A Song to Die For (47 page)

He blinked hard and shook his head as he woke, gasping and sweating. He had to pee something fierce. The room was dark, but he could see daylight around the edges of the opaque curtains, designed for night owls who like to sleep all day. He glanced at the clock. Almost noon.

Nightmares at noon,
he thought.
Not a good omen.

He got up and cracked the curtains, smiled as he thought about the show last night. He trudged to the bathroom, fumbled for the light switch. His smile grew as he thought about the poker game with Franco, Goldie, Luster, and a couple of other high rollers who claimed they were from Brazil and Canada, respectively. He had won several thousand dollars last night. Luster had won even bigger. The game was supposed to resume at two o'clock this afternoon.

He flushed and yawned as he went back to the curtains and opened them wider, letting in the glaring Nevada sunshine. He sighed as he remembered walking Kathy to her room last night. He recalled almost kissing her at about three o'clock in the morning. His lips had been heading straight for hers, but he swerved at the last instant, and wrapped his arms around her in a lingering hug instead. Her hair was softer than he had imagined. She smelled like an actual woman, as opposed to a bottle of perfume, and he had liked that. He shivered and rolled his eyes back in his head, recalling how her body had felt in his arms. Soft, yet firm.

He had run his palm down her arm to her wrist. He remembered her skin so perfectly smooth that he was reminded of a sanded and varnished rosewood guitar neck somehow warm and alive in his grasp. And there, he had left it. Was he crazy? He could have invited himself in. She would not have refused him at that point.

He rubbed his eyes. No, it was better this way. By three in the morning they were both exhausted and more than a little tipsy on free casino drinks. And then there was the band and the unwritten rule about relationships therein. For now, it was better that he had woken up alone. But there was something waiting in the future. He couldn't shake that feeling. He was not going to let Kathy Music slip away on account of a band—even one as special as The Pounders. He could feel a change in the wind. It sort of spooked him, but he was ready for it.

*   *   *

Showered and dressed, he headed out of his room for a late breakfast. He heard a door open, and looked up to see that tall Asian girl from backstage exiting the room next door—Metro's room. Metro, all misty-eyed, said good-bye to the girl, then noticed Creed. The girl left, and Metro smiled at Creed.

“I love my life,” he said.

Creed glanced at the girl walking away. “I wouldn't get used to it.”

“I love rock and roll.”

“We're a country band, Metro.”

“I love you, too, man.”

“Right.”

“No, really. I love you, man.”

“All right, little brother. Get some rest.”

*   *   *

After an extravagant brunch in The Castilian's gourmet restaurant, Creed went to the bar for the best bloody mary he had ever tasted. When Kathy surprised him by sitting on the bar stool beside him, he felt his heart double-shuffle. She looked fresh as a dewy rose and smelled of lavender bath soap.

“Thanks for walking me to my room last night,” she said, staring into a tequila sunrise. “That was very sweet.”

Other than that, she didn't speak of their personal relationship, or lack thereof. Creed had to wonder what she had meant by
“sweet.”
Sweet as in touchingly intimate, or sweet as in wimpy, or maybe even gay. Was she wondering if he liked guys instead of girls? Or maybe she thought he was impotent or something.

One-by-one, the rest of the band gathered in the bar by early afternoon, Lindsay rolling her eyes at the thinly veiled boasts the guys made of their recent overnight conquests.

“I hope you boys protected yourselves,” she said, shaking her head. “Those girls were not fresh off the farm.”

“You make a damn fine bloody mary,” Tump said to the bartender, ignoring Lindsay's belated admonition.

“No shit!” Metro agreed. “This is the best bloody mary I ever had in my whole mouth!”

Tump shook his head. “It's life, kid. My whole
life
.”

Metro raised his glass. “Life is good. I love my life!”

They all toasted life.

“I'm gonna go win some more money,” Creed said, throwing a twenty in the bartender's tip jar.

“Can I go?” Kathy asked.

He shrugged. “You're my good-luck charm, aren't you?”

