The Dark Circle, page 11
From the female dealers at the gaming tables to the bartenders, waitresses, and hostesses in their gold lame toreador pants, they all seemed ready to play. I wondered if the manager had put out some kind of electronic tip to identify the so-called big hitters for special attention. Or maybe it was the brass nameplate I was wearing on my chest. Most of the ones I saw were plastic.
I broke for dinner at around eight and decided on one of the smaller restaurants that featured a twenty-four-ounce prime rib. A sign mounted on the oak hostess’s stand told me to wait to be seated. In less than a minute another young woman appeared at the stand and escorted me to a booth.
“May I join you for a moment, Wes?” she asked after handing me a menu.
“Sure,” I said, motioning her to sit down. Her nameplate read “Dorothy.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were being treated as our most special guests deserve,” she said.
This one met all the pheromone requirements in a wholesome, apple-cheeked way. With shoulder-length, raven-black hair and intelligent blue eyes, she looked like a senior at Vassar and radiated natural charm as well as emanating a light, enticing perfume. The only thing that didn’t fit was the tacky, tight-fitting gold lamé outfit she was wearing. She seemed to read my mind.
“Pretty sorry uniforms, aren’t they?” she said. “Maybe you would prefer me dressed as a cheerleader or a nurse.”
I had to laugh.
“What the hell are you doing here, Dorothy … if that’s your real name?” I said.
A waitress arrived with a glass of amber liquid on a small tray and set it in front of me.
“George Dickel sour mash, straight up,” she said before leaving.
“Word travels fast around here,” I said. “So tell me the truth. What’s a nice girl like you, etcetera?”
She pondered the question for several seconds and made up her mind.
“You have a nice face,” she said.
“Thanks, and I live by the Boy Scout code.”
She chuckled and said, “For me, it’s called working your way through college. I’m a senior at the Cornell Hotel School, and I’m not on a scholarship. Instead of washing dishes or waiting tables, I’m building my résumé in the hospitality industry, and I’ll be handsomely rewarded if I help to make your visit a brief idyll of romance and adventure.”
“An idyll of romance and adventure,” I said. “Did you come up with that line, or is it part of the script?”
She looked hurt and said, “It’s mine and I meant it.”
It was too ridiculous not to be true.
“You do this for every visitor?” I asked, taking my first healthy sip of George Dickel.
“Only those deemed worthy from above,” she said, “and you’ve got the primo badge on your chest. Aside from that, you’re a really good-looking man. I must confess that it isn’t usually the case.”
“Into every life a little rain must fall,” I agreed. “How old are you?”
“Don’t worry, I’m legal. I just turned twenty-three. Do you want to hook up later?” she said. “I get a nice bonus if we do.”
“I’d love for you to get a bonus, but I actually must confess something too. I’m in love.”
“I can respect that,” she said with a professional tone. “But I’m really good.”
“I’m sure … it’s my loss,” I said. “You could tell me one thing. A friend of mine was here recently and said he saw a great young jazz singer named Deborah Chapman performing at one of your casino clubs, Is she still here?”
Dorothy pulled out her smartphone and began using her finger. Ten seconds later, she said, “She’s not in the database. I can check with the entertainment desk if you’d like.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just eat and get back to the baccarat table.”
* * *
I ordered the princess cut of rare prime rib, and it was superb.
As I was leaving, Dorothy placed an ivory business card in my hand and wished me good luck at the tables. It had what I assumed was her real name, Brianna Barnes, along with her title as president and CEO of a company named Hooked on a Feeling, LLC.
For the rest of my gambling stint, I employed the same system that I had used before. This time my luck was better. In the course of another two hours, I made up most of my losses while continuing to make the maximum bets.
I quit shortly after midnight. The gaming tables were still going strong, but I was tired of it and thought I had made enough of an impression. By then, the largely female battalion that packed the slot machine banks had thinned out to the hardcore addicts.
The Action Palace events calendar showed only one remaining event, and that was an “Oldies but Goodies” show featuring the “greatest rock and roll bands in history and starring Bobby and the Alamos.” I doubted the Alamos were in the musical history books.
On my way back to the elevator bank, I was passing one of the smaller lounges when a voice caught my attention. It was singing an old blues standard. I walked into the lounge.
Unlike the other bars and restaurants in the casino, this one was relatively quiet. The only people inside were a few couples sitting at red vinyl booths around a small platform stage. A Black woman in a white satin gown was sitting at a piano and singing Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.” A sign on a small easel read “Stoneberry Welcomes Aleta Galloway.”
I knew the voice sounded familiar. When I was in high school, my father had bought one of Aleta Galloway’s first albums. He was a jazz buff and said she had the voice to become one of the great ones. But jazz was on the wane, and she wasn’t white or telegenic. All she had was the ability to deliver the goods, singing the songs straight, giving them meaning in a unique way.
When she finished her set, the small audience gave her mild applause, and she stepped down from the platform. I walked over and asked her if she would join me for a drink.
“I’m an old fan,” I said.
“Really,” she said, her skepticism evident.
