Trust Me (9 page)

    "Who's going to win the next hand?" Bobby looked around, making eye contact with people in the gallery. "I can't hear you. Who's going to win the next hand?"

    And now the crowd responded: "Bobby is."

    "That's better," Bobby said. He finished his drink and held the glass up, shaking the ice cubes. "Bobby needs another one, cosmo on the rocks."

    A waitress in a black vest showing a lot of cleavage pushed through the crowd and handed Bobby a fresh drink and took his empty glass.

    "Thanks, hon," Bobby said. "Keep them coming."

    The drink was red and looked like something a kid would order, a Roy Rogers or a Shirley Temple. Bobby took a sip and slid a stack of chips toward the dealer. He split a pair of tens and busted. O'Clair could see the guy next to Bobby grin, probably thinking this loudmouth was all show, he didn't know what he was doing. Bobby's chips were stacked in front of him and reminded O'Clair of the skyline of a city. He started with Chicago and now he had Detroit. Bobby's mood changed. He stopped talking, concentrating but lost three more hands, then a fourth.

    "Come on, you idiot," he said to himself. "Get your goddamn head out of your ass."

    The dealer told him to watch his language. Now the pit boss came over and asked Bobby if there was a problem.

    "I just lost ten grand," Bobby said. "You ask if there's a problem. What're you a moron?"

    He moved toward Bobby and Bobby said I'm out of here. He passed his chips to the dealer and colored out. O'Clair tracked him as he moved across the casino to the cashier cages. Watched him cash in his chips and get a stack of bills that he divided in two and stuffed in the front pockets of his khakis.

    He followed Bobby to an elevator, but didn't get on in time. He watched it go up to the second level and come back down and O'Clair got in and rode up to the poker floor. He saw Bobby standing near a table. Bobby watched a couple hands and moved to another table and watched a couple more. O'Clair took his eye off Bobby for a few seconds, staring at a good-looking cocktail waitress in a low-cut dress. When he looked back Bobby was gone. O'Clair scanned the room and saw him heading for the elevators.

    O'Clair moved fast and got there as the doors were closing and pushed his way in. It was packed with gamblers. Bobby moved in next to two blondes with big hair and blue eye shadow. They were wearing tube tops, showing their taters. The elevator started to go down.

    Bobby said, "Know what's white and ten inches long?"

    The girls gave him dirty looks.

    He said, "Nothing," answering his own question.

    A couple guys with sideburns and ball caps on backwards laughed.

    "Thanks a lot… ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week," Bobby said.

    Now the blondes cracked a smile

    Bobby said, "What're you doing later?"

    The girls looked at each other and said, "Nothing. What do you got in mind?"

    "Ever fed a piranha?"

    Bobby glanced at him and O'Clair said, "Where's the money?" O'Clair reached over and pressed the emergency button and the elevator jerked to a stop between floors.

    "You talking to me?" Bobby said. "What're you drunk, had a few too many?"

    "The sixty grand," O'Clair said, "you borrowed from Ricky."

    "Who's Ricky?" Bobby looked at the girls, winked and said, "He should go home sleep it off."

    "I'll take what you won," O'Clair said, "and anything you got on you. See where we stand." The elevator was buzzing. People looked nervous. He pushed the button and they started to go down. The elevator stopped on the main floor and the doors opened. O'Clair grabbed Bobby by the collar of his yellow golf shirt that had a little green alligator on the front and pulled him out of the elevator.

    "Get your hands off me," Bobby said. "Help," Bobby yelled. "He's trying to rob me."

    Three beefy security guards, muscles bulging under blue blazers, came running toward them and surrounded O'Clair. They were all bigger than him and looked capable. They had fake smiles on their faces, trying to appear friendly but ready for action. The gamblers moved past them coming out of the elevator, looking at him, probably thinking he got what he deserved.

    Bobby said, "He watched me cash out and followed me."

    "Sir, you're going to have to come with us," the first security guard said to O'Clair. He was Italian and reminded O'Clair of De Niro, but a bigger version, De Niro on steroids. It didn't make any sense to argue. He was going with them whether he wanted to or not. They escorted O'Clair to a room that reminded him of an interrogation room at a police station. He sat at a long table across from two of the security guys, nobody saying anything. What was he going to do, tell these meatheads he was collecting the vig from a mark who was four weeks late? Would they understand that?

    The door opened and Frank Moran came in wearing an expensive-looking black sport coat and tie. He looked at O'Clair, and said, "Are you out of your mind? Next time wait till he walks outside. You can't hold up our customers in the casino. It's bad for business." Now he grinned.

    O'Clair said, "Frank, how you doing?"

    "Not bad," Moran said.

    "Seen Sparkle lately?" O'Clair said.

    "Funny you should say that," Moran said. "I was just thinking about her the other day."

    Frank Moran was a former robbery-homicide investigator O'Clair had worked a case with ten years earlier. The body of a woman was found in a motel Dumpster on the Ferndale side of Eight Mile Road, just outside the Detroit city limits. She'd been strangled with a piece of electrical cord. Two more bodies-strangled the same way-had been found a mile and a half away in Detroit near Palmer Park. O'Clair worked the case for the Detroit police department, Moran for the Ferndale PD. They had a rough description of the killer and a plausible motive. The women were known prostitutes and the killer had an appetite for crack cocaine.

