged from Pottery Barn and headed for the parking lot. Wyatt killed the call, but he didn't follow Bledsoe.

Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn? Twice in one week?

Wyatt himself had nothing against Pottery Barn. He liked the cheerful, sunny catalogs, the leather club chairs and Nantucket farmhouse tables. He had his eye on one of those farmhouse tables.

But Bledsoe? Wyatt had never been inside Bledsoe's bachelor pad high above the Strip, but everything he knew about the guy argued, emphatically, for the presence there of designer faucets, granite counters from a special quarry in Italy, and a sleek, low-­slung sofa with cushions made of polished titanium.

Wyatt just couldn't square the corners, hard as he tried—­a farmhouse table from Pottery Barn in a bachelor pad like that? In a high-­end, high-­rise apartment building called Veer?

Bledsoe got into his Lexus. Wyatt let him go. He took out his phone, set the timer for two minutes, and crossed to Pottery Barn.

“Hi there! Can I help you find something today?”

The female clerk who greeted Wyatt at the door was built like a beer keg and had dark hair. Wyatt glanced around. None of the other female clerks in the store were blond or petite either. No bangs in sight.

The correct explanation is often the simplest one—­Occam's razor—­but not always. What fun would that be? Wyatt would be out of a job.

“I'm just looking,” Wyatt told the clerk. “But I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. I've got a feeling I won't know what I'm looking for until I see it. Does that ever happen to you?”

“That does sometimes,” she said. “Sure. I know what you mean.”

“And maybe I won't end up seeing anything at all. That's the frustrating part about this kind of approach.”

He saw a guy, an employee, standing over by the bookcases. Early twenties, short hair and clean-­cut. The guy wore a long-­sleeved dress shirt with the cuffs buttoned at his wrists.

Maybe he was wearing the long-­sleeved shirt because it was chilly in here. Occam's razor. It
was
chilly in here. Or maybe he kept his arms covered because his arms were covered with tattoos.

Did it mean something that his arms might be covered with tattoos? Anything?

Probably nothing. But it was all Wyatt had, and he knew that Bledsoe didn't come in here twice a week to price farmhouse tables or flirt with dark-­haired girls built like beer kegs.

The Mirage loved Bledsoe. They wanted Wyatt's report to come back clean. But only if Bledsoe was in fact clean.

“Will you excuse me, please?” Wyatt told the girl. He strolled across the store and reached the bookcases just as the timer on his iPhone chimed.

Wyatt pretended to check caller ID. He pretended to answer a call.

“Bledsoe!” he said. “My brother!”

The clerk who might or might not have been hiding tattoos glanced over at Wyatt and then glanced quickly away. And then glanced back again.

Wyatt almost wished it hadn't been that easy. It was not, in his defense, always that easy.

“Yeah, bro,” Wyatt said into his phone. “I'm there now. I thought I was supposed to meet you here. Where are you?” He looked around and pretended to settle his gaze, for the first time, on the clerk with the long sleeves. “Yeah. I think so. . . . Okay.”

Wyatt put his phone away and examined various bookcases until the clerk with long sleeves came over to him.

“Hey, bro,” Wyatt said quietly. “You Bledsoe's guy? I'm Josh.”

The clerk did a quick sweep to make sure no one else was around.

“Who?” the clerk said. “He didn't say anything to me.”

“Look,” Wyatt said. “I'm in a bind. Can you hook me up or what?”

“Let me call him,” the clerk said.

“Whatever.”

The clerk took out his phone, eyeing Wyatt the whole time, and then put his phone back away.

“How much you need?” the clerk said, and Wyatt knew—­a spark of victory, a twinge of sympathy—­that Bledsoe could kiss the Mirage good-­bye.