“Your version of ‘Creole Love Call’ is still the best. The Duke would probably agree.”
She grinned. “Yes, you can buy me a drink.”
“Forgive my rudeness,” I said after we had ordered, “but why are you singing in the Action Palace? It’s like finding Ella Fitzgerald performing at Mulligan’s Bar and Grill.”
“I’ll sing at Mulligan’s if they pay the freight,” she said, laughing. “I’m a widow with six grandchildren. You take good paying gigs where you find them.”
“Is this your first one at Stoneberry?”
“No. I was booked here for a week last Thanksgiving.”
I decided to give it a go.
“Have you ever heard of a young singer named Deborah Chapman?”
Her face wreathed in a smile.
“I certainly have. I saw her perform once. That child has a special gift … she’s a real talent in the making.”
“Where did you see her perform?”
“Right here,” said Aleta. “Last November. I spoke to her after her set and told her what I thought. She seemed grateful. That girl has it all—looks, voice, presence. With a little luck, she’ll be winning Grammy awards in a few years.”
Deborah no longer had it all. She didn’t have the luck. She barely had a life.
“Can I ask how you make a booking like this?”
“My agent David Halpern fields the offers and makes all the arrangements,” she said.
From what I knew, Deborah had no agency representation at the time she’d performed at Stoneberry the previous November. I tried to remember the date of the proposed contract that Deborah was supposed to sign with Diana Larrimore, but couldn’t. I felt really tired.
Standing up, I held out my hand, and Aleta took it. I bent down and kissed hers.
She didn’t seem offended.
24
I woke up early the next morning in the king-size-action bed, all by myself and thrilled to be going home. I shaved, showered, and put on my costume of gold chains, silk shirt, and pegged jeans.
I was about to put on the snakeskin boots for the last time when there was a light knock on the door. When I padded over to open it, a young girl was standing there wearing a short-sleeved orange dress with a white apron tied over it. Behind her, was a cart covered with sheets and towels.
“I’m Amarissa,” she said. “I make up room.”
Tiny with a boyish figure, she didn’t look old enough to have a worker’s permit. Her accent was either Mexican or Central American. Her mocha-shaded skin was unblemished.
Letting the door close all the way and lock, she followed me back into the room and began picking up the towels I had used and putting them in a large linen bag. By the time I had put on the boots, she was stripping the covers off the bed. She kept her eyes on me the whole time.
Seeing me pick up my room key, she stopped what she was doing and came over to stand in front of me.
“You like Amarissa?” she asked with a coquettish smile.
“Child of the Moon,” I said, “yes?”
She nodded and waited for me to signal what I wanted her to do next.
“Ten una buena vida,” I said, giving her a fifty-dollar tip before heading for the door.
Riding down in the elevator, it struck me that most casinos employed available young women, but Stoneberry took it to an entirely different level. At the front desk, I said I would be checking out after breakfast and asked for the limo service to take me back to Skaneateles. The clerk promised to get on it with the transportation office.
That gave me the opening to say, “I’m wondering if I could also meet the head of the transportation office. I want to thank him or her for the comfortable door-to-door service I enjoyed.”
As I headed to the dining room, a new raft of happy gamblers was arriving by tour bus, and as they lined up to check in, a waitress in a gold sundress went down the line, offering a tray of bloody marys in plastic cups. American capitalism at its best.
The breakfast buffet turned out to be pretty good. The cooks probably didn’t need to spend their spare time propositioning the guests. Knowing I was finally leaving gave me a good appetite.
I was almost finished with my mushroom omelet when a big, well-built guy approached my table. He was wearing those glasses that change their tint depending on the light. I couldn’t see his eyes, but his face was chiseled like a Roman warrior with a shaved head and a scimitar nose. I figured him for his mid-thirties.
“Mr. Fezzick?” he said in a dark mellow voice. “My name is Frank Bull, and I’m in charge of transportation here at Stoneberry. I’m glad you were satisfied with our service to you. We hope you’ll tell your friends.”
The last name fit him well, but I doubted it was real. Deeply tanned, he was muscled like a steer, about my height but twenty pounds heavier. His shirt was purple silk and looked exactly like the one Lauren had picked out for me.
The difference was that he was wearing three gold chains around his neck, and I only had two. It was hard to see where his head stopped and his neck began. His pants were matching silk, and he wore pointed black moccasins.
“You’re not wearing a gold costume,” I said good-naturedly.
“I’m management,” he said, as if that explained it.
“I can see you spend a lot of time in the sun, Frank.”
“Yeah, I like the sun.”
“You from Miami?”
“I been there.”
The conversation wasn’t going the way he expected.
“Look Mr. Fezzick, I just wanted to thank you for spending some time with us, but you don’t seem to have sampled the special things we offer to special guests.”
“It’s been really special,” I said, trying to rein in my natural sarcasm. The last thing I wanted to do was draw attention when I had a new lead on what happened to Deborah Chapman.
“Before you leave, I wanted to let you know of a new service we’re offering to special guests. We call it ‘fun in the air.’ Instead of a limousine to take you home, you’ll ride in one of our executive helicopters in a sound-proofed cabin. You’re invited to select from the hors d’oeuvre menu—you name it: shrimp cocktail, oysters, pizza, plus full bar service.”