    O'Clair and Moran hung out around Palmer Park for a couple of weeks, giving money to, and making friends with, every transvestite, homosexual, pimp, prostitute and freak they came in contact with. They broke the case when the killer attacked a streetwalker named Sparkle Jones. Sparkle fought him off and got away and called the police. O'Clair and Moran questioned her at Henry Ford Hospital where she was admitted for stab wounds in both hands and her right shoulder. Sparkle gave them a description of her assailant and his probable motive.

    "He was a tall, skinny, cracked-out homeless motherfucker lookin' for money for his next fix."

    O'Clair said, "Sparkle, that's a good name. Did you make it up?"

    "No sir, it's my given name, Sparkle Tiffany Jones. Was a sparkle in my mom's eye when she have me."

    O'Clair remembered, glanced at Moran, both of them trying not to smile or laugh.

    Moran took him up to his office that was open and spacious and had a big desk. "What do you think of the place?"

    "I like it," O'Clair said. "You've done well for yourself." Thinking he'd come a long way from his days as a robbery-homicide detective in Ferndale.

    "It's the largest casino in the state—ninety table games. You can play craps, roulette, baccarat, two-way monte, Spanish 21, you name it. We've got 4,500 of the latest slots and video poker games, Detroit's premier poker room, a four-hundred-room hotel with nine rooftop VIP suites and the only full-service spa in southeast Michigan. There's even a dance club, Oak. I know how you like to shake your booty." He smiled now.

    There was excitement in his voice. He was fifty but looked ten years younger—his hair was full and didn't look like it had a speck of gray.

    Moran said, "Still working for the Chaldean?"

    "Got to do what you've got to do," O'Clair said. It sounded lame, and at the moment he felt like a loser, seeing Moran doing so well.

    "Who's Robert Gal?" Moran said. "Wait, let me guess. He borrowed money and can't pay it back."

    "How do you know his name?"

    "He's downstairs," Moran said. "I wanted to detain him, see what was going on till I talked to you."

    "He's up to sixty grand," O'Clair said.

    "They never learn, do they?" Moran said. "Well he cashed out with $7,500. That's a start. Come in the other room let's see what we can find out." Moran took him in the surveillance room. There was a wall of monitors showing different parts of the casino and a team of security techs sitting at a long desk under the monitors, zooming and tilting and panning the hidden cameras. O'Clair saw Bobby mouthing off at a blackjack table in one of the screens, Bobby standing in front of a cashier's cage in another one, and Bobby flirting with a cute little blond cashier in the third one.

    "What're you doing after your shift?" Bobby said to the blonde.

    "Sir, we're not allowed to fraternize with casino guests," she said giving him the company line.

    "Is that what you think I want to do," Bobby said, "fraternize?" He winked and the girl smiled.

    "Who is she?" O'Clair said.

    "Megan Freels, "Moran said. "Been with us since we opened. Good worker, reliable, dependable."

    To O'Clair it seemed like there was something there, something going on between them.

    One of the techs glanced at Frank and said, "Mr. Moran, I found this too."

    There were shots of Bobby from previous visits, Bobby playing blackjack and craps and roulette.

    "He's something of a regular," Moran said. "Been here seven times in two months."

    "When are you going to let him go?" O'Clair said.

    Moran said, "You tell me."

    He hung back on the expressway, following Bobby, but giving him plenty of room. It was ten to four and the highway already packed with shift workers on their way home. Bobby got off at Eight Mile, the road that separated Detroit from the suburbs, and pulled into a gas station. There was a party store next door. It had bars over the windows and a big neon LOTTO sign. Bobby got out went inside. O'Clair parked in the alley behind the place and waited for him.

    K-nine was walking past the Robin Hood Bar. Dude with a bow, string pulled back ready to shoot an arrow on the back door, green paint faded now. He saw the old Seville parked up ahead at the gas station. K-nine considered it a blessing from God the way his feets hurt from walking. He'd just been thinking about jackin' something, ride downtown to the Ethnic Festival, rip off some Grosse Point chickenhead wore those outfits all pink and green and yellow, look like tropical birds come to the inner city, sample exotic African favorites like spare ribs.

    Pac and Skinny were trailing behind him carrying quarts of Mickey's, niggas going at it about who was the baddest rapper on the street, Lil Wayne or 50 Cent.

    Pac Man said, "Wayne's the man. You hear his new one
Tha Carter IIP
Sixteen cuts, they all good. Not one of 'em bootsy."

    Skinny Pimp said, "Fifty's the bigga nigga. Boy got some knock. Check out 'Fat Bitch.' That motherfucker's bumpin'."

    Pac said, "Who done 'Perfect Bitch'? Know that one?"

    "Ain't no such thing," Skinny said.

    "You missin' it, dawg," Pac said. "She not real. Perfect bitch got Janet's titties, booty of Tyra—like that."

    "Should call it 'Impossible Dream Bitch,'" Skinny said.

    There was a big white dude standing next to the Seville parked in the alley, leaning against it now. What the fuck he doin'? Chickenhead motherfucker look lost or something.

    O'Clair saw a black dude with cornrows coming toward him and two more dudes behind him. One wore a sweatshirt with a hood, reminding O'Clair of a guy he'd fought twenty years before in Golden Gloves. It was the city championship, light heavyweight division. The third one dressed like a farmer in blue overalls. Both wore ball caps on backwards, bling swinging from their necks. They had green beer bottles in their hands, big ones, quarts or GIQs.