“Oh, well, my-my!” Lindsay said.

“Ooooh!” sang the boys in the band.

“It's just poker,” Creed drawled, wincing inwardly even as he uttered the word.

“Poke her?” Trusty Joe blurted. “You barely know her!”

“Grow up,” Kathy groaned. “Anyway, what about blondie last night? You barely knew her.”

“Her name was Clarice,” Trusty Joe bragged.

“No, I had Clarice,” Tump corrected. “You had Sharice.”

“You sure?”

Tump shrugged. “Not really. What difference does it make?”

“None. You go to screw in a lightbulb, the sockets are all the same, aren't they?”

“Not a left-handed thread in the bunch.”

“I think I'm gonna throw up,” Lindsay said.

Metro pointed. “Hey, that's Trusty's job!”

*   *   *

Creed met Luster at the poker table, along with the gents from Brazil and Canada. Neither Franco nor Goldie were on hand to play, but one might assume they had a casino to run.

“You want me to deal you in?” the casino dealer asked Kathy.

“Okay!” she giddily agreed.

As they played the first dozen hands, Creed was impressed with the way Kathy handled a poker hand. She was full of surprises.

From where he sat, Creed could look out through the large glass window that isolated the poker table from the general commotion of the casino. As he folded a crappy hand, he happened to look out through that glass to see a familiar face pass by the blackjack tables. He only got a glimpse, but he was sure it was the poker game bandit he had shot.

“I'm gonna take a break,” he told the dealer. “I'll be back later.”

He left his chips on the table and strolled casually out of the private card room until he knew he was out of sight, and then walked as fast as he could in the direction he had seen the bandit disappear. He searched fruitlessly until he thought he had lost the guy. Then he caught sight of him near the front of the casino. He was standing at the lobby door, apparently listening to instructions from none other than Franco Martini.

What in the world? A poker game bandit from Texas was now working for Franco Martini?

Creed stepped behind a nickel slot so he wouldn't be noticed. He saw Franco wave the bandit off. Franco walked away through the casino as Bandit stepped outside through the lobby doors. A shiny black Chevy pickup with a lift package and big mud grips coasted up to the front door. Bandit opened the passenger door to get in. To his surprise, Creed recognized Goldie in the driver's seat.

As the Chevy pulled forward, the pickup truck bed came into view. Protruding from it was a spruce tree, it's slender trunk leaning on the top of the tailgate. A big burlap-wrapped root ball was just visible over the top of the bed. What in the hell was going on?

He tried to make sense of it, then remembered his winning streak back in the private poker room. He trudged back to the game.

“Where have you been?” Kathy demanded, back at the poker table. “You missed it! I've been winning my ass off! Luster, too!”

“I went to spruce up a little. Deal me in.”

 

51

CHAPTER

It was Saturday, and a rare day off for Hooley. He should have gone fishing, but he was sitting at home alone, watching a basketball game on TV. He didn't even know who was playing, much less who was winning. He felt like the loser.

The facts in the Rosa Martini/Celinda Morales/Jake Harbaugh murders would not let him be. He realized that he was obsessed with the case to the point of near insanity. With the discovery of the sporting goods store videotape of Franco buying clothes near Celinda's apartment, he had thought that he had made a breakthrough in the case. But word had come back from F.B.I. Special Agent Mel Doolittle on the decision of the federal judge who had the authority to issue an arrest warrant. Mel had faxed the judge's memo to Hooley's office at D.P.S.

“There is no crime in buying a jogging suit three blocks away from a murder scene.” The judge was probably on the mob payroll, Hooley had thought. Meanwhile, Franco Martini was getting away with murder, and was probably stalking his next victim. Hooley couldn't sleep at night for thinking of it. Some poor sap who drove a vintage Correct Craft to The Crew's Inn one night on Lake L.B.J., just to have a few beers, listen to country music, and flirt with some girls, had somehow ended up giving a boat ride to Rosa Martini, a doomed young woman adopted into the wrong family.