“Sounds special.”
His grin turned to a leer.
“And two beautiful girls to meet your every need as you enjoy the ride.”
I guess I was tired of being propositioned every time I turned around in the place. I also wanted to raise the temperature to get a reaction out of him.
“Have you personally sampled the merchandise, Frank?” I said. “You give them each five stars?”
His mood shifted.
“You got a wise mouth,” he said.
“Everybody is wired differently.”
“If you got a faggot problem, we can handle that too.”
“I can see you’re obviously old school, Frank, but the times they are a-changin’.”
I remembered my last conservation with Captain Ritterspaugh on the day I quit.
“Maybe you need some awareness therapy. You might have a problem with your aura.”
“Fuck you, pal,” he said, and walked away.
I watched him disappear through one of the doors near the front desk. After leaving a twenty-dollar tip at the table, I headed back upstairs to change out of the heavy-hitter costume and put on my own uniform of comfortable jeans, blue work shirt, and worn-in Rockports.
I stopped at the front desk again, to make sure I still had a ride after the final words with Frank Bull. The bubbly young staffer assured me that a car was waiting for me outside the colonnade entrance.
Looking back past the bank of doors off the lobby, I saw the one Frank Bull had used. It had a sign on it reading “Transportation Coordination.” The door next to it had a sign reading “Entertainment Coordination.” I could only imagine what that job entailed.
25
Arnold was waiting for me in the circular driveway. He had succeeded in buttoning himself into his tunic and was sweating heavily. When we were in the car, I told him he could take off the tunic, and he gratefully complied.
It had rained during the night, and I asked Arnold to open all four windows of the Mercedes. The wind was rain fresh. Emulating the dog that sticks his head out the window to feel the breeze, I luxuriated in the intoxicating scent of wet evergreen forest. The feeling of sliminess slowly washed away.
I thought about the musclebound throwback Bull, who was running transportation services for Stoneberry. If his name was Frank Bull, mine was Jake Cant. It might be Bullicino or Bullogna, but he was definitely Italian. It was almost quaint to think that the Italian crime families might still be holding on in places like Stoneberry against the invasion of mobs from China, Russia, the Ukraine, the Punjab and Central America.
For our first foray into the casino, I felt good. I now knew there was a connection to Deborah going back to the previous Thanksgiving. I didn’t expect to find out who was running the casino, but Frank Bull was Georgie’s boss. It was a starting point.
I told Arnold there was a change in my plans and to take me to Groton instead of the house in Skaneateles. When we finally turned onto the road along Groton Lake, I had him pull over next to the mailbox above my cabin. Arnold gave me my suitcase, and I tipped him another hundred. Glancing down at my cabin, he looked confused.
“My dog lives here,” I said, and it seemed to satisfy him as he turned around to head back to the Action Palace.
I had called Lauren in the car, and she was waiting for me in the cabin. Before I could begin to tell her what had happened at Stoneberry, she motioned me into the living room. It looked like it had been hit by a small cyclone. Books and papers were scattered across the pine plank floor.
“Did somebody …?” I asked.
“That old cat of yours took on a copperhead.”
“Come on.”
“Look,” she said pointing behind the Morris chair near the fireplace.
The snake was lying dead on the floor. It was only about four feet long but definitely a northern copperhead, and its protruding fangs were venomous. There were bite and claw marks around its head and twisted neck.
“I didn’t know cats went after snakes,” I said.
“They do when they’re protecting their place, and the idiot who owns it always leaves the door open to the porch,” said Lauren.
The gray cat was stretched out on the sofa and cleaning her mask with her left paw. There were no apparent marks on her from the battle, and she looked up at me with a bored expression.
“Good job, old girl,” I told her.
“I have a name for her,” said Lauren.
“Go ahead.”
“Kali.”
“Kali?”
“The Indian goddess of destruction and destroyer of evil forces .”
“Inspired.”
“After you dispose of the intruder, we’ll have lunch in the kitchen,” she said. “I want to hear everything that happened at Stoneberry, and then we can head up to Rochester. I called Mrs. Chapman, and Deborah is home from the hospital. She said we were welcome to visit.”
Lauren had brought with her a pound of thinly sliced, smoked Scottish salmon, and I watched her divide it into individual mounds on two serving platters. While she chopped a red onion into tiny chunks and spread them on top of the salmon mounds, I began the account with my arrival at the casino.
She opened a jar of capers and carefully placed three of them on each mound before grinding fresh pepper over the servings. I was telling her of my encounter with Mindy, the first of my ardent admirers, when she interrupted to say, “Please open the wine in the fridge, and dress the spinach salad.”
When we sat down to the feast, she passed me a plate of quartered lemons to squeeze over the expanse of smoked salmon. I poured the wine and began savoring each forkful on the platter.
I finished my account on the porch, focusing on what I had learned from Aleta Galloway about Deborah Chapman’s live performance at Stoneberry during the Thanksgiving holiday in November.