The only other scenarios Hooley could concoct was that the boat driver was in on the murder and was hiding out, or had already been murdered by Franco or some other mob hit man. He hoped that wasn't the case, because if it was, he would probably never know, and would go to his grave wondering. He hoped and even prayed that there was someone left in this case to save, more for his own selfish purposes than for the would-be victim. He had let three murders go unsolved on his beat, and his feeling of failure over that fact was eating away at him inside.

He had never felt worse over a case in his career. He had promised those two young women that he would bring their killer to justice. He knew very well who their killer was, but couldn't touch him. At least not legally. He couldn't deny that the thought had occurred: Hit the hit man. It was a shameful thing to consider. Hooley had upheld the law and worked within the system for decades. He didn't believe in vigilantism, and in fact had busted a few self-proclaimed vigilantes. To go that route would destroy a distinguished career.

He had even thought once or twice—though he would never admit it to anyone and would never follow through on it—about picking up his autoloader and going out the way Jake Harbaugh supposedly went. That's how bad it had gotten, and he had no idea what to do about it.

He kicked back in his La-Z-Boy recliner, wishing he could go to sleep and forget about all this for a while. But he could only stare at the sparkled and textured ceiling and mull over the evidence one more time. The thoughts went round and round in a bloody, hazy spiral that looped back on itself and blocked out thoughts of everything else.

When the phone rang, Hooley almost didn't even hear it for the first two rings. Then he fought through his depression, laboriously pulled himself out of the recliner and answered the call.

“Johnson.”

“
This is Charles Biggerstaff. Thank God I got ahold of you.”

Hooley felt a spark ignite in the back of his troubled brain. “What have you got for me, Mr. Biggerstaff?”

“
I've made a huge mistake. My son is in danger. I trusted the guy when he said he was a lawyer for my insurance company.”

“Slow down. You're not making sense.” Hooley grabbed a piece of paper and started scribbling notes. Biggerstaff was almost blubbering with guilt. He told how he had gotten a call from a man who claimed to be a lawyer working for his insurance company on the boat wreck claim. The lawyer had told him not to talk to anyone in order to protect himself from the claimants—the mobsters related to the victim.

“Then I didn't hear anything, so I called my insurance agent. He said no claim had even been filed. There was no lawyer working for me. I realized I was tricked by the guy on the phone who said he was the lawyer assigned to my case. I realized maybe he was a Mafia guy.”

“I need to know what all you told the guy on the phone—the guy who said he was a lawyer.” Hooley demanded.

“I told him I thought maybe my son had been driving the boat that night. He had a key to the lake house.”

“What's your son's name?”

“Charles Biggerstaff Jr., but…”

“Address?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know your son's address?”

“We had a falling out a long time ago. We haven't spoken in years.”

“We need to find your son!” Hooley said.

“I know! He changed his name.”

“To what?” Hooley made a note of the peculiar name.

“He's a musician. It's his stage name. I had forgotten it, but my wife dug it out of some old newspaper clippings. We called some musicians Charles used to know in Austin, and finally somebody told us that he's now playing in a band with Luster Burnett.”

“I'll be damned,” Hooley said, recalling that Luster was making a comeback.

“We tracked down the booking agent for the band. The agent said they're in Vegas. They're in Las Vegas right now, playing at The Castilian!”

“Shit!” Hooley said. “Did you call the hotel? Did you try to reach your son?”

“
They said he wasn't there. They said the band wasn't there. But the booking agent insisted they played last night, and will again tonight.”

“Don't call the hotel again,” Hooley said. “We don't want them to know that we know.”

“Should I call the Vegas police?”

“No! The mob runs everything in Vegas.”

“
Then I'm going out there myself.”

Hooley looked up at the clock. It was late afternoon. “
Can you get a flight this late?”

“I have my own company jet. I'm calling from Houston Hobby Airport. I'll be taking off as soon as they gas up my jet.”

“Do you fly into the Horseshoe Bay airport when you go to your lake house?”